Bangkok A - Chapter 1

My hotel room overlooks soi 11/1 of Sukhumvit Road, the soi is a small road leading away from the busy main road. The room, on the third floor, is musky and dark but has a small TV, running water and something curiously desperate in the air. The muted brown decoration is trying to say “tranquillity” but comes closer to “tranquilizers”. The walls and ceilings are a shade of nicotine yellow with a worn brown carpet, the threads peeping up through the long suffering pile. The bed is large and firm and takes up most of the room. A small fridge sits below the TV and a tiny vanity unit that doubles as a writing desk sits to one side with a window overlooking the soi below.

I try to keep the expenses down to a minimum.

It is in this room that I am sitting now watching a young Thai bargirl sitting on the bed lacing up a pair of knee-length imitation leather cowboy boots with tassels running down the sides. She has evidently yet to master the lacing technique and fumbles around before pulling each end tight and tucking the laces in the sides of the boots grunting in defiance. She is quite a picture. Long dark straight hair as is customary in this part of the world and opaque almond skin that has never harboured more than a blemish nor pimple. Her eyes are as dark and mysterious as her hair, the room, and indeed the country that we are both swimming in. When encountering such beauty I try to remind myself what a wise old alcoholic bar tender said to me some time ago in The Hog’s Breath Saloon, NanaPlaza.

“No matter how good she looks, no matter how sweet she speaks. Someone, somewhere is sick of her shit”

It is worth remembering that one, for it might guide you away from ruin. Then again I have found that when a man decides to go down the path of ruin over a beautiful piece of tail, there is little or nothing, not I, you, nor anyone else can do about it. But it’s my job to try and stop them before they go too far. In fact I have a commercial interest in lovesick holidaymakers. So go on, get yourself hitched with a Thai girl, especially one that you met in a bar. Once things start to become a bit mango shaped give us a call and I will put you straight on a thing or two.

This is a short time hotel where us paying guests catch a glimpse of something shortly exquisite before wiping up, paying up and checking out. You can hear doors opening and closing throughout the day and night. This is a happy place, a place where dreams come true for a small premium.

I am one of the few long time residents who have negotiated a special rate with the obese Thai land-lady who knocks on my door every now and again to “check everything ok.” I don’t know whether to be flattered or terrified. Probably both. Her hair is in a continual curled state with the rollers apparently left in all day (perhaps she takes them out at night) and a mentholated cigarette is rarely absent from her lips. I never got her whole story but assume her past involves the obligatory ex Thai husband to whom she bore a child, and then left to pursue a life of hustling Johns, until she found one rich and dumb enough to finance this place. She left the john, kept the hotel, and the rest as they say is history.

I pay the girl two thousand baht and send her on her way watching her from the window as she negotiates a price with a motorcycle taxi before hopping on the saddle with the cowboy boots straddling either side of the engine. The engine roars and she is away past the hustle of the morning street vendors setting up their stalls, the sea of fake designer T-Shirts, pirated CDs, Ninja death stars and compact reading glasses. Across the deadly Asok interchange and down to soi Cowboy where she will eat a spicy papaya salad and exchange gossip with the other girls. Penis size and duration weighed alongside potential wealth and age. The ideal client is without doubt one with a vast bank account and a manhood that is rarely aroused to the point of being able to enjoy such wealth.

I have to explain at this point that the girl that just left my hotel room was under surveillance. I am a private investigator and I specialize in bargirls. I pick up the girls and then I pick up the telephone. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. I call the client in Thailand. He picks up after three rings.

“I’m afraid it’s bad news Fredrick. I suggest you put a stop to that monthly payment. She’s working as a pole dancer in Cowboy and she walked out with a John last night” I do not like to specify who the john was for professional reasons.

“It could be a friend…” His voice is shaky, childlike. Sometimes they go like this and sometimes they get angry. I prefer it when they go like this.

“I don’t think so, Freddy. I followed them to a fleabag hotel. She left the following morning.”

“I see. That bitch. She sends me e-mails every day. I think I need to come and see for myself.”

“That sir is up to you. Personally I wouldn’t advise it. Stay away from Thailand and cut the girl off. Worse thing you can do is come back here and fall in love with another one. I’ve seen it happen so many times. You’ll find a girl, get some rebound sex and lots of sympathy and all the time she’s plotting to do the very same thing to you. There’s like a rule book somewhere these girls read that tells them how to do it, they prey on the vulnerable and ill informed.”

“But we were going to get married I have put so much into this. I am taking lessons to speak Thai.” He is beginning to see it now. The sad old man had invested his respect, dignity and life savings into an illusion. Albeit, a very pretty illusion, with a variety of good moves.

“All the more reason to pull out now before you lose the lot. Listen to me Freddy, forget about her, take a trip to Hamburg or Amsterdam or something, try and get her out of your system. I’ll send you the billing via e-mail; I just burnt over the retainer by a couple of thousand Baht on expenses.”

I put down the telephone, light a cigarette, and watch a street vendor pull along a metal cart, strange fruits lay on ice. I open the window and let in some air. The city smells good this time of day, with only the faintest smell of raw sewage rising above the drains. Give it half an hour and the whole city will get up out of bed and start flushing like crazy and the stench will rise up and out through the streets again. That’s when Bangkok wakes up, shakes her pounding head, rubs the weary eyes and the fun starts all over again.

Oh, how I love this city. But like most love affairs it has soaring highs and crashing lows. You can see it everywhere you go, you can sense it, smell it, can even touch it for a price. But whatever you do don’t cling to it buddy, because eternal pleasure soon becomes a bore. It is all about balance, my friend. Take the rough with the smooth and don’t expect a free ride.