Laugh or Disappear – The First Rule (Part 2)
After a supposed hotel conversation, Mook discovers she has ended up in a closed crypto scam camp. Her passport is left behind, asking questions becomes dangerous, and she is given a new name at a computer. Amidst silent tables, scripts, and targets, it slowly dawns on her that escaping will not be easy.
Laugh or Disappear – The Job of Her Life (Part 1)
A Thai woman from Nong Khai is lured to Poipet with a fake hotel job and ends up in a guarded complex behind fences and bars. What begins as a chance for work, room, and board turns along the way into a journey with no way out. As a result, her final joke home takes on a bitter edge.
As a Westerner in Thailand, you start in good spirits with the task of concealing water pipes. You want sleek walls, just like at home. But the tropics have a will of their own, an unyielding one. Eventually, you capitulate to the bright blue PVC pipes that adorn your bathroom like an above-ground spiderweb. It is a cheerful, daily lesson in letting go of our exhausting urge for absolute structural perfection.
A new fictional story from Udon Thani follows Mook and Boy, two young Thais trapped in a scam compound in Cambodia. Their passports are confiscated, their freedom vanishes, and online fraud becomes their daily forced labor. Behind their humor and silence lies a harsh reality affecting thousands of victims at the Thai border.
A sure thing
One morning after King's Day, a quiet harbor visit turns into a minor deposit-return hunt when Oy fishes empty bottles and cans out of a trash can. What begins as a comical scene with cold coffee and orange cream puffs grows into a sharp observation about waste, frugality, and the difference between the Netherlands and the Isaan.
Dale returns to Vietnam after seven days of leave in Udon Thani, together with Tex in a C-130 that does not wait for doubt. En route, he carries an unsent letter to Linda with him, while Thailand slips away beneath him and the war draws closer once again. The rest has not healed him, but given him just enough to carry on.
Seven Days in Paradise – Last Night (Part 9)
The sixth night had a different texture than the previous five. Dale couldn't describe it exactly; he wasn't a man of precise descriptions when it came to the things he felt, he preferred to leave those to people who were better at it, people like Mae who used words as if she knew what they carried, but there was something in the air of The Strip that night that was different. Quieter. The music for a little while longer…
Seven Days of Paradise – Two Days of Rest (Part 8)
Dale reports to the medical post at Udorn RTAFB early in the morning and receives a diagnosis he would rather have ignored. The treatment is brief, but the shame lingers longer. Outside, Tex is waiting, making it clear with a single sentence that Dale is not the only one with a secret.
As a Westerner in Thailand, you quickly discover the superior effectiveness of the bum gun. While we in Europe stubbornly cling to dry toilet paper, this simple little water hose offers a purifying cleanliness. Consequently, a temporary visit to your homeland inevitably leads to a minor existential crisis, after which you view our supposedly high Western hygiene standards with a healthy dose of irony forever.
Seven Days in Paradise – Pattaya, 1968 (part 7)
Dale arrives in Pattaya in 1968, where the fishing village is only just beginning to transform into a seaside resort. On the Gulf of Thailand, he finally finds a horizon, but it is precisely that silence that draws Vietnam back to the surface: a friend without an arm, a war without end, and a sentence that lingers.
Bintabath Blues in Hua Hin
A Dutch bar owner in Hua Hin loses his business, his money, and his place in the nightlife of Soi Bintabath. What started as a successful beer bar with neon lights, music, and attention ends in a bare room above a bar. Reinout discovers too late that trust in Thailand is sometimes more expensive than alcohol, rent, and debts combined.
Seven Days in Paradise – Dining with the Colonel (Part 6)
Mae meets Colonel Hargrove in the Orchid Room of the Dusit Thani in Bangkok, where politeness, money, and power are carefully dosed. As the American officer talks about his son and the Vietnam War, Mae hears mostly what he doesn't say. Her strength turns out to be not seduction, but listening.
Seven Days in Paradise – Texs is Rolled (Part 5)
Tex Briggs is robbed on Soi 4 in Thailand after a young woman lures him into an unnamed bar and he loses control after a few drinks. The military police find him injured, without money, and without his father's watch. With that, an evening full of seduction turns into a hard lesson he will not soon forget.
Every morning at the stroke of six, the peace in my Thai village is brutally disrupted by the crackling loudspeakers of the village chief. What began as an invasion of my Western privacy has now become a familiar soundtrack. An ironic reflection on noisy village news, dead chickens, and how, as a weary expat, you eventually learn to sleep right through it all.
Seven Days in Paradise – Dear Linda (part 4)
Dale writes a letter to his wife Linda in Udorn, but leaves the envelope untouched on the nightstand the next morning. In a few ordinary sentences about home, it becomes visible how far he has drifted from his old life in Milwaukee. It is precisely that silent gesture that makes this scene greater than a letter that is not sent.
This is a short story from 1966 by my favorite Thai writer. It is about an encounter between an elderly farmer and a white man and how, despite both good intentions, different views and habits can lead to friction, described through the behavior of a dog. The story also says a lot about the dire and weak condition of the farmer at that time, perhaps not improved that much.
Seven Days in Paradise – Bangkok by Night (Part 3)
Even before sunrise, the bus to Bangkok rattled through the darkness, filled with men who preferred to keep their thoughts locked away. Along the way, rice fields, sleeping villages, and temples glided past, while Dale and Tex each tried to get a grip on what lay ahead. In Bangkok, no rest awaited, but a city that was bigger, harsher, and more seductive than anything they had known until then.
Born for happiness
In the Netherlands and in a village in the Isaan, Oy remarkably often attracts good fortune, from a coin in a second-hand bag to a rediscovered Buddha amulet. Lieven piles up the examples and portrays her as someone who turns every stroke of luck into a profit. It is precisely this series of small strokes of luck that makes this story so infectious.
Seven Days in Paradise – The Comic (Part 2)
On The Strip, Tex gets increasingly swept along by drink, neon, and the young Noi, while Dale witnesses firsthand how quickly innocence can shift there. By day, the street looks almost ordinary, but as soon as night falls, it transforms into a world full of temptation, rules, and risk. It is precisely this contrast that makes this night dangerously interesting.
While the rest of Thailand turns into a ruthless battlefield full of ice water and heavy water cannons during Songkran, Farang Kee Nok experiences a surprisingly subdued version in his northern village. No hyperactive teenagers spraying him over, but friendly aunts respectfully sprinkling him with fragrant water. It is a blessing rather than a trauma, causing that giant water gun to quietly gather dust in the corner.
Seven Days in Paradise – Wheels Down in Udorn (Part 1)
A second short story series by Hans Introduction: Seven Days in Paradise is a raw yet atmospheric narrative that sweeps the reader along to the sultry Thailand of the late 1960s. Against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, where the sky above Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base is constantly torn apart by the roaring afterburners of F-4C Phantoms, American soldiers seek refuge in the neon-lit streets of 'The Strip'. It is a world of sharp contrasts: the …
Nok's World – The Last Time (Part 10 and Finale)
I look back on that time at the Wonderful 2 Bar now, and sometimes it feels like it was someone else. A younger Nok, thinner, less smart, but also less tired. I don't work at the bar anymore. That is another story for another time.