Thread: My Story

The streets were practically empty. There was the odd moped carrying four or five passengers going by but not much else. There was a place which looked like a small club that still had music playing. I figured my best bet would be to have a beer & suss the place, keep an eye out for moody characters who look like they might sell drugs.

I didn't get no further than the door, as three Thai guys who were stood on the kerb blocked it as I approached. From my previous conversation with the tuk driver, I had learnt the Thai for a bit of smoke & blurted out "Ganja?" with as friendly a face as I could muster.

There were funny looks & words exchanged between them & it looked like I was in. One of them turned to me & said "You want yaba?" which meant nothing to me, so I repeated, "No. Ganja?"

More words were exchanged & they gestured for me to follow them down a small Soi, so I did, prepared to run like the wind should a knife or anything come out & my guard wasn't down for a moment.

As it turned out I had nothing to worry about as they took me to a guy parked up in a tuk - I was glad it wasn't the same one as before - then left me alone with him. I asked for ganja & he mentioned yaba & I was back to square one, but this time down a back alley in a strange city & I decided right then that this was a bad idea. I made conversation for a while as I sat in the back of his tuk. He could speak well enough English for me to gather he was asking me for 1000 Baht & he would leave the tuk as a gurantee - his words - until he came back. With what he was going to be coming back with was unclear. I made my excuses & left.

I walked back to the hotel & went to sleep.

In the morning I packed & went downstairs for breakfast. The menu was limited & I settled for boiled egg & toast. Mr Prapan, the taxi drier, was there as we had arranged to take me to Pattaya. The old lady wasn't happy I hadn't booked a taxi through her & it seemed the staff were pretty glad to see the back of me.

With that, we set off to Pattaya.

The journey to Pattaya was uneventful & Mr Prapan had the same limited vocabulary as the day before. He asked for some money to cover the juice & tolls we would encounter so I gave him 1000 Baht.

When he returned from paying for juice he handed me a Liptovan, drinking his own to show me what it was intended for. It looked like medicine to me & I was suspicious of waking up in the middle of nowhere with no money & took only a small sip of the drink - being polite. We continued the journey in silence.











We reached Pattaya & I told him I wanted the Sabai Inn, Soi 2. He made a phone call to somebody for directions & eventually we pull up outside. The taxi cost a further 500 Baht & he gestured to give me change, which I refused.

I looked up & down the Soi & truly believed I had arrived in paradise.

The Sabai Inn is a great hotel - very good value for money.

I checked in & out quick time & went straight out on the piss. I was gagging for a beer by now but decided to have a look at what was what instead of diving into the nearest bar. I eventually found myself at the 2nd Road end of Soi 6, talking to the owner of a bar, who was gushing about how great & wonderful Pattaya was, while giving it a seen-it-all-before face that told me he was making it all up. I came away with the unspoken impression that Pattaya was not a very great place at all.

I decided to hire a motorbike. I had never rode one before but every man & his dog seemed to be getting around on one, so I guessed it couldn't be very hard. There was a place just over the road hiring for 200 Baht a day so I paid 1200 & was soon scooting around, transfixed by everything I saw, everywhere I went. I made the mistake of not wearing a helmet & was stopped by the cops as I came the wrong way down Walking St on my way back from the pier.





I heard a whistle, looked up at the cop & sure enough he was telling me to stop. He took the keys out the bike (which had my hotel keyfob attatched) & with a big smile asked me to accompany him into the pod thing that they sit in.

I was 'educated' in the ways of the Thai justice system to the tune of 500 Baht & laughed at as I went on my way.

Night came & I found myself drinking in the beer bar comlex at the top of Soi 2. Unsuccessful at finding anyone able to get a bit of smoke from I headed for the beach, figuring I'd try my luck at some of the bars down there.

I made the mistake of turning right at the bottom of the Soi, where there are no bars, but plenty of ladyboys & it wasn't long before I was asking - what I believed to be a woman - if they could get me any stuff. (S)he said they could, but we would have to go somewhere & get it. I ended up bringing the bike to the beach (as they wouldn't come up the Soi for fear of 'Yemen' - what they meant I don't know).

To this day I have no idea where we went, but it was a dump. Dump doesn't describe it well enough, but you get the picture? To cut a long story short, some guy sold us some yaba & we went back to the Sabai Inn. The hotel don't check IDs & I didn't see any funny looks from the staff that would indicate I was with a cock in a frock so we went up to the room & I was introduced to that filthy shit drug that the Thais do.

After an entire night wide-awake in the company of what by then I knew to be 'same same' as me, I had learned a lot, talking about all things Thai & the way things worked. I concluded that looking for some smoke in Thailand was more trouble than it was worth & never bought yaba again. We talked all night & in the morning they fucked off. They never asked for money & I never offered, because I didn't have any & I wasn't going to the money exchange with a ladyboy in tow, otherwise I would have give them some out of kindness. I never saw them again after that.

A few days later, I met a girl.