on my last day in thailand, i was thinking of something productive to do. then i remembered about this movie i seen 20 years ago on tv called “DADA IS DEATH”. it was a movie about 2 foreigners that got caught for smuggling drugs into thailand. see, unlike america, countries like thailand and indonesia don’t put up with drug dealers. if you smuggle drugs, you get the death penalty. there’s signs all over the airports and even on the immigrations card saying “penalty for drug smuggling is death”… anyway, back to Bang Kwang prison. bang kwang prison is thailand’s maximum security prison and is also known as “the Big Tiger”, meaning it eats men alive. this is the prison that houses foreigners that get caught for drug smuggling. prisoners in there are sentenced to at least 25 years if their lucky. the death penalty if your not so lucky. it’s built to hold 3,500 prisoners and currently houses over 8,000. until 2003, they killed you by a firing squad, but now, it’s lethal injection. there’s no fresh water, they use the dirty river water for showers. Bang Kwang prison is supposed to be the worst place to be locked up in.
so i woke up in the morning and started my journey. first, get all the information i need. i found out i needed to wear nice clothes, take my passport, and have the name of the prisoner i wanted to visit. i picked this british guy because he had a wife and a kid and was going to be locked up for 50 years. i headed to the prison by train, then by river boat. i finally found the place 3 hours later. it was raining, i was all wet, and to make things worst, i was denied entry. they guard told me that no visitors on fridays. i thought that was bullshit and tried pretty hard to get my way in. i heard that guards there make their own rules. i even told him i came all the way from hawaii but he didn’t give a shit. i was pretty disappointed. i really want to see the inside and find out some of the real stories. unlike the justice system we have here in america, i can guarantee there are some innocent people locked up in there. and when the guard walks into your cell and tells you that it’s your time to die in 2 hours, it must be pretty freaky. i understand that people make mistakes in life. actually, everybody does. nobody’s perfect and if i could just sit down with an inmate and be his friend, i would. just to show support to somebody that’s living in hell. so in the next few years, i’m going to make it my goal to get in there….
this is the outside of the front entrance. i was actually shaking walking up to the gate….
nobody escapes from here….
this is how they get transported here…. freakin scary shit….
