Neil Hutchison - A Fool in Paradise

Published by:

Mitraphab Centre Pty Ltd.

Tumbi Umbi, New South Wales, Australia

Copyright Neil Hutchison 2002

ISBN: 978-0-9870902-0-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced,stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system, or transmitted in any form whatsoever without

the prior written permission of the author.

Written by: Neil Hutchison

Email:

Website: http://www.moneynumberone.net

Smashwords Edition

Published by Proglen Trading Co., Ltd.

Bangkok, Thailand

February 2011

Website: ebooks.dco.co.th

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Money Number One (A Single Man's Survival Guide to Pattaya)

The Fool is Back!

A Fool's Diary

My deep appreciation goes to Alan McEwan for his continued encouragement, support and faith.

I would also like to offer special thanks to my good friend Duncan Stearn for all his help and constructive advice. Thanks mate.

To all the guys who passed on their tales of woe, tales of joy and anecdotes about their Pattaya experiences, keep up the good work. Your story, or part of it, may be included somewhere in the pages that follow but, remember as you read it, some other guy somewhere is reading the same words believing that they were written about him.

Finally, my eternal gratitude to the ladies of Pattaya, even the many who have broken my heart. Without their charm (in winning my heart), smile (as they broke my heart), sense of humour (after breaking my heart) and total unpredictability (I never saw it coming), the Pattaya story for me would be a one line entry in some obscure travel guide to South East Asia.

What follows is a collection of observations, personal opinions and experience. The stories are all true except for the ones that aren't. These could best be described as being 'based on true events'. Most names have been changed to protect the innocent or stupid. Names of the guilty have not been changed because they are the bastards I want to get.

Many of the stories were first published in Pattaya Expat magazine, Pattaya Trader magazine and Pattaya Today newspaper.

The chapters fall in no particular order but, where two or more tales are related, they should appear in more or less chronological order.

The last chapter, 'Footprints in the Sand', is different. It is not meant to be amusing, but was written as the events unfolded. It needed to be written and needs to be read by anyone who believes that Pattaya will not or can not affect their lives. It needs to be read by any man currently in a relationship or contemplating entering a relationship with a Thai lady. The story is not unique by any means, but demonstrates how little we actually know about ourselves and how little we foreign men understand about the nature of Thai women.

There have been so many words already penned about Pattaya - that place on the eastern seaboard of Thailand variously described as Thailand's Premier Beach Resort, Fun Town, Sin City or The Sex Capital of Asia. Search the Internet and you will soon realize that the human life span is too short to read everything written in cyberspace about this unique city.

The popularity of the place cannot be denied. According to Tourism Authority of Thailand figures, Pattaya receives around 4 million visitors per year staying an average of 4.33 days and spending approximately 3,000 baht per person per day. This contributes about 50 billion baht to the Thai economy.

Nobody will ever convince me that the majority of the Western male tourists travel thousands of kilometres to see temples, buy copy t-shirts, play golf or go scuba diving. Personally, I already have a wardrobe full of copy shirts and, once I've seen one temple, I figure that I've seen them all. I don't play golf because I have a handicap - I cannot hit the ball. On the rare occasion that I do actually hit it, it never goes where I want it to. I also accept that the only creatures equipped to safely investigate the underwater world are fish. The only remaining attractions are the bars and the nocturnal entertainment scene so it follows that these must be a major draw card for others as well as myself.

Pattaya is such an interesting place. Nothing is black and white here. It is all grey, from the complex legal system down to the day to day selective reasoning of the people. Winston Churchill, in October 1939, described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." The great man may or may not have been right about Russia but, if he was talking about Thailand, he would certainly have been correct.

It is not the countryside, the city, the beaches or the scenery, but the people who are the real asset. There are better cities, cleaner beaches and more picturesque scenery elsewhere in Thailand but the people of Pattaya capture your heart and curiosity. Within the space of five minutes you can meet a person who believes you should give him or her twenty baht simply because you are a foreigner, then meet someone who will offer to share the meal they just purchased with their last twenty baht . In this city of immigrants and transients from all across Thailand and every corner of the globe, money is both cross-cultural and multilingual. Show me a place in the world where it isn't.

As it is with most people, I like humour and enjoy anything that makes me laugh. In Pattaya, humour can emanate from the most unlikely sources. I am also a student of and unfortunately, a prime example of, human stupidity. It never ceases to amaze me that the human race has developed the technology to transport a man to Mars and we can now successfully transplant almost every major organ in the human body, yet we are capable of the most idiotic acts.

"You know how dumb the average person is?

Well, by definition, half of them are dumber than that."

Rev. J.R. "Bob" Dobbs

Church of the Sub-Genius

Foreign visitors to the Land of Smiles are not noted for their displays of common sense, so uncovering amusing stories about their misadventures is not difficult. There is no shortage of material around, beginning with the guy who, in an act of alcohol-assisted stupidity, gave a motorcycle taxi driver a US$100 note, instructing him to go to a currency exchange office, change it for baht and bring the money back to the bar he was drinking at. And he wasn't a tourist - he was a long- term resident! Brain cell in overdrive.

Yes, the bar scene plays an important role and is a veritable gold mine of tales. The primal story is played out daily in the sois . For 'Garden of Eden' read 'Pattaya', for 'Eve' read 'bar girl' and for 'apple' read 'sick buffalo story'. The snake can be interpreted as that dangly bit between a man's legs and for 'Adam' read 'foreign male'. Each time Eve presents Adam with her apple, he happily swallows it and wanders off into the night with Eve and his snake.