Bangkok Central

So.
We don’t claim to be genuine ‘backpackers’. We bum it out to a certain extent, or plan to; we look to stay in the cheapest of places (but also with a private bathroom); we outline budgets and do our utmost to stick to them (but are easily lured by frequent beers).
And oh, we don’t use actual backpacks or rucksacks.
Still, for most people going to Bangkok (and those not on weekend shopping trips), its well-nigh inevitable that you will see (and stay) somewhere near, or on, the famed Khao San Road.

We’d made a tentative reservation (i.e. no money paid), at a place on this strip itself. At the airport we realised that, in all my spreadsheet-supported preparation, I’d not brought along the address of the darned place! Slightly thrown off by that- and by an inexplicable fever that crept up on D- we asked for the taxi to take us to the street, moderately certain we would somehow locate the place.

9pm.
Dropped off at the edge of Khao San Road and realising that cars are not allowed on it, D’s idea of a strap-on-strolley was already vindicated. Slight uncertainty lingered and D’s watery smile defied her fever. We stepped into the crowd- for that’s what it was- and found that virtually unnoticed, our travels had already begun.
Soon, though, both confusion and exhaustion were pushed into the background. Almost immediately, we spotted- inevitably, it seemed- a fruit vendor. 10 Baht pineapple and watermelon made their way to our stomachs, in a trice doing justice to all the fruit-gushing we’d heard and read.
Now we could look around at Khao San Road.

This is no South East Asian capital, yet it is. It feels as if the street has one foot steeped in local flavours, stretching to put the other into international familiarity. One arises from obvious indigenous entrepreneurship, the other from the countless visitors that foster it. If ever there was backpacker central, this is it.

Here is yet another bootleg music shop providing a soundtrack for the scene, blocked only slightly by the food cart selling pad thai veg, pad thai egg, pad thai chicken. There stand heavily made-up Thai girls distributing fliers in the barest of leopard skin dresses, right next to the really wizened old man doing, apparently, nothing. That tiny bored looking table can get you driving licences, certificates, press cards and student IDs. Clothes stalls selling whacky t-shirts are lit by the bright neon signs above them, inviting you to find your home away from home, to get your laundry done for cheap or buy a VIP bus ticket to pretty much anywhere. Watch your bags, watch your out of place suitcase-strapped-on-a-trolley; you just missed another pair of sandal-shod feet. Dreadlocks and buzz cuts, blondes, brunettes, red heads and shiny pates. Bodies brush past, impervious to the rank weirdness of the surroundings, from days spent in them. Other trundle along like us, trying to take in what is, obviously, way too much to take in.

Tilt your head up and see dark windows of Inns and Guesthouses that rise silently above the shops; their (inevitably?) dank and dull rooms must be anything but silent. And there- we’ve found it almost before we even started to look. A boring beige building bang in the middle of this buzzing, blaring, colourful madhouse- our destination.

Um, not any more it isn’t.
We were already walking about, searching for the place we were to stay at, why not keep looking after we’d found it? For, interesting as the place may be, surely there was little sleep to be had here. We moved ahead, off-centre of backpacker central. Just past the tourist police station and 20 feet of surprising nothingness, we stepped onto Soi Rambuttri armed with the trusty stamp of traveller/tourist- our Lonely Planet guide. Here we would find, amongst many things, a bed.