Poor Paul

April 18
I get off the bus near Khao San Road in a complete daze. I`ve had very little sleep and I`m panicking slightly cos I can`t for the life of me remember what time Paul arrives.

Yep, holiday isn`t over QUITE yet, thank God. I still have a few days left during which I will be entertaining my friend Paul. Now Paul is the ex-boyfriend of the sister of one of my bestest friends in the world. It`s a slightly tenuous connection but we get on well, even if we`ve not seen much of each other since he split from Sarah. The plan is this: Paul is coming over to Bangkok for a couple days on his way to Australia (sound familiar?) where he`s going to be for a couple months taking a sabbatical from work. Unlike Sean, however, he`s going to be staying with me, poor bastard!

I get a cab home, drop off my stuff, have a much-needed and very welcome shower and then head to work to check my email and find out Paul`s arrival time. It`s gone 3pm; I have shitloads of time. Except I don`t. Binnie asks me what my plan is with regards to getting my visa re-stamped. I groan. I`d totally forgotten about it. But Jess has convinced me that I`ll be able to sort it all out down at the immigration office in Bangkok. The other option is to go all the way to the border with Cambodia and back, and that I just do not want to do. My visa runs out TODAY so it needs attention. I head down to the immigration office to sort it out.

It`s a big ol` trek across town and when I get there there are massive queues of people, of seemingly every nationality you can think of. I groan again. But it`s still early morning so I might be okay for meeting Paul. He`ll take ages to get off the plane and out of the airport anyway. I go in and join the queue for the information desk and I’m lucky – I get there quickly. I ask a very smiley Thai lady about my visa. She tells me I need to get my arse to the border with Cambodia, like, RIGHT NOW. But she says it much more politely than that, in very broken English. Fuck.
Now I have a dilemma. I either leave it until Monday, my next free day, and risk a huge overstay fine, or I go tomorrow. Tomorrow is the only full day Paul and I will have together. But I have no choice. I can`t afford the fine. Dammit, why didn`t sort this out before??

With a heavy heart I head to Khao San Road to buy a bus ticket to the border. I remember Vanda, an old hand at visa runs, was talking about a place she knew that did cheap border tickets for 400 baht so I call her. She can`t remember the name of the place but gives me vague directions. I try a few and they all say 600 baht. Then I happen upon one that say 250 baht one way, you pay for the ticket back when you get there. This sounds risky to me but then I think, how could there be a catch? It`ll be 250 baht back and I save 100 baht - one extra meal paid for! I go for it.

I spend some of that 100 baht on lunch on Khao San then get the airport express bus to, well, the airport. It`s a long old journey, mostly cos I`m dreading telling Paul I`m leaving him to his own devices for a day in this crazy and totally alien (to him) city. Plus I`m getting sick, I can feel it. Too much being soaked in water in cold weather and drinking ridiculous amounts of booze. I choose to ignore it.

I get to the airport and find a spot by the right gate, texting Paul directions. He comes out and he`s taller than I remember. But then I have been used to people my own size for quite some time!

I deliver what he will later describe as "some incredible news". He`s quite stunned and I feel for him. I think he`s quite nervous about this whole trip, but Bangkok is particularly intimidating just because it`s so alien. It was exactly how I felt when I got here and I was lucky I had Tom here to settle me in a bit.

I put an idea to Paul. I suggest he stays at Khao San Road so he`s central and near the sights and that, plus he`ll be surrounded by some familiarly Western amenities. If I take him back to mine he`ll have no idea where he is or how to get to places. He seems happy with this and so we scour my guidebook for places to stay. We go for Buddy Lodge. It`s expensive (comparatively to other places on Khao San) but sounds the best bet to Paul. He doesn`t want to stay in a "flea pit".

We get on the bus and catch up, chat about him leaving his job, and his girlfriend, to do this trip. I tell him a few things about Bangkok as well, like how to fob off persistent tuk-tuk drivers, and about my adventures since I got here.

When we arrive at the hotel he`s quite happy with the place and he starts unpacking stuff, including a present from the aforementioned `bestest friend`, Em. It`s some Guinness Marmite. God she`s a star. I leave him to freshen up while I go and look at some tattoo designs in the shop downstairs. I chat to the artist about a tat I like - a Thai-style dragon. But it`s really expensive - about 200 pounds. I tell him I`ll think about it.

Paul comes down and we go for food and drinks around Khao San.

We get fairly drunk, taking the piss out of the tourists (God he`s only been here five minutes and he`s becoming an ex-pat already!) and talking about sex. He might be straight and I might be gay but me and Paul have much in common in that we both came out of serious relationships three or four years ago and have spent the time since indulging in the (often) weird and (sometimes) wonderful sex life that London has to offer. I enjoy our comparing notes so much that I forget I have to be up at half six tomorrow morning. By the time I do it`s late and I ask Paul if I can crash in his room. He kindly obliges.

April 19
I wake up about sixish and have a shower, trying desperately to muffle the hacking cough I’ve developed and not wake Paul. When I go back in he seems unperturbed by my noise.

I grab a cheeseburger and an iced coffee at the McDonalds (it’s the only place open), take out some money for my visa to get into Cambodia and head to the office where I bought my ticket. I’m met by a skinny Thai lad on a mobile phone. He takes me to the bus, just round the corner form Khao San, not coming off the phone the entire time.

On the bus I’m nervous. Not so much about what I’m doing, but how I’m going to do it. It’s that fear of the unknown and I really don’t know what I’m doing. Is it really just as easy as going over the border and coming back again? I decide I’m not going to worry until I have something to worry about, but the fact that I’m a day over my visa expiry, and that I don’t know what to expect when I get there still niggles a bit.

The bus is freezing cold as they have the air con on full blast. I try and lose myself in my His Dark Materials novel but I finish it within an hour. I now have nothing to do. I take to eyeing up the hot German guy sat opposite me.

We stop once at a garage but I don’t get out. I’m not feeling hungry or thirsty or anything. Just ill.

As we move on the road gets bumpier. And bumpier. Its condition deteriorates more and more the closer we get to Cambodia. After five hours we stop at a restaurant by the side of the road. We’re near the Cambodian border and it’s here the guide on the bus wants to sort out all our visa applications etc. I fill in the Cambodian visa form and hand it over to the guy. He asks me if I have proof of flight out of Thailand. I don’t. My ticket is at the flat. He tells me I need it. I let a little bit of worry in. A friendly Essex lad, sat at a table with his girlfriend, asks me what’s wrong. I explain. They converse and realise they don’t have a ticket either, just a booking confirmation. That’s better than nothing, I think.

Then it hits me. They’re on holiday. I’m not. I’ve got a multiple entry working visa. I go show the guide and he says that’ll be fine. Phew. But there’s another problem – I don’t have a picture to go with my visa application. But this time money talks and the guide tells me that an extra 300 baht will compensate for the missing picture. I misunderstand and ask, 300 baht for you to take a picture. No, just 300 baht, he replies. I laugh inwardly.

I pay the money, give him the form and my passport and go to the loo. I come back and they’re all gone. I figure they’ve taken the travellers somewhere. I look at the menu. Then I hear a shout. They’re all waiting for me on a sawngthaew. I peg it over.

I chat to the Essex couple a bit and a Finish girl who’s travelling alone. The couple are going to Cambodia for a couple weeks, the Finish girl the same. They’re all incredulous about my visa run, none of them able to understand why it needs to be done that way. I shrug. Me neither.

We stop at the Cambodian consulate to get the visas placed in the passports. I wait nervously. I’m worried about the day overstay. I have cash though so hopefully just mean paying something. The guide comes back with Cambodian visas ready to go. No mention of my overstay. I breathe a sigh of temporary relief.

At the border it’s all a bit crazy. There is a market with hordes of Thais selling stuff, plus bikes and buses everywhere. The guide points out the bus station on the left where I need to go and buy my ticket back. I nod, searing the sight of it on my memory so I don’t get lost.

He takes me to Thai passport control where I fill in the departure form. I note the big sign on the wall saying 500 baht per day charge for overstay. That’s not too bad, I think, and brace myself for the frown and the charge. I get neither. There’s no mention of me being a day over. I carry on through, slightly relieved.

The Thai dude meets me on the other side and takes me over the border into Cambodia. We’re greeted by hordes of Cambodian kids, some with stretched out hands asking for money, others with umbrellas trying to shade you. It’s all a bit depressing.

A man approaches me, offering me something but I can’t understand his English. The Thai dude fobs him off, thankfully, and tells me he was offering a queue jump for 100 baht. Do I want it? I tell him no, I’m confused enough about what I’m doing already without complicating it further with probably dodgy activities.

We walk past some massive casinos. Thai guy explains that lots of Thais come here to gamble – it’s illegal in the country and yet one of the most popular pastimes – and of course Westerners. But mainly Thais. Then he tries the usual football conversation on me, hearing I’m from England. I politely bow out of it, though I do find out he supports Man United. Of course.

We arrive at Cambodian passport control. I join the queue there and fill in my arrival and departure forms. I watch a French lad who is the spitting image of Mike Skinner chat about the scars and scrapes on his leg. Motorbike accident apparently – what they call an ‘island tattoo’. I’m joined in the queue by a young-looking lad who was on the sawngthaew with me. I chat to him a bit. He was travelling with a mate but they fell out. Not for the first time I’m glad I came alone. As I get to the front of the queue, so are the Essex couple and Finnish girl in the queue next to us. The couple have come from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to here. They’re worried they smell, as well they might. But they don’t and I tell them I can’t smell them from here so that must be good.

I get to the front of the queue. All is cool, I’m in Cambodia. Time to leave, then. Another guide from the bus points me to the exit point. “Just one more,” he says, and I walk over the road and join the queue. It’s just a matter of a wait and I’m through again. Still no mention of the overstay. But my passport has not been re-stamped and I’m very confused. The guy said just one more but there must be another one. I look around for him but neither he nor the Man United fan is anywhere to be seen. I wander back the way I came, past the casinos, a frown creasing my brow. I fend off small begging children, a part of my consciousness feeling sorry for them, and hope that whatever else it is I need to do will make itself obvious. It does. I find passport control back into Thailand and queue up once more. I reach the desk, bracing myself for the overstay fine. It never comes. He stamps my passport for a month. I’m about to question it when he realises his mistake and stamps it again for three months.

I’m back in. Yay!

After that I go buy a bus ticket for 200 baht (saved myself 150 baht, nice one!), get straight on the bus and endure a horrible journey back. It’s not the fact that I miss lunch – I’m not hungry, just relieved it’s all over – but the lack of a book, iPod or decent air con (it’s not on high enough this time). My only respite is the stop at a restaurant where I eagerly consume a green curry Coke and chocolate ice cream. I’m so ravenous not even the flies bother me.

Hours later, me jumping up and down like a dog about to be taken for a walk, we arrive near Khao San. Never have I been so happy to see the place.

I go and see Paul. He’s had a funny day. Did the Grand Palace and then went on a 20 baht tuk-tuk tour of the city. I swear loudly. I tell him I’m sure I told him about that old con. I remember thinking I should tell him… Basically what they do is offer a tour of the city for 20 baht, do said tour, taking you to some beautiful jewelry shops, and highly revered tailors along the way. Paul spent much of his tour saying ‘No, thank you’ and being what sounds like an impressively obstinate Englishman. He bought nothing. Well done Paul.

We go back to mine so I can freshen up. Paul realises staying on Khao San was a good idea. I really am in the middle of nowhere, comparatively at least.

We get a cab to Banyan Tree, where I had my birthday. Paul wanted to do a few things while in Bangkok – see the Grand Palace (done), go to the Vertigo Bar at the Banyan Tree Hotel (doing now) and see a ping pong show (yep, I’m heading back there again).

At the top of the Banyan Tree we tuck into our fancy free snacks and order some cocktails. I now have an unforgiving cough and an insanely strong mojito doesn’t help matters, but I struggle on. We chat away and enjoy the view. Paul has trouble getting a decent photo of it as well – it’s nigh on impossible.

I spot a Thai boy I nearly pulled a few weeks ago. He’s there with some old farang bloke. Lucky escape there, I think to myself.

I’m being terrible company but I have a flash of inspiration. I know Anna and Fliss are in Patpong for the night, and we’re going that way anyway for what Paul will later describe as the ‘fanny gymnastics’, so let’s go meet them. If we go and see them they can help me make up for my dire performance as a host. A bit anyway.

I ask the hotel porter for directions to Suan Lum Night Bazaar. It’s in the same direction and I don’t want to come out of a classy establishment like that and ask for directions to the hotbed of iniquity that is Patpong.

At Patpong we grab some food. It’s good but I have trouble eating – I’m coming down with flu bad! Then we go to Anna and Fliss’s favourite haunt – Twilo. We hang out there a bit and Anna suggests Super Pussy as a good place for a ping pong show. I remember seeing it on the main strip so figure we won’t be ripped off as much as I was I the back alley dive I went to before.
WRONG.

I forget I’m in Touristland where we rich Westerners are skillfully relieved of every baht and more possible. We are charged 700 baht EACH to sit and watch the show and for one beer. Then immediately we’re pressed for a 100 baht tip before seeing ANYTHING (same as last time). After begrudgingly giving that over, Paul settles in to watch the show, while I’m hassled by a deaf bar girl. At first I’m amused by her attentions – if only she knew what a complete waste of time I’m going to be for her – but she won’t go away. She continually taps on my shoulder for a good 20 minutes, even when I am paying attention to her. It drives me insane. I try everything – politeness, anger, ignoring her. Nothing works. She writes numbers and stuff on a bit of paper to communicate with me. At first I think she’s trying to tell me I’ve been short-changed. I haven’t, I’ve just been monumentally ripped off. Then it turns to her wanting me to buy her a drink. I decline her kind offer. Occasionally she makes blow-job motions with her hand and her tongue in her cheek. This would be funny if I wasn’t so fucked off. Eventually resort to just telling her to leave me alone. I have to be really careful though. If I’m offensive to her (any of the girls in fact, but especially a deaf girl) I’m gonna be kicked out of here quick-smart. But Anna and Fliss save me. They arrive and bring a whole new bunch of trouble.

They refuse to pay what we paid. As I’m sat at the bar, Anna and Fliss behind me, the hard-faced mamosan in front of me, I’m caught in the middle of a half-Thai (both Anna and Fliss speak a little), half English row that goes on for 20 minutes or so. Eventually they get a little discount - probably due to their admirable persistence - but not much.

Paul, meanwhile, is enjoying the show. On-stage are some rough looking birds (quite frankly) wearing nothing but dodgy socks and shoes (get them a fucking stylist NOW!!) and doing some jaw-dropping stuff. One puts some chopsticks in her vagina and proceeds to pick rings off the floor and place them on the neck of a bottle. Another smokes a cigarette down there. Another produces a garland of flowers for down there. Another blows out candles on a fake birthday cake. Another fires darts from her vagina, popping some balloons that are attached to the ceiling (that was my favourite). Another fires bananas out of herself. The last one we see is a woman showing us a Coke bottle full of water. She pours the water into herself then crouches over the Coke bottle with a straw. What comes out into the bottle is the colour of Coke. How she does it I don’t know, though Fliss has a suggestion: “Maybe it’s her time of the month.” I gag.

All through this I’m being hassled by the barman. “Beer? You want beer?” every five minutes. Eventually I shout at him, “I’m sick!!”, and Paul suggests we leave. He’s had no hassle at all, lucky bastard, but sees I’m about to kill someone. He’s a bit gutted he’s not seen a ping pong ball being fired but thinks he’s seen plenty. “You get the idea,” I say. He laughs. “Definitely.”

We go back to Twilo where I hold out a little longer, though I’m coughing like a bastard and orange juice is making no difference. Work harder dammit! Anna does her thing, hi-jacking the stage as the band perform Hips Don’t Lie, and me and Paul rip the piss mercilessly out of an oafish American guy, dressed all hip hop stylee, as he fawns and looms over this obviously disinterested Thai girl that he’s four times the size of. Poor bloke, he’s got it bad.

Eventually we bail – me to mine, Paul to his.

April 20
I wake up when I wake up, but head down to Khao San as soon as I do to meet Paul for lunch. I take him to Siam Square, the main shopping area of Bangkok, so he can have a look at that. We have some decent Thai food at a place there – I introduce Paul to pad Thai, which he likes. I feel a little better for the lie-in.

We have a wander round for a bit. Paul takes a picture of the Starbucks.

He apparently has a friend who makes it her mission to visit a Starbucks in all the cities she goes to (which I find a bit weird; I do the same but only cos I want coffee) and wants to taunt her with a picture of one she’s definitely not visited. Okay.

We go back to Khao San to pick up Paul’s stuff and go and catch the airport express bus.

But the lady in the ticket booth tells us it’s late so lays on a taxi for us. We’re thrown in with two girls. At first I think they’re together but turns out later they’re not. The girl sat in the back with me and Paul is a stunning Penelope Cruz-a-like. Half Belgian, half Turkish, she’s studying in New Zealand and is heading back there after travelling for a bit in Southeast Asia. She’s fascinating – very well travelled and knows her politics - and the conversation doesn’t stop all the way to the airport. I swap emails with her as I say goodbye to Paul and tell her we’ll catch up in New Zealand. Cool!

After seeing Paul off I head back to Bangkok where I meet up with Jess and have a big catch-up. She had her parents here for Songkran and unthinkingly took them on a canal ride around the city. They got absolutely drenched. Well, of course!