castanets and about three stereos going at the same time?”
”Good grief!” I said. “How on Earth did you survive that?
What is that trip, twelve hours?”
“Longer,” Ernest said. He smiled strangely and put a bag
up on the table. From it, he extracted a Walkman, complete with headphones. “I
used this.”
I was shocked. Ernest, with a Walkmanl
“Here,” he said. “Put these on.”
I slipped the headphones on, and he started the tape.
Cicadas. Cicadas and surf. A quiet spell, and then some birdsong.
“The guy with the bungalow let me use his recorder.”
Ernest was meeting Noi at the Ambassador Hotel, and he had
to run. The last I saw of him, he was hailing a tuk-tuk. He was wearing the
headphones.
I ordered one more beer for the road, and asked the waiter
to turn the music up a little.
LOTUS EATERS
For their own avian reasons, the committee chose that moment
to call a plenary session to order.
“Mao laaohr” cried Nixon with raucous glee, and he
did sound ‘drunk already’. “I’m not a crook! Wow!”
Assorted whoops, whistles, and shrieks of derision greeted
this pronouncement.
“Do you know,” said Eddie, “I’m going to kill all of those
nit-witted birds one of these days. Especially Nixon.”
If you happened to be in the middle of a force-ten
hangover, which Eddie said he was, in my opinion there were better places to
enjoy it than the patio out behind the Cheri-Tone Guesthouse. For reasons best
known to himself, Eddie had five high-spirited mynah birds in cages hanging
about the wrought-iron enclosure where his wife Lek and her sister Meow served
meals to their guests.
Eddie, himself, used
the area to make notes towards his novel. When existence had little of note to
offer, which was sometimes the case, Eddie would work on expanding the
linguistic repertoire of his birds. Or if there were guests he might talk to
these creatures instead, dispensing advice on all matters pertaining to survival
and the maintenance of one’s cool in the Eastern Hemisphere.
“How’s business?” I asked.
“Wonderful,” said Eddie sourly. “We’re filled up.
“Pot and Dit have taken one lot up to Ayutthaya in the
minibus; there are a couple of great big Dutch girls who went out only ten
minutes ago with the avowed intention of seeing some real Thai life and finding
a source of natural yoghurt. And there’s still a bunch upstairs rolling joints
and tearing more holes in their tank-tops, or whatever it is they do when
they’re not down here complaining about the heat and the price of cottage
cheese.”
This was Eddie’s livelihood he was bad-mouthing here.
“Eddie,” I said, “it was only a short time ago you were telling me there were
no guests to be had and next thing you knew you’d have to find honest work or
something. C’mon, cheer up. Business is booming.”
“Well, sometimes it gets to you, you know? I swear, the
times are changing, and sometimes I just don’t know how to talk to this new
generation. Or whatever it is.”
Hangovers can do that to you — make you feel as though a
generation gap has suddenly yawned between the way you are now and the way you
were only yesterday.
“Oh, yeah,” he went on, “this lot have been to Christian
retreats in Kerala and yoga ashrams in Kashmir. They’ve spent as much as two
weeks at a time in Buddhist monasteries. They’ ve seen the Taj Mahal by
moonlight, and they’ve been robbed in Jakarta. Lost the camera in Rangoon and trekked over some mountains in Tibet you’ve never heard of. Been there; done
that. Had dysentery in Lhasa.
“Yuppies disguised as vagabonds, they leave off
worshipping money for weeks or maybe even months at a time, and they come out
here for a spiritual booster. They collect countries like stamps and they learn
how to say ‘Too expensive!’ in seven languages or more.
“Normally they become blessed with a pretty good knowledge
of the Mysteries after the first month, and then spend the rest of
”Good grief!” I said. “How on Earth did you survive that?
What is that trip, twelve hours?”
“Longer,” Ernest said. He smiled strangely and put a bag
up on the table. From it, he extracted a Walkman, complete with headphones. “I
used this.”
I was shocked. Ernest, with a Walkmanl
“Here,” he said. “Put these on.”
I slipped the headphones on, and he started the tape.
Cicadas. Cicadas and surf. A quiet spell, and then some birdsong.
“The guy with the bungalow let me use his recorder.”
Ernest was meeting Noi at the Ambassador Hotel, and he had
to run. The last I saw of him, he was hailing a tuk-tuk. He was wearing the
headphones.
I ordered one more beer for the road, and asked the waiter
to turn the music up a little.
LOTUS EATERS
For their own avian reasons, the committee chose that moment
to call a plenary session to order.
“Mao laaohr” cried Nixon with raucous glee, and he
did sound ‘drunk already’. “I’m not a crook! Wow!”
Assorted whoops, whistles, and shrieks of derision greeted
this pronouncement.
“Do you know,” said Eddie, “I’m going to kill all of those
nit-witted birds one of these days. Especially Nixon.”
If you happened to be in the middle of a force-ten
hangover, which Eddie said he was, in my opinion there were better places to
enjoy it than the patio out behind the Cheri-Tone Guesthouse. For reasons best
known to himself, Eddie had five high-spirited mynah birds in cages hanging
about the wrought-iron enclosure where his wife Lek and her sister Meow served
meals to their guests.
Eddie, himself, used
the area to make notes towards his novel. When existence had little of note to
offer, which was sometimes the case, Eddie would work on expanding the
linguistic repertoire of his birds. Or if there were guests he might talk to
these creatures instead, dispensing advice on all matters pertaining to survival
and the maintenance of one’s cool in the Eastern Hemisphere.
“How’s business?” I asked.
“Wonderful,” said Eddie sourly. “We’re filled up.
“Pot and Dit have taken one lot up to Ayutthaya in the
minibus; there are a couple of great big Dutch girls who went out only ten
minutes ago with the avowed intention of seeing some real Thai life and finding
a source of natural yoghurt. And there’s still a bunch upstairs rolling joints
and tearing more holes in their tank-tops, or whatever it is they do when
they’re not down here complaining about the heat and the price of cottage
cheese.”
This was Eddie’s livelihood he was bad-mouthing here.
“Eddie,” I said, “it was only a short time ago you were telling me there were
no guests to be had and next thing you knew you’d have to find honest work or
something. C’mon, cheer up. Business is booming.”
“Well, sometimes it gets to you, you know? I swear, the
times are changing, and sometimes I just don’t know how to talk to this new
generation. Or whatever it is.”
Hangovers can do that to you — make you feel as though a
generation gap has suddenly yawned between the way you are now and the way you
were only yesterday.
“Oh, yeah,” he went on, “this lot have been to Christian
retreats in Kerala and yoga ashrams in Kashmir. They’ve spent as much as two
weeks at a time in Buddhist monasteries. They’ ve seen the Taj Mahal by
moonlight, and they’ve been robbed in Jakarta. Lost the camera in Rangoon and trekked over some mountains in Tibet you’ve never heard of. Been there; done
that. Had dysentery in Lhasa.
“Yuppies disguised as vagabonds, they leave off
worshipping money for weeks or maybe even months at a time, and they come out
here for a spiritual booster. They collect countries like stamps and they learn
how to say ‘Too expensive!’ in seven languages or more.
“Normally they become blessed with a pretty good knowledge
of the Mysteries after the first month, and then spend the rest of
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