Baht Rock

Thailand has been quite a mixed bag so far. I feel I should explain what happened with the teaching work before blathering on about the other stuff first. Early on we decided that, if possible, we would like to do some sort of volunteer work during our year abroad - our first lead having fallen through with the NGO in Sri Lanka, we were eager to follow up a potential teaching job in Thailand at the same place Jaz had taught. I don't really want to offer an in-depth dissection of what I now feel, but I think it sufficient to say that I (we) decided to turn the offer down on the grounds that some of the things we saw and heard were extremely troubling, and I was not fully confident of the situation that we would be placing ourselves in. There were too many unanswered questions, too much vagueness and the story kept changing with respect to what we would actually be doing. It could be that this is overly anxious paranoia on my part and that we may have passed up what could have been the most rewarding part of the trip - or we may also have dodged being in a very tricky and ethically suspect situation (not to mention the legalities of it all ...) On one side I feel hugely disappointed that I can't directly contribute something to the area that we are currently visiting, on another I think that working under a system that supports bribery and physical punishment of children is not something I could ever support. This has made me think more closely about the nature of volunteer work arranged on the road, and the conflicts of morality associated with it - you have to ask who directly benefits from it, and I don't think I could confidently say that it was the children being taught more than the balance books. So things haven't worked out exactly as we'd planned, but other options are being pursued albeit with more scrutiny.

Anyway, here's more stuff on drinking and music :


Back into the sweat. Bangkok ! It's like Mumbai, only slightly less populated and more relaxed (in both atmosphere and morals). We're on the infamous Khoa San road, where merchmen jostle with each other to flog knock off CDs or deep fried insects, people of debatable gender strut up and down, and the whole thing throbs to the mixed rhythms of either sub-standard Trance or tiresome repititions of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Seriously, they don't play anything else. One nice thing is that shifty looking blokes keep asking 'Ping-Pong ??' at me - a kind if unexpected offer, however I've not played in years and have no wish to embarass myself. It's hot alright. Lakes of sweat (not perspiration) form on the brow and combine with acrid insect repellant, stinging the eyes. White shirts are dirty in 20 minutes, Friesian patterns form on coloured ones and my glasses keep skiing down my sodden nose with irritating regularity. Bars have water sprays on, doing a half-arsed job of cooling the air, which when it gets particularly bad makes you feel as if you're cooking or drowning when you breathe in. At times one feels like a big walking dollar sign, Tuk tuk drivers in particular always have an eye on the prize - almost resembling Scrooge McDuck with his monocle popping out when a potential earner strolls by. Breakfast is a delicious spread of beef noodles and Doxycycline.

Still, we've made some friends, chancing upon this band playing a gig in the road. This could have been any one of a thousand of nights at Windsor Arts Centre, a local band playing radiohead covers on semi-tuned Washburn guitars and Peavey amps. In the photo on the left they're playing the wailing bit from the end of Paranoid Android - something which is inextricably linked in my mind to watching Radiohead at Glastonbury, in the rain, covered in mud, after all my stuff had been nicked and one of my best friends was getting off with a girl I fancied. Still the yardstick for measuring teenage angst - on this occasion Dan and I warbled along whilst swigging from cans of Heineken. The second band on were an abominable nu-metal band, all digital effects and baseball caps. We stopped watching them to go and talk to the first band, and after blethering on for a bit they asked if we wanted to go and see their other gig at a bar in some backstreet (funnily, they also asked if we were drunk - good thing I'm not easily offended). We managed to find the Lullabar after a fashion and spent a charming few hours watching them plough through their set - this included a cover of When You Sleep by abrasive art-rockers My Bloody Valentine, and most of The Stone Roses back catalogue - providing the catalyst for some truly shambolic dancing. Making friends with a local band is an excellent way to get to know people and experience what Thai people get up to usually. Even if it is exactly the same as home. Oh, and Torquay stayed up this season - or at least that's what I could tell from Dan's Gallagher-esque bellowing in the internet cafe. Most of Bangkok is aware of the result as well - hooray !

The Grand Palace - built in 1782 after the ascension of King Rama I and currently home to the Emerald Buddha. The previous royal palace was on the west side of the Chao Phraya River, the king decided to establish a new base of administration and residence on the more defendable opposite bank. The Emerald Buddha is in fact carved from jade, and was discovered in Chiang Rai around 1434, covered in plaster. It was noticed some of it had flaked off in places, revealing a green stone underneath - hence it was named the Emerald Buddha. Here you can see the golden chedi and a giant mythological yak. I think.