Dear Hillary,
After saving for three years, I have been on an extended holiday here in Thailand for the past six weeks and will be going back home in two weeks time. I have had a delightful guide and non-complaining companion who I found in a bar in Pattaya who has been with me for all that time, and I have looked after her well in return including a weekly allowance of 15,000 baht for her to spend on anything she wants. I would like to give her something when I leave for her to remember me by, and want you to suggest something that she will like. Please keep the suggestions within a reasonable budget. I am not a Cheap Charlie but it is the end of my holidays.
Charles
Dear Charles,
What do you really expect me to say, my Petal? Why not buy her a house, a motorcycle and a year’s free veterinary bills for the family buffalo? You’ll be able to get all that for under five million. And since you don’t want to appear as a Cheap Charlie, throw in a house for Mamma and Papa as well. That’s another 800,000 baht as houses are cheap up-country. Come down from the clouds, you have had the services of a ‘mia chow’ (rented wife) for the past six weeks, for which you have already paid 60,000 baht a month which is well above the going rate. She will remember you by whatever you have bought her until it has been converted into folding currency (“He was the nice farang man who bought me this gold chain which I am now taking back to the gold shop”). Spend your money on yourself.
