New arrivals to Pattaya.

Thailand, Pattaya,
27-01-2010.

I wonder what it must feel like to be a first timer to this s*x heavy city having come off the airport bus or by private taxi seeing this kaleidoscope of human activity, looking for an escape to the damp heat that will overwhelm you the moment you leave the air-conditioned capsule of your private taxi, your T-shirt getting soaked around your big Tumpui, heavy patches of perperation soaking the fabric under your armpits...

Feeling a bit like swimming around inside a tropical aqarium that is in a desperate need of a change, small Akha hilltribe women in tribal headdress trying to grab your Farang arm still pinkinsh and untouched by the oppressive heat, peddling bangles and trashy beads, smelly Burmese sigars.

Doped up Tuk Tuk drivers trying to pick your attention with offers of young boys and even youger women, maybe a fake rolex on the boulevard, a masage from a lady of the night too old these days to offer them her worn-out body, young vixen girls from the Northern provinces calling to them from the numerous girly bars.

I see them every day parading up and down the boulevard, hair plastered to their foreheads while marching up and down, overwelmed by the open and s*x laden air, an easy victim for an experienced Hot Momma or maybe a rip-off artist, sweaty like they have just had a dip in their hotel's swimming pool...yeah it is all being pushed up their Farang nostril cavities like the strong spicy smell of the Thai wok used by the food vendors.

I still sleep alone in my New Star room, the sleep of the innocent though Miss-Me-Feel-Off-Motorbike-While-Mau would love to have back "her" place on the matrass as she told me the other night - now, that might have been okay with me last year when she had her arm in an impressive plastercast after her motorbike accident and therfore unable to secure herself a Farang boyfriend but me, Mister Big Samaritan, prefer to stay alone, alone with my sketchbook and my treasured memories of the past...

Not that that might last very long, not with Nong coming over anytime soon as she informed me gaily when I had her on the phone a few days ago.

And then there is this charming lady in her late thrities who always looks for my company and maybe a free Leo at night on the boulevard while trying to fix her ladyfriends with Farang customers using near pefect english and even a few words of Deutsch, a clear sign to me she is not exactly new to the Game.