But it's definitely got the whole self-loathing part down to a T! I actually didn't take many pictures of Koh Samui - that are suitable for viewing by the elderly and young children, at least - so I'll just throw in pictures of the flowers from the butterfly garden. Perhaps it will help take the edge off the vitriolic hate that I have otherwise typed, no spewed, into the following email home. Bon sois!
****
Truth be told, Koh Samui was something of a blur to me.Days spent in the bronzing (for myself, read; red coppering) heat, or more often than not, cafes and interweb hot spots, and scooting and put-put-putting around countryroads lined with jungle and forested hillsides and secluded beaches, all have a habit of blending into one.
Every morning I would wake up at seven or so, before the heat (and before Samui wakes up at about 10AM) and sit on the beach and watch the sun rise, reflecting on the previous day and thinking about the one to come.
Then, if I had not already passed out on the sand, I would crawl back to bed for a slumberous hour, until the kitchen and restaurant for the bungalows was open.
Taking my usual seat - but not before giving Rocky the wizened old Rottweiler a good scratch - with a view of the sea, I'd say hello to people coming in. The Thais would beam and ask me how I slept and such. The farangs would give me a begrudging smile and a hello (though to be fair, some were far friendlier than others) back.
Then Goh, the land lady's son - possibly - of maybe twenty two would sidle up in his baggy shorts and even baggier hockey jerseys and he would guess my breakfast choice (No.4, muselli with pineapple, tea and orange juice, every day, thank you very much) and we would chew the fat whilst the kitchen russelled up my hearty German cereal. Goh is the typical image of a tropical islander who's been seduced - almost - by Western civilisation without losing too much of his identity along the way, with his tribal tattoos, earings and short, blonde streaked black hair and pearly white teeth. Goh is, in short, good people.
At about the time he fetched my breakfast from the shelf in the kitchen, Herr Gruber would arrived on a scooter much too small for his hefty frame. A German expat, I believe he owns the bungalows, though you would not think it to look at him (the only reason I do, is because the menus are in English and GERMAN). Shorts like Goh, shirt like Goh, black and motiffed with Harley Davidson usually, and a tightly bound que (ponytail) falling to his broad, meaty shoulders. A gruff, heavily tattooed giant of a man (both width ways and length ways), I was fairly terrified of him at first appearance. He looked as if he ate the locals for breakfast.He certainly spoke the language with growling vigour though it seems to be impossible to ruffle a Thai's feathers, and they did not seem to mind his barking orders. Nonetheless, he was a helpful chap, getting me both in possession of a scooter and a few tattoos without asking for so much as a finders fee.
Then of course, Deemeena - or something like that - would glide through the doors in her ubiquitous short short denims and green T-shirt. I've never seen such long legs on a Thai woman and likely never will again. She certainly woke me up in the morning. Alas, I did not pluck up the courage to take a snapshot of her - she was the type to tease and smile and skip away before one had gathered the breath to ask her anything - so you'll have to make do with Goh looking uncharacteristically serious, up there.
Then there was Molly, who I have already mentioned, and another woman who I mentioned seeing to my bike, and she was kind enough to notice I had a flat tire and changed my bike free of charge. Oh, and she saved me from monetary woes on the last day, by swapping dollars for baht. If she had not, I would not have had enough to taxi myself to the ferry, for the mainland, and thusly for the plane to Chiang Mai.
Having said that, maybe it would have been better if she ahd not changed my money and forced me to stay.... Anyway, that is the family and friends of the Lamai Chale't bungalows, people who I miss a good deal and shall always remember. All this talk of koh Samui and the adorable like town of Lamai (theme bars and fat farangs not withstanding) must be making you wonder, why is this miserable bugger complaining about it then?
Why did he want so desperately to leave?
Well, it wasn't the island.
It wasn't the locals like Goh and Oh and Molly or even Herr Gruber.
It's was the tourists. The bloody tourists.
And worse than them, the tourists who came to koh Samui - or indeed Thailand in general -for one thing; bar girls.
First, the tourists. Well, I suppose they are doing what comes naturally to them, as they plod about in their shorts and stringy tops (you really notice the fat white girls when they're surrounded by the naturally svelte and petite Asians, even the chunky Thais! But enough shallowness) and logoed t-shirts and barely contained sense of contempt for the 'quaint' and 'rustic' locals and their habits and habitations secreted behind the gaudy bars and neon shop fronts and burger bars.
There are exceptions, of course, and these people probably would not even stand out to my eye if they - or indeed we - were in our natural habitat.
But here? Here - yes, even in Chiang Mai - you can pick out the laid-back farangs (like me, I say, with a bloated ego) and the uptight foreigners, with their busy schedule to cram in as much local 'culture' as they have time for before running back to wallowing in the sea or collapse in fleshy flabby heaps on a beach chair. I know I must sound horribly snobby and elitist here, to view these people - people just like me and you - with such disdain but, having never seen my own race held up against another, before, I have never really seen how anal, tightly-wound and downright rude Europeans and Americans can be, to the face of 'ignorant' locals.
Here's a tip, Johnny Foreigner, just because he looks Asian, has darker skin than you and speaks 'gobbldeegook', doesn't mean he's some alien or half-bred troglodyte.
And do you see that he's smiling and nodding and trying to understand your English?
No, no you don't because you're too busy demanding to know where your tour bus is, where your cappuccino is, where, where, where your sunshine is, and every other thing you have coming to you.
Muai Thai (thai kick boxing) is a national institution and a fairly brutal martial art....and yet I've never seen an angry Thai.
Why is that?Grandma Thip, Chiang Mai's finest tuk-tuk driver, was chatting to me yesterday and I asked her what she thought of Denmark when she was there, assuming she would find it much too cold.
She replied 'Oh, I don't mind the cold but I came home because the people there are so very serious all the time. They never smile with their face. I think perhaps it is because of the weather or perhaps because they are so pale' .
I laughed at her wisdom, apparently proving to be the exception to the rule.
And then there are the bar-girl catchers.
They come from all over the world, are identified by their sallow skin, guppy-faced frowns, unmissable rudeness (I tried to be pleasant to more than few despite my revulsion, and they flat out ignored me,all bar none) and a taste of young Thai girls.
Sure, the bar girls are there for the taking, offering themselves up, with their sharp wit, grasp of English and buttered beauty. But would they be there if there was no demand? Of course not. I don't think the Thai men use them (though in true Thai fashion, the bar girls are just another kind of worker, and recieve little to no disdain or social exclusion. That would be rude, in the Thai mindset).
Just white guys, who are so obnoxious or lazy or, sure, just shy, with a wad of baht in their pocket and a bad sunburn. And so they stomp up and down Lamai (and even here in Chiang Mai, I'm sorry to say), marked out as being accompanied by a bar-girl by the tight grip they have upon 'their' woman. Wrist, waist or gaze, it does not matter how they stake their claim but there is no denying that claims are made.
I was in a Swiss restaurant - run by a charming giant of a hawaian-shirt wearing Swiss German expat who ensured and asked that all his customers was enjoying themselves. The Thai curry I had was fantastic and, more importantly, did not not play the part of an unwanted enema the next day. A successful meal, indeed - the other day in Lamai.
Anyway, sat across from me, was an American; balding, late twenties and about a hundred pounds overweight by any standards. He had thick rimmed glasses, an IT T-shirt and probably khaki long shorts somewhere beneath the table.
He was eating battered prawns and french fries, to go with his frilly cocktail. Beside him was sat a Thai girl, about 23, dressed fancily and several orders of magnitude better than him, with a look on her face that was a mixture of sheer boredom and undeniable regret. She fiddled with her mobile, perhaps texting the various gods, to ask for them to get her out of that life...
...or perhaps I am being too judgemental. In fact, yes, much too judgemental.
But anyway! She would beam and smile and feed the American morsels of food from her small plate of rice and stir fried vegetables, whenever he stuttered something in her ear. She would giggle and laugh with him, and look the picture of contentment as he grinned cheekily back at her between gobfuls of seafood and pomme frites.
And when he, inevitably, returned to his platter, the girl would return to her reverie, looking for all the world like the loneliness person on Koh Samui.All the while, I had to restrain myself from shattering the fat white man's face with my fist and to shake some sense into the girl. I sent the occasional look of contempt his way whilst waiting for my meal to go down, between gulps of Chang and rising bile and he might have caught one of two but chose to ignore them.
Truth be told, I could not face looking at the facade for most of my time in the otherwise chic and wholly pleasant establishment, instead staring up at the starry night or taking in the town, riding on by.
I shouldn't judge. I know this and yet I do it anyway. The bar girls are not slaves to anything but money. It is not illegal to wine and dine them, here or indeed, anywhere else I don't think.
There are certain things expected of them, come night end but, again, this is the bar-girls' choice. And Johnny Foreigner can certainly buy whatever he likes with his hard earned cash.
And yet...
I don't consider myself a prude by any stretch of the imagination and I am truly shocked that I am so irked by seeing these fat old white men walking around with their arm candy. For a while, I thought it was some kind of sick jealousy on my part.
Yet, I can go into any bar here with a veritable harem of bar girls and for a thousand baht, I can have their company for the evening in whatever fashion I wish, conservative or otherwise.
Yet, still they irk me.
When I met Oh and we became close, I began to worry that I was no different. She is not a bar girl, of course but I am a greasy white guy and she is a young (actually, she's 28 but whatever) Thai girl. Perhaps this fact makes me a total hypocrite. I did not go to Koh Samui - or indeed, Thailand - to pick up a girl but no one else who sees us together will know that. They will see us and think, there goes another bar girl and her John.
I don't particularly care that they think that but I do care that perhaps I am judging others too harshly, especially considering my own actions. I suppose I could be worse. Oh could be a 17 year old bar girl and I could be fifty-five, with a wife and an office job waiting in Manchester, thinning hair and a higher waist size than my age. I am not
Still, it does trouble me.
And that, boys and girls, is why I didn't like Koh Samui and that, boys and girls, is why I loved Koh Samui.
In next time's installment, Oh, saying goodbye to Koh Samui and the flight toward the North.
Hope you're all doing well, great, or even fantastic.
Take care, love you all,
Ranting in Chiang Mai,
Jamie
xxxxx
P.S Todays featured photographs (in email version only, blog readers, sorry) are Goh the go-to guy, my tattooist (Goh's best friend) and his wife and the best tuk-tukker in Chiang Mai, Grandma Thip (featuring tuk-tuk!).
Enjoy!
I'd like to add a post script here and say that, yes, the seedier side of Thailand that everyone hears about in the West does exist and knows it to be infamous for but this seedier side would not exist, if it were not for the tourists who come here, trawling for Asian tail. And so, at last, I am finished! Hurray for that, the crowd cried!
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