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I'm trying not to look too alarmed about
what I'm seeing meanwhile I'm sitting
there with a video camera in my lap
that's turned off thinking this is the
story right
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here I was going to Thailand to
interview expats Vietnam more vets we
living there about their views on the
bush Cary election the 2004 presidential
election in the US it was my first video
assignment so I packed up my expensive
camera all my gear flew out there I met
up with a friend of mine who was going
to help me
out I decided I was going to take a bus
down to the town where these Vietnam War
Vettes lived which was called
Patia I called the main that told him I
was on my way we get on the the bus and
head out on our way we follow the coast
and about an hour into the drive we hit
standstill traffic on the highway and I
look around at the rest of the people on
the bus and nobody seems concerned so
you know it's mostly locals 10 minutes
go by 20 minutes go by we're not really
moving and as we get closer to the town
I start to realize that something weird
is going on which is there are all of
these trucks and motorbikes zig zagging
through the traffic and throwing things
at the cars finally one of these trucks
reaches the bus that I'm in and this
group of kids pulls up next to the bus
and just starts pelting the window where
I'm sitting with white paste again I
look around sort of alarmed and nobody
else in the bus seems concerned so I
looked over at one of the passengers
across the aisle and they just sort of
gave me a shrug and said
sron sron Is the Thai New Year Festival
which happens in April it turned out
that the town of paa had a song festival
that was so rowdy and out of control
that the officials of the Town had
decided to compress what is normally a
week-long festival into a one-day event
which would happen a week after the
normal sron festival and that day was
the day I was arriving in
paa the general ritual is there's a
white past that's supposed to be dabbed
on people as a gentle blessing
and water which symbolizes renewal but
this Festival evolved into much more of
like a Rowdy Marty gr Street party I'm
getting anxious we're close to an hour
late at this point I called the guy say
I'm sorry we're stuck in traffic there's
nothing I can do we said it's okay but
the rest of the Vets have gone home by
now so it's just going to be
me the bus finally pulls over at this
gas station which is apparently the bus
stop that we're looking for so we get
off and look around for a taxi we see a
bunch of taxis parked all along the road
but no taxi drivers in sight anywhere so
my friend Joanna and I go into a big
supermarket and ask around and say you
know we need to get a taxi can anybody
help us find a taxi driver and the
manager of the store actually comes up
and says sure I'll help you call a taxi
he calls on his phone nobody answers he
tells me sorry all the taxi drivers are
off duty they're all out partying for
the sron festival but he says I'm off in
about 10 minutes if you guys want to
wait I could probably give you a ride so
we're like okay we really have very few
options here we wait for the guy to get
off of work we get into his little sedan
and yet again within minutes we are
stuck in Stand traffic half the town is
completely belligerent and drunk so
finally we decide this is not going to
to work either we get out of the car we
decide we're just going to have to walk
so I've got my expensive camera gear
bags on both shoulders my friends got
the tripod we head out into the
crowd as we're making our way through
this mob on the street I start to
realize that really the only people
there are Tha locals who live around in
the town and the area Tai prostitutes
because paa it turned out is one of tha
land's sex tourism hotpots and not only
is it known for sex tourism but it is
also known as a place where foreign
pedophiles are known to hang
out as we're walking through these
crowds we start to realize that we are
the only foreign women that I Can See
For
Miles I'm half Chinese I probably could
have Blended in a little bit more but my
friend Joanna who is with me is this
cute blonde with bright blue eyes and
just stuck out like a sore thumb so
we're trying to walk through this
belligerent crowd of people and people
just turn and completely zero in on us
like we are the
target people start chasing us down the
street they're surrounding us and
pelting us with this paste one guy came
running down the street lugging a
garbage can full of water that he was
trying to throw at us and we just
ran we found a little alley that we
ducked around up against the wall like a
cop chase movie or something just to
sort of gather ourselves meanwhile we
are soaking wet just covered head to toe
in this paste and still carry all this
really expensive camera gear we catch
our breath we head out again beine for
this guy's apartment building and there
he is and he's standing on the sidewalk
clean flowered silk
shirt and we just roll up looking like
Stray Cats that just went through the
spin cycle with a bag of flour and he's
like great you made
it so we go into his apartment into the
lobby and sit down on the couches for a
second and meanwhile I start to realized
that there's something really weird
happening in this lobby as
well as we're sitting there just sort of
chitchatting there's a stream of people
going back and forth from the front door
of the apartment building to the
elevators and it's basically older white
men I would say Americans and Europeans
and some rather youngl looking tyi
boys the apartment building happened to
be in the middle of boy toown it's the
sort of gay red light district but it
also happens to be the place where
foreign pedophiles were known to
congregate child prostitution was a big
problem in paa in Thailand in general
and was definitely illegal and this is
happening right in front of our eyes I'm
sitting there chitchatting with this guy
and I've got my camera in my lap turned
off and I'm just thinking what I
wouldn't give to just turn on my camera
and start recording some of this but I
didn't and I didn't because I think I
was afraid I had a really bad feeling
that if I were to try to do that things
would not go well for
me we got in the elevator and and went
upstairs to the vets apartment there are
actually two young women about our age
because we had taken so long that we had
sort of cut into his party time and so
these two young Thai women were waiting
for him so that they could go out on the
town afterwards we set up our camera we
sit down and do the interview and spend
about 45 minutes talking about Senator
John Cary and the US presidential
election and it's just
ridiculous I mean all of this is going
on we're in the center of Thailand's sex
tourism child prostitution problem and
we're talking about John Cary and his
purple heart it was
insane so we finished the interview it's
getting dark at this point we look out
the window and can just see the lights
everywhere the party is just rolling on
and Joanna and I are thinking how the
hell are we going to get out of here we
have to get back to Bangkok the vet was
very friendly I mean he was a nice guy
he said well why don't you just stay in
paa for the night and we can all go out
tonight we could all go out and
party and Joanne and I just looked at
each other and said there's no way we
finally tracked down an out of town taxi
that drove us almost 100 miles back to
Bangkok that night we just wanted to get
the hell out of
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there