A friend of mine has decided to give up on Thailand and return home to the United States. While he lived in Thailand he was deeply involved in Men’s ice hockey, and on Saturday night he was given a brief farewell by the guys in the league. As a going-away gift he got an orange vest like the ones that the motorcycle taxi drivers wear. It had his name in English on the back, and in Thai script on the front. His playing number was in English and Thai script, and it had an American flag.
Later in the evening me & hockey-boy went for a goodbye tour of Patpong. We began and ended at the Safari Bar, having one drink in nearly every go-go bar in the ‘Pong in between. Hockey boy wore his orange vest throughout.
It was a riot! Thai people in the street as well as in the bars were calling out to him, “Hey, Win Motorcy, na?” They were calling him by name and asking for rides on his bike. He was laughing and joking back with them.
It was one of the most enjoyable nights out I’ve ever had in Thailand; a reminder of how much Thai people love sanuk — even the otherwise irritating touts, vendors and mamasans. Everyone was having a laugh with us.
I’ve been in Thailand long enough that the novelty and outright joy of visiting the bars has worn off. In many ways I’m as jaded as the girls who work in the bars. For one night, because of the silly orange vest, it felt like it did on my first visit to Thailand… lots of laughs and fun; there was a certain innocence to the evening that I’d forgotten.
These days when I go out to the bars it feels more like work than play. When I compare to my first Bangkok holiday I realize that I’m more careful with my money, I smile less, I calculate a great deal more about what I can expect from each girl based on my observations of her. The simple wonder of being surrounded by beautiful little brown girls who want to cater to my desires has been lost over the years.
I don’t know if it was the spirit of fun, or simply getting out to the bars early in the evening, but as we toured through the bars I saw a lot more cute and beautiful girls than I’ve been noticing lately. My guess is that because I was relaxed & laughing I was seeing the girls doing the same, and I was seeing the beauty of innocent fun reflected in their faces instead of the hard calculating eyes that I so often see in the go-go bars now.
If you want a return to the age of innocence… to that feeling that you had the first time you came to Thailand there are probably many different things you can do, but I can suggest that wearing a bright orange motorcy driver vest, complete with the reflective strip, is a way to take you back to that nearly-forgotten sense of fun and adventure, if only for a few short hours.
