Moving from England to Thailand and Losing a Pattaya Bar

I had been going to Thailand for a long time. My first visit was in 1998. I was 30 years old and I was in Thailand looking for a distributor of some items that I wanted to sell back in England. I don’t want to get into too much detail, but I spent time in places like Hong Kong and China and Vietnam and I imported things into England which I sold. Let’s just leave it at that. Electronic things and gadgets and all kinds of things.

I was in business ever since I left school. I never worked a job. A 9-to-5 job and following orders from the boss were not something I desired. I couldn’t hack that way of life. And in the ’90s, I got into that business, which gave me mild success. It was success enough that I could buy a house in England.

But my biggest regret was as soon as I started making reasonable money, instead of trying to take things to the next level and grow my business, I just went to the pub. So, I don’t think I actually reached my full potential. I put in an awful lot of work to get my business to where it was, but as soon as I started making a couple of thousand a week, I was happy. And I regret immensely not trying to make more.

Problems at Home

This, of course, led to problems with my then wife, who was happy to go on holiday to nice destinations with me and take advantage of the money I was earning, but she wasn’t happy with me going to the pub all the time. I’d managed to get my business to a point where I could spend a few hours in the mornings doing everything I needed to do, posting things, checking inventory, and then I’d just go to the pub for the rest of the day. I do regret that.

I was lucky enough though that we had a house and a good income. But my endless trips to the pub meant my wife had had enough of me and I found out that she had someone else. She was the love of my life. And that was a very stressful and difficult time getting divorced. Not only in the sense that you’ve lost the woman that you wanted to spend the rest of your time with, you also have to split everything down the middle. All of a sudden you’re not as wealthy as you thought you were. You find yourself living now in a small terrace house as opposed to a big detached house like you used to do.

I did my best to continue with the business, but I spent most of my time drowning my sorrows at the pub. I’m not proud of what I did, but I was at my happiest when I was at the pub with friends, and I did dream of one day opening my own pub. But that was a very distant dream.

Thailand Was Just Business At First

So at this point I’d done a lot of traveling to the Far East, been to Thailand, but I was only there for business reasons. I had not considered Thailand to be anything other than a country where I bought things for my business. I didn’t know anything about the nightlife. I didn’t know anything about the expat scene. Pretty much I didn’t know anything about Thailand or what you could do there.

The time I went was 1998. I didn’t step foot in any of the bars. I just stayed in the hotel and went to see the distributor and that was all I did. I’m trying to get this across because although I’d been to Thailand, I wasn’t yet aware that Thailand was a place that would ultimately become my heaven on earth.

The Early 2000s Still in the Pub

In the early 2000s, I’m still working at my business. I didn’t make it back to Thailand yet as I’m spending most of my time in China, and that’s where most of the things I imported came from. But I’m still finding myself mostly in the pub when I’m not working. I tried to make my business as easy and as quick as possible because I was still very depressed that my wife had left me, and the pub was where I was the happiest.

One of my closest friends 20 years older than me, but I always got on better with people older than me had been visiting Thailand as a tourist for a number of years. We did talk about Thailand when I went because I knew he’d been many times, but I still had the incorrect mindset that people who go to Thailand to get married are somehow desperate or not serious.

But when this friend of mine came back to England and he brought his Thai wife with him, all the preconceived ideas I had about Thailand and getting married to somebody from Thailand were all shattered. She was really a great girl. Her English wasn’t perfect, but she seemed to be very feminine and just a bit different to the girls in England. My friend was really happy. As I said, he was 20 years older than me and his wife was about 5 years younger than me, but that didn’t seem to matter to them.

This was my first glimpse of what life is like with a Thai person. Every time my friend came out, he always brought his wife with him, and she was always so polite and delicate and everything you’d want from a wife.

My Eyes Were Opened

He traveled to Thailand every 6 months or so, and he invited me along on his next trip. I couldn’t think of a reason not to go. So when the time came, we flew to Bangkok. This part might not be relevant to the story, but the plane ticket prices used to be so much more reasonable than they are today. Today, you’re spending a fortune just on the return ticket, but back then it wasn’t as bad.

My friend had been going to Thailand for years. He was an old hand and spoke a bit of Thai as well. And where would you go in Thailand for a couple of weeks? We arrived at the airport. This was Don Mueang airport. Suvarnabhumi airport was not yet a thing. He knew what he was doing and we got a taxi to Sukhumvit and checked into our hotel. We stayed quite close to where I stayed on my last business trip, but I was in Thailand this time with a very different mindset and a very different opinion of what Thailand was.

In a way, my mind was open to any possibility and experience that would come my way. Whereas when I went originally, my mind was firmly closed to any possibility, and I didn’t even see what was around me.

Falling in Love with Thailand

That first day in Thailand with my friend, my eyes were open to something I didn’t even know was possible. He took me, accompanied by his wife, to a decent restaurant, and I can remember the food being so cheap, I couldn’t believe it. And in the evening, we went to lots of bars. And all of a sudden, Thailand was now firmly on my radar.

I had a blast. The best time I’d had since my wife left me. And I’m falling in love with Thailand. Everything I saw around me was new and exciting. Things I’d never seen before, and the other foreigners that were there just seemed to be doing things right. I found Thailand, and I didn’t want to go. I could understand why my friend got married to his wife from Thailand. He wanted to take a little bit of Thailand back home with him. And lucky for him, it was his wife.

He had to go up and visit his wife’s family for a few days. So, I was left to my own devices in Bangkok. All I could think about was, “I don’t want to leave this place. This is the most magical place I’ve ever been.” And the thought of having to return to England and go to the pub there wasn’t as fun anymore.

I did a lot of exploring when my friend was up at his wife’s family’s house. I think I went into every single bar there was around Sukhumvit, and I couldn’t believe how affordable it was for a beer. I think I was averaging the equivalent of 80p for a small bottle of beer. That was a lot cheaper than back home, and the surroundings were so much more exhilarating and exciting. I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

First Time in Pattaya

When my friend finally returned from visiting his wife’s family, we had planned to go down to Pattaya. We got ourselves a taxi and headed there. And the Pattaya that I encountered, which was my first time there in the early 2000s, I’m sorry to say, made the Pattaya of today look a bit tame in comparison. I couldn’t believe just how many bars there were everywhere. The most beautiful girls you’d ever seen everywhere you turned your head.

And I liked Pattaya even more than Bangkok. My friend was just on holiday with his wife, but I was experiencing and seeing things I’d never seen before. And it was when we were in Pattaya that I felt like I had found where I really wanted to be.

I can’t remember the exact year this was, but it was between 2002 and 2004, so a long time ago. But my life changed at that moment from being dedicated to my business spending as little time on it as possible, then going to the pub to working out how I could actually spend all my time in Thailand.

England Felt Stale

When we returned to England, everything felt so stale and dull and boring. I didn’t want to be there. I’d finish up with work and go to the pub, but I no longer got any enjoyment out of this. You’d go to the pub and you’d be there with a couple of friends and you’d just chat, but that was it. In Thailand, you’d go into the bar and there’d be hundreds of girls there and it was just different a lot more exciting.

I knew I wanted to go back. I knew I wanted to live there, and I was already thinking about selling up everything and just leaving. But I knew I would need to go and visit again first to make sure I actually liked it as much as I thought I did. And I knew I would need to be sensible and not do something too quickly.

Life Got in the Way

Life sort of got in the way for a few years, and I didn’t actually make it back to Thailand until 2009 many years after I planned to. Thailand was always in the back of my mind and somewhere I wanted to go, but I kept putting it off and putting it off. But when I did finally return, it was a solo trip in 2009. Again, I found myself falling in love with Thailand all over again. And down in Pattaya, I felt like I was home, even though I hadn’t been there. I noticed things changing and growing and altering from how it was when I went originally. And it felt like Thailand was really a country on the up moving in the right direction.

I had a wonderful time in 2009. If anything, it was better than that first exploration trip. It was wonderful, and I can’t describe just how good it was. All good things have to come to an end, mind, and I went back to England.

And at this point, I was just winding down my business. I had my house and some savings. But again, life got in the way. I started another business which did reasonably well, but nothing to write home about. And the years were going by, and I’m not going back to Thailand. I think about Thailand every day, and I don’t know why I didn’t try and move there earlier. But all I was thinking about was Thailand. Yet, I was doing other things that I had to prioritize.

2015 The Trip That Changed Everything

2015 was my next trip to Thailand, equally as good as the ones before, and I’m spending all my time in Pattaya. And this was the first time I was considering actually moving to Thailand full time. I always wanted to open a pub in England, but the idea of opening a bar in Pattaya was even more exhilarating. I didn’t know anything about the industry, but I had been successful with the businesses that I had. I just wish I put more effort into them and didn’t spend so much time in the pub.

But in 2015, I was speaking to a guy who owned a bar in Pattaya, and he was saying it was the best thing he ever did. He gets to drink in his own bar every day, see the world go around, and he was always in Pattaya. He did seem to be happy with his lot. He even said he was married to a Thai as well and had two children.

The Decision to Move

When I got back to England after that trip, things had changed in my mind. I was no longer willing for life to flash by. I decided ultimately that Thailand is where I wanted to be. I was still a few years away from being 50, which would have made me eligible for the retirement visa, but I didn’t want to just go and do nothing in Thailand. It was my dream to open a bar, and that’s what I wanted to do in Pattaya.

There was nothing really keeping me in England anymore. My good friend, who was married to a Thai lady, had sold up and moved to Thailand a few years ago. And when we spoke, he was always going on about how moving there was the best decision he ever made, and he wished he made it earlier. He was also trying to convince me to go as well, saying I wouldn’t regret it. He’d actually built a house upon his wife’s land in her village. He never had any problems, and he was one of the guys who was able to live there until he sadly passed away. He had a great wife, and it just goes to show that there are great girls out there in Thailand.

But one day I just happened to be in the pub, and a few of the guys that I used to chat to were there. And I was looking around and thinking: if I don’t do something about this soon, this could be my life for the rest of my life. I wasn’t happy and content really. And it was then I said to myself, “I’m going to Thailand, and that’s it.”

I sold everything, and 3 months later I was in Thailand.

Setting Up in Thailand

It was a lot easier then to open a bank account and things like that than today. And one of the first things I did was open a bank account with Bangkok Bank. I used the branch that was on the corner of Sukhumvit Soi 8. They allowed me to open an account without any problems, and then I transferred all my money to Thailand. People were telling me that that was a really bad idea. But I don’t regret doing it because I got a far better exchange rate than we’ve seen for years. So that was probably the best decision I made about moving to Thailand, transferring all my money in. I could have transferred it back a few years later and made 10 20%. But that would have actually implied me still having the money left.

Because I was not far away from 50 and because things were easier when I went permanently to Thailand than they are now, it was just my plan to go out of the country and get a tourist visa for 60 days and extend that for 30 days in Thailand, and repeat until I was 50. I still had the dream of opening a bar, but I didn’t know if I would actually do that. I didn’t have a fortune, but I had enough money to be okay.

I spent a few weeks in Bangkok when I arrived, but I knew I wanted to be in Pattaya. So, that was where I ultimately rented a place to live.

Life Was Better in Every Way

My friend, who was living up in his wife’s village, came to visit me, and it was so different to what we used to do in England. Before, we used to drink at the pub together. Now, we’re in Pattaya drinking at a bar, and it was just so much better in every single way than how things were in England. There’s no denying that. And we were both very happy in the decisions we made.

It was at that point that I started traveling to other places in Thailand that I’d not been to. Up until then, I’d been to Bangkok and Pattaya. I wanted to see what else Thailand had to offer. And what I saw, I can safely say, made Thailand even better than I thought it was. So many beautiful islands. Mountainous regions were beautiful. And Thailand really does offer something for everybody.

When I returned to Pattaya, I kind of just got stuck into life. I always had the dream of opening a bar in the back of my mind, but for a year, I kind of just lived spending too much time in the bars, spending too much money in the bars. But I was happy and content. The happiest I’d been since my wife left me for spending too much time in the pub.

The Retirement Visa

2015 turned into 2016, 2017, 2018. And I finally got a retirement visa, and I didn’t need to keep leaving the country for tourist visas. It was getting harder to do that when I finally was eligible for the retirement visa. So, I was fortunate enough that I managed to get it. 800,000 baht in the bank and you’re eligible for a retirement visa. For any guys listening to this that might be interested in retiring to Thailand, it’s very easy to get, very easy to maintain your stay in Thailand indefinitely. But in terms of getting something permanent like you don’t have to do your visa again that’s very difficult. Very difficult to do.

The Bar Opportunity

It was midway through 2018 when I was doing a daily walk through Pattaya and I’d taken a different route than I normally did. I saw a sign on a bar saying “For Sale.” I’d always wanted to open a bar. It was always a dream for years, even in England. And I found myself inquiring as to how much it was going to cost.

Apart from my friend who lived up in the village, I really kept myself to myself when I was in Pattaya. I liked my own company and the company of the girls, but I didn’t really have any expat friends to tell me of any pitfalls that could go wrong with opening bars. I’d been living in Thailand for a few years now, but I hadn’t done anything business wise. I hadn’t done anything that I was good at doing in England before. And at this point, I didn’t know just how different things were in Thailand compared to England.

But I found out that the bar was for sale and it was 5 million baht. That was just to take over the lease, which had just been renewed and extended for a full 3 years. It was only a small bar but it was in a good location. It already had great staff working there, and it was pretty much ready to take over. I think I heard it in one of the other stories, but I checked the books and everything seemed to be clear that the bar was making money. It wasn’t making a lot of money, but I didn’t need it to make a lot of money. I just wanted to cover costs.

I tried to do as much digging as I could. I had employed the help of an agent to help me do everything that needed to be done. But it turns out that the guy who was selling just wanted to retire up to his wife’s village where he had a house. That made sense as he was over 60, and everything appeared genuine. The biggest pain was having to change from a retirement visa to a business visa with a work permit so I could actually work in the bar.

But I did buy it, and it became mine.

Running the Bar

There were 10 girls working there altogether, and there was the manager, or mamasan. And it was at the end of 2018 when I finally took ownership of the bar. Up until that point, I was drinking at other people’s bars all the time. All the time I would be in the bars and spending money. Now I could drink in my own bar and drink beer at cost. That wasn’t the reason for buying the bar, but it was a positive.

In the high season of 2018, the bar performed successfully. It didn’t make a fortune, but it was actually making a small profit. The things you see as a bar owner in Thailand are things that you’re not going to see anywhere else. What the girls get up to they’ll tell you things that they won’t tell to people that visit the bars. And I was really happy with the decision that I made to open.

5 million baht was a lot to spend. I didn’t know if I’d be able to ever recoup that, but I reckoned as long as the bar would pay me a small salary, that’s all I needed. I was saving a lot of money drinking in my own bar and for other things now that I owned a bar, so that was a big positive.

The Headaches of Management

I did experience a lot of issues though with the girls. Sometimes girls not showing up to work. Fights happening in the bar was quite a frequent thing. Arguments over bills. And it was quite a headache to deal with. This is the part of opening a bar I wasn’t expecting. I was just hoping it would run smoothly and people who had jobs would do their jobs properly. But I was finding that people were difficult to manage. All the businesses I did in the past, I did just by myself. I never had staff to manage or staff to worry about. So that was something that took me as a bit of a shock.

If you are opening a bar in Thailand, I think being a people person and being a good manager of people is one of the most important things that you need to consider.

The bar was in a shophouse type building, and I got the whole building as part of the lease. The girls lived upstairs as part of their salary to work. There were two stories above the bar, and I was actually thinking that I could move to the top floor of the building and just be there all the time. But I never got to that point.

2019 A New Girl and a New Wife

2019 rolled around, and the low season came, but we were still making enough money to pay the bills. And the best part of it though was that I got my own bar, which was always my dream.

It was in 2019 early on that we had a new girl come to work in the bar. But she didn’t actually end up working there because I married her. I’d not been in any serious relationship since my old wife left me all those years ago, and I never thought I would be in a serious relationship again because of how bad it felt when she left. But when this girl came to work in the bar, I saw that as an opportunity to marry her before she became too ingrained in bar life for a lack of a better thing to say.

I married her extremely quickly. She was 10 years younger than me, had children from a previous relationship which I never had and she was from where most girls were some village up in Nakhon Nowhere. I went up to the village to marry, and I used that as an excuse to go and visit my friend who lived in a village in a different town in the region. That was sadly the last time I got to see my friend because he passed away not long after. But it was great to see him happy in his life.

For the most part though, 2019, I’m happy with my new wife. I’m happy with the way the business is going. Even though it’s not making a lot of money, it’s making a bit. And I’m ultimately happy with the decision that I made to move permanently to Thailand. I really felt like I made the right decision. And I just wished I’d done things a lot earlier.

More Problems at the Bar

I was starting to experience more problems with the bar that I opened. Some things that I can’t talk about. You’ll have to guess what that means. Let’s just say having to pay for things that perhaps you shouldn’t have to pay for. And the endless headache of managing the girls and making sure they came to work when they should. That was meant to be the mamasan’s job, but it always seemed to fall on me to keep the peace and make sure people were doing what they were meant to be doing.

After having the bar for just over a year, we’re in somewhere around September 2019, and while I was happy with the bar and how it was going, it wasn’t as good as the dream I had of opening the bar. But I did fulfill that lifelong goal of having a pub or bar, so I could tick that off my list. And I put the bar up for sale, just wanting to get rid of it. I hadn’t really lost any money, but I wanted that part of my life behind me. It was too stressful, and I wanted to settle down now that I had a wife, and I wanted to enjoy retired life finally.

I started to get a bit of interest in the bar. A few guys came to look, but I had no offers.

COVID Changes Everything

But we all know what happened a few months later. COVID hit, and that completely decimated the tourist industry. I couldn’t sell the bar anymore, and the landlord of the building still wanted payment every single month. They were not prepared to show any leniency whatsoever. And all of a sudden, this bar turned into a financial nightmare that I could not have predicted.

I was expecting to get 5 million baht out of it. And I probably could have sold it for that amount of money given enough time. But now Thailand looks like it’s going to get shut down. No one’s going to be able to visit, and I’m going to be in ruins.

We kept open for as long as we could until we were forced to shut, and all the girls had to go back to their hometowns. It was a very difficult time for many people, and no matter what I said to the landlord, he still expected payment. The lease amount was a lot of money as well, so I couldn’t just pay it for nothing. And I got to the point where I had to think: how long is COVID going to last? Can we weather it out for a few months and hope that things will get better, or is it going to be years? None of us knew what was going to happen.

But ultimately, I came to the conclusion that I would just have to completely write off the investment that I made in the bar because of how things went on for a few years. I would just be throwing money away left, right, and center.

Huge Losses

That was a very difficult decision to make. I’d never been unsuccessful at anything in my life. And now, because of something completely out of my control, I had failed miserably at having a bar in Thailand. And not only that, I’d lost 8 million baht. Over the year, I probably got back about 800,000 in my own salary and profit. So, I lost 4.2 million baht. That was an extremely bitter pill to swallow. I felt like a failure, but I had to come to terms with the fact that so many people were in equally as difficult positions.

Then the question was: what are we going to do now? I gave up the bar and the lease completely. We were living in a small condo in Pattaya, me and my wife, and I kind of felt like Pattaya had let me down. Thailand had let me down. I know the whole world had closed down, but I personally felt like things should have just remained open. Those who wanted to continue their lives as normal and continue living as though nothing had happened should have been able to do that. People who were worried and concerned about the situation well, they should have been able to stay at home. Nobody should be forced to do anything.

I’m a firm believer in live and let live, but I wasn’t being allowed to live my life because other people were frightened of something. Perhaps I was just bitter because I lost the money I invested in the bar because everything closed down. But I just couldn’t understand how governments around the world had the power to ruin people’s livelihoods. And that was a very, very difficult time.

Moving to the Village

Because of everything that was happening, we decided to go up to her village, because at least there we could go for walks around and do things, and it wasn’t as strict there. And that took us to the decision to eventually build a house and just live there. I remember seeing how happy my friend was building a house in his wife’s village and saw how his days there made him a very happy man. And that’s what I thought I would do as well.

I had enough money to build a house and enough money left over to live. It wasn’t a financial issue. It was just whether I trusted my wife which I did. So, we built a house, bought a car, and decided to stick to life in rural Isan. Very different to Bangkok and Pattaya.

But I’m writing this from my house now. And I think that was the best thing we could have done under the circumstances we found ourselves in.

Grateful for My Wife

I’m lucky that my wife has always been a great wife to me. She knows how to separate her family and me. She knows what I’m happy to accept and what I’m not happy to accept. But she never tries to get anything out of me that is above our agreements that we have together. I’m very fortunate to have her in that sense, and I’m very fortunate to still be able to live in Thailand.

I plan to see out my days here, and I have the funds to be able to do that.

How Do I End This?

I don’t know how I should end this. I feel like I failed because I lost my money at the bar that I bought. But I also feel like it was completely out of my hands before COVID came around. The bar actually was making money. I still wanted to get rid of it because I didn’t expect it to be as much work as it was, and if we had sold it in time, but we didn’t. But how do I define that chapter of my life?

I’m a big believer in looking back at decisions I’ve made and seeing where I could have done something differently or where I could have made a better choice. But nobody could foresee that decisions made by governments because of COVID would ruin so many people’s lives.

We do visit Pattaya at least once every 3 months. And I think that’s what the happy medium is. When you’re there full time, you become numb to what Pattaya actually is. But when you visit, you can actually appreciate it a lot more than you can if you’re there full time.

The bar that I had is now successful, and part of me thinks I should have just weathered the storm and paid the lease for all that time during COVID. But we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was such an unknown and such an uncertainty that it would have been a gamble at best.

But I want to finish this now saying: if you want to call me a failure, feel free to do so. But I wouldn’t want to call myself that, if I’m being honest. I came, I tried, I failed due to circumstances out of my control. But I still found myself now living in a fantastic house with a fantastic wife, having a fantastic life.

And I owe much of my happiness to Thailand. And that is a fact.