Tom and the Lanna Girl

[Julian2]

I live in a part of the world that once enjoyed the same notoriety and fame as such places as the Spanish Main, the Golden Road and the Barbary Coast. The Golden Triangle of Northern Thailand, Burma and Lao was once the world?s major supplier of opium and its derivatives and many people over the centuries, ranging from the Mongol Hordes to CIA agents, came to buy or steal this product and carried it away for their own dark purposes.

The Northern or Lanna Thai are a hardy breed toughened by generations of fighting to protect their valuable crop; they have a deeply ingrained, almost ritual, politeness but are quick to anger and lethal in their rage. My Father-in-law was a monk for fourteen years and later served a short term in prison for the gun-shot murder of three men who had offended him. At seventy five he still goes shirtless in the heat and his body is as brown and tough as a piece of polished bamboo. When he sees me he smiles with his single tooth and calls for his granddaughter to bring the lao khau, a toxic rice whiskey made by his son?s wife. He still has his gun.

 

When I came here two years ago it was to visit a woman whom I had met on one of the Southern islands. Having come across her in a bar I assumed she was a bargirl, or at least a cashier, but it came about that she was a friend of the wife of the bar owner, an Englishman I had met several years before in Vientiane. Honouring a long standing promise to visit him I arrived at a loose end having finished a disastrous relationship in the Philippines and was in the process of trying to avoid a new one with a Vietnamese Catholic. I care little for race or religion when it comes to the opposite sex but in my later years have been inclined toward the dark eyed girls of South East Asia.

 

My interest quickened when she told me that she was from the Chiang Rai district as I had always wanted to see that area and it was further aroused when she said her family was well off and she personally owned property there. The prospect of settling in Asia with a woman such as this had been a personal pipe dream for a number of years. Assuming that the truth was possibly being handled a little carelessly I decide that nothing could be lost by a cautious look and kissed my Lanna girl goodbye with a promise to see her in a couple of months time. The more pressing matter at hand was a trip to the home country to try to put my tattered finances in shape after a year long divorce party that had taken me from Siem Reap to Zamboanga.

 

On arriving in Chiang Rai she collected me from the airport in her father?s car, (he had never driven it an inch and had no intentions of doing so; his youngest daughter, now the apple of my eye, had wheedled him into buying it), and I was driven twenty kilometres out of town to a small village nestled in a mountain valley. I had arrived at one of the best times of the year, the recently arrived wet season had washed the smoke, which is driving me crazy this month, from the air and the hills and forests gleamed and sparkled. Great rolling thunder clouds loomed over the mountains, roaring their anger and flashing and crackling in rage. I was enthralled; this would do me for a couple of months.

 

One of the first things I noted was the presence of another Farang, a Dutchman called Tom with a large house, several large dogs and a larger mouth. It appeared he was my nephew by marriage and he wasted no time in telling me how lucky I was to know him. He had played professional football for Ajax Amsterdam; he had worked for Mossad, he had nearly completed a medical degree before switching to economics and computer science and had worked for various NGOs and peace groups on several continents. He had half a million Euros in a Luxemburg bank but would be killed by ?them? the minute he set foot Europe. The tragic part about it was, approximately half of what he said was true; I have personally heard him speak Thai, Shan, Chinese, Chiang Rai Thai, Lao and something strange from Burma. He fixed my sulking laptop in a blink of an eye and set up a wireless link from his satellite disk so I could use the internet. Sometimes even the most talented among us suffer from insecurity.

 

His wife, a sultry twenty six year old and my Lanna girl?s niece, spent most of her time as far away from him as she could. He had drawn her into his web when she was fourteen and he was tired of her anyway. Guilt caused him to give her a large allowance and she drove around in a small black Toyota, the envy of everybody who didn?t know Tom.

My life passed as if in dream, within six months I had commenced building a house and later purchased every Thai man?s dream car, a new four door Isuzu D-Max pick-up truck. Domestic bliss had returned after a wild and chaotic three years.

 

Then one day came the news from Chiang Mai. Tom had dismissed his driver, one of my Lanna girl?s brothers, and headed out for a night on the town. An accident had left three girls on a motorbike dead and an uninsured Tom in Chiang Mai jail. Tom swore that he had arrived on the scene of a hit and run, swerving too late on seeing the victims and crashing into an adjacent tree. One of the girls? fathers had political influence and all supporting evidence for Tom?s story disappeared rapidly. The police said there was nothing they could do, jail was inevitable so they would hold him there to be on the safe side, but they had heard a rumour that the families would accept a million baht in compensation to drop the charges. Tom did not have it. I was warned to stay well clear in case my presence inspired additional greed and my Lanna girl took charge.

 

Here was where I really came to know her. She had lived in Europe for five years, spoke German and French better than English and had personally dragged her entire family out of poverty. Leaving school at fifteen she had gone to work in a Chiang Mai Guest House, owned by relatives, as a cleaner. Picking up a little English she moved on to the receptionist position and she saw where the real money was in those days and took English courses at the YWCA. Armed with the English language but fortunately avoiding Christianity she became a tour guide; five hundred baht a day per tourist with only a hundred going to the Guest Houses for booking. Most days provided up to five or six backpackers; money was sent home and farmland purchased, houses built. Later, with a German husband, she moved to Europe as a representative for a Thai silk company but returned home single and ready to resettle in Thailand.

 

After three months the police were getting fidgety, as was Tom in jail. His parents sent money which disappeared into the lawyers? gaping maw. Finally my Lanna girl, after weeks of wasted negotiation, totalled Tom?s remaining cash and easily disposable assets and gave the police an ultimatum. He was a worthless piece of shit she said, even for a Farang. However she had three hundred thousand baht and they could make do with that or he could rot in jail. Everyone rapidly acceded, the families would not get much but then the police had their expenses. Tom came home a little chastened but still full of brag.

Last year he borrowed one hundred thousand baht off my sister-in-law and after twelve months she sat cross-legged in his driveway until he paid her back.

She?s given up on the promised interest.

[The_Munchmaster]

Julian2 said: ......... It appeared he was my nephew by marriage....................

::

[The_Munchmaster]

Julian2 said: ........One of the first things I noted was the presence of another Farang, a Dutchman called Tom..............He had half a million Euros in a Luxemburg bank.........., but they had heard a rumour that the families would accept a million baht in compensation to drop the charges. Tom did not have it...........

::

[Julian2]

The_Munchmaster said:

Julian2 said: ......... It appeared he was my nephew by marriage....................

::

 

His wife, a sultry twenty six year old and my Lanna girl?s niece,

[Julian2]

The_Munchmaster said:

Julian2 said: ........One of the first things I noted was the presence of another Farang, a Dutchman called Tom..............He had half a million Euros in a Luxemburg bank.........., but they had heard a rumour that the families would accept a million baht in compensation to drop the charges. Tom did not have it...........

::

 

The tragic part about it was, approximately half of what he said was true;

[Julian2]

[The_Munchmaster]

Julian2 said:

The_Munchmaster said:

Julian2 said: ......... It appeared he was my nephew by marriage....................

::

 

His wife, a sultry twenty six year old and my Lanna girl?s niece,

Sorry mate, but Tom, your wifes, nieces husband, ain't your nephew under any circumstances.

 

Definition of nephew (plural nephews)

 

1. a son of someone's brother (fraternal nephew)

2. a son of someone's sister (sororal nephew)

3. a son of someone's brother-in-law

4. a son of someone's sister-in-law

 

[Julian2]

The guy's names not real either