A Pattaya Story With A Thai Girl

After spending four amazing days in Bangkok, I took an early morning cab down to Pattaya and arrived at my hotel 4 and a half hours before my booking time. I’d reasoned that crawling through Bangkok in a taxi during rush hour wasn’t going to be as much fun as arriving in Pattaya stupid early simply because I could always sit on the beach longer with an early morning beer in my hand for a few hours if I needed to kill time, which was preferable to sitting in a taxi for hours on end.

I contemplated having a quiet night in as the thought of walking around Pattaya for another 2 hours didn’t exactly thrill me. However, after a few minutes of lying on my bed watching TV, I reminded myself that I was there to meet people and that wouldn’t happen if I stayed in my hotel room. And I’m really glad that I did go out that night because I met a very nice woman who I was to spend the next 3 days with.

I left the hotel and started to walk over to Beach Road. By now, it was getting on for 8:00 p.m., and I was starting to enjoy the atmosphere of being back in one of the world’s most famous party towns. If you’ve never been to Pattaya, but you like the idea of spending time with beautiful women, then I would very much encourage you to go there. However, the best experiences are to be had without your wife or girlfriend tagging along. So, I’d recommend that you travel there either by yourself or with a few male friends.

As I walked along Beach Road towards Walking Street, I saw several ladyboys and several slightly plump older women. My goal was to meet a younger woman who was still in good shape, who I liked the look of. And within just a few minutes, I saw someone who fitted the bill. She was standing on the beach with an older lady, and I immediately walked up to them and said “sawasdee krap” to them both.

They both replied politely in Thai. I then asked the younger of the two women if she spoke English, and she said a little. I asked her how old she was, and she told me 25. I worked out later that she was actually at least 28, but she could easily have passed for 25, so it seemed about right. I then asked if she would like to spend a short time with me, and she agreed and told me the cost of her time was 1,000 baht.

I was shocked at this as it seemed very low, but I wasn’t about to argue with her, so naturally, I agreed. Her name was Chompoo, and after saying goodbye to the older lady, Chompoo found us a motorbike taxi that would take us to my hotel. Having learned my lesson, I showed our driver a screenshot of my hotel’s location, and we went straight there.

Arriving at the Hotel

There were three of us sitting on the scooter, and I sat behind Chompoo and gently held onto her waist as we sped through the city. We reached my hotel in just a few minutes, and after dropping off her ID at the hotel’s reception, Chompoo and I took the lift up to my room.

The First Night Together

I’d been a little quiet between us since we’d left the beach because I don’t speak any Thai and Chompoo speaks very little English. However, the non verbal communication between us was going okay, and I was pleased that she was starting to relax with me. I offered Chompoo a beer from my fridge, which she accepted. I soon found out that this beer wasn’t her favorite beer, which was Chang and which was the only beer that I bought for us from then on.

Soon after that, we took a shower together and we enjoyed ourselves for a couple of hours. Even though she had limited English, I liked Chompoo and the energy that she gave off. So, before she left, I asked her if she’d be happy to spend the next few days with me, and she happily agreed.

Through Google Translate, she told me that the cost of her time was 3,000 baht per day, and she said for that price, she’d stay until I kicked her out. I chuckled when I read the translation because from my point of view, that wasn’t very likely to happen. Chompoo was exactly who I was hoping to meet. It seemed crazy that I could enjoy Chompoo’s company in Pattaya for 24 hours for the same price that I’d have paid for just a couple of hours with a woman in Bangkok. It was only a 2 hour drive between the two locations, but they were a world apart in terms of cost.

The only downside to choosing Chompoo was that we had to use Google Translate for everything. I then told her that whilst I was in Pattaya, I’d like us to go to some nice restaurants, so she should think of places where we could eat that she liked going to. She looked thoughtful when she read this on my phone, and I could see that she was wondering where we could go to eat. I got the feeling that Chompoo was an honest, trustworthy young woman.

Everyone’s heard of the many sad stories where men like me are looking to have a fun and enjoyable time with local women in Pattaya, only to be the victims of scam after scam until they are left broken and penniless. However, I really didn’t get the feeling that Chompoo would be like that, and bearing in mind that I was only going to be in town for a short while, I hoped that my gut instinct was going to prove me right over the following days.

After Chompoo left, I took a cool shower and then I slept well for 8 hours.

A Lazy Day and a Night Out

I woke up around 9:00 a.m. and went downstairs and ate breakfast, feeling full. After lying on my bed for a while to let my breakfast go down, I went downstairs to the pool to sunbathe. However, the hotel was blocking the sun at that time of day, so I just had a short swim in the rather tiny swimming pool and then I went out for the day and wandered around Pattaya.

I messaged Chompoo and asked her to come over to my hotel at 5:00 p.m. that afternoon, which she agreed to do. After lunch, I walked over to the pier and took a photo of the sailing times to and from Koh Larn Island, after which I spent some time just being a tourist before heading back to my hotel.

After relaxing on my bed for an hour, I messaged Chompoo to ask her where she was, and she replied that her taxi had arrived to pick her up. After another half hour, Chompoo finally arrived, looking gorgeous in a floral summer dress. I’m still impressed by how feminine so many Thai women look. Chompoo had certainly realized that as an older guy, I’d appreciate her dressing in a conservative manner whilst we were out together.

I met her in the foyer of the hotel, and we went over to the outdoor bar. After having a few drinks together, I invited Chompoo upstairs so that we could get to know each other some more. Afterwards, we showered and dressed and then went out to a very nice restaurant called Wizard. After we’d eaten, Chompoo took me to some of the bars to drink beer and play pool where she knew the owners.

Chompoo was quite a competitive pool player, and it was often right down to who could pot the black ball first as to who won the game. However, neither of us kept score because it was all about having fun together. I couldn’t believe just how many new bars had sprung up since I was last in town. There must be a couple of hundred bars to choose from now.

I’m a straightforward person, and playing pool and drinking beer with a great looking woman in Pattaya is all I need to have a brilliant time. It didn’t take long for Chompoo to start to relax and trust me, and she became very playful.

After the Night Out

At around 1:00 a.m., we’d both drank enough beer, so Chompoo called a taxi that took us back to the hotel, and we went straight to bed. I’d not slept next to anyone for over a decade, so it took me quite a while to fall asleep because I was conscious of Chompoo’s breathing and occasionally turning over in her sleep. However, I was starting to trust Chompoo, so eventually I was relaxed enough to fall asleep, and I slept well.

Getting to Know Each Other

The next morning, both of us slept in so late that we missed breakfast. Chompoo and I then spent a lazy afternoon getting to know each other better in my room. Whenever Chompoo got the chance, she napped on the bed, which I didn’t mind because it showed that she trusted me. She would set the air conditioning slightly warmer than I’d have it before settling down on the bed because she said she was feeling cold. Having grown up in England, I’m used to it being much colder, and I enjoyed the room being 22°C, whereas Chompoo liked it to be around 28°.

Around 7:00 p.m., we showered and got dressed up to go out to eat. I’ve really enjoyed how the Thai women I’ve known will make the effort to look and smell good when going out, and as it takes me a lot less time to get ready, I lay on the bed drinking a Chang beer and just quietly watched Chompoo put her makeup on and do her hair. She seemed to find me studying her amusing and asked me what I was doing, to which I told her I just like watching her get ready. She took this as a compliment and smiled at me.

After eating at another restaurant that Chompoo wanted to try, we went to another bar where Chompoo knew the owner, who was a woman who I guess was in her late 30s. Whilst I was chatting to the owner, she let slip that she’d met Chompoo when they’d both worked in Bahrain together 10 years ago. This was news to me because Chompoo had told me she’d only been working for a few months.

Chompoo was standing next to me when the woman told me this, and I could see Chompoo had understood the word “Bahrain” and she wasn’t happy I knew about this. However, there wasn’t much she could do about it, so she immediately said, “Yes, in Bahrain 10 years ago.” This would put Chompoo’s age at around 28, assuming that she was 18 when she went there. I was a bit surprised that she may have been doing this work for a decade, but I wasn’t there to judge her, and we were having a good time together, which was the important thing.

A Touching Moment

After a few games of playing pool together, we took a break to let other people onto the pool table, and we went and sat at the bar to get another beer. There was a live band playing, and as Chompoo knew that I had played guitar in a band a long time ago, she told me a bit about the local guitarist, who was an Indian guy and who looked to be in his late 20s. I remember thinking that there’s no way she could have known anything about this guy unless he was a customer but as I said, I wasn’t there to judge her.

Chompoo asked one of the bartenders to pass her something from behind the bar, and then I watched Chompoo as she carefully unwrapped a wipe. I naturally thought that she wanted it to clean her hands with, but to my surprise, she turned towards me and then spent around 20 seconds very gently wiping my face with it and then tucked it gently underneath the back of my collar to keep my neck cool.

That was the first time anyone had done that for me, and I was touched that she’d been so considerate.

Chompoo was in a good mood that night and was being very playful with me. When she was playing pool with one of the other bartenders a bit later, after every shot she would come straight back to me so I could cuddle her for a few seconds. Naturally, I loved doing that, and I was chuffed that she wanted to be close to me. Whether that was simply a way of telling the other freelancers that I was with her, or if she just liked me being kind and fun to be with and wanted to let me know she appreciated it, I’ll never know. But it didn’t matter to me either way because it was always nice to cuddle with her.

Her Compassion A Glimpse of the Real Chompoo

Thailand has its fair share of tragedies, and whilst we were playing pool, a young Thai guy in his 20s that had somehow lost the lower part of his left leg came crawling around the bar begging for money. As soon as Chompoo saw him, she reached into her purse and took a few baht over to him. You mentioned on one of your podcasts recently, Peter, that most bar girls still have a soft side, and Chompoo certainly did and her compassion for his situation made me like her even more.

It made me think of the old phrase, “There’s always someone worse off than you,” which is very true.

We got back to my hotel very late and took another shower and engaged in some more aerobics before going to sleep. We didn’t wake up until breakfast was almost finished being served. Chompoo didn’t want to eat, so I went for breakfast alone. When I returned, she had fallen asleep again.

A Heart to Heart on the Beach

On our third night together, after playing pool and drinking beer for a few hours, Chompoo took me back to near where I met her on Beach Road. She bought some kind of dessert and a large beer each from a street vendor, and we sat on the beach for an hour and talked.

I was a little surprised when she started to talk about her life in more detail, saying that she liked me because I made her feel like a person again. Apparently, her time in Bahrain had been horrible, and she told me that she was treated like a water buffalo and not as a human being. She told me that the older woman I’d seen her with when we met was her mamasan, and she took 300 of the 1,000 baht that Chompoo charged for a short time. I was stunned by that because it’s not a lot of money to start with. It made me realize what desperate lives some people have in Thailand.

I know I can’t save Chompoo, but at least I could treat her well and give her a break for a few days so she didn’t have to stand by the side of Beach Road and wait for someone to come over and talk to her.

I went through a very bad patch in my early 40s, and it wasn’t very clear if I would live much longer. This has taught me to live much more in the moment than I’d previously done. I thought of how fun and playful Chompoo had been just an hour or two before we got to the beach, and I realized that living in the moment is probably one of her ways of getting as much out of life as possible and I think that it’s a life lesson that everyone should adopt.

I couldn’t understand quite a lot of what Chompoo was telling me because firstly, her English isn’t great, and secondly, she was upset. She did use an app on her phone for some things, which helped a lot. I think she was touched that I’d taken an interest in her and treated her with courtesy and consideration, and she let her guard down with me.

I’m aware that freelancers and bar girls are often in the profession through necessity rather than for the fun of it, as they usually have a backstory that involves the responsibility of sending money home to support their family. I’ve heard that a lot of them become alcoholics too, which is very sad but understandable.

Understanding Chompoo’s Working Life

I’m not a counselor, but it was clear that Chompoo’s dark history when she was a teenager has left quite a lot of psychological trauma. She agreed with me when I suggested that it must be hard work constantly having to be that happy, smiley person that her customers want to see, regardless of how much stress she’s under to make enough money for herself and her family to live on. After all, few men would want to spend any time with a woman who was obviously distressed. So she adopts a cheerful charade when she’s working.

However, by me talking about this aspect of her work with her, Chompoo could tell that I was open to her being her normal self and ironically, that’s what allowed her to relax.

A Day on Koh Larn

The next day, Chompoo woke up in time to join me for breakfast, after which we went over to the island of Koh Larn by speedboat and spent a very enjoyable day having nice meals and relaxing on sun loungers on the beach. Chompoo was in quite a naughty mood when we were in the water together, and by being so cuddly, she deliberately made it impossible for me to leave the water and walk back up the beach with her until I’d calmed down a lot which she found hilarious.

After being so serious when we were on the beach the night before, she’d easily reverted to being the fun, flirtatious girl that she knew I liked being with which was perfectly fine by me.

I’m guessing that Chompoo had been to Koh Larn many times with different customers, but she never mentioned this and, like a true professional, just let me decide where we would eat and where we would go on the island.

When we got back to my hotel around 6:00 p.m., neither of us felt hungry as we’d eaten well on the island. Chompoo watched TikTok videos on her phone and then started dozing on the bed as I quietly started packing my bags ready for my departure early the next morning.

The Last Night and the Restaurant Mystery

At about 10:00 p.m., Chompoo woke up and said she was hungry and asked if I was too. I told her that I wasn’t, but I’d sit with her if she wanted to find somewhere to eat. Chompoo ordered a taxi, and we went to a restaurant about a 10 minute taxi drive inland from the hotel. I was only one of two Europeans in there.

When we sat down, Chompoo ordered her food, and I was amused to see that it was brought over to our table by a robot on wheels. When our food arrived, I started to wonder if Chompoo had invited some of her friends to join us because there was enough food for about four people. I was surprised that she had ordered this amount of food because I’d already told her that I wasn’t hungry.

Chompoo proceeded to load the food into the pots and pans that someone had brought over to our table and cooked our food to her satisfaction. I felt obliged to eat some of the food even though I wasn’t hungry. Chompoo was on her phone as we were eating, which wasn’t unusual but it turns out she was ordering more food and not on social media. The extra food arrived, and I started to wonder if our trip to the restaurant was being seen as her last chance to get a decent meal out of me before I left the next day, which I found a bit disappointing.

Even after Chompoo had eaten as much food as she possibly could, there was still loads of food left, which was slightly annoying because it was unnecessarily wasteful. I paid the bill, which was around 1,000 baht, and we left the restaurant.

The Taxi Drama

By that time, it was past midnight, and as we were walking away from the restaurant, Chompoo realized that her phone had died. She’d forgotten to put it on charge when we got back from the beach, and as I had to rely on Wi Fi from the hotel whilst I was in Thailand, I couldn’t order a taxi to take us back to my hotel either.

We crossed over the dual carriageway that led back towards Pattaya and started to walk the three or four miles back to my hotel. I quickly worked out that we would probably get around two hours’ sleep if we had to walk all the way, which wasn’t my idea of a good night’s rest. I knew that once I arrived in Vietnam, it would be another 24 hours before I could get any sleep because of all the traveling I needed to do to get to Hanoi. So getting a decent night’s sleep before my flight was important.

After a short time, however, a taxi that had sped past us pulled over at the side of the road and then reversed around 200 meters back up to us. I told Chompoo to follow me as I jogged over to the taxi. Chompoo spoke with him, and he was going to charge me double the amount that it had cost me to get to the restaurant. Chompoo turned to me and said, “Too much.” But I asked her with a smile if she’d like to walk back to the hotel whilst I used two fingers of my right hand to imitate a walking action on the palm of my left hand.

She soon realized that I was happy to pay the 200 baht to get us there if it meant that I’d get an extra two hours’ sleep. So we jumped into the taxi and sped off.

Generally speaking, I really don’t mind paying a few hundred baht more per day in various taxi rides or meals because I know that for the most part, Thai people struggle each day to make a living. Thankfully, I don’t have to struggle like that. So I really don’t mind paying a few more baht over the odds each day to those people I meet if it makes their lives a little easier. I want tourists to be seen as a positive thing in Thailand, even though some of the time I’m sure we’re seen as more trouble than we’re worth often due to our ignorance of local traditions and local culture.

The Goodbye

When we reached the hotel, I was happy to go straight to bed. I woke up still feeling tired the next day, probably because I’d only had a few hours’ sleep and because I knew that it would be a long time before I was able to sleep any more.

When it was time for me to leave the hotel to go to the airport in Bangkok, Chompoo was sad that I had to leave. I felt sad too because I’d really enjoyed our time together. Chompoo is by far the most playful person I’d ever met in Thailand, and if I go back, I’ll definitely arrange to see her if she’s still there.

Before we left my hotel room, I gave Chompoo more money than I’d agreed to pay her for the three days we were together. She thanked me, but she didn’t count it and just put it in her bag. If we’d not gone to the restaurant the night before, I’d have been able to give her the thousand baht I’d spent there. However, I didn’t feel bad about that as it was where she’d wanted to go, and I got the idea that she wasn’t able to afford to go to many nice places by herself.

We checked out of my hotel together, and before I got into my taxi, Chompoo quietly said goodbye to me. We were outside by that point, so she didn’t hug or kiss me in front of the local Thai people. Generally, Thai people don’t show affection in public. She just got onto the back of the scooter that she’d ordered to take her back home and left without much as a backward glance.

My taxi took me directly to the airport in Bangkok. Once I checked in, I messaged Chompoo to say that I was now leaving Thailand and I thanked her for her company and for being so much fun. She replied that she was going to miss me. I hope that she genuinely enjoyed our time together, but I’ll never know that for sure. It was drama free and generally good fun, so I’d like to think she enjoyed herself.

Life After Pattaya

I was flying from Bangkok to Hanoi so that I could go on a four day motorcycle tour famous, apparently, and pops up on any top 10 things to do in Vietnam list that you put into YouTube. I’d not ridden a motorcycle since I sold my last bike in 1999, but thankfully, I didn’t fall off or have any other types of incidents during the tour.

I received a message from Chompoo in late March saying that she misses me and she was feeling sad. Apparently, she had not had a customer for three days and she was feeling stressed because no money was coming in. I’ve no idea if that was true or not and if she was simply trying to get money out of me but I chose to believe that she was telling the truth. She sends new photos to me of herself each time she messages me.

One of her messages asked me to go back to celebrate her birthday with her. Chompoo is from the north of Thailand on the Laos border, and she said that she doesn’t have many friends in town to celebrate with. I felt bad that I wasn’t able to go back. I replied that I couldn’t go to see her now, but I was planning to go back to Pattaya in autumn 2025, and I would see her then.

After a bit of deliberation, I decided to send her 3,000 baht for her birthday, which was coming up at the end of March. I heard that the average wage in Thailand is apparently 300 baht per day for a factory worker, so if she was able to budget well, then I could help her for 10 days. I told Chompoo that I cannot be her sponsor, but I would send her money for her birthday, and she was very pleased.

It turned out to be hard work sending the money to her, though, and for reasons I’ll never understand, it took PayPal nine days to release the money to her. She had to send me a photo of her ID card that had the details of her real name and her home address on, which she wasn’t happy to do at first and told me that I didn’t need those details. PayPal was adamant that I did need those details, though, and she eventually released them to me.

The Truth About Her Age

Chompoo was going to turn 25 and not the 28 or 29 that I had thought she would be. I was trying to decide if that meant she’d gone to Bahrain with the older woman from the bar when she was 14, or if she and her friend had got the timeline wrong and it wasn’t 10 years ago that they went there. But if she did go there, that means the older woman took a 14 year old girl to Bahrain. That’s just not right. I think it’s more likely that she was just 14 when they went to Bahrain to work as freelancers, but either way, she was very young at the time.

I won’t be asking Chompoo about that because it’s simply none of my business. If she really was 14 at the time, then she has very definitely had a hard life, and it’s a wonder that she can still be happy and playful at all.

Chompoo messaged me each week for several months after she received the money, sending me photos of her new blonde hair color. I actually preferred her with dark hair, but I’m not going to tell her that. Either way, she’s still an attractive young woman, and I’d be very happy to see her again when I go back to Pattaya.

During our last conversation six weeks ago, Chompoo sent me a photo of her young son, who looks to be around four years old. It seems typical in Thailand that her mother looks after him in the village where she came from in the north. She told me that she has a lot of pain in her life to deal with, which after knowing just a few things about her life I don’t doubt for a minute.

This is the longest time that I’ve not heard from Chompoo in the 10 weeks since I left Pattaya, but I’ll continue to answer her messages for as long as she is interested in me. I’m sure that she also messages many other men too, but I hope she finds her conversations both interesting and supportive. I’m under no illusions that she doesn’t see me as anything more than an occasional sponsor or customer, although if I return to Pattaya in the autumn, I’ll definitely spend time with Chompoo.

The Low Season and the Police Crackdown

After not hearing from Chompoo for around three weeks in June, she messaged me saying that there were hardly any customers in Pattaya now because it’s low season and that the police are now arresting any woman that they see just standing around on Beach Road. Apparently, there have been issues between ladyboys and tourists, and to stop any more public order issues, the police are cracking down on freelancers.

I can’t be sure if any of this is true or if this is just another angle that Chompoo is giving me in the hope that I feel sorry for her and send her some money. Chompoo also sent a couple of links to video clips that showed tourists and ladyboys fighting in the streets, but I don’t know how recent the footage was. I’m seeing more and more posts on social media about it being very quiet in Thailand, so it probably is true.

As you might expect, I’m not going to send her any more money. I’ve already told her that. I won’t be her sponsor, so I don’t feel bad about this. It’s been 5 months since I last saw Chompoo, and while I’m happy to have the occasional message with her in case I go back to Thailand later on this year, if we stop talking, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

It must be very stressful not being able to make any money, but as someone told me recently when talking about life choices, not changing is choosing which means that if Chompoo chooses to be a freelancer instead of getting a job in a factory or in a shop, even when it’s getting very difficult to make any money from her freelancing, then she will have to bear the consequences of that decision.

I know that sounds like I don’t care for Chompoo. I like Chompoo, and I hope that she and her family are doing okay. But I can’t save her and her family. Life in the UK has become harder for almost everyone because the cost of living is going up and up, and I simply don’t have any money that I can send to her. Going back to Thailand in a few months is something that I’d like to do, but if I can’t afford to go back this year, then I simply won’t go back until early 2026.