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The sting
There is a very cute little girl, perhaps four or five years of age, who plays all day and long into the night on Bangla Street. Her mother sells fresh orange juice from a stall in between the Honey One Bar and the currency exchange, right opposite Scruffy Murphy’s. The girl, a skinny wee thing, is always immaculately dressed and spends her time skipping up the street, weaving in and out of pedestrians, clambering on stationary motorbikes, chatting to vendors and always badgering to take charge of the remote controlled toy buggy a young man demonstrates for sale on the road. Occasionally she amuses herself by sneaking up on patrons at Scruffy’s and startling them by pulling on their leg or bobbing up unexpectedly at a table. Last night she compared nail varnish with Kaelene (both toes and fingers immaculately done), before darting off into the evening. She is delightful, and we are thinking Madonna might want to adopt her.
This is life for many young children, accompanying parents as they work or even working themselves.
Some, who can be no more than six or seven, stop by bars and restaurants offering garlands of sweet smelling flowers for sale, and they are hard to resist. Although young, these children are no pushovers; they can bargain as hard as their elders, probably more successfully, as they apply a seemingly innocent charm and broad Thai smiles to clinch a deal.
Almost everything is available for purchase on the streets or in the markets, the novelty for tourists being copy-brand sunglasses, watches, handbags, and clothes, and they are everywhere, along with sarongs, fabrics, hammocks (heaven knows why) and souvenirs. And then there are the DVDs. While there are not too many titles on open display, there are plenty of stall-holders who, if the slightest interest is shown, will divulge their full array of wares in concealed, windowless, air-conditioned rooms. In the first, another child, no more than six, diligently packed DVDs and labels into wrappers while we browsed the current release movies and popular television series, all priced at 60 baht or $NZ3 apiece. For reasons we could not establish, music DVDs are more expensive, at 100 baht. Access to the second of these vault-like rooms was through a tailor’s shop where a small section of wall, with displays of clothes, opened to reveal thousands of titles. But if these businesses are intended to be discreet, away from the eyes of copyright enforcement authorities, a dead giveaway may be a sign displayed by another vendor: More DVDs available in my secret room.
Away from the markets are the artists’ studios, about a dozen or more, where stock paintings can be purchased, or where copies of almost anything can be commissioned, from Warhol and pop-art prints to old masters. A Picasso can easily be yours, once ordered it will take a day or so to paint and dry, or in our case we were sorely tempted by a brilliant caricature of Rolling Stone Keith Richards for 3,000 baht ($NZ150), four brightly coloured Warhol Chairman Mao’s for 4,000 baht, or Che for 2,000.
Already over limit with baggage weights, we’ve had to settle for a few wooden frogs and forty pairs of designer sunglasses.
On another note entirely, we were intrigued by a story in this week’s Gazette which reports a young Englishman arrested when leaving Phuket on 31 January and charged with being impolite to an Immigration Official. After being held in custody until now, he has pleaded guilty and fined 500 baht. But here’s the sting: He now faces a 20,000 baht fine for overstaying his visa while incarcerated.