Tropical nights
Richard West
he renowned orientalist Auberon
I Waugh has contributed to the Daily Mail (16 January) an inspiring article on the spiritual and to some extent the physical pleasures of Thailand and the Philippines. Beneath this essay — which comes as part of the newspaper's winter holiday supple- ment — we read a section called Travel Facts: `Speedbird do a Tour Thailand package holiday which includes Bangkok,
Chiang Mai, Pattaya Beach for 18 days from £760 to £810. A two-week Pattaya Beach holiday costs between £545 and £666. Kuoni offer seven nights in Bangkok from £411 to £589 and a Night Life special holi- day.' The special holiday, we learn from Kuoni brochures, accommodates visitors at `the medium-grade Grace Hotel which . . . has the reputation as the "hottest place in town" — especially the downstairs coffee shop which seems to be the meeting place of all the "night owls in town" . . . Definitely not for families — but bachelors seem to rate it very highly.'
As Kuoni suggests, both Bangkok and its unpleasant beach resort of Pattaya enjoy a flourishing trade in the prostitution of Thai girls to foreigners. During the Vietnam war, most of these men were United States troops on Rest and Recreation. Now they are mostly Arabs and Western Europeans, above all Swedes. The sexual life of the Swedes deserves anthropological study. It seems that — because of their long winter, their passion for social welfare, their prig- gishness, or their secret, unhappy alcoholism — Swedish men and Swedish women no longer find one another attrac- tive. Like the geese of their frozen tundras, the Swedes fly south to mate. The women go to Africa, especially to the Gambia, where they can purchase the favours of black, indigent gigolos. The men head south and east to Bangkok. (The heterosex- uals, that is. Those who want boys tend to go to Manila.) The results of this Kuoni-style tourism are not always admirable. The young men of the Gambia were so demoralised and enraged by their state of prostitution (to women they rightly saw as social if not economic inferiors) that last year they rose in a left-wing revolt causing 200 deaths, and lasting bitterness, in a country which once — before the Swedes came — was the most agreeable in Africa. The political impact of
prostitution is less severe in Thailand because of the greater size of the countrY but its moral results are distasteful. Many of the prostitutes conceive and bear children which they intend to keep. However some of these 'orphans', as 010 are called, are taken and sold (at up t° £2,000 each) to childless West EuroPean couples who cannot find babies at hale because of the highly successful abortion industry. It is the Swedes, regarding the `right to choose' as sacrosanct, who are most engaged in buying up orphans from poor 'third world' countries. The Kuoni-style tours have had the perverse effect of making Thailand far less erotic for those foreigners who live there. It is easy to get a prostitute — indeed, hard t° fight them off at the Grace Hotel — but clif" ficult to establish a friendship, however platonic, with any Thai girl who is not a prostitute. She will become a wife, or what Beaverbrook newspapers used to describe . as a 'permanent house guest'; but she will not otherwise risk being seen in the coin' pany of farengs. And for those who go on Kuoni-stYle `night life special holidays', there is the likelihood of catching VD. Statistically, there is a 60 per cent chance that the first woman one goes with is infected. The Swedes have their own VD clinic in Bangkok as well as similar places 111 Stockholm and Gothenburg for those who have taken Bangkok holidays. The Spec" tator's man in Sweden, Andrew Brown' tells me of a further ironic consequence 0 that country's interference in south-east Asia. Because socialist Sweden took the side of the communists in the Vietnam Or she became a favoured nation after the War was over: the Swedes were brought in to run the timber industry in North Vietnam These Swedish advisers take their holidays in Bangkok; they also obtain the favours of Vietnamese girls who, unlike the Pros' perous Thais, will offer themselves for a mere bar of soap. As a result of this COrn" merce, and thanks to the Swedes, North., Vietnam is now undergoing a VD epidero. as bad as the South ever suffered during the war. The strangest thing about these Kuoni tours is simply their price: two weeks in Pat- taya Beach between £545 and £666, or seven nights in Bangkok from £411 to £589. Even assuming that this includes all meals at £41.1 (which I suspect it does not) the tour 18 hardly a bargain. As I wrote last week, cle,, can purchase an air ticket London-Bansk°'' return for as little as £310. One can stay 111.a pleasant, air-conditioned room with bath In a hotel with a swimming pool, for £8 a night. One can eat first-class Thai food for less than £2 a meal. Drinks, taxis arlu, massage girls are extra: but so they would be on a package tour. By far the most ex- pensive item is jet fuel to get to Bangkok; ,,; which raises the question of why one should want to go so far for a brief package 110 ,11; day. Most travellers feel knocked out if' the first few days by jet fatigue and we unaccustomed heat. One is most unlikely to rind at Bangkok or Pattaya anything that is serially Thai. Why not wait for the fine weather in Spain, or better still the splendid resorts of northern England and Ireland, where seaside holidays began? Tropical travel ought to be left to in- telligent individuals who have the time to spend months getting to know exotic Places. Such people will find an invaluable ,,and most entertaining handbook in John The The Tropical Traveller (Pan, £2.25). the book takes it for granted that tropical travellers will be staying at modest inns. In- deed Mr Hatt argues that lack of an air- conditioning system may be a positive benefit by preventing the newly arrived r2111 catching one of the chills so dangerous in the tropics. Agreed, but he to mention the one major advantage of "gr'conditioning in the bedroom: mos- quitoes hate it (for reasons never explained t° me). Also the kind of hotel that has air- conditioning is also likely to have a safe deposit box which is the only guarantee against the danger of theft that Mr Hatt Writes of so frighteningly. Perhaps the tropical traveller should 110vv himself slightly more up-market lodg- ing than Mr Hatt suggests. On the other hand he is admirably rude about those travellers whom one meets, especially in the Skit of Asia, who seem obsessed with roping: 'The Third World has the strange effect of making even the richest people obsessed with saving minute sums. I am not It!ggesting they should be taken for suckers, na too often their bargaining becomes harsh instead of genial and they forget that, as they come from rich countries, a certain measure of generosity is expected.' He also remarks on the general dislike of 'hippies' th South America, Africa and Asia, where cleanliness and neat attire are considered the signs of good breeding. 'Besides', Mr Hatt Points out, 'short hair is cooler, less li "elY to be infested, and needs washing less often., Like the great South American Hand- ,000lc (whose 1982 edition I long to get my ;lands on) The Tropical Traveller is amus- t1g to read even in London in January. It is full of recondite, even macabre information and hints. The best cheap presents to carry ,are Postcards of the Queen on horseback; 1Weezers on a clasp knife help in 'the task of extracting maggots buried deep in the flesh ?I' a live dog'; women should look after !heir tampons: 'a friend of mine lost hers when rats tore them open during the night --- apparently they make a good lining for nests. Those left by the rats may be ripped ?Pell by customs officials, who believe they are a favourite hiding-place for drugs.' Like many tropical travellers, Mr Hatt seems to be more than a little hypochon- driacal, and he is lavish with warnings hashish disease. He reveals not only that sold in Kabul was found to consist lnargely of ground-up 78 rpm gramophone records, but goes on to supply the still more obscure information that ground-up 78 rpm Fahlophone records are used in Sarawak as dntidotes against snake-bite.
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