Throw a Kit

I visited the states and while I was there I bought gifts for a bunch of people here, some people that I like and some that make me feel paranoid -- I like my landlady, the security guard in my building is a major question mark, the gang of perpetually buzzed motorcycle taxi dudes at the end of my street who scream at me every time I walk by make me REALLY paranoid, and I bought stuff for various bar girls who asked me to bring them gifts, or just because I like them.

I did this to grease the wheels maybe, or assuage guilt, or to show I am not a "cheap charlie," who knows -- I definitely wanted to quell the almost constant paranoia I feel for being able to do whatever I want here, at all times. I really wanted to come back with gifts for everyone, and did somehow. But almost all of them went over really bad. I think they were too cheap or something. Also I inadvertently insulted the motorcycle taxi dudes.

I bought them a six pack of Bud tall boys. There is no Budweiser here to speak of, it's an import and expensive so you never see it. I brought the six pack out to them in a brown paper bag I had taken on the plane with me, for maximum effect when I presented it. Budweiser is the king of beers after all. The idea was for it to be like the beer came directly from a liquor store stateside. It was early evening and they were sitting in their customary row across the street from the 7-Eleven, on some steps. Standing before them I said "I brought you beer from America!" then I pulled out the six pack, like you would do in the states, letting the bag fall to the ground and pulling cans off the plastic thing and tossing one to each guy, the way you would do at a cookout after procuring the next case of beers. The first guy missed his, then the rest were terrified except one dude who looked like he wanted to put his machete through my face. I also gave some Latino "Homies" (I couldn't find any gangbanger ones) to the children running around, which had seemed like a good idea when I bought them, but then handing them out they were so small it felt like I was handing the kids lint from my pocket. Then with the dude glaring at me, this one woman driver who I never can tell if she hates me or not, asked me for a second beer after I had just handed her the last one. This really unnerved me so I put my beer down on the ground, said "this is for the guy not here" (one usual guy was not there) and saluted them and pretty much ran in the opposite direction. The whole thing took about a minute and a half to unfold. I don't know why it all went so wrong. I can't decide if it was the throwing beers at them, which is very likely seen as an aggressive act here, or not sitting down and drinking one with them. Or just leaving the brown paper bag on the ground (litter, tree-waste). It definitely wasn't my clothes. I was wearing my best white linen suit and cleanest pith helmet.

I gave this girl Thip a little tiny stuffed rooster I figured was cute and funny and she reacted like I had thrown a black cat covered in chicken blood at her. She kept saying, "I am not a chicken." Then she just split. It was awful. I later learned there is a very ugly term for bar girls in Thailand -- "chicken." Basically I gave this girl a worthless gift that said "you are a whore."

I gave this other girl, Nok, a white hat I had bought her my first week in the US because this was a big one I needed to get as she had specifically requested a white baseball cap. So I bought it right away thinking I'd already have it when I ran out of money. I'm no good with things that are white and it didn't stay so clean. By the time I gave it to her it had like entire fucking fingerprints on it, like a crime scene. She asked me what happened and I said "well I had to wear it on the plane" and she eyed my dirty hair for a split second.

Even my landlady said "what? chocolate covered macadamia nuts? Eh...maybe my son will like them." And I think the security guard is Muslim. He reacted to the Miller High Life 22 Oz. can I gave him with a sort of polite confusion. I later realized I've never even seen him smoke.

photo by na' chim

Things NOT to do in Thailand

I live in Bangkok, the emerald isle of the Far East, land of a gajillion smiles. The actual full Thai name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udom Ratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Phiman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanu Kamprasit which translates as "The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukam." More commonly it is called Bangkok, which translated means "The Big Smelly."

A lot of people ask me what it's like to live in such a faraway, exotic place and I'll tell you, it's a real trip! It's totally different. First of all, everyone is Chinese. But they don't ride bikes like in all those pictures you see. They just walk everywhere, or take taxis or the subway. Secondly, it's impolite to blow your nose in public. But picking your nose? Fair game! Pick away! How's that for a paradigm? There's a million of these, and at first I had some difficulties adjusting to life here.

Apparently they're not as into doing your laundry as you might think, given the historical accounts of Chinese people and their behavior. I asked this one lady to do my laundry and she acted like she had no idea what I meant until I put the bag in her hands and said "washy washy" like 50 times. She didn't even do a very good job and on top of that they got mixed in with some angry punker's clothes or something because somehow the words "GO HOME FUCK YOU" bled onto all my shirts.

Halloween. What a disaster. It was like NOBODY had any idea what Halloween even is. Every house I went to reacted like I really was a rapist (I was wearing pantyhose over my head and carrying a bat). No candy. Lots of screaming and door slamming. One person gave me some dried fish that smelled like cat period. That sucked.

Thankfully I have slowly but surely started to adjust to the way of life here. It's a process. I no longer slap Thai people across the face when they address me without being spoken to first. Or don't smile. It just became too much of a chore, also my hand started hurting a lot. I have finally stopped falling for the old come-to-this-motel-room-with -me-and-my-scowling-brother -and-take-these-pills-for-fun -then-wake-up-five-hours-later -in-a-bathtub-full-of-ice -missing-some-organs routine. Mostly. And I can finally pronounce the word for "banana" correctly -- say it wrong and you are asking to see someone's cock so you wanna be real careful there, especially around monks. I used to get chased with a lot of machetes.

Koh Samui

This is pretty long. Sorry.

When I first moved here people kept telling me about how cheap and awesome the islands are. "You can rent a bungalow on the beach for 80 baht! That's $2.00!" "They give you psychedelic mushroom shakes and you just snorkel all day, TRIPPING!" I figured, wow I gotta try this. So I went to Koh Samui, an island on the Gulf of Thailand side, about halfway down the strip of land that connects Thailand's north to the southernmost tip of the country. I am not such a good traveller but who doesn't love tropical islands, y'know?

I got maybe 20 minutes sleep the night before my 6AM flight, a fact that perhaps made the airport a little more complicated than it needed to be. Like I said, bad traveller. At the counter getting my ticket, the paper must have sliced my finger but I didn’t notice it until I was walking toward the gate and felt something sticky and looked down to see that my right hand was gushing blood all over my passport and ticket. There was a shining trail of blood leading pretty much the entire way back to the counter. I went into the men’s room and ran water over my finger but it kept bleeding and bleeding, dark blood. I used some toilet paper to stop it up while I went to learn whether or not they sell band aids at the airport at five in the morning. They had them at a kiosk but I needed to paint an ATM machine with my blood before buying them. I finally got a band aid on the cut, with help from the very uncomfortable lady at the kiosk. All this time, in the bathroom with blood flowing into the sink and a cleaning lady looking at me strangely from the corner of the room, in line at the kiosk with a ragged piece of toilet paper on my hand, bleeding on the ATM machine, I wondered if I was making a scene. Like a suspicious character in the airport type of scene. I was vaguely drunk from the night before. Not drunk, just hazy. The ubiquitous AK-47 toting soldiers did not arrest me though, they didn't even seem to notice me. Relieved, I approached the gate and a woman at a desk who needed to see my bloodsoaked ticket. For a split second she drew back from me before accepting it but then had no choice but to take it. Awful. Then beyond the desk was a set of stairs, like 5 steps. I fell on the second one and went sprawling, my backpack swinging off my shoulder. I looked back at the lady at the desk to say wasn't that funny with my mind but she was in the process of intentionally looking away.

For some reason my walking was bad all the time on Koh Samui. I stumbled on uneven pavement everywhere, fell in holes in the dirt roads, knocked over tables at the restaurants, spilled my drinks. This contributed to a feeling of unease most of the time I was there. I felt sharply conspicuous and was trying really hard to get comfortable. I even bought one of those short sleeve, printed linen farang shirts, so I would fit in with the rest of the tourists. My first night there I went to an area called Soi Reggae, which is a little street clogged with pool bars and bar girl bars, with a giant reggae club at the end of the road. I was convinced by some girls to sit and have a drink at one of them, I forget the name of it. It was probably “Sexy Night” since there were approximately five bars called “Sexy Night” within 50 feet of each other. One of the girls sat with me. She said “You want lady tonight?” and I said “No, just here for a drink.” I was feeling tense. She said, “Do you like my friends?” and pointed to the group of girls at the bar’s entrance. I said “Your friends are very beautiful” and as I said this I looked directly into the face of a girl with one eye. I got very drunk that night but went home alone.

The next night I was lying in my hotel room sweating and decided fuck it and went out to the bars again. This time I was in an area called Chaweng. I approached an open air bar I picked at random. As I walked up to a stool, the girls yelled “Welcome!” and just then I stumbled on the uneven ground and had to grab the stool to keep from falling on my face. There was an extended moment of actual careening and regaining balance using the stool as leverage. Thai people often react to situations like this with a sort of grinning terror. I climbed up on the stool feeling like an idiot and ordered a Heineken. I was angry at myself for falling and thinking “Why can’t I just relax for 5 minutes?” As I took a sip of beer and turned, I noticed I was sitting next to a bald midget. I almost jumped out of my skin. The thought, “Holy lord, a midget! Now there’s a midget within speaking distance” flashed in my mind quickly, like, what could be next, you know? Are the dogs gonna start talking to me? I realized we were sitting close enough to each other for some kind of inevitable conversation to occur that I was not really prepared to engage in. I have never spoken one word to a little person in my life. It’s just never happened. And the thought that it was about to happen, with me totally unprepared, was terrifying. That thought was followed by “I think he just saw the disbelief register on my face.”

I don’t have a problem with midgets per se it’s just that I was in a mild paranoid state to begin with and then it seemed like everything that happened to me was only making it worse. It was comic. Not cosmic, comic.

One of the girls invited me to shoot pool with her. We had one of those painfully long games where no one sinks any balls. With the warped tables on those islands, it’s like shooting pool on the Poseidon sometimes. The bar girl’s name was Noi, she was a beautiful but decidedly plump girl. She was really funny though and had an easy laugh. I got semi-drunk. At one point I heard myself agreeing to her request to take her to the Full Moon Party on a nearby island. It's a major tourist attraction on Samui and she said she'd never been to it. The party started in approximately 3 hours.

First we went to the river and celebrated Loy Kratong, a Thai holiday where you light a candle that is stuck in a little boat made from banana leaves and set it off floating in the water after praying over it. There were Thai people all over the riverbanks setting their boats off. The river was filled with little floating candles. I bought her a huge stuffed monkey she wanted. I said to her, “You really want this? Are you sure you’re 23?” Then we went to the Full Moon Party. The plan fell through, as we were boarding the ferry and I decoded her suddenly terrified body language. She felt her outfit was not suitable for the party. Too bar girl-y. I took her home. She slept over but there was no boom-boom. We even slept in separate beds.

Islands are no fun alone. Everything is set up for couples. I swear people think there’s something wrong with you.

I woke up one morning, put my shirt on (later on I realized I had put it on inside out) and stumbled out to the street in search of a nice cup of coffee at an outdoor café. I found a place called Black Canyon and went inside. A girl immediately approached me with a menu in her hand. I said hello and realized I wanted to sit outside, so in mid hello I lurched back towards the door and we kind of bumped. This, along with my longish bed hair and unshaven face, a jumbling, failed attempt to hold the door for her -- where my body is pressed against the glass, trembling, losing the door with each passing second and the person you are supposedly helping has to squeeze by and hurry through before it shuts on their face -- and with my inside out shirt (which in Thailand is like walking around with your dick out, they would just never ever do it) all made the waitress visibly uncomfortable. I tried to explain with my hands that I wanted to sit outside but she just looked at me like I was crazy. Then I knocked the table over as I sat down, spilled my coffee two seconds after she brought it and dropped her tip on the ground. This basically made me a dead person to her and she scowled at me every time I passed this café the rest of the time I was on Samui.

My last night on the island I decided that I had to at least attempt to meet a girl who was not a prostitute. After four months in Bangkok I wasn’t even sure if I knew how to flirt with white girls anymore. So I found a bar on the beach (the bars inland are all bar girl bars) that had 3 white girls sitting together at it. Fellow travelers. Lonely maybe. Certainly three girls on an island are there to meet dudes. I picked a stool at the bar without incident and struck up a conversation with the girls. I made a couple jokes that went over well, they were students on vacation, were interested to know that I was a rock writer living in Thailand. I’m not the best looking guy but I have a good angle. The bartender, a rastafied Thai dude, came over several times and offered me drugs -- "We have everything," he said. I said no thanks each time. Things were pleasant enough, I wasn't totally unable to hold a conversation with non bar girls which was good. Who knew what would happen here. Then this 6 foot 4 shirtless guy with wet hair and an admittedly amazing chest (the dude had muscle tits and everything) sauntered up and said hello in this stupid New Zealand accent. I was pretty much erased by the guy. The girls all turned and started giggling. At this point the bartender again said to me “Do you want to buy some drugs? We have everything.” I was like “Yes. Heroin please.” He said “Oh no we don’t have that." "Okay, well you got opium?" He said, "Oh no no no." Before I could ask if he had a syringe of liquid acid I could shoot into my eyeball he said, "We have coke, weed and E.” He did say he had everything. Whatever. So I bought four pills of ecstasy figuring I’d take them back to Bangkok as my flight out was at 6AM. Ten minutes later, for no good reason, I had taken one.

I went straight to the hooker bars figuring I’d have a beer and I don’t know, see what happened. The way I saw it, there was a fifty-fifty chance I'd wake up missing my kidneys, but also maybe I'd end up with a really amazing massage. I'd taken ecstasy maybe 5 times in my life.

I went to the first place I came across. An open air bar on a ridiculously rutted dirt road. It started raining, which hastened my decision. A woman was playing cards and I somehow ended up teaching her how to play Blackjack. Pretty soon I was dealing hands to all the girls in the bar (not for any money) and we were all laughing. Not long after this, the drugs hit in and well...midway through announcing I was high on ecstasy to the now-crowded bar, one of the girls almost choked me, saying I should never ever ever under any circumstances tell a bar girl I was high on ecstasy, and then said “You have more?” So I gave her a pill which she took immediately.

Even though doing E with a Thai prostitute in a motel room on a tropical island is a story that kind of demands to be written down, not to mention shouted from the rooftops, I am gonna refrain from doing so. So no details. Except for this one thing: part of a bar girl’s job is to stand outside the bar and scream “Welcome!” at every farang that walks by, trying to get them to come in. Joy, who was 19 and not stupid, had a tattoo on her back that said “Not Welcome.” I skipped my flight. Also there was a real, honest to goodness typhoon.