It's a crazy old world out there...

Something that most of the places I've lived or travelled in Asia have in common is the lack of foreign nutters. I do recall one nutty Canadian in South Korea who lived in the building opposite me and would hurl eggs and abuse at the locals from the 8th floor and get himself arrested from time to time, but he had been the only stand out - until now that is.


It started in Bangkok, of course. She was more a case of Alzheimers and being German rather than anything worthy of an institution. She really wasn't able to manage very well by herself and had been getting along by asking people to help her. Being Thailand, the locals were most definitely not up to being helpful, except for when they were helping themselves to her cash via rip offs, so she would pick out single female travellers. One night I helped her find the guest house that the local agent booked her into. It was a hell of a hunt, through unlit areas, and up and down narrow dark alley ways. Why on earth the agent booked her into that particular guest house, I don't know, but maybe I can guess (the kickback). Anyway, it took about 40 minutes at night to get her to her place and then I had to back track by myself in the dark. I had my best 'fuck off and leave me alone' attitude on as well as a quite a pace. One pair of young guys gave me the once over but I probably looked like hard work and god knows, the locals there don't like hard work when there are plenty of easier pickings around.


The next one definitely came into the category that requires emergency intervention. I didn't have the pleasure of meeting him, only the pleasure of watching his arrest. I had found myself a room for the night at the Civillian's Inn in Love Lane, Georgetown. Despite the name, Love Lane is not a street of brothels, but does have some 'character' hostels and guest houses in the old shop houses. I was chatting to an interesting young Turkish guy who has lived in some of the more challenging parts of Asia, when a very drunk, crazy white guy on a cycle rode into a group of tourists promenading the street. They abused him, he abused them back. Then he took up residence on the front porch of the shop house opposite where I was sitting and proceeded to yell abuse and nutter insights for 15 minutes. The home owner arrived but the guy wouldn't leave and wouldn't let the home owner in. Then the police arrived. The locals all looked very uncomfortable with what was going on including the police. All credit to the police, they handled the guy quietly and calmly and finally took him away in the police van. In other places in Asia, someone would have just dragged him down the alley a bit and stuck a knife in him. 


The next nutter came along 5 minutes later and sat down at the table with me and the Turk. He was clearly drunk and, although much more low key than the last guy, had punched the receptionist at the guest house the night before so I was wary of him. Every couple of minutes he would ask me where I was from. I would tell him NZ, then he would go on about Europe being a depressed hole. This went on like it was ground hog day. I didn't bother correcting him on the whereabout of NZ and retreated inside. He was actually staying in the dorm at my hostel but later that evening was forcibly ejected. I didn't see but did hear the process and it seemed to take a few guys.


There was actually a 3rd one in that same hour but this was the more slippery, less easy to pin down sociopath. Another guest of the establishment, he was a small, old white man with a penchant for aggression and lechery. I moved to a better part of town in the morning.


To be fair, these kind of events are apparently rare, and the hostel owner and staff were fabulous. It's not their fault that foreign fuckwits who are incapable of taking responsibility for themselves decide to thrust their rather large personal problems onto strangers in countries that are not their own.