Wearing a Thai and suiting yourself

By Seymour Cumming

I met this guy called Hank the other day in a bar on Loh Kroh. He'd been here a year and was pretty disillusioned with Thailand. He said he had come to Thailand looking for a wife but was 'gonna write to the tourist authority and ask for the money back'. Here's his story...

"Well, first there was Dao. Met her in a bar in Patong. She came right home with me that night, told me I had to pay a 'bar fine', heck I was kinda drunk so I just paid the drinks bill and we left. In the morning she asked for sum money, so I gave her a little sumfing. We lasted a week, me paying her 'a little sumfink' every day 'til I realised I ain't no sucker and dumped her.

Then there was Oo, she was this massage gal who ended up giving me a 'special body massage'. Hot damn. She didn't speak much English but she was a good gal I reckon. She kept telling me 'she want man good take care her', and 'no want lich man, only man love me true and proper'. Soon we was talking about the future and she's wanting a house and gold and money to start a bidness and a car... damn, I figured it's the most expensive massage ever.

Next I met a gal called 'Air', never did find out her real name, but soon we's living together in a guesthouse here in Chiang Mai, though she never told her mama. Said she was a college grad, but she never had a job. After awhile we was gonna git married, but turns out I gotta pay her mama a million baht bridal dowry. She moved out the day after I said I ain't gonna pay for no woman.

So I decided to go use one of them agencies in Bangkok and that's how I met Em. She was only 22, and I'm 55 but it was love at first sight. We were married in a week. Then we went on honeymoon and she brings along her mama, who don't speak English, and kid, which she got from another marriage. Turns out they followed us everywhere and I had to pay for ev'ry fin. She kept asking me when I'm gonna take her back to America, and always asking fir money cause she gotta take care her family. We got divorced.

Well after that I met Or on a beach in Pattaya. Says she was on holiday from Udon Thani or sum place up country. And after a week together I figured this country gal is the one for me an' she's pestering me so we go ahead and get married. Turns out she has a daughter she never told me about, but I figured she kinda cute so I ain't bothered.

Her brother is in real estate and finds this good deal, so what the heck, a family gotta have a house, and it cost only ten thousand bucks so we buy the thing, except it gotta be in her name. Anyways, I had ta go back home take care a some bidness and check up on mama. When I come back she's gone, house is sold, no one in the village seen her. Turns out she had a husband, who was her brother, and family sum place else. Aw shucks!

By now I'm gittin pretty tired of all this. So I stay away from all these bars and discos and stuff, but there's this real sweet shy gal at the reception in the hotel where I once stayed. She nevah asked me fir money or anything, so I started calling her, and sending lots of SMS messages and all, and soon she's calling me ev'ry day asking 'you no miss me darling', but ev'ry time we go out on a date she gotta bring her sister along. And each time it's a different sister, and I'm wondering when I'm ever gonna even get to kiss this gal. Darn it, one night I had enough and just went for one of them special massages and she kinda found out and that was that.

Finally I met Rose. Man she treated me special. And the thing was with this one, she wasn't in a hurry for sex, so I figured maybe that was a good thing. Wouldn't even get naked with me, but man did she have a body, must've had some silicone I reckon. Then one day we both get pretty plastered and she asks if I really want her, and hot damn I'm feeling horny, she keeps mumbling sumpfink about 'a surprise' and 'don't angry me'. Well, turns out she's a ladyboy! Hell, how 'bout that. Damn transvestite. Man I was mad! Now that sure wasn't in the brochure! Think I'll go sum place else like the Philippines or Vietnam."

Investigative-journalist-at-large, Seymour Cumming has previously been a used car salesman, fruit picker, 'shock jock' and newsroom war correspondent. He has written for Farmer's Weekly, Nyet!, Chessworld and Cross-stitching Magazine.

He's been to more than 50 countries, some for less than a day, and is currently working on a travel novel, but he's written the author's biog, and not progressed much beyond that. His controversial commentary on ex-pat life in Thailand appears in Chiang Mai City Life Magazine.