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Concrete skateboarding
don’t know if you can put a number on that,” Paul Machnau mentions when asked how many skate trips abroad him and Chris Haslam have teamed up on over the years. “The first one was Chile, around ’06, when I was on Globe. We had to fly him in to skate the demos because it was just me and David Gonzalez. I was hating that trip until we met up with Chris, then it was one of the best times.” “That was my first trip with a big company,” Haslam chimes in. “I tend to travel by myself, but we’ve been to Australia together like five times, Hawaii, Barcelona, random stops in Canada and America, and now Thailand.” While navigating foreign lands, challenging situations do arise on and off the board. So there’s something to be said about having the confidence of rollin’ with a tried, tested and true Skate Bro. “We know what we’re gonna get,” Machnau says with a laugh. “That’s why I like traveling with Chris a lot. We’re pretty much the same as far as our goals of being on a trip.” “If it comes down to it, we can do our own thing or we can hang out,” Haslam adds. “We don’t have any weird drama or issues with each other. I know what’s going to happen with Paul, and that’s hard to find these days.” This successful dynamic was put to the test once again during an interestingly timed two-week trip to the bustling city of Bangkok, which was partly inspired by thoughts of tropical weather, an amazing Baht-to-Canadian dollar ratio (their huge five-bedroom penthouse was $150-a-night) and spots galore. But, as you’ll learn in the moderated conversation that follows, the heat was intense and there was a very real possibility of being stranded in Southeast Asia due to Thailand’s worst flood in 50 years. Fifty-eight out of 76 provinces were affected, including areas of Bangkok, as floodwaters covered nearly 15 million acres of land. But that didn’t stop Haslam and Machnau from adding identical stamps to their passports once again.
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Singapore Sling “Chris and I have been talking about doing this sort of trip for a couple years,” Machnau begins. “At first we were trying to get out to Singapore, since he’s actually from there.” “I was in California when they asked me to do those Epicly Later’d videos,” Haslam mentions, “and I didn’t have anything to show that my real youth skating was in Singapore. I’ve always wanted to go back there and film something, like a weird history. That’s how I started thinking about this trip and it just went from there.” “But when the time came we didn’t really have a plan,” Machnau clarifies. “My girl was already in Bangkok for work, so I just asked Chris if he wanted to go there.” “I’ve been to Phuket in Thailand before, but never to Bangkok,” Haslam says. “It’s not Singapore, but it kinda reminded me of it.”
Rolling the Dice “We still didn’t know whether we were going or not until a week or two beforehand,” Machnau remembers the decision grind leading up to departure. “Everyone was just telling us not to go, and there were Government of Canada warnings about avoiding the Bangkok area because of the floods. So every day I was checking flights and reading the news. My girl mentioned first-hand that the city itself was dry for the most part, so we jumped on the plane knowing that not getting anything was a possibility.” “Going in I knew there were health issues with stagnant water and Dengue fever,” Haslam adds. “I only went from what Paul said and got messages that were all mixed up because I didn’t have a phone at the time. He’d be like, ‘I don’t know if we can go, it’s too floody,’ then I’d get a message that said: ‘Let’s do this!’ I really didn’t know what was going on, but I was down [laughs]. As a precaution, every store in Bangkok had sandbags or these cement barriers in front. A lot of people were scared.”
Heat Score “We ended up being there during the hottest two weeks,” Machnau mentions with a laugh. “It was 43°C, with like 80% humidity. Both of us would skate a spot for five minutes and our bodies were just completely soaked. You couldn’t breathe, and any time you were in the actual sun, it would drain you so fast. I’d say the first week was a struggle to get to that comfortable point where going outside was OK without wanting to run back in for air conditioning [laughs]. It was a super-slow start.” “Oh, yeah,” Haslam shakes his head in disbelief. “I was getting heatstroke every day. I wasn’t puking or anything, just insane headaches. It was easy to get really frustrated.” “I think the skate scene there is more of a night thing,” Machnau says before Haslam sarcastically points out: “They’re not as dumb as their North American friends who try to skate in 43°C, midday.”
Chris Haslam. switch frontside bluntslide.
Concrete skateboarding
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Chris Haslam. ollie up to quick-footed nosebluntslide.
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The Cab Hustle “We didn’t really have a tour guide for the first couple days,” Haslam explains. “The communication and language barrier with the cab guys was a nightmare. So we would basically just drive in circles.” “Then I lost my iPhone in a cab like the second day,” Machnau remembers disappointingly. “I was trying to get directions in a cab and I had two phones: my iPhone and the phone I was on with the driver of the other cab our guys were in. We were looking for a spot, and all three attempts failed. Some of the cabbies are really good there, but some of them say ‘yeah, yeah’ and take you to a random spot. They don’t seem to have street numbers in Bangkok, either.” Haslam continues: “If you go by a street name, there’s like three different places with that same name. Half of the cabbies don’t even want to mess with it, plus a third of them left Bangkok because of the floods and went back home.” “After struggling to get around for the first few days, this guy named ‘Jane’ [Janchai Montrelerdasme] helped us,” Machnau explains as the trip’s TSN turning point. “He films for Preduce Skateboards in Bangkok and speaks perfect English and Thai, so he would talk to all the cab drivers for us. As soon as we got him it was on; we were going to all these super-good spots.”
Sketchy Scene “There’s no concept of personal space there like we have in North America, especially if you’re a white guy,” Haslam begins, describing the scene in a busy bar district literally used as a location for The Hangover Part II. “They’re all in your face with signs for pussy shows. Paul almost got in a fight with one of them.” “The guy shoved one of his signs in my face, so I grabbed it out of his hand and was pretending to read it,” Machnau begins explaining the altercation. “I ended up just putting it down on another stand and it fell to the ground. So the guy came up and smacked me on the back twice! I was all pissed and bumped into him; it all just kind of escalated from there. Next thing I know, all these dudes were running up and it got sketchy so I started walking away. Luckily, that was it.” “This is all in the area where these dudes were selling knives, Tasers and Wolverine hands with spikes on them, just random stuff,” Haslam adds. “One of his homies could have had something, so we just got the hell out of there before it became a bad scene and no one would’ve known we were in Bangkok, you know?”
Paul Machnau. backside 5-0 bigflip out.
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Pay to Play “I bought my entrance into one of those bars that put on the crazy shows,” Haslam says dryly when asked about any “unique purchases” he made on the trip. “There was a vagina playing the trumpet, one that shot darts, and Paul’s brother got some weird plantain shot at him. Jordan Mayfield, who came with us to film, had a ping-pong ball shot at him that he hit back with a paddle [laughs]. I’m the sober guy and it changed from a cheap show into an expensive show real quick because you have to buy drinks.” “I got to walk a full-size tiger, it was insane,” Machnau steers the topic towards an admission fee that he was more than happy to pay. “Monks raise the tigers or whatever; we got to pet them and take them for a walk using a leash. Actually, they walk you [laughs]. There’s a monk with you in case it gets away from you, but all it would take for you to be a goner is if the tiger turned around and whacked you.”
“I missed that whole day because I wasn’t feeling too good,” Haslam says. “I just walked through the Grand Palace and checked out the Emerald Buddha temple, then laid by the pool after.” Paul explains the post-tiger-walking festivities: “We ended up at the Sai Yok Noi Waterfalls, a place me and Brian Caissie had been to before, then jumped into this party van that had disco balls, crazy lights, and a TV in it. It seemed like a four-hour trip home, and at one point I had to take a piss and the van driver wouldn’t stop. So I opened the van door and we were ripping through floodwaters. I’m just like, ‘What?’ So I’m taking a leak and my foot is dangling in the water.”
Paul Machnau. kickflip into bank.
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Chris Haslam. ride on 50-50 to pipe jam.
Magic Flick “It’s the best warm-up,” Machnau mentions when asked about playing games of S.K.A.T.E. with Haslam during their spot hustle in Bangkok. “I never play him to win, just to warm up [laughs].” “You got some tech moves on that trip,” Haslam points out. “Paul did that back 5-0 bigspin flip out, something he’s never done before. I remember the trick he was trying originally didn’t work, then he tried a different one that screwed up wrong and flipped. But once he started trying it, it was going every single time.” “Well, that’s a good thing about skating with Chris on trips,” Machnau starts into yet another upside to their long-standing Skate Bro dynamic: “I’ll learn something that I wouldn’t normally do.”
Still Standing “The first week I didn’t do shit,” Haslam admits. “I couldn’t get any photos, and I rolled my bad ankle like three times. But it was so hot, which made my foot pretty loose; it would just slip in my shoes so the rolls weren’t as bad as they probably should’ve been. I think that saved me. I took a little break and then everything I got pretty much happened in one day. I wish I knew that going into the trip, then I would’ve been less stressed [laughs]. Paul had some weird heel thing going on…” “Yeah, I blew up my shoe or something and thought I got a heel bruise,” says Machnau. “But it ended up being a giant, black blister on the back of it from sweating and sliding around in my shoe. It was close to the last day at that point; Chris and I both agreed that we were done [laughs].” With another one in the books, Machnau reflects on the duo’s challenge-riddled Bangkok experience one last time: “We knew what we were getting into and it was definitely worth it.”
Catch all the clips from this trip on February 28th at push.ca/thaivideo