This is basically Thailand in a nutshell.
I haven’t told anyone of this before, but I think it is appropriate here.
I spent a whole summer vacation in Thailand by myself, as I wanted to get away from everything and drown my sorrows in booze and hookers. I was staying in Pattaya, which has a lot of mongers and ex-pats, and of course tons of bars and Thai girls straight from Issan.
There was this local bar sports bar where I used to hang out every night. I meet this 40ish Brit there. He and his wife were separated, so he had packed up his bags and left for Thailand to get away from it all. Over a couple of weeks we became decent friends; we would hang out and shoot the piss every night. He had saved up a pretty sum (about £ 200,000) and wanted to enjoy life. I remember him to be a very outgoing and happy guy. Of course he was sad about the separation, but he looked onward as he wanted to settle in Thailand for good and open up a bar.
He had been there for 5 months, and had already found himself a Thai girl that he was seeing on a regular basis. It came to the point where she moved in with him and he was happy as a pig in sh!t. One night he came running to the bar I was at. He was happy as hell because he had spoken to his wife back in the UK and they had decided that they would give it another go. He was in the clouds, and was really looking forward to meeting his wife and 2 year old kid again. He had bought plane tickets and was scheduled to leave Thailand for good in a week’s time.
I told him that his Thai gf might not like it and that he should leave for Bangkok ASAP and not tell her. But he said he had it all worked out. He had given his Thai gf £10,000 (which is sh!tloads of money in LOS) and explained everything to her. I told him that he was making a mistake and the he should leave now because you never knew how a Thai gf would act. He patted me on the back, told me not to worry, bought me a drink and went home.
That was the last time I saw him alive.
Two days later I saw a picture of his apartment in the newspaper. It felt like the whole world came crashing down when I read the article. According to the article had been going through some serious depression for several months and decided he couldn’t take it anymore, so he jumped from the 6th floor of his apartments building. There was even a picture of his Thai gf ‘crying’ her eyes out, but she was referred to as his ‘wife’.
Now tell me, why would a guy that was in cloud nine the night before jump out a building for no apparent reason?
That night when I was at the bar, the bartender, who was an American ex-pat, took me aside and told me to pack my sh!t and get the hell out of dodge as fast as my feet could take me. He told me that the Brit’s gf really had a Thai husband and that they wanted to get hold of his (the Brit’s) money. According to him, this was usual in Pattaya and he showed me several similar stories in the newspapers about guys committing suicide by taking a leap from a balcony. He said that none of those things were suicides, but rather the Thai gf deciding that she wanted money. He also said that the Brit’s gf had been around the bar with several Thai men, looking for me and advised me strongly to get the hell out of Thailand.
I wrote out a long letter explaining everything to the British embassy, gave them my contact info and got on the first plane out of there. As far as I know the case is closed as another suicide.
