Suzanne Harrington: Thailand — farangs and 'improbable couples' everywhere
Suzanne Harrington: "The younger visitors here hang out in backpacker places, drinking iced coffee and smoking weed, swapping island and waterfall stories. They sleep in beach huts and poshtels and homestays, and zip around on rented mopeds. At least half of them will fall off."
Greetings from the land of the squid-flavoured crisp, the ‘bum gun’, the tourists in ill-advised elephant-print trousers.
The land of tuktuks, ladyboys, bargirls, seaweed snacks, Chang beer, meat on a stick, giant gold Buddhas, orange-robed monks, mango sticky rice, mad traffic, and legendary massage. All in a single afternoon, if you like.
Thailand. Where something as innocent-sounding as papaya salad will blow your head off, and where people in shiny shorts perform a sacred ritual dance in a boxing ring before kicking each other’s heads off.
A place that’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys — but better organised.
Where sunshine and rooftop pools come as standard, and the people are insanely nice. No wonder we ‘farangs’ keep coming back.
There are three kinds of us here. The younger ones who hang out in backpacker places, drinking iced coffee and smoking weed, swapping island and waterfall stories.
They sleep in beach huts and poshtels and homestays, and zip around on rented mopeds.
At least half of them will fall off. On the tiny island of Koh Tao, the hills are so steep and gravelly there are medical centres around every hairpin bend for fallen farangs... motorcycle scars and scrapes are known as the Koh Tao tattoo.
The other category of farang is the one I fall into. Older, with better credit, more experienced on a bike.
Still keen on iced coffee but long since swapped weed for HRT, and traded the giant backpack for a small thing on wheels. Sun-damaged skin and a travel yoga mat.
We semi-oldies are everywhere in Thailand — travelling solo or in couples, wintering on the cheap, wandering around the hallucinogenically kitsch temples of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, our mouths shaped in a permanent ‘wow’.
Choosing islands — the opposite of our rave days — that don’t have full moon parties.
And then there’s the third category of farang — the older solo man. He’s here for a specific reason, and it’s not the temples or the Muay Thai.
No, he’s here because in Thailand he goes from being Dave-down-the-pub to being the Adonis of the go-go bar, sought after in a way he could only dream of in Manchester or Munich.
He makes up one half of one of Thailand’s most ubiquitous sights... the Improbable Couple.
Men who back home could not pull a curtain, walking out with smoking hot Thai women a generation younger.
These men are somewhat unkindly known as Losers Back Home. In places such as Pattaya, Phuket, and Hua Hin — and the infamous Nana district of Bangkok — their Western wallets have transformed them into winners.
You'll see such Improbable Couples everywhere; endless iterations of Jabba the Hut and Princess Leia, Shrek and Princess Fiona, Beauty and the Beast.
Men of astonishing unattractiveness paired with Thai goddesses. And while it’s only fair to acknowledge that old bags my age do the same thing in the Gambia and the Ivory Coast with young local guys, the internet tells us that 90%-95% of sex tourists are men.
Looking at the positives, a farang husband — even Dave, a Tinder-fail back home — is often a status symbol in Thailand.
If you’re from an impoverished background, bagging a Westerner can be a lottery win. It can mean a house, siblings being educated, elderly parents being able to retire.
So despite the visual dissonance of the Improbable Couple, the rest of us, with our credit cards and our life options, need to wind our necks in.
Because when it works, it works. And it’s not you who has to shag Dave.
