BITTERSWEET FAMILY REUNION, BEGGAR TUGS HEARTS, HI-SO SHAM
Cuckolded man wins praise
Udon Thani man Chainarong Wongnukool, 56, is drawing praise on the internet after his wife took off with another man and their young daughter but he resigned himself to his fate rather than seeking revenge.
His wife, Wanida, aged 30, returned for a brief reunion at the invitation of police amid reports in the media that she may have been killed, when an unidentified woman’s body surfaced at the local water pumping station after she went missing.
Police, who persisted with the search despite the gruesome find, tracked down Mrs Wanida and her daughter to Sa Kaew following her husband’s missing person’s alert.
They brought the couple back to Udon Thani for a surprise reunion with Mr Chainarong and his mother-in-law Ratchanok Thongbao,
45, both of whom earlier identified the decomposing woman’s body as that of Mrs Wanida, and held concerns for the safety of the little girl.
However, the blessing was mixed, as Mrs Wanida and the couple’s six-year-old daughter, Kartana, or “Nong Iwah”, were accompanied by the new man in Mrs Wanida’s life, whom she left home to be with. Boonmee “Uwan” Puuduangrum, 36, declared he would marry Mrs Wanida within a year. A heartbroken Mr Chainarong declared he would enter the monkhood for life after realising he had been left with nothing.
Mrs Wanida left without a word and took Iwah to live with Mr Boonmee, from Pakham district in Buri Ram, she admitted. Mr Boonmee, whom she had been getting to know romantically for more than two years, met the pair at the provincial bus station. He introduced her to his family and later found work for Mrs Wanida at the same factory where he works in Sa Kaew.
That’s where police eventually tracked them down, before taking the threesome back to Udon Thani to reconcile with Mr Chainarong and Mrs Wanida’s worried mother, who said her daughter had a history of such behaviour.
Earlier, police and rescue divers launched a gruelling eight-hour search of the pumping station for the little girl, following the discovery on March 12 of the decomposing woman’s body. Mr Chainarong and his mother-in-law, who were asked to identify the corpse, initially claimed the body was that of Mrs Wanida and thought the little girl must have herself met foul play.
Their eventual surprise reunion on Monday at the hands of police who maintained scepticism over the dead woman’s identity delighted netizens. However, their relief the pair was safe was tinged with sadness knowing that Mr Chainarong had, in fact, lost his wife and daughter to another man, with nothing to look forward to but the prospect of divorce.
Mr Chainarong found his wife and daughter missing when he returned home from work on Feb 26. He biked around the neighbourhood looking for the pair and two days later laid a missing person’s alert.
After the woman’s body surfaced at the pumping station, Mr Chainarong and Mrs Ratchanok identified the body as that of Mrs Wanida, noting both had a missing front tooth and an appendectomy scar. Mrs Ratchanok embraced the rotting body, thinking it was that of her daughter.
When she was eventually reunited with the woman she thought was dead at Udon Thani police station on Monday, Mrs Ratchanok reprimanded her daughter amid tears. “How could you make me hold another woman’s body and cry over her for an hour?” she asked.
Mrs Wanida apologised for causing her mother distress but claimed her phone was broken.
She said Mr Boonmee was a caring type; when she was ill and still with her husband, he would always call. The pair met after a mutual friend, a relative of Mr Boonmee’s, passed on her phone number. He called and “flirted” over the phone, she said.
Before their big announcement they had found the missing pair, Udon Thani police chief Pol Maj Gen Nantachart Supamongkol asked Mr Chainarong and his mother-in-law how sure they were that the woman’s body was Mrs Wanida’s. He also asked Mr Chainarong about the state of his marriage. He said the couple argued like anyone else but nothing more.
When police brought the trio to be reunited with the pair, Mr Chainarong and Mrs Ratchanok burst into tears, hugging them as the media watched the scene.
Police were able to track the couple down with the aid of CCTV cameras and a key witness, a motorcycle taxi driver who said he took the pair to the bus station the day they disappeared. He said they met Mr Boonmee there and they boarded the bus together.
Mrs Ratchanok said she held fears for her daughter’s safety when she heard the news about Mr Boonmee. Her daughter was a credulous person and easily led, she said. She also had a history of talking on the phone to men who took her fancy.
Mrs Wanida said she knew she was wrong to see two men at once. She agreed to return for the reunion to correct the record on behalf of Mr Boonmee, whom news reports had fingered as her probable killer. She said she left her husband for Mr Boonmee willingly and before leaving home asked her daughter if she was prepared to start life with a new dad. She agreed to give it a go.
Mrs Wanida took Mr Boonmee to prostrate himself before her husband’s feet in apology at the police station. Mr Boonmee said he planned to marry Mrs Wanida within a year but needed time to scrape together some savings first.
Mrs Wanida, who also apologised before her husband, thanked him for caring for her and their daughter. However, she was sure it was time to forge a new life. She loved Mr Boonmee and vowed to stay with him forever.
Mr Chainarong said his wife had a history of leaving for other men. “She can go for a month, sometimes a year. I forgave her every time and carried on supporting her out of love and pity. I was therefore able to accept her leaving to live with Boonmee,” he said.
“Seeing her happy is enough, because finding true love in this life is hard; I hope their love prospers,” he said in tears. He had given his tuk tuk and other possessions to Mrs Ratchanok and was tidying up his affairs before heading into the monkhood for life to make merit for his wife and child.
Netizens praised Mr Boonmee for showing such restraint, and said Mrs Wanida, while in pursuit of “true love”, was callous to treat men in such a casual and loose manner. Meanwhile, police are still investigating the discovery of the body at the pumping station.
Regrets over tuition fee beggar
Commuters are sounding a note of caution after a netizen came upon a schoolboy begging outside a city BTS station.
Facebook user Pi’ploy Wanrada, or Ploy, said she noticed a large crowd had gathered around the boy at the Samrong BTS and approached for a closer look. She found the boy, who was wearing school uniform, appealing for help with his school fees and other tuition expenses of 3,000 baht.
A hand-written sign asks people to leave money so he can carry on with his studies. Commuters had left coins and the odd 20 baht note. Ploy said she didn’t talk to him but left some spare change. She also posted his image and appealed to others to help.
Responding to her post, netizens said they had come upon the boy begging for tuition fees elsewhere in the city. Amid warnings about his motives, some were unsure if he actually puts the money towards tuition as he claims but consoled themselves with the thought they did it with good intentions at heart.
One Facebook user, Saowalak Bamrungporn, said she gave him 200 baht once when she saw him, in uniform, crying at the exit to Talad
Rot Fai station in Ratchada. “He said he would have to pay his fees of 3,000 baht the next day, it was his last chance. I asked him where he studied and he said he couldn’t remember.
“Asked why he was begging like that, and where he lives, he said he goes anywhere where there are large crowds and he can attract sympathy. I asked, ‘Don’t you go to school?, and he said he did ... but when I met him it was 11pm.
“I gave him some money but a friend who is a trader at the station said I was wrong to do that, as the boy turns up every day asking for money. My friend said he had previously paid the boy a ‘stupidity fee’ of 500 baht (money he now realises he was silly to give). But I had already handed over my 200 baht so I placated myself with the thought that I was trying to help him. How he uses it is up to him,” she said.
Another Facebook user, teacher Prathana Janpanya, said schools have welfare officers who can attend to the needs of families struggling financially. “If his story is true, his school is unlikely to let one of its students carry on that way,” she said.
Just a spare million, bud
A coffee shop owner is feeling chastened after lending 1 million baht to a supposed hi-so businessman only to find he had been ripped off.
The proprietor, who was not identified, complained to Mukdahan police after customer Atiluk Tantiseht,
54, who claimed he was the son of a former provincial governor and running a transport company and real estate business, asked for an emergency loan but made off with his money.
Crime Suppression Division police last week arrested Mr Atiluk in Saraburi on an arrest warrant issued by the Mukdahan court last November. They have unearthed two more outstanding warrants against him for issuing a dud cheque in Roi Et last year.
The complainant in the Mukdahan case, a coffee shop owner, said Mr Atiluk started visiting his shop in March last year. He would dress well and turn up in expensive cars such as the white Porsche police found him with. “He liked to talk business on the phone in a loud voice so everyone could hear him. He would talk about money transfers and about buying and selling land.”
Mr Atiluk claimed his family was involved in transport and was also a big lender in property. “One day, he said the government had started probing him for issuing loans at excessive interest. They had frozen his accounts with many hundreds of millions of baht.
“He didn’t have enough cash in circulation, and asked to borrow 1 million baht. He said when his accounts were unlocked, he would reward me with high interest. He also claimed 1 million baht was just a pittance, so I agreed to lend him the money,” he said.
When the time came for repayment Mr Atiluk kept dodging him. “Finally I could not contact him, and laid a complaint. I found Mr Atiluk has been trying the same trick all over Isan. He has no fixed abode and avoids arrest by staying at various resorts,” he said.