Welcome to Hell

I picked up "Welcome to Hell" shortly after arriving in Bangkok and being pretty disgusted right off the bat at what I encountered. From the smut and filth, to the poverty and open disregard for nearly every law. And I've got to say, if that's what it's like for an average American dude just checking the scene out it's not hard to imagine that Martin's story is accurate. Many people are getting hung up on the culpability of his actions and that this somehow negate the behavior of the Thai authorities. People have the same criticism of "Midnight Express." But to argue this is to miss the entire point; even if Martin did seek vengeance on men who had done him wrong, how can anyone deny the horrid abuse of basic human rights that he encountered? And the sad thing is, Thais and most critiques of the book do not even try and disavow this. To me, even more alarming than the filth, brutality, and squalor of the prisons themselves are Martin's depictions of the Thai criminal courts; they would seem to be nothing short of psychological torture. Even though I read the book some time ago, I still remember the mockery of justice that this man endured at the hands of utterly corrupt judges and police officers who come across as savage perversions of civil servants. One has to really ask themselves if any of it seems so far-fetched and what motivation Martin would have to exaggerate. It is quite simply so loaded with excruciating detail it's beyond the pale. Thailand is my least favorite country I have ever visited, and this book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand what lies beneath the syrupy rehearsed "sawat-de-kraps." Since my trip, I make it a point to read nearly any story about this nasty country and they almost all involve some form of violence, abuse, mistreatment of refugees...you name it. I also think that "Welcome to Hell" is superior to William Hayes's "Midnight Express". Whereas Hayes's account seems a bit slick and ultimately somewhat shallow, this book shows a deep range of emotion and impressions of a foreign culture. My heart goes out to Colin Martin, who seems like a relatively decent guy.

I read this book in a little under a day. It is a terrifying true story of a decent business-man who had answered an advertisement in a newspaper and through a series of events, had been swindled of almost half a million dollars in Thailand by a business deal that turned out to be an elaborate con. In an effort to try and apprehend the man responsible, he finds himself in the wrong side of the law and facing life in a squalid Bangkok prison cell. This is a well written, fast paced book that gets to the core of the story without over-embellishing the details. Some of the descriptions of abuse and torture were quite graphic, but were necessary to relay the experience the author had been through. The sense of injustice is overwhelming and you feel pity when reading all the twists and turns and misfortune that happen along the way. An interesting read.