We were met at the plane by a young man with a cellular telephone. We took off at a run, our guide shouting into his phone, and entered one of those conveyor belts called “people movers.” Continuing to take long strides, we passed all others at a rapid clip. As we exited, my knees buckled as suddenly we were on unmoving carpet again. A second man, identically dressed, also carrying a mobile phone, met us at this point and we were passed to him like batons in a relay race.
“Do you have any luggage?” the man asked. My new friend said no and I said only the fifty kg bag, which by now was beginning to feel like a sack of wet sand with a handle. Why, I asked myself, did I always buy so many books and magazines when I traveled?
There followed two more knee-buckling people movers, which took us to the main body of the terminal, where our first immigration passage loomed. Because we had traveled at such unusual speed, there were no clerks in position to meet us. Our escort hustled two into place for us and, in under a minute, I was given permission to “enter and remain in Singapore for thirty days.” (“Hey, guys,” I said to myself, “would you believe thirty minutes?”) I checked my watch, surprised to discover that only six minutes had elapsed.
Then we were on the run again, down an escalator and through the nothing-to-declare customs path. Even if I’d had anything to declare, I couldn’t have found the breath to say what; by now, my one hundred kg bag was hanging by its strap from my shoulder and I was sweating like a pig and snorting, too.
“What nationality are you?” our guide asked.
“American,” I gulped, sucking air. Trying to inject some humor into what was a painful experience, I added, “I learned… how to run… through airports… from O.J. Simpson.”
“Who’s that?” he said.
“You know, the football player,” I panted. “He made television commercials for a rental car company, jumping over airport turnstiles while trying to make a flight. That was before they say he killed his wife.”
“Never heard of him,” the man said. I was beginning to like him more and more.
After that, it was up a long flight of stairs. By now, my shirt was sticking to my back, my socks were slipping into my shoes, and sweat was cascading into my eyes from some mysterious aquifer in my hair. My ears were still popping, too. Slow down, you blokes, I said to myself. You’ve got an “older” man in tow, twice your age and carrying a 150 kilogram bag, versus the combined weight of your cellular phone and your passport. Your legs are longer, too.
We finally reached the airline check-in counter, where a clerk mosied to our service, requesting fifteen Singapore dollars each, the airport exit fee. I said I only had Thai baht. The airline representative said I’d have to change the currency—he pointed to a booth fifty meters away—but fortunately my fellow traveler had enough Singapore dollars to cover me, and as our seats were being assigned and boarding passes were printed he accepted repayment in baht, thereby saving several precious minutes in our race back to the day’s last Singapore-to-Bangkok flight.
Our guide remained behind us now and my friend and I were on our own as we galloped back through immigration, picking up an exit stamp. My two hundred kilogram bag was still on my left shoulder and I was mopping sweat with a large kerchief in my right hand.
Finally, we arrived at Gate 63, an immense room where hundreds of travelers with “carry-on” bags the size of small cars were standing in line to board. I looked at my watch. It seemed incredible, but from the time we exited the plane from Thailand and passed through the boarding gate heading for home again, only fourteen minutes had elapsed! Chris Moore, eat your heart out!
Upon my return, however, my friend Chris refused to concede defeat. His record stands, he claims, as it was unassisted.
Going Troppo
What follows probably won’t make much sense, or seem funny, to farangs who haven’t lived in Thailand for a while, but for those who have, the behavioral traits here listed will ring embarrassingly true. “Going troppo” (short for tropical) is the same thing as “going native” or, more rarely, “going bamboo,” and in Thailand, as elsewhere, it means more than wearing a sarong and drinking the local beer.
From a variety of sources, some of them lost in the anonymity that accompanies much of that which is transmitted by e-mail through cyberspace—along with a few of my own observations— here’s how you can tell when you, as a foreigner, have stayed in Thailand longer than most:
• You look four ways before crossing a one-way street
• You’ve bought a house for a Thai bar girl, or at least a cell phone
• You start enjoying Thai television soap operas and game shows and think you understand them (and think the acting is Oscar quality)
• You sleep on the table and eat on the floor
• You think it’s normal to have a beer at nine a.m.
• You season your hamburger with nam pla prik and your pizza with ketchup You haven’t had a solid stool in five years
• A Thai traffic cop waves you over for a minor infraction and you automatically reach for your wallet
• You always take something to read in the taxi, so you’ll have something to do when it takes half an hour to travel less than a kilometer
• You carry an umbrella on sunny days to keep your skin white
• As a straight male, you start holding hands with your male friends in public
• You stop wai-ing (the prayer-like greeting gesture) beggars, waitresses, and go-go girls
• You give up deodorants and use talcum powder instead
• You tell someone the time is three o’clock when it’s actually a quarter to four
• You think a calendar is more useful than a watch
• You stop thinking that a girl riding pillion on a motorbike, side-saddle, wearing a mini-skirt, with one toe pointing to the ground, while putting on make-up, is anything out of the ordinary
• You think opening a restaurant is a good idea
• You wear rubber slippers to a job interview
• You meet someone named Steve and you call him “Sa-teve”
• You realize that virtually everything you own—your wardrobe right down to your underwear, your watch, your DVDs, even your Viagra—is counterfeit
• You keep your bus fare in your ear
• You keep toilet paper on the table instead of in the toilet
• The footprints on your toilet seat are yours
• You know that the braking distance for vehicles traveling at ten kilometers an hour is two meters and that the braking distance for vehicles traveling at one hundred kilometers an hour is also two meters
• You aren’t surprised when the woman next to you in the bar is eating insects
• Later that night, you kiss the woman with the beetle breath
• You believe that buying a gold chain is an acceptable courtship ritual
• You can’t remember the last time you wore a tie and you think a safari jacket and jeans constitute formal wear
• You no longer trust air you cannot see, or water so clear you will swim in it
• You start drinking water from the spigot
• You can sleep standing up on the bus, Skytrain or subway
• You discover that your girlfriend is the mia noi of your boss
• You buy things at the start of the month and take them to the pawn shop at the end of the month
• You think motorcycles on the sidewalk and pedestrians in the street is normal
• You cover your mouth when you pick your teeth, but openly pick your nose