Outside the Jomtien Hostel
We were sitting around the table, on the quasi-Apocalyptic alley of Soi Saritas, the Gay and Catholic ghetto of dirty, lusty Jomtien. The road was a long, thin cracked cement carpet. The tall, four-storied buildings on both sides, with their monumental arcades for fronts, were impossibly long and continued for a good 800 metres down to the absolute darkness of the sea. Zebra stripes of damp and dirt streaked these once-white walls. Creeping plants crawled up the pillars, while others drooped from balconies or, sprouting from the ground, had claimed and consumed the last vestige of a sidewalk.
It was seven or eight, but the night had settled already. The place was lit by huge floodlights, like a prison yard, throwing fantastical shadows all about this scene. The atmosphere was still and sultry: a storm had been announced and it was not far off.
Up the road, and half sunk in shadows, a dog was tearing at a carcass. Yellow skin flapped from the arced bones of a large rib-cage.
In our group, around the bottle of Thai whiskey, there was the little, drunken, heavily tatooed Cambodjan; an old, skinny man, completely naked but for his tight yellow briefs and pink rubber shoes; the fat little baby and his orcish keeper; the ladyboy, her face as flat as a frying pan, her fake hair hanging dead and long almost down to her feet; and the hostel's receptionist, Joe, with a thin scar running from his eye to his lips and his hair ends dyed yellow. He is our most reliable source of alcohol, followed closely by the flirtatious sexagenarian down the road.
In the baby's large black eyes, there was as much intelligence as you may hope to find in a shell-shocked sheep. The ladyboy hangs around my hostel when I'm in and won't leave until I do, and she follows at my heels, catcalling in her ugly, husky voice: "I like you, Spaaaain. I miss you, Spaaaain." She has done this since my very first visit into town and whenever I come back, she knows exactly where I was and how long I was there for.
A lady walks by and picks up the plump baby. He stares at his mother with as much recognition as a goldfish would look up at its feeder. She sizes me up in an obvious once-over and asks Joe something. He waves her away with distaste, sees my questioning glance and explains:
"She is a bitch!" He flourishes his long hand as he speaks, twirling and flapping it around. "Her husband is working far away in Saudi Arabia, for long long time and he send money every month. But now she has this baby - after he left, and she not tell him." As he gets excited, his voice started rising to a high, thin pitch. "Husband been away very very long time. So what you think? Husband can send sperm by SMS or what?" His laughter here went so high it scraped his throat and turned, mid-act, into a gasp for air. "So what she do? She come to this town of course, because in this town everybody's looking for a Farang. She cannot stay in village. They know what she did. But she needs to find new man, quickly, before other one finds out."
You wouldn't believe me, but I've heard this story a number of times before, give or take a detail or two. It seems to be the story of every single girl in town - and even of most girls who aren't particularly single anymore.
We were sitting around the table, on the quasi-Apocalyptic alley of Soi Saritas, the Gay and Catholic ghetto of dirty, lusty Jomtien. The road was a long, thin cracked cement carpet. The tall, four-storied buildings on both sides, with their monumental arcades for fronts, were impossibly long and continued for a good 800 metres down to the absolute darkness of the sea. Zebra stripes of damp and dirt streaked these once-white walls. Creeping plants crawled up the pillars, while others drooped from balconies or, sprouting from the ground, had claimed and consumed the last vestige of a sidewalk.
It was seven or eight, but the night had settled already. The place was lit by huge floodlights, like a prison yard, throwing fantastical shadows all about this scene. The atmosphere was still and sultry: a storm had been announced and it was not far off.
Up the road, and half sunk in shadows, a dog was tearing at a carcass. Yellow skin flapped from the arced bones of a large rib-cage.
In our group, around the bottle of Thai whiskey, there was the little, drunken, heavily tatooed Cambodjan; an old, skinny man, completely naked but for his tight yellow briefs and pink rubber shoes; the fat little baby and his orcish keeper; the ladyboy, her face as flat as a frying pan, her fake hair hanging dead and long almost down to her feet; and the hostel's receptionist, Joe, with a thin scar running from his eye to his lips and his hair ends dyed yellow. He is our most reliable source of alcohol, followed closely by the flirtatious sexagenarian down the road.
In the baby's large black eyes, there was as much intelligence as you may hope to find in a shell-shocked sheep. The ladyboy hangs around my hostel when I'm in and won't leave until I do, and she follows at my heels, catcalling in her ugly, husky voice: "I like you, Spaaaain. I miss you, Spaaaain." She has done this since my very first visit into town and whenever I come back, she knows exactly where I was and how long I was there for.
A lady walks by and picks up the plump baby. He stares at his mother with as much recognition as a goldfish would look up at its feeder. She sizes me up in an obvious once-over and asks Joe something. He waves her away with distaste, sees my questioning glance and explains:
"She is a bitch!" He flourishes his long hand as he speaks, twirling and flapping it around. "Her husband is working far away in Saudi Arabia, for long long time and he send money every month. But now she has this baby - after he left, and she not tell him." As he gets excited, his voice started rising to a high, thin pitch. "Husband been away very very long time. So what you think? Husband can send sperm by SMS or what?" His laughter here went so high it scraped his throat and turned, mid-act, into a gasp for air. "So what she do? She come to this town of course, because in this town everybody's looking for a Farang. She cannot stay in village. They know what she did. But she needs to find new man, quickly, before other one finds out."
You wouldn't believe me, but I've heard this story a number of times before, give or take a detail or two. It seems to be the story of every single girl in town - and even of most girls who aren't particularly single anymore.
