Farang, Phone Home

January 28-29

We’re in Bangkok, and so decided to do something appropriate—buy a couple of burner phones.

We talked to the dragon lady, the matriarch who runs the hotel. She was at the front desk and showed us on the Skytrain map where we could find shopping centers. We went to a giant many-floored complex called MBK. It took a while of wandering around before we found that the fourth floor was cell phone central.

Cell phone shops are lined up like booths at a trade show. We stopped at the first one we came to and told the man that we wanted cheap phones. He took us to a booth with the name Oppo or something like it. 

He introduced us to a lady behind the counter. We asked her a couple of questions about phones, and she called in a guy from another Oppo booth across the aisle. Now we had three people sharing their English skills to bridge the language gap.  

We wound up buying two phones with the brand name of a local carrier, True, but we were assured that the phones were unlocked and could be used with other company’s SIM cards, and that we could make international calls if we had to. They were 800 baht each, if we paid cash, and included a 200-baht SIM card. It was roughly 45 bucks for the pair.

I played with some buttons, found out how to dial a number, and called Larry for a test. His phone was on and he answered. He heard my voice and welcomed me to the 21st century.

The man showing Joanna how to use her phone suggested we test both phones by having her call me. I answered and heard her fairly clearly over the phone and in person. I was standing about four feet away. I could also hear my own voice coming back to me through her phone. It was bewildering, like jet lag all over again.

I know how to make and answer calls, but haven’t learned yet how to get to voice-mail. The menus are hard to navigate but then it’s not supposed to be top quality. It’s a burner. 

We’ve all seen “Breaking Bad,” so we know how this works. I’m supposed to call a red herring to the police or arrange a meeting and then break the phone.

We were going to meet Larry at our hotel around five. (No, I didn’t have to burn my phone for that.) So we stopped for lunch at a bar where we had gone before, the Viva, around the corner from the hotel.

We put together a combination of Thai appetizers and Western bar food. I had a short Tiger and a Leo or a Lao. The beer here is OK, not great. It’s wet, though, and has some flavor. It isn’t overly strong, but delivers a buzz.

Chicken satay—chicken on a stick with peanut sauce—and vegetable spring rolls with plum sauce were the hit of the meal for me. Although a potato skin filled with lamb stew came in close behind.

When Larry showed up, we all went bar hopping. Larry has stayed in this neighborhood from time to time and wanted to introduce us to one of his hangout places, so he took us to the Viva. 

He and I had half liters of Chang (I think) and Joanna, as the picture of the day proves, had a Thai coconut. She sipped the milk through a straw and then used a scraper to extract the meat. 

We next went through Soi 4, the local red light district, which was only getting started. Back on the main road, we stopped at an English style bar that had a real IPA. A man there, likely the proprietor, said it’s called East Coast IPA. It uses hops grown on the East Coast of the United States and is brewed on the East Coast of England.

It was fragrant, not as sharp as many IPAs are, but was quite a treat in a lake of lagers.

I know. I haven’t gone through a lake of beer yet, in Bangkok at least, but give me time. This is a long trip.

We were supposed to meet Larry’s friend Mark, who was making a brief stop in Bangkok on his way south to Koh Samui, at a pizzeria called, like so many in the world, Bella Napoli.

On the way to the restaurant, we took a short detour to walk through one of the most famous red light districts in the world—Soi Cowboy. This is like Bourbon Street on acid. The bars are pumping out disco music. There are lights everywhere and the girls in various stages of undress are arrayed in troops. 

One woman stepped away from her crowd and grabbed Larry’s arm and mine at the same time. For Joanna, that was laugh-out-loud worth the price of admission. She said she had been walking several steps ahead of us on purpose just to see what would happen, and something did. It was a highlight of the walk for her.

Mark was delayed getting out of the airport, so Joanna, Larry, and I sat at Bella Napoli and sipped some Trebbiano, an unusually tasty house white. 

Mark showed up surprisingly close to on time. He came in bathed in sweat only a few minutes after six. He actually made it in time to sample the Trebbiano.

Mark started in Denmark and says he doesn’t like to stay more than three months in the same place.

I’m not sure this is exactly right, but I think Mark had just flown into Thailand from Vietnam and was going to Nepal in a few weeks. Even if the place names are wrong, the general idea is about right.

I had pizza Margherita made with the traditional buffalo-milk cheese, mozzarella di bufala. I had that with a Sangiovese, the house red.

Joanna was falling asleep by the time dinner ended. She had been up since five or so, thanks to an unadjusted circadian rhythm.

For me, it’s just the opposite. I get jet lagged and run on adrenalin. So I went out to another bar where I had a Kilkenny red, which may be a red lager, not ale, like Killian’s. In any case, at 260 baht it was overpriced and unsatisfying.

I took another stroll, back to Soi 4. This may be the street the cab took to our hotel Tuesday night—well, actually Wednesday morning.

It didn’t have the energy of Soi Cowboy, although it did have the same  mission. A couple of scrawny Ratso Rizzo impersonators were locked in some kind of wrestling match. One had gripped the other’s skull in his arms and was trying to throw him like steer. Not doing too well at it, though. 

I couldn’t tell if they were hostile or fooling. Maybe they couldn’t tell either. They both appeared to be blasted on something. 

I walked around them and the next strange thing was a woman, by all appearances—head scarf, long black burkah—an observant Moslem,  except maybe for the glitter on her face, who stepped up to me and said “Hello, Papi.”

That was too weird, even for me.

So I gave up the search for a safe bar and headed back to the S6 for some sleep.

Be well, all. May you enjoy safe travel and even safer bars.