THE LOLA BOYS ABROAD !

The room was bleak. An infested looking mattress lay on the floor, paint flaked from the walls, there was no furniture to speak of and an atmosphere of pure filth hung around the place. It was the type of establishment in which one would keep a hostage. 

More ‘Gaza suite’ than ‘Plaza suite’ Paul had quipped. 

But the boys were checking in anyway. They had been forced to do so seeing as there was no room at any of the other inns and they were stuck on a tiny island off of Thailand’s west coast. Right on the Burmese border. Getting back to the mainland was not an option. So the cell they’d been so kindly offered, behind the washing machines and adjacent to a precarious open sided balcony, was almost welcoming. And it was the only room left. Although it transpired they would be sharing it with some other occupants. 

Andrew had heard a noise and looked up to the rafters as he and Paul were lugging their ruck sacks into the space beneath.

‘Oh look’ he exclaimed, ‘bats, how cute.’

Paul looked up and also saw at least five rather large bats hanging around the place looking in his direction. They seemed to be following his every move!

‘ Jesus!’ he exclaimed, ‘I thought this was a bloody double room!’

He was not as sanguine as his partner when it came to sharing his sleeping arrangements with a cauldron of bats. Despite the fact he knew he could be a bit of a witch at times.

‘I’m not sure I wanna do this. Flying things  are attracted to me. They always get stuck in my hair’

He was reminded of a horrible time on another too out of the way tropical island when he and Andrew came under siege from a swarm of locust and bats during an alfresco dinner. One of the flying rodents had entangled itself into Paul’s ridiculous barnet of the time and could not escape. It screamed into Paul’s ear as Andrew attempted to extricate it from a Lola Boys’ curl. It had been a horrible dining experience. He didn’t want a similar incident occurring on the mattress in the dead of night. After all bats ate insects, or so Paul believed, and there must have been more than a few bugs on the thing on which they were sleeping.

‘They’re not gonna come near you’ Andrew said almost reassuringly. 

But later that night, post a local herbal cigarette, Paul could hear swooping in the room and more than once felt the unearthly breeze of batwing. He hardly slept, stiff and clothed on the floor vowing never to listen to his husband again. 

On rising Paul hurried immediately down stairs only just avoiding slipping on a pile of wet washing and falling several feet into the jungle shrubbery below. When he reached an even keel and took a breath he said hello to the little old Thai man who always seemed to be hanging about at the scruffy resort’s reception. He was greeted with a huge smile and much laughter after he clucked his elbows chicken like to indicate the flight in the night. 

No apology. 

And certainly no discount. 

Paul thought he and Andrew lucky. They could have been charged for a family room. 

Despite not being part of the family. 

It was Thailand after all. One could be charged for an extra towel if not careful. The Land Of Smiles could often become The Land Of Wiles’

The island was beguiling. Languid and mostly silent. Other than Andrew’s ukulele practice and the  nightly fracas of a group of German tourists, the soundscape was the mechanical sounding song of the insects and the odd primate.

The Germans all seemed to be staying at Mama’s’ the most upmarket of the accommodation available. They drank like alcoholic fish and made the kind of noise of which the British are frequently accused when on masse abroad. It was very much akin to the Munich Beer Festival. On one evening of the Octoberfest one of the most irritating choked, collapsed onto a wooden bench and went silent. Paul hoped he was in a coma which might at least give everyone else a semblance of peace for a couple of hours. There was no panic. The response was as Teutonic as one would imagine. Calm and effective. It mostly consisted of leaving the drunken git to get on with it. One woman sat with him, equally as inebriated, guffawing into his face. Not a technique the. N.H.S. Hotline would probably advise, but it seemed to work as the gentleman was gurgling intermittently so he obviously wasn’t dead. Paul tried to hide his disappointment. And he didn’t want to judge. He knew he’d fallen off the stage once whilst inebriated. Mind you, it was at the end of a show. And he did have bad influenza at the time!

The next day Paul and Andrew moved further into the forest to a small hut at the top of a steep hill overlooking the vast Indian Ocean. The dwelling had a mosquito net, but other than the priceless view, little else. The wooden walls did not reach the ceiling. The bathroom was entirely open to the elements and consisted of toilet with a water bucket for flushing and a washbasin which had a hole for a plug meaning anything which came through splashed directly onto one’s feet. Paul’s were constantly full of sand and smelt of Colgate. A strange combination.  The bed was beachlike too. The sand being impossible to eradicate. One attempted to sleep atop a prison mattress on sandpaper ‘bedding’ underneath a mosquito net which had holes large enough for an Asian elephant to get through. Several times during the night Paul felt he was in some enclosure or other in Regent’s Park. He didn’t want to mull over which one it might be. But he was rather afraid there were a couple of mammals in the room one night. And he wasn’t including himself and Andrew in that calculation. He was more than relieved  to move down the hill to another shack a few days later. This one at least had no hole in the sink, mainly because there wasn’t one! It fortunately had fewer openings in the walls and a mosquito net that didn’t appear to have been crocheted by a blind Thai pensioner. 

But there was still room for a night time visitor or three! 

It was just the price one had to pay when staying in a hut in paradise for seven pounds fifty a night. The rate was a bargain, but so was any sleep one managed to get. Annoyingly Andrew slumbered like a six foot baby. Paul had always thought he had a look of ‘Mowgli’! He certainly did jungle life a touch more successfully than himself- that or he was simply deaf. Paul was on high alert each night. Thank God there were hammocks to be found during the day, or all this relaxing beach time would have left him severely sleep deprived. 

It would be a town next – he’d make sure. 

A touch of dodgy plumbing and an antiquated electric fan – luxury. 

Of course, neither of them knew where next would be. Or when. They were after all, itinerant. Unfettered. 

On the road for some real adventure. 

Free as birds. Or bats perhaps.

Paul only hoped there would be no more Dracula moments. 

But he wasn’t counting on it!