Logan’s run

As Jenny bit down on another fried chicken’s foot, he explained to me the secret of having such perfectly shaped breasts.

‘You need good surgeon’ he smiled, white bone and marrow sticking to his top lip, ‘and good course hormone therapy. But all this cost money, the best cost money.’ I waited for the pitch, the inevitable come on, the real reason we’re talking.

‘You must be rich man to become beautiful woman. You must be rich man to enjoy beautiful woman. This body no come free. You think I beautiful woman?’ There it is, no escape, and it only took him 15 minutes.

I’m in Bangkok renewing my visa and my opinion of the country has changed, Thailand is grim. I came here 4 years ago and loved it, now its 3am, the two English boys I met earlier are seducing prostitutes in a nearby restaurant, and I’ve escaped to the street for noodles and solace.

After half a bowl in walks Jenny, 6ft plus with dyed hair and no grace, and the conversation turns quickly from countries to cun… anyway, now there’s more than MSG leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

So why am I uncomfortable here? What’s the problem? ‘How can you not love South East Asia Ed, its just like sooooo beautiful?’ Well, substance abuse, spiders, the Khmer Rouge and the conversation I’m having with Jenny for a start, but if you need more then I’ll give you the list:

1) Skype account users – Stop shouting, it’s only a camera and a phone. The entire fucking world does not need to hear you shriek uncontrollably at your equally as annoying family. Lower your voice, no one else is interested.

2) Chang Beer vests or t-shirts – Publicly admitting that you drink formaldehyde is not big and not clever. It’s like shouting with your mouth full. That’s all you’re doing lads, understand and move on.

3) Drunk Thai women on the Khao San Road – Imagine the bastard child of a pit bull and that hooker from Full Metal Jacket, waking up after a night with the heating left on. I have never seen so many teeth bared in anger, frightening.

4) Youngun’s – Fuck me but is everyone else here 18 years old or what? The novelty wore off after I realised that in 5 years time I’ll be literally twice their age. Grey chest hairs never made me feel so old.

5) Bar girls – Bored women in short skirts, sitting at the entrance of empty bars frowning into their mobiles. It’s supposed to entice me in but it makes me feel like a deer hunter.

6) Awkward first dates, the Thai ‘girlfriend experience’ – Take one girl from point 5 and one boy from point 2. Fix a price and then sit them in embarrassing silences at the table next to me every breakfast, lunch and dinner. A store bought relationship with very cheap wrapping, the sex must be ghastly.

7) Air Con addicts – The line I hear over and over in shared taxis and minivans, ‘quick, shut the doors and the windows. I want to put the air conditioning on.’ Idiots, each and every one.

There you go, one for every day of the week. But there’s a much darker side to The Land of Smiles, a protruding underbelly that rubs its indulgent flesh in a truly gross manner. Sex. And the tourism dollar it so openly invites.

Thailand sells its women. It sells its children too. In my short time here I have seen enough rough prostitution and public acts of ‘grooming’ to make me scratch my eyes out and be done with it. It’s everywhere, everyday. Slave traders and Joseph Fritzels welcomed with drinks promotions. And no one seems to care, apparently its just business as usual.

I could tell you stories; the two men at the Gas Station bar, the 10 year old girl by the waterfall, the Jack Russell in smeared make up offering ‘suck fucks’ for breakfast, but they’re all pretty stomach churning. So I’ll sum it all up with the over 50’s German man in a guesthouse north of Pai.

I was cycling to a renowned viewpoint, 6k straight up, and had stopped off near the top for a final refreshment hit. The German was huffing his fat load up from his table and over to the counter, to pay his bill of ‘two beers and one ice cream’. He was the only other customer in the restaurant, and as he led his Thai child companion back to his bungalow I looked over open mouthed at the owner. He just shrugged and turned his back. I left without finishing or paying.

But my Blog’s about India right, where sex is no stranger, and between the Karma Sutra and Shiv Sena no one knows what to do with Valentine’s Day. But whilst social reformers there still battle antiquated ideals, even in the cosmopolitan cities such as Calcutta, Mumbai and Bangalore, running through the country is an undercurrent of respect. Respect for one’s culture and respect for one’s kin. Something I didn’t feel in the Thailand I saw.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like disliking Thailand, and I’m trying not to compare, but my belly hurts from dry retching and I’m sick to go home. Back to India, back to England, back to the places I trust. Away from the cattle and the casualties, and the countrymen who make me ashamed to say ‘British’. Away from the Jennies, the pimps and the pushers, and all those money hungry faces that see more in the pound than I ever do.

Hang on, where is Jenny? Ah, there he is. Batting fake eyelashes to a much more receptive trick on the table behind us. Its seems Thailand is rejecting me back, and perhaps its for the best. So I’ll just sit here staying politely unnoticed, counting hours and rehearsing one very big sigh of relief. Mai pen rai.

The only living white boy in Chennai

They’re fat. These people are all really, really fat. Obese and obscene, like plump sweaty sausages squeezing themselves through the doors of an air conditioned coach. Digital camera necklaces and sandal/sock combos. It’s like watching a Gary Larson cartoon come to life and squirm around on the tarmac.

I’m outside the San Thome Cathedral Bastillica in Chennai (formerly Madras), and a VIP bus has just pulled into the car park. After hiding in a corner, roughly for the duration of some over zealous tour guide rhetoric, the doors have opened and it’s overweight army are waddling into the sun. There’s something very uncomfortable about the whole exercise, but I’m transfixed. Glued to my front row seat for this evolutionary car crash derby.

Chennai is a good place to explore God, ‘whatever you conceive him to be’, and a multitude of faiths stream in on personal pilgrimages every day. I’m in the city researching religion for a book I’m writing, a one stop shop of today’s most fashionable religions, and San Thome Cathedral is first on my list.

Although linked to Rome, San Thome is smaller than I imagined it to be. A significant Christian site, the Cathedral Basticallica is the final resting place of Saint ‘Doubting’ Thomas, the only one of twelve who questioned his Lord’s death‘n’resurrection trick.

Apparently, after a quick look at Jesus’ wounds Thomas was finally convinced, and went out preaching about the foolish dip in faith he’d suffered. Sadly, before his change of heart could be officially verified, he died from an unfortunate spear though the back, but immortalised with a sainthood and the elaborate tomb I’m sitting outside. No one does PR like the church eh?

After San Thome I’m off to the Kapaleeswarar Temple, a renowned Hindi place of worship and one of Chennai’s busiest religious attractions. Kapaleeswarat was debatably built in the 7th century, by either the Pallova or Vijayanagara Empire, but with a 37m tall hand carved gopuram (Google it) who really cares?

Then it’s round the corner to the Universal Temple, my favourite name of the day, where the Sri Ramakrishna Math run around doing all the things that Hare Krishna’s do when they’re not flogging books, flowers and incense.

And for Chennai’s grand existential finale, it’s a short, ish, walk over the Adyar Bridge to the mysterious Theosophical Society International Headquarters. A worldwide organisation that, although sounding like a bond villain’s networking luncheon, petitions the globe aiming to ‘draw together people of goodwill whatever their religious opinions’ and ‘see every religion as an expression of Divine Wisdom and prefer its study to its condemnation’. Fair enough, sounds very sensible. Let’s see how well that’s working out for them then.

Chennai’s religious heritage is an obvious draw to the city, and tour operators cash in on redemption whenever they can. I have my reasons for being here, and these Air-Con anthropologists taking pictures of the bus they’ve just sat on, they no doubt have theirs. But before God blessed us all with brochures and guidebooks, India’s now 4th largest city has seen foreigners before, and some with much darker agendas.

Stay with me, a little background history…

Sitting on the Bay of Bengal, that’s down and to the right if you need a point of reference, Chennai was originally a cluster of small farming communities.

Domestic dynasties such as the Pallava, the Chola, the Pandya and Vijaynagar all had controlling interests in the region, before the British East India Trading Company were granted land by the Nayak of Vandavasi in 1693 to establish factories, trading routes and permanent settlement.

This was the beginning of the end for domestic control in Chennai, but even before the Brits turned up to, cough, cough, erm… trade, the Dutch and the Portuguese had already left their claw marks on the walls.

So when Queen Victoria finally got her slice of the pie, she quickly set her boys to work building Fort St George. The epicentre of the new colonial city, and a dramatic establishment of the crown’s presence in India.

For half a century Britannia ruled unchallenged. Then in 1746 those damn Frenchies decided to have a pop and succeeded in kicking the Empire’s ass. Three years and lots of dead bodies later, the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave control back to the British and sent the French down la rue to Pondicherry. A place south of Chennai that to this day has French road signs and baguettes on tap.

Independence gave Chennai back to India in 1947, and today it’s a manufacturing powerhouse and home to India’s second largest film industry, Kollywood. Europe’s legacy here was questionable. Lots of trade, religion and bloodshed, our foreign policy in a nutshell. But it also left new wealth, infrastructure and education. The pro’s and con’s of occupation creating both a moral see saw and a silent responsibility to understanding the city.

So sitting here, watching ‘the white man’ and his ‘burden’ get back into their tour bus, I can’t help but feel scorn for the detached way this group have chosen to ‘experience India’. Too scared to buy chai or talk to a stranger, I find it hard to see what they’ve gained from coming here at all. Sure, they have their pictures, they have their stories, they have something to boast about when they watch Slumdog Millionaire. But from Chennai, from today, all they’ve really left with are digital stills of an old statue in a Plexiglas case.