Italians in Thailand/3: more on the seafront clique - Pattaya

Continued from here

And then there are non sex-related scams as well.

- "What did you say? Your visa is about to expire? No problem at all, we can arrange a return trip to the Cambodian border. It won't take more than two, three days at most. You pay us and we'll take care of everything...great, isn't it?" And then it's all a sequence of inflated prices: transportation, accommodation, immigration procedures, duty free, casino, meals, revelries, imitation Viagra and, if one cannot stay away from them even for a couple of nights, more hookers, just to have a taste of Khmer culture as well, besides the Thai one, because after all you don't get to know the world just by listening to what other people say, looking at it from behind a car window or reading a few pages of a travel guide: you need first hand experience, meeting the locals...that's the secret!

"Give me two more boxes of that generic Viagra then..."

I suppose that the whole trip will cost him no less than 10000 to 15000 baht (about 300-500 USD), but it might be much more depending on the vices the dupe will indulge on. If he only knew that various agencies in town organize visa runs by minivan, leaving at 6am and returning at about 3 pm on the same day, for a total of just 2000 baht (70 USD), including the Cambodian visa. They would only need to know ten English words. Or the help of an honest Italian, of course...

Premature Viagra - Bangkok, Thailand

He grabs the packet, takes out five cigarettes, gives away four of them and lights one for himself. Then he lifts his glass but something is wrong: looking closer at it he can just see the ice cubes. He focuses on the bottles and makes himself one more drink. He laughs, cracks jokes, gets drunk and smokes. He's eying up a girl that he will try to pick up. This European guy is doing an internship in Bangkok. These weeks in Thailand should get him started in finance, but they've dropped him in a muddy land of decadent nights.

On a weekday he will gulp down liters of beer, while on weekends he'll finish off bottles of whiskey. He's often reduced to a pitiful state: he forgets what he's doing and can barely walk. But if he meets a girl and she follows him back home, just to be sure he'll take a pill of Viagra. He's handsome, tall, doing an internship abroad: coming from one of the richest areas in the world he should have a future as a successful man. And yet he gets wasted and takes pills of Viagra. 
He's just twenty four, what is he gonna do when he's old? Whatever happens he won't be alone: I've met many people who are exactly like him.