Bangkok Parlour

Six Days in Burma - A natural tragedy becomes a manmade one

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Six days.

Six days since Cyclone Nargis hit the Irrawaddy delta region of Burma. Six days since a country long mistreated by tyrannical man got an ill-deserved bashing by awesome nature.

Buddha, as The Times put it, is weeping.

The prognosis is bad. 65,000 dead, possibly in excess of 100,000. More than 1 million homeless, battling to stave off hunger and disease whilst living amidst debris and bloated bodies. Chloera may yet kill more than the cyclone.

And yet the Junta are, predicatably, intransigent. They want aid but not aid workers. The Burmese embassy in Bangkok is closed until Tuesday. The WFP has halted aid drops after authorities impounded two deliveries. 60 Bangladeshi doctors were turned away. All proof that the Junta live in a detached, self-serving world, one where foreign help is a threat to their grip on power - not a lifeline for millions of destitute.

The question now: what should the world do? Shrug our shoulders and allow the Burmese authorities to snub foreign aid? Let people die? Or ignore soverignety and drop aid, regardless of international borders? Would it even be safe to do so? Would aid fall into the hands of the Junta? Will it be used to secure votes in the May 10th referundum, which despite the tragedy is going ahead in all but 47 of the worst-hit townships? Or should aid be chanelled through close allies of the military government, the Chinese, Indians and Thais?

Burma, like Darfur and the Middle East, is shaping up to be one of the biggest tests for modern morality. I am in the UK for a two week visit, and have been touched by the amount of press coverage, charitable donations and emotive indignation this has stirred. More, I cant help but wonder, than in neighbouring Thailand?).

We have the will to avert a natural catastrophe from worsening - despite the General's obstinence there must be a way.

Dith Pran Dies

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:50:00 +0000

Dith Pran, a spirited Cambodian photojournalist who suffered immeasurably to bring the horrific truth to the world, a nimble survivor of the barbarous Khmer Rouge regime and their Killing Fields, a total inspiration, succumbed to pancreatic cancer on Sunday.

R.I.P.

Why I read 'The New Light of Myanmar'

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:58:00 +0000

Is it wrong to enjoy reading the online issue of the The New Light of Myanmar: the state-run daily newspaper of the Burmese Tatmadaw (junta)?

Why do I read it? Because its so damn surreal - that's why. Firstly, there's the state's four political objectives, four economic objectives and four social objectives, recapped everyday beneath the nameplate. These include:

"The initiative to shape the national economy must be kept in the hands of the state and the national peoples"
"Proper evolution of the market-orientated economic system"
"Uplift of the morale and morality of the entire nation"
"Uplift of health, fitness and education standards of the entire nation"

Try reading them while flicking through any of the UN reports, the Free Burma Rangers website or one of dozens of human rights reports. It makes for some hilarious compare and contrast.

Then there's the mind-numbing lead story. With its mile-long headline, this usually finds one of the top military brass – usually Than Shewe - heading a nebulous draft-constitution meeting, hosting a meeting for one of the country's obscure civic organizations (the Myanmar Pulses, Beans and Sesame Seeds Merchants Association anyone?), or shaking hands with the latest voracious foreign diplomat out to do business. PM Samak, seen here looking noble in Friday's issue, was the latest. Such a nice man.

Today, though, its the opening of a new piece of infrastructure that makes the lead. Not a bridge or road, but the opening of a paper machia mock-up of a Chamber of Commerce office, with PM Thein Sein in attendence. Nice one! Such progress!

Note how dour everyone looks, as if the faintest trace of a smirk would mean a indefinite spell in Insein, the country’s most notorious jailhouse. That's, erm, because it does.

Next, I click to page 2. Here, everyday, there's a diminuitive column entitled 'People's Desire'. At last, the man on the street...

... but there's something awry here - the 'People's Desire' hasn't changed in the couple of years I've been reading it. Also, judging by the pugnacious tone, everyone in Rangoon talks like a bellicose, card-carrying Maoist at the height of the Great Leap Forward.

However, it’s the daily diatribe, usually on page 7, that I always make a beeline for. Usually it’s directed against Aung San Suu Kyi, the ethnic minorities, or the Western powers of which the preceding are just "stooges"...

The current fashion, though, seems to be for turgid, lets-hype-the-upcoming constitution tirades. Todays its a piece entitled 'If in no mood to help, do not disturb' written by journo, Pauk Sa. In it the National League for Democracy is accused of "practising one-party dictatorship", trying to prevent the Tatmadaw from building a "discipline flourishing democractic nation", and "provoking riots".

It ends by trying to assume the moral highground, with a warning: "I do not think it is wise that NLD is criticizing that holding new elections is not legitimate and persists in making demands that are no longer in line with the present time and present way of life of the people. So, I would like to say that if NLD is in no mood to extend a helping hand, it does not matter, but it is requested not to disturb the processes". If only the party hadn't been emasculated, if only it could.

The New Light of Myanmar looks like a shitty socialist student rag. But it is, in fact, a carefully state-monitored 16-page web of deceit, fabrications and ego-stroking, blended with syndicated international stories to give a gossamer-thin veneer of credibility. It is propaganda of the most derisory sort. It is the world’s most Orwellian newspaper. If you want to know why I read it, you can find out here.

Know your enemy.

A Coffee Shop Encounter

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:23:00 +0000

"Why is your t-shirt so small?," she asks between sips of her iced frappe.

"Because I bought it here, in Bangkok," I reply between urges to kiss her.

"Huh?"

"Polyester.. most t-shirts here are made with polyester. A couple of washes and they're shrunk.. that's why they're so cheap."

Kings of Leon come on the stereo.

"You look like Tom Hanks in Big", she says.

"I know.. "

Dude Sweet 'Made in the Kingdom of Siam' Party

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:26:00 +0000

I adore the West-influenced fashions and architecture of the King Rama V-era. I always get thoroughly trashed at maverick club night, Dudesweet. And I like their head honcho, Note, very much. So this themed party, ‘Made in the Kingdom of Siam’, is all go for me. Oh, and the drummer from junkie UK post-punk band Babyshambles is DJing. That’ll be the cherry.

Note is a lithe, smart, opinionated scenster/graphic designer with a great flair for fashion, music and art. If you’ve seen him prowling Bangkok’s streets, slavishly handing out flyers for his next event, you’ll also know his success is down to nothing less than bloody hard work. This party should be a lot of fun, what with everyone jumping around like its 1899.

Time/space: Saturday 5th April/Club Culture

The Fake Ferrari: Thailand finesses the fine art of forgery

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:13:00 +0000

Who was it that said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Well, would someone please tell the Authentics Foundation, a London-based NGO who have just kicked up a shitstorm of world publicity with their first ‘global anti-counterfeit summit’ in Brussels.

I mention it not because I laughed so hard on reading model Yasmin Le Bon, who’s fronting the campaign, preach at the pauper on the street from her ivory tower. ("This is something that really affects me because I'm in the fashion business," she, someone who hasn’t payed for cosmetics or luxury items since shoulder pads and Duran Duran were cool, gushed).

No, I mention it because a Made in Thailand counterfeit, no less, was the guest of honour. And not just any old fake Rolex, or Gucci knock-off but a fake Ferrari 1967 P4, knocked together in a back street factory. Cue The Guardian: “Replicating the original in every visible detail, the car is a startling example of the genius for counterfeiting that is flourishing worldwide”.

Is this supposed to make Thailand look bad? I’ve long admired the Thais' inimitable knack for imitating things. And this, surely, is proof the country has, inbetween feckless coups and endless political squabblings, quietly been finessing the fine art that is forgery. Bravo. I, for one, look forward to the day when I can shunt my newly acquired fake Silom bounty – DVDS, shoes, tshirt, chiseled ladyboy– home in a Pontiac 2008 G6 convertible. Pray tell, Authentics Foundation, where do I order one?

Thailand turns upscale Gangster Paradise

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:09:00 +0000

I get confused sometimes. Is Thailand the world’s rice bowl, or the toilet bowl? It certainly attracts a lot of shit. And who’s the latest guest to further enhance Thailand’s reputation as a refuge for naughty farang? Not a world-class perv, surprisingly, but somebody with, if not much more class, then a lot more money.

I speak of Viktor Bout, international arms dealer par excellence. This chubby Eastern European is, according to reports plastered all over the web, a very bad man. Not just any old gun-toting, Soviet-era has-been but the almost apocryphal ‘Merchant of Death’, the world’s most wanted arms trader, a man who's sold weapons to Al Qaida and Farc rebels.

But no longer. After a tip-off that originated deep in the jungles of South America, he was tracked down to Bangkok’s Sofitel Silom Hotel. Here, while stuffing his face with dim sum in the Chinese Restaurant, this real life James Bond Villain’s years of unscrupulous profiteering, came to an unseemly end. Busted! There he was on the BBC this morning, eyes cold and steely, as he was paraded, Middle Ages fashion, by the Thai police.

“One day someone will write a book about him,” an American policeman gleefully told the BBC, “and it will be up there with the best Tom Clancy – only true”. Quality. It seems Thailand is moving up in the world. I mean this guy has (or should I say had) a fleet of private jets to his name, not just the usual: a troubled childhood, porn-filled laptop and fake teacher’s certificate from Khao San.

Instead of a predictable predilection for toffee skinned teens, he had a penchant for “luxury homes around the world and luxury cars”. Forget all the marble malls and girls tottering about in Jimmy Choos, here's proof that Thailand is truly going upmarket.

Independent Story

Rambo kicks some despotic Burmese butt

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 05:07:00 +0000

So who, I wonder, is gonna save Burma from those mean green generals? The refugees and political exiles in Chiang Mai or camped along the Thai-Burma border can’t. Despite the well-meaning but obsequious envoys (gushing gullible Gambari, you suck!), the citing of clause no.38948bz-9 of such-and-such non-binding Human Rights Charter, the UN and its member states can’t (or rather won’t). Not even Aung San Suu Kyi, bless her elegant silk longi, can lend a hand in helping free the nation from the curse of military dictatorship. But what about rippling muscles, a sweaty headband, a ton of ammo and brusque fighting talk – i.e. Stallone and his new Rambo film? Well, as it happens maybe,.. hopefully:

Burmese officials have banned even pirated copies of the new Rambo movie, and Hollywood's Sylvester Stallone says he'd love to go to Rangoon and confront the junta face to face.

"These incredibly brave people have found, kind of a voice, in a very odd way, in American cinema... They've actually used some of the film's quotes as rallying points," said Stallone, 61, in a telephone interview with the Reuters news agency.

"That, to me, is the one of the proudest moments I've ever had in film," he told Reuters. Police in Burma have given market sellers strict orders not to sell pirated copies of the flick.

Just two weeks into its commercial release (panned by most US critics, highly rated by audiences in the US), the movie is available in black-market editions under the counter in markets in Rangoon and towns along the Thai border.

In the movie, ageing war veteran John Rambo, played by Stallone, ventures into Burma to rescue a group of Christian aid workers who were kidnapped by a ruthless local infantry unit. "Rambo acted very cruelly, but his cruelty is nothing compared to that of the military junta," a Burmese student in Thailand was quoted by Reuters.

In Rangoon, local people said Burmese have gone crazy over lines from the film such as:
When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.

Burma's a warzone.

Rambo: Are you
bringing in any weapons?

Aid worker: Of course not.

Rambo: You're not changin' anything.
The tagline of the blood and guts movie is: "Live for nothing, die for something."

Stallone's movie specifically focuses on the Karen near the Thai border. The Karen and other groups have suffered half a million cases of forced relocation and thousands more have been imprisoned, tortured or killed by the military dictators.

Stallone told Reuters that he hopes the film can provoke a confrontation. "I'm only hoping that the Burmese military, because they take such incredible offence to this, would call it lies and scurrilous propaganda. Why don't you invite me over?" he said. "Let me take a tour of your country without someone pointing a gun at my
head and we'll show you where all the bodies are buried..."

Bangkok Post

Khlong Saen Saeb

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:38:00 +0000

Crash.. As we pull in at speed, the wooden hull slams against the pier. Two helmeted crew members jump ashore, ropes in hand. There waiting silently, stoically on land, is an adorable Thai girl in an unfeasibly short skirt and 3” high heels. “Oh dear,.. the misfortunate," I think to myself as the boat beneath heaves and splutters, noxious diesel fumes permeating the air, my brain. “How will she get on while maintaining an ounce of decorum, her dignity?"

Her reply? She hops assertively off the landing stage, plants a foot on the gunwale, grabs the rope and swings down and into the hull next to me – all in a matter of seconds and with the casual aplomb, not to mention sex appeal, of an Asian Lara Croft. I'm left surprised and smitten. But for this 9-to-5 office worker meets dressed-to-kill stuntwoman it’s par for the course, all in a day’s getting to work.

I'm on Khlong Saen Saep, a line of dirty brown water that weaves its way through the city. Why did it take me so long? It’s fowl, ugly, smelly and dangerous, but also fast, cheap, quick, exhilarating and awesome. Think public transport meets extreme sports - Venice on Popeye’s favourite spinach. The boats surge along at speed, stopping off at piers bisecting Bo Bae market, Pratunam, Childom, Asok, Nana and Thonglor, among other areas. It begins by Pan Faa bridge, in the Old City, and ends out in Bangna, and the journey from one to the other costs only 20 baht.

It must be so cheap because its a deathtrap. Fall in and you’ll be submerged in what resembles Willy Wonka’s scrumptious chocolate lake but is, actually, a poisonous toxic sludge (one hapless Thai pop star did and subsequently died of a fungal brain infection). Stick your head up to catch a breeze and you’ll be decapitated by one of Bangkok’s many low-slung bridges, only for your bloated torso to resurface days later in the Chao Phraya, tangled poetically amidst clutches of water hyacinth. But it’s the deckhands who really do dance with death - they walk the rim of the boat, one hand hanging on for dear life, the other rummaging for small change as they collect fairs.

Hailing from the UK, a country where every danger is systematically scrubbed out of existence by dour Health and Safety bureaucrats, thus rendering modern life banal, and ultimately futile, I think this is brilliant. You’re overwhelmingly alive, Khlong San Saeb screams, because one slip means you won’t be. It’s like a faulty fairground ride that’s been adapted to transport the clinically insane. And that’s precisely why I love it.

Spicy Club: Ron Muang Soi Neung

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 11:18:00 +0000

On a sultry night, down a shady anonymous backstreet, a city is resisting the call to sleep. This resistance has a name: Spicy. A form: a long dark hall suffused in wan blue light. And it has a function: at around 1am each night it fills with smoke, incipid music and a mob of drunk humanity.

They hop from Tuk-Tuks, they stumble out of taxis, they shuffle through a ramshackle yard, they hand over 300 baht... Not the city’s urban youth or funked-up fashionistas, but guys from the West: 20-plus aspirant Don Juan’s hailing from everywhere from New Cross to New Delhi. And girls from the North: dark skinned, gaudily dressed, shit loads of them…

Amidst this motley, at the foot of a raised circular podium, stand three Middle Eastern men bearing whisky in one hand and cigarettes in the other. “You have a light?” I ask one with darting eyes above the bounce of techno-pop (“Are youu go-oing to Sannn Frannn.. sciscoo?...). Dressed in a debonair grey shirt, he's transfixed on something. He barely blinks as he reaches into his pocket. I look up, to see what he’s staring at and my eyes meet a pair of ice white panties. The person wearing them – a dark skinned girl with streaks of blond and an intricate snake tattoo down the length of her left leg – shuffles closer to aid their view. So intensely are they studying her, you'd think she was a classic Greek statue in the British Museum - only slightly less naked and not priceless. The powerplay is ambiguous: the lust dripping from their eyes they want little more than a fuck toy, her pockmarked visage displays all the relish of an eagle about to sink its talons into a helpless field mouse (Thailand’s exploiter/exploited dynamic is more nuanced than the world thinks... )

Metres away, two sallow guys with cropped hair, distended stomachs and an East London twang prowl the floor. They strike up conversation with two willowy Thai girls, one pouring them whisky from atop a standup table, both in dainty dresses and high heels. Above the throb of mainstream beats, the patter commences: “where you come from?”, “you have girlfriend?”, “you speak thai?”. Like a rice paddy’s furrows in the choking dust of dry season, the conversation quickly dries up. But it doesn’t matter: five minutes later both couplets are locked in a hip swaying dance of fascination; five minutes more they’re gone…

“Ow Eek krup?” a tender hums in my ear before I've even begun to entertain the thought of downing the last of my ice swarmed drink. Service isn’t bad here. When the bill arrives with my next drink two minutes later, I realize that’s because prices are. I pick up my change (a conniving wedge of 20 baht notes), and dodge past the entangled, the ensnared, the lustlorn, the gruesome, the ravishing, the ridiculous. After a feeble attempt to dance, I stand there, swaying, wanting, lusting.... hating. As my taxi turns the corner and down the soi, into a brighter hopefully more salubrious day, I think of ‘Taxi Driver’: “Someday a real rain will come wash all this scum off the streets". Let's hope I’m indoors...

Saraburi's Sunflower Fields

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 05:03:00 +0000

We were wilting in the not-so-cool-season sunshine but the sunflowers couldn’t get enough... A trip to witness the scenic splendour that is Saraburi province’s sunflower fields comes highly recommended. Tantawan, as they are known in Thai, are grown as a commercial crop there and in bloom from November until March, when farmers harvest them for their seed and oil.

Apart from reaping what they sow, local farmers also have a sideline: charging visitors a meagre 5 baht fee for the right to explore. Stroll among the plant's tall green stalks, get your picture taken with your arms around the neck of a flower, as if it’s an old friend, and admire the sweeping yellow vista that comes framed by the area's rolling limestone hills. Nice.

We visited on a glorious December afternoon, a public holiday across the Kingdom. But while the crowds were out en masse, they were still vastly outnumbered by armies of vivacious yellow plants, all in formation, each one bright and big, round face inched hungrily toward the sun. Some visitors stood and stared. Others wandered into the far reaches of the field, immersed in reverie. Most though - friends, families and lovers - took to posing playfully for photographs, heads bobbing above a sea of vivid golden yellow – the King’s colour.

Like the students laughing, exuberant and joyous, while triumphantly grappling a flower head and each other. Or the young mother hoisting up her young child as the father strives to snap the ultimate mantelpiece photo. Nearby, an elephant lolled its head, languorously, while children nearby posed inside giant plastic sunflower moulds, pulling ‘V’ signs. Off in the distance a lone spirit house stood sentinel, meadow spirits swarming, invisibly, in the ether around it...

We wandered beneath a multi-coloured canopy lined with stalls. Resembling a village fete, there was a range of colourful local produce for sale: fruit juice, fruit wines and sunflower-themed knick-knacks ranging from hair-clips to umbrellas. Our favourite was the local honey stall, on top of which was sat a large beehive, a cloud of disgruntled bees buzzing anxiously above it, disputing their eviction. Deliciously sweet, we bought a small Sangsom bottles worth for 60 baht. A couple of stalls down, we then procured some fresh sunflower seeds. Filled with mineral content the disk seeds – the hundreds of spikes that fill the face - are a stunning source of protein (50 baht a bag). They also made a fantastic snack for the less than two hour drive home…

Living in a Bangkok Box

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 05:04:00 +0000

I don’t normally go in for self-diagnosis, but all the symptoms are there: I’ve got Bangkok cabin fever. While knocking around my room just recently, usually when hung-over, I’ve been overcome by this overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. Restlessness snowballs into this sudden urge to smash the contents of my room into a trillion tiny pieces. I can’t breathe, there’s no where to go. I begin conversing with the bugs that keep marching for the sugar-coated sanctuary that is my fridge top. As they climb down the walls, I’m literally climbing up them.

Why? Because like millions of others in Bangkok I choose to live in a shoebox. And, no, not a long Michael Jordan size 17 shoebox, but a narrow toddlers training shoe shoebox. A Bangkok estate agent would probably disagree: they’d call my 32 square metre studio ‘cute’, ‘cozy’ or ‘compact’; a ‘highly functional space perfectly attuned to the demands of modern city living’ or some such rot. It’s not. That’s a lie. It’s a fucking prison cell. Ok, I’m exaggerating, slightly. Take away the Hi-speed Internet, Cable TV and chic modular furniture, THEN it’s a fucking prison cell. “Yes, but it looks good” you say. Yes, I retort, but aesthetics matters not a jot when you can’t see straight because, instead of breathing God’s good air, you’re recycling your own for 12 hours on end.

A midget with a penchant for sniffing his own feet may relish life in here, but not me. I’m endlessly falling over tables, tripping over shoes, backing onto cupboard doors. The sound of a glass smashing, or of me yelping as I yet again stub my big toe (the left one usually) frequently echoes down my ironically much more capacious corridor. And this grim parable of 21st century Bangkok living only gets worse. In a SE Asian take on ‘Birdman from Alcatraz’ I’m forming bonds with my studio’s biosphere: playing chase with lost geckos, observing the behavioral patterns of ants, having mercy on those bugs that resemble cute cockroaches. This isn’t right. Humans SHOULD NOT be made to live in so confined a space. Not unless we’ve killed grandma anyway. Frankly living here it sometimes feels like I may as well have, when in truth my only crime is ranking only a couple of notches above pauper on the socio-economic ladder.

Don’t worry about me though. I’m plotting my escape. However, rather than furrowing a hole through the wall with my toothbrush (which I've considered), I’m taking the sane tack and looking for a new place. And what can I afford in Bangkok? Well, unless I move to the back-end-of-Bangkok, I’ve discovered the answer is another dull functional box. Arrrh! Another room I’ll struggle to swing a Siamese cat in without getting viscera all over the generic cream walls (that's probably a deposit breaker). Aarrh!!! This isn’t fair. Look around you – Bangkok is in the throes of a building frenzy. Glam new hotels and shiny new condo developments are popping up faster than genital warts after a Nana Plaza shopping spree. Many of the latter sell out in days, before they’ve even begun building. Who buys them all? Moneyed Thai and expat speculators who buy-to-let and, when they get around to it, lease them out. There seems to be plenty of space, so where’s mine?

Of course some of you will say ‘Oh, shut up’. But you don’t understand. I’m an Englishman. My home is my castle. I should be able to play King. Oh look! – there go more fucking ants. Off with their heads!

Montonn Jira at Club Culture

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 08:47:00 +0000

Through a heaving mass of khaki clad revellers, marches a handsome DJ dressed in Soviet era outfit and furry hat. Accompanied by staccato drumrolls and a squad of new model army girls wielding toy guns, his ascent to the stage yields screams of adulation and, within seconds, he’s shooting down the crowd with an assault of earsplitting minimal techno. Locked onto the rhythm, bodies succumb, syncopating themselves to the rolling beat.

Nope, not a louche warehouse party in Moscow or Berlin, but Bangkok’s very own Club Culture on Saturday night. The occasion: Montonn Jira – Thai luk krung model, actor, heartthrob and minimal DJ – was playing host to an imaginative Smirnoff Experience sponsored event entitled ‘The Revolutionaire’. The dress code was militant, and, wow , the girls in their khaki slacks and face paint were looking especially disarming. “Since we were kids, we’ve grown up with Montonn. He’s so cute” said one foxy Thai foot soldier daubed in thick camouflage stripes, suggesting that perhaps it was ‘Montonn the pretty boy’, more than ‘Montonn the musician’ that made tonight such a success.

Not that I cared. After him, Bangkok Impact - a one-man disco-tech outfit helmed by an acid casualty from Finland - sounded stunning. Somewhat strange to see the subterranean chaos of minimal shoehorned successfully into a swanky corporate event, but still a great night. No revolution but certainly part of the much needed war on terrible.

Burma's Protesting Pooches

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:40:00 +0000

Forget Benji, the Littlest Hobo, or ever-so loyal Lassie. While these iconic mutts have earnt respectable footnotes in the annuls of fictional TV history, a few wretched pooches in Burma have just trounced them, not by rescuing small children from burning houses or anything, but by heading straight for the bone-afide history books.

Dissident doggies, politicized pooches, the hounds of Burmaville, call them what you will - a small pack of street dogs in Burma are protesting against the despicable regime by prowling the streets with pictures of the four tyrannical generals around their necks. This at a time when, after the armies brutal crackdown, people daren’t or can’t voice their disgust.

Piss off home Lassie – humanity has found a new best friend.

Protesting Dogs Are Now on the Regime’s Wanted List, by Saw Yan Naing writing
for Irrawaddy, October 12, 2007

The Burmese authorities have a new enemy to hunt down—dogs which are roaming Rangoon with pictures of Than Shwe and other regime leaders around their necks.
A resident of Shwegondine, Bahan Township, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that she saw a group of four dogs with pictures of the regime’s top generals around their necks.
Sightings were also reported in four other Rangoon townships — Tharkayta, Dawbon, Hlaing Tharyar and South Okkalapa.
Some sources said the canine protest had started at least a week ago, and was keeping the authorities busy trying to catch the offending dogs. “They seem quite good at avoiding arrest,” laughed one resident.
Associating anybody with a dog is a very serious insult in Burma. Spray-painters are also at work, daubing trains with the words “Killer Than Shwe” and other slogans.
Irrawaddy Homepage: http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8998

Silom's Breaks Bar

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:05:00 +0000

Clubbing in Silom is hard to get enthused about. It's a torpid scene at best. There’s the wishy-washy house of Silom Soi 4’s Moroccan grotto-like Tapas, or the vapid hip-hop of Luminous (a joyous den that’s seemingly ignorant to the joys of Grandmaster Flash or Pharoahe Monch or any other hip-hop luminary). Delve into the sweaty armpit of neon sin, Patpong, there’s Soi 1’s Twilo – louche haunt of the 1am temptress, sleazy merry-go-round of shouty hip-pop covers – or the minimal techno beats of the diminutive Funky Dojo’s which straddles it. None inspire me, most agitate.

However, in Silom's less than flourishing foothills, up a rarely beaten path known as Soi 2/1, hides an untamed beast which refuses to be cowed into commercial submission, and which registers narely a blip on the radar of Patpong’s predatory off-duty hookers and their grievous prey. Its name is Breaks Bar. And while diminutive in club size and status, it’s a fucking giant judging by the pleasing rumbling sound we found emanating from its dimly lit belly on Saturday night.

The night was called Light Low Down – a 'Britpop, rock, punk, alter and breakbeat' affair the flyer informed, helmed by DJs with anonymous names like Oaky, Mix, and the slightly better EroticBoy. With a dearth of light and an excess of kids in trendy shirts it felt like a dinghy London house party. But in a good way - minus the inane chattering pillheads and people snorting lines of K off every available horizontal surface. When not waving their hands or hugging friends, everyone was jumping around like bad-tempered two-year olds during a dizzy spell.

The DJ – don't know his name but he new his music, how to cut records and wore a yellow cap – was verging on sublime, throwing at us an assured, hyperactive, and above all fun set that touched on every just about contemporary music reference point worth referring to: electro, hip-hop, breakbeat, garage rock, slices of 90s pop. Ok, so 45 seconds of Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m too Sexy’ was just plain wrong, but so many gems (Chemical Brothers 'Salmon Song', Simian, Daft Punk, Justice, many more) meant all was more than forgiven. My friend succinctly summed up the concensus: “I’d go back every weekend if I knew he was playing”.

With rows of lopsided 12” covers hanging off the walls, Breaks Bar is clearly a space crafted by aficionados, for aficionados. Good for them. The problem with most clubs in Bangkok is their mentality. They pander to the sonic simplicity of the masses - no, they pander to their idea of what they think is the sonic simplicity of the masses (even the tastes of the musical philistine are more sophisticated than clubs give them credit for). They drop the element of surprise, reducing DJs to posturing human jukeboxes who rather than deserving of our respect and applause deserve only repeated short sharp jabs to the eyes with blunt chopsticks. For those sick with this musical malaise, who fancy cocking a proverbial finger at Bangkok’s insipid clubbing establishment, or who just plain and simple like good filthy dance music:

Breaks Bar

Free Burma!

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:56:00 +0000

A month ago, after a small-scale revolt in Burma ostensibly over hikes in oil prices, I wrote an upbeat piece about the rise of citizen journalism in the country.

This was before the Burmese monkhood decided to take up the role of political agitator after the first wave of protests was quickly snuffed out, before government troops started barricading roads, before the major upsurge in press coverage that resulted in surreal levels of press and public interest, before the crackdown, the shooting of innocents and disappearance of thousands.

For those of us who have long supported the democracy movement in Burma, and long followed this story of ever more depressing circles, what materialised in subsequent weeks was akin to a dream – the people of Burma were standing up against tyranny, and governments, heads of state, NGOs and the public were all watching. On CNN and BBC World it was the lead story all week. Commentary from exiles, experts and brave people in Rangoon accompanied an endless litany of images of burgundy protestors padding barefoot thorough city streets.

The usual international “whimpers of dismay” that accompany most news from Burma - and that I bemoaned in my blog post - had become a deafening shriek. Front pages the world over - Time Magazine, The Economist, The Times, The New York Post. Daily protests of solidarity and lobbying of governments. “The age of impunity is over”. The revolutionary crescendo was palpable. Perhaps the interest was rooted partly in the lyricism of the powerful imagery, for some dare I say even in the drama, but there was a tangible sense that this domestic and world uprising was coalescing into a tidy conclusion: the imminent downfall of this loathsome regime.

But the world isn't tidy. One week later, and Burma is all blackout. The junta has regained its grip. Yes, UN enboy Ibrahim Gambari has met with the Generals and Aung San Suu Kyi but only after being used as propaganda tool, being sent on a sightseeing tour of remote Northern Burma. We await his report later this week, but after past visits yielded announcements that the junta was ready to “turn a new page”, I am prepared only for more false hope. On networks like the BBC, commentators in Bangkok clutch at revolutionary straws, saying the fact that Gambari met with Aung San twice - the second time after seeing the generals - is reason to be cheerful. I would laugh if this wasn’t so wrong, so depressing.

As for the protests? I am awe-inspired. It means the thirst for change is strong. However, neither religious zeal, nor the will of the people are a match for an army bloated with weaponry, all thanks to a state policy of spending more on arming itself than on public health and education combined – this despite having no external enemies. China, Thailand, Russia and India hold some sway over the generals - but why would they when lucrative energy deals and gas pipelines are either up and running or in the offing. No diplomatic disgust, no UN scolding, no ASEAN chastising, no public displays of distaste, will turn back tanks, or alter the general’s course. They will continue to act with impunity, until, I believe, death.

And, so far in the red is their karmic balancesheet, I think someone needs to bring it about. That's right, good old fashioned assassination. While inspired by the valor of Burma’s monks, the stark truth is that the saffron revolution needs to be accompanied by an army green one. Defection like that of the 42-year-old chief of military intelligence in Rangoon’s northern region (story here), provide some succor – there is dissent in the ranks, and hope of soldiers turning on the generals. That said, footage I saw this morning on BBC World, of troops encircling and kicking protestors as if a pack of rabid dogs, suggest this is unlikely.

The monks and people of Burma are emboldened to fight but need help. Now we need the soldiers to look in the mirror and ask who they are: soldiers loyal only to despicable despots? Burmese? Buddhists? Human beings?

Thai Truck Art

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 05:32:00 +0000

Like a warrior truck straight out of Mad Max, this dystopic lorry sped into my life on the road back from Ko Chang. This was one vehicle we were more than happy to defer too. Industrial Bad-Ass. There I was happily entertaining fantasies about the inhabitants being a violent gang of outlaws who prowl the highways looking for innocent people to terrorize (like the film), when they waved at me! Bah! Anyway, you gotta love the lurid auto-art that adorns lorries, trucks and coaches here. It's also common in India - another subcontinental hand-me down?

Syndromes of a Censoring

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:24:00 +0000

Like all countries, Thailand lionizes certain things: TV stars, pretties, wealth, light skin, jatukrams, fame, men in green uniforms. However, it’s a shame that some things seem to miss out almost entirely on the veneration; especially when, in the world arena, they’re among the things most talked about when it comes to Thailand.

Take film director Apichatpong Weerasethakul. The Thai Board of Censors spuriously refused to approve his latest film Syndromes and a Century for release unless he agreed to remove four scenes. Few Thai filmgoers know him from Adam, even less have seen his films.

However, from film festivals to the popular press he's often lauded and applauded further afield. To coincide with the UK release, the Southbank BFI – which is London’s, and probably the UK’s, premier film institute – has seen fit to give him his own season, while a review in British newspaper the Guardian yesterday awarded it its highest 5/5 rating, calling it “profoundly mysterious, erotic, funny, gentle, playful, utterly distinctive”. The esteemed film critic who wrote it, Peter Bradshaw, believes Weerasethakul to be “approaching the league or Kiarostami or Haneke, two of modern cinema’s great practitioners”.

I don’t know about that. What I do know is that his gay themed romance and 2004 Cannes Jury award winner, Tropical Malady, was difficult, languorous, baffling and yet quite, quite brilliant. In its second half – a folktale about a shamanic shape-shifter, in which tigers and talking monkeys roam an enchanted forest - it drifted into the realm of pure, almost transcendental art. It wasn’t a perfect film, but its surrealism, its cosmic potency left me mesmerized.

Back to the review:

“If you want a film as challenging and exhilarating as the most weird and wonderful exhibition, if you are bored with all the usual boilerplate material coming out of Hollywood, or even if you're not, then this is a film for you. Try it.”

We’d love to. But, because of the authorities idiotic insistence that "sensitive" scenes involving doctors kissing and drinking liquor, and Buddhist monks playing a guitar be cut, and Weerasethakul’s subsequent and entirely justifiable decision not to allow his work to be "mutilated in fear of the system", it’s not being released here. In a country that prides itself on its artistic creativity that's both tragedy and travesty.

Phil Hartnoll at Club Culture

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:31:00 +0000

One of Bangkok's many glories is being able to lurch from enjoying indigenous pastimes like shots of yaa dong (magic herbal whisky) at a guerilla bamboo shack one minute, to watching a globetrotting DJ clicking away at his laptop the next. Which is exactly what we did last Friday when throughly amiable techno-innovater Phil Hartnoll, of seminal dance act Orbital fame, came to Club Culture.

Dressed in regulation techno apparel - fresh skin head and a sports vest - he arrived, he grinned, he bashed away at his laptop (he may have been paying his gas bill for all we know, but he looked busy). He had the DJ pageantry spot on. He dripped sweat, he chewed gum like a Hacienda pillhead circa '89, he waved his hands like a madman attached to a nosebag filled with ketamine. And, with his blistering set of fresh breakbeat techno interspersed with classic Orbital tracks like Chime and Halycon and the Doctor Who theme, we loved it.

They're late (busy week) but here are a few pictures:

Perhaps it was seeing it buzzing, but Club Culture - with its subtly exotic style, comfy raised sofa and floor cushion lounging areas, decent dance floor and superlative sound and lighting -has grown on me. However, I still only give it 1 year at most: its too remote to attract passing hipsters, a bitch for newcomers to find, and, during the week, rarely worth venturing to on the off chance that it'll be buzzing. A message to Bangkok's busy clubbing graveyard: spades to the ready!

Adventures in Yaa Dong 1

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:18:00 +0000

Down an anonymous Soi at the end of my road is a shack that sells a potent brew. Called Yaa Dong, it’s a dark brown liquid made with secret blends of Thai herbs and whisky. Long considered a low prestige tipple for the upcountry classes, it’s served in little shot glasses and said to have medicinal-verging-on-magical powers.

On Friday night I took two friends to said shack en-route to Club Culture. Of course, being adventurous sorts, we had to try it. The urge to try a drink with names like ‘Never Flacid’ and 'Moaning Mistress’, and rumoured to enhance sexual performance to such a degree it could ‘make a monk leap over the temple wall in search of romance’ was far too strong to resist.

When we arrived a flurry of exuberance broke out. A group of upcountry types sat huddled inside a scruffy wooden cabana were thrilled that the Friday night entertainment – us – had arrived. Perhaps in retrospect an ominous sign, they were all sipping on more sane blends of watered down whisky. Lined up in front of us were three glass bottles with red fabric stoppers and different labels in Thai script. Each was less than half-full with a sinister dark liquid containing what, at first glance, looked like dead beetles and the corpses of other strange forest roaming insects. Grim. On closer inspection however, it appeared to be just pickled twigs, stalks, shoots, pieces of root and bark. Fuck it.

"We want the one that gives you power please”. The shack lady grinned knowingly, as if she’d more than once known that ‘power’. She poured a measure into a small shot glass and then topped it up off with some more whisky. One laconic stir and she slid it across the bar with the aloof finesse of the finest Wild West saloon bartender.

No hanging about. 1, 2, 3… slam.

"Arrrrrgh,… water! water!…. (water arrives)... Mmmm”.

"What’s it like?”

"Mmmmm not bad. Earthy,.. it has a good flavour..”

"OK, another please”.

1, 2, 3… slam.

"And another"

1, 2, 3… slam.

All was good. No palpitations or urge to spew. No ghoulish hallucinations running at us from within the darkness. Just the same upsurge in energy and warm bodily glow felt after necking any searing shot. We shook hands with our new friends, paid up and went to Club Culture all abuzz.

Fast forward 1 hour - and a couple of drinks - and our quaint alcoholic virility booster is spoiling the party. My friends girlfriend has gone abit lunatic and retreated to the ladies toilet. She's huddled over a sink filled almost to overflowing with... well, you can guess. A few minutes later and, with the elegance of a pair of disorientated tramps who've just been banished from the local off license, they're staggering down the steps of Club Culture and into the balmy night. I haven’t heard from them since. I on the otherhand was ok. Until dawn that is when I too purged my interiors, right down to the last delicious drop of bitter green bile.

Yum.

Broadcasting Burma: The Rise of Rangoon's Citizen Journalists

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:50:00 +0000

In this age of savvy citizen journalists, instantaneous images and 24-hour rolling news it’s rare for Burma’s plight to make the news. Why? The fact that the blighted country is run by one of the world's most repressive regimes might have something to do with it. Those who report news deemed critical of the ruling Junta not only themselves potentially face years of grisly torture in notorious prisons, but too run the risk of their families being persecuted.

However, there’s also another factor behind the conspicuous silence: Burma has a communications network so antiquated that few citizens could report a story to the outside world even if they dared. While the ruling Junta have failed by virtually every measure when it comes to raising the health and prosperity of their people, they’ve been astoundingly successful in past years in ensuring that their people stay locked off from the outside world. People with phone lines, internet, digital cameras and mobile phones are rare - even among the few who can afford them. And an extensive state intelligence network carefully monitors their contact.

As a result, the main means for getting news out of the country has long been bold (often reckless) journalists posing as tourists, or the human equivalent of carrier pigeon, only slower: pro-democracy activists seeking exile in neighbouring countries, or destitute and often malarial refugees pouring across the porous Thai border with horrific tales of rape, murder and destruction at the hands of the military junta. News agencies like the excellent Chiang Mai based The Irrawaddy and NGO’s like the laudable Free Burma Rangers, have long been zealously documenting and reporting these kinds of atrocities along the border. Occasionally footage has backed up the claims, and - when the suffering captured is deemed horrific enough - has resulted in a fleeting 30-60 second spot on international news networks, followed by a public whimper of dismay.

However, last weeks demonstrations in Rangoon against oil price hikes, and their capture on film, may be part of a new organic trend developing within Burma. Shaky images of peaceful protestors being manhandled into waiting trucks by gangs of junta sponsored thugs suggest that internal dissenters against the regime are getting bolder in their attempts to bring their country’s plight to the world’s attention. Within hours they were beamed across the world on CNN and BBC.

And this is better than seeing none at all. Why? Because harrowing pictures like these may prove to be the much needed catalyst necessary to bring about action by the international community. Already the footage has caused an upsurge of interest in Burma on networks across the world, and Jim Carrey of all people has just released a call for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released.

Citizen journalism has arrived in Burma. And, while the risks to those who courageously capture the deplorable realities of life today in Burma are great, the potential rewards to the country as a whole are greater. Images today speak louder than words. Let’s hope in Burma’s case, the UN and its members are listening.

Watch Youtube videos of the anti-inflation demonstration in Rangoon HERE and HERE.

Cinematic Bangkok: The City of Angles

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 15:11:00 +0000

New York has Woody Allen’s Manhatten. London has 28 Days Later or Passport to Pimlico. Rio de Janeiro has City of God. Vienna The Third Man. What film does Bangkok have?

Tearing back into town in a taxi from Suvarnabhumi airport at 5am last Monday morning, a maniacal driver sits at the helm. A pulsating Luk Thung song pours from the car stereo. The sky is a brilliant radiant blue, the bristling concrete cityscape nothing less than majestic. And, as we soar above the city on the expressway, for a few seconds my eye is a cinemascope tracking the scene, and I wonder: what film does Bangkok have?

In my opinion it deserves many. I’ve long thought Bangkok to be a cinematic city. By that I mean, that it seems, despite its insatiable grey concrete fetish, to have a visual vivacity that lends itself to moving image. It’s the distressed, choked, mottled, dilapidated look of almost everything. It’s the unremitting heat, the merciless equatorial light, the blistering pace.

Travelling through the city, pretty much every red light throws up something that stirs: ramshackle food stalls set up against dilapidated street walls, the hue and hustle of Chinatown's dimly lit streets, the surreal neon carnage of Khao San Road and Soi Cowboy, the crumbling posters within shop front facades, the howling symphony of combustion engines that is the city’s soundtrack, the sweaty drawn faces that each tell a pent up story of drudgery. If only some film director would agree with me, a ride on the city’s raised Skytrain could yield an awesome tracking shot: the swathe of dense fertile green that is Lumpini Park being guarded by the King Rama IV statue, as the train twists round towards Siam Square glimpses of the faithful praying below at Erawan Shrine.

Sleazy, loud, brutal, raw, gritty, majestic: this messy metropolis has so much potential!

Why then, is Bangkok so poorly visualised in film? The Thai film industry produces around roughly 50 films each year. And, while many use Bangkok as backdrop, very few attempt to capture it in all its messy, motley glory. Most typically tackle history, horror, romance, comedy and action (or a mixture of the above) while glossing gleefully over pertinent social, political and environmental tensions. Those that do depict Bangkok present it as a sanitized middle-class milieu inhabited by middle class people dwelling in middle-class apartments. Rarely do you meet the diversity of Bangkok’s social strata, or, on a more visceral level, get a sense of its sheer size, noise, claustrophobia and grime. Or of its opportunity.

An excellent essay by Robert Williamson called ‘In Search of Bangkok’ suggests this is for a variety of reasons: partly Thailand’s long-standing ambivalence to the idea of the city, partly because the Thai film industry typically uses the visual techniques of advertising to depict the city as people would like it to be rather that as its experienced, and partly because most Thai audiences don’t want films that mirror their lives or raise social commentary. “Film here need not appeal to the viewers sense of self”, he says, “and consequently many filmmakers overlook the way in which Bangkok’s physical landscape may reflect something more internal”.

Of course this is too broad a generalization. There are exceptions.

Wisit Sasanatieng's wonderfully whimsical 2004 film Citizen Dog is one of them. With strong aesthetic nods to Amelie and The Wizard of Oz, it tells of Pod – a country boy – being lured into the city. A fairytale metropolis drenched in splashes of saturated dayglo, here Bangkok is a city of opportunity, whose vivid colourings seem to represent the distant allure and pull of vibrant city life to rural folk. Unusally we get see a wide-angle Bangkok skyline, and meet the people who roam the streets: traffic police zealously directing traffic, people squeezing onto packed buses, young garland sellers weaving inbetween traffic. However while the city looks a dream, life in Bangkok certainly isn't, and Sasanatieng tells us so throughout through surreal motifs: fingers getting severed on factory lines, cycle helmets tumble from the sky, piles of plastic refuse touch the sky, and city dwellers grow dog tails! While highly stylized using CGI, Citizen Dog is one of the few films to truly tussle with Bangkok.

Less optimistic, both Pen-Ek Ratanaruang’s offbeat crime thriller 6ixtynin9 and the moody meditation on urban loneliness and love, 2003 film Last Life in the Universe, are also notable. The latter especially - with its quirky storyline about a Japanese librarian residing in Bangkok and considering suicide - reflects a migratory trend rooted in reality, and his alienation relevant questions about the assimilation of foreigners into Bangkok society. It also benefits from maverick cinematographer Christopher Doyles shifting, oblique camera work, which captures an eerily empty Bangkok in all its chaotic, ramshackle splendor wonderfully. Set mostly in a trendy Bangkok boutique hotel room that resembles those found in all major cities, his latest film, Ploy, also goes some to way to expressing the architectural monotony and banality that's resulted in Bangkok as a result of its hotel building boom.

There's also the foreign contingent: The Beach (humdrum Khao San guesthouses with wafer thin walls and psychotic neighbours), Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Bridget teaching incarcerated prostitutes to sing ‘Like a Virgin’), and The Man with the Golden Gun (a boxing match at Ratchadamnoen Stadium). But what do they offer really beyond shorthand Bangkok scenery and cultural stereotyping?

One ‘foreign’ film in which Bangkok I think really shines, is Wong Kar Wai’s sumptuously shot and highly stylized In the Mood for Love. A chaste love story set in 1960s Hong Kong, the crew struggled to find suitable locations there where the appropriate period-style architecture remains intact. The backstreets of Bangkok’s Chinatown did, and Wong Kar Wai along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle artfully exploited them for most of the films exterior shots. To ravishing effect I might add. Among many mesmerizing scenes, there’s one in which the lovers played by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung softly pad along a darkly lit alley and a camera tracks them from within a building – that’s Bangkok. And it looks brilliant!

Which parts of Bangkok do you think are the most cinematic? And which films have done it justice? And why does this veritable feast of urban imagery remain still largely untapped by filmmakers?

Bangkok Frescos

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 12:17:00 +0000

Sweltering, hungover Saturday afternoons are made for pissing around with photoshop. In the space of 20 minutes I knocked out these Bangkok frescos. Move over Michelangelo.

Wat Ton Sai: my beautiful brush with Buddhism

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:51:00 +0000

On Monday morning I sat on my balcony picking candlewax off my toenails and leg. Nothing kinky I’m afraid, merely the hardened debris from a brief Sunday night visit to a small but spellbinding temple called Wat Ton Sai (On Nut Soi 29).

It wasn’t a planned trip. When it comes to organized religion, I’m a disbeliever of Richard Dawkins-esque proportions. My faith has the firmness of a mangrove swamp in monsoon. Imagine my astonishment then when within minutes of agreeing to go, I found myself walking three times around a thin but lofty bot (ordination hall) while clutching a bunch of fresh orchids, a burning candle and three sticks of fragrant incense.

I wasn’t alone of course. Sunday marked the start of Khao Phansa (Buddhist Lent) here, and the small barefoot crowds of young and old walking in a clockwise direction with me were here to mark it with the ritual ceremony known as wien tien.

It made for a stunning scene. A fringe of towering palms encircled us. Beyond, a gaping night sky was incandescent with torn sheets of downy clouds, lit up from behind by an alabaster moon. On the temples paved terrace, the softly-lit faces of freshly hatched kids marched through the darkness beside maa or por (mother/father), giggling with repressed delight as their incense sticks excreted plumes of sweet-smelling smoke. Each time we past the intricately gabled front porch, people wai-ed the large, gleaming standing Buddha image interned inside on a gilded platform. Once our rounds were complete everyone proceeded to adorn the temples front bai sema (sacred boundary stones) with their impermanent offerings of flame, fragrance and flora:

Squeeze this potent picture inside a bottle and you could power an engine fuelled on exoticism for a thousand years or more. No lie. It was the kind of eerie and strange and inscrutable scene the early 20th century travel writer Norman Lewis, would have scribbled about long into the night while sipping Gin and Soda off a verandah somewhere in Old Siam.

As fiercely as this ceremony rekindled my fondness for beautiful Buddhist ritual, it also lead me to an upbeat conclusion…

Thailand is a nation currently uneasy about its love affair with Buddhism. Materialism, laissez-faire monks and the lascivious allure of coyote girls, are just a few of the apparent foes of, what is not officially the state religion, but many protesting monks have recently made clear they would like to be.

Why bother? Here, etched in the solemn faces of this crowd, was proof that while temples today are less visited than malls, Siddhartha will have his faithful for many moons to come.

Chonburi's Edible Charms: Khanom Jaak and Khao Lam

noreply@blogger.com (the flawed gent) — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 13:39:00 +0000

Most of the potbellied pilgrims seeking sleaze in Pattaya, probably wish the road that leads there was lined with rows of soliciting young women. It’s not you’ll be relieved to hear. Instead those traveling south along Sukhumvit Road encounter merely a humdrum procession of shophouses, semi-wilderness, factories and the fairly nondescript town of Chonburi. Oh, and if you haven't fallen asleep and look closely a small local market going by the name of Talat Nong Mon.

Here an unremarkable procession of cramped stalls and shops houses sell a remarkable array of entirely wholesome things to get your teeth into. The focus is on dried seafood snacks and sweets. It’s something of an essential pit stop for Bangkok daytrippers returning from the beach. Never ones to miss out on an opportunity to indulge in yummy local produce, they stock up on treats for family, colleagues, friends and, of course, the two-hour journey home.

Most interesting of all, especially to the foreign eye, are the short tubes of bamboo for sale. Those and the long strips of rolled palm leaves that sit smoking gently on small charcoal grills. These are called Khanom Jaak:

For 30 baht you can pick up a bundle. Peelway the crispy, crumble-all-over-your-car-floor leaf and inside lies a sooty viscous treat comprised of palm sugar, coconut (maaa prang), rice flour and, well, I’m not quite sure what else. It’s earthy and starchy and, in short, divine.

The bamboo tubes that resemble a crude mortar device from the Vietnam war are Khao Laam (Nong Mon): sticky rice mixed with coconut milk and black beans that's squished inside and steamed over a strong fire.

If you buy some, stand back! Wow at the prowess of your strong-armed female vendor as she cracks each one open for you with a sledgehammer. In our plastic packaging obsessed age, the 100 % bio-degradable warpping is half the charm, but if you don’t mind biting morsels off a knife and the glutinous consistency - aroi jang dee teesot..