Tester's First Trip to Thailand
tester
streets of BKK or seeing something new outside of the capital, I never seem
to be too far from other farangs. In the city, I hardly realize that I am
in a foreign country. But it wasn't always like that.
It was early afternoon, Christmas Day, 1970, when this single, 20-something,
PBMABF-in-the-making, first set foot on Thai soil. A total innocent. No
preconceived notions about any of the places I had been or were about to
visit.
The day had begun about 4 a.m. in Karachi. My partner and I had arrived in
the dark at the Karachi airport in plenty of time for us to retrieve our
weapons from bond at Pakistani Customs. Proceeding to Pan Am's operations
office, we were issued our boarding documents (with pre-assigned seats, of
course), met the flight crew for the short journey, and returned to the
general ticketing area to embark through the exit formalities with other
passengers boarding Flt 2 to BKK.
We were hardly air-borne, when it became apparent that 2 of the 5
stewardesses were really sick. Every 5 minutes, one or another was
scurrying to the back of the plane and unloading--not knowing for sure which
end of their bodies their Christmas dinners were about to exit. (Christmas
dinner for 10 stewardesses and 4 security-types had been a fun event in the
hotel dining room the night before.) I secretly heaped heavy praise upon
myself as we flew that day for having had the "travel smarts" to stick with
french fries, rice, and beer, as the girls had taken in ample portions of
curry and other interesting-but-questionable choices.
So, as we approached the BKK airport that afternoon (after a stop in
Rangoon), we had already put in a pretty full day. But from the sky, the
miles and miles of open, green spaces below seemed to signal to me that I
was about to land on some very foreign soil.
Our B707 rolled to a stop, and blocks set, everybody gathered up their stuff
and decended via a stairway which had been rolled out to the plane. No
tunnels here. No gates. No A/C. No shopping carts with which to transport
our "carry-ons" into the terminal. The name of the airport? Don't have a
clue. Don Muang? BKK International? All I remember is that we walked from
the plane across the tarmack into a building shaped roughly like that of a
quonset hut--perhaps 60 feet wide and 150 feet long. THAT was the BKK
terminal. It was't 20 minutes later that my partner and I were on the crew
bus headed for the city.
The crew bus made good time. No reason for it to be otherwise. Probably
didn't see 50 other vehicles on the road until we actually arrived in the
city. Open fields on each side of the divided highway stretched forever.
No high-rises, no light manufacturing, no huge billboards or other such
obstacles to the view. Only countryside all around. Even the few trucks on
the road reminded us that we were in the countryside--loaded down with oxen
or baskets of produce or bales of this or that. Usually, a few passengers
were sitting on top, for extra ballast, no doubt!
Suddenly, we were in the city. Our crew bus turned onto what seemed to be a
major street (now known to me as Ploenchit). The street certainly had motor
vehicles on it, but was really quite vacant.
Buildings of no more than 2 or 3 floors were sometimes separated by large
empty lots. Small shops and stores (stalls?) were numerous, if not busy. A
lot of boarded-up properties, as I recall. I wasn't sure if this was the
"bad part of town" or just typical of a 3rd world country.
In no time, we pulled to the front of the Siam Intercontinental
Hotel--sparkling new: no shrubs seemed to be more than a foot tall. the
sent of paint suggested that it had been applied just before we arrived; a
beautiful pool area which rivaled those of the most lavish Las Vegas digs of
the day. A very beautiful and inviting setting. And for a crew rate of 180
baht/night, a real bargain. Upon checking in, my partner and I agreed to
meet with our crew girls around the pool that afternoon to gather some rays
and information as to what to do.
So out by the pool we were. As everybody knows, women and men often have
different ideas of what constitutes "fun" things and "must do" things. But
we were somewhat at the mercy of the knowledge of the stewardesses. After
all, they had previous trips under their belts to these places to which we
had never been (or at least they had roommates who had given them lists of
"fun" things and "must do" things) So what if these stewardesses were,
themselves, pretty-much rookies--senior girls getting the holidays off.
(They seemed to know more than us--except as to lay off Pakistani curry.)
So when the girls implored us to go with them to some Jim's silk store and a
"floating market" the next day, my partner and I kinda shrugged, like "yeah,
why not?"
With the only girls worth really hanging around with wanting to spend the
evening healing from their bouts with food poisoning, my partner and I were
left to our own devices for our first night in Bangkok. We could pretty
much shop the hotel stores in 15 minutes, so that really didn't seem to fill
out the evening. We didn't have a clue about where we were or where to go.
Talk about "two nuns in Shanghai"! So we decided to walk to the street and
start to stroll the area.
Now, in those days, signs in English were still rather uncommon. Coming
into the city, the most prominent English words seemed to be "Shell" and
"Coke-Cola" But, as luck would have it, right across the street from the
hotel (where Siam Square sits today) was a huge sign on the front of a
seen-better-days building. The sign had one word: "MASSAGE" My partner
and I looked at eachother and wondered how our gracious Pan Am tour guides
had failed to mention this possible attraction. We decided to investigate.
Once inside the massage establishment, I can only say that we found it to be
similar to those "non-traditional" establishments sometimes described as
"gold fish bowls". In this case, maybe 50 technicians, each with their
chiropractric diplomas pinned to their uniforms, were seated on a stair-step
set of risers. We were told that a massage would cost us 40 baht for 2
hours. Not being sure that all adjustments could be made in a mere two
hours, we were assured that we could arrange more time as required. Deal
struck.
Now, I proabably don't have to tell you that the next day, after doing the
obligatory "silk shop" thing, my partner and I ditched our lovely Pan Am
tour guides and opted to return to our own "floating market". (Actually,
the stewardesses' "loveliness" had suffered considerable devaluation based
upon our experience the night before). After all, visualizing those ripe
little melons float in the water as nible hands washed the gourd was a tough
act to follow. Besides, my partner and I knew that we shouldn't get too
close to our Pan Am friends. They didn't know it, but if they got between
us and any of Arafat's PLO buddies two days later, we knew we might have to
kill them to get to the bad guys. Nobody needs to carry that kind of
baggage around for the rest of his life.
Anyway, my first trip to Thailand was about 36 short hours. My most prized
acquisition of the journey was a large oil seascape which I purchased at the
hotel gallery. I know art is in the eye of the beholder, but it was really
very well done. It still hangs in my parents' house. I sometimes wonder
what became of the artist. Did he/she continue a painting career? Become
famous? Where is the artist now? Doing what? I am sure he/she has
changed. I know Thailand has changed. And me too--I'm no long a PBMABF
in-the-making. I'm a fully qualified PBMABF.
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