Thailand Resturant Date Scam
Looking back, the events that led me to a very long relationship with Thailand and Thai people seem like a tale narrated by a devious author full of intrigue twists and turns.
My first Thai acquaintance was a man called Tim. As with all revolving doors along one’s destiny fate played a big hand in bringing us together. The year was 1986 and I had recently returned from a one-year break in Europe. I had gone through a phase of self-discovery and Buddhism and had piqued my curiosity. As chance would have it I lived very close to a Thai Buddhist monastery in Sydney. I therefore made it a priority to speak with the monks at the wat.
It was in this incense-scented temple that I became acquainted with a middle-aged Australian man who had previously been a monk in Thailand. His name was Alan and he generously offered to give me private lessons at his apartment conveniently located very close to my house.
Alan’s living space was a neat two bedroom apartment with some interesting ornaments. I noted that he shared his residence with a subcontinental man whom I caught a fleeting glimpse of on a couple of occasions. I asked Alan who the man was and he said it was just someone he had sublet a room to. Disappointingly Alan as it turned out was more interested in carnal pursuits than in teaching me about enlightenment. As a male, a relationship was not what I was seeking, so the visits to his house came to a quick and abrupt end.
At this time I was also learning German at college in the evenings. During a recess from one of these lessons I made my way to a nearby balcony for a smoke. As I walked out I noticed four or five people were puffing away on a dimly lit campus balcony. I started to chat with the smokers as is customary in these situations.
Suddenly a dark complexioned man stepped towards me and said he had seen me somewhere but couldn’t place me. I looked at him intensely and as if a light had just been switched on I remembered he was the man I briefly caught a glimpse of during the Buddhist lessons with Alan. He introduced himself as Tim from Thailand and told me he was attending English classes at the college.
Meeting Tim and My First Trip to Thailand
In a city of 3 million people something had brought us together on that fateful summer’s evening. As with most Thais he had a heart-melting smile and a very nice personality. We instantly bonded and became good friends. Through Tim I was introduced to the Thai incoming community that had only recently started to flood into Sydney. Most of them in those days were cleaners on overstay visas.
Although I had not given up on my quest on Buddhist teachings the Thai community presented me with another point of interest which I found refreshingly new and seductively exotic. My acquaintances within this community grew very quickly and through Tim I was introduced to a Thai couple Lop and Pranee. These two people would become central characters in my life over the years particularly Lop whose niece I married years later more on that another time.
For now Pranee played a bigger role. She was a very sweet and talkative lady with whom I had endless discussions on every topic imaginable. Whilst Tim had an Indian background Pranee’s parents were both from China. Tim Pranee and myself made a short trip to Kata in 1986. I was 22 years old and fueled by restless curiosity and equally matched by reckless naivety. When Pranee invited me to travel with her to Thailand I immediately accepted.
I remember the first sight I caught of Thailand through the window of the descending aircraft a land crisscrossed with shimmering water canals. Stepping out of Don Mueang Airport the intense heat and humidity hit me like a punch to the ribs leaving me breathless. Pranee having arrived a few days prior awaited me at the terminal alongside her brother. Together they whisked me away from the airport to their residence in a Bangkok suburb. A few days later Tim also arrived and I was very happy to see him.
Tim introduced me to Patpong where I suppose he thought I’d be amazed by the shows. I found the experience awkward. There was nothing exotic about any of the shows it was more like being at the circus of bizarre curiosities and the same feelings one might have in seeing a man with two heads or the lady with a snake’s body. I remember a topless girl came to our table asking my friends who I was. She smiled sweetly at me.
My first impressions of the country were not favorable. Bangkok seemed grotty bustling noisy and pungent. I was not a seasoned traveler and was almost entirely dependent on my hosts to show me around. I was a limp passenger that would eventually annoy my hosts. Worse still I hated Thai food and I couldn’t put anything in my mouth without gagging. I was therefore forced to walk to a McDonald’s store about 2 kilometers away each day and eat there. It’s with embarrassment that I now recall what a difficult guest I was.
Lieng’s Band in Bangkok
Pranee’s brother Lieng was the bass player for a band which had achieved moderate fame especially through their flamboyant transgender singer Mother. Despite disbanding long ago Mother who has now completely transitioned into a ladyboy remains a popular entertainer in Thailand. The band had a regular gig at the Asia Hotel near Chit Lom Square performing nearly every night from midnight to 3:00 a.m. Occasionally I would head down to the hotel enjoy a few drinks and catch their show.
After an uneventful and rather dull two weeks of sightseeing Lieng announced that I should get an early night as after tomorrow’s gig he was taking me somewhere special as he had promised. The next evening Lieng along with a friend and Pranee took us on a two-hour drive outside Bangkok to a place called Pattaya. I had no idea about this place except that it was a seaside resort with many foreigners and a lot of Western food.
I remember we arrived at 6:00 a.m. just as the sun was rising and we were looking for a noodle shop for a quick early morning meal before resting at the hotel. We found a diner and each ordered a soup from the menu. I was eagerly anticipating a swim at the beach a bit of sun and some Western food. Since my arrival to Thailand I had completely lost my appetite and was eating very little. I was therefore eager to get some food into me.
When the bowls of noodles came out I noticed that Lieng’s soup contained some dark floating cubes. I asked what they were and he answered that it was pig’s blood jelly. He picked one up with his chopsticks brought it to his mouth and gobbled it up. On seeing this my stomach churned. I stood up and quickly ran out of the restaurant as I was very close to losing the little I had in my stomach.
Meeting Le in Pattaya
That evening Lieng and his friend took me out to a typical Pattaya girly bar. It was called the Goodwill Bar in central Pattaya. Having ordered a round of beers they started chatting to some of the girls behind the bar and shortly a girl sat opposite me. She was a small and cute girl with honeycombed skin but spoke next to no English. After a couple of drinks before I knew what was happening the girl who called herself Le had come out of the bar and sat next to me holding my arm.
Lieng told me she wanted me to take her back to our hotel room. I was confused. “Why would she want to come to the hotel?” I asked. They both gave me a lewd grin and prodded me along.
As Le and I strolled arm in arm towards the hotel she suddenly announced in English “I love you.” I was quite shocked at this as I had known her for barely a couple of hours. It may have seemed like a tacky line used by a lady of the night but as I reflect back on it now it hit the mark it intended. Le like a professional predator had shrewdly assessed my nature and had sunk her claws deep into me.
At the hotel we did nothing but cuddle as the room was being shared by my friends it didn’t seem appropriate to indulge in anything more than cuddling. Later we went downstairs to join my friends who all had a silly smirk on their face. This was my first brutal introduction to Thai women.
Needless to say with my level of experience I quickly became infatuated with Le and stayed in Pattaya after bidding farewell to my friends. I spent one more day with Le before returning to Bangkok but I promised Le I would be back shortly. A few days later I caught a bus from Ekkamai and returned to Pattaya. Le was very happy to see me. We had a great few days together. She didn’t think much but I did.
Le’s Village in Nakhon Phanom
Soon after Le asked me if I would travel with her to her home village. I eagerly said yes. I told Pranee about my plan but she wasn’t pleased. She argued that if I found the food in Bangkok difficult how would I cope in rural Thailand? Pranee’s concern was partly based on a promise she made to my mother to keep me safe. Despite Pranee’s well-meaning I traveled to Le’s home village.
The overnight ride from Bangkok by coach was long and uncomfortable. We arrived in Nakhon Phanom, the city of mountains, at dawn. The place was almost devoid of tourists. The foreigners could be counted on one hand and were invariably much older. Because of this I immediately drew a lot of attention from the locals. I was surprised but also amused by their long incessant stares. People were looking at me as though I was some well known person.
Le told me that we’d have to travel another half an hour from the town to reach her village. She took me by the hand and led me to a nearby tuk tuk negotiated a very small price of around 20 baht and off we went.
Le’s village consisted of around 20 houses the majority of which were built of wood some stood on cement posts the others on wooden slats. Children and chickens ran around everywhere and buffalo ruminated underneath the raised houses. What made the trip even more memorable and intriguing was that it was a time of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain was still down shut between Thailand and its communist neighbor Laos. There were no friendship bridges in those days. The country was so temptingly close that you could easily swim across, yet at once the land across the river was remote and untouchable.
At some points of the river particularly in the area of Le’s village the opposite bank was narrow enough to hear the children’s playful voices. Le would sometimes teasingly shout out to them and wait for a reply. None came but the playful giggling continued.
On the first day in the village a wedding was taking place and the Isan music was blaring on full volume all night long. The next morning the party was still in full swing with many of the revelers still going hard. Curiosity got the better of me. I crossed the road to see what was happening. A few of them caught sight of me and enthusiastically invited me to join them.
The Village Wedding
As I walked to the back of the house where most of the people were sitting there was a severed head of a recently slaughtered buffalo on the banquet table. It was a macabre scene the open eyes of the head looking into space with a halo of flies buzzing around it. The revelers had been drinking all night and were by now very drunk and loud. The lively beats of Isan music, the dancing, and the mayhem were all new and strange to me but interesting and captivating. However communication with the guests was next to impossible. I was barraged by a thousand questions by multiple people speaking all at once but had no idea what they were saying. I nodded sheepishly and smiled. They gave me some whiskey to drink.
Le soon arrived looking for me and appeared a bit annoyed by the situation. She took me by the arm and pulled me away taking me back to her house and saying that it was too dangerous for me to be there.
Another revelation was the perfect English that Le’s uncle spoke. It was not easy to find good English speakers in Bangkok so finding one here in the middle of nowhere was surprising. I asked him where he had learned English. “From the Americans” he said. I would later learn that Nakhon Phanom served as an Air Force base where the Thai military hosted the 56th Air Commando Wing during the Vietnam War. Le’s uncle had worked on the base.
I spent about a week in the village and did some unimaginable things. Later we were visiting a relative who had a large color TV where American football was being televised. I was being asked the rules of the game which coming from Australia I had very little knowledge of. I think what I described to them was more akin to rugby league than to American football.
All of a sudden I felt an earthquake. The walls started to bounce up and down and I could hardly stand. Somehow I managed to stumble out of the house with Le close to my heels. My heart was racing and I was about to go into a panic attack. She managed to calm me down and took me to an upstairs bedroom where I could lie down. Thankfully the minute I lay down the chaos and violence of my head disappeared. For the next 8 hours I dared not stand up.
Crossing into Laos
A few days later I managed to persuade Le to help me cross into Laos using a canoe. I don’t know why she agreed but she arranged with some locals from another village to dress me up in tight clothes and ferry me across to Laos. On the other side of the bank I was spotted by a Lao man and his young son sitting in the grass fields under the shade of a makeshift shelter made out of sticks and dried grass. He was friendly but eyed me with suspicion. The small boy looked almost terrified at the sight of me it was as if he had seen a ghost.
I was fortunate to come back without being arrested especially given the circumstances of the times. Interestingly the boy was not the only local unsettled in my presence. There were a number of children in the village that were mortified every time I looked their way. Being a bit mischievous myself I gleefully pranked them at every opportunity. I would pretend I was a bogeyman raising my arms over my head and chasing them. They would scatter in every direction running in panic for their lives.
On one occasion I caught one of the young boys and he went into hysterics shouting and crying. It was hilarious to see but I got a few disapproving looks from the parents. Luckily for me I was considered a child myself.
On the way back from Nakhon Phanom we took a detour through the countryside of Isan. One of the memorable cities we visited was Ubon Ratchathani. The tranquil ambiance of the town and the beautiful temples left me with a blissful inner peace.
Le was an early riser and on the second morning in town I woke up and she wasn’t in the room. She returned after a couple of hours. I asked her where she had been and she said that she went downstairs for breakfast. The next day Le was gone again.
I had been reading a Lonely Planet book that I had brought along with me and discovered that I was very close to the Buddhist temple where many Westerners entered the monkhood. This rekindled my interest to learn more about Buddhism. I therefore took the opportunity while Le was away to visit the wat. It was the first time I had ventured out alone in Thailand without a chaperone.
Learning Thai and Finding the Wat
By this stage I had started picking up the Thai language quickly. Something had just clicked in my brain and I was learning at an incredible speed. By the time we got back to Bangkok after 2 weeks in Isan I had picked up a vocabulary of 200 words and phrases which was surprising even to me. Many people were starting to ask me how many years I’d spent in the country and when I’d answered 5 weeks they’d laugh and call me a liar.
I remember clumsily asking people the way to the temple. Some of the girls I stopped simply giggled and covered their eyes with their hands. They were very shy creatures and a foreigner striking up a conversation with a young girl on the streets was considered a bit strange.
Eventually I found a tuk tuk that was heading to the wat. I negotiated a price and hopped on. The drive was not short it took close to 20 minutes to reach the wat which was located in a wooded area on the outer grounds. At the wat I met an Israeli couple who were visiting for the same reasons as myself and together we made our way to meet the abbot.
The abbot was a young Westerner in a saffron tunic clean-shaven with pale skin and blue eyes. His voice was very soft and gentle. My new friends and I sat on the ground together and the abbot facing us answered our questions. The Israelis knew a lot more about Buddhism and were asking some very probing questions. As our discussion grew more focused all of a sudden I heard a disruptive loud voice calling out my name from the far end of the hall.
I looked around and to my shock and horror it was Le rushing in with a big smile. To this day I don’t know how she found me but she had hired a tuk tuk to look for me. She told me she had searched a number of places before coming to the wat. Listening intently to the abbot’s wise words I was not happy to see her. My quest had been dashed once again this time by my own carnal misdeeds.
Following this interruption I stood up and excused myself from the abbot. Feeling despondent I returned to Ubon Ratchathani with Le in the tuk tuk. During this ride I could not conceal my disappointment and I sensed that Le had read my mind. There was an awkward discomfort between us that I hadn’t felt before.
Le Disappears in Ubon Ratchathani
The next morning Le was gone. This time I thought “She’ll be back in a couple of hours.” By midday Le still hadn’t returned so I went out to do some sightseeing on my own. After several hours I returned but Le was nowhere to be seen. As the hours passed I became a bit concerned and went looking for her but couldn’t find her. I was really getting worried when she hadn’t returned by nightfall. I waited and expected her to enter the room at any moment. To my great anguish she didn’t come back at all that night.
Eventually in the early morning hours I drifted off to sleep but woke up the next day to find that she was still missing. It was a day we had scheduled to travel back to Bangkok so I wasn’t sure what to do.
At around 9:00 a.m. Le stormed into the room huffing and puffing. Relieved but angry I asked her where she had been. She gave me a tall story that she had witnessed an accident with a small child and had assisted the child taking him to the hospital and sitting by his bedside all night long. She showed me a couple of small blood stains on her shirt as proof. She was now rushing me to quickly pack and head to the bus station.
I never did find out what she really got up to that night but after all the stories I’ve heard over the years I wouldn’t be surprised if she had met someone and made a bit of money on the side that night given her eagerness to leave the hotel. It was probably in the very same hotel where we were staying.
By this time I was developing strong feelings for Le and falling in love with Thailand. This was the honeymoon stage of my relationship with Thailand.
Le’s Final Goodbye
A long time had passed since my relationship with Le. Luckily I was young and poor in those days and the only thing that Le managed to break was my heart. If anything I think she wasted a lot of time on me for little reward. Nevertheless for me it was a valuable time and I took away much wisdom from the experience. Le’s final lesson was the best and most brutal. It was a lesson of the heart and mind that I would never forget and it left an incredible impression.
We were together in Pattaya during my final week of this incredible trip. Le told me she was leaving a few days early as she had some business to attend to in Bangkok. I told her not to go. I demanded she not go. She said “If you want to go you come with me.” I said I don’t want to go to Bangkok just yet.
Whereupon she turned away and left. To this day I can see her disappearing figure as she walked away and in the distance her figure ducking around a corner. As I watched her walking away expecting her to turn her head and give me one final wave or sign of affection a smile a look of dejected resignation a kiss blown in the wind anything for those magic moments we had spent together she didn’t. She walked as though she was just popping off to the corner shop whilst I stood frozen on the spot watching her fade out of my life.
It’s amazing as I write these words I can still picture that moment as though it was yesterday. This happened over 40 years ago. I never saw Le again. Since that moment I’ve tried to emulate that same goodbye never quite achieving such perfection. She was the master and I a mere pupil.
After returning to Australia, I kept in touch with Le through translated letters. Telephone calls were expensive so communication wasn’t easy. I put Pranee who was still in Thailand through one last decent act making her go to the bars of Pattaya to deliver a message to Le. She didn’t find her but she met her sister that was probably a cousin as Le called everyone her sister. Pranee had interesting discussions with the sister who confided in her that Le had many suitors and mercifully advised me through Pranee that I should forget her as she was now seeing a German man.
Story 2 Fate A Filipino Girl and a Thai Wife
It was 1990 and I had planned to do my first trip to Thailand with my best friend John. We were supposed to go the year before but John broke his leg in a car accident. He was always having accidents in his car and I remembered a couple of times he rode a motorbike he also had accidents. He was just a really bad driver. But that time he broke his leg while somebody else was driving.
It was coming close to the date we agreed to buy tickets but I was between jobs and hadn’t saved enough money. So I bailed and told him I would go with him the next year instead. He was only there for 2 weeks. But at the end of his first trip after a night out of having fun and getting drunk he crashed his scooter into a truck and died instantly.
We grew up together and I was devastated. At his funeral back in Australia, I met a Filipino girl Maria that John went to church with. He used to mention her quite a bit but I hadn’t met her as I never used to like going to church. I was always forced to go when I was a kid Mum also made me go to be an altar boy for 3 years in primary school. John always used to say how beautiful and bubbly Maria was.
Maria and I became close friends and eventually became boyfriend and girlfriend. We had a good relationship for nearly four years but she didn’t like me going out with my friends and getting drunk and smoking funny stuff. The arguments became more frequent and I was over it.
One day I went to a massage parlor in Melbourne for a bit of aerobics with a beautiful Thai girl. Maria was the first Asian girl I had been with but over time she had gained quite a bit of weight and the constant fighting had really turned me off. So when I met this beautiful Thai girl I was instantly hooked. I asked her for her number and called her the next day to ask if she’d like to go out for dinner sometime to which she agreed.
When I picked her up, to my surprise, her best friend was with her and said “I hope you don’t mind if my friend comes with us.” I laughed and said “No problem.” Her friend was even more beautiful than her and they even jokingly asked if I wanted to choose which one I wanted to take home that night.
Meeting My Thai Wife
She and I ended up together and after about a year we went to Thailand and I met her family. She took me to Patpong and I couldn’t believe my eyes I’d never seen anything like it in my life.
Fast forward almost 30 years, we’ve had two beautiful daughters and are ready to retire in Thailand. It’s funny how fate can lead you to different outcomes. My best friend led me to being addicted to Asian girls which eventually led me to meeting my wife and finally living in Thailand. I guess some things are meant to be.
Story 3 The Birthday Dinner That Wasn’t
Before arriving in Bangkok last November for a week’s stay I went to Thai Friendly to line up some short time dates. I was staying in a great hotel near Nana station on Soi 7/1. There was one middle-aged lady who had messaged me frequently. She claimed to be a successful business owner with her own house in the city.
She came to my hotel early in the evening and I met her in the hotel patio area. She was the same lady in the Thai Friendly pictures: short, middle-aged, average-looking, with a medium-slim body. I would rate her a 6 and a half out of 10.
After greetings she grabbed my arm saying she was hungry and wanted to eat. I said “There’s a few places here on Soi 7/1 we could try.” She said it was her birthday red flag and wanted to go to her favorite place. We walked to Sukhumvit for a cab. There was a lot of traffic and it was slow going. She sat close very touchy very feely. We made some small talk. She said her friend met a guy on Thai Friendly and that they later married.
The restaurant was 10 km away and it took a while to get there. When we arrived she told me to pay the cab 200 baht for the ride. The restaurant was a large open air establishment with a big kitchen. We sat down and a stern looking woman came and took her order which was a bottle of red wine and a type of barbecue for two.
The food was good and my date cooked the meat and vegetables over the cooking gizmo that was provided. The red wine wasn’t that good but I drank heartily wanting a buzz. She showed me pictures of her fancy homes and cars. She said however that if we were to spend the night together it would be at my hotel room.
I began to think about what this meal was going to cost. I estimated 500 baht for the wine and maybe 300 to 400 baht each for the meal so maybe 1100 to 1300 baht total plus a tip.
The 6000 Baht Dinner Bill
The server brought the check. It was around 6000 baht. I said something like “Wow big bucks.” But my date explained calmly that wine is expensive in Thailand. It wasn’t a typical restaurant bill rather just a bare amount written on a piece of paper.
I said I didn’t have enough cash and would have to make a withdrawal. She just happened to know where an ATM was and we walked over there together. I made my withdrawal then we returned to the restaurant. Once we were seated I asked for an itemized bill. She became indignant saying that I couldn’t expect her to ask for such a thing and that she’d just have to pay the difference. I held fast demanding to see an itemized bill.
She then got up and walked off. After about 10 minutes I realized she had left the restaurant and likely wasn’t coming back. I headed over to the kitchen area and on the way the stern faced server intercepted me saying there wasn’t an itemized bill available. However I asked a fellow in the kitchen for a bill and he waved me over to a cage where I was handed the itemized bill.
It was for 2194 baht including the wine at 1400 baht. I paid it and then had to figure out how to get back to the hotel. I had no idea where I was. I got on the Grab app and within 30 seconds a motorbike taxi arrived. That was an unexpected thrill zooming in and out of Bangkok traffic in 10 to 15 minutes.
Someone asked where I’d gone. Oh, I said, “I was just taken for a ride.”
I’m guessing the scam was that the server lady was her accomplice who would place the order and pick up the order at the kitchen then deliver it to our table with a marked up bill. They would make a tidy profit of around 3800 baht or $100 plus a free meal. I’m assuming she would have charged me for coming back to the hotel room as well and I wonder how that would have turned out.
The Restaurant Food Scam
So guys that is something that’s very very common here. A lot of guys get caught out like this. There are a couple of ways that girls do this kind of restaurant scam. One is that you’ll take a girl for a date she’ll sit down and order but instead of ordering a couple of dishes (you go out with a genuine Thai girl she’ll order one or two dishes and a drink that’s it) you go out with one of these types of girls and what happens is they’ll fill the table with food. They’ll just order so many dishes. The guy sitting there looking at all this food you know as many as maybe 8 or 10 dishes and she picks a little bit on each dish and then she doesn’t want it anymore.
The guy’s left sitting looking at all this food thinking to himself “Why the hell did you order all this food? I have to pay for it.” But of course being gentlemen they normally don’t mention it.
The reason they do it is they have it all packed up they take it away with them and they give it to their roommates. So the roommates are probably finished in the bar they’ve got to eat and she’s got all this food and it’s really good quality food isn’t it? Because she’s got it from a nice restaurant.
The way I see it, recently, about 6 months ago, I met a guy at the end of my street who recognized me and he was telling me about a scam he went through which was kind of similar but different. It wasn’t exactly as the one I’ve just told you about. What happened to him I won’t name the bars in question but you can probably guess he was drinking in a bar where the girls don’t normally come out of the bar and go with customers. And this particular guy got a real kind of challenge. He was talking to this girl quite a bit. He went in there every day of his vacation and he gave himself a challenge. He thought “I’m going to get her out of here and get her on a date.” And it was going well.
In the end she agreed to have dinner with him after a shift. She’d been working that day, finished about 7:00, and she’d agreed she’d meet him and they’d have dinner together.
So when they sat down they were looking at the menu. The guy got up and he goes to the toilet. He was in there for a while. He came back when the food came. She had ordered, she said, “Don’t worry about it I’ve ordered for you.” When the food came she had ordered lobsters bottles of wine I mean so much high quality food. Hardly touched it. She said “I’ve got to go now.” And the bill was 11000 baht.
