Entry No.1

[khunsanuk]

Literally my first step out of the Bangkok airport and I am assaulted. Like the scene from T2 when Linda Hamilton hangs on for dear life to the chain link fence as the atomic blast literally tears the flesh away from her skeletal structure, so the blast of unbelievable heat reduced my rather fashionable travel clothes to a sticky, clingy cotton/rayon blend disaster. And we?re not talking the good pure sweat you lose after a session in the sauna...no, this is airplane sweat, complete with germs and other miscellaneous organisms I?d collected from the other misfortunates who I?d been confined with on that 19 hour flight in the small test tube of an airplane. Welcome to Thailand!

 

 

Part 1 - ME 2-2-2000

I?d been sent by a friend over here to Bangkok to check up on a whore he?s been sending money to. She had supposedly given up her sinful ways and returned to her village for clean living and basket weaving (or whatever the hell it is they do these days in villages) My friend, not being a complete moron, was a bit suspicious thanks to some advice he?d read on some website for perverts in Thailand and wanted to make sure he was the only one sending his little brown strumpet the money.

 

 

Now, you?re probably thinking I?m some hardened private dick used to catching philanderers on a regular basis. But, actually, I?m just a guy with some vacation time who was more than willing to accept the free airfare my buddy offered. Although I?m not your typical sex tourist (having not paid for it since my off days in the military...not counting the hundred bucks I often shell out for a meal in hopes of landing a tongue sandwich), I was a little, how-should-I-say-it...curious about the legendary nightlife in the ?land of leers?. Some research might be in order.

 

 

After downing the too sweet orangy ?welcome? drink from the hotel, I quickly showered off the stench of 200 foreigners and took a well deserved (and long awaited) crap. Ah, sweet relief! After a short nap to refuel, it was definitely research time.

 

 

This being Thursday night, I?d have to wait a day to meet up with the degenerates who my buddy had hung out with at this place called Woodstock.

They were the ones who supposedly could clue me in on how things are done and might give me a few leads on finding Joe?s native princess. Til then, I was on my own...but not for long.

 

 

I walked into this dilapidated three story monstrosity called NEP, which stands for Nana Entertainment Palace or something like that. Not much of a palace, though, more like a firetrap. Neon lights, half dressed girls hanging off the balconies, and abandoned motorcycles which littered the narrow walkways made the first impression of a place where you could have a seriously good time...or get into some serious trouble. With any luck at all, I could do both!

 

 

Well, it was early yet, only a touch after 10pm. Figured I?d do a bit of bar crawling and if something took my fancy, maybe I?d take a little strumpet home with me once her work was done. So I headed up the stairs to the top floor (easier to work your way down than up) and turned into the first bar on the right. A little place called Carnival. Now, I?ve been to Brazil, and I had some pamphlets from the Thailand Board of Tourism, but in neither case do I remember seeing or reading about a naked teenaged girl having dildo?s shoved in both her nether orifices by two other naked teenaged girls. Yet, (THANK YOU JESUS) here they were. And don?t ever let me hear anybody deriding the work ethic in Bangkok, because the long rubber dong stuck inside her hey nanny nanny was surely enough to get her the employee of the month award...the one up her ass only highlighted her commitment to excellence.

 

 

A young lady sat down next to me. Yes, she was wearing a bikini, and yes she did immediately reach out and touch someone, and, okay...she did want me to pay someone named Bah, but she didn?t really seem like a hooker. It was strange. She was...you know...nice? Friendly. She found me really attractive too...which I like in a girl. And she wasn?t alone. Before long there were 5 others surrounding me. Is this what it feels like to be Tom Cruise...without the homosexuality? The girl, Nok (what an unusual name) protected me from the topless vultures and within minutes we were walking back down the stairs. How had this happened? And, can we do this every night?

 

 

We ate some strange soup from this roadside cart and went back to the room.

And she was a whore, I know...but, then again...since when does a whore get down on the floor to remove your socks and shoes? Since when are they modest and shy? When did they stop asking for money? And, finally, when did they become so sweet? Maybe my buddy wasn?t so crazy after all, or maybe I was. Either way, by the time she went home the next morning, I was both satisfied and incredibly confused.

 

 

So, I spent most of the next day in my room. It was that goddamn SOUP!!!

After 45 minutes on the john, I?d moan my way back to the bed just in time to feel another wave of the ever popular nausea/diarrhea combo. Sawasdee CRAP, indeed!

 

 

But, with the help of Dr. Immodium, I was ready to go again by nightfall.

Around 7ish, I made my way back up the stairs to the second floor where this whoremonger meeting was to take place. And what a cast of characters they were. On the outside, it seemed they could pass for normal, but when they spoke you could tell that you were nowhere near Kansas anymore. Still, they were jovial enough. But, exactly how was I supposed to take seriously guys with names like Khun Sanuk, Stickman, and Gummigut (who is this 60ish 300 pound bald German guy with a long pool cue and apparently a very short penis)

 

 

These guys had been coming to Woodstock for some time, and it seemed clear that if I came back 5 years later they?d still be haunting those booths in the corner. They gave me directions to where Bob had met his girlfriend, a coffee shop called the Thermae.

 

 

 

Part 2 - HER

These new gogo bars had just opened next to the coffee shop. They were in a little square called Clinton Plaza. Unlike NEP, these bars were very clean and well laid out, and would likely become THE place to go for nightlife long after Nana was dead and gone. I toured some of these places, with names like Flowers a go-go and Monica?s (after various liaisons that our former President was famous for) for an hour or so with some of the guys while we were waiting for the coffee shop to open. And, while I did fall in love at least three times, I was able to manage to keep it together until I could get into the Thermae.

 

 

Now if you, like myself, have never been to the Thermae, it is this underground large square room with many booths for coffee, and some people also drink beer. It seems to be a place for people to go unwind after work. No dancers, of course, so it would be more difficult to find information about the girl. Luckily she had a very unique name that was unlikely to cause confusion. So I started asking around to see if anybody had heard from Lek.

 

 

There were some very unusual people in the coffee shop...and come to think of it I never saw anybody actually drinking coffee. Still, it was a nice change from the go-gos. Here, finally, I could get away from the prostitutes and meet a nice average Thai girl. There sure were a lot of girls there and they were all so friendly. Thai people are awesome!

 

 

There was a tap on my shoulder. ?My friend like you. You sit with us?? I did. What a vision she was. Petite, with long black hair, and beautiful coffee colored skin. (Maybe that?s why they call it a coffee shop?) We hit it off like gangbusters, and while the coincidence may be too good to believe, it turns out she did know a girl named Lek from Issan. What amazing luck! She even let me take her home. I love Thailand!

 

 

After finding God with her (twice) she filled me in. It seems Lek isn?t as unique a name as I?d imagined and that Issan is a rather large place. I did have an e-mail from Bob which narrowed it down to a place called Kalisan.

This was near my new girlfriend?s hometown and she agreed to go with me. My girl, named Apple, is a student but I guess

they must?ve been on a break or something because she had no problems taking off with me. Thai people are so helpful!

 

 

Apple got her stuff together the next day and after I gave her some money to send to her mother who needed an operation (this was totally voluntary keeping in mind that I was no longer involved in the flesh trade...I?d met this girl in a coffee shop after all) we boarded the overnight train to Kon Kan. If I live 100 years I?ll never meet anybody sweeter than this girl. She truly cared about me and had this cute way of saying ?up to you? to show that my happiness was most important to her. I was forced to accept that I had just been naive before in my cynical, yet unfounded opinions of Thai ladies. Now that I was here, actually talking to them, it was clear that their honesty and femininity left the Western girls in the dust. Thank God for Bob. I began to be quite sure that not only would we find his Lek, but that she would be as faithful to him as I am to McDonalds.

 

 

We talked, in a sort of pigeon English, all night long. Even though she looked only 19 or 20, Apple said she was 24 and had been in Bangkok for only 4 months. I couldn?t exactly make out what she was studying to be, but she told me it was her first time in the Thermae. When I said it was my first time too, she gave me the most beautiful smile.

She, too, was obviously marveling at how fate had thrown us together. She was always very modest and even childlike in her innocence...plus she let me do anal.

 

 

She was the perfect girl in every way, it seemed. It was just so sad that she had to live in such poverty. She had told me of how she only had one set of clothes, and while we were shopping for a new wardrobe for her, the way she looked at me made me happier than perhaps I?d ever been. I began to get that look on my face that I?d seen on Bob?s. Now I finally understood.

I, too, would be more than happy to help out this poor girl and her destitute family.

 

 

Just before morning she got a call on her cell phone. It seems she was needed at home and would have to get off the train early. I would meet up with her in three days at the train station in Korat. I gave her some money so her family would have plenty to eat for awhile and headed off alone.

 

 

Part 3 - US

The train stopped in Kon Kan, and from there I took the bus to Kalisan. It was indeed a village. Parts of the downtown area were modern enough, but once you got to the part where people lived, things changed. What they called houses were one small square tin room with no furniture. I?m still not sure how you were supposed to use the toilet but I gather that you?re supposed to actually stand inside the commode. This was a whole different way of life than I ever thought I?d see firsthand.

 

 

Armed with only a name and a picture, I was able to find somebody who knew her and who offered to drive me there in the back of his pick-up truck for 300 baht for the 15 minute ride. This seemed fair, so I hopped in. As we bounced along the bumpy dirt road I had a feeling of being back in the old west while simultaneously harboring fantasy?s of being a latter day Columbo about to solve the mystery.

 

 

When the truck stopped I jumped out and found myself in a zoo. Only, this time, I was the one on exhibit. Dirty children with few clothes on would run out of decaying shacks to touch my white skin. Old ladies with no teeth would rub my protruding belly. And packs of muscular men with no shirts and very large beers would point and laugh, and inside my head ?dueling banjo?s? was playing.

 

 

Lek?s house had about 10 of these men lounging around on the front porch drinking, pointing, and laughing. The laughing stopped when I walked up and showed them a picture of Bob and Lek. They began whispering as if I could understand a word they said. I began to worry not only for the veracity of Lek?s story but for my own safety. But Lek WAS there, and soon she came outside with a plate of fish and rice...and her 3 children. Bob hadn?t mentioned her being a mother...in fact he said he thought she might have been a virgin when he?d met her. This meant that either I?d stumbled across the second, third, and fourth coming...or Bob had been lied to.

 

 

It turned out that Lek?s husband was a shiftless Thai man who had run off.

Not at all like the 10 guys who continually drank beer and whiskey for the 2 hours I stayed with them, I suppose. She implored me to not tell Bob until she?d had a chance to. I agreed because she had been honest about not working in Bangkok anymore, and because she was just as charming as Bob had said. I ate with them, wished them well, and gave them the money Bob had asked me to deliver. They drove me back to town to buy some more beer and whiskey and only charged me 250 baht for the ride.

 

 

So, I decided to head back to Korat that night and surprise Apple. Maybe I could help comfort her during her mom?s operation in the hospital. When she saw me she was indeed very surprised. So was her husband. So was I when he started chasing me with his knife. So was the crowd when I managed to outrun him. So was the owner of the pickup truck when I offered him 4000 baht to drive me back to Bangkok NOW!

 

 

Bob and I had both been taken in by Thai ladies. Both of us had been fooled. But it can?t be said that we didn?t get some value for our money.

For awhile, we both felt just a little bit taller, a little bit stronger, and a little bit happier than we ever had before. The flight attendant smiled his welcome. Sawasdee khrap! Sawasdee CRAP, indeed.

 

 

But, next time, we?ll both be smarter. And, as I sit here now, back in my drab office, God, but I do miss Thailand!

 

[khunsanuk]

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[changnoi]

Lots of chuckles when I read this one.

 

"When I said it was my first time too, she gave me the most beautiful smile."