From Colombia to Pattaya Love and Dangerous Nights

My long-term girlfriend, let’s call her Carla, got back together with me recently after a two- or three-year breakup. We’ve known each other for over 11 years. At first, it was all lovey-dovey, but I started noticing patterns.

I believe a lot of these women, whether they’re in Colombia or Thailand, tend to behave differently based on how much emotional control they think they have over you. If they sense you’ve gotten emotionally hooked, they begin asking for more things, gifts, and favors. But if they’re unsure where they stand with you, they rarely ask for much at all.

That’s exactly what happened with Carla. About two weeks after we rekindled things and had been meeting a couple of times, she asked me for $700 for a cosmetic dental procedure called Smile. It’s essentially fake veneers fitted over the teeth to make the smile appear bigger and whiter.

The irony is she already has perfect teeth, white and naturally flawless. But she’s 32 now, and dating isn’t so easy for women her age in Colombia. The younger crowd, especially women in their 20s, dominate the dating scene. In fact, by 30, some women there are already considered past their prime, which is sad but true.

Carla hardly gets any attention anymore, and I had hoped our reunion meant a real relationship. But whenever she had time off, she never wanted to do anything together and always had some excuse.

Questioning the Dental Procedure and Resisting Emotional Manipulation

I asked her if she had researched the dental procedure. She kept saying yes, so I followed up with more detailed questions, asking what kind of guarantee or warranty the dentist offered. She didn’t know anything. I told her this wasn’t about trust. It was about health, and I didn’t want to fund something that could cause long-term problems. I had already looked it up and saw several risks.

She tried emotional manipulation, telling me I didn’t trust her. That’s when a bit of my quirky side takes over. I jokingly call this alter ego Norman. I sent a few old messages as Norman, and she got weirded out and distanced herself.

The next time she came over and we were alone, she brought up the dental procedure again. I told her that I did not have the money; I had just loaned it to my assistant, whose sister was seriously ill and needed to return to Venezuela. It worked perfectly because my assistant actually showed up that same day while she was there and mentioned his sister’s situation.

When she asked again, I simply said, “What would Jesus do?” Her face, half angry and half heartbroken, was priceless. She’s gone quiet for now, probably trying to come up with a new scheme.

The truth is, emotional manipulation only works if you let it.

Story Two: The Bar Girl Who Was Different and Found Success in Pattaya

“I had been to Pattaya twice before, and both times I left my wallet lighter and my guard higher. Not bitter about it, just aware of the game.”

You walk into a bar, and the girls will smile, flirt, touch your arm, call you handsome even if you look like a retired binman with a dodgy hip and a sunburned scalp. It’s all part of the theater. The performance ends when the bar fine is paid and reality returns.

I had spoken to dozens of men over the years who swore they had found the one. They said, “She’s different.” She cried when they left and promised to wait. Then two weeks later, they’d spot her on Facebook with another man, sipping cocktails and calling him honey.

I promised myself I would never be that guy. I played by the rules, paid when I wanted company, tipped fairly, never gave promises, and told myself I was too smart, too seasoned, and too realistic to fall for any of it.

I had just turned 55 and retired early from my transport job in Manchester. I had been divorced for more than a decade. I had one grown-up son who remembered to call me about once a month. I was staying in a quiet guesthouse just off Soi LK Metro, close enough to the action but far enough to get a good night’s sleep.

I wasn’t looking for anything special, just a bit of sun, good food, and the freedom to do what I pleased. That was the plan.

Meeting Fawn in a Pattaya Bar

One evening, I wandered into a small, low-key bar on Soi Diana, not expecting much, just a cold beer and a bit of light conversation. She was sitting alone at the end of the bar, not pushing for drinks, not giggling loudly or grabbing anyone’s arm, just scrolling through her phone quietly. When she noticed me, she gave me a soft smile that wasn’t flirtatious just polite.

I was curious. I ordered a drink, and after a while, she walked over and said hello.

Her name was Fawn, 27 years old, from a village near Kalasin in rural Isan. Her English was better than most, and her manner was calm, a bit shy, and very different from what I was used to in Pattaya.

She told me she had been in Pattaya for just over a year, working at the bar to help her family back home after her father had passed away. She was the eldest of four siblings. Her mom was unwell, and she had left school early to work in a factory near Khorat, where she made 8,000 baht a month doing 10-hour shifts, before she followed her cousin to Pattaya for better money.

I asked her if she liked working in the bar. She shrugged and said, “Not really. Some nights are okay. Some make me want to cry.” She didn’t like drinking, didn’t like pretending, but the money helped send her sister to school and paid for her mom’s medicine.

There was something in the way she spoke that made me listen properly. I bought her a Coke, not a lady’s drink, and we spoke for an hour about small things. She asked about my country and what snow felt like. I told her it was cold and miserable, but she said she would like to see it anyway. I didn’t bar fine her that night. I just said goodbye and left. But I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Taking Things Slowly with Fawn in Pattaya

The next night, I went back, and she smiled when she saw me. We talked again. On the third night, I paid her bar fine not to sleep with her, just to take her out for dinner. She ordered the cheapest item on the menu and said thank you three times. We walked along Beach Road afterwards, and she told me her dream was to open a small coffee shop or maybe a nail salon. Not to get rich, just to live simply.

I kept telling myself to be careful, to remember the stories. But each time we met, I felt more at ease. She never asked me for money or hinted at needing help.

I extended my trip, and we stayed together almost every day, going to night markets, temples, quiet beaches, taking songthaews, and laughing about my terrible Thai. She held my hand in traffic, pointed out dishes at food stalls, and never once acted like it was about the money.

Leaving the Pattaya Bar for a New Life

After about 10 days, I asked if she wanted to stop working in the bar. She looked surprised and said she wanted to but wasn’t sure how she’d survive. I said I would cover her rent and basic bills and give her a little money to send to her family just so she could take a break and figure things out.

She cried and said I didn’t have to.

But the next day, she quit the bar.

I visited her small room above a motorbike rental shop. It was basic, with no air conditioning, only a fan, but she kept it spotless. She cooked me meals there almost every evening, proud of her tiny rice cooker and the fact that she could finally do something normal.

I went back to the UK after three weeks, and we kept in touch every day. She messaged me in the morning and before bed, sometimes with a selfie, sometimes just to say good night. I sent her a bit of money each month, not a lot, and she never asked for more. She used it to pay her room, buy food, and get some medicine for her mother.

Moving to Jomtien and Visiting Fawn’s Family

I returned to Thailand three months later, and we rented a condo in Jomtien together. It was small, but it had air conditioning and a proper kitchen. She cried when we moved in and said it was the nicest place she had ever lived.

She began doing nails for other Thai girls in the building, just a few hundred baht here and there, and told me she felt like herself again.

We visited her village near Kalasin, and her family welcomed me warmly. Her mother gave me fruit, and her little niece hugged my leg and called me “uncle” in Thai. The roads were dusty, the house was small, but the love there was huge. Fawn looked completely at peace, though she said she didn’t want to stay there forever. She liked the city now, particularly Jomtien, but she wanted to visit every year.

The Visa and Building a Future in England

After that trip, we started talking about a visa. I said I wanted her to come to England to start something real with me. She looked shocked at first, then smiled and said, “Really? You want me there?” I said yes.

She finally got her visa, and I flew back to bring her home. At Heathrow, she looked around wide-eyed, wrapped in a scarf and two jumpers, holding my arm like she was stepping onto another planet.

She moved into my small house in Manchester. After a few months, she started English classes. We got married in a simple ceremony at the register office and had a small meal afterwards with close friends and family.

That was three years ago. Today, we live a quiet life. She works part-time at a local salon and looks after our daughter, who just turned two. She speaks a mix of Thai and English and has her mother’s calm eyes and my bad temper.

Fawn sends a little money home each month to help her mom and her younger sister, now in university. She still cooks Thai food every night and teases me for not handling the chilies. We go to the park on Sundays and sometimes drive out to the countryside, where she loves taking photos of sheep and saying they look like big dogs.

Fawn’s New Life with Her Family in England

People still whisper. Some ask if it’s real or if she’ll leave me one day. But I just smile. They don’t know how much strength it takes to leave a bar and try for something better.

She tells me the day I took her out of the bar was the happiest day of her life. She says she never wanted that life; it was just the only one she had. If someone had given her a chance sooner, she would have taken it.

I’m glad it was me. I’m glad I didn’t listen to my own rules. I gave her a chance, and she gave me back my life in return.

Story Three: The Drunk Passenger at Bangkok Airport

Because there are no direct flights from the northeast of England, I normally fly to Bangkok via Dubai with Emirates, with a two- to six-hour layover. After a fun two weeks in Thailand in February 2020, visiting Bangkok, Hua Hin, and Udon Thani, it was time to make my way back home.

I booked the last Thai Smile flight from Udon Thani at about 8:00 PM, an easy one-hour flight to Bangkok, arriving a little after 9:00 PM. My Emirates flight to Dubai was at 1:30 AM.

After landing in Bangkok, I proceeded through domestic arrivals, picked up my luggage, and went to the fourth floor to check in. The queue was quite long, snaking backwards and forwards, but it moved at a steady pace.

While in the queue, I noticed an elderly, grey-haired guy come up the channel that was set up as an exit. He was looking to jump the queue. A male Thai Airlines staff member spotted him and explained that he had to go back and join the queue like everyone else. The older man just stood there mumbling, slurring something, ignoring any instructions.

By this point, I had moved forward and had a better view. He was in a T-shirt and a pair of white shorts that were heavily stained yellow around the crotch area.

After a few more attempts at persuasion, including trying to lead him by the elbow, the airport workers gave up for an easy life and let him jump the queue. He tried to check in with something that wasn’t a passport; it looked like the card holder hotels give you for your room key. He was speaking broken, drunken English, being rude, and acting like the Thais were wrong.

The Drunk Passenger’s Journey to Bangkok and Dubai

They eventually got him to open his bum bag, found his passport, and proceeded to check him in. While putting his case on the scales, the two Thai staff suddenly jumped back slightly. Because they were no longer blocking the view, everyone could see that the man, standing swaying at the counter, had started to urinate there at the counter. It was flowing out the bottom of his shorts and splashing up the floor.

The Thais, being polite and not wanting to draw attention or embarrass the guy, carried on as normal until he was gone, then set about cleaning up the mess. To say people in the queue were shocked would be an understatement.

But there was worse to come. When he turned to leave, we got a very clear view of the back of his white shorts. There were very heavy brown stains and soiling all over the back of his shorts. We couldn’t believe what we were seeing. The thought certainly ran through my head that he had checked in all his luggage and had no hand luggage: no possible way of changing out of those shorts.

Later, at the gate for boarding, shock horror, the older man was on my flight, still wearing those white shorts, which were now looking worse than ever. I knew someone was going to have an unlucky and uncomfortable flight.

Thankfully, he boarded in a different zone. I never thought about him again for the rest of the flight.

In Dubai, I had a 2.5-hour transit. After a walk around, I went to the departure gate for the flight back to Manchester. While waiting, I noticed him at the same gate. Thankfully, he no longer had those shorts on and was instead wearing a pair of jogging pants. How he got them, I will never know. Did he purchase them in Dubai? Did a kind stranger give him a change of clothes? Did the airline make him change so as not to upset the other passengers?

A Lesson About Travelling with Soiled Clothing

I know it’s probably wrong of me to laugh or judge this person, not knowing his circumstances or any possible medication that could have contributed to the state he found himself in. But I think everyone can agree that wearing a pair of white shorts all day and then on a night flight is a very bad idea unless you have a change of clothes in your hand luggage.

Story Four: A Drunken Fool on Soi 6/1 in Pattaya

“I had been to Pattaya for about four days, staying in a cheap hotel off Beach Road. Nothing fancy, just a place to sleep and charge my phone. But to be honest, I wasn’t doing much sleeping.”

Like most guys on their first proper Thailand holiday, I was going hard from day one. I had watched enough YouTube videos to think I knew how things worked. But nothing really prepares you for Soi 6 until you’re sitting in one of those bars at 4 in the afternoon with two girls fighting over your lap, a tequila shot in one hand, and someone rubbing your thigh like you’re the lost Beatle.

That day, I started early, somewhere around midday. By 7 or 8 in the evening, I was absolutely drunk. I’d been in and out of about five or six bars, probably bought about ten lady drinks, and had one girl feeding me fried chicken off skewers while another poured me beer from a tower that I definitely didn’t need. I was chatting rubbish, handing out 100 baht tips like I was a rock star, and walking up and down the soi like I owned the place.

When the sun went down and the bars started getting louder, I decided to call it a night and headed back to my hotel. I could have taken a motorbike taxi, but in my drunk state, I thought I’d be clever and take the scenic route on foot.

That’s where I made a mistake I will never forget.

Instead of heading back down to Second Road, I turned onto Soi 6/1 without thinking. If you’ve been to Pattaya before, you’ll know that Soi 6/1 is not like regular Soi 6. It’s quieter, darker, and a known hotspot for ladyboys.

The Attack on Soi 6/1 and a Stranger’s Help

And while I had nothing against anyone, in my drunk state, I started acting like an idiot. I saw someone standing under a flickering light in a miniskirt and high heels with arms like a Muay Thai fighter. Instead of minding my own business, I opened my mouth. I made some stupid comment about how she looked more like a rugby player than a lady, laughing at my own joke like a proper fool. I thought I was being funny, clever, whatever. I wasn’t.

I took a few steps forward, still laughing. Then I heard footsteps behind me. Before I could turn around, I felt something smack the back of my head, and I went stumbling into the side of a wall.

I looked up, and there were a couple of her friends. They were coming at me, their faces not angry, just cold and focused, like they’d dealt with my type before. One grabbed my shirt. Another pushed me into a bin. And before I could say a word, they started throwing punches and slaps, calling me every name under the sun.

I curled up and tried to protect my face. I don’t know how long it went on, maybe 30 seconds, maybe two minutes. It felt like forever. At some point, I was on the ground with blood coming from my lip and one shoe missing, trying to say sorry while also trying not to get kicked in the ribs again.

Then, out of nowhere, someone stepped in. A Thai guy on a scooter started shouting in Thai and waving his hands. They backed off eventually, still shouting at me, and walked away down the soi while I sat there like a wreck.

The man who helped me asked if I was okay, handed me a bottle of water, and told me in broken English to be more careful. I nodded and thanked him, feeling more shame than pain at that point.

Learning Respect in Pattaya

I limped back to my hotel and spent the rest of the night looking in the mirror at my swollen face, thinking about what had just happened. I wasn’t angry. I wasn’t even shocked. I was embarrassed. I realized that I had brought it on myself. I went to their soi, opened my mouth without thinking, made fun of someone who’d done nothing to me, and got exactly the kind of response that drunken disrespect deserves.

It could have been worse. I could have ended up in hospital or even jail. But thanks to that stranger, I walked away with just a fat lip, a bruised ego, and a very important lesson.

In Pattaya or anywhere else, for that matter, you need to treat people with respect. You don’t know what someone’s been through or what they’re capable of. The second you start thinking you’re clever or above anyone else is the second you lose control. I came to Thailand thinking I knew the rules. Turns out I knew nothing. And I learned the hard way that if you can’t say anything respectful, you’re better off saying nothing at all.