Stickman Readers' Submissions October 1st, 2011

Tales From The Village : The Case Of The Gold Snatch

The holiday started with going straight to our house in the village. The trip to the provincial town costs nearly 4,000 baht but is well worth it when you have young children and you can get the driver to stop any time you want.

Whilst I was away the only Englishman in the village died. I can only get out of the wife that he had no lungs so I think he had lung cancer. Last year when having a beer with him he certainly looked rough but never dreamed that he was probably
dying. He had the occasional smoke and he had moved out to Thailand about 2 years ago. I now suspect he knew he was dying and moved his family back there before the inevitable. He leaves a wife and 2 luk kreung children in the village.
No drinking partner for me any more.

He Clinic Bangkok

Whilst there we bought a 3 rai parcel of land right behind our house for 360,000 baht and a further 3 rai of land was also on offer for 270,000 baht a short walking distance away so we bought that too. The wife wanted the
next bit too as it was low lying and she wants a lake, so after some negotiation we bought the next 0.2 rai for 20,000 baht so the wife can have her lake to fish in and to water the crops. Wife now happy as we have now doubled our land
holdings. 5 acres of land, wow, can’t wait to be a farmer especially as farang aren’t allowed to work so wife will have to do all of it! To think the wife owned half a rai of land and a bamboo hut before she met me. Now
she has a proper house, a car and land. No wonder most Thai women in the provinces want to go down to Pattaya to seek their fortune.

After 2 weeks in the village we went down to Pattaya for a weekend. My wife has a friend in Pattaya who has an English husband and we were invited to spend the weekend with them. Great I thought, a cheap weekend away visiting Walking Street
and having a good time.

We arrive at the house after being unable to find it because the wife cannot give me proper directions. After a few heated arguments she manages to get her friend to come and meet us. We are in the car park on second road and she is the other side on
beach road! Anyway eventually her friend after more phone calls comes along to pick us up from Mike's Shopping Mall and off we go following her car all the way past third road to one of the gated communities that proliferate there on the
far side. I have only met the English husband once before, he has retired and they have bought a house there. About the second sentence he says to me is “I don’t allow alcohol in the house”. Well that set the tone. We also
weren’t allowed to use the air conditioning. Well we went in to Pattaya to Big C but I didn’t get a chance to go to a gogo or even a bar. What a fantastic trip this was turning out to be. Next time it will be a hotel and visit him
during the day only.

CBD bangkok

He is the only farang I know that married a Thai for her money! She already has a house in the same gated community and has a thriving business in Pattaya as well. He hardly has any money at all and is not enjoying his retirement. She thought
she was marrying a rich farang but discovered the truth too late.

The following day we went down to the beach and stayed under the obligatory umbrellas for a couple of hours, then we returned to the far side of third road and went to a market to get some food. After the wives had purchased food we were
strolling back to the car when a motorbike was driving behind us over some waste ground when suddenly my 3-baht gold necklace was wrenched from my neck. I put my head down and just managed to add some pressure luckily there wasn’t a pillion
passenger and the necklace fell down and was hanging by my neck. I grabbed the Buddha with my left hand which was free and the necklace stayed with me and not the thief. The necklace broke at one of the links and not the actual link between the
ends otherwise I think I would have lost it. Phew! A very lucky escape and I almost lost over 75,000 baht. I had a nasty scratch down the back of my neck but apart from that survived unscathed. The rider on the motorbike was dressed in black with
black helmet and visor pulled down so would never have been able to identify him again. We didn’t bother to report it to the Police as would have wasted hours with no evidence as no-one got the number plate of the bike. I have now vowed
to myself that I must never wear gold in Pattaya again.

Later my wife took me to a massage shop, she had a head massage and I opted for the oil massage. I was massaged legs and back but she kept away from the front torso presumably after having been warned off by the wife. It was very relaxing
but no good with the wife 2 feet away the other side of a curtain! My first massage after going to Thailand for the last 8 years.

We went back the gold shop in our provincial town and the Chinese proprietor said it was not safe to wear in Pattaya, but it is safe to wear in our provincial town. I have bought a 5-baht necklace to replace the damaged necklace but am now
scared to wear it as would my neck or the gold break first!

wonderland clinic

In an earlier submission I wrote about the eldest brother in law and his beau in Khon Kaen. Apparently that romance fizzled out over the sin sot of 100,000 baht and 1 baht of gold but he has been talking to a new lady by phone who
also lives in Khon Kaen, a friend of his nephew’s wife. Anyway since we got back from Thailand, he went over to see this lady and married her without even having met her. Apparently she is 25 years old and has a child by her ex-husband
but the child is looked after by the ex-husbands mother. The sin sot was 20,000 baht. My brother in law told his wife to be that he farmed 50 rai. As he actually doesn’t own any land or farms much at all and
has no money, I am wondering how long this marriage is going to last and if I will even meet the lady next year. However she may be getting into a better predicament than she is at the moment as she will have a generous farang brother in law.
I can’t believe I missed a Thai marriage by about 2 weeks. However, I probably saved a lot of money by not being there.

Well that’s the anecdotes from this year’s trip to Thailand.

P.S. Apparently the brother in law's new wife (so we have heard through his nephew’s wife) has been complaining that her new husband wants sex too much. At the moment they are doing it five times in the night and twice more during
the day in the middle of the corn fields. What do they put in the water, he is about 45 years old and certainly cannot afford Vitamin V! It looks like she will be around next year with a new baby after all!

Stickman's thoughts:

That sounds like the usual trials and tribulations you get with some Thai families!

Of course a day out with the Thais and 3, or even 4 generations can be great fun if you're genuinely accepted by the family and not seen as merely a provider.

nana plaza