Hey Mister, You Want a Massage?

Tonight about nine I took a stroll down the big boulevard in the Golden Triangle to get a bite. I wanted to get something simple, and continue my tradition of eating native, (cheap). So I strolled down past about four dozen men and some sexy young women waving laminated placards at me. “Massage sir, you want massage? Foot massage sir?”

It was clear that though there were dozens of prone men and women visible through the open door of a salon having their feet worked on, these nubile young women had something happier in mind than reflexology on my toes. But I had tried that out at the fish spa, and it hurt, plus who wants to join some stranger in a seedy second floor?

It was more fun to keep walking and see what else was happening on this busy packed thoroughfare. A band of drummers and guys blowing into long wooden tubes were making music on a corner, and a sizable crowd has assembled, listening to the spirited drum beat. One long-haired guy was in a wheelchair playing a three chord gong.

Every few feet a man who was selling watches would be sitting by a building, offering what looked like the same big watches that the next seller had. Then more ‘massage sir? massage sir’ from both men and women. Then there would be a demure woman sitting on a chair who’d make eye contact, and hold it. No thanks.

I passed a Turkish cafe where men smoked hookahs, four feet high, and attendants stood by with little skillets that held what looked like blocks of tobacco. Next to me I overhead an Iraqi youth talking to a guy from Europe. “I can’t go to Sweden, I can go to Syria, to Lebanon, to Malaysia,” he said. “Is that because you’re Muslim?” he was asked. “That’s because I am Arab,” he said.

The night bustles here, pulsing with the sounds of a million cars, motorbikes, passing pedestrians and Arab groove music that wafts up from the other hookah bar. This one has booths on the street with their own little curtains, providing a relaxing atmosphere for the smokers.