August 8 2006

Khaosan Road hippies face habitat destruction

Like smelly rainforest mammals facing habitat destruction, Khaosan Road's hippies are being driven out of their bedbug-infested plywood cubicles to make way for tourist-class hotel rooms.

Once the focal point of Thailand's hippie trail, Khaosan Road has, quite recently, reinvented itself as a truly cosmopolitan entertainment district that's as popular with young Thai revellers as it is with Western tourists. However, the area remains notorious for drug dealing and philH explains how things operate.

The police get paid a bonus equal to a percentage of the street value of any drugs they seize. So they sell the drugs, bust the users and a few dealers, confiscate the drugs, collect the bonus and sell the drugs. Christ, there's probably a fancy name to this branch of economics!

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They might be friendly but most (if not all) of Khaosan Road's smiling Thai drug-dealers are also police informants - which gives them license to operate outside the law in other respects too.

The naive western tourist who tries to "protect" his new prostitute girlfriend from the attentions of these well-connected Lotharios can expect to wake up in a bloody, shirtless heap in the gutter.

The number of westerners who take a beating here is well above the Thailand average but, so long as you're not a druggie or a dickhead, Khaosan Road has become a very agreeable place to enjoy a night out.

Countless bars and nightclubs cater to a fairly up-market mix of tourists and locals. It's a world away from the wall-to-wall prostitution of Sukhumvit but there are still plenty of freelancers around - and more than a few farang girls actively seeking company, if you're into that sort of thing.

It's also the best place in Bangkok to pick up cheap music CDs (@100 baht) - and there isn't a karaoke medley in sight.

Young Thais see the Khaosan Road as a place where they can be themselves without reactionary older folk giving them grief about it. It's it bit like London's Carnaby Street in the swinging 1960s so, in twenty years time, every shop front will probably be an overpriced designer boutique or a hair salon.

People-watching is the number one pastime at Khaosan Road. The pleasure of sitting outdoors and watching the world go by is greatly enhanced by the good food and cheap beer on offer.

The few remaining hippies are quite noticeable but their tiresome antics only divert your attention away from the more interesting people.

Sometimes you notice a striking Thai girl wearing clothes and accessories that mark her out as possessing a rare, individual sense of style but, nine times out of ten, she's with a farang girl and it's pretty obvious that they're a couple. It's a strange quirk of life in Thailand that farang lesbians often pull the most interesting-looking chicks.

On Sunday, a Thai guy drove his car - with a million baht license plate - though the pedestrian area, parked illegally right in front of us and then started handing out packages from his trunk to the local bad-boys. I've no idea what was in them but my girlfriend reckoned that the guy was a senior police officer.

My favourite character in the Khaosan pantomime is the young lad who can't let go of his prostitute for even one moment, like she's a piece of precious china rather than a much-pummeled shag-mattress. Her polite attempts to break free don't even register on his lovesick radar.

If he doesn't use a condom, the first term at Loughborough University after his gap year might be blighted by a little medical problem - despite the fact that he'll swear blind that she wasn't a prostitute.

I guess that this must be why healthcare professionals taking down sexual histories are trained to ask the more illuminating question "Did you give her money?"

[Posted to Farang Life by David]

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Readers' comments

Combover says:

Back in the day the only prostitutes I remember plying their trade in the area were the deaf & dumb girls who would hang out in the late night backpacker drinking bars.

I say bars, but they were more like guest house restaurants which served Sang Thip with your banana pancakes until you fell off your stool.

On one such occasion, a travel companion of around two weeks or so was set upon by a group of Thai youths as we were leaving to sleep it off in our respective rat holes. Apparently they had taken offence to his robust "I NO PAY!!!" line with one of these girls and decided to teach him a lesson.

Blissfully unaware of Thai Rules I quickly jumped in to help him out and found myself facing three of them, while he gave a fair impression of Carl Lewis, sprinting away down the street and out of harm's way.

I now consider that I was a very lucky young man in that they had the good grace to recognise my attempt at the universal palms up gesture of placation, rather than to kick me to within in an inch of my life. Or worse.

August 8, 2006 8:59 PM

torq88 says:

Good riddance to the hippies. My wife is Thai and inisted staying on Khaosan in the D&D one time with some farang friends that were there for our wedding last year.

She used to work in her uncle's garment factory not far from Khaosan and had over the years stayed at some of the Thai hotels in the area as her sister and brother in law once lived near there as well. She told me that she always thought of this hotel as upscale and wanted to stay there so I let her arrange this for the group. She like to shop in the area and loves the food in the area too.

I figured that it was famous if a little dingy and it might be fun and got the occassional mention in the movies too.

All in all the area wasn't bad but the D&D rooms are anything but upscale. The little restaurants are nice and reasonable there. The only big negatives were the hippies and backpacker types. I think people elsewhere tend to idealize these types. For my part I am a socially liberal person but these shit bags are unbelievable in the area. The hippies and backpackers were a real problem in fron of the D&D and its front desk. Inside the place was not at all bad until you got to the rooms and they are a little worn to say the least.

If you fancy a little gallows humor check out the construction on what looked to be the new wing. All the girders are just welded together on each floor not bolted, nice, real nice. Of course unless your're there in an earthquake it is probably okay it was just astonishing to me at the time however.

Sloppy fat pierced farang slag-hags knocking me out of the way at the cross walks. Trashy shirtless white guys muscled us out of the way at the desk and the elevators of the D&D. On the street or cafes listening to this gutter trash talk was amazing. It is no wonder they run into trouble. They also seemed to look down on the Thais and spoke rudely to them as well.

Even my normally accommodating wife got a little worn out from all the hippy activity there pretty quickly. The open drug talk was also a little scarey. I don't do drugs but I could care less if someone smokes a joint but these guys were just stupid.

Oh well hope they like the monkey house. BTW where do you think they will end up?

August 9, 2006 6:55 AM

Andy says:

You do feel the hippy contingent and the Royal Thai Police rather do deserve each other. Both represent the worst of each respective culture, and I just wish the hippies were armed...

August 9, 2006 7:27 AM

thebamboorat says:

Here's a philosophical question:

If a tree falls in a forest and flattens a Hippy and there is no one else there to witness it does it make a sound and does anyone really care?

August 9, 2006 9:14 AM

daniel says:

im so much in agreement i traveled far to get away from that shit.

Sloppy fat pierced farang slag-hags knocking me out of the way at the cross walks. Trashy shirtless white guys muscled us out of the way at the desk and the elevators of the D&D. On the street or cafes listening to this gutter trash talk was amazing. It is no wonder they run into trouble. They also seemed to look down on the Thais and spoke rudely to them as well.

thailand seems to becoming the new tenerife etc.
well said TORQ88 i rest my case

daniel

August 9, 2006 9:45 PM

babydragon says:

FYI walk along Ramkamheng Road between Soi 22 and 34 , Plenty of Good Cheap Mp3s and Copy Cd's from 50 baht , you can also check out the Stunning Uni Ladies.

August 10, 2006 1:49 AM

warick hunt says:

save the whales,nuke the hippies,did you hear about the hippie who found a magic lantern?he was granted three wishes,'i want to be up tight,out of sight and in the groove'and he was turned in to a tampax

December 7, 2006 11:11 AM

peace man says:

dude what a lot of bad karma here man, take a chill pill man, make love not war! if everybody just got along with each other this would be a much better world.

peace, koh san road rules!

April 25, 2007 7:07 PM

Wombat says:

Wonderful sentiments peace man. Your words opened my eyes to the future. " make love not war". Such truly wonderful sentiments. Has anyone done a cost comparison between the expense of making love & the cost of making war?

April 25, 2007 8:29 PM

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