A Farang
For All Seasons -- Part 1
A Farang For All Seasons -- Part 1
June 2004
Standard Disclaimer -
Names have been changed to protect the innocent. A few nicknames
have been used and if you find your name in a report but don't care to be
mentioned, just drop me a line and I'll change it.
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This trip took place in late June 2004. Most of our visits to Thailand
took place in high season when the weather is quite nice, but this trip in
June had me a little worried. I was worried because I thought it
would piss down rain the entire time. Most of our visit would be
spent in bars, but having stayed in Jakarta a few times during the rainy
season, I knew that just getting out and running across the street could
be a real bitch.
That’s the nice thing about staying at the Nana; there’s so much
action going on at the hotel that one really doesn’t have to leave if
they don’t want to.
If I ever do go postal (or more accurately 'when'), it'll prolly be
during that period of time between after the plane lands when everyone
stands up, and they actually start moving. Even though Antman and I
were in Business Class, it took a surprisingly long time to get out of the
damn plane when we landed in Tokyo.
Our flight from Tokyo to Bangkok was delayed, so we had a couple extra
hours to waste at Narita. Feeling a little parched, we looked for a
bar to have a drink.
Antman noticed a can of Pocari Sweat in one of the vending machines in
a terminal bar, and asked what it was. I just couldn’t resist
telling him, “Well, they get a bunch of Pocaries, put them on a little
treadmill and...” I wonder how much of that fantastical story he
bought.
When sitting in the terminal bar got too boring and we couldn’t stand
it anymore, we decided to go sit by our gate. Unfortunately since
our flight to Bangkok was delayed big time, there was no new gate assigned
to our flight so we camped out at the old gate. At least we weren’t
in the terminal bar any longer.
As we sat at the gate, I could see Antman become more and more
agitated. So I asked him, “What’s wrong with you, dude? It’s
only a delay. We should still arrive in Bangkok with enough time to
have some fun.”
“Wifey (who seems to be Antman’s new girlfriend and everyone else’s
ex-girlfriend) is going to meet us at the airport, and she’ll be waiting
there for hours. I gotta tell her we’re delayed. I gotta
send her an email.”
“Meet us at the airport? I told you not to have any girls
waiting for us at the airport. What the hell are you thinking in
your head?
“She said she wanted to do it. What could I say?”
“You could have said ‘no.’ You could have said I wouldn’t
allow it. You could have said a lot of things, but now we have some
cunt who sucks cock for rice money waiting for us at the airport who’s
going to do nothing but slow us down.” Okay, maybe I didn’t say
it exactly like that, but that’s what I was thinking.
“Well, I gotta send her an email saying we’re going to be
late. I gotta find an Internet café here at the airport.
“Well, if you’re going to send an email, you might as well send one
to Hammers and MikeM33607 too. They’re expecting us.
“Okay,” Antman said as he hopped up out of his seat and was gone.
I’ll admit I was pretty frosted. If there’s one time when I
absolutely positively don’t want any bullshit, it’s on the mad dash
from the plane to check-in at the hotel. That’s the time to keep
moving, and take no prisoners. I’ve even bailed from taxis in the
middle of Sukhumvit when things weren’t going right. I can just
picture it: I’m going to have Antman and Wifey holding hands making
goo-goo eyes at each other, and skipping their way behind me as I make my
way balls-out to the Nana. The horror… The horror…
As I sat there and sulked imagining all the different ways Wifey was
going to slow me down, a stranger sat down across from me and started to
ask me a few questions.
“Is it true the Marriott Hotel is 3 hours away from the airport?”
“Well, not the one on Sukhumvit. You should be able to make it
there in 15 minutes at the hour we’re landing.”
We talked a little more and it became obvious he wasn’t talking about
Bangkok. As it turned out, he was flying to the Philippines on
business. We had a laugh about that, and then he started asking
questions about Bangkok.
He had never been to Bangkok before. He was sure that he and his
colleague would finish their work early, so maybe they could spend a
couple days in the Big Mango. I had an extra Groovy Bangkok
Nightlife map in my pack, so I gave it to him marking the places to stay
and the things to do. He was all set for a pretty good time if he
could make it.
And that’s about when Antman returned.
“So, Antman. How’d it go with the email?”
“I decided to call her instead.”
“What about Hammers and MikeM?”
“What about them?”
“You were going to send them emails saying we’d be late.”
“Yeah, I decided to call her instead.”
“But what about Hammers and MikeM?”
“What about them?”
I thought for sure I was going to have a stroke any minute…
Our gate was announced so we collected our stuff and moved there.
I exchanged names with the stranger and promised to take him out on a
stagger and show him around if he called me. There’s always room
for one more to join the party…
It wasn’t long after they announced our gate that they actually
started boarding the plane. I took that as a good sign. Pilots
have been known to make up a lot of time on the flight from Tokyo to
Bangkok. I figured it was because they were looking forward to a fun
time too. But drawing a female pilot this time, our fate was sealed…
As we held our Gold tickets and shuffled our way to the turnstiles,
another stranger sidled up and asked what business I was in. What a
strange thing to ask while we were boarding the flight. And as if it
were any of his business…
“Monkey business.”
“No really, what do you do?”
“If I told you what I did, that guy right there (pointing to Antman)
would have to kill you.”
“Really?”
“Ask him.”
Antman was quick enough to pipe in saying, “Yeah, it happens all the
time. There’s a trail of bodies from here to Zamboanga”
God bless him; every once in a while Antman comes through with a good
one.
On the flight over, I reminded Antman to save his Boarding Pass because
if the Passport Officer asked for it and he didn’t have it, there wasn’t
anything I could do to help him. He tried to argue that they never
asked him for the Boarding Pass before, so they wouldn’t ask for it this
time. I just reiterated that if he got hung up with a Passport
Officer there wasn’t anything I could do, so it’s better to be safe
than sorry.
When our flight finally landed at Don Muang, Antman and I had our
carry-ons and were standing at the exit door before the other Business
Class passengers even got out of their seats. We made it on the
first bus to Passport Control, and climbed the steps two at a time as we
entered the terminal.
We were shocked to see the number of passengers waiting in line at
Passport Control. I can’t recall ever seeing it so busy.
Refusing to accept defeat, I passed counter after counter hoping to find a
shorter line. As usual, it paid off. We found a counter where
only one person was ahead of us.
The lovely female Passport Officer took my passport and Visa Form, and
then asked for my Boarding Pass. I winked at Antman as I handed it
over. Antman got busy pawing through his pockets looking for his
Boarding Pass.
The Passport Officer quickly stamped my passport, stapled the Exit Visa
inside, and handed it all back to me. I made my way to the stairs
and lingered for a moment waiting for Antman to join me. In no time
at all we were hopping down the stairs and making our way to Customs.
I handed over my Customs Form and made my way to the exit.
Antman, on the other hand, decided to stop and have a conversation with
the Customs Official. I can’t believe this. Luckily his
conversation was short, because I was only giving him until the count to
ten to join me.
We threw open the doors to the Arrival Lobby and marched in
together. But I noticed with every step we took Antman was falling
farther and farther behind. He finally stopped in the middle of the
lobby, standing on his tippy-toes searching the crowd. This sucks
big time.
With a “Come on, dude. Let’s go!” I made my way to the lobby
doors and on to the taxi kiosk. By the time I made it to the kiosk,
Antman and Wifey were exiting the Arrival Lobby, holding hands and making
goo-goo eyes at each other. I couldn’t believe it.
I told the girl in the kiosk that I wanted to go to the Nana Hotel, and
she asked how many were in my party. Because Antman was only 20
yards behind me and I expected him to catch up by the time I was getting
into the taxi, I said, “Three.”
Some Thai guy standing next to me said, “Four.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“No, four. Look!”
Horror upon horrors… Not only are Antman and Wifey holding
hands making goo-goo eyes at each other and skipping their way to join me;
the mother-in-law is marching behind them with a smile a mile wide on her
face.
This seriously sucks. I stood there gobsmacked for a moment
watching the bizarre spectacle heading my way. All I could think
about was how horrible the taxi ride would be with those two lovebirds
giggling at each other the whole way.
I quickly tossed my bag in the trunk and jumped in the front seat of
the taxi. It felt like forever waiting for the happy little family
to figure out how to get in the back.
The driver pulled out of the airport quick enough, but we only made it
as far as the first gas station before we stopped. I hung my head
and cried over my life gone terribly wrong as Antman and Wifey sat
nose-to-nose in the back seat with idiotic grins on their faces.
When the driver finally came back, I greeted him with “Nana Hotel,
leow leow krap.” The mother-in-law picked up on that and
instructed the driver to drive faster every few minutes for the rest of
the trip. God bless her…
We exited the expressway at Sukhumvit and turned up Soi 1. That
was a new way for me. The driver drove for a while, and then turned
in to Bumrangard Hospital. I kidded Antman that he must feel like
home (because of his previous visit to Bumrangard). In no time at
all we were on Soi 3 and headed for the Nana.
As we passed Morning/Night I could see that GoodGirl was there, but I
was pretty sure she didn’t see me. It’s hard to say if any of
the other girls there saw me or not, so I figured I’d have to stop by
that night.
Turning into the Nana parking lot, we had to squeeze by an elephant
standing outside GBB. The taxi pulled up to the front door, and I
could see MikeM waiting for us in the lobby. We were really late,
and only a good friend would have waited for us that long.
I jumped out of the taxi, and rushed in to shake MikeM’s hand.
I apologized for being so late, and told him I would be right down in 7
minutes after the world’s fastest shit, shower, and shave. MikeM
was understanding and told us to take our time, but I didn’t want to
waste any more time getting to the go-gos.
Antman and I met at the Reception counter, and I was surprised to be
greeted by name. Checking-in was quick, and I told Antman to meet us
in the lobby in 7 minutes. A bellboy grabbed my bag and we were off.
The bellboy wanted to make a big show of turning on all the televisions
and lights in the room, but I handed him 20 baht and ushered him to the
door. The look on his face made me think he was expecting a bigger
tip. Normally, I would have given him 40, but it was my first night
in town and I only had 20 baht and a stack of 1,000’s.
I learned later that Antman only had a 10-baht coin and tried to give
that to the bellboy as a tip, but the bellboy refused it. Life must
be good for those guys.
As soon as the door was closed behind the busboy, I headed for the
shower. It felt good to be standing there relaxing in the torrent
pouring from the shower, but over the sound of the splashing water I could
hear the party going on in the street, and through the frosted glass in
the windows I could see the different colors of neon calling me.
Getting out of the shower, I grabbed the phone in the bathroom and gave
Antman’s room a call. No answer. After getting dressed I
called his room again, but still no answer. He’s either way ahead
of me (hard to believe), or unavoidably detained.
MikeM was a good friend for waiting in the lobby for us as long as he
did, and I felt bad about wasting any more of his time. MikeM and I
spent a few minutes waiting for Antman, and then I called Antman’s room
one last time. No answer again. Well, the third time was the
charm cutting us loose to enjoy the rest of the evening.
We left the lobby and chummed our way through the parking lot like
schoolboys, stopping only for a moment to marvel at the elephant outside
GBB.
MikeM had arrived a couple days before Antman and I, and had already
BFed a girl or two from this bar and that. So there were a couple
bars he wanted to stay away from. Luckily Angelwitch wasn’t one of
them, and even though it was pretty crowded, we settled in for my first
beer of the trip.
Angelwitch has been a traditional first-stop for a few years now.
We’re on friendly terms with the mamasan so there’s little trouble
finding a seat no matter how crowed the bar is, the first beer comes fast
and cold, and it doesn’t hurt to finally relax a little while the show
is going on.
Still, we don’t usually stay in any one bar that first night for
long. There are a lot of bars out there, and we want to sample quite
a few before they close their doors on us. We did hit a few more
bars, but with only 15 minutes until last call I felt I was obligated to
pay my respects at Morning/Night.
Even though MikeM kept in touch with Pim from the last trip, they had a
bit of a falling out, so he wasn’t excited about going back to
Morning/Night. Instead, MikeM beat feet to collect a girl he had BFed from
a different bar earlier that evening.
With as much fun as it is bouncing around Nana Plaza for a while, it’s
equally fun to walk through all the street stalls on the short walk to
Morning/Night. Without a doubt we’ll be cursing them in a few
days, but the first few hours is time to take delight in all the weird and
wacky stuff going on.
This visit I got all the way to the top of the stairs before ‘Rock DJ’
started to play. I guess the DJ is either slipping or wasn’t
expecting me. The truth is the only people that should have been
expecting me were MikeM and Sip, but MikeM had let it slip to GoodGirl a
day or two earlier that I was headed for town. Knowing that, I wasn’t
really surprised to see GoodGirl scanning the crowd for her ticket to Easy
Street, or hear the familiar strains of ‘Rock DJ’ as I entered the
bar.
After our quick hellos and as BG’s scurried to set up our table,
GoodGirl asked, “Why you no hab lady?”
“I’m looking for a good girl!”
“You neber find good lady in bar.”
“Well, that's where I found you!”
It’s hard to describe the look on GoodGirl’s face after that
comment. Maybe a little amusement at my quick wit, flattery at my
pak wanyishness, and perhaps topped with just a touch of embarrassment.
If there were any embarrassment, it didn’t seem to last long.
Hammers, Gooner, and PommieBruv were also supposed to be in town this
week. We kept an eye out for them but didn’t spot them that night.
Pim stopped by to say hello and collect a ladydrink. She asked
about MikeM, but I lied and said I didn’t know where he was. After
she finished her drink, she spent most of her time at a noodle stall
across the street. Maybe she was scanning the crowds of punters
looking for MikeM.
When Morning/Night started to close shop, I made my way to the Nana
lobby bar. There’s a chance Hammers and gang would be there, and
if not, it’s a good place to do a little hunting.
As I strode into the lobby, a cute little spinner sidled up and leaned
into me with her shoulder. Well, hello… She was cute enough
to be seriously considered, so I bought her a drink when we hit the Nana
lobby bar.
The jet lag and my willing friend were getting the best of me, so I
only lasted for round or two before it was up to the room.
The phone was ringing as we entered the room, and it was a bellhop
wanting to bring up my welcoming fruit basket. I couldn’t be
bothered to wait for him, so the spinner was already topless and wearing
only her panties with her clothes strewn around the room by the time he
got there. No problem… I’m sure he’s seen worse
before. With a thank you and a couple baht across his palm, he was
gone.
Now, where was I? Ah, yes… The spinner…
All things considered, not a bad way to end the first day.
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