65
TRAVEL CULTURE
shops offering everything from a cheap
space to lay your head for the night,
phad thai
noodles and dreadlock wigs
to soccer jerseys, fake IDs, guided tours,
tattered old paperbacks and bargain-
basement internet access.
It might not look it but Khao San
Road is very much a part of Thailand.
In fact, it’s a long-time cornerstone
of the kingdom’s booming tourism
industry. To some, Khao San Road is
a one-stop tourist service center, the
go-to place for low-cost lodgings and
supplies. To others, it’s little more than
a ghetto for the bottom-class tourist.
If Patpong stands for sex shows and
Chatuchak is all about seemingly
endless rows of market stalls, Khao
San is synonymous with budget
travel — and that oft-romanticized,
frequently misunderstood lifestyle of
the “independent traveler”.
Not too long ago, writer Alex
Garland brought this nomadic,
somewhat escapist counterculture
into the popular imagination with his
novel
The Beach
. In it, he describes
a pseudo-brotherhood of penniless,
commercialization. Almost every
major capital in Southeast Asia has its
own version of this street but none are
nearly as well-defined or prominent as
Khao San.
Thanon Khao San
(its Thai name)
began treading this path in the early
’70s, when farang travelers convinced
local residents to open their homes to
paying guests. True to the backpacker
preference for “roughing it”, Khao San
at that time was a seedy place. Save for
a lone hotel on one end of the street,
the rooms for rent were little more
than single beds sandwiched between
thin, plywood walls. Meals were served
in dank garages while the nightlife
consisted largely of kicking back for
nightly video screenings in guesthouse
living rooms or gawking at the passing
parade of buskers, sex workers and
transvestites outside.
unkempt individuals on a search for
enlightenment beyond the beaten
track. Though much of the story
unfolds elsewhere, it is on Khao
San Road, in the heart of Bangkok’s
Banglamphu area, that he gives many
of us our first glimpse inside the
backpackers’ sub-culture.
How a simple street in a developing
country became a magnet for
wanderers from across the globe is
a familiar story of tourism-induced
Above: Exotic tribal beads and bracelets were
once trophies for hardcore backpackers, but
they’re now sold at Khao San Road’s bustling
street market; Below: hippie-type characters
like this bandana-clad rastafarian are still a
common sight on Khao San
