THAILAND GIRLFRIEND

I met my wife when on holiday in Pattaya, which is about 45 minutes south of the new international airport by taxi and the airport is about halfway to Bangkok. I met her on the first day I arrived on a double date with a friend who was already there. Within a couple of weeks she took me back to meet her family in what I later found to be north-eastern Thailand.

Isaan is called north-eastern Thailand too, which is actually confusing because where we are is further north but not so far east. Anyway, most people who call Isaan the north east live in Bangkok and Pattaya, the two big hang-outs for foreigners (called farang or falang in Thai), and we are all north-east from there.

A glance at the map and you will see what I mean. If you travel north out of Bangkok, in due course you will come to Phitchit, which is officially the beginning of the north and the northern race as they call themselves.

Then comes Phitsanulok, at one time a capital of Thailand. Another 40 kilometres north is Sukhotai and Sri Satchenali, Thailand’s first capital and the spiritual home of Thailand. The original city is still there, uninhabited and largely restored.

I live in the next province to the east known as Uttaradit, which borders on Laos to the east and the old mountain kingdom of Nan to the north. About 10% of the population of Nan are of the various Hill Tribes. One of these, the Mlabri, are nomadic hunter gatherers who live in temporary shelters fashioned from branches and leaves. Until very recently, they were living a stone-age existence and their language had never been heard by Westerners before 1978 so far as we know.

This is 250 km north-east from where I live. Sukhotai is about 30 km east. So much difference within 300 km. This region was part of the old kingdom of Lanna, which means ‘ a million rice fields’ or even ‘millions of rice fields’. Phichai or Fort Phichai, 12 km away, used to be the capital of Uttaradit province. Phraya Phichai Dap Hak (Phichai of the two-handed swords) fought here in the late 18th Century. He is Thailand’s most respected and famous warrior.

In any case, I live in amongst all this lot. Unfortunately, I do not speak Thai well enough for anyone to give details of it to me and nobody that I know speaks English well enough to do it either. Even my wife. I wish I knew more about this fascinating place where very very few foreigners ever come.

There are five of us here at the moment in a 20 km radius. An English teacher, a Canadian teacher, a retired Dutchman and a retired Englishman and me. Often there is an Irishman and another Canadian, but they have gone home for a spell. I usually do not see a foreigner or hold a detailed conversation for weeks on end. And I love it here.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a lot of subjects, but is now involved with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

After my first night out in Pattaya, Thailand, when I met a woman on a blind date prearranged by one of my best friends, I sat up in bed and I recalled the events of the evening before. We had started in The Pig and Whistle, where I was staying on Soi 7. The Pig is a lovely, quiet, sedate, air-conditioned oasis of tranquility in a street, which is one of the liveliest, noisiest and busiest streets in Pattaya.

We went outside into the soi and into a stream of people not unlike that of a queue heading for a football match, except that all the women were dressed in bikinis. We had called into one of those outdoor bars, where my friend had a surprise waiting for me. His girlfriend of a while, whom I knew nothing about and a friend of hers who wanted to meet me. The four of us had dallied there an hour before walking the thirty metres to Beach Road. The traffic is one-way on Beach Road, so we took a Baht Taxi North going with the flow and got off two or three kilometres further on just before Walking Street, which is the most well-known street in Pattaya.

We had gone into a complex of bars and sat at one at random. It was only then that I noticed that the bars were all set out surrounding a Muay Thai boxing ring, where the fighting was uninterrupted and free, although foreigners are expected to contribute a prize to the winner of each bout; 20-100 Baht is enough.

We stayed there an hour and carried on to Walking Street to eat. We dined in a seafood specialist restaurant which has a pier or jetty as its dining area. The food was fantastic and the mood was romantic with the moon shimmering on the sea and the atmospheric lighting.

I don’t believe I had had a chance really, I fell for my gorgeous date that night and I saw her every day for the rest of my 30 days holiday. We had a wonderful time and when I had to go, I resolved to find out if I could live in Thailand. I went home and worked out, that if I was careful and a few things fell in my favour, I would most likely have enough money to live there for ten years.

Six weeks later, I went back to Thailand and Joy was waiting for me at the airport. Nothing had altered between us and we caught a bus to go to see her family in northern Thailand. We slept in a room that her brother had given up for us and everyone made me feel very welcome. Joy’s family live in a traditional teak house built on stilts and everybody lived and slept in one room in the traditional way, except for Joy’s brother, who had built an extension, because he was eager to get married soon.

I love that village and still live there now, five years later. Joy and I are married and have our own home – a traditional, European, concrete-block bungalow not five metres from Joy’s mum, who is a brilliant mother-in-law. Her family appear to understand what a big step it was for me to come here alone and are determined to be there for me, should I need assistance, like my own family in Britain would be. The mission at hand is learning Thai as no one else in the village, besides my wife, speaks English.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on several topics, but is now involved with Khao Phansa – The Candle Festival. If you would like to know more, please visit our web site at Package Holidays to Thailand.

PPB Specialty Course with The Dive Academy