Hey Vicky, you're so fine

May 17
Vicky’s going. I can’t believe it. This crazy ass girl is going to Australia to live with a man she spent three days with and hasn’t set eyes on for months. But she’s in love. What can you do? Apart from give her a good send-off, of course.

It’s Thursday night, I’ve had a pretty full day at work and I’m bleedin’ knackered but as it’s Vicky’s last few days here I’ve got to make the most of it. Having been in the city centre most of the day, sorting out and buying lots of stuff, Vicky drops by Pinklao to pick me up in her cab. She’s just finished being waxed apparently. I listen with extreme interest. She’s been waxed a bit too much apparently. Down below. On the under-carriage, if you like. Now I really am listening with extreme interest. Ouch.

We’re heading towards Louise’s where we’re gonna have a civilised few drinks and something to eat. No really we are. The proper leaving bash is tomorrow, which is a little annoying for Jess and I as it’s a Friday night. I’m sure we’ll be fine.

Louise lives bloody miles away. This I discover as the taxi ride turns into something of an epic trip. I didn’t realise just how sprawling Bangkok’s suburbs were.

On the way w chat about journalism. Vicky would really like to get into photojournalism and asks my advice. I warn her it’s extremely hard to get started but it is doable, and give her some tips. I don’t know whether I inspire her or not. It’s always hard to inspire people to attempt to get into journalism cos it is genuinely a hard profession to get involved with, and you don’t want to be untruthful do you?

After about an hour (really) we arrive and get some beer and food from the soi. We walk to Louise’s apartment block. Liz comes down and gets us. In the lift a really fit Thai lad flirts with Liz. She blushes somewhat but you can tell she’s pretty chuffed.

Louise’s place is on the top floor, which has a long open air area where Anna is playing a table tennis drinking game. Louise is drunk already. Sky is there looking bemused with his girlfriend. There’s also a big bald American man who I don’t know.

I go into the flat with Louise, Sky and Liz and we sit round drinking, eating and having a laugh. Vicky joins us and we talk to her about what ON EARTH she is doing She’s not entirely sure herself. She’s excited but also incredibly apprehensive. She’s going to be living with not only Ben, but his brother and his girlfriend, who are reportedly also unsure about this arrangement. Crikey.

Anna and the American come in. They have been having some sort of heated discussion about teaching and professionalism. He’s basically been having a go at her for drinking on a school night, and saying that none of the teachers he meets in Thailand are professional. This sparks a huge debate, which the American dominates because he won’t let anyone else speak to make their point. He says his idea of professionalism is his girlfriend (who’s in bed – it’s just gone nine) who gets up and basically works until she sleeps, either planning or teaching. I refrain from asking when she has time for him. I don’t feel I know him well enough, that it would be impolite - despite the fact he’s being very rude to all of us in this ‘debate’. There’s part of me that agrees with him. But his delivery of his point (ignoring everything we say and talking over us), as well as his advocacy of what sounds like an all work and no play WHATSOEVER policy seems ridiculous. Surely you can’t teach if you have no life experience yourself? Surely you need a full life in order to teach kids how to have the same? Surely there needs to be some kind of balance?

After a good hour or so, which included a lot of shouting, it comes to an end. Vicky and Anna and I get a cab home. Anna is drunk and upset. Vicky and I take the piss out of the American to lighten the mood but Anna is too drunk to appreciate it. We drop her off and head home ourselves. What a tosser.

May 18
The next night I head out to Bang Kae again, this time with Jess. Liz’s house is hosting Vicky’s leaving do and, thankfully, it’s not as remote as Louise’s place. We meet Fliss at Bang Kae’s neon-lit mall and head to a soi to grab some food with Lisa and Karen. There’s some other new teachers there – the American girl Jenny, and a couple new British girls – Rachel and Louisa.

Everyone fusses over a cat that’s hanging round on the table. It decides it likes me - probably cos I’m not cooing like a grandmother – and sits on my lap. The others look on jealously. I tap my knee to annoy it.

I suddenly realise I’m totally surrounded by women. This is not the first time this has happened to me in my life. It actually happens a lot. But this is the first time it strikes me as odd. Do men not come to Thailand to teach? Sure they do. I’ve met them. Then where are they??

The cat can stand my knee-tapping any longer and fucks off to find a more accommodating human being. We quickly fuck off as well and head to Liz’s place. As we walk down the soi I see the most ridiculous house I have ever seen in my life. Now, the saying goes that money can’t buy you taste (or something), and this house was the living embodiment of that. It looked like a life-size Barbie house. In that it was pink and plastic-looking and could have been modelled on one of those houses in Orange County that try to be ‘Mediterranean’-looking. It was disgusting. I loved it. So much so I took a photo.

When we get to Liz’s place I am envious to discover it is an actual house. With, like, stairs and everything. She is loving everyone’s envy (we all, bar her and her housemates, have apartments) and moving around crowds of people being the consummate hostess.

Anna and Vicky are already drunk. It’s half eight. Vicky is VERY drunk. She moves from friend to friend by draping herself on you, then as someone walks past she drapes herself on them. The effect is rather like a monkey swinging from tree to tree, but without the speed or style.

She tells everybody that comes into her field of vision that she loves them from the bottom of her heart for ever and ever and ever and she will miss them dearly (or words to that effect). She drapes herself on my shoulder for a good five minutes and bangs on about how I have a ‘good aura’ and she’s glad she met me. As much as this sounds like hippy nonsense, I find it quite cute and take the compliment.

I, unfortunately, start to really enjoy myself. I say unfortunately because I have to work at nine the next day. There’s gonna be no going, ‘Oh fuck it’ tonight. Firstly, Jess is here and she is the sensible one of the pair of us and will definitely go home at a reasonable time. Normally this would not be enough to stop me going, ‘Oh fuck it’, but there’s the added danger of me being MILES away from home and work. After James’s goodbye weekend it’s just not worth risking another phone call from an irate Thai girl at half nine tomorrow morning.
So I enjoy myself in a more civilised way. I chat with Jess, Lisa, Fliss, Karen, Joey, Rachel, Jenny and Louisa. I have a laugh with Anna. Rachel starts taking furtive photos and so I start playing up to the camera. I must admit there was enough beer in me to start getting a bit lairy.

But when Vicky starts wrestling with Nick in the garden I laugh from a distance rather than queue up for my go. I do take the piss out of Lisa relentlessly for a good 10 minutes at her denial that she is in Bangkok. She rarely eats Thai food, finding Western where she can. She lives in a fancy block of flats down the road from Jess and I with all the creature comforts. She has a package sent from the UK every month with biscuits and women’s magazines. I don’t know why she bothered coming and say as much. I keep muttering in her ear, “I’minLondonI’minLondonI’minLondonnotinBangkoknononononoLondonyesnotBangkok.” This goes on for quite some time. Thankfully she is in fits of laughter.

I chat to a fit as hell and very handsome Canadian man. He has dark cropped hair, an enticing chest and what you might call a Gallic face (ie big nose). I’m amazed by his belt, the buckle being a large X. I tell him as much. It looks a bit like the X Factor logo but I don’t tell him as much. He’s Canadian, that can’t be it. No, the reason, I discover, is much better – his name is Xavier. XAVIER. How often do you meet people called Xavier?? Amazing.

I turn and see that Vicky is leaning on the barbecue. Worse than that, she seems to be TALKING to the barbecue. I vaguely hear her saying that she loves it from the bottom of her heart for ever and ever and ever and she will miss it dearly (or words to that effect) before I call her over. We’re distracted by Anna’s gay friend Matt. He is a drunken nutter and Anna vaguely tries to matchmake before seeing the glare on my face.

But I never get the chance to catch up with these drunken party-goers and really join their fun. Before long Jess is tapping my shoulder and giving me that resigned look that tells me we are going to be working ALL FUCKING WEEKEND. Goddammit. That would’ve been an excellent party.