My birthday was just another birthday until Grumbles the elephant came to say hello. I’d had to work during the day and then gone for some food, then on to a bar. The elephant which everyone else simply calls ‘the elephant’ is usually paraded around near the pier where most of the tourists are, but for some reason on that night he had been led to the centre of town and it gave me a suitably exotic birthday surprise when I turned around and saw him neatly filling up the large entrance way to the bar. I’ve taken to calling him Grumbles, he deserves a name and Grumbles is quite fitting.
Christmas was not just like any other Christmas. It was weird, very weird. We were asked to perform for ten minutes at one of the high schools as part of their morning Christmas party. As I’ve discovered, Thailand doesn’t really care about Christmas but any excuse to put on an elaborate show with dodgy technical problems is too much for them to resist. So we decided we’d just make fools of ourselves and sing some Christmas songs. Obviously we would start with Jingle Bells – they all love Jingle Bells in Thailand, I’ve almost forgotten if there are any other carols. Then some bright spark had the idea of doing the Twelve Days of Christmas and between the four of us we could make twelve posters for some students to hold up as we sing it. So my Christmas Eve this year was me splayed out on my living room floor in a jungle of colouring crayons, frantically trying to remember what hens look like. And eleven pipers piping! ELEVEN!? I was so proud when I managed to draw a piper piping but to do it another ten times! To keep myself amused I added variety – fat pipers, midget pipers, stoned-looking jazz pipers etc. I also did seven swans a-swimming and they looked more like white-feathered eels. Suffice to say I was scribbling away until 2am and made Santa very angry indeed.
When we turned up at the school we went into a massive hall and the party was already in full swing. An audience of about 400 kids was watching the current act – eight skinny, promiscuous 15-year-old girls and gays in skimpy Santa outfits were simulating sex on the stage and occasionally doing a kind of ‘electric shock’ dance along to Jingle Bells (of course). It must happen about once a week, that feeling of ‘what the fuck am I doing here?’
Then we went on and did our stuff. Inevitably our backing music wouldn’t work and there was only one microphone. The school already had a karaoke version of Jingle Bells at the ready, which we sang along to atrociously badly, Shaun taking the lead because tone-deaf or not, he is the head teacher. Then somehow I ended up singing solo a-cappella for the Twelve Days of Christmas while Claire choreographed the holding up of our ridiculous posters, and Brandon and Shaun went around throwing sweets at the kids. I started singing and a massive X-factor style scream went up around the room – I felt like I was flying, I was Susan Boyle and everything was going to be alright for the rest of my life. No more sitting at home alone dwelling over awkward social moments from five years ago, no more nightmares of mutant orphans stealing my thoughts as I sleep, I’d broken America, I was high on the acid of self-love, I’d dreamed a dream and the dream was me on a stage in Thailand singing Christmas songs to a few hundred pubescent students. But you don’t need me to mention that The Twelve Days of Christmas is a long, drawn out affair with far too many repetitions and a patronisingly obvious conclusion. When I finally finished I received a pitter-patter of dissenting applause from the fickle crowd and my Susan Boyle career was over.
Later in the day I was a very sweaty Santa Claus at the kindergarten that some of the girls teach at. Then I had to teach for 2 hours, then mark 39 exam papers. Merry Christmas.
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Saturday, 26 December 2009
A Krabi weekend
Making friends with Thai people in a place like Krabi is futile because they’re all trying to sell you sex or boat trips.
Everyone else is German. I’ve got nothing against that per se, but it’s harder to break into a friendship group when they’re all talking a stupid language.
Perhaps I was unlucky that my plan of ‘oh I know I’ll go to Krabi by myself and just see what happens’ didn’t quite work out. Perhaps it’s my fault for being rubbish at planning anything that on the Saturday I just went to Krabi Town and then realised that Krabi town is nowhere near the beach. I spent the night in the sort of rat-infested small hotel you see in films, where you can tell the Hollywood set-designers have been having a field day scrubbing away with light brown paints and rust-coloured stick-ons to give it that incredible authentic shit-hole look.
Spontaneity usually makes for an adventure and I suppose this was no exception, but my mistake is that I had in my mind exactly the sort of spontaneous adventure I wanted; it would involve travelling Irish girls, naïve Americans, and drunk friendly guys from Sheffield, more than happy to invite a quirky posh southerner into their midst. But no, didn’t see any of them. Maybe there was a whole clan of these people circulating all the bars in the opposite direction to me, having the time of their lives; while in contrast I was moping around, a decadent loner with one broken flip flop, getting increasingly agitated at the circling vultures (prostitutes, beach sellers, tailors. Why are there so many fucking tailors in Krabi!? I don’t want a suit, leave me alone). I suppose I never expected this whole year to be one big orgasmic adventure in paradise, there will be troughs. Last weekend was a bit of a trough.
Conversations & attempted friendships
1. I was buying beach shorts from a Burmese guy.
“Where you from?”
“England.”
“Where?”
“ENGLAND”,
“Where in England? Manchester?”
“Um…west…Bath…near Bristol…”
“Manchester?”
“West. South west.”
“Manchester?”
“Yes. Manchester.”
2. I was sat reading on the beach as the sun was going down and two girls who didn’t look particularly Thai walked past taking photos of each other. Japanese tourists? They could be fun. They waved at me and I waved back.
They turned out to be Thai prostitutes. But one of them told me a good place to see monkeys in the morning. Everyone you meet has something to tell you. That’s philosophy.
3. I sat at a bar watching football while a bar girl called Nikha drew on my face with her biro and told me I’m uglier than Cristiano Ronaldo. She was funny and rude, which made me trust her as she didn’t seem like a prostitute. We had something that resembled a real conversation; correctly guessed each other’s age, talked about teaching, she talked about her boyfriend and her family and her mouth ulcer, how she’s from Bangkok originally.
It turned out Nikha was merely someone whose job it is to keep guys sweet until the horde of prostitutes arrives. Our genuine friendship felt a little less genuine when I realised this.
“Look, sexy ladies. You want sexy lady for when you go sleep?”
“No”. I was sullen. “I don’t like those sexy ladies.”
“Why? You gay?”
“Not gay, picky.”
“Whas picky?”
“No no no no no no…YES.“
“Oh.”
3. Chelsea fan in an Irish pub. Friendly twat.
4. I bought an oil painting from a deaf Thai lady. She typed 750 into a calculator. I pulled a face that said ‘I don’t want to spend that much’. She gave me the calculator and I typed 250 and she put her thumb up to say ok. Deaf people haggle faster.
5. I had been walking home to my hotel, drunkenly looking at the stars and feeling disillusioned by all the debauchery that ruins Thailand. Then a girl went past on a motorbike, then slowed. She started tossing her hair, arching her back etc etc etc. I looked the other way. She stopped the motorbike ahead of me and sat on some steps waiting. By this stage I was boiling into a drunken rage at the hollowness of everything and when I realised it was a ladyboy I just felt even angrier.
I don’t remember the exact conversation. I wasn’t very nice.
Everyone else is German. I’ve got nothing against that per se, but it’s harder to break into a friendship group when they’re all talking a stupid language.
Perhaps I was unlucky that my plan of ‘oh I know I’ll go to Krabi by myself and just see what happens’ didn’t quite work out. Perhaps it’s my fault for being rubbish at planning anything that on the Saturday I just went to Krabi Town and then realised that Krabi town is nowhere near the beach. I spent the night in the sort of rat-infested small hotel you see in films, where you can tell the Hollywood set-designers have been having a field day scrubbing away with light brown paints and rust-coloured stick-ons to give it that incredible authentic shit-hole look.
Spontaneity usually makes for an adventure and I suppose this was no exception, but my mistake is that I had in my mind exactly the sort of spontaneous adventure I wanted; it would involve travelling Irish girls, naïve Americans, and drunk friendly guys from Sheffield, more than happy to invite a quirky posh southerner into their midst. But no, didn’t see any of them. Maybe there was a whole clan of these people circulating all the bars in the opposite direction to me, having the time of their lives; while in contrast I was moping around, a decadent loner with one broken flip flop, getting increasingly agitated at the circling vultures (prostitutes, beach sellers, tailors. Why are there so many fucking tailors in Krabi!? I don’t want a suit, leave me alone). I suppose I never expected this whole year to be one big orgasmic adventure in paradise, there will be troughs. Last weekend was a bit of a trough.
Conversations & attempted friendships
1. I was buying beach shorts from a Burmese guy.
“Where you from?”
“England.”
“Where?”
“ENGLAND”,
“Where in England? Manchester?”
“Um…west…Bath…near Bristol…”
“Manchester?”
“West. South west.”
“Manchester?”
“Yes. Manchester.”
2. I was sat reading on the beach as the sun was going down and two girls who didn’t look particularly Thai walked past taking photos of each other. Japanese tourists? They could be fun. They waved at me and I waved back.
They turned out to be Thai prostitutes. But one of them told me a good place to see monkeys in the morning. Everyone you meet has something to tell you. That’s philosophy.
3. I sat at a bar watching football while a bar girl called Nikha drew on my face with her biro and told me I’m uglier than Cristiano Ronaldo. She was funny and rude, which made me trust her as she didn’t seem like a prostitute. We had something that resembled a real conversation; correctly guessed each other’s age, talked about teaching, she talked about her boyfriend and her family and her mouth ulcer, how she’s from Bangkok originally.
It turned out Nikha was merely someone whose job it is to keep guys sweet until the horde of prostitutes arrives. Our genuine friendship felt a little less genuine when I realised this.
“Look, sexy ladies. You want sexy lady for when you go sleep?”
“No”. I was sullen. “I don’t like those sexy ladies.”
“Why? You gay?”
“Not gay, picky.”
“Whas picky?”
“No no no no no no…YES.“
“Oh.”
3. Chelsea fan in an Irish pub. Friendly twat.
4. I bought an oil painting from a deaf Thai lady. She typed 750 into a calculator. I pulled a face that said ‘I don’t want to spend that much’. She gave me the calculator and I typed 250 and she put her thumb up to say ok. Deaf people haggle faster.
5. I had been walking home to my hotel, drunkenly looking at the stars and feeling disillusioned by all the debauchery that ruins Thailand. Then a girl went past on a motorbike, then slowed. She started tossing her hair, arching her back etc etc etc. I looked the other way. She stopped the motorbike ahead of me and sat on some steps waiting. By this stage I was boiling into a drunken rage at the hollowness of everything and when I realised it was a ladyboy I just felt even angrier.
I don’t remember the exact conversation. I wasn’t very nice.
Saturday, 19 December 2009
Bangkok
Now I know where Santa goes for his holidays before the busy part of his year. You can guess already can’t you; of course! he goes to the strip bars in Bangkok. Why wouldn’t he? You would if you were him. There he was, sat all alone on a stool next to the table of dancing girls, occasionally reaching out and attempting to grope one of them. His face was all cheery and red and his long white hair neatly trimmed. Obviously he wasn’t wearing the red Coca Cola costume, he was on holiday! But I knew it was him and on our way out I went up and asked if I can have a bike this year. “Oh ho ho yes!” he gleamed, happily playing along with my rubbish joke.
Bangkok seems like a direct cross between London, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. Amsterdam I’ve always found kind of seedy in a quirky and ridiculous way, but Bangkok is like its intimidating older brother.
Typically, I don’t really remember what we did on
our twelve-hour drinking adventure. All I know is that despite going to some really dodgy places nothing very dodgy happened. We had some thoroughly entertaining tuk tuk rides; it seems to be fashionable in Bangkok to intermittently rev the engine in a crazy manner whilst staring behind at the passengers and cackling. And the drivers all seemed determined to hook each of us up with a prostitute, and seemed confused and distraught when we kept saying no.
Much as it was a fun weekend, I'm so glad I don't live and work in Bangkok, I'd be destroyed.
The next day we were atrociously hung over and
tried to keep our heads low, but then I led everyone off down some side streets and found a random fairground. The thing that took my fancy was 'throw the ball at the target so the girl falls in the slime' or whatever you would call it. Brandon had a shot and it bounced tamely away. “I think you need to throw it harder” he said as I picked up the next ball. So I absolutely launched it and it hit the edge of the target, ricocheted upwards and smashed a massive lantern overhead, shards of glass spraying over everyone, girls screaming, Thai faces glaring at me. It was funny because no one died.
We took a night train home (after flying up there) and it was full of the sorts of hazards I’ve come to expect from Thai health and safety. I was convinced that either I would sleepwalk out of one of the open doorways into the dark, menacing blur outside, or that the juddering train would eventually rock itself clean off the tracks. Didn’t sleep a wink.
Bangkok seems like a direct cross between London, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. Amsterdam I’ve always found kind of seedy in a quirky and ridiculous way, but Bangkok is like its intimidating older brother.
Typically, I don’t really remember what we did on
our twelve-hour drinking adventure. All I know is that despite going to some really dodgy places nothing very dodgy happened. We had some thoroughly entertaining tuk tuk rides; it seems to be fashionable in Bangkok to intermittently rev the engine in a crazy manner whilst staring behind at the passengers and cackling. And the drivers all seemed determined to hook each of us up with a prostitute, and seemed confused and distraught when we kept saying no.Much as it was a fun weekend, I'm so glad I don't live and work in Bangkok, I'd be destroyed.
The next day we were atrociously hung over and
tried to keep our heads low, but then I led everyone off down some side streets and found a random fairground. The thing that took my fancy was 'throw the ball at the target so the girl falls in the slime' or whatever you would call it. Brandon had a shot and it bounced tamely away. “I think you need to throw it harder” he said as I picked up the next ball. So I absolutely launched it and it hit the edge of the target, ricocheted upwards and smashed a massive lantern overhead, shards of glass spraying over everyone, girls screaming, Thai faces glaring at me. It was funny because no one died.We took a night train home (after flying up there) and it was full of the sorts of hazards I’ve come to expect from Thai health and safety. I was convinced that either I would sleepwalk out of one of the open doorways into the dark, menacing blur outside, or that the juddering train would eventually rock itself clean off the tracks. Didn’t sleep a wink.
Friday, 11 December 2009
Lust in translation
A new member of the Thai staff at the school, a girl called Fa, asked me the other day if I like ‘lice’ (she meant rice). I said yes. Then there was an uncomfortable silence and I suddenly realised ‘oh, she means now!’ So I stood up and started following and realised that all the Thai staff were going for lunch and as I was the only teacher in the office presumably they thought they’d better be polite and ask me to come along. But as I made my way outside Fa had a phone call and then everything got confusing. With her bad English and my even worse Thai I couldn’t really understand but she said something like “sorry, farther, tomorrow” so I said “you’re going further? Ok, never mind” and went and got some food by myself.
Then at the same time the next day she came up and fetched me from the office. A tuk-tuk was waiting outside, which I thought was odd because tuk-tuks are never there when you need them, but always aggressively hoot at you when you’re happy walking. Anyway, I got in and we were whisked away and then she explained the tuk-tuk was being driven by her father. Ahh, father not farther. Through the small window to the driver’s seat I could make out a powerful looking man with a long ponytail. Fa and I chatted clumsily in the back of the tuk-tuk and she kept putting her hands on my arm. After what seemed like a bit too long, perhaps about 3-4 miles, we turned up at a restaurant I’d never been to before, with buffet food from disgusting-looking giant bowls. I slowly realised that her father wasn’t just driving us; the three of us went inside together to get food. Fa dragged me by the hand and pointed at all the different foods and tried, bless her, to explain what they were but I ended up just guessing and when I sat down I realised everything on my plate was its own unique shade of green.
Conversation was minimal and awkward so I did my best to instigate some chitchat. I tried, partly using gesture to ask Fa how long she had lived in Suratthani and she responded by showing me her wristwatch. Then, making polite conversation, I tried to ask whereabouts she lives and she started fanning my face. Meanwhile her father just sat there silently eating lots of food, occasionally grunting approval at just about everything, whether he understood it or not.
My brain was ticking over trying to remember as much Thai as possible. Fa asked if I wanted “chaa yen” and I pulled a confused expression before remembering that that means “ice tea”, which normally I don’t like but I was so excited at understanding something that I said yes anyway. Then the woman who had served the food said “arooy mai?” to me and I know that “arooy” means delicious and “mai” is a word Thai people use to turn anything into a question, so that wasn’t too hard to work out. “Arooy!” I said, patting my stomach.
Fa and her father paid for me despite my protests and I got whisked back to the school in the noisy tuk-tuk, this time with Fa sitting in the passenger seat next to her father, me in the back by myself trying to work out what was happening. Did I just have a date? Is that what happened? Did I agree to it? Did I enjoy it? I don’t know. I just don’t know. In all the confusion I hadn’t even considered whether Fa is attractive or not. I still don’t have an answer for that and it seems strangely irrelevant. I’ve barely seen her in the two days since and as long as I don’t do anything stupid like invite her out for dinner to return the favour, then the whole thing might be forgotten within a couple of weeks.
Then at the same time the next day she came up and fetched me from the office. A tuk-tuk was waiting outside, which I thought was odd because tuk-tuks are never there when you need them, but always aggressively hoot at you when you’re happy walking. Anyway, I got in and we were whisked away and then she explained the tuk-tuk was being driven by her father. Ahh, father not farther. Through the small window to the driver’s seat I could make out a powerful looking man with a long ponytail. Fa and I chatted clumsily in the back of the tuk-tuk and she kept putting her hands on my arm. After what seemed like a bit too long, perhaps about 3-4 miles, we turned up at a restaurant I’d never been to before, with buffet food from disgusting-looking giant bowls. I slowly realised that her father wasn’t just driving us; the three of us went inside together to get food. Fa dragged me by the hand and pointed at all the different foods and tried, bless her, to explain what they were but I ended up just guessing and when I sat down I realised everything on my plate was its own unique shade of green.
Conversation was minimal and awkward so I did my best to instigate some chitchat. I tried, partly using gesture to ask Fa how long she had lived in Suratthani and she responded by showing me her wristwatch. Then, making polite conversation, I tried to ask whereabouts she lives and she started fanning my face. Meanwhile her father just sat there silently eating lots of food, occasionally grunting approval at just about everything, whether he understood it or not.
My brain was ticking over trying to remember as much Thai as possible. Fa asked if I wanted “chaa yen” and I pulled a confused expression before remembering that that means “ice tea”, which normally I don’t like but I was so excited at understanding something that I said yes anyway. Then the woman who had served the food said “arooy mai?” to me and I know that “arooy” means delicious and “mai” is a word Thai people use to turn anything into a question, so that wasn’t too hard to work out. “Arooy!” I said, patting my stomach.
Fa and her father paid for me despite my protests and I got whisked back to the school in the noisy tuk-tuk, this time with Fa sitting in the passenger seat next to her father, me in the back by myself trying to work out what was happening. Did I just have a date? Is that what happened? Did I agree to it? Did I enjoy it? I don’t know. I just don’t know. In all the confusion I hadn’t even considered whether Fa is attractive or not. I still don’t have an answer for that and it seems strangely irrelevant. I’ve barely seen her in the two days since and as long as I don’t do anything stupid like invite her out for dinner to return the favour, then the whole thing might be forgotten within a couple of weeks.
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Quantum of Sausage
Things I don’t miss:
Helphire plc.
Freezing cold mornings in the dark.
The general feeling of an underlying angry tension.
The heavy bready fatty diet.
Chavs (and their heavier breadier fattyererer diets).
The certainty that you are being charged silly money for the most trivial things by companies/people that don’t really need it.
British transport.
Over-zealous health & safety precautions.
The claustrophobic sensation of being watched.
Monotony.
Moaning.
McDonalds etc.
Myself with pale skin, cracked lips and broken dreams.
Things I do miss:
Red wine.
Cheese.
Sausages.
Helphire plc.
Freezing cold mornings in the dark.
The general feeling of an underlying angry tension.
The heavy bready fatty diet.
Chavs (and their heavier breadier fattyererer diets).
The certainty that you are being charged silly money for the most trivial things by companies/people that don’t really need it.
British transport.
Over-zealous health & safety precautions.
The claustrophobic sensation of being watched.
Monotony.
Moaning.
McDonalds etc.
Myself with pale skin, cracked lips and broken dreams.
Things I do miss:
Red wine.
Cheese.
Sausages.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Khanom beach
Just had an amazing weekend away at Khanom, the nearest nice beach to Suratthani. It’s a beautiful quiet beach, with perfect sand scattered with thousands of seashells. It was really chilled out, especially on Sunday-Monday (which are the days we get off as a weekend). We pretty much had the beach to ourselves, other than the people working at the resorts and their kids, who kept us very entertained. A young, tiny Thai boy aged about six kept wandering around aimlessly with a massive adult-size bike – the seat was higher off the ground than his head. Seemed like every time we went round a corner he’d be there in the distance somewhere, just pushing this bicycle around, like some kind of humorous sub-plot.I took my guitar and we sang some cheesy songs on the beach, talked rubbish and got drunk. Also went to a cool bar at one point and the girl who owned it (apparently a survivor of the tsunami) had been in a recent motorbike accident and served all our food and drinks by hopping on one foot, laughing all the while.
Can’t believe it’s December now. The sea was incredible, warm and lush. Went in at night under the near-full moon and stars, swimming in the shimmering phosphorescence. Jealous yet? In the darkness I saw a huge jellyfish-shaped beast though and had to flee abruptly.
Talking of beasts, rather than just sit around on a beach the whole time we went on an adventure to find Khao Wang Thong Cave. It’s a kind of tourist destination in that there were signs from the main road, but we quickly became lost in a labyrinth of eerie, dusty back roads and had to ask no less than five different people for directions.
I said something about it being like the start of one of those horror films – next we’ll get a flat tyre and won’t be able to escape the cave-dwelling beasts. “And you’re the funny one, so you die first”, Brandon told me, which had perhaps the wrong effect of making me swell with pride.
Glad we made it there anyway, it was amazing. A whole complex of caves in the side of a mountain – and like I said it’s not really a touristy place, we were the only people there and had to clamber through a tiny rusty gate 4ft off the ground and turn the lights on and off ourselves. It was pretty creepy inside, descending into darkness only broken by the sparse little lights in some of the corners. We had to crawl on hands and knees at some points and there were about ten or so different chambers, all different shapes and sizes, water dripping from the stalactites and bats flapping around in pandemonium. F**king cool.
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