The Mystery of Hairdryer Boy

Hairdryer Boy and Other Stories

One lovely evening on Samui, after a day of doing it tough relaxing on the beach, going out time arrived.  For a change, I was on my own, and decided I was going to rise to the challenge.

I’ve read all the stories about traveling alone and I’m aware that its important to do so in order to “build your character”. So I put on my dress, painted my face (well, to the extent that sunburn hadn’t…) and headed out on the town.

My first stop was Solo, a modern looking bar that wouldn’t be out of place in Melbourne with leather couches, sleek bar, flat screen TVs and tall bar stools all in stark white. With the Madrid Masters still in full swing, and me a self-confessed tennis addict, I settled myself at the bar with a happy hour cocktail menu and watched Fernando Versdasco limp his way to a loss to Jurgen Melzer. My first attempt at drinking alone - completed, but not necessarily fun.

With happy hour over, it was time to move on and find somewhere that I could actually, perhaps, interact with other humans. I followed the girls in bright yellow T-shirts, shorts and pumas who stood on the corner of another small alley broadcasting Happy Hour Buckets to Uncle Harry’s, an African-themed bar that was packed despite the rest of the area being quite empty. Turning another corner, I passed a crowd of ladyboys and saw the Thai girls, slumped in stools in bars with dimmed red lighting, waiting. I settled back down at Harry’s and found myself contemplating the twisted neon lighting illustrating a woman at the “Dreamgirls” bar across the road. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why she had an awkwardly shaped hip and spent the rest of the evening contemplating it as I downed the happy hour Lemon Dacquiris. It was then that I learned that Happy Hour is an extremely loose term in Thailand - some bars hold it from 12pm to 7, others until midnight, and for others, it is really just an alternative word for “drink special.”

I also attempted to make conversation with the Middle-Eastern looking girls to my left drinking blue Hawaiians, the Australian beer drinkers at the table behind me; and the American frat boys to my right who were in raptures over Thai Red Bull. None were remotely reciprocal, and my usual trick of making best friends in the toilets with a girl or two was thwarted when I entered the bathroom to discover it was unisex and had a men’s urinal at the front. A quick exit ensued and I remained friendless at the bar.

When it was time to move on from Harry’s I walked down to the beach, which was how my encounter with Hairdryer Boy began. I strolled into the Ark Bar through the back way, passing the most amazing smell of barbecued meat and numerous squealing kittens before I came out on the beach. The orange jacketed Thai waiter took me by the arm and suggested , “Miss, you sit down? Maybe same place last night?” and gestured to my table from the previous evening. Impressed but with no desire to sit alone, I weaved through the tables, and went for a wade in the ocean, before making an executive decision that can only be made after 2 mai tais, 3 pina coladas, and 2 lemon dacquiris. I decided to pick a random table and sit at it.

Being careful to avoid romantic couples on honeymoon, I noted a table with a man in a cap and his bald companion, so I sauntered over to their table and asked if they spoke English. They did, but they were German, and the English was stilted to say the least. Of course, I also sat down before asking their permission, so suddenly it was me, A the Austrian and R the German drinking Singas and discussing snowboarding in Europe. Language barriers aside, or maybe it was the beer, we were friends within the hour and I headed down with them to Green Mango to explore the other side of Chaweng nightlife.

At the bar in Green Mango, we procured a bottle of Thai rum and some cokes, and we sat at the bar to watch the bartender perform magic tricks that left me open mouthed. I’m a huge believer in magic tricks any time of day, and at this stage of the evening I was completely aghast as he once again folded a pink napkin into his palm and showed us it had disappeared. It was only later that I discovered the plastic prosthetic thumb but that still didn’t take away from my impression that the man was a genius.

Green Mango closed at 2am, but standing on the street corner we asked the Thai taxi drivers why the early closure. They explained that tomorrow, the Sun King was coming to Samui. I was enthralled - The Sun King? Real royalty, in Samui? I want to see him, I explained. While my new best friend and I spoke ecstatically about the Sun King, I felt the frown of my old new best friends who were afraid I’d slip any second and find myself in Thai jail. Apparently, any indication of anything less than utmost respect and devotion towards the monarchy is not tolerated in Thailand. What they neglected to realise was that I was being genuine in every respect, even if I sounded bizarrely eager. I’m Australian, for heavens sake. We put up with royalty on our money but have nothing to do with them except for when Wills and Kate break up for the nineteenth time and we read about it in New Weekly. I wanted to see the Sun King, dammit!

Gallivanting along the Chaweng Main Road after 2am is the best time to confront my favourite part of Thailand - no, not the lady boys - but the little girls and boys who sell their Styrofoam necklaces threaded with frangipani flowers. I had already been sucked in the day before, buying a necklace off a sweet little girl poolside and paying for her ridiculous list price of 100 baht. Little did I know the going bargain price is actually 20 baht, but I figured it might go towards this girl’s education. That was until I saw her hawking her wares at 3am, and suggested that she go to sleep for school tomorrow. She explained her situation to me in excellent English that made me think maybe this mercenary lifestyle for the kids isn’t half bad if it makes them come out speaking fluent English, Thai, and probably French or German.

She was eight years old, she told me, and had already been to sleep. Her “Mummy” makes the necklaces, and she sells them. She doesn’t go to school, but she’s not from Thailand, she’s from Vietnam. After our lovely chat, I reminded her I’d already bought one earlier that day but that didn’t stop one of the little boys from attaching himself to me and begging before I managed to pull him off. Austrian A, however, purchased one, and made quite the picture wearing it as we walked in 711 for a refuel.

I headed back with my new best friends towards the beach, laden with supplies, looking forward to some makeshift cocktails on the beach.

Walking past a baby blue Lamborghini belonging to the resort owner, I clambered over the car, convinced that my beauty and good looks might help them sell some more. Passing by Austrian’s bungalow on the way to the beach,  I opened his door to use the bathroom. It was here that the fabulous camaraderie we’d shared all evening as broken as I gasped in disbelief. There, on the pristine counter,  I saw a lovely looking state of the art hairdryer, together with enough hair product for three salons, and a special brush that looked like a hair straightened.

I burst back out of the bathroom. “What is THIS??” I asked, pointing to the hairdryer. “Dude! You have got to be kidding me.”

I then proceeded, in true Aussie fashion, to give the guy a piece of my mind about how humorous I found it that he had a hairdryer in Thailand. My own luscious locks, of course, had been given the full treatment of an exotic saltwater bath (read: beach swim) followed by heat treatment (read: sunbathing) and a bleach rinse (read: pool swim). On special occasions, I followed this up with the top-of-the-range premium products so thoughtfully supplied by resort staff, a brand so exclusive it is known purely as “Shampoo” and “Conditioner”, complemented with lashings of odd-smelling tap water. I was pretty proud of my hair, dyed brown especially for its low maintenance capabilities during fabulous Tour of the Universe TM, and had even made the effort to brush it out before throwing it back behind an elastic as I hit the town.

Hairdryer boy obviously didn’t agree.

“So you’re so perfect, I’m sorry, that you don’t have to do your hair.”
“My hair’s not perfect, far from it. I just don’t care how it looks - I’m on holiday.”
Then I looked at him again and realized something.
“Mate, you wear a HAT all the time. I’m seeing your hair for the first time tonight. And you spent HOW long doing it tonight?”

That was it. I sensed a change of temperature, and all of a sudden no one was laughing. He was pissed. Despite my pleas that I am an Australian, meant nothing by it, and found it bloody hilarious, I sensed I had to get out of there. I acknowledged how lovely it had been meeting them, thanked them for the drinks and hightailed it out of there.

Back at the blue lamborghini, I marveled the absurdity of my situation. I had just been kicked out at 4am by two men who were offended at my teasing because one of them used a HAIRDRYER? I was appalled. This story is going to be too good to pass up, but truth is stranger than fiction. No one will ever believe this.

I turned on my heels and stalked back towards them. I heard faint murmurs in German behind the hedge and burst back to the porch.

“ARE YOU FOR REAL?” I yelled. “You’re kidding me, right?”

Apparently not. I was out of there ten seconds later, and never glimpsed them again the remainder of my time in Koh Samui. It may be because by the next evening, the story of Hairdryer Boy had made its way around the rest of the local haunts, and the metropolice were on the lookout for him. Go figure.