From Penguins to Paradise by Paddy Hayes

Author:Paddy Hayes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Great Writers Media
Published: 2021-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Bangkok, 1982–1984

My career in advertising – in fact, my whole life – seems to me to have been a series of largely unplanned strange beginnings. Like my first day in Bangkok.

I had flown to Thailand to take up my new job as managing director of one of the major international advertising agencies there. Until then, having been a deputy managing director with a competing ad agency in Singapore for over five and a half years, it seemed as though I’d never be promoted to the top slot. My decision to leave was made for me when my boss Alan bought himself a new racing dinghy and moored it at Singapore’s Changi Yacht Club. He clearly had no plans to move from Singapore to let me take over his comfy padded seat in the large office at the front of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce Building. And, after five and a half years, I felt ready to move on anyway.

As I left the airport terminal, I had my first experience of the Bangkok I came to love … and hate. It was hot. Being March, and in the dry season, there were no clouds in the sky and no chance of a cooling shower. After disciplined Singapore, here taxis and cars were cutting each other up to get into a prime position on the ranks.

The air was full of dust and general pollution, long before air quality became an international talking point. This was the everyday chaos of Thailand. I had heard Singapore described by a critic as “a bit like living in a hospital”. If that was true, I didn’t dare to think what living in Bangkok could be compared to. Was this where I would have to live for at least the next two years … or more?

The queue for a taxi seemed to snake in front of me forever, so I shared a cab from the airport to my hotel with a German businessman who’d been just ahead of me in the queue. He introduced himself as the International Sales Director of the company that marketed 4711, the big eau de cologne brand. After an introductory chat, he elbowed me in the ribs, and challenged: “I bet you can’t guess in which country we sell the most eau de cologne.”

“Germany?”

“No.”

“France?”

“No.”

“All of Europe?”

“No, but now you are trying to cheat, I asked which country. Try again.”

“OK, the USA?”

“No.”

“I give up.”

“It’s Saudi Arabia.”

“You’re joking! Surely they’re not that bothered about personal freshness.”

“They aren’t. They drink the stuff! It’s potable alcohol, you see. Saudi is the only country in the world where we sell eau de cologne in litre bottles. I must admit that when I first found out about it, I did try to sample some myself… but I think I’ll stick to schnapps.”

The hotel on Sathorn Road was an oasis of calm and blessed air conditioning after the streets of the capital. Checking in was easy and I was escorted to my room by a polite and helpful bellboy.

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