On’s Birthday

Happy Birthday Jamie! I hope you had a fun one, and I hope the hangover fades quickly.

Last night we all headed over to Hiro’s bar (The Flying Dolphins). Paew and I got there a bit late….overslept on the siesta. When we got there the bar was full of people….On’s family, her friends and all of us. Harvey had arranged for dinner, so there was a pig roasting, and chicken…fried rice lots of fruit, and coke and whiskey. As usual the crowd was about 80% girls. Not only that the girls were unusually festive. I was having a great time as was everyone else. Even Hiro was happy, because his bar was jumping on a Sunday night. After a while more and more people showed up….not friends, just people who saw a fun bar full of people, so they came in and joined us. I was sitting at a table with Paew, and a bunch of other girls, and they introduced me to one of the girls dates. He was a really nice Thai guy wearing a uniform. I thought he was a security guard. It was quite a while later that I noticed the gun he had, then I realized he was police (only the police and military can have guns in Thailand). Not only is he a cop, but he’s a sergeant in the Pattaya police department. I didn’t know this til long after we had become drinking buddies. I had ordered a bottle of tequila, and we had been knockin em back for a while by then. After a while Tiep (my cop buddy) asked me for my number, and gave me his number. He told me if I have any trouble in Pattaya just give him a call. It’s nice being connected to the local police…not that I get into any trouble, but just in case.

The same thing happened to me up in Si Thep. I was playing snooker with some of the guys from Paew’s neighborhood, and on the next table a bunch of Thai guys were playing. They kept coming over and asking where I was from and rubbing my belly(good luck?). When I left that night they waved me over, and wanted me to drink some of there Thai whiskey. I told them in sign language that I was driving, but that didn’t matter to them and they handed me a glass. I took a drink, but that wasn’t enough, and they pushed the glass back towards me. I drank again, but that still wasn’t enough, so I took a big ole slug of it and they all cheered and gave me hugs. It wasn’t til I left that I found out that I had been drinkin with the Si Thep police department. I guess that’s why they weren’t taking my “I’m driving” excuse seriously. The only people who were gonna catch me were the ones I was drinking with. In any case I had only had one beer before that, and I really didn’t feel any effect from drinking the whiskey, but “I’m driving” is my usual excuse for not drinking it. It doesn’t seem to work on cops.

Back to On’s party…..After we had cake (which was really good, I found a French baker who made it for us a few hours before the party) we all went out to go dancing. We tried to get into Xcite the biggest disco in town, but On’s sister Ann is only nineteen, so she couldn’t get in. I was amazed that they turned us away, because there was nearly twenty of us, I would have thought they would have wanted our money. Even Tiep couldn’t get us in with his police clout. So…we all went to Hollywood disco. That’s the place we went on my birthday. Once again we had a great time. Harvey was dancing with the girls, and they pushed him into the biggest ugliest, and most flamboyant lady boy I have ever seen. Instantly this guy was all over our table. Harvey hid behind On, but Sage didn’t really have anywhere to hide, so he ended up being the one to run the guy off. Luckily I was on the opposite side of the table, so for me it was just funny as hell. Needless to say we all had a great time.