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Just on observation from Henry

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Why did I move to Thailand?

That’s a good question.

In my late twenties and early thirties I started to get really bored and lonely as people were starting to marry, have kids and move away so we all saw each other less and less. I wasn’t having much luck with the girls at that time and so after many failed dates and weekends sat at home alone I started to get very depressed. I lacked self esteem and even though I was good at my job and earning reasonable money, had a nice car (Golf GTI, later I had a Golf VR6) and my own flat, I felt like crap as I just couldn’t seem to attract any girls that I liked so lost all my confidence and thought there was something wrong with me.

I eventually saw a therapist and started to feel better, but it didn’t last so I got a new therapist and my doctor recommended taking Prozac. I later found out from a psychiatrist that I have a ‘depressive episode’ which is a mildish form of clinical depression involving mood swings and lack of confidence. As the psychiatrist was explaining it to me I realized that it was how I’d felt all my life and he said I’d worsened the condition by taking ecstasy regularly for a few years in my late twenties when I went clubbing at the weekends. Probably the speed and spliffs I used to go through didn’t help either. I don’t do anymore of that now except very rarely. Anyway, the psychiatrist also recommended Prozac and I now have to take one 20mg tablet every day, indefinitely, and it really does work and stops any mood swings.

Anyway, back at that time when I was around 30 I was still bored and lonely and fancied a holiday, but had no one to go with as all the others were married or with girlfriends. I asked a few people of a place where I could go to alone and not look and feel like a sad, lonely sod and someone suggested Thailand so I went to a small island called Samui which is in the South of Thailand. It was like paradise-white beaches, blue sea, delicious food, everything really cheap, lovely people, cute girls, exotic and tropical with hot weather. I was in heaven so I went back to Samui four months later and twice again the next year and I also visited the capital Bangkok each time and began to fall in love with the country and as I was fed-up back in the UK and getting sick of my job (it was very stressful, mate) I began to look into ways to move to Thailand to live and work there. So I rented out my flat, moved back with my mum and saved up so I could move to Thailand and take a year off with the plan to train as an English language teacher after that year. And that’s what I did and nearly seven years later I’m still here.

After the first year, when I just chilled out, went to the beach, travelled around Thailand a bit-to the north, which is lovely and cooler, to the south, which has fantastic, tropical beaches, but in the three, southern most provinces there are some terrorism issues and a territory conflict similar to Northern Ireland, to Malaysia, which is peaceful with great Indian style food and to Cambodia, which is awful as it’s so underdeveloped and poverty stricken, I took a one-month teaching course in Bangkok in 2003 and started to teach English part-time to Thai teenagers at a school called Go International. Well, I still work for that school and along with teaching teens, I also teach adults including office staff and government workers. The pay is ok, not great, but enough, and the job is largely stress free and the students are mostly really nice. I still only work part-time as I need a bachelor degree to get a full-time job and a work permit, hence my study at university, too. I’m just over two years into a four-year degree in Business English at Bangkok University International College. It’s a little easy actually, and, frankly, a little boring as it’s aimed mainly at non-native speakers, but I only have to attend for a few hours a week and the course comes with a student visa which is really handy. When I graduate, I’ll be able to get a much better paying, full-time position.

So what’s it like living in Thailand? I hear you ask. Well, very much different from living in the UK. For a start it’s a hot, tropical country with only three seasons: cool from December to February when it rarely rains; hot and humid from March to June when it can rain frequently and quite heavily, then hot and wet for the rest of the year. However, cool isn’t really cool as the average ‘winter’ temperature is 20-23 degrees, though this year it got down to 15 in Bangkok (it actually felt chilly on some days-we’re spoilt here) and much cooler in the north and northeast of Thailand. Today it’s about 30! The hot and humid season gets a bit too hot for me (up to 35 degrees or more) especially when dressed in shirt and tie for work, and in the wet season most days see some horrendous downpours and fantastic thunderstorms, but it doesn’t rain every day. There is rarely any frost, except in the north, and ice and snow are unheard of in Thailand. Overall, the one word to describe the weather or climate in Thailand is ‘hot.’

As for the people, an appropriate way to label them would be lovely. They are mostly easy going, humble, polite, friendly, warm and welcoming. They don’t loose their cool very often and in everyday life complain out loud very little. As Thailand is a developing country, the majority of the population is poor and live off around 100 quid a month (though there are some incredibly wealthy Thais in Bangkok) so they live very simple lives, yet seem content and happy. They smile a lot and love to joke and have fun and so Thailand is known as ‘The Land of the Smiles.’ They are very interested in sport, particularly football and the English Premier League, and love to eat and drink, too, but rarely get aggressively drunk or out of order. In fact, when Thai guys get drunk, they are the most friendly and welcoming and love to share their drink and food with others, and to chat, sing and dance with all. It’s a total contrast to the UK where a lot of guys like nothing more than a fight when there are pissed, eh? However, having said all that, Thai people are just human like us all and the country has some problems as you may have seen on the news in December with the political protests and the airport blockades. (I also experienced a military coup two years ago!) That aside, I feel very safe living here as you rarely encounter any hostility. There are many contradictions though.

One example is that despite Thais being generally polite and good natured, when it comes to driving they are incredibly selfish and rarely give way to other drivers and tailgate a lot, cut each other up and jump queues and on the whole the standard of driving here is awful with an accident and fatality rate ten times higher than that of the UK (80% are helmetless motorcyclists with drunk drivers and speeding making up the rest-law enforcement here is quite lax) yet road rage is, amazingly, extremely rare. Everyone just seems to accept what goes on barely bats an eyelid and you’d be startled and amazed with some of the things you see on the road here; three, four, five, and I’ve even seen six, people on a motorbike; mothers or fathers riding a motorbike one handed while holding their baby with the other.

There are motorcyclists riding down the hard shoulder against the flow of traffic and policemen riding bikes wearing no helmet; pick-up trucks with the open back full of people or grossly overloaded with goods; elephants being led up the hard shoulders and stray dogs asleep in the middle of the road. You name it, it happens. The Thais’ concept of road safety and safety in general is not that high. This is what you get in a developing country, mate. Here in the center of Bangkok it’s a little more orderly as the police are more on the ball and there are new taxis which are driven fairly safely and there is a modern, sky train system and a new underground system and plenty of frequent buses, some of which are brand new. There are also motorcycle taxis at the mouths of most small streets and at intersections for short journeys avoiding the traffic.

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Just one observation: Why I moved to THailand – (2)