Friday, May 28, 2010

One Night In Bangkok


There is just no telling where you're going to end up by making the simple decision to go out for a drink in Bangkok. The plan started off to hit Khao Sahn for a beer, I thought I'd phone Pom and Sun, a couple girls I had met the other night at Gulliver's and meet up with them. Sun is a beautiful girl with almost no English ability and Pom has a good personality. Decent enough company.

Before I left, I thought I'd get the energy level up and bit, and had a Red Bull with a couple pre-beers, I then enlisted my Canadian feminist friend Kat and a Japanese guy to tag along. This turned out to be a bit of a killjoy, as Kat was totally disgusted as soon as we walked into Gulliver's upon observing all the Western men having fun with Thai girls.

Taking some responsibility for their enjoyment, I walked them to one of my favourite outside bars on Rambutree, deposited them at a table, and promptly bailed back to Gulliver's. Pom and Sun were there, but had already engaged themselves with a bunch of English guys. It's not a disheartening prospect to be alone at Gulliver's, and it doesn't take long to find some company, I ended up at the table of a drunken Isaan girl who was waiting for her friend.


After a bit of dancing and drinking, as the bar was closing her friend returned from whatever mysterious errand she was on. A Chinese Thai, heavily made up, it wasn't hard to guess what she had been up to, turning a quick trick at a nearby guesthouse with some Foreigner. She reeked of sex.

They invited me to hit Sukhimvit, and I had nothing better to do, so I tagged along. Leaving the bar I spotted a young western guy with his hands all over a transvestite, oblivious to the fact that he was feeling up a man, I wasn't about to enlighten him, let him learn the hard way.
A quick taxi to the infamous Soi three, near Nana This is where all the prostitutes leaving the bars due to the early closing times collect themselves looking to freelance. A great number of foreigners are drawn here for the prospect of doing business without paying the bar fine. It's quite the scene.



We ended up hitting an Egyptian restaurant ordering Arabic tea and coffee. The Isaan girl, who had been eyeing me all night runs to the gutter and begins vomiting loudly and repeatedly. She's down for the count, and I'm left with Nani, the Chinese Thai freelance prostitute.

Nani had ordered while I was in the bathroom, and I'm surprised when the waiter carts a large water hookah out on the patio and throws some mysterious coals into it. I make a small attempt to inquire what exactly it is that I'm going to be smoking, but the booze is setting in pretty hard, and I'm up for just about anything. We take turns drawing from the pipe and sipping Arabic tea garnished with mint leaves. I start to get a mellow feeling.

Eventually some old fellow ambles by, notes the Isaan girls situation and tosses her into a taxi, Nani tells me it's her grandfather but he looked far too young. I use the moment to quickly duck inside pay the bill, and mumble an excuse to Nani before disappearing into the gloom.

I decide to take a stroll around and take in the atmosphere, a transvestite lurches out of the darkness and follows at my heels for half a block. I ignore the ungainly creature until it slinks away.
I sit briefly at a table of dancers from Nana disco, but I'm soon drawn away in search of water as the hookah has made my mouth incredibly dry. I pass table after table of prostitutes, some alone, some in groups and some with western guys. Another hideous transvestite grabs me and I have to deal with another proposition. I still can't find water.



Eventually I explain my situation to a couple of girls sitting alone, and they invite me to take their water, we get into a bizarre conversation that could only take place in Bangkok. They're prostitutes in Singapore, and consider themselves a cut above the riff raff that surrounds us. One of them is really annoying, and expects me to entertain her, I tell her that she's not doing anything for me, and that quite frankly I'm not going to put out the effort. She takes off in search of a more amiable foreigner, and I chat with her friend for awhile. Interesting girl, I like her, she was going to be married to an English guy, but his parents wisely put the kibosh on the arrangement, lucky for him.

The girl is cool, but my eyes are now getting heavy, I give her a friendly goodbye, flag a taxi and hop in only to note that the driver is far drunker than I am. I give him directions, he tries to charge me about 1000% more than it should be, I laugh and tell him in Thai he's not fooling me. The price is then dictated by the meter, as it should be, and we speed off into the night. I'm not sure if it's the smoke, the booze or my attitude at the moment, but when he stars puking out the window as he drives I feel nothing but amusement.

I tip him ten baht as he lets me off.

2 comments:

  1. you're crazy hahaha

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  2. More bangkok stories. Where's the one about losing me somewhere in sukhumvit only to find me hobbling back to the guest house blood soaked crying because I couldn't find my shoe and having to be showered down by the rather camp guest house receptionist ?

    Or some Songtan stories. You've got loads of material ....put it down.

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