Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
28-02-2010.
My walks around bustling phnom Pehn have by now become down-trotted pathways imprinted on the grid system street lay-out of greater Phnom Penh, stopping every so often at one of these numerous French colonial coffee houses, a plain old restaurant for my midday meal and more coffee, walking under a burning hot sun, well into its forties these last few days, my sketchbook and glasses inside an old 7/Eleven plastic bag still originating from my latest stint in Thailand and dangling from my wrist...
I have a sit-in at Phnom Wat to read my book, drink cherry flavoured ice tea, watch the monkey troop that seems to trive here at this little mount on which the Wat is built, apperently housing several Buddha images found a few hundert years ago by an old woman called Penh - Phnom Penh, get it? - a few young passing ladies eye me curiously soon returning and wanting to know if I like Yam-Yam, massage or maybe B*om-B*om, a few pictures later and a quick sketch I send them on their way, looking for another fat-wallet Farang or whatever they call us here...
The gasoline station across the road always a great stop for a quick noodle soup - I am not all that much impressed with local Cambodian food - reminding me of the great noodle soup they do back in Thailand...
Thailand where I will soon be again, my room in Pattaya where I often wake up to the smell of acrylic paint, the sounds of Hot Mommas waking up, maybe Miss Jiff doing her laundry in my bathroom using my shapoo, where i actually feel like I am under the influence of Lord Buddha's benign ways when I drink my early morning coffee on the boulevard, picking my models for the afternoon's painting sessions...
Yeah, painting always feel like going back to my soul, especially so in Pattaya where I have history aplenty and where I am always surrounded by the most beautiful women, posing for me in my room, joking and gossiping with their friends...
Maybe I should get a bit more proffessional about these art projects, instead of leaving all my stuff behind - or most of it anyway - take it home, expose it, live Pattaya long time and always be surrounded by stunningly beautiful women - who could blame me???
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Magic Sponge Bar
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
26-02-2010.
The Magic Sponge bar is to be seriously considered when one wants to enjoy the more ancient way of life like smoking soft Cambodian grass which according to Andy the colorful bar man, goes back many hunderds of years in this Asian country with the locals not just smoking this dark green vegetable but also using it for cooking purposes...interesting way to get the whole family stoned out of their communal heads I suppose...
Half drunk and feeling pretty lightheaded I watch the show taking shape with young kids hung with plastic baskets full with copy printed Lonely Planet travel guides, read about how it is as a Farang inmate in Bangkwang or Yard Lao prison in Thailand, smoking poppies while searching for your daughter among the hilltribes of Northern Thailand, and of course a whole selection of books about the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge regime...Buy a book and support child labour or maybe the bootleg culture of Southeast Asia...
A few chicken wander in despite the late hour probably hoping for a few stray grains of white rice. nobody paying them much heed nor the fish heads in front of the entrance lying in their own sticky blood, most likely left behind by the fish vendor who passed by earlier with all of his mercandise loaded on an old crappy bicycle....
The same two local ladies entering as last night. I don't need to turn my head to recognise them, the cloud of heavy parfum going up my nostrils is enough to guess the identity of the owners. They are probably hunting for customers but have come to the wrong establishment...
According to Andy who can roll a joint in under two minutes, he has got to pay three different charges to the local constabulary to stay in business. Not that they make much of a secret about it arriving on motorbike taxi to demand their weekly payments/Baksheesh as the Indians call it - makes me wonder if all the these hustlers outside in the street pay baksheesh too, they are definitely just as open about their business not caring much about coppers walkking by while they try to sell me their underaged sisters or maybe just plain old cocaine, heroine or a little boy, their younger brothers?
Anyway, I got my Thai visa yesterday so I guess, my time in Phnom Penh is slowly coming to an end...
26-02-2010.
The Magic Sponge bar is to be seriously considered when one wants to enjoy the more ancient way of life like smoking soft Cambodian grass which according to Andy the colorful bar man, goes back many hunderds of years in this Asian country with the locals not just smoking this dark green vegetable but also using it for cooking purposes...interesting way to get the whole family stoned out of their communal heads I suppose...
Half drunk and feeling pretty lightheaded I watch the show taking shape with young kids hung with plastic baskets full with copy printed Lonely Planet travel guides, read about how it is as a Farang inmate in Bangkwang or Yard Lao prison in Thailand, smoking poppies while searching for your daughter among the hilltribes of Northern Thailand, and of course a whole selection of books about the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge regime...Buy a book and support child labour or maybe the bootleg culture of Southeast Asia...
A few chicken wander in despite the late hour probably hoping for a few stray grains of white rice. nobody paying them much heed nor the fish heads in front of the entrance lying in their own sticky blood, most likely left behind by the fish vendor who passed by earlier with all of his mercandise loaded on an old crappy bicycle....
The same two local ladies entering as last night. I don't need to turn my head to recognise them, the cloud of heavy parfum going up my nostrils is enough to guess the identity of the owners. They are probably hunting for customers but have come to the wrong establishment...
According to Andy who can roll a joint in under two minutes, he has got to pay three different charges to the local constabulary to stay in business. Not that they make much of a secret about it arriving on motorbike taxi to demand their weekly payments/Baksheesh as the Indians call it - makes me wonder if all the these hustlers outside in the street pay baksheesh too, they are definitely just as open about their business not caring much about coppers walkking by while they try to sell me their underaged sisters or maybe just plain old cocaine, heroine or a little boy, their younger brothers?
Anyway, I got my Thai visa yesterday so I guess, my time in Phnom Penh is slowly coming to an end...
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Cambodian grass
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
24-02-2010.
My room at the Green Lake guest house was a small cell-like place, claustrophobic and damp, hot at night while trying to fall asleep, with a dirty tiny bathroom where I could barely turn my bare *ss. Barking dogs snapping at my heels when returning home and local prostitutes in the restaurant, dope-pushing staff more interested selling soft Cambodian grass then correctly adding my beer consumption to my bill, a dank alley so typically Asian with open living-rooms from which emerge the sounds of family life, TV and children...
Instead I moved down the road where the hustlers are absent, not offering me all the vices of life whether it be boy or girl of questionable age, cocaine or heroine, local grass or Thai Yaa-Baa, speed and amphetamine should be seriously considered, a 18 year old lady of the night that looks like she just left her puberty or maybe is still in full bodily development...my new hotel is just a mere hunderd meters down the dusty and busy road but is a mayor improvement despite the neighbors marital disputes last night, but then I was well under the influence of the aforementioned Cambodian soft grass...so their arguements were more of a laugh than a hassle....
delivering me mental freedom from the turmoils my gray brain mass was going through, green leaves reinforcing the notion of Miss Ohn's messy death, reminding me fully of Miss Moo's present on-coming demise, in my mind's eye she is still lying there on that stupid foldable beach chair, the lustre gone from her once lively eyes, waiting for the inevitable....
This grass feel a bit like Nong is doing her little Karen magic on my stupid Farang mind again, her local superstitious parlor tricks, somehow always reminding me that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from simple rural magic that often goes back thousands of years
24-02-2010.
My room at the Green Lake guest house was a small cell-like place, claustrophobic and damp, hot at night while trying to fall asleep, with a dirty tiny bathroom where I could barely turn my bare *ss. Barking dogs snapping at my heels when returning home and local prostitutes in the restaurant, dope-pushing staff more interested selling soft Cambodian grass then correctly adding my beer consumption to my bill, a dank alley so typically Asian with open living-rooms from which emerge the sounds of family life, TV and children...
Instead I moved down the road where the hustlers are absent, not offering me all the vices of life whether it be boy or girl of questionable age, cocaine or heroine, local grass or Thai Yaa-Baa, speed and amphetamine should be seriously considered, a 18 year old lady of the night that looks like she just left her puberty or maybe is still in full bodily development...my new hotel is just a mere hunderd meters down the dusty and busy road but is a mayor improvement despite the neighbors marital disputes last night, but then I was well under the influence of the aforementioned Cambodian soft grass...so their arguements were more of a laugh than a hassle....
delivering me mental freedom from the turmoils my gray brain mass was going through, green leaves reinforcing the notion of Miss Ohn's messy death, reminding me fully of Miss Moo's present on-coming demise, in my mind's eye she is still lying there on that stupid foldable beach chair, the lustre gone from her once lively eyes, waiting for the inevitable....
This grass feel a bit like Nong is doing her little Karen magic on my stupid Farang mind again, her local superstitious parlor tricks, somehow always reminding me that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from simple rural magic that often goes back thousands of years
An African man in Phnom Pehn
Cambodia, Phnom Pehn, Boeng Kak Lake area,
23-02-2010.
The mosque at the end of the Boeng Kak Lake Area was already under renovation three years ago, today I saw some local construction workers knock down a wall...I don`t believe much more of this so-called renovation work has been done since my first stay.
Still this pinkish-colored mosque does make a nice addition to my sketchbook - under renovation or not....
"hey mon, that is really great what you are doing there", being transported back from the drawing world into the present reality of Phnom Pehn, I look up into a friendly African face, sharply dressed and flawless English though with a strong Western African accent...his whole bearing and behaviour, his friendly voice and smiling eyes, in fact all about this bloke brings me back to the nineties in Bangkok when sharply but trying hard to look casual dressed Africans swarmed all over the Bangkok tourist district...I remember often seeing them back in pictures in the bankok Post on page two, handcuffed with their heads bowed down and in front of a table loaded with platic bags containing 20 to 40 years imprisonment in Bangkok's finest hotel...
I decide to go on the offensive rather that on the defense showing this friendly chap the paintings I made of African women in my house in Amsterdam - nothing like modern technology coming out of a digital camara - asking him about his roots and what he is doing in Phnom Pehn, "are you some sort of investor, looking for business opportunities, my friend"....
I tell him about all my Africans friends back in Thailand's capital, staying in first class accomodation courtesy of King Bhumipol's Asian realm, not about to leave that Asian nation anytime soon due to typical Thai hospitality...
My new friend doesn't take well to my obvious sarcasm telling me these are all stupid Ghanese people, "me from Nigeria, is not the same" before leaving me to my sketchbook...too bad because I would have really liked to have an African face in my sketchbook!!!
23-02-2010.
The mosque at the end of the Boeng Kak Lake Area was already under renovation three years ago, today I saw some local construction workers knock down a wall...I don`t believe much more of this so-called renovation work has been done since my first stay.
Still this pinkish-colored mosque does make a nice addition to my sketchbook - under renovation or not....
"hey mon, that is really great what you are doing there", being transported back from the drawing world into the present reality of Phnom Pehn, I look up into a friendly African face, sharply dressed and flawless English though with a strong Western African accent...his whole bearing and behaviour, his friendly voice and smiling eyes, in fact all about this bloke brings me back to the nineties in Bangkok when sharply but trying hard to look casual dressed Africans swarmed all over the Bangkok tourist district...I remember often seeing them back in pictures in the bankok Post on page two, handcuffed with their heads bowed down and in front of a table loaded with platic bags containing 20 to 40 years imprisonment in Bangkok's finest hotel...
I decide to go on the offensive rather that on the defense showing this friendly chap the paintings I made of African women in my house in Amsterdam - nothing like modern technology coming out of a digital camara - asking him about his roots and what he is doing in Phnom Pehn, "are you some sort of investor, looking for business opportunities, my friend"....
I tell him about all my Africans friends back in Thailand's capital, staying in first class accomodation courtesy of King Bhumipol's Asian realm, not about to leave that Asian nation anytime soon due to typical Thai hospitality...
My new friend doesn't take well to my obvious sarcasm telling me these are all stupid Ghanese people, "me from Nigeria, is not the same" before leaving me to my sketchbook...too bad because I would have really liked to have an African face in my sketchbook!!!
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuol Sleng Torture Museum
Cambodia, Pnhom Pehn, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
22-02-2010.
The reign of man's inhumanity against man is unbearable. A small but moving bit of graffity on one of the walls of the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum in Pnhom Pehn...
Walking through the crowded streets and multible alleys of this vibrant city full with human activity it is difficult to imagine that the Pol Pot regime pretty much emptied this three million inhabitants town, marching the population of to the country site, to a certain death by disease, starvation and 12 to 15 hours of hard labour under a glaring hot sun, bad nutrition and no medication, sh*t not even a tooth brush or a bar of soap was allowed for the infortunates...
Coffee houses with a strong French colonial feel to it bring my tested emotions some relieve after my first visit to Tuol Sleng and its strong tangible horrors of the past, faded photographs showing thge stunned visitors the madness of a insane regime, once again convincing me that the Beast within the human race is easily enough released but not so easily restrained...
Chinese flop houses give the city a feeling of what it must have been during French colonisation, no high rise buildings like Bangkok where the sky train runs on top of a three storey highways full with congested motorised traffic, instead I walk through a maze of small alleys bordered by four floor high Chinese flop houses so common in Yaowarat in Krung Thep, or the Chinese districts of Singapore or Penang where the usual mode of transport is the inevitable motorbike, where every house has its own little Chinese temple, incense burning and a bowl of food offerings to please to spirits of the ancestors - one never knows what a displeased spirit might be up to after all, reminding me of my own little Thai Phra Phum temple back in my house in Amsterdam...
Countless visits to these Asian superstitutious countries, long and difficult conversations with the locals and numerous unexplained spiritul happenings in my own Farang life have convinced me not to take the concept of Asian spirituality too lightly...though one has to open up once mind before it can take root, especially so when the mind is western trained, educated to ridecule anything else but the Cristian/Protestant faith as heathen and therefore bad...
Well, the spirits calling out for revenge at the Tuol Sleng Museum were real enough...in my mind anyway!!!
22-02-2010.
The reign of man's inhumanity against man is unbearable. A small but moving bit of graffity on one of the walls of the Tuol Sleng Torture Museum in Pnhom Pehn...
Walking through the crowded streets and multible alleys of this vibrant city full with human activity it is difficult to imagine that the Pol Pot regime pretty much emptied this three million inhabitants town, marching the population of to the country site, to a certain death by disease, starvation and 12 to 15 hours of hard labour under a glaring hot sun, bad nutrition and no medication, sh*t not even a tooth brush or a bar of soap was allowed for the infortunates...
Coffee houses with a strong French colonial feel to it bring my tested emotions some relieve after my first visit to Tuol Sleng and its strong tangible horrors of the past, faded photographs showing thge stunned visitors the madness of a insane regime, once again convincing me that the Beast within the human race is easily enough released but not so easily restrained...
Chinese flop houses give the city a feeling of what it must have been during French colonisation, no high rise buildings like Bangkok where the sky train runs on top of a three storey highways full with congested motorised traffic, instead I walk through a maze of small alleys bordered by four floor high Chinese flop houses so common in Yaowarat in Krung Thep, or the Chinese districts of Singapore or Penang where the usual mode of transport is the inevitable motorbike, where every house has its own little Chinese temple, incense burning and a bowl of food offerings to please to spirits of the ancestors - one never knows what a displeased spirit might be up to after all, reminding me of my own little Thai Phra Phum temple back in my house in Amsterdam...
Countless visits to these Asian superstitutious countries, long and difficult conversations with the locals and numerous unexplained spiritul happenings in my own Farang life have convinced me not to take the concept of Asian spirituality too lightly...though one has to open up once mind before it can take root, especially so when the mind is western trained, educated to ridecule anything else but the Cristian/Protestant faith as heathen and therefore bad...
Well, the spirits calling out for revenge at the Tuol Sleng Museum were real enough...in my mind anyway!!!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Back in Phnom Penh
Cambodia, Phnom Penh, Boeng Kak Lake Area,
20-02-2010.
A vibrant and chaotic city full with life, street vendors and multrible markets where apperently everything you could think of is for sale and probably even a bit more, countless Remorks and motortaxis hassling me at every street corner while i walk the short distance to the Boeng Kak Lake Area which is the main budget guesthouse centre in Phnom Penh...
Three years ago I arrived on the back of a motortaxi whose driver was so determined to get me into the guesthouse of his choise he drove me all the way up the wooden boardwalk to the reception making sure he would get his commission - needless to say I decided to walk this time already knowing the area after all..
I also remember I got dragged away from Phnom Penh by a lovesick Polish woman just two days after arrival having planned to stay at least a full week, a week full of walking , visiting the numerous museums, the oh-so-typical Asian lively markets and just wandering around its busy and dusty streets full with people on a mad search as usual for subjects for my sketchbooks and photographic opportunities - instead I ended up in the sharp long-nialed claws of that Polish nympomaniac who dragged me off to Anchor Wat and then straight on to Kho Samet, making sure her last two weeks of her yearly three week holiday were full with tropical sun on a light-brown colored sandy beach with enough male attention to fullfill her physical needs....
Well, it takes two to dance the tango, so lets not be too vindictive and concentrate on this "new" city in my life, prepare myself emotionally for tomorrow's visit to Number One Sh*thole's extermination and torture school for the fanatic students of his crazy reign the Toul Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields just outside the city and more of this gruesome sh*t that I have no doubt will be an attack on all my Western trained senses, will doubtlessly turn my tear ducts into disarray...
20-02-2010.
A vibrant and chaotic city full with life, street vendors and multrible markets where apperently everything you could think of is for sale and probably even a bit more, countless Remorks and motortaxis hassling me at every street corner while i walk the short distance to the Boeng Kak Lake Area which is the main budget guesthouse centre in Phnom Penh...
Three years ago I arrived on the back of a motortaxi whose driver was so determined to get me into the guesthouse of his choise he drove me all the way up the wooden boardwalk to the reception making sure he would get his commission - needless to say I decided to walk this time already knowing the area after all..
I also remember I got dragged away from Phnom Penh by a lovesick Polish woman just two days after arrival having planned to stay at least a full week, a week full of walking , visiting the numerous museums, the oh-so-typical Asian lively markets and just wandering around its busy and dusty streets full with people on a mad search as usual for subjects for my sketchbooks and photographic opportunities - instead I ended up in the sharp long-nialed claws of that Polish nympomaniac who dragged me off to Anchor Wat and then straight on to Kho Samet, making sure her last two weeks of her yearly three week holiday were full with tropical sun on a light-brown colored sandy beach with enough male attention to fullfill her physical needs....
Well, it takes two to dance the tango, so lets not be too vindictive and concentrate on this "new" city in my life, prepare myself emotionally for tomorrow's visit to Number One Sh*thole's extermination and torture school for the fanatic students of his crazy reign the Toul Sleng Museum, the Killing Fields just outside the city and more of this gruesome sh*t that I have no doubt will be an attack on all my Western trained senses, will doubtlessly turn my tear ducts into disarray...
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Chickenfarm street in sihanoukville
Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Victory hill,
19-02-2010.
Chickenfarm Street is a collection of ill-lit wooden sheds built on stilts over putrid water just beyond the harbour where a huge colony of local trucks is parked waiting sometimes for days to load or umload supplies. Considering the main business of Chickenfarm Street - cheap s*x - the location must be perfect, young sluttily dressed local ladies sitting on worn plastic chairs waiting for customers who arrive mostly on the inevitable motorbikes, filled up with enough booze to bolster their courage but too much of that not-so-elusive stuff for certain bodily parts to be still in working order...
A small army of Farang tourists have also discovered this dusty street where white-colored cows are beiing chased away from stealing bananas from the spirit houses and a fat swine accompanied by five or six piglets is on the way to their nocturnal roosting place, a muscular German storming from shed to shed carelessly fluttering a five dollar note in his hand, I presume his need must be great...
A thin Dutch lady whose blond hair is streaked with multible strands of grey betraying her advanced age, is my company for the night having picked her up in the bar of my hotel - or did she pick me up looking for male Farang company in such a "dangerous" tourist attraction...
I happen to know from three years ago that most of the action starts late at night with UN personal from Pnom Phen coming over in huge cars with personal driver - so much for the tax-payer's foreign aid being wasted here on such luxuries as cheap s*x and private local choffers -
I also happen to know that their female counterparts usually arrive during the day trying to talk some sence into these early Western p*nters, - but not the local ones - giving them a lecture about the morality and ethics of sleeping with young local prostit*tes who have very little choice in the matter considering the destitute poor background of their rural families - I wonder what they would think seeing male UN employees here late at night drinking cold cans of Anchor while trying hard to bring the price down from the habitual five bucks a shorttime to the local price of two dollar fifty, something probably not talked about in their UN headquarters back in Phnom PHen...misguided female martyrs on a serious mission while being duped by their male colleages...
But who am I to question their motives???
19-02-2010.
Chickenfarm Street is a collection of ill-lit wooden sheds built on stilts over putrid water just beyond the harbour where a huge colony of local trucks is parked waiting sometimes for days to load or umload supplies. Considering the main business of Chickenfarm Street - cheap s*x - the location must be perfect, young sluttily dressed local ladies sitting on worn plastic chairs waiting for customers who arrive mostly on the inevitable motorbikes, filled up with enough booze to bolster their courage but too much of that not-so-elusive stuff for certain bodily parts to be still in working order...
A small army of Farang tourists have also discovered this dusty street where white-colored cows are beiing chased away from stealing bananas from the spirit houses and a fat swine accompanied by five or six piglets is on the way to their nocturnal roosting place, a muscular German storming from shed to shed carelessly fluttering a five dollar note in his hand, I presume his need must be great...
A thin Dutch lady whose blond hair is streaked with multible strands of grey betraying her advanced age, is my company for the night having picked her up in the bar of my hotel - or did she pick me up looking for male Farang company in such a "dangerous" tourist attraction...
I happen to know from three years ago that most of the action starts late at night with UN personal from Pnom Phen coming over in huge cars with personal driver - so much for the tax-payer's foreign aid being wasted here on such luxuries as cheap s*x and private local choffers -
I also happen to know that their female counterparts usually arrive during the day trying to talk some sence into these early Western p*nters, - but not the local ones - giving them a lecture about the morality and ethics of sleeping with young local prostit*tes who have very little choice in the matter considering the destitute poor background of their rural families - I wonder what they would think seeing male UN employees here late at night drinking cold cans of Anchor while trying hard to bring the price down from the habitual five bucks a shorttime to the local price of two dollar fifty, something probably not talked about in their UN headquarters back in Phnom PHen...misguided female martyrs on a serious mission while being duped by their male colleages...
But who am I to question their motives???
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
The street children of Sihanoukville
Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Victory Hill,
17-02-2010.
Though there has been plenty of violence in my life, whether it be mental or physical, it can surely not be compared to what has happened to the Cambodian populace...they of all people should know how true and sure violence will infect ordinary men - and women, even chidren - with irrationality, how the resulting hatred and digust for what were once friends and neighbors who have turned executioners or victims and after the years of madness had to learn to live together again, but extinguished all hope for a normal life again....but then I guess there is no rationality in vengeance!!!
I see that too in the eyes of Sihanoukville's countless street children, another one of my artistic projects, walking downtown every morning in a mad search for photo opportunities and portrait possibilities, always looking for the lower casts of society which should be pas de problem in a city like Sihanoukville where homeless ragged small kids, dirty and unkempt, bare footed and dirt smeared, are my favorite subjects, a tatty 500 Riel and a free caricature or portariat done with my crayons will fill the eyes of poorest and most destitute with childish happiness, normally so absent in their young lives...
I try my poor French and syplified English on them while immortalising them on cheap stationary - they only drawing paper I could get in this primitive country - trying to find out about their way of survival, dragging huge jute bags with them that they fill up with empty water bottles, dripping cans of Anchor beer and assorted rejects for deposit purposes, a few tatty notes so necessary for their daily excistence...
Big dark brown eyes that betray the frequent use of glue as I have seen in the eyes of street children in Nairobi, Mombassa, the slums of Bangkok, symplified stories betraying the lust of overs*xed Western childmolesters, police brutality and more often than not going to bed on an empty child's belly, in ruined houses or on a forsaken part of the beach, their treasured bags with garbage closely guarded...
Walking back to Victory Hill early afternoon, my Farang head full with stories of destitute and human depravity, getting hassled a zillion times "motorbike mister" "you like smoke" "maybe lady, sir "???? stopping at the Mojo Bar for a necessary first beer of the day, wondering about my own luck having been born into a more "civilised society" but still not understanding it.....
17-02-2010.
Though there has been plenty of violence in my life, whether it be mental or physical, it can surely not be compared to what has happened to the Cambodian populace...they of all people should know how true and sure violence will infect ordinary men - and women, even chidren - with irrationality, how the resulting hatred and digust for what were once friends and neighbors who have turned executioners or victims and after the years of madness had to learn to live together again, but extinguished all hope for a normal life again....but then I guess there is no rationality in vengeance!!!
I see that too in the eyes of Sihanoukville's countless street children, another one of my artistic projects, walking downtown every morning in a mad search for photo opportunities and portrait possibilities, always looking for the lower casts of society which should be pas de problem in a city like Sihanoukville where homeless ragged small kids, dirty and unkempt, bare footed and dirt smeared, are my favorite subjects, a tatty 500 Riel and a free caricature or portariat done with my crayons will fill the eyes of poorest and most destitute with childish happiness, normally so absent in their young lives...
I try my poor French and syplified English on them while immortalising them on cheap stationary - they only drawing paper I could get in this primitive country - trying to find out about their way of survival, dragging huge jute bags with them that they fill up with empty water bottles, dripping cans of Anchor beer and assorted rejects for deposit purposes, a few tatty notes so necessary for their daily excistence...
Big dark brown eyes that betray the frequent use of glue as I have seen in the eyes of street children in Nairobi, Mombassa, the slums of Bangkok, symplified stories betraying the lust of overs*xed Western childmolesters, police brutality and more often than not going to bed on an empty child's belly, in ruined houses or on a forsaken part of the beach, their treasured bags with garbage closely guarded...
Walking back to Victory Hill early afternoon, my Farang head full with stories of destitute and human depravity, getting hassled a zillion times "motorbike mister" "you like smoke" "maybe lady, sir "???? stopping at the Mojo Bar for a necessary first beer of the day, wondering about my own luck having been born into a more "civilised society" but still not understanding it.....
Monday, February 15, 2010
A birthday party at the Mojo Bar
Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Victory Hill,
15-02-2010.
Mouritz's birthday party at the Mojo Bar is quite a happy scene with the mostly French clientele getting pas de sober on the ever-present Anchor beer, courtesy of Mister Birthday Pig himself...
Though my French is poor and therefore not very popular among these Frenchies on foreigner soil, my sketchbook full with caricatures of the Mojo bar clientele done over the past few days, is going from hand to hand, content caricature models pushing free beers and the occasional spliff of Cambodian weed into my willing hands...
Being effected by the gay admosphere I still can't help but remember my past few weeks in pattaya where poor Moo in my mind's eye is lying stretched out on a beach chair, no more happy young woman there chasing Farang s*x tourists for a five hundert Baht shorttime, no more knocking on my door at 02.00 h. looking for a place to crash, a few bottles of big Leo in a plastic 7/Eleven bag to while away a few tranquil hours on the bed, Thai love songs on my telly and telling me her experiences of the night, poor Moo who was always ready for a good fight, always on the look-out for a potential fat-wallet customer, her high-pitched laugh something of the past but always remembered inside my Frang skull...
Getting slowly but mellowly depressive I decide to return to my room while everybody else is off to the beach, the sounds of birthday fireworks ringing in my ears while I am overcome with remorse, motorbike taxistas hoping to sell me mellow grass or maybe a ride to chickenfarm street, sexily dressed bar girls working hard on the Farang Pattaya expat club on a visa run here on Victory Hill, all and everybody happy while I sit alone in my room drinking a last can of Anchor and thinking about a lady of the night who was once full with life and is now pining away waiting for the inevitable end caused by the ravages of the HIV virus...
15-02-2010.
Mouritz's birthday party at the Mojo Bar is quite a happy scene with the mostly French clientele getting pas de sober on the ever-present Anchor beer, courtesy of Mister Birthday Pig himself...
Though my French is poor and therefore not very popular among these Frenchies on foreigner soil, my sketchbook full with caricatures of the Mojo bar clientele done over the past few days, is going from hand to hand, content caricature models pushing free beers and the occasional spliff of Cambodian weed into my willing hands...
Being effected by the gay admosphere I still can't help but remember my past few weeks in pattaya where poor Moo in my mind's eye is lying stretched out on a beach chair, no more happy young woman there chasing Farang s*x tourists for a five hundert Baht shorttime, no more knocking on my door at 02.00 h. looking for a place to crash, a few bottles of big Leo in a plastic 7/Eleven bag to while away a few tranquil hours on the bed, Thai love songs on my telly and telling me her experiences of the night, poor Moo who was always ready for a good fight, always on the look-out for a potential fat-wallet customer, her high-pitched laugh something of the past but always remembered inside my Frang skull...
Getting slowly but mellowly depressive I decide to return to my room while everybody else is off to the beach, the sounds of birthday fireworks ringing in my ears while I am overcome with remorse, motorbike taxistas hoping to sell me mellow grass or maybe a ride to chickenfarm street, sexily dressed bar girls working hard on the Farang Pattaya expat club on a visa run here on Victory Hill, all and everybody happy while I sit alone in my room drinking a last can of Anchor and thinking about a lady of the night who was once full with life and is now pining away waiting for the inevitable end caused by the ravages of the HIV virus...
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Cambodia's national trauma
Cambodia, Sihanoukville, Victory Hill,
14-02-2010.
Kingdoms may come, empires rise and fall, rulers emerge and beaten again by foreigner powers but the bloody work of the horrible things done in the name of Pol Pot's reign of terror has left his country with a national trauma where everybody my age and up was either a crazed killer or the victim....
I see it in the eyes of the local selling me my beer late at night out of a dusty and chaotic shed that is supposed to be a shop, the motorbike taxistas trying to convince me a ride in the dark to chickenfarm street would really help me out and fill their pockets as well as those of the Mammasan of whatever farm of my liking...
Underlying it all is a fine line of hatred brought about by the unexpected pleasure of slaughtering fellow human beings during the years of killing....or left over from being abused by the same neighbors you nowadays share your village with...
Hatred that will consume your heart if let off its restrcitions, a monster that has been raised by the fire raging inside your very being, a bit like trying to control the monster that once was and has got to be contained for the sake of survival...
It also feel a bit like these people have lost the lustre for life itself, like they have come to a different mental layer of understanding once all the madness was over and they had to learn to live again...somewhere along the line something happened to their braincells - wheter they were culprit or victim - that made them realise that life in its very basics isn't really worth living, or at least not for us the crazy human race...too bad that suicide is such a messy affair!!!
14-02-2010.
Kingdoms may come, empires rise and fall, rulers emerge and beaten again by foreigner powers but the bloody work of the horrible things done in the name of Pol Pot's reign of terror has left his country with a national trauma where everybody my age and up was either a crazed killer or the victim....
I see it in the eyes of the local selling me my beer late at night out of a dusty and chaotic shed that is supposed to be a shop, the motorbike taxistas trying to convince me a ride in the dark to chickenfarm street would really help me out and fill their pockets as well as those of the Mammasan of whatever farm of my liking...
Underlying it all is a fine line of hatred brought about by the unexpected pleasure of slaughtering fellow human beings during the years of killing....or left over from being abused by the same neighbors you nowadays share your village with...
Hatred that will consume your heart if let off its restrcitions, a monster that has been raised by the fire raging inside your very being, a bit like trying to control the monster that once was and has got to be contained for the sake of survival...
It also feel a bit like these people have lost the lustre for life itself, like they have come to a different mental layer of understanding once all the madness was over and they had to learn to live again...somewhere along the line something happened to their braincells - wheter they were culprit or victim - that made them realise that life in its very basics isn't really worth living, or at least not for us the crazy human race...too bad that suicide is such a messy affair!!!
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Victory Hill in Sihanoukville
Cambodia, Sihanoukville,
13-02-2010.
Some sort of weird contraption hold against my brow, a new piece of technology checking your temperature and setting me back twenty Thai baht for the apperent obligatory health check, some bloke wanting 100 Thai Baht for filling in the Cambodian emigration papers, changing Thai baht into Cambodian riel, a whole pile of tatty notes that look like faded monopoly money and nobody wants anyway prefering the American greenback instead...maybe I can pay the toll bridge fee - yet another hundert Thai baht...I resign hoping this carzy money grabbing cr*p will soon be over and me on the five hour bus trip to Sihanoukville..
Victory Hill is my choise of accomodation, though still full with French owned girly bars and motorbike taxistas offering me ganja green addiction problems at reduced prices, unpaved streets lit up at night not by street lights but by the illumination of the numerous bars and questionable other establishments...Yeah, if I remember well from three years ago, this place was supposed to be the new Pattaya heaven for those doing their regular visa runs, make sure these crazy p*nters will lack nothing while away from "home"...
Still, in comparison with three years ago Victory Hill has calmed down considerably though I guess it will be another couple of years before returning to its former beach resort status where families with little kids would come from far away europe on a tranquil and relaxed two/three weeks sun and beach holiday...or maybe the wh*re-mongering fatsos on their regular three month visa runs will have their way in the end, no caring much about the great beaches - though these might come in handy during the day time to nurse away Anchor beer induced hang-overs - but surely in love boozing away in the numerous girly bars bragging about the incredible amount of Thai Hot Mommas they have bedded down....
Like three years ago I leave these places alone finding myself back in the Mojo Bar, french owned though but no bar girls to tell me how s*xy I am and secretly hoping for a lady's drink and maybe a bar fee check on top of my bill...instead a few drags from a cambodian weed joint that goes around free of charge and hand-rolled by the sympathetic owner himself. A different way of keeping your clientele happy I guess...
13-02-2010.
Some sort of weird contraption hold against my brow, a new piece of technology checking your temperature and setting me back twenty Thai baht for the apperent obligatory health check, some bloke wanting 100 Thai Baht for filling in the Cambodian emigration papers, changing Thai baht into Cambodian riel, a whole pile of tatty notes that look like faded monopoly money and nobody wants anyway prefering the American greenback instead...maybe I can pay the toll bridge fee - yet another hundert Thai baht...I resign hoping this carzy money grabbing cr*p will soon be over and me on the five hour bus trip to Sihanoukville..
Victory Hill is my choise of accomodation, though still full with French owned girly bars and motorbike taxistas offering me ganja green addiction problems at reduced prices, unpaved streets lit up at night not by street lights but by the illumination of the numerous bars and questionable other establishments...Yeah, if I remember well from three years ago, this place was supposed to be the new Pattaya heaven for those doing their regular visa runs, make sure these crazy p*nters will lack nothing while away from "home"...
Still, in comparison with three years ago Victory Hill has calmed down considerably though I guess it will be another couple of years before returning to its former beach resort status where families with little kids would come from far away europe on a tranquil and relaxed two/three weeks sun and beach holiday...or maybe the wh*re-mongering fatsos on their regular three month visa runs will have their way in the end, no caring much about the great beaches - though these might come in handy during the day time to nurse away Anchor beer induced hang-overs - but surely in love boozing away in the numerous girly bars bragging about the incredible amount of Thai Hot Mommas they have bedded down....
Like three years ago I leave these places alone finding myself back in the Mojo Bar, french owned though but no bar girls to tell me how s*xy I am and secretly hoping for a lady's drink and maybe a bar fee check on top of my bill...instead a few drags from a cambodian weed joint that goes around free of charge and hand-rolled by the sympathetic owner himself. A different way of keeping your clientele happy I guess...
Thursday, February 11, 2010
A psycological fist
Thailand, Trat,
11-02-2010.
I had most of today's six hour trip by minibus to Trat to think about this crazy and good for nothing fat German, spending most of the night screaming abuse at whoever walk by the guest house and even more so to the Kathoys that these last few nights seemed to have made Soi Honey-inn their favorite hunting ground...
I presume it must be easier to judge an different culture than trying to understand it, especially so when you are under the influence of King Alcohol which in his case came out of countless condensed bottles of Chang...mad raving at Pattaya's hard working employees not caring much about their harsh lives, believing it is all a joke, believing everything and all is possible in Madhouse Pattaya...untill, untill...
Trying to judge a culture so different in its fundamentals it might as well be alien and still tending to look at it through the filters of our own racial and cultural biases, not really capable of reaching out and give yourself over in order to reach a higher understanding and thereby enriching your Western trained mind...
Writing this down now in a dusty and ill-lit internet cafe in Trat I feel once more like mental clarity is within my grasp, I need to make but a psycological fist, well away from the contamination of Pattaya's rauncy attractions like Go-Go Bars and Hot Mommas walking shoulder to shoulder on the boulevard, their platform shoes going clickety-click hoping deperately for a 300/500 Baht sh*rttime to pay for the room, maybe a meal and a cold Leo, 7/Eleven selling anything at all times of the day and night but cold Leo my greatest entry reason, Burmese sigars and countless modelling sessions in the privacy of my room...
Away from madhouse Pattaya and well on my way to Sihanoukville, another country called Cambodya, though maybe not my first trip to what was once Mister Number One Sh*thole Pol Pot's private argricultural estate and with another two full weeks of Pattaya's madness in my pockets, I realise I have once again come closer to understand the Madness inside my own Farang mind....or maybe that is all in my own imagination...
11-02-2010.
I had most of today's six hour trip by minibus to Trat to think about this crazy and good for nothing fat German, spending most of the night screaming abuse at whoever walk by the guest house and even more so to the Kathoys that these last few nights seemed to have made Soi Honey-inn their favorite hunting ground...
I presume it must be easier to judge an different culture than trying to understand it, especially so when you are under the influence of King Alcohol which in his case came out of countless condensed bottles of Chang...mad raving at Pattaya's hard working employees not caring much about their harsh lives, believing it is all a joke, believing everything and all is possible in Madhouse Pattaya...untill, untill...
Trying to judge a culture so different in its fundamentals it might as well be alien and still tending to look at it through the filters of our own racial and cultural biases, not really capable of reaching out and give yourself over in order to reach a higher understanding and thereby enriching your Western trained mind...
Writing this down now in a dusty and ill-lit internet cafe in Trat I feel once more like mental clarity is within my grasp, I need to make but a psycological fist, well away from the contamination of Pattaya's rauncy attractions like Go-Go Bars and Hot Mommas walking shoulder to shoulder on the boulevard, their platform shoes going clickety-click hoping deperately for a 300/500 Baht sh*rttime to pay for the room, maybe a meal and a cold Leo, 7/Eleven selling anything at all times of the day and night but cold Leo my greatest entry reason, Burmese sigars and countless modelling sessions in the privacy of my room...
Away from madhouse Pattaya and well on my way to Sihanoukville, another country called Cambodya, though maybe not my first trip to what was once Mister Number One Sh*thole Pol Pot's private argricultural estate and with another two full weeks of Pattaya's madness in my pockets, I realise I have once again come closer to understand the Madness inside my own Farang mind....or maybe that is all in my own imagination...
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Miss Fohn's story
Thailand, Pattaya,
10-02-2010.
One of my favorite places for people watching must be in front of my hotel late at night, smoking one of these smelly dark green colored Burmese sigars - often used as an offering for the Phra Phum at one of the many sprit houses that can be seen all over King Bhumipol's mystic kingdom - a Leo beer still bubbling deliciously on my tongue cold and ready for the drinking, watching all the crazy madness Pattaya has to offer...
Not all that unusual I get Miss Fohn's Luuk Chay pushed into my arms, "You look baby me, little bit maybe one hour", and off she is this twenty-four year old Hot Momma who does her business hard and with determination right in front of my hotel leaving me or the receptionist ladies to look after her nearly three month old baby while she is off f*rnicating one or more of her many Farang customers...
I remember her from last year making several paintings of her in the nude, an extremely beautiful young lady but even in her early adulthood hopelessly addicted to these little red pills - Ya Ba you know - telling me during one of the numerous modelling sessions about her life as a Hot Momma, her experiences with farang p*nters and how once a month she would be off to Pattaya Hospital for an No-Baby-injection in her bum though I had no doubt she would forget her appointment more often that not...nor could I be bothered to explain the dangers of STDs, AIDS and the like...they"ll go about things their own way whatever may come with Ya Ba doing a serious Choi Choi number on their under-educated Asian brains...
So here I am once again holding another small little victim of Thailand's notorious s*x industry in my arms feeding him a bottle of milk and being captivated by his big blue shiners while Mum is out with two half drunk and h*rny like hell young Englsih lads doing her "thing"...and that at 01.20 h. of the early morning. Wasn't I supposed to be in bed and sleeping, getting rested for tomorrow's fishing trip out at sea...
I have no doubt that Miss Fohn's beuatiful body and face will twenty years into the process be ravaged by way too much Chang, Ya Ba, STDs, AIDS and whatever more develish sh*t you may conjure up...
But then such is the life of a Thai Hot Momma...I see them on the boulevard every day, once eons ago a vixen lithe and hard looking body, faces like cut out of a glamour magazine but by now physical wrecks and brain cells that have become extinct even before the tested-to-the-limit body has time to give it one final spasm and pass on to the Hot Momma Nirvana...
10-02-2010.
One of my favorite places for people watching must be in front of my hotel late at night, smoking one of these smelly dark green colored Burmese sigars - often used as an offering for the Phra Phum at one of the many sprit houses that can be seen all over King Bhumipol's mystic kingdom - a Leo beer still bubbling deliciously on my tongue cold and ready for the drinking, watching all the crazy madness Pattaya has to offer...
Not all that unusual I get Miss Fohn's Luuk Chay pushed into my arms, "You look baby me, little bit maybe one hour", and off she is this twenty-four year old Hot Momma who does her business hard and with determination right in front of my hotel leaving me or the receptionist ladies to look after her nearly three month old baby while she is off f*rnicating one or more of her many Farang customers...
I remember her from last year making several paintings of her in the nude, an extremely beautiful young lady but even in her early adulthood hopelessly addicted to these little red pills - Ya Ba you know - telling me during one of the numerous modelling sessions about her life as a Hot Momma, her experiences with farang p*nters and how once a month she would be off to Pattaya Hospital for an No-Baby-injection in her bum though I had no doubt she would forget her appointment more often that not...nor could I be bothered to explain the dangers of STDs, AIDS and the like...they"ll go about things their own way whatever may come with Ya Ba doing a serious Choi Choi number on their under-educated Asian brains...
So here I am once again holding another small little victim of Thailand's notorious s*x industry in my arms feeding him a bottle of milk and being captivated by his big blue shiners while Mum is out with two half drunk and h*rny like hell young Englsih lads doing her "thing"...and that at 01.20 h. of the early morning. Wasn't I supposed to be in bed and sleeping, getting rested for tomorrow's fishing trip out at sea...
I have no doubt that Miss Fohn's beuatiful body and face will twenty years into the process be ravaged by way too much Chang, Ya Ba, STDs, AIDS and whatever more develish sh*t you may conjure up...
But then such is the life of a Thai Hot Momma...I see them on the boulevard every day, once eons ago a vixen lithe and hard looking body, faces like cut out of a glamour magazine but by now physical wrecks and brain cells that have become extinct even before the tested-to-the-limit body has time to give it one final spasm and pass on to the Hot Momma Nirvana...
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
An A in swimming certificates
Thailand, Pattaya,
09-02-2010.
As a farther you are supposed to smother your newly born infant with love, grab at any opportunity to cradle her in your arms and let the delicious smell of her hair enter your nostrils, intoxicate you with admiration and pride...a small little baby who needs all the loving care in the world...
It took me nearly a year after Joy's birth before I returned to this Asian realm and many years as well as the birth of a Luuk-Chay two years later to realise I am definetely not born to be a father...my little obsessions with the more divinely forbidden pleasures of life like a big huge wall between me and parenthood...
Sitting here on the boulevard with my first born Joy I am once more reminded of my plight that in itself has become an even greater plight of those around me...not that that is much of a problem in a country whose natural genome must be hugely enriched by a sheer number of mixed race babies - Leuk Krueg in Thai, but then if you have been following this blog for a while you surely picked up some Thai by now...
Those responsible with not such fat wallets anymore at the end of yet another s*x induced trip and burned skin, Choi-Choi and with a general good mood on the way back to Ancient Europe, a capitalist lackey for the next ten or eleven months or so, saving up their dough for the next trip, never caring at all what has been left behind...
I presume I should be less vintictive and more self inflicting considering I have for years now refused Joy my sister's telephone number, address or E-mail, nor do I wanna give her Amanda's particulars though Joy is convinced that Little Charlotte - my third born in Amsterdam - is the living incarnate of her uncle and my best friend Jamie...the Thai's superstitition if not at times frightening in itself must be admired...
Still, I hand her over all the photos of her half sister that I have kept in my wallet these last four years hoping thereby that their absence from my life will relieve me of my Western trained Guild Complex that keeps growing and growing and refuses to be drowned in a ocean of Alcohol and marijuana induced oblivition...but always back in the morning with a vengance that convinces me all my worries and guild feeling must have an A in swimming certificates
09-02-2010.
As a farther you are supposed to smother your newly born infant with love, grab at any opportunity to cradle her in your arms and let the delicious smell of her hair enter your nostrils, intoxicate you with admiration and pride...a small little baby who needs all the loving care in the world...
It took me nearly a year after Joy's birth before I returned to this Asian realm and many years as well as the birth of a Luuk-Chay two years later to realise I am definetely not born to be a father...my little obsessions with the more divinely forbidden pleasures of life like a big huge wall between me and parenthood...
Sitting here on the boulevard with my first born Joy I am once more reminded of my plight that in itself has become an even greater plight of those around me...not that that is much of a problem in a country whose natural genome must be hugely enriched by a sheer number of mixed race babies - Leuk Krueg in Thai, but then if you have been following this blog for a while you surely picked up some Thai by now...
Those responsible with not such fat wallets anymore at the end of yet another s*x induced trip and burned skin, Choi-Choi and with a general good mood on the way back to Ancient Europe, a capitalist lackey for the next ten or eleven months or so, saving up their dough for the next trip, never caring at all what has been left behind...
I presume I should be less vintictive and more self inflicting considering I have for years now refused Joy my sister's telephone number, address or E-mail, nor do I wanna give her Amanda's particulars though Joy is convinced that Little Charlotte - my third born in Amsterdam - is the living incarnate of her uncle and my best friend Jamie...the Thai's superstitition if not at times frightening in itself must be admired...
Still, I hand her over all the photos of her half sister that I have kept in my wallet these last four years hoping thereby that their absence from my life will relieve me of my Western trained Guild Complex that keeps growing and growing and refuses to be drowned in a ocean of Alcohol and marijuana induced oblivition...but always back in the morning with a vengance that convinces me all my worries and guild feeling must have an A in swimming certificates
Sunday, February 7, 2010
The Ting Tong painter from Holland.
Thailand, Pattaya,
07-02-2010.
Hard to believe that only a short month ago I was still in Amsterdam feeling bored like hell frozen over and once again having given over my mental sanity to Ganja green investation, frequent runs to the neighborhood's many coffee shops, providing the owners with enough dough to live it up on some far-away tropical beach, Hell frozen over once again, for all I know the Heavenly Coffee Shop owner might well be here himself having the time of his life on my hard earned Euro sh*t...
Still having finally left the "zone of painting", having coped with Miss Ohn's messy death, having come to grips with Moo's inevitable demise, I move with grace hardly sweating at all compared to these many fat-bellied elderly Farang males whose T-shirts are drenched with Chang induced perperation while they walk the boulevard, big huge hairy claws holding the petite hand of the lady of his choice - or is it she who is holding his hand to show the competition HE IS MINE...
A Kathoy is doing his very best trying to convince me with an overly female voice that the PS Guesthouse just next door have clean room at only a hundert Baht, "Phom B*msing Kathoy Mai" does the trick and changing his voice to its original masculinity he is off in search of other customers...leaving me my treasured peace, wondering as I always do what my amigos back home would think seeing the crazy madness that Pattaya really is...
Also I wonder what my daughter Joy will say tonight when she will see my room, the walls covered in colorfull Bangkok post pages depicting an army of Hot Mommas from the boulevard, having left behind a small fortune on typical female paraphanelia like lipstick. nose inhalers, boxes of powdery heat, make-up, underwear, smelly T-shirts and the like...I presume she too is used to my crazy life style...
Having askes the cleaning ladies this morning to clean the mess after throwing out the last of my models, telling them of Joy up-coming visit only produced excited giggles and funny smiles...nothing new in that either. After all to them I am the TingTong painter from Holland, an conviction in their Asian minds I have only reinforced these last few crazy days...
07-02-2010.
Hard to believe that only a short month ago I was still in Amsterdam feeling bored like hell frozen over and once again having given over my mental sanity to Ganja green investation, frequent runs to the neighborhood's many coffee shops, providing the owners with enough dough to live it up on some far-away tropical beach, Hell frozen over once again, for all I know the Heavenly Coffee Shop owner might well be here himself having the time of his life on my hard earned Euro sh*t...
Still having finally left the "zone of painting", having coped with Miss Ohn's messy death, having come to grips with Moo's inevitable demise, I move with grace hardly sweating at all compared to these many fat-bellied elderly Farang males whose T-shirts are drenched with Chang induced perperation while they walk the boulevard, big huge hairy claws holding the petite hand of the lady of his choice - or is it she who is holding his hand to show the competition HE IS MINE...
A Kathoy is doing his very best trying to convince me with an overly female voice that the PS Guesthouse just next door have clean room at only a hundert Baht, "Phom B*msing Kathoy Mai" does the trick and changing his voice to its original masculinity he is off in search of other customers...leaving me my treasured peace, wondering as I always do what my amigos back home would think seeing the crazy madness that Pattaya really is...
Also I wonder what my daughter Joy will say tonight when she will see my room, the walls covered in colorfull Bangkok post pages depicting an army of Hot Mommas from the boulevard, having left behind a small fortune on typical female paraphanelia like lipstick. nose inhalers, boxes of powdery heat, make-up, underwear, smelly T-shirts and the like...I presume she too is used to my crazy life style...
Having askes the cleaning ladies this morning to clean the mess after throwing out the last of my models, telling them of Joy up-coming visit only produced excited giggles and funny smiles...nothing new in that either. After all to them I am the TingTong painter from Holland, an conviction in their Asian minds I have only reinforced these last few crazy days...
Saturday, February 6, 2010
My personal guards
Thailand, Pattaya,
My coffee is hot and steamy and my hands are trembling due to all the Hot Momma painting I have done these last few days, a few moments of cherished freedom from the chaotic mess my room has become, standing in front of my wall with a Bangkok Post page taped to it, a orange hotel provided towel wrapped around me hips, pencils and plastic plates with the remants of dried acrylic paint, a lady of the night in a sort of provocative posture while another lady is happily taking advantage of my free shower, shampoo and tooth paste - these ladies of the night always seem to carry a tooth brush with them, one never knows where one will end up in their line of profession I guess - others sitting on the bed drinking Mhekong Whisky mixed with Coca Cola and cubes of ice....
More often than not they like to play their little jokes on me tugging at my towel or trying to pinch my bottom - sort of hard to concentrate I might say - constant typical female giggles and Isan accented excited female shrieks when they discuss the various Farang boyfriends most intimate details....
Oh yeah I am back in the zone again having painted at least thirty Hot Mommas in a few single days - I presume if I had slept with all my models as my new buddy Peter Klashorst the "enfant terrible" of the Dutch art scene claims to do, I would be a real physical wreck by now though the lack of sleep is surely doing me in with new models knocking on my door at any time of the day or night - after all this is big party place Pattaya where they action never really stops...
Enough really is enough and I feel like running over to the boulevard for another cup of coffee, maybe stretch out my exhausted body on a stone bench, a few cherished moments of Hot Momma absence could only be good and tranquil...
But then the boulevard is full with Kathoy montrosities, mangy dogs with flea ridden bodies and lice and wurm ridden pigeons, stump showing beggars, bug sellers who will try to convince me fried grasshoppers are really very nutricious...and many, many more potential models...
Yeah, Pattaya is a porfuntory and drab city but it does have a certain atraction, a bit like pockets of appealing pleasures...the thing is I have to make it out of my room, my room that these last few days has become a bit of a prison with my Isan sisterhood of models my very personal guards, unwilling to let me go...
still, even at a hundert Baht a model my money will soon run out, my ATM card downstairs in the hotel's safe probably my ticket to "freedom"...
My coffee is hot and steamy and my hands are trembling due to all the Hot Momma painting I have done these last few days, a few moments of cherished freedom from the chaotic mess my room has become, standing in front of my wall with a Bangkok Post page taped to it, a orange hotel provided towel wrapped around me hips, pencils and plastic plates with the remants of dried acrylic paint, a lady of the night in a sort of provocative posture while another lady is happily taking advantage of my free shower, shampoo and tooth paste - these ladies of the night always seem to carry a tooth brush with them, one never knows where one will end up in their line of profession I guess - others sitting on the bed drinking Mhekong Whisky mixed with Coca Cola and cubes of ice....
More often than not they like to play their little jokes on me tugging at my towel or trying to pinch my bottom - sort of hard to concentrate I might say - constant typical female giggles and Isan accented excited female shrieks when they discuss the various Farang boyfriends most intimate details....
Oh yeah I am back in the zone again having painted at least thirty Hot Mommas in a few single days - I presume if I had slept with all my models as my new buddy Peter Klashorst the "enfant terrible" of the Dutch art scene claims to do, I would be a real physical wreck by now though the lack of sleep is surely doing me in with new models knocking on my door at any time of the day or night - after all this is big party place Pattaya where they action never really stops...
Enough really is enough and I feel like running over to the boulevard for another cup of coffee, maybe stretch out my exhausted body on a stone bench, a few cherished moments of Hot Momma absence could only be good and tranquil...
But then the boulevard is full with Kathoy montrosities, mangy dogs with flea ridden bodies and lice and wurm ridden pigeons, stump showing beggars, bug sellers who will try to convince me fried grasshoppers are really very nutricious...and many, many more potential models...
Yeah, Pattaya is a porfuntory and drab city but it does have a certain atraction, a bit like pockets of appealing pleasures...the thing is I have to make it out of my room, my room that these last few days has become a bit of a prison with my Isan sisterhood of models my very personal guards, unwilling to let me go...
still, even at a hundert Baht a model my money will soon run out, my ATM card downstairs in the hotel's safe probably my ticket to "freedom"...
Thursday, February 4, 2010
A serious cleaning job
Thailand, Pattaya,
05-02-2010.
Two days have past and not a single sign of poor Moo, my little sister in Thailand and on a real serious downhill track, no trace of her on the boulvard nor a single Farang who has seen a much a glimse of her...no more finding her frele and sickly frame asleep outside the 7/Eleven...
With the cleaning ladies of my hotel having down a number one search and destroy any remants of whatever malignant ghoul they believe is responsible for poor moo's physical and mental situaution, putting all my gear out on the balcony and giving my room a REAL whitewash job, the walls being rubbed with foul-smelling detergent and heaps of water, my matrass replaced with the old one drying in the fierce sun on the top floor of the dump. They even got the mangy and flea-ridden dogs in that normally spent most of their time lying outside dozing in the shade - I presume their keen canine smell capablities came in handy to these super superstitious local ladies to make sure not a trace remained of Mister Bad Phra Phum...
So with this Mister Bad Phra Phum out of the way things are slowly - or maybe faster as I might like - getting back to normal with the usual Knock-Knock-Knock on my door at all times of the day and night, my walls getting covered with the pages of yesterday's news, Bangkok Post' pages covered with acrylic paint depicting an army of Pattaya's Hot Momma clan, more colorfull than the whitwash anti-malignant Ghoul job done by the cleaning ladies, quick sketches done on pieces of cardboard with temples and Lord Buddha compliment the chaotic scene, half empty bottles of Meakhong and chicken bones carefully gnawed clean by whatever model was here last...
The bug seller in front of the hotel must be a happy man with this siterhood of Isaan ladies quickly buying a bag full of fried vermin before storming up the stairs, keen on a hundert baht modelling fee but happy enough to let me share in the fried bug department, bringing up free Leo beers for me - oh, yes, they know my brand very well, no more sleeping on the beach anymore when a Farang boyfriend is temporarily absent in their Hot Momma life, Mister Hans the Ting-Tong painter from the far-away Holland Farang Land always has a place, be on tyhe massive bed with the malignant-Ghoul-free new matrass or else on my old and mouldy sleeping bag, they don't even mind the hard concrete of the balcony being used to sleeping on the mud-caked floor of third world hamlets they grew up in...
Wonder what Joy is gonna think when she comes over this week-end, I believe she is used to it.
05-02-2010.
Two days have past and not a single sign of poor Moo, my little sister in Thailand and on a real serious downhill track, no trace of her on the boulvard nor a single Farang who has seen a much a glimse of her...no more finding her frele and sickly frame asleep outside the 7/Eleven...
With the cleaning ladies of my hotel having down a number one search and destroy any remants of whatever malignant ghoul they believe is responsible for poor moo's physical and mental situaution, putting all my gear out on the balcony and giving my room a REAL whitewash job, the walls being rubbed with foul-smelling detergent and heaps of water, my matrass replaced with the old one drying in the fierce sun on the top floor of the dump. They even got the mangy and flea-ridden dogs in that normally spent most of their time lying outside dozing in the shade - I presume their keen canine smell capablities came in handy to these super superstitious local ladies to make sure not a trace remained of Mister Bad Phra Phum...
So with this Mister Bad Phra Phum out of the way things are slowly - or maybe faster as I might like - getting back to normal with the usual Knock-Knock-Knock on my door at all times of the day and night, my walls getting covered with the pages of yesterday's news, Bangkok Post' pages covered with acrylic paint depicting an army of Pattaya's Hot Momma clan, more colorfull than the whitwash anti-malignant Ghoul job done by the cleaning ladies, quick sketches done on pieces of cardboard with temples and Lord Buddha compliment the chaotic scene, half empty bottles of Meakhong and chicken bones carefully gnawed clean by whatever model was here last...
The bug seller in front of the hotel must be a happy man with this siterhood of Isaan ladies quickly buying a bag full of fried vermin before storming up the stairs, keen on a hundert baht modelling fee but happy enough to let me share in the fried bug department, bringing up free Leo beers for me - oh, yes, they know my brand very well, no more sleeping on the beach anymore when a Farang boyfriend is temporarily absent in their Hot Momma life, Mister Hans the Ting-Tong painter from the far-away Holland Farang Land always has a place, be on tyhe massive bed with the malignant-Ghoul-free new matrass or else on my old and mouldy sleeping bag, they don't even mind the hard concrete of the balcony being used to sleeping on the mud-caked floor of third world hamlets they grew up in...
Wonder what Joy is gonna think when she comes over this week-end, I believe she is used to it.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A solution to my predicament
Thailand, Pattaya,
03-02-2010.
I leave Moo alone in my room, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, any food I have brought her coming out again the wrong way and often she can't even make it in time to the toilet, plenty of fluids don't seem to help her much either...
I'm getting quite worried as are the ladies from the reception who seem covinced she is possessed by an evil spirit, a malignant ghould chasing her from the afterlife, maybe Joseph calling to her from the dope pusher's version of Nirvana...I'm actually getting quite worried, if she dies on me in that room I might well get myself into serious problems with the local police, lots of paper work to fill out back at Soi Police Station will be thre last of my worries then I guess...
To distract myself I have decided on a small fishing expedition out at sea organised by Englsih Steve, the owner of the Thistle Bar down in Soi Post Office. The idea is really quite simple, you report at his bar, put your name on the list and pay 500 Baht for the boat, a further 40 Baht for each drink you take, a free lunch will be provided by the crew using your own catch, plenty of sunshine and small talk with what are mostly the old hands to Pattaya most of whom I have known for years, a good deal of distraction for my worried farang mind...
A bit sunburned and in the possession of a plastic 7/Eleven bag full with Red Snapper - a small gift for the ladies from the reception as well as the cleaning ladies of my hotel - and my head returning to my present predicament...
Not like I am not on a fast downhill slide myself with booze having claimed my body and soul for quite some long and lonely years but now things are really out of control with plentifull clues but scarely a viable solution, are my actions concerning Moo ethical or just coming forth from a misplaced guilt complex concerning my REAL sister, allowing poor Moo to take ger place, becoming my sister in this crazy Kingdom, maybe a way to heal my over-damaged Karma...
Not like I can repair the GREAT wrong in my life, haunted by evil, hunted by a prey that in itself should be hunted instead, something that exists only in my own mind, a puzzle that should and will be solved one way or the other in te long run, or maybe a game which I can not win but which in itself can win anytime it chooses...
Entering the lobby of my hotel, hoisting my bag of fish high in the air as the trophy of some sort of Big Game Hunter who has just managed to shoot down a Bull Elefant, I find only downcast looks, Hot Mommas waiting for customers desperately trying to avoid my blue shiners, motorbike taxi drivers looking at everything but my prize...for a moment I feel terrified then I realise No Police, No ambulance and my room key in the petite hands of Lady Receptionist Numero Uno..."Sorry mister Hans, lady you leave today, say not like come back"...
I presume the situation has solved itself and whether or not I should feel happy...well, it remains to be seen...
03-02-2010.
I leave Moo alone in my room, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted, any food I have brought her coming out again the wrong way and often she can't even make it in time to the toilet, plenty of fluids don't seem to help her much either...
I'm getting quite worried as are the ladies from the reception who seem covinced she is possessed by an evil spirit, a malignant ghould chasing her from the afterlife, maybe Joseph calling to her from the dope pusher's version of Nirvana...I'm actually getting quite worried, if she dies on me in that room I might well get myself into serious problems with the local police, lots of paper work to fill out back at Soi Police Station will be thre last of my worries then I guess...
To distract myself I have decided on a small fishing expedition out at sea organised by Englsih Steve, the owner of the Thistle Bar down in Soi Post Office. The idea is really quite simple, you report at his bar, put your name on the list and pay 500 Baht for the boat, a further 40 Baht for each drink you take, a free lunch will be provided by the crew using your own catch, plenty of sunshine and small talk with what are mostly the old hands to Pattaya most of whom I have known for years, a good deal of distraction for my worried farang mind...
A bit sunburned and in the possession of a plastic 7/Eleven bag full with Red Snapper - a small gift for the ladies from the reception as well as the cleaning ladies of my hotel - and my head returning to my present predicament...
Not like I am not on a fast downhill slide myself with booze having claimed my body and soul for quite some long and lonely years but now things are really out of control with plentifull clues but scarely a viable solution, are my actions concerning Moo ethical or just coming forth from a misplaced guilt complex concerning my REAL sister, allowing poor Moo to take ger place, becoming my sister in this crazy Kingdom, maybe a way to heal my over-damaged Karma...
Not like I can repair the GREAT wrong in my life, haunted by evil, hunted by a prey that in itself should be hunted instead, something that exists only in my own mind, a puzzle that should and will be solved one way or the other in te long run, or maybe a game which I can not win but which in itself can win anytime it chooses...
Entering the lobby of my hotel, hoisting my bag of fish high in the air as the trophy of some sort of Big Game Hunter who has just managed to shoot down a Bull Elefant, I find only downcast looks, Hot Mommas waiting for customers desperately trying to avoid my blue shiners, motorbike taxi drivers looking at everything but my prize...for a moment I feel terrified then I realise No Police, No ambulance and my room key in the petite hands of Lady Receptionist Numero Uno..."Sorry mister Hans, lady you leave today, say not like come back"...
I presume the situation has solved itself and whether or not I should feel happy...well, it remains to be seen...
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Finding Moo on the boulevard
Thailand, Pattaya,
02-02-2010.
These are hard days wrestling with the demons caused by two days of abstinence from King Alcohol's sybiotic interests in poor me, I allowed this all-powerfull drug into my system a long time ago and by now it has come to possess a great chunk of it, nipping away at my nerve ends, even the bottles of shampoo and mouth wash in my bathroom cocnstantly reminding me of its strong and mysterious hold over me...
Not that I consciously decided overnight to give up the delicious taste of Leo on my tongue during a hot and sunny day in Pattaya - of all places...
Was it Nong's little social visit a few days ago, or maybe the unexpected disapperance of the Lord buddha painting taped to my door, so painstakingly done, brush stroke by carefull brush stroke the night Nong left me - sh*t three times in a row I didn't even make a photo of this Holy image...
More likely my sudden abstinence came about when I found poor Moo asleep on a dirty piece of card board in front of the 7/Eleven the next morning early sun up, taking her back to my room and holding her thin frele body in my arms while it was rocked to and fro by uncontrolable fits of coughing, trying to excuse herself in between in Thai "Chai Toht, Hans, me so sorry...
In my mind's eye I could see her out there only moments before, her sick and ravished body stretched out on that dirty piece of card board, half drunk Farangs with their Hot momma girl-friends on their way home after a night of boozing, so touching to my Farang mind, feelings of guild and sorrow pulsing through my veins...
Whispering all day in her fitfull sleep while I watch TV, about her German Tilak Joseph and her two kids, one of them having beautifull chromium eyes...
No more Joseph these days, I don't even wanna go there...Poor Moo has been working the game for years, the men who used her services, abused her petite body never bothering to look back at all. I am reasonably sure crazy Josepgh's body has been burned at a local prison crematorium, a Wad for the inmates at the notorious Yard Lao prison near Bangkok...
Yeah, are you up there in the dope pusher's version of heaven, Joseph, watching your old lady, the Mum of your offspring sweating away on my matrass, her upper legs so thin I could quite easily span them with my big Farang claws...Yeah, that was a really clever thing you did there, you stupid German f*ck, trying to get all that dope back to your native Koln/Germany, back to the Land of the Sauerkraut und Bratwurst people, wanting to make a bundle and stay Thailand long time...bet ya the outcome was slightly different from waht you expected...
Look at your lady now, her body eaten away by countless STDs, HIV doing a serious number on her, an embarsment to the Pattaya s*x industry, being chased off by the police all the time, refused entry back to her native village near Buriram, not making any more Bhat with endless shorttimes...yeah, you should really be proud, mein Freund aus Deutschland wherever you are thee days
02-02-2010.
These are hard days wrestling with the demons caused by two days of abstinence from King Alcohol's sybiotic interests in poor me, I allowed this all-powerfull drug into my system a long time ago and by now it has come to possess a great chunk of it, nipping away at my nerve ends, even the bottles of shampoo and mouth wash in my bathroom cocnstantly reminding me of its strong and mysterious hold over me...
Not that I consciously decided overnight to give up the delicious taste of Leo on my tongue during a hot and sunny day in Pattaya - of all places...
Was it Nong's little social visit a few days ago, or maybe the unexpected disapperance of the Lord buddha painting taped to my door, so painstakingly done, brush stroke by carefull brush stroke the night Nong left me - sh*t three times in a row I didn't even make a photo of this Holy image...
More likely my sudden abstinence came about when I found poor Moo asleep on a dirty piece of card board in front of the 7/Eleven the next morning early sun up, taking her back to my room and holding her thin frele body in my arms while it was rocked to and fro by uncontrolable fits of coughing, trying to excuse herself in between in Thai "Chai Toht, Hans, me so sorry...
In my mind's eye I could see her out there only moments before, her sick and ravished body stretched out on that dirty piece of card board, half drunk Farangs with their Hot momma girl-friends on their way home after a night of boozing, so touching to my Farang mind, feelings of guild and sorrow pulsing through my veins...
Whispering all day in her fitfull sleep while I watch TV, about her German Tilak Joseph and her two kids, one of them having beautifull chromium eyes...
No more Joseph these days, I don't even wanna go there...Poor Moo has been working the game for years, the men who used her services, abused her petite body never bothering to look back at all. I am reasonably sure crazy Josepgh's body has been burned at a local prison crematorium, a Wad for the inmates at the notorious Yard Lao prison near Bangkok...
Yeah, are you up there in the dope pusher's version of heaven, Joseph, watching your old lady, the Mum of your offspring sweating away on my matrass, her upper legs so thin I could quite easily span them with my big Farang claws...Yeah, that was a really clever thing you did there, you stupid German f*ck, trying to get all that dope back to your native Koln/Germany, back to the Land of the Sauerkraut und Bratwurst people, wanting to make a bundle and stay Thailand long time...bet ya the outcome was slightly different from waht you expected...
Look at your lady now, her body eaten away by countless STDs, HIV doing a serious number on her, an embarsment to the Pattaya s*x industry, being chased off by the police all the time, refused entry back to her native village near Buriram, not making any more Bhat with endless shorttimes...yeah, you should really be proud, mein Freund aus Deutschland wherever you are thee days
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