Mark and Apple A Thai Freelancer Love Story

Now, Mark was in a company that would move him around Asia, particularly places like Cambodia and the Philippines, Myanmar. It was computers, IT, that sort of thing. He’d never been to Thailand before. I don’t know why you’d think Thailand would have been quite high up on the list of destinations for that kind of company, but anyway, he’d never been to Thailand before, and his company sent him to Bangkok. He wasn’t in the country more than a few weeks, and he basically fell in love with Bangkok. He fell in love with the Thai people. He enjoyed the nightlife. At the time, he was about 35 years of age, he was single, and he was making the most of his time in Thailand.

Oh, Apple she was a girl of about 22 years of age. She was a working girl. She wasn’t particularly tied to any bar, or she wasn’t a hostess in any club or anything like that. She was what’s commonly known as a freelancer. So she had her various hangouts. She wasn’t a street girl as such she wouldn’t go standing on Sukhumvit Road touting for customers. She had venues that she could hang out where freelancers could go.

Now this lady Apple we’re calling her for the sake of the video she was about 22 or 23. She was very, very good looking. She was a lot better looking than even the prettiest of Thai girls that you see around the bars. She was outstandingly beautiful. She was very successful as a working girl in Bangkok. She had a lot of customers. She had guys sending her money from time to time. I don’t know how many or how much, but she was very, very successful at what she did.

Now she was kind of hardcore as far as, you know, she knew how to extract the maximum amount of money from a customer. She knew the right buttons to push. She knew what to say. She was very, very good at her job, and she was quite successful at what she did.

Apple’s Life in Bangkok

Now, Apple had moved down from the north like many of these girls somewhere in Isaan, Buriram, Khon Kaen, anywhere up there and she’d had a child, a daughter, when she was very, very young. I believe she was about 15 or 16. Normal story: the husband stuck around for a few weeks a bit of a drunk, by all accounts, from what I’d heard from other people but anyway, he was a no show. So he took off and did his own thing, and unfortunately Apple was stuck up north with a baby. Being uneducated, she didn’t have a lot of opportunity, and so she decided to come down to Bangkok and try to make some money.

I think originally when she came down, she didn’t go into being a working girl to start with she was quite young and I believe she had a job in a low grade hotel, you know, a no star hotel, as a maid making beds and cleaning and that sort of thing. Now that’s a hard job. They give them something like 20 rooms to do to clean very tiring, minimum wage. And it’s just not a long term thing you’d want to do if you were in her position.

So back to where we left off. Basically, as I say, she’s very, very beautiful. She’s 22 now. She’s working her venues. She’s got her regular customers, and she knows the game pretty well.

Thermae The Meeting Place

Now, one of Apple’s favorite hangouts was a place called Thermae. I believe it’s still in operation, but it’s a shadow of what it used to be. It’s kind of if you come out of Soi Nana, Soi 4, and head towards Asok, walking, it’s kind of on the left around Soi 11 a little bit further down there maybe. I can’t remember exactly how to describe it, but it’s down there. And basically what Thermae is it’s been there for at least 20 years I know of. I mean, I first started going there in 1992, and it was one of these places. It used to get packed after two o’clock in the morning. All the freelancers went down there. You had a lot of guys who lived in Bangkok who didn’t want to pay bar fines, or they didn’t particularly want to take girls they just liked looking to see what was about, and then go down there drinking.

Now as I say, Thermae is still pretty much there. I haven’t been there for a number of years. I think I popped in about three years ago, and as I say, it was a shadow of what it used to be. It used to be an all night drinking venue, and it was packed to the rafters with foreign men and girls. And you know, it really was packed that’s not an exaggeration. Nowadays, it’s not quite well, it’s a long way from what it used to be. You still get people down there, but as I understand it, it’s nowhere near as busy as it used to be.

So that’s Thermae. Basically, it wasn’t exactly a nightclub or a bar. I don’t know how you describe it more of just a drinking venue. And when I used to go there 20 odd years ago, they had a jukebox. That was the musical entertainment. So you’d have four or five hundred people in this place and a jukebox. And if nobody put coins in it, there wasn’t any music simple as that. Totally different, of course.

And now Apple used to like to head down to Thermae. It was one of those places she could go to. The night stays open as far as well, I mean, I’ve been in there till 6:00, past 6:00 in the morning, I’d left, and it still wasn’t closing. So I don’t know what time they actually closed. But Apple liked to go to Thermae for the simple reason: if she’d had customers in the earlier part of the evening, she could go down to Thermae later on and get a second and a third and bulk up her money. So it was quite a good pickup joint for her. And I don’t think they had an entrance fee. They might have insisted that the girls bought a drink, but then again, I suppose without the girls, guys wouldn’t have come down so maybe not.

Okay, so typical weekday night, it was fairly busy in Thermae, and Apple had been out doing a normal thing she’d been working, don’t know, she’d had customers that night but she was in Thermae with a friend, and they were just chilling out, looking for opportunities in the bar, as they do. And this is when Mark came into her life.

Mark Meets Apple at Thermae

I think it was his second or third time he’d been in there. He’d been out in Soi Cowboy, looked around, been in several bars, didn’t see anything that took his fancy, decided to carry on drinking don’t know, don’t think he had to get up early in the morning or anything, obviously he wouldn’t have been out. So he headed down to Thermae with a couple of friends. They were having a drink, and I guess it must be about 3 o’clock in the morning now. And from the other end of the room, he sees this stunning, stunning girl. Can’t take his eyes off her. She looks back at him just a quick glance. She’s very clever, she knows how to hook a guy. A quick glance at Mark, and she starts talking to a friend.

Of course, Mark’s already captivated. Why wouldn’t you be? She’s beautiful. And so he heads over, strikes up a conversation with Apple, and has a drink with her. Now, I don’t know if he ended up going with her that evening because I actually had to leave I was very, very tired, I was worse for wear after a drink. But they’d actually met anyway. So let’s not say they were an item, but Mark had met Apple. He would really like to he really liked her a lot. And as far as Apple was concerned, you know, I guess Mark was just another customer.

Now the thing about this story I won’t give away too much right at the beginning but this is quite interesting because when you hear foreigners talking about Thai bar girls, Thai working girls, they don’t always hold them in the highest esteem. And what I mean by that is they’ll say things like, you know, “They’re money grabbers, they’re out for themselves, they’re trying to rip off foreigners,” and you know, these girls are motivated by money and why not? Aren’t we all? But this story will show you that not every bar girl is evil, has a black heart. Because how this story spins out later on, you’ll see that some Thai girls actually have a very, very big heart. And you’ll see this in this story.

So back to where we were. Mark has met Apple there in Thermae, and they basically hook up. Later in the week, they you know, he knows what she does, but obviously he likes her a lot, so he’s taking her out for dinner just noodles, that sort of thing, you know, nothing fancy but he’s meeting her on a daily basis. When she has a regular customer, she makes her excuses as to why she can’t meet him could be anything from she’s got to go upcountry to see her parents, or she’s got a sick friend, you know, the normal sort of stories they come out with. But she worked her schedule around him. She did see him on a regular basis, and he was quite happy. He really liked Apple a lot. In fact, I think he did fall in love with her.

Now, as I said at the beginning of this story, Mark had quite a good job in IT. He was paid very, very well. And after a time, he’d been with Apple for several weeks at this time, and they were pretty much an item. He didn’t want her to work for obvious reasons. He was at this time now giving her money, but she didn’t want to move in with him I guess so that she could still have her freedom as such. But they were pretty much an item now.

About this time, Mark actually got a promotion within his company. And he’d never been to Indonesia. Now this is where they were going to send him, and it was going to happen very, very quickly. Now he’d been in he hadn’t been in Thailand, in Bangkok, that long only several months. As I say, he got promoted, and they were planning to send him to Jakarta. He was happy initially because it was a promotion with a promotion, more money comes along, and more power, a better position. And he took the job, and he did go to Jakarta.

Mark’s Desperate Return

Now several weeks went by, and Mark was getting on well with his job in Jakarta. I can’t go into too much detail I don’t know the ins and outs of it but he was living there. But you know, he couldn’t really stop thinking about Apple. I mean, he’d had serious girlfriends in the past, but he really, really fell in love with Apple in a big way, and he just couldn’t get her out of his mind.

I guess he thought when he’d leave Thailand and go to Indonesia, he’d take up with somebody new. But Indonesia is not the same as Thailand. I’ve actually worked there myself. It’s a totally Muslim dominated country, so although there’s alcohol and things, it’s low key, and it’s not in your face, and it’s nowhere near as much fun as Thailand which Mark would have found out, they’d say. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Apple. And in the end, he had a bit of money saved up, and he just had to get back to Thailand.

Now obviously, his company wouldn’t let him go they’re not going to give him another position in Thailand when he’s in a fairly high position in Indonesia, in Jakarta. But he had to get back. He just couldn’t stop thinking about Apple, and he wondered what she was up to, or who she was up to it with. But he took the decision. He had some savings I don’t know exactly how much, but it was quite substantial. We’re not talking millions, but you know, a few hundred thousand baht. He took the decision with a friend of his who was still in Thailand that he was going to terminate his job. He was going to finish his job, and he had this idea that he was going to go back to Bangkok and he was going to start a business. He wasn’t sure what kind of business he was going to open if it was going to be computer related, or if he was going to open a bar like a lot of foreigners do. He wasn’t sure. But all he knew is the only thing that mattered to him was getting back to Thailand and getting back to Apple, and he didn’t care what it took to do that.

Quite foolish, really giving up a career in the company he was with. He was doing well, but he was just smitten, and he had to get back to Thailand.

So Mark did finish with his company in Indonesia, packed his things, got all his money together, all his liquid cash, and he headed back to Bangkok. Got himself a small apartment nothing special. He was quite frugal to start with because he figured, you know, if he hasn’t got an income coming in, he has got savings, but he didn’t want to spend so much every week because if you haven’t got an income coming in, then obviously your money will run out fast. And he needed as much as he could have to basically start a business which at this time he still didn’t know what he was going to do.

Leaving Indonesia for Bangkok

So he took a room it was down Soi 36 or 37. Basically, it was nothing fancy. It was just a room. It did have air conditioning, had a little kitchen area. I wouldn’t describe it as an apartment it was more like a room with a shower and a toilet. But it was comfortable. In those days, I think he was paying three and a half thousand, four thousand baht a month. It was adequate it was a long way from being very, very comfortable.

So okay, Mark’s got his apartment. He’s looking around for things to do. He can’t quite nail it down. And then with his friend, they have this idea that they want to open a bit of a bar/nightclub. They don’t really have enough money to do a big nightclub, but you know, something where maybe it’s a bar up until 11 o’clock and after 11, the bang kicks in. And in those days, the venues could stay open all night long not like nowadays, it’s 2:00 a.m. they’re closing. They’re trying to extend that to 4:00 a.m., as we live and breathe. But it’s 2:00 a.m., lights on, and you’re booted out basically. So that’s where we are at the moment.

So Mark’s now back in Bangkok, and he’s looking to open a venue with his friend. He’s living off his savings, and it is quite difficult to find a venue in Bangkok if you want to be central, especially around Sukhumvit which is probably if not the most expensive real estate area in Bangkok. You’re going to pay through the nose even for a small place. So obviously with a restricted budget, he had to be very, very careful. He took a long time searching, and unfortunately, he never actually found the venue that would have been good enough to open the business he wanted to do.

In the meantime, he was living frugal, he was going out drinking, he had hooked up with Apple again he was very happy about that. Happily, Apple would stay over at his room a lot of times. She’d be out and she’d turn up at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, which Mark hated because obviously if she knocks on the door at 4 o’clock in the morning, he knows what she’s been up to. But being in love with Apple, he wasn’t going to turn her away, because you know, better to have a small piece of cake than no cake at all, as it were.

So that’s how it went for Mark. He was with Apple you know, sometimes he’d have her all to himself for a day and a night, or a couple of nights. Other times she’d make her excuses she had to go and see one of her regular customers. But of course, she never said that to Mark. There was always an excuse. You know, as I say, sometimes she’d turn up at 2, 3, 4 o’clock in the morning, bang on his door. He was extremely jealous very, very jealous but he couldn’t do anything about it. He knew he couldn’t do anything about it. The thing with Thai girls: if you try to be too controlling, they’ll just walk away. And he knew this he wasn’t a stupid man. But he was absolutely full on in love with Apple. He was happy to take what he could get, basically. So that’s it they were in this kind of relationship which was a bit of a strange one. I think Apple was fairly happy as well, because although she did take some money from Mark, she didn’t charge him on an hourly or daily rate because he was a fairly decent looking guy, he was quite a nice character, and to be fair, I think she enjoyed his company. You know, we all need a bit of stability in our lives, and I think Mark was stability for Apple. It was a base for her, basically.

The Downward Spiral

So we’re going to jump forward a few months now, and Mark’s money is starting to dwindle quite quickly. As I say, he hasn’t got an income. He’s still looking for a venue. But of course, eventually what happens is he gets to the point where even if he finds a venue that would suit that he could have got three months ago he now doesn’t have enough money in the bank to start thinking about smaller plans. But unfortunately, nothing does come off, and the money’s dwindling away. Obviously, he has to give Apple something, he has to eat, he has to pay his rent, he has his air conditioning bill, and generally general expenses. You know, Thailand is expensive you can live cheap, but I think Mark was one of those guys who got a bit depressed being sat in his room, so he tended to go out most nights. And even if it was just beer bars, he was spending.

So we jump forward quite a few weeks now several months maybe and Mark’s money is getting desperately low. Desperately low. He keeps setting himself little goals: when he gets to a certain point, maybe he’ll have to go back and work and come back out. But he just can’t bear to be separated from Apple. So his short term solution which isn’t going to work long term is he starts cutting down his costs even more. He stops going out to beer bars. He starts drinking Chang beer from 7 Eleven. He sits on the steps and drinks there. He’ll hang around outside, takes a seat, but he’s not actually spending any money in venues. He might buy a beer from 7 Eleven as I say.

And eventually, the day does come where he completely runs out of money. He put a little bit by for emergencies you know, to buy an airfare back to America and he’d always had this small pot of money that if it all went wrong, then at least he could buy a cheap airfare, stop off somewhere, but it would get him home. But a lot like these guys who have dreams, they think that it’s going to work itself out, and it doesn’t always work itself out, unfortunately. Mark, he did dip into his little fund, and he dipped into it more and more, and eventually he had nothing left. And he was basically broke. Absolutely broke.

Now at this point in time, the only option he had was two options. One was to go to his embassy and explain his position and hope somehow they could put him on an aircraft and get him home. Or I don’t think borrowing money from anybody in the US was an option because I think he’d already done that when he was running low on money he’d basically tapped everybody up for a loan. So I think his goodwill was pretty much exhausted. He couldn’t borrow any more money. The only other option he had was to sit down with Apple and explain the whole story, which he did.

So he asked Apple not to work one night, and he sat her down and he basically told Apple the whole story. You know, he said he’d fallen in love with her at the beginning, you know, had a nice relationship with her. While he’d had money, he looked after her as best he could, but unfortunately now he was absolutely stone broke. Didn’t have any money. He had a couple of weeks left on his apartment, and he didn’t know what he was gonna do now. He was fully expecting Apple to make her excuses, tell Mark “I’ll see you later,” and that would be it he’d never see her again.

Mark Runs Out of Money

And this is the part of the story where I did say earlier about Thai girls having a heart. As I said earlier, a lot of the videos people will say Thai girls, bar girls, are heartless you know, they’ll leave you with nothing, they’ll take the gold out of your teeth. But they’re not all like this, and this story proves it. And I know this to be a true story. So this is to show you another side of the coin, as it were, with Thai girls.

Now at this point, Apple completely changed her way of thinking. Originally, she’d seen Mark as a nice guy, but he was a cash cow. He was a foreigner, he had cash, and as long as he was hooked up with Apple, then she was pretty certain to receive cash most weeks, most months, and it was worth staying with him. And as I say, on top of that, she liked she actually genuinely did like his company. I wouldn’t say she was in love with him, but that’s how it went.

Now as I say, Mark now totally broke, he expected Apple to make her excuses and clear off, never to be seen again. And perhaps his next step would have been the embassy. Now that never happened. What happened, very surprisingly, Apple turned round to Mark and said, “Mai pen rai.” It doesn’t matter forgive my pronunciation. But basically, she told Mark it doesn’t matter, and she was going to try her best to look after him. Yeah, you heard me right she was going to look after him.

So they had a bit of a discussion about this. Apple agreed that she’d pay the rent. She’d continue paying the rent because she made good money, and three and a half thousand baht a month to her wasn’t a lot of money. And you know, the little bit of shopping that they’d have, all that wasn’t a huge amount of money. So Apple good to her word she carried on working, but she looked after Mark. Now she paid the rent. Obviously, the only way she could finance this relationship was as she always did she’d go out, she’d have regular customers. Sometimes she’d be out all night, sometimes she’d be gone for a few hours. But it was killing Mark. Mark loved her really loved her and you can imagine: he was sitting in this room, he didn’t have any money. Apple was good enough to look after him and pay the rent and buy some shopping and get a few beers in from 7 Eleven she was very kind to him. But you’ve got to put yourself in his position. What kind of man was gonna feel like a man in that position? Not only that, you’re thinking forget she’s a working girl this is a girl you’re in love with, deeply in love with. And when she says goodnight to you, “I’ll see you later,” you know what she’s doing. You know where she’s going. You just don’t know who. And it was driving Mark crazy. He couldn’t stand it. He was so jealous, you know, it basically tore him apart. But unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot he could do about it.

Now in the meantime, things took a turn again because while this situation was going on basically, Apple was going out and working, Mark was in the room in the evenings, bitterly bitterly jealous, thinking about her. She’d come home at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning. He’d try not to question her too much he didn’t want to get on her nerves. But that’s how it worked out. Apple was going out working, Mark was at home, upset, sad, thinking about it, couldn’t get it out of his mind. But it went on like that for several weeks, maybe months.

Apple Looks After Mark

But in the meantime, Mark wasn’t a loser. He wasn’t one of these guys who sat down and felt sorry for himself and thought the world owed him a living not at all. In the meantime, he’d been looking at other businesses, jobs, things he could do, and he had actually been quite active in the day. He’d been out all day, treading the streets of Bangkok, and he actually found he did get up on his feet again. He actually got a job. So he didn’t need money to start. It was a local company. There were some foreigners involved I think it was an Australian company who had partnered up with some Thais. I don’t know exactly what they did it was something to do with computers again. But obviously, Mark was knowledgeable with IT, so it made sense. They didn’t have to pay for somebody’s airfare to come out from the West. They didn’t have to pay holiday money and sick pay and all this sort of thing. And Mark was already there he had the skills. So they said, “Hey, why not come and join us?” Which he did.

Now he did very well with his company. He was on a very, very small salary, but he was able to go back to Apple and say, “Look, you know, I’m now earning.” And I believe he wanted her to stop what she was doing, but it wasn’t quite the right time because he wasn’t earning a lot. Although he was able to start paying the rent and buying shopping and take care of himself, all that sort of thing. I don’t know what he’d done for his visa his visa back then, I mean, it was a lot easier than it is. You could nip across to Cambodia a bus ride, you went out, you got a stamp, you came back in probably something like that, I would imagine.

But anyway, Mark’s now with his company. He’s doing quite well. And now the good thing about this company was that he actually had an opportunity to make more money than his salary. I don’t know if it was a kind of commission, or he got money on sales, or whatever it was. But what happened was he actually ended up making a lot of money and I mean a lot of money. And he got to the position where he could move out of the I’ve actually missed a vital part of the story. I don’t know how I’ve managed to do that.

So before he got his job before Mark had got this job it came to a head with Apple and him. He was extremely jealous, as I said, and Apple couldn’t stand it anymore. I think this is when he just started to work, but he didn’t say anything to Apple. They had a fight. Apple moved out and basically thought, “Well, you know, I’m not having this every day. I’ll be looking after you and you’re having a go at me.” And she left.

Now by this time, I think it had run its course. Mark was pretty much over Apple. He’d spent a lot of months with her you know, it had run its course and I think there was no love lost. So when he went to work for this company, he concentrated on that. He made a lot of money, and that was basically it.

The Final Chapter

That was the story. There’s just one more epilogue, as it were, to the story.

Now about a year later, Mark was out in Soi 4, Nana Plaza he wasn’t in Nana Plaza, he was near Nana Plaza on Soi 4 and I think he was grabbing one of those burgers just outside those nice ones. But anyway, he was there. And at this time, he’d managed to put quite a lot of money by, and he was making some serious, serious money now. He was on a lot more than just a regular salary. He hadn’t seen Apple for probably eight months, and he often thought about it because obviously she played a big part in his life. And in fact, if it hadn’t been for Apple, there’s no way he would have survived when he was down on his luck.

Now this particular night, he was ordering his burger, and who did he see across the road? It was Apple. And of course, he got excited because he hadn’t seen her for a long time. She was working. She was looking a little bit worse for wear, a little bit older. She was hanging around outside the Nana Hotel. I mean, if you’re quite familiar with Soi 4, you’ll know that the Nana Hotel has a lot of freelancers hanging about outside. And on this particular night, Apple was one of them.

Anyway, Steve Mark got together with her, and he took her for a beer, took her in one of the bars I think it was something like Stumble Inn or something like that and he just wanted to catch up, find out what was going on. He wanted to tell her how good he was doing. And unfortunately, Apple wasn’t doing that well. She got sick nothing real serious but she’d been off work, or she hadn’t been working for herself, and she was pretty broke at this time. And she wasn’t desperate. She told Mark the story: she was behind with her rent, and she had had to send money upcountry which she couldn’t send, and it was a slow time of the year.

Mark and Apple Meet Again

And so, to conclude this story: at this point, Mark bought her a drink, he told her to stay put. He went round the corner to Sukhumvit, went to a cashpoint, and I think back then you could take out 20,000 baht. He went back to the bar, didn’t say anything to Apple at the time. He ordered another drink for himself, he ordered another drink for Apple. They sat there talking. And basically, Mark said to Apple it was quite emotional at the time he explained everything he’d gone through, his emotions, his feelings with Apple, and how she got him through his dark hour, as it were. And basically, Mark thanked her. He actually thanked her for taking care of him, keeping his hopes up. And with that, he put his hands in his pocket, took out the 20,000 baht that he’d just taken out of the ATM, and he gave it to Apple. “That’s for you. It’s a gift. You know, I’m not gonna forget what you’ve done for me.” And as far as I know, they went on their separate ways, and they never ever saw each other again.

So guys, that’s the end of this story. There is a moral to the story, I guess, and that’s don’t judge a book by its cover. Obviously, Apple was a working girl probably still is you know, taking money from Mark. But when the chips were down and Mark was down on his luck, look what happened. Apple basically took care of him. If it wasn’t for Apple, he wouldn’t have survived. He’d be begging his embassy for a ticket, he’d have gone back to the States. Who knows what would have happened? But it did. He picked himself up, okay he put the effort in but without Apple, it wouldn’t have happened. And as a nice gesture, Mark gave Apple the 20,000 baht as a gift. She was very, very happy.

So I think the moral of the story is, as I say, guys, don’t judge a book by its cover, and there are two sides to every story.