When it all goes really really wrong...

[MadStockBroker]

Hmmmmm...

 

OK yeah we are all sad that it ended this way but I really do have to question what you were thinking about here.

 

Put your story another way....

 

You came to Thailand after problems at home and spent a week on a tropical island with a middle aged prostitute and suspected drug user.

 

After seeing life through rose tinted glasses you went home decided Thailand was for you even though you had no idea about living in thailand and were not likely to get a job. So with no income of your own you took your gf to live with you and give up her own job.

 

Both of you fucked around and clearly one or maybe both of you lied to each other.

 

Then you get her pregnant and leave Thailand forcing her to work 12 hours a day in a kitchen for less monthly salary than I spend on a round of golf.

 

And yet you criticise the police for not helping her yet it was largely your actions that got her into this condition and you were not even here when she needed you.

 

So yes, I do find this upsetting.....

[ginseng]

Well a few things. Are you sure she was really pregnant, are you sure she really committed suicide? If she was involved in drugs or possibly owed money something more heinous may have happened. It seems you were in way over your head. Again I'm very sorry for your loss but you definitely need to keep an eye on the reality of living in Thailand if you want to make the move.

[Khun_Kong]

Good story, Hooky. You've been back in the UK for, what, 3 weeks, so fortunately, it sounds like when things ended it didn't take too long. The details would certainly hint about methamphetamine use. In real life, movies, books and stories, I find I have little compassion for the characters who choose drugs.

 

 

Two comments:

 

You said: "She spent the best part of that day travelling around Bangkok in the taxi, I could hear the meter bleeping away, so I knew that was where she was."

 

I've never heard that in a taxi in BKK. You sure she was in BKK?

 

 

 

You said: "A couple of days went by and I got more and more concerned. I contacted a friend who is a police detective in the UK. He in turn contacted Interpol to see if there was anything we could do from this end. I was advised to go into my local police station and report P as a missing person and that the police here were duty bound to investigate and to pass the details on to the Thai police."

 

Is that really true for UK police? It would seem to be an enormous burden that they would be "duty bound" to investigate local reports of mssing foreign nationals who had never even been to the UK who are reported missing m a foreign country and pass on that info.

[BKK_Sanuk]

Ok, looks like the gloves are off now already...

 

"We met at one of the open air bars at the corner of Asok and Sukhuvit" - from your timeline, the Asoke corner bars were already closed, so you must mean the street shops that start opening around 9-11 pm that have the look of the dead when you pass them on your way home. "She was funny, sexy, bright, one of those people who everyone seems to fall in love with." - You must have found the one in a million that night, never have seen anyone hanging out there that I would describe in that way. But again I haven't pass that way in much better condition than the people who are there.

 

Phatum Thani - anyone (English speaking) who lives/lived there would call it Pathumthani.

 

"She?d been working the bar for a year" - street corner? Would never hear anyone call this place a bar. "only thing she wanted was to find a nice falang who would take care of her." - probably not the best place to be "working" to find a nice farang.

 

"She had no formal schooling and could not even read much Thai." - difficult to find any Thai would cannot read - the education system may be poor but literacy rate is extremely high (statistics from the crowd please....)

 

"The beginning of the end was the start of the political unrest in Bangkok" - the rest of BKK used it as an opportunity to either make a quick baht or to enjoy a "sanuk" night out. Very few people took it as seriously as your girl seems to have been affected. Nothing at all happened in Pathumthani, she would have had to go into BKK to even notice it. Remember, it was not widely seen on TV, only ASTV. And if she couldn't read - there was not al ot of talk about it that would have affected her.

 

"saying things about Thaksin and the ?bad people? were coming to kill her." Assuming she was saying good things about Thaksin - the 'bad people" should have gone after the people saying bad things about Thaksin.

 

"She spent the best part of that day travelling around Bangkok in the taxi, I could hear the meter bleeping away, so I knew that was where she was." With the money that you sent her, or the money from her job? Taxi's are cheap - but the better part of the day? Most taxi drivers ask me where I'm going first and not just drive around, but I'm not a " funny, sexy, bright" girl either.

 

"my mobile is ringing. Thailand number. It?s the manager of my apartment." Did this guy call collect? Did he use the 008 IP calling? Calling to the UK from Thailand isn't something that a normal person would do on their own - especially if it wasn't his business.

 

"She died on the Wednesday and the funeral was starting by the Friday." Where? Issan/Rayong/Pathumthani? Funerals cost money - no money and see what happens. Brother? Must be a brother-in-law if she was an adopted kid.

 

"Would the police not even want to speak to the boyfriend?" Maybe they did.

 

"Would they not want to try and contact someone who had called her phone so many times?" Didn't you say or mean that someone else had her phone already... "On one occasion her phone rang and my heart leaped, but it wasn?t answered and when I rang back it was switched off again."

 

Sunday - Driving around BKK in a taxi

Monday - talked in the morning, at the police station.

Wednesday - died in the hospital

Friday at 6:00 am (UK time) - you found out.

Sunday night (UK time) - posted on this board.

 

A very nice story to show what not to do when coming to BKK, there use to be a post that people printed out when they first came to Thailand - something like "Don't fall in love".

 

Maybe someone can find that post.

[hooky]

Thanks all for your comments.

 

I'd like to answer some of the questions raised. My intention at first was to sell the house here in the UK and use the money raised to set up a business in Thailand. More recently I had gone off that idea and had talked to P about her coming to England. She was excited about the idea. When I left Thailand the last time I was very open with her about my situation. I never bullshitted or strung her along. Did though the uncertainty of our situation add to her mental unrest? I am sure it did. That is something I will always have to live with. It wasn't easy for me either.

 

I never 'forced' her into taking the job in a kitchen. It was very much something she wanted to do. I provided her with a decent apartment and far more money that she would have earned in any job other than working the bar. She didn't need the 3000 baht, she just wanted to help out a bit.

 

Do I know that she committed suicide? The British Embassy were able to confirm that she died in hospital in Phatumthani after taking an overdose. That is all I know. I have no idea how or why she ended up there.

 

Could she have been in some sort of trouble that I didn't now about? Yes, quite possibly. I am trying to find out, but doubt that I ever will.

 

Could it have been Yaa Baa induced? Again, yes that is a possibility.

 

Was she in a taxi in Bangkok? I don't know. Is it the radio that makes a beeping noise? I know it was a sound that I recognised.

 

Would the UK police have done anything? I don't know and never got to find out.

 

Education? I only have her word that she had no formal schooling. I know that she had difficulty reading menus. She would always have to ask for one with pictures.

 

Was she pregnant? I only have her word for that. She had very heavy periods and I kept asking her on the phone if she had started yet? It got later and later and when she started getting sick she went to hospital where she was told that she was pregnant. She certainly kept getting sick in the last month or so of her life.

 

I had recently sent her the money to pay for the apartment which I know she did not pay and another 7000 baht for her father who was again in hospital. It is quite likely that she had a fair amount of cash on her at the end. More than enough to travel around Bangkok for the best part of a day in a taxi. When her mother called at the apartment I told the manager to refund them the deposit after deucting the money owing, so the family did at least have some money to help with the funeral. I am trying to send some more, but communications are proving difficult to say the least.

 

The manager of our apartment called me on his mobile I think. I could see the country code so knew it was Thailand.

 

The funeral took place I think at the adoptive family home at Rayong.

 

As for the timescale. P actually died on the 29th of March nearly two weeks ago now. That was my mistake in the original post.

 

Fundamentally did I make an awful mistake in falling in love with P? Quite probably. I will certainly be far more cautious in the future. I knew it was not going to be easy but I did want to try.

 

I will though, despite all that has happened try and remember her for the good times we shared. No-one can take that away.

 

Hooky

[bifurn]

This is a sad story. Hooky, please don't turn yourself inside out trying to understand what was going through her mind during her last days as it isn't susceptible to explanation. She was high on Ya Baa and if you do an internet search on Metamphetamine or Crystal Meth then you will see that her paranoia, though extreme, was pretty much the same as countless others go through. Put simply, she wasn't herself during that time so anything she said was just the drug talking.

You may think it very significant that she wanted to take drugs since she had a good and satisfying life with you but the tinfoil in the toilet suggests that she was already hooked when she met you. There is a lot of peer pressure on bar girls to take Ya Baa, other girls do and it keeps them slim by suppressing apetite & lively by supressing tiredness. It is soon horribly addictive and its trademark is manic energy, aggressiveness and paranoia leading to flop-out tiredness as they come down off it and then a hunger for the next fix.

It's possible that your money may have paid for here last paranoid binge.

It seems like such a waste but a similar story is being played out countless times right now, although most won't end in an overdose.

[jitagawn]

"I find I have little compassion "

 

 

You really dont do you?

Compassion is one of the central tennants of Buddhism and most religions.In a little piece of that herion addict is a little piece of you.We are all connected.

 

It must be nice to live in your little neat world. Of course their problem is over there and it has nothing to do with me because I dont do THAT.

Hate to break it to you bud but alcohol is a socially endorsed hard core drug-

[Guest lazyphil]

jitagawn, i've come to realise a good few 'men' here like to watch ''a train wreck in slow motion'', i think it bolsters their confidence perhaps ::

[Chillers]

Hi Hooky,

 

Next time you are in BKK PM me and I'll buy you several beers. I'm sorry for your loss and I hope things eventually get better for you.

 

About drugs, some people tend to get "morality" mixed up with "legality" and they shake the finger in judgement when confronted with a story like this. Everyone deserves compassion.

 

I was just wondering though - if it was a form of speed psychosis then you would have noticed that she hardly ever slept.

[hooky]

Thanks Chillers and to the others who have shown compassion.

 

I suspect that if she was taking Jaa Baa that she didn't do so very often when I was around, especially after I had challenged her. We were just together too much of the time. Most of the time, she did sleep very soundly indeed though there was the odd occasion when she sat out on the balcony all night.

 

Of course I have no idea what she got up too when I wasn't around.

 

The Jaa Baa theory would certainly explain why there was such a sudden change in her behaviour, literally overnight from being a bit anxious to completely irrational life ending paranoia the next day.

 

Hooky