Thailand Expat Retirement Dream Collapses After Village Investments and Divorce
I touched down at Bangkok International Airport on the 1st of February 2005. I can remember the day like it was yesterday. The reason being, it was my 50th birthday. You might be thinking I’m a pretty old guy right now, and that couldn’t be more accurate. Don Mueang International Airport this was, and I was in Thailand for my third time.
I knew what the game was. I knew what it was all about. I’d been there, done that, and enjoyed it countless times, and this time was hopefully going to be no different. I’d spent most of the last two times I was in Thailand in Pattaya, the place that just felt the most Thailand-like to me. I guess I was like older guys who considered Thailand to be one thing and one thing only, which was the sort of place that a guy down on his luck from back at home would go to meet a girl.
That was what Thailand was for, and that was Thailand to me. It really pains me to see what Thailand‘s becoming today. It’s something, not that it really goes to show how disingenuous many people are, but we can’t change the passage of time. We can only reminisce about what things used to be like. I wanted to bring up my third time there because it was the time when I made a really big decision that would affect my life moving forwards.
The first two times I was there, I had a good time, two weeks each time, as I suppose I was getting myself closer to making the decision that Thailand would be a big part of my life and would be a place that I would live eventually. Although I wasn’t really at that point yet, it was my third time there that I decided that when I had enough money, I would definitely be retiring to Thailand. I wasn’t expecting that to be anytime soon. I was 50. I was still working.
I still needed to make money. I still needed to save money. I was playing by the old rules of Thailand where money went so much further than it does today. But the baht was so much weaker than it was today. And those were the rules I was playing by as I was coming to this decision.
Meeting Her and Building a Long Distance Relationship
During the two weeks that I was there, I also met a girl, I suppose, which hastened my decision. Although it wasn’t something I was going to do straight away, move to Thailand, I did tell myself and I promised myself and I made a promise to myself that Thailand would be where I would live when I could. The girl that I met, she was different to all the other girls that I’d met before, and I know how that might sound because everybody says that their girl is different, but she really was up until this point. During my first two times in Thailand, I probably met and spent time with at least five girls. She was my sixth girl in Thailand, the first one I met on my third time.
There was a girl that I ended up spending the rest of my holiday with, the whole two weeks. By the end of that holiday, I was already committed to the thought of being with her for the rest of my life. I left, we kept in touch, and I became a regular source of income for her, and I believed everything she told me when it came to what she did. She stopped working in the bar, she stopped meeting other guys, and she just committed solely to me. Why wouldn’t I believe that?
I didn’t at the time know too much about the things that went on and the things that girls did. I didn’t know much about that because there wasn’t a huge online community that we have today that warns guys about such things. That wasn’t available at the time. At the time, you had guys who would tell stories about things that happened, and you’d hear stories through people who had heard them from other people, and you never got the first-hand truth. I always thought that they were a bit exaggerated or taken a bit too far.
I spent the whole next year sending money to that girl, and we were speaking not every day because it wasn’t very cheap to call at the time. They had cheap packages, but it still ended up putting about 5 pounds a day on, something along those lines. So, it wasn’t that cheap to top up the phone. But, we spoke at least four or five times a week, and I sent her money up until the point when it came to me meeting her the year after. A whole year had gone by, and I thought that she’d saved herself for me.
I thought she’d kept her end of the bargain like I had. I guess I hadn’t really had the opportunity to meet anybody else because at home I was just another guy who was overlooked. Another guy who nobody would turn and look at again. I was that guy at home, but in Thailand I wasn’t. So, I kept my end of the bargain, and I thought she kept hers.
Discovering the Truth in 2006
I was back in Thailand in 2006. Although, I can’t remember the month that time because it wasn’t for my 50th birthday. I was turning 51, or I’d already turned 51 by the time I was there. And she came to meet me at Don Mueang. It was like we’d just seen each other the previous day. I believed we’d hit it off straight away again, I suppose, because I was thinking about her every single day, and she was what made it easy for me to go to work, and she was what made it easy for me to do the commute. She was what made life worth living for me during that year that I wasn’t there. I suppose I thought that I was doing the same for her as well. I thought I kept her going. She met me, she was great with me, and she was perfect.
She was just what you’d want a girl to be who you hadn’t seen for a long time. We went to the hotel, and it’s like we’re just hitting off on old times. I believed she’d just come down from her village in Isaan to be able to meet up with me. I was talking about how things were and how things were going. We spent the first, I would say, 5 days. This could be wrong, can’t remember this, but it is a long time ago. We spent the first five or so days together of my time there. But, she was getting calls all the time during those five days on her old phone. Amazing what phones were like back then. So much better than they are today with all this modern technology nonsense that’s ruining the world.
It was so much easier back then. It was a call and a text, and that was it. But, she’s getting calls, and she’s not picking the phone up. One time she actually had something like this happen. My memory serves me not great, but it’s not as good as I’d like. Could be slightly wrong or slightly off, but that doesn’t necessarily matter. Eventually, she ended up picking the phone and speaking to a guy in English. She was out on the balcony of the hotel. I was in the bathroom. She thought I was and I must have come out too quickly for her.
” Something like that. I approached her about this, but she didn’t want to admit it. “ Nothing was admitted to. When I had an opportune moment, I took a look at her phone and there were text messages from all sorts of guys, different numbers, different international codes. It quickly became apparent that she was involved with lots of other guys who were also sending her money. She had a rota of them going on and this was back in 2006. To start with, I felt devastated by that because I’d sent money to her. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was still 150 pounds a month that I’d send. Over 1,000 pounds that I’d sent her that year. I’d given her that and that was my holiday allowance that I could have saved and had a better time with and could have gone for longer.
But all of a sudden, I found out these things. When I saw the phone and I approached her about it and asked her what was going on, it was undeniable. ” All these nonsense things. I didn’t care about that. As far as I was concerned, based on what I knew about Thailand and based on the things that I had already understood about Thailand, 150 pounds a month was more than enough for her to be able to tick over until I came back. She didn’t need more. I just didn’t realize that there was such greed in Thailand at the time or even today. I didn’t realize that greed in Thailand was so endemic. They were the be-all and end-all for them. They belonged with each other, the greed.
The greed was systematic, I felt. I just couldn’t believe that she’d elevated herself in her own mind to a point where she needed to take money from multiple guys and make multiple guys believe that she’s in love with them when she wasn’t. It was soul-destroying, but it opened my eyes to Thailand a little bit more and made me understand that, “Okay, you might meet a girl in a bar, you might fall in love, you might think that she’s everything to you, but are you everything for her? I believed in that situation that I was until I found that out and now I wasn’t. That was a very important lesson for me in Thailand, a huge lesson because what it did for me was tell me under no circumstances should you ever meet a girl in a bar for anything serious. You should never meet in a girl girl in a massage shop for anything serious, too. You should never want to be in a relationship with the girl when you are abroad in your own country and she’s back in Thailand because the chance of her being faithful and the chance of her actually doing what she should do, which is to save herself for you, be there to answer the phone when you ring and basically just take over in life until you get back. That’s what she should be doing, but she’s not going to do that. That’s what that taught me.
Choosing Teaching as a Way to Move to Thailand
I spent the rest of that holiday in 2006 just going crazy as I could around Pattaya trying to get her out of my system. By the time I was leaving, she was out of my system and the following year or up until the following year, I didn’t have anyone to talk to in Thailand and I was missing that. Of course I was dreaming about Thailand most days, thinking about being there and living there and that was what I was going to spend the rest of my life. I wasn’t close to that yet though. I wasn’t thinking about that yet. Not having anyone to speak to in Thailand and any exciting things to say on the other side of the phone and I was lonely and I missed it.
I suppose it gave me a kind of hastened the idea that I needed to get myself to Thailand quicker. That was when I started thinking about doing something that I’d met other guys doing. I’d seen quite a number of guys in Thailand do certain things and when it came to teaching English, I wasn’t that way inclined, but I’ve seen so many guys teaching English, the sorts of guys that you wouldn’t want teaching English to your kids. So if they can do it, why can’t I? I was thinking this around 2005, early 2005 or 2006, being depressed after feeling like there was no end in sight for me. I suppose the end in sight would have been 65 when I could have probably made retirement work, but that was feeling like I can’t wait that long, I really can’t and I can’t be in a long distance relationship.
I don’t want to go through the hassle of taking a girl back home with me. I don’t want to do that. I want to be in Thailand. That’s when I started looking into teaching because so many people seem to do it and it seemed to be a very easy thing that you could do especially back then. Granted you weren’t going to be paid a fortune, but you have to remember in the early 2000s or mid-2000s, Thailand was a different country than it is today. You might only be paid less than 25,000 baht or something like that, but it wasn’t like that wasn’t nothing.
I suppose professional teachers got a bit more than that with a proper teaching degree, but that wasn’t me. While you’re not be making a lot of money, you could rent somewhere and cover your entire bills for a fraction of that salary and you might be left with just under 1,000 baht a day to be able to spend. Something along those lines and if you don’t spend much, you’re going to be enjoying yourself. You could have two nights out a week and just live a great time. You have to remember at the time that that was possible. You could work on a baker’s teacher salary and have a good time.
Two nights out a week. Something that I was drawing myself to like I’ve heard so many guys do because when you’re wanting to be in Thailand and you’re not a specific professional and you don’t have enough money for your own thing, teaching is basically the only thing that you could do. I promised myself when I made it back that year, I’m even losing track of the dates here. Probably 2006 or a little bit later. I promised myself I would look into the possibilities of teaching. I suppose I had the internet, but I wasn’t really an internet guy.
I suppose I was too old for that.
Moving to Thailand and Finding Work
I preferred the old ways and landline telephones. By the time I was back that time only for two weeks, I tried my absolute level best to find out more about teaching and find out more how to do it. There were a number of agencies that I approached that you could actually get help from. A number of them helped you to find jobs because they got paid by the schools and it really did appear like there were more jobs available than teachers. A number of these places offered you guaranteed jobs if you signed up with the agency and it all sounded too good to be true. But then you meet guys who are doing it. So many of them doing it and you think if they can, so can I. Could be, most likely in Bangkok.
That’s where I was hoping to be able to work somewhere like that. And I was just thinking that this is the best solution to get me to Thailand. Pattaya was somewhere I’d like to work, too. I’d love to live there, but I didn’t know if that was possible. Just wanted to be in Thailand, that was it. And I only really knew Bangkok and Pattaya. Didn’t know about anywhere else. But all I wanted to do was be in Thailand.
And unfortunately for me, based on my position at the time, teaching was going to be the only thing I could do. I did learn a lot during that trip, and I believe I got some contact numbers of different agencies. I hadn’t decided as of yet if this was going to be it, but I decided perhaps that this could be. I was always thinking could, maybe, or should I? Never 100% dedicating. I decided though when I go back home and take things from there. Probably need to sell a few things, get some money together, then I could get to Thailand. I could have a buffer, and it could last me a few years, and I could get myself set up as a teacher.
When I was leaving that time, I spent most of my time having a great time on holiday, enjoying things as I always did, because that what was Thailand was for, enjoying yourself. To say anything other than you go to Thailand to enjoy yourself, I think it’s disingenuous, and I don’t understand the point of that. Recently, and this is probably quite irrelevant, I was watching something on Instagram, and I don’t know how I managed to get on Instagram, probably because that’s what they use in Thailand a lot, and that’s how you contact with girls. Something I still do to this day. Even though I mean, I suppose I’m going to get how everything went so shockingly wrong for me soon. You can still live your dreams. But something that really perverted me, not very long ago, I was watching this young guy saying about how these old guys go to Thailand for the girls, as if that was a problem. I don’t believe that’s the case.
I believe that young guy, he’s the problem. He’s the sort of guy who shouldn’t be going to Thailand. Thailand isn’t for people like that. If you’re like that, and you’re young, and you’re that way inclined, then you’re ruining Thailand for the people who will come after you. You’re just trying to change Thailand into your home country. I don’t really get that. Never have, and never will. So, I just kind of thought to myself when I’m that age and when I was that age, I wish I could have experienced Thailand like these older guys were experiencing.
And I believe the younger guys should look at the older guys and try and fit in and mold it to that so we can keep the country the same. So, I suppose that’s something that I kind of get this illusion by even though I shouldn’t do. But, that’s kind of irrelevant to my story, but I just felt like I had to get it out there.
Teaching and Building a Life in Thailand
I did find myself though at the start of 2007 actually moving to Thailand. And I did, I went for it. I sold everything I had. Never had a house before, but I sold everything. And I had about 45,000 pounds exactly. My plan was to transfer all that in. I had a bank account to get to set up and just find this agency who had promised me a guaranteed job if I signed up with them. They had an army of schools that they worked for and they provided teachers for. And I was skeptical, but also I’ve seen so many guys do it. I thought I can do that, too. Many positions available and I was interested in them. I just thought, although I didn’t really want to teach, it would be my excuse to get to Thailand and at least it would get me set up.
It wasn’t going to be a case of anything more than that. I would have to sort out my own visa. I had enough money to be able to get the retirement visa and I’d be working on that because everyone did. 2007 when I was actually there making the best out of it, going for it. And true to the word of this agency who I’d signed up with and I did have to pay them a bit of money which I turned out to believe was kind of a bit of a scam that many people did and didn’t realize they shouldn’t. But, I was offered a job in a place called Lopburi in a school that we actually went to as a visit when I was just going through some orientation with them. Went up to look at the school and I just didn’t want to do it though. It was fun to go up and look originally when we were on that trip, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it when I was there. But, when I went to look and I didn’t want to live there, I just didn’t want it. I held out hopes though that they would give me a job in Bangkok. And although it took a couple of weeks and I was getting a bit nervous that they’d scammed me because this guaranteed job hadn’t actually come to fruition, I would have lived everywhere where I suppose, but then again, I wouldn’t. But ultimately, I was offered this job at a school on the outskirts of Bangkok in Rangsit.
Rangsit just seemed to be the perfect balance between real Thailand and not being too far away from the action if you wanted to go out at the weekend. I’d already decided what my life would be like. I’d work Monday to Friday, and then after that, I’d finish school on Friday, I’d go and stay in a cheap hotel for 2 nights in downtown Bangkok. I’d live for 2 nights there, and I’d go back to work. That’s what you have to understand. I could afford to do that. I was only paid 28,000 baht, but I felt like I was on the way. I really was. I was living in Thailand, and I had all the money in Thailand that I needed. I had my retirement visa set up, and it was my intention to just enjoy life for as long as I wanted to enjoy it and continue working to get to the point where I’m retired in maybe 10 years’ time. I think I planned to teach for 10 years and then start saving eventually. I planned to do extra teaching work at some point.
I planned to do extra lots of things. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get to retirement solely on that teacher salary. I also knew that many people did do extra work. Many people did do private tuition. Many people did also work in language schools as well. And if I was lucky, and if I did a good job, I could get to around 80,000 baht a month. That was my sole focus eventually. But that was going to be later. To start with, I was mainly interested in just enjoying Thailand for the first year of being there. So, that’s what I did. I rented a very cheap place in Rangsit. It had air conditioning, which was good enough for me, but it was very, very cheap.
I can’t remember the exact price, but that doesn’t matter. That allowed me to fulfill the dreams of living life that I’d always wanted. I was living in Thailand. I was spending 2 days a week in downtown Bangkok, staying in a 600 baht a night hotel, spending 3 or 4,000 baht a night. I could afford to do then because when I was teaching, I wasn’t making a lot, but I wasn’t spending a lot, either. Again, it pains me so much to understand that someone going to teach in Thailand today, you can’t do that anymore. You can’t have 8 nights out, or however many nights a month. You’re living like you’re on holiday. You can’t do that. But, I suppose that doesn’t matter. But, you can’t and I believe you should. I did all that throughout 2007, spending time with a few girls and meeting girls, sometimes getting serious and sometimes hoping for things to go further and them not doing.
That happened again in 2008, noticing slight changes going on in Thailand, but nothing too perverse yet. It got to the point, I believe, and I can’t remember exactly. I have to keep saying that because I have to be honest about this. I believe it was around 2009 when it got to the weekend and I thought I can’t be bothered to go to downtown Bangkok for yet another weekend. I did, I must admit, I did it every single week when I was there. Also, during the school holidays, too. Some of those are really long and okay, you’ve got to budget carefully during the holidays. But, I did it all the time. All the time I did that, number of years, every single week, excited to go. But, it got to the point where I just thought I can’t be bothered to do this anymore. The allure of it had worn off. That was when I believed it was time for me to start doing more work, start working harder, to start trying to build a little bit for the future.
Meeting My Future Wife
I hadn’t spent any of the money I arrived in Thailand with. I hadn’t. Maybe a little bit for a few eventualities, but most of it was there, about 45,000 pounds left. I actually had a bit more than that because when I transferred it in, the baht had got a little bit stronger. Therefore, I had more English money than I started with. Still had the retirement visa, everything in place, and I’m approaching again early to mid-50s at this point. Happy, and it’s time to start putting in extra work to get to retirement. Within however long I believed, I based on what I was spending at that moment in time, and again, that was based on the figures of what I arrived in Thailand with. That 30,000 or so a month retirement money was going to be enough. 30,000 a month based on what I had, I shouldn’t need to maybe save another couple of million baht, and then I’m going to be good for retirement. Believing that Thailand, the expenses and things would stay reasonably the same. Having no idea that inflation would go the way it did and things would get so much more expensive. I had no idea. Of course, things get more expensive, but not to such an extreme that you can go from having a fantastic time on 30,000 baht a month, which I think was on this time maybe a bit more, 32,000.
You can go from having a fantastic time on that to not having a good time on 80,000. That’s how much things have changed in Thailand. I’m in a position now where it is time to start doing more things, start putting things in place. I started putting feelers out, anybody who wants private tuition. It went okay. A couple of people I was teaching for 300 baht an hour. That’s what I was charging. I did a bit more than this and a bit more than that, and I’m starting to put it things in place. Very occasionally, I might get the urge to go to downtown Bangkok and have a good night out. And when I did, I enjoyed it. Spending time with girls like that just wasn’t the same anymore. It felt like it was fun, but I wanted something more. I wanted to come home after work and someone be there for me. And I really shiver as I say this today, but I just can’t believe I was wanting that.
I wanted to not be alone anymore. I wanted to be happy with someone and build a life with someone. I knew although I’d spend time with lots of girls who worked in the bars when I was having fun, that meeting a girl that worked in a bar wasn’t something that would be the best idea in terms of a long-term relationship. I’d already had that one worked out in that first incident that happened to me all those years before, and I didn’t want that to happen again, even though I wasn’t going to be leaving the country. I’m drawing myself to just meeting a normal girl from a normal family, living a normal life, doing things like me. And because I was in my 50s, although most of the girls I was attracted to were in their 20s, I knew that wasn’t going to be a relationship material. Of course, I didn’t believe I was stupid. I knew I needed to find someone who was a bit more age appropriate, thinking late 30s, early 40s even. I was always from again a long time ago still of the mind that I need to find someone and hope to find someone. I wasn’t going to rush it. I wasn’t going to force anything. It just had to be an organic meeting. It got to the point where I believe a number of months went by of me just being lonely and miserable and going to the bars and not really enjoying them the same way. I did meet a girl who ticked all the boxes that I believe should be ticked.
It was a teacher that worked at my school and she was roughly a similar age to me and we got on quite well. We’d been working together for a long time at this point and I was always talking about relationships and she was in kind of a fun situation where you’ve been co-workers and sort of friendly. We went out for meals together. I mean, the whole team, nothing romantically between her, but she had a family and her family would go, too, and it was a fun time. But she dropped a little hint one time. She’s got a friend who’s just moved down from where she was from. She was just out of relationship with her husband, 41. Husband was a bad man, probably used those exact words. Likes to drink, likes to gamble, likes to spend all his money, and was becoming violent. She got divorced from him and escaped. She already had one grown daughter as well who had turned 18 not long before. She was off doing whatever she was doing. I believe it was because of her daughter turning that age that she was able to finally leave this guy. And I was introduced to her by this teacher.
Do you want to see her? She’s interested in meeting you. She doesn’t speak much English. By this point I was speaking a bit of Thai reasonably well, probably better than most bar girls could speak English. I could think that would be the best way to describe it because how else can you? I would say I could speak Thai better, yes, than most bar girls. That was important to me. So, I could converse in Thai with people as and when needed. I said that sounded like a great idea. I’d love to meet up with her, all good. And it was again sometime about 16 or 17 years ago when I met her. To start with, I was a bit I mean, I have to say it as it is and I’m not trying to be awful here, but a bit underwhelmed by her appearance. She wasn’t like your typical Thai girl that you would see because, well, she was a bit older. She was 41.
She wasn’t fat, which was good. She wasn’t the stunning beauty though that you’d see Thai girls to be. She showed me pictures of her when she was younger and while she was beautiful then, and I suppose that doesn’t bode well for the guys meeting girls in their 20s if they turn out like that. That’s what I was thinking. Wasn’t there for the appearance though. I wasn’t there for shallow enjoyment. I was there for something more real. When we started having proper conversations, she seemed to want from life what I wanted from life, just to build up a successful retirement where we could put plans in place to live a peaceful life. I wanted to be in Thailand, she wanted to be in Thailand. She had no desire to go anywhere else. It was obvious that that was the case and she was happy where she was. She was actually down in Bangkok looking for work, looking to find something to do.
Marriage, Savings and Retirement Plans
And of course, it wasn’t going to be bar work. She’d never been a bar girl. She’d been married for 20 years to that guy. Got divorced very violent. I think that guy was even in jail at then. That wasn’t looking very good for me, I suppose, but she was looking for work. What she was going to do, she didn’t know. When I asked her, it was something along the lines of whatever she could. Whatever. She didn’t know. Can’t remember what she said. We went on the first date and everything went well. We arranged to meet up again and again and again.
Then when I’m in school and I’m speaking to that teacher who introduced me, she’s talking to me and saying that she really likes you. Maybe you should try and see how you feel about her. Don’t leave her hanging because she likes you. I was thinking I liked her, but again, not the physical side of it. It was more the conversations and how we seemed to have things in common, even though we came from such different places. I think it was after I’d seen her maybe even 10 times. Could have been a little bit less. Could have been more. Nothing happened between us romantically up until probably the 10th time. It didn’t feel like that was what it was about with her. It didn’t feel like it was necessary in the same way because it was just companionship. I was getting older. Still expected that when it happened, it was great, but it wasn’t like it was what it was all for.
One thing that I believe it did so, she seemed to cling on to me a lot more than before after then. I could feel it in a way. It was like now we had to be together. And I was starting to feel like I wanted to be with her and I could see my life with her. By this point, she still hadn’t found a job and she was actually staying at the teacher’s house. They were both from Udon Thani. She was actually staying at this teacher’s place. Family was there. All of the teacher’s family was there and she was there, too. How was your work going? And I can’t find work yet. ” I believed we were getting on enough for that to be okay. Had known her long enough and I believed that to be a good idea.
Okay, it wasn’t that long in the scheme of things, but also it was Thailand. In Thailand, things happen like that quickly. You meet a girl in a bar or you’re already in a living kind of situation straight away. With her, it took about that amount of time, probably a month of seeing her, probably 10 times, speaking together on the phone all the time. At this point, I’ve got more students that are under me that I’m teaching privately, maybe 10 or so students making a bit of extra money. She moved into my place in Rangsit. Again, I still had the same place that I rented to start with. It was cheap. I think it was only 3,000 baht a month, but it did, as I said, have air conditioning and that was good enough. Expensive air conditioning, one of those places that likes to charge you extra, but who cares? It didn’t matter. I found that it was a very weird situation because we’re there, two relatively old people. I was mid-50s, she was early 40s.
We’re living in what felt like student accommodation. That’s probably the way you’d describe it. It felt like the sort of place where you’d live if you were a student or if you were worker. It wasn’t like the sort of home that you’d live in at that age. None of us seemed to care though. She said where she was from, she lived in base very basic accommodation, too. Apparently, her ex-husband, who was in jail, should have allowed me, it didn’t. The fact that she mixed with guys like that. But he owned everything back in the village or whatever and she doesn’t want to go back there. Then I’m finding out that she went to live in his village, which was still in Udon Thani, probably on the other side of the city. So, it’s something like half an hour away from her village where she was and her daughter was going to university in Bangkok. They managed to pull that together to make it work. Again, that’s probably another reason why she was in Bangkok, so she could see her daughter.
We lived together reasonably well for the first month. I’m starting to feel like I could get very used to this, coming home and she’s there. But it’s not like she’s cooked for it or anything because there’s nowhere to cook, no cooking facilities. So, we go out together in the evening and have basic Thai street food, 30 baht plates, I think, in Rangsit at the time, 20 baht even. Maybe share a big beer, not spending too much money. She’s not getting money out of me because it didn’t seem right to be giving it to her yet. We weren’t there yet. Let’s call it 2010 after we’d been together for quite a while. Didn’t know exactly what it was, but 2010 serious I found out to the point where we were starting to think about the next step. Maybe starting to think about marriage, taking things to the next level, and developing firmer ties with each other. Now we haven’t considered or talked about anything about investing money into anything. I still had my savings and I was probably putting a bit of money away because I I remember at that point I had about 3 million baht in the bank.
Moving to the Village
All my money in Thailand, 3 million baht. That’s what I had. So I must have saved a bit of money at the time as the time went by. We were starting to think about putting down firmer roots, not buying somewhere, not doing anything else. Just let’s get married and let’s rent a little bit of a nicer place. I’d already at this point I believe I was working one day a week at a language center in one of the malls. I think it was Esplanade in fact where I was working. Can’t remember because I worked in a few after this as well. I worked there doing one night talk a week making great extra money, private tutors, plus the salary from Rangsit, probably bringing in about 50,000 baht a month all in, which felt great given the fact that we didn’t spend money for much of anything. But we rented a new place and I think we lived like that for a year. That was when she became or took on the role of a wife you would say. Food was ready for me when I got home and we’d go out together at the weekends and we’d do things together and we’d just live a great life. It wasn’t like we rushed into the marriage straight away. We decided though again to get married. I think this was 2012. So we must have been together for a long time. I hadn’t once been to visit her family. She hadn’t once gone to see them again since she’d arrived. No talks of her ex-husband or talks of anything. I’d even met her daughter and she seemed very nice and friendly enough and it wasn’t like I was giving money or paying for anyone anything or anything to anyone. She didn’t want money from me. She just wanted to be with me. I think she was interested in marriage I suppose and I’d never been married before, never thought I would come off for me, but we did decide to get married in 2012.
It’s going to be the thing that would bring us even closer together. It felt great on the one front to be going up to visit the family for the first time. I’d only been to Isaan once before, and I can’t even remember what that was for. Can’t remember at all. But, I was now there in Udon Thani. I have to obviously say it’s very obvious that there was no talk of sinsot. I knew all about this. I’d spoken to lots of other guys, most of them teachers, who had said the perils of dating and the perils of this and that. I knew what to look out for. So, that wasn’t something that was going to be talked about, and it wasn’t. She was already old for that. The family just seemed to be happy that she’d met someone. When I say family, it wasn’t like she had a huge family. She had a mother. Her father had already died. She had one aunt, and that was it. Her grandparents only had two children, her mother and her aunt. She had a few cousins, but most of them weren’t even living there. So, it wasn’t a huge extended family. It felt great to be able to meet them though and to be introduced to the area. In a way, kind of felt like again, where things go from here and many guys go. It kind of felt like this is the area that had retirement written all over it. Bare in mind in Rangsit at the time, 2012 or so, we were spending probably 25,000 baht a month between us.
That was it. That was the accommodation. That was going out for street food, lots of other times going to do different things, and some shopping. Didn’t have insurance, which I should have had. And I didn’t have a work permit, but I was working. Should have had that, too. But, about 25,000 a month, and I was earning 50, which meant you’re putting away quite decent money. Not a fortune, but enough. If every year I work, I save, then that’s great. Where we were in Udon Thani, it just felt like it was retirement. The place we’d rented in Rangsit, the second place, it wasn’t really much of anything. 4,500 a month. A room and a kitchen and a living room. Very Thai style, very basic. Not really that great. But again, we didn’t seem to care about that. But now we’re looking at Udon Thani. Suppose it was one of the things that I’d heard other guys talk about. How many of them, I mean, at least three of the teachers that I’d met had gone to live up in the the when they’d retired because it just seemed to be the step things did. It seemed to be move there and move here. I suppose it was just something that people did. Go and live with their wives in the village. We started looking and then I met a guy.
I suppose one thing that made things even more serious about this idea was when I met him. When we were getting married, we did everything the Thai way. Didn’t cost me a lot of money because it didn’t need to. Not concerned about that. But I met a guy actually who came to the wedding who was another foreigner who lived in the village, married to someone from there. I believe it was Germany he was from. The guy, this guy, must have know been there for a long time. Must be some kind of distant relative to the family. Although she didn’t say it was family, but kind of seemed to be the case. Nice to meet you and seems to be happy with his life and he asked if I wanted to go and look at his house. He should have said his wife’s house, shouldn’t he? He said my house and I said let’s go for it. After the wedding, the following day, probably a few days later in fact because it took a long time getting over that Lao Khao. We went to go and see this guy’s house and he had this palatial place. Nothing I could have ever afforded. When he told me that it was only about 3 million baht that he spent for it. So basically everything I had. It was huge though, palatial. Six bedrooms and everything like that. But he built it a while ago and things had gone up in price since then. But I’m starting to understand that for a million baht we could have what we needed. It could be a really nice place. Beautiful place to live.
Awesome in fact. Nothing close to what we’d be able to have in Rangsit or Bangkok. That was what was very popular. I think the seeds though were planted at that time when we were getting married in 2012 or so. And I mean it was then. because I’ve got the paperwork to say it was. And it was like this could be where retirement will be. Up in Udon, in her village. A million baht could build us a house. She already had a little bit of land that was left to her by her father. Nothing that would cost us any money. It was on the outskirts of the village. I mean the village is a very small youthfulness. It was quite a big town style of village. Very villagey though. I don’t know if that makes sense. It was on the ring road. Wasn’t even a ring road. It was just sort of like a ring road that went all the way around the village. And it was right next to that. Right on the roadside, a paved road as well. And she seemed to make a huge emphasis on the fact that it was a paved road, as if that meant something big. Houses on a dirt track aren’t as good, or on land on a dirt track isn’t as good, but the paved road was.
That’s what she kept saying, and apparently it’s good if you want to have a shop next to it. Whereas like where I was from, people wouldn’t want to be right next to the road. But it appeared in Thailand that people did want to be next to the road for whatever reason, perhaps because they could have something next to it to sell things. I asked her what’s her opinion about living somewhere like this. This again after we’d been to see the guy’s house. That’s something we both seemed to be drawn towards, and we decided that we would seriously consider it. What happened then though was I’m coming to terms with I’ve got this 3 million baht. 3 million based on my savings rate at the time. I was starting to think, why don’t we just move there now, and I’ll try and find a job locally. That never happened, it never did. So I should say that straight away. But the thought of being able to live in a lot nicer place. I mean, we could have lived in a nicer place in Ranong, we could have afforded that, but we wouldn’t have been able to save as much money. I wanted to be able to save decent money because I was putting the time in. I knew I needed to get to retirement, and I knew I needed to have some money again based on how much Thailand cost at the time, and what I spend. But I didn’t need a lot. And it’s something that we’re talking about as time goes by. We go up and visit quite often, especially in the school holidays, go to see. And it gets to the point where I’m really having a good time with her. We’re married, we’re happy, and we go away occasionally to places like Koh Samet and Koh Chang and also Koh Samui. We find that when we go there, we’re just spending way too much money. It doesn’t make sense to spend that money when we could be saving it or putting it towards our retirement plans, and putting it towards a place where we could both live.
Farming in Isaan
It got to the point probably another year or so later where we actually decided, let’s just move there now. Let’s put a plan in place where we’re able to do that to see us out, give us the best chance of a great retirement. I was always open to the possibility of teaching in that area. Although as I said, that never happened. I found out that that weren’t necessarily schools in the vicinity. It was just something that wasn’t going to be the case. But it got to the point where we just decided we wanted to do it.
After we had done it, we were living there, 2015, had spent money for the house, we bought a really old car that at least was serviceable, and I had at this point about 2 million baht savings. Given the fact that in Rangsit we were spending 25,000 a month including rent plus spending going out and things in the village, we worked out we could probably spend 20,000 or less. It was quite clear, I believe, that that was going to be possible. 20,000 baht a month, what’s that? 240,000 a year. So we’re talking about nearly 10 years of living expenses. We were there hoping to be able to make some extra money there, too.
That was, I suppose, where the problem was. That was where the ideas to try and do something there to make a little bit of extra money for retirement. That’s where everything fell apart. Unfortunately, I have to say it as it is. The sad thing was that we didn’t really need to do anything. I mean, in the meantime, I suppose we did eventually because 10 years would have been long enough to be able to get us to 10 years, but then what happens after that? It was the idea though that we only need such a small amount of money that we don’t need to make a lot.
Therefore, if we just start something and build something together, if we make 10,000 baht a month, that’s basically all the extra money we need to make investing without a lot of money. That should be perfect and all we need. I was always thinking about spending as little money as possible. I never spent a lot. She didn’t seem to want to spend a lot, too. She just seemed to want to settle down. She didn’t have much when I met her.
She’d come out of that relationship, didn’t have much throughout that, too. And she seemed to want not more than anything else, just to be okay together with me, and that’s all I wanted, too. We were there in 2015, and I’d been living in Thailand for a long time at this point. I spoke very good Thai. I wouldn’t say I was fluent, but I spoke very well. I talked to people in the local area. Okay, they spoke a different dialect.
They spoke a different version of Thai more like Lao, I think they would you call it the Isaan dialect, and they started to pick that up, too. But, it’s not like we rushed into anything. From 2015, we were living in the house spending, I think, our average during that first year was only 17,000 baht a month, which wasn’t a lot of money at all. I’m learning all about the village life. I’m learning about how things work there. She’s teaching me about things and showing me things and doing things and everything seems to be pointing to the fact that, okay, let’s just have something to tick us over.
Buying More Land and a Tractor
It was her idea, too, and I can’t believe that I even thought it was a good idea. But, it was her idea to do some farming, to buy a bit of land and to farm it. There were people growing things in the area, and it wasn’t necessarily rice. I mean, they had rice around. Of course, they did.
People seem to grow things that other people didn’t in the area. Lots of people grew lots of different things. I think that we were drawn to growing, and I can’t believe it because I didn’t know at the time that it was quite popular. But, she said she wanted to grow potatoes. That’s what she called them.
But, they weren’t potatoes at all. They were like this yam type of thing that grows in the ground, and if we bought a rai of land, it should make, I believe she said, about 25,000 in a year. Not a lot of money because the rai of land was 100,000 baht. But, why don’t we actually try doing something like this? Again, it was only a small thing, and let’s try it.
Let’s see. Only a small amount of money, so let’s go for it. I can’t remember exactly how it went. I mean, I can remember it going all wrong and not working. And by 2016, we had this land that was 100,000 baht and these yams that I think she sold them for a couple of thousand baht, next to nothing.
Again, not a huge problem. We’d spent the whole year doing that, not doing anything else, not spending a lot of money, not concerned about things. But, the fact that we’d done something, even though it only made not much money at all, the fact that it was the first year trying, it felt like, in a way, some kind of warped success. I was now hankering after a bit more proper success, hankering after doing something because I was missing not teaching. I did, like I said, start looking into teaching, but I just couldn’t find anything in the area.
So, that was written off.
Mortgaged Land and the Retirement Visa Crisis
The biggest mistake from there was deciding that the best thing to do is to buy some more land to grow more things. Okay, yam didn’t make as much, but it was dipping our foot in the water to the business and dipping our foot in trying to do things. We ended up buying a few more rai of land. This was a little bit more expensive and growing some papayas. That was a huge failure though, a massive failure. Probably 300,000 baht spend, but it didn’t work. How it didn’t work, I don’t know. I wasn’t a farmer. She was from there.
I thought she knew what she was talking about, but it just didn’t work. What happened then was we getting a bit concerned. Now though we had the land so we could sell it again if we needed to. So it wasn’t like we’d thrown the money away. The thing that kept coming back as being a great idea was if we had a tractor, people could rent out that tractor from us and use it on their land because there always seemed to be demand for them and most people couldn’t afford their own. We could buy a tractor for I think it was 300,000 baht and we could rent it out. If we did that, we could make money that way. Okay, we’ve got this land. We thought it was like a land bank.
It was like the money was in the land so it wasn’t a problem and that was the idea. We’ve got some money in the land and we can sell it again if we need to and we couldn’t even make a profit on it and everything should be okay. It would have been if things didn’t go that way though. So again, we bought this tractor and we’re renting it out. People are paying. Some people aren’t paying and of course we had a big incident when unbelievably the place where the tractor was parked, somebody went in and sabotaged it which was quite remarkable. Luckily it didn’t cost a lot to fix, but it wiped out a whole year’s profit. At this point, okay, we’d spent money and money’s going down and money’s going down a lot. But I believe because we’re not spending too much on living expenses, that if we’re investing in things, it’s not really a problem.
But I suppose it was, but it just didn’t feel like it at the time. What happened after this tractor was sabotaged was okay, we need to build a place to keep the tractor better which we did and that was money. Because we were making money from the tractor, not a fortune. The tractor was going down in value though. I suppose we were making more than it was going down in value. But we decided to buy another one, which seemed to be a good idea because we were doing sort of okay. We weren’t doing too badly, but my savings were quite depleted. Didn’t have so much money. Probably under a million baht and that was it.
No, I think I remember. I think not exactly, just under a million. Enough for my retirement visa anyway. We had a few tractors, the land which was our land bank. We had the comfort and knowledge that we should be able to do things. I’m not concerned. You have to understand then because I believe things are going okay. I believe we’re bringing in money. We don’t spend a lot.
Therefore, we are bringing in money and I don’t make I don’t know what. Don’t know what we’re doing. I don’t know what I was doing. I think that’s the thing I’m trying to say. I know what I was doing, but I don’t believe I was doing it.
Divorce and Leaving Thailand
The thing that made it all kind of come to a head was when I dipped below my retirement visa money. And like I said, bringing money in. Probably 2017 now and it wasn’t a huge thing, but I decided we need to sell a bit of that land. It had gone up in value. The one that we’d bought originally, the 100,000 one was probably 140,000 now. That what it was selling for at the time. I told her we need to sell it. That was when I found out that she’d mortgaged it behind my back. What she’d used the money for, I could never get to the bottom of, but she’d mortgaged this land for I believe 120,000. She’s mortgaged it so we can’t sell it.
That really took me by surprise because I wasn’t expecting it. It was the furthest thing from my mind that she would do something like that. All of a sudden, we didn’t have the money in the land. Okay, I need to sell the other land then. That had gone up too, but she’d mortgaged that again too. I couldn’t get to the bottom of what it was and I just couldn’t work it out, but we just didn’t have that land to be able to get the money one. She was very apologetic saying that she was paying it back and apparently, she was paying back a thousand baht a month thinking I would never found out because we would never sell it. She just used that. That’s something that still shocks me to this day because I had plainly told her clearly as plain as day that this was our land, mine, too, even though it’s in your name, and if we need to sell it, we need to sell it immediately when I say so. ” But in her mind, it was hers.
She could do with it as she pleased, and she’d mortgaged it, and there was nothing I could do. All of a sudden, that was one of those moments in time where everything hit me all at once, like I’d made some very bad choices. I’d got very heavily involved in the village, and everything would have been fine if she didn’t do what she did with the land, because we could have got some money back and made a small profit even. The tractors we had, they were worth, I believe, 200,000 baht each at the time, and they were bringing money in. They were, and she hadn’t mortgaged them because she couldn’t. But the thing was now, because we couldn’t sell one of the pieces of land, we had to sell a tractor instead, which we did. That topped up my money above the visa threshold, and I renewed my visa again. But now, we only had one tractor. That was unfortunately now breaking down all the time, which wasn’t great, because obviously, we couldn’t rent it out when it was breaking down. It got to the point, though, where the payments on the land, she wasn’t able to make them without asking me, because she couldn’t take out little bits of money from the side to be able to pay.
Now, I’m having to pay for this, too. And it got to the point where I said to her, “I’ll pay all of the land off, and then we can sell it straight away. We can make a bit of profit. “ And that felt very uncomfortable, but I paid back both those loans on the land, and those two pieces of land, and I think I had about 300,000 baht to my name after that. 300,000 baht. That was it. Paid off those two loans, went to sell the land, and well, I don’t know what to say. She’d done it again. We didn’t sell it straight away, and she did it again. And then again, I couldn’t get to the bottom of where the money was used and what she’d done and why she even thought it was a good idea.
I mean, I have my theories. Something to do with her ex-husband, something to do with family, something to do with her trying to get rid of me, something to do with I don’t know. She wouldn’t say. She went to mortgage the land again as soon as I’d paid it back and got the money. It’s like she somehow had this land and believed it was hers, but she couldn’t pay it. When that happened, I knew I’d made the error of a lifetime and I’d just thrown away this retirement that I’d had by trying to be someone that I wasn’t, by trying to do things that I shouldn’t have tried to do, and trying to live a life that many guys seem to try to live. I just couldn’t believe that I’d fallen to such lows. Okay, we had one tractor, but I didn’t know her anymore. I didn’t feel like she was my wife anymore. She’d done that once and I overlooked it and I forgave it, but she’d done it again, probably 3 months after I’d paid it back when it happened and sold.
Apparently, she sold it with some kind of emergency and she wouldn’t tell me. And it was awful because 300,000 baht after 3 million. Started with 3 million, now I’ve got 300,000. Okay, we’ve been there for a few years, but it was a huge fall from grace because I just couldn’t continue the retirement anymore. And that was one of those things that I just couldn’t comprehend how it had happened. How had I let it happen? How had it happened? All of a sudden to lose and only go down to 10% of what you started with when you believed you were going to have so much more. Not enough for the retirement visa anymore. It’s one of those situations that you didn’t even comprehend because it was the furthest thing from my your mind.
The Lessons I Learned from Losing Everything in Thailand
When that had happened, I didn’t see her in the same way anymore and I didn’t want to be with her anymore. But I tried to make it work for as long as I could because of the money and because I could still last a while. I was desperately trying to find a job, but I couldn’t. It ended up with us getting divorced. I got divorced, left back down to Bangkok with 300,000 baht. Okay, I can live on not much money because I had proved to be able to do that for such a long time before, but I’m finding I don’t really recognize Bangkok anymore. I tried to go out to the bars and it’s so much more expensive than it used to be. I tried to do that and well, everything just it came to a huge catastrophic ending for me so quickly because of the stupid decisions I made together with her, who I shouldn’t have allowed to have decisions, but she had them and what had happened to me had happened and I couldn’t do anything about it. That’s how I threw it all away in Thailand. I threw it all away based on stupid dreams and stupid ambitions.
If we’d just not done anything, my money would have probably run out five or six years later, which would have meant it would be running out probably around about now, in fact. What happened instead was I got another job teaching, and I tried to get extra work. I tried my best with everything, but I just didn’t see a future. I didn’t see a way of me being able to save enough money to get to a point where I could try to retire again. That was when I made the really, really difficult decision that the only thing I could possibly do from here is to go back home. When I got back home, I just entered the worst kind of mental state known to man, because I was beaten. I felt like I’d lost. Thailand had beaten me. I tried and I failed, and it was such an awful feeling. I suppose even to this day I’ve never got over that.
How do you get over something as catastrophic as that? How do you get over something that beats you such a way like that, and even thoughts about your wife and who you should be with and what you should be doing? I never felt the urge though after that to go back to Thailand, because I felt like Thailand took so much away from me and didn’t give me anything in return. I don’t understand how it happened, and I have to say then, because it’s the truth, I didn’t want it to happen. Nobody wants that sort of thing to happen. And when it was happening, it didn’t seem like it was going to, but it was just a lack of trust or a too much trust I placed in her and her lack of respect for that trust, which I believe caused the ultimate downfall. And perhaps something would have worked out if it didn’t happen like that, but it never did. Because of it all, I didn’t want to give any more of my time though to Thailand. I just didn’t believe that Thailand deserved any of my time because of how things went and because of what they did to me. Today, I would like to say that I am sort of retired because I get an old age pension.
I am an old man now. Old. I am old, and it’s bad to say, but I am. But I wish, in a way, that I was in Thailand. And I suppose I could try and have another go in Thailand. The last time I was there, this time last year, it was like an alien world to me. It was a complete alien planet. I found it so so more expensive than it used to be, so much different than it used to be. Nothing like the times that I remember having there. Maybe it’s because I’m older and different and I’ve changed that I believe that Thailand has changed.
Maybe it’s me who’s changed really and I’m seeing things in a different light. Maybe though it really has changed and I would tend to believe that it really has changed and it’s not just the same as it used to be. I need to say it again though, I threw everything away in Thailand. I was one of the guys who could live on absolutely nothing a month. I could live on next to nothing. We were spending on average 17,000 baht a month in the village when we decided to start doing things that we had no business doing. I had no business doing those sorts of things. I wasn’t even a teacher really but I did it and I did it for a long time and I did extra teaching and I worked hard and I put money away to try to build a retirement but unfortunately my wife just completely let me down because she mortgaged the land. Then she did it again. I trusted her the first time and I paid that money back and I shouldn’t have done.
I should have just said no. I should have written it off and I should have tried to make something else work to try to make a little bit of extra money but I didn’t. I believed we would sell the land after paying it back to clear her debts, to clear everything and to make everything fine but it didn’t work like that and that was the biggest mistake of all. I have absolutely no idea what she’s doing today. She’s probably still got that house, okay. I couldn’t own it. Again, why I thought that was a good idea to build something in her name, I don’t know too but I did and so many guys do.
