William John Stapleton - Bangkok Busted: You Go to Jail For Sure

Living in Bangkok Michael discovered, as so many had before him, that while you cant buy love or friendship, you can buy sex and companionship.

As he was also to discover, acting out an ancient contract between the young and the old in modern day Thailand only buys contempt from the gallery of rogues who make up the countrys internationally renowned multi-billion dollar sex industry.

He used to think of his errant and usually fleeting liaisons as loveable. Soon enough he learnt to laugh at their ceaseless trickery and no longer believed a word they said.

Trust no one, take care yourself, is an adage which many of Bangkoks residents live by. Wise words.

Michael could in no way claim the high moral ground.

But it was obvious to any observer that the frequent scams being run against foreign tourists was a principal contributor to the lack of trust towards the Thais many travelers come to feel.

The legions of stories from expatriates detailing the negative outcomes from liaisons with Thailands men, women and ladyboys was damaging the nations burgeoning tourist industry. And in a broader sense the countrys reputation.

As well, at the time of writing AIDS related deaths were inching towards the one million mark.

The perception that HIV pronounced SIV in Thailand because the locals have difficulty pronouncing the letter H - is endemic amongst sex workers is harming the economy.

Michael had no intention of ending up back in Bangkok the city he had avoided all year after a prolonged battle with the by then famous go-go boy Aek, who had become a hero to many of the countrys male sex workers.

Far from being The City of Angels, for him Bangkok was ahndallai mak mak very dangerous.

The frequent taunts and death threats he received, along with the burning down of his home following the online publication of The Twilight Soi, had encouraged Michael to stay away.

Indeed he had never intended staying in Thailand for very long in the first place.

He had been on his way to the Algerian coast to act out a life as some sort of latter day Paul Bowles, one of his literary heroes from an earlier time, when he became caught up in the dangerous world of Bangkoks bars and clubs.

Originally he had thought of Thailand, just as thousands of American soldiers did during the Vietnam War, as nothing but R&R, rest and recreation.

Yet like so many other Westerners at transitional points in their lives, Michael found himself trapped in the whirlpool of modern Bangkok, that futuristic city voted the best tourist destination in the world by travel magazines.

After a crowded life and 25 years of full time employment, in 2010 he found himself adrift.

Ive never known anyone who knows so many dead people, a colleague once observed.

It was true enough.

Why he had survived into retirement when so many of his contemporaries had died of the twin evils of his generation, AIDS and overdoses, he had no idea.

He felt like a shard of glass cutting into a future he was never meant to see.

There was no way to report back to old friends.

Perhaps their absence, the lack of feedback from people who had known him for much of his life, explained why he had been so vulnerable to a preposterous pack of lies: I love you, I miss you, I stay with you forever.

Magical, mysterious, dangerous, all adjectives applied to Bangkok because, as one Thai writer put it, all could be found within its borders.

Whether it was the physical beauty of the nations people, the striking landscapes both urban and rural, the ethnic Thais laughter filled approach to love and life, or the complexity and refined charm of its language and culture, the superb quality of its cuisine and popular music, or even just the favorable exchange rates, it didnt take long after his arrival before Michael was sold.

Thailand had come a long way from the sleepy third world country dotted with shanty towns and crumbling temples he first encountered 40 plus years before.

In the early part of the 21 st Century Bangkok and a number of other regional centres bristled with money and visitors from all over the world.

Bangkok had a population between of 15 to 25 million, depending on how it was counted. The higher estimates equaled the entire population of his own country.

Entranced and intrigued, Michael stopped and stayed; caught up in a string of events and misadventures he would never have dreamed possible.

Two and a half years after his arrival and subsequent flight he was forced to return to Bangkok on what was one of the most confusing and disorienting days of his life.

On that day, against his will, he had flown from Bangkok to Kolkata and back again.

Michael hadnt been in India for very long, indeed never even left the airport, before being frog marched back on to the Air Asia flight returning to Bangkok - despite his protestations that the city he once loved so much was no longer safe.

Far from being a humble traveler on a religious style quest for knowledge, experience and understanding, he had become more like a deranged tennis ball fleeing and then dribbling away from an overdone attack.

In reality the 23 rd of May that year was one of those pivotal days called turning points.

The misadventure, a funnel through to what he thought might be the happiest period of his life, had its origins in the same events which compelled him to write a book called The Twilight Soi.

The novel was about being lied to, deceived, stolen from and then publicly maligned by a Bangkok go-go boy; in a sense a gay version of My Private Dancer.

Unlike the myriads of financially stripped foreigners who fall for Thai love stories and are laughed at by the locals for doing so, Michael had been stupid or crazy brave enough, depending on your point of view, to write about his experiences.

In fact the book reiterated what had already been written in other books, he just said it in a different way. The intimate and embarrassing events which propelled him to write the novel also unleashed his worst demons. He spiraled out of control.

Once he lost control of his own life, his pursuers did their best to ensure he continued to crash and burn.

Michael never pretended to be like everybody else, a slave amongst slaves, a worker amongst workers, a middle class Trojan joining his rightful and productive place in society. Living, to quote Thoreau, a life of quiet desperation. Right sized.

As events unfolded, he just shrugged. He didnt fit in here and he didnt fit in there; and thats the way it had always been, from the schoolyard to Paradise.

In revenge for daring to put pen to paper Michael was severely harassed, labeled Thailands number one drug driver, a ludicrous claim, and later a spider or pedophile, based on false or planted evidence.

He could barely walk five feet without being sneered at or ridiculed.

He could no longer go to Hot Male, a disco he had been going to for more a year, without being greeted by the DJ with a loud: Welcome to the drug driver.

His instability and battles with temptations large and small made him vulnerable to attack.

The house which he once thought would be a happy home turned into an isolating nightmare, ringed by the orchestrated derision of his neighbors.

The buttresses which had kept him on a steady keel in his former life as a journalist back in Australia, a high profile job, his children, medication, meetings, a psychiatrist, all dissolved when he left Australia in January 2010.

Michael had only been back to his home country for short intervals since. The visits reinforced what he already knew, that he didnt want to live there anymore.