Sleeping with a conman | On Vietnamese weddings.
I fly back to England via Thailand. Instead of leaving with the rents I decided to leave a day early and explore Bangkok for the night. I leave and everything is going pretty smoothly; get on the plane, sort out my Visa.
I’m on the plane and start talking, as I do, to the guy next to me. He looks Indian but speaks Vietnamese. Quite strange already. Turns out he used to be rich, a millionaire. He spins this rather intricate story that he wants to help me out and make me rich. He’s 65 and has no male children. The story gets bizarre as he spiels that he has 7 wives and many houses all across the world. His French passport littered with visas to all parts of Asia kinda sum it up.
I think i’ll give this guy a chance, so listen on. He talks about how he ships clothes, Cut Make Tailer to Canada and all sorts. The guy looks pretty well off and is believable. He says he has a big house in Thailand and asks if I want to stay there and he’ll take me round.
I agree.
Next thing you know i’m in the shittiest little place you could think of with a 65 year old man and his cab driver friend. All possessions are being trailed around with me. I spend 1hr talking shit to the guy; telling him to call me when he’s in France so I can wire him 7500 pounds so he can buy uncut Diamonds in Cambodia so he can cut them and sell them off to some Arabs; profit = 3 x 15000$ = 45000$ which he can in turn make into 200-300k$.
Like, WTF. His explanation of losing all his money is that he bought 10 horses from Australia at 400k$ each and let a guy in Singapore look after them; my rich friend then travelled the world for a year while his bastard of a friend killed the horses and made money through the insurance. So far fetched it’s believable. Truth is I could have left a lot earlier but was so enthralled by the level of bullshit this guy could utter; bullshit that at the time could be believed. This guy is an NLP legend.
On Vietnamese weddings
My cousin, Mai, hastily set up a blind date without me knowing. We set off to a wedding and I hitch on the back of a Honda Spacy with a slim 23 year old girl. Rather pretty. We go to a wedding; neither of us know the bride or groom. We go to a restaurant which is packed to the brim with people; 500 odd. Turns out not many people know the bride or groom.
Weddings in Vietnam are profittable. It costs 100,000 dong per person which is 3 pounds something. Each person in turn usually donates 500k. It lasts about 3hrs and a lot is drunk. Think of a cafeteria meal with 500 people and you’ve got the typical Vietnamese wedding.
Anyway. I get home soon enough. 18th I think. See you guys soon.