Sun 29th march: Bangkok - Sewing Machines and Red Lights

Today was a strange day. I need to get a new suit according to Mum and Dad and with Johnny G's wedding fast approaching I have to consider what I'm going to do. I thought I'd make do with the old jacket (which I've had since '93!!!) but Mum said there was a hole showing in the old jacket and with the inevitability of job interviews to be attended at some point in the future perhaps it was time to consider getting a new suit. Sukhumvit holds a large concentration of tailors shops for all range of budgets and as I saw the kind of deals they were offering I began to think about buying in Bangkok. I would be a lot cheaper than getting one at home. I'm keeping an open mind.

The day developed into an impromptu tour of the local tailor shops and then the red light districts, an unlikely progression from one to the other. Nothing untoward happened. While mulling over suits and tailor shops I merely stumbled into the first area and then decided sure I might as well see the rest and ended up strolling through the rest of these famous districts to see what was going on. There are two districts more or less on Sukhimvit, the third and most infamous, Patpong, lies to the south in a different district. The two around Sukhumvit, Soi cowbot and Nana Plaza, are small but jammed with bars and clubs with all manner of exotic names. They teem with girls and prospective clients drinking at the bars. I had a look but didn't hang about. Patpong is larger, taking up a few streets amidst regular bars and restaurants. It hosts a hugely popular night market which sets up right down the centre of one of the streets which is lined with some of the more notorious go-go bars and clubs. At night with all the colourful neon lights and music blaring it makes for quite a sight. While its tacky and seedy there,s nothing dangerous about the place. You can walk along the street and on one side of you there are stalls selling all manner of trinkets and clothes while on the other side of you all the clubs and go-go bars are lined with girls enticing you to go in and touts showing you a menu list of the shows that will take place inside. Ping pong is one of the big attractions but I'm not going to elaborate here. I'd never heard about this until I was in Tonga and one of the lads was saying he wanted to see a ping pong show when he'd get to Bangkok. I thought he was talking about table tennis!!! The area attracts quite a mix of characters at night from the souvenir hunters, club goers to the curious sight seers and those in Bangkok for one thing only. I saw quite a few of the famous lady boys on the street and while people say you can have difficulty telling the difference between them and regular girls I thought they were quite obvious. Patpong, Quite a unique experience.