The beginning
Where did it all start? More to the point, why did it all start? It was in February 2000 and I had just come out of another long and arduous relationship of 10 years and I was 37 years old. My younger sister Daisy had just returned from a New Year in Thailand and I had met her in a small coffee shop in Harpenden, England and she raved about the land of smiles. “Steve, you’re single now and you have got to go there, it’s fantastic, the people are great and so friendly”. I being a loving brother just nodded and agreed and thought nothing more of it, but week after week she would call me and badger me about buying a ticket and booking the bloody holiday. Eventually, to shut her up more than anything I booked it for the August.
I went to my local travel agency and decided on a 2 week holiday, 3 days in Bangkok and 9 days in Pattaya, I got myself a brochure and some books on Thailand and starting reading up. Now for you who know what Pattaya is like and do not like it, my excuse was I was naïve and I did not know, for those of you who do not know what Pattaya is like, keep reading. Anyway I started to become a bit attached to the brochure and took it everywhere I went, I would read it sitting on the toilet, re-read it in bed, during my breaks at work and any spare time I would get. You could say that, that brochure and I became a bit of an item together. I would show to everyone who would look at it and then go and search out people who had not seen it, I became a boring fart with that brochure and people would walk the other way if they saw me walking towards them with it in my hand. I remember one particular person JR. I showed it too and he seemed quite interested and he flicked through the pages, I will admit I was not happy at him doing it as he was going a bit rough on it, yes! That’s how bad I got. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he said “wow! My sister has been there, Pre –bok” I thought, ‘Pre – Bok’, there’s no ‘Pre-bok’ in this brochure, as I knew every page and every word of every page, so I took it off him, “where the fuck, does it say Pre-bok?” I asked, “There” he pointed at a line, I read it and re-read it and read it again, “you stupid sod, it says Pre – book”, at that and reading it again himself we both pissed ourselves laughing.
As the weeks and months passed I gradually weaned myself off the brochure and started to buy holiday clothes and other little bits I would need for the holiday. I read books about Thailand and all the things to do and not to do, all about the known scams and culture of Thailand. On a very serious note, this is something I would truly recommend to any foreign traveler, no matter where they are going in the world, find out as much as you can, because believe me and I will show you in this book, it is so easy to get scammed and basically make yourself look bloody stupid in the country your visiting. Eventually the day came, for me to set off for terminal 1 at Heathrow airport and begin my journey and as you may have noticed, yes! I was going alone.
Ten years before I had planned a trip to America with a friend of mine, but at the very last minute he pulled out and I was stuck and had to go alone. The plan was to spend 3 weeks travelling around the states, anyway I got to New York and went to my hotel and from that day it all went downhill. I got into an argument with a fireman who wanted $25 from me for taking a picture of one of those very long fire engines, back in 1990 $25 was outrageous to ask for, so I told him to fuck off, the very same day I got locked in a McDonalds restaurant, because there was a shooting outside, not though anyone heard it or saw anything and to cap it off when I got back to the hotel, someone had stolen $1500 from the safe in my room and the hotel management was not interested in helping. I did all the usual tourist visits, Rockefeller building and the Empire State building twice, now for someone who suffers from vertigo, I thought I had been quite brave. But I hated it, I hated America, I hated New York and after 4 days I decided to return to the UK. The last thing that really turned the hate screw was when I decided to buy a Hamburger at the airport and they refused to sell me a burger without cheese, (I hate cheese as well), even though they had to physically put the cheese on by hand, they refused not to put cheese on, even after I spoke with the manager and explained I could not eat cheese and would pay extra not to have cheese, he just said “it can’t be done”. Oh yes, one last surprise my flight got delayed for 15 hours.
Anyway, now there I was sitting in departures waiting for my flight for Bangkok to board and there I was shitting my pants and talking to myself, why are you going? Why are you going alone? Are you stupid? I really did not want to go to Thailand and I was ready to do a runner and not board the plane, but it was too late, I knew it was too late, what could I do? I was fucked, and then the call came. I got up and started to queue, while I was in the queue all I kept hearing was American accents, hundreds of them and I thought ‘No please, I don’t want travel 12 hours in a plane surrounded by Americans’. I gave my boarding pass to the air hostess and she said “excuse me sir, this is the gate for San Francisco, your gate is over there”, I could have kissed her, married her, there and then on the spot, it was music to my ears, so embarrassed I apologized and sat back down and once again slipped into my own world of fear and despair. The flight to Bangkok was uneventful, long, but uneventful and I actually slept most of the way.
Now, if you have never been to Bangkok, here is another word of advice. Don’t wear winter clothing, it was August and cold in the UK when I left and when I arrived it was still August but very, very hot. The heat and the humidity hit you smack in the face as soon as you step off the plane, the only comparison I can think of is, a boxer being hit by Mike Tyson at his prime, the heat almost knocks you off your feet and wearing thick jeans and a thick wooly sweater doesn’t help the matter either. I tell you I must have left a snail trail of sweat all the way to immigration. Also, being a smoker and having gone 12 hours without a cigarette, I was quite desperate to have a ciggie, so I went to find the nearest ‘smoking room’, eventually I found one which was inhabited by 25 other smokers chain smoking and filling their lungs with nicotine, believe me although this was a glass plated room, you could not see inside from the outside or outside from the inside, there was that much smoke and with all smoking rooms, the air-conditioning or extraction fans didn’t work. I could have quite easily walked in one door and through the room out of the other without stopping and had my fill of the 12 hours of cigarettes I had missed out on. From that day to this, I rarely use them or I try and seek out ones that have very few people in them.
If you have ever been to immigration in Thailand, you will know that it’s not the quickest of places to pass through, in fact other than Sri Lanka and Mumbai, it’s one of the slowest I know. Don Mueng Airport, Bangkok was to hold me up quite a few times and make me almost miss many connecting flights, but I don’t know why and have never known why, but the first time I ever touched down in Thailand, I had this over whelming feeling I had come home, a feeling that no other country had ever given me and to this day, no other country ever has.
For legal reasons some of the names have been changed, to protect them from their girlfriends, wives and embarrassment.
All which has been written is true, though some would deny it. In hindsight I am not 100% proud of some of the things I did and would like to apologies now to those I hurt. My only excuse is I was going through a transitional period in my life, which took many paths and events to bring me to where I am today. Many people helped me see the error of my ways and many people helped me commit the bad things I did. No-one is perfect and although that is no excuse to treat people in a bad way, I believe that I had to pass through all these events to make me understand and realise that a Leopard can change his spots and become a better person. So I would like to say thank you to all those who helped.