An average Thai Friday night (Part 2)

This continues on from Part 1 if you haven’t already read it.

After the fight finished everyone left the mini stadium and started the little walk back toward the camp. I was happy to walk that way with the masses and get back to my room for a nice sleep, maybe popping into a bar on the way to chat about the events but all in all just have a quiet end to a good evening…I was wrong.

For part of the night at the stadium we had lost Nelson only to notice that we was at the other side of the stadium betting on the matches with some Thai guys. As it turns out Jake had already worked his magic and the Brazilian powered pyrotechnics were going to end up in full swing. Nelson had come out of the betting quite well and was insistent that we all must continue the celebrations for as long as possible which involved continuing our good times at Laguna Bar / Night Club. Before anyone had time to disagree Nelson had commandeered a minivan taxi and a group of us were on our way to Laguna.

The Laguna bar was a great place but it was very different to the bars I had been to so far on the local streets. Very quickly you noticed that although the place was full of girls, most of them were Thai and seemed to be employed by the bar. Rather than serve drinks or clean tables their job was just to stand about and encourage the guys to play them at pool or keep buying drinks. It was really obvious what their game was but we were still having a laugh together and who can turn down free games of pool!

 

 

As time went on the real reason that we were there was soon to be revealed as Nelson kept on checking the time. At 2AM the bar closes down and the club side opens and Nelson had a plan or 2. When the club opened instead of leaving the bar in the normal way and queuing for the club we instead took a back door straight into the VIP section of the club and were seated in a nice little tables section with service straight to the table. The only issue we had at that point was that they wouldn’t let Jake into the VIP area with a vest top on and so the ever resourceful Nelson resolved this by simply buying Jake a T-shirt to stick on while we partied.

From this point onwards things get a little hazy and the time seems to have flown by mainly fuelled by the Brazilian party animal but literally fuelled by the bottles of absolute Vodka that he kept ordering to our table.. for the 4 of us!

One of the highlights of the night has to be when the live saxophone player turned up stood on top of the DJ booth and started busting out some tunes to the music. The atmosphere was amazing and that just made it.

While we were mingling on the dance floor we ended up bumping into one of the female fighters from earlier that night and ended up chatting to her and her trainer for quite a while. To our disappointment all of a sudden the lights came on and the music stopped. It turns out at the places closes at 6am and we were pretty much the last few people there, me and Jake representing our group that had slowly dwindled down in numbers as the night had progressed. Outside Jake and I simply carried on our random conversations to the many new friends we seem to had until one by one they seemed to disappear into the night… that was quickly becoming day.

When you live in a country that doesn’t care too much about health and safety then certain things can occur that would just seem magical back in the UK. Outside of the club were 2 street vendors selling the best fresh BBQ chicken that I have had in a long time. These guys had basically taken a scooter

and built onto it a little side car then stuck a BBQ on top and then they were in business. The food tasted great (although alcohol may have had something to do with it) and it was cooked up fresh to order since there was no one else left to bother with. While we were getting our fill Jake lifted his T-shirt to reveal that when the lifts in the club had finally come on he had done the only truly Australian thing he could and ran to our table to get the rest of the bottle of Vodka. This half bottle being his souvenir of our little adventure and firmly confirming all Australian stereotypes.

Once our bellies were full Jake and I became fully aware that we were quite alone, a few miles away from our respective hotels with no transport. Our attempt to flag down a passing taxi was hindered due to it being gone 7am and actual cars being quite rare over here. A scooter stopped by the side of the road and told us to hop on who ever quickly got told to get lost and that we would rather walk than get on the back of a scooter to get home…

….well it turns out that the drunk duo didn’t need too much convincing as about 10 mins later after still not getting a taxi and contemplating walking someone else stopped to offer us a ride. This time there were 2 scooters and after weighing up our options we agreed a price and popped on the back. To be fair our drivers took it slow and steady and there was nothing at all on the road but that didnt stop it from being a hair raising ride back to camp. All the way back I was primed like a coiled spring incase I needed to leap off and perform some sort of combat role. Jake on the other hand was a drunk Aussie. He spend the ride dancing of the back of his scooter and continuing to eat his chicken kebab which was just comical and scary at the same time.

As you can guess we made it back to camp in once piece where I then retired to bed and from what I have since been told Jake made his to his room, only to decide he was bored and wanted breakfast so went back out to the local bar again.

Train hard play hard is definitely the tag line that he lives by!