Sun 1 March 2015

Finally found a quieter part of Bangkok, behind a Buddhist temple. There are no womanly-looking men or manly-looking women coaxing us into dark night clubs. No pushy taxi drivers, dragging us towards their cab by our baggage-handles, before asking where we’re going. Not a single, well dressed, Indian gentleman offering to tailor me a suite for “good price”. I haven’t even seen a fire-eating midget. I’m beginning to wonder if we’re still in Bangkok.

These are just the local people of Bangkok, trying to make a living out of the tourism industry. Large budgets, dedicated to marketing campaigns, do not feature in their business plans. Approaching their target market, in the street, is how they advertise. They may be persistent at times, but remain respectful and are generally harmless. It’s the tourists that are a hazard!

Drunken Australians dancing on a table, balancing on top of another table, in a restaurant. A British couple jumping the boundary wall, of a fancier hotel, to sneak into the swimming pool and be escorted out by security guards that have to treat them respectfully. That creepy American man, drinking beer by himself at 09:00am, on the street, while telling passing girls how beautiful they are and that he would pray to have a girlfriend like them. More Americans, talking as loud as humanly possible about how corrupt Russian politics is (not hazardous, but god, the ignorance is infuriating). The extraordinarily aggressive, Swedish woman clutching her butter knife, while staring at the throat of a western man groping a waitress. Fear the tourist!

In Europe, one will often hear people complaining about the damn foreigners coming to their country and destroying things for the locals. Pot, kettle, black…something like that?