Chinese Tequila

Thailand is my favorite place in the world (other than New York, of course) for three reasons: the food, the women, and the Buddhism; all three are done there better than anywhere else I am aware of (if you do know where these three things are done better, please fill me in; thanks). Of all the things I love about Thailand—from the oddness to the strange dichotomies and juxtapositions to the weather to the feeling of spontaneity that is omni-present—tequila is not one those things; it’s not even in the top 1000.

Normally in Thailand, I stick to Singha beer, a lager much in the vein of Heineken or Stella. Sometimes I opt for Sangsum—a ‘Thai whiskey’ that is actually a rum, that may or may not have some kind of serious and intense hard drug in it; if you drink too much of this ‘whiskey,’ you’re liable to have some kind of moment of clarity. I was once found speaking in tongues in a meditative sitting position on the floor of the apartment I was staying at, post-speaking with street dogs in the neighborhood, all after imbibing a pint of this devilish drink. #realtalk

But when the moment is right, tequila is the only option, regardless of your surroundings… but now I have gotten ahead of myself, allow me to explain how this moment came about....

After a lovely Chinese New Year in a Chinese-style river town (see previous entry Chinese New Year, Thai style) my travel partner and I set out further South to Phuket where we had a friend teaching at a university to crash with. As we entered Phuket, I couldn’t help but feel like a marine on R&R; the wild and untamed power-lines were tangled to levels that only decade’s worth of haphazard and non-cooperative infrastructure development could create; the architecture was low-effort Portuguese style; the skies were super clear and the air was super humid; and there were bars on the main drag and in downtown that aimed to entice men hungry for the visceral pleasures of life. All in all, these characteristics compounded to formulate a feeling that I was in Full Metal Jacket 2.

Over the hill and through the jungle from Phuket, the dingy but lovely beach paradise on a peninsula, was Patong—the 2^nd or 3^rd ‘sexiest’ place in Thailand (and of course, by ‘sexy’ I mean wrought with prostitution and steroided up dudes looking to mount anything they can). In addition to these two demographics, there were lots of Chinese families on vacation for the New Year.

Whenever I am surrounded by neon silhouettes of women and people pushing sex shows on the street, I wonder what decision process leads Chinese families to come to places such as Pataya and Patong, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there.

My travel partner and I had prepped for the night with some Northern Thai food, beers, Sangsum (it was one of those nights), Redbull©, and lighthearted existential joking about how we wound up in the places we had wound up in (see previous Thailand posts).

We strolled up and down the main drag of Patong, perusing the schedules for various sex shows and other adult entertainment (Man and Woman, Flower Shows, Ping Pong Shows… mostly standard stuff). We considered getting suits tailored for 80 bucks then decided against it. We stopped into a 7-11 and had another Redbull© and beer.

After stepping out of the 7-11, we were approached by 4 young Chinese women. They asked us to take a picture of them; it was relieving to be approached by non-salespeople. Being that both me and my travel partner speak pretty darn good Chinese, we wowed them and our crew and their crew became a singular crew.

As we walked down the main drag, women in tow, a tequila bar magically appeared out of nowhere. Normally I know to avoid tequila bars in Asia, but it was one of those nights, and the Chinese women had never had a tequila shot, so we had to school them.

There was a discount if you bought the shots by the 15-platter, so being the frugal folks we were, we took advantage of the discount.

As we explained the salted hand and the lime chaser, the tension was building; I had never realized how odd the process of a tequila shot was—the Chinese lasses’ fear was palpable. The process was explained, everyone had a salted hand, the limes were being gripped, the shot glasses were hoisted up… we then held them down (Chinese style cheersing) and called out ‘gan-bei, xin nian kuai le!’ (cheers! Happy New Year!)… the alcohol entered our systems… annnnndddddd…..

Turns out it wasn’t tequila; it was more like something between vodka and rubbing alcohol. Shit. There were no immediate adverse reactions so I remained calm; my travel partner, who had been living in rough and rugged Beijing for a few years at that point, was not standing for the counterfeiting we had become victims to. In a fit of rage he demanded to speak to a bar tender or a manager or someone that he could heir his grievances to. In a commanding Chinese style, he told them that their product was counterfeit and he wanted a refund. They said no. He demanded it once again. They said no. They offered more shots for free. We took it. Haggling 101, yo.

We left after 2 trays of shots to take on Patong once again, which had seemed to become smaller and more beautiful while we were in the tequila bar. We went with the only logical next step at this point: a ladyboy bar. We entered and ordered another bulk discount shot tray—this time it was Sambuca (real Sambuca! Yay!).

After a few songs and taking in the whole scene, I looked into the eyes of one of the Chinese women; it struck me like a ton of comedic bricks: they didn’t know they were in a ladyboy bar. I asked her which woman was prettiest, she responded with a finger and a ‘that one.’ I then asked her: ‘you do know that these women are all actually men, right?’ She denied it, I told her to look at the legs of the dancer in front of us, the rippling calves, the defined hamstrings. Her jaw dropped, her eyes scanned the room, a new sense of her surroundings was taking hold. 

After some chit-chatting with the Chinese ladies about their views on transgenderedness (it’s just a phase! They are confused!) and some informal interviews with some of the ladyboys to learn about the life of a transgendered sex professional, we set out for the beach.

The beach was pretty empty at this point in the late night. We enjoyed some more 7-11-bought beers and jokes with the Chinese women. Somehow, this turned into an unrequited match of truth or dare which ended with myself and my travel partner naked, with this group of fully-clothed women cheering us on and yelling out objectifying slurs. Luckily, as an experienced Boy Toy, I am not a masculinist and I don’t mind being on the receiving end of a bit of objectification from time to time.

After an awkward denial of entry from these young ladies’ hotel, my travel partner and I were forced to walk long distances in search of transportation—in soaking wet pants (literally). An early morning walk in a place like Patong is a great illustration of the dichotomy that is omni-present in Thailand and something I truly love: you can see street level prostitutes picking up their last customers or walking home for the night, right next to the monks who do there alms in the early morning, plus drunken foreigners looking silly and out of place in a land equal parts interesting and confusing to them (although we could only see the latter-most when looking at reflections in store front windows).       

Goin Goan Vol. II: Election Time

The first few weeks I spent in Goa were the build-up to elections, which provided a great deal of inconveniences to those who drink, go out, and drive without a license (which I was all 3 of).

After a few days of doing work at a Café Coffee Day© down the road (think more playful and bright colored Starbucks with lame jokes on the walls and menus e.g. ‘Pull to shed calories’ signs on the doors) and then jamming and drinking with Anirban and his roommates at night, I booked a bus ticket to head South to Kerala. The gods of bus travel disapproved, however, and my bus was cancelled.

Instead of getting another bus ticket, I decided to stay in Goa—I mean, why not? I had a place to stay with cool roommates, a motorbike, and tropical beaches all around me.

The only thing wrong with my surroundings was that they were undergoing elections.

In the few weeks prior to the bi-annual culmination of democracy in the state of Goa, the incumbent government likes to piss everyone in the state off by instating strict laws on curfews, noise ordinances, and alcohol sales, as well as an increased police presence at certain high traffic areas.

I’m not quite sure why they do this, I am convinced that no one really feels any safer when the Goan police are around; these guys pretty much just hang out at certain intersections and pull people over. They then proceed to write your name down on a clip board and usually ask for money (from the white folks, at least). I found out later that some of them like musicians more so I always kept my guitar on my back; one time I actually sang my way out of them fining some Russians I was hanging out with for not wearing helmets.  

Another part about elections that puzzles me is the dry days. In Latin America they prohibit the sale of alcohol the day before and the day of elections, presumably to have a more responsible, or at least less drunk, voter base. In Goa, they choose four seemingly random days per week in the two weeks prior to elections to ban all alcohol sales. If anything, we actually got drunker on dry days because we would stock up prior and it seemed like more of an event, a drinking holiday of sorts.

Then there was the noise ordinance that kept loud music from being played after 11pm for the two weeks prior to elections, because any fool knows a rock concert 12 days before you choose your local leaders will surely cause you to make a regrettable choice. I wouldn’t have had quite the problem with this rule that I did except some popular clubs had apparently paid the cops off to have late night parties any way, and all these clubs specialized in 220 bpm bass heavy electronic shit, oops I mean ‘trance.’ I found myself at least twice at said parties, wondering why I was there and not at home getting some rest.

It’s hard to believe it, but I survived the dreaded election time with minimal emotional scarring. And it would have taking a lot more than illogical party bans to keep me from smiling whilst I sat upon my steel-horse (read scooter) and cruised around a tropical paradise.

Goin Goan Vol. I

From time to time it is a fun thought experiment to consider how small decisions we make end up shaping our fate and future; for me and my trip in India, it was mustering up the courage to jump on stage and wail out ‘Red House’ as performed  by Jimi Hendrix with a local band that would shape the next 6 months of my life.

My friends had left, and I had just gotten a new editing assignment, so I figured I would stay in my cheap and clean guest room for another few days, paying my landlord on a day to day basis as to avoid paperwork (he told me that booking for 3 days or more would warrant paper work, with a dreadful tone of voice. Between my desire to feel off the grid and his lack of desire to fill out forms, we settled on me giving him cash roughly every morning). I also met some lovely Australian girls with a fondness for partying, so my days consisted of posting up at a beach shack and editing a journal on the provincial economies of China and then drinking heavily with a posse of ladies from the land down under.

They told me of an all you can eat seafood buffet with live music that was the cat’s pajamas at one of the original beach shacks at Anjuna beach (a party destination known throughout the subcontinent). I personally feel a bit guilty gorging on food when surrounded by poverty—or any time for that matter—but the live music caught my attention.

Anjuna beach is a long stretch of beach lined with shacks that fulfill most all beach going needs: shade, music, alcohol, people, hash, food, drinking water etc. There are hippy markets on both the North and South side of the town where you can score any last minute beach needs or tapestries.

In the stead of dinner, I drank Kingfisher© strong beer—the  thicker, more filling, sibling of the ubiquitous Indian beer. Despite the more than ample energy the band was giving off, no one was dancing, so I took it upon myself to be the crowd I always wish I had; I let my hair down and rocked the F out. Before too long, a dance party had commenced.

The guitar player/vocalist was wailing, shredding, jumping up and down, screaming, yelling, and all the other –ing verbs you would want a guitar hero to be doing. I felt a certain connection with him; his licks were not unlike mine, albeit better executed. His choice of songs was eclectic and at times ironic and humorous, at least by my standards (you know, like Bob Marley at Starbucks or something). His in between song banter was dry and funny. I liked this guy; he was good people.

The always necessary blues number began—‘Red House’ as performed by Jimi Hendrix. The music was tight, but the vocals were seriously lacking; I figured I could do better. I gestured to the microphone, and the guitar hero gestured back yes.

After performing a number of songs with them that night, and having a plethora of drinks bought for me by people who appreciated what I had added to the evening, the clock struck midnight, meaning the music had to stop (this was my first experience with Goa's election time noise ordinance; I will address Goan elections at some point in the near future).

I joined the band for a post-performance smoke. I introduced myself to the guitar hero and told him I loved his style, he responded back with something similar and invited me to his apartment the next day to jam and crash for a day or two. This was the start of me and Anirban’s fruitful friendship.

I packed up and the next day hopped on a bus to Panjim, the capital and port city of Goa, as well as Anirban’s place of residence. He picked me up from the bus station on his sports bike and took me through Panjim, along the water. We crossed over a river that emptied into the bay on the right and was lined with old Portuguese style buildings to the left. Then we passed by downtown, a bustling urban area with some taller buildings to the left and casino boats in the bay on the right, all lit up with neon signs connoting royalty or luck or the likes (despite the 30 cent minimum bets and my love for casinos, I never made it out). Then we passed down a recently revamped road lined with new, old-looking, LED street lights. This long straight road was the site of Anirban’s most recent bike wreck—a comforting piece of information to hear as we are swerving through buses and cars going 60 mph.

The apartment was big and covered in posters of late and great rockstars. The guy who lived above Anirban heard us jamming and came and knocked on the door and offered beers and hash; we welcomed him and his gifts. This was Antonio, a super cool and passionate Spaniard from the Basque country who was really into sustainable farming. We spent the night playing songs and watching youtube videos of musicians we admired.

I felt quite comfortable in the apartment from day one—it was definitely a quintessential bachelor pad; full ash trays, dirty dishes, burn marks on the glass table, a toilet with a thin film covering, signifying the avoidance of scrubbing, and many other tell-tale signs that very few women enter the premises. Little did I know at that point that this would become my place of residence for the next two and a half months as I continued goin Goan.

'Something' in Goa

I decided at the last minute to go to Goa, despite the condemnations of the place from my pretty devout Muslim hotel owner in Mumbai ('all they do is drink,' 'there is nothing there but trance music and drugs,' etc. [after a month here, that’s not completely inaccurate]). While waiting for my bus outside a water bottling plant in North Mumbai, I met two guys about my age who were going on the same bus as me. They were pretty clearly gay, but if you know me you know I don’t care about sexual orientation at all (I like to select my friends based on things like coolness); we hit it off and ended up rearranging our seats so we could sit near each other on the bus. It was a long and bumpy overnight sleeper bus but I managed to get 5 or 6 hours of light sleep. Over the course of the bus ride we decided to split a room for economic purposes, and come to find out a friend of theirs had already reserved a room for us. I always love avoiding walking in street clothes with my pack in a tropical environment searching for a hotel, but I don’t love it quite enough to actually plan or make reservations (it’s worked out for me so far!).

When we arrived in Goa, I instantly got the feeling that I was in some kind of quasi-Latin American parallel universe. There was a big catholic cathedral situated right next to a bright orange Hindu temple blaring chants over the loud speaker, and the language in Goa is a mix of Portuguese and local Indian languages, so I could understand about 12% of the words from my knowledge of Spanish (a considerable improvement over the 0% of Hindi I could understand in Mumbai!). Once again the slacks and mustaches made me feel like Ron Burgundy was lurking around the corner; or perhaps people were earnestly discussing the battle between disco and rock over a Tab© soda.

We ended up, despite our explicit questioning, on the wrong bus to the beach. This was actually nice though, because it afforded us time to have a morning tall-boy can of beer while we waited for the correct bus. We weren't quite finished with the second man-can when the correct bus finally came, but I had the distinct feeling from what I had seen around me that no one would say anything if I imbibed my beverage on the bus… I was absolutely correct.

To get to the room we were staying in, we had to walk through a back alley about 3 feet wide, dodge clothes lines of numerous households, and walk through a few back yards, all of which included rubble, burnt trash piles, and cows. Our place was actually really nice, and the landlord was a big, sarcastic, dark skinned Indian man with a huge mustache and an outfit that almost always included wearing boxers in the stead of pants and a silver cross on the outside of his shirt or tucked away in his impressive chest hair when topless. I ended up staying there almost a week, and I guess he appreciated my sense of humor as much as I did his because he gave me a pretty hefty discount when it came time to pay him, without me even asking.

We went down to the beach and wound up at a beach bar that I would later become a regular performer at; we drank numerous big bottles of Kingfisher© Strong beer and jammed out to some light-day-happy-psy-trance, or something like that. 

I love music, but I find it very hard to connect with trance, a problem that very few others in Goa seem to have. I have been, nonetheless, trying to make sense of it, though; I always ask a trance fan what kind of trance I am listening to. It seems there is a gradient of light to dark, which refers to the texture as well as what time of day that it’s good for, and then there is psychedelic, which I believe means something different than the word describing such psychedelic classics as 'Innagadadavida' or 'White Rabbit', because I could hear no connection whatsoever. The beats per minute are also important, and it seems the later at night a song is played, the faster the tempo is (just for fun, try listening to a dark trance bass line at 220 BPM; if you are like me, it will likely bring you massive amounts of distress). 

After a month of daily exposure, I can say that to get the full experience of trance, it might be necessary to take MDMA or LSD, two things I have no desire to do (I like my current consciousness a lot, so I ain’t fixing what ain’t broken, as they say). This brings me to another thing I don’t like about trance; it’s really hard to talk to women when they are twisted on drugs of such a caliber, which takes away about 60% of why I like to go to dancing establishments in the first place. But I digress, and we wouldn't want that to happen on a blog... so back to the day at hand!

After about 11 hours of beer drinking and an hour of dancing to inhumanly fast music, we took the next logical step: go back to the guesthouse and drink liquor. It was there that my friends finally came clean to me about their orientation… sometimes I feel like it’s a shame that we live in a world where it takes inebriation for someone to peek out of the closet, but that is neither here nor there, I suppose. Now that that was out of the way, life was just that much more comfortable.

While walking on the little roads next to the beach and through the backyards filled with livestock and the smell of burnt plastic, I started to feel something. The hippies here didn’t piss me off that much; they seemed pretty legit. The international array of women attracted me; options, options, options. The law enforcement seemed lax to non-existent; a friend would later tell me he loves living in Goa because you can ‘bend the rules.’ It wasn’t the absence of cops, or abundance of girls, or the presence of homemade clothes, though, that was making me feel this ‘something.’ I still can’t tell you exactly what this ‘something’ in Goa is, but I can tell you that my weekend trip to Goa has turned into a month, and I am still feeling it every day when I wake up, and it makes me smile both to myself and those around me, and I have been laughing on a notably regular basis (and no, the abundance of hash is not to blame either, although it may play just the slightest of roles).