Koh Samui - July 1994 - Journal

July 1993
Full moon on Koh Samui
Rising from the black sea
Lightning flashing
Inside monsoon thunderheads
40,000 feet overhead

Sitting in a beer bar
On Chaweng Beach
Aoy
Sweet
From Isaan
North
"Mother not know
"Father sick. Buffalo too
I work bar.
I like you.
I go with you."___

Her skin
Buttered silk
Smelling of Jasmine
Like the flower on the night air.

Aoy says number
"This not love
This is work."
"Go with me.
Help me.
Help family"
How can I say no?"
"Okay, let's go."

On my motosai
3 km to my crib
A bungalow
Overlooking the pla-muk boats
On the Gulf of Siam

On the curves
To Coral Cove
Slow down to 60
Aoy holds tight
Arms around my waist
Lightning flashing overhead
The moon running with the clouds
And me with the wind
With Aoy
Through the night
To Coral Cove.

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Toujours Siam

From 2011

Thirty-five years ago I sold a 5-FSI1 Round Brilliant Diamond to a woman from Florida. She was purchasing the ring for her mother. When asked to ship the present to Miami Beach via Fedex, my boss refused to accommodate the woman's request, fearing the diamond might get lost in transit. The customer was driven to tears by his harsh manner and his son, Richie Boy, berated his 62 year-old father for his intransigence. The sale was on the line. My commish was $4000. Manny finally relented after several hours, cursing us out and saying once the woman left the exchange, "You guys are soft as shit. She was only crying to get her way. Women are good that way."

Manny's harsh assessment was the direct descendant of Cato's famous quote, "When a woman weeps, she is setting traps with her tears."

I had seen enough women cry to know both Manny and Cato were right, but decided to celebrate the sale with a trip around the world. I had read an advertisement in the Sunday NY Times from PanExpress Travel.

$1350 for flights from JFK to LA to Honolulu to Biak to Bali then travel by train to Jakarta and fly to Sumatra across the Malacca Straits to Malaysia to catch a train to Thailand and then up into Nepal for a trek in the Himalayas before straight-lining through Paris and London to New York.

"How long you going for?" Richie Boy asked a week prior to my departure.

"Five to six months." I was planning on writing a book on pornography in LA. It was based on my cousin Sherri's life in film. She had starred in over 2000 XXX movies. Every male in America knew her name.

"There's no way your job going to be here when you get back." Richie Boy and I went back to my years as a doorman at a punk disco on West 62nd Street. Our friendship of twenty years meant nothing on 47th Street. He had a business to run.

"I wouldn't expect it to be." The title of my novel was NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD. It was bound for the NY Times bestseller list. I'd never have to work as a wage slave again.

I sublet my apartment to a Swedish male nurse. Scandinavians were very dependable and my profit on the sublet was $300/month. I bought a Rough Guide book for South East Asia on the way to JFK. The Lonely Planet travel books said that a backpacker could live on $10/day. My budget was $40/day. The money from my subleasee was my beer budget. The guidebooks said beer was cheap out East.

And they weren't wrong.

I bought big bottles of beer for everyone on the route. A $5 a day backpacker in Bali said I was living like a pasha, an Ottoman noble. I added the letter sea and became Pascha. Nothing like a new name on a voyage. I celebrated St. Patrick's Day in Bali with a marching Legong band. Dawn on the rim of Mt. Bromo. Smoking pot on the shores of Sumatra's Lake Toba. Drinking whiskey with Chinese whores in Malaysia. The entire trip had been an eye-opener and I boarded a train north for Thailand opposite Penang in Georgetown. A German woman was my company. We were just friends headed for the fabled beaches of Koh Samui.

Palm trees, white sands, and gin-clear water.

Ilsa and I got off the train in Surathani around midnight. The last ferry had left the harbor thirty minutes earlier. Most of the backpackers were sleeping on the pier. Ilsa and I taxied off to a hotel. We planned on catching the next cargo ferry tomorrow.

$20/night for an aircon room with TV.

A host of beautiful bargirls greeted my entrance to the lobby with cries of 'hey, handsome'. They sounded like they really meant it and I abandoned Ilsa who wanted to catch the dawn ferry to Koh Samui.

"I'm just going to have a beer." I was 38. My wallet was filled with baht. Three of the girls looked like Suzie Wong. I went upstairs with one of them. Her name was Porn. We stayed together five days. She actually cried when I finally headed over to Koh Samui .

Thailand really was a paradise and I wish I was there now.

With my wife, Mem, and our son, Fenway and the rest of our family and mine, because I have two wives. Nu and Angie and my grandson, Sunsun. I will asked Mem if I was handsome.

"Sure, you handsome, like your son." She loves her kids and me some of the time. Same as Nu. Mostly when I'm here, even if it's for a short time, because Richie Boy and Manny are waiting in New York. For all their talk I always have my job and Thailand is always paradise.

The Thai word for Eden is sa-wan. Of course na-lok is the word for hell. And I've been in hell here too, but not today.

Paradise Now 1990

In 1990 I got on the Bangkok train and caught a midnight cargo barge from Surathani to Koh Samui. The rising moon reflected a shining path to the warm horizon and dolphins sang a swimming song in our wake. At dawn the ferry docked on the palm-covered island. I rented a motorcycle and rode through coastal coconut plantations to a coral beach south of Chaweng. My simple bungalow was sheltered by the shade trees. There was no electricity during the day and a slight sea breeze wafted across the shore at sunset. The beer was cold. Food was a delight. We swam in the sea by moonlight and washed off the salt with buckets of monsoon rain. Sleep was to the music of gentle waves caressing the sand.

Photo of the W resort on Koh Samui.

Thirty-five years ago there was no need for a fucking swimming pool. The sea was as cleasr as gin, but things change, except in our memories.

Singapore To Bangkok By Train by peter nolan smith

In 1990 I bought a second-class ticket from Singapore to Bangkok with stops in Penang and Suranthani.

The old Pearl of the Orient was too clean for me. The Chinese president had ordered the police to fine people for chewing gum.

The city was quiet.

The Long Bar at Raffles was closed for renovation.

Gone were the 'girls' from Bugis Street.

I was ready for another country.

To the north was Malaysia.

The early-morning train departed Tanjong Pagar rail station. I bought roti and beer for the seven-hour trip to Georgetown.

The conductor called for the passengers to board and we left the station several minutes behind schedule. Several westerners complained about the delay, but the engineer made up time through the Woodlands and the train crossed the narrow straits into Malaysia.

We passed through immigration without difficulty and reboarded the train for the northbound journey.

The train stopped at Senai, then continued through the ricefields into the jungles of Segamat past the peninsula's mountains to arrive at the Malaysian capitol of Kuala Lumpur.

The Central Train Station had been designed AC Norman and and the "Neo-Moorish/Mughal/Indo-Saracenic/Neo-Saracenic" had been completed in 1897. The train was stopping for a few minutes. The platform was slightly crowded with passengers, mostly for local destinations.

I ran across the tiles to a store and bought two cold cans of Tiger Beer.

The day was getting warm.

I bought another beer at Kluang.

Around noon the train passed through Taiping. THe hill station was reportedly the wettest region of the Peninsular, but the monsoon was months away and we traveled under sunny skies.

A Muslim man sat on the train. I put away my beer. Admad spoke of the Koran.

"Everything known is written in the holy words of Allah. It gives all answers."

Having spent the last six months in Indonesia, I did not challenge his statements.

Strict Muslims have no use for atheists.

Neither do Christians.

The Sultan Abdul Halim Ferry Terminal was a short distance from the train station. The trip across the narrow channel lasted twenty minutes. Penang was a beautiful city with ecletic melange of architecture.

British Empire buildings.

Chinese godowns.

Malyasian mosques.

Hindu temples.

Beaches.

Jungles.

And funny hotels.

I stayed a few days extra.

Sara and I had a good time.

But she was heading south and was going south.

We said good-bye at the train station.

The train left on time. Sara waved good-bye. I sat by the window and watched the world got by.

Past Gunung Jerai

Through rice fields.

To Pasang Besar and the Thai border.

Another westerner was heading Thailand

He pointed to a sign proclaiming death for possession of drugs.

"The Thai are serious about drugs."

"So am I."

We spoke on the train. He was traveling with a western world. She was just a friend.

Michael lived in Pattaya.

Maria made a face.

Women didn't approve of that city.

"Come see me some time. It's the last Babylon."

"I've heard of it."

Everyone had heard of Pattaya.

No place on the planet offered such wickedness.

I got off the train at Suranthani

A ferry ran over tourists to Koh Samui.

The day was beautiful.

The weather was warm.

The beer was cold.

The sea at the beach was as clear as gin.

I rode a bike on the bike.

Vee worked a bar.

I was almost sad to go.

The night train left a little before sunset.

The 2nd Class sleeper was clean.

The food in the dining car offered a special menu for Thais. We drank Mekong whiskey with soda water and ice. The windows were open to the wind.

I slept good.

The cleaning crew woke the passengers before dawn.

Bangkok was less an hour away.

I held off on breakfast and watched the scenery.

Rice paddies stretched to the horizon.

Steel tracks split, as the train neared the station.

The engine lurched to a halt.

I checked my seat.

Everythng was in my bag or on my person.

I tipped the cleaner fifty baht.

The price of a big beer.

Hua Lamphong wasn't busy.

Almost everyone was Thai.

This was not the West.

None of the trip had been and I would expect anything else.

It was good to be in the Orient.

It was the other side of the world.