Khao San Road and the Elephant Pants Epidemic

Today was our last day (at least on this swing in the city) close to the tourist heartland of Bangkok.  We decided to take advantage of our hotel's proximity to head out to the famous backpacker district of Khao San Road.   

Part of me wishes I had written this earlier, maybe on the spot, as I feel that my thoughts were fresher at the time.  Additionally, we've rotated out of the district and into an area much closer to where I'm going to the dentist tomorrow, giving me yet another part of the city to take in.  That said, Khao San road deserves a write-up; here goes! 

From the outset of our trip, we've felt that we're a target to a particular group of locals looking to make a quick buck off of tourists.  I think it's normal in a way - you can easily spot a foreigner here, especially if they don't look like they're from Southeast or even East Asia.  Further, with a language barrier that is sometimes 20 feet tall, it's entirely understandable that someone will try to make a quick buck off of culturally overwhelmed foreign visitors.  Whether it's ethical or not to do so is a different story, but we humans don't follow an ethics code when it comes to survival, so I don't think its even worth breaking it down that far.  

Indeed, before we even hit the heart of Khao San road, the requests to get in a tuk-tuk were frequent, but our immediate understanding almost always met our kind refusal.  However, once we turned the street from our hotel to enter the main tributary into the Khao San district, we were immediately flooded with requests for tuk-tuk rides, taxi rides, and offers to be guided around the city at prices too good to be true. 

From what I've picked up on, most of these are a scam. The drivers will offer to take you to the city's most popular tourist sites in an auto-rickshaw for the equivalent of 1.50 USD/1.25 EUR for four hours worth of work.  What's the catch?  They continuously divert their trip to various stores - think tailors and gift shops - throughout the city that will overcharge tourists for goods and services and then kick the commission to the driver for bringing them business.   Instead of seeing the sites on the cheap, the passengers spend most of their day in dodgy shops. 

Anyways, after about the fifth time we refused a tuk-tuk offer, we got pretty good at just ignoring them and continued on our way.   The closer we got to Khao San, the more Western everything became.  English signs dominated the skyline, and the ethnicity of the population shifted from predominately Thai to predominately 'European' by the block.   You could get a cheeseburger almost anywhere (I won't hide the truth; I would've had no problems indulging in one).  

This last part didn't surprise me; it's the tourist heart of the city, and it makes complete sense that they would accommodate tourists accordingly. However what took me back was how the visitors dressed. It seemed that every other person was wearing garments as if they were on some spiritual quest. Others were strutting about in their Euro-summer finest.  It was at once like encountering the crowd at burning man and a group of German tourists on the Costa del Sol in Spain.

Indeed, the former dressed as if they achieved some spiritual objectives to where they could move past the ordinary and just be happy in whatever clothes suited their fancy. The latter came from what appeared to be the northern half of Europe where they go south to pack in a summer's worth of hot weather in two weeks, and the natural intuition of how to dress for the heat is often lacking.  As a result, the fashion in the district consists of an eclectic mix of baggy linen pants, open shirts coupled with men in tank tops, booty shorts and various kinds of sandals.  

Khao San road itself was packed with shops fueling the fashion trend selling tank tops and t-shirts with corny designs and linen-wear featuring intricate patterns, most of which focused on elephants.  It was as if every third or fourth person was rocking a pair of 'elephant pants' (search Instagram with hashtag 'elephantpants' to see more examples) throughout this part of town.  It wouldn't be so surprising if it weren't for the fact that almost no Thai people, including the ones that work in these shops, wear this type of clothing.   

    Elephant Pants on Khao San Road

I think I should point out that this isn't a critique of people's style; we have the choice to dress how we want and to each their own.  It's better to be comfortable in your skin than to pretend to be something you're not.  I'm merely writing about what I saw, and this part probably stuck out the most in mind.  

As we wondered the side streets, we noticed how accommodating this part of town was to foreigners with McDonald's, and tourism offices abounded from corner to corner.   Virtually every 3rd building contained either a guest house or a youth hostel.  Thai and western restaurants, along with bars and convenience stores filled in the gaps.

Many foreigners would walk around in the middle of the day openly drinking a beer - an activity that shocked me 12 years ago when I moved to Belgium (and quickly participated in when I was out with friends), and I think many of the tourists just brought the habit with them.  I haven't seen Thai people walk around drinking, at least during the day.  Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention. 

After spending a good 30 minutes wandering around, we stopped for lunch in a small open-air restaurant on a lovely side street near the main thoroughfare.  The prices were reasonable, given our location and the food quality was up there with the rest of the Thai food that we've eaten since arriving here.   

Throughout my entire time in the Khao San neighborhood, I couldn't help being reminded of the Red Light district in Amsterdam.  For those of you who haven't been, it's this varied mix of regular-looking tourists who have let their inhibitions go and the hardcore weed pilgrims who are on a long-term sabbatical to get stoned and find whatever they're looking for.  I didn't see or smell any weed (I wasn't looking for it either), nor did I encounter any prostitutes, as the Red Light district in Amsterdam is well known for (again, I was actively seeking that).  That said, my thoughts kept drifting back to the commercial capital of the Netherlands during our stay in Khao San.  

After lunch, we made our way back to our hotel where we collected our bags and took a taxi to the BTS.  En route to our next hotel, I couldn't help but to see the stark difference between the backpacker's version of Bangkok and what the rest of the city.  Maybe I'll head back there before I leave (I think it's almost an inevitability) but for now, I'm going to take in Bangkok for what it is and continue to get lost in its endless streets.