My Move from the Algarve to Thailand
The cold and miserable days that I escaped from are nothing but a constant for me now and act as a cruel reminder of everything I lost. It’s 0°. I can’t afford to put the heating on, so I’m wrapped in five layers of clothing as well as a blanket. And to make things even worse, I can hear the neighbors next door arguing all the time. The walls are paper thin, and I live in a place that I used to drive past and turn my nose up, thinking that living somewhere like that would be worse than anything. I can promise you that this is my tiny flat surrounded by the sorts of people that I left my country to get away from. I feel like the final nail in the coffin of my life.
I think it’s only right to say how I found myself in this position in the first place because I thought the exact opposite of this was going to happen. I don’t think I can point to one single moment that caused this. It’s more like a multitude of different moments that all added together. Different stupid decisions, different expectations, and also hopes. I had an understanding that what I was doing was going to make my life better. I’d had enough of having a bad time and I was ready for a change. The problem I faced was that I made a tremendous miscalculation based on the understanding that people would behave in a way I would behave if I was in their position. It only made sense. I couldn’t understand why anybody wouldn’t behave like that because if I did, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Before Thailand The Algarve
I’d got to 51. I was divorced, two kids, lonely, miserable, and fighting the urge to just pack it in at work and hope for the best. I didn’t have anywhere near enough money to be able to do that at home. But I was thinking that I simply had had enough. I didn’t want to do anything else. I didn’t want to continue working. I just wanted time for myself and time to wind down and time to relax. I didn’t seem like a crazy wish. I just seemed like the natural progression of a life where hard work was a constant and enjoyment was a rarity because I saw no chance of getting to a point where I could enjoy myself at home.
That’s why I started looking at options overseas. I wasn’t a very adventurous person. I had never been. So I didn’t look to the Far East to start with. I’d never been that far before. Spent most of my holidays around Spain, Portugal, and Greece. In 2011, this is when I was 51 and when I was getting desperate, I made the decision that I was going to move to the Algarve in Portugal. I had always been my favorite destination, and it was my plan to go here and try and find a little bit of extra work, maybe behind a bar, maybe helping tourists. I didn’t have any firm ideas, but I did know I needed to leave where I was from.
I might as well skip ahead and say about 6 weeks after I arrived in the Algarve, I was already on the plane home. I had managed to find a job after I’d been here for a week, but it was paid a pittance. I was eating into my savings as well as working this very menial job, living in an awful place, and it wasn’t the escape I was expecting it to be. Arriving home, after I’d given up my house that I was renting, I now had nowhere to live, so I went to stay with a friend for a while. I wasn’t penniless. I had about 150 grand, but everywhere I was looking at as a place to live after everything went wrong for me in the Algarve I mean, it didn’t go wrong. I just wasn’t what I wanted it to be. I really thought that there was no hope for me whatsoever.
The First Trip to Thailand 2011
My friend, whose house I was spending a bit of time in while I was actively looking for a new place to rent, mentioned a work colleague of his who had gone to Thailand and who returned a different person. Apparently, that was where you went if you wanted cheap living, a great life, and the money you had, which wouldn’t be enough to live anywhere else, would actually be enough. Knowing nothing about Thailand, the best thing to have done would have been to have done some research and investigate if what was being said was real. But as soon as I heard that, I felt like I just had to go and see for myself. I convinced myself that by doing research, I would somehow stop myself from going. I would point to something to say that this isn’t real. Nowhere can be like this. Nowhere can be as this is being described. Yet, after I heard Thailand being mentioned by my friend who talked about his work colleague, I was flying here myself 2 weeks later, praying to God that it would be exactly like I was told it was. Thailand was my last chance. Thailand was the only thing I had left to cling on to where I could salvage some kind of dignified life. I was only going for 2 weeks, but those two weeks changed my life. They changed my life to such an incredible degree that I felt like I was the most fortunate person ever to have stumbled across Thailand as a place to live.
Although I’m no longer in Thailand today and I will say exactly what happened, I do spend a lot of time watching videos about Thailand and I’m really disheartened about the state of social media at the moment and the so called influencers who are seemingly doing everything they can to remove Thailand from Thailand and insert the West in its place. I mean, the reason I’m saying that is because it’s the only thing I can really clutch on to as a way to say, “Well, if I was in Thailand now, it wouldn’t be the same anyway, so never mind.” That’s the only thing I can say to myself to make things not as bad as they otherwise would be. In 2011, though, as soon as I arrived in Bangkok, I felt this kind of energy that I had not felt anywhere else I’d ever been. When you leave home, you’re used to everything being the same, everything moving at a slow pace, everything having to go through multiple channels before something happens. In Thailand, the exact opposite of that was true. I was like if something needed to be done, it was just done. Initially, I was really attracted to that. Yet, I didn’t really understand that that just mean I was entering Thailand during a period where there was very big change.
I had no idea where to book when I planned his Thailand trip. So, I just did what I was told that the other guy did my friend’s work colleague deciding to spend a bit of time in Bangkok, then some in Pattaya, and leave a few days open just to see if there was somewhere else I would like to go. Bangkok in 2011 was a city going through dramatic change. I mean, I’ve already said that, but you could tell in certain parts of the city that old and new were right next to each other, and old seemed to be being replaced by new everywhere you looked. I felt so excited and vibrant and like anything was possible. And this was before I discovered the nightlife. I’d always heard whispers throughout the years about Thailand and what it was known for and why people went, but I never paid too close attention to it. I thought it was more like an urban myth or a legend. Nowhere could have places like that. But when I stumbled across Soi 4 on my second night here, I was flabbergasted because this really was like heaven on earth. Back then the prices were sensible. Back then the girls appeared more grateful. Technology was around, but it hadn’t ripped away the essence of what it means to be in Thailand at that moment. And the conversations you would have with girls were very different to the conversations I would have with girls much later in the future.
I suppose that’s giving a bit of the game away. I didn’t move to Thailand and everything failed quickly. I had a slow combination of a multitude of events and bad decisions that caused this for me. And I can point to that first time in the bars as being the moment I went from thinking Thailand was a fantastic place and maybe I could live here to believing that Thailand was the only place that mattered in the world. The thought of not living here made me feel like I would be missing out on something that I wasn’t fortunate enough to have at home. My time in Thailand got even better throughout the two weeks that I was here. I felt like I did a deep dive into the Bangkok nightlife before heading to Pattaya, only to discover that the nightlife there was even better and even more affordable and the girls even more beautiful. I guess I fell in love at least five times during those two weeks. I wasn’t naive enough to think keeping in contact with any of those girls was a good idea, but I most definitely felt like I’d found my place. I was like and this is no hint of a lie but it was like Thailand had somehow reached into the depths of my mind, pulled out all my ideas and my dreams and my understanding of what the best country would be like, taken those ideas and molded a country around it. But not only that, somehow they’d seen my dreams and everything that I felt a great country would be, and somehow they’d made that country better than that. This is how much I loved Thailand when I was here.
The thing that made it even better was that it was so cheap. I felt that with the money I had at that time, it would be more than enough to just see out my days in peace.
Returning Home to Plan the Move
I returned home, promising myself that I would make this work whatever way I could. As I boarded the plane home, I knew I would be back in Thailand soon. I felt like I had a purpose at last. I felt like my life had a meaning at last. I was like for my whole life I was never where I should be or who I should be because I wasn’t in a place that I fit into. But now I found Thailand. Everything made sense.
I did have a few houses to look at. Before I left, I was intending to rent somewhere and just kind of wish that Thailand was as good as I hoped it was on the understanding that usually things aren’t as good as you hope they are. So, I kind of expected things to be different. Of course, I canceled those viewings, spent a little bit longer with my friend, and just tried to work out exactly what I would need to do to be able to move to Thailand.
I hadn’t looked at the rules yet. I was a bit concerned that I wouldn’t be able to move here because there wouldn’t be any kind of visa that would allow it. When I discovered the retirement visa and extension, and the fact I had enough money to be able to get that, and when I understood that I could renew it every single year without having to leave the country, that changed everything. All of a sudden, there was a path that saw me being able to move to Thailand right here and then, and I wasn’t about to hesitate.
Based on what I spent when I was here for those 2 weeks, I did spend quite a lot going out and having a good time, but I also experienced just how cheap things could be. You could go out and have a meal on the street for less than a quid. That came with free water as well, so a meal for under a quid. I’d seen places that you could live in for less than 200 quid a month. And I’d seen nice meals for five or six quid. With what I had, I thought I would be able to make it last.
The thing I wasn’t banking on was just how much I loved the girls here and how they would play a big part in my life. And I’ve heard this so many times and I think it’s very important to say because people will never learn. But I thought and on hear that if you me a girl like that, her dream would be to align with your dreams. Her dream would be to make you happy because in return she will be able to have a better life. I have heard that too many times and too many people seem to think the same thing and get ripped up by it. But I was just so excited on so many fronts and there was nothing I could point to to think “if only this could change, Thailand would be even better.” I was like Thailand picked every single box that you could ever need picking. And not only that, it somehow managed to invent a load of other boxes that had been picked as well.
My friend who I was staying with noticed how much happier I was and how much more relaxed I was and how excited I was about things for the first time forever. The minute he found out that I was going back in a week, he said he was going to join me as well. He hadn’t had a holiday for a long time. I couldn’t wait for him to see it as well. And I couldn’t wait to star my life because this was everything I’d waited for, everything I’d looked forward to. Even when you’re looking forward to something that you don’t know what you’re looking forward to this was it.
Moving to Thailand
And hardly any time after I arrived back from that two week holiday, I was flying back to Thailand with a brand new retirement visa stamped in my passport and enough money in the bank to see me out. I was on top of the world. I really was. Those two weeks with my friend were a bit of a blur. I was in full on holiday mode with him being here and spent most of the time in Pattaya. And when he left, he was saying he was going to be moving here soon because they liked it just as much as I did. With him leaving, though, I decided it was time to take a step back from his holiday lifestyle that I could quite easily have get drawn into and spent too much money. And I started looking more into Thailand for long term living. I stopped going to the bars entirely. I rented a place in Pattaya that was only 150 quid a month and I was just easing myself into my new life.
After a few months, I’d already extended my visa. I was very hesitant about doing that because I’d heard how easy it was, but until you try it for yourself, you never know. I found it a very painless process and that gave me more confidence that I would be able to live in Thailand forever. I’d spent those months in Pattaya and aside from the first two weeks when my friend was here, I hadn’t met a girl or spent time in the bars. I didn’t feel like I needed to. I did miss that part of Pattaya, though. That was one of the things that drew me here in the first place. But knowing myself as well as I did, I knew that one night would lead to two, which would lead to a week, and that would lead to me spending all my money here. And that was something I wasn’t going to allow to happen.
Based on the money I had, I knew I couldn’t go crazy, that I would be able to spend more than double what a reasonable salary was in Thailand at the time for a local. And it was that that made me think the money I had was more than enough.
Koh Samet A New Beginning
I’d say it was around this time that I decided to leave Pattaya and go to an island close by called Koh Samet. I wanted a small break because that was so close by in the province of Rayong. I thought it would be a great place to go. I was only about an hour to get to the pier where you go on the boat to the island, and I couldn’t have picked a better day to have been going. The sea was so clear and so calm, and it was so bright that it was impossible to feel depressed. I got on this wooden style boat along with around another 30 people going to the island. And just under an hour later, we were pulling into the harbor. I mean, it was very small and we had to climb off the boat onto the boat next to it and walk across that and climb onto the boat next to that as well before finally making it to the pier. And there were a few older people here. I mean, I was quite old, but still good on my feet. But people really were struggling going from boat to boat. But that was one of the things that you loved about Thailand at home all the health and safety nonsense would really remove all the fun and excitement from something like this. As soon as I arrived at the island, there were lots of taxis here offering you a ride up to the main area, just over a kilometer away. Jump on the back of a pickup and they’ll drop you off. Back then, the national park entrance fee was further up the island, not at the harbor where it is today. I don’t know why, but I always felt the dual pricing was quite perverse in Thailand, something I’d witnessed two times before this. I got off about 100 meters away from the national park sign and didn’t have to pay.
I had an incredible week on that island and I started out wishing I could live here. The more I researched it, the more it became clear that living somewhere like that was quite difficult. It was a national park to start with and finding somewhere to rent was difficult. The island had a small local community, but as a place to live, it just wasn’t developed enough. But on my last night here, I took a walk back down in the direction of the harbor where I was going to be getting the boat the following day. I had something to eat a few hundred meters away from the 7 Eleven that you would see at the time next to the national park entrance and then I walked a bit further just thinking about where to go next. The thought going through my mind at the time was I was going to go to Koh Chang next, and as that thought was playing in my mind there was a small place to have a drink on the left as you were walking down towards the harbor. But I just decided to go in and have a drink. I ordered a beer. I was quite empty, so I didn’t think anything more than this was a place for a drink. I made my way through my first beer. Starting to get a bit dark outside as we’re approaching the evening. Then a few more people arrive. Then, not long after that, about three girls appeared in the bar. At the time, I didn’t know they worked at the bar. I’d walked past his place before. I’d been all over the island, and while there did seem to be bars here, it wasn’t anything like Pattaya. I didn’t know that there were bars like this on the island. Perhaps this was just one. I was a very different setup, though, to Pattaya. But as people are coming and going and I’m having more drinks, I was just in the mood to relax. Before long, I was a bit soused. One of the girls started talking to me. I thought she was drinking here as well. Like I said, I didn’t know she worked here as well as the other two. They all had drinks and were chatting. Not really to other customers, but sometimes you saw that. None of them were behind the bar. There was another girl who probably did that work and we were just talking. She was asking me what I’m doing here, telling her that I’m visiting. I live in Pattaya. And then I asked her how long she’s been here and what she’s doing. That was when she told me that she worked at the bar and has been doing that for a few months. I wasn’t expecting that, but it was like we were already speaking with each other, so it didn’t matter. I bought her a drink and we started talking some more. Still, though, I hadn’t understood that it was that sort of bar. Perhaps she was just a waitress or something else. A few beers later, for me and for her, that was when I started actually thinking that perhaps this was one of those bars. And I was in such a good mood and so happy in the moment that I thought that if this is what it is, then I should enjoy it for what it is. And I found that we left together to go and have something to eat. I had already eaten dinner, but I hadn’t eaten anything else that day. So, I just said, “Well, I can call that lunch and have another dinner.” She said she knew a place that was very nice. Going back down towards the harbor, we went to this little restaurant that was kind of on a structure about 30 or 40 meters into the sea. I was in a sheltered area, so it wasn’t choppy, and they had lots of places around here where hey seem to farm fish, but you had to get on this small little boat that was pulled across with a rope. That really made for a fun experience. We had a great meal. Then I suppose it’s quite obvious what happened next.
By the following morning, I’d already convinced myself that this was a very different situation to doing the same thing in Pattaya. Very different also to doing the same thing in Bangkok because I only saw that one bar. I wasn’t in your face. And she wasn’t like all the other bar girls that I’d met before. With that being said, I decided to extend my time here. She didn’t leave my side for the next week. That was one of the beauties of being retired I didn’t have to be back in Pattaya for anything. I could be anywhere I wanted, and I was loving the island, loving going around the island with her to all the little secret beaches that you would have to stumble across. And I was starting to really like her. She was 33, so not exactly as young as some of the girls I’d met in Pattaya, who were as young as 20. She seemed to be very switched on, very good understanding of what she wanted. When I asked her why did she choose to come and work at a place like this, why not Pattaya or Bangkok? She just said she preferred somewhere more laid back, somewhere quieter, and she loved how things were on the island. She had the usual sob story about having two kids back in a village in Isaan, how her Thai partner had left her to look after her two kids, and how she wasn’t able to make money here. But she also said she wasn’t someone who could go and enjoy the craziness of Pattaya, and also how her family were quite poor and needed help as well. The number she was talking about, though and again back in 2011, this could have been 2012; my memory fails me but it wasn’t a lot of money that she sent to them. And it sounded like what she did send them made a lot of difference. She only sent 8,000 baht a month, she said, and she went to the mainland to send the money from here. In terms of what she spent, she didn’t spend much, and it was clear that you could live very cheaply in Thailand if you needed to, and she was a prime example of that.
She mentioned the fact it was time for her to go and send money back to her family and she was going to go across to the mainland. This was about another few days after I’d extended for another week. Of course, I was helping her financially because she wasn’t working, but I found out that she was going and I asked if I could join her and maybe spend a bit of time together here. I was open to anything, maybe going back to the island afterwards. I even though about asking her to go to Pattaya with me. But first things first, let’s just go to the mainland, which we did. It was another amazing day to be on that boat. So picturesque, so blue that it was impossible to be depressed again. It really was a place like that. And after we arrived, we went to the bank. I gave her the 8,000 baht plus a bit more to send back to her family. And then it was like, now what do we do? I kind of felt like she was waiting for me to either say goodbye or give her a bit more money or ask if I wanted to do anything. But I was having really strong feelings for her. So I said to her instead, “I don’t have to be anywhere. I want to spend more time with you. Is there anything you would like to do?” She just said, “Up to you.” A very common thing that you would hear. I just said, “How about we go and stay in a hotel around his area because I’d not seen it yet.” She said that was fine. So, we found ourselves getting transported to a resort no too far away from the pier, kind of a bit south. Prices there were even cheaper than on the island, considerably cheaper. And while I was thinking about living on the island, and it wouldn’t have been possible anything that I would have wanted to have lived in would have been too expensive. They didn’t have that much choice. This place just seemed like it was paradise. You could see the island from where we were, and what started out as being a few days turned into being a few weeks. Then after being here for a month with her, it was like we were made for each other. And this was the part of Thailand that I was mean to be in. At that moment in time, I was the happiest I’d ever been with this amazing girl in an amazing part of the country that seemed to be very popular. I was retired and it really felt like the world was both of our oysters.
I just wanted to make sure that she had feelings for me like I had for her because if she did, she would need to be mine. We were made for each other. I decided to put it to her. How would you feel about becoming my girlfriend? I was terrified asking that question because I didn’t know what I would do if she said no. I guess at that time I was still unaware about how things really worked because I needn’t’ worry. I needn’t’ worry that she would say no. She didn’t. She said yes. And with that it was then, let’s get back to my place in Pattaya and take things from here. Firstly, though, she said she needed to go back to the island to take some of her things. She was living in a very tiny room together with a few other girls, but she didn’t want to leave her things, so we did that. a quick there and back. One night we did spend in an amazing hotel right on the beach. And at this moment in time, I can’t believe that my life seems to be coming together so well. I guess I probably have spent over budget ever since I was with her. But that wasn’t a major concern because by the time we were living together, things should settle down. And based on what I was spending when I was living the single life in Pattaya, I knew that I should have enough for both of us, as well as sending 8,000 baht back to her family.
When we go into Pattaya, it just didn’t feel the same anymore. I left loving it, but when I returned, I felt a lot bigger connection to the place that we were before. I just seemed to be so much more beautiful, so much more idyllic. And of course, that was just because I was here with this amazing girl. I could clearly tell, though, that she never went to work in Pattaya. And now I knew why because it was just no peaceful enough for her. I wasn’t like Koh Samet. She really seemed out of place in Pattaya. She said it was too busy, too many people. And I actually felt sorry for her in that moment because it was clear that working in a bar was right at the bottom of everything she would have done. At that time, it was her only choice, and going to the island was kind of the best of a bad situation. Up until then, I guess I just though girls loved working in the bars because how I pictured it at the time, I mean, before leaving Pattaya, was more like imagine being paid to drink in the best bars in the world and spend time with people that did what they did. I could have done that job and loved it. But then again, I was having that mentality, thinking about the sorts of girls who would be interested in me and as being the sort of girl that I would be interested in. I probably wouldn’t have worked out the way I would have wanted. We only spent a day in Pattaya before heading back to Rayong, where we checked into a hotel before looking for a place to live. There was a reasonable choice. A few condo buildings dotted around right on the beach, and it really made for a very picturesque place to live. They had a lot of bars around here as well, although not as many as Pattaya and not the same sort. Just the right amount, I felt, and a few really nice restaurants. You could also head into town where they had things going on. Although, aside from the tourist beach areas, it was quite a heavy industry type of place, although you couldn’t tell that it was like that from the beach areas. Before long, we found a place to rent. Quite a high up unit with a great balcony and a view of the sea. And it was everything I was expecting about moving to Thailand and then some.
Four Perfect Years
Once we moved in, life just began. And I said, as the days go by, I’m feeling an even bigger connection to her. And she seems to be just everything that I’ve always dreamed of. At that moment in time, if we spent about 50,000 baht a month, which we did for the first 3 months, including me giving 8,000 baht to her family, I had more than enough money to last. Now, if you’re expecting me to say anything negative here, I’ll tell you about anything bad that happened. Nothing bad happened for the next four whole years. We never go married, never went to the village, and it just felt like we were made for each other. She went quite often to the village, and that worked well, and occasionally we would leave where we were living, sometimes going to Bangkok, which was only 2 hours north, and sometimes to Pattaya if we needed a change of scenery. We were just happy where we were, and it just seemed to be perfect. The only way I could describe it was paradise. I really was. And the decision to move to Thailand was the best decision I made because nothing could have made me think otherwise.
Unfortunately, good things never seemed to last. I found out I guess this was around early 2016 that this perfect girl, who was my girlfriend for such a long time, had been hiding something from me. And how I found out was purely by luck more than management. By this point, I was giving her 15,000 a month instead of 8,000, but that was okay. We were still able to stick within budget. Everything’s fine on that front, but she was starting to spend a little bit more time in the village. Whereas before, she would maybe do a week every month, now she was doing two weeks every month, and that started to be a bit too much for me. I felt during the first years we were together that one week every month was quite perfect because we never go to the point where we could fall out or argue or have big problems with each other because we had 3 weeks together and then a week apart. And I thought it was perfect. When she started staying longer and it became 2 weeks, that was when I asked her if she could go back to how it was. That was the first time she started to push back. She’s got commitments, she’s got things to do, and she’s going to be doing it his way forever. I felt like I wasn’t in a position to argue.
But then she made a mistake, and I found out that in the village all along, the father of her kids was living here and she was basically going to see him and her kids and family together. That was a huge shock. Basically, I’d been her job for the past four or so years. While she hadn’t taken anything more than what I was giving her, which had become 15,000 a month, it was crushing to think that all the love that I had for her and all the love that she professed for me it was all a lie ever since we were together. And she was using how I felt about her to get money out of me. When I found that out, of course, we ended our relationship, and I go into a really big depression. I thought I was going to be with her forever. She wasn’t too young like you see some guys going for at this point, since we had been together, she was already 37 when we me a 33. I still wasn’t even 60. So it wasn’t like it wasn’t a bad age gap. I found it was perfect.
After about a week, though, the first thing I did was move out of that condo and into another one. I didn’t want to continuously think about her where I was living, and that helped. And slowly over the next few months I was starting to feel better. I did notice the difference because I wasn’t giving her money anymore. What I had for my budge mean I could actually go out and ea and go out and drink more, and I was enjoying the single life, which I did for the next year and a bit. I guess I dodged a bullet with that relationship because so many bad things happened to guys considerably worse than what happened to me. And perhaps the way it went wrong gave me a false sense of confidence that these huge losses are just that very rare.
A Second Chance
I wasn’t like I was hoping to get into another relationship, but I was open to anything. And I was going to the bars around where I was living occasionally, and I just loved them better than the ones in Pattaya. they weren’t so many, but they were more than you would think. I just liked how they were more peaceful and more laid back and a lot less in your face. And the girls that worked there were different a different breed to the girls that worked in Pattaya. I’m saying that because in 2018 I was in a bar I’d been to quite a lot of times, but they had two new girls working here. Again, “girls” is a loose term because they were in their 30s. One of them caught my eye immediately. She was stunning again from Isaan. But again, if I remembered the story of my last girlfriend, only this time if anything got serious between us, I would have to go and make sure myself that there were no secrets being kept in the village.
I’d say things moved very quickly between us. Before long, she was living in my place. I even went to help her take the things out of the place she was living in. And I’d never seen such a sorry place in my life. A very tiny room that she shared with a few other girls. And it just pained me to think how awful it would have been to share a room with other girls in their 30s with no air conditioning, sharing the same bathroom. I really was a sorry place to live. That’s why I felt so great being able to get her to move into my place because she was really moving up in the world. And again, I saw the fact that I was doing that and giving her a better life as something that she would respect.
I wasn’t rushing into anything. I started out by giving her 10,000 a month, which she was very happy with. And after she’d been with me for a number of months, she said she needed to go and visit her family. I made it quite clear that I was going with her. Initially, she was quite hesitant, saying she would like to go by herself. But I had old her what happened with my last relationship, and there was no way I was going to let that happen again. “If you go yourself, we’re through.” And I was kind of hoping she would let me go, because it would have really hurt to have no been with her. But if she did, that was my first time going to Isaan. I had mixed feelings. I was different to what I was used to in Thailand, but the country itself was beautiful. You could tell it was a lot poorer, a lot less industry here, a lot less business here, and especially girls like her who came from villages like where she was from. they had very few opportunities. That’s why you understood why they went to work in the bars.
I was sure, though, after visiting the family of which I agreed to get married to her just in order to be able to go here without the family losing face in the village that she was who I thought she was and that she wasn’t hiding any secrets in the village. When we returned back to Rayong, life again just continued. The next month went by and more months go by, and I actually feel like I love this girl so much more than my last girlfriend. She’s a lot more loving, a lot more affectionate, and I was actually starting to feel like I did want to marry her, which I never had feelings to do before. I didn’t ask her to marry me straight away. I was just happy and I felt like I didn’t want to make any changes which could make my life different. I did ask her probably two months later just out on the beach one day. Very beautiful day having drinks on the beach, and I pulled out a ring that I went to get, and we became engaged.
From that moment on, I felt very lucky. But one thing I suppose I didn’t pick up on was ever since we became engaged, she seemed to want more or expect more. But it was like if we were going to be married, we would need to do something. We couldn’t just live like this forever. We would need to actually solidify things and do something more. She said things such as, “Because you’re older than me, I want to make sure I will be okay when I’m older. I love you so much,” she told me all the time. She never old me otherwise. “But because I love you, we have to think about the future. Because I want to commit to you, and if I commit to you, I have to think about that.” The way she said it at the time, it did make sense to me. If we weren’t married, in her mind, perhaps the relationship could end a any time and she could move on to different things. If we were married, that would be a commitment to each other. Therefore, we have to think about the future.
The Business
I was only a week after we got engaged, but she said she’d been speaking to a friend of hers who still worked at the bar where she used to work. Apparently, there was a place for rent close by, and she brough it up with me. Why don’t we open our own place? We could build it up. We could make more money, and also it would be some security for the future for both of us. No one up until then had I thought about doing anything in Thailand. I was retired. I was on a retirement visa, and I didn’t want to do any sort of business or start work. I made that clear to her. She said that I wouldn’t have to do anything. We could open this place. She could run it and manage it, and I could spend time here but not in a working sense, just in a “spend time together” sense. She wasn’t saying she would run it and expect me to stay at home. She wanted me to be here together, but I wouldn’t have to do any of the work. I wouldn’t need to change my visa, and therefore, we wouldn’t need to open a company or do anything too difficult. I told her I would think about it. Let’s get married first. She said, “Fine.”
And over the next couple of months, while we were waiting for the date to get married, we spoke about it on a few occasions. We went to look at the place a few times, and because it was where it was, there wasn’t any key money to pay. I was just taking over the rent, which wasn’t expensive. We would have to spend money on renovation to get the place up to standards, but it wasn’t going to cost a lot of money or need a big investment. Ever since I moved to Thailand, of course, my money had gone down, but it was going down in line with how much I expected it to go down by. I did reckon that I had enough money to see me out. But because we were getting married and thinking about her future, that’s why I thought, “Okay, this might be a number of years’ living expenses we’re investing in this, but it should bring money in and it should also help her in the future.” Based on that, after we were married up in the village and no, I didn’t pay any money to the family we didn’t bother doing the registration at the district office because we didn’t see the need. I had the visa already, and we were married in the village, and that was the most important thing to her.
about halfway through 2018, we decided to take the plunge and take over his place. I guess I probably invested all in, including the renovation, about £20,000, which was just over 2 years’ living expenses. But the rent was affordable, as were the other bills that we had to pay. And the girls that were working here just worked for drinks, so they didn’t have any salary. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to give away the location of where it was, but to start with, things were going better than we could have hoped. It’s not like we were bringing in a lot of money or making a lot of money, but it was replacing the income that I would have used that money for if I didn’t invest in the business. So, I think everything is great, and I’m spending a lot of my time here. When I’m not here, my wife’s here, and she just seemed to fit in perfectly to the role of a business owner. I continued throughout the rest of the year, throughout 2019 as well. It’s not bringing in a lot of money, but it’s just enough where my existence in Thailand is safe and guaranteed.
COVID and the Downward Spiral
Then we had COVID. That really threw a spanner in the works because all of a sudden, no tourists. While we didn’t have to close down straight away, we just weren’t getting people here anymore apart from a few expats, and we weren’t really even able to cover the rent and the other bills with the customers that we were having. But we didn’t need to close down yet because we didn’t know what was going to happen, and because we were open, I made a very stupid decision which was to invest a little bit more money into the business, thinking that we could turn it into a hub for expats in the area. Probably £10,000 I put into that, which I do think was the most ridiculous thing I did, because not long after, we were told to close because of the new rules that came out, and then we’re living in our condo, money in the business, and still having to pay rent because the landlord refused to not take it. I was concerned if we stopped renting it that they would take it over and we’d have lost all the investment in it. So, I kept paying. I could tell my wife was struggling throughout this time, and what started as an innocent little request for money to help her family who were struggling because of COVID turned into about 6 months of me handing over money left, right, and center for different reasons that she kept bringing to me. Different family members with different problems. And it was as if she was using COVID as an excuse to get money out of me all the time. I didn’t see that. I just reassured myself that it’s a very difficult time in the world. People are genuinely struggling, and I am able to help. When we can reopen, everything should get back on track.
When we could reopen, I guess I’d probably given over close to £15,000 to help various people that needed helping. I was getting concerned because now my money was getting a lot lower than it should have been at that moment. I didn’t have enough to live for the rest of my life anymore. And now we’re relying on this business to bring money in. We could open before the entry restrictions were eased. We did. We’re not really getting many people in. I mean, any. Then when the country reopened without any restrictions, while you’re seeing lots of videos of how places seem to be busier and everything seems to be getting back on track, where we were, it was as if nothing had changed and you couldn’t even tell that the country had reopened. Slowly, though, there is a trickle of people coming in, and I hoped that things are going to work again. But at this point, my money is going down so fast, and my wife is very distant because she’s trying very hard with the business that if we hadn’t done anything would have been a lot better for us. If I hadn’t given money to anybody, we hadn’t done this business, everything would have been fine. I think that the reason she is being distant is just because of worry. She could have just stayed being the wife I me if we didn’t do anything, but we did, so there was no point arguing about it or thinking “what if.” She was always going regularly to the business, though. She went every day. That was her thing. Opened, and people were coming in, and I started going less and less. And it go to the point when I wasn’t even going in once a week. I kind of just left it up to her because I was struggling mentally because if it didn’t pick up, everything would come crashing down within the next year or two. She was coming home daily, though. Often you could tell she had quite a lot to drink. But again, that was just part of the business, and it was difficult. I was a difficult time for both of us.
The thing was, though, what I found out next made everything considerably worse, because I found out that she’d been doing things that she used to do before I me her in the place that I was paying for. Yes, there was a little room at the back. Let’s just leave it at that. And whether she’d somehow convinced herself that because I hadn’t been here for a month and I hardly ever went and I wasn’t going to ever go again, or she just didn’t care but when I arrived at the place one day and two of the other girls who were working here appeared very shocked to see me, I knew immediately what was wrong. And sure enough, 10 minutes later, out she walked with this guy. And she knew she couldn’t hide it. I’d found out the worst. She tried to justify herself, saying, “It’s fine. It’s a bar. This is what happens. Don’ worry about it.” When she said that, I understood that this person that I fell in love with and gave my life to and invested money into this bar she never actually felt the same way about me. And again, just like my first girlfriend, had used me for money, and now she’d been caught out. The only thing his time that made it worse was I knew I didn’t want to be with her anymore. That was a definite. But all my money was invested in his place in her name. I mean, not all of my money, but pretty much all of it. And I guess I had around £30,000 left. That was about 4 years’ living expenses. And at the time I expected to live a lot longer than 4 years. When all this kind of happened, I think just how quick I found out about it and how quick it made me understand that this life that I was enjoying, I wasn’t going to be able to enjoy anymore that sent me into a really bad mental state. She tried to say she was sorry, she wouldn’t do it again. And she even tried to say that she though I knew she was doing that and I didn’t care because we were trying to do this business together. But I know that she can’t have been serious because that was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. I just didn’t see her the same way anymore, and we had to separate. I mean, we were married in the village, but not legally. So that made it easier on that front. But I didn’t want to be in that part of Thailand anymore. I didn’t even know what I was going to do to be able to stay here for the rest of my life, which is what the plan was all along.
I decided to go back to Pattaya, try to get my head straight. But what happened instead was me just going crazy around the bars and drinking too much and spending time with girls trying to drown out my sorrows. Yet, all that was happening was I was blowing through even more money. After I spent through about £10,000 in the space of 3 months, that was when I realized that I needed to salvage what little I had, return home, and come up with another solution because I wanted to be in Thailand, but at that moment, I couldn’t afford it. Two bad relationships, two people lying to me. It’s really shocking to actually think that that’s what happened. Leaving Thailand was the worst thing I ever had to do. I was the worst feeling I ever felt because I didn’t want to leave. I had about £20,000 when I returned home. And since then, I’ve made it my life’s mission to get back to Thailand and try again when I can. I know where I want to live. I know where I want to be. The thing I know the most is I know I don’t want to get into a relationship with anyone because that’s what caused this to happen.
The hardest part of it, though, is that I really loved my first girlfriend only to find out that I was a job for her so I didn’t lose too much money apart from what I gave her when we were together. My second girlfriend, who became my village wife the things that she was doing behind my back in a place that I was paying for is just disgusting to think about. But that’s what happened, and I can’t believe it because it doesn’t even ring true that somebody would do that.
Advice and the Future
My advice to anybody would be if you’re going to Thailand, put yourself first. If you have to get into a relationship, make sure that whatever you’re doing, that relationship isn’t going to make your stay in Thailand more difficult. Because if it does, it’s not worth it. I made that mistake twice. Go away with it the first time, but the second time I didn’t, and all I want to do is go back to Thailand, but I don’t know when I will be able to. It’s been about 2 years since I’ve been here, and I’m not closer to getting back. Perhaps I will just have to wait for my pension, which I am due in a few years’ time. That will be enough to live in Thailand. So at least I have that to hold on to.
But as I don’t have the heating on because I can’t afford to turn it on as I end this. When I say I can’t afford to turn it on, I mean I can’t afford to waste that money because that’s Thailand money. That’s why I’m living in such an awful place, a place I would never have considered living in before, because I want to save my Thailand money for that. I promise myself I will get back here for another go, which is why I rue the day I ever got involved with a girl in Thailand or two girls, that is because nothing good came of it. I only had to go home because of it. And that should be proof enough that it’s simply not worth getting into a relationship if there’s a chance it could ruin your life. I really ruined my life.
Thailand is where I want to be, and Thailand is where I expect to be when I can be. It’s going to be a while, and I don’t know what’s going to happen during the two years it takes until I get my pension. I just hope I’m still around to be able to enjoy Thailand for a final time.
