asha
It’s as black as night outside. There is thunder and lightning too, the rain will be hammering down again soon. It’s been raining for a few days now … the rainy season is finally here.

The rainy season is not much fun but it does serve as an annual reminder of a lass I once knew in Thailand. To go along with their formal name all Thais have a nick-name, this is invariably bestowed on the infant at birth, and is based on whatever the happy parents were thinking of when they first cast their eyes on the fruit of their endeavours. Noi (Little) is very common, Moo (pig) is also alarmingly common but it does evidence the rural nature of most of the country. My girlfriend was called Rainy Season.

She was the kind of rain that always catches you out without without an umbrella.

I was drinking in a favourite bar of mine in Patpong. It’s not a girly bar in the regular sense. Most of the staff seem to be bargirls that have since retired from the hectic whirl of pole dancing and opted for a more sedentary method of supplementing their income by becoming awesome darts players.

The bar is not popular with run-of-the-mill sex tourists, or any other tourists for that matter but it would be rich pickings indeed for MILF fans. And while the gals may fleece you at darts inside beat hearts of pure gold.

ashaI’d known Rainy Season for a few months, she was younger than the others and really cute, but I have a rule against getting involved with the staff in favourite drinking establishments

I don’t even buy drinks in there often. I’m a good customer and all round decent sort of a chap and when you buy drinks you start to show favouritism … unless you buy them all a drink, and that is just not practical. So what I tend to do is give them a few hundred baht and send them out for food. Frequently what they come back with is something awful like KFC but on this occasion they had augmented the chicken with sticky rice, som tam and some other north eastern delicacies.

The old timers there know that I like som tam, a ferociously spicy and sour green papaya salad, but Rainy Season didn’t. Indeed she was quite impressed at the enthusiasm with which I wolfed it down.

“you like Lao food?” she asked.

“Mmmmm”, I slobbered licking lime juice and chillies off my fingers. “I Love Lao food … and Thai food.” I put in for good measure.

She told me she was a good cook, which didn’t surprise me at all most Thais are good cooks, and she offered to cook for me. “Splendid idea,” I said “what’s your address, I’ll be around after lunch. We can go to the market and get the stuff, what shall we cook, we need a list …” I was beginning to warm to the idea.

She laughed and told me I’d never be able to find her place, it was a long way and besides we needed to go to the market in the morning. “So what did she suggest?”, I asked feeling, only a little crushed.

“Where you stay?’ she demanded. I told her. She was pleased, there was a very good market nearby. We could do the shopping there first thing and take it all back to her place.

“Deal!”, I said and we sealed with with a high 5. She went to get her bag.

“Come on then.’ She said

“eh?’

“If were going to the market in the morning we’d better get an early night.”

Something in the beery swirl of my consciousness told me that I’d been tricked.