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    • Tales of Caves, Monks and Serpents

    by Mega on March 7, 2012

    in General

    There was a time, and not all that long ago, when the taxi ride from Suvarnabhumi would have me tingling in anticipation of what was to come. Thoughts of immersing myself in hedonistic adventures of the known, and unknown, creating a heightened sense of excitement as the driver sped down the motorway towards the fleshpots of Sukhumvit.  As I sat there looking out at the drab concrete, and blur of lights, in the early evening traffic congestion of Thong Lor, I could only reflect on the fact that things change. Times change. People change. What I once found to be exciting no longer was. In recent times I’d come to the profound realization that all the money I’d spent on involving myself in the P4P industry, in the LOS, was done primarily because I was bored. Going out to the P4P areas was a way of beating that boredom. Getting blasted was a way of beating that boredom. Picking up, or bar-fining, a demoiselle of the night and taking her back to my apartment was a way of beating that boredom. And, at the time, it did have an element of excitement about it; it did help to alleviate the boredom. The thing is though that eventually one gets to a point where there just seems to be no point to it. It’s like ground hog day; you’re making the same moves all the time but not really going anywhere. It’s like running up and down on the spot and emptying money out of your pockets. One day the light came on; running up and down on the spot, and emptying money out of one’s pockets, doesn’t take you anywhere. It’s a waste of time and it hardly offers any kind of life motivating challenges. It is, by its very nature, the definition of a boring life; 2030: take the sky train down to Nana then walk to NEP; 2100: enter Rainbow Four and get a seat next to the dance podium on the left (as you enter) because that’s got hotter selection of babes; 2110: drink in hand; 2130: number seventy two sitting in my lap; 2140: number seventy has her first lady drink; 2200: bar fine paid for number seventy two; 2230: departing rainbow 4 with number seventy two; 2300: back at my apartment with number seventy two; 0030: business completed and number seventy two out the door with her two thousand baht. Note; getting low on condoms and need a restock of KY gel. Ho hum, what’s on the movie channel tonight?

     There was also a time when I was full on into outdoor/adventure pursuits; activities that actually offered a real challenge in life. Surfing big waves, in Indonesia, and scuba diving in caves were at the forefront of those pursuits. After my trip to Laos my enthusiasm for outdoor/adventure type activities had been rekindled. Even something as simple as hiking up a cliff face, and breathing good clean air, was something to look forward to. I was back in Bangkok though and the boring was everywhere I looked. Perhaps a decent meal and a glass of red wine would be in order? A couple of hours later I was down at a trendy new wine bar, on Soi Eleven, ordering a glass of my favourite Ozzie red and a tuna pizza. I looked around to find there were some familiar faces scattered along the bar. It was all looking a tad boring again. A number of demoiselles of the night had moved in and made the place their new operations base. Night after night you could watch them hugging the same corner of the bar and going through the same little routines. One, in particular, had been labeled a parasite by a good mate of mine.

     “She’s in there every night. She polishes of one bottle of red and then milks guys for drinks for the rest of the evening. She’s a parasite.”

     Being a bit of a people watcher, and having been in the bar on reasonably regular basis myself, I had to agree with his assessment. As I looked over in her direction she turned and gave me one of those practiced, artificial smiles that are about as sincere as my ex telling me “I love you for one thousand year.”

     I found myself thinking “is that it; getting plastered every night and hugging the same corner of a bar. Is that the sum of your pointless, useless world?” I finished my pizza and left. As I wandered back down Soi Eleven I knew I it wouldn’t be too long before I was heading out of Bangkok on another adventure again. I just wasn’t quite sure where that would be. A couple of nights later I had my answer. I was having dinner with a buddy, who resides in the same condo building as me, and regaling him of my trip to Laos when he gave me a cue for my next trip.

     “There are some good caves down in Hua Hin that you might want to have a look at,” said my buddy.

     “You’ve got me interested.”

     “Well a mate of mine, who’s been living down there for twenty years, does tours to some caves we stumbled on years ago.”

     “Stumbled?”

     “Yeah. Me, my buddy, and his girlfriend went up to a remote temple to see one of the monks and we noticed the entrance of a cave nearby. The monks told us that, up until that time, no farang had ever entered there. They said we could go in for a look around and provided us with some large candles and a guide. As we were moving towards the cave entrance one monk told us to watch out for the serpent.”

     “The serpent?” I said looking at him dubiously.

     “Well, it wasn’t really a serpent. More like a cave viper that lived on the bats inside the cave.”

     “How big was it?” I said becoming more interested.

     “It was about three to four meters long although, when we first went in, we were all crapping ourselves because we’d been told the thing was over five meters long.”

     “So you saw it?”

     “Yeah, and it was purely by chance. We spotted it sitting on a ledge, just above my head, as we were having a look at some formations.”

     “What did it look like?”

     “Well it was a tan, white colour from being in the cave all the time. Even though it was curled up, and asleep, we could see it was a reasonable size by the thickness of its girth.”

     “It looks as though a trip down to Hua Hin might be in order in the next couple of days then. Can you contact your buddy and see if he has time available to take me up to the caves?” I said with growing enthusiasm.

     “No problems and, you know what; I think I might join you as well.”

     A couple of days later, with all arrangements sorted, we were boarding the train at Hualumphong Station for the run down to Hua Hin. Four hours after departing from Bangkok we were disembarking, at the Hua Hin station, and on our way to the hotel my buddy had pre-booked. The Subhamitra is an older Thai hotel and no more than seven minutes walk from the Station. At 900 THB per night the room rates are very reasonable for a hotel which is located right in the center of town. The daily rate includes free wifi use but not breakfast.

     After getting settled in we wandered down to the beach front area to see Jim, our guide for the trip to the caves. Jim has a restaurant down on the sea front road which serves up great Thai food and ice cold beer. He also has a very interesting tale, or two, to tell about his life adventures over the past thirty five years in this part of the world. Originally from Canada Jim, or Jim Currie to be more precise, spent a number of years, during his early twenties, hanging out in Kathmandu and developing a fondness for Buddhism. It was a fondness that saw him eventually move to Thailand, during the mid 1980’s, and he’s been here ever since. We made our introductions and Jim kicked things off by talking about his involvement with Buddhism.

     “I got interested in Buddhism when I was living up in Kathmandu. I got to know some of the holy men and started studying some of the Buddhist books that I was able to get a hold of,” said Jim as he pulled out a pile of A4 size laminated photos to back up his tale.

     More recently Jim got involved in a fairly unique project; he had a number of large bronze Buddha’s cast, at a foundry in Bangkok, and then shipped them over to Canada.

     “Yeah, that was a few years ago and it was a hell of an adventure. The Buddha’s were close to nine feet in height and weighed 900 kilo’s each. They cost me fifteen hundred bucks a piece to cast and I shipped them back to Canada in a container. A lot of guys don’t believe it when I start telling people this story so I gotta show them this magazine article about it,” he said as he handed me the magazine.

     I had to admit I was impressed.

     “It was pretty funny because I put the Buddha’s on the back of a pick-up and drove them down to L.A., with the intention of selling them. To make it more realistic I dressed myself in monk’s robes and shaved my head. As we were working our way down from Canada I’d get in touch with local radio stations, in the US, and tell them it was Buddha’s birthday and there were a couple of huge Buddha’s in the local parks if people wanted to come down and see them. Quite a few practicing Buddhists turned up. Anyway, we eventually got to L.A., and a number of actors got interested in buying them. I met Mel Gibson purely by chance. I was driving around in L.A., with the Buddha’s on the back, and he saw me and flagged me over. Anyway, we had a bit of a chat about Buddhism and then he drove off. I also met Steve Martin who actually thought that it was some kind of candid camera hoax. Eventually he came round to realizing that I really was a guy from Canada with two Buddha’s for sale.”

     “Did you end up selling them?” I said enjoying the amazing tale.

     “Yeah, I ended up selling them to Steven Seagal. He’s a practicing Buddhist. I had to deliver them to his ranch up in Montana,” he said as he showed me the photos of the Buddha’s in place at Seagal’s home.

     Jim showed me a few more photos of his L.A., adventure and then we got onto the real reason I was in Hua Hin; the caves.

     “There are three caves I take people to. All in an area about an hour’s ride up into the mountains. We don’t need to go too early though as we should be able to see them all in an afternoon. Have you got lights?”

     I replied in the affirmative and also mentioned that I intended taking a lot of photo’s. We eventually agreed that we’d make the outing in two days time, on Monday, as there would be fewer tourists about to disturb us. For the following day we arranged to do a boat cruise down to the edge of the Sam Roi Yot National Park for a relaxing day of swimming, fishing and getting a tan. Jim is an agent for a beautifully refurbished Thai fishing boat, the Siam Pearl, which does the daily tour to the National Park. The days outing also included a stop at an island, inhabited only by monkeys, for a spot of monkey feeding on the beach.

    With that out of the way, Monday couldn’t come quick enough. I was up early in anticipation of our ride up into the ranges behind Hua Hin. Unfortunately my buddy from Bangkok wasn’t able to join me as he’d been called back on urgent business. Jim leant me one of his bikes and at 1100, on the dot, we were on our way towards our first destination; a mausoleum for a preserved dead monk. Jim gave me a bit of background info, on what to expect, the evening before.

     “I knew the guy; he was eighty three when he passed away. He must’ve known that he was going to die because he drank a heap of oil, just before he expired, to help with the preservation process. They sealed him in an airtight glass coffin and he’s lying, in state, in a purpose built sanctuary nearby the temple.”

     An hour after leaving the hotel we turned off the back country road and onto a dirt track leading up to a temple situated within a forest on the side of a hill. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect and, if anything, I had some strange idea that I’d be looking at something akin to an Egyptian mummy. When I stepped into the mausoleum I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. Contained within the sealed glass coffin was a perfectly preserved dead body. Expectations of seeing bandage wrapped cadavers were quickly dispelled as I stood staring at a skeleton with the skin still intact. To either side of the coffin were glass display cases with the deceased’s last personal artifacts.

    The preseved dead monk at rest in the mausoleum

    “You see that small plastic vial,” said Jim pointing to the middle shelf of the display cabinet to the left.

     “Yep, “I said moving in for a closer look.

     “That’s full of his hair and nail clippings. They keep growing from the dead cells and the other monks have to trim it off from time to time,” said Jim with a bit of a morbid chuckle.

     “Rather them than me,” I replied thinking that it probably wouldn’t be a job to get excited about.

     I spent a few more minutes working the camera and then left the preserved monk to his lonely vigil.

     “Where to next?” I said as we moved towards our bikes.

     “Dao (star) Cave. It’s just a few minutes back down the road,” replied Jim.

     Fifteen minutes later we were parking our bikes near a sign proclaiming we were indeed at Dao Cave. Just to the right, of the sign, was a flight of stairs leading up to the cave’s entrance. As we began working our way up the steps, Jim started giving me some background info on the cave and what I could expect.

     “When I first started coming here, fifteen years ago, none of this was here. It was a just a rough, rock trail and fairly hard going in some places. It’s now much easier to get up to the entrance but the two hundred, or so, steps still gets the heart rate going,” he said as we both began to breathe a bit harder.

     “Any Buddha’s in the cave?” I said knowing that there almost certainly would be.

     “Yeah, there are two in the fairly large entry chamber.”

     ‘What’s the deal with Buddha statues in Caves in this part of the world?” I said hoping he could solve something that’s puzzled me for a while.

     “Oh, it’s just that the Thais, and probably the Lao as well, believe that caves are full of dead spirits so they place Buddha images in there for protection against them,” replied Jim as a matter of fact.

     “Hmmm, okay. Are we going to see any serpents?” I said feeling a bit more enthusiasm for that rather than dead spirits.

     “Years ago it would be definitely on the cards but not very likely now as the entrance has a mesh gate over it which has stopped the bats from getting in. If there are no bats then there’s no food supply for the cave vipers and they move away,” said Jim as we finally got to the top of the stairs.

     The entry chamber into Dao (Star) Cave

    We arrived at the entrance to find that it was, as Jim stated, covered by mesh. We passed through the small gate and stepped into a large, well lit entry chamber. As expected, there were Buddha statues situated within. One was in an alcove directly in front, as you entered the chamber, and another was situated on the left wall. Both were around three meters in height. We spent a few minutes checking out the entry chamber and then, with Jim leading the way, began to work our way through the labyrinth of tunnels and smaller chambers. The cave was well lit with well placed fluorescents highlighting the more interesting features and formations. Jim, with the expertise gained from many visits, provided additional information, and anecdotes, as we moved through the cave system. We worked our way down a ladder into a well lit passage that looked almost like a man made corridor. There was a large hole, with a log across it, just forward of the foot of the ladder.

     “I’ve seen the cave viper in there a couple of times. I’m fairly certain it connects with Lap Lae Cave and it allows the viper to move between the two, looking for bats,” said Jim as we skirted the hole.

     As we moved past I peered in hoping that I’d see the eyes of the serpent looking back at me. The hole was black and empty so perhaps Jim was right? With a lack of bats the viper had moved on to another location where it could find something to eat. We stopped for a while and I shone my torch up at the ceiling noticing thousands of little black spots.

     “What are all those black marks on the cave ceiling?” I said as Jim shone his flashlight upwards as well.

     “Those were the places where the bats used to attach themselves. As you can see there are thousands of them but no bats,” said Jim reinforcing the idea why we weren’t likely to see the serpent.

     We pushed on into other chambers, where there was natural light coming through from holes in the ceiling, and climbed up to the dead end of one to find a rattan mat sitting there.

     “Probably belongs to one of the monks back at the temple. They quite often come in here to meditate,” said Jim as though reading my thoughts.

     Within a few more minutes we’d been down all the interesting little twists and turns, that Dao Cave has to offer, and were back at the entrance chamber. I banged off a few more shots and then we exited the cave. As we began heading down the stairway, towards our bikes, Jim revealed his thinking for the rest of the afternoons outing.

     “I think we’ll head over to Kai Lone Cave next, the one where the King spent some time as a monk, because there’s a large hole in the entry chamber which allows in the midday sunlight and creates a dramatic effect. Hopefully we won’t be too late,” he said looking at his watch.

     Fifteen minutes later we were pulling up in the parking area of Kai Lone Cave and looking at a sign proclaiming as much.
    “This cave, apparently, got its name from a farmer whose chicken fell through a hole at the top of the cave,” said Jim as we started the climb up the stairway to the entrance.

     “This cave has the longest flight of stairs, up to the entrance, out of the three caves we’ll go to today. If you don’t mind we’ll stop for a rest halfway up,” said Jim as we both started breathing harder.

     “You see those marks on the edge of the steps there,” said Jim as we stopped for our time out.

     “Yep,” I replied noticing indents on the edge of each step.

     “When the viewing platform, at the top of this stairway, was being built there was fifty army guys camped here for nearly a month hauling an electric generator, the size of a Volkswagen, up these steps. Each day they’d push, shove and haul that damn thing a few feet at a time until they finally got it up to the top, “ he said shaking his head at the thought of the effort involved.

     “Impressive. Why would they be doing that though?” I said as we began to ascend the stairs again.

     “Well HRH the Queen provides a lot of support for this temple. Most of everything you see here was funded by her. I guess the army was under instruction to help out.”

     A few minutes later we were standing in the viewing platform and looking out over the magnificent vista back towards the coast. The effort of those army guys was most appreciated as we enjoyed the shade provided by the roof on the well constructed building. As the wind, coming through the open sides, cooled us down we were joined by a monk from the temple below. Jim offered the monk a cigarette, and they began conversing in Thai, while I refilled my water bottle at a nearby rainwater tank.
    After another cigarette, and Jim explaining he’d been in the area for twenty years, the monk decided to join us for our entry into Kai Lone Cave. There was no mesh gate and, even though we’d arrived a bit too late for the dramatic effect of the sun penetrating through the hole in the cave roof, the entry chamber was an impressive first sight. The formations, within, were big and the monks had done a great job placing a number of Buddha statues throughout the large amphitheatre. As I stood there banging off shots our accompanying monk moved past us and walked down to the seating area in front of the Buddha statues. Jim pointed up towards the hole in the cave roof and noted that we’d arrived a bit too late to see the sun light penetrating the chamber.

    The entry chamber at Kai Lone Cave

     “We needed to be here around midday, when the sun is directly over head, to see the place lit up,” he said looking at his watch and commenting that it was just after two pm.

     “No problems, it’s still an impressive sight,” I said moving in to have a closer look at an array of small Buddha statues just in behind the seating area.

     “A couple of those are four to five hundred years old,” said Jim as he began lighting up a bunched handful of incense sticks and placing them in earthenware pots in front of the Buddha statues.

     To add to the mood of the moment the monk sat down and began chanting. Jim indicated that we should move off, to another part of the cave, and leave him in peace.  He’d already mentioned something about this being the temple where HM the King had spent some time as a monk. Apparently one of the smaller chambers was his room and I was keen to get a few shots. As it turned out there were actually two side chambers with beds in them and Jim provided an amusing anecdote when I remarked as such.

    “There’s a bit of a debate going on as to which chamber was actually used by HM the King during his time here as a monk. Some say it’s this one and some say it’s the other,” he said as we began circling back towards the entry chamber.

    We arrived at another chamber, which connected with the main entry chamber, and there was a strange, pyramid shaped statue positioned directly below a hole in the ceiling. As we stood there looking at it the only other tourists, to come into the cave that day, entered the chamber as well. It was a couple; a farang on holiday with his Thai girlfriend. While we exchanged a few pleasantries with the Aussie tourist his girlfriend proceeded to light some incense sticks, she’d brought in with her, and place them around the statue.

    “You might want to get a couple of shots of this,” said Jim as he clambered up onto a beautifully terraced formation that forms part of the wall of the chamber.

    Jim on the terraced formations

     After getting a few more shots I decided I’d seen enough and we exited the cave. We made our way down the long flight of stairs and wandered over to a building which was part of the temple complex. Inside there were paintings of HR the King during his time as a monk. Jim looked at his watch and noted that we should push onto the last cave. We clambered back on our bikes and fifteen minutes later, after a ride up into a more remote area in the mountains, we arrived at Lap Lae Cave.

    “I left this one till last,” said Jim as we walked towards the main building of the temple complex.

    “Any particular reasons why?” I said as we looked over the gate into the deserted building.

    “Besides the fact that I think this is the best cave, I’ve also got quite a bit of personal involvement with this site. When I first came up here, fifteen years ago, none of this was here. Most of the structures you see around us were built from the money received from the tourists I brought up here,” said Jim as a monk appeared before us in the open sided building.

    The monk gestured for us to come in. We removed our shoes, opened the gate, and walked across the tiled floor to get a closer look at the Buddha statue. Jim said something to the monk and then went into a small room at one end of the building. A few seconds later he poked his head back out through the curtain and gestured for me to join him.

    “You might want to get a couple shots of this but be warned it’s not for the faint hearted, “he said as I moved towards him.
    “Why do say that?” I said not quite knowing what to expect.

    Jim held the curtain aside to reveal a rather grotesque sight; in a fungal encrusted glass case was a semi decomposed body.

    Jim’s friend in a sad state

     “It’s pretty sad to see this,” said Jim shaking his head.

    “No doubt,” I said as I positioned myself to get a couple of shots.

    “I knew this guy for ten years and we were good friends. When I first came up here, fifteen years ago, he’d been living in the cave, we’re about to go into, for twenty eight years.”

    “Continuously?” I said incredulously.

    “Pretty much. He’d come out occasionally but most of the time he stayed in there and people would take in food for him. When I met him he was almost finished with his time in the cave due to health problems caused by the high humidity in the caves’ atmosphere. Over the years, that we knew each other, he would sometimes walk down to my restaurant in Hua Hin to say hello.”

    “That’s quite a hike,” I said as I we took our leave from the somber scene.

    “Yeah, it usually took him a couple of days,” said Jim as we moved back out into the main building area and made a donation to the Wat.

    “He was eighty two when he died. He wanted to be preserved the same as the other guy we went to see but, unfortunately, the glass coffin they used didn’t seal very well and he’s decomposing.”

    “Well, it definitely doesn’t look to be the same quality as the one the other guy is in,” I said as we put our shoes on in preparation for the walk up to the cave entrance.

    “No, more like a large, upside down fish tank than anything else. He’s in a bad state and there’s now a bit of a dispute as to what the monks should do with him. Some want to cremate him and others are objecting because the guy’s last wish was that he be preserved. It’s a mess,” said Jim as we took the short walk up the hill, behind the building, to arrive at the cave.

    My first impression was that it looked gloomy and I could see that this cave was definitely less set up for sightseers; there wasn’t much in the way of internal lighting. The entry chamber, compared with the two previous caves we’d visited, was smaller and dropped down, steeply, into dark passages below. I looked across the chamber and, directly in front of us, there was a small, wooden blue door with some Thai writing on it.

    “What’s that for?” I said indicating across the chamber.

    “It’s a door to a small passageway leading to a meditation chamber up there,” said Jim as he pointed to a small chamber up in the roof of the cave.

    “Have you been up there?”

    “Only once and it’s pretty hazardous. The monk wouldn’t let me go up there while he was alive. After he died I ripped the lock off the door and took a look see. There’s a narrow passage that goes off to the right. You’ve got to squeeze through on your belly and crawl up for a few feet before you can stand up. Go up and have a look for yourself. Be careful though because there’s a vertical drop straight ahead as you open the door. The access passage angles upwards to the right,” said Jim as we made our way down to the wooden ladder leading up to the door.

    I moved up the wooden steps carefully, testing the strength of each, as I got closer to the door. Thinking the door might be seized I yanked at it, forcefully, only to find that it swung open with little resistance. The ladder creaked with my over exuberance and the open door revealed a sheer drop, directly ahead, into a black void. To my right was the narrow passage angling upwards. I didn’t see much point in trying to squeeze my way up there so I closed the door and moved back down the ladder.

    “Just be careful climbing down. This ladders been here for a while and may not be all that sturdy,” said Jim as I negotiated my way back down.

    As if having some kind of premonition, regarding what was about to occur next, I stepped onto the bottom rung and there was a loud crack, as it parted, and my foot went straight through. Luckily my years of experience in moving down ladders on sea going vessels came to the fore; I had a firm grip on both vertical sides of the ladder and quickly arrested my descent.

    “I guess you were right about the age of the ladder,” I said as I stepped back onto solid ground.

    “No shit. That was a close call,” said Jim shaking his head and having a bit of a chuckle.

    “What’s down there?” I said indicating towards the hole that I might have fallen into.

    “Three dead bodies,” said Jim as a matter of fact.

    “Aye?” I said looking back at him a little incredulously again.

    “Yeah, there’s a lot of bats in here and the place is feet deep in guano – bat shit – and it’s one of the best fertilisers known to man. The locals used to come in here all the time, dig it up, and carry it out in bags. The three bodies down there are guano collectors that didn’t make it back out. They crawled into a back chamber, in there, and suffocated. I had personal experience of it a few years back when I took an Aussie adventurer down there to have a look. There’s a lack of oxygen in the atmoshere and I blacked out as I was half way up a narrow passage on my stomach. Luckily the Aussie guy was switched on to what was happening and he dragged me out by my feet.”

    “Okay, I think we’ll give that one a miss until we’ve got breathing apparatus,” I said as Jim lead off down a passage to the right.

    As we moved into a dimly lit larger, inner chamber Jim pointed to one of the smaller side chambers leading off to our left.

    “You see the depression in the floor there?” he said as I looked towards the spot he was pointing to.

    “Yep.”

    “That’s where the locals have been digging up the guano. There’s a three foot deep hole in the floor. All this area we’re walking on is piled high with millions of years of batshit,” he said as I got down to take a closer look at the smooth, brown surface we were walking across.

    There was no doubting what he said as the place had a strange, musty odour about it. As we kept moving forward into the center of the chamber the squeaking, of the bats hanging above us, got louder. Eventually I was standing right underneath their lair and as I got ready to take a few shots Jim gave me a friendly word of warning.

    “You’d better get that done and get out of there quickly. If they get agitated they night start raining guano down on you.”

    I fired off a couple of quick shots and then followed him into the next chamber – the chamber of the Sleeping Lady – and was amazed to see a rock formation looking remarkably like a woman lying asleep on her side.

    “Lap Lae translates to sleeping lady. The first time I came in here I was told, by the monks, about the curse of the sleeping lady. Any man who laid eyes on the sleeping lady would never emerge from the cave again. It’s superstition but it’s great for adding a bit of atmosphere to the walk through the cave,” said Jim as I took a closer look at the sleeping lady.

    “Nothing like a bit of superstition to spice up a cave tour,” I said continuing to work the camera.

    “Well, the next chamber we’re going to should spice things up even more,” said Jim with another chuckle.
    “How so?”

    The sleeping lady formation

     “We’re going to the serpent’s lair.”

    “Great, lead the way,” I said suddenly losing interest in the Sleeping Lady.

    We continued on down a narrow tunnel and then descended some cement steps. Jim led me into a small, dead end chamber to the left of the stairs.

    “The viper usually has himself coiled up on that ledge there. If you follow it, to the left, it goes into a hole in the wall. That’s its home. As I said, when you go looking for it you never find it. When you’re not looking for it, that’s when you usually bump into. I came in here with a bunch of people one day to find its home vacated. As we stood there looking at the ledge I glanced up towards the cave roof and the damn thing was a couple of feet above us, gripped onto those rough bits of rock protruding out, and staring down at us.”

    “What did you do then?”

    “We just moved back out of the way and gave it some space.”

    I took a last look around the serpent’s lair, hoping like hell I’d see it coiled up somewhere, and then moved into the cave proper again. We moved a few meters on and stopped at some large boulders sitting on the cave floor.

    “I chased the serpent around these rocks one day, when I had a group in here with me, and cornered it over here,” he said pointing to small alcove.

    “Was that a good idea?”

    “I don’t know but it made for some great photography. We got a shot of the thing reared up with its mouth wide open and tongue flicking about.”

    “That would be a great shot,” I said slightly disappointed that I hadn’t been able to bag the serpent.

    “There was another time I’d seen it, with a tour group, and had to come back into the cave later, by myself in the pitch black, to look for a pair of glasses one of the group had dropped,” said Jim shaking his head.

    “What the hell was that about?”

    “One of the group, an accountant, lost his reading glasses in the cave and only realized it when we arrived back at his hotel. He made a bit of an issue about it saying that he needed them to read his emails in the morning. The funny thing was that I’d actually picked them up while we were still in the cave. They were sitting on an old pair of sneakers and I just left them there. When I came back the torch crapped out and I had come in here working my way around by touch. I knew where I had to go but I was pretty nervous because we’d seen the viper during the earlier run through. In the end I found the glasses sitting right where I’d left them; on top of the sneakers. I grabbed them and high tailed it out of there.”

    We were beginning to work our way to the rear exit of the cave and, in doing so, came to a section which only had a meter of clearance between the ceiling and the floor. After doing a duck walk through the ten meter stretch we were both dripping with sweat from the humidity in the cave. We were now in the last chamber before the exit. Up ahead I could see the faint glow of light at the top of a rocky incline we would need to negotiate before exiting. At the bottom of the incline was a beautiful floor to ceiling formation and another, which had broken away from the ceiling, lying nearby on the cave floor. It seemed appropriate that this would probably be my last couple of shots before departing the cave. In some kind of weird twilight zone twist I got my final two shots off before the camera battery went dead. It had been a reasonably physical few hours and, with the muscles beginning to feel the effects of fatigue setting in, I decided to call it a day. Feeling sore, but satisfied, we trudged up the rock strewn slope to emerge into the late afternoon sunlight. I was soaked in sweat, and covered in mud and dirt, but it had been a great afternoon.

    “Thanks Jim, I really enjoyed that,” I said as we stood there drying off in the cooling breeze.

    “You’re welcome, anytime. Next time you’re back in town we’ll do another cave that’s not too far from here. It’s got no lighting at all and it’s full of bats and snakes,” said Jim giving a wry grin.

    “Sounds good, I might be back sooner than you think.”

    Formations at the base of the incline to the exit point of Lap Lae Cave

     I’d spent the better part of four hours having a look at three different caves. All in all it had been a very satisfying day out and one that I’d highly recommend if you’re looking for something a bit different to do besides lying around on a beach or sitting at a bar. For anyone interested in having a look at the caves, or a day out on the ocean to Sam Roi Yot National Park, these are Jim’s contact details:

    Email: jim_coconuts@hotmail.com

    Mob: +66 (0)811914627

    Epilogue

    For those interested in reading the full version of the above, which also includes more photos, please follow this link:

    http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/ReadersSubmissions2012/reader7324.htm

    { 3 comments }

    Bargirls, Bimbos and Bitches

    by Mega on October 13, 2011

    in General

    Terms and definitions:

    Bargirl: A generic term for Thai ladies who are employed at, or provide adult services from, beer bars, go-go bars, G Clubs, karaoke bars, freelancer outlets, hotel coffee shops, discotheques and night clubs. A bar girl can quiet often run through the whole gamut of the above listed work scenarios during her time in the profession. There are full timers and part timers. Some have normal day time jobs but supplement their incomes by hanging out at freelancer venues, and night clubs, in the evenings and on weekends. The less educated ones – those whose English language skills are basic – tend to stick to the beer bars and go-go bars while those with better language skills tend to move into the freelancer venues.

    Bimbo: A hotter looking bargirl – normally from a go-go bar – who’s struck it rich by bagging a wealthy sponsor. A bimbo is a paid, or kept, piece of fluff that generally does nothing except spend the money she receives every month from her sponsor. Bimbo’s are bordering on being completely useless and are only on the payroll, of the rich sponsor, for their sexual skills and appearance. They, quite often, are seen hanging out at night clubs, buying drinks for their gaggle of useless mates, and eyeing up young farangs for a horizontal liaison. Bimbo’s are often bitches and bitches, more often than not, want to be bimbo’s. The common thing linking them is laziness.

    Bitches: Can be found right across the full spectrum of adult services industry. Generally, a bitch is a hotter looking bargirl/freelancer/go-go dancer that develops an attitude because of her popularity. Bitches are normally recognizable by their slim figures, silicone boobs and inflated egos. A bitch can be anything from a go-go dancer to a high end freelancer. Bitches are often bimbos but they can also be an educated hi-so type with their own business or well paid employment.

    If a Thai whore tells you that she’ll drive you to the airport, in the morning, politely say thanks but no thanks. That thought keeps pulsing through my grey matter as I’m strapped into the shotgun seat and flying down the toll way, at 150 km an hour, while the said whore weaves in and out of the traffic she’s passing, has one hand on the wheel and is happily engaged in conversation, with one of her whore mates, on her Iphone. Dear Buddha, if I actually make it to the departure hall, in one piece, I promise I’ll change my hedonistic ways. The whore is angry; I gave her a roasting because she took forever dragging her lazy butt out of my bed and then wasted another twenty five minutes driving up and down Sukhumvit Road before deciding to throw a u-turn, somewhere near the Ekamai BTS platform, and drive all the way back down to the toll way on-ramp just past Soi four. She’s lost face, for being told off, and was now out to show me that she knows what she’s about. That, of course, she doesn’t really need to prove; she’s got some serious income streams from a string of sponsors around the world. Hearing a whore boasting about the money she’s receiving from a bunch of mug punters overseas, who she doesn’t even like, becomes tiresome after a while. And the phone calls she receives, while lying in my bed, make the whole situation even more of a tragic farce; “Yes teerak, I at home now. I not work bar. Yes, I miss you so much as well.” One tires of this charade, quickly. The spark of lust soon gives way to boredom and, eventually, contempt; on both sides perhaps? The curt dismissal, on our arrival at the airport, certainly reinforces that observation. I juxtapose the frosty farewell, I’ve just been given, with the little scene I experienced with her the second time I bar fined her out of Rainbow Three; in the glow of the morning after she told me that she wanted to be my girlfriend. The tears started to flow when I laughed and said I didn’t do girlfriends from go-go bars any more. But, give them their due, they are great little actresses. I grab my bags, head towards the check in counter and laugh as the whore blasts off down the road; at least I won’t miss my flight to work. Maybe the roasting did the trick after all.

    Another three weeks of merriment and mayhem in the City of Angels. Another few notches on the belt and a further hardening of the cynics mind. A relationship is not on the agenda but something’s gotta give. Still, it’s seems such an easy thing to do; go to a freelancer venue, pick up a whore, shag them senseless and then pay them off in the morning. The money seems to be a bit of a waste sometimes but the saving grace is that it’s like a barrier, or a wall; it keeps them at arm’s length. As if to say “thanks for your time, there’s your fee for your services, don’t read anything else into this, goodbye.” The nonsense of all their trickery and deceit becomes monotonous though. They would like to be good, and decent, but they can’t. They’re in the grip of the big pay days now. The days of a less grasping mindset are a thing of the past. Perhaps I need to take a rain check on that as well. Paying for sex, too often, begins to eat into the hard earned cash reserves. There’s gotta be a better way to go. Thai Love Links appears to be a viable option; I’ll check it out when I get back.

    I had good intentions of keeping some self discipline about me during the three weeks off but, in a constant stream of hard bodied Thai lovelies, that altruistic plan evaporated even before I’d touched down. Like some kind of all knowing, all Seeing, Eye the ex has a sixth sense when my time offshore is almost complete. I hadn’t seen, or heard, from her for ten weeks but, like some ESP guided radar, she appeared on a chat box I’d forgotten about. With only two days before I was due back in Bangkok her usual line of BS appeared before my eyes on Skype.

    “Teerak, when are you come back?”

    “Why?”

    “Because I want see you and I never lost my feeling for you.”

    “Hmmm, I’m not giving you any money.”

    “It’s okay, I not want. My boy friend take care of me very good now.”

    “What do you want?”

    “Just sex, when you come back we go for holiday to Pattaya. I will take you in my new car.”

    “New car?”

    “Yes, my boy friend buy for me two months ago.”

    “I see. Let me think about it. I’ll call you when I get to Bangkok.”

    Two days later I was in Pattaya pounding the daylights out of her but, like some addict high on the latest designer drug, it was too good to last; very quickly the usual resentments and animosities began to set in. Never, ever believe a gold digging whore when says she doesn’t want any money. Six days later after an all night booze-athon, at one of Bangkok’s late night venues, she was legless on my doorstep at seven am again. After letting her in, and giving her a bucket to vomit into, I went out, turned off the phone (the one reserved for bitches) and stayed away all day. That seemed to do the trick as I haven’t seen, or heard, from her since. I returned to the apartment, as the sun was setting, to find the vomit still in the bucket. As I poured it down the toilet I considered my options for the coming evening. It was Saturday night but there was a bloody election on and that only meant one thing; no alcohol. Well election, or no election, I was going out and Spasso’s seemed to fit the bill.

    I got there at about eleven pm and, as I expected, the crowd was well down. I ordered one of those non-alcoholic, look-alike beers and took up a position overlooking the dance floor. As I looked back towards the bar I met the eyes of a tallish bird staring my way and doing her best to entice a reaction out of me with that look they all have. The look, of course, is something I’ve talked about before. From Bangkok to Baku you see it in the eyes of all these working girls. It’s a look that, at first, seems innately inviting. It’s a look that says “I can be whatever you want me to be and I can tell you whatever you want to hear – including hansum man – for a price.” She, or it, was tall, had a face like a hatchet and a body that was too good to be true. That only meant one thing; a katoey. I glanced away quickly. Eventually, I needed to go for a piss and moved towards the choke point formed by that stupid bloody pillar and the bar. As I squeezed through the crowd the katoey grabbed me by the crutch.

    “Why you not like me?” she said as we stood there eye ball to eye ball.

    “Why do you think I don’t like you?” I said as I looked down at her hands and high heel shod feet.

    “Because I smile at you and you not smile back. You are serious guy?”

    “Well you’re a Katoey, aren’t you?” I said expecting an uppercut to the jaw.

    “Mai chai, I’m a lady. Here, feel my nom,” she said as she guided my hand up to her well endowed cleavage.

    It was soft with not a hint of plastic.

    “Hmmm, okay. Sorry about that but you are tall,” I said feeling relieved about the situation.

    “My name is Pan and I come from Chiang Mai. My mother is Chinese,” she said feeling proud of herself.

    “Hmmm, okay,” I said as I continued admiring her fantastic figure.

    “You want me tonight Mr. serious man?” she said giving that look.

    “Probably but I gotta go to the hong-nam now,” I said as my bladder felt like it was going to bust.

    Pan, even at thirty five, was a looker. One hundred and seventy two centimeters in height, no kids and a models figure, she definitely wasn’t the standard look of a working girl one finds in this town. She’d done some modeling, in her early twenties, and had then gone off to Europe seeking fame and fortune. Unfortunately the flesh pots of Amsterdam were where she ended up ‘working’. It showed, she was a total professional in her trade. The emotional strains though, of her profession, were catching up with her; she was beginning to come to terms with her journey down the path of darkness. I spent a few days with her and got used to her parading around my apartment, for hours on end, completely naked while talking about Buddha and the need for her to go to the temple each morning. It was a situation bordering on lunacy and was only to be surpassed by the next situation bordering on lunacy I was to find myself in.

    Pan, overcome by her demons, decided to call it quits and headed back to Chiang Mai. Alone again – but not for long – it was Thursday night and that only meant one thing; Q-bar. Q-bar, the hang out for pretentious, wanna-be, high-so whores. I walked in to find Sabina (where the hell do these girls get their names from?) sitting at the bar on the ground floor. Sabina, the borderline nut job that had chased me down the road in her SUV at three thirty am somewhere over near Rachada, a few weeks ago, was looking her usual self; a stuck-up pretentious bitch. Always good for a challenge I sidled up to her and, in a typical kiwi don’t give a fuck attitude said “hi sexy, how’s the car?”

    She turned and looked at me with her nose upturned.

    “You jai dum,” she said feigning hurt feelings.

    “Look, no hard feelings, let me buy you a drink and we can put it behind us,” I said with a smile about as genuine as a guy telling a bird he’s not going to ejaculate into her mouth.

    “Vodka Red Bull,” she blurted out almost instantly to the bartender.

    That did the trick; four hours later we were in a horizontal position back at my apartment. The next evening I was given an invitation, by Sabina, to attend a friend’s birthday celebration at the Bed Supper Club. I knew what that meant; I was being lined up for a serious drinks bill for Sabina and her entourage of bitch mates. Eleven pm was the allotted appointment time on her short sms. At precisely eleven I sms’d her and said that I wouldn’t be there until twelve and that she should begin without me. A bit after twelve I elbowed my way through the crowd, gathered around the entrance, to find Sabina, and her group of sycophants, taking center stage in the White Bar. They were gathered around a small table full of Grey Goose and Red Bull bottles. Sabina gave me that look that basically says “you’ve been living here too long and you know too much” and then introduced me to her semi plastered gaggle of mates. They were all white skinned, tall, attractive Bangkok ladies. The bitches interrupted their celebrations, just long enough, to give me a cursory glance and then went back to the serious task of pouring another round of drinks. I took a pull on my beer and stood back to watch the circus unfolding around me. Sabina and one of her tall, white skinned mates were putting on a pseudo lesbian routine for the pack of salivating young studs gathered nearby. The young bucks stood by drooling as Sabina, and her mate, entwined themselves around each other, rubbed up against each other and held hands. After a couple of minutes of this they would break away and move towards one of the young studs, allow a touch (from the salivating young guy) and then quickly move back together to resume their cuddling. It was hilarious; the studs were like dogs sniffing after bitches on heat. Thank fuck I’d moved beyond that stage in my life. A few drinks later, as Sabina was off on a toilet run, her best mate, the one that had been engaged in the pseudo lesbian routine with her, sidled up to me and offered herself for two hundred dollars for the night. Once again I reflected on the fact that, among bitches, there are only rivals for a customer’s cash; friendship is in a world of make believe. I looked at her, laughed and told her to piss off. As an aside it seems as though these up-market types, that frequent Q-Bar and the Bed Supper Club, have moved with the economics of our times; their pricing regimes, these days at least, are often quoted in USD. A few days later I was back at Q-bar again and was hit with the USD pricing regime once more; one of the hotter bitches, there that night, quoted me USD four hundred for the night. When I asked her if that was the “price for the week” I got a rather dirty look in return.

    Sabina’s mate must have taken offence to what I’d said in reply to her solicited price because, within two minutes of being back from her toilet run, Sabina was prattling on about knowing that I wanted to shag her mate.

    “I know you want she tonight,” said Sabina with a childish sulk on her face.

    “How do you know that?”

    “My friend tell me you say you pay she song roi rian for go with she tonight.”

    I looked at her and laughed.

    “I’ve had enough of this bloody nonsense. I’m going” I said finishing my beer and turning to go.

    “Where you go?” she said realizing the nights’ earnings was about to walk out the door.

    “I don’t know, maybe Mix.”

    “I take you”

    “No thanks, I still remember what happened last time you gave me a ride. I’ll take a taxi,” I said as I left her standing there stunned that some guy could actually walk away from her.

    She was one of the most pretentious bitches I’d ever met. She was so far up herself she even had the audacity to tell me that she was number one in her group. Good riddance I thought as I jumped into the taxi and gave him the address of my condo. I turned off the phone and laughed in the knowledge that Sabina and her useless bunch of mates would probably be heading to Bangkok’s newest late night hangout; MIX. I’d been there once and no intention of going again. With two large bars, in the basement of the Intercontinental Hotel, and only one entry/exit point, the place was a bloody fire trap.

    The following morning I got a bizarre message from Sabina; “I not stay in BKK for my birthday, I going to temple for one week.”

    I started to wonder what it was about these birds and their affection for temples. A few days later I met another freelancer at Spasso’s who proudly told me that she’d just done a week in a temple. I think I’ve got it worked out now and it’s got nothing to do with the idea of trying to make themselves into a better person; it’s simply a detox program. They go and stay in a temple for a few days and sober up through abstention from alcohol. Feeling refreshed, and renewed, they head straight back to the bar, or night club, as soon as they’re back in town.

    Having resided in Thailand for the best part of eighteen years and sampled just about every pay for pleasure scenario one can experience, in this fair land, I’ve come to the overwhelming conclusion that not one, of the thousands of girls plying their trade in the industry, would be worth having as a girlfriend. There will be some out there who take exception to this and, no doubt, will probably bombard me with all kinds of reasons why some bargirls might be reasonable relationship material. I’m sorry, but I won’t be convinced; you’ll be wasting your time. Let me explain: the majority of ladies working in the pay for pleasure industry come from a certain well known area of the country. Trawl up and down Sukhumvit, Walking Street and Soi Bangla and you’ll see that ninety five percent of them are from Isarn. There seems to be a certain mindset about these ladies that predisposes them to selling sex for money. Okay, I know poverty and a lack of education have a lot to do with it but, having had so much first had experience with so many of them, I can honestly conclude that most of them, to put it bluntly, are simply bloody lazy. I suppose the thought of toiling in some shitty factory, or on a building site, is motivation enough for them to keep working in a bar but the general attitude, of pretty much all of them, is that doing as little as possible, for a maximum gain, is an ideal way to go through life. For every single one of them it’s the same M.O. – “I need someone take care of me and my family.” Which, loosely translated, means they want a sucker to provide for them, and their families, into perpetuity. For all of them it’s far simpler to find a provider to leach off than to actually try and use their own honest efforts to make their way in this world.
    Even the so called good ones, the ones working in normal jobs, have the same brainwashed concept, of providing for their families, bred into them; a foreigner is seen as some kind of economic salvation. A good girl might offer you a level of honesty you would never expect to see with a bargirl but, having said that, you’re still dealing with the same baseline; “I need someone take care me and my family.” I’m beginning see the merit in something a mate of mine told me not too long ago when it comes to interacting with Thai ladies.

    “Just use the north of Bangkok rule when you’re looking for a lady to spend a bit of time with.”

    “What’s the north of Bangkok rule?”

    “If it comes from north of Bangkok, it’s only for fun and not for anything serious.”

    Now I know that may be a bit of a harsh way to look at things and I’m sure that there’s probably an abundance of nice, educated ladies up in Chiang Mai who could prove the above assessment incorrect. However, I have yet to see any of them, from a poor rural background that don’t have the idea in their heads that a farang is a fast track to a financial leg up in life. Go onto any of the internet dating sites and what you’ll find is a never ending supply of ladies from the North east, of the country, who’re looking for “a nice man take care of me.” In their world, “take care” is all about someone providing them with financial support. I have joined a couple of sites recently and listed some strict provisos on my profile.

    No single mothers.
    No tattoos.
    Financially self supporting.
    No unemployed ladies or ladies who don’t have a real job.
    Minimum educational level: bachelors’ degree.
    Not interested if you live outside Bangkok.

    Even so, those from the rural north still keep chipping away. One lady, a mother of two, got quite irate and asked me why I “don’t like lady with children.”

    “Does the Thai father of the children provide financial support?”

    “No, he gone away.”

    “Then why do you think a farang must take care of them?”

    Before taking up with one of these ladies that’s looking for “someone take care me and my family” you might want to stop and consider what it is, besides that moist spot between their legs, they bring to the table which will improve your position on this planet. Can they actually help you make money or are they just a one way financial drain on you?

    One would think that, once they’ve hooked themselves a financial savior, they might show a bit of humility and be eternally grateful for the fact that you’re improving their poverty ridden, shitty little lives. The Isarn mindset doesn’t see it that way though. It’s almost as though they’ve got some pre-ordained right to relieve you of your cash. Within a short space of time they develop attitude. I guess that comes about through a combination of the face that they gain from being able to show everyone that they’ve dragged themselves out of the gutter and the child’s emotional maturity level that most of them have. The idea that they should be grateful, or show some humility, never enters their heads. A couple of nights later I was in a bar, on Soi Eleven, engaged in conversation with one of Isarns finest.

    “My boyfriend buy farm for me. He good man. I going to Norway for three month to stay with him” said the boastful little Isarn strumpet that was standing next to me in Oskars.

    “I see and does your boyfriend know you are out at the bars every night looking for man?”

    “That not your business. It up to me. I need more money.”

    As many old Asia hands have discovered through hard earned experience; sponsorship doesn’t work. And the reason it doesn’t work is because, no matter how much you give, it’s never enough. It turns them into greedy, idle little parasites. Not only that, the parasites back at the village become greedy and idle as well.

    “And tell me, why does your boyfriend give you money every month?”

    “If he want sexy lady he have to pay me money,” she said with a bitch attitude.

    “I see, and you think you are sexy do you?” I said looking at her diminutive, dark skinned figure.

    “Of course, a lot of farang want me?”

    “And Thai motor bike taxi drivers as well,” I said with a bit of a smirk.

    She stared back at me with ice in her eyes.

    “I not like Thai man,” she said turning her head away.

    “Yeah, well there’s a lot of Thai man that don’t like you as well,” I said.

    ‘How you know?” she said giving me another nasty look.

    I laughed.

    “A good Thai man with education and money would never be interested in you. Your level, for a Thai man, is a motor bike taxi driver. But that’s okay, I mean, there’s plenty of farang around willing to pay you for your worn out pussy.”

    “Fuck you,” she said giving me the bird.

    “No thanks, you aint my type,” I said as I waved the staff over to settle the bill.

    As I walked out into the light drizzle I thought about the great secret that they desperately don’t want us to know about. The secret which they do their best to hide and obfuscate by telling us that “they don’t like Thai man” or “Thai man no good.” It’s not that they don’t actually want to be with a Thai man; most of them do. It’s just that they know that no decent, self respecting, educated Thai bloke would touch them. That they know they’re second hand goods and they’re never going to receive some ridiculous, over inflated sin sod, for their stretch marked, child bearing torso, from a Thai bloke. But a farang, well, that’s a different story. Bar girls, bimbos and bitches? Take it from me, they’re only for fun.

    { 41 comments }

    You’re Such a THAI!

    by virgilalligator on August 28, 2011

    in Expat Life,People,Thai Language

    Yep, I said it! I am officially now Thai. Wait a minute, what the heck you ask? Allow me to explain. For starters, I am not a FARANG to the natives here, well, not so much in words anyway. And if you are wondering what that word means…well, everyone seems to have their own ideas. I mean, Lonely Planet forums I have read have said it means Honoured Guest. Yeah, right. Honoured to the ladies of the night maybe…

    And then, the highly-trustworthy Bangkok Post (insert LOL here) seems to have their own take on the word. I guess we are all transplanted here to be big ol’ guava fruits. In any case, if you do read what the Bangkok Post says, you will learn that us FARANGS are actually well-respected, highly civilized human beings in the LOS (Land of Smiles).

    It doesn’t matter any of this anyway because yours truly is not a FARANG. Nope, I am 100% pure Thai. Um, yeah, I am. Why? The Thais tell me so! Yes, mother and father, they sure do! I guess I am Italian, as my husband says when honeymooning in Italy I was lost in the crowds, and while I am Italian and bear a striking resemblance to my father, I am a mutt at heart. But I am also Mexican! Yep, having taught Spanish for over 10 years, I seem to blend in well, and not just on Spring Break in Mexico either. I speak the language, eat their food and then run for the border as fast as I can before they suck me in and detain me. Josh, remember Los Cabos…yeah. All righty then….

    Shall we move on? I think so. So I am in a taxi cab a couple weeks ago. I don’t make eye contact with the drivers because they often have a tendency to 1-wanna practice their English the whole 30 minutes we have moved 1 Kilometer down Sukhumvit and 2-refuse me when I tell them where I wish to be driven. Picky drivers, eh? Whoops, guess I am a Canuck, too! So, this particular Thai gentleman (I have yet to have a female cab driver…) says to me when I tell him to take me to Sukhumvit soi 30, “You Thai” Um, what? “No, I am not Thai.” Dai, dai…you Thai, Madame. Guess I am French, too, then, right? Well, I just responded back, no, Sukhumvit Sahm Sip (30). And then a simple thank you. He proceeds to practice his English more and say, “You look Thai.” No, I teach Thai students, though. No, he insists I am Thai. I say thank you in Thai, pay him the fare and exit. I cannot catch a break from being a mutt!

    After the school day ended on Thursday this week, I ventured out to the main corridor where the parents and the students’ nannies and their drivers fetch the kids at 3:00. I was bumping in to some familiar faces and then one I had not eyed before. He points to my hair, and then I immediately stare down his mane. Long hair on a grown Thai I have not seen before, but I do have one Thai student (bright young fella, I might add…) with a rat tail the length of my arm and a half, maybe two arms’ length. Anyway, the guy says aside to the Italian parent I was talking with, Thai. And then points at me again. Still don’t understand why he was pointing at my hair. Then I got brave and curious and just said, “What did you say?” He introduced himself, but I didn’t quite get it all. He said, “You are Thai?!” No, I am not. I am a mutt, pure-bred 100% mutt. I didn’t digress further than to say I look like everything no matter where I am in the world. He complimented me on my Thai and said with the exception of my streaky highlights I could pass for a Thai woman.

    Fast forward to today. Walking out of Gourmet Market, my favorite Western grocery store (but frustrating they don’t carry Arm & Hammer to rid the stench of our fridge in the apartment) this afternoon, I nabbed a cabbie who wanted again to practice his English. I was asked where I was going, and being the native Thai I am, no FARANG here!!! I proceeded to say where I lived and that he’d need to take the first U-Turn to get back on the other direction. Stupid boulevards cramping up the traffic here, I tell ya! And so he says, “You Thai” I took a breath and thought to myself, “Here we go again.” This 1 KM ride that will take 30 minutes is gonna be one of those trips…I said no, and he proceeded to ask where I am from, how old, what I am doing here with all those groceries and why I live here.

    Case in point–get a pair of headphones to wear while in the droning cabs, so I can tune it out and second, just start investing in all that whitening crap the girls here buy to make themselves look like Geisha whities. I swear, if you don’t look carefully, there is whitening agent in your milk, in your bread, in your cheap Chang beer (read Wisco=Busch Light), probably even in the street food I get on the roadside stalls. I should start up a Whitening Solution company… The girls here spend more time trying to get white and hide their skin tone than we spend basking in the sun on Spring Break. They rely on their umbrellas more as parasols than to beat the rainy season.

    So, another lesson…if I am going to perfect my native Thai-ness, I better start eating up all that whitening agent in the lotions and skin care products if I wanna really fit in. And I guess I better start speaking better, as Josh has me beat on that level.

    If I am Thai, why am I getting grossed out all of a sudden by the street food? I know a couple of my girlfriends at work have gotten sick so it is a fair warning, but I guess I will have to put on my brave suit and dive in, and stop being a wuss and sweating when I suck up the Tom Yum soup at school lunches…

    In any case, I will need to own up and just learn to say yes, I am Thai. No, not a mutt. I did have to explain to my students that mutts are just a healthy dose of this and that, like all us Americans. But I think I lost them at the word mutt…We’ll keep working at it to the point of them just realizing I am THAI.

    Go to a wat, pay your respects and take in the wafts of incense!

    And since I am Thai, I have declared that Thailand is NOT the Land of Smiles. Nope, it is decided that Thailand is the LOI. Um…Yeah, it is the Land of INCENSE. Any peeps from GB know that when we were growing up and we went downtown to Port Plaza, we had to go on that Pine Street sidewalk to the groovy hippie store and buy our Grateful Dead Tie-Dyed shirts…You know what store I am referring to if you were one of us. Anyway, I am running today (and every other day, as folks, I AM running the Bangkok Marathon in November at 3 a.m.!) in Benjakitti Park and I come around the bend of the lake to the bicycle rental area. I sniff a couple times and I felt like I was at a rave or something. I get back from my run to my apartment building, say my Thai hellos to the staff opening the gates and doors for me and smell it again. I am surprised we don’t all sit around the flag pole at school when the Thai flag is being raised by the students, while we sing the joyous (beautifully sounding!) Thai national anthem and a waft of air comes by with some incense.

    So there you have it folks. Kuhn Sharin has declared Thailand the Land of Incense until further notice.

    { 2 comments }

    Bangkokhooker’s Fishing in Thailand: My favourite payponds

    by Bangkokhooker on April 3, 2011

    in Things To Do in Bangkok

    Hello everyone and welcome to my first Bangkok Diaries post.

    I’m a Thai person who has spent a little bit of time studying abroad. When I got moved back to Thailand three years ago I decided to pick up my childhood hobby, fishing. Soon enough I found myself spending more time at fishing venues than at the bars. After realising that most of the information, regarding fishing in Thailand, was either in Thai or through some fishing tour company I decided to contribute my share to the international community who are interested in the angling arts by starting a blog.

    Living in Thailand, I often hear many of my friends complain about the lack of things to do in the South East Asian City of Angels. Sooner or later people get sick of all the cheap booze, the dingy bar scene and the hustle and bustle of the urban jungle. Little did these friends of mine know that inside this concrete jungle of over 11 million inhabitants (or was it 9 million? I lose count) there is a thriving fishing industry. It started becoming even more clear to them when popular fishing TV shows, like River Monsters, started checking out Thailand’s fishing potential (speaking of fishing shows in Thailand here’s a quick run down).

    The most popular places to go fishing in Bangkok are at pay ponds, artificial bodies of water filled with fish where anglers can pay a fee in order to have a go at catching them. You know, sort of like going to a “lounge” instead of trying your chances at a night club. Pay ponds can be the time-starved Bangkokian’s answer to the weekend outdoor activity. Rod rentals, fishing guides, restaurants and all sorts of creature comforts can be found at most fishing ponds meaning that that the avid angler would not have to invest in buying his/her own gear while there are facilities for the angler’s tag-alongs to enjoy because let’s face it, nothing kills the moment more than a whiny partner (unless you are Jackie Chan’s character from Rush Hour, that’d be funny).

    Compiled here are some of the ponds that I have been frequenting including some basic details such as price, the type of fishing, target fish species, pond location and creature comfort ratings. As for google locations and further details, click on their respective links to check them out.

     

    Pond name: Bungsamran.

    Operating hours: They are never closed, NEVER.

    Target species:  Mekong giant catfish, striped catfish, Siamese giant carp and arapaima.

    Fishing type: Bait fishing.

    Location: Nawamin soi 42.

    Contact: 02-734-9272, www.bungsamran.com.

    Price: B400 for Thais or farangs with work permits, B1,000 for farangs without work permits. B20,000 for the arapaima fishing license.

    Summary: The fish here are BIG and quite commonly break people’s rods. Anyone with some money can rock in and catch a monster fish with the help of a paid guide (B1,000). It would be the perfect bait fishing pond if they don’t have the evil racist double-pricing. An un-geared visitor without a working permit or fishing skills can be expected to pay around B3,000 for a great day of fishing.

    Creature comforts: Simply the best of any  pond. An internet cafe, convenience store, cafe, restaurant and very cheap massages (B120-180 per hour). You can even rent personal fishing bungalows (B800-5,000). Also toilets are clean. This is the perfect place to bring a non-fishing significant other.

    Gear rental: Yes.

     

    Pond name: Sukuna.

    Operating hours: Open daily 10am-10pm.

    Target species:  striped catfish and Mekong giant catfish.

    Fishing type:  Bait fishing.

    Location: Soi Mungkorn-Kandi Km. Soi entrance is located at 8 Theparak, Muang Samut Prakan. About 30km from downtown Bangkok.

    Contact: 02-755-4433.

    Price:  B100 per rod on weekdays, B120 per rod on Saturdays, B150 per rod on Sundays and B60 after 6pm everyday.

    Summary:  Sukana is the poor man’s Bungsamran. Most of the fish here are the smaller striped catfish but those waiting to catch a Mekong giant will have a chance with a little more patience. Plus, the pond doesn’t discriminate in pricing. The people here can also mix your bait for you in their mixing machine free of charge.

    Creature comforts: The pond has many little stone gazebos scattered across their lush grassy grounds making this quite the nice place to take someone on a date. The restaurant here is not bad and the toilets are clean.

    Gear rental: yes.

     

    Pond name: Amazon BKK

    Operating hours: Open daily 6am-9pm.

    Target species:  Arapaima, red tail catfish and red tail/tiger hybrid catfish.

    Fishing type:  Lure and fly fishing.

    Location: Ratchmontri road near Phutthamonthon sai 1.

    Contact: 081-426-4203.

    Price: B500 per rod for full day, B300 per rod for half day.

    Summary: Here is an affordable pond where one can catch exotic fish species such as the arapaima and the red tail via artificial fishing without having to break the bank. The venue and is not too big and neither are the fish (arapaimas are about 50kg max but mostly around 5-10kg) but hey, it’s cheaper than Bungsamran’s B20,000 fee.

    Creature comforts: Amazon’s setting is quite gorgeous. A lush green garden filled with a variety of plants surrounding several hand carved Bungalows, this place is quite fantastic to bring a date except for the toilets which aren’t that welcoming.

    Gear rental: No.

     

    Pond name: Pilot 111.

    Operating hours: Open daily 6am-9pm.

    Target species:  Barramundi, giant snakehead, striped snakehead, spotted featherback and rock catfish.

    Fishing type:  Lure and fly fishing.

    Location: Bangna-trad kilometre 39.5.

    Contact: 086-316-8773.

    Price: B500 per rod.

    Summary: With eight different ponds and so many fish species divided into separate ponds as well as very little trees in the way this is easily the best lure and fly fishing pond at the moment.

    Creature comforts: The facilities here are basic but very clean. The manicured lawns, the spotlessly clean restaurant and bathroom makes you feel like you’re at a golf club.

    Gear rental: No.

     

    Pond name: Texas Chuan Chom.

    Operating hours: flexible, just call the owner.

    Target species: Barramundi, giant snakehead, striped snakehead and rock catfish.

    Fishing type: Lure fishing.

    Location: Thanon Pracha Samran, Khlong sip song, Nong Chok.

    Contact: Saek – 081-383-4151.

    Price: B100 to fish in one pond and B200 to fish in all five ponds.

    Summary: This humble little pond is run by a passionate lure fisherman who is obsessed with the Texas rig method of fishing. The striped snakehead pond is dedicated exclusively to this fishing method. This pond is for the serious angler and is exceptionally difficult but worth the challenge.

    Creature comforts: They have a bamboo gazebo that sits on top of one of the ponds and they have a pretty good kitchen here. The bathroom needs a little work but it’s not the worst I’ve seen.

    Gear rental: No, but the owner will lend you his and can sell you some rubber lures.

     

    That’s it, I hope this can inspire some of you to pick up the wonderful art of fishing in this wonderful city. Until next we meet, fun times and tight lines!

     

     

    { 7 comments }

    10 things I hate about Bangkok (Part 6) by On Nutter

    by On Nutter on February 7, 2011

    in General

    THE GEOGRAPHICALLY CHALLENGED: Have you ever met a Thai geography teacher? I thought not. Most Thais would struggle to locate their own country on a map. As for the world beyond the kingdom’s boundaries, that is a closed book. “Is England close to Australia?” I was once asked by a girlfriend. “Er, no. They are on opposite sides of the world,” I replied. My inquisitor looked unconvinced and added: “Why do Australians look like farangs then?” My brief history lesson on Aboriginals and Britain’s policy of exporting criminals to faraway lands (Pattaya has replaced Botany Bay in that respect) left her shaking her head as she headed to a world map hanging on my bedroom door. Studying the Arctic Circle, she asked where the wall was. “What bloody wall?” I asked, by now somewhat exasperated. “The one that keeps the sea in.”

    BUYING MYSELF LADY-DRINKS: This strange episode reinforced the notion that my main role in this country is to prop up the economy. Hungover and grumpy, I was sipping an orange juice in an empty beer bar when I noticed that my bill gave the price as an outrageous 120 baht. I called over a waitress and told her that a mistake had been made. She defiantly announced that orange juice was 120 baht because it was a lady-drink. “As I have bought a lady-drink for myself, will I get the commission?” I asked incredulously. She said that would not be possible. “Do I have to barfine myself if I want to leave?” I asked, not entirely in jest. “Up to you.”

    INAPPROPRIATE SALAD GARNISHES: There is a place for a limp, soggy collection of lettuce, cucumber and tomato. That place is either the bin or a vegetarian’s stomach. I certainly don’t want to see such unwanted and unappealing items contaminating my full English breakfast or lurking under my spaghetti bolognese. What are the chefs thinking of?

    THAI MALES WEARING ONLY TOWELS: Those of you who never leave The Farang Reservation will not have witnessed this phenomenon. Believe it or not, Bangkok’s less desirable areas are full of mean-looking patriarchs who never get dressed. I used to see them daily on my walks through the slums of Klong Toey. They occasionally emerge from their roadside hovels to spit in the gutter or splash water over themselves, drying themselves with the threadbare towel covering their midriff. They would fit in well among their shirtless farang brethren in Pattaya.

    THE INSUFFICIENT AGE GAP: When I was 48 (not so long ago, honestly), I had a Thai girlfriend of 32. This 16-year age gap caused gasps of horror and outrage when I revealed it to female friends on a visit to England. They looked at me as though I had descended into paedophilia and earnestly advised me to seek someone of my own age. Back in the parallel universe of Bangkok, the reaction of friends was also of shock – that I should be dating someone so old. “Honestly, she has her own teeth and everything,” I protested as I was advised to trade her in for a younger model. Before I could do so, she dumped me for a younger farang and left me contemplating my approaching senility.

    THE BILL BARRIER: In normal countries, utility companies make it as easy as possible for customers to pay their bills because, unsurprisingly, they want your money. Not so in upside-down Thailand, where obstacles are placed in your way if you miss an often unrealistic deadline. My electricity bill usually arrives only two or three days before the deadline for paying it at the 7-Eleven or by other electronic means. After being out of town and missing the deadline, I called the electricity company to ask how they wanted me to pay the bill. “You must come head office Ploenchit,” I was tersely informed. As I could not get time off work for such a chore, I had to pay someone to go there on my behalf. Insane.

    LOST TAXI DRIVERS: Even after living in Bangkok for five years, I don’t really know where I am most of the time. Everywhere looks much the same – lots of concrete and 7-Elevens. That’s why I would appreciate it if taxi drivers didn’t ask me for directions to Sukhumvit Road or Victory Monument. Even worse, they always pretend they know where they are going before it becomes apparent that they are fresh off the farm in Udon Thani. That explains how I once ended up on the outskirts of Nonthaburi after asking to go to an immigration office near Chatuchak Park. Bastards.

    THE BROLLY BRIGADE: Unlike normal people, Thais don’t use umbrellas when it is raining. They use them to fend off the sun’s evil rays, which seems a bit pointless in a country of dark-skinned people where it is sunny nearly every day. Given their lack of spatial awareness and sloth-like walking, Thais holding umbrellas represent a potentially fatal danger to pedestrians trying to pass them. Be careful out there.

    THAI TONES: As a monosyllabic language with pretty basic grammar, Thai should be easy to learn. But it isn’t because someone decided, for no logical reason, that it should have five tones. Get a tone even slightly wrong and your attempt to say “Have a nice day” can instead mean “Your mother is a whore who sleeps with pigs”. My attempt to order the well-known noodle dish radna created a linguistic crisis in one restaurant. Pronounced in the flat tones of northern England, my order created not a flicker of recognition among the serving staff. Even the manager came over to try to understand what the farang wanted to eat. “You must know what it is – it’s virtually Thailand’s national dish,” I pleaded. In desperation, I started experimenting with the tone of the second syllable. Eventually, the message got home when I pronounced the na with an elongated rising tone in the manner of an opera singer rounding off a virtuoso performance. I swear I heard applause.

    THE DICK COUNT: As I sauntered through Robinson department store one day, a saleswoman at the perfume counter invited me to join “a big dick count”. I was quite flattered and nodded my approval. “You’re really having a dick count?” I asked. “Yes. 50 per cent off all items,” she said with a smile.

    { 17 comments }

    My Love Affair With Thailand – Epilogue

    by Inspector Cowboy on December 9, 2010

    in Bangkok Nightlife,General,Thai Girls,Tourist Life

    Epilogue

    After leaving Nok I felt pretty bad. I quite simply did not want to leave Thailand. I buried myself in the anonymity of Don Mueang airport and had a few beers to make me feel better. Thankfully the departure time for the flight came quickly and I was soon on my way to Istanbul. A short stopover and I was greeted by a dull and rainy Heathrow. Reality.

    I never went back to see Nok and soon afterwards the bars on Asoke Corner were pulled down. I wish I had kept her telephone number but sadly I didn’t. I would love to meet her again some ten years later and I hope things have turned out well for her.

    I met Tuk again about a year later in a different bar on Soi Cowboy. She had lost weight but still had that effervescent sparkle about her. She told me Meow had met a farang and didn’t work in a bar anymore. I asked Tuk to send my regards to Meow and wish her well.

    Poo was working in the same go-go bar up until a couple of years ago and had been promoted to cashier. She was still partial to debagging customers right up until the time she left her employment.

    Sai from Patpong has never been seen again, Just Do It Sai!

    Geoff is living in Thailand full time after selling his dental practice and narrowly escaped death during the tsunami. His beach hut was swept away but luckily Geoff and his companion escaped with nothing more serious than some cuts and bruises. We still meet up a couple of times a year wherever Geoff may be in Thailand. I have never asked him if he ever met up with the devil lady.

    Pim – Whereabouts unknown.

    { 4 comments }

    A Long Return To Thailand – Part 3

    by Inspector Cowboy on November 27, 2010

    in Expat Life,General,People,Popular,Relationships,Thai Food,Thai Girls,Tourist Life

    I awoke at nearly midnight with Jeab in my arms. I felt totally worn out which I guess was a result of the excitement of the past few days, jet-lag and making love with Jeab. I lay there for a few moments my nostrils filled with the scent of Jeab’s hair, listening to the distant sound of traffic from Second Road. I was ravenously hungry and gently let go of Jeab as I went to the shower. Jeab stirred slightly but remained asleep. The air conditioning had made the room cool and I switched on a bedside lamp. I stood under the shower trying to decide whether I would go out and take Jeab with me, go out and send Jeab home, stay in my room with Jeab or stay in my room without Jeab. Such are the decisions to be made in Thailand.

    I decided to leave Jeab sleeping while I went downstairs to have a drink in the hotel bar. Half expecting to meet green stripe polo shirt I entered the lift and descended to the ground floor. I could hear the music from the bar opposite as I ordered a Heineken and sat down with my thoughts. The bar was virtually empty with only a couple of guys accompanied by Thai ladies. They spoke in hushed tones as I stood up to collect a copy of the Bangkok Post from the newspaper rack. As I did this I heard a voice behind me.

    “Mind if I join you mate?”

    The accent was unmistakably Australian and belonged to a guy who looked to be in his mid-thirties, about my height with a short military type haircut wearing light blue jeans, a white shirt and suede desert boots.

    “Yes, no problem, sit down here, fancy a beer? I’m Gerry from England”. We shook hands.

    “My name’s Jim I’m from Sydney”.

    I got Jim a bottle of Singha and I got a bottle of Heineken, we sat down at a table with a view through the window of the soi. Jim was in Pattaya on holiday and this was his first night. He had arranged to meet some friends in Pattaya but their flight was delayed and they’d decided to spend the night in Bangkok.

    “Great place mate” said Jim taking a hearty glug from his beer.

    “My first time here Jim, got here this morning and things are going fine so far”. My mind wandering briefly to wonder what Jeab was doing upstairs. I’d locked all my valuables in the room safe and hated doing it because I wanted to trust everyone but better to be safe than sorry.

    “What you got planned tonight?” said Jim as his eyes followed a couple of young ladies walking up the soi towards Second Road.

    “Nothing at the moment mate, any ideas?”

    Of course Jim had ideas. We discussed our plans and I quickly made the decision to relieve Jeab of her duties and hit the town with Jim. I caught the lift upstairs and knocked on the room door. Jeab opened the door almost immediately, smiling wrapped in a white towel and wearing a shower cap. I explained I was going out with my friend from the bar and would she give me her telephone number. I didn’t know exactly how to say I wanted her to go but she got the message but not before peeling off her towel and standing naked in front of me saying, “I horny tilac”. My return to the hotel bar and my new friend Jim took slightly longer than I anticipated. I introduced Jeab to Jim before she went on her merry way laden with baht.

    It was getting towards one o’clock in the morning as Jim and myself jumped into a baht bus and headed towards Soi 8. Jim had been to Soi 8 earlier in the evening and recommended we revisit. We paid the baht bus driver his fare and entered Soi 8. Soi 8 runs parallel to Soi 13 between Second Road and Beach Road further north along the coast. It is lined by bars on both sides and is about 150 metres in length. As we arrived the bars were closing but it was still possible to have a drink outside the bars and the place was buzzing with people. The lights in the bars had been turned off and the volume of the music was reduced but there was still a fun atmosphere with hundreds of people still partying. Girls, and ladyboys, were in abundance all around us as we drank our beers and took in the scenery. We were soon joined by a couple of girls, Bom and Art. Bom latched onto Jim and Art seemed to take a liking to me. We bought them drinks which looked more like works of art than a beverage and settled down to talk away and watch the activities on Soi 8. Art spoke excellent English and we were soon deep in conversation about nothing in particular. I endured the now familiar interrogation – name, duration of stay, name of hotel, how old, wife? Girlfriend? Where you go? etc. The answers I gave seemed to satisfy both Art and myself as the crowds on Soi 8 thinned slightly. Bom got up to go and get some food for her and Jim so I asked Art if she wanted anything. Art smiled and said yes so she joined Bom on the food run. I was looking forward to something to eat as I hadn’t eaten since the chicken and fruit earlier in the day. I asked Jim how he was getting on and I got the response, “Bonzer” which I took to mean things were going great with him and Bom. We got another couple of beers from a very tall ladyboy who had now assumed waitress duties for us. Bom and Art returned clutching a veritable feast which included a doner kebab, a couple of burgers, some som tam, a fish with what looked like garlic, lime and chilli, a few bags of sticky rice and some noodles and we all tucked in although I noticed the girls gave the burgers and kebab a wide berth.

    The food finished we ordered more beers and spectacular beverages for the girls and talked about moving on. Bom suggested we went to a disco she knew was open until the morning. Jim and myself didn’t take much persuading as we quickly finished our drinks and hopped into a passing baht bus. I sat next to Art on one side of the baht bus and opposite Bom and Jim held each other as we commenced our breakneck speed journey to the mystery destination. We turned inland away from the sea. I recognised the road we were on from my journey into Pattaya the previous morning as we passed some very large hotels. The street lights became more sparse and darkness seemed to envelope us as we travelled to our mystery destination. Suddenly the baht bus slowed and in front of us stood a huge warehouse type structure adorned with flashing neon lights. It was like an oasis in the middle of darkness with what seemed like hundreds of Thai men and women along with farangs accompanied by Thai girls. Art and Bom seemed very excited to have arrived as we alighted the baht bus and paid the driver.

    Outside the queue to enter the venue snaked around the side of the building. There were dozens of food carts sprinkled around the place along with small stalls selling beer and soft drinks to those in the queue. Bom and Art disappeared for a couple of minutes and reappeared clutching bags of what I thought were chocolate chip cookies although on closer inspection they were deep fried baby frogs which both Art and Bom nibbled on voraciously. They offered Jim and myself a frog each but we both politely declined causing the girls to giggle furiously no doubt revelling in the awkwardness of the two farangs.

    The girls entered the venue free of charge and both Jim and myself were charged an admission fee which included a free drink. Inside, the place was jumping. Literally hundreds of Thai’s and farangs dancing and having fun. The venue was enormous and was adorned with flashing lights, huge sheets hanging from the ceiling and a stage where I presumed a band would play at some point. Everybody seemed to be having a great time. Suddenly the music stopped and everybody started chanting something in Thai, the noise got louder as the chanting became louder and louder. Me and Jim looked at each other laughing and at the same time feeling slightly excluded. Bom and Art were jumping up and down laughing hysterically and shouting, it seemed the whole place was going to explode when the lights flashed even faster, the noise built to a crescendo and there were three enormous loud bangs. This was when I noticed what looked like foam being shot out of what seemed to be huge drainpipes at the side of the stage. The foam shot up into the air seemingly covering everything. The girls were now besides themselves jumping up and down screaming as they were progressively covered with the foam. We all became unrecognisable as the music started up again and people danced, jumped around and melted into a huge mass of foam and humanity. It was mind-blowingly hysterically funny.

    Eventually the hysteria subsided and Jim and myself located Art and Bom who had by now de-foamed themselves. They were still in the vicinity but appeared to be shell-shocked after the excitement of the foam. It obviously wasn’t the first time Bom and Art had attended the foam night and judging by how much they had enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be the last.

    We left at around five o’clock and wearily made our way towards a queue of baht buses parked on the road that passed the foam warehouse. Art and Bom by now had stopped talking and entered the Thai girl mode of tiredness where nothing short of a firework up the arse would rouse them. We all returned to the hotel in the baht bus tired, happy and looking forward to a good nights sleep. We caught the lift up to our respective floors, me with Art and Jim with Bom and said our goodnights.

    Art and myself slept like the proverbial logs, naked and entwined.

    { 1 comment }

    A Long Return To Thailand – Part 2

    by Inspector Cowboy on November 27, 2010

    in Expat Life,General,People,Relationships,Thai Culture,Thai Girls,Tourist Life

    The flight from Heathrow with Qantas had been uneventful. I had sat next to an Aussie backpacker who had spent most of the 11 hour flight telling me about a pop festival he had been to regardless of the fact I was pretending to be asleep. Steve had been good to his word and I was now officially a website builder. My plan was to spend a month in various locations around Thailand interspersed with visa runs and a trip or two back to the UK during the year I intended to spend in Thailand. The locations I had chosen were Bangkok, Pattaya, Phuket, Chiang Mai, Koh Samui and Hua Hin although I was prepared for changes and to be flexible.

    The trip from Don Mueang airport to Pattaya had taken just about two hours as we pulled up outside the Dynasty Inn on Soi 13 in Pattaya. I had seen the hotel on the internet, it was reasonably priced, was newly built and from the pictures I had seen it looked to be quite plush. I was paying about £20 per night but intended to stay only a few nights before I moved to somewhere a little cheaper after having a look around.

    If you choose wisely in Thailand it’s possible to find a hotel that would probably cost 3 or 4 times as much in the UK. Conversely it’s also possible to find a hotel in Thailand that is priced 3 or 4 times more than you would find in the UK. It’s always a combination of good research and good luck.

    I checked into my hotel and went to my room. It was now mid-morning and I was a little tired after the flight but was keen to get out and about and see what Pattaya had to offer. I was also mindful of the fact I had to discipline myself to at least 4 or 5 hours per day in order to do the work that would sustain me financially during my stay. I jumped into the shower after unpacking my bags and putting the clothes I was wearing into a plastic bag ready to take to the laundry. The warm shower was refreshing and also relaxed me after my long journey. I luxuriated as the water cascaded over me and I thought of the events leading to where I was now. I still had some doubts over whether I was doing the right thing but I had chosen to put them at the back of my mind and enjoy what I had.

    After my shower I lay on the bed and before I knew it my watch was telling me it was four o’clock in the afternoon. I must have been more tired than I realised and I felt a little cheated that I had fallen asleep. This was a recurring theme during my time in Thailand where I found myself feeling out of sorts if I had missed something, as though I had to live every single moment.

    I showered again, put on a t-shirt, some shorts, a pair of sandals, left my room and entered the lift on my way out. As I entered the lift I noticed another occupant, a girl wearing a pair of denim shorts, a pink t-shirt, a baseball cap and a pair of training shoes. I guessed she was about 23 years old, her hair was still slightly damp which gave the impression she had recently showered. I smiled at her as I entered the lift and she smiled back. I pressed the button marked “0” and we stood silently and slightly awkwardly as one tends to do in a lift. A few seconds later the ding of the lift bell indicated we had reached our destination as I stood back slightly inviting my lift companion to exit first. We both walked through the foyer and I dropped my room key off at reception. I noticed the girl from the lift also stopped at the reception desk in order to collect what I presumed was her ID card. As I stepped outside the hotel I made the transition from air conditioned coolness to the heat that was Pattaya. It felt like I was being stroked gently by a hairdryer such was the heat of the day.

    I stood on the steps of the hotel surveying what was before me. To my right was Second Road and further down the soi to my left I could see the sea and just across the road was a bar. I was feeling a little hungry and so decided to look for something to eat. I had no real plans about what to do after eating apart from walking around and familiarising myself with my surroundings. A little further down the soi towards the sea I spotted a wheelbarrow stall being pushed by an elderly lady wearing a huge smile and a Mexican style sombrero even bigger than her smile. As I approached her I noticed she was selling different types of fruit. I looked at her fruit display as she stopped enabling me to get a closer look. Such was the heat of the day I suspect she was rather grateful she had an excuse to put her barrow down for a while. I recognised the melon, pineapple and sliced bananas but the other fruit I hadn’t seen before, some orange coloured fruit, some small red berries, some white fruit with black specks and some round white fruit. I asked the lady for some of each and she filled a couple of bags with a selection of her wares. She handed them to me still smiling and held up four fingers indicating 40 baht for the lot. I gave her a 50 baht note and told her to keep the change, her smile grew even wider as she bowed slightly and resumed pushing her wheelbarrow. A pound for two huge bags of fruit left me feeling very happy. I continued walking down the soi towards the sea and Beach Road munching on my purchase and enjoying the new flavours of fruit I had never seen before. As I approached the corner of the soi and Beach Road I spotted the same girl who had been in the hotel lift just minutes before. She was standing at a som tam stall chatting to a lady who was pounding out the som tam. As I walked past she saw me, smiled and said, “sawasdee khrup”. I smiled back and replied “sawasdee khrup”. Her hair had dried quickly in the heat and I noticed that it was slightly permed with some light brown highlights. Her eyes were bright and playful, her skin looked to be soft and smooth but most of all I noticed her perfectly rounded bottom and breasts. She sure was a very attractive young lady. I held out a bag of my fruit and asked her if she would like some, she smiled and took some, not taking her eyes off me for a moment as if assessing me. She asked,

    “Where you from?”

    I recognised this interrogation technique from my time in Bangkok a few months earlier, I was familiar with it and it felt somewhat reassuring.

    “I’m from England, where are you from?”

    “I Udon”

    I knew Udon Thani was a city in a northern region of Thailand called Issan where many of the working girls came from so I replied,

    “Udon Thani?”

    She laughed and said something in Thai to the lady who was still pounding away at the som tam.

    “What your name?” she asked me and I told her my name was Gerry from England. She said her name was Jeab. So that was it, Gerry from England and Jeab from Udon Thani. As happens thousands of times a day in Thailand, two total strangers from opposite sides of the world meeting for the first time with one inevitable outcome.

    Jeab spoke reasonably good English and we chatted for a while as she waited for her som tam to be finished. The lady making the som tam finished pounding away and shovelled the contents of the pot into a polystyrene tray and handed it to Jeab who handed the lady a few coins. A thought crossed my mind as to how som tam was transported before polystyrene was invented but the thought quickly dissipated as I caught a glimpse of Jeab’s breasts under her pink t-shirt.

    We walked slowly north along Beach Road towards a place to sit down as we chatted about nothing at all in particular, Jeab asking me how long I was to be in Pattaya for and me asking questions but not really listening to the answers. We found somewhere to sit and Jeab opened her polystyrene box of rich bright red and green colours which looked delicious but smelt dreadful. As I continued munching my fruit she tucked into her dinner sitting cross-legged on a wall overlooking the beach and sea. The sun was getting lower in the sky and I saw jetski’s, parachutes and speedboats weaving their way around the bay, it was a scene of great activity, of people having fun, I was living in a dream.

    Jeab told me she had been working in Pattaya for three months. She had a baby in Udon Thani and sent money home to her mother who was looking after her baby. Her husband had gone off with another girl and her father had died when she was young. This had me feeling sorry for Jeab and I wanted to hug her but her smile told me she was happy with her life and I don’t think my western perception of her life would have gone down very well with her. She finished her som tam and then started on what was left of my fruit, boy could she shift some tucker. The fruit finished I suggested we go for a drink along the road. I was also craving one of the lollipop chickens I had seen so many times in Bangkok. We crossed the road from the beach side to the side where the hundreds of bars, shopping malls, restaurants and bar complexes are to find a place to have a drink. After some 20 minutes walking past what seemed like hundreds of places we came upon a bar with a lollipop chicken stall outside. The bar was playing music in the early evening and seemed quite lively. Jeab offered to barbecue my chicken outside for me while I ordered the drinks. I handed her a 100 baht note as I entered the bar. Jeab wanted a nam pau which is bottled water and I got a Heineken. As I sat down I spotted Jeab turning my chicken on the barbecue coals. She really was an attractive lady, she was not now wearing her baseball cap and her hair shone under the rapidly descending sun. She was quite tall for a Thai, maybe 5’ 6”, her legs were well-proportioned, her bottom was well rounded and her breasts were firm and medium sized. Even though she had told me she had a baby it didn’t seem to have taken a toll on her physique. I was feeling quite pleased with myself.

    Jeab returned with a big handful of chicken for both me and her and handed me a few coins change which I put in my pocket. She also produced a small pot of chilli into which we dipped the chicken. As I looked out over Pattaya bay eating my chicken, sipping my beer and chatting to Jeab I was in a good place.

    We left the bar and walked slowly backed towards the hotel. We hadn’t discussed what would happen next, I guessed we both just knew. Jeab was good company, she made me laugh and I loved the way she tried really hard to pronounce English words and in some cases just couldn’t quite get them right. She said “pomplim” instead of problem which I thought was really cute and when I asked her about it she tried really hard to say “problem” while furrowing her brow, slowly and deliberately trying to say it the same as me but to no avail. We both laughed as she tried. The carefree way Thai women approach life is a total contrast to the way I find western women approach life. Western women take themselves so seriously and seem to have lost the fun gene from their DNA. I hope this gene is firmly implanted in the Thai DNA for a long time to come.

    We arrived back at the hotel and approached the reception desk to collect my key and Jeab produced her ID card to hand over to the receptionist. As we walked towards the lift I noticed a guy to my left who was also heading towards the lift. He was an elderly chap wearing beige shorts, a green striped polo shirt, white socks and sandals and a baseball cap indicating he was a follower of the Yankees. He was also smiling at Jeab. I looked at Jeab who had adopted a somewhat confused look as she glanced at both me and the elderly chap. She said nothing as we waited for the lift doors to open and we all entered the lift together. In the lift I could see Jeab glancing at the gentleman and then glancing at me and green striped polo shirt seemed to be smirking to himself. I glanced in the lift mirror to see if anything had inadvertently stuck to my head or if I had “Idiot” tattooed on my forehead, neither was true. As the lift neared my floor I stepped forward as did Jeab as we waited for the doors to open and as we departed the lift a voice from behind us said, “Goodnight Jeab”. I turned round to see the doors of the lift closing. I looked at Jeab who had the look of somebody who had just seen a ghost. I asked her if she was ok as the penny dropped. I smiled as it hit me. I had first met Jeab in the lift a couple of hours earlier. I had guessed she had just been with a customer as her hair was wet and she had collected her ID card from the hotel reception on her way out. My money was on green striped polo shirt being that customer and coincidentally we had met him in the lift. I didn’t relay my thoughts to Jeab but smiled to myself at the coincidences that life throws up and also at the fact Jeab was going to have a very profitable day.

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    A Long Return To Thailand – Part 1

    by Inspector Cowboy on November 27, 2010

    in Expat Life,General,People,Relationships,Thai Food,Thai Girls,Tourist Life

    The time passed quickly as I sat in the taxi heading for Pattaya. This was a journey I had wanted to make for many years and now the time had come. I had a whole month to discover the delights of Pattaya and that month was starting today.

    Since leaving Bangkok 3 months before I had experienced the full gamut of emotions. Leaving Bangkok had been painful. I had discovered a side of life that left me feeling exhilarated. I had enjoyed the company of and made love with some beautiful ladies, I had met some lovely people and made some good friendships. The lifestyle of balmy evenings sipping beer, eating delicious cheap food and watching the world go by agreed with me most favourably. I had discovered a heady cocktail and under no circumstances was I going to let it go. It seemed I had discovered my own private heaven.

    The job interview in London just a few days after returning to England had gone well, in fact it had gone so well I had got the job, the interviewer saying I had impressed enough to be offered the job there and then on the spot. I had thanked the interviewer with the correct amount of enthusiasm and surprise as I shook his hand looking him in the eye more to convince myself that I wanted the job than to convince him he had chosen the right candidate. Inside I knew I had changed. A month before the interview I would have crawled over broken glass, hot coals, man o’ war jellyfish, hungry crocodiles and the odd stinging nettle to be offered this job but now it didn’t matter. I didn’t want the job, the job where I was going to get a generous 5 weeks paid holiday a year, a non-contributory pension plan, membership of a health club and a London Underground season ticket. These things no longer mattered to me, what mattered to me now was Thailand and that was it. The day after the interview I received a formal offer of employment through the letterbox outlining the package being offered to me. The salary was reasonable, the benefits were generous and the working conditions were excellent. The words that jumped out at me from the offer letter were those written large and black and bored into my consciousness, “Five weeks paid holiday”. As I read them I felt hopelessness, that confusion and helplessness I remembered from years before when I had lost my mother in the supermarket as a small child. How would I be able to enjoy Thailand with only five weeks paid holiday each year? I called the company and lied saying I had encountered some personal problems and would have to decline the offer. They sounded disappointed and asked me to contact them once I had sorted out whatever problem I had. I wish they had been angry with me, called me a nasty name and left it at that instead of being so bloody nice about it. So bloody nice.

    I needed a job where I could work and have time off, lots of time off. Those jobs aren’t easy to come by because let’s face it, everybody wants those jobs. I racked my brains for a week thinking what I could turn my hand to. Sheep shearing in the Falklands, e-Bay trading, male escort, driving instructor, oil rig worker, freelance writer and porn star were amongst the more sane ideas I had. My ideas fountain had dried up and I needed a break. I have a friend in Bristol who had also visited Thailand some years before and was now in an unhappy marriage with a lady who had morphed into a nasty overweight overbearing copy of her mother. I had met her mother at my friends wedding a few years before and commented to him that if his new wife turned into her mother then he should either consider suicide or homosexuality. He laughed at the time but he was not laughing now.

    We went for a drink near Bristol Templemeads station. Bristol Parkway and Bristol Templemeads, two railway stations for Bristol, something I’ve never understood and, I guess, neither does Bristol. It was early evening and Steve had just finished work. I had phoned him earlier in the day to tell him what time I was arriving in Bristol and he seemed to be looking forward to meeting up with me. In fact the impression I got was Steve was looking forward to anything that didn’t involve having to go home and face his duplicate mother-in-law over a plate of sausage, egg and chips. It was raining outside, the nights were drawing in and there were the beginnings of the cold that signalled yet another English winter. We sat in the corner of the bar each with a pint of Heineken which, to my mind, now seemed so out of place in an English pub without a cooling condom container and a beautiful Thai lady to talk to. We chatted small talk about his work, his day, my day, the journey to Bristol Templemeads on the train and the weather. We sat silently sipping our beer thinking of something else to say listening to the rain outside, me contemplating my future, Steve contemplating his mistake sat at home. Steve was fully aware I had been to Thailand and in fact he was a major factor in me making my decision to go. I guessed he had secretly wished it was him who was going when I was making my plans, he was a good friend. Little did he know how much it had changed my view on life and I was about to tell him.

    I told Steve about Nok, Pim, Geoff, Poo, and everyone I had met in Thailand, I told him about turning the job down and my fruitless quest for a job that would enable me to visit Thailand as often as possible during the year. I told him I just didn’t know what to do. One of the reasons Steve was a good friend is he is non-judgemental, he is laid back and nothing seems to bother him, that is apart from his wife.

    He sat silently for a few seconds thinking. This was usual with Steve when he was thinking about something to say. I hoped he wasn’t going to be judgemental or laugh or tell me to grow up or any number of other responses I was expecting. Instead he said,

    “Mate, I wish I was in your shoes”

    “How do you mean?”

    “You know when I visited Thailand a few years ago I felt exactly the same as you but I had just met Jane and, you know, that just seemed more important at the time.”

    I figured it wasn’t really the right time to say anything about Jane even though I wanted to tell Steve he should just up sticks and come to Thailand with me. I asked him what he would do in my shoes.

    “Look, it’s not up to me but I know how hard you worked at university, how you wanted to make a new start in life and is that new start working in an office with free travel on the underground? No it isn’t, your new start is you doing what pleases you. You have found something that pleases you and now we have to find out how you achieve that aim.”

    I wasn’t surprised by his response but it was the way he said it with such conviction that made an impression upon me.

    We carried on drinking Heineken and said nothing more about Thailand for the rest of the evening.

    The next morning after waking up I called Steve from my room in the Holiday Inn. We had both got spectacularly drunk the night before and ended up in an anonymous Indian restaurant eating chicken vindaloo, nan breads, popadums, rice and chips washed down with the best house Stella Artois. I couldn’t recall returning to the hotel but had a fleeting memory of being sick outside the kebab shop next door to the Indian restaurant.

    I met Steve in the hotel bar at midday. He looked a lot happier than he had the night before in the pub near Bristol Templemeads station. In fact he had a big smile on his face which surprised me somewhat considering I guessed his hangover must be at least as painful as mine.

    “Sleep well mate?” he asked as he beamed at me.

    “What the fuck is up with you?”

    “Fuck all, just in a good mood, that’s all”.

    I asked if he wanted a beer and we went and sat down near the spiral staircase out of earshot with two pints of Heineken.

    “Jane was up to her tricks again this morning when I woke up.”

    I nodded in an understanding manner not wanting to make a judgement but I knew what he was going through. I asked what she had done.

    “It doesn’t matter what she did but I’ve told her I’ve had enough and I’m moving into your flat.”

    I know me and Steve are good mates and I’ll help him wherever I can but my flat is in London and he works in Bristol. I told him this as if he didn’t already know.

    “I can work from our office in London for a few months until things are sorted out with Jane and then move back to Bristol once the divorce is finalised”, said Steve.

    “Divorce?”

    “Yes, I’ve been thinking about it for ages and talking to you about new beginnings last night has finally made my mind up, She can have the house, she can have the car, in fact she can have anything she wants, all I want is to get away from her. I’ve finally grown some balls”.

    “Well Steve, I can’t say it’s a surprise but you certainly seem to have made up your mind, how about another beer?”

    We got another beer and sat for a minute contemplating.

    “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night and I’ve had an idea”. Steve said wiping the Heineken froth from his top lip. He seemed to have a sparkle in his eye, as though he was bursting to get something out.

    “Ok mate, go ahead, I’m all ears”.

    “You know at uni as part of your group project you built some business websites for small charities?”

    I’d actually forgotten about building the sites. We’d built the sites as part of a group project for local charities in order to help locally and to expand our skills. I replied that I remembered.

    “Well, my company are offering a free web design service for all new customers and I’m in charge of finding a small web design company in the local area. It’s all based on templates, all you need is a basic knowledge of Dreamweaver and HTML and there you go!”

    I am no Bill Gates or Steve Jobs but I certainly had used Dreamweaver before and had a basic knowledge of HTML and this sounded good but what did it entail?

    “Well you get paid for each site you build by us and that’s about it. We are expecting around 100 sites a month at £20 per site and you can do that from anywhere in the world. The offer is planned to last a year. How does that sound?”

    That sounds good but ………………

    “But what? It’s about two grand a month and I know you can easily live on two grand a month in Thailand. No ifs or buts, I’ve got you the gig so let’s drink up and go and book your ticket. Besides there’s no way I’m living in your gaff with you!” Steve said looking at me laughing, the happiest I’d seen him since I’d arrived in Bristol the night before.

    We booked my flight to Bangkok at the Thomas Cook Flight Centre in Bristol. I was returning to Bangkok in two days.

    The taxi raced along the tollway getting closer to Pattaya by the second as I clutched my laptop bag and suitcase. I felt alive.

    { 2 comments }

    My Love Affair With Thailand – Part VII

    by Inspector Cowboy on November 16, 2010

    in Bangkok Nightlife,Expat Life,General,Popular,Relationships,Thai Girls,Tourist Life

    Nok was awake before me the following morning, she was putting my things in my suitcase more neatly than I could ever manage. I lay watching her for a few minutes drinking her in knowing my time in this wonderful country was limited. She noticed me lying there watching her and leant over to kiss me. I put my arms around her and pulled her onto the bed. I wanted to stay with her, with all the ladies I had met in Bangkok.

    I had to vacate the room by midday and it was getting close to the deadline. I was in two minds as to whether I should take Nok to the airport with me or go on my own. I hate railway station and airport goodbye’s but I wanted to spend every last minute I could with Nok. I said nothing to her about the airport as we continued to pack. I had taken some pictures during my stay that I wanted Nok to have so I had planned to visit a 1 hour picture processing shop a short walk from the hotel entrance. I explained this to Nok who excitedly took the film to the shop for me. I also asked her to order breakfast for us while she was in the hotel lobby. Twenty minutes later there was a knock on the room door and when I answered I was confronted by a giggling Nok accompanied by the lady who, a couple of days earlier, had delivered the breakfast for Tuk, Meow and myself. They both pushed the breakfast trolley into the room where Nok unloaded it onto the table. The lady got another tip and as I handed it to her she gave me a knowing smile. Thankfully the volume of the order was nowhere near the banquet I had enjoyed a couple of days before but nevertheless it was substantial. Nok had a big bowl of tum yum koong and some rice along with some fruit and a flower which I don’t think was for eating. I had some bacon, toast, tea and tomatoes. After breakfast we checked the room for anything I may have left behind. I noticed the Pink Panther toothbrush all alone in the bathroom and decided to leave it there.

    In reception I paid my bill and arranged to stow my bag in the storage room for a couple of hours while I made some last minute errands. We collected the photographs from the photo-processing shop and I gave Nok her pictures which she was very pleased with, examining them very closely and smiling. I couldn’t see my tuk tuk friend outside the hotel but recognised a couple of the guys from our barbecue activities over the past few days. I said my goodbyes and wished them all the best with them shouting names of English football teams as I returned to the hotel with Nok. We went to the hotel bar for a drink as we killed time waiting for the inevitable parting.

    Nok had undoubtedly experienced the Thailand parting many scores and possibly hundreds of times before but I was a complete novice. I didn’t want to turn into a blubbering wreck nor did I want to appear indifferent. As I drank my Heineken I asked Nok if she would come to the airport with me. She immediately said yes with just the right amount of emotion. Looking pleased I had asked but not going overboard. We sat in silence for a few minutes before I asked if there was anything she needed. She smiled and shook her head. I wanted to buy her a present as we are conditioned to do so in the west but knowing that money would be a more attractive option for her I decided to give her a bonus when I paid her at the airport.

    With the time now going past too quickly for my liking I told Nok it was time to go and went to collect my bag from the storage room, I thanked the staff for their service and left a tip on the reception desk. As I passed the excursion desk I glanced across hoping to catch the eye of my nearly friend but she was busy trying to convince a young couple that a cruise down the river by moonlight was a great idea. Nok and myself emerged out into the sunshine to await the taxi I had ordered. Also outside the hotel were a South African couple in their mid-twenties who looked as though they had come straight from Khao San Road. They were concerned as their taxi had not arrived and they were late for their flight. I explained there were taxi’s passing the end of the road every second but they said they had paid at the hotel reception for a taxi and they had just a few baht left. I was a little annoyed when I realised that I may have to share my taxi with this couple when I wanted to make the journey to the airport alone with Nok. Furthermore the South African couple had a mountain of rucksacks, sleeping bags, roll-up mattress mats and gifts. In fact I could feel a rage building. I could always refuse to let them join us but that would be selfish and mean so I hoped the next taxi to arrive would be theirs. I told them to enquire at hotel reception as to the whereabouts of their taxi but as with so many of the youth today they seemed incapable of doing this. I was starting to want to punch the guy in the mouth as his whining voice droned on and his girlfriend was equally annoying due to the fact she made her hair pigtails in a particularly stupid way. A taxi approached the hotel and indicated to pull in beside where we were standing. I was praying it was for them but as God doesn’t exist my prayers weren’t answered, it was my taxi, more specifically it was the taxi I had hired to take me and Tuk alone to the airport. At no point had I ever asked anyone to share it, least of all a couple of whining South African backpackers.

    We all piled into the taxi complete with dirty rucksacks on our knees and sleeping bags filling the boot. I sat in the front with a box containing a wooden Buddha on my knee. Nok was in the back clutching a rolled up sleeping bag and I didn’t really care about the backpackers. The journey to the airport was in total silence apart from the driver occasionally trying to make polite conversation. Thank goodness it wasn’t a Porntaxi, that would have been too much.

    Arriving at the airport the driver asked me for a tip which I declined to give him. To be fair it wasn’t his fault but I was in no mood to converse with anyone. I deliberately dropped the wooden Buddha on the floor as I got out of the taxi and immediately regretted my immaturity. The South Africans disappeared with their belongings after thanking us both and I turned my attention to Nok. I apologised to her but I think she was blissfully unaware of the turmoil I was experiencing. She probably thought all farangs travelled like that.

    I met up with Nok after I had checked in for my flight and we went upstairs to the bar with me hoping I wouldn’t see the South Africans drinking champagne and tucking into canapés and caviar. Thankfully they were nowhere to be seen. I needed a drink after the shenanigans of the previous hour or two. I had mentioned smoked salmon to Nok a few days before and she had told me she didn’t know what it was so when I saw it on the bar menu I asked her if she wanted some. She laughed and said she would “lub” to have some. I ordered some along with a beer and water for Nok. We sat in silence, me thinking of the past few days and the fantastic memories I had. I have no idea what Nok was thinking because she didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. The smoked salmon arrived on a silver plate and Nok tucked in. She seemed to enjoy it and grinned as I watched her eat. I had ordered some salami and ciabatta which Nok was also keen to try which she did and polished off most of mine aswell as her smoked salmon. When Nok excused herself to go to the toilet I left some money under her handbag.

    It was now time for my flight so we stood up to go downstairs and I noticed Nok pick up the money without counting it and put it in her purse. I hope she was happy with the amount I gave her. We then went downstairs where I paid for my exit visa and Nok stood silently watching me. This was the crunch. I looked at Nok, she looked at me. We both had tears in our eyes and we held each other tightly for a few moments. I held my face close to hers and gave her a sniff kiss causing her to hold me even tighter for a brief moment. We then separated, held hands for one last moment as I turned and walked away.

    Goodbye Nok and goodbye Thailand.

    { 3 comments }

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