Leaving Pattaya The Hard Way

The NY Times regularly published a list of why Americans die. The leading causes of fatality come as no surprise; heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease, in that order. Almost all of them are related to either environment, bad food, obesity, or a cocktail of the three. You are what you eat, however westerners in Pattaya are promoted from this mortal coil for a contrasting set of circumstances;

#1 Motorcycles.

Men over 40 hit their second stage of youth on a Japanese riceburner or 125cc motorscooter. These born-again farangs reincarnate their youth, while singing BORN TO BE WILD in leather. This reversal of age doesn't last long, because many of them plow a song-thaew at full speed. They never learned how to brake and end up DOA at the local hospital. Toe tag reading 'death from misadventure'.

10-20 a month.

#2 Sex on Viagra.

55 years old with a pacemaker. 30 kilos overweight. 10 beers in their gut. A 45 kilo go-go dancer in bed. Two Viagras coursing through in their system to re-awaken a dormant libido which finally burst alive like Mt. St. Helen. spitting out the lungs of lava. OD on lust. No one knows how many farangs are bodybagged for in Bangkok-Pattaya for exceeding the speed limit for heartbeat per minute.

Some sources say 50-60 a month.

At least they died in the saddle.

#3 Suicide.

Farangs blow out their bank account, savings, and credit cards on an 18 year old bar girl named Lek. Once the ATM goes dry, her eyes seek out a new sponsor like a predator drone hunting the Taliban.

“She can’t be looking at that 80 year-old fat man?” The farang asks himself.

Two minutes later Lek’s sitting being the octogenarian on a taxi bike waving as if she were going to 7/11 for a phone card. It's the last time that farang will see his tee-lat. Broke, busted and faced with having to go back to East Doversham, the farang weighs out his options.

Graham Greene wrote in OUT MAN IN HAVANA that suicide was the work someone who reckons that the odds of ending it all are better than going on.

I know from personal experience that whatever doesn’t kill you will only make you wish you were dead. Once past that drama of a go-go girl's departure, then things get better and beer won't taste like dusty acid.

In the words of Scarlett O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day.”

Add in drinking, ODs, and murder, a farang have to ask, “Does anyone here die of natural causes?”

And there is only one answer.

Not if they can help it.