"Letters from Issaan- how it began" Part 2

[phoenix]

Newbie in LOS ?trip report part 2 - LONG

 

 

 

She gradually asserts herself more in daily decisions. The total urge to please me is initially fun, but sometimes hard to take. I like to consult about decisions, such as where to eat, what to order, whether to go to the beach or to stay in bed, etc. Initially it was always ?Up to you?, to the extent it sometimes drove me crazy.

 

Sometimes I actually don?t want to make decisions, and am very happy for someone else to do it for me, especially if it doesn?t matter to me, and I know the other person will do the right thing. I finally managed to get that across, especially in terms of food. She ended up deciding where to eat, and I gave her total control over the menu.

 

 

 

She always seemed to order a little more than I would have, but it always would get finished. We never had a bad meal since she took over the food choices, most of them were absolutely delicious. It seemed to cost less, too. She would do a great deal of discussing with the waiter and/or cook about fine details of ingredients, and order additional sauces and condiments. Fish would be carefully selected and weighed, put back and another chosen. All this not in 5 star restaurants, but simple little seaside bamboo built cafes. She took great joy in ordering it, and in eating it. Her ability to pack away a huge amount of food into her small frame kept amazing me. I also ate a lot, but when I got back I found I lost a couple of kilograms. Must have been all the strenuous exercise! She would poor my beer, she would serve my dinner, pick out the nice bits from the dish for me, and remove extra large bits of chilly or other bits she deemed not edible. If I want to order something, I tentatively look around to catch the eye of a waiter. She?d anticipate my wishes, and softly but clearly call the waiter, and order for me.

 

 

 

Sometimes the grooming bit disconcerted me a bit. I am a very casual dresser, but whenever I dressed ( which seemed to be at least four or five times a day, we seemed to get undressed very frequently), she would consistently come up to me and carefully adjust the level that my shirt was pulled out of my waistband to ?blouson?, to make sure the man she appeared with in public looked smart.

 

When she saw me take out a nailfile, (I want nails without burrs, so as not to risk doing my partner any damage), she took it from me, and spent the next half hour giving me a very thorough manicure/pedicure. One afternoon she almost went overboard, when she very casually but determinedly started to use cottonbuds to carefully clean my ears, inside and out. That was almost too private, embarrassing. In perspective, some of the other physical contact involving orifices was very private as well, so what the hell. But I am not used to this endless caring, looking after, etc. When I wanted to go a wash a drip dry shirt, she took it from me and insisted on doing it.

 

Initially I found all this pampering embarrassing, but I gradually sank into it and enjoyed. I have been living the past 25 years in a kind of feminist environment, where a man is expected to look after his own cleaning up, laundry and dishes. I have no problem with that. But to experience the alternative is a treat.

 

 

 

One of the most confusing things was to see the different sides of her. In bed, she was very much a sex kitten, seductive, enjoying it (or at least making a very good impression that she was), playful, wild.

 

Afterwards, she?d stand in front of the mirror, dance for herself, pull faces, like a teenager. She?d carefully examine her tummy, complain she was getting too fat (I couldn?t see it), that her bum was too big (nonsense) and that she was getting too sunburned.

 

She could look very mature, talks seriously about personal things, and then switch to another extreme.

 

The most endearing was when she got to the beach. She totally reverted to an 8 year old, built sandcastles, spent hours looking for pretty shells to take home as souvenir.

 

 

 

She had never swum in the sea before and went ecstatic about being thrown around in the surf. All this bewilderment with new experiences that you see in little kids, totally spontaneous, with big shining eyes, and excited chatter and shrieks.

 

 

 

One night at dinner, we were sitting at the balustrade of the restaurant, about five feet above the beach, at fairly high tide. Suddenly she stared down at the sand intently, let out a shout and jumped over the balustrade onto the sand, crouched, and zigzagged across the sand, chasing something. The whole performance was like a cat that had seen a mouse, like a primitive hunting instinct took over. She got a bit wet, but ended up with a little crab, handed it to me to hold and went back for another one. She hunted for five minutes, and came back with a big grin on her face, loved the chase. She wanted to know from the cook if he could add it to the Tom Yam.

 

Later, when we talked about the place she grew up, I saw the links. Very poor family, subsistence farmers, growing vegetables on the banks of the Mekong, (Nakom Phanon, on the Lao border), and fishing in the river. Often little food, and anything that crawls is a potential addition to the diet. She simple went onto autopilot when she saw that crab running across the sent, couldn?t stop herself.

 

 

 

I realised the food we ate during that week would have fed a family of 8.

 

I more and more reflected about the enormous gaping difference between her background and mine, her current realities and mine. One day at the beach, she built two sandcastles, a foot apart, with a big moat in between. ?my country, your country?, she pointed out. As I?m writing this, I?m looking at a photo of her behind her sandcastle. (sigh)

 

 

 

Third day at XXXX, we did a one day boat trip in longtail boat, with 8 others and boatsman, visiting a few islands, having a picnic, and some snorkling. New experience for her, amazed at the coloured fish. Then we found that in a shallow part of the sea near the rocks, waist deep water, a huge school of yellow and black striped little fish would swim all around us, especially when we fed them rice grains and breadcrumbs. She totally reverted to this eight year old little girl again, shrieking with pleasure at this exciting spectacle. I took a photo of her standing feeding the fish, and she looks no older than 8. It was like being on holidays with your lover and her child, all rolled in one. (No, I am NOT into little girls, the Sanuk Board Poll question about finding a 16 yr old in your room I answered ?Send home?).

 

 

 

Sometimes it felt uneasy. On the street in the village, I would pass middle age falang couples. The woman would often look at me, at Nok, then purse her lips in disapproval and look away. The man would glance at her, eyes would light up, and he?d look at me with this ?lucky bugger? expression. But after a while, I actually started enjoying those looks, feeling rather defiant about it.

 

 

 

I did have misgivings from time to time. What was I doing here, giving this woman a taste of ?the good life, sky is the limit?, knowing I?d drop her off again later, in her one room flat, and gruelling job, going back home to my western luxury life.

 

The other side of me said, ?hey man, this woman is 27, has never been on holiday before, this is an experience of a lifetime for her, she is out of the dirty city for a week, out of the bars, and obviously having the time of her life?. So was I.

 

 

 

I never resolved that dilemma. I suppose I?m a bit of a SNAG.

 

 

 

Our last day in XXXX was more subdued. Our lovemaking tailed off (pun not intended), largely because I seemed to have less need, being thoroughly drained, not for her lack of want. The occasional bout of sadness, because it is finite, and I don?t know if I will come back ever. Once or twice a reckless impulsive thought ?Why not stay forever, forget about life back home, drop out and desert, just stay here.?

 

Quickly discarded, but not without pangs of regret.

 

She jokingly said one day ?I could be your Mia Noi? (?minor wife?). I hasten to tell her that it is highly unlikely I?ll be able to make it back to LOS alone, at least not the first 2 or 3 years. I probably will come back with my wife in November, but Nok said that if I could only slip out while in BKK for an hour or 2 alone, she?d rather not see me, too ?sad?. Fair enough.

 

 

 

We sit on our last nite at the beach café we spent most nites, finishing the Mekong bottle they held in safekeeping for me for a few days. (Mekong + water at nite doesn?t give me that bloated feel I get at nite when I drink beer. A few nights earlier, when I ordered a Mekong whisky, Nok suggested I?d get a bottle and keep it in the restaurant for next night.). Looking at each other, looking away. Stopping off at one of the few open air bars on the beachfront on the way home, for a drink, while I quickly pick up my email in the shop nextdoors.

 

During the night, I wake up a few times, look at her sleeping next to me. I take in the glorious sight, her smell, her breath. I feel her warmth.

 

 

 

Next morning (Sunday) flight back to BKK, cab to GP, let myself be talked into a suite in tower II, very good, but 2700 Baht, still better than Sheraton at 120 US$.

 

 

 

Nok is amazed at having 2 tvs, one in bedroom, one in lounge. And we have a stereo again. We go out, buy presents for a Thai friend of mine back home (karaoke videos of Thai popmusic), and a few cd?s for Nok, kind of Lao country music and ballads. (It is only much later I learn more about Molaam. Back at hotel, she plays them, sings with them and dances to them for me.

 

 

 

Her hair is a bit bleached and dry from the salt and sun, and I shout her a visit to a beauty parlour for a tune up, hair, nails etc, while I have a traditional Thai massage next doors. The masseuse is a bit playfull (? Ooh, long one?, she says, prodding ?it?. ?have you got hair all the way down??, peering down my pyama style massage pants, deliberately rubbing my balls during massage?) . She is big (relative to Nok), not very pretty, and I feel no desire. ?If you don?t behave politely?, I say ?My Gf will come after you with a knife?. She probably would, too.

 

 

 

Nok finishes just before me, looks very pretty, new darker nailpolish, tidy hairdo.

 

When I first met her, she had very pink polish and matching lipstick, too gawdy for my taste. When we arrived at XXXX first day, and she put her make up on before dinner, I told her she looked beautiful without lipstick, that lipstick was OK for BKK, but not needed on holidays. She put a little on, but no more the next day or rest of the week.

 

 

 

We went home for a rest, and then talked about the night. She preferred not to go clubbing, (eg gogo and bars), I wanted to spend my last nite having some city fun, and promised a friend of mine back home to go and check out ?Supergirl? in Patpong 1, since the friend used to work there 5 years ago. On the other hand, I had been working all week to get her to say what she wanted rather than let me decide everything. So we compromised, we?d go to Woodstock for a while, have a meal in the open market at Soi 7, and then go for half an hour to Supergirl. (she wasn?t going to let me go to Supergirl on my own, I offered). I wasn?t keen to go on my own either, I?d be far ?safer? with her.

 

 

 

So around 8, we set off to Woodstock. Arrived at NEP, and almost all was dark (Sunday night July 16) Buddhist festival. Only Woodstock and one other place open. Sat down, ordered beer to be told :?only softdrinks tonight?. NOOO, not my last nite in BKK!!!

 

Well, I suppose dinner and an early nite. We set off to Soi 7, ordered a lovely dinner, (WITH a Singha!) and Nok spotted two friends, women about her age or younger. She sat down with them for a minute, chatted, and I asked if I could join them. After they finished their meal, I asked about what would be open tonight.

 

Nana and Patpong were certainly closed but Soi Cowboy was open, they were going there, it was their nite off. I suggested we may all go together, my invitation and shout. All were happy, and we took a cab to Soi Cowboy. Straight to Longgun, which was bustling. We got a seat, me squeezed between Nok and her friends.

 

 

 

They had never been there, and took great interest in the show. Nok cast a professional eye on the dancers, and nodded approvingly, ?very good?. The dancing was good quality, but the other freak shows, such as shooting darts, blowing out candles and so on I found a trifle infantile, and not at all tittilating. One of Nok?s friends started ordering a tequila, then the next rounds we all had a round. Then more beer. Eventually we went across the road to another place, sat front row looking at the dancers (one an old friend of my friends). More beer, more tequila. Third bar, the girls want to jump onto stage (which was half empty), just for a dance. I hadn?t realised that all had gotten quit drunk by then. It took some negotiating with mamasan and a tip, and they were allowed onstage. Nok disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back a bit subdued (next day she told me she went and was sick, not used to too much drink.) It eventually got totally out of hand, we managed to roll into a cab and god knows how, get home and in bed, where we had the first ever row (drunken row), which ended in many tears on both sides, after which we passed out.

 

 

 

To be continued with final soon

 

 

 

 

[phoenix]

Repost part two- how it began

[Encore]

Second repost.