A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Cambodia…

The season of goodwill is almost upon us and I’m on my way to Cambodia for some well earned R&R, the thought of spending another Xmas in the west is unbearable so I appease my nearest and dearest by taking off on the pretence of being on a
business trip. As usual I’m flying into the Penh via Bangkok and even though I’ve had more than enough of Bangkok and Thailand to last me a lifetime, I decide to stop there for one night en route to Cambo. The plan was to spend one
night in Khao San Road, and the next morning get the Air Asia flight to the Penh, head straight to Sihanoukville for three days R&R, then return to the Penh on Xmas eve to meet my old mucker Rakit.

After booking into a local hostel, I did the usual rounds of bars on KSR, and even though I wasn’t particularly bothered about scoring (I was pretty tired from the journey from the West) I ended up meeting a bit of gash about an hour
before closing time. She sent her friend over to let me know she was interested, but refused to come over to me, even when I beckoned her to do so, apparently she was too shy. I was a bit intrigued by this behaviour, being used to having the Thai
gash right in my face so to speak, so eventually I approached her. This particular cutie did not have the look of your average Isaan whore though; she was tall, light skinned and slender, it turned out that she was from the south of the country.
I offered her a drink, which she refused, instead offering me a shot from the bottle of Johnny Walker her and her companions had at the table, not being one to trust any gal, never mind a Thai offering free whisky, I stuck to buying my own beer.

Closing time came and went and I decided to negotiate a price for short time, I had an early start if I was to catch my flight and could no longer be bothered trying to make small talk with a bird whose English was terrible. I offered her
1,000 baht short time, which she refused, and when I increased the offer she said, “you no understand, I no want money from you, I like you”. Well this was music to my ears, whilst I have indulged in paying for relief now and again,
I’m mostly on the lookout for freebies (and have been quite successful in the pursuit of this in Thailand over the years), so I begin speaking to her as if she was a real human being, and much to my surprise I find myself liking her as
well.

I buy a bottle of whisky from the nearest 7/11 and invite her back to the hostel for some fun, but when we get there the front door is locked and there’s a sign on it saying “Sorry, No Thai Ladies Allowed”, when I checked
in, the said door was open so I hadn’t seen the sign, typical of my luck. I tried bribing the night porter but he was having none of it, so my girl invites me back to her place. She tells me she lives in Saphan Kwai and asks me if I know
it, I’d never heard of the place but bluffed, “yes, I’ve been there before”. For about 10 seconds I thought to myself “be careful here, you don’t know what’s waiting for you at Saphan Kwai”,
but the booze and the horn had lowered my levels of rationality so I accepted her offer and jumped into a taxi with her.

Once in the taxi she takes out a bottle and offers me a drink, “what is it” I ask, “Mekong whisky (with some sort of mixer)” she replies, by now I’m becoming suspicious and tell her to take a drink first,
she does and again offers me the bottle, but I decline, saying I only drink Scotch (which is actually true), I’m now wary of her motives and on full alert for signs of any trouble. When we get to her place of abode I’m pleasantly
surprised, the entrance to the apartment complex looked quite respectable, and has security on duty as well. The security guard however looks none too pleased to see her with a farang and an argument ensues between the three of us in a mixture
of Thai and English (with me only speaking in English of course), but eventually the security guard calmed down and grudgingly allowed me entry to the building. To this day I’ve still no idea what the problem was, I did ask her why he was
so hostile, but Thai people can be very evasive when asked direct questions and I never really got an answer from her.

Her apartment consisted of an air-conditioned room with an adjoining bathroom and balcony, the room itself was sparsely furnished but very clean, it had a lot of posters on the wall and cuddly toys around her bed, it actually resembled a
typical western teenage girls bedroom. It was then that I enquired about her age, and she told me she was 25, “not many western 25 year olds with a room like this”, I thought to myself. I had a look around for any signs of male habitation,
but there were no signs of men’s clothing or toiletries, so I relaxed put on some music and opened the bottle of whisky.

She then went to the bathroom for a shower, “yum yum” I thinks and tried to join her, but she diplomatically tells me I’d have to wait my turn. When I emerge from my shower she’s already in bed. Rubbing my hands
in anticipation I get in beside her, but to my surprise she’s not naked, she’s wearing some sort of silk underwear, looked very nice, in fact too nice for my liking, nothing tarty and not even as revealing as a standard bra and knickers.
Wondering if I was wasting my time, I thought to myself “not only does this look like a teenagers room, but she’s behaving like one as well”.

Well it’s getting late and I’ve an early start so I unceremoniously try to mount her, but she’s having none of it, “why you do like this?” she says, “cos I’ve a flight to Phnom Penh at 7am”
I reply. “Don’t go to Phnom Penh, stay here with me she says”. Now I’ve been around a bit and I’ve met loads of women in numerous countries, and wherever I go I always seems to attract the nutcases, “here
we go again” I think to myself. “Why would you want me stay” I ask her, “because I really like you” she replies, “but you don’t even know me” I reason, she responds with “but I like
your curly hair, Thai man no have”, at this point I was waiting for her to say “you very hansum man”, but thankfully she didn’t.

By now I’ve given up on any hope of getting my end away, so I pour another whisky, lie back and start chatting with her, she tells me a bit about herself and I tell her a bit about myself, I ask her if she works Gulliver’s and
she tells me indignantly, no, that she has a job. “Are you working tomorrow,” I ask her, “no have holiday until 5th January”, she replies. It’s quite obvious that I don’t believe her, so she then gets
out her photo album and shows me photos of herself at work (does sales and promotions, allegedly), “all very nice” I think to myself, but all I was after was a short time BJ before heading off to Cambo. The chatting continues and
after a while she seems to relax a bit more, moves a bit closer and starts sniffing me Thai fashion, I starts sniffing her back (when in Rome and all that), and start trying to mess around with her body, at first she’s reluctant to be touched
(some more irritating teenage behaviour) but warms to my charms and after a considerable amount of foreplay we eventually ended up having sex.

After the deed is done she falls asleep and I check the time, it’s 5am so I’ve still got time to go to the airport to catch my flight to the Penh. As she’s lying sleeping I take a good look at her, she’s got a
great body, her skin is flawless, she’s got a great arse, and she’s wearing a chain around her waist (body chains really turn me on); additionally I’ve just had great sex, she didn’t particularly do anything special,
but she was extremely tight downstairs, last time I was gripped so tightly it was in my right hand (not exactly true but I’m sure you all get the picture….), and on top of these attributes, she actually seems to be a nice person.
The Air Asia flight was really cheap so “fuck it I’ll stay one more day” I think to myself, so much for me being resolute in sticking to my plans.

Later that morning I wake her, telling her I need to get back to KSR to check out of the hostel, she offers to join me, I accept and offer to buy her breakfast. But first she has to get out of bed to shower and dress “close your eyes
she says”, I ask why, and she replies “I no want you see me”, well considering I’d shagged her and checked out the goods in fine detail, I found this a bit strange, but I close my eyes to humour her, “more adolescent
behaviour”, I thought to myself.

When we left her apartment, she was wearing a pair of camouflage trousers and a black vest, not exactly traditional Thai attire, but she looked great nonetheless. Downstairs at the entrance to the apartment block there was a different security
guard on duty, he scowled at me as well. She then went into a nearby hairdressers shop to show me to the owner, who is a friend of hers, as in “what do you think of him”, I felt quite embarrassed as she eyed me up and down, giving
her comments in Thai, “I’m a human being, no need to treat me like a peace of meat”, I thought to myself.

After checking out of the hostel, and they looked at me like I was crazy for booking a room and not sleeping there, she asked me if I’d like to stay with her, but I declined, I didn’t want to get stuck at her place and instead
booked into one of KSR’s better establishments, she checked in with me so there was no need to pay any guest fee later on. As we sat at reception waiting for the room to be cleaned, a lot of western birds came and went, with a high percentage
of them drawing daggers at me for being with a Thai bird, “fxxx them” I thinks to myself as I stare back, “none of their business”. “Why farang ladies so fat?”, she asks me, “because they don’t
give a hoot what farang men think,” I reply.

Well we had a great time together, basically partying and shagging, and three days later I’m still in Bangkok, the trip to Cambodia had completely slipped my mind. Luckily, I received a text message from Rakit asking my whereabouts,
he was now on his way to Cambodia from Laos, via Bangkok; that brought me back to reality and I arranged to meet him on KSR, from there I would travel onto Cambo with him.

During the previous three days I’d met a few of her friends and acquaintances, some of them were freelancers, some of them had normal jobs, such as working in shops, and some dabbled with both. There was one who I knew for sure had been with a
lot of westerners, her spoken English was very good and she really liked her booze, she was a good looker and knew how to party, I thought she’d be perfect for Rakit and arranged for her to join us for a night out in Gulliver’s.
When he arrived in Bangkok I told him I’d arranged a date for him, but the ungrateful so and so's reaction was “a blind date in Bangkok???? you’ve got be jokin”, “she’ll shag you for free”
I reasoned, “you know I prefer paying” he responded, “ok, I’ll persuade her to take some money from you”, I assured him. I had to laugh though as we went downstairs to meet the girls at reception, looking nervous
he stopped and said “how do I look?”, “does it matter if you’re paying?”, I retorted.

At reception, the gash were waiting for us, both had made the effort and looked great, I introduced them to Rakit and they both wai’d him, “don’t wai him, he’s not worth it” I joked. Well a good night was
had by all and we drank like fish until closing time, me and Rakit then went our separate ways with our gash, arranging to meet in the morning to head for Cambo. The next morning at 5am my telephone rings, and it’s Rakit, “are you
coming to Cambodia or staying with her”, he asks, “see you in 10 minutes”, I reply. I then woke her and said my goodbyes, she pleaded with me not to go, but this time I was adamant that I was going, though I promised I’d
look her up on my return from Cambodia. By this time I had accumulated quite a bit of dirty clothing, so she offers to wash it for me, saying she’d give it to me on my return, I agree and leave, relieved to have finally got some breathing
space.

On they way to the airport, Rakit says to me “how much did you pay her?”, “nothing”, I replied, “you tight bastard” he retorted, he’d paid his girl 2k baht for the night and told me that I
should have paid mine something. “I’ve tried paying her but she doesn’t want anything”, I explained, “all Thai women want money” he replied, “not this one” I said, adding that I’d
boned a number of Thai birds over the years who didn’t want paying. He looked genuinely surprised at that, but then again he prefers to pay, so seduction is a bit alien to him.

After a trouble free flight, we hit the center of Phnom Penh at mid morning and go straight to the Walkabout, followed by a few more our usual haunts in quick succession, by now it was Xmas eve and much to my annoyance, the Khmers are doing
their best to create an Xmas atmosphere for the Barangs, really irritating considering I’d flown about 7k miles to get away from all that shite. Normally, I really enjoy Phnom Penh but for some reason I wasn’t really getting into
it on this occasion, the buzz just wasn’t there. When I mentioned this to Rakit on Xmas day, he joked “that’s what happens when you’re in love”, he’d have been closer to the mark if he’d said “in
lust”, but he did have a point and I decided to book a flight back to Bangkok for the next day. As we downed a farewell beer, he cautioned, “be careful what you’re getting into, at least when you pay you can walk away with
a clear conscience”, this turned out to be good advice.

On arrival at Don Muang she was waiting for me, telling me “I very happy you back”, “hoped you’ve washed my Calvin Klein’s”, I joked. This time she insisted that I stayed at her place, so not only
was I getting free sex and a free laundry service, now I was getting free accommodation too, “free is good”, I thought to myself. In the taxi she sniffed me constantly until we got back to her place and once upstairs, the sex was
better than ever. The next morning as I lay in bed watching her make me coffee, wearing a sarong that really showed off the shape of her arse and legs, I briefly considered giving up my life in the west for this, but reality kicked back in again
as I thought of my responsibilities towards my kids. The mothers of my children are already bleeding me dry so “how could I afford maintenance payments living on a Bangkok salary”, I thought to myself.

I only had a few more days left and we spent them much as we had before my brief excursion to Cambodia, the only difference being now that I was staying at her place I was mixing more with everyday Thais who lived in the same apartment block.
They were all very welcoming, with the exception of the two security guards. I really didn’t trust these two and was even more wary of them when it was brought to my attention that they were both decent kick boxers, who weren’t slow
to start trouble when they’d had too much fire water.

As it got nearer to my day of departure she started becoming more clingy, didn’t want to leave me alone with her friends and kept telling me how she didn’t want me to go and how much she would miss me, all very sweet, but the
situation was becoming a bit claustrophobic and I was starting to become concerned about how she’d react when I did leave.

On my final night in Bangkok, she threw a small party for me with some of her closest friends, plenty of whisky and beer was drank and plenty of Thai food was eaten, for me it was very interesting to see how Thais socialized with each other.
Once back in her room, she became very emotional, practically pleading with me not to go, I tried my best to explain that this is not possible, and again the adolescent in her reared it’s ugly head, with her reacting more like a 15 year
old than a 25 year old to the situation. That night she took a shower with me for the first time, prior to that she’d always showered alone and had even refused to walk around naked in her room, even though we’d been having sex all
week. I think it was her final shot at trying to get me to stay, as in “this could all be yours”, I liked what I saw but it just wasn’t possible for me to stay any longer. We never slept that night, instead having a shag fest
until the sun came up.

The next day we had a lot of time to kill before my flight, so she offered to take me to MBK to do some shopping, “here we go now” I thought to myself, expecting her to bleed me dry for gold or other goodies on sale. She helped
me pick various souvenirs and clothes for the kids and when done I started offering to buy things for her, to see if she’d take the bait, but she refused all offers of clothes, jewelry and anything else from the multitude of items available
at MBK, afterwards we headed to KSR for a farewell drink.

As we sat in a quiet bar just off of KSR she started asking me if I’d come back, when that would be, and if I considered her to be my girlfriend. I explained to her that if I lived in Bangkok then for sure I’d have her as my
girlfriend, but with the distances between us that wouldn’t be possible. She began to cry again and even though I tried to explain as gently as I could, I just couldn’t get through to her. I really wasn’t comfortable with
the situation and in my desperation I even tried offering her payment (on that Rakit's advice) for the time we’d spent together, and that’s quite a turnaround from not wanting to pay to be desperate to pay and piss off! This
however only resulted in more tears and her saying, “I no want your money, I want your heart”, “are you gonna cut it out of my chest with a knife?”, I thought to myself.

To make matters worse, my bag and passport were still at her place, and I would have to go back there with her in that state, and I didn’t think her friends / neighbours would appreciate seeing her like that, especially the two security
guards. Well self-preservation mode kicked in, and I told her I’d had a change of heart and maybe we could make a go of it, not very nice thing to do, but I felt I had no choice under the circumstances. That calmed her down and she went
to the toilet and cleaned up and composed herself, we went back to her place to collect my things and travelled onto the airport without any further incident.

At the airport she tells me how happy I’d made her and how I was her “Christmas present”, by this time I can’t take any more of the emotional stuff and I decide that it’s best to just go with the flow for
now. She tells me she’ll be waiting for me but that I must promise to tell her if I meet somebody else so that she can move on with her life, I agreed to do so, under the circumstances I didn’t feel that I could say anything else.

As we’re saying our final goodbyes I give her a farewell cuddle, and as I’m doing so I slip my last 10k baht in her pocket. “What you do?”, she says to me, “nothing I’m just giving you a present”,
I reply. Now we’re in a very public place so she doesn’t want to take anything out of her pocket but asks me if it’s money, when I tell her yes, she exclaims “I tell already I no want your money, I no need, have job”,
but I tell her not to be silly as it’s a present for “my girlfriend” and to use it to go and visit her mother in the south, and with that I slipped through to departures. A few days later I check my emails and there’s
one from her, saying how much she enjoyed being with me and how she hopes she’ll see me again. At the end the email she’s written “thanks for the money, but I keep it in bank account till you come back or else I send it to
you”, this paying lark isn’t as easy as people make out!

She’s been in touch with me regularly since I left, and thinking back, apart from the emotional shit she hit me with, she gave me the best experience I’ve had in Thailand for a long time. I’d like to look her up the next
time I’m in Bangkok, the only stumbling block is that she’s looking to meet Mr. Right, and I’m not looking for anything more than a bit of fun. I’d imagine I’m not the only candidate on her list, so I suppose
she’ll what she’s looking for before too long, good luck to her if she does. She hasn’t made any requests for money (so far), nor has she told me she loves me, so she seems honest if nothing else, but the fact that she’s
Thai makes wonder what her motivation is. Is she a freelancer looking for sponsors, does she really have a job, and is she really just on the hunt for a western boyfriend? I’ve no idea and will probably never find out the truth, which is
probably just as well, my life is already complicated enough in the west without adding her to the equation.

Stickman's thoughts:

A nice, honest report.