One Night in Bangkok (Okay, really three)

Well actually three nights, but do you remember the song, "One night in Bangkok" from Murray Head? Well I do, it was in 1985 that I walked out of a Boeing 747 from Singapore Airlines and walked over the platform of Don Muang airport in Bangkok. And I was wearing a walkman that blasted the song "One night in Bangkok" in my ears. We, a good friend of mine and me, walked over the platform watched by young Thai soldiers with M-16s and Ray-ban sunglasses. It was hot and we were drunk from all the free drinks from the inboard service of those beautiful Singapore Airline girls. And what’s more we were on a 3-day stop-over in Bangkok, while on the way to Indonesia, and we did not even know what kind of currency was used here, or what kind of language the people would speak here. As it was for us, two young guys, the first time to travel outside Europe, we presumed that the all world would speak and read English and use US$.

But it would be not a problem at all because a good friend of my mother would pick us up from the airport. We arrived two days earlier as my mother had written to him, so we two young nitwits were standing at the chaotic arrival hall of Don Muang airport. You should know that it is actually a military airport and in that time the civilian side of the airport was very small and full of people to rip you off. Well, no problem I thought, I will just call him. But we were out of luck because the telephone system was not working that day, which was in that time not a surprise. In the end we changed some of our cash US$ into that strange currency called the Thai baht and we found ourselves a taxi. All the taxi's had a sign "meter" but they had no meter inside. Well again no problem we thought because we have the address, written in English. The taxi driver looked at it and started to drive and drive and drive, until we noticed that when he had looked to the address he actually had held it up-side-down. Soon we realized that he could not read it at all! So we started to talk to him and luckily for us at the address was also mentioned the Malaysia Hotel and that was of course a hotel known by the most taxi drivers. So we ended up at Soi Nam Dupli at Rama IV, but still not at the house of the friend of my mother. But then again we were lucky again because our host was, and still is, a respectful member of Thai society and his name and place of residence was widely known. One of the hotel staff brought us to his house. It's at a small compound at a Soi off Soi Nam Dupli, with about 12 small bungalows, of which he uses two. And this small compound was guarded 24/day by a guard with a very beautiful white uniform that made him look a general. But right now he was a sleeping general so we had to wake him up to open the gate for us; a ritual that would be repeated many times in the next 3 days.

Bam.... Culture shock: Imagine Bangkok in 1985. Our culture shock started on the way to the house of our host. The total traffic chaos, streets full of people and all kind of transport such as Tuk-Tuk's, motorbikes, trucks, bicycle's and much more. When we arrived at the house our host was still working and not at home. We were greeted by his two maids who did know we would come. And here our culture shock continued. These two maids, who later seemed to be family members of one of his two Thai wives’s, were treating us like we were the royal family from Holland. We could not even touch our luggage, they ordered the taxi driver to bring it in the house and they guided us to the living room where we were pointed out to sit down on the floor. But all the time these two beautiful girls would never look us straight in the face and they would never walk in front of us but more or less behind us. When leaving the room they would walk away backwards not pointing their backs to us. Or actually they would not walk at all but more or less sit on the floor, lower than us and then leave the room backwards with a gracious smile and wai. After a nap and a shower we had the stupid idea to take a walk and find something to eat. With my mother with her Indonesian roots I'm used to eating Asian food but what we found here to eat left us by buying some sweet bread and cake. We returned back to the house and we were already tired and dirty.

I will always remember the first morning when we wanted to make our breakfast. One of the girls who saw this almost fell into shock that we would do that ourselves. Doing that was an insult for her! She pointed us out to sit down again on the floor and they started to make our American breakfast. They must have been very shocked with what kind of strange food we brought with us from Holland, awfully smelling cheese! This ritual of us doing stupid things would continue again when we wanted to bring our dirty dishes to the kitchen. That was wrong; we should leave this for the maids. How could we ever think of doing that!

Sight seeing Bangkok: We did not know anything about Thailand, also not anything of what Thailand is still famous for. Our host, who had to work, suggested to us a nice day tour to make. First he dropped us of at Klong Toey market to wander around and be shocked. At that time I was surprised that not all Bangkokians had already died of hepatitis or any other deadly diseases. It was for me the first time to see a market where the meat was sold alive or killed on the spot on a dirty floor. Now I would not even look at it anymore. Thinking about it now I realize that the Bangkok of 1985 is much more different than the Bangkok of today. In that time they were building the motorways right through the inner city of Bangkok and I remember that I thought they were crazy. They demolished complete blocks of houses, and that in a stretch of a few kilometers. It's strange now to realize that you could stand on the ground and look straight to a road 1 or 2 kilometers further. It is even stranger that I cannot imagine Bangkok anymore without all the motorways or even without the sky-train. After Kong Toey market we took a taxi to the Oriental Hotel along the banks of the Mea Nam Chao Phraya. In those days the taxis were still the old Toyotas that you can still see sometimes, and without a meter. At the Oriental Hotel we were impressed by the gigantic luxury of this hotel. Later in Singapore this impression would be overwhelmed by the Dynasty Hotel at Orchard Road. From here we took the local ferry boat over the Chao Phraya River to the Wat Arun. The local boat ferry is a boat of about 15-meters long with a big diesel engine in the middle. You have about one minute to get on and off the boat and then the boat leaves for the next stop. The boats are always crowded because it is a very cheap and fast transport system in Bangkok. In those days there were not as many bridges as there are now, so it was and still is a good way of crossing the Chao Phraya to the other side to Thonburi. There we were going, between a boat full of Bangkokians and some other lost tourists. Finally they kicked us off at Wat Arun and that is good because we did not have a clue how the Wat Arun would look like. The Wat Arun (temple of the morning dawn) is a big chedi or pagoda surrounded by four smaller one's. It has four levels and the top level is reached by climbing up a very steep stair way. When going down you realize that it's very steep indeed. So steep that I went back backwards, but some people have gone down the quick way, falling. That's the reason why now the top level is closed to visitors. From the top level we had a beautiful view over the Chao Phraya and China town on the other side. From there we took a ferry to the other side to visit the Wat Po with the reclining Buddha. At that time the Wat Po was not the so much visited temple than it is now. At that time they started to renovate the temple and it was still really used by worshipers who invited us in to join them and to talk to us. Now they would have to invite hundreds of tourists every day. Much later, while living in Bangkok, I still did visit the Wat Po to find myself a hidden away part of this temple complex to have a chat with one of the monks and to forget busy Bangkok. It's my favorite temple.

If you are lucky the Goddess is a she: After a half day tour we were tired and dirty, and that is something that has not changed for me in the years to come. Well of course our host eventually told us about what Bangkok is famous for. So that evening we would go to Patpong at the corner of Thanon Rama IV with Thanon Suriwong and Thanon Silom. Soi Patpong, once a private street established by a Thai-Chinese man called Patpong, was originally a street where the western companies chose to make their offices. Well, and as there is where there are westerners with US$, bars and restaurants will come along. And of course the famous, beautiful, but dangerous, Thai peasant girls who started to work in the Go-Go bars that followed. In that time Patpong was not representative anymore for international companies and they moved out and their spaces were quickly filled with more bars. The Patpong of 1985 was not the Patpong that it is now. Now it is a night bazaar with at lot of unfriendly, expensive, rip-off bars. Patpong is now, under management from the TAT, changing into a tourist attraction and the real hardcore entertainment business has already moved to other places. But in 1985 it was fun, big fun, for two nitwits from Holland; two young boys dressed in their disco outfit and wearing golden Porsche design sunglasses. Yes, we were attractive customers, but probably that was everybody with a cash load of money. We had a drink or some, but did not dive into the nightlife entertainment. That's something I would do much later.

Leaving Bangkok: So after 3 days we left Bangkok to continue our journey to Singapore and Sumatra, Indonesia. My friend would never return to South East Asia anymore, as he was unpleasantly shocked by the way of life. I myself on the other hand was impressed by this other way of life, to see that our way of life in the west is so simple to think that we are the middle of the world’s society. It would take about six years before I would return back to Thailand and Bangkok, the country and city that I did fall in love with and where I found a little piece of my soul that must have been there already for centuries. By that time in 1985 and later in the years 1991 to 1999, I could have never imagined that I could really live in Bangkok as I would do later in 2000 for almost 2 years. Until then I saw Bangkok as something I loved and I hated; a place to stay, but not for long. That would change in the years to come. And now I sometimes still listen to "One Night in Bangkok" and I start to recognize more and more things in the song. In that time I thought it was just a song.

“I'm glad you like it, I would invite you but I'm afraid you would not like the rules.”

© Chang Noi. All rights reserved by the author.