Khao San Road at Night

Amy and I hit the street late one night in search of a party. We found a seedy underbelly of Khao San Road. Searching for a bar that wasn’t inundated with prostitutes and men seeking prostitutes, we found ourselves one street off of Khao San Road. It was amazing the contrast between the two streets. Khao San is swarming with tourists, drunkness, debauchery, and tourist prices. The next street over was blanketed by homeless families sleeping on the pavement. We stopped at a little stand where a woman was brewing coffee. She gave Amy a small cup and added just about a million different types of carnation canned milk. We couldn’t figure it out. Amy asked her how to say thank you in Thai. The woman looked at us like we were mad. We walked back to Khao San Road. The night felt young, but we still hadn’t found our party. We just stood on the street for a minute letting Thailand pass us by.

It was an interesting spectacle watching the people of the night. Prostitutes were on the prowl for foreign customers. Girls or maybe lady boys were approaching mostly older white men, following them just far enough to be sure they weren’t biting the bait. Then they would return to their original position outside of the bar, with the hook out waiting for another fish to stumble out into the drunkenness of the night.

Amy and I watched these interactions, trying to guess if the night-walkers were females or she-males. Two prostitutes finally wound their arms around two young blond boys. They were with a group of friends, all under 18 I imagine. I wondered if the boys would go through with the deal, if they knew the deal they were getting themselves into. God you can get into trouble in Thailand, I thought. Did these kids’ parents know where they were?

A self-proclaimed Japanese man approached me. Looking back he might have thought I was a prostitute too, just standing in the street watching the world go by.

He didn’t look Japanese at all. I gave him my Japanese alias “Mirataki.” He tried speaking Japanese to me. I told him he was full of crap. He tried to coax me into a bar with him. I refused. He walked away looking very angry.