OK, sorry but this is just a vacation account as I did not meet the girl I had written too. I shorten it a little so that it relates mainly to the subject of Thai girls.
Still it's a bit too much to read in one go, so I post it in two parts, here is part 1.
Harald
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It was a Last minute offer, Lauda Air through Hotelplan 1-week returnticket for Bangkok, obtained one week before take-off.
Note: 25 B = 1 SF; Wat = Buddhist temple; Farang = Western man
WEDNESDAY
At Zurich airport, I dropped my return ticket in font of X-ray machine, but happily the woman there forced my attention to it!
The airplane "zig-zags", avoids Ukraine, Irak, Afghanistan.
THURSDAY
The girl with whom I had corresponded (Ying) suggested that maybe "Bo" (her "sister") would be waiting for me, as she "couldn't come" to meet me. I came a bit late, waited a little until 7h00, but no "Bo".
I take a bus to the hotel I had reserved (in the Sukhimvit area as suggested by by both Ying and my Swiss friend; in fact it's the "Red Light" district!).
I walk around in town, buy sunglasses and take Skytrain to the river. Many people take a ferry, next to a bridge. I tried the ferry and walked back over the bridge.
When looking for shorts, I come across one woman who claims about shorts like a tent "XXL only means size of pockets... Why don't you buy from me?!". I buy shorts somewhere else. Notice that many Bin Laden shirts are for sale.
After a shower and a rest I go out to eat, I try a bar/restaurant nearby, one of the waitresses is a nice student girl named Rak. I say "see you tomorrow", and leave to have a look around. Quite different from e.g. Amsterdam, hookers along the road, but mostly don't LOOK like hookers. But they DO say hello.
Also I pass by Nana Entertainment Place, but it doesn't seem possible to just sit down and drink a beer. I don't feel at ease there.
Back to "my" restaurant and smile with Rak, I really like her. She asks where I had been "Soi 2 or 4 but I didn't like it". "Why?" "Because of the girls there." Then she asks "Are you not married?" I say no but she says she doesn't believe me. I say "Why not? Don't you have a boyfriend?" "No, I'm too ugly"! I smile, and claim that can't be the reason.
I ask her to join me for sightseeing tomorrow (instead of college?) and she accepts. She suggests 10h00 in front of McDo but I make it 11h00 as I have some jet-lag to absorb.
FRIDAY
I take a yoghurt from a 7/11, and apple-pie with milk in McDonalds. Start to think she won't come but 11h10 there she is. Smile + "how long have you waited".
I notice the way she is clothed is a bit "young" for her 20 years. She even has a big cheap looking ring. Coca Cola while discussing where to go (palace and river); taxi to Palace (Grand Palace is a term she doesn't know but Wat Pra kao she does know).
The driver asks her (in Thai) how she met me etc. And to me where I'll go to after Bangkok and if she'll come with me! In the Palace we go in a temple but she wants to leave even faster than I, it's clear that she's NOT a Buddhist.
We take a boat tour, we have to rent a boat. Rak then asks me if I'm free tonight, to come along with her and one of her friends to the disco.
Taxi back to our area, we eat lunch in a restaurant, she eats something rather modest and wants to know how much I paid, and thanks very much. Then I go back to the hotel to have a little rest (before meeting Andreas, the brother of friend in Switzerland) and she goes shopping, but we see each other 10 min. later in the internet cafe. (Later she told me that in fact she wrote an email to a girlfriend about me...).
I had made the appointment to meet Andreas in the same restaurant, and he also invited three other friends of his, but Rak stays on a distance. We go to other, busier places, with many hookers and he and one of his friends (both live in Bangkok) have in mind to end the evening with one... We meet another of his friends. Interesting to see from nearby, but really not my piece of cake. The other guy, who is travelling around the world, clearly doesn't appreciate it either. Quite early I go back to "my" restaurant, to Rak and her friend. Rak "doesn't feel well" and will not go dancing after all. But then, she says that she's just not yet 20, and that she can't get into a disco until she's 20, because of drugs and police checking! Talk about the tougher police checks nowadays, and the imposed 2h00 closing time.
She cleans the dish under-layers, and as I'm bored I go to sit next to her and help her, with quite some comments from the other employees... O o, this is getting a little bit "soap", as the staff is watching us! I wonder if I'm being influenced by a Theatre Improvisation course I followed. Rak is amused anyway.
After asking me if I agree to pay for all, the three of us just went to "Big Boy" to play pool until 1h45. She asks again how much the bill was. She wants to know what I'm going to do the rest of my vacation. She takes a taxi to her room on Soi 22 ("lives with her sister", later she explains that means her best friend). Good-bye...
SATURDAY
I go to Kanchanabury by bus in the afternoon. The ticket says 13h40, but the bus leaves 13h30!
I try Canaan Guest House, very nearby. The woman there had worked for 10 years, then had the GH built from her money (B 1.200.000) and started it with help of her father . Not bad!
Take motorbike ride to station -I sit behind a driver, it's a motortaxi- and take the train one stop further to the bridge over the River Kwai. In the museum, a Dutch saddle puts my attention to the fact that also Dutch prisoners were involved in this WWII tragedy.
I eat at the Guest house (not bad), early to bed to be in shape for next day's trip.
SUNDAY
I take the 8h00 bus, in town we pick up two Belgian girls who thought they had missed the bus and had in mind to take the next one; the bus conductor noticed them on the road, they were greatly surprised. It's 1.5 h to Erawan nature reserve. Quick walk up to the highest waterfalls. On the way I swimtake a dive, cristal clear. Fish nibble on me! Not scared at all (neither me nor the fish).
Many people "Hello how are you" and "what's your name".
Back down, I swim in lower falls. Group of girls laughing, they cannot swim well, have floaters and rubber bands. One girl (named "Ae") smiles a lot to me. I swim, they also, to a cave under the falls. I follow them and when I leave, they leave too. The girl makes a telephone gesture, but later I don't ask and she doesn't give her number, although I give my guest house card. She goes for another swim but I am feeling too cold. After that she doesn't speak to me!
Back at the parking, a woman sells me ice cream, even gives me some of her ice cream that she's eating, and refuses payment! Instead: "can I go with you?". ;-)
In the evening I make a tel. call to Rak at her work ("maybe do something together on Tuesday" when it's her day off and sometimes she skips classes then), and to "Princess", the receptionist of the Hotel, to reserve a room. I used the handy phone of the Guest House owner for free!
MONDAY
I rent a bicycle to cycle around town, and look at some Wats. Back in the guesthouse, a man with two women on a motorcycle passes by, looking for a tourst who has left. The woman of the house tells me later that they were not women but "ladyboys", didn't I see how ugly they were?!
Afternoon nap, writing, internet. A Thai girl is online whom I had contacted on Internet before going to Thailand. She had not understood I was actually in Thailand now! Too late to meet her...
In the internet cafe there are many youths, all boys playing computer games, and one schoolgirl chatting. The evening before it was similar.
Bus back to Bangkok, and to my hotel, for a short rest. Then I check internet, no reply from Rak.
I go to the restaurant, she is very busy. I talk with an English man named Randall and his Thai girlfriend. He had met her on a vacation, and she had convinced him to come to live in Thailand with her. They discuss the difference in perception, she thinks he shows how much he loves her by the amount of jewels he gives her. She is the sister of one of the guys working here and knows most of them, so I ask her about Rak, but she says she doesn't know her as Rak is rather new. And then she asks if I want to take Rak for the night, and offers to ask her for me! No thanks.
However, Rak does not give me attention, and when I get a chance to talk to Rak, it's almost as if she had spoken to her. No, she had not checked her mail. I tell her that my younger sister has written to her, and she says she will have a look. And please send an email with pictures of my family. About the coming day, she listens to what my plans are, but then she says "no time" "have to go to school + promised to visit my sister"(!). Also, out of the blue, "I don't love you". Even, without explanation, something like "I need this job, don't want to be fired"(?!) She also tries to explain something, but she doesn't know the word in English...
I tell her I thought she liked me, and she claims she likes me "as her brother", even motivating that she has 3 sisters, no brother. When there is nice oldies music I comment on it, she seems to feel exactly the same about it, and I remark that it's much more romantic than modern music. Another girl is listening in on us and says "oo, Romantic!!" and I feel "soap" again... Rak asks if I smoke. No, I don't.
When no-one looks I give Rak a box of Swiss chocolates, she says thanks, but without much enthusiasm. And, at closing time (almost 2h00): "Now I go to my room, and you go to your hotel"! I have the feeling there is a big misunderstanding, but it can't be helped...
