After four years of college, another semester of grad school, and some random weird experiences, I thought I had seen a lot of crazy things in bars. Nothing I've ever seen, however, compares with the spectacle that was last night.
We decided to go out on the town for the first time (urged on by our new enigmatic British housemate, of course), and so we walked to what can only be called the "sexy" street. It has countless bars that are open-faced to the street--that is, there are no walls on the sides that face the street---you can walk right in. The sexy part comes in because there are numerous "available" Thai girls/women who hang out at the bars, to attract the wealthy Western men.
After walking once down both sides of the street, we chose our battleground: a bar on the corner called "Jammers," which featured a pool table and a dozen or so of these Thai ladies, a few old men, and a couple of other tourists. The first thing Maggie and I noticed on the menu was the phrase "Lady drinks +30 baht". I thought, quite logically, that this meant that women's drinks cost 30 baht more than men's. Oh no, my friends--that would be the price to buy one of those plentiful "available" women a drink. And let me tell you, they were eyeing Robbie. Maggie, being totally secure, laughed about them. But I told her we would help her jump them if she wanted us to.
I started off the night with a Long Island, and it pretty much snowballed from there. This particular bar was apparently more concerned with quantity rather than quality, because my drink basically tasted like 6 or 7 shots poured straight into my glass. Our table got progressively louder, then I decided--by George, I was going to play some pool. We met a new friend from Oman (I think he was about 50) and so I played him one on one. I only lost by one ball, but as he then bought the loser table a round of beers, I was pretty okay with losing.
This was the point of the night where you think back the next day and are like "hmm. I should have stopped there. That was the deciding moment." But hey, free drinks, am I right? So we all downed those, and I think that's about the point when I decided that we should really be dancing. I mean, they were playing all of these great (American) songs, and no one was dancing. It was a shame. So I dragged Neha (roommate), Maggie, and some of the Thai whores off their chairs and began a dance party. Our friend from Oman got in on the action too. He can really cut a rug, that guy from Oman.
After awhile, another round from Oman guy, and some more dancing, we decided it was time to move along to the next bar. We walked down the street about fifty yards and found a much larger venue that was packed with tourists (but young cool ones, like us). I made the very, very good decision to not order anything. I was on the move. I wanted to call my sister. And dammit, I couldn't find a payphone. Just as I came back to the bar to report this sad news to the crew, it happened.
An elephant walked into the bar.
I'm sorry, maybe you didn't catch that....
A FREAKING ELEPHANT WALKED INTO THE BAR.
Now, I don't remember every single detail about last night, but I do remember this: I was absolutely, completely delighted that this was happening. I ran over to that baby elephant (it was about seven feet tall and roughly the size of a Chevy Tahoe) and just started hugging away. I may have clapped my hands once or twice also. I wanted to take that elephant home.
This elephant was awesome. It was just very cool, very friendly, and after we had petted and fed it, continued moving up the street after its handler guy, who was pretty much letting it go wherever it pleased. I mean, how would you really stop it, anyway? The thing must have weighed a couple tons.
Coolest. Thing. Ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment