Taxi Driver Pattaya Business Betrayal Story

Tom the Taxi Driver from England

So, let’s begin. I’ve got to give you a little bit of background on the two people involved. The first guy, we’ll call him Tom for the sake of the story. He’s an English guy. At the time, this story goes back about 27 years.

So, it’s not something that happened recently. Tom is about 52 at the time, 53. He owns his own house a council house. If you’re not from the UK, a council house is like a government house. People could buy their own houses, and he bought his own three bedroom council house.

He’s got children. They’ve grown up. Him and his wife have divorced. He somehow managed to retain the family home, paid her off or whatever. At the time, it was probably worth £80,000, £85,000, $100,000.

So that’s where he is right now. Tom is a self employed black cab driver. It’s a very well paid job if you’re in the right place at the right time. These guys, October, November, December, they make a lot of money. It goes quiet January, February.

You’ll find a lot of taxi drivers in Pattaya in January and February. Now, remember, he had no rent. He had no mortgage, minimal bills, and he was single.

The First Trips to Pattaya

He’d been talking to one of his taxi driver colleagues, one of his friends who goes over to Pattaya two or three times a year. They got talking and his friend said, ‘Look, if you’re looking for a girl, why don’t you come over to Pattaya with me? ‘ Everything was arranged. He was going over for two weeks with his friend. Never been there before. And off they went to Thailand.

First night in Bangkok in Nana Plaza blew him away. Goes down to Pattaya with his friend. Checks into a cheap hotel near along the Beach Road somewhere. He really liked it. And he did, at the end of the night, have a new friend join him in his hotel. So that’s how it went on his first night.

The rest of the two weeks that he was in Pattaya went as it does for everybody else. He went back to the UK, carried on driving, and he was focused now. He kind of really enjoyed this vacation that he had in Pattaya. His main thought now was: get as much money together as possible. The next time I go to Thailand, I’m going to go for a month. He’s now on his way back to Thailand.

It’s his second time. He’s on his own. He’s got a lot of cash with him. He’s looking to have a good time. He’s bar fining different girls every other night. He’s drinking probably a bit too much.

He’s spending a number of days with girls from the bars. Sometimes just one night stands. Sometimes he’ll hook up with one for two or three nights. He’s really enjoying himself. This goes on for about four or five trips.

Meeting Ying at Mike’s Shopping Mall

By the sixth time that Tom gets out to Pattaya, he’s getting a little bit bored of the one night stands. One day, he needs some new underwear or something. So, he decides to go to a shopping mall. Back in those days, it wasn’t the same as it is today. There wasn’t Terminal 21 and places like that. He went to an older shopping mall a place called Mike’s Shopping Mall. It’s about halfway down Beach Road, and it’s been around for 30 years, maybe longer.

He’s walking around and he sees, on one of the upper levels, down in the middle of the ground floor, various stalls. He sees one store where they’re selling t shirts for 100 baht, 150 baht. That catches his interest. He goes down to that stall. Now, bearing in mind he’s about 52. There’s a girl selling these t shirts and she must be 27, 28, 30 maximum. Very, very pretty girl.

We’re going to call her for the sake of this story Ying. Tom is looking at these t shirts and holding them up to see if they’ll fit him. All of a sudden, Ying comes across and in very, very good English asks Tom if she can help him with size, whatever. He’s quite taken back that she speaks good English, which he likes. So he has a little conversation with her about the t shirts. I think he bought two or three t shirts. He leaves the mall and he’s on his way back to his hotel and he’s been bitten by the bug.

This girl has gotten to him. He’s had very little time with her 5 minutes while buying a t shirt. But she spoke good English. She’s not working in a go go bar. She’s not working in a beer bar. She’s not hanging around like a freelancer. She’s a hardworking girl selling t shirts.

Tom immediately thinks, ‘Okay, she’s a good girl. She must be a good girl because she’s not working in a bar. ‘

The Relationship Develops

Tom goes away, thinks about her, and plans to go back and try to ask her out. He goes back to Mike’s Shopping Mall, starts talking, she smiles. Nice to see you again. They start talking, they get on quite well. He asks her what time she finishes that night about 8:00. ‘Would you like to come and have a meal with me? ‘ Ying straight away says yes.

They went off and had a nice meal together. It was quite enjoyable. No funny business. He didn’t ask her to come back to the hotel or anything like that. They just went for a meal, got to know each other. End of the night, they said their goodbyes. She jumped on the back of a motorbike and off she went.

He went back to his hotel thrilled to bits. Tom is now thinking: ‘This girl is fantastic. I really, really like her. I know she’s not working in a bar. She’s a straight girl. I think I found the diamond in the rough. ‘ One thing led to another.

Ying was very happy with Tom. They basically became an item. They spent all their time together. Eventually, the month that Tom had booked to stay in Pattaya came to an end. By this time, he was very, very close to Ying. Ying had ticked all the boxes. Nothing to make him suspicious.

He went back to the UK. She didn’t ask him for any money or anything like that. But he sent her a little bit of cash over not a lot of money, maybe 1,500 baht a week. Tom now kind of thought of her as his girlfriend.

The Business Proposal

It gets to the point where Tom is now ready to head back to Thailand. He saved up a lot of money again. He’s told Ying he’s coming back. She’s thrilled to bits. She actually goes up to Don Mueang Airport (the old airport) to meet him. They were out having dinner one night and Ying said to Tom, ‘Look, Tom, I do love you, but this is getting kind of strange now because I feel like you don’t love me. ‘ She explained: ‘I feel like I’m a holiday girlfriend.

When you’re here having a good time, you want to spend all your time with me. Then you go back to the UK and you forget me. ‘ Tom thought about this and said, ‘Well, I don’t really know what I can do. ‘ They did talk about perhaps Ying going to live in the UK with Tom, but Ying had commitments in Thailand. She had family. She just didn’t want to leave Thailand. A week goes by.

Ying picks Tom’s brain again and says, ‘Look, I’ve got an idea. Have you thought about opening a business here in Jomtien? ‘ She knew of a place a townhouse with a business downstairs, but it was all closed up, boarded up. It was for lease. She explained: ‘It’s a million baht key money to go in there. There’s four rooms upstairs. We can live in one.

We can rent the other three out. We can make a bar on the ground floor. Out the back, we can have a Thai kitchen. We could even rent a few motorcycles to tourists. ‘ Tom thought about it. He didn’t really want to run a bar and restaurant. He didn’t have any experience.

But Ying kept badgering him ‘Have you thought about it? ‘ trying to talk him into it. In the end, he relented.

The Downfall

Here’s the big important part of the story that I missed out. In order for Tom to finance this place, he’d had to sell his house. He went back, sold his house. He was staying with his brother. The money he’d sent over and invested in this kind of restaurant, bar, guesthouse it was up and running.

Him and Ying were running it and it was fairly successful after three months. Now, because of the setup and arrangements, foreigners can’t always own property and land. So the actual lease to the building was in Ying’s name, not his name. That’s an important part of the story. Tom had to go back to the UK to tie up some loose ends.

Ying suggested her older brother could come down and help her while Tom was away. Tom had actually met this guy before. He’d come down and stayed a couple of nights now and again. No funny business. It was just Ying’s brother.

Nothing more than that. So Tom goes back to the UK, ties up all his loose ends. But the last four or five days before he was due to go back, he called her and he couldn’t get a hold of her. He thought this was really strange. This went on for a few days.

Eventually, he sent her a message and said, ‘Look, I’ll be back in Thailand on this day. I’ll be arriving in Pattaya at this sort of time. ‘ He didn’t get a reply.

The Devastating Return

He tied up all his loose ends, bought his ticket, came back to Pattaya. The taxi dropped him off at his bar. When he got there, the man that he knew as Ying’s brother was sitting outside with a couple of other guys. And when he went to walk through the door, the brother put his hand up and wouldn’t let him pass. Tom was like, ‘What’s going on here? You guys know me.

This is Ying’s my girlfriend. This is my place. ‘ They just nodded their head like, ‘No, it’s not. You’re not going in. ‘ In the end, they wouldn’t let him into the restaurant. And the so called brother stepped forward and said in broken English something along the lines of: ‘This isn’t your place.

It’s in Ying’s name. Ying is my wife. If I see you around here again, you’ll be buried in the sand on the beach. ‘ Tom was devastated. It wasn’t her brother. It was Ying’s husband.

She’d lied all along. From that first day when she’d been working in Mike’s Shopping Mall, she had a Thai husband. He’d been visiting the restaurant while Tom was there supposedly the brother. And all the time this was going on behind his back. Ying couldn’t face Tom and tell him to his face. So they basically said, ‘Look, you just get out of here.

We’ll wait for him. We’ll tell him straight. ‘ They put the fear of God into him and he knew that was it. Game up.

The Tragic End

Tom had invested everything. The car that he had back home it wasn’t worth a lot of money, and what he got for it basically paid for his ticket.

A few extra pounds left over, but not a lot. I knew Tom.

He wasn’t a close, close friend, but he was a friend and I knew everything that was going on. But he never came to me and told me what had happened.

What Tom did do he checked into a hotel back in central Pattaya again. He bought himself a bottle of Black Cat whiskey (the kind of whiskey everyone drank back then).

He drank half a bottle of whiskey and he jumped off his balcony.