So what brings you here?

Sometimes all people want is a good listener. I understand there's something about vocalizing one’s problems that helps them deal with them but it never fails to be at least slightly awkward when a complete stranger begins to tell you the darker parts of their personal history. It can happen on a long bus ride, hanging out in a hostel commons, or say, at the Blues Bar in Bangkok on a Tuesday night.

I liked the bar from the beginning. It’s true that I was lured in by the beautiful Thai woman sitting down outside the entrance, but it wasn’t her presence that made the bar such a great place. The owners, an attractive Thai couple, were hanging out, the guy playing his favorite records on an antique player, and the woman pouring the drinks. It’s a narrow place with only enough room for five small tables in the front, the tiniest ‘stage’ for a band you’ve ever seen, and a bar in the back with very little standing room. Undoubtedly, the owners took notice of every person that walked through the doors.

I arrived at the bar two hours before anyone else without initially realizing there was live music. The waitress followed me in, took my order, then sat down with me to pass the quiet hours before the bar filled with locals and regulars. Her name was Ying and like so many others in Thailand, she was not shy to tell me about pivotal points in her life leading to her working in Bangkok.

While I ate my fried rice for dinner she decided to tell me about the tragic death of one older brother and the following suicide of the other. Then she explained her recent anxiety about her cheating boyfriend who impregnated another girl and her fears that his infidelity put her at risk of STDs. Apparently already over the heartache of being cheated on and lied to, she acted as though closure of the entire relationship was dependent on her test results.

This phenomenon is not uncommon during travel. Perhaps people find me a trustworthy person to confide in or perhaps they tell everyone that will listen, but amongst the transient world of backpackers and the hostels and bars they frequent, tragic personal stories are often told within minutes of knowing someone’s name.

A favorite quote on the road is “not all who wander are lost.” Another line could be “many who wander are trying to get lost.” I’ve met people running from crimes committed, marital disasters, and violent homes. Others ended up on the road because of jobs lost, murdered loved ones, and cubicle breakdowns. Then there’s more than a few people who think their drinking problems go unsubstantiated when they are constantly traveling from one place to the next mixing in with the party crowd where their drinking is considered normal. Of course, there are still vacationers, workers on sabbatical, and gap year travelers as well, but it’s surprising how many tragic stories are told to strangers over a Beer Singh.

By the time the blues band started playing, the bar was to capacity, and everyone was packed around the small, shaky tables leaving just enough room for someone to walk from the front door up to the bar. Around the tables there was little room for knees or elbows but because of the intimate seating the bar was a friendly place where everyone was forced to talk with those they were rubbing up against. Sitting along the wall, going to the restroom would have meant asking at least two people to get up and move, and also running the risk of bumping a table and spilling drinks.

Sitting around my table were two couples, a Frenchman, and the beautiful Thai waitress that flagged me there in the first place. She waited on the entire place herself constantly reaching over and through people to deliver drinks and collect empties. She knew many of the patrons by their names and knew what almost everyone’s drink order was without asking.

The band played in the middle of the bar amidst the crowd, the keyboardist sitting next to patrons on one side, and the bassist leaning on the bar on the other. A blind man would have mistaken the deep, soulful voice of the Thai guitar player for that of an old black man. He classic American blues and his English, unlike that of any other English-singing Thai band, was impeccable. After the drummer’s first solo, Ying easily reached across to him and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. In the back there was standing room only and at the front door the crowd overflowed out to the sidewalk where a handful of people enjoyed their drinks with a little more leg room.

The Australian couple sat nearest to the band and the girl used her extra space to dance with her arms, holding her beer up high. She wore more than a little bit of glitter around her eyes and with her short black hair, dangly earrings and neck-and-elbow dominated dancing, she kinda looked Egyptian. Her boyfriend, the neo-hippy, was all frizzy hair and smiles.

The other couple was a Thai girl and a guy from the Bahamas. They drank Thai style, with an eighth of Sangsom, coke, soda water, and a bucket of ice. She, like most Thais, was fun-loving with a contagious laughter. When the inevitable happened and she accidentally knocked the flimsy table spilling her entire drink on her lap, all she could do was laugh.

Next to me was the Frenchman. He spoke no English and no Thai. At first I was amazed he could get by traveling knowing so little of either language. But as I talked with him it became obvious he was used to having little conventional language to communicate and was capable of telling stories and making jokes by helping his few words along with charades. Between sips of his Jack with a single ice cube, he decided to tell me the turning point in his life, his reason for being in Thailand.

He spent his earlier years in Paris working long and frantic hours. He had been happy with his workaholic lifestyle until one day he walked in on his wife with another man. He acted out his initial bewilderment with a lost look in his eyes and his mouth agape. Making a pistol out of his hand and putting the index finger barrel to his head, he mimed the misery it caused him. Chance brought him to Thailand where he began to embrace their laid back lifestyle. Only then, years later, was he able to look back and understand why the lack of attention he paid to his wife caused her to seek companionship elsewhere. He came to the conclusion of his story, threw back the last of his Jack and smiled with satisfaction.

These conversations are never entirely one-sided though and the eventual question always comes up: so what brought you to Thailand? Luckily for me I don’t have a heavy tale of loss or betrayal like so many of the ones I’ve heard. If I did, I don’t think I’d be quick to tell it. But my practical answer I came out to teaching English but a more honest answer would have to be that I have a sincere love of travel and the nights like these that make it so interesting.