Bangkok Thailand

No problems at all flying into Bangkok from Rangoon, Burma. We took a taxi into downtown Bangkok to Hotel Atlanta where we would end up staying for a while. Huge difference between Burma and Bangkok. The Thai people were all friendly and helpful. We were there as the Viet Nam war was just winding down. Over the last decade Bangkok had been inundated with military men on Rest and Relaxation. The entire economy was geared toward serving this group of people and a few tourists. As the war was slowing down and troops were being withdrawn the number of people in Bangkok on R&R was declining drastically. What that meant to us was that everywhere we went around town there was a group of young people following us. Most of these young people were prostitutes both male and female trying to hook up with us. It was kind of irritating to be followed everywhere but when we needed directions or help with anything they would all rush forward and help us out. The hotel we stayed at was very strict with all these street hustlers. They were not allowed into the hotel or on its grounds. That was nice for us as it gave us some respite from always being harassed outside of the hotel. If we wanted a massage or something in the hotel we had to use a list of approved vendors from the hotel.

Our fellow guests at the hotel were a mixed bag of war correspondents, military suppliers, active duty military on R&R, tourists and medical tourists. Quite a few guests were long term residents of the hotel. We had a great time with the diverse group. I hooked up with an Israeli guy that liked to play chess. We played a lot of games and became good friends. He was very generous with us and took us out on the town a few times. He taught me a lot about the Israeli military after I told him about my experience in Nigeria of being convicted of being a Mossad agent and my escape from the jail. He told me I did the right thing escaping and offered some advice in case I got in trouble again. He was clearly trained in intelligence work.

Bangkok is a huge, busy, noisy, polluted, overcrowded, stinky, dirty and fun city. I had a blast there. The street food was to die for. Little stalls all over town had their specialties and the local people crowded to the best ones so it was easy to find good food. I fell in love with all the stir fried rice or noodles and the soups. I went to one guy's food cart the most. He made stir fried deep fried oysters with vegies, eggs and noodles that was the best tasting meal I ate in Thailand. The tom ka gai or chicken soup drove me nuts. I could not get enough of it. I still love the food and eat at Thai restaurants or make it at home frequently. I have never been able to make the deep fried oyster dish as well as I found it at the stall.

Besides eating all day and night in Bangkok we did all the usual sights there from the awesome temples to the floating market. Just check out Wiki for Bangkok and there is a good article on all these places. We spent a good share of our time just wandering around town or riding around in their little taxis. Everything was so cheap. A meal on the street was normally under fifteen cents, a taxi ride for a dollar, beer ten to fifteen cents, young prostitutes under ten bucks, and so forth. I found the people to be very attractive to me. Having all these hot girls chasing me all day and night was very unnerving. I did not indulge in the sex tourism and prostitutes.

Kirsten and I did go out to Pat Pong Road one night with a big group of American Navy men that we met in our hotel. We went to a bunch of clubs with sex shows. I will admit that there were some unusual talents on display in some of the shows. I had never seen ping pong played the way those two girls played it. I have trouble blowing a smoke ring with my mouth so I don't know how they learn to do it their way. One of the sailors with us got drunk and a couple of girls at one show pulled him up on stage and took advantage of his state for the entertainment of his friends. They ran him through the gauntlet of perversion. I doubt if he remembered any of it the next day but I bet his buddies never let him live that night on stage down. We laughed our asses off though. The sailors we were with were disappearing for periods of time one by one and then returning to our group with stories of their sexploits. They were dropping big bucks on their night out. I never told them they were overpaying or how cheap the sex could be in Thailand. They were having a memorable night and I was just observing. Most of them were heading back to the war zone soon so go at it and enjoy life.

There was a lot of pot smoking going on in Thailand everywhere we went. I am not a big stoner or drug user but I wasn't opposed to those around me getting stoned and having fun. Anything was available for a price in Bangkok from drugs to sex or anything else for that matter. The police were sometimes tough on crime and sometimes they were the criminals. You never knew if you could trust anybody in Bangkok. I just stayed away from the shady deals and places because I was having too much fun without the hassles.

We were in Bangkok probably longer than we needed to be. After India and Burma we were just enjoying the good life for a while in the big city. Eventually we planned trips out of Bangkok. We wanted to go to Chang Mai up in the north and Phuket down in the south and we heard that we could go to Cambodia and Laos as well. We planned on doing it all.

We met a danish guy in our hotel. He was trying to build a resort on a small island in the south called Phuket. He planned to build an airport and a big beach resort and get rich quick doing it. He tried to talk me and Kirsten into helping him and becoming his partners. He took us down to see the island. We drove there and stayed at a local persons house because there were no hotels on the island yet. We went swimming and diving for a few days while he tried to get us to help him out. One day I went diving alone. I was just free diving with a mask and snorkel and fins. I saw two nice fat spiny lobsters on the bottom in about thirty to thirty five feet of water. I wanted at least one of them for lunch and dove down to grab one. As I reached out to grab one a giant shark brushed against me. The water was a bit murky when he bumped me but it was a lot murkier after he bumped me. I shit my pants when I saw a shark that could easily swallow me in one gulp. I had thousands of hours of diving experience and had seen thousands of sharks in the water. I thought I was pretty calm and in control around sharks. I told people all the time that sharks weren't a problem when I was diving. Obviously I was mistaken because I had just never encountered a shark this large before. The training for shark encounters is to hug the bottom and keep an eye on the shark until it swims away then to slowly swim to the surface or shore and get out of the water. I knew that training. The problem with that scenario is that it requires nerves of steel and I panicked big time when I felt and then saw this monster. I shot to the surface and swam like a motor boat for the shore. When I hit the reef I just shot right up over the needle sharp rocks and cut myself up nicely. Then I sat down and huddled on my haunches. Kirsten had been sitting on the beach watching me dive. She got up and came over to where I was out on the reef. I was in shock. I could not talk or walk. All I could do was sit there in the nice warm sun and warm up to try to stop my shaking. Kirsten sat down next to me and tried to comfort me but she had no idea why I was being unresponsive. After quite a while just sitting there I slowly recovered enough to tell her what had happened to me. She laughed at me and my response. Such is life. I learned something that day in the water. I learned that I don't always know just how I will respond to different stimuli. I learned what panic feels like. I learned that there are some really really big fish and sharks in the ocean that can scare the shit out of me.

I never took up our Danish friend's offer to become his partner in Phuket. We left the almost uninhabited island in his hands and took off for other sights. In retrospect now I realize that I missed a golden opportunity. Our friend finished his airport and his resort and is now a multimillionaire and Phuket is now a destination for the world to enjoy. He built it and they came. I love to see people act on their dreams and fulfill their desires like he did. I could have been there with him but such is life, I dreamed about traveling the world and I chose my dream rather than his dream. He got rich with money and I have rich memories from a full life of following my dreams. To each his own.