Well after using my travel guide book and map to sketch out a rough idea of where I wanted to visit for the next few days I decided that it was time to hit the town again, and being so close to Khao San Road, with its famous night time markets and night life I thought that I would save a return to the strip area for another night.
First off I asked the receptionist about what days was good to go to the Muay Thai and ended up talking to another of the 'guests' there who was living in Thailand for a while now and was a fighter himself, though by his own admission not a very good one. He had the physique of a wanna fighter, small, thin and wirey but I couldn't really tell if he had the killer look in his eyes as he was three sheets to the wind when I met him, even at 6pm.
After that I followed a couple of other tourists up the road and was surprised when it ended abruptly in a dead end, except a sign saying "short cut to Khao San Road, up stairs and then down again" next to the rear entrance of a lively restaurant / bar, and so again taking their lead I passed through the place and ended up slap bang at one end of Khao San Road.
I walked up and down it once before I decided to do anything, and was amazed at how many tourists were in the area either eating, drinking or wondering if 100 baht really was a good price for 5 of those wrist bracelets they could see on display.
Being my first walk I ignored a few of the male hawkers asking if I wanted anything or what was I looking for, and just went on my way til I got a feel for where I was and how to get back to the hotel should anything feel wrong, but the only that felt wrong was me I seemed to be one of the only single tourists as far as I could tell.
On my way back I chose at random one of the massage parlours and for 250 I received an hour long oil massage that was acceptable and certaily cheap, and could only have been better if I had been able to chose form a wider selection but all the other masseuses were busy. Judging from the noise around me I would say that there were as many women here as men and almost all were tourists or travellers, but then thinking about it 150 for a half hour massage works out to be only £3 which is very good and I don't care where it is.
After my massage I did a slightly different route to my hotel and then with growing confidence, after dropping off my camera and valuables, I went on a slightly bigger loop walkabout and ended up follosing my ears as they heard some live music just around the next corner.
It ended up being a local band, not quite starting out but clearly still forming their own sound and identity as they belted out a mix of songs in Thai. Then after that came a live set from a slightly more mature group that started off doing a good rendition of a Rod Stewart classic before changing lead singers and really getting the crowd involved in what appeared to be Thai classics, all wonderfully set against the mini fort as a backdrop, complete with stage lights and front row amps and speakers.
I listened to then for about an hour, enjoying the rhythmn and beat yet not really understanding the lyrics, but by the audience participation around me I could tell that I was nearly the only one who was ignorant of the words.
When they seemed to be winding up I left the free live outdoor gig and went back to the main strip where I got enticed into a free nightclub by the strikingly attractive flier girls handing out leaflets to anyone that came close. Sadly even at 9:30pm I was almost the only one there and so I planned to just have one drink and then make a move. Not wanting to spend too much on this unhappening place ( that was surprisingly well decorated and quite modern so I guess it does a good trade at other times ) I asked for a red bull that came in a tiny squareish glass bottle and I could not get the image that I was drinking cough mixture out of my head no matter how hard I tried.
Leaving there I made my way along the road til I reached a place where a live girl band had centre stage and were singing some a variety of songs from classic and modern female artists like Madonna, Pink and Avril Lavigne. I didnt mind that so much, even when the got the lyrics wrong or altered the tempo to fit their own style, but when they switched gear and tried to sing Sweet Child of Mine by 'Guns And Roses' they lost me and I decided not to stay for too much longer.
Although free entry, the price for a drink in this place was extra high and explained why there were no casual travellers here, so I expected a little more middle or upper class action but to no avail. I had a fun few minutes playing some pool with one of the bouncers, but realising that I was paying for it and even after the game he didn't try to make conversation I saw that he was a dead end as far as making any contacts here, less I was prepared to become a regular.
The final place that I went to tonight was another bar barely a few meters further down the strip, where an aging rock band were precariously perched on a stage no wider than a meter or so, and really giving their all in covers of some true rock greats. Pink Floyd, Metallica, Led Zepplin, AC/DC and Lemmy all got a good reaction from the crowd, who shouted and bellowed for more after each song, while the short and energetic main singer screamed and sung his way through verse and courus alike.
Their last song ended almost on the stroke of Midnight and, having had a bit of a mix of drinks at this point I decided not to try and find yet another club or bar to prop up, as I wanted to be up bright eyed and bushy tailed tomorrow morning, so I just clapped and whistled til the guitar rift finally ended, placed my empty Mai Thai glass on the bar and retraced my steps back to my hotel.
On the way back I mused that despite being in the infamous Bangkok for a day and a half now, and not really hiding away in the slightest, I had yet to be approached by a single female which leads me to deduce that either I am living in can accidentally slip into parallel universes without knowing, that I don't look rich or desperate enough to bother with or that I have been blessed / cursed with a fateful degree of timing that often puts me in a certain place at a certain times, whether it be for better or worse.
Around 1:30pm I got bored of thebig screen tv movies that were showing non stop in the hostels bar area and headed on up to my room, to recover and get some sleep before what promised to be a full day tomorrow, both extremely happy in my first full day and yet also with a slight feeling on anticlimax as this city of sin had not yet really offered up anything worth writing about and certainly a lot less than in many of the other cities that I have visited on this trip.
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