Having failed to get anywhere with begging, an unemployed man was arrested after squeezing the breasts of a number of women.

Like Little Tramp in Modern Times, the man claimed the act had nothing to do with sexual appetite, but was done so to get arrested and sent to prison – where he would be fed.

Thailands Khon Kaen Police at 11am got a call from shoppers at the aptly-named “Fresh Market” in Khon Kaen’s Muang District, asking for police to arrest a man they caught sexually assaulting female shoppers.

At the scene, police were met by 43-year-old Noi (not her real name), a teacher at a government school.

Mrs Noi directed the police to 30-year-old Wirat Noitamyae, whom she claimed had grabbed her breasts.

Mr Wirat told police that he had been a laborer on a construction site, but was laid off the week before.

Since being made redundant the previous week, he had wandered the streets of Khon Kaen looking for work.

His job hunt led nowhere and soon he ran out of money and was sleeping on the street.

He tried to beg for enough food to eat, but very few people gave money.

After a few days of this, he thought to himself that if he had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat, he’d be better off in prison, he told the arresting officers.

He reasoned that a sure way to get incarcerated – and a free meal ticket – would be to squeeze women’s breasts in the market, which is only 200 meters from Muang Khon Kaen Police Station.

Targeting only women aged over 30, Mr Wirat was surprised to find his melon-squeezing session did not result in the immediate success he had envisioned.

The first few of victims just called him a pervert and walked off.

When he came to Mrs Noi, he used both hands to grab both of her breasts.

This achieved the hoped-for result, as Mrs Noi shouted for other shoppers to come and grab her attacker.

Shortly thereafter, Mr Wirat found himself in the confines of a jail cell at the police station.

When Investigating Officer Surasee Inunchot charged Mr Wirat with indecent assault, the suspect reportedly replied, “Good, I’ll have something to eat.”

In Bangkok there is a popular restaurant chain known as Cabbages and Condoms, brainchild of well-known activist Mechai Viravaidya (aka “Mr Condom”), who has been internationally lauded for his efforts to promote condom use as a way of stopping HIV/Aids.

At the restaurant, condoms, rather than mints, are served after meals.

The efforts to bring together vegetables and prophylactics has yet to catch on in the southern Thai city of Haad Yai, however.

Customers at a fresh market there were given a nasty shock recently when they found bundles of vegetables they had bought were held together with condoms.

On June 22, 36-year-old Sudjai Phromlet bought a bundle of vegetables at Plaza Market in downtown Haad Yai and took them home for his wife to make dinner.

As she was unwrapping them, however, she suddenly called out to him in disgust and, somewhat melodramatically, vomited all over the kitchen, Mr Sudjai said.

Mr Sudjai’s wife showed him that the bundle of vegetables was tied up with part of a condom instead of the usual elastic band. On closer examination, it turned out the market trader had tied the vegetables with the rubber ring from the base of the condom, though there were still a few bits of the sheath hanging off.

The disgusted Mr Sudjai then contacted a local journalist to go and investigate.

The journalist and Mr Sudjai headed back to the stall where the offending bundle of vegetables had been bought.

At the stall, belonging to 51-year-old Porn Kaowmanee, they found all the bundles of vegetables on sale were tied together with contraceptive devices.

Mrs Porn admitted she had indeed used condoms to tie up bundles of vegetables, though she insisted the johnnies were clean and unused. She said this was the first time she had tried using condoms to tie her produce.

She had run out of elastic bands and lived a long way from the shop, so instead of traveling all the way to buy new ones, she asked her daughter-in-law to bring some condoms in from the condom factory where she works. Haad Yai is the centre of Thailand’s rubber production industry, which is a world leader in condom production.

Mrs Porn said all the condoms used were defective products that had never been near a penis.

She never thought her customers would find having their vegetables tied up with condoms disgusting or unhygienic in any way. Despite the condoms working just as well as rubber bands, Mrs Porn said she would go back to using elastic bands to avoid losing any more customers.

Oh how sweet I think this story is really great, at her age finding true love, a bit like Liz Taylor? but while the sight of an old man marrying a young woman is not too unusual in north east thailand, when it’s the other way round, it manages to raise eyebrows.

Therefore, when word spread that 73-year-old Thongsuk Phutthawan was set to marry 26-year-old Somphon Chanthawong, 47 years her junior, it quickly drew the interest of the local press.

The pair finally tied the knot on May 20, after a three-month courtship. The groom paid a bride price of (35baht 1US$) 20,000 baht and gave his betrothed a 1.5 baht-weight gold ring worth approximately Bt22,500.

A Brahmin priest then divided a hard boiled-egg, giving half to the bride and half to the groom to wish them a long and happy marriage.

Mrs Thongsuk told the Khao Sod reporter who attended the wedding that this was Mrs Thongsuk’s second marriage.

First falling in love at a military camp at Nakhon Phanom Airport, Mrs Thongsuk first got married at the tender age of 18 and had four children with her first husband. One child died, but the other three now all have families of their own. Her husband died 30 years ago – before her new beau was even conceived.

She said that in the 30 years that she had been single, she had many suitors. These included wealthy businessmen and politicians, but she rejected them all.

She met her new husband one evening in March when she went to have dinner with relatives at a fish restaurant on the bank of the Mekong River. One of the waiters, Mr Somphon, began teasing and flirting with her, before finally plucking up the courage to ask for her number.

The couple chatted all the time, Mrs Thongsuk said. Mr Somphon is a merry soul, a good talker and had what the Thais call a “sweet mouth”, she said. He was always concerned about her well-being, asking if she’d eaten dinner or whether she had gone to bed yet.

“Though he’s only a child, it was like having a second father,” Mrs Thongsuk enthused.

When their love had fully blossomed, Mrs Thongsuk took her relatives to meet her young suitor. She then asked her daughters, all of whom are considerably older than Mr Somphon, for permission to marry. Her daughters said they would not stand in the way of the wedding, but asked only for the ceremony to be fairly small – as they were worried that people would gossip.

Mr Somphon said that he had a girlfriend before but she had broken his heart, adding that he liked Mrs Thongsuk’s personality. After knowing her for three months he was sure he was in love and so got his mother to go and ask for Mrs Thongsuk’s hand in marriage.

Mrs Thongsuk’s elder sister Thongyip Thapket, 80, said that she was glad her little sister had found happiness, especially as this was probably her last chance. She said she had seen lots of old farangs getting married who were clearly on their last legs so she didn’t think it was strange that her sister should do likewise.

A close friend of the bride said that when Mrs Thongsuk was young she was a real stunner and had won many local beauty contests. Even in her old age she still managed to turn heads and last year took first prize in the Songkran Mother pageant.

I have been inundated with comments and emails as to ask where I get my information from, but first thanks so much for having time to look through OWOR and commenting on some of the rather bazaar stories. Well I am for the time being keeping my source close to my chest as some of these stories are really quite amazing and true. All I can say is they all happen in and around Thailand so please enjoy the occasional snippet that I put out.

A man had his head blown off while watching an annual homemade rocket festival in this northeastern town on May 11.

The victim and his friends chose to have a drinking session in a cordoned off area where rockets were landing at the time of the incident.

Police were called to the scene in Village 3, Tambon Dong Mafai, Muang District, at 3:30 pm.

After pushing through a large crowd of villagers, they found the headless body of 29-year-old Prida Wongnatal lying next to a pond. The stump of his neck was blackened with powder burns.

Near the body, police found the rocket that had decapitated Mr Prida, who was a native of Tao Ngoi District.

The projectile was about three-meters long, its head made of PVC piping three to four inches in diameter.

Rescue volunteers who dived into the pond to recover Mr Prida’s head were only able to find small fragments.

Sakda Duangsupha, who witnessed the tragedy, said the rocket that killed Mr Prida was the third one launched at the festival. The first two had shot up into the air, but the third took a horizontal trajectory towards Mr Prida and six or seven friends who were sitting drinking about 50 meters away from the launch pad, located by the edge of the pond.

As they saw the rocket screaming towards them, the youths dived out of the way, but Mr Prida was not quick enough. After the impact, he fell back into the pond.

Pulling him out, his friends were shocked to discover that he had no head, Mr Sakda said.

The area where Mr Prida and his friends were drinking had been roped off because of the danger of rockets passing through. With a sense of invincibility typical of youth, the group ignored the warnings, Mr Sakda explained.

Police are now investigating to determine whether Mr Prida’s demise was a case of death by his own negligence or whether the festival’s organizers were responsible.

Rocket festivals are held annually in towns across the Northeast to mark the start of the rainy season. This is not the first, and no doubt not the last, tragedy at such festivals. In 1999, five people were killed at the Yasothon festival, the biggest and most famous of them all, when a 120kg rocket exploded immediately after takeoff.