My buddy John just arrived back from Canada after 3 weeks of travel to japan and the US. Needless to say, he needed a night out and we decided to meet at the Bier garden at 7 pm. However, I had not been out for a while so I headed out to Country Road for a beer.
At Country Road I bumped into my namesake, Jimmy who originally hailed from Singapore and has called Bangkok his home for the past 20 years or so. Jimmy is about 80, plays excellent pool and speaks about 4 languages. I was surprised to hear he is working, albeit for a friend as favor. His friend just opened a new factory in Rayong and needed someone to oversee his 3 Bangkok businesses until he get Rayong in maintenance mode.
After about an hour, a youngish girl and guy sat down beside us and revealed themselves as newbies when they pulled out a map of Bangkok. It turns out she was born in Austria and works in Switzerland as a stewardess for Swiss Air. Her BF was from Ecuador and did not fit my stereotype of playing flutes and wearing a straw hat. Turns out he is a hi-so Ecuadorian who married a Swiss girl on holidays and eventually became a Swiss Citizen and their marriage ended in divorce. He met his current GF in Switzerland.
I broached the subject of him marry the girl to obtain Swiss citizenship and he stated it looks that way, but like many marriages they just drifted apart and they maintain their friendship. This is the kind of thing that Canadian Immigration frowns upon as they see it as a marriage of convenience which I am sure happens quite frequently.
We had a great chat covering many topics over the next hour but then I had to say my goodbyes as I had to go meet John and my friend Arthur who is a US citizen. After a couple of beers at the Bier Garden we headed off to Butterflies and BillBoard bars for some bar hopping where I met another crazy Australian who decided to hang out with the Bangkok Lifers who seemed to know where to go to have fun. Meeting people from all over the world is one of the things that makes Bangkok so very interesting.
After about 90 mins we jumped on Motorcycle taxis and proceeded to Cowboy to visit the Dollhouse as I had not visited my friend Ratanna for quite a while. Eventually we said our goodbyes and I left my new found Australian in the good hands of Ratanna. Besotted he was, in more ways than one.
On my walk home (I walk most everywhere I go in Bangkok, bumped into a friend named Phai who I had lost contact with. We communicated over LINE and she had bought a new iPhone (the bar business is good for her) and she did not migrate her LINE settings to her new phone. We remedied that by adding me anew and we are good to chat again.
All in all, a great night in Bangkok and I was home in bed by midnight as today is a gym day for me :-)
TTYL
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