Andrew was back in the office after two weeks in Asia. Often, people go to Bangkok or Phuket when they travel to Asia, but not Andrew. He had told some funny stories from his previous visits to Bangkok. This time he had ridden a motorbike up to Sop Ruak, also known as The Golden Triangle, where Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet, separated only by the Mekong River. In the past, the area was notorious for the production and trade of opium, but this was history according to the authorities. Andrew wasn’t so sure this trade was over. Regardless, this story is not about his visit to small rural villages and hilltop temples in the north, but Andrew’s first trip to Thailand.
Back then, Andrew worked as a technical advisor in a large independent consulting company and, strictly speaking, was not supposed to include product-specific components into construction plans. But back in the days collaboration with suppliers was much more common than it is today, and one could be nicely rewarded. The supplier had offered a week in Thailand for everyone who used their products, and Andrew did like so many others in the industry and joined the competition.
Spring came and he was finally in Bangkok. There were several others from the industry who had reached their goals, so a small group had been out on the town the evening before. It had been a slightly moist evening and now he and a colleague were sitting in the shade and mending their hangover with a cold lager looking out over the water. They saw some tourists sitting in a boat staring down at the bottom and realised that this was one of those boats where you could observe the fish and marine life through a glass bottom.
They soon found themselves in a similar boat with some older ladies with blue hair. They were all staring down at the bottom and watched one small colourful fish after another swim by. In the long run this got pretty boring. Andrew came from a well-furnished home and had good manners, so although he did not quite see the fascination of the observed marine life, he didn´t make it obvious. The old ladies were thrilled about this wonderful and amazing adventure. And it was soon about to be.
Andrew hadn’t noticed that Rob had stood up in the boat until he heard a splash as he jumped in. Rob waved his arms and wanted Andrew to get into the water too, but even though he had a few beers in the morning, he wasn’t ready to leave the boat like this. Rob had taken off his swimming shorts and held it up before he disappeared under the boat and appeared under the glass bottom. The old ladies screamed at the naked man under the boat but couldn’t quite look away. Rob was well equipped, so this was probably the biggest fish they had seen in a while. Rob looked happy as he took a few strokes to get away from the boat, but since the boat had momentum and Rob lacked direction, the propeller hit him on the way out. The boat passenger did not realise what had happened until they pulled him over the gunwale and noticed that Rob´s hair was hanging down on one side as if he had a toupee, and that he was bleeding quite a lot from the head. Half the skull was almost scalped, but Rob arranged his hair and just put it back in place and seemed to think that would be ok. The others on the boat didn’t quite agree with that assessment so they finally got him to a hospital where over forty stitches were needed before the hair was in the right place again. He looked a bit like Frankenstein with all those stitches around his forehead, but Rob was both a bit thirsty again and ready for new adventures. This time he wanted to try parasailing, which is basically a paraglider attached to a speedboat. Andrew watched it all unfold from the beach. Rob hooted and waved as he was lifted into the air as the boat sped away from the beach. He could hear the whooshing and whirring of the engines as they drove back and forth out there on the water. The motorboat came at great speed straight towards the beach. Rob looked like he was enjoying himself up there in the parachute. Just before reaching the beach, the boat turned quickly and was headed back out. There was slack in the line and Rob´s parachute was losing altitude on the way to the shore. When the line was tightened again, Rob and the parachute were behind some fairly tall palm trees. Rob accelerated and as the parachute gained altitude, Rob hit a palm tree perfectly in the middle and followed the trunk upwards with one leg on either side. Both the palm and Rob were injured on the way up and while Rob once again was on his way out to sea the fronds fell from the palm. It resulted in another visit to the hospital for Rob, who now had wounds and burns on his hands, feet, and upper body. It was really only the face between the eyebrows and the mouth that was more or less intact when you saw him from the front.
The next few days they mostly sat quietly drinking beer. Rob stayed an extra week to lick his wounds before returning home to his wife.
Andrew was an adventurous type who travelled to many off-the-beaten-track places. Each time he came home with some pretty juicy and wonderful stories. In his office he had a locked drawer with photos and memorabilia from his many trips to inaccessible places. There were likely some stories involving women in the drawer as well. “If one time I don’t come back, then you have to burn this drawer” was his clear message to me. “Don’t give it to my wife. It must be burned”.
The drawer very nearly ended up in the fire when he barely made it out alive from one of his adventures, but for all I know the drawer still exists somewhere. At least in my imagination.
Billy Bronco is telling you 