Days in the Life of a Pattaya Hotel Owner

So I have one of my best days ever in Thailand and should have really expected what followed. The good times here in Pattaya just do not last — well for me they don’t, that is most certain. The last week has been awful even by comparison to the very, very awful times previously experienced here. I am still endeavouring to come to terms with what has happened and am struggling to know where to start with my tales of woe! This week was as though the bowels of hell had been opened and deposited their somewhat unpleasant contents upon my head. This is not the first time I have been dumped on by the bowels of hell and now believe them to be located directly above my head rather than, as has been commonly imagined, in Hades.

I think Rung, our cook, should be my starting point. At this moment in time I want to kill her although it is more one of those “killing is too good for her” type moods. As I have previously explained, whilst I was away in Hua Hin at the end January, Mrs. Boss informed me that Rung had to go into hospital for a serious operation and would likely be away for a month or more. I endeavoured to ascertain exactly what was wrong with Rung and the type of operation she was undergoing. This was met in the same way as all other direct questions are here, with a complete load of twaddle and ending with me being none the wiser. The only thing that was crystal clear to me was that we were contributing some 50,000 baht towards Rungs operation and rehabilitation plus we would be paying her in full whilst she was away from work. Rung has been our cook for around 20 months now and despite her occasional moments of complete stupidity has proved herself to be a loyal employee. The fact that we will be subsidizing her to such an extent seemed fine with me, given Rung’s track record.

However, regardless of how I may have felt, the decision had been made already by Mrs. Boss — she was merely informing me of it and not requesting permission! So off Rung went to the hospital in Bangkok and underwent her operation. Eventually, one weekend when my eldest son Sam was home from school, a series of questions posed by me led to the revelation that Rung had gone into hospital for a lung transplant. Wow! That is serious as well as being something I had never heard of. I checked the Internet the next day and looked at various sites pertaining to lung transplants. They are rare and even in such an advanced country as the USA only one in five who require such an operation are fortunate enough to get a new lung. Whether or not they are truly fortunate is, of course, debatable as the body apparently rejects the new lung and in a high percentage of cases the patient rarely survives the first 12 months. I mused on the entire lung transplant situation for quite some time and was, as a rather heavy smoker, a little upset that the technique had not been perfected — perhaps this was some deliberate act on the part of a combination of medical and governmental agencies! After all, if you could just puff away on your ciggies until your lung was ready to collapse then pop along to the local hospital and get a new one that could see you return quite happily to your 40-a-day habit, then giving up smoking would likely become significantly more unlikely.

Regardless of my thoughts and research though it was quite clear that poor Rung was going to be away for some considerable time and even the thought of her never returning crossed my mind on several occasions. It was therefore, understandably, something of a surprise to me to learn that Rung had checked herself out of hospital one week after the operation on the basis she would be fine at home. It was even more of a surprise when less than two weeks following the operation she was back here at Jasmine Mansion and ready to start work again. A further surprise was that Rung arrived at work on a brand new motorcycle!

I mentioned my concerns about Rung’s health to Mrs. Boss and also wanted to make entirely sure I had got the nature of this operation correct. Mrs. Boss confirmed that it was a lung transplant and that Rung had been on a waiting list for five years for this operation. A further check on the Internet revealed a host of drugs the recovering patient is required to take — Rung had aspirin with her! I re-approached Mrs. Boss and told her that I felt uneasy about the whole thing. I knew that she had been intending to visit Rung in hospital a few weeks back so enquired about that visit. “I could not go. I spoke to her on the phone and she said she was feeling too poorly to see anyone,” Mrs. Boss then added that our daughter, Pakpao, who is at university close to the hospital also called Rung to go and visit and was told by Rung not to come as she was being moved to a hospital closer to her home that very day. By now I was more than just a little concerned about this entire story.

Mrs. Boss decided to take some action and telephoned both hospitals Rung had claimed to have been in. The hospital that was to supposed to have performed the operation denied any knowledge of Rung and the hospital she was apparently moved to do have records of her, although these showed her last visit to have been in 1995! Mrs. Boss’s next action was to request that Rung bring in her medical certificates which we required as her employers. She was advised by Rung that she would bring these to us the next day. The next day arrived but Rung did not — big surprise!

After several failed attempts over the following two days — by both Mrs. Boss and I — to reach Rung by telephone, we decided to borrow a phone from a friend to use to call her. It had by this time become clear to us that Rung was avoiding our calls. Within two rings from the borrowed phone Rung answered and unleashed the beast that is Mrs. Boss when slightly piqued let alone lied to about a serious operation and defrauded of 50,000 baht! Although I understood virtually nothing of what Mrs. Boss was spewing forth it was clear from the tone of her voice and facial expressions that whatever she may be saying it was most certainly not “get well soon.” In fact after a ten-minute barrage Mrs. Boss put down the phone and told me what she had been saying. Now even for a veteran of Mrs. Boss’s regular outbursts she had, on this particular occasion, scaled even newer and greater heights. The upshot was that she had told Rung she wished her dead and suggested she go out and get a gun and shoot her own head off. Mrs. Boss would be prepared to pay for the funeral.

Rung’s ploy, so it transpired, had been borne out of growing gambling debts and further investigation revealed that she had two prior convictions for gambling. Both of these convictions where found to have occurred on days she had taken sick! I am still confused about the new motorbike, although I believe that she purchased this on credit expecting to be paying it back from her salary — this being a salary she would not be receiving from us from this day forward. In addition I ensured that Mrs. Boss demanded repayment in full of our money. So far we have been given promises of repayment but these have failed to materialize and, in all honesty, I do not expect to see one single baht coming back in our direction.

So an employee of 20 months and a trusted member of our business family had endeavoured to cheat us out of fifty thousand baht. Who can you ever believe in this lie ridden place? Who can you trust when even those closest to you will devise a way to cheat you? The answers are simple — you can neither believe nor trust anyone in Pattaya be they Thai or Farang. The place is full of liars, cheats and completely insane beings!

The “completely insane beings” part segues us nicely into my second story of the past week. This concerns our proposed lease of the business to Dan. Dan, I am now convinced is as mad as the proverbial “hatter”.

You will recall from only a few days ago that Dan had agreed to lease the business from us and was going to be putting down a deposit to secure the deal. I had not spoken directly to Dan about his offer as all discussions had taken place directly with Mrs. Boss. They had become good friends and with Dan being ‘gay’ their closeness did not worry me at all. However, I had omitted to consider that Mrs. Boss may have been missing her normally incisive mind for money related matters due to her friendship with Dan. At the start of the discussions I was, of course, not aware of her already having been taken in by Rung’s complete fabrication.

The time had come for me to speak with Dan. We had other parties still interested in buying the buildings and I felt it only fair all round if our cards were all put on the table. Dan was working nights and agreed readily to come in early to have a discussion with us. This would be a meeting where I would be doing all of the talking for Mrs. Boss and I. We enjoyed some social pleasantries before I told Dan of the offer to buy the buildings. I confirmed that leasing the hotel remained our preferred option and that I would give him every opportunity to go through with his plans and keep him fully up to speed about the interest from other parties. However, I made it quite clear that I was not going to accept him, or anyone else for that matter, running me around in circles. Business is business and has little place for friendship whilst the deal is being done.

I explained to Dan that I wanted to hear his proposals and an actual date when he would be paying the deposit, the amount of the deposit and when he proposed payment of the balance. As soon as the deposit was lodged we would get a lease document drawn up and signed by all parties and thereafter, subject to the lease terms, he would be able to do as he wished with the business for the next six years, or longer if he so chose.

Dan explained that he had a slight difficulty in raising the deposit as he had lent his cash reserves to an uncle who required the money for his election campaign. The money was to have been repaid in January, however, it remained outstanding although he expected settlement very soon. The balance, he assured me, was no problem as this was in various trust funds that he was able to withdraw money from. Whilst I sympathized with Dan’s problem regarding his loan I made it clear that this was not my problem and that I did not really care how and where he got the money from just that he got it. I asked him to write down a timetable of events and give it to me the following day.

The next day came and went without my receiving Dan’s proposals. Another day passed and I was now getting agitated. Mrs. Boss was still convinced of Dan’s intent although this was no longer blind enthusiasm and doubts were, I was sure, also creeping into her mind. After three days of hearing nothing further from Dan in terms of his buying the business lease I was starting to lose faith in him. Matters were complicated due to the situation with Rung having developed, thus sidetracking Jin and I momentarily. To make matters even more acute the Real Estate agency had telephoned to tell us that their ‘hot buyers’ had completely disappeared and were not taking their calls.

That awful sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach came very much alive. First Rung, then the property buyers and now Dan all appeared to be running us round in circles and I felt helpless and livid in equal measure. It was now Thursday evening and I had spoken to Dan on Monday. I asked Mrs. Boss to call him and find out what was happening, if anything, with the proposals he was asked to present me with. His reply was simple yet startling, “I am so sorry my dear, but I have been so worried about the broken water pipe on the building at the rear of the hotel that I have been unable to sleep or think of anything else.” The startling part of this statement was that both Mrs. Boss and I were completely unaware of any broken water pipe and were certain that had there been such a situation we would have known about it. When you add that to the fact that this was hardly something that would give one sleepless night’s nor prevent you writing down a few lines of your plans, you began to understand why I immediately lost all remaining confidence in Dan and his abilities to perform as had been suggested.

Whilst discussing Dan’s recent statement, Mrs. Boss felt it an appropriate time to tell me that Dan’s boyfriend had borrowed 4,000 baht from her two weeks earlier. This, I just could not work out. Why would they need four thousand baht if Dan was from one of the country’s richest families? Sure, I understand cash flow and that even the very wealthy may run short of readies from time to time. However, for someone just about to make a nine-million baht investment borrowing four thousand baht to buy the weekend’s groceries seemed rather implausible! I was convinced Dan was a “Walter Mitty” character and by now Mrs. Boss was starting to reconsider her opinion of him. However we were off for the weekend to see Pakpao at her university in Bangkok so there was little we could do until Sunday night or later.

Our return from Bangkok saw us in receipt of a letter from Dan. Apparently all of the pressure had become too much for him and not only did he feel unable to continue with the proposed purchase but he also felt obliged to quit his job with immediate effect! Having been with us when we were endeavouring to contact Rung earlier in the week Dan was alive to the “friend’s telephone” trick and was taking no calls whatsoever. However, the local constabulary was taking calls and Mrs. Boss’ uniformed friend on the force agreed to investigate the two addresses Dan had given us as being his condominiums in Pattaya. It was not long before the policeman chum was back on the phone advising us that Dan neither lived at, nor owned, either of these premises!

Why would Dan have made up this complete tissue of lies?!? He gained nothing from it — even the 4,000 baht borrowed by his boyfriend had been deducted from his recent bimonthly salary payment by Mrs. Boss. He had not taken any of our money or stock and he had now worked for over one week for which he would not be paid. It made no sense to me whatsoever and I can only put everything he did down to Dan being a complete fruit cake!

The third event of this rather unfortunate week relates to a farang guest and one of our Thai waitresses. If you have read any of my previous books or articles on the blog you will be aware that sleeping with a guest is grounds for instant dismissal. You will also be more than well aware of my opinion as relates to Thai women in Pattaya and there inability to keep their knickers on. If you have not read and of my writings prior to this point then I am sure the last two sentences have given you sufficient knowledge to be going on with!

Tuk was a small girl, even by Thai standards. Dressed appropriately she would pass as an eight-year old so diminutive is she, although I did not realise at this time she only had the mental capacity of an eight-year old, a backward eight-year old at that. Tuk was the only member of our present staffing team whose English was not very good, though she made up for this by rushing around working and undertaking jobs without having to be asked or cajoled into such. She had a very positive attitude, was always smiling and prepared to turn her hand to anything which even included various stints in the kitchen as a temporary cook.

Colin was a retired salesman from the United States. He had kept himself in a good physical condition and this was his second visit to Thailand and to us here at Jasmine Mansion in the last 12 months. I enjoyed several lengthy conversations with Colin and he was delighted to be in a city where various attractive young nubiles would welcome the opportunity of jumping into bed with him, for around 25 dollars a night. To be honest, what man of any age, let alone one well into his seventies, would not welcome being in such a city?

Not only did I enjoy many a conversation with Colin but I would also regularly play a few games of pool with him. We had recently had a blessing at the hotel from the local monks and laid on plenty of food, firstly for the monks and then our staff and other guests once the monks had departed. Colin was around for the blessing and then invited to join in with us when we at last sat down to eat. He must have told me 20 times that day how grateful he was to have been involved and how this was the only hotel he would ever consider staying at whenever he visited Pattaya. It therefore came as a bit of a surprise to me when I discovered the following day that he had checked out two weeks earlier than he had booked in for.

Colin cited the noise from the next door building as his reason for leaving. The noise had been unbearable for the past few months it is true, however, the last week or so had seen the works completed and very little, if any, noise coming from our neighbours. The next surprise was the disappearance of Tuk who had, to this point, proved to be extremely reliable. As with both Dan and Rung before her, Tuk had also gone into non-telephone answering mode.

Later that day another staff member advised Mrs. Boss that she had just seen Tuk and Colin. They were staying at another local Pattaya hotel together! So Tuk had now gone and had forfeited two weeks salary for leaving without giving notice. Not a bad week so far then with our assistant manager, cook and one waitress all having left the scene!

The only upside to this latest tale of woe was that a few days later Tuk was back in touch imploring us to take her back. Colin had booted her out after two days and now she had no money and no job. Tough luck Tuk!