Trying To Live In Thailand – Action, Comedy, Drama

This submission is inspired by Stickman’s weekly “You’re on your own, Farang“and is intended to show my experiences regarding living in Thailand until the money runs out.

Just a bit of background: I came to Thailand the first time in 2000 and since then return every year so far, maybe the current year the exception because of lack of funds, but still some months to go, so there is still hope..:)

In 2003, attracted by the lovely ladies on Sukhumvit I decided it would be a good idea to move to Thailand and leave boring Europe behind and see how it goes. I was 41 then and had a bit of money – about 500,000 baht – so I was confident this should provide a decent start. I work usually in customer service so I was hoping maybe to get a job in the tourist industry. There are plenty of visitors from Europe so possibly a chance for a job in Thailand for me. I did not see teaching English not as an option. I don’t like to do jobs I am not really good at.

With the help of A (a freelancer from Sukhumvit), I found a nice room close to Soi 22 and started to enjoy my time in Bangkok. Being a single male involved with freelancers from Sukhumvit can best be explained by “Imagine your wildest dreams and you are not even close”! Just to give you an idea, I had one friend working in a bar who reported back regarding any perversions her customer came up with, some were quite interesting and I tried them with her myself. Another angle was the suggestion to become a porn star, the idea was a TG friend would bring her friends and was interested to do the camera work and I had to do the f….ing. In 2003, cameras were quite expensive so we just had some trial sessions and abandoned the plan. In hindsight a good thing, I would hate to see myself plastered all over the porn tubes now. One of the more annoying things were most nights, starting at 3 AM, calls from girls who had not found customers wanting to have sex with me, kind of pay one get one free offers, normally I like 2 or more girls but not every night……

Needless to say, money flowed like wine and my job search consisted of buying the Bangkok Post in the morning and having a read and finding excuses why the jobs on offer were not suitable for me.

After a couple of months my funds were well down and I joined A on a trip to a casino where she lost on a regular basis. I have a Roulette system and it worked. I won about 20,000 baht that day, so I thought that would be a nice way to make a living but on the next visit I lost. That plan was not working as well. Bangkok was really getting hot then and I was in my room taking showers every 15 minutes and using Prickly Heat powder. My air-conditioning was not really making a difference.

Adding all things up, funds well down, a dislike for the heat and finding myself contemplating suicide because I hated the idea of going back to Farangland, I was sure I needed to be careful with the suicide thing. I have a technical background and I am pretty sure If I gave it a try it would work. At the end of the day I came to the conclusion no harm in delaying the suicide and give the Farangland a try again.

Because I had finished my job and left my flat when leaving Europe, when I returned to Europe I stayed in a cheap hostel and had to start from scratch, finding a new job and finding a new room. It was working reasonably well and after 1 year I was on my next holiday to Thailand. It was actually quite nice to have a holiday budget for a certain time and then going back to a job in Farangland and then repeat. I managed to finance 2 holidays a year.

In 2006 I had saved some money again and got tired with my job so I gave Thailand a second try. Getting smart I looked for a room with little chance of getting too hot and ended up close to Soi Langsuan in a small room for about 6 000 baht / month.

Quickly I had again built up a nice crew of freelancers to keep me entertained and I met another guy, B, from Farangland with whom I got friendly with. Actually it turned out that he was involved with C , a friend of mine from Sukhumvit. When I came in 2006, C asked me how much money I had. I told her and she replied “not enough” for her to marry me and she decided she wanted to marry B instead. I wished her good luck and then there was an American guy also involved with C, so sometimes all 3 of us were sitting with C and having a couple of beers. The American then returned home to the US and the wedding plans between C and B progressed. Being in Thailand, there were some minor issues like that B was already married to another Thai girl, but C reported that she spoke already with the wife and all was fine and she could get a job as mia noi with B, so no problem there.

The wedding was in Isaan and to be honest I found it interesting and also boring, eating and drinking all day and listening to monks chanting. In future I would decline invitations to weddings; one was enough. I kept in contact with C and B, and B was kind enough to say if I wanted to fxxk C that would be fine with him, like in sharing is caring even if it comes to wives….. C and B had also a kind of smoking habit in addition to B’s preference for a bottle of whiskey minimum a day, but nobody is perfect in Thailand. I follow my principle of everything in moderation so that was not a big problem for me. I remember 1 day when B and C invited some other girls for a bit of a party and group fun and I drank too much whiskey. Later I was nearly unable to walk while the others were going out partying.

I even got myself a Thai teacher, a lovely girl who was a pilot for an airline and had a father who was a general and living on a military compound. We met from time to time for some Thai lessons and I tried to suggest to her that I was looking for a job and if her father could help me to get a job with the Thai secret service or so spying on fellow farang, but there was no interest. Maybe they had already enough other farang on the payroll.

After a couple of months my funds were running low again and the suicide plans showed up. As usual I delayed and returned back to Farangland and to the hostel . This time things got a bit more tricky and I had to resort to soup kitchens for the unemployed because I had so little money left. Then I made the decision in future that Thailand is strictly for holidays and the next time I try to live there is only when the finances are sorted in advance. Too much stress and I am not getting younger, so now I spend about 4,000 euro on a 3-week holiday, buys me a pretty good time in Bangkok and something to look forward to.

I realized the following:

• I like the seasons in Farangland, a gentle Spring and some sunny warm days and the cold in Winter. Thailand can be sometimes too hot for me, so often I am quite happy living in Farangland.
• The lovely ladies, because of my overdose with sex during my stay in Thailand, I am pretty cool living alone and developed a habit of visiting cam sites and have some very lovely virtual girlfriends who love to give me a good time for some donations, among them girls from Russia and Philippines and all via laptop, so no drama in my room and no calls, so I have a peaceful sleep. Maybe it is not for everybody but I am currently happy living alone.

Thailand is still number 1 for me, but other countries come in to view, like Philippines or Russia. Maybe I will visit one of my internet friends. They say they find my advanced age very interesting so we will see.

To sum it all up, in Thailand I had a pretty good time but I would stay in Thailand now only if there were no money problems otherwise it is too much stress and low quality of living.