Forget You Had a Daughter - Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton Read Online Free PDF Page B

magnetism of curiosity. Within two days I had my visa, enough spending money for a few months, and someone to rent my house. My best friend, Holroyde, would take care of the dog. Shanty would take care of the cats and collect the rent from the house to keep up the mortgage repayments. I began dreaming of tigers, elephants, rain forests and sandy beaches. It seemed like such a wild thing to do; I didn’t even know the man I was going with.
    Most of my friends thought my trip was a fantastic idea. Holroyde had some reservations.‘Please don’t go, Sandra,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a strange feeling about this.’
    The trick about premonitions is knowing when to listen to them and when to ignore them.They happen all the time.Yet even the most hideous premonition would not have prevented me going. I said all my goodbyes.
    ‘Be careful,’ said my mum.‘See you soon.’
    Two hours into the flight and John was driving me crazy.While he spent the entire journey in his seat, I spent the flight sitting next to the toilet looking out of the little window at the back of the plane.
    Two middle-aged men on the plane told me they were going to Bangkok for the girls. ‘Best women in the world, Thai women,’ said one.‘They’ll do anything for a few baht.’
    I told them I was going to Thailand to see tigers and elephants and the jungle.‘You’ll see them,’ they said,‘or at least parts of them, in tourist shops in Bangkok.’
    Suddenly I had a feeling I was travelling with the wrong person, to the wrong country, and for the wrong reasons. I took a drink.
    It’ll be fine, Sandra.
    Two months was a long time to be away. I would cope.
    three

    Opium Mountain

    I have only been away for two months but it feels like a lifetime.
    Life here is wonderful and I am enjoying Thailand far more than I ever imagined. I have decided to stay on and look for a job.
    Thailand has taught me so much … life is a gift and being here, in what is considered the drug centre of the world, I no longer need or want to smoke marijuana. I love the food, the people, their culture, the climate and everything about this lovely country. The mountains were wonderful and the beaches are more beautiful than I ever imagined possible. I love it here.
    I love you both Sandra
    Letter home, late January 1991

    Before long it was dark. No twilight, no warning, just pitch dark, as if someone had switched off a giant city light. Stupidly, we had decided to save the taxi fare and walk to Bangkok. An hour later and we didn’t appear to be anywhere nearer the neon and gleaming, flickering city that lay up ahead. We had landed in the darkness of another planet.
    A battered, white Toyota pulled up along side us. The driver, a squatting gargoyle with teeth like crumbling tombstones, beamed out and asked,‘Where you go?’
    ‘Bangkok.We are going to Bangkok.’
    The driver looked bemused.‘Bangkok very big, you walk long time. I take you. 150 baht?’
    We hadn’t actually given much thought to where we would stay. John and I both were totally unprepared and knew nothing about the place. My dreams were of jungles and tigers and a part of me had imagined they would both be waiting for me when I arrived.The last thing on my mind was urban chaos. Quickly, we threw our small bags into the back of the car and jumped in.
    ‘ Wow! ’ I squealed,‘This is amazing!’ Giant, colourful billboards were everywhere, covered in pictures of smiling Thais looking clean and exotic. Shops were crammed full of television sets, orna- ments, toys, clothes, shoes – anything and everything.There were children, so many beautiful children, in their school uniforms; blue and white for the girls and beige and white for the boys. In and out of the traffic we weaved.
    With increasing degrees of weariness police, wearing skin-tight uniforms and mirrored sunglasses, attempted to direct vast queues of vehicles. The chainsaw-like drone of the traffic grew louder. The heat penetrated my skin.
    An old