Walking in a Winter Wonderland-part 5/Fini

[Central Scrutinizer]

Walking in a Winter Wonderland-part 5

My friend still wasn't here yet. Once in a while I'd raise my head off the bar long enough to sip my beer. No sense in letting it get warm. As I watched the entrance to the Beer Garden I noticed quite a few lovlies shuffling into the place. I'd never partook of the pleasures available here. Was already taken and semi-domesticated by the time I found out about the place really. But the pickings in BG7 seem to be quite varied, from lower to upper end distractions in tight jeans and short skirts, and the choices fairly numerous. Not a bad place for those so inclined to skip the barfines of Nana or Cowboy bars while finding a pretty early evening dalliance with one of the fairer sex. Wish I had known of this place before I became a domesticated man! There were a few I would have no problem drooling over. You could use the barfine saved to feed yourself and a cutie, including a couple of beers. If not married I could see BG7 becoming a favored haunt of mine.

I finally spotted my friend strolling into the establishment, and waved my arm in the air until he spotted me. He ambled on over, he's a good ambler, most thin guys are. We shook hands and passed greetings and salutations. It's always good to see him. He's a man I would like to hang out and converse with on a more steady basis. A no nonsense, amiable, amusing guy, companionable and interesting, and intelligent. He's always a font of information on things Thai/Asian, and always willing to help a guy out. He's extremely knowledgeable on Bangkok, as he lives there. He had informed me about a nice little hotel he knew about in Siem Reap where my wife and I spent our honeymoon while visiting Angkor Wat last summer, and a wonderful restaurant nearby the place here we spent hours over a delicious romantic meal. It was an extremely nice family run small hotel, and the food and atmosphere in the restaurant was first class. The wife and I had a great time there, thanks to him, and his info and help. We'll return there on our wedding anniversary next summer to finish seeing the Angkor Wat complexes. The place is huge! We discussed a number of things, shared a few anecdotes, drank a couple of beers, chatted some more about mutual friends and things that had happened since my last time there and renewed our acquaintance.

I like getting a chance to visit with my many good friends in Thailand in venues where we can relax and chat. The nightlife establishments are too damned noisy and loud to converse, not condusive to visiting with friends, except on a baser level of sanuk through alcohol, throbbing disco/rock music played at deafening levels, and of course the shared bonhomie of ogling svelte little brown nude lasses ashuffle upon a stage. Fun this can be, but not good for chatting with friends seen only occasionally.

This is why some of my fondest memories of Thailand have little to do with gogo bars and discos. My favorite times remembered have been times spent with friends on lazy sunny afternoons on Jomtien Beach, an evening with a friend and his wife eating a delicious home cooked Thai meal in their apartment, the two of us standing around on his balcony having a smoke and a chat while the wives chat and cook the meal as we gaze on the sparkling, muticoloured lights of the Bangkok night skyline, time spent in Malaysia with a good friend who lives there and another couple, and a friend who came stag, also good friends, drinking beers and sampling some of the best cuisine in Asia, checking out the interesting cultural sites during th day and watching my friend and his band playing in a club at night where all his friends treat us like family and make us feel so welcome and comfortable, nights with friends at the Thermae checking out the freak show and having a few laughs and drinks while the parade of men patrol the bar looking for that one perfect date for the evening, this is a hoot and a blast if you get there early enough to score a table in the back where you can relax and peruse the circus acts of humanity looking for sexual release and a few baht to pay the rent, a day spent with a teacher friend and his wife and kids, and another couple who are good friends of my wife and I at the school where my friend works this past 4th of July where the school had a fair set up with food, beers, live bands and all sorts of games and such stuff to amuse us, a chance encounter of another friend in Woodstock where we get a chance to talk over a beer and one of the Woodstock's famous blackened cheeseburgers, the best damned cheeseburger I've found anywhere in Thailand, and appreciated after a month up-country in the village sans anything even remotely resembling beef, chatting with the owner of Woodstock Peter, and his wonderful wife Orn, two of the nicest people around, shooting the shit with a Kiwi friend of mine while we smoke a ciggie in the back of my wedding bus on the way up to the wedding and quaffing a brew while the earlier raucous lady companions and wives of my friends finally shut the damned karioke down and sleep for an hour or two, didn't think those broads would ever stop partying and singing their brains and hearts out, another wedding a couple of years ago of friends where we all got together and had a great weekend.

These are the times that stand out foremost in my memories of my time spent in Thailand. These are the times I relish and look forward to. After a couple of hundred nights or so of hanging in gogos and beer bars over the years the whole thing becomes a bit boring, run of the mill, been there-done that-got the merit badges, it was fun, but what's next? What else can be had? Yeah, it can be fun, but there is a whole world of interesting things to see and do and experience in Thailand. Many wonderful Thais and expats to meet and befriend. Thailand will still be a great place to live or visit even if that wanker Purachai has his way and ruins the farang nightlife scene as it is presently. It's the PEOPLE that make it what it is there, it's that sanuk attitude. The powers that be will never be able to destroy that. They can drive the scene underground, make it less visible, take away the nude dancing, the gogos, the streetwalking freelancers, the late night discos and 5a.m. closing beer bars in Pattaya, but they'll never take the love of Sanuk from the Thai people, no matter how hard they try, and there will always be women who will play for pay there in one form and venue or another, unless they someday get the standard of living and pay as high as the west for the majority of people there. Doubtful in anyone here's lifetime I think. It's too imbedded in the culture.

These are the thoughts that ran through my head one day as I walked down the chilly streets of Surin, this winter wonderland, with the wife and family. Around me the smiling faces of the Thai people flashed in the darkening twilight. Their laughter and playfulness as evident around me as the cooling dusk air and pink streaked sky. Their history of Sanuk is a long one. It's in their blood. These people will party at the drop of a hat, anywhere, anytime.

If one can't find sanuk in Thailand except in a gogo bar or disco then I feel sorry for him. Obviously he has yet to experience Thailand and it's people. Sanuk is everywhere in Thailand, every village, every noodle stall, every rice field, and will always be.

 

Cent