Every year in October there is a big temple fair in Samut Prakan. It is the most important annual tradition for the people in our province. It is called the “Phra Samut Chedi Fair” and lasts for 12 days and 12 nights. It is an event that we all look forward to as there are many stalls with things to eat as well as games to play.

Phra Samut Chedi was built on a small island on the Chao Phraya River about 180 years ago. King Rama II said that he wanted all foreigners entering Thailand to know that we are Buddhists. These days, most foreigners fly here by airplane and so they never get to see our famous temple. And anyway, even though the Thai name still calls it the temple in the middle of the river, it is now on the river bank. Some time during the last century, the river must have changed course, but no-one thought about changing the name!

I am not sure when the fair first started, but I do know it was a long time in the past even before my parents were born. The fair begins with a big parade through the city. They have marching bands and lots of floats. At the same time they carry a big red cloth which is later wrapped around the chedi. After the parade has finished, they take the red cloth across the river on a boat to Phra Samut Chedi.

This year, I was there waiting for the cloth to arrive. From the boat, 6 sailors carried the red cloth to the temple where they unwrapped it. Then they passed the cloth to the people who had come to take part in the ceremony. I held the cloth above my head with the others and then we walked around the temple three times in a clockwise direction.

The white chedi was looking very bare while it was waiting for the red cloth. Someone on the loudspeakers told us that with the rain and sun the cloth starts to rip after only one year. That is why they have to change it. He also added that only members of a certain family are allowed to make this cloth and then wrap it around the chedi.

After the ceremony had finished the temple fair began. It is the same kind of thing like you can see anywhere in Thailand except it’s huge! The main road that goes through the Paknam market is closed every night for nine days. There must be thousands of people who come here for the fair on both sides of the river. You won’t be able to walk very fast and it is easy to get separated from your friends and family if you don’t grab onto each other!

In the fair, there are many different kinds of shops. Of course, I like the shops that sell snacks the most! The most unusual snack are the “fried insects”. I remember, when I was younger, we used to dare each other to eat these insects. It is kind of weird thing eating grasshoppers and bamboo worms but when you get used to it, it is such a nice snack. Myself, I like the grasshopper more than any others. But I would never eat the fried baby birds.

At the fair, there are also fun things like a ghost house, bumper cars, shooting galleries and a giant wheel. It is the kind of thing I used to like the most about this fair when I was a kid. But now I am more likely to run a small stall on the road with a couple of my friends. I did that last year and it was very fun as there are lots of people coming and going, especially girls!

If you are not doing anything this week then come to Samut Prakan for our temple fair. There are lots of fun things to do and plenty of delicious food to eat. You won’t be disappointed.

It is very hot standing in the sun where it is very crowded. Luckily I am standing in a place where it has less people plus I am standing in the front of those people. The bridge, where I am standing, is made from wood and I am not sure that it will be strong enough for a lot of people like this or not. I am a little scared that it might break and I will fall down into the water. I don’t think I want to swim in the canal with all my clothes on. There is also a boat on the way with a large Buddha image.

One day in October, I went to Bang Phli Yai Nai temple in Samut Prakan to make merit. The reason was because I was feeling like I had no good luck left. Everything was going wrong. For example, the day before I just lost a 1000 baht banknote while I was rushing to go to the post office before it closed.

The other reason I was going to Bang Phli was for an important festival called “rap bua”. So, I thought I would go and kill two birds at the same time and take some pictures for my web site too. If you didn’t know, that is a popular English saying. I am not really going to the temple to kill two birds! I just meant that I am going to do two things in one visit.

I woke up early in the morning and went to meet up with my teacher from my old school. We had no time to have our breakfast so we just went to get the digital camera from the office and double-checked our stuff that we needed to take. After that, we left school as early as we could and went straight to Bang Phli. The traffic on the way was starting to be bad but not too bad for us. From my old school to the temple, it only took us about twenty minutes to drive there. There were lots of people there and the car park was already full up. We drove around looking for somewhere to park the car but it wasn’t that easy to find a parking space. So, we drove out of the temple and went to Big C. We parked the car there and then walked back to the temple. It only took us about five minutes to get there.

I was so sweaty when I arrived at the temple. The sun was strong and it was so crowded. Thousands of people were standing by the canal. I walked across the bridge and was about to go to the other side to take some pictures. While I was on top of the bridge, I saw that there were lots of people sitting in their rented long-tail boats by the side of the canal. I stopped there to take some pictures and before I walked down to the other side, there were some policemen coming up to clear the people from the bridge.

The policemen were saying that the Luang Poh To Buddha image was about to come and no one should be above his head as it goes under the bridge. They told everyone up there to go down from the bridge while people at the back kept pushing and trying to come up. The bridge was made from wood and it is not strong enough for the thousands of people who came. The bridge was starting to creak and was making some groaning noise so everyone at the top started to push their way back. I was there at the top of the steps to the bridge while my teacher was up on the bridge pretending he didn’t understand what the policeman was saying. He was taking some pictures of all of the people until the Buddha image came.

Finally, my teacher had to come down from the top of the bridge when the boat was about to go under it. I tried to take some pictures before it went under the bridge. But it wasn’t that easy to take photos when you are looking towards the sun so some pictures didn’t come out that good. People were trying to come up the bridge again so they could see the Buddha image in the big boat and also to throw some lotus flowers in the boat. There were lotus flowers everywhere in the air and water. Everyone was throwing it onto the boat. But not that many could throw far enough to the boat so there were lots of lotus flowers in the water. There were many small boats around the big boat to pick up the lotuses in the water that didn’t reach the big boat and then they threw it onto the big boat.

After the boat came out from the bridge, people started to go up there to throw the lotus flowers on the boat. I quickly came down from the bridge as I was scared that it was going to collapse. There were lots of lotus flowers flying around and a few of them flew onto my head. I was really annoyed with it. It wasn’t about hurting but it was more about being embarrassed.

Afterwards, there was a parade of boats. I was about to stay there to watch the cute girls who were dressed in Thai style clothes. But, I didn’t stay because I wanted to pay respect to the real Buddha image and make some merit for myself. I can take a look at cute girls anytime but I can’t pay respect to the famous Buddha image during a festival like this. It only happens once a year.

As I arrived at the temple, I stopped to buy some things I needed for making merit. Those objects were three incense sticks, a candle, three gold leaves and some flowers. I paid twenty baht for that. Really there is no settled price for it. You just pay as much as you like but most people I saw there paid twenty baht so I just followed their example.

I went in the temple with those things I bought to make merit. On the way to pay respect to the Buddha image, I saw a board there with the legend of this “Rub Bua Festival” in Thai so I stopped to read. It said …

There were three brothers who were Buddha images floating down the Bang Pakong River and then down different canals. One of them came on the Chao Phraya River and floated towards Bang Phli Yai temple. Some people there saw him in the river so they paid respect to the image and then used a sacred string called “sai sin” to encourage him to come to stay in the temple. Before he had come to this temple, he had floated pass other temples as well but he didn’t want to stay with them. It said on the board that the people at those temples didn’t encourage him in a proper way so he went on until he arrived at the Bang Phli Yai Nai temple.

It was really interesting, I didn’t know before that the Buddha image had brothers the same as human!!! After I finished reading the story, I went to get down on my knees where they paid respect to the Buddha image. I started to light my candle and then lit the incense sticks after. I then began to pray to the Buddha image asking him to bless me and bring back my good luck. After I finished my prayers, I put the incense sticks in a big bowl and then came back to prostrate down on the floor three times. Then I picked up the flowers I had bought and walked to leave them in another bowl by the entrance of the bot. I went inside the bot with those three gold leaves. I walked to put those gold leaves on the Buddha image and came to prostrate on the floor three times again. I had finished what I was doing so I went to meet up with my teacher at the noodle shop outside the temple. We had our brunch and then went back to work at my old school.

I am very happy that I went to make merit that day. I am feeling much better now even though my problems are still the same. Maybe I should go to the temple more often to make merit and relax my brain. Also, I am very happy that I went to the “Rup Bua Festival”. Now I can tell my friends or anyone else, that I have been there already. What about you? Have you been to the “Rub Bua Festival”? If you haven’t, you should find some free time to go there next year. It is very fun and interesting even if it is hot and crowded. Who knows, if you go there next year you might see me there as well. Don’t forget to look for me there next year if you are going to go there, OK?

I talked before about “Pok Deng” which is a card game that even young children can play. It is small time gambling. The bet could start from a few baht up to whatever you want. But really if someone wants to gamble with lots of money, they usually go to a higher level game which is more serious and strict. The famous one I know and see often is football. But really there are others as well. For example: horse racing, boxing, racing, cock fighting, fish fighting etc. I read somewhere recently that about 70 percent of adults gamble so you can see that even though it is mainly illegal, a lot of people are doing it.

It is not only adults gambling, there are also thousands of students in different schools from all over the country doing it. Most of them do it because they think they can get money quickly and easily. But they don’t think about what would happen when they lose and they then have to pay the bookee. If you didn’t pay the bookee on time, at first you might just get beaten up by them or if it has been a long time you might get shot. Some people might not believe about what I just said but you know what, I didn’t believe it when I first heard it too. I started to believe when it happened to one of my friends. Now, I will tell you what happened to him.

My friend’s name is Tum and he is addicted to gambling. He likes to gamble on football and he usually wins. At first, he didn’t put so much money on the matches but later he started to place bigger and bigger bets. One day he was so positive about a football match that he decided that he would try being a bookee. So, he allowed other people to come to him to place bets. He also placed his own bet at a bigger bookee. But after the match finished, his team didn’t win and he lost lots of money. After he worked out how much he lost, it came to about 20,000 baht.

He came and asked to borrow some money from me but at that time I didn’t have much money so I gave him only 300 baht. A few days later, I met him by the market with lots of bruises on his face and body. He said he had got beaten up by those people he gambled with. He said next time they were going to shoot him if he didn’t give the money to them. I told him to tell his parents but he said he was too scared to tell them. So I called his parents and told them about the money and what happened. They were shocked. Then I took Tum home to meet his parents.

The next day Tum rang and told me that his parents went to borrow the money from the bank for him. Then he went to pay those people and now everything was OK except for the money his parents need to give back to the bank. He also said he will come to pay my 300 baht back too. I said thanks and asked him will you gamble again? He said he will never do it again. I told him I’ll wait and see.

What happened to Tum scared most of my friends who like gambling. Some of them stopped doing it but there are some who are still doing it. Maybe they will continue until they get caught by the police or beaten up by the bookee.

Gambling on football is illegal the same as other things. But there are some things you can gamble on and it’s legal if you do it in a certain place. For example: Horse Racing. There is a place in Bangkok for you to go to watch and do the gambling but only inside the stadium. If you gamble outside, they will say that it’s illegal and you will get caught by the police.

One day, I read in the newspaper about gambling. They talked about making gambling legal. It was quite a big thing they talked about. I was really interested in this news. I’ll tell you what they said about gambling.

There are different ideas from different people about gambling. Some people think it should be OK to gamble on something they want. They argued that the police can’t really control the gambling. But if the government make it legal and bring it out in the open, it will be much easier for the police to control it. Also, the government can make money for the country out of it instead of nothing.

I agree with those people. I have thought about it and I think that what they said is right. I can see their point of view and I think it’s a nice thing. It’s is good that they also thought about the country as well and not only themselves. At least, they aren’t selfish and not trying to get the money in their own pocket.

I also listened to the reasons why some people are against letting gambling become legal. Most people in Thailand are Buddhist but gambling goes against what the Buddha teaches. If you make it legal, you might ruin the values of Thai society. Also, gambling is an unacceptable activity especially for young people. It could make them addicted to it as easy as drugs.

I also agree with these people. I am a Thai person and a Buddhist who believes in the precepts. I know and understand these people as much as I understand the others. They both have their own good points so at first I couldn’t really decide which one to agree with the most.

But after I thought about it again properly, I think I agree with the one that try to make it legal. Not that I am addicted to gambling but if you think properly you will know why I chose this side. It’s all because I thought about the future, not the present. We are in the technology age but Thailand is not really that far ahead yet. I think it is all because we are too strict to the Buddha precepts. We should let go of some of the precepts and be more open to the world. That’s what I think, what about you?

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. Read more about Gor at his website www.ThailandLife.com.

Here I am with my girlfriend at a jewellery shop in Seacon Square. My girlfriend has come here to pierce her belly button. I have come to support her. She has been wanting to do this for a long time. I think ever since the first time she saw my navel ring.

I think it is normal for girls to pierce their belly button. Lots of girls do it because they want to follow fashion. I follow fashion too sometimes but only the ones I like. Also, I sometimes do crazy things which not many people do like piercing my belly button. Not many boys do it because they think it’s girl stuff but I don’t think like that. I think it looks cool when you do something weird especially when not many people are brave enough to do it.

You know what? Some of my friends like piercing themselves and that is why they have lots of rings on their body. They also like drinking and nearly every time they get drunk, they pierce each other’s body. When they first found out that I pierced my belly button, they complained to me that I should have asked them to do it for free. They also told me to tell them the next time I want to have somewhere pierced. I don’t think I want to take that risk.

I have heard before in the news that someone received HIV after they went to get their body pierced at a bad shop. The shopkeeper there didn’t change the needle at all. I always go to a good-looking shop if I want to pierce something. And I always check that they change the needle to a new one before they pierce me. If the shopkeeper doesn’t do that, I will leave straight away. I don’t want to take a risk that might be a danger to my life.

Will you believe me if I tell you that one of my friends has more than twenty rings on his body? To me it looks like he does it without thinking. He has three rings on the chin, three on the nose, four on the eyebrows, two on the tongue and about four on each ear. I really like how he pierced his ears. He didn’t have it like other people. He has really big holes in his ears. The biggest hole is about eight millimetres wide.

Now here I am at the jewellery shop. There are different rings for different parts of the body. I walk around looking at those rings and choose some nice ones for my ear. I keep looking for a while then Tai comes to ask me to help her choose a ring for her belly button. There are lots of rings and it is not that easy to choose. Finally, we agree on one that has a smiley face on it. We come back to our seat and wait. I can see that Tai is very excited.

Now, there are no more people waiting before us. We are next. The person in front of us is sticking his tongue out to have it pierced. I see his legs start to shake when the shopkeeper asks him, “Are you ready?”. He nods and says “Yes” then the shopkeeper begins to pierce the boy’s tongue. When the needle goes through his tongue, he grips the chair very tight. Some tears are coming out from his eyes and his knuckles are white. It looks so painful.

After the boy finishes and comes out I tell Tai that it is now her turn. But she says she is too scared to do it alone. Then she asks me to do it with her but the problem is I have a belly button ring already. I don’t think I want to have another one there. I tell her that then she tells me to pierce my body somewhere else.

After thinking for a while, I decide to pierce my tongue. We walk in and sit on the seats in front of the shopkeeper. He asks me, “Who is going to pierce and where?” I reply to him. “Both of us, I want to pierce my tongue and she wants a navel ring”. He gets ready, changes to a new needle and then asks us “Who’s first?”. I am about to point to my girlfriend but I am not fast enough. She answers quicker than me, “Him first”. I look at her and say “What?“ She says to me that she is scared so she wants me to do it first. I understand what she is feeling because I am scared in the same way as her. But I am a boy not a girl so I will do it.

I swap seats with her and then tell him I am ready to put a hole in my tongue. I open my mouth and stick my tongue out at him. He picks up a pen and marks a spot on my tongue. Then he asks me to take a look and tell him if it looks OK. I look in a mirror and then think about it. Finally I decide to pierce further inside. It is all because I have to teach at my old school and also my dad won’t be that happy if he sees it.

He marks a new spot and then he turns around and takes out some tools from his bag. He uses a kind of clamp to hold my tongue and then he sprays some anesthetic on my tongue. A few minutes later, my tongue feels numb and then he starts to pierce. He works on my tongue for nearly one minute and then he tells me, “It’s done”. I can’t believe what he says because it is too fast and it didn’t hurt that much. I ask the shopkeeper about that boy before us. He says that boy overreacted.

Tai comes to sit where I sat and then opens her shirt to show her belly button. The shopkeeper changes the needle to a new one and then turns to Tai. I sit nearby and hold her hand while the shopkeeper tells her not to look. Tai sits properly and looks straight forward. He begins to pierce after he marks her belly button. Tai tries to look down when the needle goes through her skin. I stop her in time before she does it. I tell her that if she looks she will feel faint and the needle might hurt her more.

After he finishes piercing Tai, he gives us some medicine to take for the pain. I say thank you to him and then pay the money and leave to walk around. My tongue starts to hurt more and more since Tai finished piercing. I think maybe it’s because the anesthetic he sprayed has stopped working. Tai looks fine but really her stomach hurts a little. She can’t really make her body straight when she walks. She tells me that she can’t laugh because her stomach will hurt a lot. We are both not that fine so we agree to go back home. She doesn’t want to go on a normal bus because someone might hit her stomach so I take her home by taxi.

After that day, it took about a week for me to get used to the ring. I had to be very careful about my tongue ring. I tried my best not to let my dad see it but he saw it in the end. He yelled at me a lot and told me to take it out. Until now, I still haven’t taken the ring out of my tongue. I won’t take it off not even when I go to school or when the teacher tells me. I will take it off only when it causes me a problem with my work at my old school.

Now I am thinking about having a nipple ring. I have seen it before in a movie. I think it looks cool. One of my friends has done it before but he took it off after only three days. He said it hurt very very much. Too much for him to take. Also, it looks bad when it gets an infection. When I thought about what he said and then imagined it, I felt freaky. Still, I am now considering about getting it. I really want to have it and I will get it one day. I will tell you if that day comes. Maybe show you as well! However, I am not that brave and crazy yet. What about you? Are you crazy enough to have a nipple ring?

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. We will be posting his full versions every Sunday for him while he is still in prison. Read more about Gor at his website www.ThailandLife.com.

Have you ever gambled? If you said that you have never, even a little, then I am sure you must be lying. But if you really really mean it, you must be one in a million who has never gambled. I don’t think I will be able to do the same as you. I can say that most people I know have gambled. Some of them do it as part of their life. I have gambled sometimes but only for fun. Whenever I played and I started to lose a lot, I stopped before I lost any more. I won’t take a risk because I have seen before about some people who tried to win their money back. In the end, they will have nothing.

I like to play cards and the game I play is called “Pok Daeng”. On my last holiday, I went to Nongkhai province with my family and family’s friends. We went there by bus. My parents and my mum’s friends sat right at the back of the tour bus. It wasn’t that near to go to Nongkhai, it took us quite a long time to get there. Luckily it isn’t that boring to be in a bus for a long time if you have something to do. I was sleeping in the bus and when I woke up, I saw that my mum and her friends were playing cards, “Pok Daeng“. I thought they were playing it for fun so I went to play with them. But when I went to look closely, they were betting money as well so I realized that they were gambling. First, I decided not to play because I don‘t like gambling. So I just sat there and watched them play but finally I couldn’t stop myself from playing. I was bored and didn’t know what to do, so I decided to play with them. Anyway, the bets were only 5 baht each.

I played cards with my mum’s friends for a very long time, long enough to feel sleepy. I just played for fun so I didn’t take it so seriously and at last when everyone was very tired, I counted my money. I was shocked so I counted it again and again but it came out with the same number every time. I couldn’t believe that even though I just played for fun that I lose quite a lot. I lost about 400 baht. It was gone so fast. I should have thought about what my mum told me. She warned me before I played that this game is easy in different ways: easy come, easy go. If you are lucky you will get a lot but if you don’t have any good luck, you will lose a lot just in a second.

I learned how to play “Pok Daeng” when I was a kid. It is very popular and easy to play. It is the game that most Thai people play when they want to gamble. However, when I was younger I didn’t know that it was illegal. I didn’t even know it was gambling. The game has no limits about how many people can play. You have two cards each then you can ask for one more later, if you want. The winner is the person whose card value is nearest to nine. f you have more than that then you have to start to count from one again. This game is really up to your luck, not skill. You don’t have to use any of your skills when you play this game.

It was not right for us to play the cards on the tour bus because we could get caught by the police easily. But no one seemed to care about getting caught, they just played as they wanted. I think it’s maybe because getting caught from playing cards isn’t that big of a deal. Even if you bet money on it, some police might be too lazy to catch you. Anyway, you are taking a risk when you play cards. You might end up in prison for one night at least. And that is why I sometimes tease my uncle or aunt by shouting “police, police” which makes them jump out of their skin!

I will be writing more about gambling next week. I will talk about other kinds of illegal gambling as well as how students gamble at school. Find out how one of my friends lost a lot of money and nearly ended up in hospital.

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. We will be posting his full versions every Sunday for him while he is still in prison. Read more about Gor at his website www.ThailandLife.com.

After I broke up with my first girlfriend I changed a lot. From a normal school boy into a naughty one. I started to hang out with those friends whom my girlfriend didn’t like. The reason she didn’t like them is because they were never serious with any girls. They just played around with girls and treated them like a toy. I started to hang out with them more and more. One day I became one of them, a “butterfly boy”.

Since I became a butterfly boy, my attitude toward girls was different. I changed from white to black, good to bad. I didn’t treat girls like I used to do before. I began to have more than one girl at the same time and I wasn’t being serious with any of them. I played around with them like I played a game. At that time, I never thought about starting a serious relationship again. It wasn’t in my head. What I had in my head was mostly about getting more girls for myself and playing with them until they had satisfied me.

During this time I never ran out of girls because I was always looking for new ones. Most of my girls I met by the market and on the telephone chat lines. When I walked around the market with my friends and I saw a cute girl, I always went up to them and asked for their phone number. Then I rang and flirted with them. I had dozens of phone numbers. Sometimes I couldn’t remember which one was which. But I just kept chatting with them until I started to remember.

Sometimes one girl saw me dating another girl. Two of them faced each other and asked me to choose one. If I didn’t want to choose or I was in a bad mood, I just broke up with both of them. I didn’t care. Never cared at all about which girl was going to stay, which girl was going to go. But if sometimes I had to choose, I always chose the one that was cuter, richer or more importantly made me feel more satisfied.

But a butterfly can’t live forever. It has to die one day and that day was coming to the “Big Lovely Butterfly” so fast. My friend gave me the phone number of his girlfriend’s friend. Her name was Kra-tai. I took it and then rang her. Her voice, when she first picked up the phone, was so sweet. I really liked it. I talked to her and flirted with her.

After that we chatted every night on the phone. I started to realise that I didn’t talk to the rest of my girls that much any more. The relationship between Kra-tai and me was getting better and closer every day. I told her everything about myself. I even told her about me being a “Big Lovely Butterfly”. She seemed to be OK with it. I began to realise that I was in love and about to have a serious relationship again. I felt good and bad mixed together.

Now I know why I became a butterfly boy. I think it is because I was too scared to have a serious relationship with a girl. I was scared to love, scared to get hurt and scared that the same story would happen to me again. I didn’t want to get hurt so I didn’t love anyone.

The “Big Lovely Butterfly” now became a “small butterfly”. It was all because a superb girl became my girlfriend. I accepted then that I loved her and when I accepted that, the butterfly started to change. It stayed at “The Lovely Flower” most of the time. Even though it sometimes flew away for a while, each time it would come back to “The Lovely Flower” which it loved very much. Now this butterfly will live with this “Lovely Flower” until the day they both die.

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. We will be posting his full versions every Sunday for him while he is still in prison. Read more about Gor at his website www.ThailandLife.com.

It has now been about five months since I got my motorcycle. I had lots of fun with it. I have also been through a lot of bad luck which has upset me very much. Now, I am back at the temple with the bike. I am outside waiting for the monk to come back from his alms round. I will ask him to bless my bike to get the good luck back.

Since February, the first day I got my bike, up to now there has been quite a lot of accidents and problems happen to my bike and me. Especially the latest accident that just happened, it was a very big one. That reminded me about what my mum said when I first bought the bike. She told me to take the bike to the temple to have it blessed but I didn’t listen. Even after the first time my friend crashed my bike, I still didn’t listen to what she said. Now, I am very sorry that I didn’t listen to her. If I had taken my bike to let the monk bless it earlier, my friend might not have ended up in hospital and I might not have had lots of bad luck like this.

The first bad luck with the bike happened to two of my friends. It happened not long after I had the bike, less than one month. My friends came to see me and my new bike at my house. They came without telling or calling me first so I wasn‘t alone. At that time, I was staying at home with one of my girls. They walked through the front door and surprised me. I tried to give them a signal to tell them to go first but they pretended not to see it. They sat down on the floor and started to talk to me and tease my girl. We talked for a while then I went to turn a nude video on for them. I asked them to wait there for a while. Then I went upstairs to my bedroom with my girl. A little while later, I came down to check on them but they weren’t there. I came down and saw a note that they left for me on the table, it said …

“I borrowed the bike to go back home, won’t be long. Don’t worry, I will be extra careful with your bike.” From: Ton & Job

I was shocked and worried. I called Ton on his mobile to ask where he was, he didn’t answer. Then I went back upstairs. About 15 minutes later, they came back with some scratches on their arms and legs. They said they had crashed while they were trying to avoid a dog. They said they were OK then I went out to see my bike. There were some scratches on the bike plus the handles weren’t straight. I took my girl back home and then I went to the bike shop to fix it. My friends paid for it.

After that accident, my bike didn’t look as new as it was before. The scratches were still there because the shop didn’t paint over them. It is expensive to do that so my friends didn’t do it. Really, I could have told my friends to do it as well because they took it without my permission. But I didn’t tell them, I was too scared to tell them. I was very sad about that accident but I still didn’t learn. I lent my bike to another friend and the second accident then happened.

My friend asked to borrow my bike to go to see his girl. I don’t know why I lent it to him. Maybe because I was on the bike with him at the time. While we were waiting for his girl, he went to ride around. When he came back, he came on the wrong side of the road. It was during the night time and the road was pretty dark. He came very fast and then he drove into a big hole. The bike flipped over and my friend broke his fingers so I called a taxi to take him to the hospital. I stayed with my bike for nearly the whole night until some of my friends came to help. Now, it looked even older than before.

After that second accident, I didn’t let anyone borrow my bike anymore. But the third time still happened. It was my mum who crashed it this time. I was in the hospital at that time. She was going to ride my bike home. But, because she hasn’t ridden a bike for a long time, she went too fast and crashed into an electric pole. She was fine but my bike wasn’t.

My mum told me that I should listen to her and take it to the temple to be blessed. I still didn’t listen to her and then the fourth and worst accident happened.

The final and worst accident happened because I was too lazy to take my friend, Ball, home so I asked another one, Oat, to take him. He was the one I trusted most about using my bike. He is very good on motorbikes. He took Ball home and he was on his way back. A car in the left lane suddenly did a u-turn without signalling. Oat was in the right lane behind that car. He crashed into that car and flew over it. He fell down on the road and broke his left leg. The man in the car took him to the hospital and agreed to pay. He also paid for my bike to be fixed. It was in the garage for about two weeks. I had to use my dad’s bike instead. It is a very old one and very loud which was embarrassing.

You know what? It wasn’t only about the accidents that happened. I also got caught lots of times by the policemen for not wearing a helmet. And one time, I got caught after I came back from watching motorycle racing. I lost 600 baht for that. I should have listened to my mum and taken the bike to be blessed. I was so unlucky, I lost lots of money to the policemen and to fix my bike. But at least, none of the accidents happened to me. I still have some luck left!

That is why I finally decided to go back to the temple. After waiting for a while the monk came back. I followed him up to his kuti with some flowers, incense sticks, a candle and gold leaves. I gave them to him and then he took a pen out and started to write something on all three gold leaves. After he finished writing, he gave them to me and led me down to my bike.

He used some white powder and water to put some marks on the front of my bike, above the light. He made a triangle shape pattern. I heard him say something as well while he was doing it. It wasn’t Thai. I think it was Pali though I didn’t understand any of those words. After he had finished that, he held one of the gold leaves in his hand then he put it on the bike above the white marks. Then he did the other two gold leaves on both sides of the handles and put the jasmine garland around the left handle. After that, he started to bless my bike with the holy water in the bowl that I was holding.

He walked around and blessed my bike one time. Then, he turned to me and blessed me by splashing some water over my body. He said to me that he had warned me about those accidents already. He said that the next time when he or elders say something, don’t ignore, listen and do it. I replied “yes, I will” back to him and gave him a polite wai. He said it was nearly done but there was something else he needed to do. I asked him what was it? And suddenly the monk hit my head pretty hard with the thing he used to bless my bike. He said now it’s done and walked back up to his kuti. I think the reason he hit me on my head is to keep away bad luck plus he maybe wanted to tease me!

I went back to my grandmum’s house to eat some snacks before I went back home. I went to stand in front of my bike and looked straight at it. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing at it. I went in the house and came out with a cloth. I was about to wash the white marks and gold leaves off. Then I heard my grandmum say that not to wash them off, let them fall off by themselves. She said if I washed them off too soon, some bad luck might come back to me and my bike. I listened to her and went inside to put the cloth back. I paid respect to my grandmum and her friends then got on my bike and rode back home.

After the blessing, I feel a lot safer every time I ride on my bike. However, even if all the bad luck has gone away, I don’t think I will lend my bike to anyone again. Now, I will say “no” to everyone who wants to borrow my bike. Or if they are really in a rush or have really important things to do, I will take them. I have spent a lot of money making the bike look new and I want it to stay that way.

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This is the uncut version of Panrit's article that first appeared in his Gor's World column in the Bangkok Post when he was 16 years old. We will be posting his full versions every Sunday for him while he is still in prison. This story and many others appear in Panrit's autobiography "Gor's Thailand Life".