How I Found Myself Retiring to Thailand Purely by Chance
How I found myself retiring to Thailand was purely by chance. I was going there for a business meeting. We were looking to expand our operations out of Europe into Southeast Asia, and it was my job to go and investigate. That might sound like a great job, but it really wasn’t. The traveling was good, but I never progressed further in my career. I was always the guy having to go and do the legwork that nobody else wanted to do.
After Thailand, I was going to be going to Singapore. Most of the other companies in our industry tended to set up their offices there in Southeast Asia. So, the idea to go to Thailand was to see if it was going to be better. I tried to get a business class ticket from the company, but they didn’t agree to that. So, an economy ticket it was going to have to be.
A few years prior to this, I went to South America to set up or look into the possibility of setting up an office there. It was a successful business trip, and the company chose Brazil as the country to use. I loved it there in Brazil, and I was interested to see how Thailand was going to be. But actually, I was more excited about the prospect of going to Singapore.
I was quite close to retirement, at 55, with just two or three years left. It was always my plan to retire to the south of Spain, a place I had visited on countless occasions throughout the course of my life.
The Flight That Changed Everything
When I boarded the plane, I took my seat right at the back next to the window. This was a 2-4-2 configuration, and the plane was full. I was holding out hope that no one would come and sit next to me that would make the flight a lot more comfortable. And as the minutes ticked by, no one else was coming in. I quietly started to feel confident the flight was going to be better because of it. A few minutes later, though, I see someone walking down the aisle. They appeared to be Thai, and they were in tears. Seemed to be so sad. That’s the only thought I gave it. I didn’t think anything more about it and turned and looked out of the window and watched as they were refueling the plane. Seat belt signs off when they did that. And I just hoped it would be over soon and I could try to fall asleep.
I always went to the doctors before going on a long flight and got some medication to knock me out. And I was just about to take it, but I turned around and saw that person that I’d seen crying taking a seat right next to me. She was crying but trying her best to hide it. And I thought, here we go. I’m going to be in for a long flight. But she said sorry, and I told her not to worry about it. But I decided not to bother taking the sleeping tablet for a while. Perhaps I might need to help calm her down because she looked so upset.
The plane took off and she’s still crying. And I asked her if there’s anything I could do to help perhaps take her mind off whatever it is that was making her upset. She just looked at me and said it was fine, and I said okay, and that was that. I put the sleeping pill back into my wallet. Wasn’t feeling much like sleeping now.
And as soon as the in-flight entertainment was working, I just turned on a film and hoped to lose myself in it and get the flight over with as quickly as possible. I always found it really amusing when before the film plays, it has to say certain things like a warning message indicating that the scenes depicted in the film may cause distress when flying on an airplane maybe depictions of a plane crash or something like that.
They brought around the lunch service not long after, and I was handed a tray and she sitting next to me was as well. She appeared to have stopped crying now, and she said, “I’m sorry. Sorry for interrupting your trip.” I told her not to be silly. As long as you’re feeling better now.
If you’ve been on lots of flights, you may find yourself getting into conversations with people sitting next to you. The sort of conversations you would have with people that you knew, but with people you would most likely never see again.
Her Story Unfolds
Halfway through lunch, she puts down her cutlery and turns to me. “I just got a divorce from my husband. He’s back in England, and I’m going to go back to Thailand.” I told her how sorry I was. I’d been through a divorce five years ago, and that was a very difficult time. I got back to my lunch, but then she puts down her cutlery again and says, “He was such a bad man. He didn’t let her go to see her friends in the evenings, and he wouldn’t send money for her family, and he expected her to do everything that he wanted her to do.” I’d never been to Thailand. Didn’t know what the dynamic of a relationship like that would be like between a Thai person and someone from home. It sounded awful. And I told her that’s dreadful. I hope you can find someone else. She said she hoped that as well, but she said she was older than she was when she met her ex husband. That sounded like a pretty obvious statement who isn’t older the more time moves on? But she said she was 33 and she’d been with her ex husband for 8 years. She then told me her ex husband was 59. That took me back. That was older than I was, but he sounded like a right piece of work, and I felt sympathy for her. After the lunch service, we seemed to be engaged in conversation. The places that she went in England, where she was from in Thailand, and what she planned to do when she got back. She said she didn’t know what she was going to do. She did get a divorce, but her ex husband didn’t have much money. He rented a house and he didn’t have any savings, so she didn’t get anything. She seemed to be very bitter about that, and I wasn’t surprised. I asked her where she was going to live. I was interested to learn more about Thailand, a country I was going to be going to for the first time. Again, she said she didn’t know. She had a tiny bit of money with her, but that was everything that she had in the world. And she had a 10-year-old daughter that was living with her parents that she needed to take care of. But I said to her, “That’s perfect. You can just go and live with your daughter and parents.” She looked at me like she was nearly ready to start crying again, saying she couldn’t do that because she didn’t have enough money to live it there. That felt awful. Never liked to hear stories of people struggling.
But I asked her what her profession was. “What did you do before you met your husband?” She deflected that question, instead asking me what I was going to Thailand for. I didn’t think anything of that and told her, “I’m just going there for a few days to look into the possibility of Thailand being the place in Southeast Asia where my company will open its office.”
She seemed to be quite excited by that, telling me it sounded like a great job. I told her it was okay, but I’m not paid as much as I should be. I told her about my life in England, my divorce, my small house, and my dreams to retire in the south of Spain in a few years’ time.
“I’ve been to Spain,” she said, “but only once with my ex husband. It was a nice place. Why don’t you retire in Thailand?” she said. “Many foreign people retire to Thailand.” I just shook my head. I hadn’t even considered Thailand as a possible retirement destination before.
She seemed to be lightening up. Didn’t look to be upset. Maybe her mind wasn’t thinking about the fact that she had just got a divorce and she was in a pretty dire financial situation. She even told me that the last thing her ex husband did was pay for the plane ticket back to Thailand one way.
The last thing she said before I tried to get a bit of sleep was that she was hoping to get a British passport. She was well on the way, and then she got the divorce. That made her upset because she wanted to go traveling with her husband to countries that were difficult for Thai people to go to. I told her how awful. And then I tried to nod off to sleep.
Getting Through the Flight Together
I wasn’t able to sleep. I just stayed there. 11 and a half hours sitting in a seat like that in your mid-50s is akin to torture. The time goes by so slowly. And when I looked up, after thinking at least 5 hours must have passed, I glanced at my watch and realized it had only been 25 minutes. I wished I’d taken that tablet. I noticed she’s not able to sleep either. But she’s not doing anything. She just sat there, not watching a film and nothing. I decided I wanted a drink. So, I called a flight attendant over and got one of those small bottles of red wine that they have on flights. I looked at her and said, “Maybe you should have a drink. Lighten up.” And she smiled and said, “I think I will.”
We then talked for the rest of the flight. We got through a few bottles of wine each the small bottles, not the big ones, in case you haven’t been on a long-haul flight before. I’d been on lots of long-haul flights and in lots of conversations, but never one that lasted for nearly the entirety of the flight.
And when we landed in Bangkok, she asked where I was staying. I told her the name of my hotel. She said, “That’s a really nice one. Have a nice time.” I said I would. And I asked what her plans were. She said she was planning to get a taxi, maybe see if she could see some of her friends. And then from there, she would hopefully be able to find a job.
She said, “If you want to meet up later, I’d happily show you a nice restaurant. My friend has a room close to where you’re staying, so it wouldn’t be much of an effort for me.” I hesitated, but she was seemingly just trying to be polite. I thought it would be good to have someone on the ground who knew what they were doing, and I said, “Sure.”
And she said, “How about I meet you downstairs at your hotel at around 8:00 p.m.?” I told her that sounded good for me. I helped to take her bag out of the overhead locker. I got mine, and we disembarked, just smiled and waved goodbye and said, “See you later.”
That was an interesting experience. It made the flight more bearable to have someone to speak to, and it was just interesting to see what Thailand was like through the eyes of a local.
First Impressions of Bangkok
What I would usually do would have been to pay someone in the local country to show me around. I wasn’t there yet, but I was thinking maybe she could do that. She was struggling after a divorce with no money, and I needed someone to help me get to places I wanted to get to. I’m sure I could have done it by myself, but it always was easier when you have a local on the ground that knows where they’re going and how to get there. This was part of the expenses that I was able to claim back from the company I worked for. When I was in Brazil that time, the hotel managed to provide a guide to help me look around. I thought about mentioning that to her later on, but I never got there.
It took about an hour to get to the hotel. What they say about the Bangkok traffic is true. Look out of the window of the taxi and all the cars stationary as far as you could see. I wondered who would want to sit in this traffic every day. Surely there must be public transport or other ways to get about the city. I mentioned it in passing to the taxi driver. “It’s so busy,” I said, and he just said, “Traffic, traffic,” and smiled. I didn’t envy him having to work like that every single day. It must be a grind that traffic but I was only going to be there for a few days. It wasn’t going to cost me much of a concern.
The hotel was incredibly good. I had a budget of $200 a night wherever I went. And at that time, that seemed to stretch a lot further than it did in other countries for a hotel in Thailand. It was called the Westin Grande in Sukhumvit Asok, and it was very busy around there. The streets were crowded with people in every direction. And I wondered how you were meant to be able to navigate the streets if you wanted to go for a walk. It was intense in Bangkok, but I had a feeling that I could really get to know the city. It seemed to be alive and moving in a direction that I felt London, where I was from, seemed to be moving away from.
The room was even better than the exterior. A great view of the city. What I would usually have done is just gone out and found somewhere to have a beer and gone to bed. I had a free day the next day, and then I had meetings arranged with some of the Thailand branches of the big companies that assist other companies who want to open operations there.
I looked at my watch and it was only 3:00 p.m. I thought about meeting that girl later on, and part of me wished that I declined. I was starting to feel a bit tired, and there was no way for me to contact her to cancel. I thought I’d just go out for an hour, have a bit of a look around, and then go back to my hotel. I got a few hours’ sleep, waking up around 7:00 p.m., and I got ready and went downstairs and sat in the lobby. Part of me was hoping that she didn’t show. Then I could just go out, have something to eat, a beer, and then go to bed.
But she did arrive. She was about 5 minutes late, walked across smiling. She wasn’t overly excited or anything like that, and I wasn’t showing any form of excitement, but she just said, “Hi.” I said, “Hi,” and she said, “Let’s go.”
A Night at the Market
We left the hotel and walked to the big road outside, where she stood still and waved out her hand, calling a taxi. “We’re going in a taxi,” I said, looking at the traffic in a standstill. She said, “Yes, it’s not far away.” About an hour later, after driving down the same road with what appeared to be a train above it, it felt like a big waste of time. Why couldn’t we have gone on the train? She said, “It’s too busy on there and you can’t sit down.”
Eventually, we pulled up at a little market. It happened to be very close to a station of the train. I asked, “Is it possible, can we go back on the train?” She laughed and said, “Yes.”
The little market was something like I’d never seen before. It was very rustic plastic tables with these plastic sheets that covered them that seemed to have branding on them of a particular bottle of water brand that must have been for selling in Thailand. The chairs were interesting plastic chairs like you get anywhere, but for some reason the legs were quite unstable, very shaky. If you had one too many and you were sat on one of them and you leaned the wrong way too much, you’d probably have been on the ground.
We got a table and we’re just talking about normal things. I wasn’t thinking anything other than she’s just been friendly, and perhaps because she’s been back to Thailand and hasn’t been for a long time, she wants that connection to back in England. She said if I was okay to eat seafood, which I said I most definitely am love the stuff, I said. And she stood up and came back 5 minutes later with a huge plate of massive grilled prawns and two bottles of Thai beer Leo. She brought a bucket along as well, full of ice and two glasses, and said, “Now that you’re in Thailand, you have to learn to drink beer with ice.”
I looked at her in amazement. Never tried that before, but I thought, “When in Rome.” Actually, it wasn’t that bad, and I found myself getting lost in conversation with her. The beers were flowing, and we’re both starting to get a little drunk. She seemed to be more drunk than me. She started smiling more, putting her arm on mine and ushering her chair closer to me. I was liking the attention. That’s not what I was expecting when she asked if she could show me a bit of Bangkok. I wasn’t minding it.
I’d been on dates at home looking for a new partner ever since I got divorced, but I was never successful. I was always buried in work, but I always missed that companionship and having someone to go home to.
Drinks, Conversation, and a Walk to the Train
After each of us having three large bottles of Leo, I’m thinking I’ve had enough. But she says, “No, just one more.” How could I say no? And she went to get two more. She was quite small a lot smaller than I was and thin. So I guessed her ability to hold alcohol wouldn’t have been as good as mine. After the fourth beer, she was quite drunk, and I was, but she was a different person to the one that I met on the plane earlier. She wasn’t looking sad anymore. She was just looking happy, there to enjoy life, and I started loosening up even more and enjoying myself. After that fourth beer, I felt like I’d had more than enough. But then she was eager to have more. I said, “How about we go somewhere else?” At this point, I’d say it was around 10:00 p.m., but it was so hot and sticky. Never felt heat like that before. And sitting outside, I noticed that because I was sweating so profusely, the smell emanating from my armpits was starting to become unpleasant. I wanted to quickly freshen up.
She said, “Okay.” We stand up and walk back to the street, where she tries to hail a taxi. I look at her and I just shake my head, smiling. I say, “No way. Let’s go on that train thing.” She grabbed hold of my arm, smiling, and said, “Okay.” And she led me to the direction of the train. I’m glancing down at her, holding on my arm, smiling, and thinking to myself, “Is this normal?”
We walked in the direction of the station, which couldn’t have been more than 50 meters away, and she’s still holding on to my arm, smiling and joking. And I tried to walk up the steps. She looks at me and pulls on my arm and said, “No, not the steps.” And we walk another 10 or so meters, and there’s an escalator, and we went up that instead. “Easy more,” she told me. And I just laughed. It was easier, I guess, in that heat.
There were lots of machines where you could insert money to get a ticket. She was busy fumbling around, and I’m just looking around in amazement. How had I found myself here? It was fun, though, and eventually she managed to get two tickets. Went up another escalator. 2 minutes later, the train arrived. And less than 10 minutes later, we’re getting out of the same station that we could have used when we got the taxi.
When we got out of the train, I just smiled at her. But before I could say anything else, she said, “See, you can’t sit down on the train.” I wasn’t even thinking anything close to that, and I was just about to say, “It’s a lot easier.” Instead, I just laughed and said, “Yes, that seems to be the case.”
I told her I wanted to freshen up in the hotel and asked her to wait at the lobby for 10 minutes. She said fine, and I went up. I had a quick shower, generously applied some deodorant, and put on a new shirt and went back down. She jumped out of the chair and said, “Hi, let’s go.”
Soi Cowboy
She said, “Do you want to see something crazy in Bangkok?” I didn’t know what she meant by crazy, but I thought, “Yes, I want to see something crazy.” We walked out of the hotel and headed in the direction of a big intersection. She then went on an escalator to what appeared to be an underground station, but instead of going down to this train, she proceeded to go up the escalator on the other side. You then did this kind of U turn and went up another escalator onto the street. It appeared to be the easiest way as opposed to having to cross the road, which seemed to look quite precarious. She then turned right, and what couldn’t have been more than 10 meters away there was a huge street neon flashing lights and signs everywhere and a big sign at the front of it that said Soi Cowboy. Ah, so this is Thailand’s famous entertainment place. I was not expecting her to take me there. She smiled at me and grabbed my arm and walked me down the street. She went into one of the bars on the left and took me in and ordered some drinks. She had a shy smile on her face and said, “What do you think?” I didn’t know what to think. This type of place was like nowhere I had ever seen. Girls on stage, flashing lights, and really loud music. I looked at my shoes, and the laces had appeared to become fluorescent, glowing with a purple glow. That was interesting. We had another two or three beers each in there. And she’s laughing all the time. “Welcome to Thailand,” she kept saying. The beers in there were half the size of the ones we had at the market, but they were probably three times the price. I suppose it was worth it for the entertainment there. But if I wasn’t drunk, I may have felt uncomfortable at a place like that. At this point, I am drunk, and she seems to be drunk, but we’re having a great time. All the thoughts of the reasons I’m even in Thailand have disappeared. And she said, “I want to take you somewhere else.” Then she said, “If I take you, you have to promise me that you will not judge me.” I wasn’t about to judge someone that I had just met, and it sounded all rather exciting, so of course I agreed. I paid the bill here. She’d paid at all the other places. I’d later find out she was using her last money to show me around. We left and continued walking in the same direction that we started, and just over halfway down the street, she walked into another bar. Only this time, it was slightly different. We walked in and had a seat. Pretty much the same situation as the last bar. We ordered some drinks, and she looks like she’s a bit more serious, although I can tell she’s quite drunk. She turns to me and she said, “When I met my husband, I met him here. I used to work here.“ I was taken aback. I wasn’t sure why she was offering up this information to me, and I said, “Okay, that’s your business.” She said she came to work when she had problems with her Thai partner who she had her daughter with and her old husband came in and promised her an amazing life in England. That’s how she ended up there.
I told her, “You don’t need to tell me things like this if you don’t want to.” But she said she wanted to. She said she felt very comfortable around me and she was happy to have met me. I asked her if she knew anybody here. She said it was a while ago, but the mamasan she said was still the same. She beckoned her over, and they seemed to exchange pleasantries. She looked at me and said, “New man?” I looked and said, “No, we’ve just met.”
She then turned to me and wrapped her arms around me in a hug and said, “His first day in Thailand. I’m just showing him the sights.” I wonder why she was telling me all this, but I was intrigued by her life. Here I was in a strange place on my first day with this girl who was showing me things that up until then I wouldn’t have even thought could exist. I was starting to really enjoy myself. My heart starts pounding, and then you think back to going for a drink and a meal at a restaurant with your friends at home. That was a little bit different. And all of a sudden, the thought of doing something like that made me cringe. How could I replace this moment I was having now? I just thought, enjoy the experience because it’s not going to happen again.
She stood up after we had a second beer and said, “Let’s go.” “Where are we going now?” I asked her. “You’ll see,” she said, and she led me out of the bar. She walked me down the opposite way that we came. We went back under the underground, up the stairs, and I’ve got a huge smile on my face, but I am a bit unsteady on my feet, and she’s the same. Although, I guess she was a little bit more drunk than I was. I was still coherent, but I was enjoying myself.
She walked in the direction of the hotel. I wasn’t ready to go to bed yet. I was wanting to look at more things. I felt like the night was young, but she had me by the arm both of her arms wrapped around one of mine and she’s leaning her weight onto me while walking, talking, and smiling. She leads me into the hotel, and I don’t say anything. She takes me to the elevator. We wait for it to appear and walk in, and she asks me which floor. I told her, and she tries to press the button but it doesn’t work. That’s when I remembered I needed to scan my card on the little reader so we were allowed to press the floor number.
We get to my floor, and she says, “Your room.” At this point I’m quite confused. Perhaps she just was tired and wanted to go to sleep. We go into my room, and sleeping was the last thing on her mind.
The Morning After
The past 24 hours had been the most crazy, the most wild, and the most exhilarating that I had ever had the pleasure of living. But when I woke up in the morning with a massive hangover, I thought, “What an amazing dream I had,” only to look next to me and realize it wasn’t a dream. My head was pounding, and I didn’t want to wake her up. But I had some paracetamol in my bag and took four of them and downed a liter of water before falling back asleep. I was thankful that I had a free day that day. I had four meetings arranged from the day after and two for the day after that, and then I was leaving. I don’t think I would have a job anymore if I wasn’t able to make those meetings. I woke up again in a few hours, and she’s already up and sat on the sofa watching TV. She looks at me and smiles. “I think I was a bit drunk yesterday,” she said. “Me too,” I said. But she said that she had a wonderful time with me. I said I had a great time with her. I was very thankful for her showing me Bangkok. But I told her I wasn’t expecting what happened. She said she wasn’t expecting that either. But she said that she liked me and she had good feelings about me.
It felt so good to hear her say that. I’d not had anybody talk like that to me for a very long time. And I told her that I liked her as well. I was starting to feel a bit better. My hangover had eased up, but she didn’t seem to be looking very worse for wear. She said, “Come on and enjoy today. Let’s go for something to eat.”
I told her that I’m only here for a few more days. She said she knew, but she just wanted to spend some time with me because she never met a man as nice as me before. I liked the sound of that, and she took me to a mall. She even agreed to go on the sky train. It was only a few stations away very fancy called Siam Paragon. They had a big food court at the bottom level. There were also lots of restaurants around there, and she said she hadn’t been to Thailand for a long time and her favorite place was here and asked if I wanted to try it.
Interested to see what it was, she took me to MK. That was my first experience of eating food like that. A bowl of water what she called soup in front of you on a hot plate. You then ordered ingredients that you could cook yourself vegetables, mushrooms, meats, seafood, all kinds of goodies very fresh, good quality produce. You were given a bowl of sauce, and the sauce was great. And she proceeded to add a lot of extra chilies and garlic to her sauce, but I didn’t want that. Spice was not one of my strong points. We also got a big plate of duck and crispy pork in some kind of sauce. That was delicious. I really enjoyed that meal, and it was fun to see a typical Thai style place.
I guess we finished up with our meal around 1:00 p.m. It was so hot outside, but doing anything outside would have been out of the question. “Is there anything you’d like to see?” I asked her. “Up to you,” she said. The problem was I had no idea what to do in Bangkok. What was there available to do in the middle of the day in Bangkok that didn’t involve being outside? We were already in a mall. I didn’t want to buy anything.
She asked if I would like to see some of the big famous tourist sites, but all of that involved having to walk outside in the heat things like the Grand Palace. That didn’t really tickle my fancy. “How about a game of pool?” she said. Now, I did like the sound of that. I’d always enjoyed pool at home, and she said she knew the perfect place.
Pool and More Pool
We went back up to the level where the sky train was and went three stations to a place called Nana. We got off the train and walked to the ground level. By the time I got out of the train and I had walked down the steps to the street, I was already wet through. I wanted to avoid being outside. But she said, “It’s Thailand. Everyone’s too hot. You’ve got to live with it.” Why didn’t I think of that before? Looking around, everyone’s in the same boat. And I just embraced the heat and the extreme humidity. We walked a bit and turned up a street Soi 4. There were bars everywhere different sorts of bars to the places that she’d shown me the night before. They had open fronts and you could look in, but we walked past all of these for about 100, maybe 200 meters, and there was a road turning left. It was complete gridlock, but we crossed that road and immediately went into the bar there. They had about 10 pool tables, and it was nice and cool inside. They had a huge big portable air conditioning unit that was really refreshing. We chose a pool table that had one of those right next to it, and I stood as the cold air was blown onto me. I wasn’t planning on drinking in light of the fact that I had some very important meetings lined up for the following day, but when two small beers arrived, I thought I’ll just have one. There were people working there that set up the pool for you. It was slightly different to the pool I was used to. The tables were bigger, and the balls were spots and stripes with numbers on them. I was used to smaller tables, smaller pockets, and red and yellow balls. But this was just as fun. She asked me to break, and I do, and she said, “Ooh, strong man.” When the white ball struck the other balls with such gusto. She was good at pool as well I would say on a level playing field to me. And although I won the first and second game, she won a lot as well. I checked my watch and it’s 6:00 p.m., and I’m starting to feel drunk again. She looks the same as she did the night before. And we’re playing pool game after game. We ordered some food, and that was brought in. And the thought of having to leave filled me with dread. I was having such a wonderful time. And I just thought, you’re going to have to work through the hangover you’re going to have tomorrow.
For some reason, it didn’t get boring. Playing pool hour after hour, talking to her about all kinds of things, drinking together, and having one of the best times I’d ever had. The only night that I could think that equaled it was the one from the previous day. We probably played 40 or 50 games of pool. Each game was becoming more inaccurate as our shots at the alcohol took hold. But we’re loving it. Where has a girl like this been all my life? She’s everything I was looking for in a girl. Up for having a good time, likes to share a drink with me. Loves pool. So many pluses.
I asked her if she played pool in England, and she said yes, but she liked it more in Thailand. She said that was the American version of pool.
We left when she said that, saying she was sleepy. She said that with a smile on her face, and she led me out of the bar, and we walked back in the same direction. Later on in the evenings, that street becomes more scenic scenic, I think, is a good way to describe it. We walked past all the bars and back onto the big road. We walked back into the direction of the train and said, “No need, just one station.” And she pointed in the direction of where the hotel was. I couldn’t quite make it out, but she said it was not far. I looked at her and we continued to walk. We got to another street. Looking at the sign, it said it was Soi 8.
She said, “One more drink.” “Go on, why not?” They had a place not far away. It seemed to be set up like an English style pub, and we went in there. We sat at the table and ordered some more drinks. When I found out that they had fish and chips on the menu, I have to say I ordered it. We kind of settled down in there, talking, few drinks. If anything, I’m more drunk than the night before, and she most definitely is.
But after a while, she just said, “Let’s go.” We went out and it was only a 5 to 10 minute walk to the hotel, and the same thing happens that happened the night before. I made sure to drink 2 liters of water before going to bed and I downed some paracetamol. I set the alarm to wake me up in the middle of the night, and I drank more water and had more paracetamol, and luckily when I woke up the hangover wasn’t too severe.
Business Meetings and a Difficult Goodbye
All the thoughts of asking her to show me around and having to pay her to do so they’d completely vanished. She was showing me around, and she was showing me a lot more than Bangkok. I had to wake her up to tell her I was going, and she said okay. She said she would wait for me. I went down to the hotel reception and gave them the address of where I wanted to go and asked them to get me a taxi. They did that, and I went for the meeting. I did all the meetings that day. It was interesting. Bangkok seems to be a great place, but it wasn’t me who would make the ultimate decision. I was just there to do the groundwork and to report back. I got back to the hotel, and she’s still there, and we repeat what we did the night before. I do my meetings the following day, and the day after that I’m due to leave for Singapore. After I finish my meetings on the final day, she’s waiting at the hotel, and I go back and she looks upset. “I don’t want you to leave,” she said. I told her I had to. I’ve got work to do. I was going to Singapore. She said, “Please don’t go. I’ve never seen a man as nice as you. I think you were meant to be the person that I met, not my ex husband.” She was saying all the right things, and I started to develop feelings for her, thinking that she was the most wonderful girl I’d ever had the pleasure of spending time with. I didn’t want to go, if I’m being perfectly honest. But then I said to her, “You’ve moved back and you’re living in Thailand. I’m living in England. There’s nothing we can do to make something like that work.” “I could go to England,” she said. I asked her, “How could you do that?” She had no way to live there. “I could live with you,” she said. “We don’t have to be serious. You could see how things go, and if they don’t work, I could just come back to Thailand. But I really like you, and it might be quick, but that’s the only thing we can do.”
I thought, “You had a divorce. What was your visa for?” She said her visa is still valid. She’d been there a long time and she’d already been granted indefinite leave to remain. That meant she can go to England anytime she wants. I asked her why didn’t she stay there. She said she didn’t have anywhere to live. She spent time with friends, but she could only stay there a day or two because they had families and children to look after.
The thought of her going back to England with me was extremely exciting. But I had to be careful. It was about 6:00 p.m. on the last night, and I said, “Let’s just go out tonight and see how we feel.” She said she was okay with that, and we went and played pool and drank more Leos. All the time I’m thinking about doing something like this in England with her. Imagine how fun that would be. I wouldn’t be lonely anymore or bored anymore. And I’ve been looking for someone for such a long time. And I’ve never found anyone or seen anyone that has been as perfect as her.
A few hours later, I said, “Would you like to go to Singapore with me? I’m going to be there for 4 days. Let’s see how we get on there, and if we like each other, we can think.” She’d already had a few drinks, as had I, but she looked at me wide eyed with a sense of excitement, and ran over and jumped on me and said, “That sounds amazing.”
I had my flight booked for the following evening. I just hoped I would be able to get her on the same plane as me. We enjoyed the rest of the night, but it seemed like both our minds were full on thinking about the following day. This was a time before you could just pull out your laptop or phone and book something. It was still a time when I was more comfortable using travel agents to do the bookings, and there seemed to be lots of them around Bangkok. It was early evening, so I thought they were probably going to be closed. But we decided the following morning we would go and try to get her on that flight.
We enjoyed the rest of the evening into the night. More pool, more beer, and also I started to try some of the street food. That was a good experience. The food is far better than most people would ever care to imagine.
Singapore and Beyond
We wake up the following morning and go for a walk and look around for a travel agency. It wasn’t long before we found one. Walked in, and I gave them my flight number and said, “Can we get a seat with the same airline going to Singapore?” They looked for 5 to 10 minutes and said, “Yes.” We looked at each other and smiled and booked the ticket. Back to the hotel, few hours, bags packed, off to the airport, and a short two-hour flight from Bangkok to Singapore. It was then that I remembered that Singapore was where I was more excited to go. Bangkok, though, made Singapore look tame and sterile, but it was interesting to see. I was staying in a hotel on Orchard Road, and we got a taxi there. The taxi driver was great spoke perfect English a very different experience to Bangkok. And she was in awe of what she was seeing. She’d never been to Singapore. I’d never been as well. She said she’d only ever been to Thailand, England, and Spain. We got to the hotel already evening, and we just stayed there. I had a free day the following day, followed by meetings on the two following days. We enjoyed everything Singapore has to offer. Late nights, finding bars around places like Clarke Quay, and living a different experience to the one in Bangkok. I’m enjoying being with her more and more every day, and she seems to be the same. She’s so affectionate, so loving, and I felt like I knew her for a very long time when, in fact, it had been under a week.
Any thoughts of slowing down, being sensible had long gone, and I think I’d already decided on the first day in Singapore that I wanted her to go to England with me. The meetings in Singapore went well, but based on my experiences, I recommended Bangkok as a place for the company to open the office. That’s what they would end up doing. Turns out I made the right choice.
But on the second to last day in Singapore, we’re out having something to eat, talking like we’d known each other forever. “I think we need to book you a ticket to England,” I said. “Sounds wonderful,” she said. And we went to see if we could get her on the same flight. Remarkably, there were empty seats, and we booked it.
And the next day, I found myself flying from Singapore back to England with this girl that I’d met not even two weeks ago. I’d fallen head over heels for her, and she seemed to be feeling exactly the same for me as I was for her. I couldn’t believe it. What would my friends say? What would anybody say when I introduced them to her? It’s not like I felt she was my girlfriend yet, but she might as well have been.
When we boarded the plane to England, it wasn’t the back seat this time, but it was still a 2-4-2, and we managed to get seats together. And when I took the window seat, she took the aisle. We both started laughing. How crazy was this? I bet neither of us expected it. And she was there going back to England with me the guy she just met.
This happened in 2007. I remember everything with minute detail. The moment my life changed forever.
Life in England
When we got to England, I’d left my car in a multi story car park. We made our way there, and I drove home. This was when it started to feel surreal. What had just happened? But I’m smiling inside a really wide smile and she looks to be quite giddy as well. We got to my house. I showed her around, and that was what my life became.
After a year, we’d married. After another year, she’s got her British passport that she always dreamed about. I’m coming up to retirement, and she is acting like the great wife I thought she would be. Throughout all the time that we’ve been living together, it became my job to send money back to her family in Thailand. She hadn’t seen them for years. Hadn’t seen her child for a very long time, but she spoke when she could.
It was then that we started talking about my retirement my plans to move to the south of Spain but we were married now, and she was from Thailand. I loved Thailand when I was there, and we started to think about retiring there instead. Because we were married, she always talked about how she couldn’t wait to show me where she came from. I’d only seen a small part of Bangkok, but the country of Thailand was vast. Lots of things to see, lots of places to visit. And over the course of the next year, she’d pretty much convinced me that Thailand is where we should move to.
Retirement was only a year away now. 3 years, we never had any problems. Everything seemed good. She was always great. I felt like she was the best thing that had happened to me a breath of fresh air, and someone who made me feel alive.
Selling the House and Moving
My retirement would give me a pension of approximately £1,500 every month. It didn’t feel like a lot, but in Thailand, I remembered how much things cost, and it did feel like that would go a long way. I had my house, and it was my plan to keep it, but she said we’d be better off selling it and buying somewhere in Thailand. We should then have more money left over, and if you invest some of it, our income could go an extra £500 to £2,000. I gave it a lot of thought over my final year working, and it started to make sense.
It was during this year that we visited Thailand again for 2 weeks, and she took me to where she was from. We went to the beach, different towns, and I fell in love one more time with Thailand. There was so much more than Bangkok, and that solidified the idea to retire there and to sell the house.
I can remember when she saw her child for the first time in years. She was so shy. Hardly recognized her, but after only an hour, it was like they’d not been apart. It was great seeing her so happy. She’d always been happy, but this was different. And that’s when we started talking about building a house in the village.
We arrived back in England, and it was only 6 months till I was due for retirement, and it was decided 100% that Thailand is where we would go. I decided to sell my house, putting it on the market with the hopes of having the money around the same time that I finished work. That’s exactly what happened. The house was sold. I finished up at work, and I started getting my private pension, and the money from the house was left in the bank before deciding what to do with it.
I think it’s important to say that the house was worth around £300,000. It was a small one, and I should have kept it because now it’s worth a lot more. I got a non immigrant visa from the embassy, and we booked a one way ticket to Thailand. That time we went business class, and we arrived back in Bangkok in style. We were there to start a new chapter in our lives. I was not far away from 60, and she was in her late 30s.
Settling into Thailand
She always talked about when she came back to Thailand, she wants to start to do something and start to work to bring in some more money while I was retired. She said because I worked so hard, it was now her turn to do something. I wasn’t really thinking about that. I didn’t really want her to work. I just wanted to enjoy my retirement with her. We spent the first week in Bangkok. We repeated some of the things we did when we first met. Although it was only 4 years, it felt very different to how it felt in 2007. It was still fun, really enjoyable, but it felt like it was moving away from the extreme level of fun into a more sanitized version even though what you could see around many people would consider to be quite extreme.
From there, we went up to where she was from. I haven’t said where it was yet, but it wasn’t in Isan. I just want to leave it at that. It was, however, very rural, but I loved it. It was great to be there, seeing her family, seeing how happy she was to be there, and we stayed there for a few weeks in a hotel room in the town. I’d already bought a car in Bangkok, which made everything more convenient. And we went to and from her family’s house and the town during those two weeks.
We’re looking around, thinking about our house, and we found a perfect plot of land. It wasn’t directly in the village. It was a 10 minute drive away, in between the town and the village. It was kind of like halfway in the middle. On a whim, we decided to buy it. It wasn’t expensive. We contacted the owner, went to meet. They showed us the paper of the land. We offered them 75% of what they were asking for it, and we bought it. The following afternoon, the land was already in her name. That was quick. We were moving in the right direction.
Why we bought the land it was on the main road from the town to her village. It was already looking quite developed, houses and businesses springing up along the side of the road. And I think we got it at a good time because those land values have gone up considerably over the past years.
Over the course of the next year, the house was built. We’d moved in. Her daughter moved in with us for the last few years before she’d go off and do her own thing. She was so happy to be able to have the chance to spend quality time with her daughter for the first time ever. It felt great that she was able to do that. Everything seemed perfect. Everything was perfect. And I just thought that’s the way it would remain.
I’m getting my pension, and this is more than enough for us to be able to live.
She Wanted More
But she’s starting to get bored. We’d never been in a place or not done anything for a whole year. She always liked to be doing things, going out. And while we did go out to drink, to restaurants, she was starting to act like she wanted to do something. I tried to convince her that she didn’t need to. We had more than enough money, but she was adamant. After building the house, buying the car, we fixed her parents’ house. We bought her parents some land so they could grow more rice. We bought some land that we could use to grow rice. And I bought my dream motorbike. It was expensive, but it was always my dream. And that came true. What I’m trying to say is out of the £300,000 that I got from the sale of the house, there was probably £75,000 left. I spent a lot of money, but I had a stable guaranteed income, and I was due a state pension at a certain point that would make life in Thailand very comfortable.
She’s keeping on talking about wanting to do something. Then she comes up with the idea to open a business. “Why don’t we do that?” I had seen enough of working to even want to think about it. But I can understand that because she was just shy of 40 or was she 40 now? I can’t honestly remember that. But I could understand why she wanted to do something.
She had all kinds of ideas the typical ones that you might hear all the time. Opening a restaurant, a shop that sold farm supplies, a gold shop she even said. But she kept coming back to wanting to open a restaurant. I didn’t know what to make of that, but we had £75,000, and she wanted to do something, and it wouldn’t affect our income. I had insurance for emergencies, so why not?
She wanted me to go with her to look for a suitable location. And we found some land to build the restaurant on. Seeing her excited and happy about doing something different filled me with a sense of happiness. Not long after, we got the land it was perfect, she thought. It wasn’t a rural setting like you might be picturing. It’s not in the middle of nowhere. It’s about 10 minutes outside the town, and it was already seeing a lot of investment from other people.
That was bought, restaurant built. She even got proper kitchen equipment, did everything very well, hired the staff, and she opened. I didn’t see how much when it was open because I’m at home. But she was working really hard, and initially it was working. She was making money. After the first three months, she said the last month she made a profit of 30,000 baht. That was incredible, and I was really proud of her.
But it seemed to embolden her in a way like I’d never seen. She’s making money. And now because she’s making money, I feel like there’s a separation going on. Although she’s acting similarly, she’s now all about the business and not about our lives together which he had always been.
The Drift Apart
I think I’ve gone on too long with this reminiscing. During the 3 years after opening the restaurant, we continued to drift apart. Her restaurant was doing well, but our relationship wasn’t. And it was the building of the restaurant and her starting her own business that I started to see the change.
I asked her to consider closing down the restaurant. Let’s go away for a while and try to reconnect. But she didn’t want to. She was very happy about what she was doing, and she put all her concentration and all her effort and everything into that. From then, she seemed to have a sense of independence that she didn’t have before that she was able to do what she wanted when she wanted to do it, and she didn’t have to do anything for anybody anymore.
It was so upsetting to see this happen. I would never have guessed that it would have led to that. That’s when we decided to get divorced. It was with a heavy heart that I had to walk away, leave her to live her life without me, and I had to start again. She didn’t want to concentrate about us anymore. And for me, that was the beginning of the end.
Hearing other stories of how people’s wives started businesses and failed I wish she failed. If she did, maybe this wouldn’t have happened, and maybe she wouldn’t have changed. I learned that she closed the restaurant down two years after. She had enough of it. But she had the house, the restaurant, the land, and the car. I got my bike, and I still had my pension and my state pension I’m also getting now. My income is okay.
I couldn’t go back to England because I didn’t have a house. I didn’t want to stay in Thailand because of what happened with her, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. It made me a very bitter person. Twice now I had been divorced. Twice because my wife changed when a particular event happened a change that I had no control over and no responsibility for causing.
When we divorced, I left for Bangkok, devastated, but thinking practically, “You’ve got your income at least. See what you can do.” I never spoke to her again not once. I don’t know what she’s doing, if she has somebody else, or if she’s even living in the house. I have no idea. I used to think about it all the time. And I still spend time trying to work out what happened.
Where I Am Now
I’m a lot older and fortunate. I can still walk around. I still have my mental faculties, and that’s a positive. And if you want to know where I’m living, you could have probably already guessed. I’m living in the south of Spain living my second retirement, pretty much how I had envisioned from the start. The only thing is I expected to be living in my own house in Spain a big detached house with a pool. Instead, I’m living in a small house without a pool, but it’s not much of a burden.
Relationships can fail all over the world. One of the things you have to understand about Thailand is as a foreigner, you might come out worse. Or let’s rephrase that you will come out worse. She changed, and I didn’t.
But at least I have the memories, and at least I have my income, and touch wood still my health.
