Sleepless in Bangkok

by Ian Quartermaine

  were sometimes humorous and at other times charming.

  ‘Sit and Smile’, the name of a toilet paper in Thailand, only needed one extra letter (‘h’) to make it the

  most appropriately named product in the world. The

  German named toilet paper ‘Bum’ was hard to beat,

  until the manufacturer realised what it meant in the English language and changed it. So Thailand’s ‘Sit and

  Smile’ remains top, or should that be bottom, of the

  most humorously named toilet paper in the world. “Guests with condoms are serviced better,” had

  been noted in a hotel on the Thai/Malaysian border. But fractured English could be even worse in Vietnam, where hotel room notices frequently advise that:

  “Bicycles, motorbikes, firearms, explosives, stinking

  things and even prostitutes are not allowed in the hotel.” Hearing a Japanese tourist talk about his prime

  minister’s erection - when he meant election - confirmed

  that in their desire to communicate in the language of

  others, people everywhere could be funny.

  But South East Asian locations were not alone in

  creating humorous incidents revolving around incorrect

  English. In the UK, the phrase “Stick your hands up

  your bum,” mistakenly uttered by a young actor playing

  an American gangster - who meant to say, “Stick your

  hands up, you bum.” - was just as humorous.

  47

  Rupert, Rupert

  “ Hiew mai?” are you hungry, Steven asked as he entered the hotel room he’d shared with Gunn. The nod Gunn gave confirmed that she was.

  Passing Rupert’s room on the way to the lift (elevator), an effeminate Thai youth left through the halfopen door. Steven walked through before the smiling juvenile could close it behind him.

  Inside the room, equally pretty but completely naked, another young rent boy, no more than thirteen, hurriedly started to dress. Stepping into a pair of locally made, counterfeit Nike shorts and pulling a Chanel teeshirt over his head, he held out his hand.

  Wearing a dressing gown with a towel wrapped around his head, Rupert gave the kid’s little willy a final grope before saying goodbye. Akiss and some cash completed the small ceremony. “And here’s a twenty baht tip,” Rupert said.

  “Rupert, Rupert,” Steven said, feeling both sad and sorry for the ageing queen and the smiling juvenile. “A twenty baht tip for rent boy sexual services fully rendered. That’s about thirty pence.” [*]

  Rupert ignored Steven’s critique. Small boys were all he had ever known. Having been indoctrinated into homosexual practises at boarding school as a child, he repeated the same paedophiliac patterns as an adult. As to money, the ruling classes in Britain had always been known to watch their pennies. [**]

  Steven stared at the pathetic product of the British public school system.

  “Phyllis, you look like the Queen of Sheba. I hope your little boyfriends didn’t steal the bank draft you are supposed to be keeping safe,” Steven said, pity coupled with annoyance coloured his tone - that his life and the mission had been put at risk by his emotionally retarded colleague. Steven was far from perfect, but compared to Rupert!

  Rupert gave an effete wave in the direction of his crocodile patterned document case, carelessly placed on a coffee table.

  “You bloody fool, Phyllis. Either of those kids could have taken the case while you were asleep. They’d have sold the case and probably thrown the bank draft away as some useless piece of farang paper.”

  “Don’t call me Phyllis, that’s for my friends,” Rupert replied, an arrogant, bitchy tone to his voice. “The boys were my camp followers. We’re supposed to be trekking, so I thought I’d ‘camp’ it up with some pretty followers.”

  The ageing queen swanned round the room like Harvey Fierstein, laughing at his obscure little joke.

  “Hurry up and get dressed. Something resembling male clothes if you can manage it.” If this was the way Rupert intended to conduct himself, Steven wished the mission was already over.

  Rupert removed his dressing gown and dropped it to the floor. Other than the effeminate-looking towel wrapped around his wet hair, his out of condition body was completely naked.

  “You really are a cock up, Rupert,” Steven said.

  Rupert looked down at his private parts.

  “Not yet dear boy, but it’s your cock-up that would interest me.”

  Steven ignored Rupert’s thinly veiled, homosexual proposition.

  “We’ve got a couple of days drive ahead, so get dressed and meet us outside the hotel. Bring the case or we’ll all be in trouble.”

  Steven rejoined Gunn in the outside corridor. “He’s a cunt, or rather he wishes he had one,” Steven remarked, keeping his voice low, having no wish to offend other guests who may not have received the benefit of a full military vocabulary.

  [*] Sixty cents.

  [**] In the UK, only the working classes spent

  their money indiscriminately. This is probably why they

  stayed poor. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the richest

  woman in the world - the Queen of England - gives just

  pennies away to the elderly poor in the annual Maunday

  Money ceremony. In fact, through a perverse taxation

  system fully accepted as reasonable by the public, the

  poor in Britain subsidise the rich. As an example, each member of the House of Windsor - one of the wealthiest families on Earth, the Queen alone having a fortune of five billion pounds plus - is paid a huge annual stipend. This despite the public’s perception that the monarchy served little useful purpose. The money is taken

  via tax from low wage earners!

  A wise man once said: “People get the government they deserve.” Poor Britain - in more ways than

  one.

  48

  Thai Culture

  As Montgomery-Fairfax emerged from the hotel entrance, ten huge, ornately liveried elephants trundled by. Each was topped by a young mahout in traditional folk costume. They waved as they saw farangs watching the parade. To complement the human element of the uniquely Thai spectacle, the lead elephant trumpeted a greeting.

  “My, we’re going by elephant,” Rupert said, sarcastically.

  “They’re on their way to a Thai cultural show,” Gunn explained. “It would help establish our cover if we attended. You may find it interesting if you’ve never seen an elephant show before. An hour or two’s delay will make no difference. But first let us make merit.”

  A stack of two dozen small cages, each miniature prison containing a tiny bird, gave the otherwise smart hotel entrance a street market flavour. Captured specifically for the purpose, the stallholder was selling the right to release the tiny creatures. Gunn paid the young guy 10 baht and opened a cage. A small bird quickly disappeared into the sky.

  “Now you, Steven,” Gunn commanded. “You too Rupert, it will bring us luck in this life and the next. I think we’ll need all the luck we can get on this trip or our future incarnation will commence sooner than we had planned!”

  Ashort but significant silence followed Gunn’s cryptic afterthought.

  Gunn gave the youth another 10 baht, allowing Rupert to release a bird.

  “How thrilling, we’re all environmentally friendly nature lovers. That should establish our cover as silly tourists,” Rupert said.

  Steven stared at the rows of caged creatures stacked high above each other. Handing the stall holder three red coloured, 100 baht notes, he ordered him to release the lot. Aflock of miniature birds gratefully fluttered to freedom, soiling Rupert’s outfit with bird lime.

  “Do you know you’re covered in bird shit, Rupert?” Steven stated, straight faced, staring at the uptight British civil servant’s crap covered safari suit. “Full of shit and covered in shit.”

  Rupert glared at Steven before re-entering the hotel.

>   “You ducked under the awning pretty quick,” Steven said as he turned towards Gunn. “Good reactions.”

  “And your reactions were younger than your age would have suggested,” Gunn replied, managing to combine a low-key insult with a kind of compliment.

  Steven refused to bite, his mind in charge again as he waited for Rupert to put on a new dress.

  “So our young friend does a bad thing by trapping the birds, then we make merit by paying him to let them fly free. But because he allowed us to carry out that good deed, he reversed his bad deed!”

  Gunn said nothing.

  “So the birds are happy now because they are flying free; we are happy because we improved the chances of our next reincarnation being a better one; the bird trapper is happy because he’s made some cash in the here and now; and his merit making tally remains firmly in neutral. Inscrutable. I need an agent with skills like that.”

  “Farang know everything,” Gunn replied. “Not polite to bullshit over other people’s customs.”

  Steven was right but Gunn was too, and he regretted his lack of mindfulness.

  “Here I am, all ready to play my part as a silly tourist,” Rupert said as he reappeared. “I think this outfit is better than the other one. How do I look?”

  “Like a gay fashion model,” Steven remarked.” From the nineteen thirties,” he added..

  The ‘tourists’ hailed a tuk tuk. Squeezing into the small, three wheeled open-sided taxi, to the accompaniment of an eardrum-shattering two stroke engine and a cloud of exhaust fumes, the ancient little vehicle followed the lumbering pachyderms to their show ground.

  49

  Elephants and Bananas

  “How much to enter?” Steven asked Gunn as they approached the entrance to the elephant compound. “Fifty baht for a Thai person. Two hundred for a farang.”

  Steven chuckled. “In Thailand, farangs pay double or more for everything. Even the Bangkok Stock Exchange has an index showing farangs how much they are being overcharged compared to the domestic exchange. If we practised that kind of discrimination in the West, there’d be a fuss in the United Nations that would shake governments. Racists, third world countries would shout.”

  Gunn looked at Steven as if he were mad, unable to understand why he thought such a practise was incorrect.

  “Farang have more money than Thai people, so farang pay more than Thai people.”

  Steven refused to let Gunn off the hook.

  “That’s a perverse kind of logic. You are also conveniently forgetting that some of the richest people in the world live here in Thailand. There are more Mercedes’ cars in Thailand than any other country outside of Germany. Yet Mercedes cost five times as much in Thailand due to high import duties. A Mercedes in Thailand costs more than a Rolls Royce in England. How do you explain that about ‘poor’Thai people?” Steven asked, staring accusingly at Gunn.

  “They are good at business,” she answered, cutting the conversation stone dead.

  “The business of corruption more like it,” Steven replied, almost under his breath.

  A mock hunt to catch new beasts; log rolling; elephant football; plus a grand parade where the liveried mammoths strolled yards away from the audience, the elephants went through their paces.

  Rupert waved some bananas he’d bought from a vendor. Instantly the lead animal lunged towards him. Anxious not to be left out of a farang food handout, the rest of the troop headed towards Rupert, bellowing wildly and flaying their trunks in the air, tusks dangerously close to his chest.

  Rupert’s scream cut through the air as a trunk as thick as a man’s thigh but flexible as a penis, whipped the bananas out of his hand.

  Gunn tried to comfort Rupert when she saw how frightened he was. “That was not a sensible thing to do, Khun Rupert. But they are harmless. The elephants are trained to step on a child’s face without harming a hair on their head. They would similarly not hurt you.”

  “Except that one got miffed not too long ago having to work in the heat, and crushed a man’s head in. That was in the north. Also, a girl in the audience at an elephant show in the south east, teased a young bull with a bunch of bananas and it gored her to death with a tusk through the heart. TIT (That Is Thailand),” Steven stated, dryly.

  “Nowhere’s perfect,” Gunn confirmed, just as dryly.

  Sensing they had whipped all of Rupert’s bananas, the great beasts continued with their parade. Finishing their act, they gave a respectful elephant wai and like a scene from Jungle Book, disappeared behind a thicket of palm trees.

  “I bet that’s the first time you’ve had an elephant after your banana,” Steven said, jokingly.

  Rupert avoided Steven’s gaze and wiped a small tear from his eye. “Let’s go, I’ve had enough of this tourist business,” he said, pitifully.

  50

  Sparkling Teeth

  A jeep decorated with a mass of Oriental designs and another in standard camouflage livery, stood outside the Chiang Mai hotel. A handsome youth wearing sharply pressed cream slacks, a well-cut tailored shirt and counterfeit Raybans - his perfect teeth almost gleaming in the sunlight, making him look like an Oriental Tom Cruise gestured towards the vehicles.

  “Travel agent send best guide in Thailand,” the young man said, modestly. “Trekking popular in the north. Money better than farming rice or tending buffalo. That for old people. I modern Thai man. You tip good and I make sure enjoy trip. Does poompooee farang want ladyboy?” he asked, instinctively assessing Rupert’s sexual proclivities.

  “He’s got AIDS,” Steven replied.

  “I supply boy have AIDS already, that way nobody have problem. Small money for boy plus big tip for me,” the youth said, instantly adapting his pitch to suit the circumstances. Whatever your taste, Thailand would be happy to provide for it.

  Steven shook his head.

  “Mai pen rai,” never mind, the youth stated, accepting the financially discouraging scenario. Taking the keys the youth offered, Steven threw his luggage in the back of the jungle liveried jeep before helping Gunn with hers. Rupert minced around making a show of being helpless. Steven picked up his bag and loaded it on board.

  “What a gentleman, helping two ladies with their bags,” Rupert said, giving a little curtsy. Steven shook his head, Rupert was Rupert and probably nothing would ever change him.

  Allowing a minute, boy racer revved his jeep with the panache of a Grand Prix driver. When his clients were secure in their jeep, he gave a wave indicating they should follow, and roared away with the speed of an L.A. cop in pursuit of a suspect.

  51

  Trek North

  After a few hours, the tarmac changed to a dirt road. Passable now, it would be a small river in the rainy season.

  The young guide stayed some twenty yards ahead, his brightly painted jeep leaving just enough space for Steven, Gunn and Rupert to avoid the worst effects of the dust which the first vehicle threw up.

  Sitting beside Steven, Gunn wore designer combat trousers, a man’s buff coloured safari shirt and a red bandanna to keep her hair in place. Military in design, she still managed to look feminine and chic.

  Rupert slumped down on the small back seat clutching his attache case. “Can’t the brown fellow go a bit slower? It’s dastardly uncomfortable back here and the heat is appalling,” he intermittently said.

  Passing small villages on the way - no more than a dozen or so wooden huts on stilts, spaced out on both sides of narrow dirt roads - numerous chickens narrowly missed death and packs of mangy dogs raced behind the vehicles.

  “Farang mar. Farang mar,” foreigner come, hill tribes’ children shouted as they ran out of their houses, oblivious of the danger as the jeeps passed through. By mid afternoon the route was little more than a narrow track. The flash young guide stopped his vehicle and walked back.

  “What brand of toothpaste do you use?” Steven asked.

  The young guy wasn’t sure what Steven was talking about. Gunn interpreted.

&
nbsp; “Darkie,” he replied. “One with yim (smiling) dumb (black) poojai (man) on packet.”

  Steven grinned. “Darkie. That would be politically incorrect in the West.”

  “They’ve changed it to Darlie now, after Western governments threatened to cut aid if Thailand did not become more sensitive to world opinion about race,” Gunn advised. “But everyone still calls it Darkie and smiling black minstrel man remain on packet.”

  “TIT,” Steven thought. “Thailand always manages to face both ways at the same time and still does exactly what it wants. Western diplomats could learn a lot.”

  “Border with Burma one click ahead. Guards know me too much so cannot go on. If see me, give you problem. Police arrange guide if farang have money. All farangs have big money, so no problem for you,” sparkling teeth said. “Go on at own risk now.”

  Steven glanced at Gunn. “So this is where it begins. Hope you’re up to it. If not, tell me now while there’s still time for you to pull out.”

  Gunn’s reply was a disparaging look.

  The young guide held out his hand.

  “Tip now. I bring here pretty quick.”

  Gunn pulled out a wad of currency. The young guy stared in amazement at the cash she was holding. Counting out three coffee coloured 1,000-baht notes, she handed him the money.

  “Three thousand baht (£60/$90). This is your tip. Farang already pay agency for jeep plus security deposit.”

  The young guide shook his head. “Nid noi, small,” he said. Why nid noi tip when all farang have big money?”

  Gunn peeled off another 1,000 baht and pressed it into the young guy’s hand. Still unhappy, he spoke sharply in Thai.

  “What did he say, he spoke so quickly?” Steven enquired.

  Gunn kept her reply low-key to prevent the guide hearing.

  “Said I should allow him to rip you off some more. It won’t make any difference to me as you’ll still pay more than I’m worth for renting my pussy.”

  “So our cover’s working,” Steven said, just as quietly. “He thinks you’re just another bar-girl hanging out with a farang tourist for money.”