The gaffa wrapped rice socks have served well. They floated in the surf when I dropped them in the Andaman Sea off the Phuket coastline, and didn’t swell up or smell or anything. I still rate them highly and will keep them for training. But being in Thailand (on an intensive training schedule) I thought i might also be able to invest in some showy joggling balls. Fifteen years ago when I was on Koh Phangan, bone-bearded hippies not wanting to go home had set up a travellers-market along a small path leading to Hadrin Beach, selling all varieties of hand stuffed and stitched juggling balls, and other assorted circus toys. This was the sort of place Hadrin was. People would eat magic mushrooms, roll down the sandy pathways in their underwear, dance at full moon parties, stay in bamboo shacks for a couple of dollars, or just sleep on the beach with the warm beach dogs snuggled up to them. Fire twirling was popular and people made a living selling hippy apparel. I knew that Phuket was not like this, and never was, but maybe in Bangkok some of this scene might still exist and there I could find some good souvenir juggling balls en route back to China.
So I bought a cheap flight and headed to Khaosan Rd in Banglamphu– the most likely area. This temple littered area of old Bangkok has evolved from travellers ghetto into a nightly carnival attracting crowds of all classes and nationalities– even local Thai’s. I set about my search on foot. Phad-thai noodle carts jostled with balloon sellers and bamboo flute sellers, weaving in between tourists sitting on stools at getting instant-dreadlocks fused to their own conservatively cut hair. I was tempted away from my quest by the layabout attitude of drinkers at the street side tables downing Singha beer and Song Sam whiskey, but compromised by purchasing a takeaway green coconut.
I surged with the tide of Khaosan carnivalians along the glittering mile of too-cool-for school-funky-retroness. Akha hill tribe women smiling cutely under headresseses sewn with old coins thrust at me with carved wooden frogs that croaked when you stroked their ridged backs with a stick. I briefly considered the novelty of joggling the resonant frogs. There were shops selling pyramid shaped Thai cushions which would be far to heavy to joggle; “I’m a hot bitch” G-strings (too light), knock-of CD’s and DVD’s (just silly), “Eat More Rice, Bitch” t-shirts (mmm?), jewelled wooden lotus stems (too spikey), mango sticky rice packets (messy), hand-carved chess sets ( expensive), bottles of mandarin juice(quarantine issues), silk hangings, Bob Marley Bandanna’s, variations on everything Louis Vuiton and Diesel (potential problems with future sponsors with the whole issue of copyright infringement.)
Tuk-tuk drivers touted “Boom Boom” as they pulled brochures of semi naked Thai women from their pockets; Kombi vans converted to parked cocktail bars pushed strange coloured concoctions; foot-massage and facial makeover parlours set up shop right in the thick of the street action, all of this to the beat of competing knock-off CD stalls combining their speakers and woofers and sub woofers power to produce a retro, funk, hip hop, dance, urban,Afro-Cuban reggae, mishmash musical journey. But no juggling balls. Or was I just too diverted?
Maybe someone can report from Koh Pangan and tell me if they still sell juggling balls at the Hadrin Hippy market. I just refuse to go to Toys Are Us here in Hong Kong.
