Seriously, tell your friends
Trip Start
Aug 11, 2009
1
9
Trip End
Oct 03, 2009
Surin, Surin, Thailand
Monday, September 14, 2009
So after being on the piss with us the night before, I saw Nice at about 8.30 the next morning. I was rough and buying some cigarettes to get me through the day. Nice was very rough, and on his second beer to get him through the day. He offered me one and as much as I wanted to, in my elderly wisdom I declined, as I had quite a lot of TCB - ing to do that day. Nice told me it was his day off, and that he would just drink his hangover away and then sleep all day. Nice was wrong. It was not his day off. After tying up many of my loose ends, we were called back to duty to help out with the elephant show once again. There was Nice, centre stage for some reason (he normally commentates from an air conditioned office with a good line of sight some ways away) swaying slightly and slurring heavily. And putting on the show of his life. The crowd were a like a pool cue in his drunken hands, and he was clearing off the break with every shot he took. They were in hysterics, and he was loving it. The show normally lasts 20 minutes, and todays topped out at about 50. It involved getting a ladyboy up from the crowd for something (the show is in Thai, so we don't have a clue whats going on), and also getting me up from the crowd, Nice groping me heavily in front of 400 school kids (I later found out his joke there was that we are gay together, the gay men joke really is both an eternal and multinational joke, however none do it quite as theatrically as the Thai) and trying to get me to make out with a 15 year old girl. As I had needed Jack to point out to me that the girl Nice was talking to earlier was in fact a boy, I was reluctant to with both the possibility of paedophelia charges and making out with a dude looming over my head. I'm not sure which concerned me more. Anyway, I gather Nice in fact kept his job, which is good cos he is a cool guy. I spoke to him about Mr. Shit the night before, and he was highly apologetic - I told him it was ok, but he was concerned. He did have a new name for me on the last day, but it was in Thai and I didn't catch it. Probly something along the lines of "Mr. Takes it like a little bitch from me every night", in keeping with the homosexual joke theme. I don't know, and I don't care to.
One Tonne Tan Wan
Tan Wan does not weigh one ton. But it rhymes, and sounds kind of clever, so I went with it. At a guess I would say Tan wan weighs about 250-300kg. This is not a problem, as he is a six month old baby elephant. The 'baby elephant' clarification in the last sentence seems a little uncalled for, he is hardly going to be a six month old geriatric grandparent, or a 300kg baby ant. Moving on. Tan wan is a very cute, smiley playful little fella, the size of a St Bernard, mischevious and adorable. He is also in great danger, as he has made a dangerous enemy. Me. I hate the little big bastard with a passion. As far as I am concerned he sucks furious amounts of Blue whale dick, because that is the only dick I can think of that is larger and probably worse tasting than Elephant dick. I imagine it would be really salty. This probably requires some explaining (my hatred of a cute baby elephant, not the salinity of a whales cock), so allow me.
Like any relationship, it began with a certain level of trepidation and nervousness on both parts. I fed the grey little bloke a few bananas, and he warmed to me. I stroked his relatively small trunk in a completely non sexual way (fearful of paedophilia, bestiality and gayness this time) and scratched his enormous head. We were friends. I was told that he could only eat bananas, he was not strong enough to chew the sugar cane that the older elephants devoured with such vim. I broke one down into smaller pieces for him, and he managed to eat it up. It was like a coming of age for him, I had led him there through kindness and trust. I could see in his weirdly large eyes that we were tight, a regular Turner and Hooch, Philo and Clyde. We could have fought crime together, but it was not be. Because Tan Wan is a quarter ton of pure cunt. Two days before I was to leave, I was peeling bananas for him and feeding them to him, obviously I would not be peeling them to make a facial mask for him, or to blend into banana daiquiris. That would be frowned upon. He was uncharacteristically demanding. After three or four nanas he just grabbed my hand with his trunk, pulled it down to his mouth and started chewing on it. Elephants have large teeth, but they are not made for breaking human hands, especially at 6 months of age. It still kind of hurt, as there was a lot of pressure there. Maybe he was making a joke, maybe it was his way of saying "I love you Gaz, and I will miss you deeply as a guru and a friend". I laughed at him and called him a dickhead. Tan Wan, or any elephant for that matter, surely cannot have a grasp of the English language so strong as to recognize that classic insult. Perhaps it was something in my tone, but he let go of my hand. I looked down on him with a warm and almost fatherly smile, proud of him in so many ways. Then he nutted me like a drunken Liverpool fan. Headbutted clean in the sternum. He may be only 6 months old, but 250 Kilos of elephant behind a head four times the size of Mick Wescombe's fucking hurts when it nails you in the chest unsuspectingly. I dropped to my knees, winded and broken hearted by this needless betrayal. The bastard had another crack but thanks to my lightening reactions (read: lightening reactions compared to a baby elephant) I avoided being concussed. I was about to punch him in the head, but I thought that first of all it would probably hurt me far more than him, and beating an infant elephant is not a good look for a volunteer in an elephant sanctuary. And that was the end of it. I dragged myself away, weeping with sorrow at the lost friendship (not the pain in my chest. Well the emotional pain in my chest, not the physical pain in my chest, because I'm kind of a tough guy. Except when it comes to being fucked over by wildlife toddlers, that breaks me down hardcore). We havn't spoken since. I've heard elephants never forget. Well neither do I. Well actually I tend to black out a lot when I drink, and I forget a lot of things that others consider important, but I won't forget Tan Wan. And he better hope he remembers me, cos when he sees me coming next time it won't be with a handful of peeled bananas. It will be with something much more menacing (which is not hard when comparing it with peeled bananas, unless of course you are allergic to bananas) which I cannot think of right now. But yeah, it's on like Donkey Kong with me an Tan Wan, this chapter has only just begun. (I should have been in 8 mile, dead set)
Train Station
This one should be good. I have been waiting for a while to get here, because it is rich in veins of awkward situations which can be mined, refined and alloyed into entertaining sentences for you to devour at your leisure. I have to be in the right frame of mind for this one, and that requires some preparation. Namely taking yet another shit. Sorted like folded laundry.
So I got dropped at the train station at about 9.30pm, Apple said bye and left - she doesn't like drawn out goodbyes and I can hardly blame her, as she does it on a fortnightly basis. My train was leaving at 10.02, so I settled into my book, a time bending military black comedy action thriller by John Birmingham. It's shit. He was great when he wrote light comic pieces on real life experiences, but has gone to shit by trying to be a real writer. Sounds like a warning bell. An old guy who looked like Ghandi came up and sat beside me and started chatting in English. Turns out he was a monk, the praying kind not the asskicking kind. He was ok. Then he thanked me for the conversation and left me be. I was glad to be alone. For about five minutes. A 60 year old guy came up and tried to feed me a shot of whiskey from his hip flask. Understandably, I declined. You cannot smoke on planes or trains, which is why I do not drink on planes or trains. Then he nattered away at me in broken slurred english for quite some time. After a while I realised that he was proposing that we fuck off our train ride till tomorrow, go hit the clubs and pick up, and failing that we get some hookers and go back to his place. He was seedier than a tomato. Again, I declined. He forgot this and started his once in a lifetime opportunity offer again, but I was in no mood to be kidnapped/killed/raped and so declined another three times. As I saw the drunken blackout roll over his features and he began his sales pitch a sixth time (to the huge entertainment of all those sitting around me, who claimed they could not speak English but seemed to understand the drunktard beside me pretty damn well) my train rocked up five minutes early. I wandered up to the train guy (what do you call them? I know the conductor is the fat guy at the front, but what are the other people on the train called? Rail hostesses? I shall call them track slaves, even though that sounds like jive talk for junkies) and showed him my ticket.
"Ahhhh, no you on next train. You wait."
"oh ok, thanks man."
And he winked at me. I found the wink suspicious, not in a gay way (my thats a recurrent theme today, and I am not even done with it) but in a purely suspicious way. I had a good look at his face, and committed it to memory. Thai, thin, mid teens to early fifties (I find it hard to pinpoint asians ages) with a bit of facial hair. Got it. The train fucks it's way off down the line as they usually do, and I sit down again. I wait a bit. 10:15. I get my book out again and read some more. 10:45. I go and find my friend the monk, who tells me I have missed my train and the next one is at 7am. I ask him if there is an office where I can get information, and he finds my joke hilarious, as do the rest of the waiting passengers. I am not impressed. I wake up the old drunk guy and ask him if I have missed my train. He looks at my ticket and asks me if I want to go to a bar with him etc etc. I ask him if there is an office here where I can get some information. He points me in a direction that I follow. A guy at a desk asks me for 30 Baht, which I pay before entering the office. The office is in fact a toilet, but I need a piss so I am not entirely upset with this turn of events. I want to sit down again but the dodgy drunk is still waiting for me, no doubt with another offer of the worst night of my life. So I wander around. I find a news stand. I look for an English Cryptic crossword book. Amazingly, I can't find one. There is plenty of porn though, and I quickly pass over it with a disgusted scoff. But something catches my eye. Something that doesn't usually catch my eye. Gay porn. There is a magazine in the top right corner, a Thai title I cannot interpret and a large glossy picture on the front. It is the picture that interests, well not so much interests as stuns me. It is a picture of a man. He is very pale - almost as pale as me. He has a scruffy dark beard - almost as scruffy and dark as mine. He has a fairly large beergut, almost as impressive as mine. A snail trail works it's way up from beneath his black leather G-sting and blossoms into a hair chest, a snail trail and hairy chest much like mine. It's the Thai version of me. I'm a fucking gay porn pin up. But everything on this apparently sexy man is accentuated on me, it's like looking into a magic mirror that turns you into a Thai man who is attempting to be seductively gay. And suddenly a lot of this trip falls into place. Moped drivers fearful of me sliding forward to them. Tong's hungry beady little eyes and constant sweat. Being slapped on the ass by men with worrying frequency. I am horrified. Very slightly flattered but definitely mostly horrified. I was tempted to buy the magazine, but I would rather leave the image of Thai Gaz seductively (I assume, I was entirely unseduced) grasping his balls - I assure you I only grasp my balls in a scratchy, not a seductive way - behind. In retrospect, it is good to know I have something to fall back on if severely hard times befall me. I cannot imagine how hard those times may be (and the opportunity for a gay joke here is so good, but being the butt of said joke - there is another opportunity - I must decline). So I sit on a suspiciously unattended row of chairs and mull over the several terrible things that have accosted me tonight. I see the face of the track slave who told me that my train was the next one, and I conceive of multiple detailed tortures for the rat bastard in order to keep my mind off the fact that I am in a seedy train station in Thailand, and apparently I am the equivalent of Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Alba's lovechild to the gay community over here. As I drop further into my reverie, I lean back and the row of chairs collapses, landing me on my arse. I am not in a happy place. I recover myself with all the grace of a retarded sloth and listen to some of my favourite music and think things over, trying to get into a good mood. It doesn't work. Some attractive girls come and sit near me. They are dressed like hookers. Here is a good rule of thumb for visiting Thailand. If a girl is dressed normally, they are probably a hooker. If they are dressed like a hooker, then they are definitely a hooker and probably a man. I decide it is time to brave the mean streets of Surin and find a hotel for the night. It is about 11:40 at this stage. As I haul my sorry arse through the exit, I see a light to my right. Under this light sits a man, behind a perspex screen, with a sign saying office in front of him. I walk up. I show him my ticket. He takes it off me, checks his computer and plugs some numbers into a calculator. He shows me the calculator screen, which reads 23.50. Unlike me, I have a fairly short temper at this stage. I should explain that they don't really use cash registers in Thailand, but put their price into a calculator and show you, exactly like the elusive office man just had. I calmly tell him "Like fuck I am paying 23.50 to get my ticket back off you cunt. I want my money back and I want a ticket for a train first thing tomorrow, if I make it through tonight." He looks very confused and I look proportionately angry. Then I hear a train whistle. He hands me back my ticket and points at the train pulling into the station. I look at my phone. The 24 hour time reads 23:45. He was trying to tell me my train had been delayed until 11.50pm, not charge me 23.50. I am so thankful I get down on my knees (in hindsight, not a great move after the magazine I had just seen) and say thankyou about 12 times, then rush to the train. I hate trains. After doing the Ghan about 20 times and the Grand Canadian once, I cannot wait for tube travel to come about, because trains suck. They are uncomfortable, I cannot sleep and everyone seems to want to talk to me. I nail some poor sleeping guy in the back of the head with my backpack, and I know the laptop is in the corner and it would hurt worse than a headbutt from an elephant but I don't care. I find my carriage which has about 20 other beds in it and I settle into mine. I try to get comfortable, and just as I put my head down and begin to prepare for the sleepless night ahead, I wake up. I was out like a 50 kilo Thai kickboxer copping a knee to the head from an 80 kilo Norwegian kickboxer (which I saw at a tournament the other night, and believe me that is quite severely out). I was in Bangkok. I got a taxi to my hotel and once again, all was well.
That has to be it for now, soon you can learn about Scuba Dick Game, of which I am the king. It's really not as dirty as it sounds.
By the way, the title of this blog and the previous one are not a joke. There are almost 50,000 blogs per week published on this web site. I have read some of the most popular ones. They are a regular recounting of events of some truly amazing experiences. But they are not much fun to read. If you tell two friends about this, and they tell two friends and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends, then that is 63 people (I think, I'm a little tired). Get the readership up peeps, because my ego demands it. Thanks for reading, and thanks to your two friends.
