Pattaya Swamp Shack

Pattaya Thailand was regarded as an anti-destination in the 1990s. Beach Road bars were packed with drunken beer louts from the UK and Germany. Prostitution was a free-wheeling enterprise for impoverished women from the Isaan Plateau. The beach was filthy and the sea was polluted, but I liked the town.

There were no backpackers or budget tourists ruining our good time and whole sections of the hinterland were either swamps or coconut plantations linked by sandy roads. All that changed with the damned Internet.

Trees were razed to develop housing for farangs.

Water holes were filled to build condos.

Traffic required new roads and everyone knows that roads kill paradise.

Almost as fast as do-gooders.

And soon the population ballooned from 90,000 to 300,000.

Too many people to sustain a Last Babylon.

I can only hope one day they all go back to where they came.

LOVE YOU LONG TIME - CHAPTER 9 by Peter Nolan Smith

Walking Street was crowded with drunken marines, dok thongs, Englishmen on Ecstasy, tattooed go-go girls, shouting Arabs, Amazonian transvestites, and wide-eyed Chinese tourists. These diverse groups threaded through the gauntlet of dueling music from various beer bars and discos. The heat was driving everyone insane and alcohol was behind the wheel. The collective madness left me in the dust and I realized vengeance was better suited for the Bible. All I really wanted was a cold beer.

Sam Royalle was at Hot Tuna with his wife.

"How's it going?" Sam Royalle glowed with love.

"Everything is fine." I resisted asking, if they had seen Ae.

They would never have said yes or no, for a strange etiquette in Pattaya is that no one ever snitches, if someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend is with someone else.

I ordered a beer.

It went down fast. The next three disappeared even faster. Two tequilas and a whiskey broke my laughter dam. I played snooker against the owner, and beat Pi-ek three games to none. The most beautiful girl in the bar invited me home or to a hotel. I was drunk enough to think it was for my looks.

Pi-ek nodded to warn of approaching danger and I turned to see Ae strut on high platform shoes into the bar. A hair stylist had affixed waist-long hair extensions. Her red satin short shorts left nothing to the imagination and a scarlet halter top covered her flat chest. Her nipples showed through the gauzy material. They were aroused by anger and she demanded, “Why you go with other lady?"

The free-lancer recognized her services for the evening were required elsewhere and fled the beer bar. I should have followed her, but this scene had been rehearsed too many times in my head to not let it play out with my body.

"She only friend."

I had heard someone tell me this before. I was too drunk to remember who.

"Why you not wait me?” Her eyes were on fire.

“Are you fucking mad?”

“Bah? I not crazy.” Ae spat with slurred hatred.

"Not crazy. I'll show you crazy."

A demon was demanding Ae’s sacrifice. The word murder strangely reversed into “Red rum.” Jack Nicholson had said something similar in THE SHINING and I remembered an editor of Heavy Metal magazine introducing me to the author as a fellow Mainiac.

Stephen King had sneered upon hearing I came from Falmouth Foresides, as if anything south of the Bath Iron Works wasn’t Maine. I never read his rip-offs of HP Lovecraft afterwards and wasn’t going to kill anyone with “Red rum” rummaging through my brain.

“You better go with your Italian.”

"You no love me no more?” She was surprised by my surrender.

If I kept my mouth shut, she might walk away, instead I said, “No, I don’t anymore.”

“Ko-hok.” She knew I was lying too and wheeled away onto onto Walking Street in triumph over another crushed heart.

"I'm not a liar."

"You lie me. You lie you too." She gave me the finger. People laughed at me. This scene was played out on Walking Street several times a night, if not more. My audience waited for the one of the two typical responses. The first was to beg her to forgive me, but I had done nothing wrong.

At least that's what I told myself, so I opted for reaction #2.

I grabbed my beer bottle from the bar.

Her Italian stood on the opposite sidewalk. His two friends were laughing at him and me and Ae. So were two transvestites. I didn't see the humor of the situation and drained my beer.

I was free of Ae. I bore no more responsibilities to her or her family. I was the God of my future.

"Good-bye."

"Fuck you, 'good-bye'. You not done me." She stuck out her tongue like a 12 year-old girl threatening to run away from home.

"Fuck you too." I chucked the beer bottle in her direction. The bottle shattered against the wall across the street. Ae ran to the Italian. He held her in his arms. It was the last thing I wanted in this world and it was all my fault.

Time hit fast-forward speed, when he charged the bar. His friends scrummed with Pi-Ek and Sam Royalle, plus several of the bar staff. The Italian threw an overhead punch. I partially blocked it with my forearm. His fist cracked on my cheek. He had a hard hand. Stars fluttered in my eyes. Ae stopped his second punch.

"Yet mung." Ae led him away from the bar. She had lose face, but if the police would show up if this altercation continued any longer and they would be looking for 'sin-bon' or tea money to squash any charges. That money was better in her pocket. She had a family to feed.

"I get you." The Italian was hot. I would have to watch my back until he left town. Once he and his friends accompanied Ae into the Marine Disco, I went over to Sam Royalle and Pi-ek.

"Why didn't you stop me from talking to her?"

"Mate, it's your problem." He ordered the bar a round of tequilas.

"Yes, never step between man and woman. Bad luck." Pi-ek was wise to the ways of Walking Street. “Good, you not hit her. You hit her and have big trouble with police. Expensive. Maybe go to hospital.”

“Yeah, tell me about it.” Ae’s brothers had killed fellow Thais for 5000 baht. My life was worth more than $125 and I kept telling myself that, as Ae staged several comebacks before finally leaving for Italy in late August. She appeared at my house for sex, while the Italian was at a disco. The hour was usually past midnight. She never stayed for more than an hour.

"Boyfriend smoke too much ganga. Sex not same you." Her body shone with sweat. A shadow against my white sheets. "I not finish with him. Finish with you every time."

"I know." It was a good lie and one I told myself was the truth listening to her pleas for more. Ae was a good actress and I was a better audience.

"I go soon." She didn't know the date.

"I'll miss you."

"Not yet. We do again."

She called two weeks later from the airport. Her plane was leaving in the afternoon.

"Please come get me. Take me back."

"Go outside and get a taxi."

"Can not do. He and friends watch me."

"Sorry." Three Italians versus me was bad odds. Ae actually coming back to me were even worst. I stayed where I was.

"Bonna fortuna."

Ae called me every day from Italy. Her boyfriend was a drug dealer. No one spoke Thai. The food was not spicy.

"Come get me, please."

I would hang up the phone before saying something I would regret, because while she might have left Pattaya, her soul was still in my heart. I went to a travel shop on Walking Street. The agent told me the cost of a ticket to Milan. I told him that I would think about it.

Coming out of the travel agency, I spotted Nu heading to work in her waitress outfit. I called her name. She didn't stop walking and I ran up to her.

"What's wrong?"

"I hear you and girlfriend fight." She shook her head.

“I’m an old fool."

"Big fool." Nu turned her head. Her eyes were filled with disappointment.

"I don't know why I did that. I wanted her to go. I did everything to make her go. It's almost like she did a magic spell on me."

"Magic?" This word stopped Nu from entering her restaurant.

"Yes, like love potion." The words to the Searcher's song LOVE POTION #9 rambled through my head.

"You drink something funny?" Nu was serious. Thais are big believers in magic. Ghosts too.

“I think so too.” The green liquid in the glass. “I drank this water once. It tasted bad. I saw a green stain on the glass."

"You drink aa-kom." She was horrified by this love potion. "Your girlfriend from Isaan. People from there have big magic. Not good magic. Bad magic."

"Do you know how to stop a love curse?”

“Have to have old lady make rice. She stand over rice and let sweat fall into rice. Then you eat. Love potion finished.”

“You’re joking?”

“No.”

Her next day off Nu brought an old lady at her apartment building to cook the rice and stand over the steaming pot. I thought they were joking, but both of them watched with interest as I drank the antidote. It tasted terrible. I didn’t sleep or eat two days, but afterwards I didn’t think about Ae.

In fact I didn't think about any of the women I had loved in my life.

This was good magic, except I still realized how much a fool I had been.

“Everyone can be a fool sometimes. Only all the time is bad.” Nu still refused any intimacy. “I have been a fool one time too. Maybe have big heart. Same you.”

We spoke about the potion, Ae, or us. Nu’s husband had left her for another woman and I wondered whether there were any happy endings in Thailand. She said, “Happy ending are good in movie. But only in cartoon.”

Nu accompanied me to Don Muang Airport, saying in Thai. “Thailand is very beautiful.”

“I’ll remember it that way.”

“Maybe you come back one day and you kiss me.”

It was sweet to hear after my year and a half with Ae. “I’ll be back soon.”

“I’ll pray to Buddha you do.”

“Krup kuhn kap.” I wai-ed her, because she had smoothed over a rough spot in my soul. I couldn’t wait six month. Her lips were tender. The kiss was a short one.

My name was called for final boarding.

Nu smiled and I released her hand. I was going to America. Manny would hire me to sell diamonds for Christmas. Sherri would laugh about the love potion. Ms. Carolina would take me skiing. Maybe Bill could convince Monty to make a movie about the Italian Plan.

I would be back in Thailand for the New Year. All I wanted was a little love. It wasn’t too much to ask from life. Not in Pattaya or anywhere else in the world. Even for a fool, especially after being freed from a curse, then again everyone is a fool when it comes to love.

THAI GLOSSARY

AO, MAI AO - want, not want

A-RAI - what?

BAH - Mad

CHING CHING - True

CHOK DI - Good luck

DOK THONG - slut

FARANG - Westerner

FEN - Boyfriend

FIN - Opium

JEP-HOO- headache

JUM JAM Pawn shop

LAK KHUN love you

KHUN-GARH Old man<

KI shit

KO-HOK Liar

KOR-THOT sorry

KRUP KHUN KRAP Thank you

KWAII buffalo

Happy Sabaii Sabaii Happy

In 1972 Bhutan’s King Jigme Singye Wangchuck attempted to reform his country’s feudal economy on a Buddhist spiritual level rather than a capitalistic model. To best judge his efforts the king created a Gross Domestic Happiness Index based on life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The Happy Planet Index placed the Pacific nation of Vanuata at the top of the list and Zimbabwe understandably was dead last in 178th place.

Thailand ranked 38 in the 2006 Happiness Survey before coups, yellow shirts, red shirts, shooting in the streets of Bangkok, and burning luxury mall. four years later the ranking is not lower, but higher.

# 32.

Huh?"

How that happen?

Maybe Thailand 'mai mi sanuk' or not have fun, but they have about forty-three definitions for smiles much like the Eskimos have thwenty-three words for snow. The present smile of Thailand is known as sao sokh yim or unhappy smile, by which a mask of chagrin hides the basic dissatisfaction of the nation’s present state.

7/11s do not answer all our needs.

Although a little beer drinking never hurts.

Several years ago I stopped at the Janet Bar on Soi Excite. It was past midnight. Twelve ladies sat on the stool. Two westerners were at the bar. Natalee joined me for a drinking. She was typically looking very sexy, but complained, “Mai mi kak.”

“It’s low season. There aren’t customers anywhere.” Rainy season offered lean pickings for the bargirls.

“No good.” Her eyes begged me to bar-fine her.

“Mai mi taeng.” I lied about my finances.

"I know you have money. I smell it. 1000 baht. All night. I do everything."

Kor-thot," I apologized, for a night with Natalee required Olympic training. "I not strong man."

"No worry, I be nim noon with you. All night. You me."

Natalee's gentleness was like hooking up with a jaguar in heat.

"Sorry, I can't."

"Because you have tee-lat?"

"Yes." I was faithful to Mam, the thinnest woman on Soi 6. She wasn't faithful to me, but one day she would be to our mutual happiness.

“Wah.” She faked crying and went to eat Chinese chicken feet with the other idle girls.

The nearest westerner smiled sadly and said with an East End accent, “You speak Thai good. How long have you been here?”

“Four years straight.” My first arrival in Thailand dated back to 1991.

I was only 39.

A mere youth.

So innocent.

I never thought I would live here, but neither did I think GW Bush would win a second term.

“I’ve been here two years.” The thirtyish farang was better dressed than most of the beer slobs of Pattaya. “I married a girl and lived up-country the last year.”

“How'd that working out?” I immediately regretted the question.

“I left her a week ago,” Alan introduced himself and signaled the bartender for two beers. “She is as good as gold, but her family was stitching me up for money. Her step-father is an ex-cop and drinks whiskey all day. The old man wanted 50,000 baht and I told him no, so her mother took all the gold I brought my wife for her wedding.”

“I've heard this story before.” 90% of fathers of the bargirls are old rice farmers, for whom happiness is a bag of tobacco and a bottle of lao khao every day, but some are plain old criminals, who think farangs are made for a taking.

"I don't doubt it. That started the end. The old man called me a cheap farang in my own house.” Alan sounded more disappointed than mad.

“That doesn’t sound gra-dook kat man to me.”

“No, I'm not cheap, but the worst was that my wife didn’t back me up.”

"Supporting you would go against the grain. Thai women place their mother first, father second, then the rest of the family, the village, every other Thai before you.” I had experienced this first-hand with all my girlfriends here. "Don't take it personal. Thais are natural zenotropes. They hate everyone else."

“So I found out. One night the old man came to house with a gun. He wanted money to visit his mistress. I told him I was leaving and asked my wife to come along. She said no, so now I’m here.” He was looking for advice. Advice he wouldn’t follow, because he’s still in love. “My girl ain’t so pretty, she’s 31, but we have sex twice a day.”

“Sex has nothing to do with love.” Although spending a night with Natalee might come close. “Best to cut your losses. You’re from the East End. You’re not a square. Don’t let a rice farmer sucker you.”

“I don’t know.” Weakness of the heart was blood in the water to a Isaan grifter.

"You have kids with this angel?"

"No."

“Then you’re still young and make another shot at love."

"I’ve been married before.” These failures rankled him. “I wanted this to work out.”

“Sorry.” I ordered another round, as Alan went to the WC.

Natalee came over to massage my neck.

“You still not want to go home with me?”

“I want, but like I said before have no money.”

"What about your friend?"

"He have broke heart."

"Stupid farang."

She frowned and returned to the other menless women.

Alan’s happiness index had dropped below the UK average. Mine was someplace near Peru, which is #3, because beer makes me happy as does hearing someone having it worse than me.

"So you think you'll go back to your wife?"

"It's a long shot."

Just be careful. remember her old man has a gun."

"How can I forget?"

We changed the subject and drank two more beers. It was 2am when I wished Alan luck and left for home.

Natalee blew a kiss. Alan stopped to speak with her. She smiled with enthusiasm. There wasn’t another man in sight.

I arrived back to an almost empty house. My wife has been up-country a long time. She wasn't coming back. Thankfully my little dog was happy to see me, but then dogs are the only animal who loves you more than themselves.

Happy?

You should see Champoo's tail wag.

Now that’s happy.

Five Excuses For Why A Farang Must Go To Walking Street

Most farangs in Pattaya are not church-goers, for their temples are the beer bars and go-go bars. For some it's an every night adventure, but the majority only attend services on the weekend, which sets up the rest of the week. It's Friday and you've haven't ventured in the direction of Walking Street for the whole week. Sunday are devoted to a desperate recovery from the excesses of your Saturday binge.

Every time you mention to your wife that that you're feeling like ten pounds of shit in a one pound bag, your loving tee-lat says, "Som nam nah." or "Serves you right."

Monday was wasted in a vain attempt to find your cell phone. You vaguely recollect a go-go dancer girl photographing you nude onstage and decide it's better to leave your phone lost. Tuesday you buy a new cell phone and your drinking partner calls to say you didn't look too fat completely naked. He does have the photos. You whisper into the phone. "Speak to you later."

Wednesday your girlfriend (wife) has stopped staring at you like she wished you lived in a two-story building so she can push you down the stairs.

Thursday you have a reconciliatory dinner at her favorite restaurant and she orders the most expensive items on the menu.

Friday you go shopping at Royal Garden. Things are almost back to normal, but tomorrow is Saturday and there's no way you intend on staying in the house.

You could be a real man and say, "I pay for everything. I'm going to do whatever I want when I want wherever I want."

But you better be able to sleep with one eye open for the next few nights. Thai women have jai lawn or hot hearts

Personally I opt for the coward's way out and use one of following five excuses.

"My friend is having trouble with his girlfriend and needs to speak with someone."

In order for this excuse to work, you have to prep your wife by telling her various tales of woe during the week. Even better if the two women don't like each other, since your wife (girlfriend) will be pleased at her counterpart's misfortune.

Of course your wife will understand why your friend is having trouble. He goes out every Saturday night and gets you drunk. Always blame him. Believe me, he's doing the same. Excuse # 2

"It'll only be for an hour or so."

Thai women understand that when a farang says an hour he means an hour, unless it has anything to do with drinking while looking at naked women. Then the farang's time reference is beamed to the international non-time zone.

This time warp is most apparent on your night out, when you look at a clock. It's almost midnight. You've only had five drinks. If you leave now, everything will be perfect, except your friend, who's having all the trouble with his girlfriend, orders a round of tequila and pushes you on stage with three go-go girls with whips.

You calculate. "One drink. One dance. Another fifteen minutes."

Next thing you know it's 3am and you have no idea how you got to this hotel room.

When you stumble through the door, your wife will ask, "Do you have any idea what time it is."

Once more blame it on your friend. Excuse # 3

"Billie kept saying it wasn't late."

Blaming him is fair. He's not in the room and can defend himself later. All you need is enough time to get to bed.

It's business.

Anytime you walk out of the house with 10000 baht it most certainly is business.

Especially since you invested every baht in booze and women.

Hopefully there's no return on this investment. Excuse # 4

It's my friend's last night.

This is a maybe three times a year occasion.

Your best friend is either going home to replenish his financial coffers or else doing a visa run to Malaysia. Your wife doesn't need to hear the whole truth. She knows you two together are no good, but at least there's only one more night of the guy who made you lose five cell phones in the last year. Excuse # 5

"You can come with me if you want."

This one puts them off balance. Your wife will say, "Okay." But as the clock ticks down to blast-off she'll realize that you'll make her miserable by taking her to farang pubs where Filipino bands do covers of dinosaur rock bands and the only food is burgers or sizzling streaks, and every man in the place is over 250 pounds and sweating like a Bengali laundryman.

One night like that is your wife will never come with you, no matter how many times you offer. This way you can be free to get drunk, dance naked on stage, and lose your cell phone, because that's what's Saturday night is all about in Pattaya.

Then it is button reset. Sunday's the day of repentance and saying "Never again."

But your wife knows better and so does that go-go dancer with your cell phone.