In December of '05 I sold my condo in Las Vegas, stored some stuff with my brother in Phoenix, and bought a one-way ticket to BKK. I had a rough idea that I'd stay for 6-9 months, travel around a little bit, party like crazy in Pattaya, then come home and fall back into the grind. Little did I know that I'd stay for over two years, fall for a BG, and build her a house that's closer to Vietnam than it is to Pattaya.
Who'd have thunk? clueless.gif
I looked at the money I had in the bank and told myself when it got down to X amount I'd go home. I let it go a little lower than that original figure, but now I'm back in the US.
Tilac and I are closer than ever, but now we'll have to put our relationship to the "long distance" test. Time for me to get a job and start adding money to my bank account instead of just subtracting it.
For the last 6 months I've been living in our house in Tilac's village, located about 45 kilometers from the city of Nakhon Phanom and about 10 kilometers from the Mekong River. Here's a map of the area. The X marks our village, Ban Don Tiew.
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Our house and Sammy, our dog.
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The village has it's charms. It's quiet. It's real Thailand. I was able to totally immerse myself into the culture. We only had basic Thai TV. I had to ride our motorbike 20 kilometers to use a decent internet connection. The ride into Nakhon Phanom took just over an hour. I spent alot of time watching DVDs, playing basketball at the local school, practicing my sling shot technique, riding our bike around the village, exploring neighboring villages on the motorbike, playing with Sammy, and of course hanging out with my GF. I enjoyed sitting on our porch every evening watching the sunset.
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Downtown Ban Don Tiew
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The buffalos walk by our house every day.
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The view from our backyard. Our house is located just a little outside of the main village
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The village is a great place to relax and truly get away from it all, and I mean ALL. I could handle it for about a month, and then I needed to get back to civilization for a few days, which usually meant a trip to Udon Thani. The longest stretch I did in the village was about 50 days. You know it's boring when you call time spent there a "stretch", like doing a stretch in prison. Eyecrazy.gif I think it would be more bearable if we had a truck. We're just located too far from any town to rely on only motorbike travel. When I return to the village for my next "stretch" one of my top priorities will be buying a truck.
So anyway, Tilac is staying in Thailand. We are very close but I'm just not interested in getting married, which is a shame because she would make a great wife. After moving to the village she really started showing her domestic side. She keeps the house clean, cooks for me, does the laundry, even irons my t-shirts. She loves to work in the yard and has done a great job with her garden.
She has a great attitude about our seperation. We built a little shop in our front yard and hopefully she'll be able to sell ice cream and sodas and stuff to the school kids and make a little cash to support herself. It won't take much - our electric bill is usually about 400 baht per month. She's currently in BKK staying with a friend who's teaching her how to run a little restaurant. Our village doesn't really have a restaurant so that might be another money-maker. Hopefully I'll be able to move back soon and she can support me. beer.gif
Of course we'll miss each other, but it's pretty common for Thai men and women to take off and go work in Singapore or Taiwan or somewhere for a couple of years. It's tough to be apart when we've spent 2 years together, but I think we've laid the groundwork for our future, and our realtionship is pretty solid. I don't want to get all sappy, but she's a great girl and truly one of the best people I've ever met. I'm very lucky, and yeah we love each other. kissing.gif I didn't come to Pattaya in '05 looking for THAT. Eyecrazy.gif
And, being a realistic guy, I understand that things could change. If that happens I won't have any regrets. I gave her a 2-year vacation and a house. I feel really good about that. I'm viewing this seperation as brief absence in what will be a long relationship.
I write this now as I sit in my brother's house in Phoenix. I just wired some money to Tilac's account - enough for her to live on for several months. We've already exchanged emails since I arrived in the US. Meanwhile I'm trying to distract myself from the LOS Blues by diving headfirst back into American culture. I've already visited a couple of my favorite fastfood joints. Today I watched a couple hours of Sports Center and didn't see one soccer highlight. party.gif Nothing but college basketball, NBA, spring training baseball, and a little NFL - stuff I couldn't get in the village. Thank God for US sports!
It is nice to be home, though I do miss my Thai TV soaps. Here's a pic from one that's currently on channel 3. The chicks wear black leather and do alot of karate moves.
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I have a bunch of stuff I was gonna write about my last 6 months in Thailand, but I'll stop now and maybe add more later. I will include a pic of my favorite Thai TV star/model, Taengmo.
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This chapter of "The Experiment" is finished, but it also continues. Hopefully I'll be experimenting with Thailand for the rest of my life. grin2.gif
Thanks for all the positive responses. clap1.gif I've met alot of great guys during the past 2 years and several of them have replied above. There have been a few pricks 2guns.gif but mostly good guys and a few have become really good friends.
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also i think a satellite system might help with the "stretch"
I considered installing UBC or an internet connection at the house, but after 6 months I found I really didn't need either. UBC would have given me a few NFL and NBA games, a bunch of crappy movies, and of course even more soccer and tennis. banghead.gif I enjoyed watching Thai TV and it helped me learn more of the language. My trips to Tha Uthen (the town with the closest good internet shop) were highlights of village life for me because I got to get out and ride the motobike and see the countryside.
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Would you be willing to devulge the cost to build the house?
It ended up being a little over 700,000 baht, and that includes the wall/fence and several extra truckloads of dirt for the yard. I've heard of people paying much less.
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Look at it this way.....you got back just in time to witness the year of the Cub....2008, the year the Cubs win their first World Series Championship in a century......
Yeah right. rolleyes.gif How many "year of the Cubs" have we been thru? My brother's house is about a mile from HohoKam park in Mesa, so I hope to get over there for a spring training game soon. Keep the Faith, Spike. thumbup.gif
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I can tell you've been there for awhile by not putting "quotes" around downtown in that pic.
I hope you saved enough to buy here again, as you could really take advantage of the RE market, work hard for a few years, and sell for a nice profit when the market swings back.
No sarcasm intended, that really is the central business district (?) of Ban Don Tiew.
My brother and his brother-in-law work in construction and remodeling here in Phoenix and they both tell me right now is a great time to buy, and yes I have some cash stashed away for such an investment.
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I'm curious how much Thai language did you need in the village.
Do you speak and read Thai?
I can speak a little and understand a little, but I can't read or write. I've never taken any classes. It is definitely a strange experience living amongst people who don't speak your language. I know some guys who are retired and have lived up country for years who speak almost zero Thai. You have to be comfortable with not knowing what's going on around you when you live in the village. Any guy who lives with a Thai GF or wife in LOS will tell you there are many instances where important information just isn't passed on to you, and that can be very frustrating.
My buddy Eddie and I had an experience like that last week in Pattaya. We arranged to have his GF's family drive us up to see the big Buddha, the one on the hill above South Pattaya. After we finished looking around my girl told me Eddie's girl's family wanted to go see another Buddha. The guy driving the truck said it was just a few kilos away. We were riding in the back of his truck but I figured no problem, it won't be a long ride. It turned out we drove about 45 minutes to look at that huge Buddha image that's carved into the mountain outside of Pattaya. Eyecrazy.gif It was not a fun ride in the back of that truck, with the sun and the wind beating on us. Again we didn't get all the information we needed. frustrated2.gif
Here's a few more pics from around the village, and some random thoughts on LOS
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The hardest things about living in the village:
-Having people point and stare at you. At first you feel like a rock star. Later you learn the value of blending in.
-Food. I can eat a little Thai food, but I relied on ham & cheese sandwiches and grilled cheese.
-No nightlife. Some villagers would hang around on that main street and drink beer at night, but Tilac didn't want me going out at night because of all the young Thai guys getting drunk and racing around on their motorbikes. We stayed in pretty much every night. Again if we had a truck that would change.
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The best things about the village:
-Cheap to live
-Peaceful and quiet
-Getting to see Thai life at it's most basic. It's amazing how little they live with and still seem happy.
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-I love movies and I had my DVD collection and a nice 32" wide screen HD TV at the house. I watched alot of movies while listening to the commentary track. The best commentary tracks are from the directors and writers. The actors just babble on and on about themselves and their motivations. "Spartacus" has a great commentary track featuring Kirk Douglas, Peter Ustinov and the guy who wrote the book.
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Want to have a little fun with your Thai GF? ask her to say the following words - wool, drool, mirror, roll - any word with R's and L's. Tilac would get back at me by asking me to say the Thai word for "dark blue" - see nam ngeun. huh2.gif
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What two things do Thai women want more than anything? White skin and a big nose.
The village temple
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Our front yard
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Ban Don Tiew plays Phu Gratae in soccer . . . on a basketball court. clueless.gif
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The full moon on Loy Kratong
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Sammy relaxes on the street
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Some of my Favorite Girl Pics, From the Past 2 Years
A Honey Pot girl who loved the camera
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A good reason to take a trip up to Chiang Mai
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My favorite Chang girl from Phitsanoluk
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Bua does her cat impersonation on the bar at Joy Bar
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Tik gives me a great pout
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Bang deserves another pic
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Maybe the perfect body
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Nice belly
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