I arrived in Bangkok in the early morning hours of Christmas Day [1998]. Once again I had spent Christmas Eve aboard an international flight… This time I had stayed away for a full six years, and I was anxious to get my bearings.

Six years is an awfully long time in a city like Bangkok: you return to another city, with new skyscrapers dominating the skyline. And you certainly don’t see any water buffaloes grazing by the roadside when you travel from the airport into the city, as when I first landed here – or in another city with the same name – almost exactly 25 years ago!

So I checked into a hotel in Soi 22 of Sukhumvit Road (which of course didn’t exist last time I was here) and spent the day unpacking my stuff, had a shower – and tried to rest – to no avail! I was far too exited, and went out for a walk. Yes, I walk. I always walk in big cities! It is by far the best way to get to know a new city – or to catch up with the changes of a place that you have known well…

Like Bangkok!

I have spent more time here than in any other city in this world, since I left the small country town of my childhood as a teenager.

I have been happy in this dirty, chaotic, wonderful city – happier than I possibly could explain! – and occasionally I have been miserable here too! But somehow the happy memories always eclipse the miserable days, or they fade away… and my feeling as soon as I get into a taxi at the airport, heading for the city, is one of mild euphoria!

No other place in this world has this effect on me!

Returning to a place where you have been happy is of course a risky business! You may convert happy memories into unrealistic anticipations and set yourself up for disappointment!

But I am very much aware of the danger, and have always thought of my eventual return as a new adventure in a new city – a city that happens to call itself the City of Angels… Krung Thep.

At dusk I went out once more, and not surprisingly, I ended up at Nana Plaza… Business as usual! This place is a real circus!

It was still early, and I sat down at Lucky Luke’s and ordered a beer and talked to a nice girl dressed in a t-shirt with the text ‘I spent most of my money on girls and booze at Lucky Luke’s. The rest I wasted” printed on it. I found it funny and asked the girl if she really spends her money on girls… in this place nothing seems too farfetched!

After a while another girl, dressed in some Santa outfit, comes and sits by the bar. She is a sister – a real sister! – of the girl I’ve been talking to, and she’s really pretty! She’s heading for a third floor bar, and I have to promise her to come to see her later.

Nana Plaza is still Bangkok’s leading shopping mall for sex of every kind, and the supply and variation seems without limits. There’s no way you could take stock of the place in one evening – not even I a week! You’ll end up drunk or disorientated – or both – in no time! Checking out two or three bars in one evening is a reasonable target. Still, if your intention is to pick yourself a girl, it will soon set your head spinning.

You’ll be like a kid in a candy store!

Halfway through the evening I found myself in one of the larger bars on the first floor. Another girl dressed – or rather undressed – in a Santa outfit greets me. She wears the cap and a red miniskirt only, but no top and no panties.

I order a beer and buy a drink for the girl. I tell her that I’ve returned to Bangkok just hours ago, and that I’m looking around.

- I’m looking for a girlfriend, I say to her.

- OK, she says. 500 baht.

- I didn’t mean for one night only, I then said to her. I was rather thinking of something like five years…

- Oh no! she says. Five years is free! And added: Just give some money to my mother!

I have been reading recently some men who have complained that Thai girls have become so greedy and materialistic these days; that they only want money, and only go for short time… and it has taken me less than one night on the town to falsify that charge!

The Santa girl sitting with me leaves. It’s her turn to go onstage. She reappears in a few minutes, naked with fluorescent paint all over her body. The words ‘Merry X-mas’ are written on her butt.

Oh well!

————– to be continued ———–