Off the Beaten Track

by Frank Kusy

  My mind went into free fall. Was she saying what I thought she was saying?

  “Go in?” I said, aghast. ‘You mean you want me to have sex with a prostitute?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ my prim and proper publisher told me. ‘But don’t quote me on it.’

  *

  Kanchanaburi was the last place I expected the dirty deed to take place. In fact, by time I had travelled half a day west here from Bangkok, I’d put the whole business out of my mind.

  What was on my mind was the famous River Kwai bridge upon which the even more famous film starring Alec Guinness was based. Every Christmas, my stepfather and I, burying the jealousies which had plagued our relationship from the time my mother had first married him, watched rapt as Guinness fell upon the detonating device which blew the bridge to high heaven and sent the first train about to cross it plummeting to a watery grave.

  To say I was underwhelmed when I got there would be an understatement. ‘What?’ I thought disappointedly. ‘Is this it?’ Instead of the rickety, trellised wooden bridge I’d seen in the film, there was a far neater and very boring-looking steel effort apparently made from odd-job materials brought over from Java.

  But then I had a stroke of luck. Turning around, I saw the 10.23am steam train to Nam Tok coming up the line. Clickety clunk went the wheels, puffety puff went clouds of steam from the engine, and as the train slowed to a walking pace, there was a shrill ‘Toot, toot!’ from the whistle to alert non-passengers standing on the track. ‘This is fantastic!’ I thought. ‘Blow the bridge, this is exactly the same kind of train as in the film – I’ve got to get on!’ And as I jumped up and levered myself clumsily aboard, my happiness was made complete. From a nearby sentry point, a tinny tannoy started playing ‘Colonel Bogey’s March.’

  Nobody seemed to mind that I hadn’t paid my fare. They were far more concerned with the views, which were spectacular. Dense rain clouds rolled over the surrounding hump-back hills, slowly erasing them from sight – like a rubber erasing a pencilled landscape. As for the thrilling ride on the notorious Death Railway – so called because one Allied prisoner of the Japanese during WWII died for every sleeper they laid down on the track – well, my heart jumped into my mouth on two separate occasions. This was when the ground literally fell away from under train as it passed over yawning chasms on unsupported wooden sleepers.

  Two hours down the line in Nam Tok, which was as far as the train went, I amused myself by climbing up an (empty) waterfall and looking for the elusive Cave of God. A local guy pointed out a ‘divine’ duck which was supposed to know the way, but although I respectfully asked it for directions, it just flapped its wings at me and gave a forlorn quack.

  A much more interesting waterfall presented itself later that afternoon, when I took a bus out to Erawan. An idyllic spot with bags of multi-coloured butterflies and flocks of exotic birds, this had not just one, but seven gently cascading waterfalls, each with its self-contained ‘swimming pool’. The biggest and best was near the bottom, but I couldn’t understand it, everyone was just standing about in their shorts and swimming trunks.

  ‘What’s the deal here?’ I quizzed a passing American. ‘Why is no-one going in?’

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘I threw a sweet wrapper into the water earlier, and a swarm of piranhas gathered and munched it to pieces.’

  ‘Piranhas?’

  ‘Giant carp or catfish, I dunno which. Word is, lots of POWs from the nearby concentration camps were brought here during the war to have their gangrenous wounds “cleaned out”. These fish kinda like human flesh.’

  Just then, fortunately, a portly Japanese tourist turned up and wandered innocently into the pool.

  ‘He’s a goner,’ said the American casually, and began whistling the theme to ‘Jaws’.

  There was a surprised yelp, then a frantic thrashing of limbs, as the poor Japanese attracted the attention of every nibbling fish in the pond and began fighting his way back to land.

  Safe at last, the rest of us went in for a cool, refreshing dip.

  *

  Back at my small guest house on the edge of town, I found myself thinking again of what Paula had said – about paying for sex with a Thai prostitute. How was that going happen, I wondered, and how was that going to resonate with my Buddhist principles?

  I didn’t have to wonder long.

  Walking past a strangely winking fat lady at reception, I found two British accountants having a beer in the lodge’s little cafe. I wasn’t going to join them at first – it had been a very long day – but then I overheard one of them telling the other that he was going to “buy him a girl” for his 21st birthday. My ears picked up. This sounded promising.

  ‘Do you mind if I sit down for a bit?’ I asked them. ‘And what’s this about buying girls – how do you plan on doing that?’

  Well, nobody had to plan anything. As if by magic, just as I drew up a chair, three Thai girls appeared out of nowhere and started chatting us up. ‘Hmm,’ I thought. ‘Maybe I’ll let this happen. No way am I touching a girl in Bangkok, I’ve heard about all the nasty diseases, but I should be safe out here in the sticks, shouldn’t I?’

  Several beers later, the two lads filed away, each with a girl in tow, and I was left with the toothy one with a big grin called Chom. Chom was only 18, and obviously quite new to this game, but what she didn't know about sex was nobody's business. Back in my room, she ripped all my clothes off, sniffed and licked me all over (rural Thais apparently 'kiss' that way), and then started jumping my bones with enthusiasm. I felt sure she’d studied The Joy of Sex earlier, because she shunted me around into more positions than I've had hot breakfasts. It was a wonder to behold, and I was so caught up in the sheer balletics of it that I completely failed to…ahem…match her enthusiasm. Finally, having exhausted both herself and her entire erotic repertoire, she grabbed up her clothes and fled the building. 'Thank God!' I thought, relieved. ‘I couldn't have kept that up another second!' So I leapt in the shower, to cool off all my sore bits, and thought the experience over. But it wasn't. A couple of minutes later, there was a loud banging on my door and I opened it to find....Chom, and two of her mates, holding a silver tray with four glasses and a bottle of Mekong whisky on it. All three of them nodding and smiling at me, and wanting to have a party.

  The next morning I met up again with the other two guys. The younger one, Simon, Mister Birthday Boy, had had an even more embarrassing experience than me.

  ‘I couldn’t take my girl back to my room,’ he confided, ‘Bob, my mate, was in there with his. So I checked into the swank 5-star hotel opposite. All the staff stared at us as we walked through the lobby – “We know what you’re doing!” I could hear them thinking – and then, to cap it all off, I found out my date was a virgin. And just as I did so, staring horrified at all the blood on the sheets, there was a knock at the door and upon opening it, I was confronted by a barber’s quartet of room boys, towels folded neatly over their arms, singing “Happy birthday to you!’”

  Chom was a nuisance. Despite me closing the door firmly in the face of her and her two chums, she trailed after me the whole of next day begging for presents and hinting heavily at a passport to the UK. ‘What have you got me into?’ I complained in a fax to Paula. ‘I feel like a seedy cash cow!’

  On a personal level, I’d found this experience both disconcerting and sad. Disconcerting, because I’d always associated sex with love, or at least with liking someone and making friends with them first. Making love to a total stranger was the most un-erotic experience of my life – how could so many Western visitors be getting off on it? Sad, because I knew a lot of these girls now – not just Chom, but a whole gallery of ‘ping pong’ artists and pole dancers I’d interviewed in Patpong – and behind their painted smiles there often lay a quiet desperation. Would they hook a rich falang and escape to the West before their age and looks let them down, or would they have to return to the incredibly poor
villages of the North East where they came from and live out their lives in slog and drudgery?

  Whatever, I had seen behind the veil of sex tourism in Thailand, and I hadn’t liked it. Not one little bit.

  Chapter 18

  The Trouble with Trat

  Koh Si Chiang, 50 clicks east of Bangkok, is quite the up-and-coming tourist destination nowadays. Back in 1989, it was virtually off the map. One dusty guest house, one dusty beach café selling luke-warm Kingfisher beer and nobody visiting except Thai weekend picnickers.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ asked Jeremy, the kindly old Brit who was letting me stay on his yacht. ‘Koh Si Chiang is deadsville!’

  ‘Well, it won’t be when I’m through with it,’ I said confidently. ‘And neither will Trat. I’m going on there next.’

  Jeremy’s face paled. ‘Are you sure? Isn’t that on the Cambodian border? ‘

  ‘Yes, it is. Why, what have you heard?’

  ‘Oh, nothing, nothing. Well…err…nothing good.’

  I popped open another warm Kingfisher, and handed it to Jeremy.

  ‘Don’t worry, mate,’ I assured him with a breezy grin. ‘I have it on good authority that it’s the next “happening” place. Virgin beaches, sea sports, and it’s very own golf club. It’s going to explode before too long, just you wait and see.’

  Well, it was going to explode alright, just not in the way I was expecting. And I really should have known better. My ‘good authority’ was Steve, the Trailfinders boss who had stuffed me up at the Malaysian border. ‘You bastard!’ I’d accosted him back in Bangkok. ‘You nearly got me the death penalty!’ Steve had given his usual maddening grin and said, ‘They wouldn’t have held you long, and anyway, you looked so peaceful sleeping on that bus I didn’t have the heart to wake you up for a lousy passport stamp.’ Then, as I’d continued my rant, he’d raised a hand and stopped me. ‘Okay, okay, I owe you one. Look, have you checked out Trat? No other guidebook has covered it – it’s off the beaten track!’

  I’ll never forget the sincere, conspiratorial look on his face as he bent down low to tell me this. He had no idea of what he was talking about of course, but he had me at ‘off the beaten track.’

  *

  Back at Si Racha, the jump-off point for Si Chiang island, I was surprised to find no buses on to Trat. Well, there was one, but it left at midnight and I was keen to move on. ‘If I get a nippy tuk-tuk,’ I thought happily, ‘I might slip in a round of golf before dark.’

  Four hours later, all thoughts of golf were out of my mind forever. I was woken from my light snooze in the back of the tuk tuk by a light thud…thud…thud in the distance. Followed by a much louder phtoom! phtoom! PHTOOM! as we drew closer. ‘Is this Trat?’ I enquired of my driver, and he nodded and shot me a look of trepidation. Then, as we came into town – dodging through a maze of old wooden shop-houses and dark, narrow streets – he literally pushed me out of his vehicle and zoomed off again. His desperation to leave this place was breath-taking.

  ‘Is this Trat?’ I asked once more, this time of the ancient owner of a nearby guest house. ‘And what is all this noise?’

  ‘Wheee...PHTOOM! Wheee...PHTOOM!’ The noise was getting louder. And closer.

  ‘Sawadee-khrap,’ said the old gentleman, dangling a key in my face. ‘Ao hong mai?’ (You want room?)

  ‘Wheeeee…PHTOOM…PHTOOM!’ The walls of the guest house were shaking.

  ‘Err…put Angrit?’ (speak English?)

  ‘Little…little…’

  ‘What…is…this…noise? What…is…this…PHTOOM! PHTOOM!’

  The old man cackled between broken teeth.

  ‘It is Thursday.’

  ‘Thursday?’

  ‘Thursday, Cambodia bomb us.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mai pen rai. No problem. Friday, we bomb them back.’

  I was speechless. Trat was not an up-and-coming tourist Mecca. It was in fact a war zone.

  My first instinct was to flee – missiles were now raining down from all directions, it was only a matter of time before one found me – but flee where and how? There were no vehicles on the road, there were in fact no people on the road. I stumbled out the guest house, desperately looking for some kind of safe haven, and found…a karaoke bar.

  The karaoke bar was down one of the small, narrow, atmospheric sois which criss-crossed central Trat, and it doubled up as a bordello. Three hideously overweight women were dancing – or rather, lumbering – around poles on a raised stage, while in between them an even fatter Chinese-looking guy was attempting ‘Don’t be Cruel’ by Elvis. It was the weirdest floor-show I had ever seen, and in my fascination I sat down and ordered a drink.

  Well, that was a mistake. Before I knew it, two other heffalumps of women sat down either side of me and hemmed me in behind a table. Both were winking at me suggestively, and running their hands up and down my trousers. Then a waiter appeared with a menu, and before I had time to look at it, whipped it away again. A large bottle of expensive champagne appeared out of nowhere, and then a huge buffet of even more expensive-looking seafood.

  PHTOOM! PHTOOM! Weeeeeeee…PHTOOM!!! The crash of exploding timber outside announced the death knoll of another nearby dwelling. I had to get out of here, and fast.

  The size of the bill they laid on the table had my eyes standing out on stalks. But I didn’t betray my feelings, I had to remain calm. ‘Need hongnam,’ I laughingly informed them as yet another bottle of champagne appeared. ‘Too much water in tummy!’ I exited the bar via the back door, giving the scummy toilet a moment’s glance, and hit the ground running.

  A passing tuk tuk was my passage to freedom, I threw my backpack on it and then myself and stuffed a 1000 baht note into the surprised driver’s face. ‘Bangkok!’ I told him. ‘And don’t stop for anything!’

  *

  Back in the capital, I located Steve at his favourite haunt, the Whisky a Go Go bar in Soi Cowboy. ‘You bastard!’ I raged once again. ‘I was going to write this section up as “Treat yourself to Trat,” but all it is a mini-Vietnam. You should be ashamed of yourself sending me out there – I nearly got killed!’

  Steve’s maddening grin was never more maddening. ‘You wanted to go off the beaten track, didn’t you?’ he smirked. ‘I had heard rumours, but I didn’t dare go there myself.’

  Chapter 19

  Big on Frogs

  The phone rang at 4am.

  ‘Mr Frank! Mr Frank!’ said the voice urgently. ‘Are you ready to go?’

  ‘Go where?’ I enquired, my head still half in la-la land.

  ‘You must come quick! Meet me in the lobby!’

  I was staying at the 4-star Swan Hotel in Silom, and this was my first attempt at a luxury sleep in two months. I did not want to go anywhere.

  ‘Is that Steve from Trailfinders?’

  ‘No, it is Mr Wong from Crispy Biscuit Limited. Don’t you want to go to Cambodia?’

  Well, no, I didn’t want to go to Cambodia, I had only just nearly been there. As I slammed the phone down, I tried to remember, through my sleep-lagged brain, where I did want to go. Oh yes, it was Nakhon Ratchasima, otherwise known as Khorat. I wanted to catch the early 6.50am Rapid train there.

  Though ‘wanted’ was perhaps not the right word.

  I had to.

  Four-star hotels don’t come cheap: a whopping bill from the Swan had sent my eyebrows soaring. It came to half my remaining money, and no more was in the offing until Paula got her act together and wired some more cash over.

  ‘I can’t afford to stay another day in Bangkok,’ I thought in panic. ‘Oh, I know, I’ll go hit the North East for a week – that’ll be cheap.’

  But money wasn’t the only reason for my decision. I was also looking forward to really getting off the beaten track, in the poorest and least touristy part of Thailand. I’d had enough of chewing the fat with other western travellers – many of whom were content to just hang o
ut in Bangkok or on the Southern beaches. This was my chance to write about and open up a region 99 per cent of them would never normally go to.

  But when I arrived in Khorat, I had a shock. Nobody spoke any English. Walking down the high street, trying to get directions to the tourist office, I was met with giggles and blank stares. None of the guidebooks had warned me about this. It was like I’d landed on Mars without an interplanetary dictionary.

  It hadn’t been like this in Malaysia – most Malays and Chinese there both spoke and understood English quite well. And Indonesia had been a breeze – the Indonesian bahasa language was both simple and concise – hardly any tenses, with one word often taking in a whole phrase or sentence. ‘It’s like building blocks,’ I’d told a doctor in Yogyakarta. ‘You add little bits to turn adjectives into verbs and verbs into nouns. So makan (cat) becomes makanan (food) becomes rumah makanan (eating house).’ As for Thailand, well, so much of it had been receiving Western visitors for so many years, I had assumed – in typical British fashion – that the whole country had at least a smattering of my language.

  Right now in Khorat, I was being punished for my arrogance. About all the Thai I had was Saweedee khrap (Hello/Goodbye), pom cheu Frank (my name’s Frank), and mee hong nam? (do you have a toilet?). I would have learnt more, but I’d been scarred by an unfortunate encounter with a bar girl in Bangkok. I’d tried to tell her she was very beautiful – ‘Soway maak maak!’ – but had got the intonation wrong and wished her a lifetime of bad luck instead. Now I wished I’d persisted with my local lingo aspirations and began to curse myself for not bringing a Thai phrasebook.