Sin City

I have arrived in Pattaya, the last link in my trail to find connections to my Dad. It is easily the least likeable, in fact the most detestable city I have ever been. Luckily I am leaving in four hours' time. If you wanted to find somewhere that sums up all that is bad about Thailand (and there is plenty that is good) this would be the ideal place to start. The coast, at least three interconnected bays stretching out in all directions, is so polluted you are advised not to swim in the sea. The nightlife is such that you can see the orange glow from over half an hour's drive away, the only lights on a very dark country horizon. And there are so many visitors, so many accommodations to be made for the tourist, that the construction continues day and night. But even the sound of the building work is drowned out by the noise of the clubs and discos: every centimetre of available space is built on, offering every kind of drink, every kind of cuisine, every kind of amusement you can think of (and many, I am sure, that most would not be able to imagine).

I stayed in a hotel recommended by the tourist office at Bangkok airport. Let's just say I won't be using them again. In the lift going up to my floor ( a huge empty space, with echoing corridors reminiscent of The Shining) I chatted to an American guest. 'This is the worst hotel I've ever stayed in', I said, hoping to share some fellow feeling. 'Oh it's all about who you know in this place,' he replied, 'I have a 55 sq metre condo, all new and only 800 baht.' 'I'm only staying one night though'. At this he looked at me, I'm not sure if it was with surprise or sympathy, and then I got out of the lift. This morning I saw another American, obviously leaving his condo, with a TV and a rug, and several bags piled on the hotel luggage trolley: he was moving to another apartment he told the porter. Whereas I can't wait to get out of here there are plenty, of all nationalities, mostly men but women too, who choose it. I imagine this is because it is cheap, sexually liberated and hot, but I'd rather live in the Antarctic than in this assault to the senses.

For once I find myself agreeing with Michel Houllebecq. His novel Platform , which I finished just as we landed in Bangkok, is about the exploitation of sex tourism in Thailand and how it is far from the worst threat facing the planet. He has been compared to Camus and indeed his main male characters do tend to resemble Meursault in L'etranger: nonchalant, arrogant, morally questionable. He is difficult to read, since his characters seem lifeless, a mere front for his manifesto but at times I turned down the corner of a page, wanting to remember some pithy bit of wisdom. As ever, he wastes no time in his description of Pattaya where his book ends: this, he says, is a 'cesspit'.