60 Years of Moving in One Direction: Three Years to Mess It All Up In Thailand

60 years of moving in one direction and three years to mess it all up. That is how I would sum up my life up until this point. I’m 63 years old at the moment and reeling from some of the most stupid decisions I’ve ever made. I know now that everything I did was wrong, but at the time I believed what I was doing was the right thing.

I bet some guys are going to call me a simp. I don’t like that word, but if you feel like that’s what I am, go right ahead.

An Analog Guy in a Digital World

Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware that there were so many online resources that could let people know what they were getting themselves into by going to Thailand. I was 60 years old at the time, and I tried my best to stay away from computers and smartphones. I was just an old-school analog guy.

Thailand, to me, was based on conversations with friends who had spoken to other friends who told them about that one time in Thailand. That’s what got me excited about Thailand. I did not know what I was getting myself into or much about the country beyond a few documentaries on regular television and a few pictures in guidebooks. That was all I’d seen of Thailand nothing to do with the social media malarkey that I have recently discovered.

So I think that my idea of Thailand was based on a nostalgic worldview of what Thailand was like possibly 30 years ago. That was the first thing I did wrong.

What I Knew About Thailand

But what I did know was that Thailand was a place that people went to retire. In my social group, I knew two guys who had left and moved to Thailand. Both of them got married to these amazing girls that at home would have been out of their league, and they were both living the good life in Thailand.

I was never able to have a serious relationship at home. It’s not that I didn’t want one it’s just that I wasn’t able to make it happen. I tried dating all throughout my 20s and 30s, but it never led to anything serious. I don’t know if it was because I was too picky or I was looking for something that may have been unrealistic. But I just gave up in my mid to late 30s as it was going to be something that wasn’t going to happen.

I think because of that, I had built Thailand up throughout the years about hearing jokes on the television about what Thailand was known for and the years of talking about those stories that you heard about friends of friends. I thought Thailand was a place for people like me to go to be able to meet girls that I wasn’t able to meet at home. In a way, that is accurate. But I was going in under the impression it wasn’t all about the money. The fact that it was money based kind of defeated the whole point, but I didn’t know that at the time.

Retirement at 60

60 was when I could finally retire. I had a pension at work. It wasn’t a lot of money. I had no savings. I never bought a house and I rented all my life, which I suppose was a big mistake. All the money I had spent and I didn’t spend a lot of money because I didn’t make a lot. But my private pension at 60 gave me an income of £1,300 every month.

When people talked about Thailand being cheap, I thought that meant Thailand was cheap for everything. It was my plan to move there for a long time when I was 60. I’d never been to visit, but I bigged Thailand up in my mind to be a place that would fix all my problems and give me what I wasn’t able to have at home.

I had visions of myself sitting on a beach, staying in a luxury hotel with a beautiful girl that loved me by my side. That’s what I thought I would be able to have in Thailand on the income I had because people said that Thailand was cheap. How cheap and what was cheap, they never really said. A guy down the pub talking about how he was in Thailand and it was proper cheap. He lived like a king, he said. I knew he didn’t have a lot of money.

So, you take little snippets like that from what you hear and build this picture about Thailand that might not be accurate. But with these preconceived ideas, I booked a one way ticket to Thailand with the idea of seeing out my days there.

The Onward Ticket Problem

The first problem happened when I arrived at the airport. I gave them my ticket and passport, and they asked me where was my onward flight. What onward flight? I hadn’t booked one. I’d booked a one way ticket because I was going to retire in Thailand.

They informed me that I didn’t have a visa. Therefore, I needed an onward ticket, and they had to enforce it because if they didn’t, and I arrived in Thailand and I wasn’t let in, they would be responsible for paying for me to return home. They did tell me it didn’t have to be a ticket home, so I could book one to a neighboring country and not use it. So, that’s what I had to do.

I still didn’t have a smartphone and I was never someone who liked technology. But I got out my big laptop and spent an hour trying to find some way to book a ticket. I did eventually get one to Malaysia in 28 days’ time. I did not plan to use it, and it was a waste of money. But it was a small issue that was sorted out, and they eventually let me check into my flight.

I booked direct on Thai Airways, and 11 and a half hours later, I touched down in Bangkok.

First Lessons in Currency Exchange

The only thing I knew what to do was to get a taxi and show them the name of my hotel. I changed some money to Thai baht back in England. That was a huge mistake. The rates they were giving in Thailand were way better, but I didn’t know anything about that. The markup in England must have been something like 20 or 30%. But in Thailand, it seemed to be a small fraction of that. So that was a lesson I learned. I only changed a couple of hundred quid, so it wasn’t dreadful, but I knew if I ever had to return for whatever reason, I wouldn’t change cash in England again.

I suppose many guys already know that, but I didn’t know. So if you don’t know, you don’t do.

First Impressions of Bangkok

The taxi took me to the hotel that I booked, and I just stayed there until the following morning. I was excited to be in Thailand and live the experiences that I’d heard about. That’s why I was there, after all to enjoy myself, to take advantage of being somewhere that was far cheaper than where I came from.

I was staying in Nana. And when I first walked onto the streets, it wasn’t anything like I pictured in my mind. It was not positive or negative at this point. It was just different from how I pictured it. I did go into the first restaurant that I saw and ordered some food and a drink. I enjoyed it. Nothing wrong with it. And what I was served was good. But when I calculated how much it cost, I didn’t feel like it was actually cheap like people said.

You hear people say Thailand is cheap. You can have a meal for one or two quid. You might be able to, but in this Italian restaurant it was 30 quid. Not quite what I was expecting.

I walked around for a few hours just taking in all the sights. It was a shock; I think that is the only way to describe what it felt like to be there. Such a different place to where I came from.

The Bars Were Expensive

But I went into some of the bars on Soi 4 and thought, “Today, I’m going to have a drinking day. My first day in Thailand, let’s make it one to remember.” I was shocked when the beers I was drinking were averaging three quid for a small bottle. I was expecting it to be at most 1 quid or 1.50.

After spending time in Thailand, I did soon discover that you need to go to the local places to get proper prices. Everywhere that you might actually want to go in terms of a tourist you’re not going to get local prices. It just doesn’t work like that.

But at this point, I’m just having a good time. And I start talking to a girl there.

What I Thought About Bar Girls

I thought that these girls were working there, putting up with things that they had to put up with for the hopes that they could meet a husband that could take care of them and that she could take care of.

So, I don’t think it’s fair to say that I’m stupid for thinking that way. It was always talked about in England the conversation that you have with people about Thailand and people who went to Thailand and told their stories. It was always portrayed as being the girls that worked in these bars wanted to be rescued. Rescued might be such a strong word, and it might not be correct, but they just wanted to meet someone so they could get out of the situation they were in.

I didn’t come to this idea from nothing. I came to it from how I thought it was.

The Age Gap

But the girl I was talking to, although great, was 24, and I thought that that was too young. I was 60, and I thought that a suitable age gap if I was a foreigner and she was Thai would have been around 25 years. So if I could find someone who was 35, that was my dream age.

I had a good time in the bars, but I didn’t like the prices there. It felt too expensive for where we were in the world. But I just thought maybe this is the price you have to pay in order to be able to be in the company of girls who are looking for marriage.

I left the last bar and went for some dinner. Again, I felt the prices were quite a lot more than I was expecting them to be. And I must repeat that I had learned that you can eat affordably in Thailand, but it’s going to be Thai food in a Thai location without the entertainment around you that we had. So, it’s swings and roundabouts really. You want to come to Thailand and live the Thailand life? As a tourist, it’s no cheaper than what I used to spend when I went to Spain. It’s actually probably more expensive in Thailand if you factor in the flights. But if you want to go and live like a Thai, I found out that it can be cheap, but it’s no fun.

Meeting an Experienced Expat

I booked into my hotel for a week, and I just wanted to get to know my way around this part of the city because it is where I expected to be living. I didn’t even go on the sky train anywhere. I just stayed around Nana. But I was enjoying myself, but spending more money than I wanted to.

I thought with my £1,300, I would be able to be out every day and night of the week until I met someone. But if I’m being perfectly honest, £1,300 would have been enough for one week living it up around that part of Bangkok, not one month. I knew that if I wanted to stay in Thailand and live here, I’d have to do something very different.

I was lucky to meet an expat after I’d been in Thailand for a week who had been living there a long time, and he was able to tell me so much information that nobody back home used to talk about. No one talked about which parts of Bangkok were cheaper, where to go to get more affordable things. No one talked about that. It was all about the girls and how they were looking for people just like me.

But after I spoke to that expat, it gave me confidence to get on the sky train and go a little bit further out to see what things were like. He told me he lived in Ekkamai, and he said a few stations further than that it would be cheaper. He said On Nut would be a good place to start. So that’s where I went first.

On Nut Feels Different

Immediately it felt different than Nana. I don’t know if I liked it more or not. I suppose I liked everything about it, but there weren’t any of the bars that I wanted there to be there. That was one of the things I found out after a few years in Thailand. I wanted the local Thai feel. I wanted everything to be Thai. I didn’t want to see any other foreigners anywhere. But I wanted a few bars that they had in the tourist areas to be in this place, and the ability to get the food that I liked in this place. But I wanted everything. I wanted a local Thailand feel but with the western delicacies that I liked and bars, and therefore bar girls.

But that was not possible.

But I did go to a small Thai restaurant in On Nut. And when I got the bill, it was cheap. Three quid for a big bowl of noodles and a drink. I thought that was great. But that’s not what I wanted to be cheap. I wanted a pizza to be three quid including a drink. But I did get used to that very quickly, and I started to eat like a local 6 days a week because that’s all I could afford on the budget I had.

It was in On Nut that I rented a condo a studio unit in an older building and it was 6,000 baht a month.

Getting the Retirement Visa

I knew I needed to get a visa, and I wanted to do the retirement visa, but for that I would have needed to have money in the bank which I didn’t have. But after doing a bit of research, there was a company in Pattaya that could help you get the visa you needed for 20,000 baht. So I used them and got my retirement visa.

After living in Bangkok for 2 months, I was already quite bored of it. I had been down to Pattaya when I did my retirement visa, but I didn’t like it there. I liked the bars, but I wanted it to be quieter and more peaceful but that just didn’t exist. I wanted to go somewhere else, but I hadn’t found anyone yet. I was desperately looking for a partner, but it was expensive going to the bars, so I could only go twice a week, and then I couldn’t have many drinks because I had to stay in budget.

Meeting Her

I was lucky to go only a few weeks later. I met a girl then that was in a bar in Sukhumvit. Before I get into that I’m not going to be telling you whereabouts this was because I’m going to admit it: she’s actually back there working now, and I don’t want to say where it is, just because.

But when I met her, I wasn’t even planning on going into her bar. She was sat outside with a few other girls on the street, and I saw her from the other side of the street, and I crossed the road to talk to her. I hadn’t yet learned one word of Thai, so I was hoping that her English was reasonable. I’d spoken to some girls who couldn’t even have basic conversations with me, and I wanted her English to be at least acceptable.

When I got to the bar, I looked at her and went inside. She followed me, and I ordered a drink and one for her. I spent the rest of the day in that bar, and we probably had five or six drinks each. I told her everything about what I was doing, what I was hoping to find. “I’m new in Thailand and I’m looking for a wife.” I wanted to know what she was looking for what was she looking for in a partner and other information about her, just to try and avoid those silly comments.

I want to say again that it was my understanding up until this point that the girls working in the bars were looking to stop working in the bars as soon as possible because they wanted to fall in love with a foreigner. And I’m not shy to admit it. So you can picture me sitting in the bar asking her questions such as, “What are you looking for in a partner? I’m looking for someone who is around 35 and who wants to spend their life with me.”

I also need to say that when she spoke to me and answered the questions I was asking, she didn’t look at me like I was strange or like I was asking odd questions. She answered the questions like they were perfectly normal. So that reinforced my beliefs that this is what bars in Thailand were all about. I knew you could just go in and have a good time with the girls, but I thought ultimately they wanted to leave the bar with a foreigner to look after them.

I thought because I had £1,300 a month which translated to about 55,000 baht I thought I was a great suitor for the girls. And the girl I was speaking to answered all the questions in the way I would have answered them. And she was the first girl that I ever felt like I wanted to get to know more. She was 37 a good age. Only 23 years younger than me, so I thought that was perfect.

Three Months into the Relationship

The next 3 months, I just spent going back to her bar whenever I could, spending time with her, talking with her, and taking her out of the bar. And after 3 months, I felt like she was the one. I asked her to move in with me and stop working at the bar. And let’s just see how things go.

I thought because I had to pay the bar to get her to stop working there that in a way our future life together would be on my terms and she would just be happy that she’s got someone. Most of the girls don’t seem to find anyone. So I thought that she was lucky.

3 months in Thailand 2 years and 9 months to go.

Her Dream

She did have a child from a previous relationship and listening to other stories, it seems to be quite commonplace. But her child lived with her parents in the village. One of the things she always talked about was that it was her dream to one day move back to her village and build a house and start a business and be a success there.

I admired her ambition and her dreams, but I didn’t think I was able to give her that. I could give her a life without working, but not much more than that. I think she could see that I loved her. The first thing we arranged on was that she could have 10,000 baht a month as an allowance to buy her own food and other little bits and pieces that she might need across the course of a month.

And for the first 3 months, things went brilliantly. I’m falling more for her, and I felt like the fact that I walked past her bar and she was outside was fate. If she was inside, or if she turned away, or if it was her day off, I wouldn’t have seen her and I wouldn’t be in this amazing relationship that I was now in.

Getting Married

I felt like I was now ready to get married. I’d always dreamed of getting married, but I wanted it to be someone that I felt was reflective of how I felt inside. And she definitely was reflective of how I felt inside. And we did get married.

That took us up to her village the village where she dreamed of building a house and starting a business. When we got to the village, it was everything I thought Thailand was going to be in Bangkok. Backwards, quaint, like nowhere else you’d ever been, like no dreams you’d ever had before. And yes, that is how I expected Bangkok to be with the high rises and the bars. But it was perfect. I could definitely see why she wanted to move back there because I could see myself living there.

I was from a small town at home, and I struggled with how busy Bangkok was. And then I remembered that I was only in Bangkok because the bars were there and that’s where the girls were. So I didn’t need to be in Bangkok anymore because I already had a wife.

Paying Sin Sod

It was said that I needed to pay sin sod to get married as part of Thai culture. I wasn’t sure about this, but I wanted to respect the culture and how things worked in Thailand. They only wanted 100,000 baht because she had been married before and had a child. I took a cash advance on my credit card to pay for this and thought I could pay back £100 a month out of my income to cover it. It was no big deal, and I wanted my first marriage to start off in the best way possible.

The marriage ceremony itself was different. Monks, cheap plastic chairs on a mud floor, people sitting on what looked like tables but they were half the height of a table, and eating with their legs crossed on the floor. What a different experience this was. But I felt like this was the real Thailand now. And because I had a wife, I was able to spend more time in the real Thailand. The thoughts of going back to Bangkok were not great. I didn’t want to be back in Bangkok.

We were staying in her family’s house when we got married, but it was only small, so we had to stay in a tent outside that I had to buy from the big supermarket in town. It was not exactly how I pictured spending my wedding night, but it was fun and a bit different. A story to tell friends that I might make in Thailand in the future.

The following day, we registered the marriage legally, and I felt like the dream I had for much of my adult life was finally a reality. Here I was with a girl who I thought was perfect in the real part of Thailand with no other foreign people anywhere to be seen.

I wanted to stay there. I didn’t know how, but I wanted to stay there.

A Restaurant Dream

She told me that there was a good restaurant not so far away from the house. They sold seafood and other nice dishes, and it was very popular in the local area. We decided to go, and she drove the family’s motorbike and I was on the back. It was actually 25 minutes on the bike before we got there, and it was a scary ride. But going through the back streets of this village on the way to the main town it was again what I was expecting Thailand to actually be like. The only thing it needed was a bar like the ones in Sukhumvit, but priced like bars in this area.

Food was really good at the restaurant, and it was busy very popular with the locals. We paid the bill and had some drinks, and it was something like 600 baht. We had so much food and drink and it was only 600 baht. Deep down, I actually felt a bit mad. If you can charge 600 baht for this, why can’t you charge similar prices in the areas where foreigners go? It hadn’t twigged on me yet that it was all about the money.

We got back on the motorbike and drove to a dam in the area just something to look at. And when we were there, that’s when she said that it was her dream to have a restaurant just like the one we’d been at. I thought that sounded like such a fun thing to do. Imagine having a restaurant like that in rural Thailand and people coming from far and wide to eat some of the best food in the area.

She said, “Can I take you to look at my land? This is where I want to build it.” It sounded good to me.

Her Land

So, we drove back in the direction of her village, and 20 minutes later, she pulled the bike up next to some land that was covered in trees. It was on the outskirts of the village, but it was on a proper tarmac road and had electric going past it. She said she bought the land 15 years ago, and it’s always been her dream to open the restaurant there and have a house at the back. It did look more than big enough to have a house at the back and a restaurant at the front.

We started talking about how she pictured the restaurant to look. It was obvious that she’d given it so much thought. She said there would be a walkway here with a spiral around and a gravel path. Plants would be hanging down. And if you walked past the entrance way, there would be a pond with fish at the front and a bridge crossing the pond to get into the restaurant.

She would serve good quality Thai food, similar to the restaurant that we’d just been at. She said she was a great cook, and she’d love to cook for me that evening. That meant another long motorbike trip to the supermarket to get some ingredients. And then we’re driving back on the bike and I’ve got this big bag on my knee and she’s driving, and it was a very weird feeling. There was no way I would come close to sitting on the back of a motorbike with no helmet on and a big bag of groceries on my knee at home. But I felt so free and liberated to be able to do this in Thailand and not have anyone say anything to me.

That evening she cooked, and it was a really delicious meal. She cooked a curry and a dried dish I don’t know what they were called, but they were delicious. And she grilled up some squid and made a sauce for it, and that was great. I’d always loved cuisines from different parts of the world, and Thai food was always one of my favorites, and her cooking was brilliant. I wanted that restaurant as well.

Back to Bangkok But I Didn’t Want to Be There

Now, we did have to return to Bangkok because I was due to pay the rent on the condo, and I was still paying in cash to the landlord on a particular day every month. So that made us have to go back to Bangkok. But when we were there sitting in that tiny condo, I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be sitting in my own restaurant, watching people coming in and my wife cooking and living her dream and me living my retirement dream.

That’s when I asked her more questions about how much would it cost to open the restaurant, how much does she think she could make from it. I know she’d given it so much thought. I thought she must have thought about how much it’s going to cost, how much can she sell, and things like that. I thought that she must have given equally as much thought to this as to what it was going to look like.

But she said she didn’t know, but she would think about it. And she actually took out a notebook and pen and started writing things down. I thought that was really sweet. She was chatting to some people in the village on the Line application but I still refused to get a smartphone. I wasn’t interested in them.

But she did then say that the restaurant would cost about 800,000 baht to build. And she thought she could make about 30,000 baht every month. The 800,000 baht should also include all the things that we would need in the restaurant, like tables and cooking facilities for everything.

Taking on Debt

When she said 800,000 baht, although I didn’t have the money, I was quite excited because I did have money left on my credit card that I could use if I needed to. My credit limit was £25,000. And although I’d used some of it for the dowry when I got married, I could use the rest and we could get this restaurant opened and have the first profits used to pay back the credit card. And then when it was paid back, we’d have even more income, and then we could use a credit card again to build a house.

I told everything to my wife about my financial position that we needed to borrow the money to do this and we needed to pay it back. And she said she was happy to do everything. She was happy to pay the money back as long as she had the money she needed to live on, and we could use everything else to pay back the credit card.

I gave it a lot of thought, but I still wasn’t sure. But when she included in the price that we could get a room at the back of the restaurant and turn it into a bedroom and we could live there, I was sold.

A Small Honeymoon

First thing though, I wanted to go on a small honeymoon with my wife before we started on this business adventure together. We went to Hua Hin and stayed in a beautiful hotel and went out every night for great food and drinks and walks on the beach. It was a fantastic time that I had with my wife. I felt like I was in my element. I was about to embark on a brand new adventure. And this is what the spoils of that adventure would give us when things worked out.

I pictured in the future us being able to travel every few months to different parts of Thailand, have staff working at the restaurant who could cook just as well as my wife, and build it into something that would heighten my stay in Thailand and also give my wife purpose and the chance to make a good income.

I loved Hua Hin. I wish I’d been there before because I could have seen myself living there in retirement. But we were already set on the idea of going up to her village and moving forward with our plans.

Moving to the Village

We went back to Bangkok and I gave up the lease on my condo. I only took it out on a six month lease and that had come to an end. So they gave the deposit back. But at this point, I’d accumulated a few things, and added together with my wife’s things, it was a bit too much stuff for us to take on the bus with us. So I paid 5,000 baht for a taxi to take us up to her village. Definitely money well spent such a convenience to be able to stop anytime you wanted to and avoid the hassle of having to use the bus.

The closest hotel to her village was about an 8 minute drive away and it was only 400 baht a night. So it was a plan to stay there until we could move into the room at the back of our restaurant.

I’d taken all the money off my card, and I was going to be using £500 a month out of my income to pay it back over the first six months, and then pay back a lot more after that.

The Restaurant Is Built

The person that my wife had contacted previously to build the restaurant came to us and did what my wife said she knew already. I therefore paid the deposit, and only 6 weeks later the restaurant was already built. All the trees had been removed from the land, and it was actually a really good plot. The restaurant looked great. It wasn’t a posh kind of place, but it did look inviting and that people would want to sit inside or outside.

We had it set up so there was parking at the entrance, and there were some bushes and a walkway through the bushes in the middle, and a big open area that was undercover for when it rained. And adjoining that was the indoor restaurant, the kitchen, and our bedroom.

The Restaurant Opens to a Disappointing Start

I found that I was struggling to pay back the monthly payments on the credit card. I was only able to pay £300 a month for the first three months, but I felt confident that since the restaurant was now ready to go, we were going to make some money soon. My wife was so excited, and I was really happy and excited.

She told all her friends about the restaurant, and in turn, her friends had told people. On opening day, I was expecting it to be really busy all day. A few of her friends came, but it was a massive anticlimax. I trusted my wife knew what she was doing, and she told me it was going to be busy. She told me how much she could make. But on that day, she made about a hundred baht.

I knew it was still early on into the business, but that was really upsetting. I’d taken on debt in order to do this business with the idea that this would make our future better. But if the first day was going to be anything to go on, it wasn’t going to be a future.

One year in Thailand two years to go.

Restaurant Debt Starts to Grow

Another 3 months go by, and people are coming to the restaurant, but my wife isn’t making enough money. When I ask her for money to pay back the credit card, she said, “I need to use it to live on.” I tried to explain to her that you told me how much you were going to make and I believed you, and I need to be able to pay back this credit card. Having money for herself and her children, she put in front of the debt that I had taken on.

And that was the first time that I missed a payment. I couldn’t afford to pay the credit card. I’d never missed a payment on a credit card in my life. And I just missed the payment. I had to call the credit card company and tell them, “I’m sorry. I’ll pay back soon.” But the month after, I missed again. And the month after, I missed again.

I tried to put this to the back of my mind and just hope that things would pick up over time. But they never seemed to pick up. The big piece of land at the back of the restaurant that was meant to be where our house was going to be built was now getting overgrown with bushes and grass. The beach resorts where we were meant to be going for time off work they were there without us. And I just didn’t understand what was happening.

I thought I did everything right. I was open and honest with her when I met her that I was looking for a wife. I thought she was looking for a husband. She had a dream to open a restaurant that was going to make 30,000 baht a month. But she was making 10,000 baht a month if that and keeping all the money. And I was starting to get worried.

The Confrontation

After she had been making 10,000 baht a month for three months, I was still giving her the same amount, and I told her that now, because you’re making this money, I can stop giving you 10,000 baht a month so I can pay back the credit card that I used to open the restaurant. I was expecting her to say, “Of course, that’s fine.” But she just looked at me and said, “No, you have to give me 10,000 baht a month because that’s what we agreed on.”

When I tried to say, “I thought we agreed that you’re going to be making 30,000 baht a month, and then 20,000 of that you’re going to be giving me to pay back the credit card. Once it’s paid back, then we can start living a life and building a house.” She said yes, but that hasn’t happened yet, so she doesn’t need to do it.

That was the first time when I was upset with my wife. I overlooked everything I didn’t like because I thought it was just that she was from a different culture. I respected her culture. I didn’t like when she did lots of things, but it wasn’t for me to have an opinion about that because it was her culture and that’s how she did things. And it was a sacrifice in a way for me to be able to get what I wanted which was a wife who could take care of me and who loved me and who looked like I wanted my wife to look.

Debt Piling Up

I was now getting lots of post going to my friend’s house where I had registered all my banking information. Lots of letters coming asking for money and added interest onto the credit cards, and I’m really starting to panic. I’d never been in this position, and my wife wasn’t helping me. I just told my friend to say “return to sender” and say that the person doesn’t live here.

But time went on and I’m just struggling and not enjoying myself because I’ve got this debt that’s growing. Eventually, it’s passed on to a debt collection agency, and I’m just not able to pay it back. I’m struggling even to have enough money to treat myself to a beer. Everything seemed to be just going downhill.

I was still holding on to the hope that the restaurant will pick up and she’ll start making more money. But nothing’s happening. She’s lucky if she makes 10,000 baht a month. Sometimes she only makes five. And she’s having money from me, and I’ve got a debt building up, and I can’t afford to pay it.

Two years in Thailand one year to go.

The Final Year

I was living month to month during my last year in Thailand. I put the fact that I’ve got a debt on the credit card to the back of my mind. My friend has fallen out with me because of all the post that keeps going to his house about the credit card. And my wife stopped working in the restaurant and left it empty. She said she didn’t make enough money.

Now she’s asking me for more money, and the stress is starting to take a toll on me. I don’t even have enough money to pay for a plane ticket home. I was lucky to scrape together money to get a new retirement visa when I needed to that was 20,000 baht. And my wife, because I physically can’t give her anything else, is now a new person. Leaving me to myself in the small room behind the restaurant. Not even turning the air conditioning on at this point. And it’s like an oven. There’s no insulation.

I thought maybe it’s time to come to terms with the fact that I need to leave and I need to go home because I’d failed and I need to declare bankruptcy.

Leaving Thailand

I didn’t know how to tell my wife. I just left one day and left a note saying, “Sorry, I can’t give you the money you wanted. But you were meant to pay me back the money I borrowed to build the restaurant for you, and you didn’t. So I’m leaving Thailand.”

She called me when I was already on the bus to Bangkok. She didn’t try to get me to come back. She just said what a bad man I was and that I ruined her life and that she was going to work back in the bar. That was the last that I heard from her.

Back to England

I got back to England and I begged my friend to let me stay at his house even though all the credit card stuff had happened. I was thankful that he let me. And I declared bankruptcy. For the last 6 months, I’ve been living hand to mouth in my friend’s caravan that’s parked up outside his house.

I was lucky that I got to keep my income because that’s the only income I had and I needed it to live on, so they couldn’t take that away.

What I Learned Too Late

But it was when I got back home after being in Thailand that I’d started learning more about it. I did not know that all this information was available. I didn’t know that girls that worked in the bars weren’t looking for love. I didn’t know building something in her village was a bad idea. I didn’t know we wouldn’t make any money. I just believed her. We were in her country. Why wouldn’t I believe her? I wouldn’t tell her something in my country that wasn’t true.

But I suppose she was playing me and she didn’t get much from me because I didn’t have much. But that was the worst three years of my life.