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In The West Thailand is a clich. I get it. I really do, believe me.

Perceived national treasures in descending order of significance include: hookers, white sand beaches, good drugs, Buddha, and shit-faced Brits in footballer jerseys. Four of the aforementioned are worthwhile pursuits. And yes, Ive been to The Beach but that comes much later. Live in New York City long enough and eventually conversations inevitably turn towards Where were you on 9-11? Its not something you would ever want to introduce, but some faux introspective drunk at a bar/party will inevitably offer up their very heavy much edited sounding story and make you listen. You will then be expected to reciprocate with your own very dramatic reading. Short of hearing you say I lost my brother / mother / son /etc. I dont give a fuck. Me? I was on a plane, in the sky, high over the East China Sea and blissfully ignorant along with the other 300 passengers. On the second leg of a 24 hour trip from JFK to Bangkok I was also most likely 8 Suntorytimes deep with itchy eyes and restless leg syndrome. For some reason or another, and still true to this day, flights from the US to Asia-2 as the airlines refer to SE Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines) leave at 11:30

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AM EST which including a layover in Tokyo, Seoul or HK puts the tweaked out passenger on the ground after customs/immigration in Bangkok, Saigon or Manila at the absolute most inconvenient hour of the day: midnight local time. Everyones strung out, immigration and customs are grouchy, kiosks are closed, TVs turned off, and taxi drivers Hello-you-man-where-you-go? are the only source of intel. I learned about it thus, You come from America? America? New York? Big BOOM! waves hands jumps up and down. Huh? Do I want big boom? Now after 24 hours in an airplane? No thank you. Maybe tomorrow Im down for a big boom. Boom boom? What are we talking about here? You from America! New York. Big BOOM! Bomb! BOOM! Building. What the fuck. No one else knew anything either. Standard operating procedure upon release from customs in any foreign airport is for passengers to immediately scatter and pretend they know exactly where they are, where they are going and then proceed to run around in circles ignoring anyone who approaches

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them. Ignore all other white people especially. Pretend you and you alone are the original adventurous soul that in your cunning and foresight determined that [insert exotic tourist trap here] was the it place this year for a rustic holiday. How dare these other people who look, smell, and act like you and all read the same books before getting here have the gall to remind you that youre neither unique, special nor particularly interesting? Exceptions do apply. No they dont. *This is especially true in Tokyo, Mecca for the most diehard of white-people-who-couldnt-cut-it-athome. If you really want to fuck with an American abroad who thinks they are special approach them on the Tokyo subway waving and shouting greetings like you know them, even call them by a made up name. They will be petrified and do anything to get away from you. Utterly humiliated. Why every single white person in Tokyo thinks they themselves are the only white person in Tokyo is beyond me. Japanese girls in your crew will also find watching this game hilarious, a panty lubricant in the wee hours, and will assist you all day by continuously pointing to every white person they see and loudly proclaiming in Engrish, RookYour friend!

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In 2001 Bangkok only had one airport, Don Mueang, and at midnight it lacked even basic amenities such as television news (although it did have a pretty slick golf course laid down between the two main runways, people were literally teeing off 10 meters from the wingtips of landing 747s, golf balls rolled onto the runway: true). As passengers scattered and began to evaporate in taxis and mini-buses there was no exchange of information because nobody had any. I had a regular Brian Williams on my hands fortunately. I spent the next thirty-five minutes in the air-cond back seat of a Nissan staring down Buddha god-of-dont-splatter-this-taxi-onthe-freeway tchotchkes on the dashboard and beginning to understand that indeed an explosion of some type had occurred in New York. Being that I was (am) totally the first person to ever set foot on Thai soil my first weeks hotel accommodation was off the beaten path mid Kao San Road. Call me a trendsetter. Unfortunately, however, the reality of the situation is that you can travel to the ends of the earth by dugout canoe and there will always be a pissed Brit hooligan already there, sitting at the bar, most likely yelling at the local girls through his crooked

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teeth to suck his uncircumcised dick, turn up the tellie because Liverpool is on the pitch, and that charging a quid for a pint is a bloody rip off that the Queen wont stand for you dirty monkeys. He beat you to that pristine secret place and had no business knowing how to do it. But he did it, and a wins a win. I repeat: you are not special. So it was that at 1:00 AM on 9/12/2011 (1:00 PM 9/11/2011 in New York) I sat in a frigid partitioned $16 a night box room with a rattling air con, padlocked from the inside, watching a fuzzy 12 TV with rabbit ears under a fluorescent bulb replay the collapsing towers with commentary in Thai again and again, understanding not a word.

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Fleeing the country overnight is actually not at all difficult. It requires some prep time and some careful planning to be sure but in the event that the walls of Babylon be closing in, or, the SEC starts tapping your phones, rest assured you can run. Although I feel compelled to note: do not run to Thailand. Perps at large love to run to Thailand without asking Google first if Thailand has an extradition treaty with most Western nations (spoiler alert: they do). They will deport the shit out of you ask Viktor Bout. I spent a summer prior to my departure getting my affairs in order as the dying are fond of saying. Signed POA to a realtor to dispose of a condo that was a money pit to begin with. Signed a contract selling my business to another stockbroker which gave me some walking around money for the next few years. Had a party and let everyone take home items from the apartment that they wanted (vultures). Sold my car back to a dealer the day before departure (unlubricated anal rape best describes the transaction). Thats about it. With a valid passport and a Schwab account flush with paper you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want, wherever you want, with and to whomever you want. It is a truly glorious

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feeling that everyone should experience in their lifetime. But wont.

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Koh Phangan is a small island in the southern Gulf of Thailand that relaxes in the shadow of its bigger sleazy-er sister Koh Samui (see also: Russian mafia, rohypnol, Australian land deal scams and tranny-AIDS). Phangan is debauchery squared and [was] the crossroads of the southeast Asian backpacker circuit for Israeli, Scandinavian, German & French party people and seekers since the early 90s. It is indeed a lush, wild, and beautiful place dotted with pirate settlements and neon-and-wood monstrosities built with the typical Thailand gap year traveler in mind (i.e. its awesome). The permanent population hovers around 10,000, 95% of which are ethnic Thais. The other 5% makes for a small cess gene pool of potential friends and enemies if youre setting up shop there. I had been to visit on several occasions before, befriended ex-pat locals, played 20 questions about visa shuffling, cost of living, availability and pricing of good gear, etc. and felt generally like I knew what the score was. I was right. It was pretty much what I expected upon arrival, and, I was fortunate to be welcomed with (mostly) open arms by the local ex-pat community

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whom I would soon grow to learn all had a fucked up back story of their own that led them here. I arrived to the island on a Friday, stepping off the car ferry duffle in hand. Saturday was a planned ocean clean up/beach cleanup day and as all my contacts at the time were employed as divers with one existing friend owning the local dive company Phangan Divers we set to work cleaning a small peninsula on the islands north end: Koh Ma. It was a big job as Thais (and Burmese) have two means of garbage disposal: burn it or throw it overboard. Sometimes both. Thai & Burmese dont have a concept of future implications from actions in the present. Blame Buddha and his whole live in the moment doctrine. So all during this big clean up day as were picking up plastic bottle after plastic bottle this 7 foot tall thug from Birmingham England named Tip was literally hacking chunks off a brick of dirt weed with a meat cleaver (a real Miami Vice brick: 1 full pound or more of schwag pressed into a masons mold) in a utility shed to roll these perfect gargantuan Rizla spliffs, alst the while dropping casual anecdotes about how to best break into flats back in merry ol England (hint: find a front door

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facing a wall, position a car jack in between the two and start cranking until the door knob/dead bolt assembly cracks out of the door frame). He was good at physics. Turns out Tip was also the boss. He owned the Phangan Divers outpost in Koh Ma along with his missus who for some unknown reason was a doctor of Chemistry ( a real PhD, not a Hunter Thomson-esque Doctor of Chemistry). They were business partners with a mad German with dual America citizenship Torsten who along with HIS partner Oliver owned the entire Phangan Divers island conglomerate. And they were all stoned, 24/7, no exceptions. Torsten would only answer questions in one of three ways, Could do Can do or Cannot. Makes communication simple to this day. Germans are nothing if not efficient. As the afternoon wore down a massive bonfire and cook out was planned right on the beach. In southern Thailand dense jungle eases into flower grass before petering out into sand and finally meets water. It was like a Pirates of the Caribbean / Gidget / Jimmy Buffet porno shoot. You had a drift wood bonfire, fresh mackerel and shrimp by the bucketful, a full wooden bathtub drowning Heineken in clear ice (Thai manufactured Heineken is dirt cheap), donated

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Thai food, and Morcheeba on the decks. Big Calm was a big deal then I remember. The night turned windless so the water was like glass even past the reef and carried the music across the cove. It was perfect and it was my introduction to Phangans ex-pat community. 6 Brits, 4 Germans, 3 Aussie s, 2 Swedes, 1 American, 1 Israeli, 1 Kiwi, 1 Japanese, 1 Irish, 1 Dutch, and 1 Finnish-Nigerian. Later as the year wore on I would come to learn quietly that each of these nutters had an obscene story of how and why they had ended up here: many of which involved the long arm of the law. One even directly involved the IRA and Scotland Yard. One would end up preggers with a Thai baby. Two would end up divorced. One would end up crippled. One would become a high-end Tokyo call girl. One would end up running a hedge fund. Another would end up in a Thai prison. And one would end up dead in a waterfront thatched bungalow, identifiable only by his tattoos as the tropical heat swelled his decomposing body over the course of a week undiscovered.

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Finding a place to live in rural tropical Thailand is a far cry from the antiquated wild sheep chase that we go through stateside with credit checks, pay-for-play realtors scams and Craigslist trolling. Its simple here. A farmer, fisherman or shop keep with an extra room or possibly even an empty house (if hes Chinese Thai) nails a sign to a coconut tree out front that says FOR RENT. If youre lucky theres a number, if youre not you snoop around the property until someone pops out of the jungle and grins at you while you jabber on explaining in English the complex real estate transaction to wish to engage them in. Sawadee na kop! I would like to rent this house! [grinning] Where you come-from? Have monneee? Kop-om! Have mon-eee! Have! OK kop [transaction complete]. You then swap keys for a wad of crumpled baht and dont see them again for another month. Well not exactly in my case. I settled in Chaloklum Bay. I rented a an honest-to-god house (a rarity) from a wealthy island

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garage owner, P. Chai, who also it would turn out ran a crew of local enforcers for various shadow enterprises. He was Chinese-Thai (the wealthiest Thais are either of Chinese decent or are in the military no military on Phangan ). He also kept a well oiled and perpetually loaded .357 Magnum revolver hung next to his desk within easy reach. It wasnt a show piece, it was well cared for but had nicks and scrapes and had been used. I paid on time. I felt like a minigarch. As I said an honest to god house on the island (versus a wooden stilt bungalow which was the standard for Thais and visitors alike) was a rarity. It was $200 USD a month and included a yard complete with mango, banana, and papaya trees that produced. A small creek buried in tall grass wrapped around one corner sheltering constrictors and cobras for sure (seen em) and monkeys would river dance on the tin roof in the morning. Contrary to popular belief roosters do not crow at sunrise: they crow whenever they goddamn feel like it non-stop all night and its impossible to ever get used to. Since the house faced the main road I could sit on the front porch in the evenings clutching a beer and wave to anybody that drove by. Sit there long and

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everyone would drive by sooner or later, including the local elephant. It was during these early days I took to scrubbing out the house and getting to know the water pump. Need to get water to flush the toilet at 3:00 AM? Better put on your shoes and had out into the jungle with a flashlight and some duct tape. It had sat empty for a long time, Chaloklum Bay is fairly remote compared to other more popular beaches on Phangan and few farang chose to live in isolation from the bars and clubs of Haad Rin to the northeast. Before you say anything I already told you Im not special and I wasnt trying to go native or some other misguided pretentious bullshit. I just wanted to live somewhere landscaped with grass under my feet instead of broken glass, dried vomit, and dog shit. I love to go the East Village but I wouldnt want to live there. I invited what few people I knew already and from previous time on the island to a housewarming cookout, the house had a readymade bar-b-que in the front yard. My landlord P.Chai came (unarmed). A gang of Brits came: Tip the Birmingham thug and my soon to be boss, James his shifty sidekick and dive buddy of mine who ingested mass quantities of MDMA at regular intervals

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and started every sentence with Oi! Geezer! like a Guy Richie casting, and Debs: an overcompensating younger sister to a London A-lister with who would grow to be an overbearing yet lifelong friend. A Thai party punches your stateside party in the face. Need fish to grill? Fuck Whole Foods. Just drive your bike literally out onto the pier in the afternoon when the boats come in and point out what you want in the iced baskets on deck. 5 kilos of tiger prawn? Sure: $5. 2 Spanish Mackerel still moving? Right there: $4. Vegetables go for pocket lint and beer I think is free after rebate for the previous nights bottle deposit. Need ice? You drive up to this Mosquito Coast ice factory running off a diesel generator farting black smoke out the back and they fill up a used 20 kilo rice sack for $1. An old refrigerator shelf doubles as a grill on open coals. Just dont and I mean DONT try to buy fresh meat. Need chicken beef or pork? You go to Tesco. In Chaloklum Bay there a wooden cart that parks on the street run by an honest-to-god butcher that looks like a little Asian Nosferatu with one cloudy eye and a limp. He wields a huge boning knife and hangs the cuts of meat on hooks where they are summarily descended

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upon by a black cloud of flies. This is considered normal. The swinging meat looks like theyre all wearing little black preemie sweaters. Little Thai kids wont even go near this guy. And neither should you.

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Gainful employment exists in rural Thailand but its a cash economy and as a foreigner you need to be prepared to play fast and loose with visa requirements. As frontier Chinese say the sky is wide and the emperor is far away. Phangan island lies some 700 kilometers to the south of Bangkok and has no airport so youre kind of on your own. Risks have to be taken. A standard tourist entry visa is valid for 30 days on arrival. To the Thais credit (and occasional Interpol scandal) theyll pretty much let anybody in. However, if youre planning to stay for many months or more (I had budgeted a year for starters) without leaving it got tricky. However, the term shadow economy takes on a whole new meaning here and often people simply just let you know straight up your dealing with jai-nak (gangsters) so be ready to get flexible. Theres a small travel agency in Thongsala, Phangans industrial port (car ferry, wholesale delivery of dry goods and beverages, cement, etc.) that fixes these types of immigration dilemmas for a monthly fee. However, you better be ready to take a leap of faith and you better hope to God/Buddha/Tooth Fairy that there are no complications.

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It goes like this: surrender your passport at months end along with approximately $50 USD to a sweet looking mama-san who also legitimately books rail and air fare for sun burnt Norwegians. Your passport then disappears for three days. During this time you will be sweating, worrying and working through worst case scenarios of what if I never see my passport again? After three days, return to said mama-san who will tell you No worry. Mai pen lai. I good person, as she hands your passport back to you bearing a fresh new visa entry stamp from Burma or Malaysia. My passports must have been to Burma and Malaysia many times although Ive yet to see them. Or have they? I learned years later that eventually a number of organized crime syndicates had been arrested, fined and I assume some imprisoned for visa fraud as most of these stamps were knock offs and immigration officials signature that accompany them in your passport fake. I never had an issue and was free to come and go in later years under a new passport obtained solely for the purpose of not presenting these older visas a again on Thai soil. Other ex-pats I heard were not so lucky and were charged for various immigration infractions even

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years later when discovered vacationing with their families in from the real world. It worked until it didnt. Phangan expats are almost wholly supported by the dive industry on island. The island is surrounded on all sides by a number of adequate dive sites (once beautiful but many long since destroyed by cyanide and dynamite fishing, and, by a steady stream of fucktards stomping on coral all day everyday from the many cattle boats of recreational Europeans out to try SCUBA diving for day. Obtaining a dive master certification (needed to work) from the international PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) in hindsight should have been hard. It wasnt. I worked summers through college as an open water lifeguard on South Florida beaches and it was demanding. Ocean swims of 1 mile and more, recovery of cinder blocks at the bottom of channels, girls employed to pretend they were drowning on busy weekends with 200 people in the water, and actual real first aid being applied daily. The training was actually quite brutal. PADI on the other hand will certify any numbskull with $500 who can teeter through a checklist of basic exercises. It took me 2 days to be certified as an open

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water diver, and, another 22 days to be certified as a diver master charged with the well being up to 8 hangover or worse tourists breathing compressed gas underwater at 20 meters. Prior to this I have never dove before. Never. Phangan has no hyperbaric chamber and has no helicopter. I immediately became employed by Phangan Divers for the princely sum of 200 baht per day and all the gas I could breathe. Bear in mind it was a labor of love, I came to Thailand to dive specifically so add up 300 days of diving 2-3 times per day and I suspect I got a deal. I just had to baby sit in exchange and occasionally freak the fuck out underwater when some Japanese girl of fat German tried to blow themselves up from the inside out with a mad dash to the surface. My record is clean. It turned into a routine and it was fun. Up at 7:30 with the river dancing roof monkeys, quick ride to the sandbar on an old Yamaha MTX with a giant hole in the tailpipe I rented long-time where wed gather gear for customers and be picked up in the back of Torstens pick up for a ride to the pier. Our dive boat held 50 people and had amenities, it took 2 hours to reach most sites (sometimes more for trips to Koh Tao or Chumpon Deep

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Pinnacle) and you had plenty of time and leeway to socialize. It was like a model UN even if they were all stoners and fugitives. But everyone loved to dive and being in a frontier market you could pretty much get away with anything you were willing to take the risk for. That meant bounce dives during lunch to 3040meters directly under all the dive boats from Samui who came as well to retrieve dropped gear, dive computers and the occasional wallet. Hospital grade oxygen tanks kept aboard as first aid in the event of the bends make a damn fine hangover cure. When whale sharks occasionally migrated through the area we were free to tell customers to piss off and wait on the boat while the staff rained into the water to chase them in open ocean. Yes we touched them, fuck you hippies. I even started a lucrative beer vending business on the ride home daily, selling Heinekens at a 300% markup to thirsty tourists. They bitched in broken English but they always paid up in the end and I never went home with inventory.

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