Previously published May 24, 2023

I have a flight to Kathmandu. I wish I could stay in Bangkok, but my money is getting low. I called New York from the Malaysia Hotel lobby. A collect call to Rickie Boy, who complained, “I haven’t had anyone to drink with since you left. The city sucks. The clubs suck. The drug sucks.”

“At least here in the Orient there are life”

“Where are you now?”

“Bangkok, the City of the Angels. A paradise for the wicked,” I recounted visits to Patpong the notorious red-light district. Go-go bars and more go-go bars. “I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else in the world.”

I didn’t mention my head-on crash with a pick-up north of Chiang Mai. I had been killed instantly and just as instantly reincarnated back with this body. Only difference. A broken wrist.

“It does sound like paradise.”

“Yes, but it’s very poor. And they have lepers in the streets. Hiding from the sunlight. Stumps of hands and feet. Gnarled faces.” I tapped my cast. My wrist itched. The plaster cast prevented any scratching.

“Not a pretty picture.”

“No, it is not.” But New York had over 50,000 beggars and madman freed from the closed upstate mental hospitals. The refuse of a nation after decades of wars, poverty, greed, and neglect. There was no saving them nor will Buddha save the desperate souls of Bangkok nor me.

“When are you coming back?”

“I’ll spend time in Paris and London.”

I had no reason to be in America yet. The Knicks had knocked out the Celtics. I had friends in Paris and London. I had worked in both. I could get a job at a nightclub on my fake carte de sejour.

“But I seriously thinking about moving out here. If you want to join me next year, then start saving your pennies. Departure date. Jan. 2, 1991. Although I don’t know, if I can last that long in the USA. I’d love to leave forever.”

Not that America was heaven on earth, however I knew its evils too well.

“Good luck in the Himalayas.” Richie laughed, “I’m stuck with my father and so are you. Your job will waiting here.”

“Thanks.” I kept it short having covered the reason for the call. Back in New York I still had a motorcycle, an apartment, and a job waiting in New York.

I hung up and joined Dawn on a lobby couch. The diminutive go-go girl had been a good companion over the last week. She actually looked sad to see me go. She caressed my cast. I couldn’t feel her touch. I slipped her another 1000 baht. She wai-ed me and said, “You come back. See me. Love you long time.”

I wai-ed her back, wishing she was coming with me. I am a fool.

The ride to the airport through the traffic took an hour. I had another hour and a half until my flight’s departure. I grabbed a Bangkok Post and a Singha beer in the lounge area. The itch was worsening. I couldn’t reach it and downed another Dilaudid. Men were saying good-bye to girlfriends. Some are sad. Other men are greeting their friends. They are happy. This must be the Hello-Goodby Lounge.

The terminal loudspeaker called for all Kathmandu passengers. I finished my beer and proceeded through customs and passport control. None of the officials paid me any mind. I was just another farang or foreigner leaving the Land of Smiles. The Thai Air flight plane took off on time and I left Thailand for the first time. I would be coming back soon.

LATER

Ten klicks below are the arid rice fields of Burma, burnt brown and begged for the monsoons. The rumors of the military’s corruption, forced migrations, massacres, and starvation are not rumors. I had been on the northern Thai-Burma border. Drug lords and Karin rebels fight the junta. No one wins these wars, but there is too much is at stake to surrender. Neither Thailand nor the USA have cut off ties with Myammar. Heroin was why the French and America fought long wars to control the drug trade. They never stood a chance. These countries are not France or America.

I saw one temple in Bangkok.

Wat Patpong. No Buddhas. Only near naked girls dancing above a bar.

Why did I leave?

An hour later I sight the Himalayas to the north. Snow capped peaks stretching for hundreds of miles. I had seen them in National Geographic. Never this close. I had enough money to trek into them and I was dying to see the Himalayas closer than at eight miles high.

LATER

A golf course is next to Kathmandu airport. Soldiers are everywhere. The pro-democracy wave has washed over Asia. Students are calling for the abolishment of the monarchy.

This evening I met Lance. A New York architect. We have hired a trekking team through the hotel. Te most popular trek is the Annapurna circuit. I don’t have enough money for that sixteen hike. We chose Langtang Glacier. Only ten days. I purchase two Kingfisher beers and sit on the roof, watching the sun light up the Himalayas.

Dorge the guide, has arranged trekking permits in less than an hour. He points out the peaks. We have a Nepali cook and Sherpa porters for an early morning departure in two days, which is a good thing, because I hear gunfire. The army is shooting students.

“We were stupid, “says Todd, another trekker from Hawaii. I had told him about Bangkok.

“How so?”

“You should have brought go-go dancers from Pat-Pong.”

“So they can ask, “Where Tee-vee?” No thanks.”

I am here for the mountains.

The highest in the world.