Secrets of Loi Kroh Road

The events in the story are true. The interpretation/perspective is subjective. The places are disguised. The incident with the Norwegian was in the old city - not in Loi Kroh Road. Mook is not her real name. She doesn't wear red sandals.

Secrets of Loi Kroh Road

I ignored a warning from a man who knew Loi Kroh Road better than I do. He wrote a book about it. His name is Alan Solomon and the book is called "The Mango Tree Café, Loi Kroh Road". This (in italics) is, more or less, what he wrote:

'Loi Kroh' means 'wash your bad luck away'. For many this has been the case, but most who have entered Loi Kroh Road found this interpretation to hold the reverse effect, particularly for the spiritually naïve. The story goes that when King Mengrai the Great founded the city of Chiang Mai in the year 1296, the superstitions of the East entered the city and lay in wait in the shadows of Loi Kroh Road where today, it is told, they still wait patiently.

If you do not know the street yet, but wish to feel its magic touch, take the walk but be warned: do so at your own peril. For if you feel the strong allure to enter it, be aware. It is a temptress that offers a stretch of broken tarmac, street dogs, cooked squid, street kids and girlie bars which possess strange mystic powers, and if you can conjure just a little of the ability to see the Sight or hear messages from beyond, you will never be the same again. This street named Loi Kroh Road leads men to rejoice and give thanks, or to destruction and confusion. Whatever may happen, visitors to Loi Kroh Road will never escape the fate it has in store for them. Take the risk and walk the street, or stay as far away as possible.

I stayed away. I stayed away for more than a month, and then, one afternoon, I took the walk. It was a disappointment, particularly after such a dramatic warning. I ditched my fear and walked again - nothing. Was there something I was missing?

I walk Loi Kroh almost every day now, often twice a day. I'm addicted. If I don't feel like making my own breakfast I walk it in the morning. It sleeps until late. Only the bars serving breakfast are open. The pavements are bare, the vendors, artists and craftsmen who furnish them are doing whatever they do when not on the street. The bars and massage parlours are being cleaned. The occasional call of "Massaaage" at that time of the morning is more a reflex of habit than an invitation. On the bridge over the canal a seemingly frail, toothless and ancient bicycle rickshaw driver always greets me with a delight which leaves a grin on my face. Somewhere along the street, I'm not telling you where, is a massage parlour, a respectable one; no erotic extras offered or provided. That's a disappointment to many, as the masseuses are the prettiest on the street. I tend to glance at the sandals in the doorway. Is there a bright red floral pair? The clue of their absence is seldom needed as at least one of the girls will rush out and say "Mook sleeping.", or "Mook busy." or "Mook not here yet." She usually is there in the early morning though, busy cleaning, then we wave at each other as I walk by or, if near the door, she comes out to greet me.

Loi Kroh Road is the red light district of Chiang Mai yet it's unlike any other I've been in. It's ruled by women. There is no pressure other than the sing-song calls of "Massaaage" and happy shouts of "Welcome" from the bar-girls. There are no bouncers, no pimps, no drugs and no theft. Motor-cyclists leave their helmets on the handlebars returning hours later, or even the next morning, without loss. There is no sense of sleaze, not to me anyway.

It's in the mornings when the Thai women garland their shrines. The women, not the men, often kneel and pray beneath them at random times of the day. They hold smouldering joss-sticks between their hands and seem oblivious of passers-by. I remember seeing a group of monks walking down Loi Kroh Road. Pay-for-play bar-girls and masseuses rushed out onto the pavement to kneel before them, the palms of their hands pressed in prayer. The monks chanted their blessings while the women gazed up at them with eyes of an innocence I've previously only associated with children.

I don't have the background to understand much of what I have witnessed on this street. The fabled superstitions and spirits of the East came with the women of the ancient Lanna Kingdom. It's the women who sustain them, and that's why they are still here, still waiting in the shadows, still as powerful and mysterious as they have always been, and it's only the women who know them. It is their secret. That's the way I see it.

A small bar/restaurant at the top of the street used to serve a superb English breakfast. Perhaps they still do. Unfortunately the lovely waitress/chef left when it was sold to the new owner. I haven't returned for another breakfast since. It's my form of protest. If the eye-candy leaves, so too will I. One evening I entered; thinking it was her I saw behind the counter. It wasn't but that's how I met Bayo; a friendly waitress with an unusually good command of English. So a few nights later I visited again, hoping to learn a little more of what goes on inside those pretty Thai heads.

Each of the three round wicker tables next to the pavement was occupied. Only one man was sitting at the largest. I asked and received his permission to sit at it. I asked Bayo for a Chang (local beer) and offered her a drink. She poured herself an orange juice and charged me for a cocktail, pocketing the difference. It obliged her to join me socially for as long as it took me to finish my drink. That's how it works in Chiang Mai. The company of a good waitress here is often better than that of a good date anywhere else.

Bayo sat on a chair between me and the other man. He was from Luxembourg; casually and fashionably dressed, perhaps a few years older than me, but fit and good-looking and with all his hair - Henry I think his name was. He was fuming, though initially he hid it well. His anger became more apparent after a couple of terse phone-calls from his girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend he insisted. He unburdened himself. She told him too many lies, is what he said. That intrigued me. Thai women are consummate liars according to the expat discussion forums. I watched Bayo's expressions from the corner of my eye while Henry told us of money that he had given to help with medical expenses for her mother. Then his girlfriend had sent him photographs of herself. She'd used the funds for cosmetic surgery.

She, the villain, meanwhile, was trying to find him, occasionally annoying him with another phone-call. He told us of a few more examples. Bayo offered sympathy but she didn't appear to see anything wrong with the girlfriend's actions. She often glanced at me with an expression which is as close to winking as one can get without actually doing it. Thais don't wink as far as I know. Perhaps she felt that Henry benefited more from his girl's improved looks than he would have from her mother's good health. She kept her own counsel though. It's a Buddhist thing; "Up to you," is the response you're likely to get when asking a Thai for advice, or "same same" when asking their opinion. When the infamous girlfriend appeared I did have to suppress a wolf-whistle. "Give me keys," she demanded grimly. Henry tossed them to her and she absconded with his motorbike, her young son riding pillion while he, all the more furious, was left behind to walk home.

Bayo is pretty with a neat figure and long slender legs. She wears very short mini-skirts. I tell you this because it is relevant to what happened next. She was dolled up with make-up and false eyelashes. She called it her cabaret look and claimed to wear modest outfits when not at work. She did ask me if it looked stupid. Of course I said no. Her job is to lure customers into the restaurant and to make them feel welcome. She does it vivaciously and well. That's why I was there, and the two men at the next table. One was Norwegian and had arrived in Thailand that same afternoon. It was only after Henry left that I noticed them though I registered little more than their presence.

"I think he is big man in his country," said Bayo about the Norwegian after serving them. I sent her off to get us another drink while I observed him. He noticed and briefly came over to introduce himself, friendly enough but there was an edge to his voice which hinted at antagonism. It didn't bother me and I remember little of what he said. I wasn't really interested, not until I realised that he was 'competing' with me for Bayo's attention. All he needed to do was to buy her a drink but he didn't know that.

He called Bayo over and told her that should she Google his name next time she was on the Internet; she would discover that he was famous and celebrated, even in New York. She stood at their table for a short while and then excused herself to come back and sit with me. A few minutes later he called her over again, this time showing her photographs of his chalet in Switzerland, and again she returned to me. Perhaps he noticed my amusement. I had consciously kept a straight face, but I'm no poker player. Perhaps my eyes betrayed me. Perhaps he considered me to be the obstacle to his conquest. He stalked over to my table.

"I'm a dangerous man," he said.

I leaned back and relaxed as I've been trained to do when confronting danger (it helps to deflect the energy of the first blow) and looked into his eyes. I've learned how to find the inner-rage in a man's eyes. This Norwegian had no more in him than a puffed up poodle.

"Are you threatening me?" I smiled.

"I am in the CIA. I can have you eliminated in 50 minutes," he snarled.

I picked up my almost empty glass and looked at it. "Well, I had planned to leave after this drink, but I don't want to rush you so I'll stay for another hour." I looked at my wrist. I'd left my watch at home. "Bayo, can you go inside and check what the time is, and while you're there please get us another drink."

A flower seller with a large bag of flowers diverted my attention and I patiently refused her persistent offers while the Norwegian returned to his table. I was thinking of how vulnerable I had been when I first walked Loi Kroh Road. It had seemed an insult to decline the sensual offerings from some of the loveliest women in the world. Whenever I accepted; in a setting conducive to intimacy I would learn intimate details of her life. I would know her name and she mine and it would be so much harder to reject her offer the next time I walked by. Then I would meet another. I was being sucked into a whirling cycle and it was spinning me dry. That's when I first saw Mook.

"No no it's too much!" Bayo's protest interrupted my reverie. The Norwegian had bought the delighted flower-seller's entire stock and was presenting it to Bayo. He insisted and she had little option but to carry them inside.

Mook's face defies my description. I've examined it many times with a determination to describe her features, yet each time I try, something mysteriously blanks my memory. Her father was Chinese. Her mother is Lanna. She has the almond eyes of the Lanna and the Chinese genes extend the slanting shadows further at the corners of her eyes. When working she wears big silver earrings of a simple design. Her hair is usually knotted around a large elaborately wrought silver hair-pin. When she loosens it, it flows fine, heavy and liquid like mercury. It reflects the illuminated paintings of Buddha and tigers which line the pavement. It flashes gold and red; synchronised to the lights of passing cars. Her beauty has a weird aura, as though it has been transported through a curtain of time, as though it has a separate independent existence, as though it is eternal. She wears it lightly, almost as a garment. She acknowledges and enjoys it but it doesn't define her. Once her hair reaches her buttocks (it may take another month); she will cut it off, braid it and gratefully offer it as a gift to Buddha, as she has always done.

Bayo was back at my table and the Norwegian, having realised that I had no romantic interest in her, was making frequent forays to kiss her hand and to whisper in her ear. It seemed to me that he was not doing himself any favours, while I slipped further into reverie.

With that surreal beauty; an offer of a massage from Mook is never refused and, having accepted her offer, the trapped customer is presented with a lesser (though still pretty and no less capable) substitute. It happened to me three times in a row. Eventually I told her that I would accept none other than her, neither at her shop nor at any other. She was delighted and that's how I was saved from my downward spiral. Somehow it seemed that the whole street knew, almost instantly, and most offers became simple greetings.

"I'm sorry," Bayo was speaking to me after another Norwegian hand-kissing ear whisper; "I can't stay here any longer."

A minute later a different waitress placed a bill on the Norwegian's table.

"What!" he shouted. "I don't want the bill. I want another drink... Okay I'm going to buy the bar! Where's the owner? I'll give him five million baht right now!" He marched inside, "and if I own the bar I own you," that must have been aimed at Bayo, "and you will have to do what I ask!" He stormed back out in less than a minute, once more to sit at his table, his brawny companion doing nothing other than to look apologetic.

I don't normally interfere in a foreign country but this was clearly an exception. I saw the surprise when I faced him eyeball to eyeball. After ten years of Tai Chi, I can move swiftly and smoothly without that initial lurch which alerts the opponent. "Thais are very polite and courteous people," I said quietly "but you need to tone it down right now." He didn't argue. By the time I got back to my seat he was lurching across the road, a glass still in his hand. On reaching the pavement he gave me a final malevolent look and disappeared into the shadows. A short cry of protest swivelled my head like a spectator at a tennis match. The flowers had been dumped on the table. A lynch-party of enraged Thais was being hastily pacified by the Norwegian's companion as he held up a couple of 100 baht notes with outstretched arms; recompense for the departed glass. The sense of aggression quickly abated into a round of excited Thai chatter and a few yells at the departed falangs. I couldn't follow any of it.

"We thought you were going to get into a fight," explained Bayo brightly, a pretty Thai smile back on her face.

"No. No, that was never going to happen," I didn't want the reputation of a brawler. I never have been. Calm returned and then I remembered I had a date - sort of; from a brief encounter with Mook on my way to visit Bayo.

She had emerged from a side-door wearing jeans and a T-shirt, not the traditional Thai baggy trousers and cotton top. She wasn't wearing make-up. I like her that way; then she seems merely human. "Bai nai? Where you going?" she had asked. It's a standard Thai greeting, almost a rhetorical question but I answered anyway, taking the opportunity to study her face, while the unearthly veil of beauty seemed to have temporarily lifted. Her face is not perfect. Her teeth protrude slightly but I like that. It gives a subtly pouting character to her mouth. Her face is not round yet it is a collection of curves; her eyebrows, her nose, her eyelids, her lips, her chin... Her skin is silky and flawless, neither a blemish nor a wrinkle. "Come back later," she said and I smiled and nodded at an invitation I could not refuse. "I'll wait for you," she called as I walked away, struck by the way her eyes had wandered over my face; same as mine had done. "Same same," a sing-song voice echoed through my mind.

I headed across the street into the same shadows where the Norwegian and his henchman were last seen. I wasn't concerned. The odds of my being 'eliminated' were remote; anyway longevity is no longer on my list of priorities. I have lived long enough if needs be. He had no leverage on me. There was no way he could harm me. I dismissed him from my mind as I headed for my rendezvous. Yes, I had better things to ponder; things like what kind of massage I would ask her for... I liked the idea of a Thai massage, and the thought of her wrestling my body till the joints clicked, and all tension was gone.

I saw the commotion from a distance. Mook's workmates were clustered around her. She still wasn't in her working clothes. She was still wearing jeans. Her hair was loose and mussed up like a wild black cloud swirling around her face and shoulders. There was blood on her T-shirt. I was only a few yards away when I saw the jagged gash which stretched from her nose to her ear. A heart-shaped bruise smudged her other cheek. She saw me coming and flashed a ravishing smile.

"We all going to Halloween party," she embraced her work-mates with a gesture. She stopped smiling and looked at me closely; "You scare me." The adrenalin had not yet drained from my veins. "Tonight I only give foot massage." The smile returned to her face "Follow me."

We entered a room with reclining chairs, about six of them; all but one occupied. I could see by the way the occupants gazed at Mook that she had tricked them, in the same way that she had first tricked me. She filled a basin with warm water and squeezed lime and dropped herbs into it. She knelt before me and bathed my feet. The rest of us stared at her as if in a trance, even her work-mates, and I began to understand.

It was the ancient spirits of the East. It was they who clung to her in a wispy cloak of divine beauty, and I understood why she was so unaffected by it. It didn't define her. She knew that. It defined them. That beauty which defies my description isn't hers, it is theirs.

I had learned one of the secrets of Loy Kroh Road.

Mook looked up into my eyes and chuckled.