osmoala

 

 

Where Tony Cox leaves the town and ends up in another town and yet another town. He is meditating on something, possibly perspectives, but who knows what he is thinking

Bruce said,

   “Let’s go to Pattaya.” So we started. Bruce had gotten the tickets. He is 70 and wants a trip to Thailand to get his asthma medicine. He is a professional harmonica player, with seven top quality harmonicas in a black bag. We played on a regular basis and he would catch up with any of my songs, and we were getting better and better at it too. Later we would end up playing the blues at Chris' place.

   Christian is Belgian and Bruce is American. Christian makes the sausages he delivers to the restaurants and Bruce is from Minnesota but he has travelled all over the world. I am just  happy they both have a positive attitude to things.

   

Then. We had been promised a big bus but we only got the minivan, because not enough people, said the girl at the office, so we sat in this cramped vehicle and the driver, a middle aged man took off. I was in the passenger seat next to the driver but it was still cramped. He started honking the horn, as all drivers do, and then he honked even more at some guy on the road on a scooter connected to a trailer with a dog at the back - “My brother,” he said smiling. “And my dog.”

   Then he honked at a girl on a scooter. “Your sister?” I asked innocently.

   “Yeah … sure.”

After two and a half hours we were at the border, so we checked out of Cambodia and queued the snake queue to the boxes with security windows all around where the officials were stamping passports. 

   Now it took only 50 minutes to get to the officer and you would leave your fingerprints and get your stamps into Thailand. I got through and turned around to look for Bruce but he seemed to have some kind of an issue here. Now he was following a stout lady in a uniform to her desk. She was in a bad mood, and she told him in a loud, too loud, voice, “No, you cannot come in - you go back, back - NOW!”

   I did not understand anything and neither did Bruce. “Can I talk to your supervisor?” he asked politely.

   “I AM THE SUPERVISOR! NOW GO!” 

   A girl at the other desk told him in a calm voice, checking through his passport, “You have already been in Thailand two times this year. You can only go two times overland in a year. You can fly…”

   “No, only one time,” Bruce protested. “In June and now. What is the problem?”

   “Here.” She showed him a stamp from January. “See, two times already.”

   Bruce had obviously forgotten about the January trip. His face was ashes and with slumping shoulders he had to return to Cambodia to work his way back to Siem Reap.

   It was a shame. While he took his steps after we shook hands I could hear the next person, an elderly gentleman with a proper London accent speaking to the Supervisor - “Why are you so angry? You could be more polite, because there is no need …” The rest was lost because I hugged Bruce again and then I walked down the steps to Thailand. 

 

There was another minivan waiting for me and it was packed with local people and bags with groceries. People come to this border town to shop. The woman driver was stout and grumpy - she could have been the Supervisor’s sister - and she wouldn’t let me sit in the front seat because her shirt was hanging over the seat. “NO, YOU CANNOT SIT HERE, MOVE TO THE BACK!” 

   What is it with these scream queens? 

   Well, welcome to the land of smiles. 

 

She drove fast, and when I thought we would make it to Pattaya on time I was wrong, because she made stops all the time delivering bags with rice and what not, and to let people off only to pick up new people and she took detours into villages to let people off, and then she drove back to the highway. She was multitasking as a minivan, taxi, the local bus and the food delivery service. It could have been impressive. But why was she so angry? At the final bus stop on Sukhumvit Road she barked something but I didn’t care anymore. I took my pack and was happy to step off the bus.

   

Then after 14 hours from Siem Reap I was at my hotel - Prima Place where I had stayed a number of times over the years - and I got a room, despite all the tourists and the locals celebrating Christmas in Pattaya. Thailand and Cambodia are Buddhist countries, of course, but every opportunity to get drunk and have a good time is good enough.

 

I went to the local food market nearby and had the deep fried chicken with sticky rice I’d had  many times before. It was delicious. I was drinking water, orange juice and the occasional Coke from a bottle. And all the water. The heat and humidity makes you perspire, and it is a good thing. Bad things go in, bad things go out. I was drinking water and orange juice and the occasional coca-cola from a glass bottle.  

 

Except on the Friday night in Bangkok where I would have a few Leo and wine coolers with Pam who arrived from Kalasin, ten hours by bus from up north, and I took the big bus from the south up to the big city.

 

The next few days I would be completely by myself. I took walks to have a look around Pattaya and the town was packed with tourists, groups of men walking together, not giving you any space so you had to step onto the street from the sidewalk. Then I ignored it and walked straight into the crowds of holidaymakers dressed in djellabas and the occasional fez, and they would let me through, like a school of fish that closed behind you when you had passed by. I walked along the coconut bar, a strip where the working girls go. It's maybe 300 metres along the beach. But they were not here now because this was two o’clock in the afternoon. 

   Coconut Bar would open later, after sunset. It was open after dark. I thought I would see some faces but this was not the right time. When talking to prostitutes I always focused on their eyes, because their eyes could tell you stories. My intentions were quite innocent compared to some wild looking, western men on Walking Street. Had they been kidnapped by some UFO:s and then dumped back on earth afterwards after having been examined, probed and having their brains sucked out? But then I realised it was just people being used to watching television. I was looking into the girls’ eyes when they walked up to you in high heels and said, “Hello, how are you?” They studied you too of course and sometimes the only thing they wanted from you was your trust. I believed it too, but maybe I was a too romantic of an individual to survive in this town.  

   

The clouds were gone and it got hot now, walking up and down on Pattaya Beach, so I took a shortcut through the side street, with Indian restaurants almost back to back with the whisky bars there in between them. Some bars spelled it “whiskey”, but it somehow looked cooler on this street. 

 

It was about a 20 minute walk back to my hotel and then I felt tired afterwards. It was hot, I hadn’t been drinking enough and I was hungry. I walked into a local restaurant next to my hotel, room 307, and ordered pork and rice. I was developing an almost alarming taste for Coca-Cola in the slim glass bottles. For some reason this allegedly toxic stuff tasted better from glass bottles.  

   

Usually I am never bored or feel lonely, but after a few days in Pattaya I felt a sting of both. What is this about? I didn’t go to the bars where I could easily meet people, simply because I didn’t feel like drinking and engaging in shallow conversations. I did not mind the tourists but I also felt like an alien here. So I took my walks and I had some nice food at the local restaurants and the deep fried chicken at the food market where I used to go every night. 

   

Then I took the bus to Bangkok and met Pam at the hotel. It’s Thara House, where I have stayed for the last ten years on my short visits in town.

   Pam knocked on the door. My room was the size of a closet with no window, because it was the only room available right now.

   “Hello,” she said, “long time no see.” 

   "Yes." It had been a few years. She looked happy and she looked better than last time, she had gained two kilos and there was confidence in her eyes I had not seen before. “Do you remember your goals from the last time I met you?” She said yes. She smiled. “Goals, I know what you mean with goals. Today I am working every day,” She was happily complaining now.  

   “How long have we known each other?”

   “Nine years,” she said. 

   We chatted for a while and then we walked out to get something to eat on Rambuttri. I ordered Panang curry and she ordered two or three plates with different stuff, and more rice, just the way all the locals like to have it. When they are finished eating they leave food on the plates enough to feed a starving man. I tried the papaya salad with pork and the bowl with seafood. Some of it was so strong it brought tears to my eyes.    

   “What would you like to drink?” I asked.

   “Small Leo. You?”

   “Okay, I’ll have a Leo too. But make it a big one.” 

   She ordered the beer and I thought it was good to have her with me here and now, because she knew what she wanted and she knew what I wanted. “Do you like spicy food?” She laughed.

   “Did you just order some papaya salad?”

   “Yes, I did …” 

   We were sitting on Rambuttri at my favourite local restaurant. It was authentic food and so was the Papaya Salad. It was hot … Gimme hope Johanna … “I need more beer.”

   

We bought beers for me and wine coolers for her and went back to my room. I hated the room - there was not enough room to swing a cat, and I like to have some space. Back in those days I thought everybody did. There was a big double bed that dominated the premises. So we would end up staying there for three nights and only go out to get something to eat.

 

Pam showed clips of her house in Kalasin with the farm where she grew fruits and vegetables and chickens. She had a restaurant together with mom and sister and people came there all the time for the food Pam was cooking. She probably showed most of it live during these phone calls with the camera on.

   “I work every day,” she said, “seven days a week. Sometimes I’m tired.”

   “Yes. You need some holiday. Now you can sleep all you want.”

   “Good,” she said.

   “When was the last time you were in Bangkok?”

   “Long time.”

   “But you know, when we met, let me check it out.” I did. She was right. How did she know about the years? “Really? I said. “Yes.” Pam said and smiled. She had the smile of a country girl. She was also more confident than before because she was responsible for things now.    

   She was handling money every day and sometimes she wished it was hers. It was not her money, she told me, because she had to go to the market every day to buy more groceries. She shows me around inside the shop. I say hello to some locals and they say hello, smiling at the camera. It is a nice shop and a nice restaurant, and the locals are sitting here now for the daily chat. 

   She has a nice house where she lives with her family - there are two kids, a sister and the mother. The surrounding area is full of fruits, the main street is a dirt road and I guess she is a little bored. She says she wants to open a new restaurant.

   “I want to open a restaurant or a bar in Pattaya or Phuket. What do you think? I have never been to Phuket. Good or no good?” 

   “Maybe not in Phuket," I said, simply because I did not like it so much. The surroundings were beautiful, food was terrible and the tourists never looked that happy anyway. “You would not like it there - Pattaya might be better. And you know some people there.” There were people from Kalasin she knew, friends who had bars and restaurants.  

   “Or maybe I will sell my body. What do you think about that?”

   “Well, you sound like a businesswoman already.”

   “Hahahaha! No darling. I'll talk to you later.”  

 

I decided to change my life for the worse, I had been a good boy for too long. Everybody has two sides and I had a thing working against me sometimes - I was too nice. Then the cleaning girl came and did a thorough job on the apartment. She put her hands together over a tip and I felt like a saint there for five minutes. I was glad to see her happy.  

   Now it was six minutes.