Two People, Three Poisons.
Three Poisons.">0 Comments Published by totallygone.com on Saturday, November 09, 2002.

There are some places in the world (not necessarily those listed in National Geographic's 50 Places of a Lifetime or UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites) where it's possible to experience your entire emotional range in a matter of seconds. One of these is Bangkok's Patpong Night Market, where I spent a couple of hours on my last night in Bangkok. Everyone who'd heard about the city's sex industry and gotten a hard-on about it (no, it's not really a girl thing) was there that night. The two main streets, Patpong 1 & 2, are choc-full of stalls selling fake anything. There's only just enough room to squeeze in between them; an abrupt turn to dodge an enthusiastic pimp sent a pile of fauxVictoria's Secret basques flying to the ground, and I got a mouthful abuse from the woman running the stall. The streets are lined with clubs like SUPER PUSSY and TITTY TWISTER, pole-dancing joints with guys outside handing out laminated menu-cards, like the ones you see in Amsterdam with all the varieties of dope on them. The menus in Patpong describe all the various things you're likely to see a girl do with her secret places.
As I cruised the stalls, hunting for a pair of fake Persol sunglasses and Merrell sandals (I managed to pick the only two items that weren't there), I got glanced by a dead ringer for Brad (yeah, really) Pitt. White teeth, square jaw, six-pack visible from sixty yards. It could have been because I was the non-sex-working, blue eyed male for miles, but whatever his motivation, I felt this sudden rush of gratitude and sheer lust - and that 6am Christmas morning feeling that eighteen-year-olds get when they see someone outrageously hot. Anyhow, we played tag through the market for a little while and then lost each other, and it was 1am and I had a plane to catch. So I comforted myself with the knowledge that I'd had the most sexual contact I'd get with anyone for months to come, and it was with possibly the most beautiful specimen of manhood I'd seen for over 5,000 miles. I rounded the corner, and as I did so narrowly avoided squashing (everyone in this part of the world is half my size) a young Thai girl and her friend, who appeared to be wearing a patterned swimming cap. The latter was being pushed by the other in a kind of congo-dance style, I thought, and was holding a polystyrene cup which appeared be empty. I looked again, and realised with a kind of bowel-emptying horror that the "swimming cap" was nothing of the sort - her scalp had been burned nearly to the bone and most of her face had also been melted away, leaving two lidless holes where her eyes once were. Before I even had time to realize what I was looking at, I felt my head snap in the opposite direction, as if by reflex. Passers-by were dropping change into the cup, most of them frozen in their tracks, faces contorted by fear and pity. Disgusted more by my own reaction than the girl's burned face, I stepped aside to pull the few notes that were in my pocket and, feeling miserably useless and like a total coward, dropped them in the cup. The Patpong soundtrack - techno and go-go, accompanied by the sour-sweet smell of deep-fried mealworms and locusts from the roadside stalls, suddenly seemed like a totally tasteless joke, and I made my way back to the hotel, my head spinning. Once back at my room, I showered, cleaned my teeth a few times, then tried to lose myself in Back Roads, by Tawni O'Dell (surely not a pseudonym), which was both disturbing and depressing although very well written. I bolted through it and abandoned it at BKK the next day - but slept badly for a couple of hours and spent the rest of the night packing for my early flight to Kathmandu.
As I cruised the stalls, hunting for a pair of fake Persol sunglasses and Merrell sandals (I managed to pick the only two items that weren't there), I got glanced by a dead ringer for Brad (yeah, really) Pitt. White teeth, square jaw, six-pack visible from sixty yards. It could have been because I was the non-sex-working, blue eyed male for miles, but whatever his motivation, I felt this sudden rush of gratitude and sheer lust - and that 6am Christmas morning feeling that eighteen-year-olds get when they see someone outrageously hot. Anyhow, we played tag through the market for a little while and then lost each other, and it was 1am and I had a plane to catch. So I comforted myself with the knowledge that I'd had the most sexual contact I'd get with anyone for months to come, and it was with possibly the most beautiful specimen of manhood I'd seen for over 5,000 miles. I rounded the corner, and as I did so narrowly avoided squashing (everyone in this part of the world is half my size) a young Thai girl and her friend, who appeared to be wearing a patterned swimming cap. The latter was being pushed by the other in a kind of congo-dance style, I thought, and was holding a polystyrene cup which appeared be empty. I looked again, and realised with a kind of bowel-emptying horror that the "swimming cap" was nothing of the sort - her scalp had been burned nearly to the bone and most of her face had also been melted away, leaving two lidless holes where her eyes once were. Before I even had time to realize what I was looking at, I felt my head snap in the opposite direction, as if by reflex. Passers-by were dropping change into the cup, most of them frozen in their tracks, faces contorted by fear and pity. Disgusted more by my own reaction than the girl's burned face, I stepped aside to pull the few notes that were in my pocket and, feeling miserably useless and like a total coward, dropped them in the cup. The Patpong soundtrack - techno and go-go, accompanied by the sour-sweet smell of deep-fried mealworms and locusts from the roadside stalls, suddenly seemed like a totally tasteless joke, and I made my way back to the hotel, my head spinning. Once back at my room, I showered, cleaned my teeth a few times, then tried to lose myself in Back Roads, by Tawni O'Dell (surely not a pseudonym), which was both disturbing and depressing although very well written. I bolted through it and abandoned it at BKK the next day - but slept badly for a couple of hours and spent the rest of the night packing for my early flight to Kathmandu.
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