Bangkok’s very own Chinatown (is there a Thaitown in Peking, or god forbid – an Aussietown in Shanghai?) is always mentioned in the local guidebooks as a must see, so last Saturday I mustered up the energy to go and see what the fuss was all about for myself. This wasn’t an easy thing to do on a stinking hot and humid afternoon, but MyTGF was adamant that it would be a worthwhile exercise and so with the nervous, excited energy of a five-year old on a red cordial bender she grabbed me by the hand, rushed me out of the apartment and into a taxi.

As we endured the never-ending stream of traffic threading its way through the streets, my mind conjured up cliche images of a Chinatown as seen in the wild-west “horse opera” movies of the 1950’s, where coolies in triangle-shaped hats and black pyjamas carry buckets of water on the end of bamboo poles and the air is thick with dust and the smell of green tea and opium smoke. At least I got the dust part right.

To YMOTG’s unsophisticated eyes, Chinatown looks much like any other part of Bangkok city, the only real difference being not surprisingly, Chinese writing over the shop windows instead of Thai, which doesn’t really help as YMOTG can read neither. Chinatown is incredibly busy even in the mid-afternoon heat as the locals jostle and bump each other out of the way in search of the best bargains at the street stalls. One point of interest to note is that almost universally, the local chinese couriers (and there are a lot of them) exclusively ride beat up old Vespa motor scooters that you usually equate with scruffy, bespectacled hipsters in Europe. For a moment YMOTG thought he was in Little Italy, not Chinatown as he constantly ducked and swerved out of the way of the maniacal motocyclists doing their job.

Chinatown would at a glance appear to be divided into two distinct sections – one catering for females, and the other catering for the men. First stop of course was to the women’s section which surprise, surprise – is jammed packed with shops selling nothing but gold. No wonder MyTGF was so keen to go for a look. With the average solid gold necklace going for anywhere between AUD $1000 and $2000 (a princely sum for the average working class Thai) I was amazed by the amount of customers lined up in each shop busily haggling for the lowest price.

Oh yeah, there’s also a couple of blocks of shops and stalls which sell cheap clothes and Chinese-manufactured junk at bulk prices. But before MyTGF could decide to talk a dangerously closer look inside the gold shops, YMOTG made an executive decision to skip all that crap and head straight for the blokes section.

The mens section of Chinatown is a good half dozen blocks from the main area where all the cheap gold and expensive junk (that can’t be right) can be found. But once there, you know you’re in bloke territory. Stall after stall sells pirated dvd’s and xxx-rated movies, blow-up dolls, vibrators (which incidentally are illegal and in theory likely to get you as much jail time as a handful of amphetamines), cheap car audio systems, and wait for it…guns.

Unfortunately they’re not the real kind (though I’m sure if you were “armed” with the right knowledge you most certainly could get them here), they are gas-powered, plastic imitations that look quite real for someone who grew up almost never seeing anything bigger than a .22-calibre rifle in his life. They shoot small plastic pellets which are apparently capable of leaving a nasty welt on the skin or taking out the eye of a defenseless tailor’s tout at 50 paces.

The ubiquitous food stalls which abound on every spare square inch of public space in Bangkok also proliferate here of course, though the fair is different and tinged with an obviously Chinese influence. MyTGF wanted to stop in the searing heat for a cool, refreshing bowl of STEAMING HOT WATER STINKING OF GINGER WITH BOILED EGGS AND SOGGY TWISTIES IN IT.

OK – they weren’t eggs and they weren’t twisties, and I couldn’t understand it myself, but after having one taste to satisfy her demands, I opted for some “dick-on-a-stick” (mystery meat on a skewer) and an ice-cold Coke. Thank god for the American imperialist swine is all I can say when the temperature is 38 degrees celsius and you’ve got a nasty case of “Betty Swollocks”.

The old Chinese temples in the area are also pleasant and worth a visit if you like that sort of thing – I love to sit and listen to the monks chanting, though eventually the cloying atmosphere of cheap incense forces even the most robust lungs back out into the street and headed for home.

So at least now you know where to go in Bangkok when you’re in desperate need of a rubber vagina, a replica Kalashnikov assault rifle and more gold than Mr.T ever dreamed of…that’s right – Chinatown!