Due to popular demand and poorly veiled threats, Bartripping is back. Bigger, better, fatter and louder. Sadly, the original founders of the column, Dan & Andy, are no longer a team, ever since Andy made a clumsy pass at Dan after drunkenly mistaking him for a lady-boy he had once known Biblically, leaving it to Dan to take up the mantle on his own. A heavy burden by any standard, but a burden shared this month by guest bartripper, Executive Editor Cameron Cooper. In this, the first instalment of Bartripping v2.0, Dan & Cam start things easy by joining an organised mobile drinking event, the Groovy Map Skycrawl.
Starting Gate: The Londoner, Sukhumvit 33, 7pm
Dan: Turning up on time and politely queuing up, I had the opportunity to survey the Londoner for the first time. This fine English pub, modelled on a sports bar, features barmaids in faux-beefeater uniforms. It’s underground (no windows – no pesky daylight telling you it’s time to go back to the office) and big, making it the perfect shelter in case of nuclear attack. Since it has its own micro-brewery one could while away the months and years, waiting for the radiation to decay and the mutants to stop scratching at the door, sipping beer and watching football on TV.
Cam: Along with the Skytrain pass, free Groovy Map and discount drink vouchers, there was a complimentary shirt featuring an embroidered pith helmet, but the mere suggestion of wearing a uniform only brings back terrifying memories of a brief teenaged stint in the Air Cadets, where the men were just a little too manly for my taste. Besides, if the other people on the journey turn out to be nobs, one is guilty by association. Dan and I huddled over the complimentary snacks, struggled to get our drink orders heard in the chaos from waitresses in strangely sexy uniforms, and sullenly avoided meeting the eyes of the strangers with whom we were bound on this disorienting journey. It was then I noticed to my horror that our host, Aaron Frankel, had a pea whistle dangling from his neck.
And They’re Off: Chinoiserie, North Sathorn Rd, 8:40pm
Cam: As I’d feared, the whistle was not merely decorative. By the shank of the evening, Aaron would need to have it surgically removed from his mouth. I kept finding excuses to slap him on the back in the hope that he’d swallow it. Aaron, with the assistance of his partner Niki, a woman who needs neither introduction nor megaphone, led his befuddled charges, like drooling eight-year-olds on a field trip to a petting zoo populated with drunken goats, up and down platforms, on and off the Skytrain, obviously fantasising that he was the head doorman at the Oriental Hotel. Nonetheless, under his guidance, the 60-strong mass of what we’ll loosely call ‘humanity’ straggled into an ultra-swanky mansion restaurant, greeted guardedly by an overwhelmed host, who clearly hoped this rabble wouldn’t wander the premises freely. Such was the confusion that Dan managed to fly in under the dress-code radar. We elbowed our way to the besieged bar, got our drinks and wandering aimlessly, discovered the nicest bathroom in Bangkok.
Dan: Out of the door, up the stairs and onto the train. Being a noisy drunken spectacle can be fun if you’re with a big gang of your mates, but I was all too sober. Our fellow Skytrain passengers averted their eyes from the black polo-shirted horde as we performed Chinese fire drills for our host’s amusement. The fire drill apparently wasn’t in jest as we arrived at Chinoiserie, a 105-year-old house, nay, mansion that used to be occupied by Royals and now serves Shanhainese cuisine. We waved to the tradesmen in the adjacent building site from the Skytrain stairs, who were drinking whiskey and banging an Isaan beat on the table, their Friday evening well underway, and entered the rarefied and perfumed air of our next bar. Old wood, red velvet and erect pinkie fingers were the order of the evening. I felt a little out of place in the plush surroundings, wistfully picturing the cummerbund at the foot of my closet, but recalled the advice of a close friend from many years ago: “Dan, I’d feel at home anywhere in the world with a stubbie in my hand.” Assuming he was talking about bottled beer, the bar beckoned.
The Straight: Hu’u, The Ascot Sathorn, 9:40pm
Dan: Ye gods! Another ultra-stylish and trendy bar. When will this end so I can slouch, let out the fart that’s been brewing for the last half hour and stop denigrating people for being less sophisticated than I? Actually, I’m joking. I like a smart place as much as anyone and Hu’u did impress, even with its stupid name. Any fancy place with an enormous wall of whisky is going to get five little pint glasses in my book. Sadly, such opulence comes at a price and the little drink vouchers we’d been issued served only to lower the bar prices from ludicrous (Bt200, ludicrous on a journalist’s salary – how the craft has fallen in public regard!) to the merely outrageous. I appealed to Cameron that, being my boss, he should fill my glass. Sadly, Cameron informed me that, although rank hath its privileges that does not necessarily signify more lucrative remuneration. To add insult to injury, and perhaps in a moment of serendipity, a band of credit-card promoters entered the bar and started bandying about their big sign and buying free rounds for people holding their credit card. There’s hungry people in the world, you know. Thirsty ones, too.
Cam: Peanuts. Truly fantastic peanuts. Every crag in my crumbling dental work was stuffed with salty pebbly bits that proved a joy to pick out over the remainder of the evening, using a long pinkie nail I have recently grown for just that purpose. Nice bar, pleasant lighting, hired dancers for entertainment, prices a bit high for my liking, but then I’m the kind of guy who refuses on principle to pay more than 70 baht for a beer. Then Dan had the audacity to suggest that I should buy him a beer on the flimsy premise that I’m his boss. He likes playing it both ways, that tightwad, and since he holds a black belt in stinginess, always has more cash on him than I do anyway. I put my money where his mouth is and told him I’d buy him a drink as his boss if he gave up insubordination. You could hear the gears grinding in his skull for a bit and he eventually opted to go Dutch. That settled, I supped my eighth beer of the evening, gazed at the fellow revellers round me and allowed the maudlin thoughts to flow. “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with Dan.”
The Finish Line: Fogo Vivo, President Tower, Ploenchit Road, 11:15
Cam: Even though there are only two lines to the Skytrain, with all the back and forth, along with the exhaustion of walking more than 100 metres anywhere in Bangkok, I was completely disoriented by the time we reached Fogo Vivo. We could have been in Tokyo for all I knew, but it turned out we were in Brazil. It was exactly like walking into a Ricky Martin video, except that I didn’t have the urge to punch anyone in his shiny teeth. The dance floor was heaving with Thais doing the Lambada, the Cha-Cha, the Mambo, and one misinformed fellow attempting to do the mashed potato. Very sexy stuff. I’d never seen the like in Bangkok – totally at odds with the usual local dancing skills. To make it even more surreal, the place is managed by a Scotsman, who dispelled some of the mystery by explaining that they give free dance lessons on Wednesday evenings, thereby generating their own clientele who come at night to strut. I recall some young fans of the magazine slinging lavish praise at Daniel, who laps up such attention, since he spent much of his childhood locked in a closet. At this point the world was becoming a bit more obtuse, though I vaguely recall Niki, who was getting a bit tipsy, insulting me for no reason, which is a shame because if she’d given it any thought, she could have found one. The last thing I remember with any clarity was eating a piece of Aaron’s birthday cake – maybe the pea whistle was a present from Niki. And then Daniel went home and puked… wait – no that was me.
Dan: There’s nothing like the stomp of Latin dance on hardwood floors. The Tango was born in the brothels of Argentina and given Bangkok’s reputation as a ‘Sin City,’ it should come as no surprise that this saucy swaying should raise it’s pomaded head here. But enough history, the night had reached its climax in this tasteful dancehall and restaurant and I was hoping to climax in one of the high-topped booths with an admirer of the magazine. Journalists rarely have groupies – especially the drunk overweight type like Cameron – so I decided to pounce upon the opportunity. I guess sexual harassment consciousness has come a long way since I was a lad, because I was quickly alone. In the end there was nothing for it but to scam a few drinks from Aaron. It was his birthday, after all.