People passing by a Pattaya area beach early Tuesday thought they were seeing some kind of sea creature in the dirty water. What the moving mass turned out to be was a Chinese woman skinny-dipping in the dark.
Several people gathered to watch the pale figure with long dark hair, believing it could be some sort of sea creature or a ghost known in Thai as “Phee Phrai,” a type of spirit found in the water. It usually appears as a woman in white.
ABOVE: An illustration of what Phee Phrai looks like, according to Thai belief.
Once they realized it was a person, they called rescue workers to remove her since she seemed unwilling to make a naked exit and no local was willing to brave the less-than-clean water to help her.
Pattaya Police arrived at Jomtien Beach with an umbrella to shield the lady against the rain and a towel to cover her naked body.
Tnews reported that it took them half an hour to get her to leave the sea.
One witness said he saw the woman walking on the beach before beginning to yell in a foreign language, taking off her clothes, and running into the water.
The woman turned out to be Zhang Yan, 40. She was covered with a towel and they were not sure what she was saying, so officers took her to the station to try and figure out how to help her.
