CHAPTER 9
“In Hong Kong, they strike a gong, and fire off a noonday gun.
But mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.” - Noël Coward
Patong Beach, Phuket,
Thailand
Thursday, 11th June 1987
Somebody was pounding on my door!
Rudely awakening me from a most pleasant dream, regarding a nude Thai
lady soaping me down with her voluptuous body!
Fumbling for my wristwatch, I was annoyed to discover it was only 10:23
A.M.
Why on earth, dear reader, was the
hotel’s staff waking me at such an un-Godly hour! Don’t they realize this is “paradise”; where
one doesn’t usually surface until noon with a Bloody Mary to nurse one’s
hangover?
“Okay...okay!” I snarled. “I’m up already! What the hell do you want?”
“Captain Pete!” The female voice
outside my door exclaimed. “You have telephone
call! Hurry up please!”
Through the fog of sleep, I recognized the voice of the Thai
receptionist that worked the front desk.
Her name was See-Fah (Color-Blue);
except everybody called her Khun Fah (Miss
Blue).
“Okay...okay! I’m coming!” I assured her.
Christ, dear reader, I wish these damned
rooms had telephones.
Then
I glimpsed the jungle outside, and acknowledged I was lucky to have access to a
phone at all! I was that far off the
beaten track. Which prompted me to question
who the Devil could be calling me? No
one knew I was here – apart from Schottenheimer in Singapore. I wondered why he’d be calling me.
As
I stumbled out of bed - slipping on the standard uniform for “paradise” a
T-shirt and pair of shorts – I glanced about my Spartan room. There was a metal rack against one wall,
where I hung more T-shirts and shorts, next to a cane bookshelf and the pair of
large suitcases I was living out of.
Plus a folding card table and chair, where I wrote using a battery-powered,
compact, light-weight, Brother Typewriter. These items faced the French doors that led to
my small, wooden balcony, beyond which stood a row of coconut palms against a
wall of dense, old growth jungle. Behind
me was a door leading to my miniscule bathroom, containing shower, toilet and
sink. For some inexplicable reason, my
air conditioner was mounted near the ceiling above the French doors; requiring
me to precariously stand on a stool in order to turn it “On,” and “Off.”
I must admit, dear reader, this
was a far cry from my luxury apartment in Las Vegas. Even so, there were most definitely
compensations.
Upon exploring this gem of an island, I discovered a perfect bay on its
west coast, with a curving, pristine beach less than two miles in length,
called Patong. Its white sand was lined
with coconut palms and tamarisk trees, whereas inland I stumbled across coconut
and banana plantations in the jungle.
Hence the name: Patong (“Forest filled with banana leaves”).
At this period the sleepy village of Patong Beach – though geared to
tourism – held little in the way of infrastructure with the majority of its
roads being merely dirt tracks.
There was also a goat, staked out in the garden on a tether, munching on the grass (the resident lawnmower).
I took a moment to absorb this peaceful
scene with its rampantly, beautiful plant life in the garden – having a
dramatically jungle-covered mountainous backdrop - that fed both my soul and
concept of “paradise.”
God Almighty, dear reader, I’d
been dreaming of this island ever since I was a pimply-faced teenager in the
desert backwater of 29 Palms, California.
Every morning when I was confronted with this view, I had to pinch
myself. To make certain I wasn’t still
dreaming.
This
hotel-guesthouse, was called the Patong Penthouse (Why “Penthouse”? I haven’t a clue). It was owned by a pair of retired Austrians,
who spent half of the year in Vienna, and was managed by a young lad - Peter
Schuster – also from Vienna. Peter had a
pair of gibbons, scarcely a year old, that I fell in love with.
Okay, dear reader, school is in
session: These were not monkeys. They were a pair of black Hylobates Lar
(white-handed) gibbons. This meant they
were the smallest member of the ape family and didn’t have tails. I found them highly intelligent and
fast. I mean very fast! It was all I could do to stay ahead of them.
Their names were “Whiskey” (the male) and “Soda” (the female). They appeared absolutely identical. The only way I could tell them apart, was
that Soda usually carried a green hand towel and sucked her thumb - similar to
an insecure human child with a security blanket. Both had free-run of the hotel; they were
never caged, and slept with Peter and his girlfriend, Khun Fah, at night.
When I usually surfaced at noon, I’d breakfast at the open-air restaurant; normally coffee, toast and fresh fruit (mangos, papayas, jackfruits, pomelos, bananas or pineapples).
Generally, Whiskey and Soda would join me
and “help me” with breakfast. They
especially liked my coffee - loaded with cream and sugar - drinking straight
from my cup, or sticking in an undersized hairy fist, then licking the coffee
from the hair. This caused me to worry
whether or not it was good for them.
After breakfast it was playtime; wrestling and splashing in the
pool. They also developed the habit of
riding on my shoulders – tenderly licking the salt from my bald scalp with
their tiny pink tongues. These little
guys were adorable.
Thanks to this pair of “double trouble,” I discovered the secret of
calming overactive gibbons down. They
are not a dog or cat, they don’t enjoy being petted or stroked. Instead, simply groom them, as if you’re
looking for ticks. Instantly they calm
down and become putty in your hands; reacting as if they’ve been injected with
a dose of Valium.
Peter purchased a badly-used, 25-foot cabin cruiser boat, mounted on a trailer, which he parked in the hotel’s backyard. Immediately he set to repairing it, and one afternoon, using a ladder, I climbed aboard to look it over. Peter gave me a sales pitch, in broken English, on how I should buy into the boat as a partner.
Confession time, dear reader, I’m
an authority on aircraft...not boats.
However, the idea of having access to a boat, to explore the tons of
islands off Phuket in the Andaman Sea, and dive off those magical isles, began
to excite my heart.
As these adventurous thoughts of exploration coursed through my
imagination, I was standing in the boat’s main salon next to a window. Suddenly I was aware of Soda, sitting on the
windowsill by me, holding her green hand towel against her face and sucking her
thumb. She had materialized as if by
magic, and was watching me intently.
So I turned to her and said, “Well, Soda, what do you think? Should I invest in this boat and be a
partner?”
I swear on my mother’s grave, dear
reader, what I’m going to describe actually happened.
At this point, Soda stood up and evacuated a turd almost as long as she
was – coiling her excrement on the windowsill.
This was an “omen,” dear
reader. Never ignore omens.
The
“Fates” were telling me this boat was a pile of crap, and I shouldn’t touch it
with a barge pole.
One year later, I learned that Peter had finally launched his boat in
Patong Bay, and, on that day, it promptly sank four miles offshore; where it
continues to rest and rot. I’m happy to
say I heeded the “Fates’ omen” and dodged that bullet.
Thank you Soda!
And speaking of Patong Bay, the beach was 400 yards from the hotel, which I could reach by following a path transiting dense jungle.
When I did this, I felt comparable to
Robinson Crusoe, as I stepped out onto a pristine, empty beach - sans beach
chairs, umbrellas or tourists – hooray!
I’d regularly make this hike at sunset, walking barefoot along the surf
line to town – enjoying warm, clear water and clean sand washing my feet - as I
observed the Sun’s golden-orange disc slip into the cerulean-blue of the
Andaman Sea. Its last bit usually giving
me a green flash as it disappeared. The
other occupants, I came across on the beach, were the occasional empty, long
tailed boat or lobster trap.
I had heard that Patong Beach was famous for two things: its lack of
rats and its numerous cobras - the latter being responsible for the
former. Therefore, when traversing the
jungle, I kept my head down - paying careful attention to the path – hoping to
hell I wouldn’t stumble across a cobra. Late
one afternoon, while moving in the jungle towards the beach – head down hunting
for cobras – I happened to hear a heavy snort in front of me. Looking up, I came face-to-face with a huge,
bull water buffalo carrying a monstrous set of horns!
At that moment there was another snort from behind me – glancing over my
shoulder I spotted another buffalo – then another off to my right – and yet
another to my left! All of them faced me
– bearing massive horns - giving me very unhappy looks!
Oh yes, dear reader, in my
diligence scouting for cobras, I had inadvertently wandered amongst a herd of water
buffalos, also heading to the beach for their evening wallow in the surf. Thereby making another discovery regarding
the Island of Phuket; it had free-ranging herds of these buffalos! Jesus!
I wish to fuck somebody had informed me of this!
With
my heart in my mouth, and nearly pissing myself, I slowly tiptoed out of
there. Praying I wasn’t interrupting any
buffalo mating rituals, which usually got Thai rice farmers gored!
Once clear of the herd - screw the
cobras, dear reader! I ran as if my ass
was on fire for the beach!
Despite these little dramas in “paradise,” a sunset walk along Patong Beach was most enjoyable and became my daily custom. It was the dry season and the monsoon wouldn’t start until the middle of June. It was also the low season for tourism, which was why I had the hotel and the beach fairly much to myself. The winds were blowing from the northeast, with Phuket’s mountains shielding Patong Bay, causing the bay to have mainly flat water, with miniscule waves, similar to a lake. This would all change in June when the wind shifted and blew from the northwest – bringing the western monsoon - pounding the bay with impenetrable rain and big surf.
After dinner, I’d continue on down the beach to the Banana Disco, which,
after seven P.M., ran recently released movies from the States. These were actually black market video tapes
projected on a large screen. Settling in
a comfortable, over-stuffed couch with a beer was a pleasant way to spend an
evening.
Usually by eleven the films were finished, the movie screen was stowed,
the dance floor cleared, allowing the disco portion of the evening to crank-up. And that’s when all the lovely, young Thai
women appeared; prowling for a Farang
(Westerner) to enjoy the night with.
Oh yes, dear reader, they were all
“on the game.”
In time I struck up “friendships” with these young women; ascertaining
that Thai women are clean, polite and possess a keen sense of humor. They were also educated and had picked up a
fair amount of English. Thais live for
the moment; lacking the social and sexual hang-ups that plague Western women.
When the disco closed at two A.M., one of these young ladies would load
me on the back of her motorbike, and haul my inebriated-ass back to the
hotel. Because the hotel was empty of
tourists, we’d usually wind up nude in the pool, to cool off from all the
dancing and drinking.
Oh yes, dear reader, one thing
would lead to the other. And may I add –
that until you’ve enjoyed sex in a warm pool, under a tropical full moon – I
could wish no better fate for you.
That’s why they call it “paradise.”
A
couple of weeks ago, I received a letter from a Scottish Flight Attendant,
formerly with SAUDIA, informing me a mutual flying buddy of ours, John
Schottenheimer, had recently joined Singapore Airlines. She enclosed his telephone number, and so –
out of curiosity – I rang him up. He had
just moved to a new condo at the Bay Shore Park complex, and invited me down to
checkout his new digs. Having little
else to do, I took him up on his kind offer.
Arriving late one evening at Changi Airport, in Singapore, I took a taxi
to his condo. Putting me up in a pleasant guest room, with all the modern
amenities, I looked forward to reacquainting myself with Singapore.
That all abruptly changed early the following morning. Being a captain on Singapore Airlines’ 747,
John told me he had to deal with some “paperwork” at Airline House (the
company’s offices at Changi) and asked if I’d like to come along. Unfortunately I agreed, and found myself
hanging on for dear life, on the back end of John’s new, 748 cc, Ducati Paso
motorcycle – my life periodically flashing before my eyes!
Being a frustrated ex-U.S. Air
Force fighter jock, dear reader, John possessed this burning, visceral need for
“speed” that I was discovering verged on self-destruction!
The
bike had a top speed of 131 mph – which I’m certain at one point we reached –
whilst screaming down the four-lane ECP (East Coast Parkway Expressway) weaving
in and out of traffic!
Miraculously
we arrived at Airline House intact; breaking all types of speed records! John took me up to the fifth-floor, and
introduced me to Evelyn, the attractive chief pilot’s secretary. At which point she announced with a smile,
“Oh, yes, Mister Chisholm. We’ve been
expecting you. Captain Tan will see you
now.”
My immediate thought was, “Holy crap!
That fucker, John, has set me up!”
Stop the music, dear reader! Last January, before I left Las Vegas in
March, I’d come across a full page ad in a flying magazine, announcing
Singapore Airlines needed pilots. So I
got an application from their offices at LAX, put together an employment
packaged, and shipped it off to Singapore.
During the weeks and months that followed, I never received so much as a
peep out of them. Therefore I wrote them
off; figuring they weren’t interested in my qualifications. Apparently, as a prank, John had gone behind
my back and gotten me an interview with the chief pilot! At present, I’ve got nothing with me, no
resume, log books, passport, not even my pilot’s licenses or medical! How can I put on a proper “dog and pony show”
without these items? What a recipe for
disaster!
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