by Andrew Hicks
‘Come off it mate, this stinks. Wat Po, now, pronto.’ Ben tapped him on the shoulder and pointed ahead down the road.
‘Ben!’ Emma chimed in as the driver angrily screeched to a halt at the side of the road. ‘You’ve really upset him now.’
They got out onto the pavement in surprise as the driver refused to take them any further. Ben handed him ten baht and they headed off on foot, his curses sounding in their ears.
‘Well, that wasn’t very clever,’ said Emma. ‘It’s bloody hot and we’ve no idea where we are.’
‘Look, Emm, you’re so naive. He was onto some sort of rip-off … to take us to expensive shops and get commissions.’
‘He was okay until you pissed him off.’
‘He pissed me off! Anyway, we’ve got the map and it’s not that far.’ They reached Wat Po on foot in ten minutes and it was open after all.
Emma found Wat Po less formal than the Grand Palace, a riot of colourful temples, trees and sculpted bushes, the reclining Buddha, a vast gilded figure peeping out from inside the temple building. She too was feeling the need to recline when they came to a place in the grounds where visitors can stop for a traditional Thai massage or to have their fortunes told.
‘So what’s it to be, Emm?’ asked Ben. ‘A sweaty massage or the fortune-teller? The sign says he can predict your love life after marriage.’
‘Don’t want to think about the future, least of all my love life. Let’s get back to Khao San Road.’
Now wary of tuk tuks, they took an air-conditioned taxi which gave them a chance to talk in relative cool and calm.
‘Look, Ben, I’m not sure I can hack much more of Bangkok,’ said Emma, slumped exhausted in the back seat. ‘I want to move on.’
‘Okay then. We can try one of the travel agents next to our doss house.’
‘It’s Chiang Mai I really fancy. Should be cooler in the mountains.’
‘No Emm, I’m desperate for a beach,’ said Ben insistently.
They pushed their way through tightly packed stalls selling clothes and cheap jewellery to get to the travel agents in Khao San Road, its door covered with hand written signs: ‘Cambodia visa service, special island visit, Koh Chang, Koh Samet.’ Inside the tiny office Emma only cared about the cool of the air conditioning and even ignored the cockroach that skittered across the chaos of papers and files on the desk. Two male travellers thumbing through a ring-binder of brochures, shifted their chairs along to make room for them. The girl behind the desk, done up like a china doll, gave them a synthetic smile but said nothing as they sat down.
‘We want to get out of Bangkok. Islands, beaches … Cambodia maybe,’ said Ben.
‘Uh? You go Cambodia?’ said the girl. Emma looked on, a little surprised.
‘What about Angkor Wat?’ he asked.
‘No problem. Minibus to Aranyaprathet, then open truck to Siem Reap. Road no good but very cheap. Twenty people in the back, hot and dirty … nine hours, maybe twelve. Better you fly aeroplane if you care your ass.’
‘Have you ever been to Cambodia?’
‘Why I go? I care my ass,’ she said with a grimace.
‘Can’t afford to fly so it’s got to be islands and beaches then.’
‘Chiang Mai and mountains,’ pleaded Emma.
One of the travellers sitting next to them leaned across.
‘Couldn’t help hearing you,’ he said in a strong Australian accent. ‘If it’s an island you want, I can suggest the very thing. Not far, great scene.’
‘Sure, we’re interested,’ replied Ben. ‘What’s it called?’
‘The island’s Koh Samet … six kilometres long and only about three hours east of Bangkok. Chuck and me are getting a minibus there tomorrow morning.’
‘What d’you think, Emm?’ asked Ben.
‘Sounds okay. Anything’s better than Bangkok,’ she said, collapsed in her chair.
‘Right,’ said Ben to the cupid’s bow at the desk. ‘We’ll go for it.’
‘Minibus tomorrow? Maybe full already,’ she said.
There was a sharp intake of breath from Emma.
‘But you told us no problem for seats,’ Chuck, the American chipped in. The girl gave him a sour look, silently picked up the phone, and in ten minutes they all had tickets booked for the next day to Koh Samet.
‘Minibus outside tomorrow morning eight thirty,’ she said to Emma and Ben.
‘But you told us nine o’clock,’ said Maca.
‘Better I say them eight thirty so come nine o’crock. Don’t want late for bus.’
Ben was relieved at getting something settled and maybe to mollify Emma.
‘So we’ll all be going together then. Brilliant,’ he said to the two traveller types.
‘Yeah mate, good on yuh.’ The Australian extended his hand. ‘I’m Maca and this is Chuck. Think we should celebrate with a beer?’
‘Great idea,’ said Ben.
‘Cool,’ said Chuck vacantly as the girl looked on in amusement and picked at her bowl of greasy noodles.
After the chill of the shop, the noise and heat of the street again engulfed them. Khao San Road’s chaos of stalls and eating places was crowded and lively. Maca and Chuck gravitated to their favourite bar, open-fronted with rattan seats, full of transients of every kind watching an English soccer match on a large TV screen. The four of them took a table and Maca ordered beers all round.
‘So how long’ve you been in Thailand, Maca?’ Ben asked him.
‘Well, coming and going to Cambodia and Lao, been here about six months this time. But I’ve lived several years in Thailand altogether … working on irrigation projects in the North East.’
‘And where else have you been? Travelling I mean.’
‘Don’t get me yabbering on about that, mate … I’d bore you silly.’
‘No way, man! Maca’s Africa story’s wild,’ said Chuck with rare animation.
‘And how about you two?’ asked Maca, tipping back his beer bottle.
‘Well, we’ve hardly been anywhere,’ said Ben. ‘Emm and me just finished uni so we’re chilling out for a bit.’
‘Sweet,’ drawled Chuck, gazing into the middle distance.
‘Oh … and we’re Ben and Emm,’ added Ben.
‘Good to meet yuh, Ben,’ said Maca, and to Emma, ‘M as in Melbourne?’
‘No, Emm as in Emma. So why are you “Maca”?’ she asked him.
‘Cos’ I’m Andy Mackintosh. And you have to be British, right?’
‘How did you know that!’ said Emma innocently.
Well lubricated with beer, the preliminary chit chat was relaxed and easy. Maca and Chuck had clearly done it many times before, meeting fellow travellers and comparing experiences, while Ben and Emma were sizing up this new species for the first time. Emma characterised Maca as a typical outback Australian of about thirty. In saggy beige jeans and an old shirt with long sleeves half rolled up, his tangled mop of hair was tied in a bunch at the back. His skin looked dry and freckly and his face was creased into a slightly inane grin, the pale blue eyes constantly smiling. He wore his body awkwardly as if he was not fully coordinated; doped up perhaps, she thought. She took to him immediately though she did not exactly fancy him.
Chuck, the American, was the better-looking one. Deeply tanned with a strong physique, his soft brown eyes peered from behind rimless spectacles. In his mid-twenties, he wore long baggy shorts, a fresh tee shirt and fake Adidas sandals, his beard well-trimmed, a little Jewish. Emma was intrigued by his reserve and tried to bring him into the conversation.
‘What do you do Chuck?’
He looked slightly startled at being spoken to.
‘What do I do? When?’
‘I mean your work.’
‘Work? I travel … same as Maca.’ There was a long pause. ‘Have to get back to school and finish like you two, maybe.’
‘But you must’ve worked sometime?’
‘Yeah … got a computer business. Set it up back in the States designing web sit
e solutions. It was cool, but I needed some space.’
‘And Maca, how about you?’ asked Ben.
‘Electrical engineer. I work wherever there’s a skills shortage … Jiddah, Dubai, Hong Kong, and of course Thailand. Good money, but travelling’s best.’
‘Well we’re still amateurs at travelling,’ said Ben, ‘but it’s been great so far.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ protested Emma testily.
‘So what’s bugging you about Bangkok, Emma?’ asked Maca.
‘Well, the obvious things I suppose. Bloody hot, overcrowded, just an ugly city and some of the people are so rude. Tuk tuk driver tried to rip us off and that girl in the travel agents wouldn’t hold down a job at home … got no idea of customer service.’
‘Okay Emm,’ said Ben, ‘but what about the taxi driver from the airport … the most stressed-out job in the universe and he was really nice. And the tuk tuk driver was only taking us for a few pence.’
‘But everyone’s lazy and slow with no idea about time-keeping and stuff. It’s just the impression I get. You know, the girl in the guesthouse asleep at the desk … no towels, no soap.’ She picked nervously at the damp label on her beer bottle.
‘But Emm, isn’t that the charm of the place?’ said Maca. ‘It’s a modern city but so laid back. Even when the going gets tough, it’s always sanuk’.
‘What’s sanuk?’
‘Sanuk means fun. It’s the Thai way of life.’
‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Emma moodily.
‘And we farang have it so easy in Thailand,’ Maca persisted. ‘For us, it’s all so cheap.’
‘Cheap labour and poor service.’
‘You think the Thais are lazy then, Emm? Don’t kid yourself. Most of them work nonstop for piss-poor pay. Like our waitress … after cleaning up late at night, she’ll be serving breakfast first thing in the morning.’
‘Suppose I’m lucky to be a student,’ admitted Emma.
‘She probably left school at fourteen to work in Bangkok,’ said Maca. ‘And now she has to watch us living off the fat of the land and telling her what to do.’
‘Hey guys, this is getting a bit serious. What about some food?’ interrupted Ben as he thumbed through the menu. ‘There’s some weird things in here … how about the duck’s blood cake with oyster sauce or the fried pig’s entrails? What d’you think Emm? Food now or later?’
But Chuck had other ideas. Food was not on his agenda.
‘Think it’d be cool to see some muay Thai tonight … that place off Sukhumvit Road?’
We went to Sukhumvit Road last night,’ said Emma. ‘But what’s muay Thai?’
‘Kick boxing … it’s like a national sport. They use the feet, knees and elbows and belt each other just about anywhere. You’d love it.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ said Emma. ‘You don’t want to go, do you, Ben?’
‘Dunno … but if these two guys are going, well, why not. Come on Emm, join in.’
She sat silently as the lads planned the trip around her. Chuck was keen, Maca was ready to go along with anything and Ben was warming to the idea. Emma was the only problem.
‘Why not Emm? Since we’re here, we’ve got to see it,’ urged Ben.
‘You can’t use that argument on me this time,’ she said curtly. ‘I’m going to get an early night. You can watch two men beating each other to a pulp if that’s what appeals to you.’ Her bitter glance at Ben was not lost on Maca and Chuck.
Alone that second uncomfortable night in their cheap guesthouse, Emma thought of the two men she had just met; Maca, with his easy Australian manner, so well-informed but free of pretension, and Chuck, strangely diffident and shy, with his attractive American accent, striking good looks and serious glasses. If she were marooned with them alone on a desert island, which one would she go for? Choosing between them proved impossible so it would have to be a hybrid … Maca re-bodied with Chuck’s physique.
But there were many more important things to think about. Sleep was impossible as she lay and agonised about Ben, wondering what he was up to with his two eccentric friends out on the dark streets of Bangkok. It seemed an eternity as she waited for the sounds of his return.
4
That evening Ben met up with Maca and Chuck at the end of Khao San Road by the tourist police post. Maca called a tuk tuk and agreed a fare without bothering to haggle, and they all squeezed themselves into the seat behind the driver. As the bar with the Thai boxing was at least forty minutes away in the heavy evening traffic, they had decided to catch a ferry boat down the river where they could pick up the Skytrain to Sukhumvit Road.
‘I’m sorry Emm’s not going to see the boxing,’ said Ben, ‘but she’s a bit squeamish about things she hasn’t seen before … like in Spain she refused to come to the bullfight.’
‘Gotta keep an open mind,’ said Maca cheerfully.
The tuk tuk quickly arrived at the ferry pier near Thammasat University where radical campaigners for democracy had been violently suppressed in the early seventies. Now the area was peaceful, a centre for trading in traditional medicines and Buddhist amulets, tiny Buddha images worn on a pendant round the neck. A row of small shops, their open fronts spilling goods onto the pavement, ran down to a square of well-restored shop-houses. People were shopping and eating and sitting in the cool of the evening under the frangipani trees whose richly-scented flowers were scattered on the ground.
‘I like this place,’ said Maca. ‘It’s just how old Bangkok should be preserved.’
They walked into the ferry terminus building, through stalls selling tourist trinkets and a profusion of fruit and cooked foods. The sun was falling and casting a soft glow from the west, the heat of the day beginning to moderate as they reached the pontoon to wait for the ferry.
Wider than the Thames in London, the Chao Phraya river was muddy and brown and, unlike the Thames, it was a busy thoroughfare. The slowest boats were trains of barges moving at a snail’s pace behind a tug, the fastest the brightly coloured long-tailed boats, slim passenger craft carrying up to forty people. Their bows were dramatically flared upwards and hung with plastic flowers as offerings to the aquatic spirits, the engines high up behind the driver powering a long prop-shaft at the back.
From the pontoon Ben watched the long-tails screaming along the river like demented insects, kicking up sheets of spray. His ears were assailed by the noise of their engines, by the roar of traffic from the road, the scream of metal on metal as the pontoon lifted on the waves and the shriek of the boat-boys’ whistles. The river was vibrant and alive. Nothing was quiet and inscrutable here.
‘Okay mate, this is ours, the Chao Phraya River Express,’ said Maca, pointing to a long shark-like ferry coming down the river. It reversed into the jetty in a surge of foaming water as a deck-hand flicked a rope over a bollard, giving a brief moment for passengers to jump ashore. Ben and the others then joined the rush to get aboard and within seconds the powerful engine was again spewing fumes, pushing the boat fast through the murky water.
The three pleasure-seekers stood on the open deck at the stern, enjoying the scenery and the hot wind in their faces. Maca pointed out the sights to Ben; first the glittering spires of the Grand Palace and its temples, and then to the right the tall Khmer-style stupa of Wat Arun, the Temple of Dawn, backlit by the setting sun. On the left was Chinatown and on both sides, wharves and markets that would have been familiar in the days of Joseph Conrad more than a century earlier. Old wooden houses built on stilts over the water clung to the banks, their verandas crowded with pot plants and washing.
The river then took a sweep to the right, giving a clear view of the many tower blocks built when Thailand was booming in the late eighties and early nineties. There were offices, apartments and hotels, the most famous of which, the Oriental Hotel was set in leafy gardens on the edge of the water.
‘You wouldn’t believe the luxury in those places,’ said Maca. ‘Some of the top hotels are half empty, so some old bugg
er from the backside of Melbourne gets a luxury room thrown in with his package tour. He and his sheila are king and queen for the week and within spitting distance there’s people living in slum conditions.’
‘But not all the Thais are that poor,’ said Ben. ‘There seems to be money around.’
‘Yes, but it’s the contrast that gets to me … it’s so in-yer-face.’
They got off the boat beneath Saphan Taksin, a massive road bridge over the river, and walked up the ramp from the pontoon.
‘Look at that,’ said Ben. ‘They’re still completing the top floors of that block. Looks like flats … forty or fifty storeys at least.’
‘It’s not a new development,’ said Maca. ‘I guess work stopped when the economy collapsed in 1997 and now it’s been abandoned. That’s boom and bust for you.’
In contrast, their next form of transport, the Skytrain, looked a gleaming success story. They climbed a flight of steps to the ticket concourse and up to the elevated track where a train was waiting and sat down on the yellow plastic seats. The carriage was powerfully air-conditioned and Ben was able to breathe easily again, his sweaty skin and tee shirt rapidly drying out. All was spotlessly clean and starkly modern with straps and metal poles for standing passengers to hold onto.
‘Why’s there no Thai girls dancing round those poles?’ quipped Maca.
The view from the overhead railway was panoramic, the urban landscape of extravagant modern buildings relieved first by the greenery of Lumpini Park and then the manicured golf course and race track of the Royal Bangkok Sports Club. After changing trains at Siam Station, Ben sat high above the street as the marble facades of department stores, McDonald’s outlets, green trees, Thai temples, expressways and traffic jams slipped smoothly past his window.
They got off at Nana Station and followed the stairway down to Sukhumvit Road where Ben was unable to ignore a woman on the steps begging with two tiny children, one of them crying lustily.
‘You’ll see plenty more of those before we’re home tonight,’ said Maca as Ben dropped a coin into her bowl. ‘The Thais give to the poor to make merit for the next life, but you hear horror stories … like heavily drugged children being hired out to the beggar to boost their takings, and beggars being delivered in taxis to their pitch and handing over their earnings to their protectors. Same as with the bar girls, it’s always the big guys who control the cash flow.’