This low season appears to have reached previously unknown depths. The high air ticket costs have priced Thailand out of the budget of many tourists and the rising baht has decimated the ranks of the casual residents of Pattaya.

 Everytime I enter a bar I feel like a RAF pilot returned to the barracks after a deadly encounter with the Boche. Another face joins the ranks of the missing when my wingman Nick had to return to the UK this week.

Two years of golf, beer, and girls had depleted his funds. his mother was ailing and his sisters called for him to help, since he was the only one without any obligations. As if drinking beer wasn’t important. We had a last night of beer on Soi 6 and the next morning he was gone. No more celebrating Beermas every day or his cheering on the Hot Spurs or listening to the Jam.

“Don’t worry, Pattaya will be here when you get back.” The Buffalo Bar was never going to close other than every night at 3am.

“I don’t know when that will be.” His mother was needed care. An open-ended responsibility, plus he had to take safety courses to get an oil rig job. “Maybe next year.”

2008.

A long time, but everything will be here.

Maybe not like 2005 when he arrived, but then nothing is the way it was. Of course it isn’t too sure he can hold out till then considering his emails from the sphinctered Isle of Less Britain beamoaning drinking in bars where nothing has happened since his departure two years ago, no smoking laws, rain, taking courses for the oil job, and the ugliness of English women. 10 pints of bitter and he was in a better mood. even a hang over is better than facing the UK straight.

Sounds brutal unless you realize that Nick has a mistress from Pattaya living up the motorway with her English boyfriend and she’s dying to see him.

A little taste of Thailand in the UK and not pad Thai either.

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