Forget You Had a Daughter - Doing Time in the Bangkok Hilton (6 page)

A day or two later my friend moved on and, once again, I was alone.

At night I would light a bonfire with some of the other guests and sit around with the Thai workers chatting, strumming guitars and nibbling on some unusual Thai snacks. Deep fried crickets seemed to be one of the favourites.

Wisid, the guesthouse owner, organised a trip to the mountains for the weekend, and a few of us agreed to go.Three hours in the back of his jeep and still there were no elephants, or tigers; just hills, piercing sun, dust and bushes. At the time Thailand had not been too trammelled by tourists and when we finally came to a halt I found myself in the middle of what looked like a David Attenborough documentary. We had travelled high into the mountains and, amidst spectacular views of northern Thailand, we could look down upon those who had been here before. We entered one of the numerous hill tribe villages.

Children carried smiling infants on their backs while others, stopping in their tracks, looked vaguely horrified at who had just arrived. Even more children appeared, all with cute, dirty little faces, and arms like kindling sticks. They kept staring. Chickens ran around scratching in the dust and women ground huge piles of rice on a large millstone. The big flat stone had a large stick attached and the women walked around and around in a circular motion. It took hours for a small amount to be ground into a powder. I was awestruck.

‘You want to go and see an opium field?’ asked an old man who had stopped by to greet our group.

Surprisingly, no one did except for me. I followed this very old, broken-looking man as he trotted through the village. Past bamboo huts with grass roofs, huge black pigs and dust, so much dust, we ran through the village and around the side of a mountain for over an hour. Eventually, the old man stopped.

‘Opium,’ he said, in clipped English.‘Opium.’ He pointed.

I looked down to the cultivated section of the mountain and

saw little plants that looked exactly like funny little cabbages.This is what we had come to see? I had imagined all these pretty little poppy flowers blowing around in the wind.

Just looking at them made me feel dizzy.All I could think of was the film
The Wizard of Oz
, when Dorothy lay down in a field and fell asleep amongst thousands of poppies. Up here in the moun- tains, surrounded by nothing but light and air, I wanted to lie down and go to sleep in the field like Dorothy.

Since
1959
opium growing has been illegal in Thailand but in

1990
it was still going on in many places. Rampant production and refining of the crop during the
1960
s and
1970
s became com- monplace in the lawless regions on the border of Thailand, Burma and Laos, and the area soon earned the nickname Golden Triangle. I was standing amongst it all.

When the government decided to destroy huge areas of poppy fields it meant that the hill tribes had to find alternative liveli- hoods. So the Thai government were forced to introduce more legitimate cash crops, like corn, peaches and strawberries. In many parts of the north, vegetables are often grown at the same time in the same field to hide the crops. I could hardly believe that much of the heroin in Thailand came from places like the old man’s secret field.

We turned and began trotting down again and in no time we arrived back at camp.A young German, with an agitated look on his face, kept asking for,‘The doctor.Where’s the doctor?’

‘Who needs a doctor?’ I asked, scanning the village for someone sick, but the German ignored me.

Another old man and his son appeared and Wisid greeted them both with feigned solemnity.The venerable old gentleman unrav- elled a small roll of cloth and proceeded to set up an assortment of items contained within it on the bamboo platform. He lay down on his side and Wisid lay down facing him. In between them were a small metal bowl, a lit candle and a well-worn pipe.The old man melted something over the candle, kneaded it in his fingers and

pushed it into the pipe. He passed one end over to Wisid and lit the bowl.They were smoking opium.

That’s why we had come up to the mountains
, I laughed to myself. Wisid and the others were all opium smokers. Each person took a turn on the pipe, and the whole procedure lasted about half an hour.They all lay on the platform with the old man and everyone got high.

There are seven rules to smoking opium, the group explained; a procedure that must be followed otherwise bad luck will follow. Most of them I forget but one of those curious rules are that you must smoke an odd number of pipes: three, and five, seven or more. One pipe, they said, has no effect.Two was simply bad luck.

Wisid and the old man charged
15
baht per pipe.

‘Go on,’ they all said,‘try it.’

After the first one, trying two would have spelled bad luck and three would have been too much. So one pipe was more than enough.The opium made me ill for hours and I wanted to be sick; I huddled around a small fire that we had built praying my head would clear.The others sat for hours, each having another go on the old man’s pipe, over and over again.That was my first experi- ence of drugs in Thailand.

I lost interest in the people who were staying at Wisid’s guest- house.They were there for the opium, nothing else. It was time for a change of scene. Maria, a French girl at Wisid’s, had travelled to northern Thailand before and she was going to ‘Guesthouse Three’, situated somewhere between Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. She wanted her boyfriend to see it before they left for Australia. Did I want to go with them?

We took a bus a few days later and, after a few hours, it dropped us off at the edge of a local marketplace, on the side of a dusty road. Maria bought Thai sweets, fruits, bread and vegetables and suggested that I do the same. We waited for a ride up into the mountains.

A Toyota pick-up drew alongside us and Maria agreed a price

with the driver – ten baht each. In the back of the pick-up there were about eight Thais. Miles and miles through thick clouds of dust, we climbed the mountain.There was nothing to see through the dust except for more dust, which got everywhere and stung terribly. If only my parents could have seen me, they would have thought I was crazy.

We pulled up in the middle of thick forest and we got out, while Maria proceeded to plan our route to the guesthouse. Through miles of forest we walked and, in the trees around us, the sound of exotic birds echoed, announcing our presence. Lizards dashed from our path. Gradually, through the trees, I saw a clearing and what looked like a village.

Bamboo huts stood on tall wooden stilts covered by layers of thin grass that made thatched roofs; chickens and dogs ran around looking for scraps. A huddle of pigs scratched in the dust nearby, grunting. Children – some naked, others dressed in tatty rags, all barefoot – came running from all directions to greet Maria. She had been here before, and they all seemed to know her.

Of course, that’s what the sweets were for! Maria picked up one child after another, and lowered them to pick up yet another. Her boyfriend and I were amazed.This was Guesthouse Three, a beau- tiful secret hidden way up in the mountains.

The children ran on, leading us through the village, shouting to others in a language that seemed unlike anything I had ever heard, even in Bangkok. I could tell by the tone of it, the way it carried itself from mouth to ear, that they were very excited at our arrival. Three little children dominated the group and took great pride in holding our hands, walking us towards their family. They belonged to a woman called Annum and we were to stay with her. Ever so gently,Thailand began unfolding like the pages on a beau- tiful and ancient history book.We had arrived in San Jalo Mai. I

was speechless.

Maria and her boyfriend stayed in the village only a few days, before leaving to catch planes to Australia. But I couldn’t leave; I

was seeing so many things that I had never even dreamed about. Why had I never come to this country before?

For the next five weeks, Guesthouse Three was my home and I began working with the women of the village up in the moun- tains.Whatever was happening at home or around the rest of the world I had no idea. Up in the mountains there were no radios, televisions, telephones or newspapers.

All over the UK people were getting up in the morning hating their work and their life. Not me. I was in heaven.

Unless we were out in the forest my diet consisted of mounds of heavy rice, a few leaves sprinkled on top and a thick, red-hot chilli paste, three times a day. In the forest the children would pluck fat insects and caterpillars from tree bark and pop them in their mouths. Standing there, with their fat little stomachs, they would point out to me which were good to eat and which ones best avoided. I never did manage to swallow a squirming bug, despite repeated and hilarious offers.

One afternoon a group of us visited someone’s grandmother, over at a nearby mountain. It was a few hours’ trek away and the children were so excited to be going. Grandma was out so we waited for her to return. She was in the forest, gathering food for the arrival of the grandchildren. What delights! Held in thick wedges of bamboo, with grass stuffed in the top, were hundreds of fat, white caterpillars and juicy bugs, while bundles of leaves unfolded to produce a mass of tree insects and beetles, fungi and dark red berries.

The squirming food was piled on a grass mat for the children. Squeals of delight took over from their usual squabbling and banter, and they finished the feast in minutes.

My days passed easily, working in the fields and helping around the village, mostly cutting grass for the hut roofs, digging for peanuts and cabbages, chopping down bamboo to make utensils and reinforcements for huts.The bamboo leftovers would be used

as pig food. Would anyone believe me if I told them how I was living? I doubted it.

I thought about home less and less. I could have disappeared and no one would have known.

Once a week I would disappear down the mountain and come back to the village laden with sugar cubes, chickens and coconut pancakes.The villagers accepted me readily; indeed seemed to be amused by my presence.

For some strange reason families began bringing their sick chil- dren to me. Despite having very little in my bag in the way of medication, they were impressed when I boiled water and salt to be used as an antiseptic. It had great results on serious skin infec- tions.A few bandages, aspirin, camomile, lavender andThai brandy made up the rest of my nurse’s bag.

There was a baby with an insect in her ear and the pain kept both her and her mother awake for days.A drop of brandy in her ear either killed it from alcohol poisoning or drowned it.The fol- lowing day the mother of the child was delighted and brought me bags of peanuts and enough bananas to feed a family for a week.

My patient list grew. A young boy who had put a machete through his hand caused the children of the village to shout for me to come and fix him. His thumb, raw and ragged, was hanging off so I cleaned and patched it as best I could and the following day he returned to see me, a baby strapped to his back. As I removed the old bandage he moaned ever so slightly. But he couldn’t stop smiling.

Little girls would pierce their ears with thin slices of bamboo and if the bamboo got wet their ears would infect. Some of the swellings were the size of golf balls. One day, while walking through the village I heard what sounded like a pig being slaugh- tered; the animal seemed to be screaming.

Many of the villagers were gathered outside a hut, the size of a small wardrobe, and when I peered inside a girl, aged around four, was being held down by her grandfather while her father held a

rather rusty-looking scalpel.The girl had a swelling bigger than an orange on the side of her head and her father was about to slice it open.

The girl looked at me. Her father sliced the side of her head and green mush and blood oozed from the wound. A large piece of banana leaf was held against her head and the puss flowed onto the leaf.When the leaf was full they threw it to the pigs, idling nearby. The child continued screaming while her grandfather held her and her father sliced again. Some more screams and some more food for the pigs.

When they had finished they wrapped her in a blanket and laid her on a bed inside the hut. Her wound lay open and I was sure she would die, either from shock or infection, and I tried to explain to the father that she needed to see a doctor. Immediately. The next morning I left the village to buy antibiotics, aspirin and bandages but by the time I got back the child had gone. Fortunately, my protestations had got through to the girl’s father, who had taken her to the hospital.A few days later she returned to the village and was soon running around with the other children, wearing a large pad on the side of her head. Doctors had removed a four-inch square area of skin from behind her ear to clear the

infected area.

Aha was the main opium smoker in the village and a renowned ladies’ man. He sat every day smoking in a hut, doing nothing else. He was great fun and very good with all the children, and had several wives with numerous children. Everyone, including Aha, thought that I would make a good wife for him and it became a persistent joke.

One evening I told everyone Aha was a useless man who never did anything. ‘What good is he?’ I joked. The following day Aha rose before dawn and went into the forest. He arrived back later laden with goods and that evening prepared a meal for his family; he also made two large bamboo baskets and mended the roof. I

showed him a photograph of Holroyde, my friend at home, and that was the end of his courtship.

My life was absolutely wonderful for those five weeks but gradu- ally I grew restless. For some unexplainable reason I imagined that the village was turning against me. Perhaps they had? Maybe they were fed up with their uninvited guest. In a fit of paranoia I began to fear they might even sacrifice me. It was late December and definitely time to leave, so one morning, amid a breeze and a bright blue sky, I slipped away as quietly as I had slipped into their lives.