Noom, my bar boy friend and current love of my life, loves when I visit Bangkok. He loves when I visit Bangkok and take him shopping even more. Fortunately, the two tend to go hand in hand. Even when the day’s shopping is strictly for supplies for my bidness, he is still eager to tag along. That’s because he knows he can usually get away with adding some bling for himself to the pile I’m purchasing. That’s a good thing because bling is as important to Noom’s soul as is the air he breathes.

Not that I’m a complete push-over. He doesn’t always get what he just decided he couldn’t live without. Sometimes whatever it is he selected I can get elsewhere at a lower price. Sometimes I’m haggling with the seller and adding additional bling is not the way to go. And sometimes I just say no to keep him on his toes. So he’s learned if it is something he really wants and thinks I may balk, he grabs two, one for him, one for me. And then says, “Twins!” as though that was some magical word. Which I guess it is. It’s hard to say no when he’s shopping for both of us. Even though we both know I play a very minor role in his decision. Invariably, since we have very different tastes, whatever ‘we’ bought ‘us’ is something I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing. But that works too. Noom loses bling. Often. So it’s always good to have a spare.

As fond as Noom is of shopping, he prefers to do it in an air-conditioned mall. And has a difficult time understanding my attraction to spending hours at the Weekend Market. On any given trip, when I’m ready to head to Chatuchak, he carefully considers where we’ve already been shopping, what swag he’s already snagged, and the likelihood of him scoring something pricey at the Weekend Market. If the getting doesn’t look good, he’ll tell me that he wants to stay at the hotel and get some exercise in instead, assuming – quite correctly – the vision of his muscled body freshly pumped when I return is enough to convince me to hit the market solo. Even though we both know the English word ‘exercise’ means ‘four to five hour nap’ in Thai.

That’s cool with me. I like to wander at Chatuchak (if you can call the slow snail’s pace set by tiny, shuffling Thai feet wandering). Noom, on the other hand, wants a goal, something specific to find. And then sets off asking vendor after vendor where he can find whoever it is who sells whatever that item is until he finds the right shop. Noom isn’t into window shopping. Unless we are shopping for windows. I’m more of a let’s see what turns up kinda guy. To me, it’s the journey, not Noom’s destination. So it’s better if I head off for the day alone. Besides, despite what I just said, I am a push-over. And Noom knows I will return to the hotel with some goodie I bought for him at Chatuchak. I’m sure the vision of being bestowed with gifts from my shopping spree helps him make it through his long nap.

Besides browsing, there are also several shops I always visit at Chatuchak. One belongs to an old Thai man who epitomizes the term rock hound. His is a small shop made even smaller by the large number of rocks, stones, and gems he has on display. The majority of which are not for sale. His store is more of a place to keep his collection than it is a money-making business. The first time I stumbled upon his shop he greeted me with a warm smile, the type that Thailand is known for, the type that said, “Oh, goodie. Another stupid farang who mistakenly thinks everything in Thailand is for sale.” But since I ooohed and awwwed over a few of his more choice specimens and didn’t try to buy them, he recognized me as a fellow rock hound and now when I visit his smile says something different.

We’d probably get along even better but his command of English is just about the same as mine is of Thai. So we smile and grunt a lot. Occasionally I buy a small lot of what he does have for sale although when I do it’s for my own personal collection. His prices are a bit high. You’d think he was selling gold. So I’m sure I am of some value to him as a customer. But I always bring him some choice specimen of a rock he’d probably never otherwise see, and once he figured out those were gifts and not an attempt to sell him something, he’s always appreciated seeing my face turn up in his store.

I always write out the name of whatever stone I brought him, he studies my scribbling carefully, and then pockets the note totally at a loss of what the word is. And when I can’t identify a stone he has on display he does the same for me in Thai. The more well-known stones we each give our own country’s pronunciation to. And when it is evident whatever he is showing me is something he mined himself, I always ask where. He always answers with a smile. Rock hounds are always willing to share. Except for where their favorite collecting spots are. That’s become a running gag between us because as much as I know he appreciates the stones I bring him, as a Thai he appreciates the same joke told over and over and over again even more.

On my recent visit I brought him a polished piece of hypersthene, a fairly common black rock with a beautiful silvery chatoyancy that no one seems to know of. He in turn showed me a cherished piece of black spinel. Which is also fairly common. At least in Thailand. And could just as easily be onyx, jasper, or agate. But I complimented him on it anyway. And then did my duty and asked, “Where?” This time around instead of a laugh I got a smile. And then he drew a map of what looked like Thailand, made a pair of Xs, one of which I could tell was Bangkok and the other somewhere west. And then used his thumb to point at himself and then me and then at the map following a line from Bangkok to wherever in the hell that second X designated. It took me much longer than it should have to figure out he was suggesting the two of us take a rock hunting trip. When he pulled out his calendar, it didn’t take me as long to figure out he meant on Tuesday. His indication that we’d leave at 6am I tried as hard as I could to fail to grasp but to no luck. Regardless, needless to say, I was jazzed.

So jazzed that I forgot to pick up a gift to remind Noom how much he lubs me. That we were going on a trip, however, was enough to put a smile back on his face. Almost.

“We go Bangkok Air?”

“Uh,no.”

“We not go Air Asia!” Even Noom knows that just because now everyone can fly doesn’t mean that they should.

“No, we’re driving.”

“Why?”

I’d copied the old guy’s map onto the back of his business card and showed it to Noom so he’d know where we were going. And so he’d possibly tell me. Thais are not big on maps. And Noom is no exception. He turned the card over to its front and called the guy to ask instead. And then Googled it on his laptop.

“Oh! Tiger Kingtom!”

“Um, no that’s not . . . never mind. We’re not going to see the tigers.”

“Why?”

“‘Cuz we’re going for rocks. For bidness.”

“Oh! You buy satones!”

“No we’re going digging for stones.”

“Not shopping?”

“No, we find in ground.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re free.”

Obviously, the word free worked it’s magic as it usually does. And free bling caught his attention.

“Ruby?”

“Uh, no.”

“Sapphire?”

“No, black spinel.” I used his laptop to pull up a photo. Noom was not impressed.

“It black.”

“I know, that’s why it’s called black spinel.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s where he’s taking us.”

“Oh. Should take us for ruby.”

I can’t say I didn’t agree with him. But accompanying a local rock hound to one of his favorite digs was working its magic on me. And no one ever got shot for going after black spinel. Those in the ruby trade are not quite as gracious. But had they seen Noom’s face when he found out we were going to have to get up and be ready to go by six in the morning, we’d probably have been safe. No problemo. The next morning when I introduced Noom as my translator and he introduced himself as my body guard and the old guy checked out Noom’s build and then gave me a knowing nod of approval, Noom settled into and across the backseat of the car to catch up on his sleep. I probably should have joined him.

The old guy may not have been adept at speaking English, but knew Thai well and a bit over an hour outside of Bangkok pulled down a road that no where else in the world would be called one for an unscheduled stop having figured out Noom was less than enthralled with the purpose of our day’s outing. Few rock hounds are thrilled by a quartz dig unless it is their first. Even when ‘dig’ means bending over and picking up pieces off the ground. Noom, on the other hand, thought he’d hit the mother lode.

“It quartz!” The boy has retained at least something I’ve taught him. He eyed both of us suspiciously, wondering why we were just standing there. I gave him a nod granting him permission to scoop up whatever he wanted. He spent a few minutes searching before finding a piece that when held up to his chest looked like it would go well with his muscles. Noom beamed. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Then the old guy opened the gates of hell. He told Noom he could take as much as he wanted.

Noom’s hands filled quickly. His pockets soon followed. Then he made a basket out of the front of his T-shirt to fit more, exposing his abs which earned me another nod of approval, or congratulations, from the old guy. When he dumped his first load in the car before heading back for another I asked him why he needed so much. ‘Sell my friends me,” he explained, adding, “It power,” just in case I didn’t realize the obvious.

I market the stones and jewelry I sell with their metaphysical purpose. Because it triples sales. When asked if I’m a believer my standard answer is that if you think a stone will do something for you every time you touch it, feel it, or see it, it works as a positive reinforcement for your goal so whether or not stones have some special power or not doesn’t matter. It’s an honest answer. Not that I think I know all of the mysteries of the universe; stones may have some subtle field of energy that does work on intuitive people. But after one customer told me she was buying a rough piece of amethyst because it had cried out telling her how roughly it had been manhandled when taken from the ground . . . huh. If I’d heard that from more than one customer I would have made a sign for my slow moving stock identifying it as rocks that had been abused and needed to be adopted by a caring, good hearted person. And doubled their price.

In any case, my standard answer is a better sales technique than just saying no. Thais aren’t big on the word no either. So instead of using it, I told Noom I thought the car couldn’t handle much more power than he had already filled it with. He thought about that for a minute, agreed, and rather than being disappointed that he couldn’t vacuum the entire site clean was content with hopping back into the car where he let his OCD thingy go wild, sorting through his loot and dividing his treasures by size, color, and – no doubt – power.

An hour later when we arrived at our intended dig he was a bit more enthusiastic; his eyes hit the ground as soon as he stepped out of the car. The old man laughed and pointed to the foothills some distance away. But Noom is no fool, he kept a careful watch of the ground at his feet as we hiked to the old guy’s black spinel site. Just in case. Some of his enthusiasm dwindled when he found out he was going to have to actually dig for stones this time around. And the rest flew the coop when the old guy pointed out a piece for him to work on coaxing out of the surrounding rock. Black rocks are not all that exciting to begin with. In their natural state even less so.

The old guy chipped out the few pieces he’d been after. I found a nice specimen growing out of the surrounding matrix that would make a nice addition to my collection. And then found a piece to break out of the rock for Noom, thinking that like with an Easter Egg I’d hide it on the ground for him to ‘find’ just in case he wasn’t having any luck with the piece he was still carefully trying to unearth knowing that with rock hunting it is the destination and not the journey that matters. Good thing too ‘cuz when I went over to see how he was doing all he’d managed to accomplish was to build a small pile of tailings at his feet; his prize still remained firmly fixed in its home.

You may think digging for rocks doesn’t sound like much fun. Watching someone else tediously attempt to break a rock out of the surrounding rock is even less fun. I considered telling Noom it might go faster if he took his shirt off, but behaved myself and let my shadow fall over him to provide some shade instead. Even with our early start the sun was already high; digging for rocks can be hot work. And Noom was giving it his best, hammering away at a rock he wasn’t all that interested in in the first place while building up quite a sweat. A small drop of which rolled off his chin and splattered on the pile of rubble he’d made, turning a tiny pebble at his feet a pale shade of blue. I’m rather partial to Noom’s sweat, considering it akin to the nectar of the gods. The universe had just agreed.

Black spinel, locally known as Nin is common in Thailand and not really something to get all that excited about. It polishes up nicely, but is opaque and – as Noom had pointed out – is black. But it comes in other colors too, ranging from blues to purples to reds. Red spinel is often mistaken for ruby. In fact the Black Prince’s Ruby, the enormous “ruby” that forms the centerpiece of the royal crown of England is actually spinel. If it was more abundant, or if larger crystals were normally found, it would be a much more popular stone but instead most people have never heard of it; you seldom see it faceted in jewelry. But blue beats black any day of the week and even if Noom didn’t know what spinel was, the damn boy had managed to find a piece.

I pointed it out to him. He was jazzed thinking he’d found a sapphire. That it wasn’t didn’t matter. It was blue, his birth stone, his lucky color. The old guy was pretty jazzed too. You don’t usually find spinel crystals where black spinel grows. We began carefully sorting through the pile of rubble Noom had unearthed. All of which was the same dusty gray color. But as any rock hound knows, the best way to field test stones for gem quality is to lick them (yeah, spraying them with a bit of water works too, but most of us are purists). Noom hesitated at first, but then probably considering the other strange places his tongue regularly goes, turned himself into a true rock hound too. We found three more tiny pieces, another piece of blue and two deep garnet-like purple stones, all of which belonged to Noom since it was his dig. (Being the guy that I love, when we got back to our hotel he gave one of his purple stones to the old guy. But then since that left him with three and three is a more auspicious number than four . . .)

On the drive back to Bangkok Noom kept his spinel find cradled in the palm of his hand, occasionally giving them a lick when they began drying out and losing their color. At one point he looked up, gave me a satisfied smile, nodded, and said, “Power.” Guess he hadn’t bought my claim that he was over-energizing the car with his haul back at the quartz field. Back at our hotel, I got to lug in his 50lbs. of quartz while he carried his spinel, which he showed to the doormen, the girls at the reception desk, and the guy manning the elevator. I think he was disappointed we didn’t pass any housekeepers on our floor. But he made up for that loss by showing them off to the hostess, the busboys, the waiter, and the couple having dinner next to us at a restaurant later that night. And then we had to hit Soi Twilight so he could show his barmates, after showing every barker on the soi. The taxi driver was honored with a viewing on our way home that night too.

That piece of black spinel Noom had been attempting to pry out of the rock, btw, is still sitting where we found it. Exerting further effort to unearth it was beyond Noom’s capabilities or interest once we’d found color. But his newest prized possessions occupied his attention for the next few days. My attention during the trip had been focused on avoiding having to watch any of the World Cup matches, an endeavor I wasn’t too successful at. And when I told Noom that cradling his new stones in his hands would not help whatever team it was he was rooting for to win as he’d obviously thought it would, he decided it was time to find out just what power his new stones held. Which meant me looking it up for him with an assist from Google.

The metaphysical properties of stones is not an exact science. Neither is searching on Google. Combine the two and you can come up with pretty much whatever you want. One site claimed spinel is useful for attracting money, wealth, and prosperity. All of which rate highly with Noom. Instead I went with the site that said it is a great stone for long-distance relationships in that it fosters love and can be used as a talisman to carry the love of the giver. I passed that on to Noom. He nodded his head in complete understanding of how the universe – if not my mind – works. Another site claimed spinel increases passion; I passed that bit of info on to Noom as we slipped into bed too. Huh. The power of those stones does work after all.

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