Gay Boy Thailand

A Kota Kinabalu floating village seen from the air (Google Earth)

I never met Azir. He did not respond to my text message and I figured he was busy. What a loss for him, it is not every day a major rice queen from Bangkok is in town.

My Air Asia flight was supposed to land on the new airport (Suva something) but the flight was redirected to good old Don Muang. I could have saved myself the sentimentality of being there for the last time on departure, now I was in the well-used building once again. The new airport had “technical problems”, our captain said over the loudspeaker.

I learned the hard way to bring food when I fly Air Asia. Their overpriced sandwiches and instant noodles are not much to email home about. My peanut butter crackers were better.

I wonder if I should learn some phrases in Malay to impress the boys. How hard can it be? Malay uses the Roman alphabet and there are no tones. No tones! No more worry about high, low, rising, falling or flat. No strange hieroglyphic letters to learn. Malay must be a piece of cake compared to Thai.

I was on my way to the only “gay” bar in KK, called Q Bar, but I came across a Pasta & Pizza restaurant and got distracted. Their pizza was excellent. It appeared that the local expat community were gathered in this restaurant. The guests eyed me with curiosity and I had the feeling of entering a private club. Some middle aged white ladies sitting at a table by themselves looked downright threatening – finally a single Western man was appearing.

After the pizza I forgot about Q Bar.

I went to the harbour instead, and watched how the “taxi” to the islands worked. A young man was sitting on a bench, listening and looking out on the quiet night sea. When he heard a boat he got up to wave. If he was lucky the boat would come to shore and he would climb on board. The vessels were small open boats of wood, and some were Zodiacs. They had outboard engines.

The boat people lived on the other side of the strait, in boathouse communities I had seen from the air. They had no roads. After work or leisure in the city they had to go home by boat. It looked random, anyone could show up and hope for a ride with a neighbour.

Several people had offered to take me to see these villages, but I remembered a warning in a tourist brochure. Don’t go on boat trips with strangers who approach you on the street, it said. Since these islands were famous for pirates for centuries I took the advice.