25 Years of Chasing Thailand

My Thailand journey is still ongoing today. And it’s been a never-ending series of positives and negatives, mostly negatives. Because while Thailand has been a big part of my life for a big portion of my life, stretching back nearly 25 years now, all the way back to 2001, all that has ever happened to me in Thailand is a series of bad choices, hopeful longing, and failures.

I’ve tried to make it work in Thailand more times than I care to remember. I’ve had good times in Thailand along the way. One of my most memorable experiences being my first time walking the streets around Bangkok at night around Sukhumvit, passing all the amazing bars with beautiful girls both outside and in, just in complete awe of everything I was seeing around me.

The things that I want to talk about in my story will give you an idea of why I was even wanting my life to be in Thailand in the first place and also should tell you how every single time I thought Thailand was going to work, I found myself having to return home after losing yet more money, feeling more broken inside, and wondering what on earth went wrong.

Before long, though, I’d already be planning my next attempt, even before the pain of the last failure had worn off. And while I do still hold out hope to get back to Thailand as soon as I possibly can, and I hope that next time will be my last time, I am still left terrified that my next time in Thailand will be yet another failure.

If it is another failure, that will be my last attempt because I’m at an age now where I only really have one more goal left in me. Since my first time in Thailand in 2001, there have been big stretches of time spent outside the country. Some of those times were better than others, and I will get into that. Throughout my time, wanting to be back in the country was a constant, wondering to myself how I was going to make sure the next time would be better.

A Warning to Others

I think my story is extremely important and extremely relevant, especially in today’s world because I see so many people at the moment calling it quits at home and moving permanently to Thailand. People who seem to think it’s as easy as booking a ticket and working it out when you get there. And I do spend a lot more time than I would care to admit watching Thailand-based content. That content, I guess, is what has given me the opinions that I have.

I have my own favorite YouTube channels that I watch every single day and every single one of the videos of theirs I will watch just admiring how those guys seem to be the successful ones. The guy who runs my favorite channel appears to be living an incredible life in Bangkok, taking trips to other countries around the region and beyond, building out his car collection, driving motorcycles around the country, and just living an amazing life. I’m too old to do that, but it’s possible. I’m not trying to say it’s not. It’s just very difficult.

Aside from that, I’m also recommended so many other channels every single day that I’ve never seen before. Each one of them a new person moving to Thailand, following their dreams, yet seemingly making the same mistake that I and many people I know made. Yet, they don’t know they’re making them. It’s quite remarkable to see this because I just hope people will have the success that they want. Yet, I don’t hold out much hope.

The Hidden Dangers of Thailand

Before I take you back to Thailand and the things that happened and the things that I’m hoping to happen next time, I believe that there are lots of things against you in Thailand. Things you won’t even see coming. Things that nobody will warn you about because the people who know these things keep them to themselves for fear that sharing them will make other people pour scorn on them. Yet also the people who don’t agree with it tend to be the vocal ones who say Thailand is a paradise and perfect and nothing is ever going to go wrong. I believe they’re being disingenuous.

I don’t want my story to come across as just another idiot who failed miserably in Thailand. Even though if I’m being honest with myself, there are plenty of times that that was who I was. I want my story to be a guidebook as to what not to do if you want to make Thailand your home. I believe if you use it as such, and I mean really use it as such, and take in what I’m trying to tell you and what I’m trying to warn you about, given the fact that the last 25 years of my life were dedicated to Thailand, making mistakes in Thailand, perhaps this will help you in your own journey. I really believe that there’s a chance for success in Thailand, yet I’ve never managed to find it. I hope when I get there next time, things will be different.

The Beginning: 2001

So, let’s go back to the beginning. I was 39 years old in 2001, and I’d just been let go from a job which I didn’t even enjoy. Anyway, if you’ve been in a similar position to that, you know exactly how it feels. You’re doing a job to put food on the table that you don’t want to be doing. And they have the audacity to tell you that your position is no longer required. That happened to me more times than it should happen to anybody throughout my life.

What I would have done usually would have been to throw out my CV to other companies trying to find another job. I just couldn’t bring myself to do that yet again for another time because each time I did that, it didn’t bring me anything better than what I had before. I felt like I needed to get away, take a bit of time to myself, and reassess my life because continuing doing more of the same wasn’t getting me anywhere.

I was thinking about Thailand because I had a friend talk about how fantastic a time he had in Thailand, and I was also interested in India and potentially Japan. I decided on Thailand though when I told my friend I was taking a month to myself and he just said before I even had a chance to say anything, “Thailand, you won’t regret it.”

The First Night in Bangkok

Thailand is where I went for a whole month that I was going to be there which was the longest I’d ever not worked and the longest I’d ever been anywhere. And the idea was to find myself and re-evaluate my life, not to have a love affair with Thailand that would last the rest of my life. As soon as I arrived in Thailand, there was something screaming at me, telling me that this was everything I’d been looking for in my life. And that takes us to that first experience I had just walking around Bangkok on my first night there.

Bangkok has changed a lot in the last 25 years, and I believe the city is just as good now as it was back then. It’s different, more things going on, and I love it just the same. But back then, it was that first night that gave me the idea that the world was so much bigger than I thought it was, and there was so much more to do than I thought possible. While I don’t remember thinking to myself, “You need to live here,” I do remember thinking to myself, “This is a place that’s going to play a big part in your life.”

On that first night, I did go into a bar. There was a little bar on Sukhumvit Soi 8 and I remember the name of that bar because it was the first one I went in. It was called First Bar and it’s not there today and I don’t believe it’s been there for a long time but it was just your normal all-in-one style bar and there were only two girls working there. It was quite close to the Prompong Hotel where I was staying I guess only 100 metres away.

A New Confidence

And I walked in and all of a sudden I had a new sense of confidence hit me like a wave slapping me in the face because I wasn’t shy like I was at home. I was confident, I was outgoing and I was an extrovert. Whereas up until then I was always an introvert. Like I said, two girls working in that bar, one girl behind the bar and another sat at a little table and she brings over connect four and we start playing and spend the night together. And again, Thailand is just getting better and better.

While I knew that was a part of Thailand, the fact that it was just in plain view of everything around you, it didn’t feel like it was a seedy part that you had to walk down a back alley to go to because it was right out in the open. It felt like it was an accepted, tolerated, and welcome part of the country, which elevates your excitement somewhat.

Throughout that month, I spent the majority of my time in Bangkok. I also went to Pattaya as that was my friend’s favorite place. And while I really liked Pattaya, I kind of felt like Bangkok back then had everything that you could have in Pattaya. And it was kind of similar but at the same time different. I believe Pattaya has remained a lot more similar to how it used to be and Bangkok has evolved into this amazing city that it is. Though I was more focused on Bangkok.

Returning Home with Nothing

While I didn’t meet anyone for anything serious or anything other than casual amazing times, I left that month completely reinvigorated that I’d found my new place and I needed to do whatever it took to go back and live there. The problem was at that moment in time I had a grand total of 0. I’d spent my last savings on that trip. So that was a wake-up call to say, “Pull yourself together. What are you going to do? Because you need to go back to Thailand.”

When I returned home, it was inevitable that I had to look for another job. I found one not long after, doing something similar to what I was doing before. When I had that, that was when I could set my focus on thinking about Thailand and planning how I could somehow get there. You have to remember that at that moment in time, there wasn’t as much available information as there is today. There wasn’t the same kind of interest in the outside world. I mean, there was, but it just wasn’t the same.

The research that I did based on that and everything I thought about, the only thing that kept coming up as a possibility was that I could teach in Thailand. I had a degree, but I didn’t have any teaching experience. But based on what I’d read and what people said who did it, it was quite easy to get a job if you were a native English speaker and you were reasonably presentable and you were willing to work doing that kind of thing.

Saving for the Thailand Dream

I was open to anything because as soon as I arrived home after being in Thailand, I felt like a fish out of water straight away. What I did decide to do was save up a little bit of money so I could go again for another look. But that time, instead of just being there on holiday, I would be there to look into the possibility of becoming a teacher. It was my intention to save up as much money as I could for the plane ticket, save up as much money after that so I would be able to stay there for a whole month, and then when I had that, that’s when I would go.

It was early 2003 when I had enough money finally to go back to Thailand. And when you realize it took me over a year of hard saving and hard work to get that money and I was going to spend it all in Thailand, that should go some way to describe just how important Thailand was. When I got back to Bangkok, I just felt like I was at home. I felt like I was me again, whereas at home, I felt like I was on hold and I was living in a way that wasn’t real somehow. It was like my body was at home. My actions were taking place at home, but my mind was firmly in Thailand.

The Teaching Agency In Thailand

And when I was back, it just made me even more committed to use the time I was there to investigate more about teaching and see if I would be lucky enough to be able to get a job as a teacher. There were a number of agencies that assisted people who wanted to teach, so I thought I would approach some of them. I didn’t have any teaching qualifications, but there were a few courses that you could do to get you up to speed. And one agency provided a course over the period of a month. And if you completed it, they would guarantee a job at a school that they represented.

Because I was only there for a month and the course didn’t start for I believe it was a week or so. I didn’t have time to do that. But I kind of thought that it was really an amazing thing and if it was true that they could give me a guaranteed job if I completed the course. Perhaps it would be worth taking the risk. I spoke to the owner of the agency who was a foreigner like me telling him my hopes of living in Thailand and what I wanted to teach. And I said to him, “If I do this course and I don’t get a job, I will have ruined my life.” So can you confirm that this is going to happen?” He promised, “Yes, we work with lots of schools. If you complete the course, there are positions for you.”

Taking the Plunge In The Land of Smiles

I went away to think about it for a day or two, and I decided I was just going to go for it. I had just about enough money to last to the end of the course if I didn’t do anything fun while I was there, apart from just eat cheap noodles and watch the days go by. And it would be worth it in the end, because I would have a job and I would be able to live where I wanted to live. I decided to take the plunge. I went for it and I paid nearly the remainder of what I had saved to that agency.

During the time I was waiting for the course to start, I’d quit my job at home and put all my eggs in the Thailand basket. I wanted to go out and have a good time, go to the bars and experience Thailand that way, but I had to hold back. I was in Thailand for a reason. I didn’t have enough money to do what I wanted. That could come later. And sure enough, once the course started, the course ended and I passed. And true to their word, I was offered a position at a school in a reasonable area of Bangkok.

The salary was only 20,000 baht a month, but back in 2003, 20,000 baht a month would give you a lot better time in Bangkok. I worked out what I could do, where I could go, and the life I would have. And it was one of the best times of my life accepting that job because not only were they going to pay me, they were also going to provide me with a visa and work permit. I can’t remember exactly, but I had to pay a little bit more tax than I should have done based on the salary I was paid because to get the work permit, apparently I had to be making more money, but I was good with that.

Living on 20,000 Baht

I went out of the country to get a visa and I started work around March 2003, already in my 40s, but finally feeling that I was where I wanted to be and that I’d actually caught a break. My first day teaching was great and I thought that would last for a long time. When I got my first paycheck, that was another confirmation that I’d made the right choice. Although I was able to make it stretch, I rented a place that was 3,000 baht, the utilities were around 1,000 and I wasn’t spending much on food, I didn’t have much left over for anything in terms of entertainment, which is one of the things that I was most attracted to about Thailand.

Throughout the first weeks, and I would say the first few months, I religiously allowed myself one night per week. That would be going to the places I loved the most, which were the bars around Nana. Things changed in month two because I met a girl. Of course, that tends to happen when you go to bars. Not going to lie and say that the possibility of finding a girl who could be my life partner wasn’t another of the reasons that I saw Thailand as being as great as it was, because a relationship was something that eluded me throughout all the years that I spent back at home.

The First Real Connection

This girl I met was incredible. She was from a town in Isan, although I can’t remember which one now. And while I’d met a few girls since I’d been in Thailand, she was the first girl that I actually wanted to get to know and spend more time with in a different setting. She went back to my place after we had a few drinks in the bar. I felt that was a huge step for me, taking a girl back to my place. And because I knew that going back to the bar again would cost me too much money out of what I was earning, I just said to her, “I’ve never met a girl like you before. I really like you. Would you like to go on an actual date sometime? Maybe in the daytime before you start work. And how about tomorrow?” That just so happened to be a Sunday. And she said yes.

We exchanged phone numbers and she left. And I was thinking perhaps this had turned into something better. And not only would I be living in Thailand, not only would I have a job in Thailand, not only would I have a visa and work permit to be able to stay in the country, I would also have an incredible girl that I could get to know. And who knows what the future will hold.

We went on that date on the Sunday. I went back to her bar a few days after that and met her on the Saturday and the Sunday after that as well. And I was already thinking that because she works in a bar and when I’m not there, other things can happen. And because I can’t really afford to go to the bar and go out all the time, perhaps I will see if she feels the same way about me. If she does, why doesn’t she just move in with me and let’s take things from there. That’s exactly what happened.

The First Heartbreak In Thailand

She did move in with me and she stayed with me for 2 months. During the first two months that she did stay with me, I felt like every day I was falling for her harder and I honestly thought that the feelings were mutual. I was coming back from work. We would go out together just to a normal local style place. We wouldn’t spend any more than 300 baht for a few beers each and a nice Thai meal and we could hold great conversations. I mean, her English wasn’t great, but they were great conversations because I was looking at her and it didn’t matter what she said because, well, that’s just how I was feeling.

Unfortunately, the illusion of that relationship completely shattered when month three with her began because she just said to me one day, “Why don’t you give me money?” She said, “My friends’ boyfriends give money to them. Why don’t you give any money to me?” I thought she knew that I was teaching and I didn’t earn a lot of money and I was just wanting to live in Thailand and maybe get into a relationship and see where that progresses. If we get married, this is how far ahead I was thinking. Then maybe I could get extra work and get a better job, maybe get more experience, maybe she can get a job, then you know, just do normal things in a normal family life.

Although I hadn’t had many relationships at home, even back then, and I suppose even more common today, it wasn’t like the man paid and the girl didn’t do anything kind of situation at home. That seems to be what Thailand was about. Although I didn’t know it was as pervasive as it actually was. I didn’t think it was finances that was that she was interested in. I thought it was me. And that was a really big wake-up call that made me understand that you need to be more careful who you choose to fall in love with.

Back to Square One

The problem was I had fallen in love with her at that point. And when I physically couldn’t give her money, she just walked out. She didn’t even have a care in the world when she left. As if it didn’t mean anything to her, but to me it destroyed me. I didn’t know what to do because up until she left, I thought I would be with her forever.

I continued with the teaching and after a few weeks, I started to go out again, but it was just a never-ending kind of thing. I work all week, I go out on Friday, and the four Fridays a month were taking all my spare money, and I wasn’t saving anything. Then when I found out that the school didn’t want me anymore, while the agency that I worked for said you can have another job and it’s starting in another month, when I didn’t even have enough money to cover that month, the emergency money that I had sat at home, I forgot to mention that I saved £1,000 just in case I had a choice. Do I take that to Thailand, start the other job, which was going to be paid the same amount of money, or do I go back home and reassess?

I wish I’d stayed in Thailand and tried until I couldn’t try anymore. But because of what had happened, because I was depressed about my girl, even though that was a number of months before then, I found that I was going back home at the end of 2003. Heartbroken because I’d lost the love of my life. I thought she was anyway, and heartbroken because I wasn’t in Thailand where I wanted to be, and I was returning home with nothing. So, I would have to start all over again.

The Longing Never Fades

As soon as I was back, all I wanted to do was go back to Thailand, and I regretted not being there because I could have been, but I wasn’t. Then it’s the question of what now? This was at the end or thereabouts of 2003. When I returned home, I stayed at my friend’s house for a few weeks while I searched for a new job and somewhere to live. But my mind wasn’t with me. It was in Thailand, and the thought that I wasn’t there was really making me feel depressed. And it’s a feeling that I wouldn’t wish even on my worst enemy.

I did find another job. I did find somewhere to live. And then the thoughts running through my mind are, why can I find a job at home so easily? If I could have this job, paid this amount of money in Thailand, I will be living the best life that anybody could ever have. But it just wasn’t how it worked. And I knew that. We can all wish though, can’t we?

All I could do was save money. I spent a lot of time researching Thailand, trying to find things out that other people wouldn’t know, trying to find out secrets that might help me, because it was my plan to go back for a month when I’d saved up enough money and use that month to try to find something else to do for myself. Maybe I could find another agency or another school that would pay me just that little bit extra money. At the time, I just thought if I could have 30,000 instead of 20,000, that would make all the difference. I was also thinking about getting another job, which was yet another unfortunate misunderstanding.

2005: Another Attempt

It was actually at the start of 2005 when I was back in Thailand again. All the money I’d saved since returning home went on the plane ticket and the month I was going to be spending in Thailand, but I didn’t quit my job because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I used all my holiday allowance at once and saved some from the previous year, which they graciously allowed me to use that year. I can remember it like it was yesterday when I arrived back in Thailand. I was back. I was me again. I was happy again.

And I didn’t waste any time at all. That year, I was going to spend more time in Pattaya than before. My friend had been a few months before me and had talked about how he’d met a few people who were teaching there, saying they paid a little bit more. So, I went there and found out about an agency that helped people do teaching work. While I was looking into that, at night time I went to the bars every single day because this was also a holiday and this was also for me to have a good time. Not only to see about the possibilities.

It was about halfway into my trip when I met a girl. Different to all the other girls and also different in how she made me feel inside. I fell in love with her from the moment I saw her. She was in her early 20s and she was just the embodiment of your perfect Thai girl and I felt like I had to have her.

Marriage and the UK

A lot happened over the next number of years so I will keep this bit as tight as I can but the fact was I had basically no money. I did fall in love with that girl and she spent the rest of my time in Thailand with me. That turned into a long-distance relationship which turned into me getting married to her six months later in Thailand, then putting in a visa application for her to go and live in the UK with me. It wasn’t the dream to live in Thailand, but in a way, I felt like I was taking a little piece of Thailand home with me, and it didn’t feel so bad.

When the visa was finally approved and she was living with me at home, it wasn’t without a lot of hard work and effort that the saw this dream become a reality. All the way up until 2013, I spent pretty much all my money going to Thailand every 2 years for a month at a time. And it was our plan to eventually retire in Thailand when I was of retirement age.

In 2013, we returned to Thailand for a holiday as normal, as planned. Yet, that was when she sprung it on me that she doesn’t want me anymore. She doesn’t like me. She hates me. Don’t have enough money. Her life is dreadful because of me. And she wants a divorce. I was returning home in 2013, divorced, no closer to my dream of living in Thailand, and understanding that ever since I was with my now ex-wife, all that money I’d given to her and her family, probably adding up over the years to maybe 2 million baht was all for nothing. I should have saved that for myself, but I didn’t. And now I was right back to where I was, older and even more angry with the state of the world.

A Promotion and New Hope

When I got back home in 2013, I just couldn’t believe how my life never seemed to fall into place like other people’s lives seem to do. When I was in Thailand, I would always see people who were from even the same town that I was from, who were living there successfully, who had lived there for big stretches of time, and who things just seemed to go right for. Yet, for me, it just seemed like I was cursed in a way, and it was really starting to get to me, let alone the fact that my wife, who I thought would be with me for the rest of my life, had divorced me and said such mean and cruel things to me. I was starting to think like I had no hope at all.

For the first time in my life, I actually had a promotion at work and I was going to be paid an amount of money that if I saved, it could actually make a difference. So, that was the first thing that put me in a good mood since the divorce. As much as I tried to forget about Thailand and accept that perhaps I just wasn’t somebody who would be able to live there, I wasn’t able to do that. I spent a lot of time, pretty much every day, about to pull the trigger to buy a ticket to Thailand to have another go because I was saving money thanks to my new job. It was starting to feel like a real possibility when I had about £7,000 saved up.

The Online Job Scam

I spent all my free time looking into other possibilities and I started to understand that people who did the same type of job that I did at home, some people were doing that in Thailand. Occasionally, I saw job listings for native English speakers to work as salespeople selling things for the company to clients back in the UK. And I promised myself if I could arrange an interview with a company, I would quit my job at home and move to Thailand for another go. With the money that I was saving, we were talking about 7 or 8 months or maybe even a year if I pushed it for cost of living expenses. I just couldn’t help myself.

So, I did pull the trigger. I did manage to land an interview with this job and I didn’t question anything. The fact that this interview was going to be in a hotel cafe instead of an office, I just thought it was fine. And it was that interview that made me pull the trigger and make the final decision to have another go in Thailand. This time single, I really hit the bars hard because I felt like I finally had a bit of money to spare, which I never felt like I had before.

I did go a bit crazy for the first week that I was there. And then I went to that interview. It was a commission-only style deal. No work permit, no visa. They didn’t even want to tell me what they were selling. I would have had to sign some kind of NDA before they even told me. So, I was about 99% sure that the whole thing was a scam. That was a huge letdown, but I tried my best not to let it bring me down.

Another Failure, Another Loss

I guess this is kind of like me sounding like a broken record, but I did try to make what I had stretch. I did find another job teaching, but that was the worst teaching job you could have ever imagined. And I only lasted a month. It was like I was coming to terms with the fact that between me and what I wanted, there was a gap. And that gap I just didn’t seem to be able to fill. When all that money ran out, that was when I had to return home yet again. I should have thrown in the towel and called it quits, but I didn’t. I just thought next time would be better.

Then I had the news that my mother had passed away. It was the worst day of my life, but she left me £70,000 about 6 months after I returned from failing the last time. And to me, I’d never had money like that in my life. It felt like I had all the money in the world. And this was at the start of 2016. It took me a long time to get over losing my mother because ever since I can remember, she was always a stabilizing factor in my life more than anybody else. They say time heals all wounds. And I guess that is the case. And after a few months of coming to terms with the loss, I started shifting my focus back to Thailand.

The Inheritance Changes Everything

Now I had an amount of money that was life-changing. I felt when the most amount of money you ever have is less than £10,000 and now you’ve got 70,000 that really changes the way your mind works and how you think about things. And I thought that when I go back to Thailand, I will be good to go for the rest of my life. It was about halfway through 2016 when I was flying to Thailand. But this time, I wasn’t going with a strict timeline that I had to stick to. I wasn’t going with any firm plans. I was going with an open book, excited to learn about any opportunity that might come to me.

It was my idea to go to Pattaya because as much as I love Bangkok and I still love Bangkok, Pattaya was more affordable and therefore my money would work better for me there. Getting the taxi from the airport to Pattaya felt like not only I was going home to where I belonged, but I was going home with an amount of security that most people could only dream of. It’s exciting to think about for me £70,000. Many people though wouldn’t have even considered moving to Thailand with four times that amount. But it was just who I was and my life situation that gave me the feelings I had.

I found a service apartment to rent and I looked at lots of these service apartments, kind of like a hotel and condo in one. Very affordable. So, I wasn’t spending a lot extra money, but it meant that I didn’t need to pay a big deposit up front and I could move as and when any opportunity came to me.

A Different Kind of Woman

When I started living there without the immediate pressure of having to do something, that’s when I could take a step back and actually enjoy Thailand for what Thailand is meant to be enjoyed for. I got carried away in the bars in Pattaya. I wasn’t spending too much money. I wasn’t going every day, but I missed my ex-wife. I missed having someone to spend time with. I missed going out together with someone. And I started thinking about what my next steps were. I started thinking about my life like it’s now or never because I was already in my 50s, which is quite shocking to think about because I wasn’t ready to be in my 50s based on my life position. I should have still been in my 20s, but it doesn’t work like that.

When I met yet another girl who was from Isan, like the other girls that I’d met before, I’m not prepared to say which part of Isan she was from, and I’ll let you know why I’m not prepared to do that at the end. But Isan is what I’m happy to say. Immediately, I could tell that this girl was different. She was 34 for a start, but she wasn’t like the other girls that I’d spent time with before. There was just something about her that made me feel a sense of calmness that other girls just didn’t.

The little things that she did. When we went out together, we would go to eat at a restaurant, which is generally what you do. And there was one restaurant that we particularly liked to go to, which had a great view over the sea with great Thai food. It was affordable and great beer. We’d go inside and look at the menu and order everything we liked. Yet, the girls I spent time with before always made it their business to order the most expensive dish on the menu. And that was just not who I was or how I was brought up. The fact that this girl seemed to be so aligned with how I thought things should be, it just made me feel that everything I needed was her.

Finally, The Real One

6 months after I met her, I proposed to her. And it wasn’t like when I got married last time where it was just, “Let’s get married so you can come home with me.” This was a proper proposal. I’d done everything the proper way because I felt like this was the real one. And the fact that she seemed so excited to be getting married to me, that was the icing on the cake. That’s when I went up to her village for the first time, saw her family, and I’d never been to Isan before. Every time my ex-wife went back, she went to Isan by herself, and that was fine with me.

I immediately thought that this was a place I could see myself spending the rest of my life. It was the most perfect place I’d ever been. And the fact that her family was so welcoming and friendly, and the fact that she seemed to be so happy there, that’s when I started thinking that that’s where I wanted to live. We got married there in a traditional ceremony and when we returned to Pattaya registered the marriage at the district office there and I felt like finally this was the time that I’d cracked it. I still had most of that £70,000 left so I didn’t really have any concerns at all but I guess I might have been overconfident.

After we registered the marriage I really wanted to take her on a honeymoon. She’d never left Thailand before, and while I didn’t really want to spend too much money, I didn’t think it would be too bad to take a week somewhere and have the time of our lives. We didn’t go too far from Thailand. We went to Singapore because that’s where she wanted to go. Let me just say it was way too expensive. And it was fun, but it wasn’t as fun as it would have been if it wasn’t as expensive as it was. The fact that my wife enjoyed it, that was the main thing.

Teaching Again In Thailand

Back in Pattaya, I started thinking that my pension was when I would be able to relax properly. But it was still over 10 years away. It was getting closer, so I thought if I found another job and just did that, even if it was just a few years, then I would be able to wait out my pension in peace with my wife because that’s all I wanted. If you could have said to me at the time, you can have one wish and one wish alone, what would it be? You’d have to combine a few things into one. It would be to be able to spend the rest of my life with my wife and not have to worry that my money would run out. That would have been it. No fancy cars, no expensive houses, no anything. Just that. It didn’t seem to be all too unrealistic.

I did spend some time looking for another job as a teacher. I thought that would tide me over a few for a few years while we were in the early stages of our relationship. And I did manage to find a teaching job paying 30,000 baht, which wasn’t a lot of money at the time, but it was something. From that moment to the next whole year, I would say our lives were perfect. I was happy. I mean, I was the happiest I’d been throughout my life. I thought it was going to continue. We made a few visits up to her village throughout that year, and every time we did visit, I was more inclined to throw in the towel completely and move to the village and start living that life, ’cause that was always the dream from the moment I first went.

Building the Dream Home

The thing that made that decision easy to make was that it was exactly what my wife wanted to do. If she wanted to do something, I wanted it even more. It was about a year after I started that teaching job that we started putting plans in place to stop. We would have to have our own house because my wife already owns some land, so it didn’t need to be too bad. We’d be able to build a bungalow and a motorcycle would be enough for transportation. We wouldn’t need a car. So, I thought it sounded reasonable and the next step. My wife also had ideas to do little businesses, even if it was just to make a bit of money here and a bit of money there, and we decided to go for it.

About £30,000 I invested in the house, a little business for my wife, and for me, just to keep me occupied, I bought a motorcycle. And it really did fit within the budget that I had. If I looked at what I had left, it wasn’t enough to see me through until my pension. So, the idea was we only need between 10 and 15,000 baht a month on top of what I have if we were careful to make it to my pension. There were health concerns because I couldn’t afford insurance, but that was a risk I was prepared to take because being with my wife, being in Thailand was more important than anything else. It was kind of like if I’m ill and I have to be ill at home, then what’s the point anyway? That was my reasoning.

And in the early stages after we moved into that house, everything seemed like it was coming together perfectly. The future that I was envisaging for me and my wife was already laid out in my mind and already planned. A beautiful house, a beautiful life, everything. It couldn’t have been better.

The Slow Decline

Although it wasn’t a sudden catastrophic collapse, failure was almost inevitable. I didn’t know it was inevitable until it was already too late to stop it. We moved into that house about halfway through 2019. And when we moved in, it felt fantastic. My wife had already started selling noodles and drinks around the local area. We also had a little place where people came to drink and play pool. It wasn’t bringing in a lot of money. Wasn’t bringing in as much as we thought it would bring in, but it was still something. And we weren’t spending a lot of money.

I guess we were spending about 25,000 baht every month. I didn’t feel like I was having a bad life or cutting back. But given the fact that my money was so tight, anything over about 13 or 14,000 baht a month would see me running out of money before I got my pension. I wasn’t too concerned, but things did slowly progressively pick up and by the end of 2019, I’d say we were just about coping with the amount of money that I had and the money that was coming in, whereby if things continued like this, my pension age would be reached before my money ran out.

Unfortunately, like so many other people, we were hit very hard by COVID. There was so much uncertainty going on around the world. And although Thailand didn’t shut down in as many bad ways as other countries did because there were no tourists coming in, people were losing their jobs and coming back to the village and not as many people were going out as much anymore. There were so many more people in the village yet nobody seemed to be spending any money because they didn’t have any. Before people would come maybe have two beers and a game of pool and it would be a treat. But now they couldn’t even afford that.

Struggling to Survive In Thailand

So, what happened was my wife stopped selling noodles. By the way, she makes fantastic noodles. You can choose between the sen lek, the sen yai, and the ones that are yellow. I don’t know what that’s called in Thai, but my favorite was always the yellow ones. She wasn’t selling as much and not as many people were visiting. And it was throughout COVID where we were as careful as we possibly could be. Certain days, even though it was extremely hot outside, I wasn’t turning on the air conditioning, just trying to save as much money as possible. Eating rice and whatever was available that day because I didn’t have anything else to spend.

I had certain expenditure that she didn’t have, not including insurance, but I still had a visa and the 90-day reports, which meant going to the office and back, and the little fuel cost and everything that you need for your bike. All that stuff slowly but surely adds up and my money was draining away. I remained to be not too concerned because as the days were going by, I was getting closer to when I would finally get my pension. I thought it would be good, but I realized things weren’t going to be good. It was already too late to make any changes to try to salvage things.

And this was about 3 years after we moved into the house. I came to the understanding that unless something changed quickly, unless we had one big win, there was going to be nothing else that I could do that could keep me in Thailand with my wife where I wanted to be. That was a very difficult thing to have to come to terms with.

The Last Attempt For This Thailand Dream

I hadn’t given up hope yet, but it did look like it was the end of the road. But I wasn’t going to give up on anything until every single last hope was exhausted. We did have one last attempt and everything was on the line. When things started to get better after the worst of COVID had hit, probably around the start of 2022, I didn’t have very much money at all. I guess if I didn’t do anything and we were extremely careful, I could have made that money last for 2 years, but that would have been just existing like a local would exist and I would have been prepared to do that if my pension would have come at the end of those two years, but it wouldn’t. It was still a long time away.

So, I felt like our last thing to do was try to use that money to make some more money. My wife was always extremely supportive. She understood the gravity of the situation. She understood what the consequences would be if things didn’t work. She was really helpful to me in that situation to help me get through that time. For her, it was bad as well. Maybe not as bad as me because at least she could stay in the house if I couldn’t stay there, but she still wouldn’t be with me and she wanted to be with me. So, this was going to be something that would either fix both our lives or put both our lives on hold for an amount of time that we didn’t even want to think about.

Because my wife had sold smoothies before and made little bits of money, not a lot, we thought maybe she could have another go at doing that, but also sell other things as well. She was fantastic at making lots of Thai treats and things. So maybe she could add that to the list of items that she could sell. If we could sell enough things, if we could get about 30,000 a month, which was the absolute minimum that I would need to live and exist in the meantime, then we would be good. I put half of what I had left, which again wasn’t a lot of money, into trying out these last things. And my wife put her heart and soul into trying her best to make it work.

Not Enough

The sad thing is that things worked, yet just not well enough for us. Maybe one day she would make 250 baht and that’s 250. It’s fantastic, but to keep two people, it’s a stretch because I wasn’t local. Then it happened once a week for the longest time and I was doing my best to fit into that but I just couldn’t. Some days might be better and she would make 300 and some days 400, maybe 500. Yet it was like every single day was a struggle. Every single day was a fight. Every single day was a slog. Every single day was wondering if things would come good.

It lasted all the way until the end of 2022. In fact, it was early 2023. We both decided that I would stay as long as I could physically stay, but I was happy to accept anything just to be able to stay there because that’s where I wanted to be. It came to the point that I didn’t have enough money to pay the 20,000 baht for the dodgy retirement extension because I didn’t have money in the bank. So, I couldn’t extend my visa. My wife had managed to find somebody in the family who would lend me 20,000 baht to get that visa covered, but then we’d be behind and we’d never catch up and things would just get worse.

I didn’t have money one day to put petrol in the motorcycle to go to the shops because I didn’t have money to buy anything in the shops. And as much as I wanted to stay and be with my wife, I think that was the point in time when I realized I had to face facts. I had to face the understanding that there wasn’t enough money. And I had to face facts that as hard as my wife was trying to make money to support both of us, it just wasn’t enough. That’s when my wife and I had to sit down together and come to the extremely difficult decision that I would go back to the UK.

The Painful Decision Trying To Find Myself

I would try to reestablish myself there, would get a job doing anything I could, wouldn’t spend any money at all, and I would just count down the days until I got my pension while making sure to support my wife by sending money to her as and when she needed it. Not exactly a dream Thailand story, but it’s my Thailand story, and it’s still ongoing.

I suppose I should say exactly why I didn’t want to let anybody know which part of Isan she was from, but I guess a few people may have already discovered. So, as you’re taking a video of the house, that’s basically where I will be. As of now, I’m approximately 3 years away from getting my pension. I have about £5,000 saved up. And if I can get that to £10,000 in 2 years before getting my pension, then that’s when I will move to Thailand. I know that I don’t need to spend a lot of money when I’m there. And I know that my pension will give me enough money to be able to live as much as I want to.

So, I know it’s not going to be 15,000 a month like I thought was acceptable before. It’s going to be an amount that should be comfortable. I bet three times that, maybe 45,000 based on what the exchange rate will be. Yet, you never know. Maybe that will tank. It will get even worse. My wife has patiently waited for me. We speak every single day and she’s the most important person in my life and she’s helped me get through these difficult times.

A Good Thai Woman

I think that’s another reason why I wanted to share my story because while we hear it all the time how somebody lost all their money to their Thai wife or their Thai girlfriend, there are some absolutely wonderful Thai women out there. And I have a prime example of that and I am so fortunate to have her in my life. It’s also a very important warning why I said my story is so important. Because while I didn’t lose the inheritance money because I didn’t have inheritance money for those times, my story is what can happen to somebody who doesn’t have the financial backing to follow their dreams.

Let me go back right to the beginning talking about all the people I see moving to Thailand now, quitting their jobs at home with absolutely no money and moving to Thailand hoping for the best. Granted, things are slightly easier for people now because we have the internet. We have people being able to work as digital nomads, which wasn’t a possibility for me back then. But even still, just because that’s a possibility, it doesn’t mean that it’s a guarantee for some.

It’s one thing to have the dream to live in Thailand, to spend your life in Thailand, and understand that it could go wrong there. You might need to return home. But where I was, returning home was failure. Returning home was losing. Returning home destroyed me. And I know that many people feel the same way. I think things are only going to get worse for many people moving to Thailand. And if you listen to this story, maybe you could make more informed decisions about your own financial position before you commit to something. Before you fall in love as well, before you meet your dream girl, before you find your perfect place to live, before anything, make sure you’re in a better position.

Counting Down the Days

I know I’m probably not the sort of person who should give advice to anybody because of what happened to me and how things went wrong for me and how pretty much as soon as I went to Thailand, everything went wrong and I’m still not where I want to be. And I guess that does bring us to where I am today. I’m in the UK at the moment. I’m working and I’m trying to save money and I’m just counting down the days until I get my pension because my pension will be enough, I hope, to allow me to live out the rest of my days together with my wife in our house. I still send my wife financial support every month and I am good with that.

She’s been the only stabilizing factor in my life and the only woman that I believe has actually cared about me throughout my whole life, let alone in Thailand. I don’t regret building that house. I don’t regret getting married to her. I don’t regret any of that. I just regret what seems to be my complete lack of ability to make money in Thailand. As you can see, I tried so many things from working to anything that I thought could be something for me to do, yet nothing worked.

I am quite concerned about the pension freeze that’s happening if you’re living overseas and you’re from the UK. That changed and when it did, it was just yet another thing signaling that Thailand isn’t as easy as you’d like it to be. But I do know I will get a pension. And even if it doesn’t keep up with inflation, I hope that it will be enough to see me out. I’m counting down the days, less than a thousand to go now. And I do hope to maybe visit Thailand once before then, but I have to consider that what it’s for. That would be an amount of money that could be saved for the future and could see me moving sooner.

A Message of Hope and Warning

I just hope I live long enough to be able to see out my days in Thailand. And I would like to just say a big thank you to my wife. Without her, I don’t know where I’d be now, but I don’t know what state I’d be in. We hear stories all the time about how guys lost money to their Thai partners, as I’ve already said, and as you’ve seen, I was the guy like that a few times. But I always held out hope that there would be someone who would be with me for me. And I guess if anything positive has come from the past 25 years, it is her. So, I’m never completely writing off the possibility of finding the love of your life.

The only thing I would say to anybody is make sure that if you find the love of your life and you’re the love of her life, make sure you can stay together because it’s not fun being separated for years and years and years at a time. Maybe I’ll be lucky. I can save up a little bit more money and I’ll be able to go to Thailand sooner and use the money I have waiting for my pension, but that would be more of a risk. I don’t know either way. But what I do know is that I am living on hold at the moment. I don’t want to be living on hold, but I will be on hold until I get back to Thailand, where I want to remain for the rest of my life.

Be careful out there and make sure that you have enough backing to go to Thailand. Because if you fall in love with something, if you want to be somewhere and you can be somewhere and then you find out you can’t, it’s worse than never finding out about that place at all. Believe me, this is my lived experience.