PART SIX: Making New Friends in a Foreign Land

Chatting With Strangers & Looking Like A Thai

It is never the culture in Singapore to greet strangers with a "How are you?", Hallo", let alone to strike a conversation with them. My first travel mate was Kirby, a tall big New Zealander, whom I met on the train during breakfast in the train on my way to Chiang Mai. Kirby works as a music teacher for double-bass in a high school in the countryside of New Zealand.

With tattooed arms and a towering height, Kirby can easily be mistaken as a mafia chief and someone that you should not meddle with. Walking alongside with Kirby was quite a funny experience. The Thai people will approach me first, often speaking in Thai. Kirby will go "She's not Thai", at every attempt that came across. I was joking with Kirby, that people might think that he has "gotten" me from Patpong, Thailand’s infamous red-light district. It’s a common sight in Bangkok to see “farangs” with exotic Thai girls, especially in Patpong where prostitutes freely ply their flesh to the curious and “farangs”. He said in jest, “Yah, very expensive, 1000 bahts”.