A Sleepless Night in Paradise – The Nightmare Neighbours, Thailand

I recently picked up a book on my travels called “The Dark Side” by Jane Mayer.  The title conjured up visions of a fantasy world dealing with the star wars saga.  Not an ideal read but in South America where there’s a shortage of English books I was so desperate that any pulp fiction that happened my way was gleefully read.    Amazingly the book was a well written, factual account of the Bush administration and its rendition policy.  I carried this precious item all the way to Thailand where I had decided to take up residence on a beach and enjoy every written word.     On arrival I settled in under an umbrella and began to read.  The unsettling account did nothing to endear me to the American  administration or its main players.

So here I am reading an appalling account of American behaviour when eight American females, aged about 24, move into the apartment next to ours.  What you need to know at this point is that the apartments are designed for a maximum of three people, they magnify sound to such an extent that the slightest whisper from the other side of the wall sounds like someone is talking into your ear and the owners were not aware of the overcrowded situation.  Before they went out to party they drank several bottles of Whiskey and decided to share their depressingly shallow conversations with the whole neighbourhood, who rapidly came to the conculsion they were in for a sleepless night.   Suffice to say that it was inane, peppered with obscenities, shagging was on the agenda, they planned to get hammered and that they were teachers in training (god help the education system).

Throughout the night they staggered backwards and forwards from the beach, throwing the weak stomached into their room leaving them to  vomit the night away whilst they went back for a top up.  Finally about 3 am in the morning the ones left standing settled on the porch with a couple of Thai’s who claimed to be big shots in the bar scene.   Now if you have been to Thailand you will know that Thai men often exaggerate about their status and will claim to own or run an establishment.  This is as likely as Thai prostitutes claiming their husband, who of course, had a good well paid job died in a car crash.  Therefore,  they had to go on the game to support their kids (it never fails to amaze me how many men who fall for this line).

Having established that the Thai guy was “godamm amazing at speaking English” and “should teach it himself” he proceeded to regale them with all the swear words he knew.

“Best one is what English speak – my favourite but don’t understand.  What is  fucking mal pet mean?”

“Mal pet, mal pet, mal pet” the girls chorused “Never heard that before”.

.   They all pondered the meaning of this for at least ½ an hour.  Delirious with lack of sleep, I flung back the sheets, leaped out of bed and wrenched the door open.  “Muppet you fuckwits, fucking Muppets”  I screamed.  Of course this all took place in my head as I was far too light headed from sleep deprivation to move.

Several hours later the last of them hit the sack and the whole neighbourhood cried in relief before finally falling asleep.  Unfortunately, an hour later the owner appeared and woke us all up as he hammered on their door demanding to know how many people were in the room.  Four, he was told.  Then why he replied were there 8 pairs of shoes outside the door.   Smugly satisfied  that the Americans had just admirably demonstrated what fucking muppets were, I got up and went for a sleep on the beach.