The week that was in Thailand news: Down memory lane in the Borough of Love

 

 

In 1990 I decided enough was enough. I had already made well over a dozen trips to the Thai consulate in Penang or the border at Padang Besar to renew or utilize a second part of a double entry visa.

 

The trek south was always preceded by a trip to the tax office in Bang Lamphu where lies, threats and pleasantries were traded in equal measure before I got the requisite permission to leave.

 

I always enjoyed the change in Penang – other border crossings were not an option then and flying was too expensive for frugal Rooster – but when one had been bitten to buggery by bed bugs in Chulia Street and had tired of Hainan Chicken Rice there was only one other realistic option…..

 

Marriage.

 

I had met a Thai woman out clubbing and was so shocked that she left me 20 baht for a phone call that she made while visiting that I decided that this was the woman for me.

 

So it was that in late July 1990 I called her up to remind her that today was the day, I had all the documents I thought I needed and we were off to tie the knot. There was no pretense about love at this stage – I just needed a marriage visa and she was willing to help me out.

 

Though twelve years my senior she didn’t know what to do so I arranged everything and off we belted on my Honda Rebel 250 to the registry office in Pahonyothin.

 

As we mounted the stairs the door on the left said marriage, the one on the right said divorce. I gulped and headed left. I was just 29 and about to embark on a journey that remains intact, of sorts, to this day.

 

Unfortunately the clerk was not used to foreigners and though the paperwork was all translated she shook her head disconcertingly then whispered in my ear in Thai.

 

“You must go down to the Borough of Love”.

 

So it was that myself and my bride to be ended up in Bangkok’s famed Bang Rak district where this week – as on every Valentine’s Day – thousands queued to get hitched.

 

On that quiet July day we were one of less than twenty couples but were assured that we could get married there. As the deadline of four o’clock approached and after a long wait tempers flared and I needed to drag the increasing reluctant bride back as she had got irritable and hungry and fled to devour several chickens.

 

However, ultimately we were still too late and the clerk reluctantly said we must come back tomorrow.

 

I had been in Thailand many years already so I smiled and intimated that a purple note would be forthcoming if they could see their way to, kindly, doing some overtime…..just for us.

 

By nearly 6pm the 20 baht receipt was given, the 500 baht was handed over, and we were the proud owners of two almost identical pieces of stamped paper.

 

I went to what I believe was Thailand’s first McDonald’s and had a burger to celebrate. Then we went our separate ways as it had been a very tiring day.

 

Though I have since started a second family with another Thai lady, my grown up children and my first wife were still posing for pictures on their visit to Thailand this week, the best part of three decades later.

 

Hopefully just like the hundreds if not thousands at Bang Rak registry office last Wednesday, love of sorts bloomed and blossomed for Rooster. It is a family joke that that 20 baht for the phone call cost me millions but I have always said that it was worth it!

 

Slightly different this week was that the authorities were handing out “magic pills” to encourage procreation. Worried about an ever aging population the Thais need more young people especially in 18 years’ time so rather than candy the happy couples were given vitamins, folic acid and iron for a quick conception after the reception.

 

Many “blame” the HIV/AIDS epidemic for the use of condoms in Thai society leading to the falling birthrate. It saved many from the dreaded disease thus increasing the population on the one hand but decreasing it on the contraceptive other.  

 

Apparently the average issue in Thailand was six kids in 1960 while today it is a paltry 1.5 – begging the question, what the hell do you do with a halfwit?!

 

Rooster managed a round number at four though I am still waiting for my congratulatory letter from the junta for doing my bit for the stable future of the nation.

 

Meanwhile, down in QUOTES – the Queen of the Eastern Seaboard – the boys in brown were out with brownies, no less, spreading the Valentine message of love midweek. The previous day another branch of the constabulary were out in force cleaning up Walking Street.

 

No, not arresting the multitude of ladies who frequent its bars and crannies but putting detergent down and scrubbing the road itself to “improve the image” of the street.

 

Following the grisly murder in Soi 6 and a brawl in Walking Street itself Rooster was wondering if the real purpose of the clean-up was a tad more sinister.

 

Removing bloodstains perhaps.

 

Hoots of the week were always going to surround the visit of British Foreign Secretary Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson.

 

Methinks that the military knew that Boris would not result in any flak for the junta as he would be the center of attention generating his own. Though they may have been concerned that gaffes were kept to a worrying minimum while he was actually in Thailand.

 

Business as usual was restored as soon as the New York born, Eton and Oxford educated darling of the politically incorrect made his remarks about “eye popping” supposedly sexual antics of Blighty expats keeping the consular staff busy.

 

I was furious about all this – how dare he claim there are any British consular staff left in Thailand.

 

It was job done for Big Too and his cronies who saw Big Mop off the premises taking the sting from the heat created by the hundreds who earlier had gathered at the Democracy Monument.

 

Even if that was more like the hundreds of police for each activist yelling for a return to the ballot box.

 

Accompanying Boris’s visit it seemed was the story that the British were giving the Thais advice on how to run prisons. While it would be idiotic to suggest that Thai clink is the best run prison system it was the height of all brazenness that the British would claim to sufficiently know about running jails.

 

Perhaps mindful that the Foreign Secretary was in Krung Thep the Thais smiled and said thank you for all the advice and promised to implement change.

 

Nothing whatsoever will be done because that beguiling smile translates as screw you screws we won’t be screwed.

 

Soon to experience the inside of a Thai jail on a permanent basis is the American who murdered the Australian in the Ruby Bar. Despite many witnesses – some known to Thaivisa – it was amazing raisins to see the story go from a head pummeling to a single punch, a vicious attack to self-defense in the mother of all smokes and mirrors stories.

 

International and local media, police and witnesses who seemed to be there and elsewhere, all added to the confusion. While forum posters expected the Thais or the Americans to actually be able to stop someone travelling who had murdered – or rather committed manslaughter – while a teenager.

 

The world doesn’t work like that folks; like banning guns is probably not going to stop insistent teens from murdering their classmates and teachers as also happened yet again in the States this week.

 

How sad though that the massacre will soon be yesterday’s news and how far removed from Dunblane where a similar number died in what will always be remembered – Lockerbie beside – as perhaps the greatest crime in the history of modern Scotland.

 

The American in Thailand will get his 40 years, halved on admission, though he can be thankful that if the British get their way he won’t have to dine on rice gruel every day – there should be lashings of Branston and HP sauce to allay fears that his human rights are being infringed.

 

Misleading headline of the week had to go to “Jailed for rape, kidnapping and extortion” for the cop and his two civilian sidekicks in Pattaya who are merely being held pending an investigation.

 

We all know what can happen when the force investigate their own even if it is the Pattaya branch looking into the affairs of the rival Nongprue constabulary. However, the very unusual comment from those high up that the cop could, shock horror, lose his job tended to indicate that he was up a poopier creek without a paddle than anyone would expect at “the resort”.

 

Finally, in a second reference to the Bangkok World and Bangkok Post’s legendary Nite Owl Bernard Trink in two consecutive paragraphs, I would like to give a “tip o’ the hat” to Hua Hin this week.

 

I was most impressed with the value for money and taste at the restaurants and the excellent and well run attractions I visited on a short holiday there this week.

 

The air gave a welcome change from the recent choke-a-thon in Krung Thep and try as I might I couldn’t find any rubbish on my section of beach.

 

And despite the threatening signs of jail for smokers it all seemed friendly, low key and thoroughly pleasant down in that charming corner of Prajuab Khiri Khan.

 

And, no, I haven’t applied for a job with the Hua Hin TAT.

 

Rooster

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2018-02-17

I think Thai families are way better off with 1.5 or even 2 children, where they can usually be assured of a good diet and education.   Pity some of the other ASEAN countries where family planning is discouraged, and divorce is illegal.

In the meantime, Thailand is losing a jumbo jet full of young people each week in motorcycle deaths (over 420 A WEEK!).

Effective and visible policing would do a lot to reduce these sad numbers.    

I used to go to that tax office in Bangalampoo and have to make similar contradictory statements about not working but only owing minimal income tax. The train ride to George town was a party and GT was OK.

Another good read Rooster, and just be happy that you did not go to the garbage infested cities of 

Pattaya, or especially Jomtien beach, where along beach road all the bins are overflowing and the smell gets worse every day. It sure does not look like a tourist resort city in high season..

  I cannot see how the Mayors office has not been notified by the tourist police, or some other concerned business owners who live and work in Jomtien along Beach Road. Here is a picture of the police hard at work somewhere along beach road.

Geezer