In the HOPF coffee bar on New Year’s Eve, we meet Nancy and
her friend Knut. Nancy is American.
Because I’ve got no filter after two glasses of wine and 2 bottles of Singha, I
tell her that seems like a very typically American name and that it always
reminds me of the Leonard Cohen song (‘seems
so long ago, Nancy was all alone, watching the Late Late Show through a semi -precious
stone’) I think she gets this sort of thing a lot, probably like you do if
you’re called Sally, and she reels off loads of songs with Nancy in the title.
I’m a bit intrigued by Nancy. She looks a bit like Michelle
Williams playing Marilyn Monroe, but she’s much more….curvaceous. She has
platinum blonde hair and is wearing fish nets and a leather skirt. She came to
Chiang Mai from Boston four years ago on a whim. I don’t quite believe her, ‘on
a whim’ story, and try and wheedle out of her why she came here alone. I think
I’ve come to realise that writers, and wanna- be writers, are a bit vampiric
and like to harvest people’s stories.
Imagine, you’re in a pub and someone’s
asking about you, and you show a chink of an life less ordinary and then your
new found friend slides closer to you and says *creepy, pervy voice and hand
rubbing* ‘Oh really? Tell me more about that!’
Anyway, she’s not telling, and is even more cagey about what
she does here, just saying she’s a ‘free-lance programmer’.
Knut is from Norway, and comes out here for a month at a
time. He helps us get our taxi up to our month-long homestay. We have made
plans to meet again at the weekend when we’ll go back into the city.
Everyone is setting off paper lanterns. They hang above the
city like floating stars. At midnight, the traffic and everything stops for the
fireworks, apart from the band playing in the HOPF Bar, who carry on playing with
gusto. They play mostly Rolling Stones covers, though it hard to tell from the
lyrics and you kind of have to guess by the tune alone.
We leave it far too late to get any dinner, and end up going
to the only place that’s open. It’s basically a warehouse that caters for large
groups of Chinese customers. Oooh, lovely, you might think. Finish off the
night with a nice sweet n sour and egg fried rice! Er, no. I can’t really
understand the menu, so I take a chance on noodle soup with vegetables.
I am presented with a bowl of what essentially looks like
gelatinous snot. A poached egg sits in the middle of the soup, like a yolky
eye, wearing a crown of crispy noodles. I think it might be the most disgusting thing
I’ve ever eaten. When you end up shovelling 7/11 plastic tuna mayo sandwiches
down your gullet at 4am, and they
taste pretty good, you KNOW that the soup was bad.
On our way home, we see the singer from the HOPF band. He
looks like Johnny Depp in Pirates. ‘Hey!
Guys! Happy new Year!’ he yells, waving.
In all a top night, but I really cannot cope with 4am bed
times.
New Year’s Day breakfast is eaten in the Knut recommended Bamboo
Café. Huge amounts of cheese omelette, chips and salad are consumed before we
walk away from the old walled part of the city into the more commercial area.
It takes about an hour or so, but it’s worth it. Down the little side streets,
we find nice wine bars and a pub selling ales. After 3 weeks of drinking Thai
beer and weak cocktails we end up hanging around here, drinking Chouffe Blonde
and eating pizza.
We get a tuk tuk back to our area, and meet Knut for a quick
drink before going back to the hotel and trying (and failing) to sleep on the
pillows. Those pillows are so big and springy, it’s like trying to sleep on a
Swiss ball, but more awkward.
Now we’re in the apartment we’ve rented for a month. It’s
lovely – a proper, two-floored apartment with a washing machine and cooking
stuff. It’s also in the middle of no-where, so blogs about what we’re actually
doing may go quiet for a bit. But I’ve got plenty of ideas for writing,
including my ’50 Shades of Grey with Zombies’ idea, so watch this space…..
