Bangkok: Time Travel and Cabaret

Before I headed out last night, I took the elevator to the 59th floor to check out the bar on the roof of the hotel.  Insane views of the city in all directions.  I felt a little fear of heights.

Then I cabbed it to the Asia Hotel for the Calypso Cabaret show.  The Asia Hotel is in a prime location off the Ratchathewi skytrain stop but the interior predates the skytrain; it seriously looks exactly as it must have in 1978 and it just seems stuck there.

I want to call the Calypso Cabaret a drag show, but many of the performers are not men simply dressed as women but, rather most have (at least) breast implants. The guide books say it is a transvestite show - and I'm not sure which terminology (drag or transvestite or transgender show?) is technically accurate.

I'll be honest: I found the whole thing kind of creepy.  Not because of the gender bending aspect - actually, there is much gender fluidity in Bangkok and I often see girly men or manly girls and this is common and nobody even bats an eye.  I like that about Bangkok.

I think the show is creepy in a similar way that I find beauty contests creepy.  I am not enthused by the pageantry -- the frequent costume changes, thick make up and add to that over dramatic lip syncing in a foreign tongue and place it all in a seedy lounge that hasn't changed since the 70's.  Really, I wondered if I left with bed bugs.  And many of the women weren't all that attractive - I've seen beautiful drag queens and beautiful trans women, but most of these women just didn't fit that description.  Let's just say they aren't getting recruited for Lucky Cheng's.

The Calypso Cabaret is a tourist attraction listed in the guide books.  It is not off the beaten path or hard to find and, indeed, there were some families in the audience.  The tour buses stop there.  So, it is mainstream, I guess that's a good thing.

There were many costume changes and dance numbers with lip syncing, not to mention one or two serious wardrobe malfunctions beyond the PG rating of this blog.  Somehow I had ticket A12 and was seated in the front row.  This allowed me to look too closely and kept me panicked that I was a target for audience participation (thankfully, the one audience member to get a quasi-lap dance was not me).

Lady Gaga did a concert here in Bangkok last week and apparently her first stop was the Calypso Cabaret.  I am glad I saw it for the kitsch factor, I guess.  I can't deny that it was very creative.  It just isn't my thing.

Afterwards, I headed back towards Sala Daeng and stopped in a lounge to hear a live 7-member band.  A Thai woman belted out Rolling in the Deep - she was talented, though she sounded a bit like Tina Turner singing that song.  The band was actually pretty good; I liked their version of Living La Vida Loca.

The lounge was in a strip of mostly gay bars the pour out into the streets.  One was called "Telephone," apparently because the tables inside have landline telephones to call each other. (I didn't go inside to confirm this) -- poor man's version of Grinder (or the precursor to it), I suppose.

I head back to Saigon soon and meet up with the summer abroad group - we head to Cambodia and then my class begins.  Hopefully I will still have time for blogging once the class starts....