Читать книгу Bangkok Babylon - Jerry Hopkins - Страница 6

Not so long ago a friend in the United States sent me a story from Penthouse magazine about a legal case that had intrigued an international audience from its first reporting in the world's press. It concerned the unusual life and death of Larry Hillblom, the “H” in DHL Worldwide Express, the world's largest courier delivery service, who left behind an estate of about $600 million when his private plane mysteriously plunged into the Pacific Ocean in 1995. There was nothing extraordinary about that; it was just another tragic airplane crash–in fact, it was Hillblom's third. But then there emerged, accompanied by lawyers, a group of young women from Southeast Asia who said their six children were his...and they wanted a piece of the pie.

Those who knew Hillblom merely grinned when they heard the claims. Founding a bank in Saipan, investing in Air Micronesia and Continental Airlines, starting a resort community in Guam, and spending $40 million to renovate a French colonial hotel in Vietnam wasn't all he did in his spare time. He was also known to frequent some of Southeast Asia's more colorful bars.

Inasmuch as Hillblom's body was never found–and his will lacked the standard clause disinheriting illegitimate heirs–the attorneys were given permission by the court to visit the deceased's Saipan home to search for something that could be used to conduct DNA tests in their effort to prove Hillblom was the father. By the time they arrived, however, even the drains of the showers had been cleaned of all hairs or skin fragments and all personal effects reportedly were destroyed. Further, when the wreckage of the plane was recovered, the control panel and pilot's seat (where blood might have been detected) were missing and Hillblom's relatives refused to surrender samples of their own blood. Meanwhile, four of the children were declared by their DNA tests to share a common father. Interesting, but it didn't link them to Hillblom.

Finally a break came when Hillblom's mother changed her mind about providing a blood sample after being told she'd been cut from her son's will. Of course, she wanted to be paid. Lawyers for the plaintiffs agreed to give the woman a million dollars out of the offsprings' share of the legacy if the DNA tests made their case. A second break–the deciding one–came when a girlfriend told investigators where the man's clothing and personal effects had been buried when the mansion was super-cleaned. (For pointing to a spot next to the tennis courts, she, too, was promised a million dollars.) Soon after tests were conducted on hairs from a brush, the court ruled that the founder and DHL ' S sole owner–by the time of his death, he'd bought his two partners' shares–was indeed the father of four of the children, and each was awarded $90 million!

Accompanying the magazine story when it arrived in the mail from my pal was the note, “You can never tell who's sitting on the next bar stool.”

This is certainly true in Bangkok, where I live. I doubt I ever shared drinks with Larry Hillblom, but I'll bet that we drank in some of the same bars, and in the ten years that I've made my home in Thailand, I've drunk with many of his peers–expatriates who are bolder, more imaginative or more curious, and more heroic or foolhardy or over-the-top than most–men imbued with an unchecked sense of adventure–or, at least a delight in the eccentric (on a slow day), the unexpected (on an average day) and no less than the incredible (on a good day). Adventurers of both the indoor and outdoor types. Intellectual and physical explorers who are purposeful to the point of stubbornness, adamant in their quest for knowledge and experience. And the hell with what other people may think.

Thailand also attracts the con-men, law-breakers, runaways and what back home might be called sexual deviants. It is a place where erratically enforced laws are written by men who may not intend to stick to them–who, if they get caught, know they'll do little or no time in jail because the fix is almost a political certainty or is, at worst, bargain-priced. So it is, too, for many foreigners who seek refuge here, in the same way that–not so many years ago–bank robbers and scam artists sought escape in the Bahamas and Latin America.

The phrase “wild, wild east” is a cliché, yet it is both reasonable and accurate when applied to what is, undeniably, one of the great, unruly and untamed cities in the world. Bangkok is Y-chromosome territory, a city where surprise is as ordinary as bad air and traffic jams and pretty, young women and rice; where accessibility and affordability accompany anything you want, even unleashed fantasy. Sex, drugs, counterfeit designer goods and software, smuggled gems, weapons, endangered species...Thailand is Southeast Asia's prime marketplace. It's not surprising that such an environment has appeal for some of what society deems the best and the worst. Missionaries and NGO s come to fix the “problem.” Others come to roll around in it.

Once when I was sitting belly-up to the stage in a go-go joint in one of Bangkok's numerous testosterone districts, I struck up a conversation with the guy sitting next to me. He told me he worked for America's Orderly Departure Program, helping relocate Vietnamese to the post-war United States. He also played a role in breaking the story on 60 Minutes about how the CIA secretly trained and air-dropped South Vietnamese spies to infiltrate Hanoi; every one was captured and tortured or executed, and my new friend was involved, a quarter of a century later, in helping their families get visas to the U.S., along with compensation.

Another time, the next bar stool (different bar) was occupied by an Oscar-winning screenwriter who told me he migrated to Bangkok because he couldn't think of a nicer place to die. I met two foreigners who came to find Thai wives, and two American bar owners (helicopter pilots left over from the Vietnam war) who introduced them to the same woman (both married her)...a feisty American Catholic priest who lived and waged war against poverty and the Thai establishment while living in the slums for thirty-five years...an Australian photographer who helped blow the whistle on Air America's involvement in the heroin trade, swam across the Mekong River with his Laotian sweetie on his back, then went on to run a successful publishing company...another photographer (British) who made a name for himself selling bar girl calendars and ran an advertising agency that told five-star hotels and international corporations how to succeed in business...an American man who taught elephants to paint and play musical instruments, then sold the paintings for $500 apiece on the National Geographic Channel and got international distribution for two CD's...a Canadian circus dwarf and an English rock musician with a common interest in computer programming who opened a restaurant together, and a Yank lawyer who put Khmer Rouge officers in jail, all residents of Phnom Penh who came to Bangkok to celebrate their victories...the U.S. Marine many people believe was the model for Marlon Brando's Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, and his best friend who stayed in Bangkok following the Vietnam war to become a “fixer” for Hollywood film-makers (both were in the CIA)...the son of J. Edgar Hoover's secretary who taught English to Thai school children and businessmen...a bounty hunter who tracked down men who faked their deaths to collect million-dollar insurance policies...a gemologist who dealt in looted antiquities from Burma and Cambodia...and a high-society piano player at one of the world's most acclaimed hotels who became the first pedophile on the FBI 's Ten Most Wanted list.

In Bangkok, as in few, if any, other places on earth, Larry Hillblom was just one of the guys, one of the legion who escaped from their past to recreate or find or lose themselves through travel. No less an authority on the subject than Somerset Maugham wrote, “It seemed to me that by a long journey to some far distant country I might renew myself...I journeyed to the Far East. Went looking for adventure and romance, and so I found them...but I found also something I had never expected. I found a new self.”

The tales that follow may be out of the ordinary even in Bangkok, but they are not exceptional. One of the reasons I migrated to Thailand was because it had the most interesting expatriate community I'd encountered anywhere in the world. And for those considering going down the same path, it's important, obviously, to know who some of your new friends might be.

Some of the characters in this book wear white hats (if smudged). Some wear black ones. I don't pretend that they reflect the overall expat community–there are a disproportionate number of Americans and media types, no surprise given they were selected by an American writer–and business heads and NGO's are woefully under-represented. Still, they have much in common with the larger expat community. Nearly all are long-timers and most have become disaffiliated from their home countries, many to the point of feeling like an alien when they return for a visit. Usually, things back home have changed...and in every case the expat has altered his psychology, if not his chemistry. And almost always, apparently quite comfortably.

At the same time, in their adopted country they remain outside. No matter how fluent in the language and adept in hurdling the cultural barriers they may be, forever they will be foreigners, what in Thailand are called farangs. Yet, they are foreigners who can, as outsiders, reveal some of the secrets of Southeast Asia–a region long tangled in adventure and mystery (and bullshit)–that may be off the usual traveler's path, but may also be, in fact, never more distant than around the next corner or sitting slumped over a beer on the next bar stool.

Consider this collection of profiles a how-to book, and let the expats be your guides. If you want a new experience, or want to re-invent yourself, or want escape, even if for just a night, or merely want a vicarious thrill or two, then this is the way, follow me.

When in Bangkok, do what your mama told you never to do.

Talk to a stranger.