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Bizarre Thailand takes readers off the well-rutted road of tourist hotspots into the darkest and sexiest hinterlands. Welcome to a twilight zone where travellers become soldiers and cowboys, a black magician courts politicians and film stars, sacred tortoises mate on the streets of a small town, and Fertility Goddesses are wooed with massive phalluses.
In this strange land, nothing is what it seems: a prison becomes a tourist attraction, a 20-storey robot is a building, a man becomes a beauty queen, a Buddhist temple turns into hell on earth, a loving wife is immortalized as the most famous and ferocious of all phantoms, and a serial killer’s corpse is reincarnated as a museum exhibit.
Bizarre Thailand takes an irreverent look at how the profound, profane and frankly quite odd intertwine with the rhythms and flows of everyday Thai life, paying homage to the quintessential culture of one of Southeast Asia's most captivating destinations.
- Sales Rank: #1158605 in eBooks
- Published on: 2011-04-15
- Released on: 2012-03-01
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author
Jim Algie has been chronicling the dark and sexy side of Thailand for the past 17 years in publications including Bizarre magazine, the International Herald Tribune and the Japan Times. His short fiction has picked up several awards, including as a co-recipient of the Bram Stoker award. He was a co-founder, chief editor and leading writer of Southeast Asia s most gonzo publication, FarangUntamed Travel magazine. During the 80s, he toured and recorded with seminal Canadian bands including pop-punksters the Asexuals and alt country rockers Jerry Jerry and the Sons of Rhythm Orchestra.
Most helpful customer reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Walk on the Wild Side and Find the Joys of Normal Living in Thailand
By Janet Brown
When I bought books for an overnight train ride recently, one of them I'd read before. I was living in Bangkok when Jim Algie's Bizarre Thailand came out; it was on my bookshelf at home until I gave away excess baggage weight when I returned to the states. But I enjoy owning books written by friends so I bought a replacement copy. Halfway through my 22-hour trip, I opened it and was surprised.
When I was still in Thailand, I was entertained by the glimpses into the bizarre and the grotesque that Jim provided, but the details of the book I ignored because they were all around me, every day. When I first read the small descriptions and insights that Jim provides, I shrugged. Yeah, yeah, right, let's get on with it. But now I live in Seattle, returning to Bangkok once a year, and what delighted me most about Bizarre Thailand on my second reading is how well the book conveys the special quality of ordinary life in the Kingdom.
Where else but Thailand would a government coup be announced on TV with the words, "We have taken control of the city. Apologies for the inconvenience"? Or would the decision to replace executions of prisoners with death by lethal injection be celebrated at one of Bangkok's grimmest prisons with performing pop stars, dancing ladyboys and the release of "more than 300 balloons to symbolize the spirits" of executed prisoners in the past? Or would gifts of toys, candy, and flowers be left for dead foetuses on display in glass jars at a grisly medical museum exhibit?
One of the people I like best in Bangkok is wonderfully profiled in the book's fifth chapter, along with the information of where old CIA "spooks" hang out and where to hear Peter Driscoll and the Cruisers play British rockabilly (terrific musicians, by the way.)
Near Bangkok's neon and noise is a quiet community where people go out in boats after dark to view thousands of fireflies flashing in the night--far from bizarre Thailand. In a nearby province, tourists are taken for overnight hikes in the jungle by seasoned troops, and farther down the road, a dude ranch waits to indulge the Inner Cowboy that lurks within many.
Thailand's deeply rooted respect for the supernatural is brought to light with anecdotes of a former Prime Minister making offerings to the God of Darkness and the author's girlfriend approaching a fertility shrine with trepidation, certain that she would become pregnant as a result. And the longstanding rivalry between Cambodia and Thailand is made clear through the prejudices of that same girlfriend, whose personality is so strong that at times she threatens to take over the book. (Throughout Bizarre Thailand, Jim persistently shows the face of Thai women as smart, strong people--whether they are the country's leading forensic expert, a transgender Thai boxing champion, or the founder of Empower, a group that educates sex workers.)
Where to find vegetarian food during Buddhist Lent (look for the yellow flags on street vendors' carts), where to have your fortune told (take a translator), where to gain merit by buying a coffin for a destitute corpse (Wat Hualamphong), where to have a drink in Chiang Mai at a place where your money is going to help the women workers to have days off, sick leave and Social Security (the Can Do Bar)--these are the details that underpin the stories of the eccentric and sometimes sinister people who are unveiled in Bizarre Thailand. And these details are the ones that will enrich your stay in the Kingdom, whether you're there for a week or for the rest of your life.
Bizarre Thailand is a book for armchair travelers, Thai expats, and jaded tourists who are sure they've seen everything that Thailand has to offer. One of those rare books that is both informative and a lot of fun to read, this book should come with a caveat--pick it up with a clear schedule because you won't want to stop reading until you've hit the very last word.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Informative But Easy To Read
By Chan Joon Yee
The publisher describes the contents of this book as "tales of crime, sex and black magic". However, this is non-fiction and the contents are more like essays than tales.
It may seem like a small book, but there's plenty of material here. And here's a summary of the contents:
1. Bangkok's last executioner and the notorious Bang Kwang Prison.
2. A tour of Niyomsane Forensic Medicine Museum, introducing Thailand's infamous murderer/cannibal and his cadaver.
3. An insight into the Poh Teck Tung Foundation, a non-profit org that collects corpses on the streets.
4. Misadventures of expat businessmen in Thailand.
5. Military experience vacations where civilians pay for a taste of military life.
6. Cowboy theme parks.
7. Black magic and love potions.
8. An insight into ladyboys and sex change operations.
9. Phallic worshiping.
10. The bizarre creations of National Artist Sumet Jumsai.
11. My favourite chapter. Social worker Susan Aldous and her altruistic community service in Thailand's maximum security prison, leading her to fall in love and marry an incorrigible convict.
12. Thailand's most "venomous" couple. Scorpion Queen marries Centipede King.
13. Another one of my favourites. It's a writeup on Dr Porntip Rojanasunan, Thailand's most renowned forensic pathologist. More of this legendary figure can be found in Dr. Porntip Rojanasunan: The Dead Do Talk.
14. A feature on Thailand's Monkey Hospital where primates are treated like humans.
15. The sport/trade of fighting fish.
16. Some coverage on buffalo races, buffalo shows and the Buffalo Head Temple in Bangkok.
17. Another venomous creature, the cobra, "protected" Thai entertainers who court death and foreigners who don't believe in magic.
18. The lengths to which Thais go to improve their fortunes. Bizarre, ascetic rituals, self-mortification and plenty of donations from hopeful participants.
19. Ghost stories and the Thai people's obsession with them.
20. Another ghost story, Nang Nak that has been made into a very successful film. Phi Ta Kon, a plethora of deities and some attempt by the author to make sense of all the confusing beliefs.
21. The final chapter is rather informative, giving even old hands like myself quite a bit of information on last rites like pouring coconut milk over the deceased.
Yes, you definitely won't find much of this in any travel brochure or shopping guide. You won't even find them in the Lonely Planet. It's so well-researched that even for those who have been to Thailand many times over years, this book will still be an eye-opener. You'll definitely find some macabre and bizarre stuff here. Definitely not something scholarly. Jim Algie writes for the layman. I would prefer more focus for each chapter. Some of them seem to have more than one theme. Other than that, it's a brilliant effort.
Spellbound In Chiangmai
Thailand Confidential
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A pleasurable, entertaining and enlightening read
By Greader
This book is a very enlightening, often humourous and engaging read. In exploring the more unusual aspects of Thail life, it certainly has its share of the odd and unusual, as the title "Bizarre Thailand" suggests. But it also contains considerable insight into Thai history, social strata, traditions, customs, crime and punishment, philanthropism, paths to and cult of celebrity, gender roles, sex trade, tourism, religion, folklore, et al.
There is also plenty with regard to when Thai and Western cultures have intersected in history, like: when Vietnam-era USA military forces based there rocket-fuelled the sex industry; why Jim Morrison's old pal Jerry Hopkins has spent so long in Thailand; the Westerners banged up and formerly imprisoned in Bang Kwang prison. And the quainter side of Thai life, like the middle-aged middle-class Thais enjoying their Saturday evening dinner yeehahing and kicking up their heels at a northwestern Thailand Western dude ranch.
Also within its pages are many other wonderful cross-sections and literary snapshopts of Thai life, such as the remote lonely traditional Thai farmer and his beast of burden, the water buffalo, thanked with an annual backwoods celebration, of sorts. And then there are the volunteer "Body Snatchers of Bangkok" a group of rival charity foundations who compete fiercely in turf wars: more bodies means more donations. A prospective suicidee stands on a ledge, while the gathering bystanders below try to find out his room number so they can use the digits to choose lottery numbers should he take the plunge.
In order to glean these insights, the author has not only does his research, but also engages in conversation with a lot of people. And for me, the difference between a good book and a not-so-good book is the depth and extent to which one remembers the characters encountered in its pages, and in Bizarre Thailand there is no shortage of memorable characters. Some of the many include:
* The much-bitten scorpion and centipede wrangling sideshow freak couple, who beneath appearances, are just an ordinary poverty-trapped Thais with dreams of a house and family, should his brain survive the neurological damage inflicted by so many centipede bites.
* The loquacious fond-of-a-tipple prominent Oxford-educated architect, whose booze-fuelled public comments attract more attention than his imaginative edifices.
* The vacationing university professors from Moscow expounding on why Pattaya - the most bipolar city in Thailand - and its free and easy ways hold so much appeal for survivors of Russian communist government-contolled life.
The writer often simply lets the facts do the explaining, interspersing the narrative appropriately with personal reflections, associations and recollections. Written in snappy, succinct prose - reminiscent of a Bill Bryson book - this is a book that depicts Thai life on many overlapping intellectual, cultural and sociological levels, treated with appropriate objectiveness, humor and respectfulness. For those with an interest in travel or Thailand, or just anyone who feels that their sense of wonder about the world has waned and is in need of a booster shot, this book is a pleasurable, entertaining and enlightening read.
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