The Big Mango, or the Big Jam. I have been living in Bangkok for near 7 years now, and I more often than not ask myself this question; why am I living here? Hopefully this article will help me release some built up tension.
Like a huge amount of others, I originally came to Bangkok on a backpacking excursion across Asia. I spend 4 ½ difficult, tiring and yet memorable months struggling in India (at that time I wanted to make sure that I covered everything so I do not return there ever again!). Attracted in Nepal (and if you want to go back there) and then came to Bangkok. A little more money, I decided to hang around.
I suspect the main reason most men, because they find so interesting is the infatuation with Thai women in Bangkok. After all, draw the contrasts and the rest. For me, this was certainly the case, even though I have never been interested in the night, working woman, and I neverbeen good at chatting up the rest.
Now in a long term relationship and married (happily most of the time), that element for me is lost. Also, after the first 5 years, the women (although still beautiful) become less different, less beautiful.
So what about the nightlife. We'll, rumours have it that Bangkok has a good nightlife. I'm sorry to say that this is not true. Pubs and clubs all close a 1pm. Whenever a good nightclub opens, it gets shut down within 6 months. Take the Ministry of Sound club on Sukhumvit Soi 12. This shut down within less than 1 year. I originally thought that they weren't making enough money. Then I met with the guy who organized the Ministry of Sound in Bangkok, and found out that they were doing incredibly well and making heaps of money. What happened?
The other club owners got jealous, paid off the police, and the police started raiding the Ministry of Sound every weekend, making the guests give urine samples, and forced the club to shut down (allegedly, just to cover my .....!!).
Another nightclub, Mystique, had the same problem. This time I heard that a powerful politician who lived nearby got annoyed by the noise emitted and shit the place down.
There are of course the other entertainment venues, Nana Plaza and Soi Cowboy, but for me nowadays I'd rather something less sleazy.
I own an estate agency in Bangkok, called Ideal Homes (www.property-bangkok.com). There is still a huge amount of development going on in Bangkok, and there is still far too little control by the government over this. Bangkok has one of the worst city planning I've ever seen. Most roads don't have pavements, they are narrow and yet surrounded by 30+ story buildings on either sides. It often takes me 2 hours to drive from Ekkamai to Ploenchit. I can perhaps arrange for viewing 3 or 4 properties with a customer in a whole afternoon. Thai people drive very selfishly and cut you up and undertake without giving a care, I think this shows their true nature . Driving is not much fun, and it's hard to be productive in Bangkok with the amount of time wasted.
Walking isn't much fun either, especially in the hot season (let's be honest it's always hot!). Cheap home made public buses farting out black clouds of lead laden emission. I have a nasty habit of wiping my brow with my shirt sleeve, and by the end of the day my shirt sleeve is black.
In my profession, I have seen thousands of condominium units in Bangkok. I continue to see new condominium units every week. Very rarely do I get exited. It's just another 2 bedroom box-of-a-home shoved into 70 sq.m. of space. I cannot understand how someone could spend 6,000,000 Baht on this type of unit and call it 'home'. There's nothing homely about it, a 70 sq.m. hamster cage. It's not the same as the 'home' most of us grew up in.
I myself am in the process of purchasing my 'home', and I have a limited budget to do so. I am looking at something around 5,000,000 Baht. Having looked at condos, houses, this and that, I have settled on a housing estate near to the outer-ring road. The estate, with wide roads, surrounded by greenery, has no street dogs or labour slum that has set up camp next door. That's the other thing with central Bangkok, you can have a huge grand house with everything, and as soon as you leave your front gate then bam... street urchins begging for money.
This particular estate is right next to the motorway. It's easy to get to the sea, the airport. With driving in Bangkok, the part that takes all the time is the 4 km area in the centre. The extra 10km that I will have to travel each day doesn't add much time to the journey at all as this extra 10km is free flowing traffic. The estate is also right next to the new direct elevated express train-link between the city and the new airport which hopefully, fingers crossed, will be completed in about 3 years' time.
I'm looking forward to removing the everlasting city hum, smog and trash from my life. Of course, it helps that I'm married to a Thai; otherwise the prospect of buying this house in this quiet commuter area as a foreigner would be out of the question. Bloody xenophobia !!!
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