The Thailand Problem

When I went to go and visit my friend after he’d returned from Thailand, I was quite shocked to see the state he was in. He looked to be quite out of it. Not that there was anything particularly wrong with him, but his mind wasn’t exactly where he was, which was in his front room sitting on the couch watching TV. I’d never been to Thailand before, so I didn’t know what to expect. He’d never been apart from this one time. And when he called me up saying he got back and he had the best time of his life and he’s thinking of moving there, I thought he was just pulling my leg. As soon as I saw him, I knew he was serious. About a month after he’d returned home, he was flying a one-way trip back to Bangkok to go and live his new life.

He’d sold up everything, moved out of his rented house, and decided that enough was enough. He wanted a new life and he just told me that I was going to go and have to visit him at some point. I thought to myself, maybe I will. At the time I was in a relationship that I felt was quite serious. It wasn’t marriage yet. It wasn’t anything that was a forever thing yet, but it could have got that way. I was really intrigued to see what all the fuss was about about Thailand. My friend went and he can’t have had that much money.

Maybe at the most 50,000 pounds and that’s putting it quite kindly. He might have had even less. We were both in our early 40s. He was a year older than me, had grown up together and been places together before. It was me having a girlfriend at the time that decided I wasn’t going to go to Thailand with him. If I didn’t have a girlfriend, I probably would have done. I knew him very well. I knew the things he did for work and I knew his family situation and if he got any money from them, and I very much doubt he did.

He talked about Thailand being this very cheap place, a place where you’re able to live on far less money than you’re able to live on at home. Not only that, the fact that things are better there for less. It made me think that perhaps, even though he’s not got a lot of money, he’s going to be okay. I wanted him to be okay. He was my best friend. At that moment, I hadn’t come to the decision that I needed to go to Thailand as soon as I thought. That would come a little bit later.

So, it’s quite a while ago now. I can remember looking at him and thinking he’s really excited, and I wonder what he’s excited about. He did talk about some of the conquests that he had and some of the things he got up to, and how it was better than the relationship that he came out of that saw him going to Thailand in the first place, and how the girls are very different over there. He said they were a lot more feminine. That’s the thing he used to say all the time. A lot more open to please others. A lot less man-like, he said. He looked at me quite sternly when he said that.

This was in the car, and I’m looking at him and trying to drive at the same time, and I am being careful. But he looked at me so sternly, and he said, “I don’t mean to say anything rude, mate, but your missus is nothing like what you could have in Thailand.” I knew he was only half joking, not being too serious. And I took a bit of offense, and I said, “I don’t believe it, mate.” We were such a close friendship that we could say anything to each other, and we’d laugh it off and never really get angry. That’s not who we were. I just thought the reason he said that, there must actually be something to it. He must have meant something. He’s not going to say that to deliberately offend me, or to try to make me feel bad, because that’s not what we did. He was perhaps just giving me a sign that something was going to come good for me if I went to Thailand.

Why Thailand Seemed Different

I wasn’t anyway there yet, because I just didn’t understand the dynamics of what Thailand was like. I even parked up at the airport so I could go in with him, so I could just get a feel for what it was like. He was dancing back and forth with this sense of excitement. The further along we got towards the checking counter, he saw the people around him and pointed out a few guys. Look at him. He’s got a Thai wife. Look at him. He’s got a Thai wife.

And I’m looking at these people, and I’m not really remarking that those girls are any more beautiful than my girlfriend. But he said it’s different in Thailand. It’s different here. They’ve got lots of extra clothes on because it’s cold here. They’re not the same. It’s better there, he kept saying. And he kept making up these excuses, and I just thought, well, I need to go and see them for myself at some point, not actually thinking that I would. Told him to go and enjoy himself, and I’ll see him back at home soon when he comes back for a visit.

He looked at me and said, “I’m not going to come back. Why in holy hell would I ever come back to this place again? You’re going to come to Thailand soon.” I told him I would, and off he goes about to start his new life. I went back to the car, drove home, the following day at work, and my life continues. He called me about a week after he was in Thailand, saying that he’s just rented this new place and it’s really great. And also, he’s met a girl who he thinks is the one. I did remark that isn’t that very quick? And he said it is quick, but it’s Thailand, so it’s acceptable.

And he kept making these excuses as to why certain things in Thailand were a lot more acceptable than they were at home. Aside from that, I let him get off and do what he wanted to do, and my life still continued.

He was progressing with his relationship, and to him it was very serious. My relationship at home started to decline, though. She’d got a new job, and because of that, she had what she described as a lot more commitments to do with regards to that job. Even though I worked a very strenuous job, which involved me working considerably more hours than her, she felt that this little bit of extra time that she was putting in was akin to what I was doing. She just didn’t understand that as a guy, you have to do jobs that in most instances are so much more difficult than what a girl has to do. The girl is doing whatever job she’s doing, and she’s thinking that it’s the hardest thing in the world, when it’s like a small fraction of what I’m doing. It was nothing to end the relationship there and then, but one night she was out at a work do, came back blind drunk, admitted to cheating on me, admitting that she didn’t want to be with me anymore, and she wanted her independence. The relationship fell down.

I was disappointed, upset, but not overly so. So, it was good that it hadn’t got too serious yet. It could have done, but it didn’t, so I suppose that’s good. It was when I spoke to my friend next and I told him what had happened, and he sounded delighted. He said, “It’s fantastic. Don’t worry about how you feel right now. It’s a perfect opportunity to come to Thailand. When’s your next holiday?” I hadn’t taken any holiday that year, moving further into 2010, and he just said, “Come to Thailand.” I told him I’ll think about it, and I did think about it for a few weeks.

Booking My First Trip to Thailand

Just so I can say I’ve been there, I’ve done that, and I’ve taken it all in, and I’ll get to the point where Thailand is something that I’m not going to endlessly think about anymore. Based on the descriptions of my friend, I did it. I booked and I went. It just happened to coincide with the low season in Thailand, which my friend said was a benefit. He’d been speaking to lots of expats there, and the low season was best because you had more of Thailand to yourself. That’s what he used to say. I took myself to the airport this time, following the same drive as I’d done when I dropped him off, wondering what it was going to be like. Parked up in the long-stay car park, made my way to the airport, checked in, and I had nothing in my mind that would prepare me for what was to come.

No ideas of what it was going to be like, no interpretation of what was going to happen to me. I’d had my friend talking about it so many times and explaining things, but when you’re listening to it and thinking about it, it’s nothing like actually doing it. I expected it to be a certain way, and it wasn’t going to be like that I thought it was. And I set off. Eventually got to Bangkok. My friend had told me where he wanted to meet that evening, a little place around Asok. I didn’t know where Asok was, but I assumed I would find it very easily. Apparently, just look at the Skytrain station names and you’ll find it.

Meet up there, have a few drinks, and he’s going to show me around. Bangkok was something else entirely. And that’s putting it lightly. I’d never been anywhere like that before, and I just couldn’t work out how it seemed to function the way it did. Everything seemed to operate normally, yet I didn’t know how it was able to do that because nothing seemed orderly. Nothing seemed in place. Everything seemed chaotic. And initially, I was quite shocked by that.

When I eventually made it to the place I was staying, which apparently wasn’t too far away, it took 2 hours because of the traffic. And I was thinking, “What is the appeal of this place?” I just didn’t get it. I got to the place I was staying, which was a sort of place which would have been a lot more expensive in Europe.

That was something that took me a few days to get used to. And once you start speaking pidgin English yourself to make yourself understood, that’s when I suppose Thailand has already grabbed hold of you. I went walking around to look for this small place down this particular street that he told me to meet him at. It was just this bar that seemed to have lots of other foreigners there. It was a cheap place, apparently. I saw him there, and he’s next to this girl who is a 10 out of 10, a 10 out of 10 stunner. I walked in, and he was so bubbly and excited and happy and everything you want to say, he’s just that. And because of that, I found myself just settling in, getting a beer, and we’re just chatting and catching up, and saying how great it is for me to be here.

I was going to love it. Basically, he was telling me to take it in yourself. He’ll go out with me that night, show me around, and give me some tips, but you need to do it by yourself. I suppose that’s what I was going to do anyway. Wasn’t going to spend the whole time with him. Had a quick conversation with his girlfriend who was really beautiful. Said he was very serious with her. Had been for a long time.

Living in Thailand Without Work

I asked him what he was doing for work, but he said he hadn’t got work yet. Just in between at the moment. That’s what he kept saying, “I’m just in between.” I don’t really think he was paying attention to work because he was just living in the moment and enjoying himself. That was fair enough. If that’s what he wanted to do, that’s fine with him. He was a grown man, and I’m not there to try to help him do anything else. Aside from that, we went out that night. He took me around to some of the famous nightlife places.

Seeing some things that you’ve heard about, but never actually been able to envisage. Being in awe of everything that you see, shocked, and everything else. It was an amazing time, though. It really was. But, I wasn’t yet hooked on Thailand to the point where I wanted to stay there or anything like that. It was just as great, and I’ll go back home, and I’ll get back to that. After that, I spent the rest of my time by myself. Met up with him two more times throughout those 2 weeks I was there.

During those 2 weeks, I started to develop a love of Thailand, too. I found myself meeting a few girls. And what then happens, and the things become from like a casual meeting, you do start to understand that everything he said about my girlfriend back at home was true. You’ve got people here who are more feminine, more real, who isn’t on the same level as you. I think that’s the thing. It was like what I had always imagined a relationship to be, which at home it never was. I thought it was such a dream that nobody else had.

That’s the most important thing. Perhaps it’s the guy’s job to prepare financially for the relationship, to support with the money side of things, to make sure everything’s taken care of, and everything’s good. It’s her job to be the source of peace and the source of calm in the relationship, not to put added stress onto it, not to make anything more difficult, if anything to make things easier. That’s what it seemed was the actual thing that was happening in Thailand. It was a proper dynamic of what a relationship should be. At home with my ex, it wasn’t like that dynamic. It was like we were both men in a way. That might sound very strange and condescending, but that’s not what it’s meant to be.

I’m just telling you how it feels at home. It feels like you’re both men, but one of them looks like a woman. In Thailand, it feels like one person’s a man and one person’s a woman. I think that’s what that time in Thailand really told me and did for me. I had a fantastic time, an absolutely fantastic time. I thought I would go back on my next holiday, maybe go for a bit longer. At the point I was leaving Thailand, I didn’t really have a heavy heart because it was just a holiday. I had a great time and I was thinking about it as I was leaving.

But it was the moment that the plane took off, the moment that happened, all of a sudden something came over me, like this doesn’t feel right. It feels like I’m not meant to be taken away from this place. Then by the time you’re back at home, it doesn’t feel normal. It didn’t feel like I was able to function properly because all of a sudden the ability to be able to potentially have a proper dynamic relationship was completely off the cards. Now I was back at home, I was back to the same humdrum life of before, understanding that there was a different life available out there for people who wanted it and that was it. There was this different, exciting and vigorous life right out there and it was there for the taking, but I wasn’t able to take it. I then understood exactly why my friend had decided to move to Thailand on such short notice with probably not very much money because for the very reason that back at home, life wasn’t the same and he couldn’t do the same kind of things. He couldn’t exist the same way.

Wanting to Return to Thailand

When I spoke to him the first time after I got back and he said to me straight off, “When are you coming back?” I said, “I don’t know, but I want to.

And I think it had. And that’s the strange thing, though. When I was leaving, it didn’t feel like I would want to go back. It just felt like I don’t really need to, but that’s fine. But as soon as you leave and understand what you’re being taken away from, that’s the worst thing. I hadn’t met any girls that I’d fallen in love with or wanted to spend my life with or anything crazy like that. But I had the understanding that Thailand seemed to provide a dynamic that just didn’t exist at home. Unfortunately, if I’m being truthful about that, and at the time I really didn’t understand this for what it was.

But at the time it really seemed like in Thailand, because of the financial differences between you and a girl you might meet, it was that financial difference that allowed the dynamic to be there. If you don’t understand, when we’re going back a few generations, it wasn’t necessarily that dynamic that made the girl the girl and the guy the guy. It was just how things were naturally. Why was it that things had changed so much in the generations ahead, up to my generation, where the guy couldn’t be the guy and the girl just couldn’t be the girl? Why was that happening? Thailand brought that dynamic back, and it was only leaving that made me understand that. When I’m back at work, I’m restless, and I had a date arranged that I was going to go on, and I went on that date. But I’m just comparing her to the girls I’d met in Thailand, and it was just a no-brainer that it wasn’t going to work.

Thailand had hold of me, and that’s just as plain as day. It had hold of me after that 2-week trip around the end of 2010, and I felt like I just needed to go back and experience it again one more time. I was there January 2011, taking all my holiday allowance just to get back there to relive the feeling, just to see if it was right. My friend seemed to be okay, putting on a brave face because of what I would learn later, but he was happy. It seemed he’d actually got married, and while he still wasn’t working, he kept saying he was in between things. That’s all he said. Didn’t really spend that much time with him, just to catch up, normal friends, not every day.

I looked at my finances, which were not very substantial, and I did research into how I was able to live there. And it just came to the point when this just wasn’t going to work for me. I couldn’t live there. I didn’t have enough money. I could have existed for maybe 5 years at the most, and then what? I’d be nearly 50, and I wouldn’t have any money at all. And I just couldn’t see that happening. I felt like I needed to think outside the box.

I remembered my friend pointing out when I took him to the airport the first time, “Look at this guy with his Thai wife. Look at that guy. He’s got a Thai wife, too.” Thinking, “Maybe I could take a bit of Thailand back home with me. I could have that proper dynamic relationship that would exist properly, and everything would work.” I could have that, but also I’d be at home being able to work and save for an eventual retirement in Thailand. If I’ve got Thailand with me, that might be okay. The problem was, how do you meet someone in 2 weeks? You don’t. That thinking was coming and going, and I’m just really in two minds, because all I wanted to do was stay in Thailand, because that’s where I felt the happiest.

The Cost of Living in Thailand

That’s where I felt very content. Understanding that it’s not going to work for me because of my financial situation, it was a real downer during those 2 weeks that I was there, because what was I meant to do about it? I couldn’t do anything about it, apart from just enjoying myself in the moment. I met this incredible girl who I actually spent the last 10 days of my whole holiday with. She was just incredible. Like an actual girl, a girl who is behaving like a girl, who understands that the guy’s job is to take the pressure and the stress, and it’s her job not to put pressure and stress onto the relationship. It’s her job to remove the stress. At home, it didn’t work like that.

I just didn’t get it, and I still don’t get it. When I’m leaving, because I had no choice, I had to go back to work. When I’m leaving, and I’m leaving her behind, getting her contact information, it was a very cruel situation for me, because I didn’t want to leave and be without her. But I knew I had to. Why I couldn’t just take her home with me, that seemed to be wrong, too. It was like, “Well, I’m English, so why can’t I take someone with me? No questions asked. My parents were English, their parents were English, and so on through the generations.

So, it’s a very cool thing when you finally find something you want, and you can’t have it. Was I going to be one of those guys that would have a long-distance relationship with the girl that he met in Thailand? I was looking like that when I was leaving that that might be the thing to do.

But, I was thinking if she was with me, would that make everything better? Would that fix the problem? Maybe I don’t think it would. I’d convinced myself that meeting a girl and taking her back home with me when I was in Thailand would be the right thing. When I’m back home, I’m imagining being there with the girl from Thailand, but that didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right. Although I promised her I would contact her and keep in touch, I never did. Then you hear all these stories about the girls talking about that they met a guy and he promised the world to her and would keep in touch, and he never did.

The thing is I wanted to, but I knew that probably I’d be one of many. I knew that she wouldn’t wait for me and respect me. Even if she did, how was I going to make it work? It was around that time, 2011, when I tried to block Thailand out and forget about Thailand completely and just get on with life and not try to meet a girl at home. It never really worked that way. That went on for a long time, a long time in fact. I always felt something was missing. Not to the point where I was going to go back because I knew if I went back, something would make me feel depressed again and go back into that bad headspace again of missing Thailand.

By 2014, I was in a way over Thailand, but not in a relationship. I’d saved up some more money. I’d lived. I’d got it to the point where it didn’t hold over me all the time, and it wasn’t at the front of my mind every second. It took a long time for that to happen. I should say 2013 was the unfortunate time when my friend arrived back home, tail between his legs, no money left, girl left him, lost everything. He was just a mess, an actual mess. He even stayed at my place for a few months saying he wished he was back in Thailand.

Saving for a House in Thailand

He wasn’t over it yet, but I understood that that would be what would happen if I did it properly and didn’t do it properly. He was devastated for months. He stayed with me for that time. By the time everything’s back to normal for him, it’s not back to normal and he’s just wanting to be back in Thailand. He finds his own place. He didn’t really contact much after that even though he stayed at my house for all that time. Maybe we contacted every week. Everything was Thailand for him and I was already trying to get over Thailand.

So it was to understand that that could have been me if I did what he did.

If I added that together with my savings of about 80,000, that was enough to buy a house. I’d never owned a house in my life before. That was an exciting thing to think about. Finally be able to own a house. Finally be able to do what I’d always wanted to do. That was something big. It was bittersweet though because you lose someone in your family that you’re near and dear to, but you’ve got the money sitting there and you’re thinking that’s the next step. Let’s get a house.

By this point I had found a relationship and had been in one for about 6 months at this point. When I got that inheritance, that told me everything I needed to know about her. She was already talking about the sort of house we needed and she was trying to dictate the size of the place, maybe get a mortgage and it was her who was trying to arrange viewings. She was trying to dictate the house that we needed even though we’d been together for 6 months, even though it was all my money and she didn’t have anything. That made me understand that I’m not really interested in her and the relationship ended. By this point, 2015, my friend had scraped together enough money to go back to Thailand doing whatever it is he was doing. Thailand owned him basically. He completely owned him.

I think one thing I did decide to do around 2015, I had this money for a while and I hadn’t done anything with it. I had come out of that relationship, had enough money to buy a house, but I hadn’t pulled the trigger as of yet to do that. I decided, very stupidly, that I was going to go back to Thailand, too, to go see what it was like again. I hadn’t been for such a long time. Relive it. I was going to go for a month that time, even longer than before, and I just couldn’t wait to get back there to enjoy it. I really felt though that it would be different because I had the weight of over a quarter of a million pounds behind me, which would give me what I felt was more confidence and more security in the knowledge that I could live in Thailand if I wanted to. Therefore, it’s not going to be as bad if I had to leave because I could live there.

Therefore, if I’m leaving, it’s by my choice, not because of my lack of finances. Usually the case of what people go through in their lives, isn’t it? If you want something so badly and you can’t have it, you want it more. If you want something and you can have it, you end up thinking, “I don’t really want it anyway.” That’s what I thought. That’s why I convinced myself I was able to go back. I was over Thailand after all those years, but I was going back into FD15, and I was just going to enjoy it and not have it hold anything over me anymore because I could afford it properly. Big, big mistake. Big, big, huge mistake, biggest mistake of my life.

Returning to Bangkok and Pattaya

That was because as soon as I got back to Bangkok, bear in mind the time I’d been there before, both times I’d only stayed in Bangkok. At this point, my friend was living up in a part of Isaan. He’d met this girl and he was living in her family’s house at that moment, trying to rustle together a tiny income. So, I didn’t even meet up with him. Kept in touch, though. I decided I was going to spend a bit of time in Bangkok, then I was going to go and check out Pattaya. I’d done a bit of online research at this point looking at different places. I was going to go and check that out and see what it was like.

Big, big mistake, big, huge, ridiculous mistake again.

The sort of place where a guy who has any kind of addictive mentality, or a mentality like that, could do something in a certain way, and he has to do it, and he’ll do it regardless of what it’s going to cost him. Pattaya just felt like a playground, a playground for guys. It felt like it was in a way some kind of factory. Like Thailand does have factories. When you’re driving to Pattaya, you can see them dotted along the highway. Factory after factory after factory. But Pattaya was like a factory, too. Although it was a factory of life where you could go, and they built happiness there.

They built fun there. They built reality in a way that reality was meant to be. All these weird and wonderful different things you’re thinking about. That was what Thailand was. And it was quite striking to be able to actually find this in Pattaya. I stayed in a hotel on Second Road, which wasn’t anything to write home about. A normal kind of place, 600 baht a night. Just opposite you had lots of massage places.

And I loved walking past those massage shops and being beckoned in, and a girl grabbing hold of you. It was fun. I didn’t really like the massage side of thing, and I wasn’t into that, but it was fun, and it just seemed like it was a place that Bangkok was trying to be, but Bangkok couldn’t be. Perhaps Bangkok was trying to move away from that, and I was trying to move towards it. And Pattaya felt like it was righting the wrongs of Bangkok. That would be the only realistic and logical thing to be able to say. Pattaya was righting Bangkok‘s wrongs. By the time I got myself ready to go out that first night in Pattaya, it was like it was telling me I’ve got no choice but to live there.

I have no choice. At the time I’m thinking I’ve got enough money to do this. Not thinking I’ve got enough money so I don’t want to. Thinking I’ve got enough money so why don’t I? After all those years of getting over Thailand, now Thailand was back, and Thailand wasn’t going anywhere. I enjoyed the first couple of days there with the knowledge that I could be there if I wanted to be forever. So I kept that in mind. There was nothing hanging over me anymore to say, “You can’t have this forever if you don’t want it.” There was nothing like that.

Meeting a Girl on Soi 6

I’m not going to lie. There’s no point me being the sort of person who is lying and says I met her somewhere else. I didn’t. I met her on Soi 6. It was one of those you’re walking down Soi 6. You’ve had a few drinks so far, and you walk past a few bars, and for some reason you notice a girl out of the corner of your eye sitting looking outwards into the street in a bar. Why you look at her compared to everybody else, all the girls trying to pull you off the street into the bars. You’re not looking at them.

You’ve just got your eye on that girl who just sat there in her own world not speaking to people around her. It’s like I need to go and speak to her. I needed to. I need to get her a drink. So, I just walk in completely ignoring the girls asking for drinks and saying welcome, handsome man, and everything that they like to say. I just walked straight over and asked her if she wanted a drink. She looked a bit dazed. Think she wasn’t expecting that.

It’s quite a low time in Thailand at that time. It wasn’t very busy. But, we start talking, and I don’t know what it was about her. I’d seen her out of the corner of my eye, out of all the other girls that I’d met or walked past and seen, and it was something that just felt right with her. I arranged for her to spend a week with me. We went around to different places around Pattaya, and it was the funniest time I’d ever had. Just a few days after this, at this point I’m really liking her, and she seems to like me. Like she’s really liking me.

The fact that perhaps I’d taken her out to the bar and showing her these things. She said she hadn’t been working there for long. She was 21. We went on a motorcycle to this huge park place, but I can’t remember what it’s called. We’re going and looking at different scenes and temples and lots of the exciting things that I never thought about doing by myself. But, doing them with her was fun. She was, and I will say it, the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. Long black hair, which doesn’t really give much away.

And when I met her, she was just wearing this really tiny bikini on and stockings, and it was like it was just a perfect thing. I knew she worked in a bar, but who cares? I didn’t. The days are going by with her, and it comes to the end of the week, and it was like stay with me longer. So, she does. We left Pattaya together, and I even rented a car. We’re driving through the northeast part of Thailand going to go and visit my friend.

I was just really in my absolute element to the point that this is life. Life has come together now and I don’t want for anything. The fact that I had in my mind that I have enough money to be able to live here if I wanted to, that I believed allowed me to let go. I’d never been able to let go before when I was in Thailand. I’d never been able to go as hard as I wanted to have gone those first two times I was there because I knew that it had to come to an end. Now I was fully letting go and I was fully going for this with her and she was just perfect. Get up to where my friend was staying and that was quite a shock. He was living in what I would describe as a shack.

Visiting a Thai Family Home

It was a shack, a wooden house, holes all over and it was one of those ones on stilts. Underneath they’ve got a hammock and cooking stuff and they’re cooking on charcoal. Then upstairs it had the whole house. And you had to sleep with mosquito nets. It only had two rooms in this house. It was basically one big room and it had been divided into two and her mother and father were sleeping in one room and they were sleeping right next door. Just thin pieces of wood separating the two rooms full of holes. Bear in mind he’s in his 40s as was she in her 20s.

And it was apparently happy in a way that he was not doing anything that other than living in Thailand but he didn’t have much money. He got divorced from that last girl. He’d married her now and he’d given some money to the family to make this a possibility. I was just saying how are you comfortable with all this? But he’d gone fully Thai. He was 100% Thai or fully Thai this moment although he couldn’t speak the language not at all. But he’d gone so Thai that he was just eating everything they ate. He didn’t want anything other than to be there.

The girl he was with, she wasn’t the most attractive girl but still a lot younger than him. And he was just saying I’ve just in between things. That’s all he kept saying every single time. I’m just in between work. I think he must have been spending next to nothing. It was interesting to meet up with him and see him and I think I’m there quite financially okay. I’ve got this rented car and my girlfriend is beautiful. I was calling her my girlfriend at this point and he didn’t look envious.

I just suppose I looked at him being okay living in Thailand even though he had no money. I looked at my position thinking I’ve got so much more so I could do this. It was everything was giving me confidence.

I was going to be with her. I wasn’t going to rush into things and get married to her or start doing anything stupid because that wasn’t going to end well. I’m going to take things slowly but I am going to live there and I wanted to live in Pattaya. I wanted to live with her and I wanted to have a new life. That’s exactly what I was going to do. I would need to go home first to put a few things in place but I was going to come back probably less than a month and I told my girlfriend that that was going to happen. I told her I wanted to go and visit her family. I told her I wanted them to know that I was with her and I told her I’m happy to give you some money before I go back.

You’re not going back to the bar. I kept telling her that and she said she didn’t want to go back to the bar. She wanted to stay with me. She wanted me. She loved me. She’s saying all these things and I’m happy about that and I was going with it and it was great. It’s one of those situations where life just couldn’t get better. She agreed to take me to meet her family.

Thai Family Traditions

She called them up and it was probably about an hour away or an hour and a half from where my friend was staying.

She talked with me about the traditions in Thailand and how it all worked and because they were from the village, they were very set in their old style ways even though perhaps it might not be right. She was very forward and new style I would say understanding that things aren’t always best remaining the same. But she wanted to keep her family happy so we agreed to say that we were going to get married. When I got back to Thailand, we’d sort everything out and we would get that into place and we’d be able to start living. We went to see them. It wasn’t like I wanted to see them. It was like I wanted her not to do anything bad to me when I left because I was paranoid because that’s just what you hear all the time happening to all the guys. They fall in love, something bad happens.

Perhaps not that she’s deliberately trying to make you feel bad, but she doesn’t think anything about it. She’s worked in the bar for a long time, so what’s an extra few weeks? The fact that I was going to see her family was just so that she’s less likely to do anything, then because her family now know about me. It was everything like I thought it was going to be. Exchange pleasantries, she’s talking to them, and she seemed happy. They were quite indifferent though, I believe, to what I was going on. That gave me confidence that I would be able to leave for a month and things would go according to plan. Then we left the area.

About six or seven days left back in Thailand at this point, we headed to Pattaya, and just went wild for a few days enjoying each other’s company, living together, and happy together. I just wished I didn’t need to go back, but I knew I needed to. The fact that I could come back soon was just the most exciting thing though. I needed to quit the job, I needed to get rid of a few personal items, and I needed to bring some stuff with me that I couldn’t just leave behind. It was a mild inconvenience in order to get my life set up. Though I had over a quarter of a million pounds, and that gave me all the confidence that I was doing the right thing. On the last day in Pattaya, we even looked around at places to rent and even places to buy, too. I was thinking, because I was hoping to get a house with that money, I could get on the housing ladder in Thailand, buy a condo in Thailand.

Not thinking of a house at that time because that wasn’t necessarily the best idea. We looked and okay, we couldn’t get somewhere huge for a small amount of money, but for a small amount of money you could get a small place, and that could be enough so that you’ve got your own place. It was always the idea to live in Pattaya. I suppose when I got back, we could actually make decisions from there.

That same day I took her to the bus station. She was going to go and spend time with the family. That was agreed. She’d spoken to them about it. I saw her get on the bus and off she went. I left her with 50,000 baht just so that she knew I was serious and I made my way to the airport, flew home, and I was just living like I was already back in Thailand, going through the motions of everything I needed to do. It was only 3 weeks that I had to spend there, speaking to her at least five times a day. Those 3 weeks were I felt confirmation that I needed to be in Thailand.

Deciding to Live in Thailand

That’s where I should be. That’s where I wanted to be. By the time I was back, I was 100% ready to actually focus on living there and living this new life. It was my plan to get an education visa to start with. I wanted to learn the language. Then if we were to get married, which I thought I would spend at least 6 months with her, then I would be able to change over to the marriage visa. I thought based on what I had, I could spend about 10,000 pounds a year and my money should never run out. That was what the dream was anyway.

Back in Thailand, she came to meet me at the airport, went straight to the hotel in Bangkok and it’s like everything is falling into place. I spoke to my friend a few times and he was just doing the same thing, existing, trying to exist the best way he could. But I was enjoying life. I really was and I couldn’t believe I’d moved to Thailand. I couldn’t believe I had this new life and I couldn’t believe that I wasn’t working anymore and I was with this beautiful girl who I was hoping to get married to at some point. We went to Pattaya thinking about renting somewhere, but we did though rent a car instead and went to check out some other places just to get the lay of the land. I think that’s one very important thing if you’re going to Thailand. You should get the lay of the land first, know everything about it, know which places you like and which you don’t.

Went as far north as Chiang Mai, far south as Phuket across about 6 weeks.

I felt like that was the perfect place. You still had nightlife if you wanted it. You had the beach if you wanted it. You had the expat scene if you wanted that. Therefore, there was lots of expat food if you wanted that, too. Not too far away from Bangkok. I felt like it was the perfect kind of place, and she seemed to like Hua Hin, too. She said it was peaceful there.

She felt happy there. Suppose I was learning more about her, too, and the fact that Pattaya, for her, wasn’t really the place she wanted to be. She said she didn’t like that scene, but she found herself there. Her friend was working there, and she did it, too. Suppose that was the moment in time, though, when it was decided, “Let’s spend a month in Hua Hin and see what it’s like.” Throughout that month, I developed a love of that city to the point where I decided I wanted to live there. She seemed to want the same thing, and I think that’s important. Going around, finding your place, and Hua Hin was mine. Loved everything about it, absolutely everything.

And at this point, I was just as happy as ever. We went to the small house about 15 minutes drive away from the city. I’d bought a car. I’d made the error, I suppose, like many guys do of buying it in her name, not understanding at the time that a foreigner could own a car in Thailand. The car went in her name.

Marriage Costs and Sinsod in Thailand

After we’d been living there probably for 2 weeks, just getting used to living in a different place and what life was like, my friend came to visit with his wife, and he was just in a right state, a right state. He looked disheveled. He looked, well, seemingly happy, but whether he was just oblivious to the reality of her situation, I don’t know. I think seeing him like that gave me more confidence that I was going to be okay. He left, went back up to his wife’s town, back up to the family’s house, and it was just good to go, he felt. About 3 months later, we got married, went up to the family’s house, had a huge celebration. The whole village came out, and it was remarkable. It cost me a lot of money, way too much.

I was one of the guys who paid 500,000 baht for sinsod. I’ll admit to that, and I hate myself for it, but I did. That was on top of the price of the wedding and a couple of bits of gold, too. So, it’s probably a million baht all in. One thing that was happening was money was going out a lot faster than it should have done because I looked at the position of my friend and thought I’m so much better off. I’m able to spend more and not really lose anything. The fact that now I’d probably spent for the car and for the wedding plus going around together and the deposit on the place and everything we’d spent so far, plus the money I was giving to her, I’d probably spent so much that I only had 200,000 pounds left. I think it was when I dipped below that amount that I was starting to think, now it’s time to settle down.

Now it’s time to be careful and sensible. For the most part, for 6 whole months we were careful. We just lived a normal existence.

Boredom is one of the scariest things to happen to you in Thailand, because there’s so much out there to make you not bored. But for 6 months our days were pretty much the same. Wake up in the morning, have something to eat, go out, drive around, maybe go to a mall, but there aren’t that many malls in Hua Hin. Go and have something reasonably affordable to eat back at home. And then, what do you do all day? There’s nothing to do. It’s just nothingness. Nothingness for 6 whole months that fills you with the idea that you need to do something.

You desperately need to, because if you don’t, you’re going to go crazy with boredom. We were very happy together though. We never fell out, never had any instances of things going wrong between us. The sense of not having a purpose was real though. I’d never thought that would be the case. I’d always, throughout my life, wanted to get to a point when I didn’t have anything to do. Not having anything to do and not having a purpose though, it seems to send you insane. It sends you crazy and I was starting to think it’s now actually time to dig my heels in a bit and do something.

We looked around all the time and there were houses that weren’t that expensive. In foreign pound terms, 50,000 pounds. You could get a small bungalow, maybe a three-bedroom bungalow on a reasonable estate. That sounded like a great project. Get a place, a brand new place, and we could spend months decorating it and kitting it out, and that would give us a purpose. Plus we wouldn’t have any rent to pay. It just seemed like the next step, not only to give ourselves a permanent place to live, but also to give ourselves something to do. I jumped in and bought the house for 50,000 pounds.

Buying a House in Hua Hin

It was nice, but it was basically a concrete shell. We bought it completely with everything to do, and I must admit I had a fantastic time with her going and choosing everything we needed. The paints, the tiles, the bathroom, even the air conditioning units, the TV and everything. And I’d got it set up where it was just like the place I wanted it to be. The place that you wouldn’t be able to get if you were renting, because it was mine and it was right. And it was a fun time. The reason I spent a little bit of extra money doing that, probably 20,000 pounds to kit it out, was believing that once this was done, not going to have anything to do, the house is going to be perfect. The fact that I’ve got a games room, the fact that I’ve got a TV room, the fact that one of the bedrooms has got a small pool table in it, we’re going to be able to not be bored because we’ve got things to do in the house all the time.

I can promise you that that doesn’t work. It works for a few weeks of living it, but by the time you’ve lived that for 2 weeks, when your brand new house set up is perfect in a way to stave off boredom, you’re starting to want to go out again, even though you’ve spent all that money without understanding that you haven’t actually done what the thing was to do, because you thought it would help you stave off boredom forever. But it didn’t. It staved off boredom for a few bits and pieces of time and that was it, and it was a really cruel understanding. All that money, the games room, the pool table, I didn’t want to use that pool table, I wanted to go out and play pool instead. It was difficult, I suppose. I’d always done something. I’d always had a purpose, and I didn’t have a purpose anymore.

I spent all that money for a purpose. I can play games, I can go on the computer, I can play pool with my wife, and we can have a good time together. But the thing is, she’s just happy to do nothing. She’s happy to sit watching TV all day not do anything. She’s happy with that. And I suppose that’s what they do up in the village, isn’t it? They don’t do anything. They might go and work in the fields if they’re not working.

Look at her parents, for example, they didn’t do anything all day and they’re happy with that.

I spent about 70,000 on the house for the fit-out and now I only had about 130 left. And it’s not like we spent a lot of money. It was like we were okay to live. We didn’t have rent, we didn’t have a big expenses, we owned everything, no debt. It wasn’t like we had to spend a lot. But the biggest problem was after 2 weeks of this brand new house being kitted out to the point where I’m never meant to be bored again, I’m really bored again. And we got back to the same routine of not enjoying the pool table, not enjoying the games room because the novelty had worn off very quickly. Although I wasn’t depressed or miserable, I was bored and lacking a purpose and I wanted a purpose.

I think it was because of that that I was starting to think that what I should be doing is having a purpose that was an ongoing purpose, working in Thailand. I couldn’t work in terms of getting a job because I wasn’t Thai and that was something that didn’t work. I would have got a job if I could have done. Maybe I didn’t, and I don’t know why. It’s an excuse. I should have taught but I didn’t have any interest in teaching. I could have done that and I probably should have done that even if it didn’t pay a lot of money because it would have been a purpose. That was the whole reason, a purpose.

With our own business, that would give us a purpose. And it wasn’t necessarily about the idea of making a fortune or anything like that. It was just to replace the income that I was getting from the money I had, which wasn’t huge. I would have a pension coming in in a number of years’ time, perhaps probably about seven. When that would have come in, that would have given me something else, which was okay. It wasn’t necessarily though the idea to make a fortune. It was just the idea to have a purpose.

Starting a Business in Thailand

Bear in mind at this point she is happy. She goes out occasionally. She’s made some local friends around Hua Hin and she went out occasionally. She’d come back drunk sometimes, but so would I. We were happy with each other. But she never had children and she talked about that. I talked about that, too. We thought that we’d do this first.

Let’s think of something first and then maybe have kids later. The thing that kept coming back to me was and when I was the happiest when I was in Thailand originally, well, I like to go to the bars, but I didn’t want a bar. I really didn’t want that because it just seemed to be too cliché for me. I didn’t want a restaurant. I didn’t want anything like that. So, what was I meant to do? That’s the thing when you’re looking at ideas in the industry that I worked in, I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t Thai. It’s too difficult to get into that.

The thought of doing something was exciting and having a purpose, but the purpose was something I desperately needed.

It wasn’t for sale because we couldn’t afford it, but it was for lease. The owner was a Thai businessman and he didn’t have time to manage it, but he didn’t want to sell the building because he wanted to keep it, but the idea was to lease it out. It was a 10-bedroom place. He wanted 500,000 baht and 50,000 baht a month for it, which didn’t seem too bad. 10 bedrooms, 50,000 a month. And that was a great thing. If we were to do this, the rooms were 500 baht a night each. 500 baht, 10 rooms times 5,000, 150,000 it could bring in on average. Needs two staff to work there, 10,000 baht a month each. We looked into this and thought, “Let’s do it.

Let’s go for it.” It was a really good idea. That would be a purpose and it wasn’t too far away from where our house was. Also, it would be something that kept us busy. I wouldn’t have a work permit as of yet and I knew that, but I wouldn’t be the front of the house. I’d just be the there as a guy and even though it might only be 2 hours a day going and checking it out and looking around, that was like the perfect letting myself in to this new kind of purpose. So, we took this place over. It was quite fortuitous because I hadn’t seen many deals like that in Thailand before. We took it over and I would have to say, exactly as it is, it wasn’t full all the time.

Just at the occupancy we had, it was bringing in money. We hadn’t spent any money apart from that 500,000 up front, and that was great. I tried to get away with just being able to enjoy myself and have this purpose, and it was fun. 500,000 up front plus the rent, but I would be committed to a 3-year lease. It was probably making maybe 20,000 baht a month profit, which wasn’t too bad. It didn’t feel like it was just for the money though, and it gave us something to do and a purpose, and I was enjoying it. After not that long, maybe 6 months I would say, I decided that I would form a company to get the work permit and do things properly because I wanted to continue with it. It was around this time too though, after I’d done that properly, maybe 3 months paying for the work permit, I managed to get fewer Thai staff than normal to make that happen. But after that was done, the guy basically said that he wanted to sell it.

Losing the Hotel Lease

He changed his mind. He wanted to sell it. He wanted 20 million baht for it, which seemed a lot of money. Now, I didn’t have 20 million baht, but he wanted to sell it. And I referenced the fact that we had this lease in place, but that didn’t mean anything. Unfortunately, someone came in and bought it. Another Thai guy about 3 months later. We were out on the street basically.

Probably based on what I’d spent, I’d broken even, but again a purpose. It gave me a taste, that’s the thing. It gave me a taste for something.

I’d never been in charge of things. I’d always worked for someone. I’d never worked for myself, and it gave me this taste of freedom. I think I wanted to do something. I wanted to do something similar. The problem was I couldn’t buy a hotel because I didn’t have enough money. I had about 120,000 baht but basically everything owned. So it wasn’t like we spent a lot.

Because I had the taste of it though, I decided that I wanted to do something. My wife was probably happy to do nothing. But when we started doing things, now she had the taste of doing something too. I think she felt like because she was in charge of those two staff that we had when we took that place over temporarily, and it wasn’t meant to be temporary. We took it over temporarily, and I think she got a big taste of being the boss, a big high, and feeling high and mighty as if she was a boss. I don’t know how why it works that way in Thailand for everyone, but perhaps when someone gets a bit further than where they’re from, that’s where their new position in life is. That’s where their new status is, and they’re not able to go back down from there. I didn’t know that at the time, but I suppose that was how things had happened to her.

She was happy to do nothing, happy with everything as it was. Now she was able to be in charge of people, and she didn’t want to go below that again. I didn’t pick up on that though. I suppose there were subtle hints though every now and then. We both knew we wanted to do something, and she was just as keen as I was, even though I was the one who was as keen before.

It wasn’t the ideal idea, because I would have preferred a hotel, but that idea was eventually we’ll get a hotel. That was the dream. I was going to build a huge business in Thailand, and I felt like I was, because if things had happened the way they did with that first one, I felt like things were going to come good and be big, so we’ll do a hotel after. There was quite a number of different restaurants around Hua Hin, different cuisines. I’d seen Danish, I’d seen Italian, I’d seen German, all kinds, and I thought another restaurant. We found a place to rent which didn’t need key money. It wasn’t perhaps the perfect part of town, but we found it to rent. We could set everything up as a restaurant.

Opening a Restaurant in Thailand

The rest of the investment including everything for the kitchen, the tables, the decoration, everything. We’d already had the company in place, the staff and everything up front. It was going to be about 30,000 pounds, which would take the money down to 100,000 or just below, and the rent was 60,000 a month, which was quite expensive. We decided to go for it, and we did. My wife was happy. It was going to actually be what we called Thai fusion, but it wasn’t really like that. It was just Thai food and Western food basically. Why we called it that I don’t know, but we took it over and started investing money getting everything set up.

And of course, we went way over budget, considerably over budget. We had really nice kitted out kitchen, and I probably spent 55,000 pounds, and I probably had about 75 left, but everything was set up and good. We had staff, everything was in place, and before long we’re breaking even, which was the main thing. Breaking even, busy, things going okay. We had usual problems of some staff leaving and more coming in.

We’d taken on this place on a 3-year lease, but they wanted the building back and they wanted to break the lease. I told them, “We’ve got a lease and you can’t break it.” They said, “We need to. We need it back.” I said, “I’ll complain.” They said, “Go for it.” The person who owned the building knew people. We said, “No, we want to be able to do it. We’ll have everything put in place so that you can’t do this.” And well, it was basically I had no chance. Just leave it at that. They knew people, I didn’t. That’s it.

There was a problem with the lease, apparently, according to one person who got in touch with me. There’s some clauses that weren’t written properly. They said it wasn’t right and you can’t do anything about it. And I was angry and my wife was angry, too. But I could tell that she, although she felt so brilliant that she was now a boss, she felt like these people were above her and she didn’t want to fight it. She said, “Let’s go find somewhere else.” I really didn’t like my wife because of that. I’m not falling out with her yet, but it’s like she’s just given up. We were doing okay.

We weren’t making a fortune. We weren’t really making much money, but we were breaking even. We had a purpose and it was the start of this business empire and now we were going to lose it all. Okay, we could take some of the new fixtures with us, but we needed to move and we had no choice. They broke the lease just like the last guy did in the hotel and off we went. The problem was from there I had the taste of this and my wife was angry about that, but indifferent to the situation. I suppose that was when things started to go badly wrong because the next venture completely failed. It was a huge loss.

The one after that completely failed, too, a huge loss. That was across only a year. It was then I found myself with next to no money left. And I should say my friends already left and gone back home, too. Saved up, come back again and now left again during that time.

Business Failure and Financial Loss

Two failed ventures on the back of the one that’s not working. And why the ones that failed, and the ones that did, and the ones that broke the leases didn’t fail, I don’t know. But it was just like everything had fallen apart in about a year’s time, so remarkably that I didn’t even see it coming. The problem is when this happens, that’s when you understand reality. That’s when you understand that this wife that you had was the perfect girl, perfect. Everything was just there for what you were able to provide though. Therefore, the actual understanding that she was now this boss, and now you reduced her quality of life because of her not being this boss, and then she’s her own boss leaving and going to different places. It’s like, I don’t know.

The problem is now I’m really fraught and concerned, really fraught, really concerned, really shocked, really not knowing what to do, really devastated. She’s not on my side helping me. Let’s think of something else to do. She’s going out and she’s spending less time with me, and that’s adding to the stress and the worry. I was out one night by myself because she’d gone out, too. I was down, so I went about having a drink and not knowing what to do, really shocked. She calls me up and says, “Can you come back home?” So I went home and she said, “I have a problem. I want to do another business.” I told her we didn’t have enough money, and she said, “We need to.

If you don’t do, then I can’t stay with you. We need to work. We need to make more money.” She kept saying that. I told her I don’t have enough money to do it, and she said, “We have to.” It was like she didn’t understand. I had a little bit of money left, but I just couldn’t throw that into it. I needed to do something that didn’t involve spending money. And it was like she really didn’t understand. She just stormed out, and I was just there not knowing what to do.

She comes back hours later drunk, and there was nothing I could say to make her normal again, apart from doing what she wanted, which was more money for more things. There wasn’t that there though. It wasn’t like she left straight away though. She just did a few months later. All of a sudden I hear from this lawyer that she’s contacted because she thinks she’s this big boss now.

Divorce and Returning to Thailand

What about the fact that I paid for it? Well, you’re in Thailand. That’s it. I had no choice. I got divorced, she got the house, she got the car, I got my visa money, and that was it. That was all I got out of all that money. That’s when you start scratching your head thinking, “What have I just done? What have I just done?” It was all so quick and sudden.

The ups and downs of the amazing things, the losing the businesses that were going right, investing in things that went wrong, and your wife not being at your side. It was cruel. I lost all that money. Didn’t speak with my friend much at this time because he’d lost money, too. He was living on nothing, but I couldn’t do that. It’s when you’re going home after losing everything, though, that you understand just how badly things have gone wrong. You’re older, less money, no prospects, and a dreadful life ahead of you. And that’s unfortunately how it was.

I got my pension eventually, and I went back to Thailand with it, and I live on about 1,100 lb a month, and I exist. Thailand had me. As soon as I was able to be back, I was back. That was the only thing that kept me going throughout the time I wasn’t there. I’m with another girl now, a really beautiful girl, and I’ve never promised anything. I’ve never been able to do anything more than this. I’ve never taken her up in life so that anything bad will happen if she goes down again, because we’re at one level, and we’ll stay at that level, and I’m happy with that.