WORD travels quickly around the sparse exercise yard at Lad Yow prison, where time long ago lost its meaning for the several hundred foreign inmates who followed the dragon's trail - and lost.
''Nobody could believe it at first. When we found out it was true there was a lot of trouble, and they were talking about bringing male warders in to keep order,'' one female prisoner told welfare officers.
News had slipped out that two British women were to be set free after serving only three years on drug charges in one of the most notorious prisons in Asia, where some have spent more than a decade looking for a glimmer of hope in Thailand's tedious court appeals system.
Patricia Cahill and Karyn Smith were pardoned by King Bhumibol after direct intervention by the British Prime Minister, John Major, and his Thai equivalent, Chuan Leekpai.
The women went home to a hero's welcome and a possible Hollywood film offer, leaving several hundred other British passport-holders, some Hongkong citizens, wondering what they had to do to get out.
''They're not happy, they don't think it's fair. They were angry, and the Thai prisoners as well. They didn't really understand why they were released,'' said a volunteer who visited the prison just after the pardon was announced.