My First Trip To Thailand

Before I start with my story I would like to say that English is my second language and I have no experience in writing stories so bear with me on this one.

It was the 15th of December and I was working in cold and dark Sweden, very little to do and extremely boring work which I had been doing for a long time. I made a call to the travel agency and booked a plane ticket to Thailand and after that I called my boss saying that after the 20th of December I would not come back to work until the 5th of February.

4th January, boarding the plane to Thailand, not really knowing what to expect from this trip, I basically just wanted to relax and have a good time in the sun.

5th January I land in Bangkok and the heat struck my face and I sprung out a big smile, I stayed in Bangkok for 4 days but not much to talk about since I really hated the town.

I booked a plane to Phuket and 10 days in a hotel from Bangkok, just to make sure nothing would go wrong since this was my first trip to Thailand and not really knowing anything about the country or the culture.

This is where it all started. The second night in Phuket I discovered Bangla Road and met a girl who was the most gorgeous thing I have ever seen. After spending 8 evenings with her since she never wanted to sleep over or spend the day with me I found her to be quite boring and broke it off, no bad feelings or anything as I explained exactly why I was breaking it off. Her "sister" who had been with us all evenings was more upset since she really liked me and tried to make me change my mind but to no avail.

The next day I broadened my horizons of the Phuket nightlife and discovered another street with bars which was called something like Sukhumvit Road (might be wrong), and was literally pulled into one bar by 2 girls without giving me any chance to fend them off. I ordered a Heineken to be polite and started talking with the girls for about 5 minutes. Their English were extremely limited as they only knew about 4 words…

After 5 minutes another girl came and basically pushed the other girls aside, showing a great smile to me and could speak better English than the rest. She told me that she had an aunt in Sweden (like all the other 40,000 tailors etc)… I asked where her aunt was staying she said she did not know, basically I did not believe her. She was not a stunner, the other girl I was with was a lot more beautiful but this girl had something else, she had a different type of vibe that just sucked me in.

I barfined her and we went to the hotel. When we were laying there watching TV I asked her if she wanted to stay with me for the rest of my stay. I had about two weeks left on my vacation and she agreed and stayed for the night.

We had a great time together and often we would go to the beach with all the other girls in the bar. I was of course the wallet. The first day they asked for money to go buy food (6 people) I gave 500 baht and off they went, when they came back they gave back 320 baht and started eating. I was very worried what having all these girls with me would cost, but they were extremely nice and did not waste my money for nothing. They bought what they needed and gave back the change.

On the third beach trip my girl was talking on the phone for a long long time while driving the motorcycle. I had no idea what it was about nor did I care. After a while one of the motorcycles stalled. I asked if they had gasoline in it they said yes (of course they didn't have any gasoline in it as we discovered later). While standing there looking over it my girl hands me the telephone saying someone wanted to talk with me. I start talking in English saying "hello?" And get replied back in Swedish asking me about her niece etc and that she was extremely worried about her. She explained that she did not know my girl was working as a BG in Phuket. Last time she saw her she was going down to Bangkok to start working as a waitress. Her family had hidden this from the aunt as they are all very afraid of her (she had the money in the family as she lives in Sweden and is married to a fairly successful man she met as she was working as a nanny or something like that).

If my girl hadn't slipped when the aunt asked her when she was going home saying "I will ask my friend when he is going back home and if I can come with him to Bangkok" then the aunt might have been in the dark still.

She asked me to take good care of her niece and I said of course. I don't think she believed me though. She also asked me to deliver some CDs to her. I asked where she lived and it turns out she lives in my neighbourhood …. Figure that.

Me and my girl had a really great time together and really hit it off. I am 26 and she is 23 so we are close in age and have the same interests. She never once said that famous "up to you" phrase and if she didn't want to do something she said no.

I explained my situation to her. I'm a young man working a normal construction job in Sweden. I'm not rich nor really motivated to aim higher. I am happy with my life as it is. I make enough money to support myself and do whatever I want (with some limits off course). Whenever she asked me to buy her a mobile phone or ring the bell I would just point at some old fat guy and say, if you want money or mobile phone or someone to ring the bell then you have to find someone like him. She then started laughing.

My last night in wonderful Thailand was a little sad. I had some great memories with all the girls from the bar from all our day tours and had made good friends with a woman selling flowers and when we left the bar for the last time to go to the hotel I really felt bad that I had to go home. I wanted to stay.

Me and my girl flew up to Bangkok as she was going home to her village somewhere close to Udon Thani and I said to her half jokingly that she should stay home for 6 months to 1 year so I could save money and take her with me to Sweden. She just laughed at me saying "I have no money, I only go home 2 weeks then I go back to work", all very honest about it.

I saw her brother for about 2 minutes at the airport as he was also going back with her but he was really really late to show up (yes it really was her brother, same last name and some other proof to show it was her brother and not her boyfriend).

On the plane home I suffered from nightmares that she was being beaten and taken advantage of by other men, really messing up my sleep.

Back home in Sweden on a Thursday after about being awake for 24 hours.

Friday came and her aunt called me. I drove to her apartment to deliver the records and we talked for about 4 hours. We also decided that I would bring my girl to Sweden as when the aunt last called her she was really depressed about me leaving (might be total BS but maybe it's true) and she wanted to come stay with me in Sweden.

I called my girl and told her to get her passport in order. After a couple days whining from me she finally went to the passport office and with some help from her aunt's adopted son's uncle (phuh they have way too many family connections that me as a Swede would ever want to have) she got her passport after 7 days.

I sent her 20,000 baht and explained what I wanted her to do with the money, go to Bangkok, buy medical insurance, get a visa, medical exam and all these things, and of course to buy warm clothes.

This Tuesday she was at the Swedish embassy to apply for a visa and they told her to come pick it up next Thursday.

I sent her another 60,000 baht for plane ticket and giving some money to her family who are raising her daughter and now I am just waiting until next Saturday when her plane is supposed to land.

I don't think I would have ever done this if her aunt did not live in Sweden and close to me. 80,000 baht is still a lot of money for most people in the western world. It's a lot of money for me and I would not depart from it unless I knew where to get it back if my girl decides to trick me.

Things have gone fast. We had 12 days together in Phuket and a month after I got home she is coming here to live with me for at least 3 months to see if we can make something out of it and hopefully it all works out.

In one month I will make another post to keep the ones interested updated on the situation.

The Swede

Stickman's thoughts:

Best of luck to you. I hope it works out well.