Thai Girl (36 page)

‘I'd love to know more about him.'

‘He closes down for the rainy season and goes off to Europe and America. As he likes Holland, we have lots to talk about.'

‘So what about you?' Ben asked Dutch. ‘Heard you speaking Thai just now.'

‘I'm an English teacher … freelance. Been in Bangkok six years.'

‘And in that time you've learned Thai?'

‘Yes. It's not an easy language because of the tones. Took me four or five years, but now I can make myself understood.'

‘I like the idea of settling in Thailand too … been thinking about it recently.'

‘A girl, I suppose,' said Dutch knowingly.

‘How did you guess?'

‘It's not always the best of reasons, Ben. Things can change overnight and then you're in trouble.'

But it was not the moment for serious talk; the sky was laden with stars and Ben's belly with euphoria. When Dutch suggested they all go on to a bar further along the beach, he was not in a fit state to resist and readily succumbed to the temptation.

27

The bar Dutch wanted to go to was about ten minutes walk along White Sand Beach where the dry sand above the tide mark was at its widest. Everyone who had eaten at Odin's ambled along the beach to the encampment of mats and cushions spread out on the sand in front of the bar, where the
farang
tribes were comfortably reclining. Ben sat down on one of the mats with Maca and Chuck and his new friends and ordered a round of beers.

Curious to know more about Darren, he tried the usual opener.

‘How long've you been travelling, Darren?'

‘Six months this trip … about two to go.'

‘And where've you been?'

‘Thailand and Lao,' he said. ‘But Ben, you don't look like no traveller.'

‘Just finished uni … thinking about careers. So, what about your work?'

‘Construction worker and that.'

‘And do you like it?' asked Ben.

Darren looked at him as if he was mad.

‘Yeah right! Work sucks!'

‘Don't fancy a career then?'

‘It'd do my head in. Look mate, me brother's getting educated … works all the time and never goes out. If he gets to be a college lecturer, he'll earn half what I do, so what's the point?' Darren lolled contentedly on his pile of cushions. ‘It's just plain stoopid!'

‘So where else have you been?' asked Ben, trying a safer line.

‘Australia. Got a working visa … bars, fruit picking, that sort of stuff.'

‘And where did you go in Australia?'

‘Everywhere worth goin'. Like Byron Bay for the surfin' and Nimbin for the dope.'

‘God's own country,' interjected Maca. ‘Makes me homesick … well, almost!'

‘So, Maca, where you from in Oz?' asked Darren.

‘Cobram, Victoria … back of beyond. But good.'

‘But if Australia's so good, why did you leave?' Ben was curious to know more about him.

‘Don't have any roots there anymore.'

‘Why not?'

‘When I left school, did a course in electrical engineering, then went fruit picking on the Murray River. Hard work … but no sweat! Oranges the best … get skin allergies from peaches, strawberries break yer back and raspberries you get scratched. Winter go north to Queensland for tropical fruit … summer, vegetables in Tasmania. So that's how I started travelling.'

‘How long on the road?'

‘About eight years,' said Maca.

Ben was highly impressed.

‘In Khao San, Chuck said you'd been travelling in Africa, Maca. Where did you go?' he asked.

‘London to the Cape was the big one.' Maca drew on the spliff Chuck passed him and they all listened as he told the story in his unhurried way.

‘Was working in London. Teamed up with four of me mates and we were given this 1985 Ford Sierra Estate. Could just about get in with all our stuff on the roof. Drove down Morocco through Marrakesh to Goulimine where the glass beads come from. Then along the beach in Mauritania through to Senegal and way inland to Mali. Bamako, Djenne, Mopti … those mud mosques blow you away. South to Ghana … loved the Ghanaians. Togo and Benin were the smallest … no Vegemite, but beaut' French wine and women with breasts like mangoes. Flogged on through Nigeria … wild place that. Had big hassles crossing into Cameroon where we cooled off for a bit in Mamfé, Zaire in the middle of the punch-up with Kabila, then crossed Angola to Zimbabwe and on sealed roads all the way to Cape Town.'

‘But that's impossible in an old Sierra,' said Dutch. ‘You must've been mad.'

‘It helped,' said Maca.

‘But how d'you keep an overloaded heap going on dirt roads?'

‘Roads? What roads? No mate, lots of the time we didn't keep going. Car was rusty … Andy went through the floor in the middle of the Sahara. And we had to get things welded time and again. Suspension broke and was flailing around … tied it up with wire until we could find a blacksmith. Radiator leaking … stopped every few miles to fill it up, then the engine overheats and seizes up. Got second-hand engines twice … about fifteen US dollars, bought and fitted. Then we found a wreck out in the desert with this beaut' radiator. Got it out, but it was too big, so we had to have the engine bay cut to fit it in. Then the engine was over-cooling as there was no thermostat. Steering hardly worked, tyres were worn out and we kept having flats. And a truck ran up the back of us in Ghana. Pain in the ass … but in the end it came good.'

‘Crazy,' said Ben.

‘Fun,' said Maca.

‘Getting visas and taking a car across borders can be tricky too,' said Dutch. ‘And what about bribes?'

‘Bribery bigtime.
“Donnez-moi cadeau,
gimme dashie” every inch of the way. And yeah, visas were hell. Big problems with car insurance and customs bonds too. But we got good at forging things … amazing what you can do in a desert copy shop. Our visas for Nigeria went out of date as we were running late so we had to doctor'em. They were dead suspicious but we got away with it.'

‘And you kept out of prison?'

‘We came close!'

‘Sounds like hell. So why do it?' said Ben.

‘Why climb Everest? Because Africa's there too … and because it's hard. You see a lot of stuff and learn about yourselves.'

‘And you all stuck it to the bitter end?' asked Dutch.

‘Yup, we all made it to the Cape.'

‘That's an achievement! When the going got tough, any of you could've got going.'

‘There were some tense moments … but it was good when we got there.' Maca put his beer bottle to his lips and tipped it slowly back.

‘Makes it hard to settle down again, I guess,' said Dutch.

‘Sure does! So we did it again a year later in a better car, a Peugeot 504. But we hit political problems in Algeria … had to sell the 504 and come home,' said Maca.

‘Bet Asia seems easy in comparison.'

‘Like paradise! Pass us that spliff, mate … I'm talking too much.'

‘So Maca, you're a hard-nosed achiever when it comes to travelling then,' said Ben.

‘Cheers, mate! Well, some of the time anyway.' Maca gazed round at his friends with a foolish grin.

Ben was intrigued by this new perspective on serious travelling.Although most backpackers in Thailand were just taking an extended holiday, he wondered if Indo-China might be a bit more challenging.

‘So what about Lao and Cambodia?' he asked. ‘They've not been open to travellers long.'

‘Yeah, Lao's real primitive,' said Darren. ‘Me and a mate went up to Chiang Khong, crossed the Mekong to Lao and got a boat downriver to Luang Prabang.'

‘What did you do in Luang Prabang then? Temples and stuff isn't it?'

‘Yeah, ‘fraid so. Beer Lao's good though. Spent our time in this bar … cheapest piss-up ever. When our visas ran out, we still had four bottles of Lao whisky and a bag of stuff to finish. Couldn't take it with us so we blew it all overnight!'

‘Right then Darren, so that was your cultural tour of Lao!' teased Stewart. ‘But what beats me is how you drink and smoke so much as well as being a fitness fanatic. You like to trash yeself, mun … running up and down the beach in the sun, doing press-ups like a demented lizard.'

‘Gotta keep fit. The girlies like it … and it helps with the folks. They think I'm too clean-living to take drugs.'

‘But they must know you hit the bottle a wee bit.'

‘They're not well-pleased. Me and me brother get rat-arsed at least once a week and Dad goes ballistic. Sometimes we go on a bender the whole weekend … crawl back to work Tuesday or Wednesday.'

‘You'll die young, mun,' said Stewart.

‘Been lucky so far … like the time Dad phoned me from work. I'm just waking up and can't figure out what he's talking about … keeps asking me if I'm okay. Anyway I'd broken me nose and come in half comatose. Mum cleaned me up and in the morning I couldn't remember a thing. Friends said I was tanked up something wicked, and these blokes were battering my face against a telephone box. It was a good night, that one.'

‘If that's what you like doing!' said Dutch.

‘And Glastonbury's wild!' Darren went on. ‘Last year, I got six hours sleep in five days. Was out of me head and lost a day … completely lost it, dunno what happened to it. When I came round I was still dancing.'

‘What were you on?'

‘Anything. You can get the lot these days. Tried this heroin in Lao, but don't bother … it's overrated rubbish.'

‘Risky too.'

‘Risky? So? Like at Glastonbury, there were these two blokes died from impurities in the “E”s. They put it over the loudspeaker to stop us taking any more but I'd already had three. Yeah, we were taking three at a time!'

‘And you've never been nicked?'

‘No. But me mate was about to be busted and he had eight on him, so he swallows the lot of ‘em. Crazy it was!'

‘And you feel okay on your alco-marathon?' asked Stewart.

‘Well, it's better'n being bored. Hits you sometimes though … after Glastonbury, didn't go back to work for a week and a half.'

‘Better get wasted here then while you're not working, mun.'

‘I do mate. Like the Full Moon Party on Koh Pha Ngan … slept for days after that.'

‘So how was the Full Moon Party?' Ben had read about it in the Lonely Planet.

‘The best. Great beach, booze and boogie. Moon comes up over the sea and you just dance. Pick your music at the different places … cheesy stuff at the Cactus Club, house, trance, garage, techno, wherever. And there's thousands of party-people drinking and popping all night. When the sun comes up you keep dancing, then you go on to the Backyard in the evening. It never stops … dance ‘til you drop.' Darren fingered the silver medallion around his neck, remembering the good times. ‘Yeah, I'm not ready to slow down yet … gotta see the world first.'

‘But do you really see anything travelling, Darren, or do you just pass through?' asked Dutch.

‘Piss through, more like,' said Darren. ‘Main thing's havin' a good time.'

‘Isn't there more to life than just having a good time though?' persisted Dutch.

‘Like what? Like I see my mates settling down? Got this friend aged twenty two … his girlfriend's pregnant and she's dead lazy so she jumps at the chance to stop work. We're in the pub and he says he's getting married, but he couldn't look me in the eye ‘cause he knows what I think about getting tied down … mortgage, kids and stuff. I wasn't going to congratulate him for being so stupid.'

‘And what about your family? People usually do what their parents did.'

‘No way! Got so many brothers and sisters, I haven't even counted'em.'

‘One day your girlfriend'll get pregnant,' said Dutch, ‘and that'll be it.'

‘Girlfriend? What girlfriend? Don't bother with that anymore.'

‘Self-sufficient, are we then?' teased Stewart.

‘Sod off, Stewpot! No, it's no big deal … sex and that. Don't need a girlfriend. There's loads of girls here … travellers, I mean, and it just kinda happens. You know … sharing a room with a girl to save money. Then it's inevitable like.'

‘Always?'

‘Well, sometimes. But they're all up for it!'

‘All of'em?'

‘Well, the ones I like anyway … and some of the others too. There was this girl I met in a bar in Samui and she says to come to her hut, so I says okay. She goes back to wait for me, but I get chatting to this bloke and forgot … went on to another bar and kept drinking! Thank God she was leaving next day.'

‘So where are you going when you move on from here, Darren?' asked Ben, picking idly at an insect that had flown too close to the oil lamp.

‘We're so near, it's gotta be Cambodia. Get a bus from Trat to Hat Lek, cross the border and then there's a fast boat to Sinkynoonkville or whatever it's called.'

‘Sihanoukville,' prompted Maca. ‘Named after Prince Sihanouk.'

‘Then to Phnom Penh … see the Killing Fields. And to Angkor Wat. There's this old temple … everyone goes.'

‘Okay, Darren, do it and enjoy, but you've got to be careful in Cambodia,' said Dutch. ‘Met a guy who was held up at gunpoint in Phnom Penh. And my guesthouse there was offering free laundry and free ganja, and there's bang lassi on the menu. It's a wild place.'

‘What are we waiting for then? Let's go,' said Ben.

‘Yes, but don't treat Cambodia as a rich kids' playground,' said Dutch.

‘They're so poor and they've suffered a lot … everyone's got their own horror story if you talk to them. And I'm not sure we always deserve the amazing welcome we get.'

‘So be good and watch your back, Darren,' said Maca, ‘or you're dead meat, mate.' He lay back and looked at the stars.