Smiles
February 27th, 2007, 00:16
Above all other explanations, in my life at least, the 'sense of serendipity' seems to adequately cover many things ~ and especially the 'higher' things ~ about my relationship with Thailand ~ and Mexico ~ over the last 10 years or so.
That exquisite sense of 'accidental joy' was piled high with the chance meeting of the beloved so many years ago (it seems now), and it was fully extant ~ the "accident" part at least, certainly not the "joy" ~ at the moment when I decided to take a holiday in Thailand the very first time.
Vernon, British Columbia, 1994 ~ Mexico 1997-99
The AIDS diagnosis which my dear Michael had received in 1994 had by 1997 sadly carried him to a place where his doctor had felt the need to make a fairly dramatic statement that it was probably time to do those things which he'd always wanted to do. And do them now.
So a few months later we'd flown down to Los Angeles for some carousing in West Hollywood, Disneyland, Malibu et al, then on to Puerto Vallarta for 3 weeks in the sun, surf ... the darker corners of Paco's or Los Balcones and the terrific restaurants south of the Cuale River.
I'd never seen Mike so happy.
__________________________________________________ __________________
THE GAY BEACH AT PLAYA LOS MUERTOS. (LOOK FAMILIAR?)
http://www.photodump.com/direct/sawatdee/pvbeach4500.jpg
__________________________________________________ __________________
We made a number of friends at the hotel there, kept in contact, and decided to all return the next year ... which we did.
And then, in May of 1999, Mike slipped away from me (after 10 grand, frenetic and joyful years ... he was the frenetic one, I the stabilizing dullard) in a hospital ICU ward with a tube down his throat, unable to say a word, his lungs completely disintegrated.
It was impossible for me to stay in the room while they removed that ghastly tube, but I walked back in after the deed had been done to see him take his last heaving breath. I gently hated myself for a long time after for not having the courage to stay.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, November 1999
We all got back together in Puerto Vallarta later that year, a kind of reunion and wake for Mike (they loved him so).
But with all good intent of having a great time ~ me, alone for the first time in many a moon ~ I could not.
I saw and felt him everywhere.
He was sitting beside me in restaurants re-visited. He was walking beside me in the sands of Playa Los Muertos. He was dancing at Pacos and charming the socks off Mama Delores at our favourite breakfast place. I talked to him quietly ~ my mouth moving, it must have looked very strange ~ when I was drunk at rooftop bars watching the sun go down over the Pacific. He was sitting on a bar stool beside me watching me play pool with the boys (I played, he always just watched, even at home ... how many hundreds of times?).
That holiday was a gut shot ~ an aching wound in the pit of my stomach and my heart. I missed him irretrievably.
Patong Beach, November 2000
So I would never go to Puerto Vallarta again (I resolved then. These last few years I have gone back twice. Such is the truth in the old cliche that "time cures all").
Thailand seemed a possibility ~ it was so far away ~ and I started looking into spending a holiday there in 2000. I had never given it much thought frankly, even though I certainly was attracted to Asian men (Mike was in fact a native American Indian, but when we first met I thought he was ~ possibly ~ Filipino), but my reading around it eventually produced a ticket to Phuket, and off I flew into the darkening sky on United 875.
I had all good intentions of being the Quintessential Butterfly. I had read all about the gay scene in Patong ... I knew the streets off by heart ... I booked a hotel in the middle of Gay Central. I was "ready" ... certainly willing ... hornily able.
But as a Butterfly I was a complete bust.
The Gogo "thing" left me cold in their meat-grinder, sex-by-number, salivatin'-farang atmosphere and ambiance. I didn't care for tattoos & the mamasans put me off.
Paying for sex was grating on the heart for me (and in fact the best time I had in those 3 weeks was a pick up job at the hotel bar. No money involved that day or night ... the sex was about an eight-point-five on the Richter, and the whole thing ended when we woke up the next morning and he was putting on his clothes to ... go to school!!. I walked downstairs with him and waited with him for his bus, but when he had disappeared down the road I looked around furtively, half expecting that the Thai Police were about to pounce).
Lady boy shows were as mediocre, boring and 3-minute-wonder affairs as any at home. I offed a couple of handsome Thai guys, had a good time, couldn't remember them the next day. They were decent guys, doing a good job ... they pronounced me "polite" ... one hunted me down numerous times ~ I was easy to find ~ and one afternoon he screamed out the balcony window to the street below that " ... this my new boyfriend ... ". I sat back on the bed, bemused, shook my head and thought, " ... I don't think so honey ... "
I had a reasonably good time. I met a good friend on the beach ~ a Canadian from Toronto (who now lives in Phuket with his boyfriend) and we keep in touch regularly. I also met many farangs whom I would never want to meet again. The beach was very nice.
And so, at the end of any Thailand holiday, one invariably ends up back in Bangkok. All flights arrived and left at Don Muang and one traveled back there as the rite of passage . . . either straight there, or, often as not, "stopping over" and taking the chance for a last fling at hedonism before flying away into that dark blue sky. I chose the stop over because I'd never been there before.
And so, at the end of my Thailand holiday (on the last night in fact) I had come down to the last few hours in Thailand and as the taxi drove me back to my hotel for the last time I was thinking that perhaps I'd come again, perhaps I wouldn't. The catharsis was fairly complete: I knew ~ there in that taxi barreling through the back Sois of Bangkok ~ that now I could probably go back to Mexico to enjoy reunions with my friends there without the angst of a ghost sitting beside me.
And so, the taxi pulled up to the hotel and I paid my fare and hopped out, and walked through the gates of the small hotel and came face to face with my friend Mr. Serendipity one more time.
I walked up the pathway to where it divided into a 'Y' shape ... one path going left into the hotel lobby/bar, the other leading around behind the main building and the rooms. It was getting late (I had to be at Don Muang around 6AM) and my first thoughts as I left the taxi were "get to bed".
But being the last night in the Big Mango it seemed appropriate to have a last drink in the bar to linger over and contemplate the trip in peace. So I took the left pathway and sashayed into the bar ... and found myself an hour later still in great conversation with a handsome Thai bartender.
And so, once he closed the bar, things happened vaguely in this order: an offer of a massage ... a quizzical look ... an acceptance of offer ... a night in the sack to remember ... a helping hand getting my bags stuffed in early morning ... email addresses exchanged ... a hug goodbye ... a long flight thinking of HIM ... (as Butch Cassidy said to the Sundance Kid, " ... who WAS that guy ... ?")
And we're still together 7 years later, with my happy retirement approaching next November (lots of Novembers in this story), and him getting ready to leave the Isaan country life and shack up with me (his Beloved, it turns out) in Hua Hin for our Next Adventure.
__________________________________________________ ____________________
THE HANDSOME (NOW 'OLD') BARTENDER
http://www.photodump.com/direct/sawatdee/villagelife3.1.jpg
__________________________________________________ ____________________
A corollary of the Law of Serendipity says: "great tragedy often leads to new worlds". So I often think gently of Mike (the 'old' Beloved), when I think of the 'new' Beloved: it makes me love 'em both.
Cheers ...
That exquisite sense of 'accidental joy' was piled high with the chance meeting of the beloved so many years ago (it seems now), and it was fully extant ~ the "accident" part at least, certainly not the "joy" ~ at the moment when I decided to take a holiday in Thailand the very first time.
Vernon, British Columbia, 1994 ~ Mexico 1997-99
The AIDS diagnosis which my dear Michael had received in 1994 had by 1997 sadly carried him to a place where his doctor had felt the need to make a fairly dramatic statement that it was probably time to do those things which he'd always wanted to do. And do them now.
So a few months later we'd flown down to Los Angeles for some carousing in West Hollywood, Disneyland, Malibu et al, then on to Puerto Vallarta for 3 weeks in the sun, surf ... the darker corners of Paco's or Los Balcones and the terrific restaurants south of the Cuale River.
I'd never seen Mike so happy.
__________________________________________________ __________________
THE GAY BEACH AT PLAYA LOS MUERTOS. (LOOK FAMILIAR?)
http://www.photodump.com/direct/sawatdee/pvbeach4500.jpg
__________________________________________________ __________________
We made a number of friends at the hotel there, kept in contact, and decided to all return the next year ... which we did.
And then, in May of 1999, Mike slipped away from me (after 10 grand, frenetic and joyful years ... he was the frenetic one, I the stabilizing dullard) in a hospital ICU ward with a tube down his throat, unable to say a word, his lungs completely disintegrated.
It was impossible for me to stay in the room while they removed that ghastly tube, but I walked back in after the deed had been done to see him take his last heaving breath. I gently hated myself for a long time after for not having the courage to stay.
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, November 1999
We all got back together in Puerto Vallarta later that year, a kind of reunion and wake for Mike (they loved him so).
But with all good intent of having a great time ~ me, alone for the first time in many a moon ~ I could not.
I saw and felt him everywhere.
He was sitting beside me in restaurants re-visited. He was walking beside me in the sands of Playa Los Muertos. He was dancing at Pacos and charming the socks off Mama Delores at our favourite breakfast place. I talked to him quietly ~ my mouth moving, it must have looked very strange ~ when I was drunk at rooftop bars watching the sun go down over the Pacific. He was sitting on a bar stool beside me watching me play pool with the boys (I played, he always just watched, even at home ... how many hundreds of times?).
That holiday was a gut shot ~ an aching wound in the pit of my stomach and my heart. I missed him irretrievably.
Patong Beach, November 2000
So I would never go to Puerto Vallarta again (I resolved then. These last few years I have gone back twice. Such is the truth in the old cliche that "time cures all").
Thailand seemed a possibility ~ it was so far away ~ and I started looking into spending a holiday there in 2000. I had never given it much thought frankly, even though I certainly was attracted to Asian men (Mike was in fact a native American Indian, but when we first met I thought he was ~ possibly ~ Filipino), but my reading around it eventually produced a ticket to Phuket, and off I flew into the darkening sky on United 875.
I had all good intentions of being the Quintessential Butterfly. I had read all about the gay scene in Patong ... I knew the streets off by heart ... I booked a hotel in the middle of Gay Central. I was "ready" ... certainly willing ... hornily able.
But as a Butterfly I was a complete bust.
The Gogo "thing" left me cold in their meat-grinder, sex-by-number, salivatin'-farang atmosphere and ambiance. I didn't care for tattoos & the mamasans put me off.
Paying for sex was grating on the heart for me (and in fact the best time I had in those 3 weeks was a pick up job at the hotel bar. No money involved that day or night ... the sex was about an eight-point-five on the Richter, and the whole thing ended when we woke up the next morning and he was putting on his clothes to ... go to school!!. I walked downstairs with him and waited with him for his bus, but when he had disappeared down the road I looked around furtively, half expecting that the Thai Police were about to pounce).
Lady boy shows were as mediocre, boring and 3-minute-wonder affairs as any at home. I offed a couple of handsome Thai guys, had a good time, couldn't remember them the next day. They were decent guys, doing a good job ... they pronounced me "polite" ... one hunted me down numerous times ~ I was easy to find ~ and one afternoon he screamed out the balcony window to the street below that " ... this my new boyfriend ... ". I sat back on the bed, bemused, shook my head and thought, " ... I don't think so honey ... "
I had a reasonably good time. I met a good friend on the beach ~ a Canadian from Toronto (who now lives in Phuket with his boyfriend) and we keep in touch regularly. I also met many farangs whom I would never want to meet again. The beach was very nice.
And so, at the end of any Thailand holiday, one invariably ends up back in Bangkok. All flights arrived and left at Don Muang and one traveled back there as the rite of passage . . . either straight there, or, often as not, "stopping over" and taking the chance for a last fling at hedonism before flying away into that dark blue sky. I chose the stop over because I'd never been there before.
And so, at the end of my Thailand holiday (on the last night in fact) I had come down to the last few hours in Thailand and as the taxi drove me back to my hotel for the last time I was thinking that perhaps I'd come again, perhaps I wouldn't. The catharsis was fairly complete: I knew ~ there in that taxi barreling through the back Sois of Bangkok ~ that now I could probably go back to Mexico to enjoy reunions with my friends there without the angst of a ghost sitting beside me.
And so, the taxi pulled up to the hotel and I paid my fare and hopped out, and walked through the gates of the small hotel and came face to face with my friend Mr. Serendipity one more time.
I walked up the pathway to where it divided into a 'Y' shape ... one path going left into the hotel lobby/bar, the other leading around behind the main building and the rooms. It was getting late (I had to be at Don Muang around 6AM) and my first thoughts as I left the taxi were "get to bed".
But being the last night in the Big Mango it seemed appropriate to have a last drink in the bar to linger over and contemplate the trip in peace. So I took the left pathway and sashayed into the bar ... and found myself an hour later still in great conversation with a handsome Thai bartender.
And so, once he closed the bar, things happened vaguely in this order: an offer of a massage ... a quizzical look ... an acceptance of offer ... a night in the sack to remember ... a helping hand getting my bags stuffed in early morning ... email addresses exchanged ... a hug goodbye ... a long flight thinking of HIM ... (as Butch Cassidy said to the Sundance Kid, " ... who WAS that guy ... ?")
And we're still together 7 years later, with my happy retirement approaching next November (lots of Novembers in this story), and him getting ready to leave the Isaan country life and shack up with me (his Beloved, it turns out) in Hua Hin for our Next Adventure.
__________________________________________________ ____________________
THE HANDSOME (NOW 'OLD') BARTENDER
http://www.photodump.com/direct/sawatdee/villagelife3.1.jpg
__________________________________________________ ____________________
A corollary of the Law of Serendipity says: "great tragedy often leads to new worlds". So I often think gently of Mike (the 'old' Beloved), when I think of the 'new' Beloved: it makes me love 'em both.
Cheers ...