Bangkok Babylon. Jerry Hopkins

      TUTTLE PUBLISHING

      Tokyo • Rutland, Vermont • Singapore

      Published by Tuttle Publishing, an imprint of Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd., with editorial offices at 364 Innovation Drive, North Clarendon, Vermont 05759 USA and 61 Tai Seng Avenue, #02-12, Singapore 534167

      Text © 2005 Haku ‘Olelo Inc.

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      INTRODUCTION

       Tales from the Next Barstool

      Not so long ago a friend in the United States sent me a story from Penthouse magazine about a legal case that had intrigued an international audience from its first reporting in the world's press. It concerned the unusual life and death of Larry Hillblom, the “H” in DHL Worldwide Express, the world's largest courier delivery service, who left behind an estate of about $600 million when his private plane mysteriously plunged into the Pacific Ocean in 1995. There was nothing extraordinary about that; it was just another tragic airplane crash–in fact, it was Hillblom's third. But then there emerged, accompanied by lawyers, a group of young women from Southeast Asia who said their six children were his...and they wanted a piece of the pie.

      Those who knew Hillblom merely grinned when they heard the claims. Founding a bank in Saipan, investing in Air Micronesia and Continental Airlines, starting a resort community in Guam, and spending $40 million to renovate a French colonial hotel in Vietnam wasn't all he did in his spare time. He was also known to frequent some of Southeast Asia's more colorful bars.

      Inasmuch as Hillblom's body was never found–and his will lacked the standard clause disinheriting illegitimate heirs–the attorneys were given permission by the court to visit the deceased's Saipan home to search for something that could be used to conduct DNA tests in their effort to prove Hillblom was the father. By the time they arrived, however, even the drains of the showers had been cleaned of all hairs or skin fragments and all personal effects reportedly were destroyed. Further, when the wreckage of the plane was recovered, the control panel and pilot's seat (where blood might have been detected) were missing and Hillblom's relatives refused to surrender samples of their own blood. Meanwhile, four of the children were declared by their DNA tests to share a common father. Interesting, but it didn't link them to Hillblom.

      Finally a break came when Hillblom's mother changed her mind about providing a blood sample after being told she'd been cut from her son's will. Of course, she wanted to be paid. Lawyers for the plaintiffs agreed to give the woman a million dollars out of the offsprings' share of the legacy if the DNA tests made their case. A second break–the deciding one–came when a girlfriend told investigators where the man's clothing and personal effects had been buried when the mansion was super-cleaned. (For pointing to a spot next to the tennis courts, she, too, was promised a million dollars.) Soon after tests were conducted on hairs from a brush, the court ruled that the founder and DHL ' S sole owner–by the time of his death, he'd bought his two partners' shares–was indeed the father of four of the children, and each was awarded $90 million!

      Accompanying the magazine story when it arrived in the mail from my pal was the note, “You can never tell who's sitting on the next bar stool.”

      This is certainly true in Bangkok, where I live. I doubt I ever shared drinks with Larry Hillblom, but I'll bet that we drank in some of the same bars, and in the ten years that I've made my home in Thailand, I've drunk with many of his peers–expatriates who are bolder, more imaginative or more curious, and more heroic or foolhardy or over-the-top than most–men imbued with an unchecked sense of adventure–or, at least a delight in the eccentric (on a slow day), the unexpected (on an average day) and no less than the incredible (on a good day). Adventurers of both the indoor and outdoor types. Intellectual and physical explorers who are purposeful to the point of stubbornness, adamant in their quest for knowledge and experience. And the hell with what other people may think.

      Thailand also attracts the con-men, law-breakers, runaways and what back home might be called sexual deviants. It is a place where erratically enforced laws are written by men who may not intend to stick to them–who, if they get caught, know they'll do little or no time in jail because the fix is almost a political certainty or is, at worst, bargain-priced. So it is, too, for many foreigners who seek refuge here, in the same way that–not so many years ago–bank robbers and scam artists sought escape in the Bahamas and Latin America.

      The phrase “wild, wild east” is a cliché, yet it is both reasonable and accurate when applied to what is, undeniably, one of the great, unruly and untamed cities in the world. Bangkok is Y-chromosome territory, a city where surprise is as ordinary as bad air and traffic jams and pretty, young women and rice; where accessibility and affordability accompany anything you want, even unleashed fantasy. Sex, drugs, counterfeit designer goods and software, smuggled gems, weapons, endangered species...Thailand is Southeast Asia's prime marketplace. It's not surprising that such an environment has appeal for some of what society deems the best and the worst. Missionaries and NGO s come to fix the “problem.” Others come to roll around in it.

      Once