My name is "Mobi"; I'm an alcoholic

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

To all you cynics out there, you will be delighted to learn that once again I have fallen off the wagon, so not a good start to my kao pansaa.

It all started last Tuesday, at which time I had been completely sober for 15 days.

I called a young lady who I had slept with a few days previously and suggested we go out for a meal as her bar was closed for the day.

I duly picked her up at her room and she asked if her two older sisters could go with us, a request that I was happy to accede to.

After a quick stop by my condo, I decided to drive out to Bang Sarae to the large seafood restaurant that is sited on stilts and stretches out into the sea at the end of the beach, just by Bang Sarae village.

This has always been one of my favourite sea food restaurants. The food is fresh, well cooked and reasonably priced, and the ambience is superb, especially at this time of year when the temperatures are moderated by cool sea breezes.

There weren’t a lot of customers, but as we choose our table, I noticed a very large Thai party who, to my surprise, were drinking beer and wine. This was the start of Kao Pansaa and I thought that the restaurant would be dry of booze.

I suddenly had an urge to drink some beer with my meal. I asked the girls if they wanted some beer, and when they agreed that it would go down very well with our repast I tried to order a few bottles.

The waiter told me that they couldn’t sell me any alcohol, whereupon I pointed to the nearby table where there was a large party of Thais who were getting quite drunk.

The waiter informed me that the Thais had brought their own beer and  wine with them to the restaurant.

“So it’s Ok if you bring your own?” I asked.

He nodded in the affirmative, and for a moment I wanted to go out and find a place that would sell me a few bottles of beer, but in the end common sense prevailed and we ordered some water and cokes.

It was a great meal and we all stuffed ourselves silly.

We drove back to Pattaya and I decided to go to Friendship Supermarket to get a few bits and pieces and maybe buy a bottle of wine. However, they too were not selling alcohol, so once again I was thwarted.

The girls wanted to go to Central Department store on Second Road, and as I drove through Soi Bukow market, I noticed that there was a row of little bars, packed with farangs, all openly drinking bottles of beer!

The girls did a bit of shopping and I relaxed in Starbucks with a couple of coffees.

At length we met up again and I drove them home before returning to my condo – alone.

But I couldn’t get the idea of having a drink out of my mind, and by late evening I was feeling peckish and decided to pop out to the supermarket over the road and get a snack, and maybe some booze.

It was 11.30 p.m on the second day of Kao Pansaa and the booze shelves had the dreaded notices pinned to them advising customers that no alcoholic drinks could be sold that day.

I asked the cashier if I could buy a couple of bottles of wine, not expecting a positive answer, so was quite surprised when she nodded yes.

So the die was cast and I bought two bottles – a white and a rose – both chilled. The cashier wrapped the bottles in newspapers so that no one could see what was in my shopping bag!!!

So just before midnight I opened the bottle of rose and two hours later the bottle was empty.

My psychiatrist had warned me that it would be dangerous to drink with my new antidepressant, but I was pretty stoned after 15 days on the wagon and decided to take  the meds anyway.

I didn’t wake up until well after noon, and I felt like shit. I couldn’t rouse myself for another hour, but eventually I felt well enough to get up and as the afternoon wore on, I felt pretty much OK.

It was Wednesday and the bars were back open and I was bursting to go out and have a drink. At the first place I stopped at, I had a stab of guilt, so I resisted temptation and just had an orange juice. Unfortunately my will soon crumbled and I followed up by ordering a  glass of red wine.

After that first glass I moved onto one of my new ‘venues’ on the Darkside, once again initially resisting temptation and I started off with a diet Coke.

By the time I was ready to have my first glass of wine, some drunken yank was making a total arse of himself by trying to sing along with “Cottton fields back home” on the DJ’s microphone. He was ‘singing’ so loud that the bar staff could not hear my order.

The noise from this drunk was utterly deafening and after several abortive attempts to get the bar staff to hear my order, I lost my cool, slammed the money for my coke on the bar and left in a huff.

My next port of cool was Tan’s bar, which was completely divested of customers.

I was made a fuss of by all except Tan who neither greeted me nor looked at me. I don’t know why she still insists in behaving as I though I don’t exist, as I have never done her any harm and our affair has been well and truly over for quite a while. Furthermore, she was the one who broke it off – not me. Surely it wouldn’t hurt her to say “hello”?

But there you go.

I ordered some Thai food but for some reason I couldn’t bring myself to drink alcohol in front of Tan so I ordered a soft drink instead.

I still wanted a drink but I wasn’t going to drink there, so after I finished my meal I moved on to another bar around the lake where I had a couple of glasses of foul tasting white wine. (They were out of red).

I wasn’t enjoying myself very much so I decided to return to the bar where I had been unable to order a drink a couple of hours earlier and had stormed out of.

This time I succeeded in ordering some half way decent red wine and settled down to quite a long session, knocking back quite few glasses of ‘el vino’ in the process.

The bar was supposed to close at midnight and I had a shock when I looked at my watch to find that it was well past 1.30. The place was still buzzing but I decided it was time to move on.

As I walked to the front door, I was stopped and led to the back of the bar where a side door was unlocked and I was able to walk out into a side street. From the main road,  to all intents and purposes it looked as though the bar was closed.

You would never have guessed that there was still a bunch of punters whooping it up inside.

I was feeling no pain, but if I had gone home then, I probably would have been fine.

But my problem is that I am an alcoholic, and once I start drinking I find it almost impossible to stop. Once I reach a certain point in my inebriation, there is no turning back.

It was past 2.a.m. and I decided to go to Walking Street as that was the only place that would still be in full swing at that time of the morning.

I went into one of my regular go-go bars where I was given a right royal welcome. I had a couple of Sang Soms before moving onto another go-go bar. Here I bought a few girls a few drinks and stayed until it closed at around 3.30.

I walked out with three girls on my arms but decided I wanted to continue drinking and got rid of them before ending up at the all night, Simon’s bar complex.

On my way back from the loo in the Simon’s complex, a girl screamed my name. I had seen her earlier in the evening at my first stopping off point and she was now ‘moonlighting’ in Walking Street.

She was a nice, petite, sexy young thing with a tight fitting red dress that barely covered the top of her thighs.

She was all over me, and eventually we made it back to my condo at around 5 a.m.

I collapsed on the bed and was awoken at 11.a.m by the lady who wanted to go home as she started work at Noon!

I felt terrible and couldn’t move or open my eyes. I eventually told her to let herself out and the security guard would call a motorcycle taxi for her.

The next thing I knew it was 3 p.m. and I still felt terrible and still couldn’t move or open my eyes.

I lay there in semi conscious state for another hour before I eventually got up and made myself a pot of coffee.

After the coffee I actually recovered quite quickly and it wasn’t long before I was cooking myself a proper meal which I heartily devoured.

By early evening I felt completely recovered and by late evening I was ready for that bottle of wine that had been sitting in my fridge since Tuesday night.

I couldn’t make up my mind whether to go out or not, but eventually decided to stay in.

The European Athletics Championships were on Eurosport and I was also transfixed to the internet radio  by the live cricket commentary from Trent Bridge, Nottingham where England were batting in the first test match against Pakistan.

It had been a gripping day’s play which didn’t finish until past 12.30 a.m. By then I decided it was far too late to go out anywhere.

I killed the bottle of wine, felt a little tipsy, but not overly so as I had been drinking very slowly and also had a fair bit of food, which always helps to control my level of inebriation.

I must have slept around 2 a.m. and woke up at 10.00 this morning not feeling too bad at all.

I had intended to continue my Vignette on NID today, and stay completely silent regarding  my latest fall from grace, as far as alcohol is concerned.

But when I first started this blog, just over a year ago, I promised that whatever else I did, I would always be honest and tell it the way it is – good and bad, ‘warts an’all’.

I know the folk who have written comments of encouragement will be disappointed in me, (as I am with myself), and I know that the cynics and Mobi-haters out there will be celebrating and have been waiting with baited breath for just such a lapse.

I’m sure they are salivating at the prospect of once again following my ever downward path to self-destruction and inevitable death.

But I must tell you all that today I feel pretty good. A bottle of wine, drunk slowly, over several hours, is not that terrible. Also I think the new drug is continuing to lift my moods and I really don’t feel at all depressed.

I will talk to my psychotherapist next Tuesday and ask him if he feels I should reconsider the detox option. I should also seriously think about AA meetings again.

The main thing is that despite my recent self-indulgences, I am still thinking very positively.

Maybe this little relapse was just a small backward step along the long and difficult road to genuine and lasting rehabilitation.

More on NID tomorrow.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 28th July, 2010

Nid (Part 4)

I was becoming quite well known in Bangkok’s entertainment circles.

Every two to three months, we brought another ‘name act’ to Bangkok.  Some were long-established singers and groups, such as the New Seekers, Brotherhood of Man. The Supremes, Vicki Car, Eartha Kitt and others were newer acts who we could get ‘on the cheap’.

We promoted these acts at the ballrooms of some of Bangkok’s top hotels, such as: The Dusit Thani, The Oriental, The Ambassador, The Indra and many more. The shows would be staged at whatever hotel that Ittiput could cut the best deal regarding room rent, rooms for the stars and their entourage and the prices for food.

For this type of promotion, we would typically hold a concert-style show in the afternoon, followed by a dinner show in the evening, when many the ‘hoi polloi’ of Bangkok would attend in large numbers.

Then there were the pop concerts which catered principally to the younger crowds. For these promotions we needed larger venues to make the whole thing financially viable. We weren’t about the repeat the mistake of that first concert, where Mobi in particular had lost so much of his money.

But as previously stated, this was in the days before the advent of Muang Thong Thani and some other large venues which now grace the Bangkok skyline, so we were forever on the lookout for a new venue that could be used for our concerts.

The National Gymnasium was now off limits, but we managed to book the Indoor Stadium at Huamark, which proved a great success, and acts such as Donny and Marie Osmond, Christopher Cross and Tina Charles were promoted there.

Then we discovered Prakanong Theatre – long since gone. This was an absolutely massive cinema auditorium with a large stage and must have held at least 3000 seats. It was ideal for our purposes and became a regular venue for our concerts for the younger crowd.

Osibissa, David Essex, Sherbet, Dr Hook, Jigsaw, and many more pop acts from that era were promoted to sell out performances at the Prakanong Theatre, which for a while became our regular venue.

One of the biggest stars we promoted during that period was Debbie Harry and Blondie.  ‘New Wave’ was just becoming established and it was literally a few months before Blondie became a worldwide phenomenon.

So we got them cheap, but we weren’t sure of their drawing power so we compromised on venues and promoted them for couple of concerts at the ambassador Hotel.

To this day I well recall the press conference that preceded the concerts when Debbie Harry and her then husband, Blondie guitarist Chris Stein were wheeled out to answer questions from the Thai press.

True to her ‘punk’ origins, she treated the questioners with disdain and provided insolent, anarchic replies, most of which, thankfully, went over the reporters’ heads.

Then came the moment I will never forget.

Debbie, who was looking absolutely gorgeous in an extremely tight T-shirt and close fitting jeans, noticed that many of the press core were wearing “Blondie” T-shirts which we had given out as a ‘freebie’ to encourage them to write nice things about the forthcoming performances.

She turned to Ittiput and asked if she could have one, whereupon one of our staff duly obliged.

In full view of the assembled press core, she stood up, whipped off her T-shirt to reveal her wonderful bra-less breasts, and then quickly slipped on the Blondie T-Shirt that she had just been given.

Such was the speed of the change of clothes that I doubt any of the photographers present were alert enough to snap her naked torso. I think they were initially too shocked to press their camera buttons and by the time they had come their senses, it was too late.

Those were good times for Mobi. I would socialise with many of the artists and take them to some of the night spots around Bangkok, and bask in the reflected glory of being with, and drinking with the famous stars of the time.

Debbie and Chris were mainly interested in getting high on ‘gunja’ and other ‘recreational’ drugs which would be procured for them by one of Ittiput’s less respectable associates, and then we would all go out to a night club where all and sundry would get stoned out of their minds.

For many of the groups, we would throw in a free holiday in Pattaya as an incentive to come and perform in Bangkok, and once again it was down to Mobi to be tour guide, prostitute procurer and drinking pal in chief.

Then it would be back to the office to take care of the mountain of paper work and accounting that would build up during a concert promotion, before hot footing it to the venue to ensure that the green room was properly stocked in accordance with the artists’ contracts.

I would invariably spend much time in the Green room taking care of the artists before and after their performances.

I drank hard and worked hard, receiving a pittance from Ittiput for my super-human efforts, but I loved every moment of it.

There is nothing like the thrill of a sell-out concert, with the kids yelling their lungs out and the artists strutting their stuff on the big stage. During the shows I would usually stand at the side of the stage, or maybe at the sound mixing desk, already tanked up on beer, and revel in the deafening sounds echoing across the auditorium.

At such times, my adrenalin would be at bursting point; I was happy to be alive and to have been instrumental in creating such an event. Without Mobi, I used to think, it would never have happened.

My beloved Nid would be given a stack of complimentary tickets for every show. She would duly turn up with her own little Thai entourage and enjoy the reflected fame of being with Mobi and the artists at the end of the day’s gig.

Looking back, I think that Nid was in two minds about her relationship with me.

Sure, she enjoyed the aura and lifestyle of being with a farang who promoted international concerts, but she was less than impressed with the money I gave her at the end of each month.

This conflict of emotions came to head one evening when I received a visit from a Thai couple, who I had known for some time. They ran their own radio shows and like Ittiput, were also crazy about western pop music.

I knew that the girl came from a very hi-so family (her father had been in the cabinet of the previous government) and the man was a very wellknown DJ.

It transpired that they were suffering from cash flow problems at their radio station and were looking for a short term ‘bridging’ loan to pay for their ‘air time’ until their main sponsor paid them at the end of the month.

They told me that they were desperate, and that if they didn’t pay the station what they owed on the following day, they would be off the air.

They told me that they needed 100,000 Baht, which was a great deal of money in those days. I still had about 200,000 left from my savings and I couldn’t see any problems in lending them the money for a couple of weeks until their sponsor’s money came through. She was from a good family, he was a famous D.J.

In my naive mind, there was no risk. So I agreed.

When Nid realised what I was proposing to do she went completely ballistic. She told me that they would cheat me and not pay me back, but I thought she was talking out of her backside and told her so. I had known these people for several years – they were good friends and very respectable. Of course they would pay me back.

So the next day I met the couple at my bank and gave them the money.

Nid didn’t stop railing at me for lending them the money. I couldn’t wait for the end of the month when I would be able to prove to her that not all Thais were dishonest and that I would be repaid on time, as promised.

Of course Nid was right and I was wrong. The end of the month came and went and there was no sign of the money. I tried calling them, but they weren’t answering their phones.

Nid was becoming more and more incensed.

A month past and no word from either of my borrowers, and in desperation I decided to go to the DJ’s radio station and confront him about his debt. I doubt if I would have ever dared to take such drastic action if Nid hadn’t been so seriously ‘on my case’.

I duly met both of them when the man had finished his radio show and they were full of apologies for not repaying the debt. They explained to me that some further complications had arisen, but they would be in a position to give me the money at the end of the current month which was some three weeks away.

Mollified and reasonably confident that they would keep their word, I returned home to report what had transpired to Nid. She immediately ‘blew up’ and told me in no uncertain terms what a fool I was to believe them yet again.

Of course, yet again, Nid was right.

The end of the month came and went and not a ‘dicky bird’ from my borrowers.

By this time I was starting to realise that Nid had been right all along and I should never have lended the money to my so-called friends. I also was starting to fear that I would never get the money back.

I didn’t know what to do. Nid was still furious with me for lending them the money in the first place, and what remained of my own little nest egg was fast running out.

Then one day Nid vanished.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 27^th July, 2010.

I will write and publish this first before getting into my “Mobi Vignette”, just in case something comes up and I don’t complete the latest instalment of “Nid”.

I am still sober, (two weeks now), and still feeling pretty good.

On Sunday I spent most for the day at home, but my lady of the previous night kept calling to ask when I would come to her bar, so I eventually caved in and met her there at 8.30 in the evening.

One thing led to another and I ended up bar-fining her for the second night running, whereupon we went for a meal before returning to my condo for an early night.

Almost as soon as we hit my room, the young lady showered and crashed into a deep sleep and left me to my own devices. She had told that she wanted  to wake very early the following morning as she planned to make a trip back to her family in Buri Ram for a couple of days during Buddhist Lent.

I sort of wondered why she had bothered to come home with me, given the circumstances, but of course I soon realised that she needed some pocket money to finance her trip home.

It took me a while to sleep, especially as I was thinking that she wouldn’t be getting much from me just for the dubious pleasure of sleeping in my bed, but as it turned out, she woke around 5.30 and did her ‘sworn duty’, before disappearing in the bathroom and getting ready to make an early departure.

I inwardly groaned, as she clearly wanted me to drop her off. So I fought the sleepiness resulting from my lack of sleep, the effects of my antidepressant med which I had only taken some five hours earlier, and the fatigue brought on by our early morning exercise.

I’m not as young and fit as I was, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with these beautiful young ladies, whose sexual urges seem to know no bounds.

Anyway, I dropped her off back at her room, by which time I was wide awake, and then decided to drop my car off at the body shop for a re-spray. I had been saving up all the bumps and scratches that had gradually started to cover the body of my lovely beamer, since I had last had it done, over six months ago.

It was now time to have the body returned to its original, pristine condition. Maybe now that I am sober I have a better chance of keeping it that way.

The owner of the body shop then dropped me at a car rental place where I rented a nice, 2 litre Mazda for 5 days.

I spent the rest of the day, and night, in my condo, taking care of long neglected tasks, such as sorting out all my mp3’s, running antivirus anti spyware and other registry cleaning programmes on my PC’s and generally clearing out all the junk that had accumulated on my computers, defragging, and so on.

While this was going on, I cooked myself two meals and also made a start at sorting out all my paper work that hadn’t been touched for months.

Even a few days ago I could never have contemplated embarking on such tasks, such was my state of mind and my lethargic, black moods. I had been living a zombie- like existence for months – just doing enough to get by and stay alive – but only just.

So my new meds are working very well and I am really starting to pull things around.

I received a comment yesterday to the effect that I was ‘playing with fire’ by spending so much time in bars, so early on in my sobriety.

I cannot deny that this is true. I will however remind my readers that last year I achieved months of sobriety while all the while frequenting bars. When I am in the right frame of mind I can go to bars and not feel any desire to pick up a drink. But as I recently discovered to my cost, this will only work when I am happy and properly focussed.

Earlier this year, still shattered by the breakup of my marriage and then by losing Tan, I tried time and time again to stay sober but always relapsed when I spent more than a few minutes in a bar.

My long term aim is to drastically reduce the amount of time I spend in bars, but ‘Rome wasn’t built’ in a day and my addiction to bars and bar girls is every bit as addictive as my addiction to alcohol.

Rightly or wrongly, I feel I have to be “in it to win it”, (with apologies to the UK National Lottery), and I have no idea where to find a likely lady to shack up with if I don’t go to the bars.

I am aware of the potential dangers and am being very careful. I go there either to chat to friends (as I did on Saturday afternoon) or to find a nice lady to spend some time with, and possibly sleep with.

So yesterday I spent the whole day at home doing my domestic chores and slept alone.

This might not sound much to many of you, but for me it was a significant achievement, and one that I can start to build on.

After posting this I will turn my attention to ‘NID” but it may well not be until tomorrow that the next instalment gets published.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 25^th July, 2010.

I’m still sober, I am feeling more cheerful and positive every day, and I’m still spending most of my days alone, although I do own up to having had female company for the past two nights.

On Friday I made a brief trip to an up-market, “gentlemen’s club at which Tukta, (my last ‘live in’), had recently returned to work.

The main purpose of my visit was to return yet more clothes that had somehow disappeared in the bowels of the laundry for the past week or so and had suddenly re-appeared in my laundry bag that I had just collected.

I had called Tukta to report the discovery of some of her missing clothes, and we agreed to meet at the club and arrange a handover.

She wasn’t there when I arrived late afternoon so I allowed myself to be entertained by two delightful, scantily clad lovelies until Tukta eventually deigned to make an appearance.  I made the handover, and soon decided that I wasn’t going to take advantage of the numerous offers that were continually being sent my way.

So when Tukta disappeared to powder her nose, I used the opportunity to make myself scarce.

I decided to try out a ‘down-market ‘short time’ bar in one of the backstreets of Jomtien which had re-opened a few months back under new ownership after having been lying fallow for quite a while.

This particular establishment has pretty good food at the cheapest prices I have come across in Pattaya. Not that I am a ‘cheap Charlie’, per se, but like most of us in these hard times, if I can save a few bob on a meal without sacrificing quality to any great extent, then why not?

But no amount of good, cheap food would entice me into a bar if they didn’t have an ample supply of fair maidens to titillate my sexual palate, so I was happy to see that although the overall quality of the female employees was not much to write home about, at least there was a plentiful supply. Furthermore a significant minority would have done justice to any bar in town.

I have always found it somewhat strange that the there is not a huge disparity between the prices charged at the up-market gentlemen’s clubs and the down-market ‘erk’s’ bars. Sure it can add up but I reckon it’s more a question of perception than price.

Most expatriate business men wouldn’t be seen dead in the Jomtien ‘den of vice’ but would be more than happy to sample the delights of the gentlemen’s club with all the bowing and scraping, the Jacuzzis, the deep leather sofas and well appointed rooms. Conversely, I doubt whether many of the ‘erks’, (mainly working class Brits), who patronise the Jomtien bar would have any desire to sample the delights of the gentleman’s club.

As for Mobi – well he’s is just as much at home in either setting. Bar Girls are bar girls and most of them could be easily interchangeable into either setting. They just act out their roles, according to the customer’s needs.

As I parked my car up, the unattached girls all formed a line outside the bar, waiting for me to choose one to sit with. I chose what I considered the prettiest of the bunch and we sat down to get to know each other.

I ordered my meal. The generous plate of fish and chips that was served up was quite tasty and was so large that I was unable to finish it.

The young lady who I had selected to sit with told me a pretty convincing story along the lines that she had only been on the ‘game’ for a few weeks having previously worked in Bangkok in a ‘respectable job. She was young and quite pretty, but for some unaccountable reason, I decided to pass on the young lady and move onto pastures new.

There was a new-ish bar on the Darkside that had been opened for a few months, but which I had not yet tried out due to negative reports reaching my ears on the quality of the ladies

Apparently all the ladies in this establishment had left their better days way behind and many were in the twilights of their careers.

So I was in for a pleasant surprise when I entered the large establishment. It was Friday night and there was a lively atmosphere; loads of women and quite a few punters. The place was very decently decked out with a well-appointed bar and ‘smooching’ booths; a pool table at the back and TV screens everywhere tuned to sports channels. The music was loud but not too loud and was a good eclectic mixture of oldies.

I looked around at the girls. They were much better than I had been led to expect. Many of the younger and prettiest ones were already hanging on the necks of punters ensconced at the bar, but there were still plenty of unattached ladies, some of which looked to be highly delectable.

I made my choice of the ones who had assembled near my table and the selected lady made a deep, over-exaggerated bow and seemed to be delighted to come over and sit with me. She was an extremely pretty young lady dressed in a pair of those micro jeans shorts that showed off her unbelievably sexy thighs in the best possible light.

She had only been there for two weeks, didn’t speak a single word of English and was so happy to meet a customer she could talk to in her own language. She explained that this had been a big impediment to her going out or having a short time with a customer and she was still a ‘virgin’ as far as bar work was concerned.

As we chatted, there seemed little doubt that this was the case, and as you will see later, even the other girls at the bar confirmed that she was indeed completely new to the game.

She really wanted to go home with me and I was more than happy to oblige. She was 22 and had one baby, although when later in my room, I undertook a micro examination of her body, I failed to detect any sign that she had once given birth. Her body seemed to be absolutely perfect in every regard.

Even after all these years, I never cease to experience new ‘firsts’ in Thailand and on last Friday night I experienced another ‘first’ which I have been delighted to add to my collection.

After we had showered and retired to the master bed, the young lady suddenly jumped up from the bed, scampered into the bathroom and reappeared with a container of Johnson’s baby powder and proceeded to powder my body from head to foot before we got down to the business at hand. (no pun intended).

It was all very nice and I know that she enjoyed it every bit as much as I did.

I dropped her back at her room the next morning, (Saturday), just before noon and then decided to drive up to the lake and have breakfast at my old haunt – the bar where Tan worked.

Tan, my erstwhile girl friend; Tan – the one who broke my heart a month or so back when she had walked out on me. I had been back to the bar only a couple of times; on both occasions with a girl on each arm which were deliberately designed to provoke Tan into fits of anger.

In this respect they succeeded admirably and my first visit following the break-up even resulted in an abusive sms from her  along the lines that “I’m not jealous! and you can go and fuck both of them!”

Tan was still working there but patently ignored me. However I was welcomed back by all of the remaining staff, including the husband and wife owners, who seemed genuinely pleased to have me back as a customer after my prolonged absence.

The breakfast was so huge that I couldn’t finish it. Of late my appetite has been quite curtailed. I still eat well, but nowhere near as much as I used to, and for the first time in my life I am finding that I can’t always finish a meal. I don’t know why this is, but I’m not worrying about it as I need to lose some weight and this reduction in appetite is helping me in this regard.

The presence of Tan didn’t bother me in the slightest – quite unlike my feelings on the previous occasion I had been there. I felt nothing – I believe I am truly over her.

After a couple of hours at the bar, I drove home, only to retrace my steps later that afternoon to meet up with a couple of friends at another bar by the lake for a bit of a chinwag.

We eventually made our way to ‘Tan’s bar’ and spent another hour or so there quietly chatting, while on the other side of the large circular bar there was a group of drunks, including the English owner, who were becoming very noisy and ever more inebriated.

At length my colleagues departed to return  to their homes and their loving wives, so I too decided to leave the drunks to it and retrace my steps back to my newly discovered bar of yesterday.

I was hoping to meet up with the lovely girl who had gone home with me the previous evening, but even before I took one step inside, two girls came over and told me that my particular young lovely had taken the day off.

I thought this sounded a tad suspicious and decided it was far more likely that she had found another customer, but as the evening wore on I became convinced that she really hadn’t gone top work that day, although why I had no idea, as we had made firm arrangements to meet again that evening. Maybe, in the course of time I will find out what happened.

Anyway, I wasn’t that bothered to find myself  a ‘free agent’ yet again and the girls were all lining up to take care of me.

I chose another young lady as a substitute and if anything,  she was even prettier and sexier than the beauty of the previous night.

This lady did speak a little English – although not too much. She was only 22, and had no children. She told me she had been working there for two months and before that she had worked in many of the major department stores in Bangkok for several years, as a sales rep selling brand clothes.

She seemed to be a very nice lady and we spent a couple of hours talking about her life and her work in Bangkok and what she thought of her career as a bar girl.

She was completely honest and told me that during the past two months that she had been working there, she had been with 5 men, one of whom she stayed with for 2 weeks.

She told me that she had decided that bar girl life wasn’t for her and that she was going to quit at the end of the month and had already contacted her previous employer in Bangkok who had agreed to take her back and a sales rep.

As with the previous night’s choice, this lady was also dressed extremely seductively.

She wore a white, jean miniskirt with those tantalising frayed strands tickling her slightly plump, but very appealing upper thighs, and her top was a black, lacy, see-through affair which revealed a beautifully flat midriff.

She was very keen to go home with me, so who was I to refuse?

It was 9.30 and I was hungry. I had only had a breakfast that day.

I decided to return to Tan’s bar as the scheduled Karaoke should be a bit of fun, and they would also have some free food.

The lady was happy to go with me and when she came back with a change of clothes I was quite taken aback. She was immaculately turned out in a pair of tightly tailored fashion black jeans  which were complemented by a very modest, half-sleeved dark purple top. It was such a contrast from her bar girl kit, and quite a surprise for carousing Mobi who was used to his ladies always dressing in a very revealing manner.

But she looked perfect – as far removed from a bar girl image than you can imagine. I suppose it was all those years selling clothes in the top department stores that had given her a sense of fashion.

It was fine by me and off we went.

During the journey, she asked me about the lady of the previous evening. I told her that I had taken the lady home and she expressed surprise as she confirmed that the lady in question was very new and very shy and I had been her very first farang. I felt honoured indeed!

It had been raining which drastically reduced the karaoke turnout. I almost didn’t stop but my rumbling tummy decided the day and we alighted from the car to intense scrutiny from the assembled staff and customers.

As we entered the bar area I noticed that a remnant from the group of drunks that had patronised the afternoon session were still there, and those left standing looked drunker than ever. The small group now consisted of an English man, his Thai wife, and a Scotsman who was staying at one of the bungalows at the rear of the bar.

The music was loud and the singing execrable! But my partner didn’t seem to mind and we soon stuffed our stomachs on the free food and settled down to watch the entertainment. My lady was all over me. I hate to admit it but I was almost embarrassed.

She hugged me and kissed me and refused to stop. I don’t usually condone this kind of behaviour in public, but I decided what the hell? If I can’t beat it join it and before long I was giving as good as I was getting. Tan of course was there, and I don’t mind admitting that I did derive some perverse pleasure in ‘snogging’ in front of my ‘ex’ who had summarily dismissed me just a couple of months back.

I do try very hard not to bare any resentment – as I know it isn’t good for me – but none of us is perfect, least of all the badly flawed Mobi.  I secretly hoped that Tan was furtively watching the ‘action’ and eating her heart out. I doubt it, but regardless,  it was all in good fun.

As the evening wore on the drunks became ever drunker and once the Thai music started I had a feeling that all this was going to end badly.

When they started playing ‘Luk Tung’, the drunks predictably started dancing.  By this time the drunken group also included a couple of a couple of drunken Thais who had come with the karaoke and an outrageous lady boy who worked at the bar, as well as the aforementioned Englishman, his Thai wife and the Scotsman.

The dancing became ever more drunken, manic and suggestive. The two men started holding and dancing with each other, then with the lady-boy, and then the Scotsman started dancing with the equally drunk Thai wife, his hands all over her arse and tits.

I knew this could lead to nothing but trouble and sure enough, about ten minutes later the Thai wife was swearing blue murder at the well built Scotsman and tried to throw a punch at him. Her husband seemed to think that his drunken wife was at fault and tried to lead her away from the trouble but she was proving very difficult, as many of you who have had the pleasure of being around angry, drunken Thai women can testify to.

The Scotsman started to hurl abuse at the two of them, whereupon the Englishman turned about and returned to the bar to take up the fight. He was closely followed by his wife, also swearing like the proverbial trooper.

It was fast getting out of hand when the equally drunk bar owner stepped in and tried to separate the two warring factions.

For few seconds it was a free for all, but help was at hand in the guise of the completely sober, diminutive Thai wife of the drunken British bar owner. She appeared from nowhere and shouted at her husband and the Scotsman, reached up and grabbed the Scotsman and literally dragged him away from the fray to the other side of the bar and ordered him to stay there.

As with all good drunken brawls, the participants were far from satisfied and continued to snarl and swear under their breath while shouting occasional, semi-stifled abusive comments across the bar at their respective protagonists.

I watched it simmering for a while, loving every moment.

After a while the outraged Scotsman could stand it no longer and walked back around the bar and started talking to the Englishman.  He seemed to be trying to make up and at first it appeared to be an innocuous enough exchange, but suddenly the two were at each other’s throats again, and once more ‘Mrs Mine Host’ had to rush to the rescue and separate the warring factions before any permanent injury was inflicted on either party.

The fracas seemed to have blown itself out for the time being, the music was cranked up once more and my little darling decided it was time to play pool with the bar girls.

I watched the game with interest but kept a quiet eye on the Scotsman who adamantly refused to call it a night and I could now see was still simmering with anger. All combatants were continuing to drink and that wasn’t going to help matters.

I’m no expert in these matters and I do appreciate the need to molly coddle high spending customers, but this bar is probably the most successful bar around the lake and in my book all three should have been ordered out and told to go home and sleep it off.

Although I was personally enjoying it, a number of punters had left as soon as the fracas commenced, as for them the idea of a good evening out is not being in the front stalls to watch a live drunken brawl.

As it was, the beer was continuing to feed their resentment and anger and sure enough, just as my lady was about to pot the black, the Scotsman walked around the bar once again and threw a hay-maker at the Englishman. The Englishman tried to retaliate with his Thai wife screaming blue murder close behind him. The drunken owner rushed over once more and managed to get the large Scotsman in a neck-hold and proceeded to drag him around the bar.

The pool cues went flying as the girls scrambled out of the path of the marauding men. For a moment I thought that the Scotsman’s head was going to end up in the glass door of a cold drink cabinet, but just at that moment, one of the drunken Thai men approached the pair from the rear and gave the Scotsman an enormous whack on the head with an empty coke bottle which immediately shattered.

Once he had delivered his ‘hammer-blow’ the Thai man turned tail and exited the bar, still holding the neck of the bottle.

This didn’t seem to faze the Scotsman who was still struggling to free himself from the owner and renew the fight. But by this time, blood was streaming from his bald head and the owner persuaded him to stop the struggle and look at his head. Mrs Mine Host then reappeared and told the Scotsman in no uncertain terms to stay where he was.

The girls completed their game and the played another.

The drunks continued to drink in separate parts of the bar, but this time it really did seem that the fight was at an end.

The Scotsman had his admirers around him, fawning over him, shaking his hand and swabbing the nasty cut in his head. The English/Thai couple were also being entertained by their own friends at the bar.

Two separated, drunken groups; both convinced that they had been outraged by the opposing party. An hour previously, they had all been drinking together in happy oblivion, slapping each other on their backs and telling each other hilarious jokes.

If anyone ever needed a reason not to drink, this was one. The whole affair had been created and fed by alcohol, from start to finish, and they were all lucky that there were not more serious injuries.

As a post script, the Thai man who had wielded the blow returned 30 minutes later and completely denied having carried out the dastardly act – despite the fact that several of us, including the venerable Mobi had been eye witness to the event. His version of events was that the Thai wife had carried out the act, which was a complete fabrication of the truth!

On another time, on another occasion, the Thai man could have easily been carrying a gun and could have shot the farang dead. He looked mean enough to have perpetrated such a crime, and it has certainly been known to happen in this wonderful land of smiles.

It was around midnight when we finally got into my car for the journey home.

My lady had earlier commented to me on Tan – pointing her out to me and saying how beautiful she was. She had no idea that Tan was my ‘ex’. I didn’t want to say anything at the bar, but didn’t want to lie to her,  so I told her that I would tell her something about Tan later.

As we were driving back to my condo she asked me to tell her about Tan, so I told her all about my 2 month affair. When I had finished, she told me that she already knew, because the girls she had been playing pool with had told her everything. She also told me that Tan had said to the other girls that my new girl friend wasn’t very pretty!!

All good fun !

Once again I had an absolutely ‘out of this world’ experience with this lovely 22 year old who was as horny as hell!

For those who are awaiting the next instalment of the Mobi Vignette “Nid”, I am planning to turn my undivided attention to this task over the Buddhist 2 day holiday, assuming some pesky Thai ladies don’t get in my way.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 23rd July, 2010.

I’m still sober, still alone and I am following the advice from “Rebel”to ‘play the field’ and keep away from any long term commitments until the right lady comes along.

Every single girl I have shacked up with since I left my wife last year – and there has been quite a number – has been a disaster. Every one of these relationships has inevitably ended in heartache and emotional distress, which in turn has led to excessive drinking.

The desire to be with a woman is still strong, but not as manic as it once was, and with each sober day that passes, I feel stronger and more able and willing to live alone until I find the right one – if I ever do.

Maybe I am reaching a watershed in my life. Only time will tell. On Wednesday evening I went for a 40 minute ‘power walk’ along the beach – the first for many months and I felt pretty pleased with myself.

Unfortunately my feet are so flabby that I developed painful blisters on both heels and was unable to repeat the exercise yesterday.

The blisters haven’t healed yet but I will apply plasters and wear some socks and give it another go tonight. Once I start taking exercise, it is very important that I keep it up on a regular basis.

Exercise is a good antidote to depression, which may account for the increase in my depressive episodes when I stopped taking regular exercise about 3 years ago.

I spent the whole day at home yesterday, working on my PC, and in the evening I went out to do some shopping and grab a bite to eat. I was back home soon after 10.p.m. and at midnight took a sleeping pill. I slept right through to 11 this morning.

At the time of writing I am still feeling a bit woozy, but no doubt a few mugs of coffee will shake the sand out of my eyes.

In general terms I am still feeling very lethargic and find it difficult to do any of the outstanding chores that are racking up around me, but at least I feel well enough write this blog, answer my emails and do other work on my computer.

I have to give myself time to get my shit together as it is barely 2 weeks since I stopped drinking and started my therapy sessions.

Mobi’s new life will not be built in a day.

Nid   (Part 3)

I settled into a routine with Ittiput’s company and attended his offices daily to perform my newly agreed duties in return for the meagre salary that Ittiput had agreed to pay me.

Work permitting; I would spend my nights getting drunk with Nid and the gang in the Derby King, so I rarely arrived at the office before 10 in the morning, sometimes even later.

This didn’t bother anyone too much as Ittiput himself never arrived  before noon and on most days we would all stay there until well into the late the evening.

I had only been there a few weeks when Ittiput told me that he had joined the police force. Using his family connections, he had gained instant admittance as a commissioned officer, and after attending a brief training course had been assigned to a station in Bangkok. Every morning he would check in with his new employer before making his way to his office, usually arriving there by noon.

I was somewhat mystified at the time as to why he would bother to join the police force when he had a fast growing business in the private sector. But of course in the those far off days, I had little or no appreciation of how things get done in this wonderful land of smiles, ‘face’ and ‘mis-truths’.

Apart from my regular duties which involved overseeing the accounts and dealing with all English correspondence, I was also assigned to oversee the operations of Dave’s business in the studio next door and, crucially, I was responsible for contacting and negotiating with the agents of  overseas artists with a view to promoting concerts for them in Thailand.

The loss making New Year ’s Eve concert proved to be a breakthrough for our company. Up to that point, most of the entertainment world had given Thailand a wide berth as the few previous attempts to bring performing artists to Thailand had all ended in disaster when the Thai promoters would break contracts and the artists were cheated out of their performance fees.

Our concerts with the Ausssie pop group changed all that. The manger of the group was very impressed with our integrity, and the fact that we kept to the contract even though we had obviously lost a lot of money.

He was particularly impressed with yours truly, Mobi, and in a pattern that was repeated time and time again in subsequent years the presence of a ‘respectable Englishman’ at the helm of the Thai promotion company became a strong ‘selling point’ when trying to persuade an artist to perform in Bangkok.

The Aussie pop group manager introduced us to a wide range of Australian artists and also Australian promoters and it was this breakthrough that enabled us to slowly build up a network of show business contacts, not only in Australia but also in the UK, the USA and throughout the western world.

I corresponded regularly with these contacts, and discussed the possibilities of bringing various artists and groups to Thailand.

As a result of this networking, we started to receive regular visits from agents and managers take a look at us and at potential performance venues.

We entertained all these VIP’s in true Thai tradition. Ittiput would be in his element on such occasions, and Mobi would always be on hand to take over the entertainmemnt in the small hours if the particular VIP had shown a penchant to visit the seedier side of Bangkok life.

Not that Ittiput was above such activities – he was just in a different social class. He did his ‘procuring’ in a slightly different manner.

Patpong was not the place for him. His ‘modus operandi’ of obtaining female company for our honoured guests was to engage the ‘services’ of minor movie stars.

As a consequence, many a dinner in some up market restaurant would be graced by the presence of  a gorgeous, impeccably dressed Thai lady and it never ceased to amuse me when, at the bewitching hour, our honoured guest would depart with the ‘actress’, and Ittiput would whisper to his guest how much to pay her.

Dear old Ittiput was not about to provide free whores to anyone.

The second promotion I became involved with was a return of the Aussie group that had ‘bombed’ at New Year.

As I have already related, the post-concert interest in this group grew to fever pitch; so learning from our previous mistakes, we went in search of a much larger venue which would enable us to reduce the price of tickets and make them affordable to the youth of Bangkok.

This was decades before the advent of Muang Thong Thani and other modern venues that have since sprung up in Bangkok, and we eventually settled on a place called the National Gymnasium, which was a pretty large building, in the National Stadium complex at Patumwan.

I cannot recall the number of people this building could accommodate, but it certainly ran into several thousand.

Once we signed the contract fro the return visit there was a huge amount of work to do and obstacles to overcome.

As on the previous occasion, virtually all the equipment had to be air freighted in from Australia, which once again created it’s own customs nightmares.

The gym was just a very large floor. We had to build a huge stage, lighting gantries and put in seating to accommodate the audience. Nothing on this scale had ever been attempted in Thailand before. We were the pioneers in the pop concert business, truly breaking new ground.

And everything had to be done to  the specification and requirements of the group.

Fortunately some of the key members of the Aussie back stage crew came to Bangkok  a few weeks ahead of the scheduled performances and they worked with us to obtain all the equipment needed and to supervise the building of the stage and lighting.

On these and subsequent occasions, I worked like a slave. Not only was I responsible for the contractual matters, ticketing and box office, (including setting up outlets in department stores and shops who would sell tickets on our behalf), but I had to ‘front’ all dealings with the groups’ management and staff. I had to work with the staff to make sure everything went as planned and on schedule – a nightmare task.

Then once the group arrived in Bangkok, Mobi had to play ‘mine host’, and take care of all the artists’ demands and requirements, including stocking up the ‘greenroom’ with food and booze, all in accordance with contract specifications.

So I was everywhere – 24/7 and It was a giddy, non-stop nightmare, full of stress and potential disaster.

But I loved every minute of it, especially those moments, after countless sleepless nights, when the artists would finally take to the stage, to the screams and adulation of a sell out crowd. Then that that incredible, ear-splitting sound would emit from the huge PA system and envelope the audience in a whirlwind of their much loved songs.

The gymnasium concerts were a total sellout. I can recall well dressed middle aged business men coming by our office on the days just prior to the performance dates, begging us to sell them tickets, which were simply not available as they had all been sold, days earlier. People would rush around Bangkok to all the various outlets selling tickets in the mad hope that they could find some unsold tickets.

The whole of Bangkok had reached fever pitch and the group’s songs were being played on every radio station.

The concerts were an unqualified success although the audience went so wild that there was considerable damage done to the venue by the seething crowds, which ultimately put a huge dent in our profits for the concerts.

This particular venue was never used again for a pop concerts as the government decided that it was unsuitable and should only be used for sporting events.

But Ittiput and his company had put themselves well and truly on the entertainment map and the future for this dedicated entrepreneur was very rosy indeed.

Of course poor Mobi received nothing but his regular salary for all his effort – not even a bonus for the extra hours and work he had put it – clearly over and above what could have reasonably been expected.

But I didn’t give it a second thought. I loved what I was doing; I had made good friends with a number of the group and their entourage, had had a wonderful time drinking and carousing with them.

Nid seemed to be behaving herself and accompanied me for much of the time, both before, during and after the concerts.

At the time of the first concert, she knew no more than me about this Aussie Group, but by the time the second concert came around, the group were a household name and she was very impressed with me and my role and continued to bask in the glory of the occasions.

But my savings were getting ever lower and I was living well beyond my means. The money I was able to give Nid had to be substantially reduced, so she suggested that we move to cheaper accommodation.

This sounded like a good idea and after a brief look around for available rooms we eventually decided to move to a new, 8 storey apartment block that had recently been completed in Patunam. The block had been designed to accommodate Thai residents and consisted of large, unfurnished single rooms, with a single WC.

The rent was very reasonable, but I had to spend yet more of my savings to furnish the place.

Once I moved in, I was quite content; as I had substantially reduced one of my major overheads (rent) and I now lived within walking distance of my office and would save still further money on taxis and tuk-tuks.

It was soon after we moved to Patunam that Nid suggested that we get married. This was long before the days when bar girls would require their farangs to build houses for their families or indeed come up with a sinsod as a condition of marriage.  I just took it as a sign that she wanted to make our relationship more permanent and give her greater security.

So one way or another I needed little persuading and a quick trip to the local amphur, which was a relatively simple business in those days, meant that we became man and wife. No wedding reception, no ceremony, no ring – nothing; just a marriage certificate.

Looking back and thinking about what transpired, I struggle to understand why she wanted to marry me. Even after all these years it is still a bit of a mystery, bearing in mind what happened later.

Maybe at the time we were married she really did intend to be a loving, faithful wife.

I suspect that the incident I shall recount in Part 3 of this story was the catalyst that may well have triggered a change of heart on the part of my beautiful new bride, who by this time, I held in total adulation.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 22^nd July, 2010

I am still sober and the new meds seem to be lifting my mood.

Yesterday I stayed in all day and in the evening I went out to have a bite to eat before dropping into one of the many ‘short time bars’ that I patronise from time to time. The bar was air conditioned and also sported a swimming pool which was available for customers and girls alike. (No, it wasn’t Black Pearl).

This particular bar struggled for a long time when it first opened, but now seems to have found its niche and does a steady, if unspectacular trade.

I hadn’t been there for a while and was taken aback by the number of customers and girls when I walked into the gloomy room.

I soon realised that the farangs were all golfers and were stopping off at their chosen “19^th hole” on their way back from a day on the golf course. I can always tell the golf crowd. All wearing clean, smart t-shirts over khaki shorts which fell below the knees.. The men were all of a certain age – early 50’s to late 60’s and were sipping their beers in one hand while other hand was strategically placed either up a lady’s skirt or down a bra-less top. Most of them appeared to Brits, and none of them spoke more than a couple of words of Thai.

The ladies were lucky if they received more than one drink for putting up with this gratuitous groping but did their duty for their employers and stoically withstood the assault on their bodies, without complaint and with the ubiquitous bar girl smile rarely leaving their faces.

I sat alone and watched the proceedings.

Many of the girls recognised me and smiled in my direction.

I had been there about 20 minutes when the golfers decided it was time to scurry home to wives and girlfriends, and in a remarkably short period of time, the bar was totally bereft of customers, with Mobi being the sole survivor of the mass exodus.

A couple more girls appeared from the back room drying the hair with towels. I asked them why they were wet and one of them explained tom me that shortly before I had arrived, a particular unpleasant character had asked the two of them to go for a swim naked in the pool and he would give them a generous tip.

They had walked down to the pool with the intention of taking of their clothes, whereupon the farang had pushed both of them into the pool, fully clothed and then had promptly taken off without so much as a backwards glance.

I expressed my sympathies and offered them a consolation drink, upon which a few more ladies came over to welcome me, complaining that I hadn’t been there for a long time. A group of us sat at the bar and reminisced about where we had seen each other before and what had happened to the relationships many of us had entered into over the past year or so.

A recurring theme was the unkind manner in which many farang boyfriends had treated their ladies. Many of them had been cheated, and all complained about how their ex farang boyfriends had been bad to them and lied to them over and over.

It’s a funny old world. For sure, some of the ladies’ stories may have been twisted or exaggerated, but there is no doubt in my mind that there is a sub-class of farangs living in Pattaya, generally from badly educated, low class backgrounds, who survive here on very meagre incomes.

Many of these farangs have learned how to play the game even better than the bar girls who taught them, and I know from personal experience that some will abuse and deceive these girls and kick them out on a whim before moving on to find a new lady to con.

As the evening wore on, I found myself on the sofa with two nice ladies – one I had known for a long time and who had just returned to work after just such an abusive relationship as described above; the other, a pretty, 23year old who I had also known for a while and who was becoming more affectionate by the minute.

At length I agreed to take them out for the evening, and after a quick stop by my condo, we went to one of the large Thai night clubs on Third Road where they had very loud Thai bands performing Thai pop songs to their adoring fans.

I had been there before and as usual I was the only farang in the place. Not a single word of English could be found anywhere – not on the signs outside, the drinks menu, food menus, and so on. Clearly non- Thais were not wanted.

The girls ordered a jug of beer and they laughed their heads off when I insisted on ordering a bottle of water. They thought it was the funniest thing they had ever seen and simply couldn’t believe that a farang would refuse to even drink one glass of beer.

A few weeks ago I would have almost surely given up and drank the proffered beer. In fact many of my relapses have occurred when I was out with a lady and she has asked me if I wanted beer, and after considering the suggestion for a brief moment have thought: “Why not?”, which would then precipitate yet another relapse.

But on this occasion, nothing could have been further from my mind than the very idea of having a beer, and I stuck to my guns – and my bottle of water.

It was a good evening. The girls got a bit tipsy on 2 jugs of beer, but behaved impeccably. The music was a little on the loud side for me these days, but I did enjoy the change of ‘pace’ and scene.

By midnight the huge club was packed out. Quite remarkable for a Wednesday evening.

At the respectable time of 12.30 the girls decided to call it a night. It was agreed that the 23 year old would go back to the condo with me and the other lady would take a motorbike back to her room.

I finally got to sleep at around 2.30 am after a very satisfying ‘experience’.

We slept soundly until nearly 11. a.m. whereupon my lady woke me up to give me a special ‘morning surprise’!

During our post-coitous, late morning cuddle, she told me that she had a boyfriend from England.

I was a little surprised by this revelation but wasn’t particularly bothered. She told me that he came to see her every January and stayed for a couple of months. He then called her regularly to find out what she was up to, but that when she went to sleep with a man she turned her phone off so that she didn’t have to lie to him.

I was still absorbing this interesting little tidbit of information when she decided to continue with her confessions.

“Actually”, she said, “I have several boyfriends. I have one from Germany, one from Holland, and another from Belgium”.

“That’s a lot of boyfriends!” I exclaimed. “How do you keep them all apart?”

“Oh, I am very lucky. My English boy friend comes in January, my Belgium boyfriend comes in March, my German man will be here next month, and the Dutchman comes in October”.

“So it was quite fortuitous that you managed to fit me in then?” I commented with a wry smile.

“Yes, you are fortunate. I am a very busy lady. I have no children of my own but I still have to take care of my parents and my older sister who lives at home with two babies.”

Such is the life and times of the lovely ladies of the night who frequent the bars, kareokes, massage parlours and night clubs of Thailand.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 21st July, 2010.

Have my therapy sessions been of any help?

The first session was mainly one of assessment, and I spent more time talking than my therapist did, as it was important that he understood the background of my illness.

My second session was yesterday, and I feel it is far too early to determine whether I will derive any long term benefit from them

My therapist’s initial aim is to use antidepressants to raise my mood level, so that I will be more receptive to his counselling.

With this in mind I saw I psychiatrist last Monday at Bumrungrad, the result of which was that he has changed my medication. The new medication will take time to become fully effective, so it is still early days in terms of seeing any major changes in my moods or lifestyle.

There is no doubt that I have been struggling with depression for a very long time, but when I was younger I was more able to deal with it and continue to function as a ‘near-normal’ human being.

As one of the triggers for depression is addiction to alcohol, there is the inevitable question of which came first – Alcohol dependency or depression?

I feel in my case it was almost certainly depression that came first. My depression was originally identified when I was still in my late teens. My then employer became concerned with my behaviour and suspected that I was suffering from depression.He kindly referred me to a private psychiatrist for evaluation.

This consultation led me to being accepted as an outpatient at a ‘National Health’ mental health care clinic where I attended group therapy sessions for a number of months.

Although I had already commenced my drinking career in those far off days, I was drinking in moderation and in social situations and I very rarely became even slightly inebriated.

I dropped out of group therapy and continued with my career, as recounted in ‘Mobi’s story’, although episodes of quite severe depression continued to haunt me throughout my life. This probably contributed to my downward spiral into alcoholism, but I was able to hold depression at bay by immersing myself in my career. So the depression didn’t really start to take over my life until I took early retirement in 2000.

Since my retirement I have gone through a traumatic divorce from my wife of over 20 years followed by one disastrous relationship after another and of course my continuing descent into alcoholism.

Although it is still very early days in terms of my new medication and my therapy sessions, I do feel that I am already making modest progress. My moods have been better of late, I have been free from alcohol since Monday 12^th July, and in general I feel a little more positive about life and less suicidal.

My therapist understands my need for female companionship and has identified some of the specifics that I am looking for in this quest and he does not feel that this is necessarily a bad thing. He understands what I have felt for a very long time – that I have a huge need for a female ‘soul mate’ and when I find one I will then be in a position to get on with the rest of my life. Whether I will ever succeed in this endeavour remains to be seen.

He has suggested that I look at spirituality and also rest and relaxation through meditation. These are matters that I had already been working on, but he has now helped to put my efforts into better focus.

I have been alone now for a number of days. This must be a record for recent years. I don’t really enjoy my own company, but at least for now I am able to exist without the need to get drunk or trawl the bars all night looking for female company.

In any event the new antidepressants are also causing me to sleep a lot, as opposed to the old ones which were known to cause insomnia.

Nid  (Part 2)

Ittiput was one of those ‘larger than life’ characters. He was a very charismatic person who spoke excellent English and was full of drive and enthusiasm for his entertainment ‘projects’. In fact the business of entertainment was his life, and it consumed all his thinking – 24/7.

You wouldn’t think he was a ‘hot shot’ in the entertainment business when you first met him.

He looked older than his years – a short, stout-ish, semi-bald man, with a round, Chinese face, and he wore large, horn rimmed spectacles. But as soon as he spoke, you tended to forget his outward appearance and immediately became captivated by his enthusiasm for the subject under discussion. He had a wry sense of humour and even if you had some reservations on a deal or a course of action he may have been proposing, in the end, his sheer passion always won you over.

Ittiput was from a very reputable, Thai -Chinese family of influence and most of his forbears had held high positions in the military or the police force. So to that extent, Ittiput was a bit of a ‘black sheep’, but as you will as my tale continues, he was far more greyish- white than black.

When I first knew Ittiput, he and his female partner performed all the DJ duties for his myriad radio programmes. He specialised in playing the very latest hits from the UK and USA, and he had built up a huge following amongst the students and younger generation who lived in greater Bangkok.

He had been successful in attracting an number of influential sponsors to his programmes, including a major soft drink company who also took a share in the company he had recently set up to run and co-ordinate his ever growing business activities.

Before my arrival he had arranged Thailand’s very first concert involving western artists. It had been a modest affair in a hotel venue but had been surprisingly successful and tickets for all performances had sold out resulting in a small profit for Ittiput’s company. The success was no doubt due to Ittiput’s 24/7 promotion on his radio outlets. This quickly taught Ittiput the value of radio promotion.

In addition to Ittiput’s successful radio business and fledgling concert promotion business, he was also broadcasting on Thai Televison and had promoted a number of live concerts in and around the capital involving Thai bands.

My friend Dave had been involved in Ittiput’s concerts as a sound engineer and he had also recorded some of the Thai bands using his own mobile recording equipment. So Dave had decided to form a partnership with Ittiput and set up a proper music recording studio at Ittiput’s offices on Wireless Road.

When I came on the scene, Dave’s studios had just been completed and Ittiput’s business was really starting to take off. In another part of the office complex, Ittiput had built two radio recording studios, as by now he had so much air time that it was not possible for him and his partner to transmit every programme ‘live’. As a result,  many hours were spent in these studios, by Ittiput, his girl friend and other recently recruited DJ’s to pre-record programmes that were to be broadcast later that day.

Enter Mobi.

Dave introduced me to Ittiput and almost immediately the wily entrepreneur seemed to take a ‘shine’ to me. I was to learn later that he always exercised maximum charm when mixing with farangs. I think that he considered all farangs ‘marks’ – people who he could manipulate at will and get whatever he wanted out of them. He was a very clever man.

Ittiput suggested that I might like to think about working for him as he was in need of a ‘farang’ who could help in the development of his pop concert promotion business, and also become involved in the general management of his business. When he learned that I had an accounting background, he further suggested that I consider take over management of his bookkeeping and accounts. If he was going to employ me, he wanted his pound of flesh.

For Mobi, having barely been back in Thailand a few weeks, and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life, this sounded like an ‘idea from heaven’ and I told him that his proposal sounded very interesting.

As was his habit, once he caught his ‘fish’, he deliberately left it ‘dangling’; not fully committing himself to a deal but playing on my good will and desire to work for him in order to obtain  my services, completely free of charge.

At the time of my first meetings with Ittiput, he was negotiating with one of Australia’s most popular pop groups to come to Bangkok and perform a New Year’s Eve gig in one of Bangkok’s upmarket hotels.

This promotion was much more ambitious than the previous promotion (which he had managed to obtain on the ‘cheap’) and he was planning to hold a concert style performance in the afternoon, followed by a luxury dinner/concert in the evening to ring in the New Year.

It was going to be quite an expensive affair, and he needed to charge a high price for tickets in order to make a profit.

There was undoubtedly a high risk in this venture. Nobody had ever paid the kind of price Ittiput was proposing to charge to attend a concert in Bangkok before, and the whole concept of having a new Year’s dinner being entertained by an Australian pop group was a revolutionary concept. There was no guarantee that the ‘hoi polloi’ of Bangkok would be interested in celebrating their New Year’s Eve in such a manner.

But I was totally ignorant of all these risk issues. I was an utterly naive person who had been captivated  by Ittiput’s charm. I believed Dave’s assurances that Ittiput was a good, honourable business man knew what he was doing and was ‘on the way up’.

As the contract with the Australians was being finalised, Ittiput asked me if I was interested in investing in the concert promotion. He showed me the figures which projected a substantial profit if both shows were a sell-out and it took little effort to persuade me to invest a 50% share from my hard earned savings.

Once the contract was signed things almost immediately started to go wrong. It transpired that the Group’s sound equipment requirements, of which in those days I knew absolutely nothing, were simply not available in Thailand.

Ittiput had known this from day one, but had been banking on his powers of persuasion to convince the group to use locally available but inferior sound equipment. This was one of the first lessons of international concert promotion that both Ittiput and I learned the hard way. Western artists will rarely, if ever, compromise on their equipment requirements and once the list is agreed in the contract, they will refuse to perform if the promoter cannot provide what has been requested.

The only solution was to airfreight into Bangkok the requested equipment from Australia, and this became the first of many very large, un-budgeted expenses. The bill to bring this equipment into Thailand spiralled ever higher as Ittiput had to negotiate huge ‘bungs’ with customs to let it all in without delay.

There were countless other unexpected costs – this was the first ‘real’ western promotion that Thailand had ever seen and we were learning as we went.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the additional expense that was our downfall, for if we had succeeded in our aim to have two ‘sell- out’ shows, we would have at the very least broken even.

But the concert ticket prices were too high; the kids weren’t buying them, and the evening dinner/concert was just too unorthodox to capture the imagination of the rich and famous.

It was becoming a disaster and I could see my hard earned investment rapidly disappearing.

In the end, the shows were a long way from a total disaster. The group were very good, the imported sound was awesome and we probably had about a 50% turnout for the afternoon concert and maybe a little more than that for the dinner show.

All who had seen the show were totally bowled over, the ‘word of mouth’ positive feedback plus the ongoing promotion of the group on Ittiput’s radio programmes all conspired to turn a little known Australian Pop group into one of the most popular western bands in Thailand. Their music was played continuously for years, and in those days the ubiquitous juke boxes always contained a number of the groups’ songs which were played over and over again.

The momentum that commenced at that New Year’s Eve promotion resulted in at least three return concerts by that group in the following years, when they played in huge stadiums to sell out, hysterical teenagers.

But poor Mobi had lost all his stake money in that very first concert, and was not in a position to re-invest when early losses were turned into substantial profit in subsequent promotions.

As for Nid, well it was too early in our relationship for her to fully appreciate that her boyfriend had just lost a substantial part of his savings.

Nid was content to bask in the perceived ‘glory’ of being the girlfriend of a concert promoter who was working with the now famous Ittiput group. She knew how to dress and was outwardly accepted by Ittiput and his colleagues, even though they must have realised the nature of her background.

To her credit, Nid was never intimidated or phased by these ‘hi-So” people I was working with; she gave as good as she got and seem to mix in very well.

Sometime later, when our relationship was well established, her appearance at Ittiput’s offices to visit me was considered perfectly normal and she was always treated with the respect  deserving of the girl friend of one of Ittiput’s senior managers.

In fact one our newer DJ’s, a Hi-So lady from an extremely wealthy Thai- Chinese family, (who by the way spoke incredibly fluent English, as she was educated in the USA from a young age), was due to have a large society wedding reception at the Oriental Hotel. Incredibly, both myself and Nid received a formal invitation for this auspicious occasion.

We duly attended the ‘event’ but as neither of us had been versed on how to behave on such occasions, we made a few fopas which even today provoke a slight cringe.

The worst one was when we handed over a gift wrapped wedding present the bride’s parents as we took our turn at the head of the reception line. The order of the day on such occasions is to bring an envelope containing money. I still recall the look of embarrassment when they took our gift, and quickly put it out of sight under a table before turning their attention to the next guest in the line.

But in those heady days, in spite of losing a great deal of money, I was relatively happy. I was involved in an exciting business and Ittiput, after falling over himself to apologise for my concert losses, finally put me on the payroll of his company. Mind you the salary he paid me was a pittance – nowhere near enough for me to live on.

I didn’t mind as I still had some savings remaining and I felt sure that ‘something would come up’. Then, to top it all, I was living with this stunning, feisty lady who I was fast becoming totally infatuated with.

Little did I realise the troubles, emotional trauma, lies, deceit and my descent into a drugged hell that was waiting for me just around the corner.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 2oth July, 2010.

Just a brief note to let you all know that I am still sober and all things considered,  I am not feeling too bad.

Yesterday I saw a psychiatrist in Bangkok who has changed my medication, and today I had my second session with the therapist.

All being well I will write a proper blog tomorrow as I plan to spend most of the day at home.

As mentioned yesterday, I have now re-opened my blog to comments and last night I received an extremely unpleasant and insulting comment from someone called “Oscar”.

Oscar clearly went out of his way to abuse me, belittle me and to do everything he possible could to cause me further emotional distress. He even tried to goad me into committing suicide.

Oscar is now blocked from making further comments, and if he is reading this I strongly suggest that he seek treatment. He is clearly even more dysfunctional than me and is in urgent need of help, for no one who is in a normal, well balanced state of mind would write the sort of invective such that contained in the comment that he tried to post on my blog.

What did he hope to achieve , I wonder? The death of someone he has never met?

It is quite troubling.

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 18th July, 2010.

I am still, sober and still alone. Quite an achievement methinks.

Tomorrow I have to go to Bangkok to see the psychiatrist, and today I am spending the day at home still recovering from my recent bout with food poisoning and also from my very long bout with alcohol.

I have decided unblocked the comments section, so please feel free to comment once again.

So today I thought it would be a good idea to ‘re-start’ my latest Mobi Vignette, which I originally commenced back in May.

In order that you don’t have to go trawling back through my blogs to find the original entry, I am re-publishing below,  the “Nid (Preface)”.

I have also taken this opportunity to tidy it up and extend it.

MOBI VIGNETTE

Nid (Preface)

Azzy, the Nigerian Lady, was my first wife, and Lynda, a Thai lady from Ubon Ratchathani, was my second.

My marriage to Lynda was the shortest, by far, of all my marriages as the marriage wasn’t even consummated when it fell apart. The break up happened on my wedding day.

I met Lynda in the early 70’S in HP Massage Parlour, on Sukhumvit Road, opposite Soi Five, on land that is now occupied by the Landmark hotel.

If you look in ‘Mobi’s Story’ (Part 2), I recounted the events that led up to Lynda being ‘kidnapped’ on my wedding day and how I had to pay a ‘ransom’ to set her free.

It was a miserable, but mercifully short affair, and I soon put it to the back of my mind when I eventually took up my new job in Jakarta, Indonesia.

So followed a very drunken year in Indonesia, (also recounted in depth in ‘Mobi’s Story’), then a return to Thailand where all my savings disappeared in a matter of months. This resulted in me scratching out a living, teaching English in a suburban, low class technical college to a bunch of unruly students who had little or no desire to learn anything.

When even that meagre work failed to keep the wolf from the door, I managed to find my way back to England, where after a couple of months I obtained a job back in the oil industry in Tripoli, Libya.

This lasted almost a year, before I had to flee the country with the cops on my tail for making and selling illegal alcohol.

Back in Bangkok, after a wild couple of weeks in Amsterdam, I ran into my friend, Dave, who I had first met at the Fortuna Hotel some three years earlier, and it was he who indirectly introduced me to the lady who was to become my third wife.

At that time Dave was running a recording studio which had been built in offices in Wireless Road, not far from the American Embassy. He had a Thai-Chinese partner who also had his business offices in the same compound.

I have also written about this in ‘Mobi’s Story’ about how I was persuaded to ‘throw in my lot’ with Dave’s partner. This was the first, but certainly not the last occasion in which Dave introduced me to a ‘trustworthy Thai’ who then did his utmost to relieve me of my hard-earned money.

In any event, Dave’s introduction to this dubious entrepreneur had effectively kick-started my helter skelter career and adventures in the pop music/ concerts / radio/TV entertainment business.

Most of Dave’s business during this period was involved with the writing and recording of music jingles for the advertising industry. He had made a few friends in that business and it was through their introductions that he started to get commissions from the advertising agencies, many of which in those days, were run and partially staffed by foreigners.

Up to this point, there was virtually no original music or songs used in advertising in Thailand. Every commercial, be it radio, TV or cinema used music and/or songs dubbed or copied from commercial music albums. Copy-write laws were totally ignored, and there was no infrastructure or history of studios in Bangkok producing original music for the advertising industry.

Dave’s arrival on the scene changed all that, although it was a long time before he was able to command reasonable fees for his productions, as the agencies simply did not budget for original music, and only came to Dave when they were unable to find a suitable song or a piece of music to fit their ads.

In those days, The Derby King bar in Patpong was the place to go for all farangs who were in some way engaged in the advertising business in Bangkok.

The place was packed daily with farang advertising executives during their very long lunch ‘hours’. Then, after a brief afternoon respite, the bar would fill up once again after work.

It was inevitable that Dave would take me down to the Derby King, so one evening, shortly after I had returned to Bangkok from Libya, on my very first visit to that bar, that I met the girl who was to become Mrs. Mobi number three.

Nid (Part 1)

Back in 2000, I wrote a series of short stories based in Thailand, entitled, ‘Tales from Thailand’. I was very fortunate to have this humble volume published by a very small internet based POD publisher. Unfortunately the book sank without trace, but at least I was published.

One of my stories had its origins in Patpong’s Derby King, so I thought it might be an idea to publish on my blog some excepts from my story which was entitled “Mudita” and was written some 10 years ago.

“It is generally assumed that it was the arrival of American GI’s in Thailand during the Nineteen Sixties that spawned the growth of the Patpong ‘red light’ district of Bangkok. Some students of such fascinating snippets of history may not agree with this conclusion, but it is without doubt that the arrival of huge numbers of American military personnel into Thailand had a major influence, for good or bad, on certain aspects of Thai culture.

The American military command opted to use Thailand as their principal base to bomb the hell out of North Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia and for obvious reasons, they also used Thailand as one of their main regional drop off points for rest and recuperation, or ‘R. &. R.’

Back in those days, the pro western, authoritarian regime in Thailand, like other non-communist states in South Asia, subscribed to the western propagated ‘domino’ theory. In other words, they believed that each country in turn would be crushed and taken over by the communists, either Chinese or Russian – or possibly even both. This meant that during the period of the Vietnam War, Thailand benefited from having billions of American dollars injected into its economy, to such an extent that the dollar virtually became a dual currency with the Thai Baht. One Dollar was twenty Baht, an American quarter was five Baht and a dime was two Baht, all freely exchanged in the shops and markets of Bangkok and provincial cities.

Thais have always had a penchant for assimilating alien ideas and culture and reinventing them in a uniquely Thai way.  One only has to look at  modern Thai cuisine, which has embraced regional dishes and non-indigenous ingredients to produce an endless array of the most delicious food that can be found anywhere in the world.

And so it was that as the American bars started to surface in the towns which hosted American air bases, and countless Thai women discovered the joys that the Yankee dollars could bring to their impoverished lives.  The Thais embraced this latest addition to their ever changing life style and the principal growth area for American-style hostess bars in Bangkok, was in the locality of Patpong. The bars were more American than Thai, but retained a unique Thai ambience, that was more oriental than western. By the mid-seventies, western type go-go bars were also starting to appear, but even these had a distinctive Thai ‘flavour’…….

…….‘Some twenty-five odd years ago, the male members of the expatriate community in Bangkok, and in particular the Brits and Aussies, spent much of their leisure time in the ‘Derby King’, a bar in Bangkok’s infamous Patpong red light district. There was nothing particularly special about the ‘Derb’, (as the Aussies in particular would fondly refer to it); standard size, with the bar running along the right hand side of a long rectangular shaped room, liberally furnished with high bar stools. Open sitting booths with small drinks tables were crammed along the left-hand side, leaving barely sufficient space for customers and staff to squeeze along the narrow aisle in between.

In most respects The Derb was no different to the dozens of bars that were located on the main Patpong Road and its nearby environs. Go-Go dancing was in its infancy and most bars offered an assortment of attractive waitresses to serve the drinks and, if required, sit with customers for the price of a ‘lady’s’ drink. Other ‘services’ were also available, but I get ahead of myself.

The Derby King was indeed mainly patronised by expatriates, or ‘farangs’, (as they are called by the Thais), but strangely and somewhat incongruously, there was also a small thriving Thai clientèle who mixed happily with the farangs and helped give the bar its unique atmosphere.

The service was friendly but not pushy. No one felt under any obligation to buy drinks for the ladies. Indeed, although there were usually two or three good looking girls to cater for the occasional farang tourist who may stumble in – most of the female staff had seen better days.

The food was good – especially at lunchtime, and the Derby King had become a good place for a business lunch, the business district being conveniently located within a five-minute walk. It was also a good place to meet friends, or to have a couple a quiet drinks before setting out for an evening of hitting the high spots, or to stagger back to at the end of a night’s debauchery. It also happened to be an excellent place for those who were in a state of depression to quietly drown their sorrows.’

Indeed many of the ladies of the Derby King had certainly had seen better days, but there were one or two who belied that description and were as pretty and beguiling as any that could be found in the environs of Patpong in those far off days.

I hadn’t been in the Derb for more than ten minutes when I spotted one of the most beautiful ladies I had ever seen in my life. There is no doubt that she was a beauty by any standards. She was quite small, almost petite in stature – which is how like my women. She had a truly exquisitely formed face with a flawless, pale olive skin. This was complemented by her breathtaking figure, which she showed off to the full, dressed as she was in a tight blouse which tantalizingly revealed her generous cleavage and the ‘piece de resistance’, a very short, thigh hugging skirt which revealed almost all of her beautifully crafted and so enticing thighs.

In the following 35 years, I have rarely, if ever, found many to match Nid in both beauty and figure. She hailed from Lop Buri, (the invasion of the beauties from Issan had barely begun), spoke fluent, ‘bar girl’ English and was an extremely bubbly, fun-loving girl who was in her element when she was charming and ‘playing’ with the high earning expatriates who were her daily customers.

She had no children; I was later to discover that she never practised any form of contraception but she simply never became pregnant. Obviously a medial issue of unknown origin as she was certainly impregnated often enough by a high number of very fertile males.

I had just been on an eleven month stint in Libya, where female companions were few and far between, so it was inevitable that just one look at Nid and I was completely bowled over.

Nid saw me looking at her and immediately came over to say hello and persuade me to buy her a drink. One drink followed another and it wasn’t long before I was asking her to go home with me.

Dave, who was sitting next to me, wasn’t too impressed with this turn of events. He told me that it was OK to have a bit of fun with Nid in the bar, but it was quite another to take her home. I enquired why, but only received a mumbled and confusing reply to the effect that he didn’t think Nid was the right lady for me.

This only served to increase my desire to get Nid into my bed, and as she seemed willing enough, I duly paid her bar fine, and off we went in a taxi to the Mobi’s apartment, which in those days was on Sukhumvit, soi 24.

From that day forward, Nid never went back to work at the Derby King, although she spent plenty of time back there as a ‘paying’ customer. At first, we would go to the bar daily to pay her bar fine, but after a couple of weeks, Nid decided that as she was staying with me on a long term basis she should quit her job and save the money.

I had no problems with this suggestion, and as a consequence Nid became my permanent ‘live-in’.

Both us would still go regularly to the Derby King of an evening to meet with Dave and other friends I had made in the weeks since I had been back in Bangkok. I would invariably end up the worst for wear, and Nid would have to help me into a taxi for the ride back home where I would immediately fall asleep on the sofa.

Even in those early days, Nid would frequently disappear, both when were in Patpong together, or when I was in my apartment, without ever providing me with satisfactory explanations for her long absences.

I was very naïve in the ways of Thailand and Thai whores in those days, (some would say, I still am!), and although her behavior was a source of irritation, I never really gave it too much thought.

I was too preoccupied with my new career in the wonderful world of entertainment, with Dave’s Thai partner, an outwardly charming man who spoke excellent English. He was Ittiput.

Ittiput was a genuine entrepreneur who loved pop music and was determined to make his mark and change the entertainment scene in Thailand forever. In this respect he was a true pioneer, and although now he is long gone and forgotten, it is unlikely that Thailand would have made the breakthrough that it did at that time in so many aspects of western music entertainment if it hadn’t been for his dedication and dreams.

But for Ittiput’s dreams to come true, he needed investment funds, and he was far too canny a Chinese to invest his own money.

Enter Mobi, stage left……

The “Home” page is my daily blog. The remaining tabs contain previously blogged, episodic ‘stories’, which are now re-published in chronological order.

Jomtien, 17th July, 2010.

I might have misled you slightly in my last blog.

When I wrote that I was still sober, I probably should have written that I have been sober since Monday 12^th July, otherwise those of you who follow my progress in detail might have thought that the last time I took a drink was Friday, 9^th July, which was the last date that I had previously reported taking a drink.

I had indeed been sober since Friday, but on Monday night, at around 10 00p.m., just I was planning to go to bed early with Tukta, ( I had to make an early start on Tuesday morning for my drive to Bangkok), she suddenly announced that her mother had called to say that her baby had a small accident in her mum’s room and that she wanted to go to check it out.

I told her to go immediately and she assured me she would come back very soon.

By 12.30 I heard nothing from her, so I called her to find out what was happening. She told me her baby was fine but she was talking to her mother and she was too tired to come back to my room that night.

I was a bit upset. I asked her why hadn’t she called earlier to tell me as I had been waiting anxiously for over two hours?

She wouldn’t give me a satisfactory answer so I hung up in anger.

One of the reasons that I like to  have a ‘live-in’ is because I find it very difficult to sleep alone. Normally, being alone for one night wouldn’t be a big deal , but on this particular night I wanted to get a half way decent sleep as I had to get up early and drive to Bangkok.

Tukta knew this very well, but still declined to come back that night. (It would have been a 15 minute drive on her bike)

I suspected that the whole event was just a concocted story as she wanted to spend the night elsewhere, but even if it was true, I felt she was being unreasonable in the circumstances.

So I turned to whisky, to assuage my anger and resentment and also as I thought it might help me get to sleep.

I didn’t drink much – just three very large, ‘snorters’ which gave me a bit of a high after several sober days, and then tried to sleep. But sleep refused to come and I spent most of the night watching television before dropping off just before dawn, only to wake up a couple of hours later as I had to go to Bangkok.

As I recounted in my last blog, I made it to Bangkok, kept my appointment with the psychotherapist, saw Dave and made it back to Jomtien just in time to throw up my lunch in the bathroom.

Upon my return, I called Tukta, only to be told that she had decided that there was no future in our relationship, the veracity of which I couldn’t really disagree with, so that was that. I was back alone.

I have been ill ever since. I thought I was over the worst of it by Wednesday afternoon, but yesterday (Thursday) the diarrhoea returned with a vengeance.

I decided to see a doctor and was duly dosed up  with antibiotics and electrolytes and today, Friday, once more the problems seems to be subsiding, but I’m being very careful with my food intake which is minimal.

Wednesday evening was interesting and, I believe, a therapeutic, salutary experience. I hadn’t intended to go out at all, but late afternoon a received a call from an ‘old flame’, who I hadn’t seen for quite a while as she had been back home in Loei taking care of her rice fields.

She asked if I could meet her for a drink as we hadn’t seen each other for quite a while, and as I felt that my illness had subsided, I thought: “why not?”

I did meet her, but there was no ‘spark’ on my side, so I bought her a couple of drinks and decided to move on.

I went to see one of the girls I knew out by the lake. If you go to my blog of 8^th July, you will see that I had shortlisted 5 potential candidates for the new Mobi “live-in”.

In that blog I wrote about Noot, the 23 year old who I took out with her friend and then proceeded to get drunk and ended up pissing her off mightily at which point she disappeared from my condo after I had passed out.

Some time had passed, so I decided to give Noot another try and apologise for my previous behaviour.

When I arrived at her bar she was ensconced with an English man, a guy I knew who owned another bar at the lake. He was very drunk, but it didn’t seem to bother Noot who was being plied with drinks.

I sat opposite them and tried to catch her attention but she completely ignored me and just stared into the drunken bar owner’s face. I ordered a soda and sat there for a while, hoping the drunk would finish his drink and return to his own bar. But not a bit of it. He kept ordering drinks for himself and Noot, and to my alarm I suddenly realised that Noot had her hand up his shorts and was fondling his private parts, all the while staring into his eyes with a lecherous smile on her face.

I broke out into a cold sweat.

I usually get my own wicked way with these women at bars and have pissed off many a farang who has wondered how I have managed to achieve in a few minutes what they have been gagging for all night.

This time the shoe was on the other foot and I didn’t like it. I felt very humiliated by what she was doing within a couple of feet of where I was sitting, and full view. I realised later that she almost certainly did it deliberately to piss me off, and in that she succeeded.

There was no end in to the drunken fondling in sight, so I paid my bill and drove back to Jomtien.

I decided to go and see Mam, another reject from my 8^th July shortlist. Mam was the go-go dancer in Jomtien. She had been calling me and sending me messages, and just the previous day had sent me a message telling me that she missed me!

I needed a boost to my ego, and decided Mam was the girl for the job, as she was always all over me when I went to see her, and even if she was with another customer, she would still come over to talk  and play with me as well.

When  I arrived at the bar, one of Mam’s friends told me that Mam was in the toilet and would be out soon, so I ordered a coke and sat down to wait.

Sure enough, five minutes later Mam emerged from the toilet with a friend, but she wasn’t wearing her go-go outfit. She was dressed in street clothes. She looked at me but made a beeline to two customers who were sitting at a corner table.

She and her friend sat down between them and it was clear that she had been bar fined. She looked across at me, smiled and then broke into hysterical laughter, probably in reaction to the look on my face.

I had been humiliated yet again.

All the girls in the Go-go bar knew that I was keen on Mam, and it seemed like they were all laughing at me.

The craziest part about this particular event was that when one of the two farangs she was sitting with finally paid his bill, he left with both of the ladies – Mam and her friend, and was obviously going to enjoy a “two-some” that night.

Yet more humiliation, so after they left, I decided that enough was enough and I had better give up and go home.

Strangely, the two ego-bashing incidents did not drive me to drink. In fact, as mentioned above, I believe they had a salutary effect on me. I was sober and thinking more logically than when I drink, and I knew that this feeling of ‘hurt’ was all nonsense.

They were all whores – so WTF?

I admit to not sleeping well that night, but I was alone, and I was sober.

The following morning (Thursday) I was awoken by a phone call from yet another lady on my 8^th July short list.

It was Ping, the 22 year old go-go dancer from Walking Street. She told me that she had just returned from Kon Kaen with her younger sister and wanted to see me.

So still suffering slightly from a bruised ego, I thought that this might put matters right, so agreed to meet her at her room. We duly met up and I took her to lunch. Ping was looking absolutely gorgeous. She is 45 kilos of pure, unadulterated sex and she knows it.

She told me that she wasn’t working anymore and that she wanted to come and live with me and take care of me. We talked around it for a while, and I suggested that she come back home with me so that we could discuss the potential “arrangements” in more detail.

On the way to my condo Ping told me that her mother had been in hospital and she was very worried as they had no money to pay the hospital bill. I asked her how much was the bill and she told me 10,000 Baht!!

I could see which way this was going, especially when she started crying, but I continued my drive to the condo where I parked up and took Ping to my room.

I then cross-examined her about this bill. It became clear that in return for her coming to live with me, she wanted me to give her the money for the hospital bill. She then went on to say that she would take the money personally to Khon Kaen and be back in 2 days!

I asked her why she couldn’t send the money? Why did she have to go there? She had just returned from Khon Kaen and for Christ’s sake, it is an 8 hour journey! She insisted that she had to see her mum again, but promised faithfully that she would be back in 2 days.

There was a time, not so long ago that I would have half-believed this tale, and would have gone along with it, even on the off-chance that it may be true.

But times are a-changing.

I told her that I didn‘t believe her. She became very upset and called her Mum and asked me to speak to her! I declined. It proved nothing.

I told her that it was crazy for her to go all the way back to Khon Kaen for one day just to pay the bill, especially as she had just been there and that I didn’t believe a word she had told me.

At this point she decided to modify her demands. She told me that she could send the money to her mother and didn’t have to go to Khon Kaen and that she would stay in Pattaya with me.

I refused – it was all nonsense and bullshit.

She pretended to cry again, but I could see no tears.

I told her I was taking her back to her room and that I didn’t want to see her again.

On the way back to room, she tried crying once more and begged me to reconsider, declared her undying love for me, but I was obdurate.

Upon arrival, as she was getting out of the car she said:

“If you miss me, give me a call!”

With that, the lovely little darling scurried off back to her room to break the news to her sister that the ‘mark hadn’t coughed up’.

After dropping Ping off I decided to drive down to Bang Chang and re-visit Onn, (see my 8^th July Blog), yet another lady I previously crossed off my short list.

She was there – looking lovelier than I remembered – and was ‘available’.

Still smarting slightly from the sight of Noot with her hands up the customer’s shorts providing him with some kind of perverted gratification, I suggested that Onn may like to try a similar trick with Mobi, who had donned his shorts especially for such an eventuality.

She was delighted to oblige but started to express misgivings when she discovered to size of the Mobi-gun.

I had been talking to her about coming to stay with me, but upon discovering the weapon she told me that I was almost certainly too big for her. I told her that I may be big, but not that big  and I was sure it would be Ok. She still conveyed her fears, and asked her friend to come over and give a second opinion.

Her friend, another beauty by the name of Ann, duly obliged by put her hand up my other trouser leg and check the gun for herself. This time the reaction was far more positive – in fact in no time flat she was becoming extremely horny and asked me to go upstairs with her.

I politely declined, but remained at the bar with both Onn and Ann doing their bit to keep the Mobi-gun fully loaded and ready. But Even Ann was a little concerned about the gun’s size. She said it was the largest she had encountered since she had been working in Bang Chang and asked me if I had ever had problems putting the gun in a Thai holster. I told her that the gun would fit into about 90% of Thai holsters with little or no problem, so the odds were on her side. This seemed to reassure her, and she begged me to take her upstairs as her holster was in danger of becoming too wet to function.

My ego was getting better and better.

However, It was still Onn that I preferred and I asked her if she would come back to the condo with me that night to see how we got on together.

She declined. She said that the previous evening she had a very long ‘boomsing’ session with a customer and her ‘holster’ was very sore. She said the session lasted over two hours, and if I didn’t believe her I could ask Mama-san who had witnessed the marathon event!

She then went on to tell me that she only liked to indulge in ‘boomsing’ one time per week as her holster was a bit delicate and she still had grave concerns as to whether my gun would fit properly.

So there are some disadvantages to having a top gun and my ego started to flag once more.

She seemed adamant so I turned my attentions back to Ann and asked her if she would come home with me.

Ann said she wanted to come with me but not until she finished work at midnight.  She said that I could pick her up when she finished work, and while this was not a very satisfactory arrangement, as it would involve a lot of driving back and forth, I agreed.

In the event, I drove back home at around 8 p.m. and by 10 o’clock I decided it was all too much effort to drive back to Bang Chang in the late evening. So I sent her an sms and cancelled out.

All these events have done me a power of good. I have been on my own now since Monday and last night I even managed to get to sleep before 2 a.m.

Although I am not about to put it to the test, I believe my obsession with Tan is just about gone and I am feeling in better control of my life by the day.

As recently as last Tuesday I still couldn’t get her out of my mind and was continually thinking about her and dwelling on what had gone wrong.

I feel I have been liberated from this obsession and while I’m a long way from being deliriously happy, my mood seems to be gradually improving.

I have attended two AA sessions which have also helped. Ironically the topic of the first meeting was humility, which fitted perfectly into my current situation.

Yesterday, Friday, I spent most of the day at home and didn’t go near any bar.

I know I have to change my life and at the time of writing, I am feeling quite positive about this and about things in general.

I hope it lasts.