A Close Call In Thailand

I would like to tell you about an experience that I did not have because of your stories. Before I begin, I would like to tell you a little about myself. You might remember me from a while back I asked you about a street in Patong, and you suggested Bangla Road. Thank you.

I am a 72 year old man from Las Vegas, Nevada. I made my first trip to Thailand in 2016. Since then, I have gone to Thailand 14 times Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and Phuket. I do not smoke, drink, or do substances. I do not care for the noisy bars, bar girls, or the gentleman clubs. I guess some people would call me a cheap Charlie. However, I just love the massage shops and the massage girls. To me, they are the best.

So, here is a story. At the far end of Nanai Road in Patong, there is a little massage shop called Bang Sa. It is a nice, spacious, quiet place with a little bar. You can sit in the sauna and the jacuzzi tub for as long as you like for 150 baht. While I was in there, two beautiful ladies came in and started taking pictures for a photo shoot to promote their cosmetic line. It was sort of fun watching these pretty ladies pose. Shortly after the photo shoot, they started going into the sauna and the jacuzzi, and I struck up a conversation with one of them. She spoke good English. This lady I would guess around 35 years old said she was a tour guide, and because of the pandemic, she had to find other work, and that is why she was promoting her cosmetics.

She started warming up to me and being very friendly which feels good. She offered to take me around Phuket and show me all the beautiful sites. Quite frankly, I’ve seen all the scenic views that I care to see, but it might be fun just to do something different. I suggested we have dinner at the Austrian Garden, walking distance from my hotel. She was familiar with the restaurant and the area and even pointed out a bank that is close to my hotel. She declined my invitation and started to tell me about a wonderful seafood restaurant on the beach which she was familiar with. We called and texted each other on the LINE app. She said she had a car and would show me all the beautiful sites, and we could go to this beautiful restaurant on the beach. It started to sound good.

Then a little later, she sent me a lot of pictures of the beaches and said I was her first customer in over a year. Immediately, I suspected here’s the catch. I texted back and asked if it was going to cost me anything. She replied, “Just feed me and pay for the gas.” So we made plans to go the next day, and I asked her to pick me up at my hotel. She said, “No let’s meet at the bank close to my hotel.” So I agreed.

I went to bed that evening thinking: “Hmm 72 year old man, 35 year old lady, meet at a bank that has closed its doors for good so no cameras would be working and she would not meet me at my hotel just two blocks away from the bank.” Then the thought of getting into a stranger’s car and going to places that I have no idea where we are going, to a restaurant that I do not even know the name of so fear started to creep in, and my safety was called into question. It just did not sound that safe, and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Safety Checks Before Meeting a Stranger in Phuket

Then I started thinking of all the stories I’ve heard you read out on your YouTube channel these poor guys that go into these restaurants with these ladies and get overcharged, knocked around, and forced to give PIN numbers to their credit cards. So I texted her back and let her know that I just did not feel it was safe and that I would not be participating.

Quite a nice warning there, actually. He’s picked up on some really good red flags that not everybody might have done including myself, actually. The fact that she wouldn’t pick him up from his hotel, only from a bank which was probably in a quiet area because it was closed no surveillance cameras, no CCTV. So, if she might have been innocent, but if he’d have got into a stranger’s car who knows? So good decision from him.

Story Two My Life in Asia Love Loss and Lessons Learned

This is a much longer story. We’ll jump straight into number two it’s called “My Life in Asia.”

I grew up in a gloomy, depressing town in northern England but have been fortunate enough to come from a family of travelers. My father was a backpacker before meeting my mother, and we often took exotic holidays throughout my childhood, inspiring my own personal travel desire. I’d had one long term girlfriend and a couple of short term girlfriends in England, but after university, found myself unemployed in the heart of a recession and a desire to leave for greener pastures.

In 2012, at the age of 22, I decided to embark on my first solo trip a 5 month trip to the US, where I worked in a summer camp coaching kids. There I met and dated a wonderful girl from New Jersey. While we tried the long distance thing soon after I returned to the UK, the relationship fizzled out one of those summer flings, I guess. We ended it very nicely, and I wished her well. However, soon after returning to the UK, I fell into the post travel blues. After my incredible experience in the US, I was back in my gloomy hometown with limited employment opportunities and had fully caught the travel bug. My desire to leave for good was stronger than ever.

I enrolled on a TEFL teacher’s course, and in early 2013, I found myself on the 18 hour flight to Bangkok. I recall the first thing that struck me when leaving Bangkok Airport was the color. While I had been to tropical countries in my childhood, I’d never actually taken the time to appreciate it. After having been in the UK winter for 4 months, the vibrant blue skies and lush green trees made me feel like my eyes were now in HD. Apart from the USA, I hadn’t traveled anywhere in my adult life with such incredible tropical colors.

I studied the TEFL diploma and was placed in a school in a coastal town about 2 hours from Bangkok with two other guys from my course Rob and John, who were both American. For the first couple of weeks, we explored everywhere in town. I was blown away by everything. Like many of the young travelers to Thailand, I wasn’t interested in the bars or even dating Asian women originally but when I got there and saw how stunning the girls were, I couldn’t help myself.

The Controlling Girlfriend

I became infatuated with one of the department heads of my school a Thai woman called Mot. Mot was 5 years older than me but lived with her parents. We soon started dating, which quickly became serious. For the first couple of months, things were great, but soon Mot started to become gradually more controlling. She would always ask where I was, who I was with, and ask me to send selfies to prove who I was with. It became full on, and I soon became unhappy.

However, as a government worker, I knew she would have far more power than me. She would say that if I left her, she would cancel my visa or make me lose my job, among other things and remember, I was very young at the time and naive, so I believed her. Then afterwards, she would say it was just a joke. I ended up staying with her out of comfort and fear, I guess, and becoming more isolated from other Westerners even from Rob and John.

The Escape and The Nightlife Awakening

At the end of the second school year, Rob and John both left, and I moved to another school which was dominated by cliquey Filipino teachers. I soon found myself very lonely. Me and Mot stayed together for a year and a half, although most of the time I was unhappy. My normal day consisted of work, then I would pick Mot up from her parents’ house which involved me sitting around her house while she gossiped with her super traditional parents before we would go for dinner. Then I had to make sure she was home for 9:00 p.m. or her parents would complain.

One day, I got a message from an old friend from my hometown Len. Len had always been attracted to Asian girls and had recently been through a bad breakup. Len told me he was planning to visit Thailand during my school holidays, and we should travel and party together. Finally, I had something to look forward to.

Soon Len came, and I finally had an excuse to break free from Mot’s grip to spend some time with an old friend. Len asked me to meet him at the Nana Hotel in Soi 4, which up until then I knew nothing about. When I got there and saw Len was with a good looking Thai girl at the bar (which used to be there before it was replaced with Hooters), I joked with him that he wasn’t wasting any time. He told me that he had met the girl on the flight over as she had been working in the UK. We caught up on everything. He told me he was jealous of me for being able to live around this all the time, but I told him my life wasn’t so rosy since I had a controlling girlfriend who I was sick of.

Len’s girl whose name was May caught wind of this and arranged for one of her friends to spend some time with me. And I ended up cheating I’m not proud of it, but I was so unhappy with Mot that I couldn’t help myself. The next day, I called Mot and broke up with her. She was upset, but luckily her threats were hollow she wasn’t going to make me lose my job, thankfully. But what had become of this? I had grown a taste for the bars.

For the next 3 days, me and Len stayed in Bangkok with the two girls mostly chilling by the pool or visiting Terminal 21 during the day and partying in Nana or Soi Cowboy at night. Then we separated for the next several days as the two girls went to visit their hometown in Isaan, while me and Len went down to Pattaya, sampling the fun of Walking Street, then the islands, before returning to the two girls in Bangkok again for the next 3 days. May was rather affluent paying for drinks, dinner, gifts for all of us. Len ended up falling for her, but soon it was time for us all to part ways. The girls were going to work in Oman whatever that meant. Len was going back to the UK, and I was heading back to my hometown to work again. It was the most fun I’d had in my 2 years in Thailand, and I was truly sad when it came to an end. But Len was even more so. While promising to keep in contact with him after we all separated, Len never heard from May again. Even the girl I was with I didn’t know where she was as they were in different parts of Oman. There were rumors she got arrested and other rumors she went to Hong Kong. Len never got closure from May, and I knew he had fallen for her hard. Len ended up coming to Thailand twice a year ever since.

Life After Mot

I returned to work with my newfound freedom. I started enjoying Thailand again. While Rob and John had left, I met the expats in my town and befriended some of them. Soon, me and a couple of the guys started taking regular trips to nearby Pattaya for the weekends, enjoying the choice of food and the nightlife. I was happier than ever.

After a few months of this, I matched with a girl called Jib on a dating app. We met and immediately fell for each other. We dated for a while, and I moved to Pattaya to be with her. Jib worked as a receptionist in a condo building and occasionally moonlighted in a pizza restaurant. This went well for several months, and we started making plans. Knowing that Thailand wasn’t ultimately the place to settle, we decided to get married with the ultimate plan of returning to Europe. It was only a small wedding just to get the official documents that would allow us to be together.

In 2016, I returned to the UK with a promise that Jib would be able to join me in the UK soon. To my horror, upon returning to the UK, I learned that the UK has some of the strictest visa requirements in the world to bring in a fiancée. I needed a salary of at least £18,600 a year, along with bank statements to verify this. As a returning expat in a northeastern town, this was impossible. I felt defeated and planned to go back to Thailand.

When I learned of something called the Surinder Singh route, I set the plan in motion. As an English teacher, I found a job in Italy, and soon Jib was able to join me there. At the beginning, it was great. She was so excited to be in Europe, and we really did enjoy it. But good things never last. The UK started getting stricter on the Surinder Singh requirements to close this legal loophole. Even couples who had legitimately lived in Europe for years were being rejected by the Home Office for visas. Many chose to stay in their EU country and ditch the UK altogether. We would need to stay in Italy for at least a year and document everything. However, being Italy which is famous for its red tape and under the table going on this was difficult. Combined with language barriers, it became very difficult to prove our very existence in Italy to the satisfaction of the UK government.

To add to this, Jib couldn’t find a job, and we were dependent on my salary, living in a country where neither of us had friends or family and which is much more complicated and expensive than Thailand. We felt bad for each other and soon started arguing on a regular basis. This went on for over a year, and after setback after setback, it just became too much. The stress of trying to get the documents needed to go back to the UK became the theme of all our troubles, along with the fact that I didn’t even really want to go back to the UK anyway but Jib was dead set on it. I told her I wanted to go back to Thailand, where at least we were happy, but she wouldn’t back down. The love was gone, and ultimately we split up. I went back to the UK while she stayed in Italy, finding a job in Milan. We never officially divorced in all this time and never saw each other or spoke again.

Back to England and A New Beginning

I was back in my hometown in the north of England, and I fell into the familiar depression I had come to know so well. While I was happy to be with Len and my other friends and my family again, I just wasn’t where I wanted to be. I found a job in an office and was hit by reverse culture shock harder than any culture shock in Thailand. I soon fell into a dull routine for several months, unsure of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do next.

While me and my friend took a trip traveling to Scotland the following summer, we stayed in a hostel on Loch Lomond, where I met a stunning Asian girl. Her name was Jing, and she was of Chinese background but from Vancouver, Canada. She was working in London as a systems analyst. We started dating and soon became very serious. We shared our life stories up until then, and after several months together, I made plans to move to Canada eventually to be with her. We even took a trip out there together, and I fell in love with the place. But red tape being red tape, things are never easy, and it took months to get the documents I needed. Jing moved back to Canada, and we did the long distance thing for a couple of months before she broke up with me for another guy just 2 weeks before my visa was approved.

I was crushed even more than when I split from my wife or any other girlfriend. I had an approved permit for Canada, but it was the autumn months. By the time I would have the money saved to get established there, it would be midwinter, and I would be going alone. I just wasn’t mentally ready for that. I had a year to enter Canada from that day and planned to go back to Southeast Asia for the winter months travel and teach again, which is something I enjoy. I enjoy the sun. Give myself time to get over the breakup and come to Canada in the spring with a fresh mindset.

Wanting to try something new, I decided to visit Vietnam. 4 months became 2 years. My visa for Canada expired, but I don’t regret anything. Destiny had a way and ultimately will take me to where I need to be. I’m still in Saigon and enjoying life now 32. I’ve dated girls here but plan to stay single to save money, focus on myself, study again, and make up for the last time I may have had in my 20s. I would like to revisit Thailand again normally return even just to finalize the divorce with my ex wife and take another night out with Len in Nana Plaza once again. Canada and the rest of the world will still be there, I’m sure.

Advice from the Storyteller

I’m younger than many of your listeners, but if I could give any advice, I would say to research the spouse or visa requirements of your country. While Canada and the US have it easy with their K 1s and even common law options, us Brits have a nightmare with it especially now after Brexit without the Surinder Singh option. If I knew, I would have made alternate plans, and who knows where I would be now. But Captain Hindsight is a brutal beast.

Never be afraid to leave an unhappy or toxic relationship. There’s no shame in failing even when you’ve tried your best it’s just a part of life. Focus on your own desires and don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Never underestimate the value of having even one good friend, especially in a place like Southeast Asia. Women come and go, but true friends who have your back are extremely hard to find. Cherish the ones you have.

Thank you for listening, and I hope you enjoyed my story.

Great story lots of good advice there. So I’m guessing they’ve tightened up the rules in the UK, because for anybody who listens to my channel regularly, you know that I was married to a Korean lady for 33 years. Sadly, we split up about 2 years ago, and I now live in Thailand full time. But when I took her originally to the UK about 25 years ago we got a 6 month marriage visa here in Asia and then went back, and it was fairly simple to get her a long term visa and then her own UK passport. So I’m guessing for anybody to go back now, it’s a lot more difficult. But there are companies here in Thailand that can help you do that.

Story Three The Crazy Girl with the Machete Wielding Father

I’m in my 50s, and I went to Thailand for the first time in 2016. Wow first year was amazing. Went back in 2017. I made a few newbie mistakes but nothing so bad just little mistakes. In 2018, I visited Hua Hin a great little beach town about 90 km southwest of Bangkok. I met this fun girl who was a little crazy at the same time. She was in her 30s and latched on to me as a fun night. Drew to its conclusion, me and my friend said good night to everyone at the bar and was just about to leave when the girl I had drinks with turned and made a sad whimpering sound, while at the same time asking me if she could come with me. Although a little crazy, she had a nice character about her, so I thought, “Why not? What’s the harm?” As it turned out, I had a fantastic night with this crazy little girl back at the villa where we were staying.

The next day, we were relaxing around the pool with cold drinks, just chilling out. I told my new friend that my niece was backpacking around Thailand and was heading home in 2 days but was on her way to visit me at the villa as we spoke. My niece arrived, and I was happy to see her as I really love my sister’s daughter. I didn’t notice anything strange about my little Thai friend, but my friend said she seemed to be acting a bit weird but I thought nothing of it.

Later in the evening, we went out to some bars, and my niece and the girl joined us. This girl started to get weird and became jealous because I was hugging my niece. I said, “Please don’t be silly it is my niece, my sister’s daughter.” But she started going crazy and saying, “She’s not your niece she your girlfriend!” My friend tried to calm her down. He said to me, “Just get up, take your niece, and go to another bar. I will get rid of this girl and join you in a while.” Me and my niece did exactly that we moved to another bar. My friend joined us alone, and we carried on with our night, which was a lot of fun. I told my friend, “Yes, the girl last night was a little crazy, but she was also a lot of fun.”

Anyway, the night came to an end, and the three of us headed back to the villa. We were all laughing and joking and saying that we had better be careful in case the crazy girl was hiding in the bushes back at the villa. Well, that’s exactly where she was. When we opened the sliding doors to the pool, the place was covered in broken glass, and she jumped out sobbing and saying, “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” I told her, “Look, I’m very sorry too, but you need to leave.” She refused to leave the villa, and in the end, I had to call security, and they removed her.

Later, her father turned up screaming and shouting and holding a machete. We called the police but had to hide in and around the villa with all the lights turned out. It was terrifying. We still had two nights paid for at the villa, but my niece was heading back to Bangkok to catch her flight back home. No way did we want to risk another night in the villa, so me and my friend took the ferry from Hua Hin to Pattaya which sadly no longer operates.

When we were in Pattaya, I received photo messages from the crazy girl. She sent me photos of herself and she looked sad. I did not mention that this girl was not working in the bar when we met. She had been dancing in another bar but as a customer and not a bar girl. I had called her over. Looking back, I think she wanted to meet a foreign man which is why she was there. I have no doubt in my mind that she has mental problems and needs help, but honestly, she scared the crap out of me that night.

Staying Safe After a Frightening Hua Hin Encounter

I’ve always been attracted to strange people in my life, but nothing like her. I knew some people can get extremely jealous over nothing, much like this crazy girl did. But to anyone who has never been to Thailand before don’t let this story put you off going. It’s a fantastic country to visit just keep your wits about you at all times and never get too drunk.

There is a lot of mental health problems here in Thailand. It doesn’t seem to get addressed. You do see people in everyday life even around Sukhumvit Road, a very heavy tourist area and there are people with mental problems out on the street. So you do have to be very careful of this. I remember once I walked on the Green Mile from Benjakitti Park to Lumpini, and it was dusk about 6:00, half daylight, half nighttime and there was a guy kind of standing in the darkest part of the walk. He looked out of place. I was a bit nervous. I walked past him, and about 5 to 10 feet after I passed him, I just turned around to make sure he wasn’t following me and he started running towards me and shouting stuff. He backed off at the last second, but as I say, there are people with mental problems here, and you do have to be very careful how you handle some people out here.

Story Four A Rock Star Night in Pattaya Four Girls One Pool and No Regrets

A little about myself: I live in Canada and decided to visit Thailand in 2017. I was 58 years old at the time. I was very excited to experience Asia, and since my brother retired in Pattaya, I had a wonderful luxury house to stay in during my visit. I decided to travel via China Air, which was a huge mistake. All I can say is that no one spoke English at all, and they fed us fish for breakfast which was horrible. The stopover in Beijing from 1:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. was also a disaster, where they blocked off the entire area except only one section where I couldn’t even find a place to sit so ended up mostly on the floor.

I finally arrived in Bangkok around 11:00 p.m. My brother had sent a car to take me to Pattaya. By the time I arrived in Pattaya, it was around 1:00 a.m., and I was super exhausted from almost 40 hours without any sleep. It was great to catch up with my brother, who was very excited when I came to visit. The next day, I woke up overlooking the beautiful pool and enjoyed the sunshine. At this point, I thought, “Wow, all the hassle of getting here was worth it.”

Since I was staying for a month, I just took it easy the first few days relaxing, eating good food, and having great conversations with my brother over lots of wine. He kept asking me why I hadn’t gone out to the bar to experience the life there, but I was reluctant to go by myself since my brother was married and not into the bar scene. Finally, after about 4 days, my brother convinced me to get out and enjoy what Pattaya had to offer.

The journey from my brother’s house to the beach area of Pattaya took about 15 minutes, and when I arrived, it was like walking into Disneyland. I went to many bars along the Beach Road and played pool with several girls who really surprised me with how good they were at the game, which made it very enjoyable. I never told them that I grew up in a pool hall and was close to being a professional. They were all very flirty with me, and my ego enjoyed that, I must say. Being able to have so many women interested in you was certainly a game changer for my vacation.

I decided to play the girls for drinks if they won, I would give them a drink, and if I won, they would take off one part of their clothes. They all wanted to play. They thought they were so good at pool, but little did they know my pool skills. At this point in the game, one by one, I would win, and they would take off one piece of clothes. But of course, every few games, I would let a girl win and get a drink so they thought I was beatable. After a while, the mamasan came to the table and saw four of the girls with no tops on, so she asked if we could go to the back private room so it would not distract other customers. We all agreed. By the end of the night, all four girls had lost most of their clothes because they kept losing all the games of pool yes, they took turns, all thinking they had a chance of more drinks.

At the end of the night, the bar was closing, and you can imagine by then we were all having so much fun. I was laughing and hugging them all and still buying them drinks even if they didn’t win because I wanted everyone to have a good time. Yes, it was an expensive night I guess if you call 14,000 baht a bill expensive (£350 or $400). Money was not an issue for me and hardly ever is, just because of the luck I guess I have had in my life.

A Memorable Pattaya Billiards Night

Now I had to decide which of these four pretty girls I was going to ask to come back with me to carry on drinking at home and perhaps share the swimming pool with me the following day (if you get my meaning). It was such a difficult decision for me to make, as all four of them were not only extremely attractive but all four of them had bubbly, fun characters. I asked them who should be my partner for the night. In the end, it was down to two of them, but neither of them could agree. So I asked, “How about you both come back with me?” They laughed and thought it was a good idea. So off we all went, hand in hand. Honestly, I felt like a rock star.

Thank God I had a separate entrance back at my brother’s house, so I didn’t wake up my brother and his wife. When we all got back, we all fell asleep almost immediately, and when I woke up at around 1:00 p.m., both girls were gone. My brother had popped his head into my room to check that I had returned safely, and the two girls were fast asleep one on either side of me. My brother just laughed, saying, “One wasn’t enough?” I just shrugged my shoulders and said nothing. What a great night I had had.

That night, I got fully into the Pattaya scene on a regular basis. No one back home would ever believe this could happen to an older guy like me, but this is just the way it was in Pattaya, and I will never forget this vacation. Pattaya is a distant memory for me.

Lastly, what I would say to any older guys listening to this story: Life is not over when you hit 60 or 70 or whenever. Take a chance. If you can visit the Land of Smiles, you should do so, as you will have a lot of fun, and it must be better than staying home watching TV or propping up your local bar.

And he’s absolutely right. I’m turning 65 in a couple of months well, four months actually, in April and I’m having a good life out here. If I was living back in the UK, it’d probably be pretty dreary retired, living in a one bedroom apartment, nothing to do all day, and just worried about heating the apartment. Out here, you still have a lot of life to enjoy. So very good advice.

Story Five A Young Man’s First Trip to Thailand 1987

After graduating college at age 22 way back in 1987, I decided to take my savings and buy a ticket to Bangkok. At that time, New York’s drinking age was 18. Despite the low drinking age, I was always being asked for my ID since I looked quite young for my age given that I was underweight, had a baby face, and was not that tall. I looked a little bit like Daniel Radcliffe in Harry Potter. When I went with my buddies to a bar, I was often pulled aside and was at least once accused of having a fake driver’s license for ID, while my friends would easily be admitted to the bar.

Bangkok would be my first trip on my own. Based on a book I read, I booked a room at the Malaysia Hotel being a hotel in my limited price range. I am told that the hotel is still there but way past its sell by date. I spent my first day doing some touring and shopping and got back to the hotel relatively late for dinner at around 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. and decided to go to the hotel’s 24 hour restaurant. While dining alone, I saw three girls dining together at the next table. The girls invited me over to their table, and they began instantly feeding me from their plates with their chopsticks until I begged, “Please, no more.” I was too full to eat anymore. I agreed that I would pick up the tab for everyone, given it was not an expensive restaurant. I soon paired off with the one I thought was cutest. Her name was Noi, and she said she was 30 but she might have been a few years older. She was still in good shape and had quite a nice slim figure common among Thai girls.

I quickly found out that she was a freelancer, and she did teach me a few things, if you know what I mean. In the morning, I asked her if she could stay with me, and after that, we went everywhere together. She introduced me to various bars in Bangkok that played Western music and remember, this was 1987, before Western music in bars was quite normal like it is now. Whenever she introduced me to her friends, they would automatically start teasing her and, for my benefit, would squeeze in the English term “young boy, young boy,” so I would get the gist of what was being said.

After about a week or two, I decided I wanted to go to Chiang Mai, so we booked two tickets on the overnight train with sleeper compartments in second class. These sleepers were basically convertible seats that the train crew would pull out at bedtime. They were double decker and about half the width of a twin mattress. The crew would then give each passenger a blanket and pillow. There were no separate compartments, and the sleepers would just be arranged both sides of the aisle where the seats were previously. Noi suggested that we should both sleep together in the bottom bunk despite the lack of space, so I thought, “Why not?” I was only 22 at the time. Pushed together in the narrow sleepers, I did try to make a move, but Noi insisted that we were there only for sleeping. How I fell asleep that night is beyond me.

In the morning, after everyone woke up, the train crew came to collect the blankets and pillows and to convert the sleepers back to seats. When the crew member came to our area, he asked, “Where is the blanket and pillow for the top bunk?” which was now missing. Noi explained that we didn’t know what had happened to them. The crew member did not look convinced, and a few minutes later, two train security guards came over in full police uniform with firearms. The older policeman started questioning Noi quite sternly, and I started to check if I had enough cash to cover the missing blanket and pillow. In my naive mind, I was wondering if this would lead to something more serious that would be continued at the Chiang Mai police station. After a few cross words between Noi and the policeman, and Noi pointing out to the lower sleeper, the Thai policeman looked at my worried face and then gave me a wink and a tap on the shoulder and walked away.

The rest of the trip with Noi in Chiang Mai and the rest of Thailand was perfectly uneventful, and I gave Noi the last of my cash at the Bangkok Airport as I returned home.