A Miscommunicated Saturday

On the road to Pattaya.





When I was asked if I wanted to go to beach destination, Pattaya, this weekend, I was stoked. Finally, to get out of the city limits of Bangkok and see some lush greenery, sandy beaches, some ocean!

Nut, my badminton friend invited me, informing me that his brother and friend were going to Pattaya to spend some time on the beach and play volleyball. I swear that's what he said, or at least that's what I heard. I felt like he said, "Please come with us to play beach volleyball." I jumped on it for that reason. How serious of a game could it be if I'm going to wear a bikini and read a book when I get tired.

mmh.

As we set out on Saturday afternoon, I was feeling hopeful. Nut and his brother Gah, and their friend Noom picked me up at the school where I work and we set out on the road. As soon as I got in the car, Nut began his ritual of feeding me. "Here, have some Thai fruit." "Here, have roasted pork." "Here, please take some of this watermelon." I eat and I eat because I have a hard time refusing him and he's just so nice about it.

As he drove, I ate, Noom slept, and Gah was being his usual moody self. I quickly found that the Thai attitude of driving in the city was the same on the interstate. I didn't want to be a backseat driver, but Nut was making some driving errors that frightened me a little. For instance, to bypass a traffic jam, Nut thought nothing of driving on a road that was still being constructed. We jumped back into traffic, like it was nothing. While Nut was peeling fruit and talking on the phone, he missed his turn and made a reckless U turn into oncoming traffic. No one was more alarmed than I.

After two hours and dozens of traffic infractions, we made it to Pattaya, a city Noah describes as trying to remake it's images as a place where "you can bring the family." I could see how it was doing that. There was a lot of shopping one could do on the street, plenty of food vendors, and I even saw some children. However, nothing could really cover up the fact that Thai women were patrolling the beaches looking for Western men. But no worries, every one's gotta work! I just want to see the water. And I did, for a few moments as we drove by.

"We're here!" I cried from the backseat. "Yay! Let's park and get out!"

But we weren't there yet. According to Nut, we still had a little ways to go. Oh, I figured, perhaps we were headed to a more private, more Thai beach where there weren't Italian men walking around in speedos. Okay, that's cool, I can wait. We drove and we drove and we drove some more until we got to place that wasn't beachy at all. We pull off the road and into a park. A bleeding park! That was in the woods!

When we rolled up to the volleyball courts, my heart sank to my feet. Where are we? I wondered, who are all of these men playing volleyball so seriously? It turned out that all of those men, there about fifteen in all, were friends of Nut's who took the sport so seriously, there was diving in the dirt. Dirt, not sand. There was jumping six feet in the air and dominating the net with earth shattering spikes. I was so unprepared.

"I don't have the right clothes to play volleyball," I admitted to Nut.

"I told you we play volleyball, yes?"

"On the beach," I clarified.

"We visit beach later," he saw that I looked heartbroken and patted me on the arm. "It's okay, I have shorts and shoes in my truck. It was greatly appreciated, considering all I had brought with me was a bathing suit (which I was already wearing under a flowy tunic and a pair of jeans. My footwear? Flip flops.

This is what I ended up looking like:


When the men saw me, I knew immediately that although they would be polite enough, I was going to cramp their style. I was quickly introduced. "Hi my name is Gra-tai!" It turned out that there was another Gra-tai in the group. I found a man named bunny was quite entertaining. I also found out later, that there would be a good reason for this.

So they let me play and I played poorly. It had been a long time since I'd played volleyball. Maybe since high school. Even then, boys would bogart the games in gym class. Sooner than later, I was asked by one of the players to sit the next couple of games out. I knew what meant. So I warmed the bench indefinitely. As I watched the games unfold without me in them, I noticed something interesting about "Other Gra-tai" and his pals. They were all definitely gay. I'd don't know the Thai translation for: "You go girl!" but I have a feeling that was said a lot. There was a lot of loose wrist high fives and bum slapping as well. The latter you can find in a super macho sport actually. But the guys were lovely all the same. I asked them if they could pose for a picture for the blog and like most gay men, they complained of not looking cute enough or they shoved at one another to be caught on camera.


After sitting on the sidelines and looking bored, Nut decided it was best for his bother Gah to take me to the beach. By then it was night time and I was very uninterested in seeing the beach. I took my wallet with me, forgot my camera, which was a bummer, and followed Gah to the touristy part of Pattaya. I literally got my feet wet for about five minutes.

Sigh. The day ended with us going to dinner after a rousing few games. There, Nut ordered food for me and forced me to eat curry covered crabs. I was a willing participant, but I was getting tired and definitely ready to go home. On our way home, I fell asleep, but woke sometime to see that we'd taken a pit-stop for Nut to buy more fruit at the market.

"Are you asleep?" he asked me.

"Not now, no. I'm awake."

"Here, have some Sirisiak pineapple. It is very good." I had to refuse him on the grounds that I was terribly full and that I wasn't a little German girl named Gretel and I didn't have brother who was already thrown into a pot. Even when he dropped me off at my front door, he put a container of sticky rice and mango into my hands. "Put this in your refrigerator, eat later, it is very delicious."

I cringed inwardly and took, thanking him the entire time. Pattaya was a bit disappointing, but if I look at it in a different light I'll see that it wasn't all that bad. I didn't spend any money on unnecessary purchases and I came home with another great memory about my awkward game with the guys. Postcards and seashells can't beat that.