Tears Not Shed…

I have not been to Thailand for more than ten years so if you are looking for the latest info you won’t find it here. I left Thailand in such a way that I would never be able to return, nothing major just enough of a jibe against Thai face of some minor Mafia types with police connections that I am sure they are waiting for me if I ever appear on any of the Police or Immigration databases (which include almost real-time hotel registrations of foreigners). I did this quite deliberately because I knew there would always be the temptation to return and repeat past misdeeds, the intoxicating Thai sexual energy that is so intense that I would melt if I ever met up with any of the three past girlfriends (one for twelve years (J), one for a year and the last for seven years (H) even though time and age is now very much against them – though it is even more against me.

I am quite internet savvy and am recently “retired” at 66, have plenty of time on my hands. I had already tracked down J, some years ago, found that she had married a Scandinavian type but had not moved there. There were some wedding photos online, showing a totally ruined woman – all the bullshit she came out with coalesced in her face, the mad rage in her eyes. I’d taken her to the UK a few times and other than a few male friends, no-one had really liked her – she had an evil look in her eyes that turned people off, I think. In her favour, at nineteen when I first met her she had a stunning sexuality and the tightest pussy I have ever come across, absolutely addictive. And cheekbones to die for. This was 1986 and I was 29.

I was really gutted when I finished with her, she picked up a Thai boyfriend in one of my absences and was not amused when I cut off the flow of money – no way I was going to support his whisky habit. The final insult, an extended family gathering at her country retreat (yes, paid for by me but only loose change as I got the Thai prices on the land and building) where she showed off her devotion to the Thai man by f..king him in her aunty’s wooden shack that was at the far extreme of the site. One of her younger cousins had tipped me off but she thought it was another one who spoke good English and apparently nearly killed her after I left. I was basically in the middle of the countryside so could not tell her I knew what had happened until I had got on the bus back to Bangkok which involved a motorcycle trek to the main road. As soon as I was alone at the back of the bus I burst into tears, which must’ve have amused the Thais and it took most of the four-hour trek to recover myself. If I had told them that I knew their secrets before getting to Bangkok, I am pretty sure they would be so outraged that they would have torn me limb from limb.

I had definitely had the best years of her life, a minor consolation, but I was mentally wrecked by the experience but did have work to concentrate on (I was able to work mostly in Thailand with return trips to the UK to sort things out a few times a year, not much internet then if any so I was very lucky in that respect – I also had some property interests that were doing well). J had no idea that the flow of money that came into Thailand was only a small percentage of my income – I think she later found out because in my occasional phone calls to her there was a boiling rage to her tone; her new husband had a retirement income she could consume in a month but lived in a rented apartment in Farangland and had few savings. The Thai boyfriend consumed all her excess income and would not let her move away to work abroad, fearing he might never see her again and actually have to get a job (reading between the lines).

Luckily, I had completely burnt her out of my mind with an excess of alcohol and loose women (both of which were absurdly cheap due to the collapse of the Thai baht) and rather enjoyed taking the piss by exaggerating my fiscal success in the West which she could have no part of. Then I had a one-year relationship that was doomed to fail almost from the beginning, sexy young woman but a mental wasteland and lazy to the point that I actually had to clean the apartment – she reckoned I should pay a maid! She liked to disappear for half the month but I did not really care and enjoyed my explorations of Soi Cowboy (she turned up unexpectedly twice and caught me with different women). Eventually, she stopped turning up and I changed apartment. I have not found her on the internet and she never really sparked any feelings greater than sexual lust but was marginally cheaper than pay-as-you-go.

Some time later I ended up doing two weeks in Pattaya and two weeks in Bangkok, staying at cheap hotels rather than renting an apartment. There was the occasional excursion to Chiang Mai (never found anyone worth having sex with) and visa runs to Manila or Phnom Penh. When I made it to 46 I found a 25 year-old go-go dancer in Pattaya who had unbelievably beautiful eyes (she looked more Filipina than Thai) and marvellously serene temperament… and a long, long list of red flags, which I had assiduously stuck to and thus avoided any serious relationships with Thai women for many years. My experiences with beautiful women in Manila suggested that time was running out for me and many Thai bargirls took one look at me and refused to have anything to do with me, my indifference tipping them off to my knowledge.

To be honest, I can’t quite understand why I did not dump H after a couple of weeks rather than persuading her to quit the bar and come live with me in Bangkok (turned out she was booked up with past amours for their future holidays and she rather enjoyed telling them over the phone that she was not available, at least one of them accusing her of ruining his vacation). By then I had sold most of my property and business in the UK, just had my own house which was rented out so ended up doing 24/7 with H for seven years, with some visits to the UK – she had actually bloomed under my care and no-one could believe I had snared such a lovely creature. Well she was lovely on the surface with those unbelievable eyes, fine cheekbones and thick mane of raven hair and I only saw her go into a rage once – when she found out her Thai “husband” had found a new girlfriend…

What she failed to realise was that I understood much more Thai than I spoke and had soon sussed that there was a Thai man in the background and I even knew his name and what he looked like. For some reason – intoxication with her beauty and charm, I think – I did not dump her but played the fool, arranging things so that the Thai man had neither access to money nor sex – that is causing a massive loss of face, the inevitable consequence was violence. About seven years down the line – I guess actually revealing himself in a violent manner would have let me into the great secret, another loss of face – I noticed a panicked expression on H’s face and listened carefully to her phone conversation, such was the loss of face for the Thai nation that a Mafia hitman had agreed to execute me for free!

She was suddenly keen to move from Bangkok to Chiang Mai but it seemed rather pointless to me, the miscreants would follow us there and the problem would be repeated. After a rather nervous day when I expected to be attacked at any moment when out walking, the problem of my imminent demise was shelved for the moment; she had persuaded them that it was much better to steal all my money first (overheard conversation) – good luck with that, the only banks she knew about had minimal dosh in them, the real money was offshore and only accessible over the internet (which was accessed via my phone over 3G rather than the apartment’s hackable wifi). The big problem, the amount of time, effort and money unseen forces might put into my fiscal ruin and their expectation of an exponential return. And what would happen if they did not succeed? H had dug herself a large hole consisting of the lies she had told the Thais to keep them at bay, regarding the Thai husband’s lack of sex and money – on more than one occasion he stood outside the apartment building, bellowing Isarn oaths.

As might be imagined, I was rather pissed off with this state of affairs, although it was mildly exhilarating to wake up in the morning and… still be alive! So I called her out on the Thai boyfriend and threats of my imminent demise (not mentioning the fiscal larceny as the thought of it momentarily kept the devils in check). Another thing she did not realise was that she had a tell when she lied, her eyes slid leftwards, but I did not give her the chance to lie and moved on to the crazed suggestion that we should get married and move to the UK as soon as she got a visa. She had a much better idea of my wealth than J and had been previously keen on this idea (not sure what the ultimate objective was as she knew I was clever with money and could make it disappear) but she was not too keen – with my knowledge of her secrets (a cardinal sin in Thailand) and that if we sneaked out we probably would never be able to come back, unless she had a few suitcases full of dosh for the Thai boyfriend who probably was not willing to wait a few decades for me to die of old age. I think he was ten years my junior and many years loss of face had already aged him by a couple of decades, he could only keep going by constantly indulging in rice whisky.

There was no enthusiasm for an easy escape but I had already booked a short visa run to KL for us and AirAsia were doing one way to London for not a lot of money at the time so I said that I had a few things to do in Blighty and would go alone this time as I could not get her a visa that quickly. A few days later she began to panic and wanted to come to the UK but it was too late, I had made the offer and part of my mind had already closed down. And that was it for us. I knew the Thai boyfriend would close in once she was alone and she had run out of excuses for not getting him money.

Sometime later I learnt that she had gone back to work in Pattaya (I did phone her occasionally) and had a new guy who wanted to take her to Farangland. Visa problems prevented that for a while. I did visit Thailand two times without telling her but my heart wasn’t really in it and towards the end of the second trip I realised I was being followed around by her Thai boyfriend (who amazingly had managed to do a drug run to New Zealand previously – overheard phone conversation) and now sported a shiny new motorcycle. I fast exited to KL and Angeles City but found my heart was no longer in the bar scene and did not bother barfining any women.

So that was the end of my Asiatic adventures. To be honest, the kind of young women I was interested in were not interested in me (I deliberately obscured the patina of wealth) and the other options seemed rather pointless in comparison to past exploits. I expected to be either depressed or tearful but I was neither, relief at still being alive the predominant emotion! I kept myself busy with a small business enterprise in Blighty but it was only marginally successful in comparison to past efforts – my general feeling was that I had run out of luck, finally (I have been rather lucky in the past, Thai women aside).

I have not spoken to H for ten years but did look on the internet several times but could not find her… or rather the Facebook profiles I saw with similar names did not look like her. Recently, dementia or something found me muttering I wish I had H with me – how bloody stupid can you get and I had another look on Facebook. There was an early profile that had the right farang location for the new boyfriend but the beautiful woman I knew was not in the photo, the mesmerising eyes were absent (and they were always more intense in photos or videos, and I often told her she could have been a movie star). A couple of prominent moles on her face were in the same position so I went through the list of her friends and found a cousin with the right name but barely recognisable, twelve years on from when I last saw her. From there I found a lot of her family, some of the  cousins grown up into marvellous young women (and good luck to them), an aunty seemed to have gone from forty to seventy (Covid?)… of course H kept her family updated with each new profile she created so I could see some of what she had been up to – trips to Farangland with different foreigners, working in Pattaya bars, etc.

Some of the profiles used her Thai language name, others had slightly different wording to her name – I had actually landed on one of the profiles ages ago and could not find anything in the face that I could recognise so dismissed it out of hand. I think the pattern they show is that she has some success with farang (possibly 3,000 cocks in ten years!) but always had to run back to the Thai man with some dosh who possibly has banned her from spending more than a couple of months with a farang. I do think there were a few moments when if I had acted on the marriage thing and got her to the UK, things could have worked out – even though that ignores multiple red flags and goes against all the current evidence.

I will not be creeping about on Facebook any more, it has left me rather upset at the lost possibilities and my own inability to find anyone worthwhile; the woman I lived with for seven years simply does not exist anymore and I have to accept some responsibility for that. At my age I am not going to get anywhere near someone like H or J in their prime – they don’t really exist in the bar scene anyway and have almost overwhelming options in the internet age. I might do one last Asiatic run, excluding Thailand for obvious reasons – you never know with Asia, what might happen next!

PS  In delving into the internet I did come across one instance where H might have married some elderly farang who died shortly afterwards, not one hundred percent sure on that! She was an absolutely marvellous creature but also underneath it all not very nice (to be polite) – I seem to be having some kind of delayed (by a decade) nervous breakdown as I write this! I really don’t understand it at all! So much waste! Some more delving on the internet (stupid boy!), revealed the most recent photo, Pattaya soi 6 I think, her somewhat emaciated body in a school girl uniform with a ruined whisky face – posted by an obese German in his seventies, saying he was looking for a birthday treat but would not take this one as she had had too many men! I actually felt offended for her even though it is a thought I have had about many women working the neon in the past but would never post it or say it out loud. My feeling when I finished with her was that she would never change and she seems to be locked into repeating the same cycle endlessly.

The author of this article can be contacted at : tearsnotshed@gmail.com