RAWBangkok

Werewolf is one of the co-authors of this blog.

I moved to Thailand in mid-2005. A year later, in May 2006 I woke up one day and started writing a blog titled Werewolf’s Lair. It was a blog that was written by me about my life in Bangkok, and posted as a daily diary of my life. The aim of the site was to offer a real look at one man’s life as a sex-pat in Bangkok Thailand.

In my mind’s eye, I was writing to an audience of men living in places like England, Australia and America who were occasional visitors to the Land of Smiles, and who sometimes considered throwing it all in back home and moving to Bangkok. My goal was to honestly share as much of my life — living, working and playing in Bangkok — as I could in order to offer a realistic picture of what it means to live here.

I never pretended that my life was typical or prototypical… all I ever promised was that it would always be truthful.

For fifteen months, I wrote in excess of 50 blogs a month, giving people a daily look at my life. Over time I developed relationships with commenters on line, and told my story.

In July and August of 2008 I found myself struggling to add new things to the blog. Like most people, I guess, my life is made up of routines. I had, in large measure, described them all. I’d shared photos of my apartment, talked about work experiences, the bars I drink in and the girls I had sex with. It was beginning to reach a point where talking about my life was getting boring. I started struggling to find something to say on a daily basis.

And one day at the beginning of September I decided that through the blog I had accomplished what I set out to do. I had described my life for fifteen months, and anyone who had read the blog along the way would have found it a pretty good resource for deciding whether or not Thailand should be their home.

But I didn’t think I could really add to Werewolf’s Lair in any meaningful way. It was complete.

In my final blog on that site I wrote these words:

Everything is finished at some point.

The football season, movies, paintings, childhood, blowjobs and blogs all reach a point where they are over. Some more satisfactorily than others.

Werewolf’s Lair was finished because it was a daily diary and I simply didn’t have something new to say every day any more.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to say at all.

After living in Bangkok for more than three years, I find that there’s a lot I do want to say, but not necessarily in the daily diary format of Werewolf’s Lair.

The one thing that most of my regular readers commented on most often was my brutal honesty. It was a central tenet of my blog that I wouldn’t sugar-coat the stories or try to make myself the hero. I recounted each story about my life as faithfully as I could, showing it “warts and all”.

I wanted to continue to comment on life in Bangkok, but I wanted to shift the focus away from me and my life to the broader playing field. I also wanted to find a way to make the blog more entertaining.

And then it occurred to me that I knew another guy here in Bangkok who is known in the ‘kokosphere for his brutal honesty, self-deprecation and incredible humour. He’s so outrageous, that some people who haven’t met him openly question whether he even exists at all.

I’m talking about my friend Penfold.

We could hardly be more different. I’m 48 years old, and Penfold’s in his early 20’s. I am tall and bald, while Pennie is below average height and has a scary looking hairdo made up of a bad bleach job and lots of mousse… in fact if you got a picture of Homer and Bart Simpson in your mind when you thought of the two of us you wouldn’t be far wrong.

Penfold’s claim to fame in Bangkok is to openly discuss his fondness for getting blow jobs from ladyboys. I, on the other hand, am a bit ‘phobic’ about Thailand’s third gender.

Like so many men of Napoleonic stature, Penfold is a gym junkie with a fairly sculpted physique, while my physique has been shaped by lots of beer and pizza.

He is a stylish young man while I can genuinely be described as a conservative old fart.

When it comes to writing styles, Penfold has an Englishman’s artful turn of phrase at his disposal. He writes quickly and with great wit, rarely pausing to insert commas or apostrophes, or to run the spell-checker. What Dali was to painting, Penfold is to writing. His stories are weird and wonderful stream-of-consciousness concoctions that have only a passing acquaintance with the English language.

I write in a much more structured style. While I lack Penfold’s mastery of the colorful use of language, people who enjoy my writing usually point to thoughtfulness, detail and the ability to craft an interesting story out of mundane circumstances.

But what we share in common is the desire and the ability to tell the truth with no regard to political correctness or the sensibilities of others. Neither of us wastes time trying to impress other people — we are impressed with ourselves and that’s enough.

So, while we seem an unlikely pair, I called Penfold up and asked if he’d like to write a joint blog together.

His response was immediate and positive:

i fucking I love the idea of the joint blog

And so RAWBangkok was created.

Our intention is to offer a unique look at Bangkok that will entertain and elucidate.

Penfold and I don’t always agree… you might read the site and find that he says one thing and I say the opposite. Don’t let that surprise you or worry you — after all, he is a young English stud with style and flair while I am an aging and overweight American/Australian sexpat. We didn’t promise to agree on everything when writing the blog, what we agreed to was to offer brutal honesty in what we write.

You won’t find me writing anything positive about ladyboys. I will be writing the occasional blog about Thai politics. If Penfold has any political views, I’d be surprised if they correspond with my own. We’re two different guys, with completely different styles, who will work together to bring you Bangkok in a way that we believe will be unique and interesting.

No doubt some readers will prefer to read blogs by Penfold and some will prefer mine. No problem! There should be plenty for everyone.

So, here at the beginning of the journey, let me invite you along as Penfold and I explore the streets of the City of Angels and bring it all to you here on RAWBangkok.