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Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Crime, Sex, and Black Magic
Bizarre Thailand takes readers off the well-rutted road of tourist hotspots into the darkest and sexiest hinterlands. Welcome to a twilight zone where travellers become soldiers and cowboys, a black magician courts politicians and film stars, sacred tortoises mate on the streets of a small town, and Fertility Goddesses are wooed with massive phalluses.
In this strange land, nothing is what it a prison becomes a tourist attraction, a 20-storey robot is a building, a man becomes a beauty queen, a Buddhist temple turns into hell on earth, a loving wife is immortalized as the most famous and ferocious of all phantoms, and a serial killer s corpse is reincarnated as a museum exhibit.
Bizarre Thailand takes an irreverent look at how the profound, profane and frankly quite odd intertwine with the rhythms and flows of everyday Thai life, paying homage to the quintessential culture of one of Southeast Asia's most captivating destinations.
In this strange land, nothing is what it a prison becomes a tourist attraction, a 20-storey robot is a building, a man becomes a beauty queen, a Buddhist temple turns into hell on earth, a loving wife is immortalized as the most famous and ferocious of all phantoms, and a serial killer s corpse is reincarnated as a museum exhibit.
Bizarre Thailand takes an irreverent look at how the profound, profane and frankly quite odd intertwine with the rhythms and flows of everyday Thai life, paying homage to the quintessential culture of one of Southeast Asia's most captivating destinations.
- GenresNonfictionEbooks
335 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2010
About the author
Jim Algie
10 books10 followersJim Algie has been a punk rock musician, journalist, wildlife conservationist and security guard in a lunatic asylum. His non-fiction collection Bizarre Thailand: Tales of Crime, Sex and Black Magic and his short fiction collection, The Phantom Lover and Other Thrilling Tales of Thailand, illuminate the country's dark and sexy side. In 2018, he published an expanded version of On the Night Joey Ramone Died, part memoir, part punk history and part literature with a front cover blurb from noted mystery author Timothy Hallinan, "The funniest sad book and the saddest funny book I've read in a long time.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 8, 2013
This book is the product of a mind who spend over 2 decades in Thailand, and has truly seen it all. Many people going to Thailand go for the Full Moon Party, nightlife, beautiful beaches, and bucolic landscape. Underneath all of that lurks a very dark and bizarre side. A side that Jim Algie shows us with a light touch and a great sense of humor. When I was a kid, I used to have a Ripley's believe it or not book. I can remember the cartoons of long necked Thai village women, 2 headed snakes, Siamese twins, and other oddities that all seemed to come from this mysterious land called Siam. Now, I am all grown up, and I too have visited Thailand and seen its darkside. This is THE book for all you fellow "gonzo-anthropologists", and connoisseurs or weirdness in Asia.
Forget Lonely planet guides for "good eats". This is the book that will guide you through the world of Thai ghosts, gun fanatics, weird museums, aging ladyboys, "lucky" penis shrines, Prison life, and Chinese cannibals. Really? How can you not enjoy a read like that?
Some people walk through the darkside where others are afraid to tread. Jim Algie has done so, and written about it so you can adventure vicariously through him. Personally, I asked my Thai girlfriend to go to the Thai forensics museum with me, and she couldn't understand why. It's that little boy in me with the Ripley's Believe it or not book, calling me to see what's underneath the proverbial stone.
Buy this book. Fantastic read. What you will see and learn cannot be unseen...nor unlearned. Once you delve in, be prepared for a wild ride. To me, those are always the best kind.
Forget Lonely planet guides for "good eats". This is the book that will guide you through the world of Thai ghosts, gun fanatics, weird museums, aging ladyboys, "lucky" penis shrines, Prison life, and Chinese cannibals. Really? How can you not enjoy a read like that?
Some people walk through the darkside where others are afraid to tread. Jim Algie has done so, and written about it so you can adventure vicariously through him. Personally, I asked my Thai girlfriend to go to the Thai forensics museum with me, and she couldn't understand why. It's that little boy in me with the Ripley's Believe it or not book, calling me to see what's underneath the proverbial stone.
Buy this book. Fantastic read. What you will see and learn cannot be unseen...nor unlearned. Once you delve in, be prepared for a wild ride. To me, those are always the best kind.
December 27, 2017
Fun book...good stories...light reading...recommended
July 7, 2012
Mmmhhh, kind of funny, easy to read but to vague and sapless...
November 30, 2021
I absolutely hate the writing. Why do we feel the need to string one metaphor after another? Does it make us sound intelligent? Want an example? Try this:
"In any profile, it's incumbent upon the author to locate the circumstances that have shaped the subjects' personalities and pushed them in certain directions. The so-called 'Angel of Bang Kwang Central Prison' could only have come from the shrink-wrapped suburbs of Australia, as part of a generation that fled to Asia and found refuge in philanthropy."
What the hell does that even mean? Just write the story, give the details, and let the reader see for him or herself.
"In any profile, it's incumbent upon the author to locate the circumstances that have shaped the subjects' personalities and pushed them in certain directions. The so-called 'Angel of Bang Kwang Central Prison' could only have come from the shrink-wrapped suburbs of Australia, as part of a generation that fled to Asia and found refuge in philanthropy."
What the hell does that even mean? Just write the story, give the details, and let the reader see for him or herself.
June 23, 2020
Yes, this is nitpicking
Pyramids were not built by slaves but professional artisans and workers performing religous duty to the divine ruler
Columbo was not a private investigator but detective lieutenant of LAPD (see, even the writer was fooled by his appearance)
CUster's last stand was not in Alamo but in Little Big Horn (granted, that one might have come from the original quote).
Otherwise, very interesting stuff. Granted, I assume he knows what he is writing about when he is writing about _Thailand_.
Pyramids were not built by slaves but professional artisans and workers performing religous duty to the divine ruler
Columbo was not a private investigator but detective lieutenant of LAPD (see, even the writer was fooled by his appearance)
CUster's last stand was not in Alamo but in Little Big Horn (granted, that one might have come from the original quote).
Otherwise, very interesting stuff. Granted, I assume he knows what he is writing about when he is writing about _Thailand_.
March 21, 2019
The only bizarre thing about this book is how it got into publication!
January 12, 2013
It's the funky, weird, off-the-beaten path version of Thailand that's really interesting and worth the long journey to come and see/experience. BIZARRE THAILAND is the post-modern guide to this side of Thailand. James Algie's got a sharp eye and articulate point of view and his many year's immersed in the world of Thailand gives you a helping hand into some of the inner depths.
May 9, 2012
Good subject, but the author didn't make it seem interesting.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews