The Two Week Millionaire In Thailand

I had been going to Thailand for many years. Thailand was the only place where I felt like I fit in with the other foreigners there. I felt like we had things in common with each other a shared love of Thailand and the shared dream to be able to live in Thailand permanently.

Living in Thailand was never on the cards for me when I went on that first holiday all those years ago. I know the term gets thrown around a lot, but I was the definition of a two week millionaire. All I managed to save throughout the year was enough to have my two weeks in Thailand. And although I hated the fact I had to work for the full year just to be able to have two perfect weeks in Thailand, it was a routine that I got into. And I did it religiously ever since the very early 2000s.

I didn’t miss a year in Thailand, but I have been struggling with the decisions I’ve made, and I suppose the writing was already on the wall that Thailand might not be my forever home.

Why I Went to Thailand

I went to Thailand for the bars, the nightlife, and the affordable cost of living. The last time I visited Thailand, before I moved permanently, I had noticed that the price of things had gotten considerably more expensive. This was especially true for the part of Bangkok where I spent my first few holidays. It was remarkable just how Thailand was changing. Every year you’d come back and the nightlife you used to be able to enjoy was becoming more expensive year on year.

And that made me decide on future trips to go and look at different places in Thailand look for new and upcoming parts of the country that many tourists hadn’t yet been to. I wanted the bars back that I first saw in the early 2000s. Cheap drinks really cheap drinks and some kind of disconnect between the people that went to the bars and the people that worked in the bars.

This was before social media. This was before people in Thailand knew how people lived in the West and vice versa. And I think this is how the world worked best. As the years went on, social media reared its ugly head, and the bars were still fun and that’s why I went to Thailand but they weren’t as fun as they used to be.

Searching for the Past

The reason I’m talking about this is because every time I went to Thailand, I made it my mission to seek out bars in areas of Thailand that were not the most common. And that made me feel like I was going back in time to certain places.

In the 2000s, I started out in Bangkok. Two weeks in Bangkok in 2001, 2002, 2003, and all the way up to 2009. I went to Bangkok usually for 10 days and then spent the remaining 4 days at one of the islands. I went to many of them, and that was for the other side of the holiday.

It was around 2009 that I noticed Thailand changing in terms of how much things cost. So I went to Pattaya for the first time in 2010. Pattaya in 2010 reminded me of Bangkok in 2001. The prices, the excitement. And I made it my mission that Pattaya is where I would visit every year from now on. This was the case in 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014.

And it was around this time though that I’m starting to see Pattaya change from how it was even in 2011. Things were getting slightly more expensive. A lot more tourists were starting to visit. And you might find yourself sharing the nightlife with people from countries that you weren’t sharing them with before.

Searching for the Right Vibe

In 2014, I’m having a good time in Pattaya, but I decided to leave after only a few days and see if I could find somewhere else. I’d been down to Phuket before, but I didn’t really like how much more expensive it was than other places. I’d heard about Hua Hin and Chiang Mai. What I was looking for was the bar scene that I found in the early 2000s in Bangkok, or that I found in the early 2010s in Pattaya.

I went first to Hua Hin as it was the closest to Pattaya, but I just couldn’t get my head around Hua Hin. They had the bars on Soi Bintabaht, but I found the prices to be comparable to Pattaya often cases more expensive and I was looking for that cheap thrill. But what I did like about it was the people who were visiting the bars were like the people who were visiting the bars in Pattaya 5 years ago, and like the people who were visiting the bars in Bangkok 10 years ago. I think that’s the best way to describe it. So, on the one hand, I felt like I had my Thailand back, but it wasn’t my kind of place.

Finding Chiang Mai

I’d heard there was a small bar scene in Chiang Mai, so I went up there. And there was a very small bar scene there situated on Loi Kroh Road. The best way to describe it was like going back in time going back to the Thailand that I witnessed a long time ago. Prices as well, exactly how you’d expect them to be. Large beers cheaper than small beers in Bangkok, considerably. And the general prices overall were far more favorable.

But the most important thing for me was the clientele. The clientele was the same as the people who were in Bangkok years ago and Pattaya years ago. It doesn’t seem like that sort of tourist had made their way to Chiang Mai yet. And that’s when I decided that this is where I was going to go year after year.

I think it’s important that I’m telling you all this because there is a reason behind it, and it gets you to the point where I start to make some bad decisions. But the reason I got to making those bad decisions is because a series of events happened over my course of being in Thailand and visiting Thailand that if I didn’t tell you about it it would feel like the whole story wasn’t complete. So, I hope you understand that.

Chiang Mai Just Right

But in 2015, when I returned to Thailand, I went straight to Chiang Mai, and it felt just the same as it did when I was there the year before. I had heard people saying that Chiang Mai was dying on the nightlife front, but it was just about the right size and had just about the right amount of people going there to not make it too busy or crowded. Plus, as I mentioned, the clientele was the sort of clientele who was in Bangkok in the early 2000s and Pattaya in the early 2010s. And that’s exactly what I was looking for.

Not only did Chiang Mai have a bar scene that I personally felt was better than Bangkok and Pattaya in terms of affordability, clientele, and overall feel, I felt that Chiang Mai had so many wonderful things about it that were not available in other parts of Thailand. The mountains, for example, were spectacular. The driving roads when I rented a motorcycle were some of the best I’d driven on. And I’d heard about the Mae Hong Son Loop. I really wanted to give that a go because I was a big rider of bikes at home. But in 2015, I just didn’t have enough time to do the loop. Two weeks wasn’t enough to do anything I wanted to do.

So, I thought in 2016, I’m going to have an extra long holiday. I’m going to do as much of Northern Thailand as I possibly could.

The Fateful Decision

I made it back in 2016, and the first place I went was Chiang Mai. As wonderful as ever, everything felt exactly like it did in 2015 and the time in 2014. Nothing’s changing. And that’s exactly what I wanted from Thailand stay as good as it was when I found it. But unfortunately, I cannot say that is the case about Bangkok and Pattaya. These places seem to have been overrun by nouveau tourists. And I’m sorry for stealing that phrase, but I really like it.

In 2016, I came back for a month. A few great days in Chiang Mai, and I rented a big bike for 3 weeks. It was my plan to do the Mae Hong Son loop. So, I drove to Pai and then the main town of Mae Hong Son, and I was having an absolute blast. But instead of continuing on with the loop, I decided to head back in the same direction and go up to Chiang Rai a place I’d heard about but had no experience with.

And that was the fateful decision.

Chiang Rai A Hidden Gem

I arrived on the big bike after a long drive from Pai, where I spent the previous night, and I checked into a hotel just off Jetyod Road. It was a very quaint city very small but it was so peaceful and vibrant. It even had a small bar scene there, an incredibly small one. But my first trip into one of the bars in Chiang Rai, I was blown away about how much cheaper it was than even Chiang Mai. And there was nobody there. It was hardly anyone there, and it felt like you had it all to yourself. The other tourists were mainly European or American, and there were hardly any of them.

Had I just found my new perfect Thailand location? As is obvious from my email so far, the bars in Thailand were really what I went for. I absolutely adored them, but I never wanted to get into a serious relationship. That was one thing that I managed to avoid all these years.

But not that bar in Chiang Rai.

Meeting Her

I met a girl who I felt was so very different to all the other girls that I’d met in Thailand. She was 24 years old from Phayao Province, which was roughly 70 km away from Chiang Rai. It was something about her that drew me in, and there was nothing I could do about it.

She told me she worked for one of the big stores that sell things for your house, and she even pulled out a picture of her wearing the uniform. And she said she worked at the bar part time. That sounded great to me. Didn’t sound like she was a seasoned professional. Maybe because the bar scene in Chiang Rai was so quiet and so different to what you’d expect in Pattaya. Her attitude was different to the girls in Pattaya and Bangkok and even to a lesser extent Chiang Mai.

And because of this, things started to move very quickly with her. At this point, I was 55. I had not much money to my name, but I did have a small house and that was it. I know that 24 was too young for me, but a part of me completely overlooked common sense and completely overlooked everything because I just felt like I needed this girl to be mine.

She Was Different

She said she had a 2-year-old daughter in Phayao and she drove there every week to go and visit. She even said she had a car, which I thought was different. I’d never met any girl that worked in a bar before that owned a car or that had a full-time job doing something legitimate. Everything she was saying to me really made me forget about everything else and only think about her.

I know when I’m writing this back that it’s one of those things that you can’t help. You can’t control it. It just happens, and you want it to happen, and you let it happen. But if you tried to stop it from happening, somehow it would still happen. I think that’s the best way to talk about this.

I decided to spend the rest of my holiday in Chiang Rai. I would need to take the bike back to Chiang Mai the day I left, but that was good with me. It was a weird scenario because she spent time with me and then in the morning she’d be off to work. I even went to visit her at the place where she worked, and I thought it was crazy. She actually had a proper job as well, and I thought I found a proper girl who perhaps just needed a bit of extra money because she was only paid a pittance.

But I did find myself falling for this girl. I’d never fallen for any girl in Thailand before, and that was one of my big missions was to never do that. But all of a sudden, I had now found myself with my dream girl. And she seemed to be showing interest in me like I’d never experienced in Thailand before.

A Different Kind of Affection

She spent the remainder of my holiday with me when she wasn’t at work. And on her day off when she usually went to visit her daughter because I was only there for a few more days, she canceled the week’s trip and spent the time with me. And she took me to see some of the main tourist attractions around Chiang Rai. She was so affectionate and caring and so different to any of the Thai girls I’d ever seen before.

My 2016 trip to Thailand was the one that changed me and the direction of my life because I wasn’t content anymore with waiting a whole year before I could go to Thailand again. I wanted to be in Thailand permanently with my girlfriend and I did consider her to be my girlfriend.

I told her I’d keep in touch when I went home and I’d come back as soon as I could to be with her.

Selling Everything

Returning home that year was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I’d never been in love before, and at this point I just felt like I couldn’t exist at home anymore because it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I didn’t have any money, but I had my house and that’s all I had. And it was probably worth around £150,000.

And for a reason that I still don’t know to this day, I decided to sell my house and try to move permanently to Thailand.

I was regularly in touch with my girlfriend when I was back at home. When I spoke to her, she was still working at her proper job. And she never asked for money from me. She’d often call me as well, saying she missed me and she hoped to see me soon. And that’s just how I felt.

I felt that when my house was sold, I’d be able to go to Thailand. And when I told her about this, she sounded excited and couldn’t wait. I’d always known that I’d want to be in Thailand permanently, but I didn’t think now would be the moment. When I realized it was going to be, I was hit with nerves wondering if I was doing the right thing. But I knew how much it cost to live in Thailand. And if I was sensible and managed to make a bit of extra money I planned to try to do some teaching then I reckoned everything would be fine.

Back to Thailand for Good

Going back to Thailand not as a holiday was the best feeling I think I’d ever felt in my life up until that point. I flew to Bangkok and I didn’t even bother spending a day in Bangkok before getting a plane straight to Chiang Rai. I went to check into a hotel because I’d arrived when my girlfriend was at work. As soon as she finished work, she came to meet me, and we went for a barbecue mu kratha meal, and I felt like I was home and that I made the right decision.

I found a place to rent. It was only 6,000 baht a month, which I didn’t think was bad. And my girlfriend moved in with me almost immediately. She was still continuing to work, but she wasn’t working at the bar anymore just working at her main job. And I felt like I wanted her to stop doing this because she was only being paid 12,000 baht a month, which wasn’t a lot of money to give all your day away for.

I didn’t tell her to stop straight away. I wanted to spend a bit of time with her and make sure this was going to last the relationship I was now in. But after a month of things feeling great, I’d settled down to living in Thailand. I wasn’t spending a lot of money or going to the bars. I was just spending a frugal amount.

The First Surprise

I did though tell her to quit the job, and I asked her to marry me. She was elated when I told her to quit working. But at this point, I wasn’t aware that would mean me having to replace the money she earned and send to her family to look after her daughter. That was one thing that I didn’t bargain for.

But as soon as she stopped working, it became clear that she wanted me to replace the amount of money she used to earn. You can call me naive all you want, but I didn’t know she sent money to her family at that point. When she explained everything, it was already too late as she’d already quit the job. And I did replace her income.

We went to visit her family in Phayao, told them about our intention to get married, and it was all arranged that we would get married in roughly a month’s time.

Her Family Cold and Distant

I’ve heard of stories of people going to visit their Thai girlfriend’s families and getting married and having to pay dowry or sin sod. But usually these stories say that the family was really kind and nice towards the foreigner. But her family looked at me like I wasn’t even human. They looked at me with scorn and disgrace, and I never felt that before. I thought as long as I made their daughter happy, that was all that counted.

But there was a 30 year age gap between us, so perhaps they saw that as being a bit of a negative thing. I wonder if they even spoke to their daughter, telling her not to get married to me. Perhaps she had a plan all along and she didn’t yet share it with them. We don’t know about that. But they were very cold towards me, and they never did lighten up.

But even after we got married, my wife did seem to be happy with me, and she just went along and did what she did regardless of what her family said.

Addicted to Her

I think the best word to use to describe this and I’ve heard it told in other stories before is that I was addicted to her. I never planned for things to happen like that. I never planned to fall madly in love with a 24 year old Thai bar girl. And when I did, I felt like she was real. And for the first 3 months of us being married, she was real.

We even went on a honeymoon to Vietnam. I’d never been there before, and it was her first time leaving the country, and we had a wonderful time. And at that point, I’m happy with the decision I made to move to Thailand.

Becoming a Teacher

It was around this time that I started looking for a job as a teacher. I enrolled in a TEFL course that promised a guaranteed job when it was completed, and they were true to their word. I was offered a job that paid 25,000 baht a month. This was because I wanted to work in Chiang Rai. I could have earned a bit more somewhere else, but they didn’t give me a visa or work permit. So I had to keep my retirement visa and go to work at the school. Luckily, I never had any problems with that because many people seem to do it. But I could have had problems if they wanted to give me one.

Teaching when you’re in your mid 50s, close to 56, when you’ve never done it before I don’t even know what I was expecting, but I was expecting it to be a breeze. The problem was I was teaching younger children, and I was expected to dance around and sing songs and do all kinds of things that I wasn’t expecting to have to do. I’m a very shy and reserved person, so having to act out “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” with actions was difficult for me to do. But I persevered because I knew I needed the money to be able to stay in Thailand.

I was doing the job and coming home exhausted, but my wife was always there waiting for me. We’d go out in the evenings often, and we’d go mainly to Thai places. And somehow, even with me giving money to her, I was not spending much more than 25,000 baht a month. I should have thought about my future. What would I be doing in 10 years’ time? But I wasn’t thinking about that. I was just thinking about being with her and enjoying myself.

Her Salon

It was around this time that she said she was bored because she wasn’t working anymore. But she had an idea. She wanted to open up a small salon close to the bar areas in Chiang Rai. There were a few salons there already, and also there were a few western restaurants if you fancied something that wasn’t Thai. And it was just a perfect size just the right amount of people there to be perfect in every way.

She found a building that seemed to be in a good place, and I agreed to rent it for her and paid to get everything she needed for the salon. She opened up 6 weeks after this. And all credit to her, she was making a good go of it. She was very creative minded, very artistic, and she said she’d done people’s hair before. She started making money. She was making enough money to cover the rent of the place, the electric bill, and to make some money on top.

I was really suited that she had the initiative to do this, and the fact that it worked as well. I think when she started making some money from the job she was making probably 15,000 baht a month in profit this took our joint income to 40,000 baht, which made a big difference.

Buying a House

But I think what happened then was I felt more emboldened to try and invest some of my savings in a property so we didn’t have to pay rent anymore. I had started to think about my future that I would need a very basic income to live when I was older, when I couldn’t work anymore. And I thought having a place that was nicer than where we were living now and that belonged to us that we didn’t need to pay rent for would be the most sensible thing to do.

This was all based on the idea that we were now both earning money, and having a house would be a good thing to do. We started looking around for suitable properties in Chiang Rai. There were quite a few different housing estates and condos, and I didn’t want to live in a condo if I was buying it. But we settled on a house that was 3 million baht, not too far away from where her shop was.

Up until this point, I was always getting around on a motorbike. But she still had her car, and we went places in it together. But she took her car to work and I’d go on the bike. But I decided to buy a second-hand car for a couple hundred thousand baht because I felt like it was going to be a safer choice.

I’ve still got some savings at this point, and our income is more than enough to cover our lifestyle in Chiang Rai, doing what we want to do. And I’m feeling like moving to Thailand was the best decision I’ve made, and I’m happy. I’ve never been this happy. And there I was with this absolutely perfect girl who was now making money from her business, and we had a house that belonged to her because as a foreigner it couldn’t belong to me. But I accepted that for what it was.

We’re probably in late 2018 at this point, and things are going okay, and I’m happy with the decisions I made.

The First Sign of Trouble

Then early 2019 rolls around. We had a great routine one that I never broke. I was never a guy who liked change. Once something was working, I wanted it to be repeated indefinitely. And that could have been one of my big drawbacks.

I had gotten off work early, which I never did, but the school had a power outage and it didn’t look like they were going to be able to fix it soon. So, they told all the teachers and children to go home for the day. I was leaving 4 hours earlier than normal. A normal day would be me finishing work, going home, and then after a few hours, I would go to the shop and see her. Then a few hours later, we’d go out to eat and then go home. That’s what we did every school day.

But this time, I decided to go straight to the shop without going home and spend more time with her. I drove there, parked up, and walked into the shop. But for some reason, she wasn’t there. At this point, she already had another person working with her, and I asked where she was. She had a really shocked expression on her face.

Half an hour later, she arrived back at the shop, and she saw me there, and she also appeared shocked. At this moment, I hadn’t even guessed what was going on. She just told me she’d been to a shop, but part of me was thinking something was a bit off. I didn’t think much of it, and we went out to eat that evening as normal. But I did think I needed to surprise her again at a time when she wouldn’t expect me to.

The Truth Emerges

This went on all throughout 2019. The longer the year went on, the more I felt like something was going on, but I just couldn’t find out what it was. When I eventually did find out the truth, it was far worse than I was expecting it to have been.

But one day, close to the end of 2019, I found myself finishing early from school again. And I went straight to the shop. But when I looked through the window, she was there, and there was a guy stood right next to her. I didn’t think that was a problem. Perhaps she was just cutting his hair. But then he leaned in and kissed her and she didn’t try to stop him.

At that moment, I walked in. I think that was when she knew that I’d found her. And the guy she was with seemed very shocked when he found out I was her husband, and he left immediately.

I asked her what was going on, and she said, “Nothing. Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” But I had to keep pushing her because I knew something was wrong. When she eventually told me, I was heartbroken. She’d been offering other things in the salon. Although she did tell me it was very rare that it happened, I didn’t know what to think about it.

She Blamed Me

I went straight home and waited for her to come back. And when she finally did come back in the evening, I think she’d been planning what to say to me. It was all my fault because I didn’t make enough money. It was my fault because I told her to stop working at her old job. All these reasons why it was my fault.

I wanted to know if she would do it again. And she said she wouldn’t. But what was I to believe?

COVID Changes Everything

Then COVID happens, and everything gets shut down. She has to close her shop, and I don’t have a job anymore because the school didn’t want me to work remotely. So now we have both lost our incomes. And on top of that, my wife was doing things that I don’t think someone’s wife should be doing.

Talk about how your life can turn upside down in a short space of time. Thinking you’re successfully married to your dream girl, working a job that perhaps you don’t like but is enough to keep you in Thailand. Then to find out that your wife has been doing things that you would never have dreamed her doing and her blaming me for it. Then losing your job and having to close the shop down.

We gave up the lease on that, and we sold all the equipment for what we could get for it.

She Still Wanted to Be Married

The thing that I don’t get though was that she still wanted to be married to me. She couldn’t see any problem with what she did. I saw it as a huge problem, and I felt dirty because of it. But because of the situation we found ourselves in, we kind of just continued with life throughout the early stages of COVID because we didn’t really have a choice.

She owned this house that I bought, and I had a bit of savings that could last for a few years. But we really did need to get more work. But the months go on, and I’m just hemorrhaging money at this point, trying to spend as little as we can. But my savings are going down a lot quicker than I expected. Also, the fact that my wife had done things that I wasn’t happy about and the fact that she didn’t see it as a problem was really having a strain on our relationship.

When things started to open again, I tried to find a job. And at this point, I’d already sort of forgotten about what she did before and just accepted it. But no matter what I could do, I wasn’t able to find another job.

The Final Break

When my savings were running low and I couldn’t support her anymore, that’s when I saw a big change in her. She told me that if I’m not able to support her, then she’s going to go work back in the bar, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ll give her one thing, and that is she was a hard worker. She always tried. But being able to send money for her family and support them was far more important than my feelings that she was hurting me by doing something like that. And I told her it’s not acceptable.

But the writing really was on the wall when six months later, I still hadn’t found a job, she wasn’t working, and my savings were all but finished. One evening we were having a really big argument about things, and she said she was going to go out. She came back 5 hours later with a few thousand baht.

And that was when I decided that the game was up and I had to leave.

Letting Go

It was difficult. Letting go. Difficult finding out that my wife wasn’t who I thought she was. But most of all difficult because if COVID hadn’t happened, then maybe there was a small chance that things would have worked out between us. I was prepared to overlook what I found out, but I didn’t want her to do it again. When I asked her not to, and the fact that I didn’t have anything and I was powerless to stop her that was our relationship over.

She got the house. We got divorced. And I managed to sell my car and bike, and I had just enough money to pay 6 months’ rent up front.

When I got back home, I managed to find another job, which I’m still working today. No chance of retirement, and I’m here until I’m dead. And that’s depressing.

How Badly Things Can Change

That’s how badly things can change so quickly. I really loved her, and I’d like to think she loved me as well. But she was prepared to do things even though she was married to me that married girls shouldn’t do because I wasn’t able to support her.

I do take that down to COVID, not only my stupidity. Perhaps without COVID, I’d still be working at that job right now. I’d still have my savings, and she’d have stopped doing anything other than giving haircuts in the salon.

Did She Ever Love Me?

Did my wife ever love me? That’s a question I often ask. I would like to think yes. But I do know that most of the people who have watched this story will think I’m just another idiot who had no business going to Thailand in the first place.

But I managed to go to Thailand for over a decade without falling for a Thai girl. And when I did fall for a Thai girl, I fell hard, and I couldn’t stop myself no matter how hard I tried.

I was thinking about our future together when I bought the house. I wasn’t thinking about losing it. I was thinking about when I’m 70 if we don’t have a place to pay rent for, my cost of living is going to be lower. That was my reasoning behind it.

When I bought the shop for her and when she actually made a success out of it, I wasn’t thinking she’s going to be offering extra services because she doesn’t care about me or respect me in any way. I’m thinking I’m giving her the chance to build a business and turn it into something great.

It’s difficult to come to terms with what’s happened.

Where I Am Now

And although I had to start again and I’m still working far beyond an age I was expecting to work, at least I can go to Thailand every year for a few weeks like I used to. I’ve been two times since all this happened, but I’ve not been close to Chiang Rai or Northern Thailand. I now spend time in towns in Isan. Although it’s not as scenic as Northern Thailand, there are still bar scenes in a few of these places that are small and cater to the kind of people I want to spend time with. And that’s what counts.

I’m not going to be able to move to Thailand permanently. It’s not going to happen. And it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with that. But I’m good with it now.

Related stories: The Dark Side of Bar Girl Relationships, Online Dating With a Thai Girl Gone Wrong, and I Married a Soi Cowboy Thai Girl.