My name is Jess. I’m 59 years old and work as a general contractor in California. Here’s the story of my first trip to the Philippines in case anyone is interested. I had dated many Filipino women here in Los Angeles and grew to love the culture. In 2013, I married a beautiful Filipino ex-girlfriend…
I didn’t throw away my retirement. It was taken from me. But I know there will be some clever clogs saying it was my fault. Wake up. I was done over. And it had nothing to do with the fact that my girlfriend was 35 years younger than me. My retirement was perfect. It really…
They say to make a million in Thailand, you need to start with $2 million. Well, I only had $250,000 and I moved to Thailand hoping to become a millionaire. I was sick to the back teeth of the outlook of my life back at home in the UK. And I’d been to Thailand on…
The first time I went to Thailand was in 2010. Like many people who go, I loved it. There wasn’t anything I disliked about Thailand. And no, I wasn’t one of the guys who liked to go to the bars all the time. I preferred doing more cultural things – going to the temples, going…
When I first started coming to Pattaya, there were no mobile phones, no internet, no YouTube, no influencers, no endless commentary. You just arrived knowing very little, and you learned by watching and listening. You walked everywhere. You got lost. You found places by accident. Bars were places where you sat down and talked to…
This story took place a few years ago after six or seven trips to Thailand the first three to Phuket and the third and fourth to Pattaya. I mainly hung around and stayed around the Soi Buakhao and LK Metro area but moved around most of Pattaya during my nights out. I spent some time…
I wish I had a happy story to tell, but unfortunately, no matter how much I tried to make my ending a happy one, it always failed. My Thai wife rinsed good and proper, not only for money but also for a marriage and a visa, not including the time I wasted trying to make…
In 1988, Cebu City, Philippines, I considered myself someone who had been around the block more than a few times. A reasonably tough nut. I was wrong. Three moments proved it. Incident 1 The Transactional Mindset The first occurred in a large open-air beer garden I used to frequent in the evenings with my Filipino…
Up until I went to Cambodia, I never thought it would be a country I would visit. And the only reason I was there was because I had retired the year earlier in Thailand, and I was getting very carried away with everything that Thailand had to offer. I was 56 when I retired. I’d…