The Search for Dae
With Full Moon approaching and through meeting a lot of new friends as groups of tourists flutter on and off the island every few days, you notice patterns. One question that comes up a lot is whether this is your first time to Thailand. Pretty standard stuff. From there, you often build to stories about anecdotes about this trip, last time, etc.
For me, the two stories that seem to repeat the most are my crazy tuk tuk ride looking for sex in Bangkok (because the driver refused to take me home until I found a nice boy) and, of course, my last Full Moon Party. That story usually includes a quick recap of Dae to set up his asking me to marry him. Famous last words, but I have to imagine I set the bar pretty high last time.
A lot of my memories of Thailand include Dae. Yesterday, I toured Haad Rin, to get a sense of the layout before it is overwhelmed with drunk, bucket-toting tourists. And a lot of the structures were still ripe with memory, and I know it’s memory as I lost my camera (or it was stolen) that night, so none of it is documented. I know where we posed for pictures, sat on the beach together, and well, we danced everywhere, so that’s easy.
So, I decided I needed to go to Samui for a day trip before Full Moon, and ensure that I couldn’t find Dae. I knew it was unlikely and a fool’s errand, but it seemed rude not to do it, especially as I’m planning to stay one night on Samui before returning to Bangkok (since I don’t want to get up for a 7 a.m. boat to catch my flight, heh). I keep thinking what if I’m here all this time, more than a month, and on the day before I fly to Bangkok, I go to Samui and Dae is easy to find? Works at the same place, or nearby, and he is happy to reconnect and I have to be like ‘Actually, I was on Phangan for the last 5 weeks, and I’m going to Bangkok tomorrow morning.’ Even though we didn’t exchange contact information, so didn’t stay in touch, it seemed respectful to make a Samui day trip. I mean, hell, I published an essay about his wedding proposal in an anthology on gay marriage, read it to a packed bookstore in San Francisco at that book’s launch. It seemed right.
I investigate the gay scene on Samui online the night before, finally finding an updated site with all the info (there are a lot of outdated sites out there). Speaking of which, I couldn’t determine whether the place Dae worked, called The Site, was still open or not. Some places had it listed, others didn’t. But, in my search, I did find one interesting thing, a place called Boy Zone (not to be confused with the ‘bar’ called BoyZone in my crazy tuk tuk ride linked above). At first, I checked it out and it sounded interesting, all the gay bars put on nightly shows of some sort, so it seems like it’d be fun to see them. My day trip will be brief as the last boat to Phangan is at 6:30pm, and the shows start much later.
But, I kept going back to the BoyZone site, it just had a familiar feel to it that I couldn’t place. Even its logo appealed to me. At first I was like, they use palm trees, too, just like Oasis. Then I looked again. Then I opened up a different browser window and launched Oasis. Hmm, I don’t think they use palm trees *like* Oasis at all, they used the palm trees *from* Oasis! It’s all rather hilarious, because one of the things I like doing here is seeing how so many unlicensed things are used here even in bar and restaurant names. Last time I was here, I remember there was the Scream bar, and it used the mask from the movies as a logo, etc. But Oasis? What are the odds?
I take the slow boat over from Haad Rin in the morning and arrive at Big Buddha Beach, grab a taxi into Chaweng. The last time I was there, I wasn’t in Chaweng much, just for cooking classes and whenever I needed to have people around me, since I was staying in a more remote area up north. But, wow, has Chaweng been built up in 6 years. I thought it was too developed before, but it is just end to end development now. And the strange part is that more development here just means more aggressive tailors, more T-shirt shops, more Thai restaurants. Differentiation isn’t a big thing here. Although, to be fair, I did have grilled veggie fajitas for dinner at a place called Coyote where all the Thai girls walk around in cowboy chic with big hats on, etc., heh.
On Chaweng, I see familiar places, worn out places, worn out faces… bright and early for their daily races, going nowhere, going nowhere… And I find it kind of funny. I find it kind of sad. The dreams in which I’m dyin’ are the best I’ve ever had… err, where was I?
So, you’ll see a place that’s familiar, but remember it sort of on its own before, now there are shops on every side of it, and everything so smacked together. I couldn’t imagine staying there for 6 weeks, then again, I don’t know if the places I stayed last time are still around and not overdeveloped. Of course, there was construction going on when I was there last time. It was headed in that direction.
Finally, I find the new gay bars, although it’s too early for them to be open. To get my bearings, I go to the Thai Cooking School, since I know my way to where Dae works from there. I trace my steps back, and it is either one of the new gay bars or an Internet café now. Can’t tell exactly.
I head back up the road to the Star bar, which has a nightly drag cabaret. They just opened a downstairs internet café and restaurant, so I sit there near their fan, and order an iced tea, and figure out that the white guys near me are the owners. I ask about “The Site,” and the one thinks back and says “The Site” later changed its name to “Amsterdam,” but closed about two years ago. They give me the run-down on the new places, most of which I knew from my Internet search. I mention Dae, but they don’t seem to register the name.
After a tourist trash lunch at Subway, heh, I go back down to the gay strip for a Thai massage at Boy Zone. After the massage, I talk to the owner, as I boot up my laptop. I already asked the other boys at the bar before the massage about Dae, and no one knew him. But there’s a lot of turnover. No one I meet that works in these places has been on Samui more than two years.
I tell the owner about Oasis, and what we do, and finally showed him the image posted above, with the two logos. He doesn’t look happy, but says it is interesing how similar they look. He says he’s going to ask his designer about it, but that he wasn’t aware of their logo coming from anywhere else. He says it is on everything, showing me stationary, business cards, and such. Just to make sure he knows my intention, I tell him I think it’s funny, and at least it’s a gay bar using it. I tell him I should get a free T-shirt at least, but he doesn’t have T-shirts. I head across the street to the Male Box, which is now sort of open.
One of the managers is at the bar, and we talk about my trip and I tell him I will have to come back and see their show on July 31, as well. The shows seem to be all costume and dancing, based on what I can tell from the websites. The staff is having a meal together in the middle of the bar. All talking about ping pong girls in Patpong. They tell me the secret is before the show, they use some liquid which creates gas, and then remove the liquid before they go onstage, but it still keeps creating gas. Who can tell.
Finally, I tell the manager I had been on Samui before, mention The Site, Dae, etc. He doesn’t know him. But then he seems to be thinking about something, and says, wait, and leaves the bar.
He didn’t register when I said Dae, so it can’t be that Dae is working down the street. But in a few minutes, he comes back and says a guy he knows giving a massage down the street used to work at the site, and knew someone named Dae. We don’t have much to go on, since I know so little, but the approximate ages are close, that he trained in Thai massage in Bangkok, worked in Phuket before Samui (that I didn’t know), but in any event, this seems as close to a lead as I’ll get.
So, he knows where Dae is?
The manager tells me this Dae moved to Germany a few years ago. No other details.
For how much I know Dae wanted to leave Thailand, it is good to think he made it out. And I feel better knowing I did what seemed the right thing to do, to at least try and find him while I was here.
