Before you panic...no I did not land myself in Thai prison...I went there voluntarily to visit an English chap by the name of Gary Jones. He has been given a life sentence in the Bangkok Thai Prison for trafficking drugs. I recently read a book by the name of Marching Powder, which is about an English bloke that landed himself in San Pedro Prison located down in Bolivia. He too was guilty of trafficking drugs down in South America. So, when one of my fellow teachers from Media Kids asked me if I wanted to go visit a Thai prison I immediately said yes! In one of the guest houses on Ko San Road (backpacker alley) in Bangkok there are numerous posts on the wall to go visit Gary Jones in Thai Prison. This is how we found about this little adventure! There were directions to the prison and a request to bring him soap, so we each bought a bar of soap and off we went!
Now in Thailand you must take about 5 different modes of transportation to get anywhere and it usually takes much longer then you plan on. We started off on foot around 8 AM and walked down to the boat dock where we caught a ferry for 3 baht that took us on a 2 minute ride across the river. From here we had to catch a river taxi for a whopping 13 baht, which took us on a 40 minute ride down the river. There are little wooden houses and restaurants lining the river, people washing their clothes on the rickety stairs leading down to the water and of course the most elaborate temples one can imagine. Once we arrived at our stop we were told to pass two 7-11's and make a left. We some how missed one of the two 7-11's and ended up walking back and forth between the prison registration and some other building. It was actually quite humorous because they could not speak English and we could not speak Thai and we were sticking out like soar thumbs, but we eventually manged to figure things out.
Once we had copied our passports and handed over all of our belongings we were taken to a waiting area. There were other foreigners there, so at first we thought that Gary was a popular man. As it turns out there are over 600 foreigners in this prison, which is more than all the Thai inmates put together. Out of those 600 over 200 are from the UK, so if it were me and I were from the UK then I would steer clear of Thailand! Since nobody really told us what was going on we ended up just sitting on the curb for about 40 minutes. During that time people were coming and going from within the gigantic, metal prison doors. A few of the inmates were brought out wearing chains, which was pretty wild to see up close and personal.
After a while we figured that we had been forgotten and that is when this crazy man with wild hair and an insane beard walked out and was tapping on the visiting window. He had these little wire rimmed glasses on and was definitely missing a few teeth. I stood up, walked over to the window, picked up the phone and said "Are you Gary Jones"? He laughed and nodded his head yes. The four of us picked up the visitor phones and sat down. Gary had one phone on each ear in order to be able to talk to all of us at once. He was a total character with so much to say about everything!
The next hour of our day consisted of Gary rambling on about what life was like on the inside, how the UK had completely deserted him and how of course he was totally innocent! He went on to tell us that he had a PHD from Berkley in psychology and that he owes the IRS millions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Gary has lived and traveled all over the world and was visiting Thailand 8 years ago on "business" when he was falsely nailed for trafficking drugs. He has been given a life sentence where he will spend his days in a tiny cell that is shared with 18 other prisoners.
Gary told us that you are not just given a prison cell though, you must purchase it. He went on to tell us that you must purchase pretty much everything in Thai prison as nothing is just handed to you. The exception being the fish head soup that is the standard prison meal, so if you want anything other than that then you have to come up with a way to get money. According to Gary who told us that he is also known as, Bridget, there are at least 2 deaths each week from beatings or health related problems. He was all over the place with his stories, so the hour went by in a flash. Visitor time was now over, so said our good-byes and went to collect our belongings.
At this point we were all in shock from the stories we had just heard and from the simple fact that we had just voluntarily walked into a Thai prison. We grabbed some lunch and reflected on our experience with Gary. The four of us found our way back to our water taxi and off we went to Ko San Road, which by the way I do not recommend to anyone that does not wish to spend the night with a bunch of drunk college kid idiots!
Wow...is all I can really say about that entire day. A day in the life of Thailand is always a total adventure. For all those in American prison...they have no idea just how plush their lives are!
