Bangkok

It is impossible to consider these populous modern cities of the East without a certain malaise. They are all alike, with their straight streets, their arcades … their dust, their blinding sun … their dense traffic, their ceaseless din. They have no history and no traditions. Painters have not painted them. No poets, transfiguring dead bricks and mortar with their divine nostalgia, have given them a tremulous melancholy not their own. They live their own lives, without associations, like a man without imagination. They are hard and glittering and as unreal as a backcloth in a musical comedy. They give nothing. But when you leave them it is with a feeling that you have missed something and you cannot help thinking that they have some secret that they have kept from you.

W. Somerset Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, 1930

When I read those words recently I realized that things have not changed that much in these “cities of the East.” Maugham was writing about Bangkok in 1930. A smaller, less populated Bangkok but much the same city in spirit that I first saw in 1976, again in 1981, and then in 2005 when I moved to Thailand.

When you first see Bangkok, you’re overwhelmed by all of it, the noise, the dust, the heat, the traffic. But the eye in 2006 can see no further than Maugham’s eye saw in 1930, so Bangkok at street level remains as confined and compressed to the modern traveler or resident as it was nearly a century ago. The buildings are taller and more numerous, the smells are different – more diesel and less dung – but commerce surrounding and enabling daily living hasn’t changed much.

… if you turn out of the main road you will find yourself in a network of small streets, dark, shaded and squalid, and tortuous alleys paved with cobble stones. In numberless shops, open to the street, with their gay signs, the industrious … ply the various crafts of an Oriental city. Here are druggists and coffin shops, money-changers and tea-houses. Along the streets … coolies lollop swiftly bearing loads and the peddling cook carries his little kitchen to sell you the hot dinner you are too busy to eat at home.

Yes, all that and more: Starbucks, a 7-Eleven on every corner, the Colonel, McDonald’s, even Dunkin’ Donuts (I swear … and swear …). Every sidewalk is lined with vendors in front of the shops, some with tables, carts or portable kitchens, some with just a blanket on the pavement. Selling everything you could possibly want: silver, gold, all things Gucci (some of it real!), t-shirts with rude words and spelling mistakes on them, needles and thread, cell phones, DVDs and CDs, watches, hats, socks, and hair clips.

But the primary commerce in Bangkok, and in Thailand, revolves around food, growing it, selling it, cooking and eating it. In Bangkok you are never more than a few meters from sustenance. There is no excuse for being hungry or thirsty. Food and drink (except wine, alas) are cheap and plentiful. And good. Very, very good. The Thais are fussy about their food and every street vendor is a specialist. You want fried bananas? Smoked fish? Barbecued chicken? Noodle soup? No problem. Fresh fruit? Iced coffee? Pork satay? Deep-fried cockroaches? Right this way.

Okay. I haven’t tried any of the fried insect snack food that people purchase by the bagful. And I haven’t actually seen anybody munching on it in public. I suspect this delicacy is eaten in the privacy of the home, in front of the television set while watching one of the ubiquitous girl-meets-boy-boy-breaks-girl’s-heart-girl-meets-new-boy-who-punches-out-first-boy’s-lights soap operas.

Girls. Hmmm. And the hapless foreigners who try to win their love. So much has already been written about them, let’s talk about beer instead. The beer in Thailand is very good. And cheap. And cold. They like to serve it with ice (duh! isn’t ice, like, water?) I’ve become a beer drinker in Bangkok, after years of preferring wine, red and heavy. Why? Beer is good here, and cheap and cold. Wine is not so good here, expensive and warm. I’m still trying to break through the psychological barrier that will allow me to accept paying $15 for a bottle of basic vin de table when I can pay 85 cents for a bottle of beer that gives me a buzz and also quenches my thirst – wine not being a great thirst quencher but, alas, a wonderful, sensuous pleasure that I miss.

What else do I miss? Not much. Let’s see … do I miss cold weather and snow? No. Do I miss making mortgage and car payments and paying exorbitantly high taxes? No. Do I miss my friends? Yes, but not as much as I thought I would. I can e-mail ’em and Skype ’em or call them on my mobile, just like before. It’s not like the old days when you waited three weeks for a letter to arrive at American Express. And I’m lucky. I’m one of those people who carries my nearest and dearest with me wherever I go. Every cell in my body retains memory (and water, too, alas. It’s very humid here. But luckily, beer is a diuretic.).

Do I miss drinking wine with my friends? Yes, I do.

More, later.