Tears in Thailand

TEARS IN THAILAND

By

Graeme Bourke

Published By

Graeme Bourke on Smashwords

TEARS IN THAILAND

Copyright 2020 Graeme Bourke

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This book, this journey was written before the corona virus and as such may now be part of a lost history. Will Thailand ever be the same? Bangla Road in Patong Beach is a ghost town and I was told some eighty thousand people left Phuket because there is no work. I doubt Phuket can come back from this in the short term because I think it was dying to some extent before the virus hit. It had become too expensive compared to other parts of the country. For myself, I find myself separated from the place I see as my second home and from my partner.

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After suffering a series of traumatic emotional issues, I was, virtually shanghaied by my stepdaughter who booked me on a flight to Thailand with two of my friends. Several trips later and into my second girlfriend, I was introduced to her friend, a petite bar girl on the infamous Bangla Road in Patong Beach. From that moment on everything changed for me as fate and destiny took hold. This book is an anthology of a journey, of love, life, travel, culture and experiences.

GOING HOME

September 2017

Passarin and I sit together quietly at the front of her shop in a northern suburb of Khon Kaen where we enjoy a cold beer. It’s a solemn moment, for tomorrow at two o’clock the taxi will come and take us to the airport for the start of my long journey home. Both of us try not to think of parting, of the sadness it will bring.

I have to admit that Thailand, its people and culture can become infectious and it became even more so for me this time. I’d had the privilege and honour to be part of a wedding ceremony within the family. I shared in their heartache and distress when Passarin’s brother was injured in a fall on a building site in Bangkok. I helped them out with medical and travel expenses as families living in Isaan (a province in north east Thailand) are among the poorest in the country.

I wasn’t surprised to learn that Passarin hadn’t seen her brother in twelve years, it’s a common theme here. Passarin used to work in Patong Beach and rarely saw her family. The cost of going home for a fortnight or ten days and having no income was prohibitive. When I first met her, she told me she hadn’t seen her family and two sons in a year.

A gusting wind arrives signalling the approach of a thunderstorm. Soon there is a steady rhythmic downpour as we sit under the lee of the veranda. The ambience of humanity and nature is all about us as rushing turbid water runs past on the road like a small stream. The air is clearer, cooler now. I peer across at the huge paddock of young marigolds that will be used at the king’s funeral in October when they mature. They glisten bright green as the water seeps down through the black shade cloth above them. Cars driving past splash water toward us. Several people on motorbikes stop and take shelter beneath the nearby bus stop. Eventually the thunderstorm passes and the sun comes out immediately raising the temperature.

It was hard to believe that my three months in Thailand will soon be over. It seemed so long ago when Passarin met me at Bangkok Airport, where we embraced, smiled and rekindled our relationship. We held hands in the taxi all the way to the hotel in central Bangkok.

The taxi fare was around four hundred baht, which was what I was told by some of my friends to expect. It pays to acquire a bit of knowledge on your destination from friends as you can be over-charged. Hotels on an average are dearer in Bangkok than other parts of Thailand. As for the dreaded traffic, we never encountered any problems as we may have missed the peak hour, or it could have been that the driver used the toll road. That evening we dined on delicious Thai food.

We had two glorious days in Bangkok getting to know each other again. Passarin, like all women, had to go shopping. The clothing shops here are beyond imagination, words like gigantic, enormous and never-ending come to mind. People from all over Thailand and Asia come here to shop. They literally fill large garbage bags full of clothes and take them back to where they come from and resell them at a profit. I remember waiting for a lift at our hotel when I saw a Chinese lady drag two huge bags of clothes into the other lift, there was no room for passengers. At the end of our two days Passarin returned to Khon Kaen while I flew on to Chiang Mai to meet up with some friends.

With the rain gone a decision had to be made. What were we going to eat tonight? At the last supper so to speak. I clambered onto the motorbike and made my way to the market. I chose my two favourite items, prawns and charcoal grilled fish.

I’m not conducive to drinking as I over did it the previous night and was now paying the price. The Baileys must have disagreed with me or the packaged milk I mixed with it, so it would be a cautious approach tonight. I didn’t want to be travelling with an upset stomach. A couple of stubbies of Singha Lite would see me out.

During the evening I say goodbye to a couple of the regular customers for we have become friends. The supper is casual, but there is that underlying tension in the knowledge that I’m leaving. I go to my room at the rear of the shop and sleep rather well, although I wake up early. A few more goodbyes in the morning and then I begin to sort out what I am leaving and what I’m taking home.

I had put off packing my carry-on shoulder bag until the last minute. I slip my non-working laptop (see Laptop Crash) into the rear of the bag and begin to stow the rolled-up clothes. Rolling the clothes is a travelling trick. If you just fold them you will run out of room more quickly.

I originally purchased this bag because it had a section for a laptop, but when I tried to put my laptop in it wouldn’t fit, so I had to put it in the rear section. I’m resigned to purchasing a new laptop, something a bit smaller that will go where it’s supposed to go. The main reason for going with a carry-on bag was the cost of luggage that adds up over four separate flights and also the realisation that I was taking far too much in the way of unnecessary items. For example: I never take any toiletries. I stock up when I arrive.

You don’t need a lot of clothes, laundries are everywhere and they will have your clothes washed and ironed for you if you deliver them early enough, at the end of the day and it’s inexpensive. Another advantage of the carry-on bag is that it saves you having to tow luggage about, which can be a pain especially if you are in a large airport that you are not familiar with, as I would soon be. I had never flown out of Bangkok Airport before as I normally came via Phuket.

The conversation is stilted, casual and basic as we go through our morning routine void of any emotions. That will come later. Passarin cleans my room and packs the bedding away. I take a last look at the room, close the door and with my gear go to the front of the shop. We have booked our regular taxi driver and he arrives some ten minutes early. We hold hands as we did when I arrived in Bangkok.

Passarin talks with the taxi driver, I sense her feelings and her emotions. I take in the familiar sights, the Seven Eleven store that I frequented, the busy eight lane concrete highway that I had traversed many times, the grounds of Khon Kaen University and the bus stop where I had waited to go to Udon Thani. The driver turned off into unknown territory and I was left with that all too familiar scene of shop fronts that one can see driving through any suburban city.

Arriving at the airport we alight from the taxi. I check in and receive my seat allocation. I was flying Thai Smile. We sit down in the quiet almost deserted airport lounge. I’m a little early, but I would rather be early than late. There is so much I want to say, but the words fail to eventuate.

I stand up and Passarin peers up at me with those beautiful eyes. We hold each other and she whispers in my ear. Not cry darling, not cry.

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FIRST TIME IN THAILAND

On May 5, 2015, I began my first trip overseas for nigh on thirty-five years, the last being to New Zealand to hunt deer. I was encouraged by two friends and my stepdaughter who worked in a local travel agency to take this trip as I had been through some difficult times and was struggling to find my way. Over a short period of time I had suffered every emotional feeling that humanity could inflict. It was my hope that by writing about this journey I could begin the healing process and start to live the final years of my life in some harmony.

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It was a dismal wet grey morning as we left the small coastal town of Penguin on the north west coast of Tasmania. We were on our way to Launceston airport, an hour and a half away and I was with two friends, Trevor and Gary. It was still raining when we parked the car in the long-term car park and made our way into the terminal. We checked in and had a coffee. The rain had stopped by the time we crossed the open tarmac and boarded