This year, I took the family for a holiday in Europe: Paris, Rome, London. It sounds more glamourous than it was … by ‘family’ I mean a one-time romantic couple now besieged by a toddler.
But before taking in the playgrounds of Europe, we stopped over in Bangkok and I visited an Australian who probably only planned to stay for a few days himself, but is now stuck there for life … in Bangkwang Prison.
The Australian Consulate made the arrangements and emailed me a name: Andrew Hood. Google confirmed he had been caught in the airport trying to leave with kilos of heroin strapped to his body. He’s about my age, and also has a child. They even lived near me, in Sydney’s inner west.
“He could be me,” I said to my laptop – in a ‘there but for the grace of God’ sort of way.
And then I wondered what on earth I was going to say to the guy. He’d served three years, with the rest of his life still to go. I feared he would be broken already.
As instructed by the Consulate, I wore to the prison “polite attire – no shorts, revealing clothing, short skirts or bare shoulders”.
I was scanned, frisked, relieved of my wallet and phone, and directed past stray dogs, gates and fences to an inner compound where prisoners sat behind glass. I spotted a white guy with a phone pressed to his ear. I picked up the phone on my side of the glass.
“Are you the guy from Glebe?” he said. “Man, I used to love that neighbourhood.”
It turned out Andrew and I had plenty to talk about.
“Yeah, I did it old school,” he said. “Strapped to my body. But the whole job was a mess. There was way too much stuff. More than there was supposed to be.”
He was shaking his head.
“In the airport, it even started leaking. My heart said to go back, but my head said keep going. Not that I had much choice by then. I nearly made it too, but, at the last minute, they got me with a hand scanner. Then my face gave it away.”
He said his trial in 2009 was over in minutes – guilty, and sentenced to death, before he knew what was happening. Somehow, by admitting his guilt, he received a commutation to life. He’s not seen his family since.
And yet, looking at him across the glass, it struck me that he still had life in his eyes. I told him so and he smiled and rolled up a sleeve.
“Impressive,” I said.
“I’ve got them all over,” he said. “Yakuza love tats. They welcomed me – even helped me carry my bed to my cell. It helps. But there’s no ‘easy’ time. They put you in leg irons for the first three months. And the food … every meal is shitty fish and rice. God I hate rice.”
He said some visitors used to bring in food for prisoners, but there’s a new prison director who’s banned this. He’s also banned books, except those in Thai.
“So what do you do all day?”
“Sleep.”
“Ever think of trying to escape?
“All the time.”
Some countries, he told me, have an arrangement where their citizens can be transferred to a prison back home after ten years. It hasn’t happened with an Australian yet.
“There’s another Aussie in here. My friend. He’s done eight years, so maybe if he goes …”
“You’ll lose your friend.”
A buzzer went, and something was shouted over a loudspeaker. It was time.
“So the Consulate said I can buy you cigarettes at the prison shop. As prison currency?”
“Oh thanks man, that’d be great.”
“Anything else do you want?”
“A slab of coke?”
Guards were coming. He said his name to me, and made me say it back.
“Okay got it, cigarettes and a slab of coke for Andrew Hood. Anything else?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“You sure? I don’t mind.”
“Okay, make it two slabs of coke. Thank you. That was a good conversation.”
It was.