After the tour I was dropped off at some restaurant where I had to wait three hours to get picked up by the bus to Hanoi. While waiting I spoke to an Iranian/American guy who was pretty cool for a guy in his forties. Anyone who reads this who ends up in Vietnam, I definitely recommend taking an easy-rider motor tour through the Vietnamese countryside. It was one of the highlights of my three-year trip.
Vietnam – Hanoi
I spent about a week in Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam. I didn’t end up doing much there, because I had some bad luck –I ate some bad food and spent more time sitting on the toilet than going out. Hanoi does have some backpacker hostels but I found a room with bathroom for only about twelve dollars. It wasn’t much but at least the Wi-Fi worked. The city has a few attractions but most visitors just stay one night and then go on to Ha Long Bay from there.
One day I went to a large indoor market to try and find some souvenirs. It was clear that not many tourists visited that place because I got lots of stares and people waving at me. It was hard to find something I liked. The clothing was too small. I’m not a giant guy but I’m tall especially compared to the very short and skinny Vietnamese, so most clothes didn’t fit me. It’s too bad that most people there only spoke a few words of English because there were some cute girls around.
A rickshaw driver took me all over town and dropped me off at a few museums. The traffic is insane in Hanoi, with thousands and thousands of motorbikes and people on the streets from dusk to dawn. I visited an old fortress tower from French colonial times and the military museum next door. The museum was quite interesting and had lots of exhibits. There were a few pieces of artillery and airplanes outside. Like I’ve said, I’m kind of a fan of military stuff and history so I visit museums and battlefields all over the world. I still dream of visiting Volgograd in Russia, formerly known as Stalingrad and site of a massive battlefield and turning point in the European Second World War. It was the fiercest battle ever fought in history. It was from here on that the Nazis would lose the war. Why do I bring Russia up? Well…
Darya, from Vladivostok, had given me the email address of one of her Russian girlfriends who was in Hanoi. We exchanged phone numbers and met up for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant.
We met at a square close to my hotel in the tourist area. Polina was a nice-looking girl but nothing special, I would rate her at a 6.5.She was late, of course, as most girls always are. She had a motorbike and I hopped on, grabbed her around her waist and we drove off. She had a skinny waist, so far so good. We talked for a while and I had a noodle dinner which my stomach didn’t mind (for the moment). We said goodbye and agreed to meet again for a night out.
Polina and three of her Russian girlfriends, who were all studying in Hanoi for some reason I’m still not clear on, invited me for a night out. None of the girls was particularly hot but all were bangable and we went to a club on a boat. I walked in with four white girls on my arm and heads turned. Some girls walked up to me after a while and started asking why I was there with so many girls. Then I took two of the blonde Russian girls, went to a hotel and fucked their brains out all night……
I wish I could tell a story like that but the night didn’t go like this at all. After some dancing it was clear to me that the cutest of Russian girls didn’t like me in that way. I decided to aim my love arrow at the other three. Surely one would bite. It didn’t go anywhere; a Vietnamese ex-boyfriend of Polina’s showed up and did a bit of (passive) cock blocking. Although it was an ex boyfriend, the vodka must have had her juices flowing because she was all over him. The other two girls showed little romantic interest. Our group changed venues and we ended up in another club. We met some other tourists and they tagged along. I think one of the girls liked one of the drunken guys and started dancing with him. Due to a lot of vodka, I don’t remember the whole night, but one thing I know for sure:
I went home alone and feeling miserable. I know I can’t win them all but I’d already had three Russian girls before. What I should have done was build some attraction and see if one of them was interested, if not use them as pawns to pick up other (Vietnamese) girls. I already had massive pre-selection built up in the room by showing up with four girls.
The next day Polina texted me to go out again but my stomach was even more fucked up from the boozing the night before and I turned her down after initially saying yes. This must have pissed her off because I didn’t hear from her again. I couldn’t care less because I was about to see my Russian girlfriend from Vladivostok again in Bangkok. We had been emailing a lot since we met for the second time in Suifenhe.
I had a near accident when I almost fell of the back of a motorbike on the way to the bus station to go to the airport.
Thailand – Holiday with Julia.
The last of my BETA days is how I can best describe my vacation with Julia, the girl I met in Vladivostok. Although this took place in December 2009, it seems like a lifetime ago. In less than a month I would turn into a totally different person, but for the moment I was still a beta guy with some improved social skills thanks to travelling, socializing with people along the way and “getting lucky” with a few girls.
I had to wait two hours at the Bangkok Airport before Julia arrived. I was actually a bit nervous when meeting her because I had no idea how she would respond to seeing me again after three months. Well, she was in tears when she first saw me. We were totally ripped off when taking a taxi to the hotel I booked online. Luckily the hotel room was not too bad; we hurried into the shower and had a bang fest afterwards. Things hadn’t changed much since China. I don’t remember us coming out of the room that day. The next day was the 5th of December, a holiday both in my home country and in Thailand. In Thailand it’s the King’s birthday – a man worshiped by all Thai people. Insulting the King of Thailand is punished severely and could mean jail time in a country where you never want to visit the prisons. I would take a five-year sentence in Holland over a one-year sentence in Thailand. In Holland you can leave jail an educated man; in Thailand you most likely walk out a train wreck with irreparable mental damage.
We had some dinner and walked around the world-famous Khao San Road, saw some temples such as the Emerald Buddha, outside which we got fooled into a tuk tuk and did the souvenir route for twenty Baht. We didn’t actually buy stuff but ended up at a travel agency and booked the rest of our trip there. The first travel agency we went was too tricky and expensive but the second one was more trustworthy, and we booked a 21-day holiday there. I remember us paying around a thousand US$ for twenty-one nights in 3- or 4-star hotel rooms, all transport all over Thailand including trains, minivans, hotel pickups, boats and even airplanes. Julia and I split the bill so I only paid about five hundred dollars for luxury hotels and not having to worry about anything. I was no longer a backpacker but transformed into a full-blown tourist.
Julia had never traveled outside Russia and was a backpacking newbie, so she didn’t mind either. I don’t think we could have gotten it much cheaper if travelling on our own. It saved a lot of hassle and trouble this way. The total price was less than fifty dollar a day and Thailand is not as cheap as some people think. Forget the backpacker stories of living on five or six dollars a day. They are total bullshit. The cheapest, crappiest, roach-infested room I later found on Khao San Road was hundred-eighty Baht, which is about five dollars. Maybe if you live in a remote village it’s possible, but I still highly doubt it for a foreigner.
On the third day in Bangkok I got a strange request from Julia. Imagine this:
Julia (with thick Russian accent): “Neil, I want to go to Ping Pong show”.
Me (laughing): “Baby, do you even know what a Ping Pong show is?”
Julia: “Yes I know, I read about it on the Internet”.
Me: “Sure? What is a ping pong show, according to you?”
Julia: “Women shoot ping pong ball from vagina”.
Me: “LET’S GO!!!”
And off we went, we got into a taxi and
drove to a shady part of town (Pat Pong), got out of the taxi and into a tuk tuk. The driver, of course, knew the best sex show in town. “Yes Mister, I know the best”.
We stopped at a place and the doorman asked for five hundred baht per person to get in. Now, five hundred baht was something like twelve dollar so it wasn’t cheap but we got a free beer and could stay as long as we wanted. The stage was in the middle of the room and had tables and chairs around it. We sat down close to the stage and a waitress brought us two large beers.
The first girl walked onto the stage and inserted a small bottle of coke in her pussy and filled a couple of glasses. I looked at Julia and surprisingly, she was smiling. Next up was another girl doing a dance show and inserting a couple of ping pong balls in her pussy. She sat down, opened her legs and shot the balls at least 1.5 meter into a small bucket. Not an easy thing to do. After this we saw another ten different acts including girls pulling ten meters of barbwire out of her snatch, a string of razorblades, a string of plastic roses, a girl deepthroating a long balloon, a girl smoking a cigarette with her pussy and finally a live sex show, a guy and a girl performing at least thirty different acrobatic fuck positions. Some Chinese guys caught and pocketed the ping pong balls that missed the bucket and flew off stage. I laughed, but looking back one of them would have made an excellent souvenir for my guy friends back home. I later found out that the stage girls put a large plastic box inside their pussy, which is how they’re able to pull out those long strings of razor blades, barb wire and flags.
The show repeated itself afterwards, there were some older guys rubbing their crotch while seeing the acts. Those damn perverts, to me, at that moment, it was just a funny thing to see: it wasn’t sexual at all.
When walking out, Julia and I both felt ashamed of contributing to such shameless sexual exploitation. The girls on stage looked bored and sad at the same time; I’d never seen an expression on a girl’s face like that before. I would see it many times again in other countries.
Julia had done some Internet research and found out that Pattaya was the place all Russians go on holiday. We went there the next day and it was the first leg of our booked holiday. In the morning the arranged taxi pickup from our hotel was late and I was sweating buckets about the guy not showing up and us losing all our money in a travel agency scam. A few minutes later we heard a honking horn and all was safe.
For those who never heard of Pattaya, it’s not just the place where Russians have their holiday, it’s also the prostitution capital of the world (although Angeles City in the Philippines is a close second). In Pattaya you will find the highest ratio of DOMs (dirty old man or dumb old man) compared to the general population. It’s the sleaze capital, with thousands of old North American or European men looking for love or sex. I could write for ages about all the tricks girls use to trick them out of their money, but there’s actually a better book on the market for that: Money Number One, by Neil Hutchinson. A travel buddy gave it to me when I was in Indonesia, though by then I already knew most of the tricks South East Asian girls pull on the unsuspecting tourists. Still, I recommend it.
We spent four action-packed days in Pattaya. We stayed by the Jom Tien beach, ate some (crappy) Dutch food in a Dutch-owned restaurant, went one day to the beach to meet up with a Russian girlfriend of Julia, and saw a lady boy cabaret show. The lady boy show, which was called Alcazar, was actually quite entertaining and funny. It’s sort of a musical show in five different languages and the “girls” were hot. Such a difference with the lady boys on Walking Street, the famous street with a hundred Go-Go bars and a thousand bar girls. Walking street is well-worth seeing and we went there almost every night to either try out of one of the many clubs or just enjoy watching the people. I had fun walking around with a hot Russian girl on my side; she has raven-black hair and a killer body. Lots of old geezers were checking her out, because from a distance she could look Thai, and they got pretty clearly jealous at me when they found out she was actually my girlfriend, one who really loved me and not my wallet, so they couldn’t peel her off me by offering more.
We got into a bus back to Bangkok and transferred at the train station. Like I said before, transport was all-included on this trip, and we had a big envelope with bus, train and plane tickets. All the tickets were dated and we had different papers for the hotel rooms. It might seem strange and really organized coming from a broke-ass backpacker like me, but this was a good deal. We took a night train down south and transferred to Ko Samui, a holiday island close to famous Ko Phag Nan.
There’s not much to tell about our stay there. We had a nice room with air-conditioning, cable television and free breakfast in the morning; we did a few standard island tours and lay on the beach a lot. Needless to say we did a lot of pounding at night. We didn’t go out much there, though I did have my teeth bleached with a top-notch laser treatment for only 160 dollar. By then they needed it – I hadn’t brought a three-year supply of toothpaste and some of the stuff you found in the smaller places was… well, not what you’d find on the shelves back in the West.
After this my teeth stayed really sensitive for at least a week. I could only eat “white foods” the first days, such as rice and white bread. I wasn’t allowed to drink coffee, tea, Coca Cola or eat ketchup or mustard. To keep your teeth white as long as possible it’s better to always avoid all those things anyhow, but I like my coffee in the morning. Of course smoking was off-limits too, but I’d quit smoking already on my holiday with Julia. I can’t really enjoy a cigarette when I have someone around who hates them, and I needed my oxygen for nightly sessions.
We moved on to Phuket, where we stayed in a resort-like hotel with a swimming pool and gym. By now I had heard and read about pick-up artists like Mystery, and a famous book called The Game by Neil Strauss. (What is it with the name Neil?)
Travelling for eight months straight in unknown countries had improved my personality and social skills but I was still kind of introverted, and I was thinking about whether there was a way I could improve more and faster. I knew where I wanted to go, and as soon as I heard about books that would improve your chances with girls and make a pick-up artist out of you, I knew I needed to study that stuff.
On a moment alone I bought a lot of books in the giant Jung Ceylon mall and made a start reading them. I was fascinated by the story of Style and Mystery, but I didn’t read many pages a day.
While we were there, though, Julia and I got into a big argument. At first we were just having fun in the shower together and I sprayed some water from my mouth on her. She laughed and did the same to me, then I spit on her and she did the same to me. Of course, being the moron as I am, I took it a step further and took a piss on her leg. When she saw what I was doing she was enraged and the fun was over. She got out of the shower and stormed off.
After a few hours she still hadn’t come back and I got really worried and went looking for her. I couldn’t find her. It was the only time I went out walking in the evening alone, and several Go-Go bar girls tried to pull me into the clubs. I was too worried and didn’t let them distract me. In the end I just went back to our hotel, and luckily Julia was there, swimming in the pool. I asked her if she was still mad at me and to never to leave like that again. As I said before, it was the last of my days as a beta male. Julia felt bad about it too.
We had to change hotels to another part of town and were closer to the beach now. Walking on the streets here was quite annoying. There were massage parlors everywhere and all the massage girls would sit outside and yell at you: “Hey handsom guy, want massaa, massaa?” Or they would just shout massaa massaa at you, which was funny at first but got old after fifty times or so. The massage girls were all young and hot. There was one girl/woman I really liked in the massage parlor next to our hotel. I should have sneaked out of the room and gotten a massage from her. On the streets, people hassled you every ten meters, especially the Indian guys with clothing stores who wouldn’t leave you alone even after you said no t
o them twenty times before. That was something I had to endure in Hong Kong as well, along with the offerings of fake drugs by Africans.
Around Christmastime Julia gave me a present for my birthday, a daytrip to Thailand’s amazing southern islands. We went to the famous islands from the Leonardo di Caprio movie “The Beach”, and did a short trip to Ko Phi Phi, an island I would return to later in my trip, when I’d capture a flag from a country I’d been to before but where I hadn’t caught the flag.
The days flew by, and soon it was time for Julia to return home. We flew back to Bangkok and she had to take a flight back to freezing cold Russia. She cried uncontrollably the last two days of our trip and saying goodbye was hard on me too. After three weeks together on beautiful beaches and staying in fancy hotels I was actually devastated she had to leave. This was the first girl on my trip I came very close to having an actual relationship with before giving it all up.
The days after she left I just sat in my bloody hot hotel room feeling sorry for myself. I barely ate and was very sad. The only thing I did in those five days was go to a Thai boxing event in the Lumpini stadium, which was quite spectacular. I had front row seats and was very impressed with the fights and the toughness of the very young fighters. But it didn’t relieve the gloom. For the rest of my time there I killed time reading my pick-up books and trying to learn stuff and watching Prison Break episodes on my laptop.
In a few days I would go to Cambodia and everything would change for me and even my trip. But I didn’t know that then.
New Years Eve 2009/2010 was probably one of the most depressing moments in my life. I went to Khao San Road alone, got drunk on 7/11 store beer and just watched everyone else have outrageous fun. I didn’t have the balls to walk up to any girl or even to have a beer with some guys. Not only did my body freeze up when I even thought about it, I was still very down and depressed from Julia leaving. I wondered if it was worth it to move on. Julia was great, and the love of my life: was going around the world for another two years really worth losing that, when I couldn’t even bring myself to have a drink with someone else? What was the point of bumming around the globe if I couldn’t even enjoy it? Maybe I should just move to Russia and make the best of it with her.
Around the World in 80 Girls: The Epic 3 Year Trip of a Backpacking Casanova Page 12