Bangkok Hard Time (3 page)

A live band on the pool deck ten floors below was playing melancholy Thai pop music. Carried by guitar, drums and organ, the female singer’s high-pitched, almost crying, sibilant lyrics drifted up from below, adding an additional otherworldly aspect to the whole scene.

My new friend, who shall remain unnamed, opened his pack of Falling Rain cigarettes as he hummed a Bob Dylan tune: “It’s a hard, it’s a hard, it’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall”. Then he laughed. The packs of cigarettes, he explained, were prepared for sale to GIs. Lek’s wife opened them, emptied the tobacco out, then refilled them with a reefer-tobacco mixture and sealed them back up as if they had never been opened. “GIs buy them by the carton. It’s a great way to take them to the States,” he added, while handing each of us a cigarette.

I lit mine and walked over by the roof’s other edge to listen to the music. After a couple of puffs, I decided I liked the music. A couple more puffs, I was beginning to think I could almost understand the lyrics. Some unknown amount of time later, I realized I had been standing there slack-jawed and could not tell you what I was thinking or why. It all involved either stoned reasoning, or perhaps the wisdom of my sixteen years told me that here was something that filled a void in my life that I had previously not even been aware of.

The sound of my no-name friend singing along with the Thai girl below brought me back to the here and now. “What is she singing about?” I asked.

He said it was a sappy love song about a girl who is separated from her lover and all she can do is send him kisses on the wind. “It’s almost like that Donovan tune called ‘Catch the Wind’,” he added.

Twenty years later, I would hear this song again in a different time and place, under even more surreal circumstances. Like the name of the cigarettes, a hard rain was indeed gonna fall.

We left the roof of the Grace Hotel, and my friend hailed a taxi to take us back to the American Teen Club. For the first time since leaving the US, I was glad that someone else did the driving, which from then on seemed like a tedious chore best done by the more competent.

I felt like throwing up as soon as I got out of the cab and then, just as suddenly, I felt that I was starving. We went around the corner to a Thai noodle shop and, sitting at a rickety table on the sidewalk in the heavy, aromatically spicy air outside the establishment, we ate the tastiest meal I have ever enjoyed. It was topped off with Mehkong (a Thai version of rum) mixed with Sprite and lemon over ice.

Satiated, we returned to the air-conditioned Teen Club. It had only been an hour or so, but it was as if I were in another dimension. The kids were dancing to American rock-and-roll tunes played by a very good little band called The Sonics, made up of four kids from ISB. It looked and felt comfortably similar to any other teenage venue back in the States. However, most in attendance would tell you that they could not wait to get home. “Stateside is where the real action is,” they would say. There had been times I had agreed with them, but that was no longer the case.

Because I wanted my own Falling Rain cigarettes, my new friend suggested that we should rent motorbikes the next day and he would take me to meet Pee Lek. My friend was returning to college in another week. Nonetheless, he had spent half his life in Thailand, and the USA did not seem like home to him any longer.

The war in Vietnam was booming, as was the bar, massage parlor, whorehouse and motorbike rental businesses in the Bangkok of 1967. With the presence of twenty thousand plus US military personnel either stationed in Bangkok or on a two-week R&R from the war, American money was flowing as freely as the blood of the young in the jungles of Nam. All these soldiers, most of them only a few years older than us, were barracked in either hotels or apartments around the city.

We easily acquired a couple of very used Hondas. Thais usually mistook the American school boys for GIs, and we seldom dissuaded them from that notion when it suited our nefarious purposes.

Zig-zagging through the Bangkok traffic, we soon arrived at Soi 18. The shanty that was Bahn Pee Lek looked even worse in the daylight. Built over a drainage ditch outside of a tall wall surrounding the compound of a large house, it was bounded on the other side by a swampy field. Fortunately, sitting under a large tree covered with loofa vines sheltered its corrugated tin roof from the punishing rays of the sun.

We parked our bikes out front and entered through an open gate onto a boarded walkway above the slow-flowing ditch water. To the left of the narrow boardwalk was a very large clay pot which caught rainwater off the tin roof of the house. A tall, slender, middle-aged man wearing a large cloth (called
a pakama
) tied around his waist was pouring plastic bowls of water from the big clay pot over his head. When he saw my friend, he smiled a grand, perfect-toothed grin. They both began chattering in Thai.

My nameless friend motioned to me and said my name, “Jon Cole”. The Thai gentleman’s honest expression on hearing this was something akin to pleasant surprise. He ushered us up one step into an adjacent room of the hut. I noticed that the right leg of our host was straight and stiff with a long scar running upwards from the ankle and past his knee. This was Lek.

After removing our shoes and entering, Lek invited us to sit and spoke the only complete English phrase I think he knew: “I dink whisakey, sir?”

“Drink some whiskey,” my new American friend said.

“OK,” I said, nodding to Lek. This seemed to please him even more.

As he prepared a shot glass of warm Mehkong for me, he kept saying “Django, Django” and giggling.

“What is so funny?” I asked.

My friend laughingly replied, “He thinks I said your name is ‘Django’, the name of a cowboy gunslinger in cheap Italian Western movies that are popular here.”

I never told Lek any different. From then on I answered to “Django” whenever Lek addressed me. I don’t know why, but it gave him so much glee.

At one end of the room was a small bed on the floor covered with a mosquito net. The remainder of the room, near the door, was just large enough for four people to sit comfortably cross-legged around Leks’ chopping block. It was made of betel nut wood upon which he prepared a mixture of reefer and tobacco to be smoked in his ancient bamboo water pipe. The bowl of the bong looked like an elephant head decorated with small coins and brass chain set into the black pine tar that sealed the pipe’s junction with the bowl.

As he was chopping away on his block, I took stock of his meager possessions. Above the mosquito net over the foot of the bed was a bird cage holding a large songbird that frequently sang a pleasant, short but haunting tune. Behind Lek on a shelf stood a small shrine with a Buddha image on the top shelf. An incense holder, tiny bowls of food offerings, small elephant carvings, and votive candles were in front of it. On the wall beside the shrine was an old framed photo of The King of Thailand. Lek noticed me looking and pointed to it as he said, in English, “My King, my King” with more than a small tone of pride in his voice. I nodded and smiled, which I could tell pleased him.

Lek turned on a tiny radio that was playing
look toong
music, a kind of Thai-style country music, and he began singing along while filling his bong. Next to me, up against the opposite wall, was a small glass-fronted cabinet holding his incidental belongings, clothes and whatever. On top of the cabinet was a gallon-sized apothecary jar with a large glass stopper lid. The jar was about half full of an amber liquid with a fist-sized ball of a cheesecloth-wrapped dark substance. I learned that it was a ball of opium soaking in whiskey. Through the spaces between the floorboards, the primordial scent of the slow-moving swamp water rising from below smelled like my future home. But I did not, of course, know at that time that such a place would be a future domicile for me.

The bong was lit, refilled and passed around a number of times. My friend and Lek were jabbering in Thai the whole time. Soon my friend said that we had to go because Lek’s regular late-afternoon customers were coming soon: Thai-Chinese business men dressed in white shirts and ties would drop by daily after work to have a few bowls of opium.

My friend said that we should give Lek some small money before we left and, taking that cue, I produced a twenty-baht note. Not quite knowing what to do, I laid the bill down by my knee and began to stand. Lek barked something at me which, of course, I did not understand. I thought maybe that I had insulted him by not offering enough money. But that was not the reason, because when my friend reached over to pick up the twenty-baht note from under my right foot, I noticed he had produced only a ten-baht note for his personal donation.

In a slightly raised voice, my friend pretended to scold me while explaining that I had touched the bill with my foot and did I not realize the image of The King was on the banknote.

After an exaggerated shaking and wiping of the bill, he offered the money to Lek, holding the two bills in his right hand with his left hand supporting his right arm at the elbow. All the while, he kept speaking in Thai, explaining to Lek that I was new to Thailand and obviously a dumbass. The money was then well received and despite the major
faux pas,
this seemed to satisfy Lek. He smiled and said “Django”, then giggled.

As we were leaving, Lek began taking out what he required to prepare the opium for the Chinese businessmen who were arriving even as we climbed onto the motorbikes. My un-named friend, smiling and nodding, exchanged greetings with them, and then we cycled on down the
soi
in search of something to eat.

Before he went back to the USA the following week, I returned with my unnamed friend to the House of Lek a few more times. On his last visit to Lek’s, he left with two cartons of Falling Rain under his arm.

I never saw said friend again.

I Get Thai With A Little Help From My Friends

On subsequent visits to Lek’s, it became apparent that many of the other bad boys from ISB had likewise found their way to the door of this tiny abode. His was not the only opium den in Bangkok, but he did have quite a loyal following – particularly among ISBers.

Dennis K was one of them. I had first met Dennis at the American Teen Club one weekend when we drunkenly bumped each other while clumsily waltzing our girlfriends around the dance floor. With a blustery exchange of would-be tough guy invectives, it was correctly established that we were both inebriated assholes.

Later that evening, after delivering my date to her home, I stopped by Lek’s. Dennis and another couple of
farangs
were there. Over the bong, we soon found common ground despite the fact that Dennis continued to insist that he surely would have kicked my ass if he had not been suffering from a sore ankle. He was on the school baseball team and had injured his ankle that season, so at least that half of his claim was true.

The huge US Air Force base in Korat about 200 kilometers northeast of Bangkok was home to a fighter wing that targeted radar and surface-to-air missile sites in Vietnam and Eastern Laos to ease the ingress of the B-52s’ flying bombing sorties from other bases in Thailand. It was also the location of the military hospital where Dennis, whose dad was an US Army Sergeant Major, spent the best part of that summer having corrective surgeries.

Some of my other closest friendships were established at Bahn Pee Lek and the seed for a future illicit enterprise was planted there. A few members of this group brought it to fruition, often sadly and sometimes tragically, in the decades to follow. At that time though, life was sweeter than mangoes on sticky rice with coconut milk.

It was 1967, The Summer of Love, and that spirit was most intense in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district. Some hitherto unknown singer named Scott McKenzie had a Top Ten hit tune called “If You’re Going to San Francisco” that was basically a sappy ballad of hippie philosophy. At about the same time, a few guys from ISB were clambering aboard a narrow gauge train for the long overnight journey from Bangkok to Vientiane, Laos. A number of ISB students had previously lived there and over-hyped the place. In some odd sort of way, though, making the trip secretly to this place our parents forbade us from going to was seen by some of our classmates as a rite of passage.

Also aboard for the trip was a three-man group of musicians from New Zealand. They were the first real long-haired hippies I had ever seen. On their way to this almost mythical place in Southeast Asia that some fellow freak in London had told them about, they sang their altered version of the Scott McKenzie hit, which they called “If you’re going to Vientiane, Laos”. While they crooned, my companions and I fought to keep from laughing at them. In our defense, we were all rather drunk. The trio would yammer on in their own particular hippie jargon while constantly looking to each other for conversational support. They spoke of their British friend who had years before lived in Vientiane and attended the tiny American School there. Since they seemed so uneasy and unsure of their environment, all of us were pretty much unimpressed by them.

We spent the whole of the trip in the train’s dining and bar car because its large padded seats were much more accommodating than the worn and narrow wooden benches of the crowded passenger cars. As long as we continued ordering food and drinks, the wait staff were happy to have us.

After the train arrived at the railway’s terminus station in Nong Khai, the capital of the northern Thai province with the same name, we were obliged to board a ferry to cross the Mekong River and then catch a bus for a one-hour ride west to the Laotian capital of Vientiane. The country had not yet fallen to the communist Pathet Lao, and the border with Thailand was still very open and porous, a policy which continued for the next seven years. But we did have to pay a uniformed Laotian officer the equivalent of three dollars in Thai money in lieu of a passport upon disembarking.

We all stumbled off the bus into the overcast early morning light of a Laos in mid-rainy season. It was only then that we discovered the destination of the three hippies was the same as ours. The Third Eye Bar with its adjacent guesthouse and bungalows was a notorious establishment catering to the few foreigners in wartime Laos. It was reputed to have a vibrating floor – or at least that is what some other kids from ISB who had previously made the trip claimed. One of us had inquired in Thai as to the Third Eye’s whereabouts. The Laotian language is very similar to Thai and easily understood by Laotion locals living close to the border. When the Kiwis overheard us asking directions in an indigenous tongue, one of them said, “Ask him where The Third Eye Bar is.”

Arrogantly acting as if we already had known where it was, we all headed off to our destination via the sprawling open-air market on either side of the road leading from the bus station into the city. Passing the various stalls that sold everything you could imagine and many things you did not even know existed, we finally reached the few small tables of the ganja market that we had heard of. Seeing cannabis being sold openly was part of our juvenile quest. Arriving later at the guesthouse next to the Third Eye Bar only slightly burdened by our purchases had us in possession of our final goal.

The squalid little cubicle we crashed at in the dismal hostel adjoining the bar was practically airless save for one small window. That window let the smoke from the ensuing smokefest filter out of the room, but did not seem to bring any fresh air in. Mercifully, the Southeast Asian monsoon skies opened up for a few minutes with shot-glass-sized raindrops and cleaned the atmosphere like only a fierce Asian rain can. During a pause in the storm, we slogged through the muddy walkway leading to the building next door and into the infamous Third Eye Bar.

The interior of the half-concrete, half-wooden structure was as dank and musty as our accommodations in the hostel. A cracked concrete floor tilted crazily at multiple angles, making it difficult to traverse as we plodded in from the quagmire outside. Under the dim glow of painted light bulbs, the eyes of a dozen or so bargirls, who were many long years past qualifying as girls, followed our progress. Half a dozen or so foreign patrons silently occupied the only stools that stood straight up from the few level floor segments in front of the bar. While trying to sit on a canted barstool without sliding off, I ordered a screwdriver and was given a small glass of sour orange juice with no ice but containing an adequate amount of vodka.

We wisely moved to a sticky table and chairs in the middle of the establishment. At the next table over was a fat, middle-aged, sweaty Frenchman in a soiled white suit. On his lap (what lap there was) perched an older Laotian working girl who was speaking softly to him in French. Her white pancake makeup with heavily rouged cheeks and bright red lipstick contrasted harshly against her soft brown skin and effaced any natural beauty that had ever existed there. The obviously inebriated Frenchman stared at us threateningly as if warning us away from eying his current girlfriend of the moment.

The bar’s quiet and strangely strained atmosphere was soon broken. From behind us came a weirdly familiar sound. On a raised wooden stage in the corner were three hippies with guitars and a tambourine singing “If you’re going to Vientiane, Laos”. The entertainers for the evening, the same three hippies that we had encountered on the train, were singing for their room and board plus tips.

After we downed a few drinks, they sounded a little better. Shortly before my crew left that evening, a large truck rumbled by on the street outside and the floor seemed to indeed vibrate. That night in our smoky little room, an even more intense rainstorm passed outside. The thunder vibrated that small part of the world like I had never known it to do before.

Returning the next day, we carried our small remaining stash of ganja across the Mekong River from Laos into Thailand and with that simple act, we had for the first time smuggled drugs internationally. At that time, the ramifications of this act did not cross our minds, since nobody on either side of the border seemed to care. Three dollars a head slipped to a Thai border policeman made up adequately for the fact that we had no passports. To us, that whole experience was chalked up as a tediously lame outing only worth the silly bragging rights of having accomplished it.