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 seems: 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.
Jim Algie has been chronicling the dark and sexy side of Thailand for the past 17 years in publications including Bizarre magazine, the International Herald Tribune and the Japan Times. His short fiction has picked up several awards, including as a co-recipient of the Bram Stoker award. He was a co-founder, chief editor and leading writer of Southeast Asia's most gonzo publication, Farang Untamed Travel magazine.