The Thai Massage, Teaching and Gambling
Story 1: M The Massage Girl Who Never Asked for Money
Coming off a recent bar girl experience, I thought I’d switch gears and try the ThaiFriendly route. I signed up for ThaiFriendly, uploaded some photos, and went to work. Like most people, the messages started pouring in. Some were straight freelancers, but I did find many girls that I wanted to just hang out with.
There was a girl on ThaiFriendly very cute in the photo and close to my age. I think you said in the past you divide your age by two, plus seven, and you escape being one of those suspicious couples walking down Beach Road in Pattaya. We had an eight-year age gap, and that seemed normal compared to others.
The story starts in the fall of 2022 in Pattaya. Yeah, I know clearly not the place anyone should look for love, but I happened to be there for a few days, so why not have a holiday girlfriend?
Meeting M at Central Festival Pattaya
I met M under my hotel at Central Festival Mall. I arrived on time probably a bad idea in Thailand, as I know Thai time means one hour late but surprisingly, she arrived on time as well.
We often hear that online photos can be misleading, and I was having a really tough time finding her in the crowd. We were exchanging LINE messages for a while. I was walking around looking for her. When we finally met, she looked very different than her photo darker skin, and less slim. No worries, as I appreciate the variety in Thailand.
There was an instant connection, and the first moments were just staring at each other as we went up the escalator in the mall. All good.
M was from Roi Et but lived and worked in Jomtien. According to her, she never really went into Central Pattaya. We went for dinner in the mall. During the chats, I almost forgot I was in Thailand.
Warning Signs During Dinner with M
There were some particular things about her maybe even warning signs. Her English was way too good, like she may have had a foreign boyfriend or had a suspect occupation. I took it at face value and proceeded to just enjoy hanging out. We joked and laughed, exchanged some of the details of our personal lives.
She then shared photos of her three children from two different fathers. Wow. I was really surprised. Compared to her, these were faces only a mother could love and clearly the product of two men with a good heart.
After dinner, we headed upstairs to my hotel to check out the view, as the room was on a high floor and faced the ocean. I just flew in from the US, so was a little bit jet-lagged and jumped into bed only intending to nap. She joined me in the bed as the air conditioner was conveniently set at a low temperature. As expected, I was excited and must lack the maturity to handle just a simple nap with a girl.
I have heard that regular Thai girls are conservative, but this wasn’t her. I didn’t expect that we would be going to work within hours of meeting. After our workout, we showered and went to Tree Town for drinks. There she told me she was helping her sister at her massage parlor and I will say, based on a high skill level, the parlor was likely not just massages.
Three Days with M and No Request for Money
We spent the next two nights together, and I really enjoyed her company. I’m well aware of the three day rule, so I was checking out on day three. In the lobby, before we said our goodbyes, I was waiting to receive the invoice for the night but it never happened. I even had a couple of thousand baht in my front pocket and was even ready to negotiate.
This was just an odd situation, as nothing is free in Pattaya. I suppose fate wanted me to use the money in Phuket, as I’m certain there would be many girls that needed college tuition.
Now with a positive experience under my belt, I was off to Phuket.
Anong From Phuket Waitress to Bar Girl
Patong was a familiar place to me, and that destination helped me get through the dark pandemic days. After multiple trips each year, you can’t help but make friends with staff at restaurants and bars. I was always someone that enjoyed the face mask look as the mystery of the girl’s face was irresistible. Will the girl’s face be as hot as her body? Being that girls can’t drink with a mask on, that mystery is quickly resolved upon ordering a lady’s drink.
I met a waitress during the Phuket sandbox days. Anong had nice looking eyes, and I could only imagine what the rest of her face looked like and it was absolutely beautiful. I’d always visit her every trip to buy a few ladies’ drinks for her, as I knew waitresses really didn’t make much money at the bars.
One trip, between serving drinks to other customers, Anong managed to blow through about seven ladies’ drinks with me. Some might view that as a waste of money, but this two-week millionaire was having a good time with Anong despite the many interruptions in the evening. At the end of the evening, we were both sufficiently drunk, and I decided to ask if she would be available to join me back at my hotel. I knew she was a waitress, but I was hoping everything was on the menu in Thailand. She agreed, and off we went. That was about the most natural experience I’ve had in Thailand.
On follow-up trips, I noticed Anong‘s career progression over the years from simply a waitress to greeting customers in her bar on Bangla Road, to finally a full-blown bar girl. I’ve seen that often within the bars. I suppose for the girls, all roads lead to being a bar girl eventually.
M Returns for a Bangkok Trip
After working my way through Anong and a few additional bar girls in Phuket, I went back to Bangkok and messaged M to meet me. She agreed, as she said she had never been to Bangkok. M hired a car from Jomtien to Bangkok, and she said, “Why don’t I pick you up at the airport on my way to Bangkok?” As anyone knows, Suvarnabhumi Airport is not a small airport that you can easily pick someone out. The Thai girl must have special skills. She got the car to stop outside the airport, and she found me inside the airport. Incredible almost like the skills the Thai girls have catching you cheating.
I told her I already said I would cover her transportation cost from Jomtien to Bangkok. When we got back to the hotel, I took a deep breath and asked how much was the ride. The thoughts of the driver and M preparing a special price for me went through my head. Having taken a taxi and a private car from the airport to Pattaya, I assumed it would be a little more because of the airport pickup. If you take a taxi at the airport, it’s around 1,500 baht to Pattaya, and if you book any private car service, it’s 1,200 baht. To my surprise, she told me 1,000 baht.
Being aware of the many hustles and ways women can extract money from you, I was on high alert as we just met. It does take some of the fun out of the moment if you’re borderline paranoid about it. With M, every time I thought I was being set up, it ended up okay. When we would go out to eat, she just ordered like a normal human being versus ordering ten dishes that Thai bar girls usually do. I like to eat an international diet, and she was game for everything. With amazement, I watched her finish every single thing on her plate.
I know it’s not fair to compare her to a bar girl, but I figure a massage girl does make her like half a bar girl.
A Night Out with M in Bangkok
We had a wonderful time in Bangkok, and judging from her inability to drink alcohol, she clearly couldn’t have been a bar girl incognito. One night in Bangkok, it was one of those Thai holidays when alcohol sales end early. We found out from a bar on Soi 7 that alcohol sales would end for the night in about an hour. To make up for lost time, I decided it might be a great time to blow through a couple of shots to maximize our time there. I’m not really into shots myself, but her reaction was priceless. It reminded me of college holding a girl’s hair back while she vomited on the side of the road.
And just like that, the trip ended. The following morning I was flying back to the US, and she used the same car service to drop me off and take her home again. In the car, I was waiting for the invoice that I never got.
We continued to chat via LINE when I got back home, and I got to learn more about her. It’s a different dynamic when you’re doing a one-on-one chat with no distractions. M did travel outside of Thailand and dreamt of one day going to her favorite place Tokyo. I knew she had been saving up for another trip. She had worked her way into my daily routine and then one day, she went dark.
M’s Mysterious Massage Job in Hong Kong
A few days later, she calls me from the airport. Firstly, it was odd seeing her dressed like a businesswoman, and even stranger, she told me she was going to Hong Kong with a friend for a few months to work. You would think that plan would have come up in our conversations. She said she will be staying at another friend’s place and working at this friend’s massage parlor. What I’ve learned from experience is that mixing money and friends is a recipe for disaster you’re more likely to be scammed by a friend than a stranger.
After a few weeks in Hong Kong, she called me in a hysterical state. She told me that someone went into her room and stole all her and her friend’s money and passports. She thinks it was the massage parlor owner/friend, as no one else would know where to find all the items in the room.
My eyes rolled into the back of my head, wondering how much she would want from me. I listened with my finger already on the block contact button. Is this how our story ends? Is this the final invoice I’ve been waiting for?
And once again, I was wrong. She just wanted someone to talk to. She and her travel mate moved out immediately and waited till they got another passport reissued and went back to Thailand.
Questions About M and Her Massage Work
There were a lot of things to digest about M. Her life was filled with so many mysteries that I still don’t quite understand. What were her real duties at the Jomtien massage parlor? Did she travel around Asia to work and perform said duties? The sudden and random Hong Kong trip was just plain weird. More importantly, what was her game plan for me? If money was her motive, I never knew because I never was asked for any. Sure, when we were together, I provided a complimentary amenity package that included food and drinks and my nightly services but that’s hardly like a bar girl monthly allowance.
Though I never got a straight answer, I realized I couldn’t live with her potential job duties. Maybe it was a bad decision, as she really did make you feel special. I suppose I’ll never know as in the end, I did hit the block contact button.
Story 2: My Early Days in Thailand Teaching with a Fake Degree
Here’s a story from my early days in Thailand. It’s not a “she done me wrong” story although I do have a few of those. This story dates back about 20 years when I arrived as a then 50-year-old newbie to Thailand.
I landed at Don Mueang Airport on a Sunday evening with absolutely no idea what to expect. Having just got divorced and with a bit of money, I wasn’t too worried. A friend had mentioned Pattaya to me, so I hopped into a taxi which dropped me off in Pattaya Klang, and I checked into the first hotel I saw. This story isn’t about the bar scene, though. Needless to say, I did a significant amount of exploring and blew quite a bit of money.
I had no intention of returning to the UK, but being in a “I don’t give a damn” mindset after my divorce, the money was disappearing quicker than I thought it would so I decided to get a job.
Becoming a Teacher in Pattaya
I opted for teaching and did my TEFL with a school based in town. The course was a bit of a joke, but I got the required certificate, and the agency got me a couple of jobs. I spent a few weeks at a government school in Chonburi and also at the Michelin factory at Laem Chabang. An opportunity at an international school came up, so I went for it. Like many would be teachers back then, I had to be a bit creative with the truth, and I successfully blagged my way into the job.
The school followed the British system, and I had to teach English and history to 8- and 9-year-olds. The parents paid a lot of money for their kids to attend this school, so they expected success. This meant that the kids were not allowed to fail their exams, because that would be a huge loss of face.
The class was a mix of pure farang, half farang, and pure Thai students. I genuinely liked the kids and did my best at the school.
The Exam That No One Could Fail
It wasn’t long before things got interesting. After my first term of teaching Victorian Britain, it came to exam time, and of course, no one could fail. Not wanting to appear to be a bad teacher, I decided to give the kids the exam questions the day before the exam. No one will possibly fail, right? Something didn’t feel right, and I wasn’t confident, so in the afternoon I gave them the answers as well. What more could I do?
On the day of the exam, the first question was: “Who was Queen Victoria‘s husband?” Nine year old Nat answered Pokemon. That was the only question he answered and guess what? He passed. I think I gave him 50% because he got his own name right on the paper.
The Filipino Teacher and the Udon Thani Girlfriend
One of our duties as teachers was to meet and greet the kids at the gate. It was amazing to see the kids being dropped off by their mothers who often had a different farang in tow or the father with his latest bar girl. God knows what the kids thought.
A new Filipino teacher joined the school one day. She sauntered into the staff room, and I just knew I had to get to know her if you know what I mean. She was 24, good-looking, clever the new kindergarten teacher. It wasn’t long before we were having an affair, and everyone said we were great together. My friends were stunned when I did the sensible thing and moved into my condo with an 18-year-old from Udon Thani. Everything was wrong, but she was stunning, and I couldn’t help myself.
One day as I was preparing for class, Rose was sleeping as usual. I called out to her, “Have you seen a clean shirt, Rose?” She sat up in bed and looked me straight in the eyes and said, “Pete, I’m not a washing machine.” I laughed all the way to school.
The School Football Match That Cost Me Favour
As I said, I genuinely liked the kids, and I stayed on twice a week to coach the boys’ football team. Even our training sessions were well supported by the rest of the school after hours. After a while, the boys asked if they could play a match against another school. In the school’s history, there had never been a competitive match against another school. So I put it to the school’s owner, and she promptly said no.
I asked her why, and she replied that if we lost, it would look bad for the school more like her losing face, I think. I persuaded her that everything would be fine. The boys were ready, and nothing could go wrong. She reluctantly agreed as long as it didn’t cost the school any money. So all the teachers clubbed together to pay for the transport, kids’ drinks, etc.
On the day of the match, my team was well supported by all of the teachers, parents, and the other kids in the school. The game started well, and we were one up. Sadly, we lost 6-1. The owner of the school never spoke to me again after that day not once.
The International School’s Strange Owner
The owner was a strange and very mean woman. The school was located next to a busy, dangerous road. A kid was hit by a car one day. The town hall, to their credit, agreed to put in a footbridge for the kids to cross safely but the owner said no because it would make the school look less attractive.
When we teachers were asked what books we needed for the year ahead, she would order just one. She would then get her staff to photocopy as many were needed. Everything in black and white no color.
Because the school followed the British schooling system, it had to offer a modern foreign language, and German was a choice. Every week, a Thai guy would come from Bangkok to teach German. This guy was a professor and had actually written a few books about teaching German. However, that particular year, a few of the students were native German speakers, and they said whatever he was teaching wasn’t German. The owner of the school said, “Nonsense he’s a professor!”
Some of the parents got involved and agreed that he wasn’t teaching German as they knew it, so they stopped the Thai guy from coming from Bangkok. So what to do? The owner of the school had a solution. She called one of the teachers to the office and said, “You are the new German teacher.” The female teacher replied that she was actually Dutch, not German. The owner proudly explained that she had looked on the map, and as Holland was the nearest country to Germany, she would be the new German teacher. What logic!
Becoming Head of Modern Foreign Languages
I went to the head of the school a level-headed woman from Scotland and I suggested a solution. I spent many years living and working in Spain, and my Spanish was of a decent standard. The owner reluctantly agreed, and overnight I became Head of Modern Foreign Languages and the school’s Spanish teacher.
I taught Spanish to all ages. Some of the kids were from Japan or Korea and had zero interest in learning any Spanish, but the European kids were fine, and we had a lot of fun. One of my greatest successes was organizing a whole day of events and activities for the entire school all in Spanish.
The Fake Bristol University Degree
After a while at the school, the authorities decided all foreign teachers needed to have their degrees verified by their home university. What do I do? I didn’t have a degree not a real one, anyway. When I took the job, I printed off a fake one that I made up online. It was a work of art beautifully scrolled writing and printed on lovely yellow paper, which I laminated. I bent the corners over to try and make it look 20 years old. The fake degree said Bristol University. I had previously been to a technical college in Bristol, but not the university.
I was about to get found out and probably booted out of Thailand. I was panicking. The Thai education authorities wrote to every foreign teacher’s university. I nervously awaited the day I was going to be exposed.
The day came, and the reply had arrived by email. I was done for, surely. The reply read: “Under the Freedom of Information Act, we are not able to give any information on any of our students.” I had dodged a bullet for now.
I was paid 25,000 baht a month for teaching, and I recall I paid about 1,000 baht in tax. The money helped but didn’t go far enough. I had to use savings to make ends meet. I was having an amazing time, and I’m still friends with many of the teachers from that time even though it was over 20 years ago. I saw the Filipino teacher many times over the past two decades, and we always continued our affair, even though we both had different partners over the years.
Farang and Thai Students in the Classroom
The difference between the farang kids and the pure Thais was amazing. If I gave them a story to write to include three random things like a man called Peter, an elephant, and a black hat the farang kids would dive right into it, no problems. The Thai kids couldn’t do it. They couldn’t grasp the idea of making something up and using their imagination.
One of the half farang boys had some very strange mannerisms, and it was clear something underlying was wrong. He would walk around, and if he came up to an object like a chair or a wall, he would kind of bounce off it multiple times until he deflected himself away instead of just walking around the object. One of the other teachers got him to open up a bit, and he was super confused. His Thai mom had divorced her UK husband and married her husband’s father so his dad is now his granddad. I mean, his granddad is his dad.
The Naked PE Teacher
Most of the guys I knew were great with the kids and genuinely cared about them. However, at school, there was one older guy from Australia he was the PE teacher. He would get to school early, swim naked, and parade himself around the pool for all to see while getting dressed. I kept my distance from him.
The Ministry of Education Appraisal
Three teachers were summoned to attend the Ministry of Education in Chonburi to verify their status as teachers and I was one of them. We had to meet the head of education for some kind of appraisal.
The first teacher in was a young Australian guy. He had a double master’s from some university in Melbourne and spoke Thai. However, during the meeting, something went wrong, and they had a furious row. This went on for some time before he left the office. He passed the assessment, but it was touch and go.
The second teacher in was the music teacher a gay Frenchman whose documents were from San Francisco. This totally confused the minister and led to more heated debate until he was eventually signed off.
So what about my chances? I’m not a teacher. My degree is fake. I blagged my way into the job. I walked into the office, looked at the minister, greeted him with a wai, looked him right in the eye, and said, “I’m from England.” Without another word, he signed me off, and I walked out of the office. I’d gotten away with it again.
I finished my Thai teaching career at the end of that academic year. It was a fantastic experience, and I met some great people. Would I ever do it again? Never.
Story 3: The Ex Bar Girls of Perth Gambling and the “Shares” System
Life in the Remote Outback
From 2010 to mid 2016, my wife and I were working in the remote Outback of Australia, working with small communities in very remote locations for the government. These small communities, which do not speak English fluently, had nothing to offer as far as entertainment or socializing was concerned, so they are not easy places to live if you need the company of people that speak your language. However, we made the most of our time there and learned a lot about the people we worked with, and we tried to learn their languages as well. Overall, it was a wonderful, life-changing experience for both of us.
Returning to Perth and Finding a Thai Community
We returned to Perth in July of 2016, where I had a home that had been leased and needed lots of TLC to get it back to its original state. This kept me busy, but I really looked forward to catching up with my old friends over the coming months. My wife, on the other hand, had no friends to chat to in her own language, so I was a little concerned for her welfare at the time.
However, my concern was short-lived, as she soon met a few Asian ladies at the local Asian shops where she bought the ingredients she needed for cooking Thai food. These ladies introduced her (and myself) to many other Asian ladies and their farang husbands. After a few months, we were soon hosting parties at our house for many Thai, Cambodian, and Lao ladies with their farang husbands.
I made a few friends quite quickly, as we had lots in common almost all of the men had been through a messy divorce with their previous Australian, English, or European wives, just as I had. Lots of good times were had by all, and my wife seemed content that she now had a small community of people she could mix with and chat in her own language well, sort of.
The problem arose that most of the women from Thailand were mostly from Isaan, not Bangkok like my wife, and spoke quite different forms of Thai. Also, most of the women were young and energetic ex bar girls prior to coming to Australia, whereas my wife was an aged care nurse and liked to be with a large family. These lovely Asian women were quite a bit younger than my wife, who was close to my age 57 at the time and spoke a different dialect to my wife, but they soon worked out a common language between them.
Generally speaking, all of these ex bar girls love to party and mix with each other very often. They are lots of fun as far as I was concerned, as I love to party too. And of course, there is always lots of wonderful Asian food to share.
My Thai Wife Becomes a Trusted Confidant
My wife is very soft spoken, calm, and reserved. She always stops and thinks before she speaks and wisely never takes sides in an argument concerning her friends. So as it turns out, she became the trusted confidant for many of these younger ex bar girls who were having some relationship or financial issues with their spouses, or were having an issue with one of the other bar girls over one thing or another.
Quite often she would be on the phone listening to some woman asking for help, for advice, or just to share their problems. Other times she would be sitting on the back patio or at the kitchen bench at our house listening to the problems of girls on the phone, a glass or two of wine in hand. I would often be close by doing my own thing, unable to fully understand the conversation, but I was able to pick up on the tone of the conversation which more often than not was a tale of woe that usually had financial difficulties associated with it.
Quite a few times we were asked to lend money for some reason or another to help tide the person over for a month or two, sometimes longer. I kept an Excel spreadsheet so that I could keep a tab on who borrowed money, what were the repayments, and when it was due. The general story was that money was needed to be sent back to Thailand, Cambodia, or Laos to pay the grandparents, who in many cases were caring for the children of these women that now lived in Australia.
I always trusted my wife’s judgment in these cases, and all money had been paid back on time so far. We lend a lot less now in 2024 and only to trusted friends for very particular reasons. I always wondered why the husbands were not helping with payments but never asked, as it was none of my business.
My Thai wife and I are very close, and we do not hide much from each other there are, of course, some things we keep to ourselves. Over time, I have heard many of the stories that my wife heard from the ex bar girls.
Gambling and the Shares Lending System
I’m not one to tell tales, and that is not what I intend to share, but I do intend to share one major issue that constantly rears its ugly head with most of the Asian ladies that have become partners to their Western husbands and are borrowing money from ourselves and also from people who set up “shares.”
Actually, this issue affects all cultures and genders to be fair, but I intend to write about how it affects the Asian ladies that I personally know.
Many of the Asian ladies that I know and have heard of like to borrow money amongst themselves for reasons known to themselves. They call this system of money exchange “shares.”
How the Shares Lending System Works
For those that don’t know about shares, it works something like this:
A group of 10 to 20 people each put in a sum of $500 per month to a central fund manager, who then loans out a set sum to one of the participants each month. The receiver’s name is usually drawn out of a hat, unless there is an urgent situation. The fund manager gives herself the first payment. Usually, the amount lent is around $5,000, but it can be more than this. Over the next 12 months, each participant has to pay back their share plus the interest to the fund manager. The fund manager is able to make a huge amount of profit from these transactions if all goes well but quite often someone will take their share of the money then abscond. That could be a story by itself.
Gambling Debts and Relationship Damage
In Perth, as in all the major cities of Australia, we have casinos that love to suck in as much money as possible from the surrounding communities. We also now have plenty of places to gamble on your smartphone, with Thai ladies acting as agents for the online casinos, promoting it to the local Perth Asian ladies as an easy way to get plenty of money.
As many of the Western men are FIFO workers (fly in, fly out) on three weeks on, one week off, or two weeks on, one week off their Asian lady partners have plenty of time to do as they please. And gambling seems to be a major issue. When the cat’s away, the mice will play, so to speak.
Many of the guys I know have had to pay off debts for their Asian partners to the share fund managers. On one occasion when the debt issue has happened more than once, the relationship has had a messy ending via divorce. Other times it has caused mistrust among the couples and quite a lot of friction which I have personally seen quite a few times.
A Warning About Gambling and Shared Finances
In closing, and to be fair, this is not an Asian lady issue it’s just that I know a lot of Asian ladies because I married one. Gambling is an issue that affects the whole community. Just one visit to your local casino will show you the wide variety of people that are addicted to slot machines that always make a profit for the casino.
I guess my message would be to always be vigilant about your finances and keep close tabs on your bank statements regardless of whom you are partnered with.
