Naps of Thailand

When a Chinese general was asked about the defeat of the People's Army by the Vietnamese in 1979, he replied, "We get up at 5am and they get up at 4."

That industry seems to be sapped from the blood in climes furtehr south. Thais and Laotians are epic sleepers. Finding comfort in conditions better suited to a CIA rendition camp. Some farangs attributed this hyper-sleeping habit to lassitude. Their observation is way off mark, because most Thais wake before dawn to work in the rice fields until the heat hits treacherous temperatures. The retreat from the sun means a good meal followed by a better nap or ngêep before hitting the fields for the late-afternoon. This tradition has been lost in the cities where workers labor from dawn to dusk six days a week. Farangs laugh about the urban proletariat's ability to sleep within seconds of finding a comfortable position. Few westerners know the hold of total exhaustion and I often defend the Thais and other Asians' sleeping habits.

"So explain to me why bar girls sleep 20 hours at a clip," One bar-goers asked in Pattaya. He had been here for years. His vocabulary in Thai was limited to ordering beer and sex.

"Only can be several reasons." I'd been in the Orient 20 years. I didn't have all the answers. Just some of the right ones.

"Like what?" The bar-goer was eying his date. She seemed alert for the moment.

"First is that she's exhausted from having sex with you." Most farangs in Thailand live on a diet of Viagra and alcohol.

"Could be." The bar-goer smiled with pride.

"Second, she could be on ja-bah and crashes after sex." The girl was fat and I doubted she was into speed.

"No way. She's clean. The cops piss-tested her at Marine Disco the other night. She came up clean."

"Well, that leaves only one other explanation and this comes from a Mama-san of a go-go bar. She said the reason most of these girls sleep so much is that they're trying to escape the reality of having to have sex with a fat farang and would rather live inside a sleep world until they have enough money to rejoin other Thai people. Of course this couldn't pertain to you since you're such a sex hero."

He tipped the scales over 250 and his age was a 20th of Methuselah. No one had called him

'sexy' since he was in his teens and that had probably been a priest. For Englishman he had good teeth. At least half the front ones.

"I'm not so sure about that." Even he knew he was no Apollo. Me neither, but I like hearing girls tell me I'm the best I ever had. It's a lie that makes me feel young and sleep in peace. It's a talent an old man can improve upon with age.

There is nothing like a good nap.

“No day is so bad it can't be fixed with a nap.” Carrie B Snow