Bangkok Hard Time (19 page)

Foreign prisoners in Lard Yao. Clockwise from top left: Big Bob, Rhodesia Dave, Chip, the legend Wonder Fuller or Phil, and the author (without shirt).

A prison photo of the author in 1990, shortly before his release. An example of the thousand-yard stare.

“Falling Rain” Thai cigarettes were unpacked and refilled with ganja at Bahn Pee Lek for sale to GIs during the Vietnam War.

The logo for Double UOGlobe Brand heroin. Thais call this brand “
singh lep lohk”
(“lions hook the world in their claws”), meaning the lions control the world.

Jon and Deb Cole photographed in 2010.

The author in a poppy field at an unspecified location, 2010.

If you enjoyed Jon Cole’s story, you’ll like the following true accounts by other former “Bangkok Hilton” inmates …

Nightmare in Bangkok

The incredible true account of survival in a Thai prison

A
NDY
B
OTTS

Andy Botts began his criminal activities as a young “car banger” in his native Hawaii before graduating to drug-dealing and trafficking. After a number of successful and highly lucrative drug runs to Asia (though not without some chillingly close calls), Botts was betrayed by a close associate. Arrested in Bangkok’s Don Muang International Airport with 114 grams of heroin in his possession, he narrowly escaped execution by firing squad.

But his “reprieve”—a prison sentence of life plus two years in Bangkok’s most notorious prison, dubbed the Bangkok Hilton’— threw him into a nightmare world where the only rules were no rules. Nightmare in Bangkok is Botts’ all-too-true account of how he managed to survive this ordeal and emerge a very changed man at the end of a fearsome journey through hell.

“In Thailand, Botts gets jailed for heroin smuggling, but not before being incarcerated in his native Hawaii”
TIME,
USA

Escape

The true story of the only Westerner ever to break out of Thailand’s Bangkok Hilton

D
AVID
M
C
M
ILLAN

Klong Prem prison, Thailand. The “Bangkok Hilton”, where 600 foreigners among the 12,000 inmates of this walled prison city also wait and rot. Among the tragic, ruthless and forgotten, one man resolves to do what no other has done: escape. This is the true story of drug smuggler David McMillan’s perilous break-out from Asia’s most notorious prison.

“Breathtaking stuff”
News of the World,
UK

“Gripping”
Zoo Weekly,
UK

“Drug trafficker David McMillan … spent two years plotting his escape from a Bangkok jail”
BBC,
UK

“The jailbreak was straight out of a movie”
The Age,
Australia

“This is one of the world’s most notorious—and remarkable—heroin traffickers: Melbourne man David McMillan. Despite still being on the run, McMillan has written a book, Escape, about … his amazing breakout in Bangkok”
The Australian

Escape: The Past

Prequel to the international bestseller “Escape: The true story of the only Westerner ever to break out of Thailand’s Bangkok Hilton”

D
AVID
M
C
M
ILLAN

In this gripping prequel to “Escape”, drug smuggler-turned-bestselling author David McMillan tells it from the beginning. Throwing away an expensive education as a teenager then a promising executive career, McMillan hit rock botto to make his first million dealing drugs at age 22.

McMillan peels away the layers of seedy Patpong’s massive candy-store brothels as he scours the Thai capital’s lowest dives seeking bosses with strong connections and weak ethics. He details what it took to arm himself and his teams of couriers with dozens of passports to tread the clandestine path that frustrated international border guards for years.

Memories of the New York highlife, London’s Mayfair townhouses and Concorde’s soft landings soon fade, however, when the law eventually catches up with the young villain in Australia. Following a six-month Supreme Court trial with 126 witnesses, McMillan is sent down for a long stretch yet he still hits the headlines from behind bars with a failed helicopter breakout.

About the Author

Born in 1950 in Little Rock, Arkansas, as the eldest son of a US Army officer, the author was raised on three continents from Europe to Asia and over half a dozen American US military posts in between.

An award-winning jewelry designer now retired and living in the the foothills of Arkansas’ Ozark Mountains, this is his first publication, which was written specifically as an amends-making exercise and as a tribute to the people of Thailand.

Copyright

First published in print by Monsoon Books in 2011

This electronic edition first published in 2012 by Monsoon Books

ISBN (paperback): 978-981-4358-32-3

ISBN (ebook): 978-981-4358-33-0

Copyright©Jon Cole, 2011

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Inside-page photographs©Jon Cole, 2011

Cover design by Opalworks

Thanks are due to master wordsmith Richard Lord for his sober editing.

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