This Is Thailand: A Story of Love, Sex and Betrayal In the Tropics

stories!

WARNING

The following story is based on true events that took the place in the life of the author between June 2009 and May 2011.This book is for entertainment purposes only and the author refuses to take responsibility for any losses resulting from the incorrect usage of this book. This may include: bankruptcy; drink/drug addiction; overheating (including heatstroke); incarceration in a Thai (or any other country) prison; HIV infection or other sexually transmitted diseases; castration or death resulting from a confrontation with a jealous Thai woman; or any other injury or loss of life. Reading from now on is your sole responsibility. You have been warned.

Prologue

For as long as I can remember, travelling has always been something I have loved. If I had to burden anyone with that particular aspect of my personality, then that would have to be my parents. They took me to Bulgaria when I was five, then jetted me to all sorts of youth camps around Europe during my teens. If they wanted to see more of me once I had grown up, then they could only blame themselves.

My working life began and then, with a few years experience in the writing and publishing industries under my belt by the age of 19, Nokia came calling - and paid for me to attend a press conference on their behalf in Manchester. All expenses, including flights, 5 star hotels and free-flowing booze. How could I say no? More invitations soon followed. Motorola, Siemens and others flew me to all corners of the continent. Then the invitations became more high-profile, NATO and European Summit in Brussels, then flying with Polish politicians around Europe, to Washington, to Israel. I wrote about all of these on my website, Global.net.pl, which sadly is no more.

Graduation somehow changed my viewpoint, I wanted to see the world. I took a job in Ireland, leaving the journalistic life and its related benefits behind me. The place stole my heart. Even 300 days a year of rain were not enough to cool my enthusiasm. A good corporate salary in Dublin helped fund a road-trip from New York to Los Angeles, to check if Iran is really as bad as they say and to taste the forbidden fruits (natural or otherwise) of Thailand.

But, if graduation had changed me somewhat, then this last trip completely altered my mindset. Nothing was the same again back in Ireland. The rain-taps on my window were always there but now I noticed them every fucking morning, and the thought of wearing a waterproof jacket in June – the height of summer everywhere else north of the equator – started to wear me down. Suddenly the salary was no longer enough, but that was more down to my expenditures on my travels than much else.

To quell the boredom of the 9-to-5 rat-race, I began a Master’s programme at Trinity College, Dublin – the best university in Ireland – but the fresh smell of the Orient even followed me there. After a while I realised it, I wanted to live in Asia.

So, I went about creating a plan and began to implement it. What was the plan and how would it all work out? Read on and you’ll find out...

Chapter 1: Fuck the Corporation!

FUCK... - I moan in response to the loud beeeeep! of the alarm clock. I get up and, with usual slowness, walk towards the window to bring in some sunlight from behind the curtains into the room. Except there isn’t any sunlight. Again. It’s the beginning of July, so it should be summer, but outside the window, my neighbour is running to his car with a waterproof jacket zipped all the way up to his neck. It’s grey, dark and ugly. It’s raining or is certainly about to start. A typical Irish morning.

- FUCK! - I scream this time.

I switch off the central heating and dress for the day as though I am getting ready for war and a march towards Russia. It’s cold and windy and invisible rain is pouring itself onto my face as I make the short walk to my car. New Merecedeses, BMWs and Audis, bought for borrowed money, are stuck in the long, morning traffic jams. People are getting off the Luas – the modern tram – at Sandyford, the last stop – a relatively new district dominated by modern apartment-blocks, car dealers and offices of the multinational corporations that have descended on this island. I walk as quickly as I can, without paying much attention to the other people. I hide from the grim weather in the warmth of my employer’s building. Safe and comfortable in my boring, grey cubicle that gives me such a false sense of security.

I pass a grey pedestal with the black, thick logo of my employer on it - the same in which my friend John took a picture of his ass in front of on his last day. The security guard gives me an evil look as I drive into the compound, but I pretend to ignore it. There’s been a deep animosity between the two of us ever since he hit my car with the gate, then blamed it on my lack of driving skills and over usage of the verb fuck. The company paid for the expenses and the guy got a warning, but we haven't become friends since then.

I take the lift to the third floor and find my way through the dozens of identical, grey cubicles that are slowly filling up with paid slaves. I say How are you?, Nice weekend? and other variables of welcome no less than 30 times. I am not interested in hearing the answers. I am not waiting for them and neither are the companions of my woe.

I reach the territory of my team and I greet them with my usual greetings, and they respond in kind. Celine – my French boss and someone who, to put kindly, I don’t exactly see eye to eye with – notices me from her office. This dream job of controlling this group of slaves has taken 10 years of her life to achieve.

- Marek you are late again - she says, without so much as a Hello

- Oh, good morning Celine. It’s great to see you. How are you? Sorry I’m late. - I respond with obvious sarcasm.

- I would prefer if, instead of being late and sorry, you would start coming to work on time. -

- Ok, I’ll try. How late am I? -

- 20 minutes - she says and then noticing my facial expression - I don’t understand why you are smiling. When you are 20 minutes late daily, you are missing a week of work throughout the year! And I’m not even mentioning your annual and sick leave, which you seem to be abusing lately. - she continues.

- Are you having a bad day? -

- Don’t be arrogant and get to work - she turns and returns to her dungeon at the end of the corridor.

- Aye, aye captain! - I call to the back of her head.

I sit down at my desk and do what I’m told. I launch the computer and decide it’s time for a coffee. I see some colleagues in the printer area, so the process of making instant coffee takes roughly 15 minutes. I check private e-mails and Facebook, browse through the headlines of all of the interesting websites and newspapers and read some of the more interesting articles in full. I’m supposed to start one more, when my printer-colleagues call me for breakfast. Officially we have a 15-minute break, but how can you walk to another building, order food, eat, moan about your boss, and walk back again in 15 minutes? Usually it takes us about 45 minutes and this time it’s no different. I come back to my cubicle and, once again, ignore the daggers that are launching themselves towards me from Celine. I don’t care anymore, I’m through to the other side and immune to requests, threats and warnings. Celine has tested all sorts of motivation techniques on me and nothing has ever come of them. For her, it was clear that I was burnt out. For me that I never fit in.

Eventually, I start some work and go through the endless, repetitive e-mails from clients that say the same old shit. They log the problem into the system, which I am usually able to resolve. Two or three months later they log the same or a very similar problem caused by the same or similar mistake on their end. And each time I do the same procedure, giving them the same answer. My particular favourite is when they claim that we made a mistake on the invoice, except that the invoices are issued automatically. The system can’t be wrong. Never. But I still have to sit here and check five different applications in five days just to prove to the client that the mistake wasn’t made at our end. Eventually we get to the root of the problem and establish that the company has forgotten to inform of us of their change of address. Or I explain that the invoice is for four million dollars and not two, because someone in their company ordered the wrong products. I check, resolve and explain. They forget and do it again a few months later. The same companies, the same names, the same problems. Like a fucking déjà vu repeating constantly for the last three years.

It’s almost lunchtime when an e-mail from the internal audit team flashes in my inbox. It was sent to a few hundred employees, including the management of the company. It’s marked as high priority.

Dear Colleagues,

We cordially ask you to stop using red pens on official internal documents. The red pen is reserved for the audit team. Please fill all documents in blue pen. Thank you in advance. If you happen to have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Yours,

Audit Team

Questions or queries? I can’t take it any longer.

Dear Audit Team,

I would like to protest against using the blue pen, while you will be using the red pen. I am suggesting do it exactly the other way around. We will be using the red pens and you will be using the blue pens. Thank you in advance for considering my request.

Yours,

Marek

Click. Message sent. To the entire company, including top management.

Less than a minute later I hear Marian – from my team – laugh out loud and Margaret, just along from her, trying to stifle a giggle. As expected, Celine and Anna, Celine's right hand have faces of utter disgust. My friend Michael, from another team, replies to my e-mail.

- You’ve got balls! Lunch? -

Michael arrives at my desk and we high-five each other, laughing like madmen. Our company is located in two huge buildings, and the canteen is in the opposite one in which we work. On our way, we pass Barry from the Audit team and he’s smiling. Barry takes his job seriously but he’s got a sense of humour. We join the queue for food.

One of the benefits of working for a big corporation is subsidized food. You can eat a huge lunch for four euro, which is a good price for Irish standards. The food is edible, but extremely unhealthy and the lack of variation on French fries, pizzas and hamburgers leads to most employees gaining 10 to 15 pounds each year. The alternative is to bring food from home, something I started a few months before but soon gave up on.

The attraction of the day is planned after lunch – a monthly brainwashing exercise conducted by the management of the company. We go into the conference room to join another few hundred employees. There’s a projector and screen for slides on the stage, and these instruments are being used, like they are each month, to tell us how fucking brilliant we are as a team and how we are such wonderful people, what we have achieved for June and what we will achieve in July. We learn who moved onto pastures new (in other words, quit), who joined and who had birthdays. Halfway through this ridiculous exercise I start drifting into a blissful slumber and ask Michael to poke me if I start snoring.

I wake up when Jack, the overall manager, is walking onto the stage. Jack drives a nice, brand-new Lexus and has a big house in Dug Laoghaire – a posh neighbourhood of Dublin – that is worth a few million Euro. Jack works more than 12 hours a day and on Saturdays he brings his toddler son to work because the nanny cannot look after him on weekends. When I learnt about this dream life, I dreamt only one thing – to be nothing like Jack.

- Dear friends - Jack begins - As you know, the recession storming the world has touched the economy of our country very deeply. Global and national changes have not left our company unharmed. In the first two quarters of this year, our earnings have decreased from 72 to 68 million euro. Our Irish operations are in danger. I believe sincerely that this company is yours as much as it is mine. This is why I have two pieces of information for you today – one good, one bad. From next month we will have to cut your salaries by 10%, and introduce changes to the bonus system. The good news is that, because of the savings we will make, no one will lose their job. Everybody will stay with the company. Do you have any questions? - He finishes, scanning the room.

I stand up quickly. I know this isn’t smart but I just can’t help myself.

- Jack, to use other words...you’ve earned 68 million instead of a planned 72 million and you call it a recession. And this is your excuse to save on your employees. Is that correct? -

There is a consternation somewhere in the room. Someone tells me to shut up, I’ve opened Pandora’s Box.

- Well, it’s more complicated than that... - he’s flustered and doesn’t know my name. - Our budgets are... - he continues, but I’m already making my way to the door and I shut it as loudly as I possibly can. I have a feeling that I might have gone too far this time, but despite this I’m feeling great.

Back at my cubicle, I open a few websites that I’ve already previously been on. The websites are for Teaching English as a Foreign Langauge (TEFL) courses, shortcuts to becoming an English teacher abroad. One course is in Alexandria, Egypt while the other is in Phuket, Thailand and I have been thinking this through for the past month.

Some time ago I came back from Iran with a huge passion for the Middle East. Choosing Egypt would mean a career in the Arab world, with the real possibility of a quick return to Persia. It would also be an amazing insight into the region with all of its rather conservative attitudes towards sex and alcohol. I was in Thailand three years ago and that was a completely different story: exotic lifestyle, parties and beautiful women. Hedonism is the word.

My thoughts are interrupted by another flash in the inbox.

Dear Marek,

HR department would like to speak to you tomorrow at 4pm. I will be present in the meeting. If you want, you can take a witness with you like the last time.

Kind Regards

Celine

The first time HR wanted to speak to me was because of my holidays. I was approved a 3-day leave and went to Morocco for a week. I switched off my mobile phone for the duration of my stay in Africa and after I returned I took additional sick leave to cure an infection in my leg that I had picked up in Marrakesh. The problem, however, wasn’t my leg but the non-approved holiday of a few extra days. I told them I got stuck in the Atlas mountains when my car broke down and my mobile phone, or the internet, didn’t work there. They asked me to show my flight ticket as proof that I intended to come back, so I changed the dates and presented it to them. I ended up with a verbal warning, which they also gave to me in writing – corporate logic! You’re allowed three written warnings before they kick you out, so I wasn’t in danger just yet. This time I knew it was about my comments in the monthly brainwashing – possibly coupled with my response to the Audit Team.

It’s then that I decide to put my plan into action. I click back on internet, close the Egypt page and pay the deposit for Thailand. I have to be in Phuket in three months.

have one more issue to solve. Almost two years previously, I started studies at Trinity College Dublin and the deadline for the Master’s thesis was in two and a half months and I had agreed to write about women’s rights in Iran. I was hoping my supervisor would be Iain Atack – an easy-going boss of the programme M.Phil in International Peace Studies. Instead, the university gave me Roja Fazeli – an ambitious Iranian activist, who kept complaining that I didn’t speak Farsi. Her hope being that if I spoke the language, I would have better access to books. Who said studies in the West would be easy?

I decide to make sure that none of the customers’ requests pass the 72-hour deadline. Thankfully all of them are relatively new and I can answer them even the day after tomorrow. I cease all work-related activities and spend the remainder of the day booking a doctor’s appointment in the Polish clinic and trying to find the cheapest flights from Dublin to Phuket. The thrill of excitement runs down my back when I tick the option one way flight.

Are you sure you want to confirm the reservation number X13GS1? (Caution, chosen order cannot be cancelled)

I click Yes and the decision is made.

At 4.45 on the dot – the time for all slaves to be liberated each day – I jump out of my chair and make my way to the car park where my old, green Honda Civic awaits me. I bought it with my first quarterly bonus almost three years ago. It’s the coolest looking model from 1994 and at 15 years old it’s still going strong. The car that can’t be killed.

I drive through the evening rush hour into the city center and cross the constantly calm Liffey River via the O’Connell Bridge and shortly after am in the northern part of the city that is mostly inhabited by the Irish working class and an increasing amount of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Victorian houses are in a bad state, black mothers with children fed by the social insurance system, knackers – the dangerous Irish youth - and Polish workers with characteristic moustaches are walking aimlessly along the street.

I park the car in front of Tesco and walk towards the Polish clinic. The waiting room is half-full of construction workers while the other half is filled with artificially blonde girls. I register and wait my turn. If I was religious, I would have prayed for a miracle.

My heart pumps like crazy when the receptionist reads my name and I walk towards the doctor’s office on weak knees. This conversation will decide my educational future and, foolishly or not, I decide to be honest.

- Good evening doctor - I begin lacking confidence.

- Good evening Mr...Lenarcik. How can I help you? - she asks rather coldly

- I have an unusual problem. I am a second year student at Trinity College Masters course and I have just received approval of my thesis subject, which I have to submit in two and a half months... -

The doctor looks at me for a few seconds before finally responding.

- Are you working? -

- Yes. - I can feel my heartbeat in my chest, surely the doctor can see it moving through my shirt.

- Where? -

I give him the name of my company.

- And you need time off to write your thesis. Have I got this right? -

- That’s correct -

- How much time do you need? -

- Four, maybe six weeks -

- Oh, it’s a serious sickness? Lower back injury? -

- Whatever you think suitable, doctor. - I smile.

- There is only one problem. I can’t give you a medical certificate for six weeks. You will have to visit me every week to extend. Otherwise they will send someone to check and neither you or I will be happy with that. -

- Thank you doctor - is all I can manage.

I run out of the doctor’s office and feel like I have wings. In the evening I celebrate my newly gained freedom with my flatmates by putting back a lot of Guinness.

The procedure related to sick leave forces the employee to call his boss. Texts and e-mails are not accepted. It’s a system designed for all those who have trouble lying over the phone. I decide to go with the email.

To: Celine

Subject: Accident

Dear Celine,

I would like to inform you that I had a bad accident today at the gym. As a result, I have a serious lower back injury. The initial doctor’s consultation did not give me specific details, but let’s hope for the best. From today, I have one week approved sick leave with the possibility of extending if needed. I will keep you informed at all times. My flatmate will bring you the relative documents and I am sorry for not following the correct corporate procedure but you must understand that speaking causes me great pain at this moment in time. I will call you when I feel better.

Kind Regards

Marek

I go to sleep and don’t set the alarm clock.

***

The next week marks a completely new life for me. I sleep in until I want, eat breakfast slowly and have time to plan out my days. I’ve resigned from the gym as there are too many of my work colleagues there and they would have quickly informed management that my back isn’t as bad as first thought. Instead, I try to stay in good shape by running up and down the stairs in my apartment building. For shopping, I drive to a distant mall to ensure that no one from work sees me. When I walk around my neighbourhood, I put on a university sweatshirt with a hood to ensure that nobody recognises me. Generally I avoid leaving home, but if I have no choice I leave it to a time when employee movement is minimal. I feel like John Dillinger on the run¹.

Dublin is not a good place for lying-low. The city center is small and all of the main roads tend to cross one another. All of the public transport passes through here, forcing people to walk and change in the downtown regardless of where they come from or where they’re going. Random meetings are a daily routine here.

I spent a few weeks in the university library reading books, writing my thesis and studying useful information about living and teaching in Thailand. Unconsciously, I am preparing quite well for this spontaneous journey. I visit my doctor each week to extend my sick leave and each time I happily imagine Celine’s face as she receives each new piece of information that I will be off for another week. I receive the checks from the Department of Social Affairs which, according to the corporate policy, I should probably deliver to my boss. Instead I deposit them in my own bank account, not feeling too bad that the global giant will miss out on a few measly Euro, and thinking of how many plates of rice that extra cash will buy me in Thailand, along with how many years I wasted with that company and how much my eyesight deteriorated as I sat at my computer screen everyday for three years.

One week before I’m due back at work, my Master’s thesis is generally ready. Apart from a few grammar and style corrections, formatting, contents and a few other details, it’s practically finished and for the first time in a few weeks, I’m feeling relaxed. But then my calmness is interrupted by an unexpected phone call.

- Good morning Marek, Annette speaking from the HR department. Is it a good time to talk to you? -

- Sure, how can I help you? -

- I am calling because we are worried about your health. How are you? -

- Better with every passing week Annette. I think I should be ready to come back to work in a week or two. -

- We’re glad to hear that. -

- I’m happy too. Is that all? -

- Well no, not really. You’ve mentioned a doctor. Are you sure you’re having the right care? -

- Of course. As I mentioned, I am feeling a lot better. -

- We are having some doubts, however. We would like you to attend our company’s doctor. Will that be a problem for you? -

- I don’t see any problem with that. - I lie.

- Great, can you make it on Thursday at 6pm - She gives me the address of the company’s doctor. - Do you have any questions? -

- No, everything is clear -

The line clicks dead and I swallow hard. It’s clear to me what’s happening here, the doctor works for the company and has a very clear role to prove that my back injury has been one big lie, which of course it has been. But that does not mean that I can allow it to happen.

My flatmate takes me to the doctor and I hobble from the car, in case I’m being watched. I’m asked to come into the office. An old Irish woman in glasses and white clothes asks me to lie down on the bed and raise my legs as high as I possibly can. I get to about 30% of my capability and make a sound to suggest severe pain. The doctor shakes her head and asks me to turn onto my stomach. She touches my back, causing a false sound caused by equally false pain.

She finishes and walks over to her desk.

- In my opinion - she says - you are overreacting and you can go back to work. -

- Great, my doctor said the same thing. That I can come back to work on Monday. -

- In my opinion, you can go back