Day off from our IDC - back to my old habits
After 4 days of lectures, pool sessions, exams and assessments, today has been a free day. Everyone bar one person decided that they would celebrate a job one-third done by having a few drinks out in Chaweng. As it happened, it was a hell of an eventful night for numerous reasons.
We headed to our usual haunt, La Bodega, for dinner. The main chef at that restaurant cooks up some great quality food and the prices are superb for the dishes you get. We had a few drinks and then over the course of the evening more people from the IDC joined us. Our Course Director also came out for a tipple, or too, which was welcomed. After our meal and a few drinks at this place, we then headed to the main street of bars in Chaweng, Soi Reggae. A couple of the group knew people at one of the bars so we headed there for an hour or 2. And this is where things started to go a little strange. First of all, one of my good friends on the IDC spent most of the time at this bar kissing a Thai girl. In the meantime people played pool, chatted with the waitresses and basically waited for them to come up for air so we could move onto the next place!
Finally they managed to part themselves from each other and we all headed to Reggae Bar at the end of Soi Reggae. As per usual, the music was loud and the clientele… controversial. So we fitted in pretty well! When we’d got drinks and found a place to perch ourselves, I started chatting to one of the guys’ girlfriend. She was pretty much paralytic but was intent on dancing, so I basically had to act as a prop for her. Considering I’d had a few drinks, my reactions when she started to fall over were pretty quick! I also took on the role of unofficial chaperone as some Italian guy kept trying to pull her away from everyone, thinking she was a standard bargirl. So we danced for a little while before we went back to our spot and I started talking to a friend I knew. I looked back and this girl was in tears. I went over to her and she really was balling her eyes out. She was saying how much she’s not a good person and how her boyfriend doesn’t love her. I set about trying to reassure her while I got one of my friends to find her boyfriend and get him over here to take care of her. She was really drunk and pretty much deadweight when I had her in my arms. After what seemed like an age her boyfriend came over so I gestured to him to come and take care of her. He just looked at her, shook his head and walked out of the place! Me and my friend were just stunned and completely at a loss at what to do. A couple of people said that I should have just left her as she’d have been able to look after herself. But she couldn’t stand without assistance. I’m sorry, but regardless of what profession a woman has, when she’s in this state she needs someone to look after her. If I hadn’t have, then I have no doubts that some guy would have ended up taking advantage of her. So I told her that I was going to make sure she got home safely.
We headed to the Green Mango for a little while and then to Solo Bar. She was adament that she wanted to go to these clubs, despite being really tired. We stopped for some food first and she confided in me quite a few things about her relationship and how she felt about it. When we got to this club, she just about passed out on my shoulder. I spent a few minutes trying to get her to wake up/regain consciousness, which was a little scary. At about 4 I decided we were going to call it a night and we got a moped taxi back home. Her boyfriend’s bungalow was next to mine and fortunately he had left his door wide open. So we said goodnight and I told her that if she ever needed to chat then she could come and talk to me. It felt just like when I was at school and university, when I would look after the really drunk girl and make sure she got home safely. She did get home without harm though so I was pretty satisfied with what I had done.
So it was a very strange night. Today I did the PADI Standards exam which I think went pretty well. There was just one question that I can’t for the life of me find the citation to support the answer, but apart from that I was pleased with it. I’ll report back on how I did in that test tomorrow, as well as results of my 800m swim test. If you never hear from me again then I died about halfway through it! Take care, dive safely and please leave comments if you like what you read.
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You are a good Samaritan aren’t you?! Hope she and her “loving” boyfriend were grateful.
Sounds like your diving course, and the experience itself is going better than you expected at first. Am really pleased. You’re much braver than I’d ever be!
Hope the 800m goes well.
Love, Bim x