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.