I got pulled over during my walk tonight by an older 30 something last named Ann. She was sitting waiting for customers and offered to talk. The wanting to talk thing is often a ploy to get you to stop but I really think she wanted someone to talk to because once I sat down, she talked and talked and talked some more. She spoke very good English,. Ann told me of police bribes the street vendors pay (5000 baht), she told me various people own different sidewalks (mafia types?) and the vendors must pay them also (2500 baht). Not sure how much of what she said was true. Over and over again as we talked money came up, always money was mentioned in her conversation.
Ann also spoke of illegal drugs sold by black African men and how they would distribute drugs to Western customers through their African sex worker girlfriends. There are dozens of African female sex workers on the streets here often with their corresponding men nearby(pimps?). Photographing them is dangerous, thou I have done a bit of that. One of the African men may have followed me for a while today on Sukhumvit road. When I looked behind me he suddenly turned and walked back the direction he came. Maybe nothing, maybe something, am unsure.
At one point Ann spoke to me at length of an old customer of hers from Winnipeg who almost brought her to Canada but died of alcoholism (57 years old) before the paperwork was completed. She told me that story with a real sadness in her voice. A life in Canada that might have been. A chance for a better life that was now gone forever. Now she was older, more fragile with only had the cold Bangkok streets and the next customer to look forward to.
Note* Ann has a young daughter.
Ann also spoke of illegal drugs sold by black African men and how they would distribute drugs to Western customers through their African sex worker girlfriends. There are dozens of African female sex workers on the streets here often with their corresponding men nearby(pimps?). Photographing them is dangerous, thou I have done a bit of that. One of the African men may have followed me for a while today on Sukhumvit road. When I looked behind me he suddenly turned and walked back the direction he came. Maybe nothing, maybe something, am unsure.
At one point Ann spoke to me at length of an old customer of hers from Winnipeg who almost brought her to Canada but died of alcoholism (57 years old) before the paperwork was completed. She told me that story with a real sadness in her voice. A life in Canada that might have been. A chance for a better life that was now gone forever. Now she was older, more fragile with only had the cold Bangkok streets and the next customer to look forward to.
Note* Ann has a young daughter.
