Phurgis 2001

"Four nights in Phuket make a writer crumble......." or, check out those babes on the bikes!

Remember when sex was safe and headhunters were dangerous?

Well, neither do I. But that's the motto of the Harley-Davidson biker's club known as the Headhunters. Each year in conjunction with Thailand's Songkran water festival and the Phuket Bike Week, the Malaysian chapter of Headhunters makes a twelve-hour two wheeled pilgrimage from K.L.'s Hard Rock Cafe to, believe it or not, The Rock Hard Cafe in Phuket, Thailand also known as Biker's Week Headquarters.

And if you think that this annual gathering of biker clubs from The USA, Europe and Asia is nothing more than an excuse for male macho bonding and drunken debauchery in Thai night clubs with sexy go-go dancers in bikinis well.......you'd be absolutely right.

I've been familiar with the "Harley guys" in K.L. for years and my old friend Gary Sharman is a founder member of The Headhunters established in 1996. Some of you might remember Gary as the motorbike-reviewing columnist from The NST's Sunday Style section  or from articles he's written for Men's Review. I affectionately refer to him as Number 2 and in return he calls me Number 1. The meaning of this inside joke I really can't reveal to print.

Anyway, I'd usually see him and his gang straddling their bikes in front of the Hard Rock or sitting on the veranda having a beer. "hey, Number two!" I'd say. "Hey, number one," Gary would respond. Sometimes I'd sit and chat with Gary for a spell but I had to admit that I had my reservations about these "Hell's Angels wannabes." I'd teased Gary accusing him and his mates of being a bunch of posers or "Americana-philes" or "weekend warriors." Gary told me that "Sure we're not a bunch of gun-toting drug dealers like the Angels and sure we're all career minded, but that's the only way to afford big bikes imported from America." Gary in fact was with Harley-Davidson Malaysia for five years as a marketing and sales manager. He's currently with TVR Sports cars doing the same. He continued; ".....but, if you think that biking, to us, is not a way of life, why don't you follow us up for bikers week this year in Phuket?" There was something about the twinkle in his eye that made it sound a bit like a challenge. And having opened my sarcastic flap trap, knew that I had to accept.

The ride alone to Phuket would take 12 hours, 'in good weather' s Gary put it. But I'm not sure that when you're in the open air in 34 degree heat there really is such a thing as 'good weather.' Aside from heat, heavy rain and wind, snow is probably the only weather condition they don't have to worry about. Then I considered the simple and obvious danger of riding a motorcycle across Malaysia. And if you think Malaysia highways are dangerous, it then occurred to me that Phuket is in Thailand! I stared thinking that maybe it is safer to be a drug dealing gangster in America.

Nevertheless, I followed Gary to Phuket. And I use the word "followed" very loosely. You guessed it. While the boys straddled heavy machines and troubleshot breakdowns, I was having pineapple juice served to me by a lovely woman in kebaya on an air-conditioned Boeing 727. Strike one.

I was told the traditional rendezvous was at the Paradise Bar overlooking Patong Bay at sunset on Wednesday. I had arrived the night before and had planned to check into the same 'hotel' that the Headhunters would be staying at in order to get a real 'fly on the wall' perspective of these bikers and their so called 'way of life.' I was given a key and pointed in the direction of my room. I opened the door, took one look at he flies already on the wall and promptly left to check into the four-star Phuket Cabana Resort on Patong beach. (I highly recommend it.) Strike two.

The next day, while I was sipping on a coconut and getting a foot massage on the beach, I felt a slight pang of guilt when I looked at my watch and realized that Gary had another five hours of hard riding ahead of him if he was to make it to the bar by sunset.

Sitting at the Paradise Bar later that day, I heard the distinct rumble of a Harley. In twos, threes and sometimes more, Headhunters from Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong started rolling in. Headhunters was first established in Malaysia. Since then chapters were founded abroad by expats and Malaysians alike who had relocated.

There was dusty backslapping and handshaking all round and I felt a little out of place with still no sign of Gary. Some wore leather vests and others T-shirts with slogans on the back that read; "If you can read this, the bitch fell off." I said hello to a couple of familiar faces but wasn't really welcomed until I dropped Gary Sharman's name. That gave me enough 'street creds' to, at least, not to be left sitting alone. I'm not much of a daytime drinker and by the time Gary did arrive I was well into it. He soon caught up. With a grin on his face he answered my first question. "Why? We do it for the sake of friendship, bonding and developing friendly relations with our neighbours." I told him that I found it rather ironic that bad-ass bikers are the only Malaysians who have a desire to be 'friendly' with Singaporeans. "Singaporeans are a bit Kiasu," he said, "But the Harley guys are OK by me." These guys were starting to seem ok by me too.

Long after sunset, and several Carlsberg later, I figured these boys are going to want to get to their hotel room, shower and have an early night after a ride like that. I was about to ask Gary where we would meet the next day when her turns to me and says, "Alright, see you guys at Rock Hard Cafe in one hour. Full colours!" (Referring to leathered vest with embroidered insignia). I tried masking my sense of dread and told him I'd see him there. They saddled up on their iron horses and I flagged down a tuk-tuk.

Up to 2,500 big bikes from various clubs around the world came to meet this year in Phuket. There were even some Hell Angles that night in the Rock Hard Cafe from a chapter in Germany. I asked Gary if there were any chapters of the Angles is South East Asia. "No", he said. They tried to scope out Malaysia to see the potential but they realized Malaysia already had a bigger and tougher gang that wouldn't let them in." I was quite impressed that the Headhunters could intimidate the Hell's Angles and I told him so. "Not the Headhunters you idiot. The ISA," Gary corrected me.

Still, in Rock Hard, the Headhunters seemed to be a favorite with the girls and Smokin' Joe who's the proprietor and err........let's just say a local "businessman" there. The Headhunters hung their flag above the stage and were 'reunited' with girlfriends from the year before. Suddenly it became clearer what Gary had meant by "bonding", friendship and developing relations with our neighbours."

The censorship board probably wouldn't let me describe even in words a lot of what we got up to that night, but since most of it was drinking I'll tell you about that.

When you're drinking ice cold beer in a nightclub with cute chicks in bikinis and the price is about four ringgit a bottle, they start to seem like they're free. The beer, that is, not the girls (who are definitely not free). In my macho effort to keep pace with Gary and the guys I had to go to the toilet four times in the first two hours alone. And that was just to throw up! The first night ended in somewhat of a blur and I woke up next to a toilet in my hotel room alone. And when you're a single guy in Phuket  and you end the night alone.......that's truly pathetic. I spent the next day re-hydrating with coconut water next to the pool in my hotel. Strike three. Maybe I couldn't ever be a Headhunter but I had to at least finish the week in order to save face.

Over the next two days the Headhunters attended en-masse the various beach parties held by the different bike clubs in town. Still, each night would culminate at Smokin' Joe's Rock Hard Cafe in drunken debauchery and by Saturday night, I was well and truly toasted. I was slumped on a beach when Gary, with his perpetual gremlin-like grin hopped on the seat next to me, "Say. Lyle, weren't you saying that you wanted to get some photos while you were here?" I couldn't believe that after three days I hadn't remembered to bring my camera out even once! Then it occurred to me that by the end of each night I could barely remember my own name. I rushed back to my hotel and was back as fast as I could with my trusty Contex.

  I got special permission from Smokin' Joe to allow me to take photos in the club which, normally, is strictly verboten. I snapped away at first thinking that I couldn't focus my camera properly. I looked over the viewfinder and realized I couldn't even focus my eyes properly! Nonetheless, it occurred to me that I was taking pictures of Malaysian Harley bikers in Thailand but there weren't any Harleys in the pictures. Maybe half naked girls would make up for this but I wasn't sure. I expressed this fear to Gary. He turned to Captain 'Diamond Robyn' from Saudi Arabia. "Hey, Diamond! Is that your bike out front?" Diamond tossed him the keys and Gary disappeared.

Next thing I knew I saw the beam from a single headlight, heard the roar of a motor and to cheers from go-go dancers and drinkers alike, Gary Sharman rode a Heritage Softail through the door and into the middle of the nightclub. "Gary. are you crazy?" He looked at me, grinned and said; "You told me you wanted a motor cycle in the picture." Silly me. But you have got to admit - that really was cool.

Later that night, there was an initiation of a new member to the Headhunters. The ceremony is referred to as "The Golden Mile". And if your imagination is running wild, well keep it going. Suffice to say that the candidate, after one year's probation has his hands tied behind his back, and there were seven naked women, seven shots of tequila, a lot of distractions and, as Gary put it, "no spilling."

The guys were going to head off to an after hours club and I told Gary that I had to get up early to catch a flight at 6pm the next afternoon. I knew I'd need about fourteen hours to sleep so why pretend? His expectations of my stamina weren't very high anymore so he didn't seem surprised. I walked him out to his bike on the street, which had become crowded from revelers leaving the closing clubs. One preppy looking drunken American tourist, eating peanuts, with his friends walked past Gary eyeing his bike. The kid, with a smart aleck grin, then tossed some peanuts into Gary's open saddlebag. "Hey, waddya thing you're doing?" Gary snapped. "It just fell, sorry." The American looked at his mates and giggled. Gary, not satisfied with the kid's answer, walked over to him, grabbed him with his leather-gloved hand and yanked him close. "Don't screw around with me aye?"

Perhaps I'd been a bit luckier than I had imagined to have gotten away with teasing Gary and his buddies for so long.

So the moral of this story is.......oh, who am I kidding? There was nothing moral about the entire week. But I will say this; Sex may not be safe  anymore, but Headhunters are a lot more dangerous than I thought. Especially to your liver.

Oh, by the way. Earlier I told you I couldn't reveal the meaning of my inside joke with Gary. But I will say this; I now refer to Gary as number one.

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