Asiatic Moments

by Al Culler

  I rolled over on to my stomach and promptly passed out, the Vodka/beer combination causing my nervous system to close down. I woke up thinking I was being viciously assaulted only to realise it was two local masseurs giving me an unasked for work-over. My limbs were pulled, bent and snapped; my back pummelled until the vertebra started to pop and then they put their feet in the small of my back whilst trying to bend my legs so far back I could’ve got a job as a contortionist.

  Bloody hell! Felt like I’d gone a couple of rounds with Tyson on one of his nastier days. I felt about a hundred years old trying to turn over. Of course, the bitches wanted 500 baht each and the scowls I got when I dished out a couple of red notes aged them by about twenty years. No chance of a quickie, then. They, at least, had enough sense to keep well clear of the Russians.

  My attention was distracted by a trio of stunningly beautiful ladies, looked like High Society Bangkok babes out for a day in Pattaya (with the improved roads a mere two hours from Bangkok). They clambered aboard a weird contraption - bit like an inflatable snake (a foot and a half in diameter, six feet in length) with a couple of outboard floats to stop it falling over in the water. This was towed behind a speedboat, the thing flexing mightily as it sped off at an improbable velocity over the waves.

  The gals had a strap to hold on to, but were still bounced up and down a good foot in the air. Legs spread around the snake, it didn’t bear thinking about, the sensations they were getting as the boat bounced off towards the far horizon. My attention snapped to another beautiful babe, only she was about twelve, wandering around selling toilet rolls! She skirted around the Russians who were giving her the eye, despite the fact that she was fully clothed and still looked innocent - even to my weary and cynical eyes!

  When the babes on the snake came back, they were soaked through and looked totally knackered. The poor old pecker nearly exploded when I clocked the wet tee-shirt on the most beautiful of the three - talk about a dream girl! - revealing perfectly sculpted breasts and huge engorged nipples.

  She winked at me as she slouched past, nodding her head away from the beach towards the road. I almost had an heart attack. Must be the Kojak hair style, my lucky day at last. By the time I’d struggled up off the sand, my joints clicking and rumbling away, she’d disappeared through the traffic and into the small layer of shops - like Beach Road, there appeared a reasonable density of tourists but walk a few minutes away from the main drag, everything became pretty desolate!

  By the time I’d crossed the road she was nowhere to be seen. Not one to waste energy I staggered into a nearby toilet, which also had a row of showers. I was just about to enter a cubicle when I glanced the other way, saw the babe with her back turned to me - the door left open, a splendidly naked slender body framed by wild black hair.

  Trouble was, she turned around, revealing that she wasn’t a she. A bloody katoey! Had the smallest set of tackle, even by Thai standards, I’d ever seen - must’ve been all the hormones she’d been downing. I got out of there as fast as my excessive girth would allow.

  I was in a foul mood, being fooled by trannie’s no laughing matter. As I crossed back to the beach I was collared by my Russian friend. A big black limousine pulled up, with a couple of cops on motorcycles for an escort! Talk about travelling in style and crime not paying! I somehow ended up in the back seat as we sped over to Pattaya.

  The Russian was gibbering away whilst his mates got stuck into yet more Vodka, the Thai girls naked, snaking around the men. One big orgy factory it looked like to me. I blinked, we were back in Pattaya, the traffic finally making us roll to a halt. I took that moment to leap out of the cage, leaving the Russian screaming curses - god knows what all that was about.

  Dazed and confused, I almost walked into a gay ghetto. Fortunately, they had the good sense to put up a massive banner that read Boy Town. Subtle bastards, these Thais. Pattaya was infested with gay bars, katoeys and other kinds of weird and wonderful sex. All I was interested in was the most beautiful babe in the country!

  I tottered down the next soi, relieved to find an excess of beer bars and lots of near naked babes screaming entreaties at me. I was perfectly in time and place - a ruined farang with a huge beer gut, blistered red by the sun, bloated by the dozen Chang’s (and god knows how much Vodka), half revived by the disappearing sun and cool breeze whipping in off the sea, just about ready for some serious action. Shake that gut, boy, this is gonna be your night!

  Ploenchit Past

  Attired in a brilliant white suit and hat, I marched with British resoluteness into the hallowed grounds of the embassy. The trick, never to pause in forward motion; the guards hurriedly opening the gates wide enough to admit the ample Culler frame as the crowds in the long queues muttered obscenities, past the school girls collecting money for the entrance fee and through the overgrown children checking the tickets, so resolute that I copped a couple of salutes from the guards - they thinking I some kind of important dignitary!

  Entrance was but a mere fifty baht but the infamous reluctance of the British embassy to give out visas for Thai girls meant that most old hands refused to hand over even that pittance; even in the name of charity. The Ploenchit Fair the one time, once a year, they let just about anyone into the grounds (now moved due to security fears)..

  No sooner had I brazenly conned my way in than I had my comeuppance. Searching diligently for the beer tent, some old biddy thrust a pamphlet into my hands, screaming at me that I looked like I needed some help; as it was some Born-Again Christian nonsense I thought her actions most uncharitable! Bloody cheek, she looked like she could do with a good night out in a Patpong boy-bar (more on that later, kiddies!).

  Tearing the pamphlet into tiny pieces, spreading them liberally through the grounds (the 2000 baht fine for such loutishness surely not applying on British soil) I caught on to the tail end of a procession of Aussies, who sure enough headed straight for the beer tent, placed at the far end of the grounds. This was already surrounded by solid British folk with strong Yorkshire accents who were loitering with intent whilst their wives and kiddies prowled the grounds, enjoying their momentary respite from family obligations.

  Almost caused an international incident when I refused the offer of a lukewarm beer; stood my ground until they found one from the bottom of the freezer; scowls all round. I’d had the same hassle in a bar in Cowboy the night before - a place with a weird mixture of monster katoeys and wild young babes - and been refused an exchange. The cheeky bastards tried to palm an even warmer beer off on me second time around, despite demanding beforehand that it was ‘yen-macma’. They tried a couple of other bottles when I threatened to walk out, but they were even warmer. I refused to pay for the second beer, having no intention of drinking lukewarm piss and slammed down the exact change for one beer, some of it in coins, to show my displeasure. More scowls, so I probably won’t be going there again.

  Amateurs, one and all!

  Musing on these people whilst trying to match the voracious rate at which the Aussies were downing their beers, the only consolation was that the weather had turned decidedly English - grey skies and a moderate breeze, no knowing when the clouds would break. Bangkok enjoying a late winter that had the Thais dressed up in several layers of clothes and shivering in the air-conditioned buses. Made me feel about 20 years younger!

  A weird old mixture of people. Loads of lager louts, plenty of middle-aged English women making like it was Ascot - summer dresses and big hats! - and an awful lot of farangs who were trying hard to get their English accents back in order after spending too much time talking in truncated sentences to their Thai women. The Thais wore a mixture of facial expressions, ranging from amusement to bemusement, probably found the whole mess of minor stalls a bit amateur; no way up to the usual Thai standards of sanuk and massive shopping binges.

  Drinking more beer, people watching, I caught sight of some old gent with an aristocratic bearing done out in an entirely unsuitable heavyweight suit. He was proudly
escorting some tiny Thai girl who must’ve been fifty if she was a day, with thirty years worth of bar life written deep into her face; fierce, mad crazy eyes...

  That caught my glance and flipped! She unfurled herself from her companion’s arm, hurtled through the chairs and tables separating us, proceeded to scream at the top of her voice - fisher-women didn’t even come into it - that I owed her money! The old gent looked totally mortified as if finding the ground under him suddenly turned to quicksand.

  I tried a regal, half amused smile, whilst noting that this old babe had talons on her that would have the average eagle promptly launching off into the far distance and that she seemed to have sharpened teeth. I kept the beer bottle in readiness, whilst judging how quickly I could find something to hide behind. And I must add that I’d never seen the addled old witch before in my life; honest!

  The Aussies were pissing themselves with laughter by now and the old bitch was slowly reappraising the Culler form, in all its magnificence - did she really know me? With tens of thousands of guys behind her it was bound to get a bit confusing. The old gent was tugging at her arm, trying to pull the 40kgs away, probably shocked to find that the body had turned to hardened steel, all lean muscle matured on Laotian whisky.

  With an indifferent shrug she finally remembered where she was and who she was with, staggered off with the old gent who tried his damnedest to look more dignified than ridiculous! The Aussies kept passing me more and more beer, probably hoping I’d do something really stupid, which of course I did - eventually.

  Going off in search of the toilets I was having trouble with my vision, seeing two of everything! I got out my reserve flask of Laotian whisky/paint-stripper, which soon sorted that out. If someone struck a match in front of me I would’ve turned into a human flame-thrower.

  The Ploenchit Fair ain’t usually the kind of place where you’re going to find lots of beautiful babes - Thai or farang - there were some really monster farang women there, going out of their way to emphasise their ugliness with an excess of make-up and brazenly coloured hair. Too much of those kind of visions could make a man throw up!

  In stark contrast - reminding me of the first time I’d ever knowingly clocked a Thai babe in a Belgian bar (the Flemish girls tending to be more Teutonic than the Germans) - this blond haired English teenager crossed my path, 18 or 19. Bloody hell! Worse yet, she was wearing the kind of minimal skirt that barely covered her rump. So perfect she made me wonder why I hadn’t stayed in the UK. Then I clocked her mate, a mixture of Thai and farang that took everything that was good from each, melded them into a whole that made me never want to leave Bangkok.

  I stumbled along behind these giggling frails, out of my mind with excess lust. They suddenly halted, to watch some fat farang sitting on the end of a dunking stool that dropped him into a large pool of water whenever some Thai youth managed to throw a ball on to a connected target. I staggered forward, corrected my balance by grabbing the backside of Blondie with the gentlest squeeze!

  The next thing I knew, she was crying hysterically. I backed away hurriedly, suddenly stone-cold sober, trying to look as innocent as a choir master in a bordello. Stomped through some banker types trying to look casual in tee-shirts and made it into a side alley full of stalls selling trinkets and other junk.

  At the end of the alley there was a cordoned off area leading to a side exit. Some embassy types were just leaving in a big black carbuncle of a car and I marched past the guards, showing them the imperious manner I wished I’d been born with. They didn’t blink an eye and I was back in Bangkok proper - and all the better for it! This was the last time the event was held at the embassy itself; surely nothing to do with moi.

  Saints And Sinners

  What was a mere trickle a week, or so, ago is threatening to turn into a veritable flood... Babes coming back to Bangkok for a holiday from their husbands and the West. What amazes me is that their husbands actually let them come alone for months at a time and book them into hotels mere walking distance from Soi Cowboy or Nana Plaza. They may even come back full of good intentions but it takes about two hours for the pull of the Heart of Darkness to grab hold of their minds again. After months in the sedate West, suffering bad sex and poor food, they are about ready for some frenzied action in the neon glow of the nightlife. And in Bangkok anything goes.

  Already, I’ve come across a girl who came back with a couple of million baht to buy land and build a house so that she and her English husband could retire to Thailand; took her a couple of weeks to blow the money playing cards and return home empty-handed! The husband finally had the good sense to get shot of her! She was also working in a restaurant that was actually a brothel on the sly!

  Other girls tell stories of spending their days back on the game, via escort agencies, complaining bitterly if their husbands question their disappearances, about them not letting them do anything and not see their Thai friends. Believe it, it only takes one bad apple making a pile of dosh to get the girls into serious money making moves; and the Thais won’t tolerate anyone who doesn’t want to play by the same rules - want to keep your friends you have to do the same as them!

  One prime topic that keeps coming up in conversation (being a sneaky bastardo I pretend to speak no Thai so they think I can’t comprehend what’s going down!) is how much they will get if the husband decides to divorce them; an amount of dosh so compelling that it often makes the girls misbehave something rotten!

  Foreigners can’t win on this. Ban the girls from meeting fellow Thais back in Blighty or the States, they come across as mad ogres. Let them do what they want, a massive loss of face ensues. Some Thai girls can’t even be bothered being nice to their husbands but many keep up a pretence of fidelity, allow sex once or twice a month; amazed how far even the mildest bit of apparent devotion can go in keeping their men happy - added to by telling hubbie that someone else’s wife is actually doing the nasty things that she herself is doing.

  Bear in mind, please, we are talking about bar girls and not Thai women in general, about thirty million of whom are of high virtue and would make wonderful wives; only problem is most of them would run a four minute mile when confronted by the average farang; though some Hi-So babes go in for a trophy farang boyfriend, just to keep everything confused.

  Another vein of this madness is how upcountry Thai kids are brought up. One mate with a Thai child was absolutely astounded and horrified by the way the mother and rest of the massively extended family went at the kid with a religious fervour, convincing him that all things farang were bad and by implication that the father (who had the good sense not to actually marry the babe) was worse than useless; absolutely determined that the child would be brain-washed into ‘loving’ his Thai family. This gives insecurity a new meaning. And the same madness happens throughout the schooling as well...

  You end up with some ill-educated upcountry wench absolutely devoted to her family and totally convinced that farangs are idiots, who have to be relieved of all the money they have somehow gotten hold of. There are very few exceptions who actually make it into the bar scene! Reality does occasionally get through this brain-washing but when it hits home the girls are usually so far gone that there’s nothing you can do for them!

  No wonder a lot of farang men end up in the gay bars, totally pissed off with the women they take out their angst on the Thai men. Bangkok is a confusing city - you have men dressed up as women working the girlie bars, who may or may not have had the chop; you have men working in the gay bars who have girlfriends; you have couples - the guy working in the gay bar, the girl working a-go-go - who maintain a mad kind of love affair despite it all; you have farang men who aren’t really gay but get a kick out of having sex with Thai men who may or may not be gay; you have gay farangs having sex with Thai men who are straight; and katoeys who aren’t really girls after all having sex with gays, Thai and farang; then you have bar girls turning up at gay bars buying out Thai men for sex!... Talk about not knowing if you’re comi
ng or going! I need a beer after writing all that!

  In the interests of research, the Culler frame found itself propelled down the back alleys of Silom, but ten minutes walking distance from Patpong. If the latter’s all bright lights and brazen, the hardcore gay bars tend to be hidden away in seedy little soi’s with closed doors that are only opened a few inches to let you in - an impossibility given the current girth of the Culler body!

  The first bar I wandered into was straight out of hell! The smell of death hung over the decrepit furniture and the stage had a couple of fellows on it who looked like they had wandered out of a concentration camp and only recently put on a bit of flesh. The beer was a hundred baht and ice-cold. A book full of photo’s of naked men was thrust into my hands, with the injunction to chose who I wanted - 200 baht bar fine and whatever I wanted to pay the ‘boy.’

  Apart from the tell-tale body lesions, indicating that HIV had turned into AIDS, most of the guys had ruined hair (I know I haven’t got any but Thais are famous for the density and quality of their hair) and stunk of decay! They were all too whacked out to be violent but the idea of having sex with any of them was so ridiculous I had a fit of the giggles - you know, you start laughing, hysteria kicks in and you can’t stop. This is pretty dangerous if you weigh 120 kilos and are perched atop a rickety old stool! Not to mention the dozen or so Thais who were giving me death looks.

  I left the concentration camp without even finishing my beer, that was how bad the place appeared to what was left of my mind. The next bar I wandered into had all these muscle builder types flexing their biceps as they danced erratically to the Laotian music. There was one farang, naked from the waist up, who had a chest so huge he looked like a humanoid from a 21st century film that illustrated how wrong evolution could get things. He twitched with what I took to be repressed steroid rage; I sat down as far away from him as I could.