Thursday 6 November 2008

The Benefits of Travel

So when we last spoke I told you about the night I got laid in Bangkok, which was the first night I had on that trip that I wasn't with my lame (when it comes to da laydeez) friend.

If only that could always be the case...! In fact, had I stayed in Bangkok it probably would have been. But there's travel and overnight trains to Surat Thani, beach resorts with only a handful of people and lots of effort to find places where you can just meet people in the less populous locales that means that it won't happen. Which is cool, cus it's not all just about getting laid now, is it?

Anyway, first things first. A couple of field reports.

It was the night of the Half Moon Party on Ko Pha Ngan, which is basically a club in the middle of the jungle. It's quite cool and I enjoyed it more than the Full Moon Party, which is just cheezy music and drinking.

I went there with a bunch of people from the resort, most of whom I'd met before, two girls I'd just briefly met that day. At the party there wasn't much to write home about. I pretty much got very smashed, more than I perhaps should have, and before I knew it, it was time to go home. A short taxi ride and a large spring roll later and we were back at the resort.

Things don't end there however as everone kind of continues to hang out on the beach. The water isn't deep, and tonight it's actually ankle high. (On this beach once you're in the water it stays the same depth for at least 20 metres out to sea.) There is some fun and some fooling around. Two people have lost their key, and as everyone at the resort has gone home they have to break in to their own room, which causes a bit of a fracas.

Anyway while all this is happening, I suddenly notice a very obvious IOI from a girl - she looks at me sideways and smiles. She's a 6-7 and I'm pretty drunk, so that's all the encouragement I need. I can't remember if I say anything but I just go up to her and pretty soon we're snogging. She's one of the girls that I met for the first time earlier in the day. I made a good impression.

I get hard (as I usually always do when I kiss) and this reminds me that a lot of people get embarrassed about this. I don't, I just "make myself comfortable" and if they feel it then fine. I mean, we're kissing, she's turning me on, it's just the natural way of things. In a way it's a compliment to the girl, though that's less of a reason. Anyway, back to the details. So we kiss on the beach and fool around a bit.

But she's not ready yet, and playing hard to get. In my drunken state this kind of annoys me, so I get less interested. I try to do a move to project a bit of dominance, but all that happens is that I sort of fall on top of her and probably hurt her a bit, which kind of ruins the mood. That's about it really.

I could have perhaps teased her and kept on pursuing her, but I didn't feel like jumping through her hoops really.

Second field report: I'm back in Bangkok and someone on the LSS recommends a bar to go to on Kao San Road. I end up there by mistake and sit and watch the acoustic guitar player as I drink my first beer to get me into the mood.

Shortly afterwards an aircon unit outside sets on fire briefly, and everyone looks over the balcony to see whats going on. Seeing the commotion, from where I was sitting I had no idea, so I went up to the nearest people and asked them what was happening. They told me, and it turned out that they were two hot Swiss girls (both easily 8s).

The funny thing is they were the second pair of Swiss girls that I had met on this trip (the other was in Hoi An) and they were hot too. Are all Swiss girls hot? Swiss Jonathan is pretty hot too, so maybe there's a pattern there.

Anyway, I was talking to them for a while, and it was going pretty well with one of them - the Swiss German one. The Swiss French one was being a bit stand-offish in a typically French kind of way. I probably could have done something here but there were going to change venue and I wanted to stay where I was so it ended at that.

A few minutes later and I started talking to a random Aussie girl who was now the next nearest person to me. She was a 6-7 and we got on very well. We talked about the trips we had been on (we'd done roughly the same route) and she told me about Laos where I hadn't been. Again I could have definitely done something here but by this time I was very tired after a long day, plus I had stuff to do before catching my flight the next day, so I had to go home.

Both of these situations have a pattern where I fail to pull the trigger, which is I think a repetitive theme for me in general.

Anyway these field reports aren't really the main reason for this post. I wanted to metion something else, something that also starts with a field report.

Back in London, I was invited to a flatmate's friend's Halloween party at a house in Battersea. We've all been there, I've been to enough house parties in my time, don't you know. What I noticed was different this time though was that I found it much easier to start talking to ("opening") people. I literally went into a new room, looked at the people nearest to me and said "Hello." That was it. I always like the simplest openers. And everything worked.

Once again there was a weird 6-rated girl, South African in this case, that started chatting me up. Dammit, I want the 10s to do that! It wasn't the coolest of parties though and after a few drinks we headed off back home for an evening of caning.

But the fact that you are forced to talk to people all the time when you're travelling (unless you want to be on your own) makes it much easier back in the "real world."

I'm off to India tomorrow. Should be interesting. Probably less chance of boffing the locals, so a sleazy player friend of mine has told me, but hopefully there should be some open minded travellers around for me to play around with.