Thailand Took Hold of Him and Would NOT Let Go

Just when you think you couldn’t work any harder, things go wrong and you have to work even harder yet again. The burnout starts to kick in. That was me about 10 years ago now, getting to the point of no return where I didn’t feel like I had much get-up-and-go left in me because of the strenuous stress and strain of the constant need to be on it all the time.

Life just seemed to be a competition. It seemed to be something you had to compete with other people over: who could work the hardest. But it was more like who could suffer through the most indignity and the most pain. I was fed up with it. I really was. There’s no use trying to deny it.

I’d turned 55 and I’d always expected to retire at 55 and I was staring at years more work ahead of me, not knowing what I was actually going to do. I’d been paying into a pension, so that was one thing. I had an income that I could take from that pension at 55, but it wasn’t an income that was going to let me continue living my life as I was living at that moment at the same level. I wouldn’t have been able to cover my living costs. I still had a mortgage on my house that was a long way off being paid. I still owed money on my car.

A few years before that, I’d lost a lot of money because my wife decided that she no longer wanted to stay with me. I was really burnt out, beyond unimaginable doubt. Burnt out. I could no longer enjoy the weekends because all I could think about doing was trying to find extra work, trying to find something else to do to get enough money so I could stop. It was like going out all the time, as hard as I could, into the world, but I wasn’t getting anywhere.

There was the indignity of having to pay huge taxes. The government gets its share before you’ve even paid off your mortgage. Before you’ve paid for anything, the government gets its share. I was ready to just call it a day and think, “Never mind, reduce your quality of life substantially, live a new life entirely, and just get by with what I had, sell my house, get a smaller place.” It wouldn’t be very nice, but I was starting to think all the compromises I would never have thought I would make before were compromises I might have to make.

Why I Wanted a Break in Thailand

Then came Thailand. I’d never been to Thailand before. I’d been to Hong Kong, I suppose, if that’s relevant. I had been to Asia, and I knew it had that feel about it that at least made me feel like I was alive in some kind of different way. That was 10 years before then, 20 years ago from today, but I’d never been anywhere else in Asia. I’d been to South Africa, but mostly I’d holidayed around Europe.

That was with my ex-wife. We had one child. He was grown up already, and I felt for him. I really felt for him. He had it so much harder than me. And I had it so much harder than my father, who just worked a normal job, had a house, and got to his level of wealth that wasn’t available to me.

I mean, I suppose I was of an age where I could have benefited, but I did silly things in my younger years. I didn’t save, always spent, got a divorce, lost out. My dad didn’t get a divorce. He stayed with Mum, and that saved him money, too. He spent all his money, though, before he died. Fair play to him. He’d worked hard, but he hadn’t worked as hard as I had to work. But he’d spent all his money, and that was for him to do as he pleased with. But I wasn’t going to get anything from him.

Thailand. Why did I go to Thailand? I think it was mainly because of the stories that I’d heard. Everybody seems to know somebody who went to Thailand and talked about Thailand in a positive light. I was no different when I was together with my wife. We had friends who used to holiday in Thailand regularly in a place called Phuket, and they always ranted and raved about how fantastic it was and how it was better than anywhere else.

My ex-wife was never interested in going, but I was interested in that place as somewhere I might want to go. It never appealed to her. I was always a guy with my routines, and I went to the pub regularly, and at least once every few weeks, there was a conversation going on about abroad and Thailand. There were a number of guys in the pubs. They weren’t necessarily my friends who I spoke to, but you could overhear conversations about Thailand, and it really made me interested.

I think it was all of these things that made me decide that I wanted to go to Thailand and have a look. It wasn’t because I wanted to go and live there. That was the furthest thing from my mind, but I wanted a break. I was completely and utterly worn out and burnt out from not having a day off work for probably 2 years. Ever since I got divorced, I’d not had one day off. I was doing extra work, just trying to get to the point where I could stop entirely.

That was what it was. I wasn’t working because I loved it. I was working because the idea of work was to stop work. But I wasn’t getting to that point and I really needed a break. If it was going to cost me a couple of thousand, then so be it. I didn’t mind. I was prepared to pay that money. Even if it would mean extending the time I’ve got to work until I can stop working. But I needed a break.

Three whole weeks was going to be my break. It was going to be something that changed my life entirely beyond any imagination of what a changed life could be.

Three Weeks in Bangkok Pattaya and Phuket

It was about 10 years ago, in fact, 2015, so that’s 11 years ago, actually. I’d done the very typical tourist thing. I’d paid for my return flight and was going to be flying from London on Thai Airways, a good price. I can remember at that time looking for the best deal, and that was the best deal at the time. It would involve me getting the train down from where I lived. But even still, I booked that in advance and the price wasn’t too bad.

I’d booked a hotel in Bangkok for a week and I’d booked a hotel in Pattaya for a week and a hotel in Phuket for a week. Each hotel was booked. I didn’t know anything about the areas that you were meant to stay in. I didn’t know anything about anything, but I just felt that’s what you did.

Booking a Bangkok Hotel in the Wrong Location

When I arrived in Bangkok, I realised it’s a damn long way. I felt the same way when I went to Hong Kong. By the time I got there, I was so worn out. I was starting to think that this was harder than work. What have I come here for?

After I was dropped off at the hotel, I relaxed a bit, actually fell asleep, and woke up at about 1:00 a.m. Fully wide awake, and I hit the streets and started walking around in the dead of night, finding that everything seemed to be dead. But I’m still looking around, and there’s nothing going on. There was a 7-Eleven. I remember that. And that was open. I remember looking and thinking, where’s all the excitement? I walked for probably an hour that night to the different parts around where I was staying and close to where it was.

I got back to the hotel very dejected, thinking either Bangkok isn’t anything like I thought it was going to be, or I booked a hotel in a very bad location. I went back to the hotel and asked them, “Where are we? Where’s all the fun? Where’s the excitement?” They said they could help me book a taxi and where I wanted to go might be 45 minutes away.

Well, what an idiot I was. I’d booked a hotel in completely the wrong place just thinking it’s Bangkok. That must mean if a hotel is listing itself online as a hotel for tourists, it’s going to be a place where I want to be. Why would a hotel list itself not in the right area targeted at tourists? I had no idea. It was a huge mistake.

It was expensive, too. £70 a night. And I just thought, well, going up to the room, when the day comes, I’ll go and get a taxi to the main area. I didn’t know what the main area was, though. I didn’t know. Bangkok was Bangkok, I thought. But obviously, I was wrong. I was in a very bad mood already because I was tired. I’d got to a hotel in the wrong place, not understanding why that hotel was allowed to even list itself. I felt it was very disingenuous trying to get tourists to stay there.

But then you’re thinking, I suppose people like different areas and have different reasons for staying in hotels. But I was in a bad mood. I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night.

Finding Sukhumvit Soi Cowboy and Nana

About 9:00 a.m. I went down to the reception and I told them I wanted to go to the main area. I don’t think they fully understood what I meant by that. Maybe I didn’t know, too. I said, “Where do foreign people go to drink? Where are the bars?” The guy said, “Probably Sukhumvit.” That name did ring a bell when he said it. I had heard it maybe in conversations that I’d overheard. Sukhumvit. Okay, let’s go to Sukhumvit.

I went outside and flagged down a taxi. He told me it was 500 baht to get there. I agreed. I was ripped off. I knew nothing about the fact it was a metered taxi and he was meant to switch his meter on and it would have probably been 80 or 90 baht to get to where I wanted to go. 500 baht. I was ripped off on my first taxi ride in Bangkok. But I didn’t know at the time that I was. I didn’t care though because I was just there.

He drops me off into a very big area, big road. In fact, the road goes all the way from Bangkok all the way to Pattaya. I think it goes beyond there, all the way to the border. But he dropped me off in Asok, right at the intersection. I take a bit of a look around and think, this is more interesting. This is more like it. Not to mention, the traffic to get there was insane. It was probably 10:00 a.m. When I got there. Looking in all directions, trying to find my bearings and where to go.

And that’s the thing, I had no idea where to go. Do I go left, right, forwards, backwards? No idea. I didn’t think to take out my phone and do research on the internet. I’m just not that guy. I’m not an internet guy. I’m not a computer guy. I’m not interested in that. I’m interested in the old ways of reading books and when the world was different. I’m not interested in this new kind of thing.

I take a bit of a look and see one street with a big sign for Soi Cowboy. I walked over there and everything appeared to be closed. But that felt more like it. I think that was a time when I noticed the big signs. None of them were lit up yet because it was daytime. But when I noticed the bars, that’s when I had this really remarkable feeling that I even remember now. I had this chill go down the back of my spine. Like this chill inside me like I found it. We’re here. This must be it.

I knew I must be in the right area and Soi Cowboy did ring a bell too. I’m sure I’d overheard that said too. Soi Cowboy Sukhumvit. I was an outgoing guy. I saw around this area there were lots of other foreigners. Nothing like the hotel I was staying in. I would later learn I was staying in a place called Srinagarindra, which was not the sort of place you’re meant to book a hotel in. My mistake.

I asked this guy, “Where can I go and have a drink?” Even though it was early, I was there to relax after all. He pointed in a direction. He didn’t really speak English and didn’t really want to speak to me. And I remember this as if it was yesterday. Points me in the direction. And I end up following his lead across the road.

And I was walking towards Nana. I could have walked in the wrong direction and not found anything. But that’s the thing. It’s exciting. I’m starting to see things. I’m starting to be in a place that I thought Thailand was meant to be. Okay. I got off to a very bad start when I got there, but now I’m shaking. I had a chill down my throat. I’ve got this feeling right in the pit of my stomach, in my sternum, like it’s electric, like it’s wanting to burst out. It was a really incredibly amazing feeling.

My First Chang Beer in Bangkok

I continued walking and that’s when I hit this. It was a bar right on the road. Open air, people in there already drinking. And I thought, I’m here. I found it. I walked in and a girl came over to me. What would you want to drink? It wasn’t a place where girls worked like that. It was a restaurant I found. It looked like a bar to start with, but it was a restaurant. What would you like to drink? A beer, please. What beer do you want? I don’t know any. Just bring me a beer. And she happened to bring a Chang.

From then on, I was a Chang man and always have been. I just felt like I’d found Thailand. I’d found it. It was a lot of hard work, a lot of difficulty, a lot of stress and strain, but I was there.

From then, I was going around to different places, having drinks in different places, getting completely annihilated. I was there to relax. I was there to have a good time. And before I know it, I just feel like I’m a seasoned Thailand regular, even though I’d only been there for one day. I suppose it just made me feel like life was worth living for a change. I hadn’t had time off work for such a long time. Now I’m not working because I’ve got 3 weeks to myself and I’m in Bangkok. I’m living life. I’m there and the drinks are relatively cheap compared to a beer at home and it just felt great.

I think the thing I liked about it the most was just how different everybody seemed to be who was walking around. There seemed to be people from everywhere. People who were from where I was from, of course, people from Thailand because that was where we were, but also people from the Middle East, India, China, Korea, Japan, and everywhere. It was like a melting pot. That was what I loved. I love that kind of thing where people are there for very different reasons. All enjoying very different things in the same place. Makes you feel alive like you can’t explain.

Home doesn’t. Home lets you down and sets you up for boredom. At least where I’m from. Small place, beautiful place, but small. But it sets you up for boredom, doesn’t it? You go out to go to the pub, see the same faces, talk to the same friends, go home, watch TV. Nothing going on. Here, everything was going on. And I didn’t feel tired anymore. I felt a sense of energy come over me, and I was loving it.

I probably went into eight or nine different places and ended up having a great Thai meal at a restaurant that was just off Sukhumvit Road too. I think it was Soi 11 where I had that.

Jenga and Connect 4 in a Bangkok Bar

By the time I found myself in a bar, it was obvious that girls were working. I wasn’t there to meet a girl. Of course, that wasn’t what I was there for. I knew that people went to Thailand for that, but that wasn’t what I was interested in. I wasn’t there to meet girls. I was there to have a good time and to let my hair down and mainly to relax.

It was very intoxicating when you go into that first experience and there are girls working there who are speaking to you, who want to sit and drink with you, who want to play Jenga with you. I started playing Jenga with this girl I’m talking to. And I’m thinking to myself, because I wasn’t really ready yet in terms of what Thailand is and what Thailand had to offer, but I’m thinking, this is just beyond imagination, playing Jenga, and she’s very, very good at it.

It was always, “Oh, I win. You buy me drink.” I didn’t mind. It was fun. I’d got money to burn. No problem. I had a good budget. She’s winning and she’s cheering and she’s hugging me every time she wins, too. As if she has to somehow give me something for the drink I’m giving her. And it was great. Completely amazing. She pulled out Connect 4 as well. And she was good at that, too. She must have played that game time and time again. And she must have this knowledge about how to play and how to win. And she was beating me at that all the time, too.

I probably bought her 10 drinks. I probably had three drinks in the same time. And she’s just downing these shots of whisky like it’s nothing. Just a shot. Ten shots downed. I was starting to think, am I sure she can handle this? She was quite small and petite. But it was fun. Then after that, she’s getting more drinks, but this was whisky and Coke. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the bar. She wouldn’t have been the girl I would have picked if I walked in and was picking. She was just doing everything in her power, it seems, to get me to buy her drinks and to get money out of me.

When you’re there on holiday and you’re there to live, you know what that’s about. You’re enjoying it and you’re thinking it’s fine. I’m not thinking anything other than that. You have to take it for what it is and understand. I’m just about to leave. Probably 7:00 p.m. Not too late, but I’m just about to leave. And she looks a bit dejected. “Oh, you not take me with you?” I wasn’t thinking about doing that. I mean, I wasn’t there for that. Not at all. “Why you not take me with you?” she said. Okay then, if you want. I was just about to go and have something to eat.

I was drunk, but I can remember. It wasn’t blackout drunk or drunk where you can’t walk. I drank a lot at home, so I suppose I could handle a good amount of alcohol. And she was probably really drunk, but yeah, let’s go out together. I’m hungry. What do you want to eat?

I walked out of the bar and she’s with me, probably in her mid-20s. She’s got her arm linked with mine, leading me down the street. We ended up at this restaurant, went inside and ordered some drinks. And she’s just wild when it comes to her alcohol consumption. Completely wild. I mean, I was too, but I was a big guy and I could take it. It’s just this introduction to Thailand, an introduction to life that was alien to me before this.

My First Day in Thailand

When I was in Hong Kong, I wasn’t there with my wife, even though I was with my wife at that time. I actually went to pay respects to someone in my family who died there a long time ago. It was something I’d always wanted to do. Maybe it was an excuse. Maybe I was already bored of my wife at that time or she was bored of me because of what was going on. I don’t know. Perhaps she wasn’t behaving like a wife anymore. 10 years before, maybe 8 years before we got divorced.

That was one of the best times I’d had. But I wasn’t doing the same things. I was going out and drinking and there were girls around, but it wasn’t the same as Thailand. Somehow Thailand just had everything. I’m just loving the fact that life is working for me. It really is. And I’m enjoying myself. I’m on holiday and I’ve got to go back in 3 weeks and I’ve got to get back to that. That was quite an alarming contrast because what I was doing at that moment was just so much better.

This girl, I wasn’t planning to do what I was doing. She just seemed to insist. If she insisted, I’d go with it. That was my first day in Thailand. One of the best days of my life. I mean, I’m saying that with a pinch of salt. The birth of my child was more important. Of course, there were certain things like that. But it was the best day of my life that only involved me. And it really, really was.

I love listening to other people’s first days in Thailand and how they compare to mine. The first day in Thailand is a time when you develop your opinions about the country. It’s a time when you understand what is available that you never thought or understood about before. My first day in Thailand was just like that. I relive my first day in Thailand in my mind all the time. All the time. I relive it every day and I can still picture and remember it and relive it.

Thailand gave me something that home didn’t give me. I had a wonderful time. I had no idea what she was called. I never saw her again. But it was effortless. It was fun. If I think about how much I spent that evening, it was probably, and this is absolutely everything, maybe £120 to £130. That included a hotel, too, because I couldn’t go all the way back to that hotel I’d booked in the wrong place. That was all it was.

What I ended up doing was taking a loss on that hotel in the stupid area I’d booked. It was incredible how I went from the contrast of that awful time to the wonderful time that happened after that. And it did everything I needed. It was the break I’d needed.

A Cheap Hotel on Sukhumvit Soi 11

I took a cheap hotel right at the end of Sukhumvit Soi 11. I think it was the PB hotel. Sure, I’ve heard that talked about before all the time. They didn’t have many hotels there like they do today. But the PB hotel, I think that was 800 baht a night right at the end.

It was the sort of place where you’d see guys and girls going, and it was great, though. Comfortable bed, bathtub, everything you needed. Walking distance to everywhere you wanted to go. Cheaper than the hotel I’d paid for. I’d just spend the rest of my time there.

My First Night on Pattaya Soi 6

I went to Pattaya, though. On my first night in Pattaya, I was on Soi 6. And that street is completely wild. It was wild then and it’s wild now. I hope to God it will be wild for the rest of time. I walked into probably seven or eight bars along that street and the last one is always the one you remember. These girls felt more in your face than the girls in Bangkok did. They were wearing bikinis and stockings and I will say I love the girls with tattoos although I wouldn’t want to settle down with a girl like that if you ever did that.

I wasn’t thinking that though. I hadn’t gone to Thailand for the girls, but I’m finding that the girls are the biggest attraction, as well as the relaxed lifestyle, the beer, and everything else. The Chang beer, that is. Chang was my beer. Always has been. I’m with this girl, and she pulled me off the street, as did the other girls in the other bars that I’d been in, and I bought a couple of drinks for them. But by this point, you’re already developing favorites and opinions about what you like in different girls.

And although they all seem to ask very similar questions and they have very different mannerisms in the way they go about doing things, the girl that I was with in that bar, she reminded me of my very first girlfriend when I was 20. She reminded me of her, not by how she looked, but by how she behaved and how she talked. Although her English wasn’t great, she reminded me of that. I don’t know why.

I find that I’m getting lost in conversation as a 55-year-old man with a 22-year-old girl from Thailand. I do remember her age, 22. I’m getting lost in conversation with her about nothing, nothing serious, and I just liked her. By this point, I did feel like a seasoned professional. Now, I’d only been there for what was just over a week in the country in total, but I knew what to ask and what to do. She ends up leaving with me, and what a great time. I just find that I’m feeling something in this girl that isn’t like the other girls.

One thing that I find funny, everyone says that their girl is different, don’t they? I suppose you can say the same thing. I bet you say that your wife was different, wouldn’t you? Because she’s different to you for you. This girl, she was different. I would have placed all the other girls on a very particular level. Just one level. All of them and the same. That’s basically how it felt. But she wasn’t.

Believing in a Romance With a Thai Bar Girl

When you’re that happy and that content, when you’re that excited about life and having a good time, I suppose you start believing things could happen and could be possible that perhaps you would never believe were real or possible before. Before I went to Thailand, if someone said to me, I was going to fall in love with someone who was 22 and I’m going to believe that it’s reciprocal and she feels the same way about me, I would have said, that’s absolute insanity and it’s not possible. And I would have laughed.

But when you’re there and you’re living it and you’re experiencing it and it’s right in front of you, you start believing that dreams can actually come true. You start believing in these possibilities. I was starting to believe in this possibility that this girl could be that one in a million who was looking for someone just like me who was interested in what I was. She just behaved like I was different, too. It was like I felt something I’d never felt before. She reminded me of my first girlfriend.

I’d say at this point I’d been in Bangkok. I’d been out every day. The first night I met a girl, I never saw her again. I went out and met another girl, but nothing ever happened with many of them. In Pattaya, I hadn’t met a girl that anything had happened with either. But with her, it was like I felt so brave in my ability to talk to her about anything I wanted to talk about and ask for anything.

Imagine if you’d met someone at home in whatever circumstance you might have met them in. You wouldn’t be so forward and tell them, “I really like you.” You wouldn’t say that. But I was telling her I’m going to be in Pattaya and luckily I must say I booked into the right hotel in the right location in Pattaya purely by luck rather than management. But I’m going to be in Thailand and I would like you to spend time with me. Do you want to spend time with me? Just as if it was any question that you’d ask if you’re going to rent a jet ski: can you have this for a day or can you have it for 2 days?

Yeah, I’ll stay with you of course. She said how much she would need because she was working in the bar. That was her job. She said how much she would need and how much the bar would need because she wasn’t going to be making drinks. That was fine. I felt at the time that it was just a condition for her. The money was secondary. Being with me and spending time with me and getting out of the bar was the most important thing to her. That’s what I felt was going on and that’s what made sense to me.

I didn’t realize that I had it completely skewed and backwards. The money was the reason she was doing that. The reason I thought she was doing that is because she wanted to. It made her happy and it made her excited to think about spending a few days with me.

The Money Behind the Pattaya Romance

It got to the point where she’s with me for I would say 3 days at this point. I thought she was going to be with me until I left for Phuket. I was even thinking about asking her to go to Phuket and I was really ready to do that. I could extend this with her forever. I might even contact her when I get back home. I might even tell her to stop working and try to get her to come home with me. That’s what I’m thinking already and I know it’s stupid.

But 3 days go by and I’m really having the time of my life. I remember waking up and I remember her. She was sort of sitting at the table. She was fully dressed, and the hotel had this table. She sat there looking at her phone waiting for me to wake up. I wake up and she said, “Okay, I go now.” I asked her what she meant. Oh, I go back to work. I thought you were staying with me, I said. I thought we’d already agreed. “That just 3 days. I need to go back to work now.”

That was, I suppose, the moment that the illusion gets shattered completely. She didn’t feel anything for me. She didn’t care about me. It was money and she had to leave. I thought I’d given her enough where it was going to last until I decided because she wanted to be with me. But no, I said, “Well, I thought you were going to stay with me.” She said, “You can give me more money and I can stay with you.”

When you understand in that moment and look at yourself in the mirror and think idiot, you had it all wrong. I’ve heard stories time and time again when guys didn’t see it for what it was at that moment. But I saw it exactly for what it was then. All these thoughts about what I was going to be able to do with her had become like a potential future life with her. All these thoughts had just vanished entirely. Completely vanished.

I was a bit hurt for a couple of hours, but you find yourself leaving the hotel, walking into a bar, there’s another girl there, and thinking, “What was wrong with you? What was wrong?” I will admit to even laughing at myself for believing what I believed. I thought she liked me. Of course, she didn’t. She liked the money. That was it. It was a money thing. Okay, so you don’t need to meet a girl for something serious in a bar. As much as they’re beautiful, as much as they’re exciting and exotic and everything a guy might want, you just don’t do that.

What My First Thailand Holiday Taught Me

I ended up having a good time in Pattaya for the rest of that time before going to Phuket. Wonderful place. I think Phuket was my favorite. The thing it lacked to me was the same kind of extreme and exciting nightlife. They had it in small quantities. Of course they did. But I felt like Phuket would be a great place to go with someone. I didn’t meet a girl in Phuket, although I was out every night, but I did meet a girl to speak with and drink with, but nothing more than that.

What Thailand did for me that first time I was there was give me the understanding that you can have the time of your life. It’s not that expensive if you’re careful and you don’t go crazy every day. You can meet girls and have a wonderful time with girls that would appear to be in your dreams if it was possible. You can fall in love with the girl and then you can find out it’s all about the money. And that’s what Thailand did to me.

What it did for me when I got back home was make me understand that I don’t really want to be here anymore. I really don’t want that. What allowed me to make the decision to move to Thailand was that based on my understanding of Thailand and what I was doing there, I was living each day completely on holiday mode because I was on holiday. But you don’t do that every day if you live there, do you?

Retiring in Thailand on £1,800 a Month

I’m starting to conclude that I need to go back to Thailand as soon as possible to go and work out how much it would cost to live there, live in moderation, a good life, a good time, and get myself to the point I’d always wanted to be in my life, but I wasn’t going to be able to get at home because I couldn’t continue living the same way at home because I didn’t have enough money to do that.

I could have significantly reduced my lifestyle at home and lived, but that wasn’t what I wanted to do. But my lifestyle in Thailand could be better and cheaper. I decided I needed to go back. I was back 3 months later, just for a week this time. That’s all I could get off work. I was back to do the proper calculations about the ability to live there. It quickly became apparent to me that based on what I could get, if I got rid of everything I had and invested everything, plus my income that I was getting from my pension, I could get probably £1,800 a month.

I’m looking into Thailand, what’s available here, what you can rent, what you can do. And it’s quickly becoming apparent that my lifestyle for that would be better in Thailand than my current lifestyle, spending a lot more than that and living like I did at home. It quickly became an idea that I just had to do.

Meeting a Thai Woman Online and the 10,000 Baht Request

When I was back at home though, I’d also joined a site where you could meet girls from Thailand. I think it was one of the most popular sites available. I was really interested to go away from the bar side of things, interested to get away from that and meet a girl who was normal. Now I’m not saying anything against a girl that works in a bar. They are normal people, normal people in every sense of that. But it’s about the money.

I was chatting to a few girls during the three months I was back just chatting away and seeing if I found myself attracted to any of the girls. They were all in their 20s, and I believed that it wasn’t a bar situation. The reason it went wrong was because it was a bar situation, but if she’s not working in the bar and she’s 20, she must be interested in something else other than money.

In fact, during that week when I was coming to the conclusion that I could live there, I actually met up with this girl who was 26. I’d spoken to her for a long time and she’d wanted to meet up with me. This was one of the girls I was speaking to for the 3 months before I went back. I went to meet up with her. I spent most of the time in Bangkok looking around and I didn’t know if I was going to live there.

The idea was if Bangkok is affordable, then somewhere else is going to be equally as affordable or even more affordable because Bangkok was the capital city. This girl, she came from wherever she was from to come and meet me. I felt like I hit it off with her. Hit it off with her straight away. I believed she worked. She said she had a shop up in the area where she was from. She worked at this shop. She sold clothes and other things. I can’t remember what that was, but she’d be selling these things and she’d come to meet me.

And she really, I wouldn’t say this to be hurtful or offensive here, but she wasn’t very attractive. It was more about her personality and we were speaking about things together and about how we got along. But she came to meet me and I wasn’t expecting her to stay with me, but she was going to do that. That was something that took me aback a bit too. I wasn’t really thinking that was going to happen, but she wanted to stay with me.

And I’m feeling like I’m hitting it off with her. It wasn’t about the appearance. It wasn’t about that. It was about what I felt we’d shared and spoken about for a long time: what we talked about, what we both wanted. I’m ready to retire and I want to live in Thailand and I love this. She’s ready to settle down with someone and she wants that. It felt like we went together. She stayed with me for a couple of days and I’m thinking, you know, I want this to continue. Then she dropped the bombshell. Why haven’t you given me any money?

Not once while I’d spoken to her had she talked about money. Not once had she talked about that at all. I’d not talked about it. I’d not talked about giving her money. She came to see me because she wanted to see me. Now it’s why haven’t you given me any money? I looked at her and I can remember saying, “We never talked about that. What do you mean?” Well, I don’t have work now because I come to see you and I need some money. I have things to pay for.

I asked her how much she wanted and she said 10,000 baht. And I said to her, I can remember thinking to myself, if I say no, how is she going to act? If she says, “Okay, it’s okay. I don’t want it,” then I’d give it to her anyway. If she says, “Okay, I will leave,” then I know that she was there for the money. I told her, “I’m sorry. I can’t give it to you. I want to get to know you and I want to be able to be with you for longer and see how it goes.” She said, “Oh, sorry. I have a problem. If I not get money, I need to go back to work quickly.”

Well, that was that one over, too. Another experience which made me think, you know, I didn’t meet her in a bar. I met her online. But she was meant to be a normal girl. But she was just interested in money, too. I suppose that was when it clicked with me that perhaps a girl in her 20s isn’t going to be with me for anything other than money. You can learn your lessons, can’t you? And I believe I learned mine.

I decided that perhaps a more age-appropriate girl would be the right thing for me. So forget meeting anyone. Spend a bit of time in Bangkok. Work everything out. I suppose by this time I’d already worked it out. I wanted to be there and I was just partying for the first few days that were remaining and I went back home, gave myself 6 months to get everything in order.

Selling My House and Car Before Thailand

It was that time in your life when each day you’re getting closer to actually moving to where you want to be, to be able to live how you want and to be able to actually have this fantastic life. Things take time though, the house sale, that took time, but eventually it came off. I got rid of the car. That was how stupid it was. Before Thailand, I was paying about £500 a month for my car. When I got rid of it, it cost me £4,000 because the car wasn’t worth anything. Just crazy. Don’t get a car loan. It’s stupid.

It cost me money to get rid of the car. It was a very stupid thing. Why did I need that? I suppose you think you need it because you need this instant gratification for all the hard work you’re doing. If I’m doing this hard work, I can at least get into work in a nice car. Just stupidity in a nutshell. Everything was set up. It was going to be about £1,800 a month. I had a bit of spending money on the side, too. And that was fun.

And everything was invested into a safe investment. It wasn’t going to increase in value much, but it wasn’t going to lose value either. And that was a very important thing for me. I can remember arriving in Thailand there to live, just feeling like I was on top of the world. I’d spent time speaking to other girls. I was going to be looking for girls over 38 now. But nothing ever felt right. I suppose it’s difficult online. So because of that, I thought I’d wait until I got back, which is what I did.

I wanted to find a partner. That was very important to me because I felt that if you have a partner, you do things together. I’m not going to go out and drink every day because I could have easily gone to the bars every single day as a single person. But I went back online again. I’m not an online guy, really. I hate online. But when it came to chatting with girls, now I am. Not really. I don’t know what I mean. I like to watch YouTube, too. Of course I do. But I’m not really an online guy.

But I’m on a dating site. That doesn’t mean I’m an online guy. I wouldn’t go online to look for directions or look into things like that. I’d rather read a book. But if you’re meeting someone, I suppose it’s different. At least that’s me convincing myself it is. Maybe it’s my own contradiction. I don’t know. But I don’t want to come across as being an idiot.

Meeting My Future Wife in Nong Khai

I started looking at girls’ profiles and seeing which girls I was interested in, which ones I wasn’t. I started speaking to a girl from Isan. She was living in her area. She spoke reasonable English and was from a place called Nong Khai. I learned that was quite close to Laos, right in the eastern part of the country, the northeastern part of the country. I found that was quite interesting and she was talking quite a lot with me for quite a while.

Usually you’d meet someone, get the phone number and start speaking. That was how I did it. And I find I’m in Bangkok. I found a place to live, a great place to live, cheap place to live. And that was important. And I’m going out regularly. I’m drinking, but I’m speaking to her, too. I decided I wanted to go and visit her. She was working up there. Again, what she was doing at the time, I didn’t know, but she was working.

We spoke for a few days. Can I come and visit you? Yes, I’d love for you to come and visit me, she said. I went up there. It was an awful journey to get there, mind, on the bus. That wasn’t fun at all. I got myself to a hotel and we arranged to meet. She came to meet me. She didn’t really look much like her pictures. Her pictures showed her younger self, but she was still quite attractive, quite appealing.

Then she told me, “I work around here.” She then said she worked in the hotel. I told her, “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have stayed there,” but she said it’s okay. She was a cleaner at that hotel in the city and she lived out in the sticks. Just basic stuff. I didn’t really understand. How do you speak English? Then she dropped a bit of a bombshell. I had a boyfriend from before who I don’t stay with anymore. That’s how I speak English. Now I don’t want to stay in Pattaya. She said she wanted to come back home. I just do this now and it’s good enough for me.

Immediately you find, well, she was working in Pattaya before. She had a foreigner before. Then you put two and two together and you think, never mind. Go for it. I’m spending some time with her and I’m finding that I just, I don’t know, I just like her. Let’s just put it at that. I just like her. It just seemed that she wanted someone to be with. She didn’t ask for money. She didn’t ask for anything. It wasn’t about that. Perhaps she was thinking long term. Okay.

I knew that if I was with someone long-term, I would be the breadwinner and I would be the person paying and supporting. That, of course, wouldn’t be initially. Initially, it has to be reciprocal. I’m not giving money just because you’ve come to see me, and she wasn’t wanting money or anything. It wasn’t any kind of problem when I was with her. I felt great. We both seemed to want the same things. We’re both interested in the same things. That was good enough for me. I ended up spending two weeks in Nong Khai. She’s going to work. She’s seeing me and it felt great. It really felt amazing.

And I said, “Would you like to come to Bangkok with me?” She hesitated a bit and said, “Well, I can’t work. I need to work. They don’t give holiday for me.” She only got 6,000 baht a month, which is next to nothing. I said, “If you take a month off, I’ll give you 6,000 to replace that income, so you can take a month off and tell them you’ll come back later if you need to.” She said she’d ask. She went to ask, and yes, that’s fine.

Returning to Nong Khai Together

She went to Bangkok with me and went to my place, and it was clear she didn’t really like Bangkok. She said it was too busy and it’s too noisy and just nothing like where she was from, and that’s what she liked the most. That told me everything that I needed to know about whether I actually wanted to be with her or not. I wanted that more than anything. It’s a question of she doesn’t want to live there. Okay, let’s go to Nong Khai. Let’s rent somewhere to live there.

We did that and she stopped working completely at this point and I started giving her 10,000 baht a month for her. I felt like she was worth it. We rented a place in Nong Khai and I was good with anywhere. I was just good not working and being retired and living my life and happy. And she just seemed good to be with me.

Meeting Her Family and a Village Wedding

Before long, she’s talking about getting more serious. She’s talking about wanting to get married. And I wasn’t thinking of that because it felt too soon. Why do you want to get married, though? And, you know, my family. It’s always a family thing. Always family, isn’t it? My family, I can’t go and see them with you if we’re not married. And I said to her, I’ll do what you want. Fine.

She talked about how we can do it in the village. We don’t need to get married the other way. She said I didn’t need to worry. My family don’t want any money either. Then she went into a big talk about how she had two children, how she’d been married before in Thailand to a Thai guy who’d left and she’d got divorced from him. Then an English boyfriend, a bad man.

And she’s springing all these things on me that she hadn’t told me once. She hadn’t told me about her children. She hadn’t told me about anything: no children, no Thai husband, nothing. Now she’s telling me this the day before we needed to go and see her family.

I thought, I’m not really sure if these newfound revelations are something I want to be dealing with because she should have told me the truth to start with, but I thought to myself, perhaps she was worried and she didn’t know if she wanted to be with me. She didn’t lie to me. She just didn’t offer up the truth. Suppose you could say that. I overlooked it and said, “Let’s go.” It was about a month or so later when we had a small party. Very, very small, but it was good enough for them. And because of that, she can be comfortable and everything’s fine.

Building a Small House in Nong Khai

I’m not really looking at the situation for exactly what it was. Where the family lived, they were very, very out in the sticks. I mean, you can have a village life and you can have village village life and you can have even beyond that. This place was so far out in the middle of nowhere, just a tiny village. They had a number of people around, but it was so far away. Many people there didn’t seem to have any contact with the outside world. That’s a very extreme way of putting it.

They had electricity and televisions. They could watch the news and they could see everything, but it was like they didn’t have contact with the outside world and it felt so backwards.

She didn’t necessarily want to live there. Her children were living there with her parents and she had been living with them and going into the city to work. I suppose now she was with me and she’s not seeing her children often. That’s why she said it was because of her children. The youngest was still 12. I think they still wanted her to be in their lives. Of course, why wouldn’t they want that?

She’d hoped to be able to live in the village. And I told her I couldn’t live there. It just didn’t feel right. Then she said, “Well, we could have a house here. We could build a small house.” What was I thinking? I didn’t want to do that. I didn’t really have the money to do that. I had my money fully invested, my income, and that’s how we live. But we could have a house, she said.

I hadn’t really heard horror stories then of guys building houses in the village and losing everything. I knew that investing a big amount of money somewhere would be in essence not investing it. It would be giving it away. I sort of said to her, “How about if we have a house? It can only be very, very small. And as soon as your youngest child turns 18, we leave.” She thought about it for a bit and said, “Okay, how much is it going to cost?”

I worked out what I was paying for in rent in Bangkok, and it was only 7,000 baht a month. If we’re going to live here for 6 years, that was what I was thinking. 7,000 baht a month for 6 years. That comes out at what? Half a million baht, give or take. That’s basically what I would spend in rent if we were living in Bangkok. And if we were living here, that’s basically what we could have to build a house.

I asked her, “Would this work for you?” And she said, “Yeah, we could build a small house for that.” Also, it became quite apparent we would need our own transportation. I was in two minds. I must admit at this point I was in two minds. But I really liked her. She’d hidden some things from me, but I overlooked that because she didn’t lie to me. She didn’t say I don’t have children. She just didn’t say that she did. I felt happy with her and she was happy with me. And she was 42, by the way.

But I’m in two minds because it’s a commitment, a long-term commitment. But it was an agreement if we did it. We’re going to need to spend money for a car, too. And I found myself together with her when we’re in Bangkok, just actually thinking long and hard about whether it was the right idea. We went to look at secondhand cars, and you could pick up an old banger for 150,000 baht. That should last and should be okay.

She did say we could build a house for 600,000, so slightly more than five, but it would only be small and basic Thai style, but it could have a reasonable kitchen in it, a reasonable bathroom, decent bedroom, air conditioning, TV, 600,000. Not huge, but it would roughly be the amount of money I would spend in rent across those six years. That would basically mean that as long as it worked, the idea would be fine.

We decided, or should I say I decided I would do it. I wanted everything upfront about how it was going to work. I wanted to know the prices. I wanted to make sure that no one was exaggerating. We could do it. The family had the land, so yes, let’s do it.

Married Life and Reading in the Village

We built it and moved in. It happened to actually be her youngest child’s 13th birthday when we moved in. We were going to be there for 5 years. It was the best decision I ever made. During those 5 years, I really, really fell more in love with her than I could have ever imagined. She’s the best wife I could ever hope for. We got married properly about a year after we’d moved in. She’s been the best wife I could have ever imagined.

And I can’t remember the last time we had an argument. I can’t remember the last time we didn’t see eye to eye on something. Her family gave us trouble along the way. I probably will admit to giving them money every now and then. Just my income in that village went so far, so I was good with it. I never gave them any money that would reduce my income. If I had spare money and they needed 10,000 baht for something, I didn’t mind. I think the biggest amount I ever gave was 25,000. That wasn’t necessarily a lot.

We lived in the village, spent time traveling occasionally, maybe three or four times a year, and we just didn’t spend a lot of money. You can fill your days, but you have to have hobbies and interests. I got back into reading. I read a book a week, and I started loving living there. I struggled with lots of the village habits that I could never get used to. The burning and the charcoal making and everything that people talk about. I struggled with that, but I overlooked it.

I haven’t once really felt like I’d made a bad choice. By the time her youngest turned 18, I did pay for him to go to university with money I’d saved because we weren’t spending a lot. We find that even though we were meant to be leaving, we haven’t left. We just live there. The house is small, but it does what it does. As of today, we’ve spent a bit of money, again out of income that’s been saved from not spending. We’ve made a few improvements and made a carport. We had to replace the car, but we got another cheap one.

My wife doesn’t want for anything apart from to be looked after. She still gets 10,000 a month for her expenses, but doesn’t ask for anything else.

I know some negative Nancy will say if you didn’t have the money, she wouldn’t want to be with you. And I can sort of see what you mean by that because that could be true. But what she gets isn’t anything more than what I gave her to start with. It’s not like it’s only a money thing because she doesn’t want a lot. She wants us to be together. We spend time together. We’re happy together. We do things together. If there was no money, she wouldn’t want me.

If there was no money, I wouldn’t want me either, would I? That’s the thing. I wouldn’t want me.

How Thailand Changed My Life for the Better

Thailand. It changed my life for the better. I made a few mistakes along the way, believing I could have someone a lot younger than me and more exciting than me. But it doesn’t work like that. I overlooked some things with my wife when she withheld information, but again I’m glad I did because she didn’t mean anything by it. She had worked, and I did know that she did use to work in Pattaya. She obviously meant she’d worked in a bar. She met a guy from England, so she did do that, but she never said it was in a bar. But I kind of think and kind of know that it must have been.

Why else would I? Why would I try to pry and push and ask more? Because it doesn’t matter. Thailand can work for you. Thailand can change your life. The thing is, you need to see it for what it is and understand it for what it is, too. Don’t get carried away and don’t do something stupid. I did some stupid things, but I learned very quickly as soon as I did them and understood what I’d done.

But many guys don’t understand or guys understand, but they think they’re different or they think they’re luckier, or whatever they think. I am very lucky that I found Thailand because it’s allowed me to live the past 10 years of my life far better than I ever could have imagined living anywhere else. Far better. And with my wife, I’m thankful. I love her tremendously. We respect each other and we hardly ever fall out. What more could any guy actually want?

I believe positive stories are just as important as negative ones because there is hope. There is hope and you have to have hope. And this is the hope that I’m willing to share.

Thank you, Thailand. I owe you my life.