A Night in Ao Nang Beers Bands and a Lost Girl

Afternoon after 4 PM I grab a Chang beer or two yes you can buy them in some Tesco’s in the UK. I open the first one and take a break from working remotely at home for a bank in London. I sit down on my couch and then listen to your viewer stories. I absolutely love them and it keeps me sane and focused on my dream to live and work in Thailand one day which at the moment may be sooner than I think.

Going to Ao Nang was a great experience. On a bus service from Surat Thani we had a very comfortable bus inside although not looking the part from the outside. We arrived in Krabi at the bus station early in the night probably around 7 PM. We then took local transport down to Ao Nang. It was during this trip squashed in the back with many farangs that my friend’s wallet got stolen by a fellow farang. We suspected a guy who was sitting next to my friend the most unfriendly of the lot not speaking to anyone really and from the looks of it on some kind of substance. I connected quite well with a young French guy sitting next to me.

My friend had to get up now and again to talk to the Thai driver along the way to explain to him how to get to Ao Nang from the bus terminal. I know this is super weird we all thought that the driver does not know how to get there yet he drives around the area all day that is his job. My friend used Google Maps on his phone and spoke a little Thai.

My friend had moved over to Thailand about a year ago. He decided to teach English at a school to remain in Thailand by way of an educational visa and earned some money to pay his expenses. He just finished a stint in a small rural school and was to take up a new job in Chiang Mai in three weeks hence carting along his luggage. My friend used to work in the financial services industry back in South Africa but had had enough of the daily grind and the stress that goes with it and had decided to try something in Thailand instead.

We realized my friend’s wallet had gone once we arrived at the hotel he had to pay for two nights’ accommodation. We were so disappointed that his wallet was gone that we even went back to the bus terminal in Krabi by taxi to go look for the wallet in case it fell out of his pocket but we found nothing at the now empty bus terminal. It was a real shot in the dark. On the funny side of things we actually stopped at three different bus stations since there were more than one and we did not know the name of the one we arrived at but eventually found it. We looked on the ground everywhere but we didn’t find his wallet. We even woke up the bus driver of our bus who by now was asleep in the bus next to the bus terminal and parked up for the night.

We did not find my friend’s wallet in the bus. We then realized that it probably got stolen by the suspicious guy in the pickup truck or my friend lost it standing up and down in the back of the truck.

The Pretty Thai Girl

Back in Ao Nang we decided that my friend should go to the local Thai bank in the morning and get a new card. We decided to go to a local restaurant later that evening to get something to eat. Our table was on the side of the restaurant so people walking on the pavement could stop and talk to us easily. A very pretty Thai girl came along and introduced herself and asked if we would mind if she joined us for dinner. We said ‘Yes no problem grab a seat.’ It wasn’t long until I realized my friend had taken a liking to her. We chatted for a while and ended up sharing all of our Line app contact details and she then left. This was my first experience of actually sitting and talking with a Thai girl.

I had spent a night in a nightclub back in Chumphon but it was a little quiet and I didn’t really get the chance to speak to any girls.

We ended up walking around the main street after our meal in Ao Nang and headed down to the Beach Road and found a bar where a local band played mostly Thai music. We were literally the only farangs in the place but it was fun drinking local beer and listening to the Thai house band playing covers of well known songs. Both me and my friend were still quite upset about the loss of his wallet because it would make a real impact on our trip if he could not get a replacement bank card. That evening we decided to head back and have an early night.

The next day we hired a couple of scooters but several days later my friend actually had an accident right outside the scooter hire shop but that’s a story for another time. I had never ridden a scooter or a motorbike so Frankie took me to a quiet part of town and taught me how to ride. However I did get several laughs from local people watching me. After riding around for most of the day and enjoying the local sites we headed back to our accommodation. We had arranged a date with the girl we had met at the restaurant last night and she was going to bring a friend along too. The girl’s name was Ploy and her friend was called Nam.

The girls took us to a local bar where we spent some of the evening drinking and playing bar games such as Jenga. Ploy was into my friend and my friend into her they hit it off. Ploy had brought her friend called Nam along to hopefully hook up with me. She was quite sexy looking and we seemed to hit it off. She was also a lot of fun and I loved her smile. Oh and she was also definitely very flirty with me. The girls told us about a Western style nightclub that they knew of and wanted to go to. We agreed and we all headed to this nightclub you know the sort of thing no sides on the building more of an open air nightclub. The performers at this nightclub did all sorts of crazy things like juggle fire this was all new to me.

We ordered a round of cocktails and were all sitting watching the performers when Nam stands up because she recognizes another foreigner and goes over to speak to him. I was left on my own like a lemon sitting there watching Frankie and Ploy enjoying each other’s company for at least half an hour. This really annoyed me. I looked all over the club but realized she was nowhere to be found. I thought to myself ‘Why am I running around chasing this girl? She’s obviously left with an old customer.’ I wasn’t now in the best of moods. There wasn’t much single action going on in this club but next door there was another bar which looked a little bit more interesting. I spoke to my friend and said ‘Look I’m going next door there’s nothing going on for me here. I’ll see you in a bit.’

A Night With the Ao Nang Band

This place was mainly Thai people but again they had another live band. I was the only foreigner in the bar but I really enjoyed the band. So every time they finished a song I stood up and made a lot of noise. The band took notice of me and loved the attention I was giving them all smiling back at me. Although I was by myself drinking and listening to the band I was having a really good time. I enjoyed this live band music so much they were really good musicians. I even ended up dancing at one point. I can’t remember how many beers I’d had at that point but the band bought me a beer to show their appreciation. Eventually the music stopped at about 2 AM.

The band leader called Lock who spoke some English came over to me and asked me if I wanted to join them on the beach as they were going to party. I thought this was great. I looked over at the other place and I couldn’t see Frankie or Ploy the club was closed so they had obviously left. I told him yes I’d love to join them.

We all ended up on the beach all of the band members their girlfriends and me. We were drinking beer Thai whiskey and listening to Thai music. I remember asking Lock why didn’t he release a CD because I thought his music was that good. He just laughed at me and said ‘I only play for fun I don’t think we’re that good.’ I told him I didn’t agree with him and thought his band was brilliant which put another smile on his face. At about 5 AM I was quite drunk and thanked them for the evening and headed back to where we were staying. Walking back to the accommodation I bumped into a ladyboy who tried chatting me up.

Remember I had zero experience of Thailand and this was quite an awful experience as I just wanted to go home and sleep but he was so persistent it took me half an hour to get rid of him. Believe it or not he actually started crying because I would not take him back with me. I don’t know if they were real tears or not but he was very convincing.

When I spoke to my friend the following day he told me that Nam had come back to the club about an hour and a half after I left and she was looking for me. My friend didn’t let on that I was next door as obviously being more experienced than me he realized that she had gone off with the other guy for a short time and then came back to look for me afterwards. So he played dumb.