Returning to Buriram to Continue the Relationship

When I finally understood the truth about Thailand, it was already too late. My decision to move to Thailand came out of the blue. And up until I visited, I didn’t know anything about the country or have any desire to leave where I was from.

One fateful trip changed all that because I immediately fell in love with the country as well as a girl, and that was what brought on the decision to move there. I was 59 years old, not exactly a spring chicken, and my reason for being in Thailand was to watch the MotoGP race in October 2018. I was a big fan and still am.

And while I mainly went to races around Europe, my reason for going to this one was simply because I was recently divorced back at home and wanted some time to myself. We were already retired. We both retired at 55 being of the same age as each other.

And I thought that was how things were going to last forever until she decided that this wasn’t going to be the case. That really hurt me because I thought that my life was going to continue in the way that it had been up until then, but that threw a huge spanner in the works and left me not knowing what to do. Our two children were already grown up by then, so they weren’t affected by things as badly as they would have been if they weren’t.

But even still, the divorce meant that we had to split everything that we had down the middle, which meant that I felt like my retirement was now on rockier ground. When all was said and done, I ended up with about £250,000. And while when we started out, we had £550,000 between us, which was more than enough for us to both be able to live.

After all the fees that went along with the divorce and other money that was lost in fees when it came to selling our family home, I was left with an amount that made me feel that I didn’t really have enough just to live. My ex-wife had made up her mind that she was moving, too. She wanted to leave the country and she did just like that.

This was about 6 months before I made the decision to go to Thailand and it was a very fateful decision because it made me feel happier than I’d felt in years. It also gave me a sense of confidence that I hadn’t felt for such a long time and I started believing things about myself that weren’t even remotely true. Thailand was where all that began.

It really did feel like it was a perfect place to start again. Even though I was approaching 60, I was going to make a really good go of that Thailand trip. Go to Bangkok, spend a few days there, go to one of the islands and check out the natural wonder, and then about a week into the trip, go to Buriram for that race.

After the race, I had 3 or 4 days left to take things in as they came. That was the run of events and the consequences of what happened up until I went to Thailand that saw what happened to me in Thailand happen in the first place. Before I get into exactly what happened, I do want to say that I didn’t know about what happened to many guys in Thailand who did certain things.

I wasn’t your seasoned Thailand traveler, having never been to the country before. I was just your normal typical guy who if someone said to him in Thailand, “You have to be careful of a certain thing,” that would have been the first time I would have ever heard about it. What I’m trying to say is that I was very green around the ears when it came to Thailand and what happened there.

And it was that sense of naivety that I think made things far worse for me. Made me do also the things that I shouldn’t have done. I must admit that Thailand made me feel like I was a big man.

It made me feel this sense of importance and those feelings were addictive.

A First Thailand Trip from London to Bangkok in October 2018

I think it’s only right for me to tell you about my first time there because it was the feelings I got by being there that made me do what I did in the first place. The flight to get to Thailand was the longest flight I’d ever been on. I’d guess it was about 11 and a half hours going direct from London Heathrow to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport.

I’d been once to New York before, but aside from that, this was the longest flight I’d ever been on. Probably twice as long as it takes to get to New York, although that’s beside the point. One thing that I had heard about was that the girls from Thailand were incredibly stunning.

And because I was flying Thai Airways, I had an experience of that firsthand with the gorgeous stewardess, who smiled at me in a way that made me feel great. I can remember thinking, I wonder what things are going to be like when I get there, if this is anything to go by. It felt like it took an eternity to actually get there.

But when I finally landed in Bangkok, I felt like a child again, really excited about what the next few weeks would bring.

Everyone talks about how hot Thailand is, but for me, it was the humidity that stood out. And even the short walk I made out of the airport to the taxi, only a few hundred meters away, I was already feeling the heat, and that was something I didn’t expect. I was also quite shocked at how the taxi driver seemed to drive like a lunatic.

I get it that the more trips he can make in a day, the more money he makes, but the way he was weaving in and out of all the traffic, going from lane to lane without even indicating, made me feel like he had a death wish. I was just sitting there holding on for dear life in the back, just hoping that we would get to the hotel, which we did, thank God. I’d booked a really nice hotel in what I was told was a very central part of the city.

It was right next to the Asok BTS station, and it was also next to a great steak restaurant that I thought I would try at some point. My first impressions of Bangkok were that this place was somewhere like I’d never been before. The streets felt alive.

The atmosphere was electrifying. You can have a certain understanding of what the word “busy” means, but you will redefine that word after you’ve experienced Bangkok. Because “busy” in its normal sense doesn’t do it justice.

Because I was only going to be in Bangkok for a few days before heading down to one of the islands, I wanted to see as much of the city as I could. I did do a little bit of digging before I went there, just so I would know what to do when I did arrive. And I went on a city tour that involved going down some of the canals around Bangkok, seeing lots of the local life and how that worked.

And that was an interesting part of the city. I did a few other excursions that I booked through the hotel, but the decision to go out on my last night in Bangkok to the world famous bars was a decision that would elevate my heart rate beyond a level it had ever been to before. Because as soon as I stepped into one of those temples of wonder, I was sold for life.

All those beautiful girls that were there for a guy exactly like me. You’d have to forgive me for referring to them as temples of wonder. Although I went and experienced some of the famous real temples in Thailand and they were interesting, they were nothing compared to the bars.

It just seemed like this was all life was about in Thailand. The fact that this absolutely gorgeous 23 year old seemed to take a liking to me made things better. And as I said, I was a guy who had never been to Thailand before.

But if someone says this to me, I would believe them. And I believed everything she said to me. Best night of my life, hands down.

And then I was off to Koh Samui the following day. When I was on my way to Koh Samui, I was left wondering if the previous night was actually just a dream. Surely something as amazing as this couldn’t happen to a guy like me.

But it was real. It was a part of Thailand, and it was the best part of Thailand. I couldn’t wait to see what I would get up to on Koh Samui.

I had a great time there. I loved how clear the ocean water was. I loved how beautiful the island was and how fantastic the resort was that I stayed in.

It wasn’t exactly cheap where I was staying. I think it came to £150 a night, but it was well worth it. Something equivalent to that in Europe, at least where I used to stay, would have been double or triple the price.

I was really starting to feel better about myself, though, because in just those few days in Bangkok, then a few days on Koh Samui, I went from being very close minded, not knowing what was going to happen later on in life, to thinking that if this experience is anything to go by, then you’re going to be just fine. I guess I was very set in my ways back at home. I was very home focused. And it was my wife divorcing me that pushed me to Thailand. When my last day on Koh Samui was coming to an end, I was also remembering that I’d got that motorcycle race to watch and that was going to be a fantastic experience as well. I can remember leaving the island feeling like I was on top of the world.

I met an amazing 21-year-old girl on Koh Samui, and she liked me as well. She said she’d never met a guy like me before, and I believed her. And why wouldn’t I? There was nothing to make me feel like she wasn’t telling me the truth. And I was just so excited, though, to get up to Buriram for the race.

Buriram’s Quiet Isaan Atmosphere During the MotoGP Weekend

Buriram gave me a very different experience to what I’d had in Bangkok or on the island because Buriram itself wasn’t really a tourist destination in the traditional sense. It was a small city in the northeast of Thailand in a region known as Isaan, and I bet most people wouldn’t have even heard of it if it wasn’t for the Chang Racing Circuit and Buriram United Football Club. That’s the thing I liked about it straight away, but I nearly didn’t even make it there. I’d flown from Samui to Bangkok and I was going to be flying from Bangkok to Buriram. However, it turned out my flight was going from a different airport and I made it just in the nick of time from Suvarnabhumi to Don Mueang before I missed it.

The flight itself took less than an hour and you could tell almost straight away that Buriram was extremely different to the other places in Thailand that I’d been. It had a much more laid back feeling. It was a lot quieter in a way that many people would describe as being the real Thailand. There was a bit of energy and it was busier than normal in the city given the fact that the race was there. But there was something about the city that just screamed Thailand to me.

I’d booked into a nice little hotel that was quite close to this body of water right in the middle of the city, almost like a semicircle shape. And you can see it on the map quite well. It was a really beautiful spot. I found it peaceful. There were a few bars dotted around that seemed to attract foreigners, and you could just sit there in the evenings, which I did on my first night, taking everything in. I’m not trying to exaggerate here. It was the best evening I had had so far in Thailand, and I wasn’t expecting that.

I need to say how much the hotel was. It was only about £15 for the whole night. I couldn’t believe it was that cheap given how much I was spending in Bangkok and Koh Samui. It wasn’t as nice as the other hotels I stayed in, but it had everything you could need. The price of that hotel made me feel that while in Bangkok I was just another foreigner, in Buriram, it seemed like I really mattered. And that feeling went straight to my head. It’s when you start to understand the different side of Thailand the cheap side of Thailand. And when people say “cheap,” you actually have to experience it to understand just how cheap it can be.

The race itself was great. I believe it was the first MotoGP race that was ever held in Thailand. And that made it even more special to me that I was there because I felt like I was watching history being made. As a lifelong fan of the sport, that meant a lot to me. The circuit is known as the Chang International Circuit, not too far out of the city, and it’s right next to the football stadium. I couldn’t believe how many people were there on race day. Thousands and thousands all packed in. And you could tell this was a lot more people than the city was used to seeing.

I had a fantastic view of the race. I could see a big part of the circuit. Could see the bikes coming down the long straight and then into the first few corners. And the way it was set up made the noise incredible. I just hope I don’t have to be around if they ever change it to electric. You never know. But that would signal the death of the sport in my opinion. I remember the race being won by Marc Marquez as well. It was really amazing and really dramatic at the end, and you’ll have to forgive me. I really do love that sport and it was a memorable experience, and apologies for talking about it too long. I wasn’t surprised when the race was voted one of the best races of the entire season, and because I was there I understood why and I wasn’t surprised at all.

Meeting a Buriram Woman After the Race

When I made it back to my hotel after the race, I was pumped. I’d already experienced a lot of the city during the event given the fact that it wasn’t that big, but I was mainly focused on the race. Now that was over, I wanted to go out and experience a bit more of Buriram.

I’d been to a few of the bars before, but I decided to go and see if I could find more. There were a few around the city, with many around that same body of water where my hotel was. The bars themselves were nothing like Bangkok, not even close.

They didn’t appear to be these huge flashy places with hundreds of girls and music that was excessively loud. They were much smaller, much more relaxed, and they had a different feel entirely. There weren’t very many, but the ones that catered to foreigners, you could tell most of the people there were expats.

They knew the city, and they had much more of a close knit feel. Sorry to talk about the price again, but I couldn’t get over how affordable a bottle of beer was, even in the bars where there were girls working. I think I paid 80 baht at the time for a large beer.

I remember paying nearly 200 baht for a small beer in Bangkok and having a lot worse experience. Everything was pointing to the fact that Buriram felt like an absolute bargain and it felt like it was a place you had to be in the know about to actually experience properly.

I ran into someone who was in Buriram watching the race who lived in Bangkok, but he had no desire to go out and explore the city. He had no dreams to go out and do that. To him, it was just a town that he wasn’t interested in, whereas I felt like I wanted to get to know it in a way that many people didn’t seem to want to.

I had a few days left before I was flying home from Bangkok, but I was starting to feel like when I returned home, I wanted to come back to Thailand for a longer period of time, get to know the country more, and really find out about it. I was even starting to entertain the idea of potentially living in Thailand as a retiree because I met a few guys living in Buriram and they said that moving there was the best thing they ever did. They met their wife who happened to be from there and they moved to a village close to the city and they came to Buriram city occasionally to catch up with friends and do different things.

Now I know I’d met girls in Bangkok and Koh Samui and they were great, but I also met a girl in Buriram and she was even better. I met her in one of the bars close to the water. And just like that, I’d met a girl in a bar in Bangkok, a bar in Koh Samui, and I was really loving everything about the bars.

This bar was very different, though. It wasn’t a Bangkok bar. It wasn’t over the top.

It was just a small bar in a small city where the girls that work there just seemed normal, like they were doing a normal job. It didn’t feel like it felt if you met a girl in Bangkok. It felt different because in a way I met her in her hometown.

She was just so beautiful, 20 years old, and she stood out to me as being the sort of girl that would make your life so much better than it currently was. I sat down and she came over and it was quite similar to how the other girls had introduced themselves. First thing was she asked me my name.

How old are you? Where are you from? And I asked her the same.

She said she was from a village about 30 or so minutes away from the city. And the conversation with her, although her English wasn’t great, was effortless. And I could tell from the moment I met her that I was going to have a great night with her.

I talked about what I was doing in Buriram, how I’d watched the race, and she said she wished she could have gone, but she was working. And it was little things like that that made you feel like she understands what you’re there for. And in a way, it makes you feel more connected to her than if she didn’t say those kinds of things.

We spent quite a long time in that bar together, and then she actually left with me. I told her I wanted to take her for something to eat, and there was a really nice restaurant close to the water that I didn’t know about, and she recommended it as being a fantastic place for both Thai food and Western food, depending on what you liked.

I loved the way that although she knew I was 59, it didn’t appear to be a problem for her. When I told her how old I was, she didn’t even bat an eyelid. She just said age was a number and she actually preferred guys that were older because they were more mature and more caring, and everything she said made sense to me.

It was a similar kind of thing that the other girls had said, but the way she said it just made me feel better. The only problem I was facing was that I was going to be going home in 3 days’ time. I only had three nights remaining in Thailand.

But I decided to spend those remaining days together with her in Buriram. Each day with her felt better than the one before. She showed me around parts of the city that I would never have been to if it wasn’t for her.

An incredible temple on the top of a hill with a great view out over the city. That was a great experience. And just the way she would hold my hand when we walked around made me feel like I could keep my head held high, like I was proud of what I was able to do in Thailand.

And the fact that she seemed proud to be with someone like me, that made everything even better.

On my second night with her, I felt quite shocked when she told me she loved me. I’d never had anybody apart from my ex wife tell me that they loved me. And while I didn’t think I had any love for her in that sense yet, I did like her.

And I felt like I wanted to get to know her more. I also felt like I wanted to get to know Thailand more because Thailand made me somebody that I never knew I was. Thailand made me attractive again. Thailand made me appealing again.

And I felt like I owed Thailand so much because of her. To think I wouldn’t have even been there if it wasn’t for the MotoGP race was quite difficult to get my head around because I was there and it was the best thing that I had ever experienced. And I started wishing I could thank my ex wife for divorcing me.

But I didn’t really feel like speaking to her ever again. On our last day together, I could see how upset she was that I was going to be going home, and I was just as upset. But I told her that I would keep in touch.

She knew I was retired and didn’t need to work anymore. And I was already thinking I would come back to Thailand to spend longer here after I returned home. But now it wasn’t a thought, it was a guarantee.

I would be coming back to Thailand. Not only that, I would make it my mission to get back as quickly as I could and spend more time with this girl because she was everything I thought a girl should be. She even cried when I left.

I wasn’t that in love yet, but seeing that made me feel like what we had was a real connection. And while I understood she most likely had met other guys before, there was no way that she could fake how she was acting with me. At least I didn’t think so.

As soon as I left, that was when I told myself, “You are coming back as quickly as you can.” When I landed back in Bangkok, there was already a message on my phone from her saying, “I miss you. I can’t wait to see you again, and I hope to see you soon.” I’d left her with some money so that she didn’t need to struggle when I wasn’t there. And I got a taxi to the other airport where my flight home was.

That flight felt like it was five times longer than the flight taking me to Thailand because it was taking me further away from this amazing place that I had somehow discovered. Arriving home, I had planned to spend a few months thinking about things. But quite literally, as soon as I opened the front door, put my clothes in the washing machine, and had a bit of a rest, I didn’t see the point in waiting and thinking.

I was retired. Retirement at home was now difficult given the fact that I’d got divorced, but retirement in Thailand was possible. And not only that, I had a girl waiting for me.

I was flying back to Thailand 10 days later and I was going to be there for 3 months. If I liked it, I would move there permanently. I felt like I was a different man in Thailand.

I was a man on a mission.

Returning to Buriram to Continue the Relationship

Less than two weeks after I arrived home, I was already back in Thailand working on this mission, and that was to go back to Buriram and see that girl. I’d found out during the short amount of time that I was at home that I would probably need to leave the country once during those 3 months. I could get a 30 day stamp and then extend that for 15 days and then leave and do the same thing again.

So, I wasn’t concerned about being able to stay for the whole 3 months. It felt so much more exciting the second time because I was there and I felt like I knew what I was doing and what my plans were. I didn’t hang around in Bangkok for a day.

I just had to get back to Buriram as quickly as I could. And it was another one of those taxi ride between airports, domestic flight to Buriram. When I got there, I went to the same hotel I’d stayed at before.

I told her what day I was arriving and she was going to come around to my hotel that evening, so I had a few hours to kill before then. When she sent me a message saying that she was downstairs in the hotel, I went down as quickly as I could. And as soon as I saw her, she ran up to me and threw her arms around me as if we’d been apart for years, not less than 2 weeks.

It really made me feel like I was made to be in Thailand. She made me feel like we were made to be together, and I couldn’t believe how happy and excited I was to be there.

Those first few days back in Buriram were incredible. We spent every waking moment together, going out to eat at restaurants that I liked to go to, but also she’d take me to ones that she liked that served local food, and I was getting quite used to that. We also did a lot of the scenic things that you can do around Thailand, and I suppose I should have been alarmed about just how quickly I was spending money.

I was spending money hand over fist, but for some reason, I just didn’t seem to care because I was having the time of my life, and I still had the vast majority of my money left. And the thought of that running out just never entered my head. I’d guess it was about 5 days after I’d been back in Buriram.

And as I said, she hadn’t left my side at all, but she said she had to go and visit her family in the village for a day or two, something that had been arranged for a long time, and that was fine with me. She could go and see her family, and I would have a few days to myself. I wasn’t expecting to get carried away when she left, but I found myself in a more local part of Buriram.

And I mean, it was all local. There weren’t that many foreigners there. But I was having a drink in what appeared to be this karaoke style place.

And there were girls there as well, but they didn’t really speak English. I didn’t know that this wasn’t a place that catered to foreigners because I got there quite early. And then a few other people came in later, but they were all Thai guys.

It just seemed to be like a bar, but not for foreigners. But nobody cared. Everybody was friendly and everyone spoke to me.

I was having a few drinks in there trying to speak to this other girl that was speaking to me. Don’t remember how old she was or even what her name was, but the way she talked to me, the few words of English she could speak, it did seem that she liked me too. And that was all I needed to know to spend a bit of time with her as well, which I wasn’t expecting when I left that evening to go for a few drinks.

I don’t want to get into any details about that because that’s not necessary, but again, it made me feel like I was king of the world because it seemed like I could just have any girl that I wanted. I didn’t feel bad that my girl was seeing her family, I thought I would see her later. Looking back at that moment in time, Thailand was slowly changing me into a different person, a person who thinks that because all these girls are spending time with him, he’s actually someone that they love and like and want. I felt wanted.

I felt needed. That made me feel great. I didn’t see that other girl again.

But it was a great time. And then my girl came back from visiting her family the following day. It was good that she was back.

But I was thinking, what next? I suppose I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was with her.

Times were great. She was incredible. But now what?

I didn’t know what was going to come next. But we did pick up right where we left off.

I think it was another week that we spent together in Buriram every single day and I felt like I was falling for her. But if we were out in a bar or having a drink and I saw another beautiful girl, the thought that perhaps she could be mine as well was exciting. It was like I came back to Thailand to be with this girl.

But now I felt like I wanted every girl that wanted me, and I felt like every girl wanted me. So I was getting quite big headed, and this was only the beginning. I did feel, though, like I wanted to leave Buriram and go somewhere else for a bit just to have a change of surroundings, and we went together to Koh Chang.

I chose that island after speaking to a few expats in Buriram who said it was very popular with tourists but not as popular as many of the other islands. It was more popular with expats, so that’s why I wanted to go there. We actually had to get on the bus to Koh Chang, but that wasn’t too bad.

And we had to change buses as well. It was an interesting thing to do, and the fact that she was sitting next to me made me feel so proud.

It was on that bus journey, though, that I had the first thought that after you’ve been here, perhaps cool down on the spending, because I was giving her money, probably more than I should have been, and that girl I saw before had got some money out of me as well, that I was happy with it for the time being. She then started talking to me and I completely forgot about those thoughts and my mind went to the fact that she was playing on her phone and it was all damaged and chipped and not in a good condition. The next thought was to ask her if she wanted a new phone, which of course she did.

To go from thinking “I need to be careful” to offering a £500 phone was quite an alarming thing, but I chose to forget about that for the time being and just enjoy myself. When we got to Koh Chang, we checked into a beautiful resort there, and I really did feel like I was on top of the world. We had a few fantastic days together on Koh Chang, and I was really starting to think that this was the girl that I may be with for the rest of my life.

Everything with her just felt right, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, but it did. The resort itself was fantastic. The island was beautiful.

But most of all, the fact that she was with me, she was beautiful, and she was mine that made everything better. I need to reiterate, though, that I was spending money at an incredibly alarming rate. But I didn’t care because I was living a life that I never thought I would be able to live, and I was loving every single second of it.

Meeting Another Buriram Woman on Koh Chang

I’d say it was about day three or day four into our time on Koh Chang when she told me one evening that she wasn’t feeling very well. She said it was her time of the month and she didn’t really feel like going out. She just wanted to stay in the room and relax, and that was fine with me.

I understood, so I told her I’d go out for a few drinks myself and bring her back something to eat if she wanted. I told her I’d call her and she said very well. I found this strip of bars that wasn’t too far away from the resort we were staying at.

There were at a pinch around eight or nine bars there, and they all seemed to be quite quiet at the time I went in, but there were some great looking girls working in all of them. I sat down at the first bar I liked the look of most, ordered a drink, and took in the atmosphere. They were next to the main road that went through the island, so you would see people who had just arrived, and you’d see people from all kinds of walks of life, and it was a sort of place you could sit, and time would pass by.

It wasn’t very long, probably only after I’d had one sip of my first beer, when a girl came and sat next to me. She was not quite as beautiful as the girl that I was with, but she had this great personality, at least what I could gather from it in a short amount of time. She just seemed to be up for anything.

Up for a laugh, up for a party, up for a conversation, up for fun. Before long, we were playing pool together. When she told me that she was from Buriram, for some reason that made me feel like I had a really strong connection with her and that she wasn’t just a random girl.

This was a girl from the city that I felt like I had discovered and was somehow my city. And that gave her a sense of familiarity and also made me want to speak to her more, have more beers, buy more drinks for her.

A few hours later, I did try to call my girlfriend to see if she wanted any food bringing back for her because I was about to call it a night, but she didn’t answer. I sent her a message, waited half an hour, and she didn’t respond, so I thought she must be asleep, and I decided I’d stay out a bit longer, which I did. I carried on drinking with that girl, and then we weren’t in the bar anymore.

She said there was a little hotel close by. She said she was tired and asked if I wanted to go with her, so we did. That made me feel like I actually had a connection with her that I wasn’t expecting.

I don’t know what it was, but it was like she was more my type than my girlfriend who was waiting for me. Real might not be the right word to use, but she felt special. I promised her after we’d had a great time that I would go back to see her the following day, hoping my girlfriend would still probably not want to go out.

When I got back to the resort, my girlfriend was asleep. So, I walked in and I felt very bad about it because I didn’t want to upset her. The thing was, though, I didn’t feel bad about myself.

I felt bad because I didn’t want to break her heart. She told me she loved me. She told me she cared about me.

And the thought of making her upset was something I wasn’t happy with. The following evening, she still wasn’t feeling great. So, I went out and I did the same thing again.

And I’m feeling an even bigger connection to this girl, and I’m starting to think that perhaps she’s more in tune with who I am than my girlfriend is. The fact that she looked so happy when I went back to see her. She remembered me straight away and she said, “I thought you would forget about me.” But I had to tell her there’s no way I could ever forget about someone like you.

I was starting to compare which girl I like the most. Feeling bad because I didn’t want to hurt anybody.

The night after that, my girlfriend was feeling better, so we went out together as normal. But I wasn’t feeling excited about her. I felt like I wanted to be back with that other girl.

Perhaps bringing her here was a big mistake. I made up my mind that night that I would end it with her. I felt dreadful because, as I said, I didn’t want to break her heart.

I didn’t want her to lose the love of her life because I really felt like I was that. When I had to tell her, I told her as gently and as calmly as possible. And I apologized profusely about the whole situation.

Looking back now, it was how she reacted when I left Buriram originally, the way she cried, the way I felt like we were on this romantic trip, and I felt so terrible. I even said to her, “I’ll give you 200,000 baht just to make you feel better.” And that was a lot of money to hand over given the fact that I just bought her a phone. I didn’t pay close enough attention to her reaction, and it should have been everything I needed to know that could have saved me, but I didn’t catch on to it.

She just took the money, said okay, packed her bag, and left. There were no tears, no drama, no begging me to change my mind, no asking me why nothing like that at all. She just took the money and left and that was it.

As if she was leaving a job, not a relationship. At the time, I didn’t pick up on it. I really didn’t pick up on it.

Looking back, I know the fact that she didn’t care should have told me everything. That she didn’t love me. But it didn’t tell me anything.

All in, including everything that I spent on her since I’d arrived back in Thailand and this is the most difficult thing to accept it probably cost me just under £10,000. The money I gave to her, the phone, and other money I’d given her. And in that moment, I felt worse about the fact that I thought I’d broken her heart more than the fact that I’d lost £10,000.

I didn’t have anybody to warn me about what I was doing, either. When she left, I did feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, and I went back to see that other girl that night, excited because I planned to ask her if she wanted to go to Buriram with me. She looked delighted to see me.

We had a few drinks and then I asked her, but I wasn’t expecting her to say no. She just said she had commitments on the island and she can’t go. And I took that as meaning she didn’t have any feelings for me.

I was a little bit hurt because I had feelings for her. But again, I thought her saying no was just because she didn’t have feelings for me or not strong enough feelings. I thought she must have had feelings given the fact that we had two wonderful nights together.

Because she wasn’t going to be going to Buriram with me, though, I decided I would go to Bangkok.

As crazy as this might sound, I’d made it my new mission that I needed to meet another girl. But if she wasn’t from Buriram, I wasn’t going to be interested. When I got back to Bangkok, in a way, I was like a man possessed.

I only had one thing on my mind, and that was to go out every single night to the bars, meet girls, and hopefully find a girl from Buriram. Looking back, I know how stupid that must sound, but at the time it made sense to me because Buriram really was my place and I wanted to go back there. And if my girl was from there, then in my head it would make everything easier.

The first thing I needed to do was find a hotel in Bangkok. I was going to book the one I stayed at before, the first time I was in the country, that great one near Asok. But then I realized it was going to cost me a crazy amount of money.

So I decided it would be more sensible to find a cheaper place instead. I think that was the first time I realized I couldn’t just spend money like it was nothing on myself anyway. Because if a girl was interested in me and on my mind, then that was a different proposition.

I did manage to find a place that was all right. It wasn’t dirty, and that was the main thing. And I wanted to make sure my money was being used for what it should be used for, which was a good time in the bars.

The first night I was in Bangkok, I went straight to one of the bars on Sukhumvit Soi 7/1. It was just the closest street I could find to my hotel that looked fun. I met a great girl that night and I did spend time with her, but she wasn’t from Buriram, so I didn’t feel that connection I was looking for, even though she was a very sweet girl.

Looking back now, I can’t understand why I was so fixated on this. I think it was because when you’re out drinking, you end up talking to other foreigners, and every time you heard someone talk about having a girlfriend or a wife, it was always the same thing. They’d met in a bar, and somehow it had become serious.

Even though I wasn’t from Buriram, I felt like if a girl said she was from Buriram, then I’d have things to talk about, things to say, what I liked about the city. And it turned into this ridiculous obsession. But that’s just what it was.

The days were flying by. Before long, my initial 30 days in Thailand were up, so I had to extend it for another 15 days at immigration. That was easy enough to do.

You go to the immigration office, and I think it was 1,900 baht, and you get 15 more days. Then that started to run out as well. And even though I was out every night spending time with different girls, and some of them were from Buriram, I still hadn’t found a girl that I wanted to take anything with to the next level.

Thinking about how much money I was spending was crazy, insane. When I looked back at it, it wasn’t just buying drinks for me and the girl I was with that night. I was ringing the bell in the bars and buying drinks for the whole place, buying shots for girls’ friends that I was speaking to because I really wanted to appear like I was a good provider.

Knowing what I know now, I don’t understand myself. I saw the bars as a place where you could meet people you couldn’t meet in another situation. While I knew you could spend time with a girl and that would be it, I still had this idea in my head that it was the girl’s dream to meet someone and settle down.

And I was spending big because I thought that’s how you find the right one. When those 15 days were up, I took a flight to Cambodia for a quick one night there and came back again. I even went to a bar in Phnom Penh and had a decent enough time, but it just wasn’t Thailand.

To me, it didn’t have the same feel to it, and I couldn’t wait to get back to Bangkok, which I did the following day with a new 30 day entry and another 15 day extension waiting when I needed it. This time, I decided I would spend time in Pattaya instead of Bangkok because I’d never actually been there before, and a few people said it might be worth going for a look. A couple of days before I flew to Cambodia, I remember talking to a guy and telling him I’d been in Buriram and how I’d loved it and how great it was and that I was in Bangkok at the moment because I wanted to find a girlfriend from Buriram and go back there with her.

When he raised his eyebrows like he was thinking, “What are you talking about?” I didn’t pay any attention to it. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t just go to Buriram and find a girl there, which would have made more sense, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I was just enjoying myself.

Pattaya was an incredible city. I didn’t like it as much as Bangkok. There was just something about it that didn’t feel the same.

And I was starting to feel the toll that all this excessive daily drinking was taking on my body. It was in Pattaya, though, that I finally met this absolutely incredible girl from Buriram that I felt like I loved the moment I saw her. The thing was, it was how she behaved with me that gave me the feelings I had for her.

She was 21 years old from a village not too far away from the city. And she made me feel like I was the only person in the world that meant anything to her. And that’s what I was interested in after all.

A girl that seemed to look at me and think, “He’s the one. I’ve been waiting for him.” In a way, I convinced myself that she’d gone to the bar to work with hopes of meeting somebody exactly like me. Because I was there on a similar mission, I felt like we connected in a way that made me take a step back and think, “Your party time is over.

Now it’s time to see if this girl would be interested in spending some serious time together, away from the bars, away from Pattaya, away from the nightlife, and take things from there.” After spending about a week with her in Pattaya, I felt like we were made for each other. And we decided to leave, and I was going to be going up north with her for a trip to Chiang Mai. I’d never been there before.

She’d never been there before, and it seemed like a great neutral location to get to know each other. It was there that I had to come to terms with how much money my obsession had cost me. I will tell you because it really should be a warning for anybody just how quickly money can go in Thailand, this supposedly cheap country.

Ever since arriving in Thailand, I’d so far spent £35,000 in just under 3 months. But I put that to the back of my mind because it was time to start really getting to know this incredible girl in Chiang Mai.

Finding a Calmer Relationship in Chiang Mai

Chiang Mai was nothing like Bangkok or Pattaya. I felt like it was a lot more chilled out, in a way more cultural. Although there were temples all over the place, there seemed to be a temple on every street corner.

And you could feel it definitely had a slower pace of life than anything I’d seen yet. It really was the perfect location where we could just be with each other. And the way she seemed to idolize me pretty much from the moment we met made me feel things for her that I hadn’t felt since my ex wife.

We’d already been out to eat many times since I’d met her, but it felt a little different going out to eat in Chiang Mai because although there were a few bars in certain parts of the city, we were staying in the Nimman area, so there were no girly bars around there. Going out to eat and doing things like we were a normal couple made me feel like we got to know each other a lot quicker than if we just stayed in Pattaya. In a way, it felt like every day I spent with her was like a whole month.

And she wasn’t pressuring me for anything. No gifts, no money, no asking me to buy things for her every 5 minutes like some of the other girls seemed to want. She just seemed happy to be with me and in my company, and I was definitely happy to be with her.

As the days went by, I need to be clear that I was, of course, giving her money because she wasn’t working and she didn’t have any money and she also had commitments with her family that I had to step in and help with. But it didn’t seem excessive or out of the ordinary given the fact that we were in Thailand. Even though I was really starting to enjoy being with her, starting to enjoy what we had together and was starting to think she was the girl who I should spend the rest of my life with, I had spent time thinking to myself that I didn’t have that many months left to keep going to the bars and living that life based on how much money I was spending.

Yet, I didn’t see it as spending money. Every time I went into a bar, that wasn’t me spending money. It was an investment.

And spending time with the girl was an investment to see if she was someone I’d want to be with. And I felt like all those investments were what led me to this incredible girl. I decided that I wasn’t going to go home when the 3 months came to an end.

But I always had it in the back of my mind that I’d need to arrange a better visa. And I knew that since I’d extended my time for another 15 days at Chiang Mai immigration, before long those days would run out. When it became clear that we both seemed to be madly in love with each other in fact, I felt like she loved me more than I loved her we decided we’d go to Bangkok.

I would go get a non immigrant visa in Laos based on advice I got from an agent. Then I’d come back to Bangkok and we’d go up to Buriram together where I’d be able to extend my visa once the money in the bank had been there for a certain amount of time.

I got a visa agent to help me with all of this and it was a smooth process. They didn’t want a lot of money and I did go to Laos and had to spend a few days there, which wasn’t too bad. It was interesting to see somewhere else, but I was just really missing her and wanting to be back in Thailand as quickly as I could.

I did leave her with about 20,000 baht just in case there were any problems and I was away longer than I thought. When I came back, I expected her to give it back to me, but she didn’t. I just thought, “Never mind.

She’s not with me for the money. That little bit of money might make her life or her family’s life easier than it would make mine.” So, I didn’t think about it. We spent a few days in Bangkok.

Great to see her. And her reaction when I opened the hotel door was everything I thought I needed to understand that we had something together that was real. It was real.

I was betting my life on the fact it was real. And while I had spent time with I didn’t even think about this up until now if I actually do think about it, it does shock me. Probably over 50 girls.

I felt like all the money I spent, as I’ve already said, was an investment. It really was just an investment.

We made our way from Bangkok up to Buriram. The idea was to live in the city, rent a small place, and just begin our life together. I felt like I’d arrived home when we finally made it to Buriram.

It felt so different to visiting. Felt like I was being welcomed back to what I’d already started thinking as my adopted home. And the fact that I was moving there with my girl with a proper visa that made my time in Thailand official, it felt like it was icing on the cake.

We checked into the same hotel I’d stayed at before, and I did think back to that first girl from Buriram that I met, and what a great time I had with her. The plan now was to take things as they came. The first thing we needed to do was find somewhere to live, and I was open to any part of the city.

I didn’t care. As long as it was within walking distance of the places I like to go to, that was good enough for me. It wasn’t long until we found a really great house to rent.

It was quite Thai style, but done to a decent standard. And it was only about 8,000 baht a month, which felt so cheap compared to what I was paying back at home after the divorce. You really do feel like you’re in Thailand when you’re in Buriram, because the prices there are so much cheaper than what you’d pay for the same thing in the parts of the country where tourists go.

And even though Chiang Mai was a lot more affordable than Bangkok or Pattaya, Buriram was on a different level.

I’d say our life in Buriram got off to an absolutely fantastic start. It was everything I thought life would be when I finally moved there with my dream girl. And the fact I’d actually made that real made me feel like I was on top of the world.

She was amazing all the time. I was giving her 25,000 baht a month, which I thought was fair. And I was just so happy to be with her.

And she seemed happy to be with me. One thing I couldn’t quite escape from, and I’m not proud of this, is that Thailand had made me feel like I could have any girl I wanted. And I thought that once I had her with me, I’d be able to escape that.

But it was just something Thailand did to me. I loved being wanted. I loved being loved.

I loved being needed. The fact that she’d be at home or cooking for me while I was out I went out quite often. And even with her waiting for me, I still spent time with other girls just because it made me feel special.

And I loved that feeling. It was addictive, and you’ll only really understand it if you felt it yourself.

Aside from that, though, our life moved forward exactly like I wanted it to. And even though I might have been seeing two or three girls a month, everything still felt perfect and I honestly thought it was going to continue that way.

COVID Pushes Him Toward an Isaan House and Village Marriage

Unfortunately, it was the global situation of COVID that changed our lives. It really changed our lives and I became worried in a way I hadn’t been before because it made me feel like my life in Thailand was on tenterhooks, like you didn’t have any real security. And I think it was because of COVID that I made the stupidest decision I’d made so far.

When I say it was stupid, it was so stupid that it was the start of everything going wrong for me. And if I’m honest, even if I’d carried on the way I was, the inevitable would have happened anyway. But this sped it up.

Up until then, I genuinely thought I was my girl’s world and that was why I did what I did. With the arrival of COVID and with everything suddenly being so up in the air, a conversation we’d had before, maybe only 2 months earlier, about setting ourselves up with our own place in her village something that I’d always said we would do one day in the future became something we were going to do a lot quicker. I think it was because I could see what was going on around the world and I could see how quickly things were changing.

The thought of staying where we were, surrounded by other people, surrounded by concrete, and surrounded by uncertainty started to feel like a bad idea. In my head, having our own place out in the countryside meant we could weather it for years if we had to. And if things really did get worse and worse, never got right again, at least we would have something that was ours.

My girl was terrified of COVID as well, terrified of getting ill. While that wasn’t what scared me the most, it was the way the world was reacting, the way people were behaving, and the way everything felt like it could be taken away overnight that pushed me into making the decision that we would move to her village and build a house there. We checked first whether building was even possible at the time, and it was because in the village, people just carried on when they wanted to.

One problem stood in the way of me even going to the village properly, and that was that we weren’t married. She wasn’t prepared to take me there unless we became engaged. While I didn’t want to get married, we ended up with a compromise where we would have a village marriage but not a legal marriage.

And that was good with her, good with her family, therefore it was good with me.

I wanted to avoid even saying this part because it makes me shudder thinking about it. But I paid just under a million baht in sin sod to the family. And at the time it made me feel good because this was supposedly Thai culture and Thai tradition and that was what you were meant to do.

But after everything went wrong, it felt like it had been ripped away from me and I hadn’t even understood what the connotations were. This sin sod was 950,000 baht. The house was another 2 million baht, and I bought a car for a million.

The land was half a million. When I sat down and looked at everything in pound terms, I was shocked to realize I only had about £70,000 left. Even then, I still told myself it was fine because the cost of living was cheap.

I wasn’t so far away from getting my pension, and we had our own place, our own fortress that could protect us from the outside world. I was in love, and I also had this thought in the back of my mind that if I ever wanted to go into Buriram for a night, I could do it by myself and have a great time by myself and not have to be concerned about anything. Throughout the whole of COVID, we stayed in that house and I told myself everything was good.

And COVID didn’t end up being as bad as I thought it might be. Because at one point, I genuinely thought it could go on for years and people would start losing their minds. I even had stupid thoughts about people turning into things that weren’t human in a way.

And that’s how far my head was going.

When things started to get back to normal, I did go into Buriram for a night. And yes, I did spend time with a girl there. It wasn’t that I felt guilty about it, but when I found out that she didn’t feel guilty about doing something similar, that destroyed me.

It just wasn’t the same at all. And I think that was when something clicked in my head and I went into full blown panic mode. My girlfriend or my village wife cheating on me wasn’t the same as me cheating on her.

It just wasn’t. It just didn’t make sense to me. Although I was very concerned about money at that time, I hadn’t actually bought her a gift for a long time because we’d just been mainly in the village.

I decided I would buy her a new phone. Okay, it was going to be a lot of money and I was already giving her money every month, but I thought it would be yet another investment in my future life. She was very excited when she saw the phone, as you’d guess.

Because she had long nails, she asked me if I could help her change the SIM card across from her old phone because it looked quite fiddly for her. So, I helped. Her SIM card was in the new phone and it was powering up.

I helped her change all the apps across I don’t know if it was because it made me feel like I was the man, like I was in charge, like I needed to help, or if she genuinely couldn’t do it herself probably me feeling good about myself. But a message appeared on the Line app, which she liked to use. And while I wouldn’t have thought anything of that, before she had a chance to quickly snatch the phone away from me, I saw the message.

Although in Thai, there were quite a few emojis with hearts on them. That made me feel like I needed to ask her what was going on. Also, because she snatched the phone away from me so quickly when it appeared, she basically gave the game away.

If she didn’t do anything, she could have explained it away, I bet. But because she did that, I had to hear her tell me the truth. It took about an hour for her to finally admit that yes, this was her boyfriend.

Nobody in the village knew about him. Nobody in the family knew about him. But she said he was her high school sweetheart and they’d always been together.

Coming from my position, even though the night before I had spent time with another girl, that wasn’t love. That wasn’t serious. But she obviously really loved this guy.

I thought she really loved me. That thing that clicked in my head, me going into full blown panic mode, was because I think it finally twigged that with her, with all the girls that I’d been with ever since I came to Thailand, there was never love there. It was only ever about the money. Why I didn’t grasp that or why it took me so long to understand it, I don’t know.

But I just couldn’t look at her in the same way anymore. It was just a one off kind of thing. No love involved.

Although that would have still hurt, I would have got over it and accepted it, and it would have been, “Okay, don’t do it again.” But because she loved that guy, I just didn’t see a life with her anymore. Then you take a step back and realize that this fortress that I’d built to protect from COVID, to protect us, to have a safe place, was hers and I had no claim over it. Everything I bought was in her name, even the car, and I had no claim over that.

We weren’t legally married. It was all like coming to the understanding in such a short space of time that all my money was gone. I mean, I had about £30,000 left, but I had no say about what could happen from now or what I could do anything about.

That was when it felt like everything fell apart for me, and I had to leave. I was in a very bad way after that. COVID was over, so that was good. But £30,000 wasn’t everything I had.

It was everything I had. And while I wasn’t concerned before, knowing my pension wasn’t too far away, now I was because I didn’t know if I could make it last. It was also the pain of losing my girlfriend or my village wife the way that I did, the love of my life, and the pain of coming to terms with the fact that what I had with her and everybody else was only money that made me feel like I just wanted to escape.

The only way I thought I could escape was by drinking and drinking heavily. And over the next I believe it was just under a year I spent the rest of my money, every single penny. I didn’t have anything left because I was just drinking away my sorrows, not understanding how I got myself into this position.

Thailand gave me everything. But then Thailand took it all away from me. Thailand made me the person I’d always wanted to be. Then it took that away from me as well.

And the understanding that all that money I’d spent on all those girls wasn’t an investment at all. They were investing their time in return for money. I was investing money in return for the girl of my dreams.

But it didn’t work out that way. When I had to come to terms with the fact that all my money was indeed gone, I had to call my son and ask him to lend me money for the plane ticket to go home, which he did. He also paid a year’s rent up front for the place I’m living in now.

And that was a huge fall from grace. Only a year before, I’d called my son and my daughter as well, in fact, saying how great life was, how happy I was, and how moving to Thailand was the best thing I ever did. Now I was humbled, back at home, broke.

And if it wasn’t for my son stepping in to help, I wouldn’t have been anywhere. I’d have been on the street. That’s how my life went full circle in Thailand.

That decision I made, I believe, brought on by COVID as well as a completely false understanding of what I was doing with my life, saw everything that happened to me happen. I really thought I was a catch. I thought I was a catch all the way up until I found out what happened with my girlfriend. If I hadn’t spent that little bit of money on the phone, I would have lost all my money there, still ended up in the same position anyway. So, I don’t really know. To finish, I would just say be careful in Thailand and understand that what you don’t understand is the problem. If only I knew it was all about the money, I would never have done what I did.