The abstainers and the moderates trickled away from the camp before they were sucked into the revelry. But for some, the “I’ll just have one beer” resolution was just a precursor to, “before I continue drinking my face off.” Sometimes gluttony is just another word for getting your money’s worth and when you’re stuck in another country with limited income, you strive to get as much as you can for every Baht; especially with an all-you-can-drink ticket.
There was also a sense of breaking through the monotony. For the trainees who had been at the camp for a month or more, this was a chance to let loose, even at the risk of setting back your cardio a week or two. And for the newcomers like me, this felt like a final hurrah before the long slow slog to physical fitness and mental discipline.
Time went by, beer was consumed, conversations got louder, guards were lowered and a sense of inevitability set in—we were going to go to Patong. The certainty we all felt that the evening was going to continue in Patong completely overwhelmed our need for a plan. If there was doubt about the evening, a leader would have emerged, calls would have been made, a hierarchy established and shifts for transportation queued. As it was, we were sure that a tut-tut had been called on our behalves and we would shortly be whisked away—all 40 of us.
A tut-tut seats 9 passengers comfortably. Both “seats” and “comfortably” are relative terms. At nearly six feet tall and eight feet long with tires roughly the circumference of basketballs, there are technically nine places where butts were designed to be placed; eight in the back and one next to the driver. But when in a country where four or more on a scoter isn’t an unusual sight on the highway, hanging onto the back of the vehicle is just as viable an option as cramming into the back.
Indeed, a tut-tut had been called and a crowd of nine seized it as quickly as someone could say, “Who’s going with us?” As the mini-micro van packed with oversized Westerners pulled away, a voice from the crowd reassured the abandoned that there would be more chance of finding another vehicle on the highway than on the poorly lit country road the camp was on. With plastic cups of beer and every-man-for-himself attitude in tow, the crowd shuffled and sauntered towards the road like a flock of yelping zombies.
We were led by our self-assurances of arriving at Patong like lemmings to the edge of the highway, where we stood and watched as vehicles rushed past us. We waited as a group of thirty, not really feeling lost, but also not sure of where we were, how we’d get to our destination or how we’d get back. Across the street was a local Thai bar where the patrons started hooting and whistling to get our collective attention. But that wasn’t Patong, so we didn’t respond. A taxi approached us from the rear and collected a group far too large to fit in the vehicle. The passenger sitting on the stomach of the tourist laying across four laps in the back seat shouted, “To Auzzie Bar” at the left over bunch. The remaining 19 of us were taken by a pickup truck for the 40-minute ride to Patong.
I dislodged a knee from my inner thigh, jumped from the back of the truck and immediately wondered why I’d been so excited about going out to Patong. A single street was packed with neon lights and tourists with passport wallets and cameras. The air was thick with the smells of cooking meat, sweat and a curious mixture of talcum and coconut milk. I forgot about the people with whom I traveled and just thought about getting off of the street and getting to the Auzzie bar. I was hoping that it would provide refuge from the flashing lights and unrequested shoulder-to-elbow bumping.
I paced away from the pick-up and into the melee looking left and right for signs for the Auzzie bar. I often forget that my fast walking and resolute decisiveness have often been misunderstood as leadership. Those who know me best realize that this is just panic and let me run around like an unleashed toddler until my brain settles. I zigzagged through the crowd, vaguely aware that the rest of the group may be following me and turned every now and then asking, “Do you know Auzzie Bar? Is Auzzie Bar here? Are we in the right place?” to people who may or may not have arrived with me.
It appeared on the right like a peanut butter factory in the desert, completely unexpected and somewhat unsatisfying. It was a two-story mega-bar with open sides, packed with tall, tanned white people with exhausted bleach-blond hair and nasal English.
On the trip over, the pick-up passed the over-stuffed taxi and diminutive tut-tut so it was our job to lay claim to a spot at the bar. I mounted the stairs and noted the bathrooms to the right and left, pool tables in the back, three bars and the distinct lack of fire escapes. There were only a few walls so a quick jump over a banister would probably do the job.
While I was relieving myself, the rest of the group flooded the bar towards the back and after a few shakes I joined them. Somewhere during the journey, my wallet had been lost and in my despair, not that I lost my money but that things were not as they should be, a friend from the camp bought me a round of Chang “Elephant” beer. I thanked him and paced around the establishment trying to take it all in.
The bar was packed hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder Auzzies at Auzzie Bar—how apt. I couldn’t overhear the conversations above the loud Australian rock music that blared through the PA system. And like the uncomfortable gymnasium parties in Brazil, the listeners didn’t really care if the music was good, it was more important to croon along while gesticulating wildly and sway with friends, all the while making faces that expressed something between a satisfying bowel movement and the death of a close relative. I gulped my beer and made my escape.
It’s engrained somewhere in me that I have to experience everything at least once. Even though I have created boundaries and have a curiously burdensome sense of moralism, I find myself driven to try something new when I get the chance. This sense of having new experiences led me to Thailand in the first place to get a few fights under my belt. But while I was living in New York, I was shocked by the revelation that some lessons can’t go unlearned and some experiences aren’t necessary.
As I walked through the streets, I pondered the lessons that can’t go unlearned. In the extreme, I thought about accounts from shell-shocked war veterans who can’t forget faces of people they’ve killed and friends they’ve lost. I thought about friends who are addicts in recovery who can’t go a day without reminiscing how great it would be to feel high again. And I thought about the less extreme but equally relevant lessons like the unsatisfying but often compulsory nature of one-night stands. And the passing of deadlines whether the work is completed or not.
The streets were a vortex of hostesses, party girls and polished brass dancing poles. If the small Thai men with reddened eyes and yellowed teeth didn’t persuade you with whispered promises of easy girls and ping-pong shows, then there was a second wave of eye-candy dancing in windows and eager women pulling you into bars. My myopic focus waned and a more macro-perspective took over the people and the bars and as Plato says, “No human thing is of any great consequence.”
I had my fill of wandering and headed back to the Australian drinking enclave no more enthusiastic but less concerned. The swarm had thinned during my walking lament and there was a less oppressive crush to the crowd. I attached myself to particularly jovial friend like a lamprey to a charismatic shark and had another beer.
“Where’d you go, mate?” my friend enquired with an English smile.
“Me? Bah. I just wandered around. I wanted to acclimate and see what else was here.” I was still thinking about Plato.
“Yeah?” He seemed unsatisfied by my answer but wasn’t going to push it. “You sure your wallet’s gone?”
I turned my pocket inside out as proof. But I was wearing cargo pants and had small denominations stuffed in every pocket and emergency money in my socks. “Yeah man. It’s gone.”
My friend walked up to a table of three Auzzies with a simple greeting and disarming presence, “Hullo.”
He passed back and forth from table to table getting a bead on the place while I assessed the crowd and the people from the camp. I saw they were making a move and I wanted to capitalize on the escape. As much as I love getting a taste of Australia in Thailand, I was looking for a more genuine experience. I positioned myself near the exit and leaned up against the wall.
“…he don’t like girls much, do he?” I heard snippets from the conversation at the other table but didn’t pay it any mind.
The members of the camp were on the move so I tapped my friend on the shoulder and with a, “We’re off,” I jumped in front of the line of people exiting the Auzzie bar.
We wandered the streets, mostly following along in the wake of shenanigans of a fighter who had bested his opponent earlier in the evening. He was quick to dance, banter and burry his face in cleavage whenever the opportunity presented itself. I kept my distance, not wanting to be directly associated with the fighter but keeping close enough that I knew where he led.
He took a left down a brightly lit alley with a row of alcohol dispensaries in the center. I made my turn down the same alley but on the other side of the bars. There were arms everywhere grabbing and pulling and mouths were protesting for the group of us to stop. When a hostess grabbed one of us, it was the duty of the others to perform the obligatory dramatic rescue, which consisted of a well-choreographed spirited jig, three smiles and a human tug-of-war. There was very little to distinguish one bar
from another save the costumes worn by the escorts. Once through the human luge, we emerged at one of the main destinations of the evening.I remember hearing about this place over dinner a week back, “Mate, it always ends up with the same thing. We end up at Suzy Wong’s hitting hookers with rubber hoses.” The nightlife in Thailand leaves little room for exaggeration. There were hookers. And we hit them with hoses.
To be fair they hit us back. And they weren’t garden hoses; they were 18-inch long foam noodles. It was a tit-for-tat experience. They danced on stage at the center of the bar and get whacked with noodles when they wander into striking distance, they yelp in feigned delight and they smack you back. Everybody wins.
There were a number of people who didn’t participate and sat around the perimeter. They squinted at the dancers and sipped on their beverages while Shania Twain played. It was more of a freak show than a sexual atmosphere but that’s generally the case with strip clubs.
The Cranberries “Zombie” was flipped on and the dancers on stage put on their shirts and sat in place. Three completely nude dancers walked out from the back and performed a bizarre live show to an inappropriate protest song about Northern Ireland.
Once that was over, the lot of us popped out of Ms. Wong’s like a cork from a champagne bottle and spilled onto the streets with newfound boldness granted by a mutual exchange of foam noodle smacking with naked women. One group retreated to the nearest brothel, another to an outdoor bar and I wanted to escape the alleyway.
We danced and smiled and twisted our way back to the main road and made the second left down a smaller but surprisingly more neon alley. With a practiced twist, smile, dance we moved past the safari bar, through the pirate bar, around the sea merchant bar and landed at a bar where the women were dressed as sexy sailors. Rounds were purchased, poles were danced on and we were all starting to fall in love with every woman we saw. I was particularly taken with a tall dancer but was warned that she looked at the mirror too much so she must be a lady-boy. I was unconvinced.
One of the clever hostesses roped a friend and me into a game of dice. We sat and rolled and drank and shared pleasantries with this cunning siren. She told us the stakes were as follows: If we win, we get a round of drinks is on the bar. If she wins, then we have to buy her and her friend a round. We demanded to see the friend and after covering one eye and looking her over, we acquiesced. After almost an hour of rolling dice and plying us with drinks and the occasional self-boob grab we lost. We were confused when we saw that the bill was over-inflated but the hostess grabbed a menu and pointed to the prices, “Lady Drink = 340 Baht.” Figures. Only later did we realize that the boob-grab wasn’t at all a boob grab but a dice exchange from the bra. Cheeky hostesses.
We stumbled away feeling undeservedly victorious and managed our way to an innocuous bar at the far end of another offshoot. The neon lights were quieter and the music was toned down. I sat at the bar, ordered two rounds and stared at the dancer at center stage. At five foot six with black hair and a slender frame, she wasn’t stunning but she had a nice quality about her. She returned my look and smiled.
A few months before, I was at a strip club for the first time but I was fully adorned with the Fu-Manchu or the dream ‘stache. The center-stage dancer took one look at my mustache, assessed me in her head and did unspeakable things to herself that caused me to blush furiously, look away, spit up my beer and spill the drink on the patron next to me. I rationalized soon after that applying for a Thai visa whilst accompanied by a mustache that’s become infamous for sleaze to a country that’s known for sex trafficking wasn’t in my best interest.
And I was glad that I didn’t have the ‘stache in that moment for fear of what she may have done to herself. But I was clean-shaven and she was kind. I kept looking at her and was stuck somewhere between an academic mentality and a moralistic one. Before coming to Thailand, one of the most frequent comments I got was about the abundance of prostitutes, closely followed by, “Make sure she ain’t a he” and “Wrap it up.” I brushed off my Aunts’ crass remarks and reminded myself that’s not what I’m going to Thailand for. Even if the opportunity presented itself, I don’t know if I’d be interested enough to go through with it.
I’d end up over thinking it and wanting to have
a conversation about circumstances that resulted in this forlorn occupation. Were there no other options? Is this something that you really enjoy doing? Then I imagined I’d insult them by trying to humanize the situation. My eyes never left the dancer at the center of the stage. I’d been thinking about her and how she came across this job. I imagined the application process and wondered how high on the totem pole she was and if this was a lesson she could unlearn.I was in a dark haze. “No human thing is of any great consequence.” The quote was running through my head like a mantra. I thought about being laid off and getting trashed while reading The Stranger at the bar of my best customer. I remembered a friend sitting next to me and suggesting reading something a bit less existential while thinking things over.
I blinked away some eye sweat as a girl set her beer next to mine. “Hi,” she moved quickly to the center stage and handed the dancer a few bills.
I meant to say ‘Hi,” but ended up grumbling “Why’d you do that?”
“Do what?” She sat on the stool next to mine. I turned around and saw that my friend was already engaged in conversation. He’d been I conversation since we arrived here. What had I been doing?
“Why’d you give her money?” I was curious and disarmed by this woman’s frankness.
“’Cause she looked nice.” She had a Swedish accent that lent itself well to my imaging her saying “boingity, boingity, fjord, yah.” And despite the clear bounce in her words, and much to my dismay she never said that.
“Huh,” I replied. I was at the top of my game.
We talked for a while. Her name was Nina, she was a school photographer, and she was on vacation with her parents and her half-sisters. She told me I thought too much and didn’t believe me when I told her I was 27. I didn’t drop my guard until minutes after she left. The beer had muddled my reaction time and the last time I tried to have an honest conversation with a girl at a bar in New York, she told me that she “didn’t think I was a very successful person.” I was confused by the comment but was still wounded by it.
I looked at the dancer at center stage but her looks were now given to an overweight European who sported a ponytail at the top of his head despite having very little hair left and sunglasses despite it being 3AM. I threw some more money on the bar, grabbed my friend and sprinted to the main road hoping to find Nina.
There was a part of me that knew she was already gone and another part of me that knew
I wouldn’t know what to say if I found her and I later realized, a part of me that wanted to find the idea of her. And not her.I blamed my friend for being two slow and made the English gesture for “having to take a slash” and searched for the nearest restroom. We ended up in a mega club with the dregs and leftovers of the night. My friend pointed out a man with a scabbed head licking the face of a Thai girl and I pointed to a corpulent man being serviced in the corner of the bar.
The lamprey game was going well. At this point of the night, I was pleased to have a friend to keep me upbeat. He grabbed two more beers and two women to talk to. I was feeling in a regrettable mood and danced with the girl he brought over to me while he pretended to be a gigalo, “You charge me? No! I charge you!” I smiled but still wanted to go. This was the first time I’d had a drink since England and I wasn’t in drinking shape anymore. He hesitated but eventually in his mercy, he let us leave.
I negotiated a tut-tut ride back to the camp by holding up a slip of paper to the drivers, “We go there,” I pointed. “500 Baht. Total!” The drivers kept turning away from me.
“Here! Here! 500 Baht!” My friend grabbed a group, pushed me into a tut-tut and I fell asleep wondering what he would have done if he didn’t have me there to negotiate the fare.
The next morning I woke up with no pants on and spent 24 hours either in my bed or expelling liquid from one of the orifices of my body. Must have been food poisoning. I was told not to eat salads here.
Excellent post, quite Spinkly if I say so myself.
ReplyDeleteThanks Poo!
ReplyDelete