Thailand Ended His Old Life

When I was weaving through those hills on that bike that I’d rented together with my friend who had done the same thing, I just felt like I was completely free. I’d done a number of motorcycle trips in my life, going to different countries with friends, and had always had a wonderful time. I remember traversing through Kenya across two weeks, having what I felt was the most brilliant time I’d ever have.

There was something about the Mae Hong Son loop that was just a little bit different. Up in Chiang Mai, heading to Mae Hong Son and back around, with the curves on the road, the scenery that you passed through and the feeling that you were taking part in one of the best tours that you could do on a motorcycle, I really did feel completely free.

I was there with my friend and we’d arrived in Thailand 2 days before this, touching down in Bangkok before flying straight to Chiang Mai where we acclimatized, went to pick up the bikes that we’d rented and set off. I had my international license with motorcycle endorsement as did my friend, as was needed.

I was just settling into what was the ride of a lifetime. We were doing the loop over one week and after that we were heading to Bangkok for a few days before heading home. It was just one of those other trips we’d been on that wasn’t meant to be anything other than a trip.

Thailand just felt like it was full of adventure. It felt like it was a sort of place where dreams could come true. I think we both felt fantastic twisting along those roads, heading up north from Chiang Mai, seeing the big road hooking a left through the small villages until you hit the mountains.

The roads are spectacular. It’s as if they’re designed purely for the thrill, purely for riding pleasure, as if someone sat down and worked out how to make the roads as fantastic as possible. That’s how I was feeling.

My Friend Leaves Thailand After a Phone Call From His Wife

We continued on through Pai through Mae Hong Son to Mae Sariang and we were sat in the hotel in Mae Sariang right next to the river eating some great Thai food.

My friend had a phone call. Unfortunately, there had been some problems in the family. We were both married at the time and he’d had some problems before he left. His wife called him saying that she thinks she doesn’t want to be with him anymore. He was rightly very upset and I was very supportive of him and he just felt like he had to leave as quickly as he could.

We were meant to be staying in Mae Sariang that night but he asked if we could head to Chiang Mai which we did. He asked if we could fly to Bangkok which we did and we were there probably 5 hours after his wife called, probably a bit longer than that, in a bit of a predicament.

He wanted to leave Thailand immediately and go back home. I was going to go with him, but when we checked the price to change those tickets to the flight he wanted to go on, it was over £1,000. Because of that, he decided he would go and I would stay on until the end of our trip and continue as planned, going back on the original flight.

I called my wife and told her what was going on, and she fully understood. Everything was agreed and already paid for in terms of the hotel we were staying at. Everything was already sorted out, but I would have to stay somewhere else because we weren’t up where we were meant to be. But even still, it would be cheaper than paying for the flight.

I didn’t want to spend £1,000 to go back early with my friend. It seemed like a bad idea. But he wanted to leave and I wanted to stay.

We’d flown from Chiang Mai to Suvarnabhumi airport, and I remember waving my friend off saying I hope he gets everything sorted out. He was a right mess down in the dumps, not knowing what was going to happen to him when he returned.

I was a bit disappointed too. My drinking buddy was leaving. My motorcycle friend was leaving and the person I was going to enjoy the rest of our time in Thailand with was going and leaving. It was upsetting, but it wasn’t a problem that I could do anything about. I was a grown adult and I could handle myself and because of that I would change my plans and just see what else Thailand had to offer.

Staying Alone in Bangkok Instead of Flying Home Early

He left and I went into Bangkok to a hotel. We had decided that we were going to spend some time in Bangkok, but we were a few days earlier than usual, so I had to pay some for that, but it wasn’t a lot. It was everything I needed.

I went to freshen up, and I was feeling a bit down, too, because my friend was probably already on that flight home. I just decided to pull myself together, get over it, have something to eat, something to drink, and decide what to do from there.

I didn’t feel like I really wanted to be in Thailand, though. That was very important. I didn’t really feel like it was necessary that I was there.

We were meant to do a few days touring around Bangkok together, seeing the sights. We were meant to go out to drink together, eat together, as you did with friends. And I felt somewhat guilty that he wasn’t going to be able to enjoy it, too. But I resigned myself to the fact that was just how it was.

I didn’t want, as I said, to fork out over £1,000 for a plane ticket. We had the hotel booked for most of the days, so it was probably going to cost me an extra £300 instead, and that wasn’t too bad.

I didn’t know, though, what was available in Bangkok and what I could get up to because you wouldn’t do something that you shouldn’t do if your friend was there. I mean, I wouldn’t. So, I never even entertained something like that as a possibility.

I left the hotel. It must have been approaching 9:00 p.m. by the time everything was sorted out. I’d got to the hotel, checked in, freshened up, and as soon as you leave the hotel, that’s when Bangkok just hits you. It’s very hot there, obviously, but it’s not only hot, it’s humid, too.

It hits you and wakes you up, but it also tires you out at the same time. You’re hit with this intense feeling of temperature. It is a really intense feeling, and all of a sudden, you start to get very sticky, but it wakes you up at the same time and makes you feel alive, but tires you out, too. Although it’s a contradiction, that’s how it felt.

An Unexpected Massage Shop in Phrom Phong

I started walking and looking around for somewhere to have a meal. I set off a couple of hundred meters and I saw what I assumed was a Japanese restaurant because it had Japanese signage outside. I didn’t know anything about the Thai language, but I knew if something was Japanese. I knew what I was seeing wasn’t Thai because of that. That’s why I thought it sounded good. I might have something to eat in there.

I didn’t realize at the time though that I was in a very popular part of Bangkok for Japanese expats. I was in Phrom Phong. It catered to expats from Japan, also tourists from there too, but I didn’t know. Why would I? That’s where the hotel was and it was what seemed to be a good location.

I walked into this one place which appeared to be, as I said, a bar or some kind of restaurant. I couldn’t read what the sign said, so I walked in and it was just an empty room. 100% empty. Apart from a little wooden counter and a few chairs dotted along the wall, that was basically it. Very, very plain, very basic.

Behind the counter was a woman. She must have been in her 50s. She said, “Hello.” She could speak English. I felt like I was in the wrong place, though. And I was about to turn around and go out, and she said, “Welcome. Do you want a massage?”

This didn’t look anything like a massage shop like the ones I’d seen up in Chiang Mai when we were there or when we’d done the loop. There were massage shops everywhere, but this didn’t seem like that. There were no places where you seemed to be able to have a massage. There were just a few chairs dotted along the wall.

But this woman said again, “Would you like a massage?” I assumed she must have been the masseuse. To be honest, I was feeling a bit stiff and a bit uncomfortable, and I said, “Okay.” Then she pulled up this little microphone, or was it a microphone or a walkie-talkie or something, and she mumbled something into that.

About 20 seconds later, the sliding door opens, and in walk about 10 different girls, and they all sit down on those chairs, and she hands me a leaflet, predominantly Japanese, but some basic English on it, too, and it had the prices for all the massages.

Well, I knew there and then that I’d entered one of those establishments that perhaps you wouldn’t enter in polite company. I immediately looked at the girls and thought, “These are very incredibly beautiful girls.”

They were very white-skinned, very pale, nothing like the girls that I’d seen when I’d gone for a drink with my friend up at the bars in Chiang Mai and along the loop. Nothing like those girls. They were very beautiful, very particular in their appearance, perhaps trying to emulate what a Japanese person would like. But I quickly turned to this older lady and said, “I made a mistake. This isn’t what I expected.” And I walked out onto the street and I just thought, “Anything seems to be available in Bangkok.”

And it really woke me up even more than I was already awakened, thinking perhaps I better go a bit further and find something to eat there. I expected that place was a bar, a restaurant. It wasn’t. And I’d just seen something beyond anything I’d ever thought possible to see. It was an awakening.

Walking Sukhumvit Road and Finding Soi 22

I continued walking and eventually reached a big road. Sukhumvit Road it was. It looked right. That’s where the Skytrain station was. They had a few malls there. I thought I’d go into one of the malls and have something to eat in there. I knew malls had food.

I went into the Emporium. I had to cross the road to get to it. This was a bit before EmQuartier over the road. It was quite apparent, though, that it was shutting quite soon, so I couldn’t go in there. That was off the cards.

I did see a big park right next to it, but everything seemed to be alive. The park wasn’t shut. It seemed though it was quite late. I thought I could have a walk around it. But again, why should I spend time in a park?

I was just seeing different things and thinking different things, walking a bit further, thinking back to that experience I’d had in that massage shop, believing that was something completely different to anything I’d actually expected to see in Bangkok.

I didn’t realize at the time that Bangkok caters to so many people, so many different sorts of people. I would find out later that that place was purely for Japanese people. I mean, everyone could go in, but it was catering towards those people, and they did things in different ways. I hadn’t encountered the bars that Western people went to yet, but I did about 5 minutes later, walking a bit further down Sukhumvit Road.

At this point, I’d probably completely forgotten that my friend had just left because Bangkok awakens you, and it’s a shock on the senses. There’s so much going on in every direction that you don’t really know what to expect. You can’t really think about negative thoughts because your thoughts are completely focused on what’s going on right ahead of you.

I encountered one street that seemed to be extremely lively. There was a bar right on the corner looking out to Sukhumvit Road. It was Sukhumvit Soi 22. I just happened across it. I noticed these bars and some of them were open air, some of them were behind closed doors. It just seemed to be where a number of Western people were drinking.

I thought I’ll go and find something to eat on this street. I crossed over to the side of the road where the bars were and I’m just being accosted by girls telling me to go into their bars. I found it very intoxicating, but I wasn’t there for that because I was married and I was meant to be with my friend, but he had those problems because he had to leave.

I continued walking and what appeared to be an Indian guy started showing a menu in my face. Indian food, sir. Well, go on then. So, I went for an Indian. It was okay.

Bangkok’s a strange place, though. I’m seeing stuff that I never thought possible. To be honest though, I was really loving it.

Meeting an English Expat in a Bangkok Bar

I left the Indian restaurant, still wide awake, not ready to go to bed yet. I thought I’d go in for a drink to the closest bar I could find and walked into one. There were a number of girls working at that place. There were a number of guys in there, too. And I just felt like having a conversation with someone.

There’s a guy in there who sat down. He had an England T-shirt on. So, I assumed he was from England. I said, “Hi, how’s it going?” We start having a conversation. He looked at me after I think we’d been speaking about the football that was on TV or just regular chitchat. Just looked at me after about 20 minutes and said, “Well, first time in Thailand.” I said, “Yes, it is.”

I told him what had happened and how we’d done the Mae Hong Son loop, my friend’s problem with his wife. Now I’m alone in Bangkok. And he started sniggering saying that’s how it all begins. That’s how what begins? But he wouldn’t say.

I found out that he was living in Bangkok. I wasn’t sure if I could believe some of the stories he was saying and the stuff he used to do. Apparently, he used to work in intelligence back at home. Then I’m thinking, well, this guy doesn’t look like the sort of person who would work like that.

I kept an open mind and perhaps he was one of those people that you’d think about later on or hear about later on who extended the truth a little bit about what they did and painted themselves as being a lot more important than they actually were. You know, typical working-class English lad, nothing against him.

He really seemed to be a friendly guy, and he was talking about all this stuff, which I could only assume was a complete fabrication of reality.

He looked more like a plumber or a builder than someone in intelligence. But you allow him to say what he wants, and I’m going along with it. He said he’d been there for 20 years.

“Do you want to show me the ropes?” I said. He said, “No, not really.” I didn’t really want to get up to anything, but I just found myself having a talk with him, feeling like I was able to learn from him, loosening up a bit, having a few beers, and letting it take effect.

About 11:00 though, a girl walks in, walks right over to him and says his name, hugs him, and he said, “I thought you weren’t coming to work today.” She said, “I’m a bit late.” Whatever she said. And he said, “Sorry, mate. This is my girlfriend.”

She obviously worked in the bar, but she was his girlfriend. I didn’t know anything about anything. I said, “Fair enough.” He gets up, they go and start playing pool. And I just leave and go somewhere else, not expecting anything to happen.

My First Night at the Connection Bar

I can even remember the name of the bar. The Connection Bar. It was pretty close to the end of Sukhumvit Soi 22. I walked in and it wasn’t that busy. There was one guy sitting by himself at a table on one side. They did have a pool table, but it was one of those places where if you got to take a particular shot, the wall’s a bit close, so it’s going to be quite a cramped game.

There was a girl behind the bar and a couple of other girls sat around. They had a glass front door, and I believe it’s changed since then, but they had a glass front door, so you couldn’t see the street from inside.

I sit down and order a drink. I know the sort of place I’m at, but I could just have a drink. You can do that, can’t you? But this girl, she comes and sits right next to me. I was up for a conversation and a bit of chitchat. I’d spoken to that guy at length, and he’d introduced me and told me so much about Bangkok, so much about things that you can get up to and things you can do. I wasn’t wanting to take part in anything for myself, but at least just have a look from the outside.

From my experience going into other bars, some bars are tame and light and easygoing, and some bars are completely extreme, and nothing’s out of reach. I just happened to have landed in a bar where nothing seemed to be out of reach.

I got a drink for this girl and asked if she wanted to play a game. I saw some on the counter. She said, “Okay, do you want to bet on it? We can do 100 a game.” I didn’t mind. It sounded a bit of fun. She actually won, though, and I gave her the money. It was funny. And I didn’t really think what was going on. It was just harmless fun. I thought I’d better let her win a few more games, even though perhaps I couldn’t even have beaten her. But it’s just kind of easygoing and playing and just not really thinking much of anything. Not really having an in-depth conversation, apart from just laughing at this game we’re playing in front of us.

But then we probably played three games and she just hugged me and she grabbed my hand and put it somewhere. She put my hand somewhere. It was somewhere you would never expect that to happen. And it was not over the top. It was whatever it was. It was just so crazy to think, what is she doing?

I just felt like going with it, having a few more drinks and playing more games. And she’s just playing with me in a way and drinking more, too. But anything seems to go in this place.

I say that because a guy walked in, probably after I had been speaking with her for an hour. I thought it had been going on a while. A girl notices him, goes over and they start chatting. He buys a few drinks for her and they stand up together and walk behind the curtains in the direction of the bathroom. Just walk behind this black curtain, which I did once do too, just to go into the bathroom. I did notice a small seating area there. You turn right and that’s when you go into the bathroom. But a small seating area. But I noticed this when I went to the bathroom and I just thought perhaps she was showing him where it was.

They’d been in there for 20 minutes and I needed the bathroom. And the girl I was playing with said, “Well, you have to wait.” Then I was thinking, “Oh, I know what’s going on.” And I just couldn’t believe what seemed to be taking place in this bar.

I’m not thinking my wife’s at home. I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m thinking I need to know how far this kind of thing really goes because I didn’t know how far it could. I wouldn’t want to always wonder. It wasn’t that I was thinking I was going to do anything stupid, but I just wanted to see how far it went and how far you could do things.

Returning to Bangkok Bars and Questioning My Marriage

I started feeling a bit guilty the following day: well, I shouldn’t have done that, but never mind. I’m not going to do it again. I couldn’t believe that I’d spent all that time with that girl and taken her out of the bar, but it just was something that I felt like I had to do. I owed it to myself. No, I wasn’t going to do it again, I said to myself. But the problem is you do do it again and again and again.

I’m speaking to my wife regularly at home and I’m thinking it’s never going to be the same with her ever again, not from when I met her until this very moment. And embarrassingly, I will say I was doing that even though I had a kid too, 15 years old.

I’d never had any kind of experience like that with my wife at all though. Not even once. Not once had she ever behaved in a way like that. She’d never been provocative. She’d never been that crude. And you could just say crude in a fantastic way.

I went back to that Connection Bar every night for the time I was there. You go in on your second night and the girl you saw the night before, who had given you more fun than your wife had ever given you since you’d met her, comes over and says hi and you look around but there’s another girl that looks attractive and you say to her, “Would you mind if I spoke to her instead?” Not a problem at all. She stands up and it’s like over again. Different experience. Every day I went in there.

I went into other bars at the same time, but this one just felt like an introduction. Some of them were more light-hearted, some of them were extreme, and this one just seemed to be where absolutely everything went.

It went to the point where you’re able to question your own sanity and your own sense of morals for taking part, but I didn’t care. I really didn’t care. I knew I’d be going home soon. It would be over. You’ve had your time that you remember for the rest of your life, and it happened, and I enjoyed it.

But I’m so glad that my friend had to go back. I really became happy about that. I was thinking it’s very sad what happened, but even still, it’s because of that that I’m able to experience something that I’d never be able to experience before. It was a crazy part of my life.

Bangkok had just made me realize, this is probably unfortunately how it is. It made me realize if you go to a country where there aren’t any social safety nets and social security, people will do things that they wouldn’t do in a country where there is. That’s I suppose the thing that really made it worse.

The only thing which I overlooked completely and I didn’t really care and I was actually thankful for is because there’s no social security net, you’re able to take part in things like this. That’s basically how it was. It’s simple.

But it was time to go back home. Bangkok had really given me this, I suppose, midlife crisis. Never would I get up to that if my friend was there. Never would I have got up to that anywhere else. And it just so happened to be a combination of circumstances all coming together where this was a moment in life where you really could let go and think about yourself for a change and not care about anything else.

Returning Home and Thinking About Thailand

But I returned back home. My wife was none the wiser. My friend and his wife had put in for divorce. He was really upset. He actually came to live at my place for the time being because his wife, you know, had his house.

I felt like I wanted to open up to him about what had happened and perhaps tell him. Perhaps he can go to Thailand and let loose himself, get his manhood back because of his wife taking it away. I didn’t know if it was a good idea to tell him because perhaps things could have been said elsewhere.

I’d been back for a month and there wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t think about Thailand and what had taken place there. I knew that there was nothing really I could do about it. My daughter’s 16th birthday happened and that was nice. She was doing great, starting A levels soon. I started thinking to myself, it’s only 2 years and she’ll be off to university.

It wasn’t like I fell out with my wife often or we weren’t okay with each other. It wasn’t like she seemed not to want to be with me. But that marriage just felt so stale and boring. Like she didn’t excite me. She didn’t try to do anything to make me, her husband, excited.

I tried to make her excited by doing different things all the time. I’d worked hard. I ran my own business then and I made good money. We had a house that was paid off. She had a nice car to drive. She stopped working when our daughter was 8 years old because I was able to support us both, and she was able to take care of the house and I took care of her very well. I surprised her all the time. Gifts, a nice car to drive. She never tried to do anything to excite me though.

Now I’m understanding, based on what had happened in Thailand, what excitement for a man is meant to be. You don’t know what’s going to happen from day to day about what she’s going to do. She doesn’t need to make money and go out and fight for money in order to make me happy. She can make me happy with what she had, with what God gave her, and she’s not doing that. It’s so stale and boring. I don’t think I picked up on that until Thailand happened.

That’s a very difficult situation because on the one hand, okay, if we decide to not be with each other and I’m already thinking this, how much is that going to cost me? It would cost my friend probably 250 grand when all was said and done. How much is it going to cost me? Yes, she’s my wife. She supported me, but I believe she didn’t do anything much in return for the money that I’d paid for things that I had given to her. She didn’t give me anything in return for that value.

And so it was a huge struggle. When my friend was living with me for a month or so before he found his own place, a month later his divorce came through. I’m still thinking about Thailand, but when his divorce came through, he was looking, I would say, struggling with things. He ran a business, too. He did okay as well, but he lost a chunk of money.

When his divorce came through, he said he’s going to go for another tour. He’s going to go on the bike again. He wants to go and do Thailand again. He was saying this to me when he was actually around at my house and my wife was there. He’s going to go and do Thailand again. He wants to do it properly. Wants to finish it properly. Wants to do the whole country. And am I going to go too?

I looked at my wife a bit and she said, “If you want to, you can.” Funny really, because I found out something about my wife a bit later on which wasn’t great, but in a sense it was not that bad. In another sense, it was.

A Second Thailand Trip With My Divorced Friend

So, off we went to Thailand. Time dragged on a bit, about 8 months since I’d got back. We were off again for two weeks to basically do the whole country. I was hoping that we’d spend a bit of time reliving those experiences and just getting, you know, what a man should get. Complete excitement from a woman. That’s what it should be about, excitement.

My wife should excite me. She doesn’t excite me. Why doesn’t she? Why doesn’t she use what she has to excite me every single time that she can? Why isn’t she provocative? Why isn’t she fun? Why isn’t she exciting? What’s she doing? You don’t think that until you’ve experienced Bangkok.

We get there and the idea was to get a bike in Bangkok and head up north, taking the countryside roads, staying in hotels along the way. The idea was to set off the day after we’d arrived. And I said to him, “Can I share a secret with you?” He said, “Yes, what? Anything, mate. Anything you want.” I said, “Do you fancy going for a few beers tonight?” “Well, shall we go and sort the bike out first?” I said, “No, let’s go and have a few beers first, and we’ll sort that out tomorrow.”

I took him to the Connection Bar. Amazingly, three of the girls that I met first were still working there, and they actually remembered me. My friend is looking at me like, “Have you got something to tell me?” I just told him to go with it.

Next day, he knocks on my hotel door and says, “I hope you don’t mind. Would you fancy staying in Bangkok for an extra day?” I said, “Yeah, of course, I don’t mind.” We didn’t go on that motorcycle trip. My friend was sold on Thailand. He’s moving to Thailand.

He was divorced now. He had decent money to his name. He lost 250 grand, but he had some money. Pretty smart in certain aspects, but he kept aside a couple of hundred grand away from his wife, so she wasn’t able to access that. Pretty smart in that sense. He probably had half a million.

He said he was moving to Thailand on day three of being there. And it was like, what am I meant to do? I’m going to have to go back home. He was expecting to go and have to work and put more time in, but he felt like he had enough money to live this life in Thailand.

I just told him I envied him. I wanted to move there, too. And it was a quiet thing that we had to keep between each other. What about your wife? Never mind about my wife, I started thinking and saying, and he told me he understood. Thank you for letting me know what Thailand’s about.

A few months after we got back, he’d moved to Thailand full-time. He bought himself a condo in Pattaya, invested his money wisely, and off he went. And I was just still living my life.

My Wife Has an Affair and I Move to Thailand After Divorce

A couple of months after this, I’m away on a business trip. I went away occasionally. The suppliers that provided things for my business were mainly based in China, and I actually needed to go to China. Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to be able to fit any time into Thailand, but the plan was to go to China for a week.

I was back early this time. Now, this was a business trip. The company was paying. I don’t mind paying money out of the company, any reason to not pay as much tax, even if it does mean losing money overall. I’d rather lose a bit extra money than pay tax. So, my company was paying, but I ended up arriving back home early and arrived at the house.

And the pub landlord from the local pub is in my house with my wife. Oh dear, what’s going on? It had turned out she’d been having an affair with him basically. I tell you what, I wasn’t bothered. I didn’t care. Thank you for having an affair because it meant that I was now free.

Divorce ensued. My daughter was upset. She was going through her A levels, but she’ll get over it. She stayed with her mom. The guy who she had an affair with was meant to be with her, but left. And then she’s trying to get back with me.

But unfortunately, I hadn’t been as smart with money as my friend had. I didn’t have as much as him. The house was paid off, but everything was probably worth 400 grand. I was probably left with 250 grand after everything was said and done because of the divorce. But it felt like a decent amount to be able to go to Thailand.

I wanted to go there, wanted to live there. My friend seemed to be doing well, and I wanted to be there and do well, too. I thought I’d go for a couple of years, just to see how I get on.

When I arrived in Bangkok, months had gone by since this took place and we got the divorce. This isn’t a quick thing, but when I finally got to Thailand with what I hoped was going to be enough to get myself set up for life, it was a bit of an anticlimax in a way because I knew I was there and I had the possibility of living there.

Because of that, it’s not like you can just go and live like you’re on holiday, like you’re going to enjoy each day because, you know, you’re going to leave soon. You can’t do that because if you do, you’re going to lose all your money and it could go wrong very quickly.

I did allow myself to go back to the Connection Bar. I wanted to see that girl again. I just hoped she was still there. But sadly, she had stopped working. I recognized another girl, but it was kind of like a bringing together of the fact that I’m here now and she’s left. Okay, it was not going to be anything serious, but it was fun.

But she was the girl that opened my eyes to what girls were meant to be. They were meant to be provocative and they were meant to excite. They were meant to blow you away. They were meant to use what they had to make you happy, just like you use what you have to make them happy. It seemed to be completely absent in my ex-wife, though.

Settling in Pattaya and Living on My Investments

I spent a couple of days in Bangkok before I was heading down to Pattaya to see my friend. I’d never been to Pattaya up until then, but I was looking forward to going to see what it was like.

I met up with him in a bar on Soi Buakhao. In fact, he’s just lost weight. He’s tanned, loving life. He had a girl with him, my girlfriend, he said, and she was a stunner. He’d spoken about her before when I’d been speaking and how great it was to have met her and how much he gives her as an allowance. It just seemed to be a normal type of thing.

He wasn’t getting carried away. He was very level-headed since he got divorced and he wasn’t getting carried away. He was there for his own enjoyment and he’s not there to enrich anybody at his expense.

I loved Pattaya. I spent a couple of weeks there just learning the lay of the land, learning where to go for different things. But I miss Bangkok.

I was finding that Pattaya was a lot more affordable than Bangkok even back then. I’m talking about 2012, I think it was, or 2013 maybe. But Pattaya was even more affordable. You could go into a bar and have a beer for 50 baht and that same one in Bangkok might be 90 or more. If you’re having a lot of them, it adds up.

I decided that Pattaya would probably be the best place for me to spend the next year working out if I’m going to be able to live there or not. Is there anything I could do even to make money? Anything I could do to find myself living a life I wanted to live? I’m really getting settled into this great life. I was just lacking probably double what I should have. Double would have given me enough to be able to give me a decent income.

What I had was invested at home. It was bringing me in just over £1,000 a month though. But to live the way I wanted, I would have needed £2,000.

I am slowly seeing money disappear. Not alarming to the point where I might spend £5,000 or £6,000 extra across the time I’m going to be there.

So, it is what it is, but it was about a month since I’d arrived in Pattaya, and I was out one evening around LK Metro. I loved the bars around there. I mean, I loved all the bars around everywhere, again missing that Bangkok vibe.

The Connection Bar, I still have a huge affinity for that place because it changed my life and it took me down the path that I was on and memories to me are very important.

Meeting a Young Thai Woman on LK Metro

I was in a bar on LK Metro, pretty fun kind of place, pretty extreme. And it was the time of the week where perhaps I might go and try and see if I can have a good time because I was rationing myself to be sensible. I met a great girl sometimes, but not often really, when I went out, that is. But this night I met a girl who was fun.

She just said she had started working and I’d heard that before. Who hasn’t heard that before in Thailand? She said she’d just started working that week. You’ve heard that before and you’ve been around the block in Thailand at this point. I’d been there for a couple of months or a month, however long. Could have been a bit longer if I think about it, but you can sort of tell if a girl’s been working there for a long time or not.

She was saying how she’s just arrived from her village. She had a friend of a friend working in a different bar who had got her a job at this bar. She said, “One friend work bar there. I now work here. I work one week.”

She hadn’t really picked up much English yet, so perhaps it was true. Perhaps what she was saying was true, and I decided to believe her. “I work, take care baby.” She seemed to be really clingy, because I’d never experienced this before with any of the girls I’d met in Thailand. She was really clingy.

Whatever I would read into that, it made me think that, oh, she’s being clingy. What should I do? It was like when she didn’t want to leave after we left the bar together. She didn’t want to leave. You know, I gave her some money. She just didn’t want to leave. She just stayed with me a bit.

The next day, she said, “You money bar, I no work.” What do you mean, “You money bar”? “I no work today.” Something like that, she said. She was implying that she wanted me to pay the bar for her and not actually go back to work. So, I did and did that for the whole week.

I don’t really know how to explain it. I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t know what to make of it, but she was so clingy. And I just took that as a fact that I’d met a girl who really wasn’t enjoying working in the bar and she saw something in me.

I was 49, by the way, then. Probably could have passed for younger. I wasn’t overweight, went to the gym. I had a decent physique, wasn’t ugly, and perhaps she saw something in me.

I took her to see my friend and his girlfriend, and they were speaking, and I thought, you know, I’m going to go for it. I said, “If I paid the bar, how much for you to stop working?” And it was quite a big amount, something like 20,000.

But I find that I’m just with her, and she was 20. She had a baby with a Thai guy up in Sisaket. And I’m just going with it. I’m having a good time with her. It was so fun and it was enjoyable. And now she was my girlfriend and she was picture perfect. I’m feeling like I’m settling into life in Pattaya.

Living Together in Pattaya and Paying an Allowance

Then I’m with her and I’m not going out as much because this girl, she’s got a wild side exactly like a girl should have who has a boyfriend exactly like that. And I’m not really spending that much money. I’m giving her 15,000 a month which she was happy with and she was delighted with that. And then she became everything.

The place I was renting was 10,000. With everything, I was probably spending what I earned from my investments and had only a little bit left, really. I was losing money, but not a fortune, and it wasn’t a fantastic lifestyle.

We weren’t going and staying in resorts and going to the beach. We were just ticking over.

After about a month, I’d sent her to this school so she could pick up English better. That cost a bit, but she was getting better at English, not amazingly, and I wouldn’t say her English ability was brilliant. But the fact that it was getting better was a good sign.

Maybe it got better by tenfold across about four or 5 months. Because of that, we were able to talk more about different things.

And she said when she worked in the bar, she hated it. She saw me and she liked me and she thought she wanted to be with me. That’s what she kept saying.

I’m not really thinking anything more than that, though. I am having a good time. I’m enjoying myself. I’m thinking this is probably temporary until she gets bored or until I get bored. I only considered it to be a temporary thing and nothing more than that.

But I’m finding the more I’m with her, the more I don’t want this to be temporary. The more I want this to be something more, like a forever thing, a permanent thing.

A Mae Hong Son Motorcycle Trip and Marriage Proposal

After a couple of months of taking things slow, it just felt like it was about time to go away together. Let’s leave Pattaya and go and see something different. And I asked if she’d like to go to Chiang Mai. Let’s go on the bike. Let’s go and do the loop together.

I remembered it and I even asked my friend if he wanted to go with his girlfriend but he said no. I don’t want to go into the reason as to why, but she wanted to go with me.

We got a taxi to Bangkok, flew to Chiang Mai, rented a decent bike, and off we went. During that time, I felt something that I’ve known other guys say. When you take a girl out of Pattaya to a part of Thailand where there are tourists and foreigners, but not as many, it feels different.

It doesn’t feel transactional anymore. It feels like a real thing. You’ve got this drop-dead gorgeous girl on the back of your bike as you’re driving around and she’s doing exactly what you’d expect a girl to do who’s with you. She’s keeping you on your toes and excited, keeping you happy.

It was during that time, I think, in Mae Hong Son town. We were having a bite to eat, just taking everything in, sat right next to this big piece of water right in the center of town, in a restaurant overlooking it. I kind of said to her, “Is there anything you want?”

I didn’t really give anything to her apart from the bits of money I gave her monthly. But is there anything you want? Thinking she might want some new perfume or some new clothes or whatever it was when we got back to Chiang Mai. I told her I’ll get her something.

But she said, “No, I want to marry you. How do you feel about that?” And she just sprung it on me. I didn’t know what to say. I’d never thought about marriage. That was something that I never thought I would do again. And I looked at her and said, “Are you sure?” She said, “Yeah, I want to have married you.”

I’d heard tales from guys who got married about what it would involve. And I just thought, you know, why not go with it? What would be the harm in getting married? It could make it more fun and more exciting.

It was just like she said that and I said, “Okay.” As if it was nothing. As if she’d asked me to go and buy her a new dress or something. It was just the same kind of thing.

She was happy though and quickly pulled out her phone and called her mother and she’s chatting to her and handed me the phone. She said, “Say sawasdee krap.” So I did and her mother starts saying something. I had no idea what she was saying, but she was happy. Let’s get married.

Sin Sod and Registering Our Marriage in Sisaket

A couple of weeks later, I was in a small village in Sisaket visiting the family and putting everything in place, agreeing to everything. I’m going with it. I was happy, too.

I’m thinking if I get married, it’s not like she can take any of my stuff because she doesn’t know what I’ve got. She doesn’t know where it is. She doesn’t know how to get it, and she has no idea. So, I think that’s why I was going for it.

If it was a case of like it would have been at home, no way would I have got married because of the risk to my finances. But I didn’t believe there was a risk to my finances. That’s why I was doing it.

They wanted 50,000 baht for sin sod and even though she was beautiful, she had a child, but that’s all they wanted.

And I agreed. Everything seemed fine. Let’s do it in a month’s time, which we did.

We married and then we registered the marriage and it was just like it was happening. And then I just find I’m married to a girl who had just turned 21.

I just felt like I was the luckiest guy on earth. You have to bear in mind I was able to be within budget too at this point. I was really able to live within the budget I had. That was fantastic by itself.

Marriage in Pattaya and the Limits of My Budget

Since we married, we were living back in Pattaya. I’d been there for longer than a year now. A friend just looked at me and said, “Be careful. Marriage is a bit different.”

He’d already moved on to his second girlfriend at that point. And I suppose he was being a bit more sensible, as he put it, but now I was married and time’s going by and we’re living in Pattaya.

As much as she’s giving me excitement and happiness, you do get to a point where boredom starts to sink in. You get to the point where you’ve got a budget to stick to because I decided I wanted to live there. I didn’t want to live anywhere else. I didn’t want to go back home.

My budget based on what I had was only probably £1,200 a month. Okay. She gets 15,000 baht. The rent is whatever it is. It’s not like you can go out and eat every day or you can go and buy a bag of street food and eat that together.

You could do that, go buy drinks from 7-Eleven and drink together occasionally, but it’s not like we can have an extravagant life or even a life that I would have hoped to have had.

I’d always been reasonably successful in business. I’d made money. I’d always lived better than I was living now. And the reason I was living like this was because that was what my budget allowed me to do. I could have spent more, but money would have run out.

I decided that I needed to do something. I’d always worked and made money, run a business, and had been successful. And I needed to do something.

What it was I needed to do was something that I didn’t yet know because what would I have wanted to have done? Well, I wouldn’t have wanted to have run a bar, which seemed to be the go-to for many guys.

I just didn’t feel like that then. I felt like I had a Thailand bar with me every single day. That was perfect anyway because I had my wife now who only worked very briefly, but she came from that world and that was enough excitement for me.

All the typical kinds of things, tourist restaurants, this and that. What can I do? The problem is nothing appealed to me. Nothing made me feel like it was something that we should do.

Investing in Guest Rooms on Her Family Land

We visit the family occasionally, look at different things there, too. And I became one of the guys that decided that starting a business in Sisaket in the village was probably the best course of action because everything there felt so much further behind. If you could introduce something to make the area feel newer, then perhaps this could be what we should do.

What to do though was something else. She was very keen on the idea of moving out of Pattaya completely and living in Sisaket. She was very keen on that idea.

I’d been around where she was from. I’d spoken to other guys who lived there from the West. Everyone who was there said how great it was. Of course, perhaps they were in their honeymoon phase of living there.

What I decided to do, and I thought was a great idea, was perhaps we could have a hotel. Not a hotel like a big multi-story thing. Not like that at all, but you saw them dotted around.

The family had a piece of land that was bordering a road. The road itself you’d call a B-road if it was in the UK, but it was bordering this. It had electricity going past it, a few houses next to it, and it was the road to get to Sisaket from Surin, I think it was, and people would drive on it all the time.

If we had a place where people could stay, this might be the idea. And it just seemed to be like investing in something. Perhaps this is the sort of place where land is going to go up in value and things are going to go up too. So you can make money on that side of it too.

Being from the UK, the idea of property going up in value is something that you believe is the case and how it’s always going to be and you’re never going to think otherwise. I thought this was a good idea and my wife thought it was a good idea and she was excited about it and that was making me excited.

What ended up happening was I took £100,000. I bought the land from the family. I bought that for my wife and we built eight little rooms which we could charge 400 baht a night for. One of them we would live in for the time being.

Now, if we can charge 400 a night, even if we’re half full, we have seven rooms because we’re living in one. Let’s say we’re getting 1,000 to 1,200 baht a day. I worked it out like that.

I might be getting less from this than I would be getting from my investments, but it’s only half my investments. Plus, I’ve still got some money invested, which is bringing in some other money. That’s why we did it. About £100,000. I had about £130,000 left.

Guest Room Income and Boredom in the Village

It wasn’t a total failure. I wouldn’t say that, but it wasn’t a total success either. People stayed. I mean, it was a good location. People were staying in them, but it wasn’t anywhere near replacing what I would have had by just leaving the money where it was.

But even still, it’s working in a way. We’re still able to live, bear in mind, because I’m not paying any rent anymore by living in one of these small rooms, which was good enough. She’s still everything I want her to be. And it’s still bringing in money.

One of the problems is it’s not like it keeps me busy. I don’t have to do any work and it’s like I’m back to square one. I’m in a place that’s more boring than Pattaya, which was a bit of something I should have known was going to happen.

I’m living in a village in Sisaket about 30 minutes away from the town. It’s a very small, pretty boring town. It wasn’t the best town. For anything exciting, you have to go all the way to Buriram and even that’s not great.

I’m with my wife and she’s giving me the happiness that I need. But we’re probably there for 6 months and we’re not necessarily losing money, but probably not bringing in anything more than 7,000 baht from this place on average every month. That’s what it worked out at across 6 months.

Not exactly a lot of money, but again, we’re not spending a lot either.

Let’s think of something else to do. That seemed to be the obvious next step. Let’s think of something better. What is this going to be?

Now I’m getting invested where if it doesn’t work, I’m not going to have anything to fall back on. And I still think that the idea needs to be something that we can actually be involved with.

Buying a Truck and Trading Farm Crops

One thing that I’d been really interested in ever since I’d arrived was, you see, farmers around the area who just are very set in their ways. They do things how they’d always done them. The crop’s ready. Someone turns up with a truck or a pickup or whatever vehicle warrants the size of the harvest, takes the stuff, buys it from them, goes and sells it somewhere else and probably makes a lot more money than the farmer who spent months growing the thing.

I mentioned this to my wife and she said she knows people who are in this business, not well, but they happen to be within the family, but the family grew rice mainly and the guy from this distant family, you know, grows other bits and he’s the one who actually comes and buys stuff sometimes.

He comes around, buys it, gives him some money there and then, then they’d go and sell it to make a profit.

And I was thinking, why don’t we do something like this?

The problem was I didn’t speak Thai, didn’t have the knowledge about how to do that. But I just thought because I had the idea, it would be a good one.

Let’s buy a truck. Let’s go and try and find farmers to buy stuff from, and let’s ask her dad to help because he was about my age, her dad was, and he seemed to know what he was doing. But he was a farmer. Didn’t know what he was doing really, I suppose.

I spent 800,000 on this truck. It was quite old, you know, going around together. I mean, I’m sitting in the truck and they’re going and talking and I’m having a good time.

It’s going on for a few months. He agreed to buy stuff from seven farmers that they knew. Well, we’ll buy your harvest. Everything was agreed. Everything was sorted out and arranged and I was quite excited actually because it felt like we’d actually found something that was going to work well.

Harvest Trading Losses and Arguments With Her Father

Let’s just say when it came to selling this stuff, we made a huge loss every time. Her dad had overpaid. Was it deliberate or not? I absolutely have no idea. Maybe it was. Maybe it was just stupidity. Maybe he wasn’t business-minded, and I just assumed he was. We probably still had the truck, which could be sold again, but we probably lost about £10,000 buying quite a lot of this stuff. £10,000. He’d overpaid considerably.

We’re talking about seven farmers who had big pieces of land growing stuff that was a cash crop. And the idea was to make £10,000. But no, this was probably in an area of a couple of hundred rai anyway, but he overpaid considerably. It was quite alarming that he actually did that. I couldn’t actually fathom it. But there you go. I think that was a time when I thought, you’ve got to stop this. You can’t do anything more here. Nothing more at all. It’s over. Save your money.

I probably still had just over 100 grand left in the bank, which at the time I still thought and felt was a decent amount. It was probably bringing in just over 5 grand a year. But the thing is that’s not exactly a lot of money.

Now I’m panicking. I’m really panicking because this was meant to be it. My wife was coming up with other ideas, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do anything because most likely it was going to lose and I couldn’t afford to lose.

It was like her dad had a taste for doing stuff and he’d gone and found other people and it was just like he couldn’t work out that he’d lost money. He just couldn’t work it out. My wife understood, but she was allowing her dad to continue to do this. And we had a huge argument because of it. We still had the truck. I wasn’t able to sell it. It didn’t really belong to me, so I couldn’t.

But the problem is dad comes around. We need to go and buy some more stuff. We got a proper price now. But I said, “No, we can’t. We can’t do this.” But my wife’s on his side even after everything he did. “We need to,” she said. “He’s already told people we will buy and what price we will pay. People happy we pay good price.” Imagine that. People happy we pay good price. Well, of course they’re happy because you’re paying more than it’s worth.

Huge argument. I had to put my foot down and said no. I’d completely put my foot down. Absolutely not. It’s not going to happen. Not in a million years. Father storms off and she’s then angry with me. “How dare you do to father? He already promised people.” “But you know that we’ve lost money, right?” “Yes, but this is different.” “How? Why don’t they sell to somebody else?” “Because they don’t pay as much money.”

I suppose that was a moment when you just realized that you’re somewhere where logic just doesn’t make sense and reason doesn’t make sense. I was stupid because I was more than 50% invested in this area and what we had was this little place with these rooms. It was that and we had this truck and that was it. Really couldn’t sell anything. It was a good location though. But even still, I just said to her, “No, I don’t think it’s going to work like this. I can’t understand how you can think that these people are happy because we’re giving them more money, but that means we can’t even sell it to make a profit.”

She just didn’t understand either. Or perhaps she did, but she didn’t care. She sulked a lot and went off and told her father and comes back. “Father very angry. Father lose face in front of people,” and everything that they like to say.

But I was adamant. She knew I was adamant and she knew there was no point arguing anymore. I said, “Well, we have to try and push this business here. We’ve got these places. We need it to be full.” She said, “Well, not so busy around here.” “Well, why did you let me build them anyway?” Family hates me now, by the way, because I’m not doing what they want. They really hate me. They don’t want to look at me. But my wife’s with me, probably because I’m still the best idea for what to do to get some money.

Refusing to Sell the Land and Planning a Return to England

I’m looking at my situation thinking, I’ve got two choices. I can tell my wife we need to leave, probably go back to the UK to make some more money there, or we can sell the land that we’ve got here, which belonged to her. I paid for it from the family, but even still, plus we’ve got these places and it is in a location that someone might want it. It’s not in the sticks. It’s on a proper road. It does have some value.

Can we sell this? I asked my wife. I think I’ve got a good idea. I found a business I want to buy in Pattaya. I think we should move back there. We can make more money, but we need to sell this.

No, no, cannot sell. Cannot sell family land. I cannot sell, she said. Cannot sell.

I said, well, we could. We need to, but she wouldn’t. She was adamant she couldn’t sell family land even though I paid for it. So she couldn’t see the value in doing something better somewhere else to make more money. It was like she was set in her ways and sense didn’t mean anything to her.

I said we’ve got to go back to England instead then. Do you want to go to England with me? “Okay,” she said. “I happy to go England with you, but we cannot sell this one.”

Then I looked into getting a visa for her but then that became a no-go. It would have involved me having to go home first. Then I look into a visa for her to go and I just didn’t have a job at the time. Didn’t have enough money in the bank for it to be possible. So that failed.

The plan was if I went back, I could save money for a year or two or three and go back to Thailand and start again and we could start the business again. But that just didn’t feel right either.

Even still at this point I was very bored in the village. But she loved it there. We were thinking about the best thing to do.

We went to visit my friend down in Pattaya together. We both went to Bangkok again, looking for a legal company to help with the visa application.

But he’s just living his life, same position, new girlfriend. I just envied him. He was more sensible though. I was still with my wife then, though at that point, which I suppose I thought was the main thing. Even though we had a few huge arguments, even though the family hated me now because dad had lost face, I was still with my wife and I believed that was okay.

The UK Visa Application and Demands From Her Family

I did find a visa company in Bangkok to help with the application. It was just going to be making sure everything was ticked as it should be. I had a letter from someone saying I could live there which was proof of somewhere to live.

I had the money in the bank, or invested, should I say, and I had to put some of the money in the bank to make this visa application possible. That was the thing when I found out about it originally. I felt like I couldn’t do it because the money was invested which didn’t count. So I had to transfer it over. But again it was like I didn’t want to do it but I was doing it and I was in two minds about what to do.

But when we were doing this in Bangkok, my wife was being very dismissive, still angry about what had happened. She’d bring it up regularly and she hadn’t done for a few weeks. We’re in Bangkok putting things in place. “Father’s still very angry,” she just said. “Cannot believe you do to him again.” I thought she’d dropped it, but it appeared she just wouldn’t drop it at all.

I said to her, “What do you want to do?” “We need to make some more money. What do you want to do?” “You know what I want to do? I want to go stay in the village,” she said. “I want to do more things there.” “You know that I can’t risk what I’ve got,” I told her and it was like she didn’t know at all.

I was really in two minds whether I should even go ahead with this visa application or not because if I did and she was just continuing to be like this then what would happen then? I was starting to sense things that perhaps I hadn’t sensed before and I knew full well though that she put me last behind the family which I had already accepted.

But we’d found someone to help with this visa application and paid them to do that. She said, “I want to go back and visit family first before we do this. Can we go together?” So, we went together and I was just going along with it. No other choice.

We get to the village and bear in mind these places, they were rented out and they were what they were. Money was going to the family now, not us. Even though it was mine, I paid for it. Dad looks very angry at me again. Lost face in front of the farmers even though he was going to pay over the odds. What was I meant to do?

They were all chatting and she said, “I think you need to go England by yourself. You send money for me.” I said, “What do you mean?” “You send me 15,000 every month and you can go and I wait for you here. You can come back here and we can build a house here and we can live here.” It was like, “What do you mean?” I was shocked. I said, “It could be 3 years.” “Yeah, I can’t visit every year.” She said, “My family think it’s better to do this. What do you think?” I said. She said, “Yeah, I missed you, but I think it’s best, too.” I didn’t know what to make of it then. I was quite heartbroken, but also thinking, “Is she trying to tell me something?”

I wasn’t about to not be with her and send her money while she could live where I wanted to live. I wasn’t about to do that. I then told her I couldn’t. I told her we need to save money together. I want you to go with me.

She talks more to her family and I’m just sat there thinking what is going on. I want you to go with me. But no, she said, “You go by yourself.” After speaking to the family for more time, I said, “Let’s go to Bangkok. Let’s talk about this together away from your family.” She talks to them a bit more and says okay.

Ending the Marriage and Returning Home

We went down to Bangkok and I’m asking her what’s going on. And she said, “My family don’t want me to go. They want me to help them there. They think I stay here, you send money for me, then they get money, too. They think we go, maybe you not send money.”

Well, we already agreed I will send money for your child. But no, she said, “I want you to go yourself.”

Basically, after a couple of days of just real up and down with her, I said to her, “Okay, make a choice. We go together or I go myself, but we’re not together.” And she looked really shocked. “No, no, cannot do. Cannot do. You have to stay with me, but I not go.”

I knew where and what she was trying to get at. It wasn’t going to work like that. I’d lost all faith in her. I lost all faith in her and everything I had believed. And whatever all the fun and exciting things she did, she just wasn’t what I thought she was at all.

It was an awakening. I’d lost a load of money and had to go back home because I didn’t have enough and she didn’t want to go with me. She just wanted me to believe I was with her just so I would send money. I looked at her and said, “I think you’ve already told me everything, so it’s over.”

When I said that, she was hysterical. She burst into tears. “No, you cannot leave me. I love you,” she said. “Really? Well, why don’t you want to go with me?” “All my family.” “Well, you love them more than anything, then, don’t you? Not me.”

About 2 weeks of her just not leaving. I’m allowing anything to happen that’s happening. She’s trying her best, but I’d already made up my mind. If she doesn’t want to go with me, that’s it. And I think about 2 weeks it was for her to actually come to the conclusion her family basically forbade her to go. I had to go, and if she’s not going, then that’s it. We’re not together. That’s how it happened.

Before I left, I said I would give her 100,000 baht if she got a divorce from me. I thought I might want to come back to Thailand again. I might want to get married again. So she said okay, but she had no choice really.

She called me a few days later. I was still in Bangkok and I was going wild for a few weeks before I was leaving. I just had to do that. “Family, sorry. Family say I can go with you.” We’d already got the divorce, though. “No, please. No,” she kept saying.

I just couldn’t work it out. I said no, though. That’s all I could say. Lost a load of money. Ended up going back home.

Six Years of Saving and Returning to Bangkok

It took me 6 years to save up enough money to go back to Thailand. Six whole years of working, saving, and toil. But I got back, and I’m living in Thailand, but I’m not in a relationship. That’s my Thailand story. Fun while it lasted. Devastating when it went wrong.

I loved her. I did, because she made me happy. And the more you love someone, the more you need them, the less they need you. And that’s how it worked for me.

It got to the point where I left, got divorced, devastated for 6 years. My friend lived there throughout that whole time, living it up to the max. And I got back eventually.

I will say because of that, I won in the end. I live on £1,500 a month in Thailand, which is enough for me.

I have a number of girlfriends. Every time I want to meet someone, I don’t go to the bars really. I live in Bangkok, live next to the river. I love my life, but it would have been better if I just had a little bit of extra money.

Even still, my life is okay. I had an awful time just to get to where I am. And because Thailand got the better of me to start with, she got the better of me.

That land, from what my understanding is, where it was built, is probably worth 10 million baht now. It’s in an area that’s been built up. I just hope she can’t sell it because she doesn’t deserve it.

That’s just crying over spilled milk. I hope to remain in Thailand forever, but you never can know though, can you? One thing I do know though is that I’ll never lose money to a girl again because it’s just not worth it.