My Early Years in Bangkok Part 3
The readers’ submissions – Will I Visit Thailand Again and A Reply to Larry were superb. I enjoyed them immensely and saw parts of myself in each. Keep them coming!
I remember teaching grade 8 English back in a previous life and a book I required my students to read was, ‘That was Then, This is Now’. It could be required reading for long time punters returning to post-Covid Thailand. However, for me, the watershed of change happened about 2012 with the Thai adoption of smart phones.
I used to walk down the sois hearing, ‘Handsome Man, you buy drink for me?’. This seldom happens these days as the girls have their noses in Facebook, LINE, or Tik Tok, among others. Heraclitis summed it up nicely:
No man ever steps into the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.
When I discussed my life in Thailand in Parts 1 and 2 it was from a different lens than I view Thailand now. I hear echoes of my new viewpoint in Stick’s comments and the readers above. We change, the ladies have changed, and Thailand will change dramatically as the Thai youth of today are not content with their lot in life as the internet has exposed the fraud that has been perpetrated upon the Thai populace for decades.
Enough on the future, now back to 2013 ?
I had mentioned that I was content with my life and GF1 and GF2. But, then again, my 60 year old buddies were also content in their mundane lives, living in their 3,000 square foot homes, taking a 2 month holiday down south every year, and waiting for the end of time. BTW, that is a great song by Meatloaf, Paradise by the Dashboard Light:
But god only knows what I can do right now
I’m praying for the end of time
It’s all that I can do (oh oh oh)
Praying for the end of time, so I can end my life with you
However, you should never settle for content, strive for happiness and that is what I did.
It was about 9 PM, a weekday, and I was bored. I was living on Soi 22 in a bachelor’s apartment with a great gym and pool for 12K baht a month. It was short 5-minute walk to Queen’s Park Plaza on Soi 22 which has since been bull-dozed and I suspect yet another hotel will sprout. I stopped off at Rendezvous Bar where I was well-known and had a beer or two. I then, on a whim (or a nudge from the bar faeries) decide to walk all around the plaza. Eventually I was facing a lane I never strolled down as the girls were a bit pushy and grabby. I decide to run the gauntlet and reached the end when I noticed a young lady sitting at a bar who flashed me a smile that melts my heart to this day.
However, I kept walking with the intention of heading home when, I decided to make the rounds again just to see that smile again. Sure enough, there it was, and I stopped and, asked, ‘May I buy you a drink?’ and she nudged the girl beside her and asked her something in Thai. Pim, the girl beside her replied and she nodded. WTF, she does not know any English, breaking one of my rules, but I was committed to a beer. Pim, bless her soul, translated for the next hour and we managed to communicate somewhat. The subject of pool came up and Pim played, but the noob bar girl did not. I was still concerned about the lack of English and so I decided to head home saying that perhaps next time I stop by we can go play pool.
Pim now works the prostitute circuits in Singapore and Korea where she is pimped up in a hotel room for about a month or two and returns with around 500K baht for her efforts. A minimum of 10 guys a night. This is the last resort of ageing bar girls who have not planned for their future and need to earn large in their remaining years.
I returned the next night, a Tuesday, if I remember correctly and Pim was absent, having been barfined but the noob was their along with Tacky, who remains a dear friend to this day and could fill many reader submissions. Tacky was the new translator, and extremely outgoing and lots of fun. We decided to head out as a trio to Hustlers Pool Hall in Times Square. Turns out the noob had never played pool and Tacky was not too bad. After pool we decided to visit Hillary’s where I was well know to most of the band members who played there. Must have had something to do with me buying the bands rounds of tequila.
Tacky quickly hooked up with a farang and I discovered that the noob had never been to a dance bar, or any bar before and was not used to drinking. She, however, was really enjoying dancing and having fun! BTW the key to a Thai girl’s heart is having fun! Their lives are not easy, and they seldom really have fun. Find a way to make her laugh and she is yours.
Around about midnight I decide it was time to head back home as Nam sometimes showed up on Tuesdays. We jumped motorcycle taxis back to Queen’s park Plaza and I dropped the noob back at the bar. Pim was back, and asked me why I was dropping the nooby off rather than barfining her and I told Pim that I was not looking for boom boom as I already had 2 Thai GFs and that I planned on being a friend to the new kid and that she should tell her, ‘Jimmy wants to be you friend in Bangkok. Every girl in Bangkok, needs a good friend!’
Back home I walked, and sure enough Nam arrived at 2:30.
The next night, the smile haunted me, and off I walked to Queen’s Park at 9 PM and bar fined the noob and headed of too Hillary 2. This time we closed the bar out at about 2 AM and decided to walk back to Queens park. The noob was wearing high heels she had borrowed from Tacky and fell off them twice so I decided she should take them off and walk barefoot which is what she did. We arrived back at Queens Park and I dropped her off, but she made it clear she wanted to go with me. I said no, but I had a present for her. I gave her a smart phone that I was no longer using and suggested that she have some of the girls show her how to use it and that she could contact me online. I headed off home.
The next night was Thursday night and often a night that Nam visited. I decided to stay home and wait for Nam. About midnight, I received a call from the owner of the bar (and another 4 bars on Soi 22). I had put my phone number in the phone that I had given the noob. She asked me to come get the girl as she was of no use to her in the bar because she was dunk and crying that ‘She wanted to see Jimmy’. What to do? That had never happened to me before. I decided to walk up to the bar and sure enough the noob jumped into my arms. I decided a good friend would look after her, so I grabbed a taxi, took her to my place and put her in my bed to sleep it off.
That was the night that GF2 arrived and found the noob in my bed.
The next day I received news that my mother who was 93 had a brain aneurism and was likely to die in the next few days. I booked a flight back to Canada and would be gone for 2 to 3 weeks. I texted the noob and said I would be back in a couple of weeks and headed off to Swampy.
Continued in part 4
