Legendary Dave Collier, owner of Pattaya’s sole surviving bookshop and chattery, has just published his latest paperback. Speaking to 100 members of Pattaya City Expat Club, he presented a slide show of some of the crank-expat characters he has met in “20 Years of Canterbury Tales in Pattaya Thailand”. Their antics, mostly from the early years, are indeed a collector’s item.
The majority (not all) of the accused are Brits or Irish with colorful titles such as Crazy Dave, Boring Des, Tits Sandy and Mumbling Daithi. The mischief that they, and many others, got up to in Pattaya was often fueled by too much alcohol and too little sexual restraint. For example Campari Clive enquires of a landlord how much to rent the gorgeous flat he has just visited, only to be told he’s wasting his time: it’s an off-licence unit.
Another Pattaya regular can’t remember the four-digit number of his wall safe and foolishly asks his drinking companions if anyone is a historian or knows about the battle of Hastings. More seriously, all the common Pattaya mistakes are here: falling in love, starting a fight with Thais, signing documents in Thai you cannot understand, spiked drinks, talking non-stop about underwear and naked thighs.
The author doesn’t seem to have come across many gays, though there are a couple of transvestites included. One asks Dave to take a photo of him in panty drag, only to scream in annoyance, “But you make me look like a guy”. Another doomed category concerns “businessmen” on holiday who naively believe they can sell for a huge profit in the UK assorted cheap stuff bought in Thailand: Tiger balm ointment and colored aspirin masquerading as methamphetamines are cases in point.
Tragedy is never far from the expat antics. The book typifies those lonely Brits who want to tell anyone who will listen – ”I used to run a bar” – another way of saying they have lost their life savings. The unfortunate Sean is beaten to death in a Thai prison after an argument, another guy unwisely smokes in bed whilst a goodly number of others die of liver disease. Most of the characters in the book, supplemented by photos, are now dead which may be a blessing in disguise from the legal point of view.
“20 Years of Canterbury Tales” records the antics of some male foreigners in Pattaya’s heyday when the term Wild West had some merit. As everyone knows, Sin City has evolved into a concrete jungle with diversified markets and priorities. Yet Dave Collier has caught the scandalous spirit of a bygone era which was in danger of being forgotten in the internet age. The book is an essential and readable record of pre-contemporary Pattaya.
(The book is available only via Canterbury Tales in Pattaya. Thai or overseas orders welcome. Contact [email protected] or 086 575 49660).
