The Thai Girl and Her Boyfriend
I’m an American in my late 40s. This story took place in December of 2019. I was in Pattaya at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. I also managed to visit Phuket on this trip. During the last two days of my trip, I became very ill. I had a sore throat, cough, and was very tired. It could be that I caught this new bug that is going around, but remember, at that time no one was issuing any travel advice as it was still unknown. So it may be possible that I had it, but I just did not know it and I am still not sure after all this time.
Anyway, I started my holiday at the same hotel on Walking Street that I had visited in 2014, but this time the experience was a bit different. For one thing, the disco across the street Lucifer’s was open and in full swing until 6:00 a.m., so this meant that I had to plan my day and night activities to be able to sleep. As I settled into my room, I remember reinstalling the LINE app. I wanted to see if anyone I had met in 2014 was still active on the app. I know that the two girls from my 2014 trip were both not available as I had seen one posting on Facebook and the other had already said goodbye a year or so before this new trip.
This time in Thailand, I really just wanted to take things slowly and to try and remember things from the previous trip that I had made. The first thing I liked to do was find a good bar with a good pool table and good atmosphere. I also wanted to find a girl who was both attractive and who knew how to shoot pool. This is not always as easy as it sounds. In my experience, it is difficult to find a bar girl who can shoot good pool. Some get really good by playing customers every day, but for a lot of them, it’s just not their preferred game, as opposed to Connect Four or similar bar games that they can always win.
In 2014 I played a lot of games with Ratna, and while she wasn’t the greatest pool player in the world, she kept up, and of course I enjoyed her company immensely. I wish that the girls that I’d met in 2014 were still here, but they weren’t as they have all moved on, as they do.
The Hotel and the Grabbers
So back in 2019 one of the reasons I like the hotel I was booked into is that it is situated right smack bang in the middle of Walking Street. It wouldn’t be for everybody as it is quite noisy, but it is a great location, and it also has a feeder alley to the main road which is very convenient.
The people you see when walking along Beach Road whether they’re girls or near girls always ask, “Where you go?” which is normally followed up with, “I go with you.” A lot of the time, they all will also try to grab you, stop you walking away. Dodging the grabbers along Beach Road is truly an art form that takes place in Pattaya. I actually have more fun just walking around Pattaya and interacting with everybody I see on the streets. My legs end up getting really tired, but I do not like my legs massaged. I know this sounds absurd because outside of Phuket, Pattaya must be the leg massage capital of the world. This all dates back to a time when I did get a leg massage and the lady massaging my leg so hard that I think I may have had some permanent damage. At the time I figured she must know what she was doing.
Meeting Hatai
On my second day in Pattaya on this trip, I met a girl online who ironically worked giving massages. The lady’s name was Hatai. She was a good conversationalist which is not always common, but sometimes you get lucky. It turns out that she could have been a budding sociologist because she had a lot of stories to tell about Thai people in Pattaya. Hatai was from Buriram originally, but later went to work in Bangkok and then Pattaya.
Hatai was also a “Buddhist business lady” because she convinced me that I needed extra attention to some parts of my body more than others. I was not really looking for this, but this became a rare case in Pattaya where it turned out that it was in fact not “up to me” which was very strange, because whenever I asked a Thai girl a question, the reply was always the standard “up to you.”
The Earplug Incident
One night I was walking past a go go bar on Walking Street called Airport or Airplane or something that at least had a name to do with aviation. Anyway, I caught a glance from a beautiful girl with dark skin. She didn’t look like she wanted to be where she was at that moment, so I made a mental note to stop by there again after I’d had dinner.
I did go back, but here is the funny thing. I use earplugs when I go into go go bars as they play the music so loud I can sense hearing loss before I even enter the place. I took them out and put them in again and entered the bar. I sat down and was asked what I wanted to drink. I had to take one of the earplugs out to hear the waitress but I couldn’t get it out. The earplugs that I was using were meant for Thai people and were far too small for my ears. It got stuck in the canal of my ear.
I told the bar manager what had happened, and she directed me to a clinic up the feeder alley I told you about earlier. The clinic was open even though it was quite late, and by the looks of it this was good for business because they seemed to be ready as if they had just handled a bunch of cases. Looking at the pamphlets and brochures, I suspect they were used to handling many other cases than the one I was about to present. It took a while, but the clinic staff got the earplug out of the canal of my ear. It cost me 300 baht not much, but enough to make me feel like an absolute idiot in the first place.
I went back to the Airport go go. I entered, and the manager remembered me. She had written down my drink order, and now she gave the slip of paper to one of the servers to fulfill the order. As I waited for my drink, I noticed that the dark-skinned girl that I had seen earlier was now chatting with another customer. I enjoyed the entertainment, and I must have looked a little longer at one girl on stage because she made a beeline towards me when her session on stage was over.
Candace and Wan
The pretty girl’s name was Candace. She looked like she had mixed parentage. I really enjoyed talking to these girls because they typically have a good story about how they came to be in Pattaya. I bought the mandatory lady drink, and she told me her father was Indian and her mother was Thai. She had slightly darker skin than the other girls, and her English was superb.
We hadn’t spoken for too long when she noticed I had been looking over at the other girl the short haired girl that I had seen earlier, which I now know was called Wan. Wan noticed my glances, and in a blink of an eye, Candace had called Wan and they were sitting on either side of me. This was an odd predicament to be in. In my experience, a handful of girls is easier to deal with than two of them. I bought Wan a drink. Candace turned out to be very helpful as her English was far superior to Wan’s, and she was kind of translating. At some point, Candace took my hand and put it in Wan’s then she was off to dance again.
The go go bar was not packed, so that allowed me to dominate the two girls at a time. If you buy these girls a lady drink, they feel obliged to sit with you for a while. After Candace had left our table, the conversation dropped off due to Wan’s lack of English. I suppose you would be correct if you pointed out the obvious that the girls are not there to hold great conversations but the thing is, I actually enjoy conversations with bar girls, and most of the time this is enough for me.
After Wan’s second drink, I mentioned that I didn’t do the bar fine thing and I know that it was expected at this point. I suggested that we exchange LINE app numbers. It might prove beneficial because we could use our phones to translate. I think this confused her a bit because the conversation was not going the way she expected, but we exchanged numbers anyway.
The Canadian “Boyfriend”
I headed back to the hotel. It was still 2 or 3 a.m., still far too early for bed because of the noise. I decided I would move to another hotel the next day. I went over to the disco if you can’t beat them, join them. There was a band playing, so with earplugs in I placed an order for a drink and decided to stay for a while. As I was about to leave the club, I literally bump into Ying a stunner. “Hi, what’s your name? Where you go? Hotel?”
The next day I was in Terminal 21 looking for food when at the exact same time I got a message from Wan. (At times like this, I wonder if some Thai women have voodoo magic going on or is it just the magic of Pattaya?) “I busy. See you later,” she texts. I reply, “Okay.” But I didn’t see her in the evening. I walked past Airport go go I poked my head in, but she wasn’t there. I sent her a text and I got a reply: “I sick not work today.” “Okay, feel better,” I reply. It isn’t a big deal.
The next day it is New Year’s Eve, and I get a text around lunchtime it’s Wan. She says something about her boyfriend standing her up for lunch and would I like to get something to eat. She sends a photo of where she is and an empty chair on the other side of her table. I had to think about this for a moment. She never mentioned a boyfriend, and we had only known each other for three days though at this point I should point out that time knowing someone seems sped up in Pattaya. I thought it was interesting that she would reveal that she had a boyfriend and that he had stood her up. She went on to write down more about this situation something about her stuff being at a hotel and she couldn’t get it, etc. but I was not paying too much attention. Remember, her English wasn’t great.
“I’m at the restaurant in 10 minutes.” I sit down, we order. She starts to tell me about her Canadian boyfriend. I was a little confused. The reason is that the idea of a boyfriend and a girlfriend is not one that I think is mentioned a lot in Pattaya and actually meant in the same way as the rest of the world. So when she used the term, I had to try to think about what she actually meant by this and it didn’t help that her English was poor and my Thai nonexistent outside of a few common words and phrases.
New Year’s Eve
After eating, we walked across the street to shoot some pool. Wan was not half bad by this time, and the evening was looking up. After an hour or so, we made our way to her friend’s place, a beer bar on Soi 8. We ordered drinks. Her friends joined us: one guy and three girls. I ordered everyone drinks, and we started up a series of pool games against two couples that had been playing throughout the day. One couple consisted of a German guy with his Thai girlfriend, and then an Australian guy with his Thai girlfriend who had his name tattooed on her arm. Things were going great as I really enjoyed shooting pool, and although there were some communication difficulties, there were many more people around, and I thought this was as good a place as any to spend New Year’s Eve.
At this point, Wan says she needs to go home and freshen up for the night. She asks me to stay, and her bar friend comes over to translate this part of our conversation. Wan’s friend explains that she really wants me to stay there and wait for her to come back. I said sure and ordered another round of drinks. I suppose at this point I might have paid the bill and wandered around to do some more watching, but the fact was that I had taken a shine to Wan and I wanted to hang out with her some more and anyway, it’s not a great idea to be on your own on Christmas Eve.
Throughout the afternoon and early evening, I kept getting the suspicion that something else was on Wan’s mind and it was. She returned to the beer bar, and we had another drink or two. I took a photo of her with a cute dog that was at the bar.
We started another game with the Aussie and his girlfriend. I can’t remember, but I think we lost more games than we won. In Pattaya, when you lose, you have to pay for the game. No problem, it was New Year’s Eve anyway. As we were finishing this game of pool, another guy shows up. He sits down next to Wan and puts his arm around her. This must be the boyfriend she had been talking about the one who had not spent the day with her but has now shown up within half an hour to go until midnight.
The Confrontation
Wan looked calm but definitely flustered. The old saying is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush but what happens if you have two in the hand? She did her best to pretend that she was only working by refilling my glass from the beer bottle, but the elephant or in this case Canadian was in the room now. I should say that I did not know what the term “boyfriend” meant to her in this situation. From my perspective, this guy was just another customer. After all, this is Pattaya, and this guy is in his late 30s or early 40s and it wouldn’t be the match one would imagine happens outside of Pattaya. But I didn’t know for sure. Perhaps he lived in Pattaya, or indeed he was performing the role of a boyfriend.
So I headed over to the pool table to talk it over with my new Australian buddy. He said, “Unless the girl has your name tattooed on her body, it’s all fair play or fair game.” Of course, he could say this because his girlfriend had his stamp clearly visible. So I decided to go back over to the seating area. As I walked back over, thoughts raced through my head about this situation.
Firstly, she and I had been chatting for a few days online. She made it clear we would eventually meet, and then she had made the call to invite me to the restaurant. Then we spent the majority of the day together at the beer bar. She specifically and repeatedly asked me to make sure that I would be staying at the bar while she went to freshen up and return. I was sitting with several of her friends, and we were all having a good time.
It was my expectation that Wan and I would be spending New Year’s Eve together, and this was now a gray area. The reason was that technically this was not the bar where she worked, and she might have invited me, and we were among her friends. Sorry to repeat this, but it bears repeating: this made it a gray area in my mind. She had not done a good job in keeping her farangs separate. It was clear that she was using me as a backup in case this other guy didn’t show up, and she was also using me as a way to make him jealous. Alas, I think this girl was not a good player of the games. I also think she did have stuff left in his hotel and was wondering if she was ever going to get it back.
I leaned over and spoke to the guy. I said, “Look, she invited me today, and I have invested my time in this situation. I ordered a lot of drinks and played a lot of rounds of pool, and I stuck around because of this girl. It’s New Year’s Eve, and I’ve been operating under the assumption that I would ring in the New Year with her. But clearly you have some association with her. So I told him, if you agree to pay for the slips in this cup, I will be off and I will wish you all the best.” So he said, “Yes, okay,” and we shook on it.
The Aftermath
I got up and said goodbye to the Aussie and the German guys, and I walked down the street. The Aussie guy shouted to me, “Go down the street and get another girl and return here! Haha.”
After just a few minutes, I get a call from Wan. She said she was upset with me because she had to pay the bill of 3,000 baht. I said that wasn’t the deal I made with the guy, and if she was paying it, he was not a man of his word. He knew full well the deal I was making, and he even shook my hand on it. In any case, she had managed to put a major damper on my vacation and the New Year celebration and that was something money couldn’t repair.
We hung up, and I just dialed Candace. She said sure, she would spend New Year’s Eve with me but she was too far away to make it by midnight. So I dialed the massage lady from the start of the story. I told her I was hungry and heading back to the hotel. She met me there, bought food and drinks, and we rang in the New Year together.
I will say that during the few days Wan and I spoke, she had given me her social media links. I followed her off and on for the past year. It turns out that not long after I left Pattaya, her Canadian boyfriend who was no boyfriend at all except in her mind had also left Pattaya. Later, Wan met a young Italian guy. During the time of the pandemic, I watched as he sent her money for one thing or another. He must have spent a fortune already. It was easy to see when the money was drying up because she would get angry and block him only to unblock him a few days later. Based on what I have seen, she has been playing him like an absolute fiddle ever since. I don’t know the real status of the relationship only they do. But for those of us who have enjoyed your stories, I think we probably see this one as a train wreck waiting to happen and eventually the Italian guy will write to you next year. We shall then know the ending to the story.
Story 2 Jim’s Bar and Nang The Girl Who Didn’t Like Farangs
“Hi Peter, I’ve enjoyed a number of your stories, so thought I’d send you my rather ordinary story.”
Now in my mid 60s, I have been divorced for 12 years, reasonably well traveled, and thankfully fairly solvent. I am now retired and living in the UK. Before I begin this story, a little background. I visited Thailand some years ago, going to Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai, over the border to Myanmar, then 14 days in Koh Samui, staying in the fisherman’s village. This trip was with my long term girlfriend at the time. Sadly, the relationship came to an end mainly my fault. She is now happily involved with a man of her dreams, but we remain good friends.
I had decided that I wouldn’t visit Thailand again as there were lots of other places on my bucket list still to visit. However, a very good friend of mine, Adam, had purchased a condo in Jomtien in 2014, as had an American friend of his, Tom. Having talked about it with him, he thought I should buy one as it would make a good investment. Perhaps I should go and visit the area first and get to know a little bit about it. We arranged to spend some time there. So in November, we headed for Thailand.
Bangkok A Child in a Candy Shop
We arrived in Bangkok, got our taxi into the city to meet his American friend Tom, and spend a couple of days in Bangkok before going down to Jomtien. Although tired from our journey, we headed for the hotel bar for my first single beer of this trip whilst waiting for Adam’s friend Tom. After a couple of beers, it was decided that we would have an evening out. So we got ourselves changed, showered, and headed for the bright lights of Bangkok. First, Hillary 2, great fun, then on to Nana and Soi Cowboy, etc.
I must say I felt a little like a child in a candy shop. The girls, the music, the excitement it was all going to my head. We popped into a club. I hadn’t done this previously in Thailand as it didn’t appeal to my girlfriend, so I was a bit naive about this, and I had to ask my friends what the etiquette was. They just said, “If you like someone, just smile and then it’s up to you.” Goodness is that all it took? Drinking and watching the girls on stage, the most gorgeous Thai-Indian-looking girl took my fancy, so I smiled. It had the desired reaction, and when she had finished her time dancing, she came and sat with me. I asked this girl if I could buy her a lady drink, and of course the predictable “yes” followed. I was in love!
However, that was not to be. My friends had decided it was time to move on to see more of the area. Funny how I still remember this girl.
Jomtien Finding Jim’s Bar
It was back to the hotel. We had arranged to meet up for breakfast. I got there having had only a couple of hours’ sleep my friends didn’t show up until nearly lunchtime. I had a brief swim in the rooftop pool, then a small walk around the area, and of course what became my favorite mid morning massage. We then hired a car to take us to Jomtien. We split up, them to their condos and me to mine, found through Airbnb in the same block. It was very reasonable, working out at about seven pounds a day: clean and tidy, with a balcony, one bedroom, etc.
We spent the next days exploring the area, having a few beers here and there, and just getting used to things. Adam and Tom had some business to attend to regarding their condos, so they disappeared into Pattaya quite often. Other than that, they enjoyed sitting on Jomtien Beach, unlike me who liked to wander around getting a general feel for the area. I might add that they both had spent a lot of time in Thailand previously, so were old hands.
Although we would meet up regularly for the odd drink, we found a bar called Natalie’s, just off the beach road (maybe Soi 2 or 3 I can’t quite remember). Not the most upmarket bar in the world, but full of fun and laughs, and of course we enjoyed our evenings out at Natalie’s bar. I like to find a place that I feel comfortable in, where I can watch the world go by and have a quiet drink. So I found my bar that I adopted, which much to their amusement they eventually christened Jim’s Bar. Long story.
Time passed. We had lots of fun in Walking Street another story altogether lots of fabulous Thai food, etc. Having got to know the girls in my bar, they always looked after me moving fans around if I was hot, sponging me down with towels that they kept in the fridge. They really treated me like a king. And of course, they earned their lady drinks.
Time passed all too quickly, and with only five days left of our time in Jomtien, the bar manager at Jim’s Bar asked why I was not with a girl. I hadn’t been looking for a girlfriend, but I had met quite a few girls, if you know what I mean. There was only one very pretty girl in the bar that had taken my fancy who sadly had been taken by an Australian man. She often smiled at me and once asked if she could come with me if she could get rid of her present man while he was in the bathroom. I wish, however, that it hadn’t happened.
Meeting Nang
The bar manager said she knew someone who may wish to meet me, so I said fine I’d be happy to meet her. A little while later, she introduced me to a lady called Nang. A pretty girl, but a little shy and not like the others. I asked her if she would like a drink, and before she said yes, she said, “I don’t like farangs.” Not the best of starts, but never mind. I said, “I’ll still buy you a drink.” The atmosphere warmed a little when we started to chat although her English was pretty poor.
To cut a long story short, I bar fined her, and she gave me a lift back to my condo presumably on a little motorbike. She was very sweet and told me her husband had died and she came from Laos and needed to support her children. She kept saying she wanted to return to her village and she didn’t like the work, and I offered to pay her airfare (approximately 28 pounds back then, I seem to remember), but she said no. In the morning she had gone. Her lovely smooth brown skin was no longer next to mine. No word just a washing up done, tidying up done. “Oh well,” I thought that was it.
A couple of hours later, I was considering going for breakfast when there was a knock at the door. Yes, you’ve guessed it she was back. She had been to the temple.
Anyway, four happy days later, there had been no demand for money from her. She even lent me some in a supermarket as I’d run out of cigarettes. Also, I told her I wouldn’t bar fine her every day, so I didn’t. I bought her food, a top-up on her phone credit but she didn’t ask me for any money. When it came time to leave, we said our goodbyes, and then I gave her some money the change, I think I had about 1,500 baht.
Keeping in Touch
We kept in touch from time to time through LINE. She had returned to her village, sending me photos of the temples and her working on the family land, etc. The following year, in 2016, my friend went back to Thailand, and lo and behold, who should he bump into but Nang. She told them that she was having a really difficult time, and she asked if they had seen me. They said I wasn’t in Thailand on this trip. My friend sent me a message telling me the story with a smile. I kind of guessed why he was smiling he most likely got more than a message from Nang but hey, what the heck. As she had been fair with me, I asked him to give her 20 pounds on my behalf. They saw her the next day, and he handed it over.
She and I kept in touch for three years, just chatting, telling me she was now back home, with photos of the family property, her out shopping, etc., and not asking for money for a sick family member or sick buffalo.
Sadly, out of the blue, I received a message, a long screenshot in Thai, with photos of a bad leg and bank account details. At this point, I realized she eventually decided to ask for money. I immediately blocked her account. She continued to send lots of “sorry” messages and “why didn’t I speak to her.” She said she hadn’t sent the long message and wanted to keep talking. I decided that it wasn’t going to go anywhere, so stuck to my guns.
We last spoke in July 2018. I had been thinking about her after hearing some of your stories and found her on Facebook this week. She looks happy, and she seems to have now settled down in her village and was wearing some sort of uniform. No indication of a farang. So I hope she has been able to settle back where she wanted to be and not having to dislike farangs in Jomtien.
By the way, I didn’t buy the condo, but have been back to Jomtien just before the pandemic. My friend Adam was selling his condo, and I was there to keep him company and of course, some great nights out on Walking Street. We are hoping to come back to Jomtien in January 2022 for another month of fun and games.
This story just demonstrates that some of the girls really don’t want to be there. I wish Nang the best of times. She left a very nice impression on me, and I am sure she’s doing what she has to do to feed her children.
