Thai Thoughts And Anecdotes Part 38

GOD, I MISS BANGKOK. . .

I had a disagreement with the Chiang Inn in Chiang Mai about one of their policies requiring me to pay an extra fee for female guests in my room so I checked out and moved to the Montri hotel. In a way it is too bad because the Chiang Inn is surrounded by the kind of upscale bars I like; populated by women who know how to smile and do make-up and dress-up. Some of them are real traffic stoppers. The Montri Hotel on the other hand is in a different part of town. Everything is more downmarket including the bars and the women. But what the hell. What do I care? How much difference can it really make? I'll have fun anyway. So the first night at the Montri I go out. The Montri is opposite the Tha Phae Gate. If you go out the front door of the hotel and go right there is an urban horseshoe of bars. So I go out looking for love. I'm pretty experienced at this and pretty easy going and open minded. I'll find someone. It will be great to make a new acquaintance either for short time or for long time. We will hold each other in each others' arms. I will flatter her. She will tickle me. We will both relax and smile. I love women.

I don't find anyone. It is a disaster. I go from bar to bar. I order my cover charge coke and look around. Then I move to the next bar. Etc. The night is a horror. The bars are all small, shabby, pokey affairs populated by uninteresting women and stupid men. The men in particular look like human refuse that has washed up on the shores of Chiang Mai. Not one of them looks engaging or interesting or charming. I can't believe it. By the time I have dragged my sorry dispirited ass around the horseshoe of bars I am completely discouraged. I kind of wish that I had stayed at the Chiang Inn and paid the whore fee they charge. But it is too late now. Pride has boxed me in and I am in Loserville and wasting valuable time on my short time in Thailand. Finally, at the very last bar I stumble into a nice looking woman. Actually, she stumbles into me. She is aggressive and she is hustling me. I like that. She is also an Isaan product which is my very favorite kind of woman. She is the right size and she has beautiful skin and she has a pretty face and she has two big bountiful breasts yearning to be free under her shirt. But she is an amateur. She is not negotiating skilfully. I have done a lot of this. I am like an insect with big long antennae picking up scents and signals. She is awkward at this which means that she will probably be awkward later. It was as if she had just graduated from the hooker orientation session and I was the first live customer that she got to practise on.

–What city are you from?
–America?
–No wait, I mean what country are you from?
–San Francisco?
–Are you tourist or are you wife?
–No, I mean are on business?
–How long you be in Thailand?
–8 days?
–Why you leave wife in San Francisco America?
–If you no wife why you from America?
–etc.

It was torture. It was like trying to open a can of tuna fish with a screwdriver and a hammer. Awkward and clumsy. But I hung in there. It was as if she had just graduated from barber school and I looked up into the mirror to see her poised uncertainly with razor and scissors. Somebody was going to get hurt. It was if she had just received her pilot's license and informed the passengers over the intercom that "We be flying now."–then proceeded to raise the landing gear before the plane left the ground. However, she had a pair of breasts that were yearning and bursting to be free of the cruel and unnatural confines of her shirt. And I knew that seeing this Isaan temptress naked would wash away the pain. So I hung in there. Finally, we agreed to 500 baht for short time. No one else is going to barfine her out of this dump and she is probably going to be the only barfine out of this bar tonight. The barfine is 400 baht. I take 400 baht out of my wallet and pass it over the bar to the mamasan. Just then my little honey bunny blurts out "1000 baht!"

Suddenly, she wanted to change the rules! She wanted to change the price. She wanted it to be all about her. Apparently, in Hooker College she had slept through the class titled "In Successful Business Negotiations–Both Sides Must Leave The Bargaining Table Feeling That They Have Won!". If she had wanted to change the price 2% or 5% or even 10% an easygoing tourist could put it down to charm and aggressive behavior. Something that could be dealt with. But she wanted to double the price. This is a whole other arena. We have left the arena of charm. This is madness. At the end of an unsatisfactory night of bar trolling I am about to enter into an alliance with someone who is crazy. If you have beautiful skin, and a bewitching face, and a mouth watering body, and a lovely voice, and mind blowing breasts; you can get away with a little. But she is not pushing the envelope. She is way outside the envelope. She is treating me like some gee whiz country bumpkin who has never seen a naked woman before. She has made a misjudgement. The problem with a lot of women in the 'business' in Thailand is that they can't imagine another world other than their own. If they are only a mile from their home, they assume that I must only be a mile from my home. Well, I am about 12,500 miles from my home. It involved four flights and almost thirty-three hours of air travel to get to Chiang Mai. And I had to pass through Bangkok first. So what are the odds that I am some idiot that can be easily cheated and manipulated by a country girl? But that is not how they think. All they know is that some Japanese guy paid their sister too much to dribble on her leg and that all men are fools. That is when I jumped up like a ballistic missile, vaulted over the bar, and grabbed the arm of the mamasan before the money could reach the cash register. I shout Mai Ow! The mamasan gives me the money back. I leave the bar. Christ, that was close! Imagine the renegotiating she would have wanted in the hotel room regarding sex acts. Another amateur who has wasted my time and wasn't smart enough to benefit herself. So I head home. The rest of the walk is by the canal. I'm down now. My dick is dead. I'm a lonely tired tourist headed for a hotel bed in a strange town. As I pass between the police station and the end of the canal, I hear a voice. There under the trees at the end of the canal is a freelancer calling out to me. Normally, I'd have gone right over. My comfort level with freelancers is very high. Not now.

About twenty minutes later I am in my room at the Montri. I am looking out the window down on the quiet streets of Chiang Mai. Behind me the two single beds pushed together are waiting for something that won't happen. I have two more nights in this town. God, I miss Bangkok.

THEY JUST KNOW

They just know. Asian women. They just know. They know they have the Power. Years ago I was on a beach commuter bus in another part of the world. The bus was traveling down the beach and picking up beachgoers who were going home. All farang. I was in an aisle seat on the left hand side in the middle. I had a view of the door. The bus stops and the door opens. In and up she comes mounting one step at a time–slowly. In no hurry. Stiletto heels, net bag, dark legs, bikini, bits of sand on her stomach. I am thinking another French Guadeloupe rich woman with French attitude and sex appeal. Then the head. She is Asian. Jet black hair, dark skin, high cheek bones, pouty lips, and sunglasses. Is she Malaysian or Indonesian? No. Polynesian or Melanesian or Micronesian? Again, No. Is she Chinese or Japanese or Korean? No and No and No! Is she Burmese or Cambodian or Laotian or Vietnamese? No and No and No and No!!!! Her extra long fingers, easy carriage and grace proclaim her the Asian alpha woman–she is Thai. As she walks by I keep my head down, drinking in her legs, and shoes, and feet. No splayed toes here. Strictly 'uptown'. She's never held a machete or taken roadkill home to mama or played in a paddy in her life. She sweeps by me like a liner passing a dingy. There is the smell of perfume and beach. I have to choke down an animal noise that wants to burst from my throat. She doesn't see me. Her boyfriend and herself sit on the back seat in the middle. The boyfriend is looking out the window. She is looking down. I am turned in my seat and staring at her. I am frozen like one of the Pompeii dead. Then trouble. Very, very slowly the big eyelids on her wide-set eyes start to come up. Very, very slowly as if she is sedated. I have plenty of time to turn my head. I have been warned. But I can't move. The eyelids come up so slowly they seem to be operating on a system of calculation separate from her body. As if they have their own agenda. I still have time to save my dignity. I don't move. I can't move. And then inexorably and suddenly they are open and she nails me. She is looking directly at me with the total exclusion of everything else. Her eye to eye connection with me is like a laser beam. She looks at me and through me and into me. No smile. I am caught like a deer in the headlights of a car. I still can't move. She knew. She knew all the time. She knew as soon as she started to mount the bus steps that there was fresh fool meat available for her entertainment. She has played with me like the cat with the mouse. They just know. Asian women. They just know.

Stickman says:

A man under Thailand's trance…