It started out innocently enough, but in the end, we should have known!

Today Val began her two days of cooking classes. I took care of a few mundane things like getting a haircut, finding a place to ship some stuff home, and generally being a lump on the bed under the AC.

Val got home from class around 5:00 and said that some of the folks from her class were going to get together later that night for a drink. She asked if I wanted to go and actually seemed surprised when I said yes. When you're traveling for a long time, and you are with the same person 24 hours a day, meeting new people is always a good idea.

We left our hotel early to be sure we could find the bar we were heading for and it was a good thing. We searched for a while and finally asked a local who pointed us in the right direction. The place was easy enough to find once we knew it wasn't really that close to where we thought it was:)

We arrived to find two of her classmates there, just as two others were arriving. Ben, from England, had been the organizer/instigator of the evening and was already there with his 'little brother' Niels from Denmark. They had met along the way traveling and were like two peas in a pod. Ben is like a goodwill ambassador/social director and Niels is about as passionate a person as you will meet. Niels "...loves motorcycles, shooting guns, but I hates temples."

Within 10 minutes our group had grown to about 14 so we finished our drinks and headed for another bar that was larger and where we thought we could get a table for all of us to sit together. As we left the bar, Niels and Chris (a.k.a. Bjorn) headed off to go watch some Thai boxing and said they would catch up to us later. The rest of us piled into two taxi/trucks and were whisked across town to a bar called 'Warm Up'. Little did we realize that the name was so appropriate.

The place was huge and there must have been 200 motorbikes parked in front. The bar was mostly open air with a few closed rooms for semi-private parties and dancing. We were a pretty large group of all foreigners, except one. One of the instructors from the cooking school had joined us. Pim, a.k.a. Princess, was the only Thai person in the group. We on the other hand were the only non-Thai people in the bar!

We ordered beers and stood around looking for a table. One finally opened up and we all crowded around. Ben, our host at this point, announced he was going to go get a 'bucket' so we could play some drinking games. A 'bucket' is literally a bucket filled with alcohol. It's a galvanized metal pail filled with ice and then a fifth of Thai whiskey, 4 bottles of Coca Cola, and two cans of Red Bull are all mixed together. It sounds deadly and it is. They dropped about 20 straws in and Ben proceeded to explain the rules to a game called 21. The basic concept was easy enough, but as the game progressed, more rules were added to complicate the game. Of course, with each mistake, the player was made to drink. If you were the unlucky person to call 21, you had to drink for a full 5 seconds. This usually involved the group counting to five in increments of 1/4 seconds at a time:)

After about an hour, Niels and Chris showed up with two girls from Ireland they had met. Chris made a stunning entrance by falling over a planter and breaking a glass. Luckily no one was hurt, but he was out a drink. The two girls looked a bit shell-shocked when they saw the state of the group, but within minutes they jumped in and had a blast with the rest of us.

After 3 buckets, the entire group of us were getting pretty drunk and decided we were sufficiently 'warmed up' as the name on the bar had indicated. We again lit out to find another bar to continue our evening.

The third and last bar was called 'Spicy'. It was a small crowded bar with tons of tourists mixed in with locals. The bar had some unique features you just don't find anywhere else. For instance, as I was standing in front of a urinal, doing what one does there, I suddenly felt two hands rubbing my shoulders. Now anywhere else this may have seemed a bit odd, but actually, everyone was getting a massage while standing there. Seems it's just what they do here. After getting my neck and back cracked, I headed back to the dance floor feeling like I just just woke up from a nice nap. It would never go over in the US, but I thought it was a great idea. Of course, they do expect to get tipped for the massage, but a good tip would be a dollar. Most of the time it's like $0.25.

We danced and finished off another bucket or two. When Val and I finally decided to head home, after 4:00, we said good-byes, collected some email addresses so we could stay in touch with folks and hopefully get some photos (there were several cameras snapping photos all night). As we left the bar, we realized we had absolutely no idea where we were. We found a tuk-tuk driver and showed him the business card from the guesthouse we were staying. We agreed on a price and set off. He had no more than turned the corner and we realized we were only about two blocks from our guesthouse:) The driver must have thought we were nuts, and a little drunk. It was the easiest 40 baht he ever made.

In the end, we had drunk a ton, had a blast, and made some friends that seem to enjoy life as much as we do. We hope they all have safe and happy travels where ever they are heading.

When in Thailand, Drink the Whiskey!

Eric