Years ago I didn't know how long my father would be around so when he asked me to go to Thailand with him for a business trip I figured I should go spend time with him while I could.
Thailand is a beautiful country and at the time they were going through a terrible depression. We stayed in a "guest house", no a/c, two beds, private bathroom, no sheets or towels, and $5 a night. While there I saw some Buddhist temples (very tranquil), went to a tulip farm that also had peacocks and ridgeback dogs.
I went to a farm that used elephants to do tricks, move logs around, and give rides to tourists. At the beginning of the ride it started raining. A dog is built with their legs going straight down from their shoulders, an elephant's legs go in at an angle, therefore they leave a very narrow trail going up the muddy hill. When I said up the hill I meant up. The angle was enough that I'm reaching for something to hold onto as I start sliding back in my bench. I was in the front elephant looking at this very narrow trail on a very big elephant. In the rain, sliding. My elephant had a rider on it, he got off the elephant and walked in front of it. He put a leash around the ear of my elephant though, but he still got off this big elephant going up the very narrow trail in the rain. There was a bug bothering the elephant, Mr. Elephant couldn't get the bug with his trunk so he got innovative. Mr. Elephant pulled a tree out of the ground and whacked the bug with his tree. I'm sitting a foot away from this bug as the roots and dirt come flying to end the bugs life. The elephant pulled a tree out of the ground, the root ball was about 18" to 2' in diameter and the tree trunk was five or six inches in diameter. Try and do that yourself. He did it without trying or struggling. Don't piss off the elephant.
I found two bookstores also. One was a big chain kind of place like a Barnes and Nobles, only bigger and two story. It had an English section, German section, Japanese section, and of course the huge Thai section. Then I found the other one. It was owned by an English expat. It was a used book store, the German books were in a room upstairs, Japanese in a different room, French was another room, and the ground floor was English. Picture a Half-Price bookstore in a house filled with about 85% fiction. He obviously catered to tourists, I picked up a few books myself.
Thailand exports massage therapists. I had an hour long deep tissue massage for $5. Of course I tipped 100%. I had this attractive lady bending and pulling on my body and then she says something in broken English and points to her mouth. Say what? She says it again and I understand her this time. Yes, you may practice your English on me.
I went to a Thai topless bar. I'm drinking my Coke and a manager/floor walker/madam comes by with a lady. She grabs one of my hands and puts it on a breast and the other on the ladies thong. I pull them back as she tells me this lady is nice, young and firm. I can take her to the hotel for about 2500 baht. That works out to about $50. At the time I was in a similar business, so I was polite which was the wrong thing to do. I said "Not right now." She thought I was haggling. She left and came back with another lady. The first one was about a 7, this new one was about a 9.5. I'm told that the two ladies would be 4700 baht. The light caught the new lady just right and I realized she was a Thai doppelganger for one of my dancers. I would have killed her. The police would have been pulling my hands from around her throat as I called her Diamond. Diamond was part of the reason why I took a vacation. I slammed that Coke down and left so quick it was scary. Before we went I did research on the nightlife in Thailand. Prostitution is illegal but not bothered with anymore. It used to be different, minors would be turning tricks for tourists until the government decided that they didn't want that kind of tourist trade. They started coming down hard on pimps/madams/tourists that wanted the minors. Those tourists that weren't in a Thai jail started going to other countries after that.
On my way back to the guest house a tall very attractive lady asked me if I wanted any company. I learned to be firm. I said "No thank you". I was about two strides past her when her voice dropped about two octaves and she asked me what I was afraid of. Right now I'm afraid of the "ladyboy" with the Barry White voice. That is also very common in Thailand. So common that Thailand is a world leader in quite a few kinds of surgery. Normally I can see the telltale signs of a crossdresser or a transsexual, big hands and feet compared to the body, little things like that. Not in Thailand, they were good.
I think the greatest compliment I could to the Thai people is that they were so nice. There is more to say about Thailand, the food and drink, the carving and dancing, even the tuk tuks. All of that is for another day.
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