Bangla Road: A Tale of Triumphant Survival

by Vasalya Moodley (South Africa)

I didn't expect to find Thailand

As my family and I walked down the roadside, a distant thump of bass pierced my ear drums. I saw a few flashing lights far ahead of me. As we walked further, that thump clarified into a cluttered collection of pop music. We stumbled upon an enormous blue neon sign glowing above the crowds of a short yet striking street: "Patong Beach, Phuket", Thailand. I had done my pre-trip research, this was Bangla Road. I’ve heard of this place, although Google Reviews had mixed opinions. “Don’t go, you will be scarred!” was one team of reviews and “Oh, it’s so much fun!” was the other. To find out which side of the field I was playing for, I had to see for myself. As I was filtering through reviews in my head, my dad’s voice intruded my reverie: “Do you want to check it out?” We unanimously agreed, and began to explore. It wasn’t just a road; it had a literal life of its own. An energy, a pulse, a personality. It was almost midnight, you could taste the second wind energy from previously-exhausted tourists, who thought their evening was over. The skin-on-skin contact with countless sardine-packed strangers egged everyone on to dance, drink and document every moment. The latter was an impossible feat given that we, funnily enough, had no room to actually walk on this walk. Paranoia unfurled through my body. Back home in South Africa, all the things girls were defensively dissuaded from doing were totally normal on this strip. If I wanted to, I could drink, smoke, come home at the crack of dawn, and that would just be a Thursday. An alarm went off in my stomach. At home, a night like this required a game plan: going in a group, watching your drink being uncapped, peeking behind your back as you walked around. Bangla Road seemed to crumple that plan and reassure you that you were safe. That didn’t make me any less tense. There seemed to be something unsung in between every dancer, seller and promoter. Bangla Road wasn’t an attack of blinding lights and flashy bars. It was a business, and profits had to be made. Everything cost money, from alcohol to souvenirs to pictures with diamond-dolled drag queens. Thailand welcomes foreign currency, even the South African Rand is king here. Tourists could afford to spend an extra buck on a good time, and Bangla Road knew it. It wasn’t just the prima facie glitz on display, but the gritty underground, too. Locals shoved advertisements for “ping pong” shows in our faces, because wouldn’t the tourists be enticed to see a “sexy show”? We couldn’t walk five steps without colliding head-first with another aggressive promoter. I knew what a ping pong show was and it definitely wasn’t table tennis. With my eyes glued to the ground, I rushed past these promoters, as if I never saw them. The next morning, Bangla Road was empty. Just like that. The road was completely spotless, almost as if to cover its tracks. A kind of exclusivity accompanied this disappearance, a secret that no one else was in on. When I put on lipstick, Bangla Road put out open signs. When I sprayed perfume, so did the lovely lady-boys. When we prettied ourselves up, so did Bangla Road, but better. A question I asked myself was why the extravagance? It seemed so odd to have a spot that fast-paced amidst the slow serenity of local beaches, like an inkblot on white canvas. Then, I remembered the tsunami. Phuket was traumatically flooded by the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004. Tragically, lives were lost and vital infrastructure was destroyed. Restoration was desperately needed. How could a prime tourist escape be reinvigorated? The answer was just that, tourists. Bangla Road was the pollen to attract us bees. The English music, cramped bars and exotic entertainment. It all gave a familiar taste in an oriental paradise. The booming business of Bangla Road fed Phuket, it rebuilt its roads and mended its power lines. Ultimately, I empathised rather than feared. Bangla Road wasn’t a setting for drunk stories, it was survival, a triumph.