Let's Go Mad

by Rob Binkley

  After finding sweet salvation in the form of a gallon of bottled water, I went back to my room and passed out again. When I woke, I realized I’d been down for two days.

  That night, I made yet another resolution and this one I was going to keep, goddammit. I wrote it in my journal:

  1. No more blacking out, this time I’m serious!

  2. No more loud, crazy, hot strippers from Canada.

  3. And no more roofies.

  That was actually three resolutions….

  I kept a low profile after my roofie night. I got out of town and took a moped ride around the island, checking out all the villages and waterfalls. I noticed that besides the nonstop party, which takes most of the headlines around here, if you are a discerning traveler looking for something more spiritual to do in Koh Samui, you’ll find many secret Buddhist temples hidden in the narrow back alleys of the city.

  I visited one of these tiny temples to pray for my soul, if I still had one. I reflected on what I wanted to do with the rest of the trip and my life. The memories of my shattered life back home crept into my consciousness for the first time in months. I remembered I needed to call Jody, my assistant back home, and let her know I was still alive. She no doubt despised me for leaving her jobless in a pile of rubble from my burned-down life.

  I had let a bunch of loyal employees go in my fire sale, but she was the one I most regretted. God, I never even told her goodbye. I’m a bad boyfriend and a bad boss. And a bad friend. Friend—friend … wait. That’s when it hit me—what day was it? Brian never showed up! Where the hell is he? That bastard! Or maybe I never showed up since I slept for two days. Who was at fault here?

  Confused, I found a pay phone and started dialing numbers. How could he ditch me again? Maybe he’s dead? Maybe he’s married? Maybe he’s the one who slipped me the roofie? I called Brian’s forwarding number, but got a busy signal. Then I called home and found out Brian was not dead or married.

  He was waiting for me in Bangkok. “Bangkok?”

  “Yes, Bangkok.” Mom said he called her to tell me to “meet him at the Grand Palace tomorrow.” Tomorrow??

  Would he even be in Bangkok? I had to find out.

  There was nothing keeping me in Koh Samui but blackened memories of sunburns, roofies, and carnal pleasures that could have been, so I hopped a boat to Bangkok the next day and said goodbye to Koh Samui. I ran into the strippers again. “You girls—I vaguely remember you.” When I stopped to talk they told me they were headed back to Tokyo.

  “Vince Neil’s sleeping with our roommate!” Carly said. “We want in on that action!” When I brought up our night together, Buffy assured me they had not roofied me and all was literally forgotten.

  “That’s funny, I remember nothing too.”

  “Sometimes it’s better that way,” Carly said. Once I heard they were Mötley Crüe groupies, the whole roofie thing made more sense. They could have gotten roofied and didn’t even notice.

  I arrived in Bangkok at sundown.

  What would the fun capital of Southeast Asia have in store for me? The Book says in Bangkok anything worth doing is “fun,” which I found to be true. Everything here can be done with a sense of sà·nùk (“fun” in Thai). But fun here can get out of control fast. Often no words are needed to complete even the most bizarre transactions, especially on Khaosan Road, which is where I went first.

  Khaosan Road is the most happening street in the world for backpackers. It’s a half-mile long road in the middle of Bangkok packed with a zillion shady hostels, shady travel agencies, and shady bars and dive restaurants. All the backpackers from around Asia start here, end here, meet here, or converge here. Just walking the street is a crazy experience; you can literally get anything in the world, from a bazooka to any drug on the planet to a monkey waiter. “Street life” is what Bangkok is all about. It’s what I’d come to crave in all these Asian mega-cities but never truly found—except here. I was at home among the freaks.

  I loved the living, breathing urban contradiction of experience that is Bangkok—just the opposite of Singapore, which felt sterile and rigid to me. You can get lost in the streets here and never be heard from again. Many people have. You’ll see bizarre polarities everywhere: megamalls jutting out of ancient villages, Buddhist temples neighboring sleazy sex clubs, food carts in the shadows of high-rise restaurants where the wealthy drink their martinis. I never ventured into a skyscraper to dine with the millionaires, but I did walk over to the very impressive Grand Palace hotel to meet Brian, per his instructions.

  Walking in, I thought, this place is way too nice for us. Who had he robbed to afford it? Was he bringing Carrie along? I tried to look presentable. I felt nervous like I was reuniting with an old lover, but we’d only been apart for two weeks.

  I spotted him at the bar alone sipping a Mai Tai. “The poon-hound returns!” I yelled. Brian was glowing—he looked like he’d just had sex for two weeks straight.

  He just laughed. “Where’s all the white women at??”

  “Blazing Saddles. Where’s Carrie?”

  “On a plane back to California with a urinary tract infection.”

  “So, you’re not getting married?”

  “Nah … but I really do love her. I mean, how many go-go girls can we go through before it all becomes a neverending blur of meaningless fluid exchanges? I want something real, don’t you?”

  “Real is in the eye of the beholder,” I said. “What am I seeing now. Are you for real? I haven’t seen this guy in a month.”

  “Let’s live that question for a bit,” he said. “C’mon, let’s get outta here. This place is too rich for our peasant blood.”

  We went bar hopping in Patpong, the super shady district of Bangkok, where we drank a bottle of whiskey just like the old days. Things were going great. Was the old Brian really back? After catching up on all the craziness that had gone on in our lives, I decided he was. “You really are back! I guess I won’t stab you with my Swiss Army knife after all.”

  “You don’t even own a knife,” Brian said.

  Then just like that he was gone again. After we polished off the whiskey, Brian got up to leave. It was some unreasonably reasonable hour.

  “Where you going, man?”

  Brian had never done this before in his life. He explained he “was tired and needed to recharge my penis.” When I protested, he said, “Think of this as a role reversal: For once you’re the crazy partier and I’m the sensible one with the girlfriend. Have fun! Don’t get monkey herpes!”

  This, of course, pissed me off, but I stayed out for a nice blackout evening by myself just to spite him.

  The next morning I saw how crazy I had become.

  I had yet another tremendous hangover, which made what I’m about to tell you seem like a sickening dream. I knew I was alive because I had to urinate, so I dragged myself to the bathroom. As I peed and swayed, I glanced at myself in the mirror and did a double take at what I saw. Half my head was shaved bald. The other half still had the long Tarzan hair I’d cherished for years. I nearly pissed all over the floor.

  “I’ve been scalped.”

  Why would someone shave half my head? Was it the Nigerians? The strippers with their roofies? An angry ladyboy I flirted with too hard? I rubbed my half bald half and the memory of last night came rushing back in a horrendous blur. After Brian left, I met these two really drunk girls. They said I was cute but my long hair had to go. They were Army brats who only liked military boys. They wanted to cut my hair themselves but I refused. Being drunk and without a wingman, I let them drag me to a Bangkok barber at three o’clock in the morning. That’s all I remember.

  When Brian dragged out of bed and saw me, he started laughing. “Let me guess: You got your ass kicked by a bunch of Marines last night??”

  “Pretty sure I did this on purpose.”

  “Thought you were done blacking out?”

  “I did too. I even wrote it in my journal.”

  “Some girls did
this to you. Didn’t they?”

  “No! Yes … kinda.”

  I was a strange sight for sure—half Tarzan, half Travis Bickle.

  Brian just stood there with his toothbrush. “I stand in wonderment to your insanity.” He had known me forever and I’ve always had long hair. “Charles Manson would be proud.”

  “I must have panicked and run out before the barber was finished.”

  “You did it for sex, which never happened, right?”

  “I don’t know why I did it.”

  Maybe I did it to show Brian I wasn’t the crazy one. Maybe I did it to show him I was still the conservative kid from Cupertino who would get a buzz cut to prove it. Whatever the reason, my half-ass attempt at looking normal only proved his point.

  I was now the crazy one.

  After a lunch of chicken and rice and a few beers, Brian convinced me to go back to the same barbershop and cut the rest off. I argued with the barber about payment. “But I already paid you for a full haircut last night!” The guy hadn’t forgotten my insane countenance; he just nodded and shaved the rest off.

  It was a liberating experience being bald after having long hair for so many years. When I walked out of the barbershop, I smiled at Brian, who was reading. “Now I don’t even need to shower! Half the time I only do it to get the grease out. I’m free!”

  Brian just smiled and shook his head. “You’re the king of your own world.”

  We spent our last afternoon in Bangkok walking around Khaosan Road, shopping for supplies. I bought some music, a shirt, and a cap for my bald head. Brian bought condoms, lots of them. Either he was preparing to dive back into the dangerous loins of the stray go-go dancer experience, or he was reinvigorated with love and didn’t want to give Carrie anything a shot of penicillin wouldn’t cure. I didn’t ask.

  We left Bangkok the next day and took a bus ride south to Pattaya on the eastern coast. Pattaya is one of the sex capitals of the world; the entire town was built to serve American servicemen on R&R during the Vietnam War. But we didn’t come for the sex—at least I didn’t. We came here to enjoy the beach for a day or so before we left for our next stop: Vietnam. But looking at all the condoms Brian bought in Bangkok, I wasn’t sure of his intentions anymore.

  “This place makes Bangkok’s red-light district look like Disneyland,” Brian said in awe as we walked past all the go-go bars, sex clubs, and massage parlors.

  “Good thing you bought all those condoms,” I smiled.

  “I just need to protect myself just in case.”

  “You never got tested, did you?”

  “No.”

  “Did you tell Carrie she may have a venereal disease?”

  “You of all people can’t lecture me about responsible drinking,” he said, slapping my bald head.

  “Fair enough … Fair enough.”

  During the day, Pattaya is not quite as sex-driven as it is at night. Sadly, the beaches were not very nice; they were crowded and full of partiers by mid-afternoon, jet skis were flying around full of Chinese tourists on vacation. A million open-air bars were going off and it was only three o’clock.

  “It’s like Groundhog Day; everywhere we go we find the same insane orgy of excess,” Brian said. “No way we’re escaping this ‘City of Sin’ unscathed.”

  Brian was right … but we had no idea how strange of a trip it was going to be.

  The first sign of trouble was when we saw the American aircraft carrier USS Independence arrive in town. Five thousand seaman were streaming off the boat looking for trouble. “Half those dudes will be in the brig by the end of the night,” I said.

  “Great. They’ll take the attention off us,” Brian said.

  We checked in at the Diana Inn for ten dollars a night. Our room had a TV, a refrigerator, and our own bathroom. It was pretty nice for the price, and we also got a swimming pool—but it was so hot in Pattaya my head was in constant danger of third degree burns, so I couldn’t lay out for very long.

  That night, we sat on our balcony and watched the party in the street below. Everything was back to normal and all seemed right in the world again. We decided to avoid all the sex bars and watched Trainspotting at a restaurant.

  Were we finally growing up?

  Not by a long shot. The next night it got ugly, oily, and very, very dirty.

  It all began innocently enough. Brian and I decided to walk to another beach since the one by our hotel was ridiculously dirty. After about two hours of trekking through back roads, we never found anything worthwhile, so we gave up and decided to rehydrate at this little bar in the middle of the jungle. The tiny bar was hopping, which was strange. Servicemen were everywhere. Brian and I even recognized a few of the Navy guys.

  “Didn’t we party with you dudes last month in Singapore?”

  “You’re that crazy guy and that hippie! See you finally got a proper haircut.”

  We started drinking and it all went downhill from there. We eventually rampaged back to Pattaya’s go-go bars. We were going deep quick and had been drinking for about five hours when I convinced Brian to give all of us “servicemen” a show.

  Brian, back in old form, took the bait. He hopped up on the bar and started dancing with all the bikini girls. The Navy guys booed. I was too busy to notice since a stripper dancing above me kept pouring candle wax on my head. After a few minutes my entire head was covered in a wax helmet. Meanwhile, the Navy guys kept booing since Brian didn’t have a female body and couldn’t dance for shit. I knew this kind of foolishness was illegal in the States, but had no idea it would be frowned upon in Thailand where I thought anything went. It didn’t.

  After a few minutes a gang of Thai police officers rushed in and dragged Brian out into the street, screaming and half-clothed. The Navy guys cheered his ousting. The Thai police saw that I was snapping photos of them dragging Brian out, so they grabbed me too. Brian kept yelling, “You’re making a huge mistake!” as they cuffed him while I just yelled gibberish. The police tried to confiscate my camera, but for some reason I wouldn’t let them have it. A struggle ensued; I started to swing my camera at them like a fool while Brian cheered my rebellion like an even bigger fool.

  “He’s an award-winning photojournalist for National Geographic! He shoots elephants!”

  Thank God I shaved my head because I yelled for a nearby Navy police officer to save our ass. It’s their job to make sure the Navy guys don’t get in trouble in the ports of call, and when they do, the Navy police arrest them and take them back to the ship.

  I was hoping this would happen to us—and it did. The Navy swooped in and the Thai police were forced to hand us over. I stopped resisting arrest and complied. Brian yelled, “Thank God for the cavalry! I’m falsely accused of disturbing a sex show!”

  It took a few minutes for the Navy police to haggle for our lives. Watching the negotiation, all I could say was, “I love America.” A Navy cop got in my face. “Can it before I shut your yapper for you!” I shut my yapper. Still, I had to smile—who wouldn’t? We weren’t going to Thai jail.

  We were both smiling when the Navy police cuffed us. I told them, “You just saved us from a long, excruciating imprisonment.”

  “Shutaaap!” the big one yelled then banged my head into Brian’s like two coconuts. I could tell they were tempted to throw us in the ocean so they didn’t have to file a report, but being law-abiding seamen, they took us to the pier and onto the aircraft carrier for processing.

  After our sobering walk, Brian politely informed the Navy police they “really should release us.”

  “Another peep outta you and—”

  “But sirs, really, your commanding officer won’t be too pleased to find you’re falsely imprisoning two innocent American civilians.”

  “Nice try. Prove it.”

  We handed them our passports, which we luckily had on us. The Navy cops did a thorough check to make sure we weren’t trying to go AWOL, then after a few minutes of heated debate, they had to let us go.
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  There were five thousand crazy Americans hanging out in Pattaya, and they had just arrested the only two they couldn’t take in. When they unshackled us, they knocked our heads together one final time. “Stay outta trouble, you knuckleheads! If we see you around here again—”

  “Don’t worry sirs, you won’t. We’re going to Vietnam.”

  They gave us one last skeptical look. We walked away, whistling. We turned a corner and looked at each other in shock. “How did we get outta that one?” Brian wailed. We were so happy we weren’t going to jail we skipped all the way down the pier. Shaken up, we skipped right past the strip of go-go bars we got arrested in, wisely deciding not to tempt fate and go back in.

  But our troubles weren’t destined to end there. The next incident occurred when we walked straight into a street that was obviously the gay section of town. It was easy to spot since there were dozens of neon penises and signs flashing all sort of gay slogans and slurs. We should have just turned around and gone home, but I had to push it. I turned to Brian and said with a big, devious smile, “Let’s check one out—why not!”

  “Why not?? How addicted are you to trannies?”

  “They’re called ladyboys, and it’s the perfect place to lay low.”

  “It’s the perfect place to get a scorching case of herpes.”

  “We need to get off the streets. What better hideout than this?”

  We argued for a few minutes but I held firm. I mentioned our pact to “see everything for the experience. You need to keep an open mind, even in dire situations like these. Trust me.”

  Brian shook his head and let me drag him in. “I’m traveling with Boy George.”

  Onward we plunged into our first go-go boys bar escapade. “Don’t make me do this, man. I can smell the musky coconut oil from here.” Brian and I slipped into the bar. It was dark—too dark. Then stage lights came on and music started blaring. When our eyes focused on the action at hand, the scene was sheer horror.