Stepping into paradise, umm, Babylon

by Newman

Babylon - the name suggests it all: freedom, idyllic tranquility, green bucolic surroundings, the cradle of hedonism, playground for the debauched, where the sole aim in life is the fulfilment of carnal desires and the abandonment of all else.

It's 8.30 p.m. and the whole place is dimly lit; I'm having much trouble seeing what I'm writing. It's April Fool's Day, and the warm air swathes over the half-naked bodies of men on the balcony, waiting, anticipating, expecting something to happen. They sit at their tables sipping a cold glass of beer or reading the latest gay porno offering, hoping the empty chair next to them will soon be occupied by the man of their dreams or just occupied, period. They listen to the soft saxophone piping through the sound system and try to relax. It's Saturday night, something ought to happen soon.

At the magazine corner, you see the poster advertising Divine Club's Thursday night extravaganza: The Wet Underwear Contest. It's wet, sexy and revealing! The pictures on the poster show this, and volumes more; I guess Divine Club knows all about effective advertising.

Further down, it's the steam room with its therapeutic vapours and unintended innuendoes. Sit down on the bench and let the billowing clouds swarm you. Sweat like crazy, you're supposed to like it. Go further in and you can't see a damn thing, it's pitch dark. But you can feel the mass of bodies plastered against the wall and hear the occasional sigh which signifies what, you can never be sure. You stand for five seconds and you understand the darkness perfectly: you start to feel hands on your body and always on a body part in particular. It's that chamber in Babylon where you experience maximum pleasure with minimum vulnerability, where looks or personality don't matter, there's no possibility of rejection, an anonymous everlasting orgy.

I return to my table and find a fat Thai man sitting there. I return to my notepad and resume writing. I don't like the silence and ask him his name. He doesn't speak English so I speak Thai. It's difficult, my Thai isn't so good but we manage. Am I writing a report on this place? No, just a letter. I shouldn't write in the dark, no good for the eyes. Don't I get a headache? No, I don't. I ask him if he comes here often. This is only his second time here, he says. The first time was on St. Valentine's Day. He sits a while longer and then makes a move.

The old white man standing at the wall all this while approaches, a real geriatric, and asks if the seat is taken. I say no.

"I'll just sit down and enjoy the music," he says. I smile sympathetically. He asks me if I'm writing in Thai and I explain where I'm from. He's a semi-retired History teacher. Where? In London. At a high school or university? University. LSE? No, it's a secret. I tell him I've always wanted to study at LSE but it's just too costly. Where else has he been to? China, Hong Kong. He likes Oriental men, do I? I think about it for a while and then say, "No particular preference." I look back at my notepad and he says, "Well, the music has changed, I'll go off now. All the best." I don't understand, all the best for what, for tonight? But I thank him anyway.

If you go down to the third level of the building on either side, you will find what I will call the sleeping chambers although it's understood that very little sleeping actually occurs there. Each chamber is about the size of the main bathroom of an HDB flat and the sole piece of furniture is a cushioned platform slightly larger than a single bed. And lest we lose sight of mortality in such times as these, black and white posters in each chamber and other accessible places remind you that "Safe Sex is HOT SEX" and to "Be Man Enough to Protect Your Lover". And for the ignorant, an educational poster on the second level gives the necessary information and pointers in prevention.

Outside the sleeping chambers, the passages lead from one section of chambers to another in the semi-darkness, like some sort of labyrinth leading to a thousand possibilities. The hall is lined with men waiting, waiting. For a partner perhaps but some have already coupled up and are just waiting for an empty chamber. A couple, a middle-aged white man and his Thai boy can't even wait and have started making out in the hallway. Then there is the incessant traffic of humanity up and down the corridors; men seem to be continually on the move, roving, their shifty eyes darting in their sockets, searching for something.

One of the couples in a chamber are being particularly noisy and as you pass, you hear the grunts of one person and the squeaking of the other's lubricated rubber.

An attendant comes through now with a flashlight to ensure all the closed chambers are really occupied. The doors of empty chambers are opened, shouldn't mislead people, we need to get the traffic moving here! In the main lounge on the second storey, "Room In Your Heart" by Level 42 is playing followed by another sentimental ballad. The wine bar in the corner has a TV overhead and is showing something unrecognisable. Men sit and stand around the stools, chatting comfortably. The decor is, but of course, artistic and extravagant: a bust of Buddha, lit from the bottom, smiles benignly from a shelf. An old Chinese painting hangs elegantly on the wall next to it. In another corner, the men are seated cosily around small coffee tables, and eating cake by candle-light.

The gym is, sensibly, one of the few well-lit places in this whole building. The equipment is wide-ranging and sophisticated but unlike other gyms, this one's definitely not decorated by a muscle-head. Elegance and class permeate this space, just like the rest of the building. The centrepiece of the room is a headless, limbless statue of the ancient South-east Asian kind. Genuine or not, I couldn't tell. Metal weights clang in time to the music videos on Channel V as gym instructors, in white shorts and singlets, look on and give a helping hand or work out on their own.

Opposite the wine bar on the ground floor is the TV room where good movies are shown in continuous succession. Tonight's offerings: Last of the Mohicans, The Flinstones, Die Hard, The Piano and The Terminator. The movies are, thank God, not Thai-dubbed. And for the more intellectually discerning, there's a magazine corner with the latest periodicals: Time, Newsweek, Asiaweek and Fortune. The furniture is tasteful yet casual: rattan chairs complete with matching tables. On one side of the room is a glass wall through which you can see a man-made pond, koi swimming aimlessly inside with vines twining up a metal structure rising out of the middle and a gurgling fountain by its side.

It is at Babylon that I first step into a sauna. There are three men already sitting on the wooden benches, watching a World War II movie screened on a small TV set as they sweat. The sauna is hot and also very dry, unlike the steam room. But while I can imagine its attraction for the Finns, having lived in a tropical climate all these years, I cannot understand it myself. I try to appreciate the glowering heat and last for all of ten minutes. I open the door and good old air-conditioning brings immediate relief.

If you're looking for a man, well this is the place to be. Oriental, white, young, geratrics tottering into their final years, gorgeous faces with tight pecs, abs and biceps, paunchy businessmen whose fortune is anything but their faces. Macho to the bone or queens right down to manicured fingernails - the variety is there; all you have to do is choose. Or you can simply window-shop, sample the goods, no commitments, no strings attached.

And if you're neither lonely nor horny, just relax and enjoy the facilities which can match up to any health club around. Have a drink, enjoy a movie, go for a workout, write a letter. And when you're through and thoroughly satisfied, take a shower at the communal shower room on the ground floor (a favourite with voyeurs). There's even a curtained section with two shower heads for couples to indulge in any shower fetish in complete privacy. Then, towel yourself dry, change into your clothes and get ready for your next destination.

As you leave the building into the real world, you know you have just left Paradise and long to return. Babylon is the place where there is no discrimination, everybody's minority, everybody sympathises, everybody understands. In the few hours you have been there, you have left the world and all its prejudices, and entered another stage of existence where only pleasure and fulfilment await. For 200 baht, Paradise never came so cheap. Or so you'd think.  

Footnotes

1. The Babylon sauna referred to here is the original one in Bangkok that comprised 4 townhouses, with a roof terrace. Not the later one with a swimming pool.

Addenda

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