BANGKOK DAYS Lawrence Osborne

       Lawrence Osborne wanders aimlessly around Bangkok, stopping only to loiter with intent in Bangkok Days , a meandering travelogue described on the blurb as:"A love letter to the city that revived [his] faith in adventure and the world."
       These "adventures and misadventures in the world's hottest metropolis"have a dream-like quality,written in a languid style that drifts at a lilting pace,much like the author's walks around town.
       Osborne examines the theme of loneliness, asking why men, older men especially, leave the West to settle here. He theorises that it's all about contact - not necessarily sex. Be it a foot massage,a meal at a "no hands" restaurant, or simply crowded streets, Bangkok offers a tactile experience lacking in the sterile West.
       For many of the characters that Osborne introduces us to - a retired Aussie bank manager marking time on Soi 22 with painting and cheap hookers,a Scottish ex-soldier who runs an ecolodge in the Cambodian jungle, or McGinnis, an eccentric Englishman who claims to sell air-conditioning units isolation seems no stranger.
       Osborne's prose borders on the pseudo-intellectual at times:"I dreamt I was lying with a girl on a river beach,
       painting her body with a fine calligraphic brush dipped in dark-green paint."
       He also describes walking down his street,"sniffing in the industrial aromas of the hairdressing salons and the sweetness of fried doughnuts and pork crackling as familiar things that had long ago become a molecular part of me."
       The only thing I can smell on my soi is the drains. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to criticise what is an entertaining read because of a couple of suspect paragraphs.
       And although his description of a short-lived career as a gigolo seems unbelievable, in Osborne's Bangkok the absurd or incredible is often the reality.G
       Available at Asia Books priced B650.