Thai condo life: Going up-market

Our place in Talad Phlu

Inside a typical room (not ours - but like ours, it has no windows!)

Another shot of one of the units

For the last few days, I have been looking for a place to live.

I revisited the condo where my work friend farang C rents a place. A two-room unit next to his place has become vacant. I saw it, and decided we must have it.

Readers will recall my last search for a condo a few months ago, when I visited the same condo building, close to the tourist district in Bangkok.

In that area I visited half a dozen places in all, but in the end decided against moving.

I live in Talad Phlu, a long way from the centre of town. I decided this historic area, dominated by Thai-Chinese and with a canal running down one side, had too much going for it.

Talad Phlu is known for its songtaew trucks

A main road, on a quiet day

Now, the decision seems baffling. I can't wait to get out of here.

Why the change?

This run-down market on the Thon Buri side of the Chao Phraya River has been our home for the last nine years (see more of it here).

My present condo is at least 10 years old, and offers no amenities - no gym, grocery shop, pool.

For many years, this modest 10-storey condo was the tallest building, and only condo in the area. It is still popular, as it is so close to the local market, where shopping is convenient.

However, in recent months the skyline is looking more crowded, as developers have put up a rash of condos close to the local shopping mall, about five minutes' walk to the south.

Those condos have gone up in anticipation of a skytrain extension which will cross the Chao Phraya River, linking central Bangkok to the Thon Buri side, which has traditionally been less developed.

It will bring Bangkok-dwellers over this side to visit the charms of old-style Bangkok, and take us poor suburban dwellers into town for our daily commute to work.

Lion-dancer kids in Talad Phlu

Eventually, this area may develop into a dull condo town rather than what it is now: a residential-light industrial area, dominated by the local mall.

The market in which I live has been here for more than 100 years, supplied by a railway line, still going, which runs from Mahachai to Wong Wian Yai.

Residents live mainly in shophouses, or tin shacks. The market itself is old and neglected.

It offers no cute restaurants, smart coffee shops or other modern services which shoppers take for granted in the centre of town.

A few years ago, a smart Silom-style coffee shop opened here. It closed within a year, as the mainly Thai-Chinese residents of this market do not patronise such places.

They probably go into town only rarely...local temples might hold out more appeal.

For years, the all-Thai nature of the area, despite its lack of modern shops or services, held out charm, at least for me (the boyfriend might have thought differently).

Now, however, it feels stifling, backward, and dull.

After I visited farang C at his condo the other day, he took me to an eatery he frequents. It is five minutes walk away, and nestled among trees.

Diners sit on a raised part of the eatery, which has a polished wooden floor. Paving stones are set in a small garden next to our table.

In one corner, farang teachers chatted about their working week.

'They only employ gay service staff,' said farang C, who is straight.

The young man who served me did not look particularly gay, but he did have a pleasant smile.

I ordered a Thai meal for B45.

Later, I told Maiyuu about my condo-hunting adventure.

'You can get the same meal in the market for B35, so it's not cheap,' said the boyfriend.

'We are moving to an expensive part of town,' I reminded him.

It is five minutes from the tourist district, where the rental for many two-bedroom condos starts at B20,000 - more than twice what I pay now.

On the other hand, he was impressed to hear that a taxi fare from the new place to my office would set me back just B40.

Other benefits? I get to live in a well-designed, furnished condo, with a pool and gym.

The condo, nestled between slummy Klong Toey on one side and leafy Yannawa on the other, is blissfully quiet - no train rattles below, as it does at our present place. No dogs bark when kids leave the internet shop next to the railway tracks in the early hours of the morning.

The condo is within walking distance to work. Compare that with the 45-minute journey I take now.

More importantly, for someone who has been stuck in the sticks for so long, it is set in a modern, cosmopolitan area.

The condo sits between slums on one side, and multi-million baht mansions on the other. It looks urban, and people-friendly - at least on the leafy side.

On the other side, Thais live in tin shacks on a large piece of adjoining vacant land. They light fires at night to burn rubbish and keep warm.

Around them are still more slums, which lead out to a busy motorway which I must cross to get to work.

Down here is a 7-11 convenience store, a hairdresser's, a shop with slot-operated washing-machines, and a market where women spread out fresh produce on the ground.

In this area I have also spotted several playing courts facing the road, where I will take my daily exercise. Round and round - let's watch the farang jogging!

On which side will I end up feeling more at home - the poor all-Thai side, or the wealthy, urbane one where foreigners and Burmese maids roam?

We will have to wait and see.

Just another temple fair

Youngster at a temple fair

A temple close to us is holding a fund-raising fair. I know they are raising funds, because that's what temples do. Apart from that, I could hear a monk babbling through a loud-speaker about the need to support the temple.

The temple is five minutes' walk from my place, on a side of the market which I seldom visit.

The other day, I bumped into a teenager who lives locally, and who I used to meet with his friends near the canal which runs through the market.

He and his school friends gathered there to smoke, gossip, and drink.

They stopped going a few weeks ago, probably because the police shoo-ed them away.

My friend is 15, goes to the local school, and is gay. 'Are you going to the temple fair?' he asked, when we saw each other on the street.

My friend had just bought himself an ice-cream. He offered me a lick. I said no. I walked with him back to his new hide-out these days - a small, dark, sinister looking email shop, popular with teens.

Last night when I visited the roof of my condo to look at the stars, I noticed a slowly-turning Ferris wheel off to my right where the temple sits, and heard the monk babbling into his loudspeaker. Ah, the temple fair!

It was already 11.30pm, but thought I may as well pay a visit.

Wat Klang, our local temple

First, I went back to the condo. 'Wat Klang temple is having a fair. Would you like to come with me?' I asked.

I already knew what the answer would be.

'No, I am busy making brownies,' said Maiyuu.

I went alone, which is my lot around this place, as the boyfriend seldom does anything with me outside home, as everyone on this blog must know by now.

I last visited a local temple fair two years ago, with a kathoey who used to live around here.

That visit opened my eyes to the potential weirdness of temple fairs.

When I arrived, stallholders who lined the main routes inside the temple were packing up for the night.

They sold snacks, desserts, clothes and knick-knacks which you can find almost anywhere else in Bangkok.

The convenience of a temple fair is that everyone is gathered in the one place. If you pass enough stalls you might find something you like.

Some stalls sold tiny fish in buckets. Stallholders and their children were trying to catch them in cups, before bagging them and taking them home.

Thai fair-goers stared at me. I kept a smile on my face as I walked around the place. I had never been inside this temple, and often wondered what it looked like.

It took me 10 minutes to walk past all the stalls.

At one, a gay youngster in his teens was selling perfume. He wore a white T-shirt, noticed me, and started stretching himself to show of his body. On my way out of the place, I made sure I passed him again. This time, he was chatting on the telephone.

I saw few gays, or if they were gay, they were so firmly locked in their own worlds that outsiders could but watch.

I didn't like the look of anything on offer, so bought nothing. Ten minutes later, I walked home.

A youngster outside the temple carried a whistle in his mouth. He was directing traffic, and looking over visitors' motorcycles. 

His wore his jeans in the loose, baggy style.

On my way in, I had looked at him admiringly. On my way out, I barely gave him a second look, as I had had my fill of strange Thais for one night.

Neurosis creeping in

‘Finished,' said Mum bluntly, waving me away from her shop.

She meant she was not willing to serve me at her shop any more, since I had taken to drinking at a rival place inside her soi.

Farang C and I turned up at her shop after the eatery in the soi closed. She saw us arrive, and sold farang C a newspaper.

But if we wanted to carry on drinking, she said we would have to carry on somewhere else.

We took a table at an eatery next to her place instead.

-

Suan Lum Night Bazaar

Earlier, farang C and I met at Suan Lum Night Bazaar, my first visit to that inner-city tourist haven in eight years.

Before my friend arrived, I wandered past a few stalls, and bought the boyfriend a jazzy pair of underpants.

They are stretchy, and have brightly coloured stripes.

'Are you sure you don't want a more conservative design?' the shopkeeper asked.

She was nervous that boyfriend Maiyuu may not like them, as they were more 'out there' than the designs and colours which most Thais choose.

'No - I am sure they will be fine,' I said.

-
We took a taxi from there to Mum's shop in Thon Buri.

We took the route which takes us past Central World and the Ploenchit market, via Lang Suan, Petchburi Rd, and so on, until we reached the Victory Monument and we realised we still had another 10 minutes of travel still to go.

This was 8pm, past the so-called peak hour, but the traffic was still painfully slow.

The taxi driver and I talked about what to do if you are caught in a traffic jam but need to pee.

'An empty water bottle?' I suggested. 'I didn't bring one.'

'You could stretch out in the back seat there and no one need know what you are doing,' he joked.

'Or Pampers?' I suggested.

'A rubber tube and a bag on one leg?' he asked.

'And should you tell your friends?...they might be in need too,' I asked, then thought better of it.

'No, you shouldn't tell friends - they might ask to use them too.'

We arrived more than 25min later.

'You have to stay philosophical when stuck in traffic jams,' said farang C wisely.

'That's hard when you need to use the toilet badly,' I said.

-
Maiyuu is back from his two-day getaway - not at a temple, as I first thought, but to Pattaya.

Last week when Maiyuu told me that he wanted time out from our relationship, he said he would go to a temple in the provinces for a couple of days, and warned me not to send anyone looking for him.

I believe he decided some time before he left that he would not visit a temple at all. He stayed at a hotel in Pattaya instead. He told me the name, which I have forgotten. Was it in Boys' Town? No. He says it was close to a beach, where he took several walks, alone.

-

Thais like plotting, subterfuge, conspiracy theories, ghosts. On the night Maiyuu returned, he asked me whether I had been on the tenth floor of the condo, gossiping about him with his friends.

'No...why would I do that?' I asked.

'I have been hiding by the railway lines outside, to watch who was coming and going - and I thought I heard you talking to Duck and the others about me,' he said conspiratorially.

'You mean, you heard us from outside the condo even though I was supposedly talking to them on the tenth floor? ' I asked, confused.

I gave up. I am not sure whether Maiyuu is slowly going mad, or if he is letting moods cloud his judgement.

He told me about his Pattaya adventures. A Russian guest in her early 20s struck up a conversation, and flirted with him at the pool.

-
Maiyuu found a long strand of what is probably woman's hair in our bathroom yesterday, and asked if I had invited anyone to our place why he was away.

No - I knew few women here, which is sad, but true.

I told Farang C about the strange accusations Maiyuu has been making since he returned.

He reckons Maiyuu is feeling guilty about his Pattaya adventures. If he can accuse me of gossiping, or smuggling people into our place, then he feels better about whatever he was doing in Pattaya.

In truth, I think he spent most time in the city of sin alone, as my boyfriend is not much good with people these days.

When people go mad, do they start cutting themselves off from the world? His world is getting smaller, centred mainly on me, and home.

Face slapping: New massage technique for men

Enjoy a good face slap?

A fresh meat trader at the Bang Kapi market in Bangkok offers a face-slapping service for men who like the fresh-faced look.

She says that by applying the right slapping technique, she can make the skin look fresher, more vibrant, and alive.

Beauty-conscious gays and kathoey who want to improve their appearance are among her most loyal supporters, says Plernrasami Ngernthongudompet, 39, who adds she took up face slapping to supplement her daytime income.

Plernrasami is a student of Thailand's pre-eminent face and breast slapper, Kemika na Songhla, who has appeared on television to demonstrate her technique (ตบนมอึ๋มและตบหน้าแอ๊บแบ๊ว).

Kemika slaps women's faces and breasts to make them bigger, though the stories I have read do not say how long the swelling lasts.

She has appeared on television to demonstrate her technique. To see the face-slapping demo, go here (link harvested - it died). For the breast-slapping demo, go here (link harvested - it died). 

In the first video, the programme hosts say they notice a difference immediately. The woman who volunteered to have her face slapped suddenly looked brighter and bigger in the cheeks.

In the second video, Kemika took her volunteer behind a couch. The volunteer took off her top and lay down on the floor out of view of the cameras. Kemika poked her head above the couch so she could carry on chatting with the programme host, as she set about slapping the woman's breasts.

Tdop! Tdop! Tdop!

Breast-slapping, she says, is not something she can show on national television. After the demonstration, her volunteer, was who wearing dark glasses to disguise her identity, submitted her chest to the tape-measure test. Before being slapped, her chest measured 32 inches.

Afterwards, the tape measure had barely budged, but the host agreed that she had developed a pleasing mound.

Kemika, whose massage technique has made headlines internationally, can show students how it's done for B1000.

'If I showed viewers how to do it on television, my income would dry up in a flash,' she told her host.

Women who visit Kemika at home to get their breasts slapped would feel uncomfortable in the presence of men who come in search of the service, she said. For this reason, she has declared her home must remain a male-free zone.

Spotting a market opening, her apprentice Plernrasami says she decided to offer the face-slapping service to men herself. She believes the market for slapping men has the potential to expand as least as much as that for women, as this is the age of metrosexuality, when men care about how they look.

She slaps the face in a way that makes the skin pores rise. She says getting results from men's faces is easier, even though their skin is rougher than women's.

She uses the front, back and side of hand, depending on whether she wants to make skin tauter, and the flesh on the face rise, or diminish.

However, Plernrasami says she has to slap men hard, which can be shocking at first. One session lasts 15 minutes for each side of the face.

Her teacher Kemika, who has been slapping women's breasts for more than 10 years, had complimented her on her slapping technique. 'You have a gift,' she said.

Plernrasami says many years of cutting up meat in the market have given her a sense of timing and strength in her hands which she needs to make this unusual massage technique work.

Source: Excite Thailand.

Postscript: I do not have a contact number for her. Nor do I know how much she charges.

Absent lover

My partner Maiyuu is on temple retreat. Looking after me is hard work, he says.

When I came home last night, the place was in darkness. Normally, it is lit up brightly, and Maiyuu is busy in the kitchen making something, with the TV going in the background.

Last night, nothing. When I called his number, no answer.

At midnight, I went downstairs to pick up an order of food which he had phoned through to a stall nearby.

Even though he is not here, he is still thinking of his awkward, demanding farang boyfriend.

Maiyuu says he will be away until Sunday, meditating at a temple close to Bangkok.

The other night, he said he was worried I would send a private detective to tail him, after I joked about wanting to know where he would stay.

'Yes, I have hired a detective for B500 a day to trace you and report on your whereabouts,' I joked.

'That's bad behaviour. You don't trust me,' he said.

I explained that I was not serious. Thais enjoy conspiracy theories and intrigue, especially if they are related to jealousy. If I hired a PI, it shows I really cared.

'You know me better than that - I am too mean with money to spend B500 a day on something so trivial,' I said.

That was a joke, too. Thankfully, he understood.

He went supermarket shopping at 5am yesterday, then carried on to the mall to buy a few extras, and to Silom, to buy me some clothes. He returned shortly before I left for the office.

I gave him a kiss as I left. Standing at the door for a final goodbye, I asked Maiyuu to smile for me.

He has a stunning smile. I wanted to remember that, to keep me company over the next two days.