by Guy Lilburne
You meet someone called Steve and you call him ‘Sa-teve’
You realise that everything you own~ your clothes, your watch, your DVD’s, even your Viagra is counterfeit.
You keep toilet paper on the table instead of in the toilet.
The footprints on your toilet seat are your own.
You aren’t surprised anymore when the pretty girl sitting next to you in the bar starts eating insects.
You no longer trust any air that you can’t see.
You can sleep standing up on the bus, sky train or subway.
You discover that your girlfriend is the ‘mia noi’ of your boss.
You think motorbikes on the pavement and pedestrians on the road is normal
You stop shaking hands with Indians in the market or outside their shops.
You cover your mouth when you pick your teeth, but openly pick your nose.
You stand in the shadow of a telephone pole while waiting for the bus.
You understand when your Thai girlfriend says ‘House sister me’ or ‘Same Same different’ or ‘come take go’.
You realize that you haven’t got a clue what’s going on.
You wonder where all the farangs are coming from.
You start pointing with your chin.
You always speak in Thai~lish even when talking to other expat farangs.
You realise that all the expats that tell you that they are ex SAS, or Government agents, or oil rig workers earning £80,000 per month, or security workers in the Middle East earning £100,000 per month, doctors or airline pilots…… probably aren’t! And when they tell you that they own a string of hotels, have houses all around the world, own 200 rai of land in North Thailand, have a business back in the UK worth 20 million pounds and know lots of famous people……. probably don’t!
Actually I have met a few expats that fall into the above category, but most expats that I have met have been very decent and honest people. Very interesting people with a story to tell and they all share something in common. They all share a sense of adventure and they have all taken steps to ‘live the dream’. For some the ‘Dream’ turned into a nightmare, but for others they have made a great success of living a new life.
Actually, that reminds me of a funny story. I was in the Jasmin Bar playing pool with Maurice the golfer, Big Stuart the taxi driver and Sexy Jelly (Gerry Davis), when an old blue, battered Nissan car pulled up outside. An old guy wearing sunglasses that were far too big for his face wound the window down and looked into the bar. The window went back up and a frail old man got out wearing a pilots uniform. Without saying a word we all started laughing, but politely stopped when he walked into the bar and sat on a stool at the bar. One of the bar girls ran up to him and threw her arms around him. They kissed and he bought her a drink. He had a self-inflicted tattoo on one of his very skinny arms and after half an hour he took his sunglasses off and removed the epaulets from the shoulders of his baggy, short-sleeved shirt. His white hair was long and I would guess that he was about 76 years old. He looked stupid. In fact he looked as if he should have had a carer. When he first walked in someone said, “Bloody hell! What has he come as?”
“A twat!” replied Stuart.
One of the other bar girls who was serving our drinks told us that he had been into the bar the previous year. He told the girls that he was an airline pilot and that he had just flown into Bangkok and driven the hour and a half straight to the bar to come and see the girl again….Right!
He was paying the bill and about to leave with a very impressed young bar girl when I walked past him and went to the toilet. After a moment he followed me into the toilet and I just couldn’t help myself. I started laughing and I couldn’t stop. The more I tried to stop, the more I laughed, until tears were rolling down my cheeks.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked, in a strong Irish accent that surprised me.
“Where did you get the costume from?” I replied.
“It’s not a costume. It’s a uniform. I’m a pilot. I just flew into Bangkok or BKK as we call it. So I drove here to see an old friend.”
“Fuck off!” I spat out through my laughter.
He didn’t even wait to finish his pee. He shook it and tucked it back inside his trousers, but carried on urinating. He walked out of the toilets with a big wet patch that was spreading around his crotch and down his leg. By the time I walked back into the bar he and his lady friend were gone…..I wouldn’t want him flying me anywhere! I asked some of the bar girls if they really believed that he was an airline pilot and they all started laughing.
“No we not believe. He just old man customer, but he want us to believe and he buy us drink to believe. So we believe when he in bar.”
Only in Thailand!
Chapter 19 - Life is full of twists and turns!
I loved the Thai New Year or Songkhran festival, to give it its proper name. Traditionally it’s held over three days between 13th and 15th April, but different towns and cities now hold it on different dates, anytime between the 11th and 21st April. I think that is to do with business and finance. Many people who can, travel from city to city and party for the best part of two weeks, spending money and splashing water over everything that moves! I like to travel to a different part of Thailand each year to experience a different Songkhran and I have celebrated the festival all over the country. This year, 2014, I was undecided where I was going to go. I had made friends with a very nice lady called Nancy on Facebook. She owned a Snooker hall in Buriram. She told me that she was having a party for her customers and invited me to go along there. I told her that I would, but in the end I changed my mind. I decided to drive about 800km up to Udon Thani for the festival to see how much the place had changed since I had last been up there. I checked into the Paradise Hotel and went out and spent the day and night getting very wet and drinking quite a lot. It was a nice day and I was happy to see the city again. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Udon Thani, but that night back in my hotel room I was watching Thai TV and they were showing the first day of the festival in Khon Kaen. It looked fantastic. There were stages set up everywhere and a lot of Thai TV stars were there. Khon Kaen is only just over an hour’s drive from Udon Thani so the next morning I checked out of the hotel and set off for Khon Kaen. I spent the next two days there and had a great time.
It was about a week or two later before I received another message from Nancy telling me that she was sorry I didn’t make it to Buriram for the festival. I told her that I was sorry and promised to go up to Buriram and visit her sometime. About a week later I was on my way to Buriram to meet Nancy and her family and friends. I had already told her that I would stay in a local resort, but promised to have a nice day out with her and her family. Her snooker hall wasn’t actually in the city of Buriram. It was in Satuk, about 50km north of Buriram city and about 10 km north of Buriram Airport. I arrived late afternoon and I went and checked into the Moon River Resort, which was on the delightfully named Moon River that meandered its way through Satuk. Nancy came to meet me and I followed her back to her snooker hall in the town. I had a nice afternoon and evening, meeting the regulars who were mostly Thai, but there were also a couple of farangs. We all had some food and a few beers and the party was just starting really when I made my excuses and went back to the resort. It was only 8:00pm, but I was tired after the long drive. I took a bottle of beer and a small bottle of Sangsom back to the resort and sat and relaxed outside my chalet. An hour later I was in bed watching Thai TV until I fell asleep.
The next day, as promised, I went and picked up Nancy and her family and we went out for the day. In the afternoon I took them swimming in a local swimming pool. Well, the kids went swimming. I had sort of had enough by then and I just wanted to relax. Nancy suggested a massage. That sounded so much better than watching the kids swimming for the n
ext couple of hours. Nancy took me to a local massage salon and she sat and waited while I had a great relaxing massage for the next hour and a half and fell asleep. The lady who gave me the massage was lovely. Her name was Aon. We didn’t really talk much, but she did ask me if Nancy was my girlfriend. I told her that she wasn’t and explained the whole story about Songkhran and my promise to visit. Aon told me that she was a farmer, but also had a 50% business interest in the massage salon. She showed me some certificates and was at pains to explain to me that she had been a fully trained masseuse for years and was some kind of chiropractor, who had people referred to her from the local hospital. I think she liked me and wanted me to know that she was a decent lady. I liked her. She was really cute and had a nice smile. I told her that I was staying another night and then I would be going home the next day. I also told her that the previous night I had stayed at the Moon River Resort, but I wanted somewhere a bit better for that night. She tried to tell me about some other resort, but her English and my Thai weren’t good enough for me to understand where the place was. Anyway an hour and a half later I was back in the car with Nancy picking up her kids. We went back to the snooker hall and I played snooker with a few locals and we drank beer. Thunder and lightning cracked the dark evening sky and the rain came down. It was a heavy downpour that flooded the streets within minutes. The electric went off and candles were lit. The lightning was dramatic, the thunder was deafening and I was happily getting drunk. I had already decided that I would spend another night at the Moon River Resort, because at least I knew where it was. But I can’t say that I was really looking forward to it. It was a nice enough place, just a bit old and tired and my room had been full of mosquitoes. I had killed a few crawly things in my bed the previous night.
Suddenly, a motorbike pulled up outside the snooker hall and Aon, the lady from the massage shop, got off the bike and came inside. She was soaking and looked battered from the wind and rain. She spoke to Nancy in Thai. Nancy told me that she had come to take me to another resort. Nancy also said that she could take me there herself later, but I had had enough to drink and besides, I liked Aon - quite a lot actually. I thanked Nancy for a lovely day and got in my car and followed Aon on her motorbike. She took me to a brand new resort, which was lovely and clean and mosquito free. I was delighted with it and I booked a room for the night. Aon didn’t seem in any rush to leave, so I bought a couple of beers and some nuts from the resort and we sat in the room and chatted in Thailish, telling each other about ourselves. There was a lot of laughing and giggling and Aon was good fun and good company. I was very happy when she stayed the night. Nothing actually happened. We just shared a bed, cuddled and went to sleep. The next morning came all too quickly and suddenly I wasn’t in such a rush to get back home to Chon Buri!
“What you do today?” asked Aon.
“I am going home today.”
“You want to come and see Mama, house me and farm me?”
“Yes! Okay. I can do that.”
So the plan was made. We were going to visit Aon’s farm and her mother’s house. It wasn’t very far out of Satuek, only about 15 or 20 minutes’ drive to a small village surrounded by rice fields and farm land. Sugar and rice seemed to be the two main things that they grew around there. The landscape was beautiful. Green fields for as far as the eye could see. Little wooden huts raised up on stilts gave some shelter from the hot sun and a place to rest for the people scattered around over the fields and working the land. It was a scene that I knew hadn’t changed for hundreds of years. The houses in the village were very old and basic and traditional. Mostly wooden structures raised up on heavy wooden beams. In olden days farm animals like cattle and pigs would have lived in the shade under the house and in some cases they still do. But mostly now the shady space between the stilts is taken up with old machinery, washing machines, hammocks and big low wooden tables that are used for eating and sleeping. Dogs, cats, chickens, ducks and old people all spend their days in the shade under the old wooden houses built on stilts. Aon’s Mama’s house was a big house. Basically it was a big barn on stilts. Aon told me that it was over a 100 years old; I think she wanted to impress me, but to be honest, I could have guessed, It looked at least 100 years old. Some of the beams and wooden planked walls were original and bleached white with a hundred years of hot sunshine. The wooden panels on the walls were warped, cracked and split, leaving many gaps to allow the sunlight, fresh air and mosquitoes to come into the house. There was also about an 18 inch gap where the walls finished and the new tin roof started. The wooden stairs up to the barn, I mean house, creaked and groaned as I walked carefully up them. The floor boards of the house were more or less in the same state as the wooden walls. Between the gaps in the boards I could see the ground about 10 feet below me. With every footstep the house creaked and groaned and I was sure I felt it move a few times. I could hear the house protesting with each and every step I took. I probably weighed more than Aon and her mother put together and the 100 year old house wasn’t too happy about it! Wardrobes and cupboards were arranged to make sort of rooms. There were mosquito nets which would become bedrooms. There was electricity, a kettle, a fridge and a TV. There were the usual photographs of the King of Thailand. One corner of the huge room was set aside for Buddha, with a small shrine, burned down candles and used incense sticks and offerings of water and rice. The kitchen was underneath the main house at the back of the building. It consisted of three ceramic pots used for burning sticks and charcoal to cook and a tall cabinet to keeps utensils and food stuffs. The pots and pans hung on nails hammered into the wooden boards that enclosed the kitchen. Behind the kitchen was the bathroom, which consisted of a squat toilet and two big barrels of water used for flushing and for showering. But in this case they also had a hot water shower. The bathroom was a wooden frame structure encased with corrugated steel sheeting. This made it very hot inside. Hot and wet and humid. Not my cup of tea really, but the mosquitoes loved it! The main sink unit for the kitchen was across the dusty yard and was really just a handmade heavy wooden table under the shade of a tree with some big plastic bowls and a water supply. Yes it was very basic, but I liked it. The farm itself was about 60 rai of land and was growing sugar and rice. Aon’s sister Nang lived with her mum and did most of the work on the farm. Aon’s house was a breeze block and cement structure, with a rusty tin roof and was a little further along the lane. It was a small building of about 20ft x 15ft. It consisted of the main room, which was a bedroom/living room and two smaller rooms. One was the bathroom with the usual squat toilet and the other room was a shower room. There was no kitchen and no glass in the windows. Actually it was derelict. Aon told me that a storm had blown it down a few years ago and that she had just moved back into her mum’s house. I could tell by looking at the derelict house that it had never been built by a proper builder and I guessed that some of her relatives had helped her build it. I had built better dens when I was a child! One layer of bare breeze block, a wooden framed roof with corrugated tin nailed to it was no match for the storms that Thailand can throw up. Aon’s house was a sad and lonely sight. It sat on a big piece of land that ran a long way back from the dirt track road to where it joined up with her mother’s farm, which seemed to go on forever. Nearly all the land I could see belonged to Aon or some member of her family. Aon’s surname is Maliporn and nearly everyone I met in the village was called Maliporn. They were uncles, aunts and cousins. I loved the sense of community. These people seemed happy and contented working the land and taking care of the animals. Aon told me that in the evenings they would relax and eat and drink beer together up and down the lane, which more or less made up the village. We stayed for a few hours before I had to head home. On impulse I said,
“Aon, do you want to come back to Chon Buri with me and see my house?”
“Me? Sure?”
“Yes sure. If you want to.”
“Okay.”
And
that was it. Aon packed a bag and said goodbye to her mum and got in the car and we drove the six or seven hours back to Chon Buri. Aon told me that she had never had a holiday before and she was very excited to be coming home with me. I was excited too. Aon loved the house, but it was already late by the time we got home and I was tired. After a quick look around the house we went to bed. Air conditioning, a comfortable king size bed and English TV. It was good to be back home!
The next morning Aon woke me up at 5:00am with tea in bed. I watched BBC News and Aon set about cleaning the house from top to bottom - and I mean cleaning; micro cleaning! Stuff and places that I had never cleaned all got a wipe over. The house had never looked so good. The day after that all the dead plants were removed from their pots and replaced with beautiful Orchids. The big ceramic fish bowl in the garden was emptied and cleaned and all the dead fish were replaced with pretty coloured live ones and new water plants. Aon was a breath of fresh air. Besides her cleaning the house and restoring the garden to its former glory, she was funny, sexy, beautiful and great fun to have around. I really liked her. She was good company and easy to be with. I discovered she was a Gemini, just like me. In fact her birthday was exactly a week after mine. Well, a week and 16 years actually! Aon loved the garden and worked hard in it every day. It looked beautiful now. Flowers and vegetables were planted, watered and cared for……and grew!
Aon also liked to take care of the Buddha house and spirit house that were in my garden. Each morning she lit candles and incense and gave offerings of food, tea, water and coffee. I knew that Aon was making Buddha and all the spirits as happy as she was making me. The next two weeks flew by and all the time she never asked me for anything. Every day she told me how happy she was with me. We were happy together, but I think I had a fear of any long term commitments. It felt very easy and relaxing being with Aon and I was writing again. After two weeks Aon told me that she would have to go back home to help out on the farm for a week and make some money. She had two children - a 12 years old girl called Milk and an 8 year old boy called Saxon. Milk was in a Sports boarding school in Si Saket. It was a long way from Buriram, but she was a very promising young volley ball player and the school needed paying. Saxon was in a local school and his grandmother was taking care of him. Anyway, Aon was going to return to her farm on the bus the next morning. She was going to, but I knew it was a very long bus ride. So I took her in the car. I spent a very long and hot night being eaten by mosquitoes in her mother’s house before I drove back home the next day. The plan was that Aon was going to spend a week there and come back to me a week later on the bus. I would collect her at Pattaya bus station. Well that was the plan, but I think we just missed each other too much and after three days I was back at her mother’s house, where I planned to stay for the rest of the week while Aon worked the farm. I took the camping equipment that I had bought and set up the tent inside her mother’s house. They all thought I was crazy, but the tent kept the mosquitoes out. I also took a small fan, a torch, my laptop and a supply of three in one coffee sachets. Camping wasn’t so bad after all! Aon said that I could help out on the farm, maybe cut some sugar, but it was far too hot for all that nonsense. I was happy relaxing, watching the village at work and doing some writing on my laptop. I made a lot of friends in the village even though most of them spoke no English. When the weekend arrived I packed the tent and we were off back down to Chon Buri and home. I travel a lot all over Thailand, but it is always a lovely feeling to be home again, especially now that the house and garden were looking so good. We made several of the long trips up to Buriram (it was a 7 hour drive to Aon’s farm), but I was always happy to be back in Chon Buri and all the comforts of my lovely home. This was especially true when the rainy season came, which was at the end of May. It never seemed to rain in Chon Buri, but in Buriram it rained every day and every night. It was very heavy rain that never seemed to stop. In all my years of being in Thailand I have never seen rain like it. I have been in Phuket, Bangkok and Pattaya when these places have flooded with heavy rains, but I have never seen rain like I saw in Buriram. It made my days there very long and very boring. The rains clattered down hard on the tin roof of her mama’s house and it was deafening. The rain also found all the gaps in the old wooden building and made parts of the huge room wet. It wasn’t my idea of fun sitting there day after day, but Aon had to work to earn money. She was the only Thai girl I had ever met who didn’t ask me for any money. She was independent and made her own money. She had a motorbike to pay for and she also had to pay for her daughter’s school, which wasn’t cheap, as it was a boarding school for children with high skills in sport. The school had produced many champions in all sorts of sports over the years and Aon’s daughter, Milk, wanted to be a volley ball champion for Thailand.