What set me off writing this was an article I read recently about a kind of tea served in Singapore – named after a popular Indian street name – Madarchod – translated which means “mother…..r” guaranteed to bring out the claws.
I know there are a few beverages thus cheekily named – Angel’s Tits and such like, but my first association with a drink with an ill reputation was Sex On The Beach.
Now, this happened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia when I was housed in a cheap backpacker hotel named Hotel Green Lake partially built over the Boeung Lake. So, Cambodia in 2009, was just opening up to hippie, penny-pinching backpackers and every house over the lake was turned into a hostel of some kind along the Street No 93. You could identify it by the number of worn out travelers slouching by the light poles, either drunk or drugged.
Cambodia, I’d known, had some of the finest weeds to be had, easy and cheap and I had been told, just as soon as I arrived “that tourists come for the weed, so would I like some?”
I am not taking away Cambodia’s touristic delights by talking about weed, but it is a fact every traveler to Cambodia should know.
Back to Sex on the Beach.
One evening after a traumatic visit to the Tuoel Sleng Museum, I arrived back at the hostel feeling thoughtful, only to find the hostel deck buzzing with writhing bodies dancing to some kind of trance music. You could tell who had what – alcohol or weed and things that I couldn’t identify.
I joined in.
Heard of passive smoking? I must have inhaled so much smoke that I felt drugged, a good kind of pain-forgetting drug that it somehow justified a real drag after a while.
Someone offered me drink. Then someone else did. I danced, in mad fervor, along with the rest. Later, it was my turn to buy the drinks. The bartender passed the drink menu and I saw something that made me giggle.
Sex on the Beach, I remember saying – for all. It was cheap at 2.5 dollars – and I was feeling generous. While we danced, drunk to the gills, someone said – “how about some sex on the beach” to which someone replied with a, “I’d like some right now”
Not to know what that meant, thins started to roll. Some jumped into the shallow lake, some stayed drinking, me included.
The night passed peacefully.
I remember how upon return, I told this story to a few non-drinkers and non-travelers who had never heard of such a thing, and shamed me for “doing such an unholy act and had the gall to talk about it.”
It was funny for a while. Often I’d thrown in that I got it for 2.5 USD – and they assumed I’d picked someone at random and paid USD 2.5 for the act!
Yeah – that’s what drinks to you, especially the drinks with weird names. Wonder when I am going to say, “I’ve had a Madarchod’ and watch the reaction on people’s faces. For kicks’s sake, I might just add in the “Screaming Orgasm” (thanks Huffington Post) or that Sex with the Bartender and laugh my ass off!
PS – If you have read my earlier book ALMOST INTREPID, this might be familiar to you!
