The Temptation of Pattaya and a Love Lost to One Drunken Night

I first went to Thailand in 2012 as a 27-year-old. I had just broken up with a Thai girl who was living and studying in Sydney but had never been to Thailand before. I had planned the trip to go with her, but after we broke up I decided to go alone, which was very new and scary for me as I had always traveled with a group of friends.

I had an absolute blast. I just loved going out, meeting people from around the world. I would go to the beer bars almost every day and never once felt lonely. There was always someone to have a beer with, and if not, the bar girls would always be entertaining with flirting, playing pool you all know what it’s like.

In my job, I get six weeks holiday per year, so I’d split them into two lots of three weeks and go twice a year between 2012 and 2017. I just love the place, but especially Pattaya.

Moving to Thailand

In 2017, I decided that I wanted to spend more and more time in Pattaya and live there for about 18 months. I saved and saved. I lived in a tiny little flat in Sydney, worked my backside off, worked all the overtime I could, and had about two or three days off a month. I managed to save up about 50,000 Australian dollars and planned to live cheaply in Thailand, work on my fitness, and basically have a chilled lifestyle for a while.

So it was early 2018 when I sold everything that I had which wasn’t much and I just had a suitcase with clothes and a few other essentials. I had spent the last 18 months working out at the gym. I had a pretty good physique and I was at the prime of my life.

The Lawyer Girlfriend

After a few weeks of partying and drinking every day, I started feeling run down, anxious, and realized that I was overdoing it on the booze. I decided that I should move away from temptation for a while. I had an old friend who lived just outside Jomtien, so I got a little place near there and told myself that I need to get fit again and cut down on the booze.

This plan worked pretty well. I managed to get fitter, only had beers twice a week, and life was looking up again. I met a lovely Thai girl who was a lawyer. She was on a weekend getaway. She was 28 and very beautiful. I was in love instantly.

We got on really well, and I decided to move in with her. I would pay her monthly mortgage payments, which were cheaper than most guesthouses would have charged me for a stay in a month. I had been really good with my money, but it was in need of some replenishment. I had about $15,000 left.

My girlfriend and I decided that it would be a good idea for me to go back to Australia and work for about six months, save about $20,000 Australian dollars that would last me about another year in Thailand if I was careful.

The Fatal Mistake

I decided to visit my friend in Jomtien a few days before my flight to say goodbye for six months. We hit the bars in Pattaya. He started buying shots, and we got wasted. I don’t remember too much of that night, but I woke up to my girlfriend’s call and realized there was a girl asleep next to me. I had taken a bar girl back to my hotel.

The hangover was horrendous, but the guilt was sickening. I ignored the call from my girlfriend and laid there for about an hour thinking about what I should do. I felt terrible for my girlfriend and decided that I should not tell her what happened, as we had a really good life set up. She one day wanted to live in Australia. We had discussed living in Thailand and Australia together, and I didn’t want to ruin her dreams.

The next day, we were in bed together. It was the day before I left. We were just watching random YouTube clips on my phone. A text popped up from the bar girl from Pattaya. It said, ‘I miss you,’ with a photo of her in a very sexy pose. As you can imagine, my girlfriend was distraught.

The next day I flew back to Australia. It was February 2020. I started my job in Sydney, and I would spend all day texting her, begging for her forgiveness. She replied sometimes. She never officially broke up with me. The pandemic was now in full swing, and I can’t get back to Thailand to this day.

We still talk. I still have hope that one day she will forgive me and the world will open up and we can live our lives together.

Story 2: From Fairy-Tale Marriage to Devastating Betrayal

I’m 57 now and have been traveling both privately and with work since I was 16. I wouldn’t say I’m new to traveling, but I had never visited Thailand before early 2017.

The Perfect Girl

Once I arrived in Pattaya, I went into Central Festival and bumped into the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. She was working there. I asked her if she’d like to come to dinner with me, and she accepted. At the time I was 50 years old but looked younger than my age, and I was fairly fit with no beer belly yet.

Chatting away at dinner, she told me that she has a university degree. She had no tattoos I could see, and she was born locally. My first impressions of her were that she was a very nice girl. After dinner, I asked her if she would like to come and have a few drinks with me in a bar. She told me she never drinks alcohol and she would never be seen in a bar.

I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I was kind of infatuated or in love with her already.

When I returned home and went back to work, I just couldn’t stop thinking about this girl, so I decided to head back to Thailand. It was now 2017. Once I was back in Thailand, we spent quite a bit of time with her family. She never asked me for anything, but I paid for meals and bought her small gifts not because she asked me to, but because I wanted to.

She asked me if we could get married. Of course I said yes. I loved her. I was so happy. So we married.

The Cancer Diagnosis

Early in 2020, the pandemic hit, and we were stuck in Europe. About this time, out of the blue, I became quite sick. My legs and feet became swollen, and at Christmas I really thought that I might die. In February 2021, I was diagnosed with cancer and had two operations.

I feel so happy that I met the right Thai girl who supported me throughout my sickness. She has made many friends here in Germany and sometimes has the odd night out with her girlfriends.

The Hidden iPhone

One day she appeared to act slightly differently. Not a lot, but I noticed it. I asked her what was wrong. She said nothing. Then I found a second iPhone hidden when she was out. I looked at the phone. It was exactly the same as her regular iPhone, but there were lots of messages in Thai on it.

I took it to a friend that I trust to have her translate the messages for me. I don’t understand Thai at all, so whenever my wife talked with her friends in Thailand, I recorded what she was saying on my phone and sent the recordings to my friend for translation. We were both shocked about what she was talking about.

She was talking about staying with me until she received her passport, then she would be looking to meet other guys. She was also planning to meet older guys in shopping malls and Thai restaurants with a view to them paying her money that she could use to go back and forth to Thailand.

The translator told me that my wife had planned this from the start and she was speaking with other friends who were doing the same thing. This was definitely a targeted operation that they’d been doing for years.

The Aftermath

She has just signed the divorce papers and will move out but doesn’t realize that she’ll get nothing as she signed an agreement when we got married. I had it translated into Thai as well, so she got nowhere with her scam.

When my wife realized that she wouldn’t get anything from me, she started working in a Thai massage shop in the city and now sells her body nightly, as she doesn’t want to return to Thailand. She will be 34 in October and now works full time in the massage shop, earning money by servicing different men daily.

Story 3: How a Stranger in a Bar Changed My Life Forever

I’m a retired policeman from America. I had often been visiting Thailand two or three times a year for over 30 years, but now I’m living near Pattaya. I’ve lived here for six years now, and I’m loving it.

My first trip to Thailand was in 1988 when I was 23 years old and before I was a cop. In those days I was a bartender in San Francisco’s financial district.

The Stranger’s Advice

I had just broken up with this super hot Filipino girl and decided I was going to go to Hawaii to clear my mind for a week’s vacation. On a random Tuesday evening, as the night was winding down and I was starting to close up the bar, I was just chatting with my travel agent friend and another broken hearted friend who said he may want to go to Hawaii with me.

Out of nowhere walks in this guy who I’d seen around from time to time. Let me paint a picture for you: he was in his mid 50s, good looks, very tanned, tall, thin, white hair, and wore a white Miami Vice type suit with his sleeves rolled up over a t shirt.

My friend told the stranger about our Hawaii plans, and the guy just kind of scoffed and said, ‘Hawaii? Why?’

So I got the stranger a cocktail on the house, and he began to tell us of this magical place called Thailand. He then began to tell me about what the prices were for things like food, beer, hotels, and female company. His bar girlfriend’s daily allowance was about 500 Baht back in those days. I was really sold.

My friend the travel agent basically backed up everything that the stranger had been telling us. That’s when she dropped the bomb by telling me the price of one week’s vacation in Hawaii we could have a two weeks’ vacation in Thailand for the same price. I told her to book the trip tomorrow.

The Solo Adventure Begins

Now the day has come. It’s mid November 1988, and I’m at San Francisco International Airport with one carry on bag and one small shoulder backpack. That’s it for a two week vacation. But there’s something missing. Where’s my friend? He should have been here already.

I find a pay phone and call my friend’s apartment. He answers and tells me he’s not coming with me because of his girlfriend and he’s trying to get her back. ‘Are you joking?’ I screamed down the phone. ‘You tell me now with one hour before our flight?’

So here I am, getting on this aircraft with my brand new passport mind you, I’ve never been out of the United States before going to some exotic country I only know a little bit about, and alone.

The adventure begins: San Francisco to Seattle, Washington to Vancouver, Canada to Tokyo, Japan, and finally Bangkok, Thailand. Wheels touch in Bangkok at 1 a.m. in the morning. I feel crazy. I think I made a mistake. I want my mummy.

The Tuk-Tuk Ride

I decided to jump in with both feet and hit the streets. A tuk tuk comes flying past me, locks up the brakes, does a U turn, and says, ‘Mister, mister, you want lady?’

‘No thanks.’
‘Okay, okay, you want boy?’
‘No thanks, I don’t want boy.’
‘Okay, okay, you want beer? Only beer?’
‘Okay.’

So I jumped in the back of the lunatic’s tuk tuk, and off we go. I begin to hide my money in my shoes. The tuk tuk driver stops in front of what looks like a house. ‘Bar inside,’ he says. So what the heck? I go inside, and what do I find? A bar and lots of beautiful girls. Okay, I think I’m going to really like Thailand.

The First Night in Bangkok

I sat with one pretty girl, bought her a few ladies’ drinks and breakfast in the morning. I had a great time my first night in Bangkok, and no, I didn’t get ripped off. Well, I’m sure a little, but it wasn’t noticeable.

Story 4: The Night the Bar Girl Passed Out in My Room

Hi Peter, I’ve recently been listening to some of your viewers’ stories and I see this is a good service to both newbies and fun listening for those with more experience. I want to share a story I hope people can learn from.

I have been based in Asia since the early 90s and made my first trip to Thailand in 1991. It wasn’t until 2000 that I took a girl out of a bar. It started off fairly tame but became a slippery slope. By 2010, I was going two or three times a year for a week to 10 days to Thailand.

The Last Night in Bangkok

The story I want to tell is about a particular girl and what I learned from it. This was 2013 or so, and it was my last night in Bangkok with a flight at 9 a.m. the next day, so I would need to wake up at 5 a.m. So it shouldn’t be a late one.

I went to Nana Plaza, visiting Rainbow One, and it was fairly early. I met a beautiful girl that I quite liked. We left, and she wanted to visit another bar before heading to my hotel. I said okay. We went to Rainbow Four. She wanted a tequila shot, and I said okay. Then she had another. Maybe one more.

I was wondering if this was a good idea but decided to trust that she knew how much alcohol was good for her. She hadn’t seemed drunk when we left Rainbow One, but she was pretty wobbly now.

The Accident

We took a taxi to my hotel. She asked me if she could use the shower, and I said yes. Suddenly, she slipped and hit the back of her head on the tub. She started moaning, and there was some blood oozing out of her hair.

I got her into the room, applied pressure to her head, and suddenly she was out like a light. I shook her a bit, and she wouldn’t wake up. I sat back and thought about the situation. I could have a passed-out girl in my room. I could have a dead girl on my hands. And I have to head to the airport in a few hours. Not good.

To make a long story short, she woke up and was a bit grumpy about her head but was very professional about it all, if you can catch my drift. Boy, was I glad to see her walk out of that door.

Moral of the story: a bit of alcohol can help them loosen up and enjoy the experience, but when you don’t know how much they have had to drink before you meet them or know how well they know their own tolerance for alcohol, it’s best to err on the side of caution.