Theres no way I’m leaving this place unscathed. There is just no way
After just under forty total hours of travel, I’m here in Pattaya. I’m staying in a hotel room for tonight, which happens to overlook another hotel that might as well be a massive rubik’s cube; and then moving into my appartment tommorow during the day. And, I’m fucking tired… but theres just too damn much I have to get down on here before I go to sleep and forget some of it. The things I do for you fuckers.
I got off the plane in Bangkok, grabbed my luggage-which I still havent opened, hopefully everything made it here OK- and jumped into the drivers car and headed for Pattaya. What a fucking car ride. Everyone here drives like daddy just bought them a brand spankin new Enzo Ferrari and cant wait to get the fucking thing ahead of every other car on the highway and open the bitch up. Of course, in that brand spankin new ferrari, you’d keep AT LEAST 10 feet away from other cars as not to scratch the paint or shard off any of its oh-so-sexy fiberglass body… as opposed to everyone here, who seem to make it a game as who can get as close to any moving or non-moving object without completely taking off a side mirror… or limb.
Anyway, the first thing I saw from the airport was Bangkok’s local porsche dealer. Very nice. I also thought I’d never see a right hand drive BMW 750. First time for everything, right? More on “first time’s” later.
It’s seriously like taking Sybil, cloning her 2499 times, and throwing them and the original in a bunch of bumper cars on a one mile stretch and seeing how they can take up two lanes at a time, and turn a two lane highway into a three lane highway all while going as fast as they can. I’ll spare you the roundtrip airfare, and tell you how it turns out: it’s one massive clusterfuck of cars attempting to move forward, backward, or in moped’s case sideways, too. There were seriously times I thought I was going to die, or the driver was going to kill someone on a motorcycle. Neither of which are ways I’d have liked this trip to begin. He threaded the needle between something with about 18 wheels, and the other part of the pinhole being something with two wheels. I grabbed the oh shit handle, braced myself, and muttered:
As you can imagine, this shitstorm of cars being driven by crazy asians actually resulted in a traffic jam that any self-respecting, curse-screaming, bird-flipping New Yorker could appreciate… unlike that speedbump LA decides to call rush hour traffic.
This guys car had to have had a gear ratio comprable to the ones in Rockscar’s brain. The engine was revvin’ high, but not makin much progress. Keep on tryin’, big fellah. Another weird thing about how everyone drives here is that in a dead stop traffic jam, I didn’t hear a single horn blown. However, this guy did lay on his horn about every other second while weaving in and out in traffic, sans turning signal. I guess the horn works better. The best part about the horn… It wasn’t a real horn. He basically had DJ-go-fuck-ya-self remix the siren you hear when you hit the game at your local six flags hard enough with the sledgehammer sending the ball up to the 100 mark, and the giggle the dog made in duck hunt when, despite holding the gun 3 inches from the TV screen, you missed a duck with all three rounds. About an hour and a half later, I arrive at this hotel.
This hotel happened to be at the end of the block. Once we turned onto the block, I got my first shot of nerves. Clarification: by shot of nerves, I mean my muscles in my legs, jaw, and arms were twitching. There are endless bars, massage parlors, restaurants, pharmacies, and a ratio of 17:1 hookers to male tourists in town, all no more than 100 yards from where I’m staying for the next four months.
Speaking of nerves… As my departure from home came closer, people kept asking me if I was nervous. I said not really, and truthfully, I wasn’t. That changed faster than the George dub-ya can say “cultureshock.”
Ho-lee shi-at. Some of these hookers are unfuckinbeleivable looking… and they know it. It took no longer than 12 seconds for me to be driving down the block going slow enough to look for my hotel, for more than a couple of them tap on the window, whistle, and make a few suggestive gestures. I must be that ugly American that they can smell money dripping off of. Most of them are dressed in nothing more than some very sexy lingerie. Like, the lingerie TC writes about in Atomic Dog. You can bet your top dollar that the second the car turned onto the block, whatever was in the streets shot through the tires, up the seats, and straight to my junkular area igniting something like I had been struck by lightning.
Lightning rod, indeed.
As for the “first time for everything” thing… I can already tell this place is even crazier than I had expected it to be. I couldn’t tell you what I�??ll get to experience here, but I’m sure you’ll hear at least one good story from me in the next four months. Hearty promise, I know, but it’s what I got.
And no, you assholes, leave the “gay first time” jokes to Rainjacks douchebag thread.
