My Thai Story II

by Guy Lilburne

  My heart sank even more when he opened the door to the room. It had a dirty toilet, an ancient shower, a wooden wardrobe and bed, both older than me. The mirror was cracked and the blankets on the bed were filthy and moth eaten. There were about 30 mosquitoes all flying around and at least twice that number lying around all over the place, dead. The 30 or so that were flying around the room were all getting very excited to see me. Farang on the menu tonight! There was no air conditioning, just an old ceiling fan, and it was hot - very, very hot.

  “Jesus!” I said. I knew that I wouldn’t get a moment’s sleep in this place. It was just disgusting.

  “You have to tell him he has to spray the room, right now.”

  Aa spoke to the man and then said.

  “Can do no problem, spray tomorrow morning, not good for you to sleep in room if he spray now. Spray same poison.”

  “Rattenawalee, he has to spray now. I will be eaten alive tonight and I get a severe allergic reaction to mosquito bites in Thailand. I will be dead in the morning if he doesn’t spray now.” Ok, so I might have been exaggerating, but that’s how I felt. Aa spoke to the man again and then said, “Ok. He spray room now, Are you Ok?”

  I nodded, but I just couldn’t smile and I wasn’t Ok. I hated this place. I had never seen such a dirty hotel in my life and I already knew that this was going to be one of the longest and loneliest nights of my life.

  “Tee rak, I have to go now, Mai waiting in car.”

  “Ok.”

  Aa and the girls walked back along the corridor with the receptionist man and suddenly I was alone and feeling a long way from home. I had a nice hotel in Patong and I couldn’t stop myself thinking that I had made a big mistake coming here on impulse the way that I had done. Then it occurred to me that Udon Thani was only a couple of hours away by bus. If I could get a bus back to Udon Thani then I could stay there. I liked Udon Thani. It was a great city with lots of people and things to see and do and good clean hotels. I was still standing in the middle of my room trying to fight off the hungry mosquitoes when Aa came back into the room a few minutes later.

  “Come on tee rak, we find another hotel,” she smiled.

  I was so happy, so relieved. I grabbed my travel bag and the Seven Eleven carrier bag and followed Aa along the corridor back to reception.

  “Tee rak, I have to get my 500 baht back from the man.”

  “Mai already get it. Come on, we go.”

  We walked past the young man in reception without a second look and nothing was said. We got in the pick-up and drove out the other side of Sakon Nakhon. The next hotel was out of town and was a lot of bungalows set around a manmade pond with lights and fountains. All the buildings were new and it was still only 500 baht a night. I liked this place, but the bad news was that it was already fully booked. Aa told me that a room would be available tomorrow night. I was here for a week. I had the feeling that this was going to be a long lonely week. We drove even further away and found another hotel, which consisted of bungalows around a pond, but this place was older and needed a little attention. However, they had a vacancy and the room was a lot better than the first hotel. At least I had a bottle of brandy. I took the room for what was obviously the going rate for a farang in Sakon Nakhon - 500baht.

  We all said goodnight and then they left and I was on my own in a room in the middle of nowhere and feeling very sorry for myself. This wasn’t how I had imagined it would be. I opened the Seven Eleven bag; brandy, cola, beers, crisps, salted nuts, some sweets and a packet of cigarettes. Party time! Ok, it was a sad little party; I was the only one who bothered to turn up. I showered and wrapped the towel around my waist. I opened the window and pulled the chair and table next to it so the smoke would go out. I turned the TV around so I could see it and I found an English football match. I smoked the cigarettes and drank the brandy. I was spending the night in Sakon Nakhon. Mai pen rai!

  Chapter 7 - What a difference a day makes.

  I awoke at 7:00am and opened the curtains. It was already bright and sunny outside and very hot. The place looked better in the bright sunshine. I opened the windows, had a shower and made myself a coffee while I waited for Aa to come and pick me up. She arrived at 8:00am with Mai, the girls and her sister Porn. I didn’t think that Aa and Porn looked anything alike and I would have never guessed that they were sisters. But just like Aa, she was very polite, just like her husband Mai. She smiled a lot and I was delighted to meet another member of the family. It was about another 25 minutes’ drive to Aa’s mum and dad’s house, which, as far as I can tell, is in a place called Nakorn Panom. It’s like a big village or a small town and the main road runs through the middle of it. There was, of course, a temple, a school and a lot of houses. Along the main road were lots of typical Thai houses/shops that sold everything you might need, but no nice clean Seven Eleven shop! The pick-up came to a stop in a narrow soi off the main road.

  “Tee rak, this is my Mama house.”

  The house looked lovely. It was bigger than the others in the soi. It had big blue metal gates and up a few steps there was a big open pink tiled patio, with a raised seating area. The area was covered with a sloping roof from the house and, over the next week I was to spend a lot of time sitting out there watching the world go by. A big smoked glass sliding door led from the patio to inside the house. The main room was huge and tiled in the same pink tiles as outside. The usual pictures and calendars of the King, which I had seen so many times before, adorned the bare walls. The only furniture was a couple of display cabinets on one wall with a big old TV set on top of one of them, Along another wall was a row of glass fronted cabinets all stuffed full of pretty fabric cloths that Aa told me were made by her mama. In the cabinet next to the TV, a diploma and some certificates belonging to Aa were proudly displayed. They were various massage qualifications. Aa’s bedroom was through a wooden door in the far corner of the room. Apparently, everyone else slept on the floor in the main room. In England we have houses with bedrooms, a TV room, a lounge, a dining room, In Thailand they have houses with one big room and it is all these things. The door is always open to everyone - friends, family and neighbours. Believe me; everyone does come along to join in any sanuk (fun) and to eat. It’s very sociable and I like it very much. The only other door off this big family room led to the kitchen at the rear of the house. The kitchen was basic, consisting of a small gas cooker and a free standing wooden and glass pantry. There was a big floor space for preparing food and a large assortment of pots and pans stacked up on a rack. At the end of the kitchen was another two rooms, One was a squat toilet and the other was the shower room. Both rooms had big plastic barrels of cold water and an assortment of small plastic buckets for washing and flushing. A set of wooden stairs led up the outside of the house to a door which opened into another large wooden room, which Aa told me was a bedroom for a number of other family members, mostly grandchildren. There was a tractor parked under a small barn in the garden and I was told that it belonged to one of her brothers, who was a farmer.

  I liked the house. It was warm and friendly, big and clean and a lot of people seemed to come and go all day long. As soon as I arrived I was introduced to Mama, I bowed down low and gave Mama a high and very respectful wai. She was a tiny woman who couldn’t speak any English. She had a lovely smile and she seemed to smile all the time. This was a family of smiling people. I was introduced to Chompoo. Chompoo is Aa’s daughter; another smiling little person. She was eight years old and an absolute delight to have around. Chompoo couldn’t speak any English, but that didn’t stop us from communicating and we made friends straight away. People started turning up at the house and I was introduced to a lot of people - brothers and brother’s wives, cousins and friends. The introduction tags seemed to get longer and longer.

  “Tee rak, this is brother’s wife mama sister brother mama sister,” Aa would announce as I said hello to another n
ew friend.

  Aa told me that they had all come just to see me and I felt very honoured. Whenever I sat outside at the front of the house on the pink tiled patio I would say hello to all the people walking past, who all stopped and wai’d or smiled and waved or said a few words in Laos.

  Laos! Everyone here spoke Laos. I was still struggling with Thai and I really couldn’t understand a word. Unless Aa was talking to me I was totally isolated there in Sakon Nakhon. Food was prepared and straw matting was rolled out in the main room and suddenly there was a lot of us all sitting on the floor enjoying a feast that had been prepared by Aa, her mama, her sister and one or two other helpers. The food was fantastic and very, very spicy. Fortunately there was a big bucket of ice and bottles of water and cola.

  It was a bit overwhelming meeting a whole family in one go. I was never going to remember everyone’s name or how they were related to each other, but they were a lovely welcoming family and I was very happy in their company. One of my favourites was Nuch. She was about 14 years old and one of Aa’s nieces. She was an absolute delight and always seemed to be helping people with one thing or another. Later in the afternoon Aa’s papa came home. I gave him a high and respectful wai when I was introduced. Papa didn’t smile as much as everyone else and I got the feeling he was sizing me up before he decided if he liked me or not. I got the feeling he didn’t like me very much. I hoped one day he would. He seemed like a very good man and he loved his family. Maybe he just needed to know that I would love and look after Aa properly before he would like me. I didn’t think he was very happy about the idea of having a farang in his family.

  “Tee rak, do you want to stay at my mama’s house tonight?” asked Aa.

  “Yes, that will be great. Am I sleeping with you tee rak?”

  “No tee rak. Cannot. I sleep on floor with Mama and Papa.”

  “Oh!”

  The next few days were long slow relaxing days. I met a lot of people and one day we went to the market in Sakon Nakhon. But other than that we didn’t do a lot and I didn’t get to see anything else of Sakon Nakhon. So I still didn’t know if I actually liked the place or not. We went out one day to visit a temple that was in a cave. Legend had it that tigers used to live in the cave with the monks. It was a nice day and a lot of the family jumped in the back of the pick-up to come along for the ride. For most of the rest of the time I sat outside in front of Mama’s house and said ‘Sawadee khrap’ (Hello) to anyone who walked along the soi.

  Chapter 8 - Songkran, the Thai New Year.

  I was enjoying spending all this time with Aa and her family, but if I am honest, it was driving me crazy not being able to sleep with her. At least during the day we got to hold hands occasionally and steal a kiss every now and again.

  Songkran arrived with all the usual madness and water throwing for the next three days. We went to the temple and splashed water on the old people who all sat on chairs under a huge awning, just waiting to have water poured on them and the whole town turned out to oblige. A big stage had been erected in the grounds of the temple and there were stalls cooking and selling food, snacks, beers and cola. Then everybody walked to the school on the other side of the village in one long procession. We had a few more beers and then everybody walked back again, having water thrown over them by everyone else.

  The next day we all went in the back of Mai’s pick-up with a huge plastic barrel of water and drove around Sakon Nakhon throwing water on everyone we passed and they were throwing water on us. They all seemed to enjoy it even more when they saw me.

  “Farang.” they would shout just before they soaked me. We drove a long way and at some point went past a huge lake. It was beautiful. On the third day we had a party at Mama’s house and threw water at anyone who dared to pass the house. There was a lot of drinking and eating and everyone had a good time. I wanted to make love with Aa, but we couldn’t. I had come a long way to be with her and although I was with her, I wasn’t WITH HER. If I am honest I think I was getting bored sitting around Mama’s house all day, every day. I would have liked to have done more things or at least had a proper look around Sakon Nakhon, but we didn’t. We just stayed at Mama’s house. I had heard stories about people eating dog in Sakon Nakhon and I spent a lot of time looking for any dog eating evidence, but I didn’t see anything. So that got pretty boring too.

  Mai picked me up at 5:00am to take me back to Udon Thani airport and Porn and Aa came along for the ride. There wasn’t a big tearful goodbye or anything like that. I was sorry to be leaving Aa, but not sorry to be leaving Sakon Nakhon. Aa was going to take the bus to Bangkok later that day for her flight back to Bahrain the next day. I flew to Bangkok and then got another flight to Phuket. I got back to Phuket in the early afternoon and suddenly felt very lonely without Aa. But it was nice to be back in the hustle and bustle, with things to see and do. I was doing a bit of writing and there were always the bars to while away the time.

  Chapter 9 - Back in Phuket and then onto England.

  The next day I got a message from Stephen Leather asking me to ‘swing by Bangkok’ and go for a beer. I sent him a reply telling him that I had been in Bangkok the previous day and I was now back in Phuket. Actually I had things to do. I still had to sort out the photo shoot for the book cover for my new book ‘The Kiss of the Dragon’.

  To arrange anything in Thailand seems to be twice as hard as anywhere else in the world, because things get lost in translation. I noticed that Thai people just nod and smile and say ‘no problem’ even when they have no idea what you are saying. Anyway, eventually a week later the photo shoot was done in the reception of my hotel. The model was a lovely lady named Imchai. She was beautiful and a really nice girl. I paid for the dress, the model, the replica gun, the photographer, the makeup artist and hairdresser, but within the first five minutes of the shoot I just knew that I wasn’t going to get my book cover. I wanted a beautiful girl on the cover who looked as if she could really kill someone, but between the model and the photographer they just couldn’t get the shot. Oh well, mai pen rai! It was a nice day anyway. My best mate Daz had arrived a few days earlier and he and Nang came along for the photo shoot. After the shoot party and over the next week we spent a lot of time together. A few days before I was due to fly back to England Daz and Nang had their engagement party at Broomsticks Bar in Kamala Beach. Before I knew it I was back at home in the UK and starting at a new police station for my last year as a police detective.

  The very first thing I did was to book the flights to go back to Thailand in October for a month and I booked into the Palmyra Patong Resort. My best mate Daz was going to get married in the UK in September and then have a Thai wedding in Thailand in October. I know it’s early to book up the flights and hotel but it always made me feel better, especially when I print out the e-tickets for the flights and the hotel voucher. So that’s it. I was all booked up for Thailand again.

  Being back in the UK I got bored. I just didn’t want to be there. My heart was in Thailand, but at least I was busy. I wasn’t at all happy with the photo shoot in Thailand, so I arranged another one. Maybe this photo shoot wasn’t in such a glamorous location; well not unless you think that Doncaster is glamorous. I have a sort of a friend of a friend; her name is Fai Pansa Tarren. A lovely Thai lady and she was happy to do the book cover shoot for me. So the photo shoot for my book ‘The Kiss of the Dragon’ was actually done in a friend’s house in Doncaster on a grey rainy day…..but who would know! The book was published on 5th July 2011 and to date it is selling well. In the month before any of my books are published it’s always a nightmare with the transcript going back and forth between myself and my publishing editor for corrections and the occasional re-write. (Since writing this I have a new editor, Burnie Sinclair, who has made my life a lot easier and my books are better because of him and my friend Jules Lee. A big thank you to both of them.) I always find it very stressful, but I guess that it i
s worth it in the end. Anyway, as soon as ‘The Kiss of the Dragon’ was published I started writing my next book called ‘Cocktails & Dreams’ - another story set in Thailand. This time it’s the story of a serial killer targeting lady boys working in the sex trade. I had decided that when I went back to Thailand in October I was going to get a good book cover using one or more lady boys from the bar Cocktails & Dreams, in which part of the story is set.

  Daz and Nang had managed to sort out her visa and she arrived in the UK at the beginning of July. I have got to say that when Nang arrived in the UK it made me miss Aa even more. I was so jealous of Daz and Nang. At least they were together and starting their lives together, but for me and Aa it was very different. I was in the UK and she was in Bahrain. It made life feel very lonely, although we did talk to each other every single day without fail.

  My dream of making a new life in Thailand was still very much on track. I still had a lot to do in the UK, I had to decide if I was going to sell my house or just rent it out. I had to apply for a residence visa from the Thai Embassy and I would have to sort out somewhere to live when I eventually moved there, but it was my dream and it was getting a lot closer all of a sudden. I’m delighted that I decided to write ‘My Thai Story II’ because just like ‘My Thai Story’ it is a true record of thoughts and feelings as they happened to me and it would chronicle my journey to my new life in Thailand.

  Not everything was great in my life. When I got back to England and back to my day job as a police detective, I turned up as usual at my office at Stafford police station only to be told that I had been transferred to ‘Operation Impact’ at Cannock police station. I hated Cannock, I hated the police station and I hated travelling every day to get there. To cheer myself up I booked the whole month off in October as annual leave and the next day I booked the flight with Emirates Airlines. My life always seemed to be so busy at that time, too busy really. I just wanted to finish in the police, live in Thailand, live a happy life and write my books.