Certain changes to the Soi Ngam Duphli district.

Thailand, Bangkok,
07 April 2011.

I guess I could have spent my afternoon better sitting inside the Lumpini Park reading Stephen King's latest novel called Under The dome, or else watch the enormous lizards glide by in the park's canals and lakes, their cold reptilian eyes keeping a watchful look on camara toting tourists trying to get as close to them as possible for a good digital shot...

But then sitting here in Kenny's Restaurant is like going back in time, back to my earlier days coming to Bangkok and staying at the Madam Guest-House just around the corner and spending my nights boozing Singha beer, sometimes being "involved" with girls with questionable profession in one of the dingy rooms upstairs where the very sleazyness of the this Soi Ngam Duphli ditrict would literally drip of the walls...hot and naked young bodies covered in sticky sweat - Thai female and Farang male - making out in a sort of cultural exchange of the more physical intimate nature, often being accosted on the short walk back to the Madam by good looking Yings...

The rooms are still up there I have no doubt, the Yings still inhabiting them, hanging out here in the restaurant, bored feminine eyes with heavy mascara shooting in my direction but the days of yonder are far away from my present day mind....maybe if this was Pattaya and the grief over Moo's cardiac arrest Death clouding my common sense - only mere days ago but to my Farang mind a far-away world already - well, lets say there COULD have been business for them...

Still, Kenny aint what it was, the neighborhood  still quiet and tranquil but the small Sois full with international couples like the good ole days if it wasn't for the very sexual orientation of these happy looking MEN, grizzled looking elder males with beer bellies and hairy claws holding the slender hands of young Thai males - a different world altogher from its former heydays with the Babylon Bed And Breakfast and its famous - maybe notorious to some - gay sauna having a serious say in this same gender change of Soi Ngam Duphli...

The sleazy rooms over the kenny's are still there, the girls still inhabiting them but most of them working now at Nana's or Soi Cowboy instead of at the numerous bars in this area, bars that are simply gone and taken over by internet cafes where local boys with feminine faces search the Sacred Internet for chat session with grizzly looking bears with huge forewarms and even bigger hairy bellies ...