Murder or pain - Morality or mortality?

[WARNING]

BEFORE YOU READ THIS..... THIS IS IN MY OPINION A GREAT STORY, BUT CHANCES ARE THAT IN 2500 WORDS OR SO YOU WILL HAVE LOST ALL RESPECT FOR ME... MAYBE.... OR MAYBE YOUR RESPECT WILL HAVE GROWN?

ALL IN ALL I HAVE BEEN UMMING AND ERRRING ABOUT POSTING THIS TEXT FOR A LONG TIME, BUT IF I AM HERE TO WRITE SOME BLOG THEN BLOG IS WHAT I SHALL WRITE, EMBARRASSING, FOOLISH, BORING OR JUST OUTWRITE BAD, I FEEL THAT I HAVE TO BARE ALL REALLY, AND THAT IF I DON'T THEN I WOULD BE DOING MYSELF A DISSERVICE.

IF YOU READ THIS DEAR FAMILY... PLEASE FORGIVE THE PARTS WHICH MAY NEED FORGIVING....

So, I recently went out on a midnight marauder on my own with the aim of just watching things happen, cheering myself up after a bit of illness and just general casual chat to strangers. I went to a place where I had only been once before – Nana, soi (street) 4 on Thannon (road) Sukhumvit. Now, this place is rather famous; partly because of its large ex-pat community, and partly for its relentless nightlife, gogo bars and ladyboys – read general madness. I went armed with my laptop, a pen and paper (which seemed to scare quite a lot of the ex-pats and tourists, but intrigue the Thai population). I spent the night drinking (bartering with women for cheap drinks, bagging freebies from neighbouring tables and generally being cheeky in the most blatant possible manner), all the time nonchalantly making notes and writing general comments which may or may not be covered at future points in this ‘blog’. I arrived at about midnight, and didn’t leave until... well I didn’t really leave for 2 days, for reasons which will be divulged. I hung out outside a bar adequately named ‘Big Dogs’ which is fittingly guarded by a big fat soi dog who was a resident there the last time I went there with Jez and Ollie – two good friends who work at IH . I chose this spot for two reasons; firstly, because the last time we were there at about 1:30am all the bars and gogo bars on that demi-soi begin to empty in unrelenting fashion which is both amusing and extremely distressing, which results in a seemingly never ending funnel of madness. It can make your heart pound and our eyes cry for exactly conflicting reasons – because you see extremely beautiful women, and at the same time atrocious ladyboys, and then you have the falang contingency doing one of three things, either leaving with a woman far too beautiful for them, chatting up a ladyboy without realising, or just standing alone trying to do something; well pick up a woman but I have never seen it attempted with so little charm or ambition before. The second reason I was there was, because I was dinking the cheapest of all street beers and haggling for it to maximum extent, and at the same time getting an insight into what actually happens in these places and trying to competently record it. There is an oldish woman there who works selling food and pushing illegal beers for cheap prices, for everyone it is 70B which is pretty cheap considering the Big Dogs bar sells at 90B, but I was buying at 35B with charm intact, due to good Thai and a nice smile. So I was given a seat, given free seafood and allowed to get on with interviewing whoever I saw fit to do so - this was and is something which gives me great pleasure! All of a sudden it was 6am, the people I was speaking to were going home, we had a good time which included conversations on the long life of a street seller, the life and times of being a bar girl, wrestling some little bear chest fat boy who was selling Viagra, and laughing when a girl pulls down his shorts in plain sight of everyone and witnessing our very own cat fight on the streets of Nana (I even got involved at the latter stages to calm it down and take one of the chicks away to get her a coffee to calm down the situation). I’m afraid this section has been described in rather an impasse nondescript blur as this is how it happened for me.

So time was up, or that what I thought, obviously I had a better plan! I decided to carry on my escapades and go and sit on the other side of the street where all the fun was happening. I.e., where all the chicks looking for some action (and cash) were hanging out, I mean still hanging out! To be fair there were only about 20 or so people there, perhaps 4 or 5 foreigners and the rest were Thai girls. I decided to go for the exact epicentre of destruction. I just sat down and started talking and soon found myself pretty much befriended by everyone, falang and Thai alike, all impressed with my apparent command of the language, which bemused me. The beers were still coming at discount prices and I had now managed to extend that price to everyone there so we were all happy. So happy in fact, that they decided to start buying them for me. By 7 o’clock, the hardcore posse had been whittled down to just 8 or 9, this included a snide English girl from Wigan in her late thirties, who making conversation to was like pulling teeth from a Jew with a hint of poorly replicated Eddie Izzard humour – excuse the racism, but we are all adults and we all know when I am just looking for a metaphor of suitable hilarity – suitable in the sense of political correctness or not. There were a couple of nice but pretty weird English guys in their 40’s and then a handful of Thai girls. One of those girls was particularly stunning and not working (in the hooker sense), her name was Tukta (the same as my friend), and she was the same as me, just out here for kicks, and her English was very good, and so we started to build a good rapport.

Daylight was breaking and we were relocated from the side of the road, being given the option of going inside the hotel or sitting outside the 7-eleven. We decided on the 7-eleven for reasons of toasties and smoko, which upon my recommendation went down well. I became a little bit pissed off with the English girl who was just trying to make life difficult for everyone, and trying to be clever, so after an intended swift detour to the toilet in the hotel opposite, I ended up sitting at a bar with one English man who for the sake of this we will call Simon, and about six girls who were opening the hotel. It was 8am and breakfast was being served. Falangs and their friends and girlfriends were coming down from the hotel to eat. Simon was buying massive amounts of drinks for me and the girls working in the hotel to my amusement. Black Label Whisky and coke all around - Not once, not twice, not three times, not even four times, but six times within the hour! Cheers, chawng kaw, salute, whatever you want to say, the guy amassed a bill not short of 6000B in that time which is about £100 – the crowd grew larger and eventually for the last two drinks my friend Tukta from before had joined us. Simon was buying so much that the poor girls at the bar were firstly getting drunk in the morning, and secondly having to wave away any of the protests from the customers from us smoking whilst they were eating. Quite funny really, but also in retrospect quite rude!

After a while I looked around and Simon had gone, not even a goodbye, but fair enough, he had paid for everything and a good lad he was. At 9:30am I also decided it was probably a good time to leave, so arm in arm I went with a makeup clad struggler and my new friend Tukta. We helped out my fifth or sixth Thai mother (I can’t remember which – I have so many adopted mothers here!), we found her (the woman who gave me cheap drinks all night) sleeping on the street, something which is not uncommon amongst the Thai street working class (if indeed it is appropriate to term it a class). We woke her up and sent her home in a taxi. Well that was the last of my money for the night anyway (I only went out with about 600B - £10)! Tukta, who by this time was also feeling the strain, went to the bank and decided that we would just go to a hotel; I had no money and so was in no position to argue! We got a taxi, and went to this really posh hotel called the Grand Sukhumvit which stretches across two sides of the road via an overpass and we got a penthouse apartment. I was pretty drunk by this point and I was just happy to be in a place whereby sleep mode was an option!

At that point I started to have an involuntary argument with Tukta, it was less an argument than a confession of truths. It turns out that she was just looking for escape because she was going through a messy breakup with her ex-husband and there was a big court case which she is going through to win the custody of her child and her export business. In fact she was pretty fucking rich and also really beautiful and it wasn’t a case of beer goggles. We discussed in loud voices, we drank more – she ordered a bottle of wine and we ate, we discussed in loud voices some more and then we fucked frivolously and frenetically for about an hour or more. Until.... one of us was bleeding, not just a little, but a lot, and we didn’t know who! Well after further investigation, it wasn’t her let’s just say that. Ah fuck it, it was me. Gentlemen, if you are not circumcised then we all know that we have an extra bit of skin that can get a bit tight sometimes; well that night I somehow managed to semi-circumcise myself (so even if you don’t empathise, you can now sympathise). I don’t know how and, I don’t want to – but I can imagine. I couldn’t even feel pain, that’s why I couldn’t believe it was me! Well no pain, no gain, so we carried on another 2 or three times until I wasn’t just getting dizzy from the orgasms! I also managed to somehow split her head open in the madness on the frame of the bed, there was basically blood everywhere and ridiculous amounts of it – I mean really ridiculous! I am only telling this story because it is so random that it deserves to be told! I am not trying to boast or brag or be manly in the neondotholic way– in actual fact I am pretty embarrassed and ashamed, but if I am writing about what happens to me here in this blog, then this deserves more than a mention in the footnote sense!

So yes the blood – everywhere – on the bed, the towels, the sheets, the carpet, the walls, the bath, the sink, and the strange chair that I can only compare to a gynaecologists chair – I still don’t know why it was there with the foot holds and everything! All great, exhilarating and funny, until there is a knock at the door! We had called room service a while ago and forgotten about it, room service had come, and they were also concerned at the arguing and the noise! Tukta was in the bathroom at that point taking a shower and I had to open the room to a poor guy who had only me, myself covered in blood, wrapped in only a bloodied towel and an even more bloodied penthouse apartment in his field of vision. I had to smile, I knew what was going on in his mind – he was freaking out and trying to act professional! I invited him in – Buddha knows that he probably thought I was going to kill him next! Well from his P.O.V anyway! In all matter of fact of course there was no death or killing, just a lot of blood, so much that it is blatantly noticeable everywhere and on everything! He asked me to prove that there was still an alive woman in the room! I didn’t disappoint him, I was laughing so much, as was Tukta, I told her to get out here and explain to him what had happened, because he was obviously shitting his pants and thought that I had killed her – which considering the amount of blood was more than feasible – I could only replicate a Jack Nickalsonesque smile and laugh which was definitely not helpful to this poor guys state of mind – and rightly so!

After the explanation and he could see that we were both alive and happy, despite the immeasurable amount of blood (that is why ‘blood’ is an uncountable noun), which was distributed everywhere - I’m sorry for the graphic nature, but it was well and truly graphic – he left and returned with more towels, sheets and some more soap and toilet roll in sympathy, but not without a massive tip which failed to keep him quiet (and fair play, I don’t think I could have kept quiet if I had just seen all that). At that point we shared a bath, calmed down a little drank the Champagne x2 which Tukta had ordered and watched about 4 movies, drank and ate some more before she paid for the room for another 24 hours! We ate more, and drank too much and tried our best to clean the apartment – which was also a prompt for personal hilarity which I try to share with you! We also received numerous dirty looks from the people who delivered our orders for the remainder of our time there! It was unmistakably 48 hours or so of passion, unexpected hilarity and bent alcoholism.
In hindsight it was excessive, painful but also well worth it. Our Penthouse view looked out over the most exclusive business areas of Bangkok from the 38th floor and we enjoyed the time immensely. I must have seen about 10 films in that time, and I will let you imagine the rest – compete with mirrors in ceilings and other places you don’t normally expect them, all from my perspective for free. In total I think Tukta must have spent in excess of 12,000B (£200), which in Thailand is a crazy amount of money (a month’s salary to those who are earning comfortably)! We went our separate ways two days later, and of course exchanged details, I let her get back to her court case and her messy breakup. She had a meeting with her lawyer the same day I left her, whilst I was almost late for a private lesson with two of my students, and proceedings still continue, but we remain good friends, and endeavour to meet up for the occasional game of pool.