I can’t remember the first time I met Sean. We’ve tried to work it out a couple of times but neither of us can pinpoint exactly which showbizzy bash or press junket we first took the piss out of each other at. But it was at those very (often dull) events and through a haze of free wine that we got to know each other, revelling in our mutual dismay at the showbiz world.
He’s become something like the older brother I never had. I don’t mean that in a sentimental way at all, but just in that while he’s mercilessly cutting and takes the piss out of me with little sympathy, he also looks out for me. Last year, for example, he provided me with many a decent meal and drunken night during a time when these were few and far between (the drunken nights anyway), thanks to my attempted saving. His advice about travelling (he did the same thing 10 years ago), particularly as a gay traveller (not many of us do it, it seems) has helped no end as well.
I’d like to say I’m returning the favour as he visits Bangkok, but, as Sean puts it himself, he’s long past the days of slumming it, and books himself into a swanky(ish) hotel near where I live. I say ish because there are many better hotels in the centre of town but this one, the Royal City Hotel, is just down the road from me, so will be the perfect location.
He’s here for a couple of days on a stopover on his way to New Zealand, where he’s going to meet up with some of his family, and Australia, where he’s going to hang out a bit and look at work opportunities over there. Like me, he’s got a little bored of his life in London and wants to try something different. But first, a short sojourn in Bangkok with his mate Will.
After a journey which started to worry him – he didn’t realise I was so far over the other side of the city from where the airport is – Sean finally arrives, jetlagged and disorientated, in Pinklao. I meet him after a quietish day at work (it’s a Saturday but most of my students are away at the moment). His hotel is nice enough - I’m liking the lift with the outside view - and Sean has a great view of the freeway as well!
I was expecting it to be a pleasant shock to see a familiar face in my new hometown, but it’s not really. I guess because I have lots of new familiar faces that have made me feel at home. It just feels like I’ve not seen Sean for a while. But it’s great to see him and I’m relishing the prospect of having someone to show around.
We decide, due to his jetlag and my working tomorrow, that tonight should be a quiet one, so I take him down to Silom for a quick skirmish around Bangkok’s gay quarter. I have to ask a couple of cabs before I get one that will take us. Sean can’t understand why and I explain it’s because of the horrendous traffic in the city. Many drivers like to stay in a certain area and pick up lots of little fares rather than a big one and then risk not getting any more.
I take him to Richard’s for some food and we chat and catch up. It’s quite nice to chat to someone where you don’t have to explain the back story to everything. You don’t realise just how much you do that in a new place until you meet up with an old friend. I didn’t realise just how much I missed that more relaxed style of conversation.
We finish and head to Silom Soi 4 where all the gay bars are. We sit in a bar called The Espresso and drink vodka tonics. It’s a nice little bar – waterfalls for walls, fit clientele – but the music is shite: awful pop ballads that aren’t really appropriate Saturday night fare. When S Club 7’s Never Had A Dream Come True comes on we drain our drinks and head out, Sean delivering a parting, “Can’t listen to that racist bitch!” as we leave.
We go to DJ Station, where it’s heaving. The Thai boys are enthralled by some awful drag act that is on stage miming to Whitney Houston. We squeeze through to the bar, get our free drink and head upstairs. As we look down on to the stage I bemoan the fact that supposedly ‘gay’ music is always so bloody shit. “And the same the world over,” notes Sean. He’s right. Why is it that gay bars and clubs EVERYWHERE always play such cheesy god-awful pop music??
We distract ourselves by eyeing up boys and comparing notes. Man, I’ve missed doing that with mates! Amazingly our sensible sides kick in (for the first time ever I think) and we pull ourselves out of there, saving ourselves for tomorrow night instead.
April 1
It’s Sunday morning and I have a new private lesson with a 31-year-old woman. It’s a strange lesson. I use conversation prompts throughout, getting a feel for what she can and can’t do, but she’s very nervous and fills gaps with lots of girly laughs. She speaks to herself in Thai a lot as well, which is very disconcerting. The problem is she’s not very confident with speaking English, which you come across a lot with Thai people, but her childish manner is very off-putting. At the end I ask her what she wants from the lessons. I always do this – get a feel for what they need first, ask what they want, and then do a mixture of both. She replies: “To get better at speaking.” It’s not the language she has a problem with per se, but her confidence, so I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle this one.
A new girl joins my class of teenagers in the afternoon. She’s good at English but is distracted by the eccentricity of Kung. But then so am I so I know how she feels. I like this class. It’s an interesting bunch, unlike the usual crew of disinterested teenagers you get.
I head over to Sean’s hotel. We head back to Silom again but this time go to a noodle bar instead of Richard’s – I don’t want to seem like a boring bastard who does the same thing all the time! But it’s a mistake: the food is really bad. As Sean puts it, “Life’s too short to eat bad food.” But mine’s reasonably edible so I eat it all. My parents have trained me well not to waste food!
We go to Richard’s. Sean wants to eat what I had yesterday and so does. The food is good there, but we order a pitcher of what is probably the worst margarita either of us has ever tasted. We flirt with the barmen, particularly one called Beer. I quite like him, he’s very cute. Sean finds out that it’s his birthday and that he’s having a party later at a mate’s flat nearby. Sean invites us along (we’re getting quite hammered and cocky by this point).
I swap numbers with Beer and warn him that my battery is getting low so if he calls and it cuts out don’t worry. He doesn’t finish ‘til one so Sean and I head off on a little adventure. I show him the soi where all the gay go-go bars are and we visit a couple, taking in a couple of sex shows.
Sean points out he could never go to one of these with any of his other gay mates – none of them are secure enough in their sexuality. Which astounds me as most of Sean’s mates are older than me. I thought I took a long time to come to terms with my sexuality, but apparently not.
I won’t sully your minds with a description of the sex shows. As I’ve said before this is a family blog! But I have to say the guy playing air guitar with his dick to Metallica was one of the most entertaining things I have ever seen.
After getting our fill of filth we head to GOD, the hilariously named gay club (it stands for Guys On Display) next to Richard’s. It’s dead as a dodo until later, when DJ Station kicks out, but right about now Beer is finishing so we go and meet him. An attempted phone call from him kills my phone but we catch him outside Richard’s and head back in for a couple more drinks.
As you can imagine we are, by now, absolutely HAMMERED. We go to Beer’s party, where we hang out with the owners of Richard’s, a lot of the bar staff and some other crazy ass Thai people who seem to be loving messing around with the drunken farang in their midst. There’s some good food and plenty more booze – Beer has bought an arsenal of liquor to celebrate his 25 years.
I get a couple of Thai lads asking me about Sean and I take it upon myself to get him laid, while at the same time seducing the very shy Beer. I fail in the former (Sean headed home about six in the morning, he later told me, drunker than drunk), but succeed in the latter.
April 2
I wake at about 12 at Beer’s little apartment. At this point I have no idea how little sleep I’ve had but understand why I feel like HELL warmed up – we drank a ridiculous amount of booze last night. Plus the humidity of this country makes hangovers an even worse burden to bear than they are in the UK, and Beer’s multi-fan system in his flat does little to ease my pain.
It’s a cool little flat though. Same set-up as mine: bedroom and bathroom only, but it’s a little smaller with the added bonus of a big TV and a sofa. We slept on a roll out mattress on the floor, which was more comfortable than it sounds, and Beer has his own washing machine as well, in the little area between the main room and the bathroom.
He takes me out for brunch. He lives in Sathorn, in a maze of alleys and apartment blocks. Nearer the main streets the alleys are lined with market stalls selling fresh meat and veg and there are plenty of places to buy cooked food as well. Sitting down at one such place, sweating like a bitch (there’s no air con on the sois), I tuck into the food Beer orders me. I’ve found Thai food is quite good for a hangover - the chili helps you sweat it out – and I eat the noodle soup with bbq pork, washed down with a sweet, black iced coffee, with great enthusiasm.
My phone is dead so I have no way of contacting Sean, but figure he’ll know what I’m up to. Still, I need to get back and see him; he’s only here for two days. But Beer seems unwilling to let me go and takes me into Silom Centre for another coffee. We chat a bit to a couple of old gay dudes that Beer knows from Richard’s (the clientele there is pretty much old gay blokes and their young Thai boyfriends). One of them teaches at a school here in Silom Centre. It seems everyone’s at it!
Eventually Beer puts me in a cab. The traffic is bad and it takes forever to get home. Thank God for the air-con in the cabs, I think that journey would probably have killed me off otherwise. I get home, plug in my phone and call Sean. Inevitably he feels as awful as me.
I arrange to come over straight away and sit by the hotel pool with him, and then promptly fall asleep on my bed for about an hour. Sean’s not happy. I buy Coke and chocolate ice-cream for both of us. This makes him happy.
The pool is on the roof of the hotel and would be nice were it not for the multi-storey car park towering over it one side and the random buildings the other. Taking a dip eases the suffering of any hangover, however, no matter what the surroundings, and Sean and I chill out for awhile.
We chat about the previous night’s events - what we can remember – and watch an old farang dude horse around with his (white) granddaughter and his Thai wife and her daughters. It seems a strange set-up but they all seem quite happy, so, whatever, it’s not for us to judge. Though of course we do with great enthusiasm!
They eventually head back in and Sean and are left to it at the pool. We wade up and down with little effort for a while – it’s nice just to be doing fuck all – before we also head back in. Our stomachs are demanding food.
We head to Khao San Road, where I eat some crap pizza at my favourite bar. I make a note not to buy Western food here again. Sean’s more sensible and has Thai. We watch a badly subtitled DVD of The Queen on the video screens but give up after a while. The subtitles have obviously been done by a computer and make no sense at all.
Once done I take Sean down to Suan Lum Night Bazaar, which is probably the best place for shopping here. He buys some cool chopsticks for his brother. While he’s doing that I wonder round the shop looking at all the nice homely things and get that feeling of wanting to nest again. Christ, that’s such a long way off right now!
I buy some cool colouring pencils for my godson George. They look like they’re made from tree bark and of course will be totally wasted on a two-year-old, but maybe his Mum will like them.
It’s frigging hot. And wandering around the markets, which are covered with a plastic roof, is never a good idea when it’s this hot. I suggest Sean has a ride on the Ferris wheel that I went on with Ting and Mengly. He’s up for it but is insistent I come on as well. It’s cool (and cooler) but we both get a bit of vertigo up there.
We go and have a drink and something to eat at a bar nearby, just for something to do - we’re both feeling crap and restless. Sean orders a beer and some prawn cakes. I order some fruit juice. I’ve never got on board with this ‘hair of the dog’ idea. Sounds bloody stupid to me: drink more of what made you feel like that in the first place?? Uh-uh. But neither of us is hungry or thirsty anyway, and when Sean starts complaining about feeling sick (the beer maybe?) we know it’s time to head home.
Inevitably all the taxi drivers want to overcharge us to get to Pinklao, which is the other side of town. Each one wants 200 baht and after about three such offers of service we decide to just go for it, we’ll be here forever else. But we pick the wrong one. The car we get into has the worst suspension in the world ever. How we get home in one piece, I don’t know.
April 3
My three hour morning class is a tough one. I’m playing catch up with sleep now. Not good.
I meet Sean for lunch before he heads off to Sydney. He meets me at Central shopping mall and comments on my work attire. He’s not the only one who finds it strange: I still can’t get used to having to wear a shirt and tie.
I introduce him to Jess, who’s outside having a fag, and then we head off to find the Japanese restaurant I like. I can’t find it. The mall’s too big and I’m too tired. We head to the sandwich bar where Jess is. Sean orders for me when I’ve already ordered so we have three sandwiches. Man, it’s one of those days! I’m quite glad Jess is there cos it means Sean can talk to her while I sit there and be tired and listen to these two find out about each other.
And then he’s off. The visit was short and sweet and drunken. It wouldn’t have been any other way: it’s rare I leave Sean’s company without at least a terrible hangover.
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