My Thai Toy - Part 2

The work that I was doing at that time was fairly demanding, but it allowed many opportunities for international travel, much of which could include a few days transit in any Asian city. I had one trip, which was to spend two weeks in New Delhi, two weeks in Hong Kong, and two weeks in Singapore, but there was a three-week break between the Hong Kong and the Singapore visits. The company did not want to fly me home and out again, it was cheaper to allow me a few weeks “on the loose” while overseas. My supervisor hinted to me that I might like to take some of my accrued leave credits (he could not suggest it, only hint), and I jumped at the opportunity. That was April and May of 1995.

A gentleman who lives close to my parents had been a reasonably good friend for me in my youth before I moved away from home. We both had a passion for fast motorcycles, and whenever I returned to my hometown, I would usually visit him. He had married a Thai lady called Baew, a single mother, and she had left her two children in the care of her sisters in Chachoengsao, in Thailand. One of these children, the son, had left home and had a good position, but the other, her 21 year-old daughter, was still living in the family home. Baew knew that I was going to be visiting Thailand, and suggested that I might like to go to her family’s home to meet her daughter. Baew’s motive was that her daughter and I would meet, fall “in love”, and that would qualify her daughter for a spouse visa', bringing mother and daughter together. It was a simple case of the mother and daughter wanting to live in the same country, and they were prepared to make a marriage of convenience to get their way.

I was not prepared to go through with such a marriage, but I was prepared to meet the young lady and see what, if anything, developed.

I spent the first night of my stay in Thailand in the Dusit Thani, and that meant a trip to the ‘pong to look for Toy. She was not at the Butterfly bar, so I assumed that she was at Mike’s Place for that night’s shift, but no, not there either. I returned to the Butterfly and asked about her, and was told that she was visiting her family in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand’s easternmost province, which has borders with Laos and Cambodia. The girls in Butterfly were not sure of how long Toy would be with her family, so I decided to look for her at the other end of my stay in Thailand.

Here is what I did over the next few weeks in Thailand http://www.thailandstories.com/article/travel-stories/non-fiction/ae.html

I returned to the Dusit Thani for the final night of my stay and again sought Toy, again unsuccessfully. She was still “up-country”. Toy was starting to become a mindset with me, and I decided that I had to do something about seeing her again. The solution presented itself almost immediately.

A colleague in the Bangkok office wanted to return to Australia at the end of 1995, and my particular work skills made me a prime candidate to replace her, so I applied. When my application was approved, I was ecstatic. I would have two years in Thailand and the prospect of another year after the first two. I would definitely see Toy again.

I had another short-term assignment from the start of November 1995 through to 1st December 1995, this one in Beirut (Lebanon), and while I was there, my posting to Bangkok was announced to the company at large. I got back to Australia on 2nd December.

The remaining 13 days of December 1995 before my scheduled departure for Bangkok blurred in a frenzy of packing, getting airline tickets, a visa, a health check, and a myriad of other things. I was packed and waiting a week before the scheduled departure date. I was at the airport 3 hours before the scheduled departure time. The 9-hour flight was too long for my liking, but eventually the aircraft was on the final approach to that familiar strip of concrete that runs parallel to the Rangsit-Vipavadhi road, Don Muang airport, Bangkok. My fate was all but sealed.

.-o0o-.

I arrived in Bangkok on the night of Saturday, 16th December 1995, and was taken to the Evergreen Laurel Hotel on Sathorn road. Once I had my baggage in my room, I couldn't restrain myself, I had to go looking for Toy. I got to Patpong, but there was no Butterfly bar there; it had been renamed and had probably changed hands. I couldn’t identify which of the bars there it had been, so I had a look in all of them, but that was a waste of time, so I walked to Mike’s Place and asked there for her. Some of the girls from the Butterfly bar had been absorbed by Mike’s Place, others had gone elsewhere. The former Butterfly girls told me that Toy was now working at the Blue Sky bar. I had never heard of it, so I asked the girls where it was. “Over Patpong 1, big place, have Thai Muay [kick-boxing] now”, so I went looking.

It took me about 30 minutes to find the Blue Sky bar despite it being big. It was big, but as bars change hands, they also often change names. The signs were just a little confusing.

But I did finally find Toy. She was working as a “waitress/manager” in the Blue Sky bar, quite a step up from her position in the Butterfly bar. She recalled me, but not well. I did not think too much of that, we had only met twice before, and nearly a year ago. I offered to pay her bar-fine, and she agreed, but said that she could not leave the bar until closing time, she had some management responsibilities, but she did not mention that she had to stay until after I had paid the bar-fine. The evening dragged on until closing time, and we finally headed to the hotel. There, I simply fell asleep. I had flown from eastern Australia, 4 hours ahead of Thailand’s time-zone, I had consumed several beers in the course of my search for Toy, and several more while I waited for closing time to arrive. When we got to the hotel, my body told itself “It is nearly 7 AM, you did not sleep last night, and you have had plenty of beer. Time to shut down”! So it did.

Sunday, 17th December 1995: I awoke to find that Toy was up and had showered. She was also hungry, so we went to the hotel coffee shop and had breakfast. Then she wanted to go home to check on her daughter, so the first night of our reunion was a bit of a loss. Daughter, singular? When we first met, she admitted to having two daughters so I questioned her about her numbers. Toy claimed to have been ill a few months previously and had sent the younger daughter to stay with her father for a few months. The older daughter was old enough to take care of herself to a certain extent.

OK, I’ll see her tonight and we’ll get started then, I thought to myself as she crossed the road and headed towards soi Suan Phlu.

It was a typical cool dry season day, but I had responsibilities. I had to find the lady that I was replacing at work, and find out some of the fine details of what I was going to be doing, I only had the one day and this was it. I tracked down the lady and buried myself in my responsibilities. We didn’t finish until nearly 8 PM, and she insisted that we eat together after, just to make sure that I had got all that I needed to be able to take over the reins. That took us until 10 PM, so I was starting to get a bit anxious by the time we finished and parted. I hurried across to the Blue Sky bar and located Toy.

I offered to pay her bar-fine, and she told me that she would not be able to leave until closing, this time before I had paid the bar-fine. I did not want to wait around until 2:30 AM, but it seemed that I had little choice. At about midnight, I decided to cruise a few other bars, Toy was busy with what appeared to be some public relations matters, and I, quite frankly, was getting very bored. I wandered across Patpong and walked towards Silom road, then turned into one of the sois between Patpong and Patpong 2. This took me past an upstairs bar called “Cleopatra’s'’, and being reasonably adventurous, I decided to have a look inside.

It was nothing special, an average go-go bar with loud disco music and perhaps a half-dozen girls dancing in various stages of undress on the central catwalk. I sat down to see whether they had anything special to offer if I waited with a beer, but I was disappointed, another average dive. While I sipped my beers, one of the dancers came and talked to me. It was the usual bargirl spiel; “Hello, what you name, where you come fom, when you come Thailand, how long you stay?” and on and on. The two things that I remember about this girl were her name (Nok) and her figure (impressive).

I continued my cruise, and had a beer or two in each of the bars that I visited. And time just slipped away; before I knew it, 2:30 had arrived. I stumbled around to the Blue Sky in time to see the last lock being put in place, and no sign of Toy. I had a quick look around, then caught a taxi to the hotel. She was not there either. Another night lost. I had a job to do come daylight and I could not allow my supervisors to get a bad impression of me on my first day on the job, so I simply cut my losses and went to bed. At work, first impressions count.

(To be continued)

Santa