Thailand Trip Written From Prison Cell

Anyway, the following story goes back a few years and relates to my first trip to Thailand in 1993. It may appeal to some old timers because the story is timeless, the only real difference is the prices back then.

What makes this story unusual is not the content but the place from where I am writing it. I am unbelievably and tragically in a high security prison cell in the most evil, corrupt, murderous country in Asia. Cell phones are strictly forbidden, and searches of cells for mobile phones are frequent, but money talks if you can get enough of it inside.

How I ended up in this ongoing living version of hell is a book by itself. But I thought by way of advice to your listeners to stress that if you are intending to travel halfway around the world for a holiday with emphasis on fun and relaxation, do not consider anywhere else apart from Thailand. It wins hands down for food, girls, prices, hotels, beaches, use of English, other tourist infrastructure, and most importantly, safety.

Sure, if you behave recklessly in certain tense situations as you might do back in your own country, or are desperately unlucky, you may suffer an unpleasant fate. But if you behave even just semi-sensibly, then you are guaranteed a great time. The fact that so many Western women visit Thailand is proof that it is not just a male paradise, there is something there for everybody.

Reluctance To Visit Thailand

I had already been living and working in Asia for around 10 years and had done a lot of traveling, but had never been to Thailand. This was partly because other expats went on about it too much, and I did not really consider myself one of them (although in reality I was).

More to the point, I was secretly scared of the country’s dubious reputation and that I would fall for the fateful charms of a beautiful Thai bar girl and be made to pay for the privilege.

“I’ll never pay for female company,” I vowed to myself. “That’s for losers.” How stupid is that? It was a vow on a par with a vow of silence or a vow of chastity to become a monk.

Also, it was not as if I had no female admirers in my adopted country. I had been without a girlfriend for over a year, and in that time had just a couple of short term girlfriends who were not really my type.

So at the beginning of November in 1993, age 35, I left alone for a holiday in Koh Samui, but had booked three nights in Bangkok at the beginning and end of my trips.

35 is a good age to be in general. You still have over half of your life ahead of you, and what’s more, you are not too old to have no chance with pretty girls, and you’re not too young for older women.

Bad Start In Bangkok

I left for Thailand with conflicting advice from friends. At one extreme, I was told, “Don’t mess with a woman because of health issues.” At the other extreme, “Get a hotel near Nana Plaza and make sure you agree the price before doing a takeaway.”

My flight arrived early evening. I dodged the airport taxi touts as advised and found the legit taxi line outside Don Mueang Airport (as I called it). My driver put the meter on, and I asked to be taken to the Grace Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 3.

“No, no,” he said. “Don’t stay there, it’s not a nice hotel. I take you to more better and cheaper hotel.”

Like the idiot I am, I agreed. We arrived at a large hotel somewhere, and he pointed out a nearby go go bar where a solo dancer was visible on a stage through an open door. The driver took me in to get his commission.

The large but quiet hotel cost 500 baht, and the room was spacious. I opened my map of Bangkok and had no idea where I was. I eventually ventured outside and did not see a single foreigner. There were a number of rundown looking old bars with poor quality neon signs or Christmas fairy lights, but I was only interested in finding a restaurant.

Lost Near Thai Entertainment Bars

It took a bit of walking around because there just weren’t any to be found. When I eventually found a place to eat, the menu was all in Thai. I had to point to what a couple on the next table was eating. I ended up with rice, stir-fried chicken, and a shredded vegetable salad.

Wow, I thought, as the salad nearly blew my head off. The burning sensation in my mouth continued for another 15 minutes after foolishly finishing it all.

With an early flight the next morning, I called it a night.

Years later, I discovered where I had been, it was the entertainment for Thais, not foreigners. Also, you can order cheap, excellent Thai food in most of the bars which is delivered from outside, which would explain the lack of restaurants.

I didn’t get any sleep. I won’t go into details why in case somebody is eating now. Bad start to the holiday.

Koh Samui Bungalows And Hammocks

Next morning, I was at a restaurant in the domestic departures feeling absolutely terrible. I was joined at the table by a Swedish couple who were Koh Samui regulars and said they would take me with them to a nice quiet bungalow resort they always stayed at near the new Samui Airport. I was relieved to have met some good folk to take care of me and save me having to think on my feet while I found my feet.

We stayed the first night on Big Buddha Beach, and I got a lovely bungalow right in front of the sea which cost 400 baht if I remember rightly. The Swedish couple did not join me that evening but told me the best bar was two resorts down to the left. It was nothing spectacular but had nice music playing, and there were a few young Germans there. Koh Samui was still primarily a backpackers’ resort at that time and only just beginning to get discovered by mainstream tourists.

The following day we headed to Chaweng Beach. We booked in at a cheap, funky bungalow resort with friendly owners for 300 baht with fan and hot water showers. Nearby was this resort called Charlie’s for 100 baht, but I had graduated a long time ago from being an impoverished student on a strict budget and needed my modest luxuries. I remember being told the best bungalow resort on the island cost a thousand baht a night and was called First Bungalows.

I have always been careful to ask at reception to put my passport in a safety box. This place didn’t have one, so the owners put it into a drawer of an old wooden desk with a bunch of other passports which they then locked with a key. This worried me a bit, but I thought, “What the heck, safety in numbers.”

I experienced lying and swinging in a hammock for the first time. It was a real cosmic laid-back gig, and most folk were reading books in the shade of their bungalow porches. No cell phones around at that time, and no sane tourists would bring one of those new paging devices to a place like this.

I saw very little of the Swedish couple after that and felt confident enough to start doing my own exploring.

Handsome Man Bar Lesson

There were one or two beer bar areas where the girls called out to me as I walked past, “Handsome man, handsome man!” All these girls shouting out “handsome man” made me feel really special, like some kind of superstar.

But I was later to discover that had I been 70 with a beer belly and on crutches, as long as I had a wallet full of cash, I would still be that “handsome man.” Talk about super deflated.

I could not see any very pretty girls, and what’s more, my instinct was to quicken my pace when what I should have done was play a few games of Jenga or Connect Four to get a feel of the local culture and splash out on a few ladies’ drinks every time I lost a game, which would have been every time. The bar girls are grand masters, and if not, you know they really are new to the bar.

There was a line of wooden shack bars on the dark, dusty main road outside the central area run by a guy from the UK. I hung out there, able to watch football on TV. The other customers worked on the QE2 cruise ship, and Koh Samui was a popular R&R destination.

Reggae Bar In Koh Samui

Later at night, I headed down to the Reggae Bar, the only place to be. To access the place, you had to walk along a very dodgy, rickety old wooden suspension bridge over a rancid cesspit lake. Motorbikes used it too. I wondered how many motorbikes ridden by drunken tourists had found a watery grave, and a lot of compensation to pay for a lost motorcycle.

The massive Reggae Bar had ample seating and a large stage at the end for the Italian DJ and show-offs. It wasn’t exactly heaving, but good fun anyway. I was dancing when one or two Thai girls joined me on the dance floor, but I politely ignored them.

Having been in Asia so long, my standards of what constitutes beauty were probably higher than a guy in Thailand for the first time. And in my eyes, Koh Samui was not the place where Thai beauties would want to head, too many cheap Charlies or students on tight budgets. No girl was going to make her fortune with these guys. I hate to say this, but the best lookers were by far the ones at the bar. The owner was a British guy who they say did not know his partner was a ladyboy when he took up with her.

I spent a total of four nights in Samui.

Kiwi Girl And Sour Canadian

On the third afternoon, I met two Western girls on one of those small pickup truck buses which drive like crazy around the island. So I invited them for a romantic candlelight dinner on the beach that night, with a massage and a pedicure beforehand.

This is another point worth making about the food available in Thailand, it’s not just the delicious fresh Thai food, but the foreign food is often on a par, if not better, than what you can get if you went to the country itself.

One of the girls was a very attractive hairdresser from New Zealand; the other from Canada, I can only describe her as sour. I am not anti-Western woman, which probably stems from being so long in Asia that it’s the Western women who appear exotic to me now.

It transpired that both girls were traveling alone but had joined forces somewhere along the way. I had the hots for the Kiwi girl, and when her miserable friend excused herself to go to the toilet, I asked the Kiwi girl if she would like to go to the Reggae Bar with me.

“Yes,” she said with a pained expression. “I can’t.” They were flying out early the next morning and, worse than that, beginning to hate each other’s guts and needed to pack and discuss some important matters such as “Let’s part ways.”

Bad timing for me, but just the way it goes.

Grace Hotel And Nana Plaza

Finally, it was my time to return to Bangkok, and I did make sure I ended up at the Grace Hotel this time. It was like something out of a movie set with Middle Eastern furniture, and there was an Arabic nightclub. It had a recommended tailor shop inside with a black and white framed photo of Bob Hope in a suit with the Sikh owner.

I had a suit and a shirt made up, two suits actually, and three silk shirts. Those Indian guys are incredibly good salesmen and could sell you a brick as a piece of jewelry. In any case, the prices and quality were really good, and I am one of those guys who can never find anything off the peg that fits properly. I had to chuck one of the shirts when I got home because the collar seemed to have grown about three inches in my suitcase.

That evening, I headed out to the legendary Nana Plaza. I had to pass three or four dodgy looking ladyboys lurking in the shadows by the entrance. I had read about the ladyboys in a Bangkok Post article entitled “Night Owl” regarding their pickpocketing skills.

I was then greeted by a blaze of bright neon lights, a deafening sound of booming music, and various girls in simply matching uniforms with young Thai guys trying to usher me towards particular bars, but being very careful not to actually touch me.

Basically, I freaked out. It was what you might call reverse stage fright, fear of a stage full of girls.

I had to seek refuge in an upstairs bar mentioned in Lonely Planet which was not a go go bar. It was pretty dark, shabby, and quiet, but there were no girls, and I felt no pressure. A pleasant American who I’ll call Hank sat next to me, and he opened a conversation with a line I’ll never forget: “Never brush your teeth directly before drinking a beer.” Not bad advice, I agreed.

First Go Go Bar With Hank

He was an old hand living in the Nana Hotel. After a couple of beers, I admitted to have never been inside a go go bar. So off we went downstairs to the largest and busiest bar at that time, Hollywood.

The sight of so many attractive ladies dancing on stage made my head spin. It was like being in a busy pub at the weekend, the main difference being that you knew you could spend time with any of these girls.

However, once my eyes adjusted to the light, I could not see the one special girl that I felt attracted to. They were too old or too young, too fat or too thin, too experienced or too clumsy, too tall or too small, any stupid excuse not to pay a 400 baht bar fine. Remember, this was 1993 back then.

I got quite drunk on Carlsberg, which was one of only four brands of beer on offer in those days. The other three were Singha, Heineken, and I’ll be damned if I can remember the name of the fourth one which doesn’t exist anymore, but I remember it had a German-sounding name. Prices were 50 to 60 baht, same as what you paid for a decent lunch. The bars closed at 2 a.m.

Coffee Shop And D Cup

Hank took me over to the coffee shop in the Nana Hotel, from where you could view the comings and goings in the outside car park. He hadn’t told me that he had arranged to meet some girls from another bar and confessed that one of them, who he had bar fined three nights in a row last week, had fallen in love with him.

He told me, “This girl has fallen in love with me.” No comment from me on that remark.

Shortly after, three girls walked in and sat at our table, and Hank ordered some food. His latest fancy was very attractive, and his nickname for her was “D Cup”, which described her main assets well.

To my surprise, she suddenly broke into the language of the country I was living in when I told her where I’d come from, which meant we could carry on a conversation behind Hank’s back, even though he was sitting beside me. Nothing underhand, but I did ask her if she was in love with him, and she said she wasn’t sure.

I was not surprised when she asked me if I wanted to go with her that night, but I would never do that to any friend, even when I had only known him a few hours. I’ve had it done to me when a so-called friend gatecrashed a date I was on, and it’s not nice.

I returned to my hotel room empty-handed, but decided that on my last night, come what may, I would break my vow of go go celibacy.

Final Night In Nana Plaza

So my final night arrived, and with a 6 a.m. flight needing to check in three hours in advance, there was absolutely no point in trying to sleep. I hadn’t arranged to meet Hank and figured that if I stumbled across D Cup, I might be tempted.

To cut a long story short, I visited most of the downstairs bars in the plaza. I can remember the name of Playskool on the right, but can’t remember all the names of the other bars in the plaza. Another was G-Spot, where the girls were all very well endowed.

One particular waitress was more attractive than all the dancers. We played this daft but amusing game with long chocolate-covered sticks where you each put an opposite end in your mouth and munch quickly. The aim for the guy is to get your lips to touch her luscious red ones, but she was so damn skillful that I kept falling short by about one millimeter. That has to be one of the worst forms of teasing I have ever encountered. In retrospect, I should have just cheated.

I had no idea if a waitress could be bar fined, but that question was answered when a Japanese guy in a suit walked in and took her away from me fairly promptly.

I made another newbie mistake. I selected one candidate at three or four different bars until I’d made my mind up which one to bar fine later, which involved having to make a mental note of the girl’s bar number and name of the bar she worked in. After at least eight beers, I couldn’t remember the girl’s number, the bars I’d seen them at, and couldn’t remember a single one of them by sight when I went back to look.

Come midnight, I was pretty wasted and annoyed at myself, so left alone, but with one final option to explore: the legendary coffee shop at my own Grace Hotel.

Grace Hotel Coffee Shop Decision

The place was busy. There were a number of freelancers, a lot carrying a few extra pounds in weight, but I guess some guys like that body shape. I was about to give up when a girl I had made momentary eye contact with started hitting on me. She was loud and slightly crazy. I thought, “Not a stunner, but above average.”

After buying her a drink, I still couldn’t make my mind up. So when she popped the question, I said, “Okay, but I can only pay 500 baht”, expecting her to have a hissy fit and walk away. I was surprised when she said okay.

My only concern now was whether I would still be able to manage after so many beers, but all I can say is that she was very good. So I could finally stick a pin in Thailand on my map of the world, along with the pins in two other Asian countries.

However, there was a slight twist, no, not the one. This girl was not Thai but on a tourist visa from Vietnam.

I got home tired but very happy. I haven’t finished my Thailand trip, just that one good ending filled me with an extraordinary amount of confidence after a long barren spell. And not long after, I met my wife to be. I’m convinced the two events are related, laws of cause and effect or whatever.

I guess I’ll need to write another story about my first bar fine with a real Thai girl to finish it.

Prison Reflections And Hope

It breaks my heart to see images of Pattaya and all the places I used to be able to roam around freely. Being incarcerated in a country devoid of any human rights is as bad as it gets, but I guess, like anything, you can get used to hardship if you accept it as reality.

I’ve had dengue fever once and COVID 19 twice now. The first time, I would not have minded if the suffering had ended. This is what happened to an American in the cage behind mine.

I gave up praying to a higher power a long time ago, but still hang a bulb of garlic next to me in case Dracula exists. Seriously, though, I hope to leave this place alive one day sooner than later and meet in person the talented individuals who are producing these entertaining and informative vlogs. They give me hope for a better future.

Andy From Sweden Visits Thailand

I’m not a native English speaker, so feel free to do some corrections if needed. I’m Andy from Sweden and I am 38 years old. I’ve been traveling to Thailand since 2005.

My first time in the kingdom was when I was studying in university. I just got into a relationship with a Swedish girl. We did not have anything to do in the summer, so we found very cheap tickets to Bangkok, 350 euros. It was a lovely holiday, and we traveled around to different islands.

During this trip, I noticed that many foreign guys were driving motorbikes with a Thai girl on the back. I thought the girls looked so wonderful with their long black hair in the wind. I remember thinking to myself: if my current relationship with my girlfriend breaks up, maybe this is something I’d like to try. I have always been attracted to Asian women, I find them very beautiful.

About two weeks after returning to Sweden, my girlfriend and I did break up. So I got to thinking about going back to visit Thailand.

It was now 2010. I just finished university and finally had enough money saved to once again visit Thailand. This time a friend came along with me, but he stayed for three weeks, and I stayed for four weeks.

Before traveling, we had read up on some of the good areas to have fun, like Khao San Road and Nana Plaza. The first night out we visited Nana Plaza, but we were very tired from our long haul flight. We spent the evening drinking with two really nice girls, but that’s all. At the end of the evening, we gave them a really good tip, which they were happy about, and they said we’d be back to see them again.

Koh Samui And The Massage Lady

I forgot to mention that I’ve been speaking to a girl online about three or four years younger than me, but I’ll get back to her later.

So we headed down to Koh Samui, a wonderful tropical island, but most of the time we were there, I was thinking about Bangkok and wanted to return as soon as possible.

Our first night walking along the beach, a Thai girl jumps out of nowhere and hugs me.

“You like massage?” she says.

“No, we need to eat dinner first,” I said.

After dinner, we were walking back when the same girl jumped out again and said, “You eat dinner, I massage you now.” I was a little bit confused but said, “Yes, okay.”

Massage Room Confusion

An older woman in the massage place looked at me and asked, “You had massage before? You know what massage is?”

“Yes,” I said. “No problem.”

The girl who was going to give me a massage was very beautiful. She took me into a private room and told me to undress. She went off to get her basket with oils, etc. When she came back, I was lying on the massage table in my underwear. She points at my underwear and says, “No, no, take off.”

I did as I was told, when in Rome.

She started to massage my back and worked her hands all over my body. It was an excellent massage, and you can guess the rest. It wasn’t too long until the private extras started.

Massage Price And Return Visits

However, I was a little bit worried as no price had been discussed beforehand. After the massage was finished, she said, “500 baht for the massage, the rest up to you.” I gave her 2,500 baht, which at the time I thought was fair.

During my time in Koh Samui, I went back to visit the massage lady several times. She seemed always happy to see me again, or at least my money. But I’ll get back to her again later.

Um From The Dating Site

My friend’s holiday came to an end, but I still had a week to go. I decided I’d meet up with a girl I’d been chatting with previously. She was from a village about two hours’ drive from Bangkok. The girl’s name was Um.

She came to Bangkok with her auntie and a neighbor who drove the car. Before she arrived, she called me and said, “You have to buy gifts for my parents, that’s Thai culture.” I rushed into a gift shop and picked up some face cream for her mother and a famous book for her father (but of course translated into Thai).

The auntie asked me if I was a smoker, apparently she didn’t like smokers. I told her I like the occasional cigarette with a beer. She then pointed out that she didn’t like the fact that I was a little overweight. I’m not that big, just a few kilos, but I found it quite rude the way she was pointing at me in the car.

On the way back to Um’s town, the auntie wanted to look at my passport and then pictures on my phone. I found her to be very forward, quite rude, and disrespectful. The atmosphere in the car was now becoming unfriendly and tense.

When we arrived at Um’s house, I met her parents and her brother. Um told me to hand over the gifts to her parents, which I did, but their faces looked very disappointed, as did Um’s. However, once her mother spotted the price of the cream, she gave a big smile, and Um looked relieved.

Um had booked me into a small local hotel. On the way over to the hotel, again the auntie started with her rude questions. She asked me how much money I made in Sweden. She then went on to tell me I should save my money for Um’s family. I played dumb and didn’t tell her anything.

Village Money Pressure

Later on, Um and her auntie showed me around the village and where they worked. Apparently, the men in her village didn’t work, which I suppose is a reason why they’re asking me for money.

Island Trip Near Pattaya

The next day, we decided to visit an island near Pattaya, I can’t remember the name of the island. What surprised me was that I thought Um and I were going to be alone, but apparently her brother and a friend were coming with us.

We arrived into Pattaya and took a ferry ride to the island. We got to the island and then to the hotel. There was a lot of conversation between Um, her brother, and the other guy, which of course I didn’t understand. I was then told later that the room would be 5,000 baht. I later found out that this was a total rip-off by them, as the room we had was not worth more than a thousand baht.

The room wasn’t that big, one double bed and an armchair. I wasn’t sure what the arrangement was to be. Once we checked in, they asked me if I’d like to go to the beach. I said yes, that would be nice. So we head to the beach. We get there, and they say, “Here is the beach, see you later.” They then take off and leave me on my own for about three hours.

I think to myself, “This is not gone well.”

When it was time to sleep, it was really weird, because they gave me the bed, they took the chair, and the two guys slept on the floor. I was starting to have bad feelings about the whole situation. I thought, “I’ve got to get away from here.”

The next day we got back to Pattaya, and I finally had some alone time with Um. We had a walk around a shopping center, had an ice cream, and Um told me she’d like me to buy her a mobile phone. I thought, “No problem, I’ll buy her a cheap one.” However, she pointed to a phone that had a price tag of 30,000 baht and said, “I want that one.”

Expensive Phone And Bangkok Escape

I refused to spend that much money on a mobile phone. We ended up having an argument outside the phone shop for about 30 minutes. I told her, “At least if you had pretended to like me, I would have considered buying you the phone.”

She then told me that her mother had told her that if I don’t buy her the phone, that means I don’t love her.

At this point, I’d had enough. I went back to the car, grabbed my bag, and told her I was going back to Bangkok alone. She asked me where I would be staying. I said, “Khao San Road.” Then I asked a local taxi driver to drive me to Bangkok.

When I got back to Bangkok, I met the two girls we had drinks with, and I had a fabulous time with them.

I only spoke to Um once more after this trip. She texted me to ask me if I was still fat. Needless to say, I didn’t reply.

Back To Thailand In 2012

It’s now 2012. Same trip as before, Bangkok, Koh Samui, Bangkok. This time I was on my own, as my friend had a new girlfriend in Sweden and couldn’t afford to come on holiday with me.

I met a guy from Belgium with his Thai wife running a bar together in Koh Samui. Over the years, the Belgian man and myself have become very good friends, and I always visit him when I visit Koh Samui, and of course my nice massage lady, who still works in the same massage shop, and it’s always a good experience with her.

When I got back to Bangkok, I met a girl in Nana Plaza and took her back to my hotel, but she was very drunk. She ended up sleeping all night and left at about 10 a.m. the following morning.

When I went back into her bar the following evening, I bar fined her again, but she seemed to be drunk again. She could hardly walk, so I took her to the cinema at Terminal 21, maybe she could sleep it off for a while. After the movie had finished, I took her back to her bar. I had one drink, and when she saw that I was leaving, she burst into tears.

I explained to the mamasan what had happened, and she fully understood. I didn’t worry about the bar fine and just left. I went to another bar and hooked up with a very cute girl and had a great night.

On the flight back to Sweden, I thought to myself, “I have to have another trip to the Land of Smiles soon.”

Massage Lady Hospital Bill

Skip forward to 2013 to 2019, and I’m back in Thailand again on a regular basis. I just happened one evening to pop into the bar where the drunk girl had worked, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. I asked the mamasan about her. She told me, “We had to let her go, as many guys complained about her being drunk and not doing her job properly.”

I now prefer to travel to Thailand alone. I have made many new friends, both Thai and farang, and of course I always visit my special massage girl on Koh Samui, who is now the boss of the massage shop.

In 2019, she ended up in hospital for some reason which cost 30,000 baht. She showed me the bill and asked me to help her out by paying for it for her. She told me, “I give it back, I give back money to you later. You okay?”

I told her I’d think about it. I took the bill but showed it to the Thai wife of my Belgian friend. She told me the bill was genuine, but that it stated it had been paid by insurance and was paid in full.

I went back to the massage shop and told my massage lady what I had discovered. She just laughed and said, “You like massage now, tilak?”

I said yes, and this time she seemed to put more of an effort into it. We’re still friends.

Missing Koh Samui Friendship

The massage lady keeps in contact with me when I’m back in Sweden. We speak by LINE or WhatsApp, but she always seems to disappear for a couple of weeks as soon as I get back to Sweden. She will reappear all of a sudden saying her phone was broken.

She’s always in the massage shop when I am on Koh Samui. I hope I can meet her again after this pandemic is over, as we are now very good friends, and I forgive her for trying to rip me off with a 30,000 baht hospital bill. I would have probably done the same if I was in her shoes. I still like her as a good friend.

It’s been nearly two years now since I could get back to Koh Samui. I hope she is still there when I get back, and that her massage shop has not gone bust and closed for good, like a lot of other businesses.

I miss Thailand so much and all the wonderful things that go on there. It’s a very strange feeling. I took the massage girl for granted, but as I haven’t been able to get back for two years, I kind of find myself worrying for her future, and I really miss her a lot. I hope she’s still okay, because I’ve lost contact with her.

Old Thailand Memories From 1981

In 1981, I was based in Malaysia at an Australian air base. I was doing regular trips to Thailand as it was a very adventurous and extremely exciting train trip to Bangkok.

As a young, fit, cashed-up, single guy, I had no problem getting ladies. Many girls were interested in both myself and friends, we were sometimes swamped by ladies so much that we were quite often seeking quiet and cleaner places to kick back.

So we ventured to Pattaya for the first time. Yes, there was nothing there back then, just a few bars, no surprises, but it had the beach, and it was clean-ish back then. The accommodation was easy to find, cheap, and clean.

We were doing regular trips to Penang from our base, which had a few sleazy areas. So with the help of our allocated taxi drivers and other guys on base, we had heard or experienced most of the scams and games that you can get in the girlie bar scene, and it seemed to be the same MO in the Bangkok and Pattaya bars.

Marriage Divorce And Thailand Lessons

Anyway, long story short, as we got around Southeast Asia, we single guys soon learned there was nothing left in the way of finding women like the ones we had met in Asia back home. And we all knew this was our place to find real, unbelievably beautiful women.

I met a real Thai lady in Bangkok a few years later. We got married, had five children, four girls and a boy. After 26 years of marriage (and probably four or five years as boyfriend/girlfriend), we got divorced just recently. Kids had grown up and gone.

And to quote a famous song: “I’m heading back to check things out again, there ain’t nothing like the kisses from a cheating Thai princess.”

Not all stories from Thailand end up disastrous. I have quite a few friends who have had long and meaningful relationships with Thai ladies, although very few of the ladies worked in bars that I know of.

Choose wisely, and try not to apply the same logic that we have in the West to Asia.