A Strange Sort of Christmas

---

A few days of living left in Thailand, in my home with the Kenyan Tiger Tamers in Sriracha, and in the meantime we have what all of us have always known as the Biggest Holiday of the Year. We were to spend it in Thailand's cesspit of Pattaya. Though the Thais really dig this "American-style" Christmas thing, with Santa hats and shopping specials galore, it is absolutely nothing like Christmas in America. We had three days of it, every one of them wierd. I'll give 'em to you one by one.


December 24th, Christmas Eve

We began the "Thailand Christmas Experience" in the evening after the girls got off work. I was already set to go, but it took them some time to get it all together. Things weren't looking good around 6:00pm, with Poni out sick on her bed, me deep into a travel book about India, and Chelly frantically running around with her hair all crazy.

But, we got out of there eventually, and we got our tuk-tuk, had a quick--antsy--ride to Pattaya, and even managed to meet up with our friends without much hassle.

(You'll notice that most of these pictures come from that first night. This is a consequence of my feebly-attempted 'photo strike', which Chelly forces me to break now and again.)

Our holiday revelry was going to include two friends that I'd made while travelling in Cambodia: Andy and Phon. I first met them in the Cat Koh Kong guesthouse, where I'd stayed an inordinate amount of time while they'd only done a night or two. I saw them again quite randomly in Phnom Penh, at least a week later. We talked a lot there and Andy told me about his previous life crewing yachts all around the world. Phon, his Thai wife, managed to cheer me up with her incorrigible smile. He's an inspiring character and she's just a character, so I knew we'd have a blast with them for Christmas.

Andy picked us up at the bus stop around 7:30-ish and we drove over to their house for a couple drinks. It's a great place: comfy, relaxing--and we had a book of cocktail recipes. Libations included cream, brandy, and chocolate. The girls dressed and we were ready to head out.

Destination #1 was the Pizza Company restaraunt, where we could soak up some of the alcohol in our bellies with carbs and protein. We met Nina--a tour guide from the Tiger Zoo--outside and a nice peaceful dinner was planned, but then Phon found a guy on the street selling little toy penises. These ended up dangling out of shorts, flying into the food, sticking to foreheads, and finally one of them exploded in mine and Chelly's hands as she attempted to wrest it from me. The last one transferred ownership to a queer Thai waiter at the night's place of greatest entertainment: the Scuba go-go bar.

Pattaya, of course, is the nations's capitol of sex clubs and all that junk. Phon and Andy had one of these places in mind for our first round of Christmas Eve partying. Scuba is a gay bar that advertises underwater acrobatics shows. We went out of morbid curiousity, had our palates tickled by fizzy, fruity drinks, and enjoyed an absurd drag show. The show featured fat Brits dressed as Salvation Army parade gals, a "Jungle Show" featurette, some chubby-boy lapdances, and a frighteningly-feminine Ladyboy singer. It was fun, but it was enough to make any straight couple walk back out that door, and so we did.

The next stop was a bustling jazz bar, where a Filipino band played classics from Louis Armstrong and such. There we saw a group of about 15 European whores, mostly old hands, but with a couple of young lasses with huge 80s haircuts bursting out of tight dresses. It was entertaining, and the drinks were reasonably priced, but we eventually escaped to a quiet Irish joint called Kilkenny's which I had in the past patronized. The band played songs from U2 and my Brandy Alexander was smooth.

The music was moving the girls and they wanted a real dance floor, so we continued our thoroughly un-biblical celebration with a visit to a night club called Lucifer. We found the place packed with Europeans and Indians and Israelis and Thais and Koreans and maybe even a few Americans. Dancing happened. So did drinking. A few pictures were snapped as the bug caught us.

Andy and Phon went home from there, 'cause it was getting late. Nina the tour guide went home also. I yawned a lot, but Chelly didn't want to leave yet because that would mean abandoning Poni, who had to catch a taxi around 4:00am and pick her sister up from the airport in Bangkok. As an alternative to bed, we went to Tony's night club, which has beds.

I sprawled out on a king size, Chelly cuddled up, Poni danced alone under our chaperone-surveillance. The night got longer. Eventually we gave in and abandoned Poni to the night, wishing her luck with the whole airport thing.

On an empty backroad through the outskirts of Pattaya, riding atop a 100cc Honda with Chelly clutched in my lap and a tiny old Thai man driving, I saw a mysterious figure emerging from the fog.

Was it the Ghost of Christmas Future, come to show me my fate? Was it a man on stilts wearing a bear suit?

Nope. It was the rear end of a tremendous Asian Elephant. The sucker was trudging up the road around 3:00am with two riders on his back.

I transformed into that 10 year-old child personality that I am often accused of harboring, and started to yell, "Chang! Chang! Chang!" This is the Thai word for Elephant, and the critters know it too. I got a brief trumpet in reply and we jetted up the road.

Roundabout 5:00am, we got a call from Poni. At 7:00am, we got another, confirming that she'd picked up the sis. After that, I couldn't sleep, and it was now Christmas Day.


December 25th, Christmas Day

Blah blah blah, nothing was stirring, not even, a mouse, blah blah blah, except ME. I was the only one awake on Christmas morning and there was nothing I could do about it. I decided on the old Christmas standby for a lonely morning: go outside and see if it's snowed.

Of course it hadn't snowed, there wasn't even a frost or a fog or anything at all winteresque, and it was already getting hot. The private street was quiet, but up at the main road I could see a regular day's regular traffic plugging along. For the first time in my life, I was in a place with all the shops open and everyone going to work on Christmas Day.

But inside the house, it was definitely a holiday. Doris--Andy and Phon's pudgy Sharpe--wasn't even awake. I riffled through the bookcase and pulled out one entitled, "The History of the World." It sounded ambitous and should at least tide me over until the others woke.

I read about the ancient civilizations of Africa and Central America, read about the origin of the Hebrews and their contribution to the development of morality and ethics. I stayed out of Asia, as I was getting enough of it in person.

At some point, Chelly stirred, but just enough to tell me to put the book down and come back to bed. Sorry, babe, once I've broken the seal of sleep, there's no turning back.

So I read the author's opinions on the modern age, on the erosion of the institution of the state, and on the supra-national phenomenae of Islamism and Afrocentrism, etc.

Andy woke up with a hangover and joined me in the living room. Doris was with him, sluggish as us but without the excuse of alcohol consumption. We talked up some plans for the day, but didn't follow through.

One at a time, the women crawled out of bed, reluctantly. They had headaches and neither wanted to drink any water. I chugged the stuff, finding great relief, and searched the TV for some sense of the familiar: a football game or a parade or even a bad 50s Christmas movie. No luck.

I decided it was breakfast time and took Andy's wickedly tall bicycle to the store on the corner. I went into a market to get Chelly a phone card Andy some cigarettes and nearly missed the full-on European bakery next door.

This was better than presents under the tree. This was baked goods.

I bought slices of different flavored cakes for everyone, a hearty dark wheat bread for the big breakfast I was planning, and a pretzel for a snack.

The pretzel went great with some mustard from Andy's fridge and a little rock salt. I found cartoons to watch. It was Christmas morning, slowly turning into afternoon, and at least I had some people to be together with and care about.

Chelly finished making all her Christmas calls to Kenya and took over the remote, officially switching to "America's Next Top Model" (coincidentally being filmed in Thailand this season). Andy and I repaired to the kitchen to whip up something greasy.

We started with round cuts of bacon, adding tomatoes, then diced potatoes, then shredded cheddar cheese to the mix. Piling it on to plates, it looked like the dregs of an oily soup. We scarfed it up greedily with pieces of brown wheat toast.

After that, and a little more "Top Model", it was time to go to the beach.

Andy and Phon have a little spot an hour or so down the road in Jomtien. After a brief detour to Pattaya's Walking Street to say hello to Poni and her sister Agnes (and enjoy some incredible locally made ice cream), we were off.

The spot is a windsurfer joint at the least-crowded part of the Jomtien beaches. We ordered drinks, Doris ran amok with the stray dogs, we pulled up chairs in the sun, Andy and Phon and Chelly talked about Africa, and I went for a swim in tropical waters on Christmas Day. It was windy, but the water was warm and the sun was bright. If it hadn't been assured before, I was now officially having an unusual experience.

Andy planted some great ideas about taking boats down the Nile, camel-trains across the Sahara, and joining a sail race from the Canary Islands to the Carribean. I talked about dream houses and big castle-in-the-sky future stuff. We got hungry. And it was almost time for our magic show.

Something out there in the universe had given Andy this crazy idea of taking us all to a magic show on Christmas Day, but the cards were stacked up against us. Getting Doris in the car and getting home from Jomtien, saying Hi to the elephant from last night, everyone eating their cake and changing clothes; all took way too long and we ended up at the Tuxedo Magic Castle 20 minutes late.

The show, however, was running 30 minutes late, and there was still plenty of time for them to take our money. Finding seats among little kids and old foreigners, we enjoyed our free beverages and waited for the show to start. It was the worst magic show ever and it was over before me or Andy could finish one small bottle of Beer Singha. It has taken me longer to write about than it did to watch, and we'd figured out all the tricks by the time we got to the car.

Andy and I apologized profusely for dragging our ladies through this and we made up for it by taking them to an all you can eat buffet. I ate all I could. Time was yawning and things were getting foggy and I was yawning too. We went back to the house and the girls went to bed and Andy and I watched the "Borat" movie, and then we went to bed too.

Soon enough, it was Boxing Day.


December 26th, Boxing Day

Boxing Day is a holiday that comes from England and is celebrated in all the British Commonwealth nations, including Kenya. I gather it has something to do with the boxing of gifts, but I have no idea really. The Kenyans, of course, feel that it is significant as a day to spend relaxing.

Chelly, though, was reluctantly determined to work. The Tiger Zoo had docked her pay for Christmas day and she didn't want to lose any more money before spending it all in India. So, we got a 6:30am bus from Pattaya and were back to the zoo in an hour.

I dove immediately to bed, Chelly went to work.

She returned at lunch time to chill out with me and eat, and she told me that Tony (another Kenyan Tiger Tamer) was wasted drunk somewhere downstairs and looking for me. Sure enough, he came knocking on the door around 12:30.

He wanted me to go spend the evening in Pattaya with him and party. It was his first day off in months. I, however, wanted to stay in and read, write some emails to my parents, and help Chelly do some things around the house. The last thing I wanted to do was return to the bustle and the stench of Pattaya, especially in the hands of this drunk African bigamist.

After a prolonged argument in Swahili between Tony and Chelly, he returned to wherever it was he had been downstairs and awaited my answer to his invitation. Me and Chelly discussed things and it was clear there would be no Pattaya partying tonight. I went down to tell him.

There are a number of shops and restaraunts below us and I went from door to door looking for Tony. Eventually, I found him in a shop down the street, drinking a beer and chatting up the shop-boy, who looked annoyed and was trying to convince him to go somewhere else.

I told Tony my reasons for not going back to Pattaya with him. The shop-boy was curious and Tony translated. Then the shop boy came up with a brilliant idea that would get us both out of his store, and Tony translated back to me.

If I'd come with him, we could go and visit his wife's parents for a while up the street in the little village of Ban Nong Kho, and we could see Tony's baby daughter. Then, since it was so close, I could come back and do all my errands and everything and he'd be enjoying his holiday with family.

I caved, and Tony took me to the in-laws'. The baby daughter was there, one of four babies on two continents, concieved with one of three wives. The toothless old Grandma was there too, and the Aunt, and the Cousin, and the Grandpa. No one spoke English and Tony's Thai is his strongest language. I sat in the corner and ate these strange seeds they'd handed me.

Getting my fill of little jokes made in my direction, I decided to get back to those chores and errands. Tony insisted on going with me. Then the Aunt insisted on taking us both back to the Tiger Zoo on the back of her motor scooter, but first we'd be stopping off at some kind of a mountain for a bit.

The mountain--I found--was actually a small hill, home to a community of Buddhist monks and their shrines. They gave me some wierd tea to drink made out of the bark of some tree. This, along with the strange seeds, was beginning to really hurt the inside of my mouth and make my teeth ache. Then the head of the monks came by and I discovered that we were just in time to go through a daily ritual intended to help old folks retain clear vision.

I reluctantly lay down with the geriatrics in the main temple room and awaited my visit from the chief monk. He came along one by one with an eye-dropper, blotting this yellow goo in people's eyes and then giving them an ocular massage.

The guy put the stuff in my eyes and rubbed them and it was still burning like Hellfire when I got on to the back of the motorcycle. Tony's baby's Aunt drove me home. I went back to the apartment having accomplished nothing on my list, with some kind of new adventure under my belt, an awful pain in my eyes and a worse one in my head.

I fixed-up some soup with eggs to take away the taste, eating it in the growing dark, and that's how Chelly found me when she came home. We worked on packing for our coming travels. She had a cold.

We were both strained and stressed and stretched by the holiday, just not in the usual way and I suppose that's some kind of silver lining, isn't it?

---

Comments

[Terri]

Pattya Photos
So the boys and I gather round the computer to see where in the world is Nic. And there is the photo of Andy and a toy penis. You keep things interesting, even from another continent.

[Aaron Brown]

"and joining a sail race from the Canary Islands to the Carribean." I'll email you. I definitely want to go on an adventure this summer, and it will definitely include farming and hopefully sailing. "I sat in the corner and ate these strange seeds they'd handed me. " haha, that just sounds hilarious..out of awkwardness I guess. "The guy put the stuff in my eyes and rubbed them and it was still burning like Hellfire when I got on to the back of the motorcycle." Mighta had cayenne in there. I've been using this eyebright formula with some cayenne. Apparently that isn't standard practice. But who knows, there are lots of herbs in the world.

[phon andy]

I'm nice to enjoy..!
all over the world