Three Nights in Bangkok – III

This will be the last entry in the Bangkok chronicles. After all, there’s only so much one can write about shopping. But it’s the writer in me insists on chronicling every little thing, often at my own expense, like a cringe-inducing mishap with the newly acquired bikini swimsuit.

The swimsuit was a regulation two-triangle-held-together-with-a-string variety. Unfortunately, the two triangles aren’t sewn together, the idea being unhindered movement to cover all sizes of endowments. As can happen often in fluid environments with many variables (the economy is a good example), you don’t exactly know which way the subjects will move. Without going into specifics, let me just say that the subjects moved in an undesirable direction. So that’s why all those people were smiling, not because I cut an alluring figure in my new swimsuit, I thought my face burning with humiliation.

Anyway, the swimming pool misadventure out of the way, I wondered what to do with my evening. What I really wanted to do was watch a sex show. And more-beautiful-than-women transvestites up close. I mean, I had seen them during day manning (womanning?) stalls, but that doesn’t count. Apart from to-die-for-eyebrows and maybe a lipstick application, there’s nothing really to tell them apart from men.

The question was where to find all this? And how? I could hardly walk up to the concierge and ask them to direct me to a sex show. I could but I also carried the additional baggage of being Indian. What would they think? Another tharki Indian. So I called a friend who told me to jump into a tuk tuk and ask him to take me to Patpong. Here again, my innate shame about my fellow countrymen prevented me from acting upon this advice. Alas, women shooting darts out of their vaginas was going to remain a legend – only heard about, never seen.

My advice for you, if you go there and want to watch one, is to get over your inhibitions and just ask. Everyone else matter-of-fact about it, even openly soliciting on the roads, so why shouldn’t you be?

The next day was a Saturday. That means time for the Chatuchak weekend market. So I hopped on the MRT subway and a fifteen minute train ride later alighted at the fabled market. It was more of the same, except, for a street market it was air-conditioned. Plus there are more handicrafts there, not only clothes, shoes and other fashion accessories. For that alone it is worth a visit.

That was it. I had time only to hit one of the luxury malls briefly – I splurged on a pair of Nike running shoes, the kinds I had been coveting but they weren’t available in my size back home – and then it was time to hit the Suvarnbhoomi airport for the flight back home.

Once again the haggling with the cabbie started. When I told him to down the meter, he thought for a while and said, “I go by meter but you tip me, okay?” “How much?” I asked suspiciously. “50 Baht.” So I said okay and off we went.

I still had three hours at the airport, tens of duty free shops and a strong determination to finish the remaining 6000 Baht with me. There was no point in paying a two-way commission to Thomas Cook by converting it back into rupees, I told myself. It really did not make economic sense. Best to finish off the currency. Three short hours and an additional debit of about ten thousand rupees on my credit card later I boarded the plane back home.

Another word of advice. While Thailand promises a VAT refund of 7% for purchases over 5000 Baht on a single bill, there really is no point in queuing up for it at the airport if your refund works out to less that 300-400 Baht as they deduct 100 Baht as admin fee.

 

Samudra Manthan scene as depicted at Suvarnabhoomi Airport

A Buddha Shrine

Another shrine in Bangkok