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'We get extra money whenever we respond to a call-out,' said Tor, leaning on his motorcycle, one of the tools of his trade.

Another is a wind jacket he wears, emblazoned with the word ‘Lawyer’.

In fact, he is not a lawyer, but the company he works for is known by that name.

A man in his 30s, Tor works for an insurance company contractor.

He and his colleagues whizz out to the scene of motor vehicle accidents to take down claim details from motorists.

'The call-out centres are staffed 24/7. If we are not responding to call-outs, we can sleep.

‘That's the good part about the job. The bad thing is the weather. It is hard to make a sketch of the scene and take pictures of an accident scene in the dark, or when it is wet,' he said.

In Thailand, motorists involved in an accident start the claims process at the scene.

In the West, at least where I come from, motorists do not need to dally. We swap vehicle registration numbers and contact details at the scene; otherwise, we submit our claims when we get home, and the insurance company does the rest.

No so here. Insurers send agents as soon as they are informed of an accident. Often they turn up on motorcycles within moments of an accident happening.

Traffic which has built up behind an accident may clear only after they have finished collecting details. Tor and the other staff make sketches of the accident scene, inspect vehicles for damage, take photographs, fill out claims forms, and ask motorists who caused it.

If motorists cannot agree on who was at fault, they call police. While police can point out who did wrong, motorists are not obliged to agree. If the two parties still fail to agree, they can take the matter to court.

But whether or not it gets to that stage, Tor and his colleagues still have plenty of forms to fill out.

They work for a man called Boss, who runs seven call-out centres in Bangkok.

I teach English to his two children at their home, a three-storey shophouse which also serves as his place of work, in Pin Khlao on the Thon Buri side of town. I meet Boss, Tor and his pals every week on my way to teach the kids.

I teach on the second storey of the shophouse, but I pass Tor and the other insurance workers in the carpark, or in the office on the first level, on my way up.

The spare room where I teach also serves as a meeting room, where Boss can discipline errant staff when he wants privacy, he confided once. If I want to visit the toilet, I mount yet another flight of stairs to the third floor, where the children and Mum and Dad share a bedroom.

Often I arrive at the shop to find Tor and his pals shirtless. If they get a call-out, they don their shirts and smart wind-jackets with the company's name on the back. At least half a dozen motorcycles are parked out front, ready for the agents to use.

Last week, Tor, and Nat, another employee in his late teens, were having a smoke when I walked in.

A bunk next to them was occupied. Two agents, wearing workclothes, were sleeping next to each other on the same mattress.

Tor is in his late 30s or early 40s, married, and bored. Nat looks barely out of his teens, but has a girlfriend. He wears cute fuzz on his upper lip, and hair falls into his eyes.

We chatted briefly as I took off my shoes ready for my ascent to the second storey.

‘What are your plans?’ I asked Nat.

'I want to save for a car or motorbike, and then a house, just like anyone else,' he replied.

As rain fell softly outside, I looked at his soft fuzzy-chin features.

'Have you known your girlfriend long?' I asked.

'We met when I was 16. But she had already lost her virginity,' Nat said, sadly.

'Times have changed since we were young,' Tor told me philosophically. He was referring to the time that he and I grew up. 

'Lust came along, and she gave in to it,' said Nat.

Accidents in bed can happen just as fast as those on the road, it seems, with consequences which are just as permanent.

Still, at least they have each other. For a lad of his tender age, I thought, it would not be much fun leaving work on a rain-swept night for an empty home.

Heat rash

The mother of an 11 year-old Thai student, Waen, is worried that this farang may be carrying something.

'What is the inflammation on your skin?' asked my student, innocently. 'Mum is worried.'

How nice of your mother, I thought, to ask me directly. She was sitting in the next room watching television.

Most weeks, when I come to teach my young lad and his sister, Mum is in the sitting room, watching television, or downstairs in the office with her husband, working.

'It's an allergy which I have had since birth, and which flares up in hot weather. You can't catch it,' I said.

It runs in my family, and is passed on through the genes, I explained.

'Here...you won't get it.'

I rubbed a patch of inflamed skin, and pretended to reach out for the boy's bare arm. He looked shocked, but did not recoil.

'Just joking. I would not do anything to make you pick up my skin ailment. Please tell your mother that I am quite safe,' I assured him.

'Okay,' Waen said, passing me a bottle of milk.

He invited me to take a slurp.

After starting the new school term, both children came down with a cold, which they caught from their classmates. Thankfully, I was spared that particular infection.

I declined his kind offer that I share his drink. You never know what a foreigner might be carrying after all.

New kids on the block (2, final)

Motorcycle mayhem

Kom Chad Leuk newspaper spoke to a dek skoi, called 'Fa'.

She is 16, and started mixing with motorcycle racers when she was 13.

She has been selling her body at Sanam Luang for the last seven months, earning B2,000 a night. She sees only three customers in that time.

She charges B600 to B1,000 a time, though she will price herself according to how much competition she faces from other girls in a night, and how many customers turn up. She normally starts work at 8pm. Any earlier, there are fewer dek skoi around, so she can charge more: B800.

Later in the evening, as the other girls arrive, she cuts her price. On a quiet night, when few customers are around, she can drop her price to B400. That doesn't include the B250-B400 tariff for a hotel. She normally takes customers to a hotel behind the Ministry of Defence, or in Thon Buri.

Most dek skoi come out from midnight to 2am, when up to 50-60 girls may be selling themselves.

If she sold herself every night of the month, she could make B60,000. But Fa normally comes out only twice a month, on the 15th day of the month, and at the end of the month, when Thais get paid. More customers are likely to turn up when they are flush with pay.

The money goes on rent, food, going out, and - most importantly - doing up her boyfriend's motorbike.

The life of a dek skoi sounds nasty. Some girls sell themselves to buy drugs. Teen motorcyclists also gamble on who will win races, and their girls sleep around. A girl who is brave enough to offer herself as a stake in a bet - a trophy, for whichever boy wins a race - is viewed favourably.

The arrival of dek skoi and their pushy motorcyclist boyfriends at Sanam Luang - a traditional haunt for women and gays who want to sell themselves - has forced the established trade to move elsewhere, to Thong Lor.

Kom Chad Leuk newspaper spoke to Yay, a prostitute who used to work at Sanam Luang, but found she could not compete with the youth and beauty of dek skoi.

Yay, 38, says she cut her price to B300 to stay in the trade. But in the end, she and her friends were forced to move, after the new arrivals took over the territory. They threatened to lay a complaint with police, chase her out, or even use physical force.

The teens liked to tease, calling her 'Aunty Yay', even though she was just 38.

Police despair of making a difference. Even if they can catch dek waen and their girlfriends, the fine is only B1000. A dek skoi on the game can make twice that in one night.

Senator Montri Sintawichai, head of the Child Protection Foundation, says Thai society has reached a sorry state when Thai males will let their girlfriends sell themselves for the sake of doing up a motorcycle. What happened to the age of chivalry, when boys would want to keep their girlfriends for themselves?

He says most dek waen are not vagrants, but have families, who buy motorbikes for them.

He is also disappointed in the girls: 'At first, I thought they wouldn't be game to sell themselves, but the lure of money is too great. In agreeing to their boyfriends' demands, they become their victims. And when they see the money rolling in, they get used to it.'

Message to parents: Don't let your children grow too distant. And don't let them get carried away with money, either.

New kids on the block (1)

Dek waen on the prowl

...and after police have caught them

What does a teenage motorcyclist do when he runs out of money to do up his motorbike? He asks his girlfriend to sell her body.

In a long article charting the rise of a new Thai social ill, Kom Chad Leuk newspaper says teenage motorcyclists (เด็กแว้น, or dek waen) move into Sanam Luang every night with their girlfriends, aged 14 to 17.

Dek waen are a social phenomenon in their own right. They modify their motorcycle engines to make them noisier, and race up and down streets at night.

They acquire the name dek waen from the sound of a motorcycle engine revving - waen! waen!

Their girlfriends - who sit behind - have their own name. They are called dek skoi, (สาวสก๊อย, เด็กสก๊อย) and are often spotted wearing extremely short cut-off jeans. The name, according from my dictionary of newly-coined Thai words popular among the young, comes from the name of an animal in a Japanese cartoon.

It's not a flattering-sounding name, but nor is the image which these young women earn if they hang around teenage male motorcyclists. The dictionary comes with an example, appropriate in this context: 'I just ride on the back of a man's motorcycle - I don't sell my body!'

Some do, however, sell themselves for sex. They are taking over the Sanam Luang grounds, close to Pin Khlao, and can also be spotted by the Pin Khlao bridge, Thammasat University, and close to Wat Pra Kaew.

Their boyfriends start arriving with their girls in the early evening. It is not unusual to see a group of 30 motorcycles or more, parked in a row.

The boys perform the role of pimps. Some station themselves at strategic points of the route around the park, to signal the others should they see police approaching. After their girlfriends have found a customer, the boyfriend will accompany them to a hotel.

The customer usually takes the girl in his car, and the boyfriend follows on his motorbike. He waits outside the hotel until she has finished, to take her back so she can sell her body again - and to stand by as 'protection' in the event the customer tries to get out of paying.

Postscript: Here are two news video clips of motorcycle teen racers. In the first [link harvested- it died], police attempt to round up dek waen racers around Phra Ram 2 motorway in Bangkok. Some get away, and are seen speeding off down a darkened motorway. One hits the back of pick-up truck. The boy following him can't see either, and also hits the truck, or maybe swerves to avoid his friend. He, or maybe his friend, dies. You can hear the sound of the collision. Later, cameras capture loved ones at the scene, crying over the their loss.

In the second (link harvested - it died) video, police have rounded up about 150 motorcycle racers in Bang Yai, Nonthaburi, to the applause of passing motorists. According to the television hosts, dek waen often ride Harley-style bikes, wear flip-flops (one colour each foot), and dirty jeans.

now, see part 2

Winds of change (4, final)

Traders adapt, or they die.

As business at her shop tails off, Mum and her husband, who run it, have found new ways to supplement their income.

Both gamble on football games. They write down in notebooks details of what they have lost and won.

They wager with customers who are also good friends. When they turn up, the first item of business is to settle debts from the previous night’s game.

I see B1,000 bills change hands...sometimes several of them.

Mum’s husband, Pa, is on the phone to his bookie virtually every time I see him.

These days, I go only two nights a week, and do not stay long. I don't like the way gambling dominates activity there.

I teach English to two children in the area, so have to go anyway. After I finish, I drink at Mum’s shop, but I usually leave by 10pm.

The other night, Mum tried to talk to me, the first time we had spoken in several weeks.

‘I sent her back...she was lying and stealing...we had to pay the bus fare...’

Mum was talking about a relative, who comes from the provinces but stayed in Bangkok during the school break. A teenage girl, she is a handful. One day, Mum told her to go home.

I listened, but I didn’t take it in. Once, I would have asked questions, and shown an interest. Now I can’t be bothered, so I sat there and said nothing.

Performing arts student Jay was drinking next to me, but I hardly talked to him, either.

Later in the night, Chin, a fan of Japanese comics, joined us.

He sat down and started reading, with barely a word of conversation. He did not want to be disturbed, so I let him get on with it.

Either we have become so close that we don’t need to talk any more, or we are apathetic.

‘Mr Fatty...don’t you wan’t to talk to me? In that case, I will pretend I never met you, either.’

Tearaway Thai boy Kew – part-time security guard, part-time ageing bar boy in Pattaya, who I met one night close to Mum's shop, many years ago now – sent me that text message a few days ago.

He had called me one day when I was busy. I talked to him briefly, then hung up.

I haven’t replied to his message. No doubt, if we meet again, we’ll still be friends. I feel the same way about the young people at Mum’s shop.