Dating in Bangkok 102: The Toothbrush Factor

A couple of months ago, I wrote about a guy I was dating who kept a number of pastel-colored toothbrushes in a rather discreet shelf above his bathroom mirror, obviously for his many paramours. I never did get my own toothbrush. I got out of there faster than you can say “toxic bachelor”.

He has since been dumped and presumably recycled. Since then, I’ve developed a kind of wariness for wayward toothbrushes. I know because it was certainly the first thing I watched out for, the first time I paid a visit to The Boyfriend’s place. I did get a quite a scare, at first. A quick trip to the bathroom after watching The Virgin Suicides revealed an electric toothbrush and a pink one of the plastic, manual variety. Obviously, he owned the electric one. But who, pray tell, owned the pink one? And really, pink?

Needless to say, my fears were unfounded. He actually owns both toothbrushes, though he prefers using the pink one, for some reason. It was probably that, more than anything, which allowed the relationship to move forward without too much drama on my end.

The toothbrush fairy tale doesn’t end there, however. I’ve been regularly spending the weekend with The Boyfriend since, and human as I am, I did the unthinkable one weekend – I forgot my toothbrush. I was about to take a quick trip to the 7/11 across the street when he takes out the virtually unused electric toothbrush, unwraps a brand new toothbrush head, and gives it to me. And, as if that wasn’t monumental enough, days later I found my toothbrush head still attached to its body, standing on his bathroom shelf like it totally belonged there. Like I totally belonged there. How did I know it was my toothbrush head? It had my name on it – literally. In bright red ink. (His toothbrush head also has his name on it in blue.)

To this day, my toothbrush head still stands sentinel on his bathroom sink. I like to think it’s watching over my man while I’m away, though I’ll never tell him that because he’ll probably freak out. Anyway, getting one’s own toothbrush head with one’s name on it prominently displayed on a shelf for all to see is a colossal step for all single women, not just in Bangkok, but the entire world. (Think Carrie getting the pink toothbrush head from Mr. Big in Sex and the City, except that it didn’t have her name on it, ha!)

So now I’m finally ready to answer that question that I asked months ago, to much controversy and judgment: Are there still farangs in Bangkok who aren’t just out to dip their wicks in as many Asian crevices as they can? Indeed, there are, and they don’t hoard pastel-colored toothbrushes. Instead, they would give you one of your own, possibly with your name on it. And if you’re lucky, one of them is probably right under your nose all along. I know I was.

Wander with Me: Pattaya

Forgive me for my lack of posts. When you’re writing freelance full time and spewing out at least 3,000 words a day on stuff like mortgages and video surveillance, you won’t have much energy to write anything else. Anyhow, this is a very much delayed account of my trip to Pattaya with my friends from home some 2 weekends ago.

My friend, A, who currently lives and works in Singapore, flew in to Bangkok Friday night to visit me and my friend, D, who was nearing the end of his Bangkok vacation. It was going to be a reunion of sorts and we have been it planning for weeks. A was only staying until Sunday afternoon so there really wasn’t enough time to go anywhere far, and since the 3 of us have always been serious beachcombers, we weren’t left with much of a choice – Pattaya. I’ve never been there but I’ve heard so many things about the place, most of them quite bad, so I figured it was going to be very interesting.

But I digress, as I usually do. A’s flight was delayed for hours and when she finally walked out of the arrival gate at 2 AM, well, let’s just say a lot of shrieking and jumping up and down were involved. A looked fantastic, as always. She’s filled out a bit, which really suited her. I took them home with me to crash. She had her first taste of Thai street food at 3 AM. I didn’t get a wink of sleep that night. After all, somebody needed to be the mother hen and for some reason, that’s a job that always falls on me.

I woke my charges up at the crack of dawn. We headed to the Mo Chit bus station where we boarded the bus to Pattaya. The trip was uneventful. We slept through most of it. We got to Pattaya a little over 2 hours later and took a songthaew to Pattaya Beach. We had breakfast at a McDonald’s, the only McDonald’s in Thailand that I’ve been in that actually served proper breakfast food (Egg McMuffins, anyone?).

We spent a good part of the morning looking for a place to stay and we finally decided on a beach front hotel called Natural Beach. It was quite nice. We were given a room with a terrace and a view of the pool and D was given an extra bed, so we were all quite satisfied with the accommodation.

As soon as we were all settled, we slipped into our swim wear and crossed the street to the beach, where we were greeted by quite an appalling sight. Pattaya Beach has got to be the worst stretch of beach I’ve ever seen. It was cramped, dirty, and very much ruined. Needless to say, we were very disappointed and very outraged. Once again, like in Patong Beach in Phuket, I was struck by the people’s negligence. Everybody was so caught up in making money that they’d ruin perfectly good beaches just to get it. It was sad. Since we can’t be made to swim in all that muck, we swam in the hotel pool instead.

We decided to go on an afternoon tour and we were taken to the Million Years Stone Park and Pattaya Crocodile Farm. We had loads of fun feeding the fishes and the crocodiles. A had her picture taken with an elephant, D and I with a tiger cub. We watched a camel pee for over 10 minutes, saw giant catfishes the size of baby whales, and watched a crocodile show, which included a guy sticking various parts of his body in the crocodiles’ heads.

We were taken back to the hotel at the end of the day. Tired, we all took a nap for a couple of hours. By 9 PM, we were ready to hit the famous Walking Street and see Pattaya in all its gaudy glory.

We had dinner at a seaside restaurant. We watched tourists walking in with their scantily clad Thai whores. It was exploitation at its very best. Both the tourists and working girls were busily getting something out of each other, so I couldn’t really feel sorry for anybody. At the table beside ours there were 2 obese American men and a tiny Thai girl in even tinier hot pants. At some point, one of the fat men said to her in a really loud voice: “Do you like my brother? Because he’s going to bite your ass.” Gross. We were out of that restaurant pronto.

We all planned to see a girl-on-girl sex show but none of us was daring enough to just walk into a club and take a seat. We must have walked through Walking Street quite a number of times before we were led by a dodgy little man to a go-go club, the name of which escapes me. The experience was educational, to say the least. We saw vaginas perform daring, even miraculous, feats. Indeed, all sorts of possibilities were opened up that night. The whole of Walking Street was so ugly and dirty but we couldn’t look away. In all its ugliness, it was much too fascinating.

We ended the night by getting a nice Thai massage on the way back to the hotel. I treated my friends to my favorite banana and chocolate pancakes. The moment our heads hit our pillows, we all passed out.

We planned to get an early start back to Bangkok so we can visit some markets before A leaves in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we all woke up rather late. We didn’t get to leave Pattaya until noon. Still, it left us with enough time to shop a bit in Chatuchak Market. We never got to visit Chatuchak, however, because A lost her wallet somewhere. We spent the next few hours looking for that wallet. We checked the bus we were on and even called the Pattaya bus station but it was nowhere to be found.

Dejected, I took A back to the airport. D didn’t come along because he was leaving Thailand the next day and he needed to spend time with his sister. I stayed with A long enough to share a burger with her. At the customs gate, we hugged each other goodbye and promised that we will do it again soon.

I wonder if we ever will. Sometimes I think that weekend was the last we’ll ever spend together as a group. After all, in a few months’ time, D will be migrating to New Zealand. A will still be living in Singapore. And as for me, well, God only knows where my feet will take me then.

We have come a long way from our headsets and workstations and beaches back home, my friends and I. And even if that trip was indeed our last together, it’s at least something that will never be forgotten. As long as we have the pictures proudly displayed on Friendster, we’ll always have each other. And in all its dirty sand, cracked pavements, and ugly neon, we’ll always have Pattaya.

Wander with Me: Phuket

Because the tourist visa was unexpectedly free and because it costs only 70 ringgit to get from Penang to Phuket by mini bus, I couldn’t resist. My friend, D, who was in Bangkok visiting his sister, also decided to meet me in Phuket for the weekend.

I left Penang early Saturday morning and spent the next 11 hours on the road to Phuket. It was interesting how the mini buses operated. They were like a well-oiled and structured crime syndicate. I thought I was going to take the same mini bus all the way to Phuket but apparently I was wrong. I was dropped off in some dodgy looking travel agency in Hat Yai where I was told to wait with no further explanation. I sat there for an hour and a half, unsure of what it was that I was supposed to be doing. The driver didn’t give me back my receipt and I was afraid they were going to charge me more just to get to Phuket. Eventually, I was ushered into another mini bus that took me all the way to another tiny travel operator in Krabi. This time, they stuck a sticker on my chest that said “Phuket” so I definitely knew I was going to get there. I finally did at around 9 in the evening.

D wasn’t arriving in Phuket until Sunday morning so I had the entire Saturday night all to myself. I decided to wait for him in Phuket Town so we can head to Patong Beach together in the morning. I needed a place to crash that was cheap and clean. I ended up sharing a room with a Swedish guy I met on the mini bus at the Holiday Plaza Hotel on Phuket Road. There was absolutely nothing holiday, plaza, or hotel about it. It was just a fan room with a bathroom, and it reeked of pesticide. They were charging 300 baht a night, though, and since I was keen on saving a bit of money, I took a leap of faith and took the Swede’s offer of sharing the room. He seemed like a nice guy and he was rather skinny, so I figured I could take him if I had to.

We had dinner at a little café that advertised wireless Internet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t free and that really pissed me off. The food was good though, albeit a tad bit too spicy. The Swede insisted on paying for dinner, which was probably a lame effort at buying the requisite meal before trying to get a girl to bed. That was not going to happen, however, so I offered to pay for breakfast. We wandered around Phuket Town for a bit, watched a cultural show at a park, and he had a beer at an Irish pub while I did some writing. I think I was pretty boring company, but I didn’t want to give him any ideas.

I was getting really sleepy so I decided to head back to the hotel. I was settling down on the bed when he strode out of the bathroom in nothing but a t-shirt and briefs. If he was trying to entice me, it wasn’t working. I wasn’t about to be seduced by a man who wore briefs. Not many people know it, but I have an aversion to briefs, especially the cotton bikini ones. I prefer boxers.

But I digress. I pretended that I was already asleep. He tossed and turned for a few minutes and eventually went out. I must have really fallen asleep because I didn’t hear him come back. Sometime in the middle of the night he was spooning me, so I just sort of thrashed around a bit like I was having a nightmare, which in essence I was. I suppose that scared him off because he practically scampered off to his side of the bed and stayed there for the rest of the night. D called me around 6 AM the next morning. He was already outside the hotel. I showered and was out of there in record time. Of course, I didn’t have time to buy the Swede breakfast so I paid for my share of dinner, gave him a quick hug, and said goodbye.

When I saw D sitting outside the hotel, we were both overcome with a fit of hysterical giggles. We had come a long way from our local islands. We were in Phuket! It was totally exciting. We were both starving so we tried looking for a place to eat. Unfortunately, everything was closed. The sleepy town was still very much asleep. We had no choice but to feast on cup noodles in a Family Mart.

After breakfast, we needed to figure out how to get to Patong Beach. Taxis in Phuket were much too expensive, but I knew that there were songthaews that went that way. The problem was I didn’t know where they were. We just walked around the town for a bit until we arrived at the bus station. There was a songthaew bound for Patong Beach, alright, and it only cost us 30 baht each.

It was drizzling again when we got to Patong Beach. Finding a place to stay and stash our bags was first priority. The night before, the Swede gave me a business card for a guest house on Nanai Road. It was a long walk from the beach, but it was cheap and had free wireless Internet, which was becoming a dire necessity for me. We did spend some time looking for a guest house around Bangla Road, which was closer to the beach, but they were either too expensive or too ugly. We decided to find the one on Nanai Road instead.

As it turned out, the guest house on the business card he gave me was closed, but there were other guest houses in the vicinity offering the same prices and the same service. We eventually settled on a place called Game Mansion and it was very impressive for 400 baht a night. It was also quite close to Jungceylon Mall. D and I were quite happy about it. We initially planned on staying a couple of nights in Patong Beach, and we weren’t exactly sure why, but we decided to pay for just one night, just in case. It turned out to be a wise decision. We were thriving on spontaneity for the moment and we decided to take a trip to the Phi Phi Islands and Krabi the next day before heading back to Bangkok. Anyhow, D rested for a bit while I did a bit of writing. We then slipped into our beach wear, had lunch, posed for the requisite photographs, and headed for the beach.

Patong Beach was super crowded, noisy, and much too commercial for my taste. The beach itself was lovely, though, even with all the hawkers and tourists. The sand was soft and the water was great, but to be perfectly honest, Boracay and Bantayan Island back home are so much better. Still, we had a great time swimming, chilling by the beach on the lounge chairs we rented for 40 baht each, eating fruit, and napping.

I would’ve stayed in the water longer, but the current was quite strong, and because I’m not a very good swimmer, I stayed close to the shore. D went parasailing. I didn’t because it was much too expensive. I got conned by a hawker to buy a dress for 300 baht. She initially offered it to me at 650 baht and I was quite proud of myself for haggling, until I saw the same dress on Bangla Road being sold for 199 baht. That really, really pissed me off. Lesson learned: don’t buy from the beach hawkers.

In Boracay back home, you can see the people, locals and tourists alike, doing their best to preserve the beach. Nobody littered. Locals combed the sand several times during the day. In Patong, however, it made me sad how the people were steadily ruining such a beautiful beach. Rubbish was everywhere, and the locals didn’t seem to care. They were too busy hawking their wares and making money. The tourists were worse. They had absolutely no qualms about littering on the sand and in the water. It made me sick. We were in one of the most beautiful islands in the world. The least everyone could do was show some respect.

We headed back to the guest house by late afternoon. We got the tickets for Phi Phi and Ao Nang in Krabi en route for only 700 baht each. D slept while I wrote some more. I woke him up around 10 PM so we can go get some dinner. I was starving. I found that the only thing worse than Patong Beach by day was Patong Beach at night. Rowdy tourists, lady boys, and hawkers were everywhere. It was garish and all so worldly that I found myself thinking if the tsunami was like a modern day Sodom and Gomorra and if so, it didn’t seem to work because everything was back to normal in Patong Beach.

I did think that maybe could stay in Phuket (definitely not in Patong Beach) for a couple of months or so. I missed being so close to the beach the way I always had been back home, but I decided against it. I’d be too scared of tsunamis and earthquakes and stuff. And it didn’t help that D kept sporadically screaming in my ear that a tsunami was coming. I often wonder why I have such crazy friends.

I actually planned to meet up with the Lost Boy in Phuket. Unfortunately, he had other plans that night and I was leaving for Phi Phi in the morning so there was just no time get together. It was just too bad because I would’ve loved to pick his brain.

So D and I have seen Phuket and our friends back home were green with envy. I spent a total of 2,500 baht, including the mini bus fare from Penang and the transfers to Phi Phi and Krabi. Though I’m not quite finished with the entire task yet, I was able to start doing one of the things I came to Thailand to do – compare the beaches. I could safely say that I was neither impressed nor disappointed with Patong Beach. What I do know for sure is just being there in Phuket was quite a high in itself.

Next stop: Phi Phi Islands and Ao Nang (Krabi)!

Heading Home

I walk on the familiar footbridge to my bus stop. I breathe in the acrid fume-filled air, so different from the fresh breeze that passed through my lungs this morning, and my head throbs. I long for my hard mattress, my lone pillow, and the modicum of familiar things in my sparse little room.

I descend the steps to the street below, and then I see it – the 356, that elusive behemoth that offers the best route home. It has already started to pull out of the bus stop. Will I catch it in time? I know I must. It will be a long time before the next one comes along.

As it pulls into the outbound lane, I catch the bus driver’s eye. He could see in my eyes how desperately I longed to be in his bus. It was too late to stop, but he can slow down and I can run. And run I did. My right foot makes contact with the bus’s first step. So far, so good. I take another step. I almost lose my balance. What a travesty it would be to fall from a moving bus! I grab hold of the railing just in time. I pull myself up. I was in!

I look around. It must be my lucky day. There is a lone seat waiting for me. I sink gratefully into the bus seat with its torn upholstery and leaking cushions. I smile. I am going home.