A Holiday Is Only A Holiday – So Enjoy It But Don’t Fall In Love

First visit to LOS had a fantastic welcome to the Dusit Thani in Pattaya with a glass of champagne on arrival and a beautiful sea-view room for the two of us. Yes I was pretty naïve (2 single guys, mid twenties), only booked 1 room to share not quite understanding or believing the stories I’d been told from the 1 person I worked with that had experienced Pattaya. Actually, 100% naïve and far too innocent and honest to be here with zero knowledge and only a halfwit for company.

So drinks finished, bags dumped and sea view appreciated for about ten seconds it was time for a walk around to find our bearings. The first 150 yards was serene, quiet and calm as we left the hotel, ventured down to the beachfront and began our walk along the promenade. Then came the first stretch of bars. It was only 6:00 PM and still light but the girls seemed keen for custom and it was a welcome change from the Turkish guys trying to drag me into their bars on my last vacation. Anyway our plan was hatched, we’d studied the maps and estimating around 1 hour to complete, we would walk down to Soi 6 (totally unaware of its reputation), then up to 1st road and back to the hotel having chosen our eating venue for the evening during the recce.

My name might be Fat Kev but it’s only a poker alias (I have lots of bad habits unfortunately, or fortunately as the poker paid for my last trip to Thailand), we were both footballers and quite fit and the ‘welcome handsome man,’ ‘hello sexy man,’ cries kept bellowing from the bars with brief whispers of ‘Fxxx me she was nice,’ and ‘did you see that?’ interjecting from the two of us. This was nothing like our home town or any of the cities nearby or even anywhere else I’d ever been in my life and my darkest skeletons were already fading into insignificance purely from the thoughts of what must go on here.

Finally we reached our return point ‘Soi 6’ and turned left. Little did I know this would be better described later as the point of no return. So, we moved up the street and it began to narrow with the girls swarming around us like bees to a honey pot (or money pot in this case). I don’t quite remember what I felt, fear, exhilaration, anticipation even but of what I had no idea.

‘What do we do,’ my friend asked.

‘Stand in the middle of the road and keep fucking walking,’ came my auto reply.

Naturally he let me take point and fell in behind like a good little soldier. If I’d had any idea of what I was supposed to do or even if I’d known they’d show me the way I might not have made it to the end of the street that day. But I was totally dumbfounded and out of my league so blinkers on I pushed forward and emerged victorious at 1st road albeit still carrying a girl that had taken the initiative and launched herself onto me some 20 yards earlier.

The walk back was more cautious, crossing the road to avoid anything that looked remotely like a bar and discussing our new plan. We didn’t actually have one. Neither of us had really believed the stories although I was certainly hoping they were true and now that they were true how to retract the ‘Well, I’m not shagging anything anyway’ statements that we’d both made, ‘It might not be safe.’ Actually I think we both knew why we’d come but who would give up first?

Two small town boys in the city of sin for two weeks, best friends even and still can’t admit to each other that we both came for one thing only.

Two nights we held out but on the 3rd when Man Utd. got beat and my friend being a bad losing Man U fan hit the shots, he couldn’t resist. We’d made a regular bar on Soi 8 where everyone was friendly and the girls left us alone when we said so but kept coming back or someone new would try 30 minutes later and occasionally we’d buy some of them a drink just out of courtesy and say thanks for the chat but that was all. I’d keep watching the nice looking girls get taken then lose interest when they’d gone but my friend’s time had come.

It was already late and he decided to hit the Jack Daniels. One of the remaining girls obviously spotted the weakness and was quick to latch on. Ten minutes later he’d disappeared without me noticing and now bar ugly was descending on me. I left and it turned out to be just at the right moment, as I walked into the hotel there was my friend at the counter, key in 1 hand and girl in the other.

‘Hey, what you up to?’ I got his attention.

‘Not in our room my friend,’ although she intimated she didn’t mind putting out for both of us as I stood my ground.

Unwilling to pay the prices at the Dusit for an extra room they both disappeared into the night and I retired alone safe in the knowledge that the next night I was getting something special for myself. I think her name was Mai.

At 5 AM the knock at the door suggested to me that he returned so I took the camera and thought I’d have a picture of him smiling with relief and obviously so I could remind him that he fell first. I opened the door and clicked before I noticed the attendant and the stench. ‘Where the fxxx have you been and where are your jeans?’

‘Have no idea where she took me but it wasn’t nice and I’ve left my jeans in the back of the bus cos they stunk.’

‘So do you.’

Night four, second room booked for the remainder of the holiday, a lot of piss taking out of my friend, shit, shaved and showered, fed and watering process in motion watch out Mai here I come. ‘She’s not in,’ my friend laughed with miss not so beautiful from the night before welded to his side.

‘Neither is your brain my friend, are you really serious about that,’ his heart of gold wouldn’t allow him to let her down. Sucker.

Then in she walked, not Mai, a new girl or at least one that hadn’t been in before. She was unbelievable. The girl that was talking to me noticed her and called her over ‘Joy.’ She said to her. Then looked at me and said, ‘This sitter Joy.’ Sitter?

She just said hi and walked on. I was in love. She was beautiful. ‘Sitter.What does that mean?’ I asked.

‘Sitter, Sitter, Mother, Father, Sitter,’

‘Ah, Sisssster, she’s never been here before.’

‘Her boyfriend go home latt night.’

‘Ah, OK,’

Boyfriend? What does that mean? She’d gone directly behind the bar which was handy because we always sat right at the bar, does she have a full-time boyfriend? Maybe she only works behind the bar? I waited for my opportunity, ordered a drink when she was nearest and made my move, ‘I’ve never seen you here before.’

‘I just get back from Bangkok.’

‘Working?’

‘Yes.’

Yes, fxxxing yes, her sister just told me … What’s going on?

‘Your sister told me you were saying goodbye to your boyfriend.’

‘Pfff,’ followed by the drink, ‘60 baht.’

OK, that went well and she walked over to talk to her sister. She speaks very good English though I thought.

Soon she was back but at our side of the bar just brushing past me and touching my neck as she went, then directly behind the bar and straight over to me, ‘When you get here?’

‘Friday.’

The usual questions and answers followed. Then she told me she had just said goodbye to her boyfriend and that she was going to marry him, that he slept with other girls and she didn’t mind cos it meant she didn’t have to sleep with him.

I knew they were keen to move to the UK for a so called better life but how could that be a better life. Sucker No.2 welcome to the party. We talked for ages and I was besotted, paid the bar fine, went out playing pool, back to the room. Wow, I was hooked! I spent the rest of my holiday with her and obviously with my friend most of the time too but I had been caught. Luckily, although I was ready to promise the world, I am also a realist and knew it wasn’t possible and strangely enough she never asked. We’d already exchanged phone numbers and when she asked for my address I was tentative but gave it anyway thinking she can’t do anything and I knew I was looking for a new place anyway.

When I got home she rang me almost every night and at Christmas she sent me gifts, just a few small things but I was really shocked and still besotted. Always she would ask when I was coming back and I just kept saying I didn’t know, my job had changed and I needed to get my feet under the table first.

Slowly the phone calls dwindled, then stopped. After about a month of nothing she called me again and said she was marrying her boyfriend and would be in the UK by June (2 months away) and she wanted to come and see me. I just wished her the best and told her that wasn’t right and she couldn’t. Finally she said what everyone warns you about, ‘If you say you’ll come back, I won’t marry him, I’ll wait for you. If you can send me some money I’ll stop working and go back to my home and wait.’

Alarm bells. I really didn’t want to hear that, I wanted to tell her I was going back in November which was now arranged but didn’t. In following chapters I’ll introduce my later comrade in arms, Gavin, the sceptical, Lady Boy loving, Robot Programming, Thailand guru who consistently told me for the previous 6 months that this was coming. ‘She’s spent too much time, effort and money on you to let it go my son, believe me it’s coming.’ I actually hated it and I would have considered saying yes if I hadn’t just bought a new house and had far too much debt on me already.

Unfortunately it hurts to know you’ve been played but being thousands of miles away keeps it real and sites like this are a godsend if you’re in the situation I was back then. I only think if she’d held out until November (which she was still there, still unmarried, when I arrived back in Pattaya) and Gavin wasn’t there to bug me, she might have had me convinced.

Still a holiday is a holiday and I loved every minute of it.

All the best to you first timers, it’s an experience you’ll never forget.