Days in the Life of a Pattaya Hotel Owner

This day started off like so many of my others in Pattaya. I went into my office at Jasmine Mansion, ordered a coffee, turned on the computer, tapped in all the passwords then cleaned my glasses as I waited the computer to kick into life. All of these actions are part of my morning ritual and as soon as the coffee is placed in front of me, the first cigarette of the day is alight. I then check my various email accounts and reply as necessary. Messages from friends around the globe, enquiries from customers, bookings and so forth usually take me a couple of hours to deal with. By the time I am finished, the day is well on its way and I feel as though I have accomplished something, however small that something may be.

I am a creature of habit I suppose. This was not my way as a young man, but as the years have passed I have become more comfortable with some degree of order in my life. I have no problem with the world advancing, technology inexorably marching forward or even 20-20 cricket — actually that is not quite true as I loathe 20-20 cricket and believe it to be a complete bastardization of the game I love. However, the world can change as much as it wishes, so long as it does not expect me to keep pace. I will amble along at my own speed, thanks very much. I will even check out what the latest ‘this or that’ is, but really, do not expect me to get involved in any of it. My mornings are an integral part of this life I live. However, this particular morning was shattered by the shrill sound of a Thai female voice, and, no, on this occasion, not that of my wife and also not directed at me.

“My pussy not have dick for three weeks but my mouth have lots of dick.” A statement which was immediately followed by the raucous, screeching laugh of several Thai girls whose tones resemble those of a hyena on heat (I imagine).

I looked up from my office and out into the café area to see where this rather unusual breakfast conversation was harking from. There I espied four Thai girls around a table, in the company of a farang — all eating and drinking. It was almost a scene that would have made it into a wildlife documentary such was its similarity to lions huddling around the newly fallen prey, or a shoal of piranhas wading mercilessly into the flesh of a luckless animal that had been unfortunate enough to choose that particular part of the river to navigate a crossing. Even vultures circling overhead or sitting in trees waiting for the final throes of life from a fallen beast came to mind. These bar girls are scary. They are utterly ruthless.

The conversation was deteriorating, were such possible, and other diners were struggling to keep their bacon and eggs in their stomachs. Before the floor was awash with vomit, I forewent the pleasure of my fist cigarette and walked over to the assembled table where these sharks were appearing ready to devour the hapless farang. I requested, politely, that they keep their voices a little lower and that, perhaps, their conversation was not suitable for the time of day or their present location.

I returned to my office and hoped that these customers would quickly finish up and leave. Their voices were certainly quieter and the fear of numerous guests regurgitating their breakfast seemed to have subsided.

Unfortunately these unwelcome guests remained. They were soon alone in our café and their voices again became thunderously loud. I listened to their conversation — I really had little choice — and gleaned that the farang with them was an American, retired from whatever his line of work once was and making his first visit to Thailand. All of this information was nothing but fluff really, what he was, plain and simply, was prey and easy prey at that.

I began shifting uncomfortably in my chair in the manner of a man with a bad case of hemorrhoids sitting on a craggy cliff. All of the bar girls pleas for assistance were being trotted out…my mother’s sick, our buffalo’s depressed, the motorbike’s broken, my children are starving, our underwear is in need of replacement. These plaintive cries were combined with offers to help carry his wallet, polish his ATM card and ‘take care’ him long time, forever even. They were a joy to behold, albeit a deeply concerning and worrying joy. The type of joy that makes me think I have been in these particular killing fields too long.

I started to get really quite concerned when they offered to take him deep sea diving — “But I can’t swim,” he had said. “No problem for diving!” they cheered in unison, adding “anyway we all look after you!”

The final conversation, before there blessed departure, was, in its own way one of pure brilliance. With the diving conversation having seemed to have hit the rocks, one of these lasses blurts out (in the fashion of someone announcing the immediate and unexpected loss of a limb), “I not have microwave.” I could have cried. This was surely an injustice! Did people still manage to live without microwaves these days?!? What other depravities has this poor young girl been forced to endure?!? No microwave?!? God, I nearly gave her my wallet!!! Yes, okay, I am being a touch sarcastic but really, this was just quite pathetic. Unfortunately, even more pathetic, was the sound of the captured farang uttering sincere condolences and asking where he could go to purchase the unfortunate waif a microwave!

They sat and made their plans. A trip to a nearby department store was to be followed by a visit to a motorbike showroom and thereafter onto a gold shop. By the time I heard the farang inquiring as to where the deep-sea diving trip could be arranged, I had almost relinquished the will to live. They then left and I have vowed to watch the local news for a story on an American being lost at sea whist deep sea fishing! If such a tale should appear, it is unlikely he will be mourned by several Thai girls — they will be far too busy with their new microwaves, motorbikes or gold necklaces to have noticed!