Skip links
Young Thai Monk Courtyard David Bonnie Bangkok Thailand davidbonnie.com

Thailand: Everyman

She is back in my bed again.

She is back in my heart again.

As we exit the MRT at Huay Kwang the sky is heavy.

‘It rain’, she says.

‘Storm come’, I say.

I ask her why she wants to pray.

‘I think you know Dawid’.

I have no idea but I feel nervous for a reason I cannot tell.

Farang Praying David Bonnie Bangkok Thailand davidbonnie.com

She holds my hand as I almost trip over the shoes piled at the entrance to the Papikanet shrine at Rachada, Bangkok. Papikanet is what Thai people call Ganesh, the elephant headed god of the Hindus. The Thai animist form of Buddhism adopted Ganesh, the remover of obstacles.

The heavy smoke of incense hangs in the air. Can you smell it floating in the humid, still air of the shrine and street outside as it mixes with the cooking smells coming from street traders and car exhausts as the traffic rushes past this place of ornate and fragrant holiness?

Sweat is pouring from my head. It is difficult to see.

A garland of yellow flowers and a bunch of joss sticks are thrust toward me. She looks at me quizzically as if I should know what to do.

Four Thais at Statue David Bonnie Bangkok Thailand davidbonnie.com

She takes my hand again, leads me to a space on the floor.

I kneel beside her. I am the only farang (white foreigner) in the shrine.

‘You must have a wish in your heart, koh jai mai, (understand?)’ she asks.

‘Yes’, I say numb with something spiritual? Something momentous feels as if it will happen, something otherworldly? We pray. I glance at her and see she is asking for something.

I feel her hair against my naked arm. A shock runs through my body and a wave of happiness washes through my stupid, senseless, hopeful heart.

She is praying and holding the burning joss sticks in her palms. I, like a child, copy my teacher.

Ganesh, remove from my heart the bloated pride, the bitterness, the longing, the envy, the brutality, the violence, the jealousy, the desire to be adored that is stopping me from loving this woman by my side no matter what she does for a living.

Stopping me from finding simple happiness and the love I have searched for all my life and failed to find or rejected so many times.

Ganesh, let someone love me, me, a lonely man, in this strange and beautifully fucked up country.

Ganesh, let her love me, let her understand that love is not money, not something you can buy. Let her see my heart and understand that I am only a man. I can break.

We stand and make our offerings of flowers, red Fanta, milk and incense.

The sweat running down my face covers the tears. She pretends she does not see. We shake wooden vases filled with numbered sticks until one falls out.

Her number is 13, mine 3. She rips a sheet of Thai script for each number from a pad hanging on the wall. We leave. I buy her a fabric rose from the street, it may outlive the Valentine rose. She smiles, hugs me. I am transported. A foolish balloon buoyed up on her affection.

Budhism Statue David Bonnie Bangkok Thailand davidbonnie.com

We sit at a strange terrace bar in Ratchada and listen to an acoustic duo sing and play sad Thai pop songs, drink Singha and eat coconut fish.

She reads the Thai script. It is written in ‘old’ Thai and difficult for her to translate.

She says I have a ‘hot’ heart and have many problems as it makes me ‘sick inside’ and unhappy. Money is hard for you to find. She looks at me meaningfully.

She tells me that she prayed for us. She made a vow to Ganesh, ‘If we can be married, I will make an offering of fruit’.

I begin to tell her my wish, ‘I know what you wish for Dawid’.

My perception of what is real and what is not is not is fracturing, unpeeling the longer I am in this country.

She reads her own fortune as predicted in the script, ‘ I will always find money. That will never be a problem for me. But you are like a tree that bears no fruit and in the hot, dry season has no water’. She begins to cry as she reads this part.

Tears run down her face and she quickly wipes them away. We look at each other and in that look our future is writ. This moment will never pass. When we lay dying, this moment will stand as a monument to what could have been but never was.

I pull her close and whisper in her ear, ‘ I will be your water’. She lays her head on my shoulder in a gesture that is so much more than words.

If she could make me understand that her heart is mine and that her body is just meat we could be happy. But I am farang. No matter how I try, I cannot share any part of her. That night we sleep together, the touch of her hair, her skin, her breathing, so precious to me and so easily forgotten by any other man.

I will never recover from this night, from this girl. There is not enough life left in me, not enough time left for me to forget her. I am utterly lost.

 

 

 

 

 

An extract from Bangkok Baby by David Bonnie published 2011 Asia Books. Available at Amazon.

Leave a comment

  1. DEAR FRIENDS DAVID AND BONNIE:
    I watched 3 of your videos and I enjoyed them a lot. My name is Paul, I am 60 and I live in Lima (Peru). I learned English when I was very young and also I learned many things about the american culture throughout my life. When I was 14 I discovered Playboy magazine and it has been the main fountain of knowledge about life for me. Today I want to share some thoughts with you concerning “ladyboys”.
    Here in Lima, “ladyboys” are called “transvestites” or “transexuals”. The majority of them has always worked as part time hookers. In the past, there were only passive transvestites, but in the present there are also a lot of active transvestites who offer their services in classified ads websites. There is entertainment for everyone.
    In my case, I never got married. I have always had a paid companion. Many times women and sometimes transvestites, generally passive transvestites but sometimes also active transvestites. I understand what you are talking about because I have enjoyed similar situations all my life.
    For me it all began when I was in high school. In my school, there were boys and girls (this was strange in Lima in those times). It was a middle class and maybe high class school. The girls in my classroom were very pretty and had a lot of money. Me and other guys had less money than them, so we didn´t exist for them. They refused to talk to us. They were friends only with guys who had as much money as them. Still today I feel my heart ache a bit when I remember those days. It was so sad to like a girl sitting next to you and not to be able to have a normal conversation with her, just because I was not rich. It hurt a lot.
    Five years after I finished school, I was studying at the university and began to work. So I could pay a hooker to be friends and have some sex. In those times, in the streets of Lima, there were 2 types of hookers: normal looking women and beautiful passive transvestites. It was obvious that if I wanted a companion that looked like a Playboy playmate, I had to hire a transvestite. That is the way I learned about transvestites. I thank them so much, because they gave me so much fun, I had with them all the pleasure that I did not have when I was in school. Five years after that I earned more money and I could go to nightclubs with beautiful women hookers. That is another story.
    But I will always remember the first transvestites of my life. They were better persons than the girls of my school. That is why I enjoyed your videos so much. I plan to visit your website always and imagine myself living in that Paradise called THAILAND.
    Thank you very much for your attention.
    PAUL

    1. Dear Paul,

      What an interesting story of your life and it is so different from the experience of most westerners!
      glad you enjoy the videos and Thanks for writing to me!
      You can reach me at dt.englishasia@gmail.com if you want to talk more about your home country.
      David

  2. Hi David I am in Thailand and BKK for a while .I was hoping to meet up with you.Bal

  3. Sorry about my spelling,but I am enjoying your blogs and going to try the club you mentioned in Soi 20 next week.

  4. Hi David I love your videos My name is Ali a Mariner by trade American who loves
    Trans-women I have been coming to Thailand since 2009.I was shy about going to the Ladyboy bars at first. Now I’m ready to date a Ladyboy but it seems like most of them are in the bars or freelancing. The ones i see in the city Bangkok or Pattaya can’t speak english.The webistes websites like Thaifriendly,Myladyboydate,etc most of the ladyboys are escorts.
    You are my last straw David, I’m interested in your program for meeting a ladyboy girlfriend. My future plans are to live in Pattaya or Bangkok

  5. Beautifully written and so poignant. I found this site because I am in love with a man who had an 11 year relationship with a Ladyboy in Thailand. Sadly she was a bit of a shark and left him devastated. I wanted to understand more about the whole thing. I am a woman and it it is really fascinating. Thank you, David.

    Alexandra

  6. Hi David,

    Yes it is. He spent 11 years more in love than he thought possible. He met her when she was ‘working’ They split up briefly and he was told she had died in the Tsunami. But, he knew she hadn’t because she couldn’t give up the work. He knew she’d be in BKK.

    Basically, she just wouldn’t stop. He understood the culture etc. He’d lived there years. But, he really wasn’t expecting to fall so hard for her.

    Then they came to the UK. He was willing to marry her. But, he discovered she was working here. She didn’t even need to either.

    The most terrible thing for him was that he hadn’t made an iota of difference to her life in the end.

    He’s a beautiful soul, but does have too much of the Knight in Shining Armour going on.

    Still, we all have one big love that we never quite recover from. Me included. It just so happened that his was a LB

    Alexandra

  7. What a beautifully written story about your experience. It brought a tear to my eye towards the end when she read her fortune from the script.