My Kind of Town

"City of sin","Tropical sewer","The toilet seat of Asia".
Just a few terms I've either read or heard said countless times, but this is my home, and I love it here.
Pattaya, to me, is much more than a sex-tourist haven. It has the perfect climate, great restaurants, friendly folks, and of course, life is never dull for one moment. Having worked a dead-end job for just over thirty years and endured two dull, loveless marriages, things have never been so fun or fulfilling for myself and many others who have settled here.
It goes without saying that Pattaya has its unsavoury side, and murders and suicides occur on an almost daily basis, sure, but you never hear about the ammount of succesful love stories that happen every day, or the sense of community spirit amongst the expat community.
With a population of over a quarter million people you're going to have to take the rough with the smooth.
My only regrets about Pattaya is that I didn't find it when I was in my twenties. Now, in some ways, the place seems a little wasted on me. All too often I clock a girl who takes my breath away. Literally. Just the mere thought of having to try and satisfy her leaves me short of breath.
I've had my heart broken a few times here, but these days I'd like to think that I'm a little more careful. It's all too easy to think that the next one is "the one", but it's impossible for things to remain as sweet as they are in those first few months of courtship, so move on quickly, I say, with as little emotion as possible.
The number one rule I have is that I never get involved with the girls who work in my bar. And if you've seen how cute some of them are you'd realise how tough that can be some days. Mamasan Pu, my trusty business partner, has a contact who gets some of the freshest, best lookers off the Isaan conveyor belt.
Running a bar has to be kept as stress-free as possible, so I'm always sure to keep my emotions and hormones in check. If any urges overcome me I just slide out for a soapy massage down the road.
I never envisaged having a bar before I came to Thailand. I didn't think I'd be trustworthy enough not to drink the profits dry. But I get more of a thrill these days from just mixing with the customers and the staff, rather than getting paralytic like I used to whenever I stepped foot in a pub.
It's never going to make me rich this bar, I know. It ticks over and that's good enough for me. I've got a cosy little flat upstairs, and about every other day Pu sends one of the girls up to clean up after me or do my laundry. I'm spoiled really.
My second wife, I remember, used to instigate arguments on purpose just so I would bite back and she could kill the argument off with, "Right, you can make your own bloody dinner for the rest of the week!", or, "Do your own bloody laundry from now on!"
Apart from the obvious differences in beauty, Western and Asian females are like two entirely different species. That's not to say that all Asian ladies are perfect, far from it, but the percentage that pride themselves on taking care of their man far outnumbers the ammount of western females who once upon time used to also share the same qualities.
I worry that a time will come when cities like Pattaya will be overun by an exodus of Western males seeking their perfect partner. My nephew, who came out to visit me last year, emailed me recently. He's just turned twenty-two and said that he would probably marry an English girl in the next few years, then divorce before he's thirty. It seems even the young aren't even optimistic about their chances of happiness in a conventional type western marriage. .
"But why get married anyway?" I asked, "It'll only cost you when you divorce."
His answer was simple - he could not afford to buy a house on his own, and the girls are so career-orientated that she would be happy to share the mortgage repayments. When the house price has almost doubled in a few years they'll sell it and split the profits.
With that, and the savings he plans to stash in a secret account, he hopes to have enough to head east and carve out a life for himsef here.
Rather than thinking that a three bedroom semi, an automatic car and a package holiday to Tenerife once a year was hapiness, I wish I'd had his aspirations when I was that age. Saying that, I believe Pattaya was just a small fishing village back then.