My Thai Story II Read online

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Author’s note

  Chapter 1 - The adventure continues!

  Chapter 2 - Just a romantic.

  Chapter 3 - Amazing how some things can turn out OK

  Chapter 4 - Daz & Nang

  Chapter 5 - April 2011

  Chapter 6 - Sakon Nakhon

  Chapter 7 - What a difference a day makes.

  Chapter 8 - Songkran, the Thai New Year.

  Chapter 9 - Back in Phuket and then onto England.

  Chapter 10 - My last Christmas in England

  Chapter 11 - 2012 was now well under way

  Chapter 12 - It’s funny how a corn on the cob can change your life!

  Chapter 13 - Paradise Found!

  Chapter 14 - Shipwrecked!

  Chapter 15 - Life in a small fishing village

  Chapter 16 - Into the New Year

  Chapter 17 - The New House

  Chapter 18 - Christmas was coming, again!

  Chapter 19 - Life is full of twists and turns!

  Chapter 20 - Nothing stays the same

  Chapter 21 - What a Wonderful World

  About the author

  Copyright

  My Thai Story II

  1st edition 2015

  Text by Guy Lilburne

  eISBN 978-1-63323-329-4

  Print ISBN 978-1-63323-330-0

  Published by www.booksmango.com

  E-mail: [email protected]

  Text & cover page Copyright© Guy Lilburne

  Cover photograph & design by Guy Lilburne

  No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, stored or transmitted in any form without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author, editors, researchers, copyright holder, publisher and contributors.

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  Author’s note

  This book is a true story. Some of the characters, incidents and dialogue have been altered to protect certain individuals.

  Once again my thanks go out to my friend Jules Lee for taking the time to proof read my work and to my editor Burnie Sinclair. A big ‘thank you’ to all the wonderful people who I meet and who inspire me to write these stories.

  For my beautiful daughter Sasha and for my new born baby boy Jack. I love you.

  Chapter 1 - The adventure continues!

  Jee had a baby and it wasn’t mine! She said that it wasn’t hers either, but I didn’t believe her. We had sort of just drifted apart and had not had any contact for nearly a year and then, in November 2010, she suddenly got in touch with me and I have to say I was delighted to hear from her again. We started talking again regularly on the internet and suddenly she had a baby with her all the time when we chatted via webcam. She said that it was her nephew’s baby, but he was having problems with his wife who had now left him so she was looking after it. I knew it was Jee’s baby. I could see that she had put weight on. Her face was chubby and her breasts were big now. I also saw on one of her internet profiles that she now spoke Thai, English and German.

  German! Why on earth would anyone want to speak German, unless of course they were either German or, as I suspected in Jee’s case, she had a German boyfriend. Probably the father of her baby. But for whatever reason they weren’t together now and she was back in touch with me! I asked her if she had had a German boyfriend and she said no. I asked her if the baby was hers and again she said no, but I knew it was. If the baby was her nephew’s then why didn’t Jee’s sister, his own mother, look after it? Then in December Jee told me that the baby had been registered in her name, with her registered as the baby’s mother. She said that it was just so that they could get money from the government for the baby. Again I didn’t believe her and she knew that I didn’t. Would I ever know the truth? I doubted it. I don’t think that I had ever known the truth as far as Jee was concerned. The one thing that I have discovered about Thai people over the years is that they can tell a lie very easily; as easily as most people breathe. It is sort of second nature to them. I asked a Thai girlfriend once why Thai’s tell so many lies and she replied, ‘Because sometimes a lie sounds better than the truth!’ When it is put like that it is very difficult to argue with. Jee asked me if I was prepared to bring up the baby as my own if we settled down together in 2012, after she finished working in the hospital in Vietnam and I had finished in the Police as we had talked about doing so many times over the last three or four years. After I stopped laughing, I told her! The answer was no. Whoever were the real parents of the baby it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t mine and I had no intention of paying for it for the rest of my life. The trust and the love had gone and I knew then that any thoughts of any life with Jee were over. It was nobody’s fault. We just met at the wrong time and it was too long for her to wait. The credit crunch meant that I couldn’t sell my house and so here I was. It was August 2011; I was still a Police Detective. In fact I was the longest serving detective in Staffordshire Police and had been for a few years. I’d probably see it out to the end. I was due to retire at the end of 2012, but my life had changed. For those of you who read my first book ‘My Thai Story’, I know that you are fully up to speed with my story up to 2008 and my journey to a new life in Thailand, the country that owns my heart. Please bear with me while I just take a few lines to bring any new readers up to date.

  In 2008 I was a tired old police detective, washed up and burnt out! I was drinking far too much and probably suffering with depression. I decided to put my house up for sale and live in Thailand on the proceeds of the sale until I could receive my police pension, albeit it would be a reduced pension payable in 2010. If I was to stay until 2012 and do the full thirty years then the pension was to be a great deal bigger. The thing was I was just desperately unhappy and every day felt as if I was just waiting to die. So I started my journey and my Thai adventure. I had met Jee on an internet dating site and then I actually went to meet her in Thailand. She was lovely and we planned a life together. Things didn’t quite work out the way I had planned and the worldwide credit crunch and the collapse of the house market meant I was trapped in England and in a job that was killing me. At the time it felt like the end of the world, but as it turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened to me because my life, fortune and circumstances changed beyond belief.

  Wow, how my life had changed in the previous couple of years. I think I need to tell you all about what had happened to me since ‘My Thai Story’ was published in 2010. I had started writing that book in 2008. I wanted it to chart my escape from England and my job as a police detective and my planned new life in Thailand, a country I have fallen in love with.

  Well, like all good stories, there had been a few twists and turns. As you know I met Jee in 2008 and I thought that we would end up settling down together, but time and distance separated us and although we kept in touch throughout 2008 and 2009, by the end of 2009 the contact had drifted away to nothing. I just put it down to life experience. At the end of 2010 Jee suddenly got back in touch, but as I have just told you, there was a baby on the scene and to be honest I wasn’t the same person that I was back in 2008. The one constant thing I had was my love of Thailand. I had had some success as an author too with the publication of my books,
‘My Thai Story’, ‘The Thai Dragon’, ‘The Kiss of the Dragon’, ‘Cocktails & Dreams’, ‘The Flower Girl’, ‘Tika’ and ‘Graham, just one shade!’ and several others. I was writing a new thriller set in Thailand and due for publication the following year. Oh, and of course I was writing this book, ‘My Thai Story II’. Just like the first ‘My Thai Story’ book I had no idea how this one would end, but I decided to write it because I had received a lot of messages on Facebook, email and on my own website asking me what happened next. So here it is!

  There is no doubt that emotionally and mentally I was in a much better place then I was a few years previously. I’d had success as an author, I’d been on TV and on the radio and in newspapers and magazines. I’d started writing articles for ‘Sai Yai Thai’ magazine and I had become friends with other authors like Stephen Leather, Dean Barratt, and Mike Pettit, to name but a few. It all seemed a bit surreal to me. I used to be a fan and now we were friends, although I have to say that I would always be a fan of these guys.

  I was counting down the days until I could finish in the police and start my new life in Thailand and, as of the day I was writing this, I only had 240 working days left to do. But that was working days and it sounded a lot better than just saying I was due to retire from the police in December 2012.

  Chapter 2 - Just a romantic.

  In most good books there is a romantic interest and I am a romantic. I first started chatting to Rattanawalee at the end of 2010 on the internet. I had absolutely no intention of forming any relationship with her simply because she told me she worked as a professional masseuse for an international company called Siam Health. She was working at one of their branches out in Bahrain. In fact I remember very early on that we had more than a few arguments about what really went on during a massage. I was quite rude to her and questioned her on more than one occasion about what ‘extras’ she supplied. She was outraged and on one occasion I made her cry.

  Why was there this level of emotion on either side? Well I think it was because we both knew that we liked each other and I even told her that, if she had a normal job working in a bank or a shop, then I think we may have had some kind of future. At least we could have tried just to see what would have happened. Looking back now I don’t know why she just didn’t tell me to get lost. She knew that I didn’t believe her, but she was just too nice to tell me to get lost and she had a lot of patience with me. I think she understood my mistrust and she told me that she liked me and maybe I might like her if we had the chance to get to know each other. I just had to ask her outright, “Have you ever had sex with a customer during a massage?”

  She was more than a little upset, but we had been beating about the bush for weeks and I had to know. She was shocked because I thought so little of her. She told me that her company was a legitimate health spa company and all the staff were professional, qualified and accredited staff, She said that nobody at her company had ever had sex with a customer. I knew that I had hurt her feelings and after a few days I apologized. I didn’t think there was any future in a relationship, but we had daily contact on the internet and she was funny and beautiful and I found that I was really starting to like the girl.

  Rattanawalee was 29 years old. She was divorced and had an 8 year old daughter called Chompoo, who lived with Rattanawalee’s parents in a little village in Sakon Nakhon, in the north east area of Thailand called Isaan. This is a situation that is repeated hundreds of thousands of times all over Thailand. They marry young, have a baby or two and then the husband walks out for a younger woman, leaving the wife alone to care for the children. Thai men contribute absolutely nothing towards the care and upkeep of their offspring, basically because they don’t have too. There is no law that makes them pay anything. They simply walk away from their responsibilities. There is also no welfare system in Thailand, so for any woman who suddenly finds herself to be a single young mother, the future is bleak. That probably explains why so many women turn to prostitution in the bars and massage parlours of Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket. Actually all major cities have girls available these days! I have been to Udon Thani and Nong Khai, so I had a good idea of where Sakon Nakhon was and what to expect if I ever got to visit there. Rattanawalee translated into English means a ‘group of marbles’, as far as I could tell. Her nickname was Aa and that’s a lot easier to type. Aa is quite simply beautiful. Well, I thought so and, to be honest, each day I thought that she got more beautiful. She had a great figure, hair like black shiny silk, except when she decided to dye it red or orange, and the softest brown almond shaped eyes and full lips. She had the cutest smile that you have ever seen and perfect olive skin. She had a great sense of humour and she was mature beyond her years. She had worked in Bahrain for Siam Health for the previous 3 years and sent all her money home to her parents. She was something special. Well I thought so and she had a good heart. I think you must have a pretty good picture of Aa now.

  It started as a bit of a joke, but we arranged to meet up in April 2012 when she finished her contract in Bahrain. We started counting down the months. At that time it was only 16 months away…..only! It may have started as a joke, but quite soon it was no longer a joke and it was too many months to wait. The more we started to like each other the longer April 2012 seemed to be away. We kept in touch every single day by phone and on the internet on Skype and MSN, We talked about our hopes and dreams and we just got to know each other and counted down the months. Why do I always spend my life waiting?

  Christmas came and went and suddenly it was New Year 2011. For the first time I could say ‘I retire next year. Next year my new life can begin.’ It was a fantastic feeling. I couldn’t wait to finish in the police and I couldn’t wait to go and live in Thailand.

  Chapter 3 - Amazing how some things can turn out OK

  I had booked a month’s holiday in Thailand from 2nd April 2011 as soon as I put up the 2011 calendar in January. I always liked to book trips early. It gave me something to look forward to and I really needed something to look forward to. I liked to mark the days off with a big red pen as each new day started. Each and every single day there was contact between Aa and me by phone and internet. We started calling each other tee rak. (Darling). Well actually, she started calling me tee rak first, but it took a while and I quite liked it. It felt natural and I knew that she meant it. There were genuine feelings growing between us, but we couldn’t plan a meeting until April 2012, over 15 months away. I knew from experience that a long wait can kill off even the most passionate and well intentioned budding love affairs, if the two people can’t actually get together to love each other.

  Not for the first time in my life, world events played a part in my destiny. The Arab uprising started. It started in Egypt and the people over threw the government. The uprising spread to other Arab states and then in March it spread to Bahrain. Aa was keeping me informed on a daily basis about people being shot dead on the streets by the army and still the uprising was growing, along with the level of violence. I could tell that she was very frightened. Then in the second week of March Aa rang me and told me that all the Thai staff was being sent back to Thailand for a month until the troubles had settled down and it would be safe again. She said that she was going back to Thailand on 16th March until 16th April.

  This was the best news that I had had in a long time. Suddenly we were going to have an opportunity to meet in April of 2011 and not wait another year until April 2012. We were both so excited and now every day we had something exciting to plan. Each day we talked the plans changed! Sometimes Aa was going to meet me in Phuket and sometimes I was going to travel up to Sakon Nakhon to meet her there with her family. I think that Aa wanted to meet me in Sakon Nakhon so that her family could meet me as well, but as I explained to her, I didn’t really know where Sakon Nakhon was. I knew that I had to get a flight to Udon Thani and then find my way to the city centre and then get a bus to Sakon Nakhon. It didn’t seem like an easy j
ourney. I know that Thais will travel all day and all night long on a bus from one end of Thailand to the other, but, for a big farang like me, it was daunting. Anyway, eventually it was agreed that Aa would travel down to Phuket and meet me at Phuket International Airport when I arrived from the UK on 4th April. Now I was really getting excited. This was really going to happen. I really love Thailand and I love being there at any time, but especially for Songkran, the Thai New Year celebrations that go on for three days between 13th and 15th April. Now I had something really special to look forward to. Suddenly my trip to Thailand was going to be a busy one. My best friend Daz was also going at more or less the same time to meet his Thai girlfriend, Nang, and I had arranged to meet him there as well. He and Nang had already got engaged and they were going to have their engagement party while I was there. I had also arranged for a photo shoot to be done for another book that I had just finished ‘The Kiss of the Dragon’. I had arranged a model, but decided to sort out the photographer and makeup artist when I was there. The shoot was going to be done in Phuket. Now I was counting down the days.

  Chapter 4 - Daz & Nang

  I should tell you a bit about Daz and Nang. Their story was a fantastic love story and they deserve a chapter in my book.

  Darren Rawlins, like me, was a policeman. We’d been best friends for a long, long time and had many holidays together all over the world. I think we became best friends because he is one of the funniest people I have ever met and he’s just a really nice guy. I had been travelling all over Thailand for years and trying to talk Daz into coming along for a holiday but he didn’t really fancy it. He had heard too many bad stories about Thailand and, try as I might, I just couldn’t convince him that Thailand was so much more than bar girls and lady boys. Finally in October 2009 he agreed to come with me and give Thailand a try. We went for a month and stayed in Patong. It was a great holiday and one night, after we had been there for a few days, we were in Hollywood nightclub and Daz met Nang. Actually she ran up and jumped on his back and wouldn’t get off. It was pretty much love at first sight. Nang worked as a cleaner in a hotel and was quite simply delightful. From the moment they met they never left each other’s side. Day and night they were together and I could see why Daz was falling in love with her. She was always just great fun to be around and she had a cheeky sense of fun. Daz is probably about 6’4” and Nang is about a foot shorter, but they looked great together, the perfect match.