One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

Well, I made it through Thailand and am back in New Zealand now. Sleeping in the same room and bed I've had since I was 12.

Basically Thailand was doubleplus awesome and a lot of pretty good stuff happened to me while I was there. For your entertainment, I'll relate my last night. It's a bit long, because I can almost never resist using more words than necessary and digressing every other sentence, but bite me, it's my trip report, and I hope you'll enjoy my style, and the content.

The morning was fairly standard, I had a rather tasty chicken and cashew nuts on rice for breakfast along with fresh coconut juice / milk and got a train to bangkok. Once there, I checked into a hotel on Ko San road (backpacker central). I did a bit of shopping for fairly amusing t-shirts, CDs of dubious provenence, and sunglasses in the afternoon, and then met up for a drink with Tom and Kate (all names changed), a couple of 21 year old english kids I'd met the day before at a cooking class given by a lady-boy.

On the way in, Tom spots someone he recognises and goes over to say hello. Melinda is a short blonde girl with nice breasts. She looked, well a bit posh (you know the way decent looking rich girls, while they might not be stunning, have nice skin and good makeup / grooming and clothes, etc which tends to bumps them a point or so the standard ten point scale (the Paris Hilton Effect). Her face might have been slightly too angular but I like that and seemed to almost have a default expression of mild superiority but I ignored that.

The conversation went through all the normal backpacker phases - how long have you been here, when do you leave, where have you been? It wasn't until the fourth stage - what are you doing in the future? that I began paying attention to what she was saying rather than her figure.

"Well, it's out last night tonight, and we haven't been to a ping pong show yet."
"Us either, but we're not sure we want to" Tom replied.
"Oh I want to but apparantly you really can't go without a boy."
Tom still didn't look convinced and he and Kate had a quick discussion about if they wanted to go or not. He was pretending to be doing it out of a sense of duty to the default itinerary and she didn't want to look like a prude in front of a girl he had been obsessed with for the first year of university so it was a very English argument.

Melinda seemed keen to go to the show, which jumped her another point in my mind (girls who show an interest in sex appear more attractive to a guy who is not avoiding sex - I would call it the Paris Hilton effect but that name is taken already).

Before that discussion could wind down and the Tom Kate couple policy settled at "Well I don't particularly want to go so let's do something else and mostly forget about it", I looked at Melinda and said "Well, if you need an escort, I'd be happy to help you complete your list of things to do." She looked at me and I grinned (I do a nice line in evil smug smiles according to a female friend).
"Maybe, but apparantly it doesn't get going until midnight, so we should probably have drinks here first."

The four of us grabbed a table and got a couple of buckets of fun (a half bottle of whiskey, two bottles of redbull, topped off with ice and coke, all served in a plastic bucket - for about $7).

Naturally, Melinda and I wound up sharing a bucket. Had she not been an English student I would probably have slowed down my drinking rate to ensure I was sober enough to have a good night. It wasn't necessary - she still had a hundred quid of Daddy's (her father, not me) money to burn through before her flight the next afternoon, and a better liver than mine.

The conversation was fairly standard - mutual acquaintances they had encountered on the trip, where they had been on the trip and what they thought about it.

I mostly listened, except when I had something particularly funny or interesting to say (rather than the normal state where I will talk until I feel like stopping). Melinda didn't mention a boyfriend in two hours, and there had been plenty of conversational physical contact, and enough other signs Iwas feeling pretty confident. Thanks to a packing error before a bus journey a few days before I had a streets song running through my head in which he says "she's playing with her hair regularly, I could well be in", when we left the pub.

Four people is enough you can't comfortably get a tuk tuk, but I was torn between suggesting we get one so she would sit on my lap, and relief I didn't have to face a smoggy ride on a bouncy lawnmower with a driver who believed himself to be in a formula one race with every other crazy sonofabich in bangkok.

I could get into asking you guys about the way she made sure I sat in the back with her, but I know the results of this story and don't want a *.

Patpong has a flourishing night market, "Rolex? Watches?"
"Hey you - where you from, want t-shirt?", "Special discount for you..." but we weren't interested in the stalls this time. Down either side of the street are bars with names like "Super Pusssy" - to make sure you get the point, Thai spivs hang out in front of these bars with an a5 sized menu of the offerings inside (the menu has been laminated, and includes such delights as "Pusssy peel banana", "razor blade pussy", and "Pussy write letter".

We went in and got a semi-booth since sitting at the front takes a certain dedication we didn't have. The lights were rather dim (I haven't been to many strip clubs, but I would guess even dimmer than most).

This is rather a good thing, as in general, women who need to make a living by inserting, removing, and propelling items from their reproductive canal, do not tend to be particularly attractive (the description ridden hard and put away wet unfortunately came to mind). I recieved some rather upset looks from other people when during the artistic display of pussy smoke cigarette I remembered a routine from Billy Connelly about what women should do if they wanted to scare the [excrement] out of their gynacologist.

Thankfully Melinda found my explanation (complete with Glaswegian accent) amusing, and a little bit later snuggled up against me with the excuse of saving me from the attentions of a particularly persistent bar girl. I also wondered a little too loudly if my travel insurance would cover me if I was accidentally roped in to the flying banana put eye out segment of the show.

We watched the show for a while with the kind of resigned nausiating curiousity that explains the success of reality TV shows. All four of us then got a taxi back to Ko Sarn.

"Well, we stay here"
"Alright mate, if I don't see you at lunch, stay in touch, yeah?"
"Where are you staying Richard?" Amazingly, even with the vast number of hotels on Ko San, and all the not subtle clues I had been getting all night, I still considered the possibilty of a genuine coincidence when she said "Me too"

We walked back to my room with my arm round her shoulder. She struggled with taking her shoes off, so I ended up kneeling down to help.

"I'm not going to get hit by a flying banana am I?" She grabbed my face with both hands, and pulled me close to make sure I understood her explaination of how rude I was. I figured this was about as close to "Kiss me you moron" as I was going to get, so I did.

If you can't guess what happens next, I'll excuse you. Most people would manage to smoothly progress to semi-drunken sex, that awkward moment where you're not sure if she plans to try and sleep over or not and she's not sure if you want to kick her out or just to sleep in the we spot, and then waking up the next morning.

On the other hand, having an angry Thai man banging on your bedroom door elevates the heart rate nicely (and causes a condom to disapear into a hole in the floor when you drop it) so you might be missing out.

Once I'd paid the "Two Guest / Horny Bastard" surcharge, the night went much as outlined above. She didn't have any tricks to the level of peeling a banana, but was an energetic and fairly uninhibited by normal standards (I will regret for quite a while the fact my camera had stopped working the day before).

For the record, she fell asleep on the left side of the bed (I prefer the right) while I was taking a post-coital piss, and left before I woke up.

Cliff Notes - Last night in bangkok. Go to ping pong show. Have sex with fairly hot English girl.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

I'm not tryin to knock the OP, but to let others know what Bangkok is like, this is 'standard'

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not tryin to knock the OP, but to let others know what Bangkok is like, this is 'standard'

[/ QUOTE ]

[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] My exact thoughts.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

Great trip report, although I'm not sure why you'd hook up with an English chick while in Bangkok, who knows, maybe some guys actually like a real connection.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

what about thai girls?

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not tryin to knock the OP, but to let others know what Bangkok is like, this is 'standard for tourists '

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

Nice title. I couldn't get that song out of my head when I was in Bangkok. You suddenly understand what it's all about.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

Yes, this probably is fairly standard for tourists. So what? I enjoyed it. I never fooled myself that I was special, or that this experience was unique in any way. I have set a goal for myself to send 30 minutes a day on narrative writing, I figured I may as well do a trip report.

I didn't go to Thailand specifically to pick up an English girl, it just happened while I was there. Was I supposed to turn it down because of some [censored] up desire to have an authentic experience? I went to KFC once when I was there too and feel no qualms about that either.

No Thai girls for me, I have moral objections to paying for sex, and was never really in a situation to try to pick up normally.

Yes, I read the Beach (in Bangkok airport on the way out). I think the point was that people tend to [censored] things up. The main character does make some smug comments about "backpackers", but I think I would have found him an insufferable [censored] in real life.

I suspect the only people who say that backpackers are what is wrong with thailand are the ex-pat farang or deluded "travellers" who are both caught up in how cool they are for not being backpackers.

I went to thailand like hundreds of thousands of other westerners aged between 18 and 30. I went to a ping pong show, I went diving on Ko Tao, trekking in Chiang Mai, looking at temples in various places, did a cooking course, got a thai massage, went to see the bridge over the river Kwai, etc. I didn't save the whales, play internet poker, or do anything important or socially signifant. I am the poster boy for lonely-planet backpackerism and I don't care.

Ahem, having got way too into that tirade, I'd like to thank the people who said they liked my trip report.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

peng,

I wasnt trying to be sarcastic. I went to the bars and spent time getting drunk in the street at khao sarn road myself at first too. I think this is what everyone does at first because it is what they see at first.

everytime thailand is mentioned on 2+2 you hear the same stuff about prostitutes and sex shows, as if there is nothing else going on, and every thai girl is a hooker.
People never stop saying stuff like: "I dont want to be like KKF even if I can have alot of POWER in Thailand. Thats not the kind of guy I want to be". They basically have no idea what the are talking about.

There is one thing that seemed to be absent in your post, and that is any actual contact with Thai people.

I am sure you will be back to Thailand, and I am sure that your next trip will be better than the first trip. I think everywhere is like that.

BTW, Ive never run into a hot single European chick, only the ones who dont bath or wear bras. All the hot ones usually have boyfriends.

Re: One Night in Bangkok (Thailand Trip Report One)
 

No worries dude, I enjoy argument (in the more academic sense of the word).

I just picked that night to write about because it was fresh in my mind and I couldn't be bothered referring to my notes, and was too tired to write adequately about my visit to the Allied War Cemetary in Kanchanburi (for example).

Contact with real Thai people:
I spent a week living with my friend in Bangkok (going to work - although he is a DJ - grocery shopping, all that crap),
had a long discussion with a monk on a bus about whether various aspects of buddhist tradition are literally true or only true in a more spiritual sense,
gave advice / reassurance to a Karen teenager who was coming to NZ with his family as a refugee.

Those are the most flattering of my contacts with real Thai people but I did manage to spend some time off the completely beaten path (on a slightly less-beaten one). There just weren't any real Thai people in the story I chose to tell last night.

There are a number of possible explanations for you never meeting a hot single Euro chick:

1) You and I have different standards for hot (I don't find many Asian women particularly hot).

2) They invent boyfriends when talking to you and/or don't mention real ones when talking to me (I appear very non-threatening).

3) You hang out in a different kind of place to me. Not saying either is better or worse, just saying I encountered several (trekking and diving were best, Bangkok and cooking classes were the worst).

4) I lucked out.


My next trip to Thailand will almost certainly be better, since it's likely to be to do a DiveMaster internship in one of the scuba centers, and I love diving.