Koh Samui 1990

I first arrived in Thailand 35 years ago After traveling on a westward bound round-the-wotld ticket from John at PanExpress, New York - Biak - Bali - Java - Sumatra - Singapore. April. I rode the train north up the Ka Peninsula to Surat Thani. I got off the train at night. A midnight ferry took me to the island. I got a bungalow on the a coal beach. It was quiet and beautiful. I woke up in the morning to have breakfast and exited into the bright sunlight. Then two housekeepers splashed water on me. I laughed. I was so angry until they said it was Songkran. Water Festival. Fun, fun, fun. I miss my family. I miss Thailand.

Hope and Anchor Hotel/Bar - Phnom Penh

After a three day stay in Sihanoukville Nick and I had enough of the sea, sand, and sun. We booked next morning's bus to Phnom Penh and checked out of the Angkor Arms. Upon hearing about our departure the hotel owner Roland wrote down the address of a salubrious hotel in the capitol.

It's a good drinking bar by the river."

"Thanks for the suggestion."

"Let me buy you a round."

One round gave birth to another round and we drank ourselves into oblivion, but made the 9am bus.

We slept all the way to the Cambodian capitol.

Three hours later we deboarded at the bus terminal near the city's central market. I searched my pockets. The scrap of paper was gone. I had probably used it as a toothpick and Nick laughed, "You can't hold onto anything."

"Do you remember the name?"

"My mind's a little blank after last night's twenty vodka-tonics."

Stepping off the bus nearly fifty tuk-tuk drivers crowded around us echoing, "Where you go? Where you go?"

"No idea, thanks to genius." Nick lit up a cigarette. "Let's stay the same place as last year. You remember the name?"

"Who can take us to Mike's?" The name dropped from an old branch of the brain stem.

"Not Mike's anymore?" The youngest driver pushed his way to us. "Now Hope and Anchor."

"There's a Hope and Anchor in Islington." Nick loved pubs. He also loved bars. I shared the same affinity for a wooden counter with a cold glass in my hand.

"Hope and Anchor, it is."

I nodded to the driver and we scrummed through the rejectees, who muttered Cambodian curses for not having chosen them. Business was slow this time of year.

"You come to Phnom Penh before?"

The tuk-tuk gracefully weaved around the market's stupa structure.

"Many times." Nick and I had made several trips to the Cambodian capitol to renew our visas.

"We're avoiding Songkran." The old Thai celebration had gotten out of control in the new century.

"We have Songkran here. Not same Thailand. Pheap sabbayrikreay."

"Pee-ap sabbyik reah?"

"Fun."

"I know fun."

"Where you want go tonight?"

"Sophie's, Martini's, and Sharkey's," answered Nik.

"Pheap sabbayrikreay."

I was broken-hearted and not after any girls.

"Drink was my fun."

"Now many girls go home for new year." He veered onto 51 street. The public sanitation squad were still recovering from the Khmer Rouge purges and garbage lay uncollected on every corner. Vagrant families camped before vacant buildings. The pace was hundred times slower than Pattaya.

"What about Sophie's?" This bar was rated #1 sleaziest bar in the world by anyone who had been to the short-time lounge.

"Closed for the holiday." We were nearing the river.

"Closed?" Nick and I chorused in unison.

"Governor say close for religion."

"Damn." That closure blew out our first destination.

"But many other bars open. I drive you later."

"No, we're going to rent motorbikes, so after the hotel you can take us to Lucky's Bike." I was acting as tour leader, since my memory was better than Nick's battered brain cells. Not all the time, he was really strong on 80s pop hits and 70s punk classics.

The driver stopped on Quai Sisowith before a renovated colonial building.

The Hope and Anchor.

Nothing had changed since a year ago other than the bar staff.

We took two rooms.

"Which one you want?" I asked Nick.

"I don't care."

I picked the better one and Nick complained, "Why you always get first choice?"

"Because you always tell me it's up to me."

25 Bucks for AC and Cable TV plus a good bed.

Beers $1 baht for drafts and $1.50 baht for a can of Angkor. Vodka-tonics $1 baht too. The dollar was still accepted everywhere as the nation's second currency. Phnom Penh was a drunk's paradise and the Hope and Anchor was a good harbor offering a storm of libations. Food was not bad either. Nick and I swore by the creamed spinach.

"Makes you regular in the morning."

The attractive girls behind the desk are most helpful in arranging travel plans and the boss, Peter, was a good man to drink with as the night nears the dawn.

But I'm not sure if it is still there.

The website is gone.

Same as Nick and I.

Wish we were back there.

Eighteen years ago.

2004 Allergy to Silence

2004

Pattaya

It's the start of the Songkran festival and the temple across the our house on Moo 9 in Pattaya has set up loudspeakers to harangue the city dwellers into not drinking too much during the holidays.

Debicel level 110.

24 hours a day.

Thankfully I can't understand a word they are saying and also that my relatives don't listen to their advice. Last night we drank five liters of palm wine. No hang-over in the morning other than the monks' droning. Finally someone pulled the plug and the world was serenaded by a chorus of birdsong for several minutes, until a Loso fan decided to play KAO MOTORSAI with the volume knob locked on 11.

Anyone who has lived in Thailand will notice almost immediately that the Thais are allergic to silence. The blare of TVs drown out quiet in every corner of the land. Loud music assualts the ears from every possible stereo device and they don't seem bothered by two TVs competing with a boombox in the same room. Any time I mention the cacophony the Thais stare at me as if I'm anti-sanuk or anti-fun.

Maybe I'm getting old, but years ago in New York I would have a day of silence on Sunday. No talking. No conversing with anyone. Only reading and later break the fast with THE SIMPSONS.

I even went so far as to unplug the telephone, although not many people called on Sunday, due to my friends suffering from life-threatening hang-overs. It was so peaceful.

Thais love noise. The more the better, although the world's noisiest people have to be the Taiwanese. Never heard anyone talk so loudly. Almost as if shouting is the only way to get someone to understand you. My father did the same with a Spanish foreign exchange student. He could speak Spanish, so he turned up the volume of his voice. The poor kid's grasp of enlgish was rudimentary and he thought my father was alays angry. I could hear him crying in his room after my father asked him if he wanted to go to the movies.

I shouted for him to shut up.

Muted sobs.

Some health authorities see no danger to the public from the incessant noise, however one irate Thai went next-door to his oblivious-to-noise neighbors, who thought they had the right to make as much noise as they wanted in the privacy of their own home. He shot the eight of them dead.

Now that's a health hazard.

April 16 is Noise Awareness Day, on which organizers want the world to share a minute of silence from 2:15pm to 2:16pm.

What's the hand of one hand clapping?

A click of the fingers.

Cool like beatnik.

Yes, I really am that old.

Escape from Songkran 2007

In 2007 Songkran started early, despite the cool rainy weather. Drunken bar girls and their patrons jump-started the water festival two days before the official opening date, April 13. My wife and daughter deserted Pattaya for their family celebration of the Thai New Year. I had no intentions of enduring the expected aquatic mayhem, but my good friend Nick and I waited for the traffic frenzy to subside.

Good news.

Only 100 vehicular fatalities on the first day. 10 off last year's pace.

No worries, because our destination was Cambodia via Trat and Nam Lek, the Thai town bordering Cambodia.

Departure time: 8am 4/14/2007 on a mini-bus.

800 baht one way.

Neither of us had hit the bars the previous night. The mini-van was crowded with farangs seeking sun on Koh Chang. We had nothing to say to them and read our books for the first leg of our journey. There were little signs of Songkran other than a few police road blocks and several groups of well-wishers politely sprinkling cars with scented water.

"Think it will be like this in Pattaya?"

"No." Nick was dying for a cigarette. "The cunts will be going mad for the next seven days. Best thing we could do was leave."

I buried my face in BONES a novel about getting work in TV comedy.

It was easy going and my fingers turned the pages with an unexpected eagerness. By the time we arrived in Trat to change buses, I was almost finished with the book.

"Don't tell me you read that fast?" Nick was on the last pages of Danny King's THE BURGLAR DIARIES, a tale about a cockney housebreaker. "You must skim the pages."

"No way. I read every single words." I just don't register them all.

"What's that smell?" Nick's slender nose wrinkled with fisgust. Someone hadn't bathed, but it wasn't me, Nick, or the old man next to him. Thais are devoted bathers.

"Someone hasn't learned about personal hygiene," I said this loud enough for the backkpackers in the rear of van to hear.

"Yeah," Nick covered his nose and said to the old man. "Menh."

The old man nodded in agreement. Several of the other Thais glared at the backpackers.

When we pulled into the next stop, I felt I had to say something. "Excuse me, one of you needs to take a bath."

"What do you mean? We showered this morning." The taller one smelled his armpit.

"You use deodorant?"

"No, we don't use chemicals." His accent was Dutch.

"Well, you really smell bd. And the Thais are upset about it."

"There is nothing to do about it." He stood up straight, as if to say he smelled like a rose. "Does this bus continue to the border?"

"I don't know," Nick admitted honestly.

I did know the answer and spoke to the driver in Thai before saying, "NO, you have to wait for another bus. Should be coming soon."

"Where are you going?" The cheesehead was suspicious.

"We're going to the casino."

They took out their backpacks and the driver drove off with us breathing easier.

"You lied to them." Nick's tone was apolegetically accusatory.

"Yeah. Thought it was for the best."

"Good man."

And we reached the border safely and sound.

Good-bye Thailand. Hello Cambodia.

High Water Mark Pattaya 2008

Songkran marks the official start of the low season and this year promises to be a lean one. Gas prices and tight credit are impacting the West. Perennial visitors to Pattaya are cutting back on both the length of their stays and the number of trips they take this year. Bar girls are starving for sum tam.

Where are our farangs?

Money has disappeared into gas tanks and the age of cheap fun seems to have come to an end. This economic downswing might accomplish sanitizing Pattaya. No farangs. No sex bars. Cheaper rents. Mom and Dad entertainment for the Asian masses.

Pattaya.

The new Disneyworld only this time for kids.

Farewell Babylon by the Sea.

How fondly I shall remember thee.

Songkran Driving 2006

Nothing says Songkran better in Thailand than getting into an accident with a drunk, as revealed in this series of email dated from 2006.

EMAIL from the Old Roue April 4 after I invited him to join me on a trip to Phnom Penh to escape the Songkran madness.

His reply.

"No thanx, I’m driving 2 Nana Plaza dancers to Isaan for Songkran. At least something will get wet.

Be careful in P-P. Ask permission before you soak one of those little motherfuckers. They’ve got no sense of humor and a shiv taped to the leg. Bad combo."

April 27

"I drove up to Isaan for Songkran with a girl from nana, taking coals to Newcastle, and got in a serious accident in Ubon Ratchatani. 2 guys on a motorbike slammed into the side of me and went sailing over the hood, breaking one guy’s leg and launching a fucking gothic round of events - police station, hospital, insurance guys, police station, hospital, insurance guys, for days. I got off easy. My insurance paid for my smashed car, his paid for his medical and bike and I have to go back up there in about a week to sign the final police report and hand over 10,000 baht as a farangly gesture, not admitting fault, but so that the family won’t come after me ever again. I hope. That’s how it’s done up there, when done right. The cops were great and my Thai-fluent buddy and his Thai wife waltzed me thru it over the phone with excellent advice and face grease."

MAY 12

"Going up to Isaan with Bangkok lawyer. have to settle this in court. 20k for the loss of wages. I was a little wrong in that I was making a u-turn on a 6-lane road. Thought the driver would see me. Police are not being nice. everything should be okay."

In the end the Old Roue paid out 40,000 for the incident without any penalty points of his license.

Mostly since he didn't have a valid international driving permit.

You have to love Thailand.

Songkran Sanuk

The Songkran celebration ushers in the Thai New Year as well as the coming of the rains ending the hot season. This year's festival has been focused on Wan Parg-bpee April 14, when homage is paid to ancestors, elders and other persons deserving respect because of age or position. Traditionally younger people pour scented water into the palm of an elder, so that any past bad deeds or thoughts will flow away or they sprinkle water onto the person while uttering wishes of happiness and good luck.

In the old days young people actually helped bathe old people.

Some still bring towels, so that the elders can dry their hands.

When I had first celebrated Songkran on Koh Tao in 1991, I had never heard of Songkran and had been bushwhacked by the staff of the bungalows. Buckets of water had soaked me. Wet smiles and squealing laughter had followed as I had chased the girls for revenge. They had been remarkably fast in their flip-flops. Afterwards we had drunk Mekong whiskey and had had a good laugh,

It was all quite charming, but the tradition has undergone some changes in recent years.

Nowadays street vendors hawk squirt guns of every capacity to hooligans ready to spray the unwary with a noxious mixture of itching powder and gutter water. Industrial drinking fuels the unholy holiday madness. Playful water fights escalate from harmless sanuk or fun into vicious shootings redressing old grudges. Pick-up trucks jerry-rigged with plastic reservoirs recklessly race through unwary pedestrians and ya bah-demented motorcyclists imitate crackheads fleeing a 7-11 robbery. In other words Songkran can be dangerous.

Millions of Thais migrate to the country by train, bus, and car, creating chaos beyond imagination on the roadways. Travel time is doubled by the congestion and road accidents claim hundreds of lives around the country. The seriously injured number in the tens of thousands. Thankfully the number have dropped in recent years, as a result of an annual media blitz aiming at reducing road fatalities.

Government officials pointed the finger at traffic accidents as one of Thailand’s top three serious health problems with almost 30% of in-patient hospital beds occupied by the survivors of vehicular crashes.

Songkran can be fatal and many longtime foreign residents opt for three methods to avoid the mayhem.

The first is flight to another country i.e. Malaysia or Cambodia if the dates coincide with their visa renewals, however all Thai embassies are closed for the holidays. Back in 2008 my friend Nick and I overlanded to Phnom Penh, where we drank ourselves into a stupor. Neither of us remembered much of anything, but we didn’t end up in jail and the staff of the hotel was sad to see us leave.

The second options is to retreat within the confines of your apartment, condo, or house. Trips during the morning hours are not so wet, as the revelers are sleeping off their drunks and only children line the roads. After sunset you can travel again, though you should avoid any nightlife zones where the water frenzy continues beyond any constraints of sanity.

Lastly Thais considered any Puritan disapproval of Songkran as a sacrilege against sanuk, so if you can’t beat them, then join them.

Several years back my cousin, Griffin Bede hired a truck. The driver loaded the flatbed with three titanic barrels of iced water and we armed our extended families with multi-liter water nozzles. Overloaded by ten people the pick-up’s tires scrapped the steel chassis, as we cruised Pattaya’s streets with the audacity of Somali tech fighters whacked out on qat.

At Beach Road and Soi 8 the girls from two beer bars deliriously chucked buckets at the passing cars. Griffin deluged them into submission with a high-powered hose. On the corner of Walking Street we unleashed a hurricane on two ranking police officers. Everyone loved that. Beers for everyone.

Songkran can be a lot of fun if you observe some simple rules.

Enter the water festival and drink as much as you can.

Don’t bring your telephone with you or any device that might electrocute you.

Just because a girls is laughing doesn’t mean she is enjoying your dumping ice water down her back. Respect the word ‘no’ or mai ao.

Wear clothing that dry fast i.e. football shirts and swimming trunks.

Sunglasses are good for keeping water out of your eyes, because not all of the water smacking your mug is out of the tap.

Leave your wallet at home. Only carry money. It will get you drunk and out of trouble if you get in an accident. If the embassy has to identify you, they can use dental records.

Do not fall in love with anyone you soak. A wet tee-shirt is just a wet tee-shirt. Act accordingly.

Keep a jai yen or cool head. Tempers to flare.

During Griffin’s and my tour around Pattaya. We were soaking everyone we could. This win streak instilled a predatory glee in our Thai friends and Griffin’s tattooed wife jumped off the truck to soak several foreigners hiding behind a tree. It was supposed to be fun, but a humorless weightlifter wrenched away Dtum’s water gun. “Sopheni.”

Knocking down the teenager might have been an innocent mistake, but hearing the word ‘whore’ snapped a fuse and I leaped off the truck with a long PVC tube. The steroid junkie lifted his fists. He was bigger and stronger. I lashed his wrists with the plastic pipe.

His watch exploded into a shower of tiny gears. A headshot propelled him over a rack of t-shirts. I kicked the inside of his knee. He genuflected in anguish. Dtum and I jumped onto the truck. She flipped him the finger and the pick-up truck lurched down Beach Road.

“You hit him like napalm.” Griffin handed me a Singha beer. “Thanks for saving Dtum.”

“It was nothing. Nothing at all.” Mam’s face clouded with embarrassment. My outburst had cost her nah or face. The juice junkie wasn’t her type. My hands trembled with a fifteen year-old’s adrenaline. “I was lucky.”

This festival is about fun and that’s how I do it now.

Fun fun fun. Sanuk sanuk sanuk.

It’s all about having a good time and there’s too little of that is this world to act like Scrooge.

Songkran Police Alert

Faced with the Songkran festival the Thai police had announced their plans to rein in annual mayhem by banning water guns and tanktops on women as well as launching their War on Drugs and the arrest of anyone wearing combat fatigues without any solution to the drunk driving which kills over 1000 Thais nationwide during the weeklong holiday.

Obviously their research has uncovered that men in combat tank tops armed with water guns while on drugs are the major cause of traffic accidents. In order to avoid being caught up in the anti-crime campaign, I'll be staying in the house for 10 days, which is how long the water festival lasts in Pattaya.

One less drunken farang off the streets should keep the cops happy.

Just remember on the last day, even the cops are fair game for a soaking.