To me, a birthday is not one day. It is a festival. Sometimes a week long, and on the rare occasion, a month (this did involve dragging several friends out of the country though). So on my 33rd birthday I find myself barely a week into my move to Thailand. I was going to need new recruits.
Enter David, Angela & Tina. On the actual day we did brunch at the gorgeous location of Rockfish on the water (eggs Benedict & real coffee) & massages on the afternoon, and I even got presents, but it was the nights either side that really made the festival.
Bangla Rd. A place where dreams are made, broken & sold. A blend of tourists in beer singlets & thongs who drink alcohol from buckets, and locals who find them amusing. That said, the locals are pretty amusing too. Ladyboys who look hotter than supermodels, men selling ping pong shows. The last time I was at Bangla was 5 years ago, and it's good to see not much has changed.
Walking down the street, semi dressed up & in thongs walking through rain puddles it is a feast for your eyes. We looked for the cheap drinks (though everything is cheaper than home, you can get stung at Bangla) & sat down. The local cabaret show had just got out, and tourist were posing for photos with ladyboys in bikinis and feather angel wings.
After a couple of rounds of local rum we headed to our next bar, where the favourite activity is watching people go in & out of the hotel across the road…a hotel that charges by the hour. Very entertaining! The bar girls blessed the bar before the start of her shift to ask for a successful night by pouring Sang Som (the local rum) across the entrance to the bar while we watched guests across the road come and go, and applauding their actives.
Many many hours, drinks and a nightclub later, we stumble home in tuk tuks and pass out. Two 4am nights in a row – maybe birthday celebrations just get easier as you get older 🙂
(Thank you team Thailand for my fabulous birthday celebrations!)
