I started drinking coffee in Thailand. A lot of coffee. I’ve been told since then that Thailand is a ridiculous place to start drinking coffee when I’m from the Pacific Northwest, where coffee is to incredible as my Wisconsinite roommates are to cheese. I never needed to drink coffee in the Northwest, though. I was never that lonely there.
Except for the weekends, the first half of the month I was in Thailand was spent alone. In hindsight, I learned a lot about myself and how to enjoy my own company and all that sort of uplifting bullshit that doesn’t matter when you’re actually going through an intensely lonely sort of situation.
When I first arrived, I’d spent a couple days with James, who had been somewhat of a soul brother to me back in Portland. I like to say that he is the boy version of me and vice versa, but he thinks that someone else originally came up with that comparison. I still think it was mine.
James lives in Bangkok, and he took me to this Starbucks near his house, which was a ridiculous place to go because it was way more expensive than any other coffee place, and also, just coming from Varanasi, India, it was a total trip for me. He explained to me that it was his comfort, his connection to home, where he liked to go and read or edit or just be. He took a sarong with him to put over his lap because the air conditioning was so strong. Those Thais love them some strong air conditioning.
There were three guys behind the counter at Starbucks who were trained to give western -style customer service, and they were totally over the top friendly. I loved it, and they loved James. As soon as he would walk in the door, they would start smilingly shouting, “Ah, James! Soy vanilla Latte with extra vanilla!”, but what made it all the more endearing was that it sounded like, “Ah, Jame! Soy baneella Latte wit ettra baneella!”
Out of the three guys working there, I only remember one of them, and I remember him because he looked like a lion. His hair was the most similar thing to a mane I’ve ever seen, big, and round, and folding in around his cheeks. His face was round and brown, with a wide Thai nose, and he seemed to have some freckles that could have been the starting point for a collection of regal feline whiskers. He was the actual drink maker, not the greeter or the pastry fetcher, and I liked to imagine that, behind the espresso machine, his orange furry paws were making me my iced-blended-coffee-whatever.
At first, I made fun of James for going there. Then, on Monday, when James went back to work and I woke up alone, with no itinerary, I found myself heading for the smiling lion. When I’d gone with James, I’d ordered a non-coffee drink, some sort of blended chocolate chip something with whipped cream, which James had called ‘very American’. As I walked in the frigid doors, Lion and his two friends hit me with toothy grins and inquiries about where ‘Mr. Jame’ was. I told them I was alone today, but the more accurate word to use would have been ‘lonely’.
I’d never liked, or consumed, a whole coffee based drink, but after gazing at my just-like-every-other-Starbucks-options, I surprised myself by saying, “I’ll have a caramel macchiato, please.” For the Lion, it was just another drink, a caramel macchiato in a whole string of other caramel macchiatos. For me, it was an attempt at filling something empty, though I have no idea why I thought a diuretic would function as something that would fill some sort of internal void.
It worked. It worked that day, and the next day, and the day after that. It was exciting. The Lion and his friends would always greet me happily, try to guess what I’d be having, and I’d throw them off with the sampling of some new and exciting coffee infused delight. It was really only cool for the three minutes or so while my drink was actually being made. Afterwards, I just felt like ordering another drink so I could talk to them some more.
I’d sit outside in the sweltering humid oven that is Bangkok, preferable to the sled dog conditions of the air conditioned interior. I’d sit at a mosaiced table and stir my latte - more foam, more foam, more foam! I’d sip slowly, partially because drinking a hot drink in this heat was a little bit insane, and partially because I was consuming my only companion.
Sometimes, I’d smile as I imagined actually having a conversation with my coffee. I would stifle a giggle as I thought about how I would respond to whatever dirt my coffee would gossip to me about. “No! Cappuccino did what?!? That whole milk hussy is getting into a latte trouble these days!” Get it? Latte trouble? I had a lot of time with this.
When I left Bangkok to travel south to the islands, I bade farewell to The Lion with a shy ‘Sawatdee ka’ (a multifunctional hello and goodbye), but in my head it was much more dramatic. Inside the confines of my caffeinated mind, our goodbye went something like, “So long, Sir Lion. May your paws be forever filled with abundance and may you be satisfied in knowing that you have created for me a learned love for my home region’s pride in coffee. May your hair never lose its lovely roundness, and may you live the rest of your days as King of the people-who-look-a-lot-like-lions.”
Once down in the islands, I got a hut within rolling distance of the Andaman Sea. Normally, this would be a pretty amazing thing, and it was, at first. I was thrilled to have hermit crabs in my bathroom, and not the disturbing type of Dale-Earnhardt -painted hermit crabs they sell at my local mall back home. I marveled at the white sand and the turquoise water and the trees that looked like they were growing pineapples, but were actually not pineapple trees. As it turns out, pineapples don’t grow on trees. At least, I’m pretty sure they don’t.
Soon, though, I started noticing something really f’ing lame about this beautiful group of huts by the amazing Andaman sea. Everywhere I looked, the people were in groups of two. In addition to everyone being a part of a duo, they were the types of duos who walked around with their hands resting on the small of each other’s back. They also smiled, a lot, and kissed, a lot, and held hands when they walked in the sea, which was a lot.
Now, normally, I am the type of person who could sit on the porch of my wonderful hut, which I loved, and could be appreciative that others were experiencing so much happiness. However, day one on the island met me with a phone call of a voice that I was missing and hadn’t been thinking about much until that phone call, and the voice said some stuff I didn’t particularly want the voice to be saying - more ‘duo’ stuff, of which I was not a part of. This made it seem like someone, God perhaps, had come along with a love-colored highlighter (pink, probably) and scribbled over all the couples. That’s why I was noticing them, because they were highlighted by God and the voice I hadn’t been thinking much about until that phone call.
After lying on my bed all day, reading inside my mosquito net with the fan on such a high setting that the hut may have been in danger of launching off the ground, I decided to venture outside into Duoville. I followed the comforting tunes of good ol’ Guns n Roses straight over to a bar, where the bartender was an older Thai man with “Native American” tattoos he was proud to show me (Since I was American, after all). He asked me if my boyfriend would be coming to join me. I responded with “Do you have coffee?” He told me no, and I rested my head in my folded arms, looking out over the stupid Andaman Sea.
Of course, not my entire experience in the islands was soured by the happiest couples I’d ever seen. I got my hair done, I got a Thai massage, I went snorkeling for the first time ever, I had photographs taken by a cool old Swedish photographer, I read a fantastic book my friend Allen had given me, and I had the best Pad Thai ever made. None of those things made me need coffee, until the ridiculously adorable hugging salt and pepper shakers that broke my heart.
It was my third night on the island, and I decided to walk further down the beach to see what other incredible sort of food options I might have. I happened upon a beautiful resort sort of restaurant with red-colored lamps and thick ivory-colored candles with their flames come-hithering me into their presence. I sat down at a table made for two, was asked if I was expecting another, and appreciatively received a menu. Then I turned my gaze to the items sitting on my table. Embracing one another were my white salt shaker and my brown pepper shaker. Seriously? Hugging salt and pepper shakers? And, even worse, white and brown salt and pepper shakers? “Yeah, I’ll have the Pad Thai, please, and maybe some mineral water. Also, I’d love to have just a whole bunch of napkins so I can soak up the blood from my heart which has been hit with a cleaver, thanks to your really fucking great salt and pepper shakers. Ummm…and, maybe, do you have peanut sauce?”
After I sat my purse in front of the salt and pepper shakers, blocking them from staring at me with their stupid cuddling eyes, I was able to really get into my meal. It was fantastic, and I was someplace fantastic, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that I, too, am fantastic. The really great Pad Thai was a start, but I needed more, just a little something more. “Any coffee or dessert?”, they asked me. There it was. “I would love a coffee, thank you.”
And, so, just like in Bangkok, coffee filled my void. I sat with my hands clutched around my slightly-too-hot-to-be-comfortable-to-the-hands mug, and I closed my eyes, and I counted my blessings, and I smiled when I thought about what new gossip my coffee might share with me since the last time we’d seen one another: “Apparently, Ristretto is only half present in his relationship.” This is a hilarious joke, and if you don’t get it, I recommend some research into what a ristretto is.
After leaving the islands and heading back to Bangkok, I made an English friend named Ruth, and I stopped needing the coffee so much. Ruth, James, and I went east to Hua Hin for a long weekend, where I only had one macchiato in the whole three days we were there. Then, when Ruth and I went north to Chiang Mai, I didn’t have any coffee for a week. It might have had to do with the fact that I was down-and-out sick and laid in my bed sleeping, sweating, and occasionally vomiting the plain rice I sometimes attempted to eat, for four days. But even after that, I spent none of my time lingering over any sort of variety of coffee.
Sometimes, Ruth and I would walk past a coffee shop by the corner of where we were staying, and the shop had these huge, really tasty looking photographs of coffee drinks in their window displays. I felt like I couldn’t make eye contact. I felt like I was cheating on coffee with Ruth. I felt like I needed to explain: “Look, Coffee, it’s not you. It’s me. I love you. I do. It’s just that you can’t quite split the cost of a room with me the way Ruth can, and you don’t have the really lovely English accent going on like she does. I’m sorry. We’ll talk soon, okay? Coffee? Are you listening?”
My flight home was from Delhi, as I’d originally planned on spending my whole three-and-a-half months in India, before Thailand started sounding like a really desirable option. As soon as I got back to India, where I was supposed to have spent three days and ended up spending a week, thanks to my inability to differentiate noon and midnight and my subsequently missed flight, I craved coffee like never before. Unfortunately, due to some budgeting issues, coffee (or anything that required money of any kind) was not a reasonable purchase.
I stared at others drinking their coffees, jealous like I would be if I saw an ex-lover with someone new. Maybe I had taken coffee for granted in Chiang Mai, but I wanted it back. Now. It was torture to watch the lips of other coffee consumers basking in the taste of their two-sugars-and-cream sips. Sitting upright in a chair missing most of its padding, my feet strategically placed over all three of my bags, I waited to see if my standby situation would be successful for the 12:50 am (that means at night, as it turns out) flight, where they would offer me gross airline food, redeemed by the accompaniment of my sweet, sweet coffee.
Here’s where things took an interesting turn, at least I think the turn is interesting. I landed in New York, took in the extreme friendliness of my fellow Americans in comparison to all the other airport officials I’d been encountering over the last week in Thailand, India, and Belgium, and headed straight out of customs to find some coffee. I spent my last three dollars, yes, all of my net worth, on a Honey Vanilla Latte.
It was disgusting. I’d liked lattes in Thailand, and who doesn’t love honey and vanilla? The way I figured it, it was gross because I didn’t need it anymore. I was back in my comfort zone, where maybe I was on the wrong coast, but where people loved me. Where I was the favorite of more than one person, so I didn’t need to play the beloved consumer role to the coffee friend sitting in front of me.
I drank about a third of the honey-vanilla-foam-disaster before I threw my rather significant investment in the trash. “Coffee, thanks for being there for me when I needed you. I just, it’s just…the feelings aren’t there anymore, you know? Maybe the timing is wrong, and maybe we can see each other when I’m traveling sometime in the future, and maybe it will feel right again. Do you understand? It’s just…I have people here, people who fill me up, and…oh geez, you’re really mad, aren’t you?
I smiled as I heard the response of my coffee, seeping into the New York trash can, in my mind: “Mad? Are you kidding me?!? I’m steamed!”
