Bangkok Days
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:4th Mar '10
£10.99
Available to order, but very limited on stock - if we have issues obtaining a copy, we will let you know.
A passionate, affectionate record of adventures and misadventures in the world's hottest metropolis.
Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons - a sex change operation, a night with two prostitutes dressed as nuns, and a stay in a luxury hotel. This title takes us to the place where a blend of ancient Buddhist practice and sexual mores has created a version of modernity only superficially indebted to the West.
Tourists come to Bangkok for many reasons: a night of love, a stay in a luxury hotel, or simply to disappear for a while. Lawrence Osborne comes for the cheap dentistry, and then stays when he finds he can live off just a few dollars a day.
Osborne's Bangkok is a vibrant, instinctual city full of contradictions. He wanders the streets, dining on insects, trawling through forgotten neighbourhoods, decayed temples and sleazy bars.
Far more than a travel book, Bangkok Days explores both the little-known, extraordinary city and the lives of a handful of doomed ex-patriates living there, 'as vivid a set of liars and losers as was ever invented by Graham Greene' (New York Times).
Thailand inspires such enthralled romanticism that it also invites great cynicism and it is a feat to acknowledge all its complexities and graces, as Osborne does, without ever quite surrendering to them -- Pico Iyer * Los Angeles Times *
He is a first-rate observer and analyst... Any Westerner curious to take a decadent Oriental trip with a writer you can trust to keep you turning the pages should pick up a copy * New York Times *
He vividly sketches the characters he meets: a man with a degree in air-conditioning, one with an air of "upper-class twittery"... Osborne's travelogue is, however, memorably touching -- Anita Sethi * Independent on Sunday *
With a brief stint as a gigolo, insights into the Buddhist interpretation of transgender 'kathoeys', and several friendships with various wayward desolates, Osborne maintains a lively note to proceedings throughout... this book has an underlying sense of warmth and genuine fondness for its subject matter * Real Travel Magazine *
He uses language with great skill, and the sounds and smells of Bangkok are wonderfully evoked. Osborne's writing conveys a geniune love for the city * Library Journal *
ISBN: 9780099535973
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 21mm
Weight: 250g
288 pages