Patpong Gap Year - Continued

Summer of Love. From Manchester to Goa to Koh Phangan. Crumbs! Has it really been nearly 20 years??! I booked a one—way from London to Bangkok. I’d missed the Goa phase and was determined not to miss the next destination. Everybody knew it was Koh Phangan— ’see you there, mate’.

Of course, being eighteen, I thought that I knew it all. Hadn’t I ’railed’ it around Europe with no problems? So on the plane I got. My mother insisted on at least booking and paying for a proper hotel on my first night; the Indra Regent— hardly the Khao San road!

To my horror, on departing the plane I realized that I wasn’t in Bangkok at all but rather ’Utapao Airport’, Pattaya. Don’t ask me why. Some cheapo charter small print. Next my checked—in bags never arrived.

Apparently, as they were marked for the Indra Hotel (and this took hours to find out)— they had been sent right there, along with the other tourists on the transit bus, which I had now missed. Stupidly, I had packed my travelers checks in my suitcase.

“I had a few dollars”

I had a few dollars cash and a credit card— which didn’t work. I certainly didn’t have enough money for a hotel and whatnot— plus I was already feeling incredibly jet—lagged. So I wandered the streets of this extremely odd place— Pattaya.

Formerly a US naval port of call, one could see the huge American influence, most notably ’girlie bars’ everywhere and I must admit to blushing profusely at all the girls standing outside the doors saying a variety of quite embarrassing things— made even more so by the gesture of sticking their thumbs in out of their mouths in imitation of what my Uncle would call ’horizontal activity’.

If I sound naive, it’s because I was. This was completely, truly, a new world to me. Of course I’d heard and read about all the goings on— but being there up close was truly a different matter.

“she seemed totally unconscious”

As I continued wandering the streets, actually looking for a place to eat, I noticed this girl sprawled out on the ground in the middle of the road.

She seemed totally unconscious. I assumed that it was the effects of alcohol— and nobody else seemed particularly bothered by this— so I just carried on my own way.

Some hours later, having eaten and joined up with a couple of Canadian guys for a drink, I passed by the same street. The same girl lay there flat out in exactly the same position as I had seen her earlier. The thing is— even in the state that she was in, she was quite possibly the most drop—dead gorgeous girl that I had ever seen in my life.

“people talk about defining moments”

Something overtook me at that moment. People talk about defining moments in their lives— and, as silly as it may seem, this was mine. I picked the girl up and got into a ’tuk tuk’ telling them, with quite some difficulty, that I wanted to go to the nearest hospital.

I didn’t mind sitting in the rather hot waiting area of the hospital, as I really had nowhere else to go. Some hours later the girl emerged with a nurse and I was given her as a father would be his errant daughter. Appen, as I was to learn her name was, held my hand as we walked out of the hospital and went on our journey.

“the plain noise of life”

The lack of sleep, the incredible mix and depth of smells, the colour, the vibrancy and just the plain noise of life— had now well and truly taken me over.

Dear reader, forgive my artistic licence, but for all our sakes, let me fast forward. Some three months has now passed and I don’t think that a second had occured when Appen and I had been apart.

I had since discovered that she was a ’girlie’ and worked in one of the most seedy bars in Patpong— where live shows were a nightly occurence, be it with ping pong balls, darts and balloons or rather more obvious voyeurism. At first, this had been a serious moral dilemma, but Thailand has a way of dealing with such things: ’mai pen rai’...

I had long since run out of money and was now living in a shack, along with all the girls and ladyboys working in the bars,

not far from Patpong itself. If you walk down the end of Patpong 1 (Patpong is split into four streets, loosely separated by your sexual orientation), you will see a large McDonalds.

Behind that are some winding streets of shacks and an underground life that you would be unlikely to find in your Lonely Planet guide. Appen had sold her gold necklaces to fund my visa trip over to Penang and, despite my severest protestations, was now working again to suspend the reality of our love affair, all be it with the knowledge that it couldn’t last.

“I was madly jealous”

I was madly jealous whenever she would entertain a client— even though I knew the commissions on drinks was our bread and butter.

I got to know the ’scene’ pretty well and I think that I’m one of the few men who can actually tell a ladyboy apart from a lady after a full operation. A clue? It’s in the fingers! Everything else is easily dealt with cosmetically, even the Adam’s apple and other more sensitive parts! I never did get to Koh Phangan.

Instead of dancing all night to full moons, I sat alone in the corner of Patpong girlie bars living off the generosity of working girls. Instead of magic mushrooms and thai stick, it was Mr Walker, black label or red— it didn’t matter. In the end, I was bundled home by friends and family like a thief in the night. I never did get to say goodbye to Appen.

I went back to Bangkok after 5 years and tried to find her, with no success. My first love. Was it ’Pretty Woman’? No. There was nothing glamorous about it at all. Did I learn anything in this valued year? I’m not sure— but let me say this: I saw Thailand at its most beautiful in its most seedy of areas and lifestyles. And I found out that you can’t choose who you fall in love with. Weird and paradoxical as it sounds, Patpong will always hold a special place of hope in my heart.