Wrong Turn: Thailand

Child fights & Enlightenment on the ol' Khao San road

Thailand is both holier than thou and seedier than thee. Here, ancient spirituality and original sin are next-door neighbours on pretty good terms.

In downtown Bangkok, the average tourist is just as likely to find exaltation at the foot of a towering Buddha as at the hand of a petite masseuse. 

The street view from an insurance-validating tuk-tuk ride goes: massage parlour, ancient temple, seedy bar, ancient temple, massage parlour, seedy bar. Picture the god-fearing hoo-ha if a brothel opened up a thong’s throw away from a Methodist church.

My only prior exposure to Thailand’s largest religion was my brother’s childhood collection of kung-fu Buddhas. Oddly, that cluster of borderline-racist statuettes did nothing to prepare me for the quiet awe of a mountaintop temple. 

A full-body reverence that had me thinking - ahhh maybe thisss is the abstract divine entity I’ve been praying to in my moments of desperation. That’s the last Sunday mass I peer into. In shallow meditation, I whispered a silent apology for each of the 9 Transformer pills I took while dressed up as the enlightened one at university. 

Joe Rogan - and the many million sucklers of his aged pec milk - dream of a world under the healing influence of magic mushrooms. Along with the net salvation, about 5% of humanity would lose their marbles, never to be regathered again. 

What about a world where everyone practises daily meditation? With a Buddhist population of over 90%, Thailand - ‘the land of smiles’ - is a beaming example of just that. It can’t be a coincidence that 9/10 Thai people are the warmest, kindest and friendliest I’ve ever encountered.

It wasn’t all omming and aahing, I did cave to one of my base instincts: bloodlust. As Thailand is the birthplace of Muay Thai - a martial art of crunchy knees and slicey elbows - there promised to be plenty for the lusting. 

My excitement took a body blow when those fighters bleeding were no taller than the ropes. Jesus Christ - or, increasingly, Buddha - a prude I may be, but I cannot lust for the blood of prepubescent girls.

Now, while I have always enjoyed female children fighting in the past, I was then very much a child myself. Fully-grown adults don’t hang around playing fields egging schoolgirls on to blows. Well, not nearly as much as we would like. It’s finding the time, isn’t it? 

The clinches of these badass girls were nothing like the root-wrenching exchanges of primary school. Or even the technically-sound inter-gender beatdowns boys (myself included) caught from the hard cunts at my bear pit of a secondary school. 

These adorable warriors were staving in each other’s little button noses with savage precision. Throwing up nasty head kicks, the pink ribbons on their boxing shorts trailing behind the thud. Here, saying someone fights like an 8-year-old girl must be the highest of praise, without a trace of sneering sexism. 

Although the sport was clearly their passion, each strike made my stomach sink with new sadness. Next, the promotion put on some of-age slobber knockers. But it was difficult to get up for it after the emotional hit of the child fight. The thrill just wasn’t the same. 

The ugliest part of Thailand (the knobbly old white men) is always there in plain sight. In every sunset restaurant, there’s some pot-bellied pensioner hiring a beautiful Thai teenager out for a date. 

She feigns wide-eyed interest in his meandering appraisal of Norwich’s promotion hopes. He forces out a chuckle at a TikTok plugging the half-century of dead air between them. Watch the poor girl’s face collapse as he dodders off for his regimented quart-hourly piss. 

Sex isn’t enough for these geriatric creeps and their crank-operated genitalia. They pay for the illusion of romance - with none of the effort or the gristly bits. You pause for a moment on the abject poverty that makes milking that blotchy old letch the only way t- Ooh, mojitos are here.

My preconception of Thailand was the mecca for trust-funded second rows pissing mushroom traces down each other’s moonlit throats. Or Insta-yogis rodeoing the bowed backs of chained elephants. But it seems the voluminous booze-buckets of Phuket work as a national fly trap, leaving the rest of the country pretty much tosser-free. 

So, if you can look past the decaying sex tourists into the setting sun, Thailand is one of the most beautiful places on earth. 

You can see how people find themselves here. Just depends if yours is a monk or a scumbag - or, like most of us, somewhere in between.