My Thai Story II

by Guy Lilburne

  I had really got stuck into writing ‘Cocktails & Dreams’ an exciting story about a serial killer on the loose in Phuket. I loved the book and the months just flashed past as I was writing it. Daz and Nang had sorted out her visa and she came over to the UK. They got married at Stafford Registry Office on 29th September 2011. It was a great day and on Monday 2nd October we all flew out to Thailand and they got married all over again in Khon Kean. That was a great day too. I managed to finish ‘Cocktails & Dreams’ while I was out in Thailand and we did a great photo shoot for the book cover. I always get so excited when I start a new book and when I finish it. The big bit in the middle is always a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride. I enjoy it, but I’m always happy when it’s all over, at least until the next time. Anyway I got back to England and went as usual to my office at Cannock Police station and guess what? You guessed it. I was told that I had been transferred back to Stafford while I was away. They wanted me to set up another ‘Crime Review’ team. I guess that suited me really, I liked Stafford, I liked the police station and I could walk to work if I wanted too. Cocktails & Dreams was published in November and went straight to number one in the Asia book charts. Life was good, but my heart lay in Thailand and somehow I was still waiting for my journey to be complete and my life to start. I just knew that I would find the happiness that I was seeking in Thailand. A happiness that had eluded me all of my entire life in England.

  I am right up to date now. It was the 1st December 2011. It was cold and dark outside. I had just got 12 months left to work in the police - actually that was only 190 working days if I took off rest days, bank holidays, and annual leave. 2012 would be a big year for me. I had just started writing my new book called ‘The Flower Girl’ and, as always, I was really excited about the story and already I loved the new characters. Maybe it is because it was dark outside or maybe because it was the end of another year, but I was feeling a bit lonely and a bit sad. I think that I was missing Rattanawalee and I know I was missing Thailand.

  Chapter 10 - My last Christmas in England

  Christmas 2011 and it was my last one in England and, just like the previous few years, it hadn’t been a great one. Once again I found myself alone. I drank a bottle of brandy and went back to bed. Oh well, another Christmas over with New Year much the same. I had been waiting for 2012 to come around for so long and at last it finally arrived in the form of a grey, wet, overcast day. I celebrated New Year’s Day the same way that I had celebrated Christmas day, alone and drinking a bottle of brandy. It was only the next day when I started to get excited, 2012 was really here and that meant I would be living in Thailand before the year was out. Thank Buddha! I realised that I would soon have to start to put things into place for my big move to ‘The Land of Smiles’.

  I looked on the internet for information about Retirement Visa’s to Thailand. The cost was about £125 and I fitted all the criteria, so there didn’t seem to be much of a problem there. But it was too soon just yet to apply for one. I put my house up for sale on Monday 17th January 2012 for the reduced price of under £200,000. I’m in no rush to sell because it means I will have to find somewhere else to live until I finally finish in the police, but on the other hand it will be nice to get the place sold. On Monday 23rd January I sold my car; I just didn’t need it anymore because I was living and working in Stafford, so I could walk to work. To be honest I just liked the idea of selling off all my stuff. It felt as if, bit by bit, I was cutting all the ties that were keeping me in England. It was also the Chinese New Year - The Year of The Dragon and the Buddhist year of 2555. I had a good feeling about 2012. Everything that I had been dreaming of and planning for was finally coming together. Occasionally I would have a doubt sweep across my mind. But it was just the odd moment of doubt and all I had to do was remind myself of how miserable and lonely my life had been. No, there was no doubt, I was going to have a happy life in Thailand and now it wasn’t very far away.

  Things moved fast and, on Tuesday 31st January 2012, I accepted an offer on the house. I felt that I had reached the point of ‘No Return’ once I had agreed to accept the offer. I expected the completion date to be early April. The dream I had had for so long now seemed to finally all be coming together. But I asked myself, was I being brave or just being reckless?

  On a totally separate issue; I had had a great idea for a new book. It was called ‘Graham, just one Shade!’ and I was making myself laugh just thinking about it. It’s romantic, rude and funny. I was still writing ‘The Flower Girl’ and, of course, this book. I’d just sold my car and house, so by April I would be homeless and I had to sort out a visa and end my business affairs in the UK. Do you think I had enough on my plate?

  I had bought a calendar for my office wall and starting on 1st January, I had been crossing off each day. I had already crossed off Bank Holidays and Rest Days and Annual Leave days but after a couple of weeks I just had to start again. Why? I hear you ask. Well the calendar that I had bought was scenes from Ireland. I like Ireland and I thought this would be a nice calendar to have on my wall, but to be honest, it was just depressing me too much. The photos were all dark and gloomy, wet and windswept with grey stone buildings and rocky cliffs. I was crossing off the days, waiting for retirement. But this was making me feel really sad. The photos were just so depressing, so I just had to get rid of it and start again. Now the calendar I had was of beautiful tropical beaches. Blue seas and skies, palm trees and sunshine. It was so much better. Two of the photos in the calendar were of Thailand beaches and I had been to both of them.

  Chapter 11 - 2012 was now well under way

  It was 1st March. In six weeks from 1st March, I would be flying to my beloved Thailand and I really was counting down the days. I hope that you remember right at the beginning of this book that I told you about Rattanawalee or Aa as she liked to be called. Well it was 18 months since we started chatting on the internet and nearly 12 months since we had actually met the previous April, when we had spent about a week together.

  We still spoke every single day and we were both getting excited about meeting up again in the April. I really liked Aa, but I think it was important that we spent time together to see how we really felt about each other. I remembered the previous year when I was bored in Sakon Nakhon, where Aa and her family came from. I had told her that I could not see myself ever living there. This April I would be spending everyday with Aa. She was actually due to arrive in Bangkok the day before I arrived there. I had already pre booked some hotels in Bangkok, Sakon Nakhon, Chiang Mai, Hua Hin and Udon Thani. We would be doing a fair bit of travelling, because I wanted to have a look at properties when I was there. I had always liked Phuket, but I hadn’t ruled out living in any of the above mentioned places, except maybe with the exception of Sakon Nakhon. I didn’t know if Aa realised how much was riding on that April. Spending the whole month together would make or break our relationship. One way or another it could seal the course of our future. I thought Aa was a wonderful person. She was funny and charming and very beautiful. I had thought about a future with her on many, many occasions and I really did think that she would be good for me. I wanted to settle down and have a normal happy life and I thought Aa was the right person with which to do that. I certainly didn’t want to become like one of the expat characters I have written about many times in my other books. You know, the guys who spend all their time propping up a bar all day, every day and spend their entire pension on beer and bar girls. They arrive and make a big splash but, as soon as their money runs out, so do the bar girls.

  Anyway, I was really excited about seeing Aa again and, I have to say that she was taking a big gamble on me too, because she hadn’t renewed her contract with Siam Health so that she could stay in Thailand and spend the time with me. I hoped we had a future together, but only time would tell.

  It seemed to take forever for April to finally come around. Working in the police was really getting me d
own and, although I was counting the months until retirement, each day seemed like a month. Still, I was very excited about going back to Thailand and seeing Aa again. April very slowly dragged its way onto the calendar. On Friday the of 13th April I flew with Swiss Air from Manchester, changed at Zurich and arrived at Bangkok at around 3pm Thai time. Aa had already finished her contract in Bahrain and should have met me at the airport. But, just like the last arranged meeting at an airport, it just didn’t happen and I was in a taxi on the way to The Chatrium Hotel - a 5 star hotel on the banks of the Choapraya River. When my mobile rang it was Aa telling me that she was at the airport and asking me where I was. Anyway, a couple of hours later we were both together in the hotel and we had a wonderful time together for the next four days. We stayed in the hotel a lot to avoid the water throwing that is the Songkhran festival, but when it was all over we ventured out and had a few trips along the river. We also visited the floating market and looked around some shopping malls. I bought Aa a gold and diamond ring on impulse, and I don’t think that either of us knew if it was an engagement ring or not! It was a beautiful ring and I just wanted to buy it for her. Certainly, over the last few months especially, we had been talking about our hopes and dreams for the future, what we both wanted out of life and we seemed to want the same things….Love and Happiness! Several months ago, when we were talking about the possibility of getting married if everything worked out Ok. Aa had told me that her papa had mentioned an amount of money that he would want to allow her to marry me. But she wouldn’t tell me how much he had said. I asked her but she just wouldn’t tell me and kept saying “Too much ka, tee rak.”

  I knew from last year that her papa didn’t like me. The rest of the family had taken me to their hearts and made me feel very welcome, but her dad looked at me most of the time as if I was something that he had trodden in and he didn’t like the smell. Anyway, after four days in Bangkok, we headed north to Sakon Nakhon and, against my better judgement, I was once again staying at her mama’s and papa’s house. Once again everyone was lovely to me, except for her papa and one of her nephews who also lived at her papa’s house. He was about 17 years old and had never worked. He spent most of his day getting drunk and riding around on one of his family’s motorbikes - usually Aa’s. Just like his granddad he treated me with a lot of contempt and we just ignored each other. It was a shame really, because I knew that the atmosphere between me and Aa’s papa was going to make any future difficult. I asked Aa if she had mentioned to her papa that we might get married and she said that she was scared he wanted too much money. I had already made my mind up that he wasn’t going to be getting anything from me. Being back in Sakon Nakhon was a culture shock all over again. No furniture, feeling bored and having a sore bum from sitting on concrete for long periods. The first 24 hours there were not happy ones and seemed to last for about three years. I wai’d to her papa when I first arrived and he returned a half-hearted and very low wai, with something of a grunt. After that I had occasion to wai to him several more times over the next few days and he couldn’t even be bothered to return the wai. He just flicked his chin out in some kind of acknowledgement. I was wai’ing to an old man who hadn’t achieved half of what I had achieved in life and he was looking down on ME! I was wai’ing to him and I really wanted to wave two fingers at him. By the second day of him not returning my wai’s I thought ‘Fuck You!’ and decided that I would ignore him too. Which is what I did.

  The days were long and slow and very, very hot and so were the nights. Aa was sleeping on the floor in the main room with her mama and papa. I was sleeping in her room under a mosquito net with holes in it that allowed an army of mosquitoes to eat me at will. I had to set the floor fan onto high speed and it sounded like a jet engine, but even the fan couldn’t drown out the sounds of bull frogs, crickets, geckos and the rats which spent a lot of each night running over the tin roof above my head. One night I saw a big rat come into the room through the brick air vent and jump onto the top of the wardrobe. I heard it scratching around and then run down the back of the wardrobe. I didn’t see or hear it again and guessed that there must have been a hole in the wall, which led into the kitchen next door. It was not my dream of paradise in Thailand. I didn’t have any sleeping tablets so I used a bottle of Sangsom instead. Each night there were a lot of visitors to Mama’s house and Aa told me that they had all come to see me. A lot of them I recognised from the previous year and I was very happy to see everyone again. We all ate and drank beer and Thai whisky. One of the Thai men called Bunlai, who I remembered from the previous year, always had a smile on his face and he came to visit each night with his wife and two kids. Aa translated for me and he asked me if I wanted to go to a lake in Nong Khai, which was very beautiful and like a beach. I said yes without any hesitation, and so it was agreed that the next day we were going to go to Nong Khai.

  Village life started early and it seemed that everyone in the village is up and about from 5:30am, including me. The cockerel outside my bedroom window saw to that!

  On the day we went to Nong Khai there was an air of excitement about the place and people were turning up at the house with food, beers and bottles of water. One of my best friends in Sakon Nakhon was Mai, Aa’s brother in law. He was a delightful man, who always smiled and was always very charming. He had a couple of vertical frown lines on his forehead that made him look as if he was always worried or concerned about something, even when he was smiling, which was pretty much all the time. I really liked Mai.

  Mai turned up with Aa’s sister, Porn in their pick-up truck and my friend Bunlai turned up with his wife and kids in their pick-up truck and then there were various sister in laws, cousins, aunties and neighbours who turned up. We packed two pick-up trucks with 16 adults and ten kids and enough food to feed an army and we set off to Nong Khai, a journey of about two and a half hours. I sat in the front seat and enjoyed the air conditioned cab and the fantastic views of the countryside. Thailand really is a beautiful place. We arrived at the lakeside and it was breathtaking in its beauty. Long raised platforms covered with dried coconut fronds as a roof were side by side along one side of the lake. Jet skis pulling banana boats were out on the lake dodging all the swimmers and children playing on inflated tyre inner tubes. We set up on two of the long tables and hired some inner tubes for the kids. We had to buy food to sit there besides all the food we had taken with us. We spent the most fantastic day playing in the water in the beautiful sunshine and drinking beer and whisky and eating fantastic Thai food. There was a lot of laughter and it was a fun day. Everyone was happy and smiling and I can honestly say that nobody knows how to party like a Thai. I loved it. We stayed until late into the afternoon. When the bill came for the tables and inner tubes, food and bottles of whisky, it was 1,700 baht. I paid, of course, and I also paid another 1000 baht for petrol for the trip. So for about £60, a fantastic day was had by all. I was a little concerned when my friend Bunlai had another three glasses of whisky while he was actually driving us home! Mai pen rai!

  It had been a long day, but great fun. In the evening people stayed to eat at mama’s house before they went home. The atmosphere between Papa, myself and Aa’s nephew wasn’t any better and I couldn’t bring myself to sit and eat with them. I decided that I was never going to stay in this house again. In a couple of days Aa and I were going to Chiang Mai anyway. I was sure that Papa and Aa’s nephew and I could all happily ignore each other until then!

  I really liked taking a shower in up country Thailand. For those of you who don’t know, the bathrooms in most Thai houses are outside the main house and consist of a squat type toilet and a large plastic barrel of cold water and either small plastic buckets or ladles with which to flush the squat pan. Sometimes this same barrel of water with said buckets also doubles as the shower. In Aa’s mama’s house there was a separate room for the shower. Anyway, I remember years ago when I first encountered such a setup, being really surprised that pouri
ng buckets of cold water over yourself constituted a shower in Thailand, instead of the warm power showers that we may be used to in the West. But believe me, in the heat and humidity away from the air conditioned hotel rooms of tourist Thailand, pouring buckets of cold water over yourself is an absolute delight. The first cold bucket over the head might make you shiver and gasp, but after that it is simply a wonderful joy. I will often take such showers between three and five times a day. When we got back from Nong Khai I didn’t want to sit around with Aa’s papa and so I had a shower at about 7:30pm and went to bed. It was a big mistake because, without the sleeping qualities that a bottle of Sangsom can provide, I had little chance of sleeping. It was a long hot sleepless night, just waiting for daybreak to arrive. The mosquitoes had discovered the holes in the mosquito net and they quickly spread the word that there was a farang in town. That night they tried their best to eat me alive. Bastards!

  I was writing this sitting on an old songtaew. A songtaew is a sort of mini bus converted from a pick-up truck, which has had a steel frame fitted onto the back and with bench type seating along the sides. People can just jump on and off and they are a lot cheaper than taxis. In this case the songtaew was an old Isuzu, which was probably nearly as old as me, but hadn’t aged so well. The bench seats were slightly padded and it was parked in the shade of the barn in Aa’s mama’s garden. It belongs to Aa’s papa, but it is the most comfortable place I could find to sit and write. Papa padded around just long enough to let me know that he had seen me sitting in his truck, but we didn’t speak or even look at each other. It was already over 30 degrees and it was only 6:10am. A lot of the village folk were already walking past and waving to the farang.