BANGKOK – Participants in the weekend Pattaya bachelor party for soon-to-be-groom David Freeburg all reported that the event was a stunning success, despite its total redundancy in merely replicating the themes and activities of Freeburg’s normal Bangkok life.
“It was sweet,” declared Mickey Arndt, Freeburg’s best friend and best man, who also was in charge of organizing the weekend blowout. “We rented a minivan to Pattaya both ways so we wouldn’t have to even think about transportation, and I got a case of Jose Quervo which we started drinking before we even left Bangkok.” According to Arndt, Freeburg is a “tequila nut” as evidenced by the fact that he has done tequila shots at least once a week since moving to Bangkok in 2004.
Fellow party attendee James Stackmore, a co-worker of Freeburg at a private bilingual school in the Ramkamhaeng district, agreed that the party was “rocking” despite its repetition of the same activities he and Freeburg usually partake in every Friday night. “We were drunk by 7pm, totally wasted,” he recalled, “and after a quick bite at (Molly Malone’s) pub we went straight for the go-go bars.”
The group, which in addition to Freeburg, Arndt, and Stackmore also included Brad Chenowith, a journalist with Reuters, part-time dive instructor Bruce Pallomar, and office manager Kumar Choudry, set out from their meeting point at the Silom BTS station in Bangkok at 6pm Friday evening and arrived at Pattaya’s walking street at 9:45pm. Over the next 14 hours the six expatriates navigated their way through eight go-go bars, three discos, two outdoor beer bars, one Hard Rock foam party, and McDonald’s, charting a course that bore a striking resemblance to their previous weekend in Bangkok which included three go-go bars, two discos, one outdoor beer bar, and a different McDonald’s.
Despite the similarities, Pallomar preferred to stress the differences. “Sometimes you just need to get away from it all,” he said. “Bangkok is nice and all, but Pattaya is totally different. It’s got a beach, for one,” he added, referring to the shoreline that none of them visited during their weekend stay. “And there are more girls, and they’re cheaper.”
Chenowith agreed, citing the significantly higher drug consumption that took place during the bachelor party. “We must have done like six or seven (ecstasy) pills each,” he recalled. “And what, like twelve grams of coke? I never do that on a normal weekend,” he insisted, referring to his statistical Bangkok-weekend average of three pills and two grams of cocaine. “I mean this was a real party weekend, a special occasion for Dave. The dude’s getting hitched.”
Freeburg himself seemed to agree. “This was our first bachelor party and Mick sure as hell made it a legend,” he said. “They paid these five naked bargirls to get on my lap and rub their tits in my face, and then took a picture. Then they barfined a girl from every bar we went to, so by the time we were at the Marine (disco) I had this crazy entourage of coked up, pilled-up sluts who were all wearing matching ripped T-shirts that had my face on them. Mick had them made at MBK (mall). Fucking brilliant!” Freeburg declined to comment on the four women who were seen accompanying him back to his room at the White Rose Hotel at 2:23pm the next afternoon after a quick detour in a tuk-tuk to the pharmacy, where a visibly intoxicated Freeburg purchased a 6-pack of Durex condoms and a generic Viagra. “Hey, I’m getting married,” was all he would say, echoing similar statements he has made when barfining Bangkok bargirls since September 2007, when he proposed to his girlfriend of three years.
Choudry’s reflection on the weekend was the least complimentary. “It was fun, sure,” he said, “aside from when we had to take Dave home to get a clean shirt after he puked. But honestly, I kind of feel like shit right now. You can only depend on weed to cancel out coke so many times before your liver starts to bleed, man.” As the only member of the remaining bachelors with a serious girlfriend, Choudry knows his bachelor party is probably next, and is less than enthusiastic about the prospect of another Pattaya weekend. “Maybe we could all do brunch at the Marriott,” he proposed. “You know, something different for a change.”
