Thailand, The Time Machine
I am dancing with a girl named Ann to the sounds of the Everly Brothers, the Bee Gees, the Carpenters. Ann is so sweet, so affectionate and so beautiful there is on one I’d rather be with; no place I’d rather be…
On this magical night, we’re dancing together in the high school gym… or maybe not.
Thailand reminds me of Star Trek shows from the distant past; the show where the women took some kind of pills and became ravishingly beautiful and irresistible or the one where if the woman’s tears touched you, you fell instantly
and hopelessly in love. This has the feel of truth but when I analyze it, it’s like that but it’s not exactly that.
How do you describe the Magic? Thailand is a Time Machine!
Why do I say that? It’s because you can go back to an earlier time in life. Maybe not an earlier time in your life, but an earlier time in life as it might have been. Maybe even a much happier life.
I really fight the advance of age. I exercise, try to eat healthy and limit how much I eat. In other words, I take care of my body. This along with good genes lets me look like I’m in my forties instead of my actual age of mid-fifties.
Being in good health lets me feel, much of the time, pretty much the same as when I was in my thirties. But in America there’s a problem. There is so much age discrimination. When you meet a woman you may be attracted to, “how old
are you?” is one of the questions they ask early on in conversations. If you’re like me and are attracted to younger women, the dating scene just makes you feel old. The last time I met a woman in America who was around forty and
made it obvious that she was attracted to me; she was about 70 pounds overweight. The pictures of what she would look like naked that flashed through my mind were not pretty.
In Thailand, age discrimination, while it may exist to some degree, is just not as strong, or as “in your face” as it is in America. In Thailand, women in their twenties will often treat an older guy like he is a young, handsome
man. Ok, it may be mostly bar girls. But even shop girls will smile at you and talk to you without giving you the feeling they consider you some kind of pervert for being friendly. If you’re up to it you can even act like you’re
in your twenties or thirties without running into all the unpleasant reminders of your chronological age that you get in America.
So… where’s the Time Machine adventure?
After a round of golf, my golfing friends want to stop in Ban Chang. I’ve never been there, but since I love adventure, I’m up for it. One of the guys wants a massage at a new little bar he likes. It’s off the main strip
there. After a drink there, the rest of us walk over to the row of bars on the main road.
A group of girls sitting at an outside table invites me to join them for a drink. A very cute girl in the group catches my eye so I sit and have some beers and some conversation. Her name is Ann. She can speak some English and has been working
there for a few weeks. It’s a great afternoon. The weather is not too hot. There’s a nice breeze. Later, when it’s time to meet my friends, I decide to pay bar for Ann and take her along with me. I don’t intend to “boom
boom” her because I need to ride back to Pattaya with my friends who have a car and don’t really know how long we will stay in Ban Chang. Ann is great company and when I meet up with my friends for more drinks, I can tell they think
I am a lucky farang to have found her.
We end up back in that little bar off the strip. The four of us guys are the only customers. There are about 6 ladies there. Since we are the only customers, we have our own little party. Drinks flow and we start playing music on their CD
player. They have only 15 or 20 CDs. The music is all old American tunes; mostly from 1970s. After a few drinks, we start dancing. I’m dancing with Ann to “We’ve Only Just Begun” by the Carpenters and suddenly I’ve
come “unstuck in time”. I’m back in high school, dancing with the cutest girl, having a fantastic time… I remember the feeling of romance. The hours pass like minutes.
Then, as the alcohol starts to wear off and reality begins to intrude, I start to consider how this will never happen in America. This can never happen in America. While feelings like this and times like this are, for me, forever in the American
past; they still exist in the Time Machine that is Thailand.
Oh…even though Magical Moments are not to be recaptured, I put “return to see Ann in Ban Chang” on my to-do list.
Hound
Stickman's thoughts:
Yep, Thailand is truly a land of illusions!
