Thailand Confidential

by Jerry Hopkins

  • • •

  That was the situation when I checked myself in, got my body bathed and shaved by three attractive Thai nurses (not an altogether unpleasant experience), and was wheeled into one of the operating rooms. Briefly, one of my arteries was completely blocked (“calcified” was the doctor’s word) and two others were about fifty percent blocked. I had not had a heart attack, only recurring angina pain, so I was making the assault. Call it a preemptive strike.

  The plan was to take a long piece of a vein from one of my legs and use it to make the bypasses that would skirt the blockages and return full blood flow to and from my heart. I was assured that it would be at least six weeks before I could lift a bar girl weighing more than thirty kilograms and that the pain in my chest and leg would go away much sooner. I also had to sign a form wherein I assumed full responsibility for whatever they did while I was sedated.

  In the days that followed surgery, there were moments. Many of them. The worst may have been when the team of nurses in the Coronary Care Unit extracted the breathing device that had been inserted into my throat and it seemed to have got stuck on the spot where my gag reflex resides, so that I couldn’t stop gagging and felt like what Richard Pryor described in his routine about Forgetting How to Breathe and I went at the sweet little caregivers as if I were Jean-Claude Van Damme. I make light of this, but my friend (now wife) Lamyai arrived in the middle of this affray and burst into tears.

  There was also the wonderful experience a few days later having the catheter yanked from my penis.

  Worst of all were paranoid fantasies equal to anything Stephen King had devised that accompanied the morphine painkiller that was delivered via one of my IV drips. I swear this is true: both nights that I was being eased and sedated by that scurrilous chemical concoction, I was totally convinced that one of the nurses on the midnight-to-eight shift was a serial killer out to murder foreigners. It was like a peyote trip I took in the early 1970s, when I fell into a suicidal pit; I knew, intellectually, that the depression was drug-induced, but that didn’t mean the desire to kill myself wasn’t real. Now I found myself confronting the nurse every time she approached my IV bottle with a syringe, inhospitably.

  “What’s that?” I demanded.

  “Med-ih-CEEEEEN,” she lilted in her adorable Thai accent. “What KIND of medicine?”

  “Pain-kee-LAH!” she replied.

  You get the picture and will appreciate why I was pleased that on the third day I was given Tylenol with codeine instead.

  Recovery was quick and by the fourth day I was complaining about the food (think airline economy class or primary school cafeteria) and enduring sponge baths delivered by nurses that made me feel like an old Buick under assault by towel boys in an East L.A. carwash .

  On the fifth day, most of the ten IV ports, drains, catheters and assorted monitoring connections were removed and I was in a double room alone with one of my docs telling me I was an ideal patient. (Pants on fire.) Attitude was a large part of the process, he said. There were many men who came into the hospital for what is called “elective coronary artery bypass surgery” expecting to die—between one and two percent do—and they recovered much more slowly. To assist me, I was given what looked like a child’s toy and asked to take breaths deep enough to raise three balls to the top of three chambers, thus re-expand my lungs. I was also given a red, heart-shaped pillow with the hospital’s name on it to hug to my chest when I coughed, which felt like being stabbed the first few days but apparently was necessary to keep fluid from accumulating. I was told to carry the pillow everywhere the first two weeks. Sure.

  Lamyai was with me at night and much of every day, helping me pee and turn over and sit up, massaging my back, changing my sweat-soaked PJs, sharing my morning rice soup, peeling and feeding me fruit that was brought by visitors. One night three friends from the bar where she worked arrived at two thirty a.m on their way home, giving the nurses on duty something to gossip about for days. Lamyai was actually encouraged to stay—it’s the Thai way—and I couldn’t have done it without her.

  On the eighth day I went home, where I sat with three looping patches on my pump, a humungous bag of pills, my dry, splotched, nearly hairless skin reminding Lamyai of an ancient Chinese man she once worked for, wounded (and missing) veins, tender former IV entry ports, cramped muscles, aching joints, blisters on my feet from the crappy slippers the hospital gave me for my forced eight-hundred-meter marches up and down the hallway, occasional floating spots before my eyes, entrails still partially compacted, and a seven-day growth of hair that looked far better on George Michael’s chin than on my torso, limbs, and genitalia, as I waited for the next adventure in my life.

  I had a friend who e-mailed my kids every day I was in the hospital and when my daughter and I finally talked by phone, she said that when she heard I was bitching about the food, she knew I was going to be okay I was, too. Within a short time after discharge, I was climbing the ninety steps to the Bangkok Skytrain without getting short of breath, the pain had stopped in my left arm, and the whole thing cost me only US$8,000. A friend of mine in the States had virtually identical surgery about the same time and it cost him US$55,000!

  Okay. After all’s said and done, the question is: would I do it all over again in Bangkok?

  Yes. But only if the nurse who shaved me before surgery is in charge of the post-operative drugs.

  The Visa Dash

  My friend Chris Moore was bragging about how quickly he passed through immigration on one of his recent visa trips, then immediately through immigration again, to satisfy Thailand’s Byzantine requirements to remain in the Kingdom legally.

  Chris is a Canadian novelist living in Bangkok and like most expatriates in foreign countries he must leave the country of his chosen residence regularly to keep his visa current. Chris generally has a visa good for six months at a time, but he must leave the country during that period, even if only for long enough to get the requisite rubber stamp on his passport, proving an exit and re-entry. Chris told me he once did a turn-around in Singapore in eighteen minutes, a stunning accomplishment.

  The time came for me to make a similar visa run and I decided to challenge his mark. Singapore’s airport is remarkably efficient, so desiring an even playing field I made that my destination, too. Although I gave it no significance at the time, I was carrying a bag that weighed about twenty-five kilograms, following a week-long holiday on one of Thailand’s southern islands.

  Trouble arose even before I left Thailand, when the plane was an hour late in departing. This meant that I wouldn’t have ninety minutes in which to do my immigration boogie, but only half an hour. That left me a very small window of exit and re-entry, should I not be so lucky as Chris, or as quick.

  As we approached Singapore, I shared my concern with an airline flight attendant, who referred me to the purser, who told me not to worry. She promised to turn me over to the airline’s ground staff on arrival, which she did, along with a Chinese Singaporean who worked in Bangkok and was making the same turn-around visa sprint.

  We were met at the plane by a young man with a cellular telephone. We took off at a run, our guide shouting into his phone, and entered one of those conveyor belts called “people movers.” Continuing to take long strides, we passed all others at a rapid clip. As we exited, my knees buckled as suddenly we were on unmoving carpet again. A second man, identically dressed, also carrying a mobile phone, met us at this point and we were passed to him like batons in a relay race.

  “Do you have any luggage?” the man asked. My new friend said no and I said only the fifty kg bag, which by now was beginning to feel like a sack of wet sand with a handle. Why, I asked myself, did I always buy so many books and magazines when I traveled?

  There followed two more knee-buckling people movers, which took us to the main body of the terminal, where our first immigration passage loomed. Because we had traveled at such unusual speed, there were no clerks in position to meet us. Our escort hus
tled two into place for us and, in under a minute, I was given permission to “enter and remain in Singapore for thirty days.” (“Hey, guys,” I said to myself, “would you believe thirty minutes?”) I checked my watch, surprised to discover that only six minutes had elapsed.

  Then we were on the run again, down an escalator and through the nothing-to-declare customs path. Even if I’d had anything to declare, I couldn’t have found the breath to say what; by now, my one hundred kg bag was hanging by its strap from my shoulder and I was sweating like a pig and snorting, too.

  “What nationality are you?” our guide asked.

  “American,” I gulped, sucking air. Trying to inject some humor into what was a painful experience, I added, “I learned…how to run…through airports…from O.J. Simpson.”

  “Who’s that?” he said.

  “You know, the football player,” I panted. “He made television commercials for a rental car company, jumping over airport turnstiles while trying to make a flight. That was before they say he killed his wife.”

  “Never heard of him,” the man said. I was beginning to like him more and more.

  After that, it was up a long flight of stairs. By now, my shirt was sticking to my back, my socks were slipping into my shoes, and sweat was cascading into my eyes from some mysterious aquifer in my hair. My ears were still popping, too. Slow down, you blokes, I said to myself. You’ve got an “older” man in tow, twice your age and carrying a 150 kilogram bag, versus the combined weight of your cellular phone and your passport. Your legs are longer, too.

  We finally reached the airline check-in counter, where a clerk mosied to our service, requesting fifteen Singapore dollars each, the airport exit fee. I said I only had Thai baht. The airline representative said I’d have to change the currency—he pointed to a booth fifty meters away—but fortunately my fellow traveler had enough Singapore dollars to cover me, and as our seats were being assigned and boarding passes were printed he accepted repayment in baht, thereby saving several precious minutes in our race back to the day’s last Singapore-to-Bangkok flight.

  Our guide remained behind us now and my friend and I were on our own as we galloped back through immigration, picking up an exit stamp. My two hundred kilogram bag was still on my left shoulder and I was mopping sweat with a large kerchief in my right hand.

  Finally, we arrived at Gate 63, an immense room where hundreds of travelers with “carry-on” bags the size of small cars were standing in line to board. I looked at my watch. It seemed incredible, but from the time we exited the plane from Thailand and passed through the boarding gate heading for home again, only fourteen minutes had elapsed! Chris Moore, eat your heart out!

  Upon my return, however, my friend Chris refused to concede defeat. His record stands, he claims, as it was unassisted.

  Going Troppo

  What follows probably won’t make much sense, or seem funny, to farangs who haven’t lived in Thailand for a while, but for those who have, the behavioral traits here listed will ring embarrassingly true. “Going troppo” (short for tropical) is the same thing as “going native” or, more rarely, “going bamboo,” and in Thailand, as elsewhere, it means more than wearing a sarong and drinking the local beer.

  From a variety of sources, some of them lost in the anonymity that accompanies much of that which is transmitted by e-mail through cyberspace—along with a few of my own observations— here’s how you can tell when you, as a foreigner, have stayed in Thailand longer than most:

  You look four ways before crossing a one-way street

  You’ve bought a house for a Thai bar girl, or at least a cell phone

  You start enjoying Thai television soap operas and game shows and think you understand them (and think the acting is Oscar quality)

  You sleep on the table and eat on the floor

  You think it’s normal to have a beer at nine a.m.

  You season your hamburger with nam pla prik and your pizza with ketchup You haven’t had a solid stool in five years

  A Thai traffic cop waves you over for a minor infraction and you automatically reach for your wallet

  You always take something to read in the taxi, so you’ll have something to do when it takes half an hour to travel less than a kilometer

  You carry an umbrella on sunny days to keep your skin white

  As a straight male, you start holding hands with your male friends in public

  You stop wai -ing (the prayer-like greeting gesture) beggars, waitresses, and go-go girls

  You give up deodorants and use talcum powder instead

  You tell someone the time is three o’clock when it’s actually a quarter to four

  You think a calendar is more useful than a watch

  You stop thinking that a girl riding pillion on a motorbike, side-saddle, wearing a mini-skirt, with one toe pointing to the ground, while putting on make-up, is anything out of the ordinary

  You think opening a restaurant is a good idea

  You wear rubber slippers to a job interview

  You meet someone named Steve and you call him “Sa-teve”

  You realize that virtually everything you own—your wardrobe right down to your underwear, your watch, your DVDs, even your Viagra—is counterfeit

  You keep your bus fare in your ear

  You keep toilet paper on the table instead of in the toilet

  The footprints on your toilet seat are yours

  You know that the braking distance for vehicles traveling at ten kilometers an hour is two meters and that the braking distance for vehicles traveling at one hundred kilometers an hour is also two meters

  You aren’t surprised when the woman next to you in the bar is eating insects

  Later that night, you kiss the woman with the beetle breath

  You believe that buying a gold chain is an acceptable courtship ritual

  You can’t remember the last time you wore a tie and you think a safari jacket and jeans constitute formal wear

  You no longer trust air you cannot see, or water so clear you will swim in it

  You start drinking water from the spigot

  You can sleep standing up on the bus, Skytrain or subway

  You discover that your girlfriend is the mia noi of your boss

  You buy things at the start of the month and take them to the pawn shop at the end of the month

  You think motorcycles on the sidewalk and pedestrians in the street is normal

  You cover your mouth when you pick your teeth, but openly pick your nose

  You describe anyone who has ever lived within a two-kilometer radius of you as “my brother”

  You go home and wonder where all the white people came from

  You start reading comic books instead of real books

  You stand in the shadow of a telephone pole while waiting for the bus

  You understand when your Thai wife says, “My friend you” or “Same same different”

  When asked to name your favorite Thai restaurant, you say KFC

  You start to find western women attractive again

  You realize that you frankly never have a clue what’s really going on

  You have a silly grin on your face

  The Farangs

  Many Thais blame the Caucasian interloper for much of what’s wrong with Thailand. Unfairly, the American financier George Soros was charged with pushing Thailand’s and then much of the rest of Asia’s economy to its knees in 1997 when he began speculating on the value of the Thai baht. He previously had “broken” the Bank of England with his crafty foreign exchange transactions, so there was reason to suspect he’d had a similar effect on the collapsing value of the Thai currency, but to overlook other factors endemic in Thailand—such as corruption and greed—was to make Mr. Soros a convenient scapegoat.

  Other critics say Thailand wouldn’t have the sex industry that gives the country such an unsavory international reputation if it weren’t for American military men here during the war in Vietnam—ignoring the fa
ct that prostitution existed in Thailand for centuries before the first farang sailed up the Chao Phrya River, and that today the industry is controlled almost exclusively by Thais, with Thais contributing the largest customer base, virtually all of the sex workers, ownership and management of venues, as well as the cops who are responsible, for reasons of their own, for the lax enforcement of laws against the trade.

  Some pundits get personal, and none more harshly than Mont Redmond, himself a farang, describing in his book, Wondering into Thai Culture (1998), the first Europeans as “big-bodied adventurers from thimble-sized countries, odd in color and custom, and unaccountably fierce or friendly at unimaginable distances from their native land...meddlesome creature(s), inclined to excess in everything but good manners and humility.” His rant continued, but that’s enough to give you a feel for how he felt about his fellow round-eyes. Not that his view was entirely indefensible.

  Of course, there are many who praise the farang, if not in words then in deed, most often in the form of flattery inherent in the speed with which much of farang culture and conveniences have been welcomed, copied, adapted and merchandized. Many have written of the West’s influence on the East and I don’t think I have anything new to say, except that I find it somewhat amusing when some of the Thais who are most outspoken in criticizing farangs are the ones who: drive a Mercedes-Benz or a BMW; educate their kids in England, the United States or Australia; fill up their closets with Italian shirts; worship golf to the point of naming some of their children after the game; bet on European football teams; and wouldn’t be caught dead drinking anything but expensive French wines and Johnny Walker Black. And you ought to see the Thai Buddhists during the Christmas season; I thought Americans knew how to shop!