Terrace Dandy
Banned
- Mar 19, 2004
- 689
Some of you might of heard off or read about the infamous Bangkok Hilton in Thailand. I visited the infamous prison last week to visited that young english lad who got sentence to life. Thought I'd share another one of my stories.
some of you might of seen that documentary about it and Michael connell the other week on BBC 2.
I visited Michael in Bangkwang prison in Bangkok Thailand twice, once on my own and the other time with Gemma, I met her in Bangkok a few days after visiting Michael.
The main reason for me being in Thailand for just two weeks this time was to visit Michael Connell a 19 year old Mancunian,at the notorious Bangkwang maximum security prison in Bangkok, nicknamed by jailbirds as 'the Big Tiger' for its extreme severity, it only holds lifers or death row sentences, He was arrested in November last year attempting to smuggle 3400 Ecstasy tablets in his luggage through Bangkok airport, he was sentenced in March this year to 99 years in jail, as reported by the BBC, narrowly missing the death penalty after pleading guilty in the hope of a lenient sentence. They told him that if he pleaded guilty then he'd get 50 years and because of his age it'll be reduced to 25 years, but they hit him with the big one.
Thaksin Shinwatra (Thai PM) doesn't like drug dealers. Last year he executed 3000 without trial, some on street corners, an expert in the Pol Pot style of dishing out justice in Cambodia. This policy had extended to increased sentences for drug smugglers and summary execution, his concession was to soften the execution from firing squad to lethal injection. Arriving by cab in the Northern district (Nonthaburi) of Bangkok, it looked like an enormous concrete hell hole, security everywhere, the guards were the most miserable lowlife I'd ever seen, so much for the 'land of smiles' I thought. It was my first time in jail, (well not including the 3 months in prison i did for drink driving 10 years ago...oops) so I was fairly nervous. I waited anxiously in the designated outdoor meeting area and got chatting to a Switzerland man who was visiting his Thai friend, the Swiss chap spent 4 years in a Japan prison for dope smuggling and told me how much he used to smuggle and how he got caught, Then he went into detail on how he used to smuggle heroin from Chiang Rai too Chiang Mai. He used to smuggle 4 kilos of smack and was paid 5,000 baht, He had some stories to tell believe me, felt un easy really considering I was chatting with an ex drug runner, He then explained how hard the conditions were inside Bangkwang.
After entering the grim dungeons, Michael showed up after a 10 minute wait behind the iron bars and wire mesh fences, He was surprised but very pleased to see me and I didn't need to introduced myself as he said he knew it would be me waiting to see him, although it was hard to communicate being separated by 2 wire mesh fences and bars and a 5 feet no-mans land between us, you'd have to be a real hi-roller Houdini to get out of this place. The whole thing felt quite surreal. We eventually started to talk which was initially difficult and stilted as sadness and despair oozed from every pore on his face. Once we started to talk he was remarkably upbeat and we got into a flow; Man United, Brighton,good books, film, my travels, had he made any friends inside? yes, he'd made a couple of Thai mates and was learning Thai, he then talked about his hopes to have his sentence reduced with a view to getting a transfer and he was fairly convinced of this, I agreed and threw in a couple of positive affirmations, his face literally beamed with conviction and this was the tiny glimmer of hope which was keeping him going.
After 45 minutes the bell rung and it was over, he thanked me profusely and I said good luck and made a reference to how good he looked, that was a lie but I think he believed me because he smiled and i assured him that I would visit again in a weeks time. I left the miserable place, mightily relieved it was over and caught the river boat back to Khao san road in Bangkok. It wasn't just that I'd run out of conversation topics but the whole place made me feel uneasy and when you're faced with talking to this tragic lad who has made a big mistake in life, you just feel sick with sadness. Despite this I found myself liking him even more and feeling allot more sympathy.
Back in Bangkok and I just milled around being lazy, was going to go scuba diving on a little island called Ko Phi-Phi island but didn't really have enough time. After a few days of partying in the swimming pool of the Grand guest house on khao san road i decided to have an afternoon swim the following day and this is where I met Gemma and her two friends, Lisa and Anna. Gemma is at Bristol university and lisa is at Leeds and anna at Canterbury, After a while I got chatting with these girls and told them a few of my stories including the sad tale of young Michael and I found them interesting as they exchanged their tales.
Got invited out for a few beers by Gemma and couldn't turn down that invitation down, I took a liking to her straight away and we talked and got on well, Then she asked If I fancied going to Ko Samet with her. I accepted and headed to the island which is about 5 hours east of Bangkok. Over the next few days I said I had to visit Michael again and Gemma asked if she could come along, I didn't have a problem with that at all, but my main worry was would she be able to handle the situation that would await her, To be honest I didn't want to go back into that hell hole myself but I made a promise to the lad and if you make a promise then you should keep it as they haven't anything to look forward to and a visit means more than people will ever know.
On the wednesday Gemma said bye to everyone and we headed to the ferry port to catch the boat but missed it by 5 minutes, So we had to hire a boat to ourselves which cost 700 baht but Gemma managed to knock it down to 500 baht. It was only us and the skipper which was quite relaxing, we used our rucksacks as pillows and just laid there and talked, Looking out over the sea and seeing the islands was so tranquil.
Back on the main land and we managed to miss the mini bus back to Bangkok, so we had to find the local bus station and get a local bus. It wasn't to bad, think it was about 180 baht each for the journey. First of all we sat at the top and Gemma managed to persuade the driver and the bus hostess to let her have a fag at the front. Then when she came back we went down stairs and laid down on the seat, It was like a half moon shape seat so you had plenty of room to lay down and stretch. There was only 4 of us on the bus, god knows how they mange to make any money.
Back in Bangkok and we got a nice room with air conditioning and shower. It was heaven compared to what we had on Ko Samet, On Ko Samet our shower room was downstairs and it had about 7 geckos and the mosquitoes was unbelievable, There was loads, Trying to have a shower was a nightmare, trying to wash and avoid these little nasty insects was a mission on it's own, I lost the war with them, they took a disliking to me, got bitten to many times to mention.
On the Thursday we got up and headed to the river to get our boat up to Bangkwang in Nonthaburi. after about 20 minutes we got off, I thought we had arrived at Nonthaburi because I noticed the white clock tower, after leaving the boat and walked for a minute I then realised that we got of at the wrong stop. We tried getting a taxi up too the prison but it was a total nightmare trying to communicate with the locals, It's fine if your on the tourist trail but once you come off and venture into parts of the country where they don't see farangs then it becomes a big problem. Gemma kept asking these taxi drivers if they understood what we was on about, I kept doing impressions of prisoners, like making out I've got steel rings around my ankles and an elephant chain that is tide between the rings with a bit of rope that you holed up so you can walk, still don't know whether they understood me or thought I was a complete nutter who's just escaped from a mental institution, Gemma asked so many times but all they done was repeat themselves over and over, we finally gave up and headed back to the river.
Didn't wait long till another boat turned up, boarded it and was in Nonthaburi within 20 minutes, No one told me there was two white clock towers, I got told to get off when you see the white clock tower, it would of helped if I was told the second tower not the first.
We headed to the grim prison which is about a 5 minute walk from the river, as we turned up at Bangkwang I looked at Gemma to see if she would be able to cope with this experience, after hearing some of her exploits then I was pretty sure she'd be able to handle this situation. We arrived at 9am and filled out our visiting forms and handed our passports over to be photocopied and had to wait for an hour for our passes. After a while I noticed that two men from Bury was visiting Michael as well, we talked about who'd visit him and they said they'd spend an hour with him then we'd swap so me and Gemma could have the next hour, we declined the offer as I knew it wouldn't work with four people inside that hell hole. We told them to tell Michael that we'll be back for the afternoon slot which is 2pm.
We had around 4-5 hours to kill so just walked around the fish market and the side stalls and just chatted about these two very dodgy looking men. We took shelter in a internet cafe as it was very humid and hot and there wasn't anything else to do. the time went pretty fast and made our way back to the prison at 1pm and we filled in yet another form, 2pm and we got our passes and headed across the road to the prison. as we entered we put our valuables in a safe deposit box and walked through a metal detector and got searched. We then walked through a big metal gate and into the main yard. we kept to the right and all you could hear was the clanking of chains, clank, clank, clank, all the thai prisoners were wearing big heavy duty elephant chains, Got knows what Gemma thought. We walked to the bottom and turned left and walked to the table for the foreign prisoners. handed over our passes and was told to take our seats. You could sit anywhere really as there must of only been 6 people visiting the farangs. we took our position half way along and sat down on the wooden benches.
As we was sitting there waiting for Michael i asked Gemma is she was okay, she said she was, to be honest I was bloody nervous, probably more than Gemma, more so than my first visit, not to sure if it's because I've already spoken to him and was thinking about what to say this time as we covered most things last time. after a short period of time, Michael arrived and we got into the flow of things again, I introduced him to Gemma which he seemed extremely pleased to see. This was a completely different situation from the last visit as he really opened up to us, he told us why and what he planned to do with the ecstasy, how he got caught and when he knew the game was up. He says he's been told he'll serve 15 to 20 years, but I made a remark that he wouldn't serve that long because of his age, He said he'd be out soon and is seeking a royal pardon, I agreed with him as hope is the only thing that is keeping him going. I'll not go into details on why he did it and what he planned to do with the drugs because that is private, that'll stay between us three forever. Just like he said in the documentary on BBC, he said most things but stopped short of saying what he told us, so I'll not mention what he hasn't said. Anyway, after a bit I looked at Gemma and could see she was starting to well up, could see water in the eyes, I didn't say anything, I just thought if you want to cry then go ahead, Everyone would of understood is she had, it's not an easy place to visit with out showing some emotion. and full credit to her, she showed great courage and compassion in what is arguably the worst prison in the world.
We was running out of time and Michael made a few remarks to Gemma which I only caught bit's off but she responded well which made Michael grin like a Cheshire cat. He said he needed a shower and I asked if he has clean water? He replied, see that river outside that you pass, well that's pumped into here for us to use. Now if you saw the river he's on about then you'd think it was a wind up,The river is vile.anyway, He was so happy that I'd brought Gemma along that Gemma said she'd visit again. he wanted us to visit again the next day but needed special passes which you get from the british embassy in Bangkok, I said we'd try and we said our goodbyes and left. It was yet another depressing experience but glad I kept my promice to visit.
he had a hell of allot of character to be so positive but I fear he will be inside for a very long time. I just wish he had chosen a different path in life.
Back in Bangkok and we tried to get a special pass but couldn't get through, Oh well, I visited him twice and made the lad smile and brought hope to his miserable life. Gemma is going back to visit again before she flys home,she told me she's going to visit on Thursday and she proimced him she'd visit again, but if she does then it's entirely up to her, it's not an easy place to visit and defiantly not on your own. If she doesn't visit then I'll totally respect her for making that decision.
If none of you don't know about it then click the link.
Regards.
Terrace.
Bangkwang prison (aka bangkok hilton)
some of you might of seen that documentary about it and Michael connell the other week on BBC 2.
I visited Michael in Bangkwang prison in Bangkok Thailand twice, once on my own and the other time with Gemma, I met her in Bangkok a few days after visiting Michael.
The main reason for me being in Thailand for just two weeks this time was to visit Michael Connell a 19 year old Mancunian,at the notorious Bangkwang maximum security prison in Bangkok, nicknamed by jailbirds as 'the Big Tiger' for its extreme severity, it only holds lifers or death row sentences, He was arrested in November last year attempting to smuggle 3400 Ecstasy tablets in his luggage through Bangkok airport, he was sentenced in March this year to 99 years in jail, as reported by the BBC, narrowly missing the death penalty after pleading guilty in the hope of a lenient sentence. They told him that if he pleaded guilty then he'd get 50 years and because of his age it'll be reduced to 25 years, but they hit him with the big one.
Thaksin Shinwatra (Thai PM) doesn't like drug dealers. Last year he executed 3000 without trial, some on street corners, an expert in the Pol Pot style of dishing out justice in Cambodia. This policy had extended to increased sentences for drug smugglers and summary execution, his concession was to soften the execution from firing squad to lethal injection. Arriving by cab in the Northern district (Nonthaburi) of Bangkok, it looked like an enormous concrete hell hole, security everywhere, the guards were the most miserable lowlife I'd ever seen, so much for the 'land of smiles' I thought. It was my first time in jail, (well not including the 3 months in prison i did for drink driving 10 years ago...oops) so I was fairly nervous. I waited anxiously in the designated outdoor meeting area and got chatting to a Switzerland man who was visiting his Thai friend, the Swiss chap spent 4 years in a Japan prison for dope smuggling and told me how much he used to smuggle and how he got caught, Then he went into detail on how he used to smuggle heroin from Chiang Rai too Chiang Mai. He used to smuggle 4 kilos of smack and was paid 5,000 baht, He had some stories to tell believe me, felt un easy really considering I was chatting with an ex drug runner, He then explained how hard the conditions were inside Bangkwang.
After entering the grim dungeons, Michael showed up after a 10 minute wait behind the iron bars and wire mesh fences, He was surprised but very pleased to see me and I didn't need to introduced myself as he said he knew it would be me waiting to see him, although it was hard to communicate being separated by 2 wire mesh fences and bars and a 5 feet no-mans land between us, you'd have to be a real hi-roller Houdini to get out of this place. The whole thing felt quite surreal. We eventually started to talk which was initially difficult and stilted as sadness and despair oozed from every pore on his face. Once we started to talk he was remarkably upbeat and we got into a flow; Man United, Brighton,good books, film, my travels, had he made any friends inside? yes, he'd made a couple of Thai mates and was learning Thai, he then talked about his hopes to have his sentence reduced with a view to getting a transfer and he was fairly convinced of this, I agreed and threw in a couple of positive affirmations, his face literally beamed with conviction and this was the tiny glimmer of hope which was keeping him going.
After 45 minutes the bell rung and it was over, he thanked me profusely and I said good luck and made a reference to how good he looked, that was a lie but I think he believed me because he smiled and i assured him that I would visit again in a weeks time. I left the miserable place, mightily relieved it was over and caught the river boat back to Khao san road in Bangkok. It wasn't just that I'd run out of conversation topics but the whole place made me feel uneasy and when you're faced with talking to this tragic lad who has made a big mistake in life, you just feel sick with sadness. Despite this I found myself liking him even more and feeling allot more sympathy.
Back in Bangkok and I just milled around being lazy, was going to go scuba diving on a little island called Ko Phi-Phi island but didn't really have enough time. After a few days of partying in the swimming pool of the Grand guest house on khao san road i decided to have an afternoon swim the following day and this is where I met Gemma and her two friends, Lisa and Anna. Gemma is at Bristol university and lisa is at Leeds and anna at Canterbury, After a while I got chatting with these girls and told them a few of my stories including the sad tale of young Michael and I found them interesting as they exchanged their tales.
Got invited out for a few beers by Gemma and couldn't turn down that invitation down, I took a liking to her straight away and we talked and got on well, Then she asked If I fancied going to Ko Samet with her. I accepted and headed to the island which is about 5 hours east of Bangkok. Over the next few days I said I had to visit Michael again and Gemma asked if she could come along, I didn't have a problem with that at all, but my main worry was would she be able to handle the situation that would await her, To be honest I didn't want to go back into that hell hole myself but I made a promise to the lad and if you make a promise then you should keep it as they haven't anything to look forward to and a visit means more than people will ever know.
On the wednesday Gemma said bye to everyone and we headed to the ferry port to catch the boat but missed it by 5 minutes, So we had to hire a boat to ourselves which cost 700 baht but Gemma managed to knock it down to 500 baht. It was only us and the skipper which was quite relaxing, we used our rucksacks as pillows and just laid there and talked, Looking out over the sea and seeing the islands was so tranquil.
Back on the main land and we managed to miss the mini bus back to Bangkok, so we had to find the local bus station and get a local bus. It wasn't to bad, think it was about 180 baht each for the journey. First of all we sat at the top and Gemma managed to persuade the driver and the bus hostess to let her have a fag at the front. Then when she came back we went down stairs and laid down on the seat, It was like a half moon shape seat so you had plenty of room to lay down and stretch. There was only 4 of us on the bus, god knows how they mange to make any money.
Back in Bangkok and we got a nice room with air conditioning and shower. It was heaven compared to what we had on Ko Samet, On Ko Samet our shower room was downstairs and it had about 7 geckos and the mosquitoes was unbelievable, There was loads, Trying to have a shower was a nightmare, trying to wash and avoid these little nasty insects was a mission on it's own, I lost the war with them, they took a disliking to me, got bitten to many times to mention.
On the Thursday we got up and headed to the river to get our boat up to Bangkwang in Nonthaburi. after about 20 minutes we got off, I thought we had arrived at Nonthaburi because I noticed the white clock tower, after leaving the boat and walked for a minute I then realised that we got of at the wrong stop. We tried getting a taxi up too the prison but it was a total nightmare trying to communicate with the locals, It's fine if your on the tourist trail but once you come off and venture into parts of the country where they don't see farangs then it becomes a big problem. Gemma kept asking these taxi drivers if they understood what we was on about, I kept doing impressions of prisoners, like making out I've got steel rings around my ankles and an elephant chain that is tide between the rings with a bit of rope that you holed up so you can walk, still don't know whether they understood me or thought I was a complete nutter who's just escaped from a mental institution, Gemma asked so many times but all they done was repeat themselves over and over, we finally gave up and headed back to the river.
Didn't wait long till another boat turned up, boarded it and was in Nonthaburi within 20 minutes, No one told me there was two white clock towers, I got told to get off when you see the white clock tower, it would of helped if I was told the second tower not the first.
We headed to the grim prison which is about a 5 minute walk from the river, as we turned up at Bangkwang I looked at Gemma to see if she would be able to cope with this experience, after hearing some of her exploits then I was pretty sure she'd be able to handle this situation. We arrived at 9am and filled out our visiting forms and handed our passports over to be photocopied and had to wait for an hour for our passes. After a while I noticed that two men from Bury was visiting Michael as well, we talked about who'd visit him and they said they'd spend an hour with him then we'd swap so me and Gemma could have the next hour, we declined the offer as I knew it wouldn't work with four people inside that hell hole. We told them to tell Michael that we'll be back for the afternoon slot which is 2pm.
We had around 4-5 hours to kill so just walked around the fish market and the side stalls and just chatted about these two very dodgy looking men. We took shelter in a internet cafe as it was very humid and hot and there wasn't anything else to do. the time went pretty fast and made our way back to the prison at 1pm and we filled in yet another form, 2pm and we got our passes and headed across the road to the prison. as we entered we put our valuables in a safe deposit box and walked through a metal detector and got searched. We then walked through a big metal gate and into the main yard. we kept to the right and all you could hear was the clanking of chains, clank, clank, clank, all the thai prisoners were wearing big heavy duty elephant chains, Got knows what Gemma thought. We walked to the bottom and turned left and walked to the table for the foreign prisoners. handed over our passes and was told to take our seats. You could sit anywhere really as there must of only been 6 people visiting the farangs. we took our position half way along and sat down on the wooden benches.
As we was sitting there waiting for Michael i asked Gemma is she was okay, she said she was, to be honest I was bloody nervous, probably more than Gemma, more so than my first visit, not to sure if it's because I've already spoken to him and was thinking about what to say this time as we covered most things last time. after a short period of time, Michael arrived and we got into the flow of things again, I introduced him to Gemma which he seemed extremely pleased to see. This was a completely different situation from the last visit as he really opened up to us, he told us why and what he planned to do with the ecstasy, how he got caught and when he knew the game was up. He says he's been told he'll serve 15 to 20 years, but I made a remark that he wouldn't serve that long because of his age, He said he'd be out soon and is seeking a royal pardon, I agreed with him as hope is the only thing that is keeping him going. I'll not go into details on why he did it and what he planned to do with the drugs because that is private, that'll stay between us three forever. Just like he said in the documentary on BBC, he said most things but stopped short of saying what he told us, so I'll not mention what he hasn't said. Anyway, after a bit I looked at Gemma and could see she was starting to well up, could see water in the eyes, I didn't say anything, I just thought if you want to cry then go ahead, Everyone would of understood is she had, it's not an easy place to visit with out showing some emotion. and full credit to her, she showed great courage and compassion in what is arguably the worst prison in the world.
We was running out of time and Michael made a few remarks to Gemma which I only caught bit's off but she responded well which made Michael grin like a Cheshire cat. He said he needed a shower and I asked if he has clean water? He replied, see that river outside that you pass, well that's pumped into here for us to use. Now if you saw the river he's on about then you'd think it was a wind up,The river is vile.anyway, He was so happy that I'd brought Gemma along that Gemma said she'd visit again. he wanted us to visit again the next day but needed special passes which you get from the british embassy in Bangkok, I said we'd try and we said our goodbyes and left. It was yet another depressing experience but glad I kept my promice to visit.
he had a hell of allot of character to be so positive but I fear he will be inside for a very long time. I just wish he had chosen a different path in life.
Back in Bangkok and we tried to get a special pass but couldn't get through, Oh well, I visited him twice and made the lad smile and brought hope to his miserable life. Gemma is going back to visit again before she flys home,she told me she's going to visit on Thursday and she proimced him she'd visit again, but if she does then it's entirely up to her, it's not an easy place to visit and defiantly not on your own. If she doesn't visit then I'll totally respect her for making that decision.
If none of you don't know about it then click the link.
Regards.
Terrace.
Bangkwang prison (aka bangkok hilton)
ofcourse he deserves it. Maybe drug smuggling should be a tad more leanient, but ur telling me if someone killed ur parents u wouldnt want them to get a harsh sentence?