Backpackers are chumps for a good time

Western backpackers traveling the Southeast Asia route, sometimes referred to as the banana pancake trail, are an easy bunch to manipulate. Obviously we have come to this corner of the globe for its cheap prices, lack of Western culture’s rules, and exotic geography. The fact that you can drink 25 cent beers on a tropical beach then drive your own unlicensed motorcycle to a $5/night hostel attracts a bevy of young wanderers. Follow that with a Google image search of the beaches of Thailand and the Philippines, or the mountains in Vietnam and Indonesia, and we are booking the next flight to Bangkok. We come looking for thrills and wildly different cultures. Local travel agencies, pubs, hostels, and vendors know exactly what stories we young Westerners have heard and are seeking out for ourselves, so they know what adventures and goods to tout. I can empathize with the locals on this point, dealing with young tourists can be exhausting. Frequent drinking is the norm on the banana pancake trail, as is a more liberal view on life than the local population. A rowdy young bunch of drunks descending upon your hometown year after year has to be frustrating. Some abuse our thirst for a good time with jacked up prices, faked brand name goods, or even straight up pick-pocketing. Two weeks ago in Hanoi, Vietnam I came across an unusual method of deceit.

Pictured: a bowl of pho soup and a $2.5 bill.

I was staying at the Hanoi Backpacker’s Hostel, highly recommended I might add, and was taking part in a beer pong tournament. The hostel staged different themed events every evening to get the party started, such as trivia, buy one get one drinks, or guys and girls swapping clothes for a model show. I’m not sure what night of the week beer pong fell on, since days of the week lose their significance while backpacking. On the road every day feels like a Saturday, which is a hell of a good feeling.

The beer pong tournament ran until about 10pm, at which point the music cut off and the hostel announced a pub crawl was starting. This announcement was met with great enthusiasm, and we all filed out into the street, some already stumbling. The first stop was a typical dance club playing typical club music and overcharging for drinks. Hardly the cultural experience, but the desire for exploration can be put on the back burner once we get a buzz. Since the hostel bar had shut down for the pub crawl, essentially the entire crowd that had been playing beer pong and taking shots back at the hostel were now sweating and strutting on the dance floor. Being a large crowd of young travelers we were ready to have whatever fun was offered. The club knew and took full advantage of that fact, so in addition to drinks and cigarettes the barmen were selling whippets. For the uninitiated, whippets are balloons filled with nitrous oxide, laughing gas. Similar to what the dentist gives you during oral surgery. Around the southeast Asian backpacking circuit laughing gas is quite popular at bars. You order a balloon, pay your $5 and then inhale the gas as if you were taking a hit of helium, only there’s no Mickey Mouse voice. The effect is a short lived giggle fit coupled with a light headed feeling and elation. There’s no questioning if your hit is real gas, as the effects are felt immediately. And yes, it kills brain cells.

With this in mind, many of the hostel crowd started buying balloons from the bar. From the dance floor I could see plenty of people sucking down laughing gas, smiling all crazy eyed at each other in turn. I was on the dance floor and wasn’t interested in buying a balloon, since dancing is more my vice. However, I soon had the opportunity to join the crowd of bag suckers. After the hostel crowd had been at the club for about twenty minutes, 30 to 40 balloons rained down on the dance floor. It was as if someone had just thrown food into a shark cage, as all of the dancers scooped up as many balloons as they could hold. The dancing continued with people ripping open balloons with their teeth and passing around hits. Admittedly, I picked up a balloon during the fury of snatching and grabbing. I was uninterested in purchasing a balloon, but I couldn’t say no to a free one. If the thing to do in Hanoi is take laughing gas and dance at the club, I didn’t want to miss out.

Dancing fools

I bit a small hole into the balloon, sucked in the laughing gas, held it for a few seconds then exhaled. And nothing happened. I took another inhale to be sure, and still nothing happened. I was confused, why were so many people paying $5 for these rubber bags of nothing drug? The dance floor was still a feeding frenzy of backpackers dancing while sucking on balloons as if the air in the bag was easier to breathe than the surrounding sweaty atmosphere. Bump, grind, puff, repeat. Slightly disappointed, I tossed my lifeless balloon to the floor and figured the bar was just making easy money off of the young boozing crowd. Which I then found out wasn’t necessarily the case.

Once I returned to dancing I found myself close to the edge of the dance floor, near a doorway which led to the hallways of the bar. The curtain blocking the doorway was brushed aside at that moment, giving me an nauseating view. Four Vietnamese men were sitting on plastic chairs in the hallway and blowing up balloons with their mouths. No cans of nitrous oxide were in sight, only Vietnamese dudes. The balloons were then gathered into a net that was raised by a pulley over the dance floor, and then released over the heads of the dancers. What we backpackers thought was a free hit of laughing gas every five minutes turned out to be an inhale of a Vietnamese barman’s breath. A one-way kiss with a stranger squatted in a hallway. The aftertaste of onions all suddenly made much more sense.

I’m not sure if any of my fellow dancers were made aware of the fake whippets saturating the dance floor that night. Obviously I stopped snatching up the free balloons, but I figured ignorance is bliss and let the others keep going. Most were drunk enough that they probably thought they were still getting free hits. The $5 balloons at the bar may have been legitimate, but after taking a reverse CPR inhale from the men in the hallway I lost my trust in that particular establishment. To be fair, the club never announced that the hail of balloons contained any laughing gas. We were just a bunch of chumps who needed to brush our teeth.

Surprisingly not on drugs

Mandatory Haircuts

At my school, Takpittiyakhom (TPS), there is a mandatory haircut policy. All students must wear their hair according to the standards agreed upon by the faculty and parents of students at TPS. These standards are based in military tradition, and were once practiced nation-wide with very little exception. Boys wear their hair buzzed on the sides, allowing a small tuft on top, and girls wear their hair within two fingers of ear length. Recently, laws have relaxed and especially at the schools in big cities students have been granted more freedom with their hair. Small towns like Tak tend to follow the conventional way, and diligently enforce that custom.

At the morning assembly teachers will weave in and out of the rows of students scouting for non-compliance. Any student caught with hair too long has chunks sheared off, right at the assembly in front of their peers. Clever students have learned that tardiness and absence from the morning assembly allows them to stay clear of the head hunters. Some of the TPS truants can be identified by their shaggier domes, but very little head hunting is done after the morning assembly. However, now that students are taking their final exams, and an official policy of TPS is that students need their school haircut to sit for exams, the head hunters have initiated full search mode. The mandatory haircut enforcers at TPS have actually been walking through exam rooms measuring students’ hair lengths and, if a student does not have their hair styled appropriately, cutting locks then and there.

I’m really not sure what to make of the situation. It is customary to have school uniforms in Thailand, including conventional haircuts, though it is no longer a national law as it once was. According to my co-teachers, although the old practice of military style hair is no longer enforced, parents of TPS students widely agreed to continue the tradition. They place an importance on legacy, school pride, and discipline. My hang-up is that strict following of the rules apparently trumps the promotion of learning or independence. It seems counter-productive to pull students out of their exams in order to hack off rogue hair, which tends to have the nasty habit of growing outside of the students’ control.

To make matters worse, the boys will not receive a full trim when they are spotted by a head hunter. The vigilante barber only slices 4 or 5 chunks of hair, leaving the boy to find a barber-for-hire to finish the job. Since they never wanted the haircut to begin with, many TPS boys will come to school the next day without having finished the job. They walk around campus the rest of the week resembling a haggardly carved jack-o-lantern.

Tradition, camaraderie, national pride, school identity, and discipline are all traits that I can see manifested by mandatory haircuts. Continuance of tradition and national identity are far more important in Thai culture than in American culture. I would be insensitive and ethnocentric to state that mandatory haircuts are no good. Therefore, I am not saying that. Instead, I am saying that taking students out of final exams in order to enforce that policy can’t be the best solution.

At least the students are keeping in good spirits about it. Mai Pen Rai, as always.

Conformity/Camaraderie in Thai Schools

The official tagline for my school is “Takpittayakhom School. A world class standard school”. This line is in reference to Takpittayakhom (TPS) meeting the standards set out by the Thai government for a top-tier secondary education school. Criteria such as test scores, specialty programs offered, facility and faculty size, and so on. However, whenever I see the sign proudly displaying that logo at the front of my school I can’t help but think of the second definition of the word standard; to be normal, average, to not stick out. There is a certain structure in place at TPS, and in fact many Thai schools, that values cohesion and convention over individuality and distinctiveness. I do not mean to offer up Thai students as dull or lifeless. Each student does have their own personality, like any kid. The difference is only noticeable when groups of Thai students are together. While grouped, my students demonstrate a special camaraderie that does not set one student apart from the others.

The most striking examples are the student uniform and required haircuts. All boys must have a military style buzz cut, and all girls must have their hair cut to ear-level. A few exceptions are made for girls who take part in traditional Thai dances, but the vast majority of girls at TPS have the same bucket haircut. Obviously it is tough to stand out when all of your friends wear their hair and clothes identical to you, so instead the students seem to embrace their uniformity. Long after school hours, when I pass by my students roaming the night markets with their friends, most of the group will still be wearing their school issued shirt and pants. Never minding the fact that they sweated all day in non air-conditioned classrooms, I had thought my students would want to wear new clothes to show off some fashion in the evenings. Instead I see my students voluntarily wearing uniforms at nighttime which are mandatory during the daytime. I also see students from other schools in our town walking around the market in their respective uniforms. It’s easy to spot students from other schools based on the color or style of their uniform. I now realize the cohesion amongst students that attend the same school influences their outfit decision. Students have pride and want to be seen as a pack, much like sports fans wear jerseys displaying their team colors. My students don’t rush home after school and rip their uniforms off before the front door closes behind them. Rather, they hang around school after hours, breaking off into small groups to head off to the market or grab some dinner, still in their school uniforms because they are still students. They like to be easily identified and affiliated with their own schools.

 

After school soccer games are still played in uniform, with athletic pants.

 

Another example of Thai student group-think is evident when I pose a difficult question in the classroom. My English classes are listening and speaking focused so the majority of class time is spent engaging students in English conversation. It is sometimes necessary for me to ask a single student a question in front of the whole class. To explain a new topic I’ll ask a student a question which they already know how to answer. I will then follow up with a new question expanding on the previously learned vocabulary.

For example:

Me: “What is your nickname?

Student: “My nickname is Earth”

Me: “What city do you live in?”

Student: “I live in Tak”

Me: “How long have you lived in Tak?”

Student: ……

Before asking the question, I know that the student will not immediately understand how to answer. I attempt to pose questions that the students can figure out given a few moments of critical thought. Unfortunately, the instant a student does not understand the question I have asked, they break into team huddle with their friends. Five or six students will form a circle leaning over their desks debating in fast, furious Thai the meaning of my words. Their confused and anxious faces will bounce off each other until it is determined if one student in the group has any grasp of the concept. They don’t mind if this process takes 10 minutes of deliberation. When this happens I have to intervene. I tap the original student on the shoulder and ask him the same question. How long have you lived in Tak? He will give me an uncomfortable smile, then turn his head back into the team huddle. Finally, by group consensus, one student will tell me “Teacher, don’t know”, though the original student might not even be the one responding.

 

In the first few months of teaching I was annoyed by this behavior. I felt like the students were cheating, not willing to learn something for themselves. It was a shock to me coming from the America, where there is a clearly defined asker and askee. Now I have come to view this method of answering questions not as cheating, but as team oriented. It is not that they are unable to think for themselves, but instead prefer thinking together.

As stated, Thai students feel a strong sense of solidarity. Classes at TPS do not break off to different courses throughout the day. They travel with the same group for each and every subject. Since the students stay in the same collection for every class of every day, their attitude is we are in this together. When I ask a student a question, I am actually challenging the entire class that question. A team challenge requires a team effort, so naturally the students put their heads together to solve the problem at hand. Team affiliation doesn’t stop after school hours, so students have no qualms remaining in uniform. They are publicly displaying their collective spirit. Two minds are greater than one, and one team is greater than many teammates.

 

Mindset at 9 months abroad

Today I reach a significant milestone on my journey abroad. It is exactly nine months ago that I left for Thailand. I originally intended to stay for half a year, yet here I am still. In another month I will be comfortable with referring to my total time spent in Thailand as “almost a year.”

 

Reaching my nine month mark obviously opens the door for pregnancy jokes. If I had gotten a girl pregnant right when I departed the US I could have been a father, and so on. Thankfully I am still single and childless after one typical gestational period. The only new addition to my life, and I guess you could call her my baby, is my motorbike. I have recently rented a flame paneled, automatic transmission, lady-magnet, Yamaha Fino.

Motorbikes are possibly more common than 4-wheeled vehicles here in Thailand, so I consider my rental of a motorbike further assimilation into the local culture. I won’t blend in with my community, I’m taller and paler than anyone for 50 miles, but at least I go with the flow. The first few times I rented a motorbike I was giddy with excitement, like a kid who goes golfing with his father only because he wants to drive the golfcart. I rented a motorbike in the usual tourist areas (Chiang Mai, Koh Phangan, etc) and drove around spotting jungles and waterfalls. Now the excitement has worn off considerably, since I drive my motorbike to school or to go pick up tooth paste from the grocery store.

 

Personalized floor-mat. Doraemon is kind of a big deal here.

Before leaving for Thailand I read hundreds of websites and articles about the transitional phases of living abroad. I was obnoxiously excited about my upcoming adventure, so I wanted to read as much literature as possible. Those who had lived abroad and wrote about their experiences mentioned three phases; the honeymoon, the culture shock, and complacency.

 

The honeymoon phase lasts for one or two weeks and comprises your first experiences in a new country. Everything is foreign and exotic, so your senses become hyper-aware and your adrenaline runs on overtime. Because of their novelty, the surrounding sights, sounds, and smells appear all the more beautiful. Witnessing an entire lane devoted to motorbike traffic seemed hip and modern the first time I came across one in Bangkok. Gas friendly vehicles, perfectly suited to zipping through tight alleys and streets, stood out during my Thai-honeymoon phase.

 

Culture shock arrives a few weeks to one month of living in a new place. The fresh eyes you had when landing in a country are gone, and you have spent enough time to discover some aspects you don’t like. Poorly maintained roads, little to non-existent cleanliness standards, and the inability to communicate are all aspects that wear on you. The dirty little secrets every country has and doesn’t advertise become more conspicuous when you have settled into a new location. At this point I was annoyed with the lack of traffic laws concerning motorbikes on the road. This is typically when people will feel their strongest homesick days.

 

And finally complacency is what is left when the culture shock wears off. Witnessing a family of four riding a single motorbike is not hilariously foreign, like in the honeymoon phase, nor appallingly dangerous, like the culture shock phase. At this point you know it’s simply the only available way your neighbors have to drive their kids to school.

I’ll admit, I am well into the complacency stage now. I don’t get excited from the sight of elephants, tuk-tuks or ancient ruins. I am used to daily cockroaches, rampant littering, and bits of bone in every piece of meat I eat. I am unfazed when I see 3 of my students riding on a single motorbike, moving in the opposite direction of traffic.

 

Renting a motorbike is perhaps the ultimate way to demonstrate my complacency in Thailand. I’m no longer weaving a motorbike in and out of traffic while speeding off to some jungle hot springs. Now I am running errands and scooting around like my fellow residents. I’m not over it, but I not longer am bursting at the seems with excitement.

How to teach Sex-Ed/ESL

As I mentioned in my post last week, I now teach Health in addition to English at my school in Thailand. As part of my health curriculum I have to teach my students sexual education. This proved challenging, not because of awkwardness, but because of the language barrier.

My students speak a decent level of English, but some words associated with sexual education were new to them. As is common to my English classes, I decided I needed a repertoire of gestures and pantomimes to explain some of the popular vocabulary words. I created the following list in order to help future Sex-Ed/ESL teachers through a difficult lesson unit.

The old “condom on a banana” demonstration is overdone.

Erection

-Sit in a chair at the front of class, with a slide show playing on a screen behind you. Have a few simple pictures run across the screen, a meadow, a bus, maybe a football game, and say “Not excited”. Then have a picture of Angelina Jolie flash on the screen and rapidly stand up out of your chair. Say “Now excited!” Point at your crotch and explain to the students “like that, in pants”.

Pregnant

– This one is easy, just make a large belly motion in front of your stomach. Be sure to say, “Not fat, have baby.” Point at your chest and say “also bigger” while giving the boys a wink.

Menstruation

– Say “girls only” and point at your groin. Next say “some blood, but O.K.” and give a reassuring thumbs-up. Make eye contact with the boys in the class and say “be careful, don’t speak.”

Intercourse

– Classic example we all learned with our friends in grade school. Hold up your right hand with your index finger extended. With you left hand form a circle between the thumb and index finger. Push your right index finger in and out of the circle formed by your left hand. Wink a lot. Consider bringing some speakers to class and playing Marvin Gaye or Usher.

Orgasm

-Continue the above stated intercourse gesture while noticeably increasing the speed of the right hand.  Cleverly hide a small bottle of glue in the right hand, to be used for an obvious reason. Progress to a very rapid motion, then loudly say “best part!” You may want to have a video with clips of rocket launches or roller coaster hills at this time. Afterwards smoke a cigarette with your left hand, while you rest your right hand on the table and say “this one sleepy.”

Condom

– Use the same hand configurations as above, but wear a rubber glove on your right hand.  Pretend to break the glove, so you can demonstrate to your students how to quickly replace it. Also, consider playing Don’t worry, be happy  by Bob Marley over the classroom speakers. Assume a very relaxed, but mature demeanor.  Point out the fact that you did not have to use any glue this time.

Birth Control

– Pantomime the act of taking a pill. Again, extend your right index finger while making a circle with your left hand. In your left palm hold a padlock, so the students know that right index finger won’t be causing any trouble. To really make it sink in, casually toss the rubber glove over your shoulder while smirking. Say “No need.”

Sexually Transmitted Disease

– Pour some ink on your left hand. Say “sick, not well” while holding up your left hand. Then repeat the intercourse gesture, making sure to spread the ink from your left hand to your right. Hold up both hands afterwards so that the students can see both inky hands. Say “Both sick. Permanent.”

Pregnancy test

– Reference the intercourse pantomime, and say “see the glue?” Next make your left hand into a fist, making sure the students can’t see your palm. Have the students guess whether your palm has glue or not. Afterwards, explain “like that, but with a baby.”

Waii Kru, Respect to the Teachers

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Showing respect is a conscious daily effort in Thailand, and Eastern culture as a whole. Respect generally flows towards the elderly or people with a higher social role. You need to always be mindful of the way you say hello … Continue reading →

I peed there

 

When you gotta go, you gotta go. Some people are known for their ability to “hold it” a long time between restroom breaks, while others can set a timer to their urination tendency. Young boys are notorious for being frequent urinaters. For whatever reason, they have to pee a lot. Blame it on their tiny bladders, or proclivity to drinking soda pop, but they whiz with a frequency greater than any other age group. When I was little I could fill a gallon jug every 4 hours. Just like the little boy in the Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, I couldn’t go more than 11 minutes without having to take a leak. This was problematic for the road trips my family took every few months. I was always halting our momentum on the highway, needing us to take a pit stop. Eventually my parents got sick of finding a rest stop or highway-side McDonalds every time I needed to water the flowers, so they resorted to pulling over on the side of the road for me. I can remember countless trips in the family mini-van when I had to ask my dad to pull over on the side of the highway, nature was calling. I would open the sliding door, use the mini-van as a shield from onlookers, and release. Then repeat the process 30 miles down the road.

Metaphorically holding my bladder

We would take a lot of road trips when I was younger, thus I did my business in many places. At some point my dad came up with the joke that I hadn’t officially traveled to a place until I had peed there.  If I had never dropped my trousers at a new destination, it was as if I had never been in that region. When our road trips crossed state lines, I wasn’t officially in that state until I had gone to the bathroom. “Welcome to Florida!” my Dad would shout out the mini-van door, while I was taking care of business. Whenever we flew to distant destinations I made sure to hunt down a restroom at any layover airports. Instead of a travel bucket list, I was checking places off my travel urinal list. Just as a dog claims his territory on every tree and fire hydrant, I marked my presence across North America. I peed in the troughs lining the men’s bathroom at old Tiger stadium in Detroit, I sprayed the grass alongside the Big Sur Coast Highway in California, and I wrote my name in the snow while overlooking the Saint Lawrence Seaway in eastern Quebec.

 

I actually maintain the same mentality to this day. These days I travel a lot further, and more often. I always try to stay at hostels in order to meet and spend time with fellow travelers. Inevitably, the question “Where have you been?” comes up. I always think back to my dad’s joke, that I can only tell the tale of the places I’ve relieved myself. I used a toilet while I was in Tokyo, but not while I was in Manila so I can’t mention that city.

It’s a silly habit, but all travelers have their quirks. Some backpackers take a “jumping” picture in front of landmarks, some travelers collect postcards from all their destinations, and some write blog entries recounting their impressions of worldly locations. As for me, when I list off the names of international landmarks and sights, I can always say I peed there.

Watch your face and crotch during Songkran

The Songkran festival in Thailand is one of the craziest nation-wide festivals one can experience. It is a several day long water fight, during which most Thais have a break from school or work and spend their time hosing down neighbors and strangers alike. It is the Thai New Year’s celebration, which luckily coincides with the hottest time of year in Thailand. A long time ago some very wise people decided that the hottest time of year should mean “no work and go have a water fight instead”. Fun-lovers across the world took notice of this festival, so now locals and foreigners flock to the cities for water fights, thousands of participants strong. I don’t just mean a silly water balloon fight where you end up with wet socks. Firetrucks will literally connect their hoses to the water main and spray crowds of sweaty street partiers. My friends and I stayed in Bangkok for the three(ish) day festival. Popular opinion is that Chiang Mai (a big city in northern Thailand) and Bangkok are the cities with the biggest celebrations.

Songkran hooligans

It is essential to have a water weapon before heading out into the streets. Nobody, not elders, children, or women wearing fancy makeup, is safe from the barrage of water in the streets. My friends and I witnessed a tuk-tuk (open aired, three wheeled taxi popular in Thailand) stopped by a man holding up his hands in the middle of the street. When the tuk-tuk stopped 10 children surrounded the vehicle and blasted the passengers with hoses, water guns, and buckets for a soggy 45 seconds. The buckets and hoses soak people down to the bone. Any possession not concealed in a waterproof bag is ruined by the buckets and hoses.

My friends and I joined the throngs of water gun carriers. Water guns were the most common weapon, even though they wet your opponents the least. However, their accuracy can annoy the hell out of your targets. Aim for people’s eyes, while avoiding getting a stream of water in your own and you feel like a regular Dennis the Menace. I should add that the water being blasted in every festival participant’s face was of questionable cleanliness. The canals of Bangkok are notoriously filthy, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of that fly-ridden slop ended up being sold as ammo on the streets for 5 baht per liter. The Thais also have a tradition of rubbing clay on their faces, due to some other poorly explained tradition. So, I ran around Khao San road shooting stinky water into strangers’ faces, while they assaulted my own. I had buckets and hoses of said water drench me every minute or so, and had to deal with every other mud- caked Thai person smearing clay in my face and saying “Thank you”. A bit different than average summer holidays back in the US, though I can see the facial mud maybe catching on at music festivals.

We generally enjoyed ourselves that afternoon, not caring how wet and muddy we were. After a few hours we returned to my friend Conor’s apartment to eat dinner, discuss that night’s water fighting strategy, and of course get a good whiskey buzz before returning to the battle. (Honestly, did you think we were doing all of this while sober?) An entire day of water fighting in the sun left a few in our group exhausted and cranky from swollen sinuses. No doubt from the typhoid water we had all playfully shot into each other’s mouths. So during the fist night of Songkran three guys plus myself headed out in Silom for some night fights.

Earlier in the day I had been warned that the “lady-boys” and other deviant types get frisky when night falls. I could expect to receive a lot of unwanted “grabs and tugs” according to my Thai friend. I was already covered in mud, had spent 8 hours soaking wet, and had just downed some whiskey, so the prospect of a few surprise ass grabs didn’t worry me. I was mistaken.

The scene we came across in Silom at night was as if a gay bar in Las Vegas had been flooded, but after having 5 tons of mud poured on the street. Drunken partiers were running around in their underwear, covered in clay and dancing to techno. At least that’s how my friends described it to me. Earlier I had removed my contact lenses since they had become tinted grey with clay and stung my eyes. I tried my previously used tactic of firing in people’s face to disable them, but without contacts or glasses I can’t make out details further than five feet in front of me. I didn’t know if I was successfully annoying my target by stinging their eyes with brown water, or just tickling their ears with a pitiful stream. Most likely was the former outcome, because within minutes I was under attack from other party-goers, and had lost my friends. At that point I adopted a new strategy for water fighting. I would jump into a group of people, shout “SONGKRAN” and start spinning in a circle while firing my gun at face level. It worked, and so I continued to run the streets blind, searching for my friends while soaking most groups I passed

 

Even though I was causing people to laugh/ run away, I wasn’t even being the most ridiculous person on the street. That title went to the ladyboys, who were looking for drunks the way vultures look for slow moving animals. The lady boys sauntered the street, soggy and muddy, and fondled people at random. Not just a pinch on the butt cheek, but a full five fingers wrapped around the genitals. Over the bumping techno music and shouts from the crowd, you could occasionally hear when a ladyboy had caught a target. Someone would shout “EEEEK!” or “YOWZAH!” and you knew a quick crotch clutch had occurred. Since I was roaming the street blind, I couldn’t see when a ladyboy would approach to make me his target. I would be spraying down a group, and then suddenly feel a stray hand working its way up my thigh. Of course I immediately would aim my water gun at the ladyboy to fend him off, but a few did successfully feel me up that night. A quick squeeze followed by a devious smile. Whatever, all part of the experience.

Luckily my friends found me after 20 minutes of solo fighting, and we set out to start winning some water fights. If you can say we had a strategy, it went as follows; I would run forward, do my SONGKRAN circle, Ben and Conor would surround the group and attack with their more powerful and accurate water guns, and our friend Bank would chose one target in the group to dump his bucket over. We were an unstoppable force that night, breaking up groups and generally causing chaos.

 

As our night came to an end, we agreed to find one more target to drench before calling it a night. Ben spotted an out of shape looking man standing by himself scanning the crowd. Naturally, we took him for an easy target so I ran up to him yelling “SONGKRAN” as the start to our attack. Perhaps it was because I wasn’t wearing contacts and couldn’t scan my surroundings well, or perhaps because our target was an extremely deceptive man, but we ran straight into an ambush. Our “out of shape” looking man summoned 10 guys with super soakers to surround us and essentially power-wash our heads. The four of us couldn’t even use our guns since we were too busy shielding our faces. We had walked right into this man’s trap and he was punishing us big time. I wasn’t able to open my eyes to get a look at his face, but I imagine him laughing hysterically at the 4 idiot flies that ran headfirst into his spider web. There was nothing to do but cover our faces and wait for our assailants to run out of water.

 

The icing on the cake came during the last 10 seconds of my team’s water assault. Somehow, in the commotion of the attack, a ladyboy walked right up to me and gave me strong yank. Like a train conductor tugging on the airhorn before rolling through town, this molester gave a firm grip and two strong pulls without a hint of modesty. In fact, the ladyboy yanked so hard that I was noticeably sore the next day. After our attack was over, we had to laugh. We spent a few hours aggravating other groups, so it was only right that our night ended in defeat.

 

I absolutely suggest all people visiting Thailand to try to plan their trips during the Songkran festival. Although I advise the use of goggles and a protective cup.

The road to Koh Chang, NYE 2013

Traveling in Thailand has its eases and difficulties. The bus and train systems can get you just about anywhere, all forms of transportation are cheap by western standards, and you can hire a tuk-tuk or taxi at any hour of the day. Some disadvantages are the lack of precise timetables, commonly selling more tickets than there are seats on a bus, and drivers who combine a passenger route with their own personal errand run. Getting to your final destination is almost certain, but the time frame is a gamble. I have found the best approach is to leave plenty of time for traveling, and have back-up plans.

This past weekend I traveled by bus (in addition to motorbike, pickup truck and boat ferry) to Koh Chang, an island in the south-east of Thailand. A big group of friends from teacher orientation that I hadn’t seen for a few months were spending new years on the island and I wanted to join. The majority of the group lives far closer to the island than me, so I knew I would spend the first half of my trip solo. No big deal, done it before. And I would do this trip again. Although the following recount appears long and irritating, I found the whole process to be a funny experience in traveling. My trip started on a Friday evening after I left work.

 

6:30pm- Rode my bicycle to the bus terminal in Tak and bought a 7pm bus ticket to Bangkok.

7:00pm- Waited at the bus terminal.

7:30pm- My bus arrived at the terminal. I made sure to be first in line since on a previous trip I had to stand in the aisle with my bag between my feet for the first hour.

7:45pm- My bus departed the bus terminal. We spent 15 minutes sitting on the bus watching the driver smoke cigarettes.

1:30am- My bus arrived at Mo Chit bus station in Bangkok. Before I could even place both feet down on the pavement I was offered taxi rides from 5 drivers pushing and shoving each other to be closest to the bus door.

1:31am- I hired a taxi to drive me to the train station.

1:40am- I found out the trains don’t start service until 6am. So much for that plan.

1:45am- I hired a motorbike to drive me to Khao San road. The 24 hour, budget backpacker hangout/party street.

1:50am- I had planned to meet my friend Mike at some point so I gave him a call. No point in looking for a place to sleep, beer is cheaper.

2:00am- Mike met me at a bar on Khao San road. We had nothing to occupy our time besides beer and pad thai.

5:45am- Mike and I finished our last beers and took a taxi to the airport. The airport is where we can hop on an “express” mini-bus to Koh Chang. Tickets are not sold until one hour before the scheduled mini-bus departure time. We wanted to take the first mini-bus route of the day, which the website listed as a 7:30am departure time. The website also suggested arriving early during the holiday season in case of long lines.

6:15am- At the mini-bus ticket counter, there is no line.

6:30am- We bought our mini-bus tickets and headed to a food court.

7:30am- We were informed that our bus would be leaving at 7:50am.

7:50am- We got on our bus. The website told me the bus would be a 9 passenger van, but we were sitting on a 70 passenger bus. This will not be an express route.

8:00am- Our bus left the airport in Bangkok.

11:00am- We stopped for lunch.

12:30pm- We stopped somewhere.

1:45pm- We stopped at another somewhere.

2:45pm- Our bus arrived at the pier on the mainland. The website told me our express mini-bus would drive directly onto the ferry, and then drop us off at our hostel. Instead, our driver opened the door and said “Get out”. We got out.

3:15pm- We boarded the ferry on foot, and it started its path across the sea to Koh Chang.

4:00pm- The ferry completed its 1 kilometer journey in a speedy 45 minutes, and we were finally on Koh Chang. However, the ferry took us to the north end of the island, and our friends were staying at the south end of the island. A backpacker region named Lonely Beach. One more taxi was needed.

4:02pm- We sat in the back of a songteau. It is a pickup truck with two bench seats in the back and rails to hold onto.

4:45pm- The songteau pulled over on the side of the road. The driver told us that our place was 100 meters up the road, and that we needed to walk the final portion.

5:00pm- We finished walking what felt curiously longer than 100 meters, and were finally at our hostel. I was met with a running hug from Laura, another one of my friends whom I haven’t seen in a few months. All was finally well.

 

After all of that, my holiday on the island went pretty straight-forward. Koh Chang had everything I expected from a tropical island.

I swam in the saltiest water I have ever tasted, with a salinity content so high that we didn’t need to use fins to stay afloat while snorkeling.

I slept one night on a wooden platform in the backroom of a bar/tattoo parlor. A thin pad had been set on the wood to soften it a bit. It was big enough for one person (provided they were shorter than 5’5”), but of course I had to share the space with my buddy Mike. We didn’t book a second night.

I stayed at a bamboo hostel/bar (all buildings are multi-purpose there) owned by a Thai hippie named Tom. He had a long grey beard, loved blues-rock, and drank whiskey with breakfast.

I went to a bar called Ting Tong, which has become my bit of nirvana in this world. Go to Koh Chang and you will agree.

I jumped a flaming jump rope on the beach. Since I received only a minor burn on my ankle I was considered lucky compared to most other jumpers.

I watched my friends get bamboo tattoos while their tattoo artist drank beer.

I rang in the New Year at a beach rave with great friends.

And on January 1^st, I did the whole trip in reverse to get back home.

Strange Night in Tak

I have a drinking buddy here in Tak, Thailand. I use the term drinking buddy, but that may be a bit of an exaggeration of our relationship. More like a guy who owns a mechanic garage and sometimes wants me to drink whiskey with him. Drinking buddy is just an easier way to say it. Anyways, this drinking buddy, T, knows a small amount of English. If I pass by T’s garage at night he and some friends are usually sitting in lawn chairs and drinking whiskey. Sometimes he calls me over to join. This past week I went out for a short night bike ride, and on my way home passed by T’s garage. This led to one of the strangest nights I have had here in Thailand.

 

“Andrew. Come! Whiskey!” T shouted at me

Oh, why not? I’ll have one drink. I thought.

I pulled my bike over in front of T’s garage and took a seat in one of his lawn chairs. Also in company that night was a stern looking man smoking a cigarette while sitting on a motorbike, and a woman seated inside the garage right next to a wall. All the tools were cleared aside in the garage and a folding table had been set up. The table had some empty food cartons, one empty bottle of Thai whiskey, and another bottle that looked recently open. I don’t know T all that well, but based on his grin and half closed eyes I would have guessed he polished off that first bottle all by himself.

“Andrew, whiskey” T said and handed me shot. The smell of his breath confirmed my suspicion.

“Thank you, Kap Khun Khrap” I said while knocking down my first whiskey shot.

The serious looking man sitting on a motorbike said something in Thai I didn’t understand, but based on the tone of his voice I could tell was angry.

Maybe he wants me to introduce myself?

“Hello, Sawatdee Khrap” I said with a smile to the Angry Man. He didn’t reply. “T, who are your friends?” I asked.

“Oh, I don’t know” T replied and poured us both another shot.

You literally have strangers watching you drink at your place of business? Alright, whatever.

The Angry Man was wearing a pizza company uniform, so I just referred to him as Angry Pizza Man. I turned to introduce myself to the woman, but she turned her head when I tried making eye contact. I noticed she looked a bit teary eyed so I referred to her as Crying Woman.

“T is Angry Pizza Man OK?” I asked, sensing the unhappy vibe in the air. I also drank my second shot of whiskey.

“Yes. DRINK MORE!” T half said, half yelled.

Before I could ask more of what was going on, Angry Pizza Man threw his cigarette at the ground. He then broke into a fit of wild yelling and pointing at Crying Woman, who really started the waterworks at this point.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa” I tried to tell Angry Pizza Man, but T grabbed my shoulder.

“No, leave alone. DRINK WHISKEY” T said again in his shout talk.

Uncomfortable with the situation, I accepted my third shot of Thai whiskey.

 

This situation continued for another 5 minutes. T and I would be attempting to communicate, then all of the sudden Angry Pizza Man would stop smoking for 10 seconds to yell at Crying Woman. Each time I would try to stop the abuse, but each time T stopped me and handed me a shot. I had no idea the context of the situation so I didn’t know if it was my place to tell Angry Pizza Man to stop, but I desperately wanted him to stop yelling at the poor woman. I couldn’t continue slamming shots of whiskey with T and idly witness some verbal abuse, but I didn’t know how to leave.

 

 

When I finally sensed a low in the conversation, I tried to make an escape.

“T, I go to 7-11, go home”

“Oh, 7-11! Too Moo!” T replied. He then set down his glass of whiskey and ran into the garage.

What now?

“Andrew…7-11….too moo. OK take money” As T said this he handed me two items. The first, a 100 baht note. The second, a piece of paper with a phone number and some Thai writing. To restate, I told a drunk man I was going to 7-11, so he handed me 100 baht, a phone number, and a Thai note. I was seven shades of confused.

“What is this?” I asked.

“You go to 7-11. Tell counter too moo and give 100!”

Taking money from strangers…legit? No probably not.

“Oh , no T I can’t…”

“NO NO NO! GO TO 7-11, TOO MOO!!” T interrupted, “COME BACK DRUNK!”

T then sat back down and poured himself yet another whiskey. Angry Pizza Man looked completely unaffected by the conversation between T and I, while Crying Woman starred at me.

“OK, T come with me to 7-11” I said, trying to make my predicament less awkward. “Yes, come!”

“No, I stay” T replied. He then gestured towards Angry Pizza Man and Crying woman and then bumped his fists together. I took this as a sign that he didn’t want to leave the two of them alone. This confirmed my thoughts that some sort of abusive situation might occur.

 

After a few more minutes of unsuccessful negotiation I was off on my bike. I was slightly buzzed on Thai whiskey, holding a drunk man’s money, and had undertaken an unclear task. While riding to 7-11 I had to laugh at myself, for falling into this stupid position. I may have also started laughing because the whiskey was getting to my head.

I was too nervous to go straight to the cashier when I got to 7-11. I figured I would take a lap around the store, scout the place out. While taking a lap I walked through the candy aisle and picked up a bag of Oreos as I passed. After a minute or two I decided to just go to the counter and see what happened.

“Sawatdee Kap” I said to the cashier while handing over my Oreos. He replied with the same phrase. It was now or never.

“Too moo, 100?” I said. I held up my secret note card and the 100 baht note hoping the cashier would take over.

“Oh, ok. True move” the cashier replied, to my relief. “Enter number” he then continued and pointed at the debit pin pad.

Enter number, true move? T, what the hell kind of job did you just give me? Am I withdrawing money for you?

The cashier handed me my notecard and I had a moment of clarity.

Wait, enter the phone number! True move is the name of a cell phone company here. Ah, he wanted me to buy more minutes for his phone! Dammit T, at least you could have said the word phone!

I said my thank-you to the cashier, grabbed my Oreos and got back on my bike.

 

When I returned to the garage the scene had not improved. Angry Pizza Man was now pacing back and forth within inches of Crying Woman, who had rotated to face a wall 5 inches in front of her face. T was in his seat, swaying a bit more than when I had left him. If he had continued at his previous pace, in the 10 minutes I was gone he most likely downed 3 whiskey shots.

I parked my bike and walked over to T.

 “True Move!”  I said with a smile and handed him his receipt.

T stood up and handed me another shot of whiskey.

“CRAZY MAN! I WANT TO KILL YOU!” T shouted. The look in his eyes frighteningly resembling Jack Nicholson’s in the movie The Shinning.

 

A tense, horrible silence fell over the group. I had no idea if my drinking buddy mistranslated a Thai phrase, or was a murderous sociopath. I really had only sat down with him twice before that night. Angry Pizza Man lit another cigarette and then looked right at me. The night had reached its apex, and it was my move. I stood to either defuse the situation or get myself stabbed. I took a chance.

“Does anyone want a cookie?” I said and held up my pack of Oreos.

“YES! COOKIE!” T screamed.

“Thank you” said Angry Pizza Man, showing a smile for the first time of the night.

“Yes” Crying Woman said and faked a smile to me.

Thank God!

 

Greatly relieved that I was not getting killed I passed out cookies to the group. As if at the end of a Disney movie, everyone was happy and friendly. After the roll of Oreos was consumed I drank my last shot and pedaled home, alive. While lying in bed I laughed again, hoping that the sugar buzz would keep Now Joyous Pizza Man happy for the rest of the night.

 

The lesson I learned: No matter your geographical location, first language, or level of inebriation, everyone likes cookies.