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.

The Dark Side Tour, Part I

Bryan and I were having a long overdue bro-reunion, and we were curious about the seedier side of Thailand; we have both visited Thailand but never seen the side that unfortunately dominates many people’s perception of the country (there’s a lifetime of things to see and do here that don’t involve sex, and the culture is quite agreeable, as long as you’re not a dick).

We, however, put red-lighting on the back burner to meet up with some contacts we had in Bangkok. We spent our first night with Joe. We had a big Thai dinner and toast for dessert—this isn’t any old toast though, it’s 3-inch thick, buttery white bread that you can dip or cover with pretty much anything you want, and it is as decadent and sinful as any dessert I’ve had. Joe was tired from being overworked and when we asked him about the red light district he quickly passed. Eventually we parted ways to go get some sleep.

The next day we were to meet up with Pap, and we assumed it would be a similar scenario to the night before; but God, were we wrong. Oat and Pap are a classic duo—Pap is tall, charismatic, and very unrestrained by Thai standards; Oat is shorter and has distinctly Chinese features, and is much more calculated and mild mannered on first impression. Bryan and I rode in the back of Pap's pick-up, slowly crawling through the never-ending Bangkok traffic

After lunch they told us the truck had no plates and was in dire need of maintenance, so we needed to drop it off before the Police pulled us over. We went to Oat’s house, which was under reconstruction from the floods that hit Thailand recently; the walls that weren’t repaired showed water damage over 3 feet high. We met Oat’s grandma, a first generation Chinese-Thai immigrant, who Bryan and I got to speak some Chinese with.

Bryan rode in the pick-up and I rode with Oat in his immaculate 2007 Mazda, one of the cleaner cars on the road and tastefully modded with a sports package. About 25 minutes later, we were maybe a mile closer to our destination (Bangkok’s traffic is a nightmare, people will always tell you it’s rush hour, even at 3 in the morning; sitting in a nearly-parked car is an ongoing theme in this town). Oat was in the middle of telling me he works as a day-trader and high stakes sports gambler when his phone rang. He said hello, listened 3 seconds, laughed maniacally, and hung up. Then he told me that he and Pap were going to take us on a tour of the dark side of Thailand, he said it would be a multiple day affair and that we needed to go check out of our hostel. We did as we were told. (A note to prospective Thailand travelers: ditch the travel book ASAP and make friends with some Thai folks at a college bar and let them show you around, they pretty much all speak enough English and Lonely Planet writers know nothing compared to the locals.)

After what seemed like hours of crawling traffic we had dropped off Pap’s truck and were at Oat’s high rise apartment. His floor was equipped with a pool on a terrace, a full gym, and other amenities one would expect at a top notch condo, all paid for by calculated sports betting. We dropped our stuff off and hopped back into the car to face more traffic, and ‘The Dark Side Tour’ commenced.

Pap gave us a briefing on the itinerary, he was going to show us all the sex Bangkok had to offer (that was for sale at least), starting with the cheapest at a few hundred baht (3 to 9 bucks), to the classy stuff at 5000+ baht (170 dollars or more). The first stop was a seedy underpass near a railroad; the streets are lined with aggressive ladies of the night that only get a second before the customer’s drive onto the next prospect, so they really display their wit and charm as best as possible. Old train cars with beds serve as their offices, so to speak. Next stop was the ‘massage parlors’ which were big, casino-esque structures with neon signs spelled out in Thai, English, and Chinese—the difference between these and real massage parlors are the neon lights and the staff, Pap pointed out (‘If the girls are beautiful, they are prostitute. If they are old, it is a real massage spa’). We went to a local favorite, Nataree, which may have been intended to be called ‘Natalie’ but due to the lack of an ‘r’ and ‘l’ distinction in Thai someone opted to go with the ‘r’ accidently.

Inside there was a window booth displaying the veterans, a table with the older ladies to the left, and a bench with the younger ones to the right. The younger ones were mostly dainty, light skinned, and inexperienced looking; most were thumbing through their smart phones with an air of indifference, all of which are apparently wildly hot characteristics to a Thai guy. Conversely, the older ladies hunted for eye contact and smiles with potential clients. We saw many different types of clients, one duo were two Thai kids who couldn’t have been more than 20, and they purchased a ladies’ company to share between them (balling on a budget, or bonding?).

While leaving Nataree, we were pulled over for a broken headlight, and after extensive bargaining Pap and Oat were to pay a 200 baht toll (whether it was a fine or bribe, the world may never know). The caveat was they had to go pay it to a higher ranking official at the station, so they left us with the cops next to the parked car, which was in a u-turn zone. Not 2 minutes after they had left did a giant tour bus full of Koreans pull up and they needed to make this said u-turn. The bus driver did a 56-point turn to try and get around our car that was blocking half the zone, to no avail. All the while, traffic was backing up more and more down the busy street of Bangkok because the bus was blocking 2 and a half of the 3 lanes of traffic. The police started shouting at us in Thai (presumably to move the car), once again to no avail.

Once things were straightened out we headed to the high class brothel, which looked like the white house tucked in between two skyscrapers. Unfortunately, they were hosting a private party and we couldn’t get in. Pap and Oat then told us they would take us to Pattaya the next day, which is the capital of darkness in Thailand, and that we needed to rest up. Once again we did as we were told, totally unaware of just how crazy the next day would be…