But then the stranger started getting weirder. Going on and on about his money problems, how he couldn’t eat, how he had absolutely nothing, and I suspected that this was likely a hustle. He probably made a habit of this, hitting up other foreigners for cash, likely because he’d dropped all his monthly pension bucks, as some expats do, on booze, or gambling, or maybe hookers and booze.

Or perhaps he was one of those unlucky souls who’d fallen in love with a bargirl from Nana or Soi Cowboy, only to discover she was already engaged, or even already married… Perhaps he was one of those unlucky souls to discover this AFTER he’d already paid for the marriage ceremony, bought her a house, forked over a hefty sin sot...

Of course he could just be poor. Maybe Puma didn’t pay well. Many Thais often think that any foreigner in Bangkok is rich, but that’s not always true. There are those with limited means who live in or venture to foreign countries. Then there are even some who venture to faraway lands and turn to begging or busking, playing guitar on the street for cash; “beg-packing” as it’s sometimes called.

But this guy, he looked too old for beg-packing. I couldn’t see him staying in a hostel, singing or dancing or begging on the street. Or maybe he just couldn’t carry a tune, or didn’t play guitar, I don’t know.

Really, I’m guessing he pissed away his cash and then guilted others, in food courts, to fund his meals, so he could splurge on more important things to him, like hookers and booze. I concluded this summation, too, while glancing at his neatly cut helmet of gray hair, and, most notably, his clothes.

His clothes were too clean. Observing his pair of blue jeans, marshmallow white sneakers, and plaid polo shirt, it struck me that his duds were stainless and wrinkle-free. This being such, obviously he wasn’t sleeping rough, camping in the park, eating lizards, like some of the “beg-packer” hippy types I’d heard of, seen online, those hippies with their dreadlocks and pungent potpourri stinks of body odor and patchouli oil.

It was close to Easter, and I noticed that the German wore a crucifix. So I asked him if he went to church and if he could talk to a priest, get help. I’m sure there are plenty of priests who’d help a person in his self-described dire straits.

(Although a cynical side of me suspected that possibly he’d already been using the priests too, had probably eaten breakfast at the church.)

He vaguely brushed the church suggestion off, saying the church nearby was “closed,” which I’m sure was a lie.

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(When he said the church was closed, I couldn’t help but be reminded of certain shady locals, usually short fellows with smiles too big for their faces, the bloodsuckers who approach tourists outside the King’s Palace in Bangkok, telling tourists the “temple was closed today,” in order to set the tourists up for whatever scam…)

Then I suggested the German talk to his family, to which he replied that he had no family left. They were all dead or estranged. “25 years in Thailand, hard to keep in touch,” he bemoaned.

It most certainly is. That was no lie. And herein sits a cruel example of expat life. The loss of ties with one’s homeland and all in it and the reality that one is in a country, like Thailand, an ethno-state, where an expatriate will always be a foreigner, a guest, and can almost never achieve citizenship, or even permanent residency. Especially a person like this German guy. A guy with limited means. A guy with few to no Thai connections. A guy so broke and down on his luck he must rely on the pity of others.

Seeing where all this was going, I knew it was time to split, and I swallowed down the last savory bite of my spicy noodles and rose to leave. But before I did, I decided to make merit and plucked out 50 baht from my pocket, and handed him the folded purple bill, patted him on the back and wished him the best…

My encounter with the German made me think of how lonely the escapist dream can end. The dream of spending one’s final days in a tropical paradise. Then that dream turns into an old man dying by himself in a crappy apartment or guesthouse. An old man slumped atop a toilet, like a Far East, far-less fortunate version of Elvis… Or an old man supine in a messy bed, beside a bunch of empty booze bottles, his bloated corpse discovered by a cleaner or a landlord because of a neighbor complaining of a rotten stench…

And I wondered about my own 40-square-foot furnished apartment... Had anyone died there? Had anyone died in the bed I sleep in? How would I know, either way, and what would it really matter… Anywhere one goes, someone probably died, in that place, sometime throughout the course of human history…

(I don’t believe in ghosts, anyway, but at least my apartment has a nice spirit house outside, so if anyone did die in my apartment, before, maybe they’re living happily in the spirit house, with the other ghosts, just in case any of that is actually real…)

Pondering the long-term expat plight further, like, maybe, though, for some expats, I guess it’s not always a terrible, lonely ending, dying in Thailand.

Perhaps, for some, it’s a perfect way to retire, to end things, enjoying their golden years, in golden sunshine, in a warm exotic place. Heck, maybe they find a cute local lady, make buddies at the bar, and have heaps of fun times to close out their spins around the sun. There’s a beauty to that, for sure, and I respect that. I’ve seen several older retired fellows in Thailand, often appearing to be ex-military, and they look happy as can be. And good for them.

But then there’s the German guy. The cautionary tale. The way not to do Thailand. The way not to do life.

Honestly, however, most of what I got from this encounter was a potent reminder of why it’s better to wear earphones and avoid talking to random strangers in Bangkok.