Before You Move to Rural Thailand, Watch This

Added: 2026-06-08

[00:00:03]I'm left here with me my me thoughts and the dawn chorus rolls and thousands of them you can hear in the distance. So this is rural Thailand. So that's what you hear is rolls.

[00:00:16]And I can also hear a to gecko somewhere making its noise. And the hoopo bird which is very common here. If you want to listen for wildlife, if you can make the wildlife out, if you look listening for something specific, this is the time of day to do it. I was thinking the other day and I was thinking today actually it's what Paul brought it to mind.

[00:00:43]How do blind people sleep?

[00:00:47]You know, if there's no darkness, if there's no nighttime, how how do they sleep? Everyone goes to bed when it's night, but but blind people, there's no there's no sense of time. I was thinking about like a sense of being as well.

[00:01:03]when you're working, when you go to work 9 to5 and then you come home, you battle the days. Going to work 9 to5 is a continuity. It's the only continuity you actually have and and as it stands, what the hell is that? So, as it stands, I have got no continuity in life because I haven't got a job. I found that my sleep patterns have changed dramatically. I like last night I I fell asleep at at at 7:00. I woke up at 9:00 and I went to bed at 10:00 and then I woke up at 2 and and I've been awake since 2:00 because there's no there's no real purpose. There's no real continuity. Changing the subject just slightly. I don't know if my sister's going to be watching this, but I miss her terribly. I miss my brother-in-law.

[00:01:59]I miss my mother. I miss my father.

[00:02:02]And not being able to go and see them, a physical see them, you know, I can phone them at any time, do a video call and everything and and and they'll talk to me. So being in this position is not very fortunate.

[00:02:24]Now, I knew I knew I'd missed them.

[00:02:28]That was an absolute, but you know, video calls have brought the world a lot closer to each other. But the thing is it's that it's that physical interaction and I've also got this horrible horrible daily thought of what am I going to do when my parents go because I've got to go back to the UK to to pay my respects. My dad, I don't know if he watches my videos anymore, but I had a conversation with my dad and he said to me, "Don't come back to the UK," which I'm not going to do. I'm not going back there.

[00:03:11]And then he said, "Well, even when I've gone, there's no reason to come back."

[00:03:16]There is because I've got to pay my respects.

[00:03:20]I pay my respects to my parents because I do respect them. There's a constant thought in your life of of of what if this happens? What if that happens? When my parents go, if I if I survive them, I suppose when my parents go, what am I going to do? I have to go back to the UK to pay my respects to show I suppose to show the family how much I do respect them. The relationship that I've got with B, it's you know, I I may as well be bloody married to her.

[00:03:53]You see the western world have got a different a different opinion of this and a different thought of this a thought of the what the relationship oh look a cat the true Isan relationships that you get there are there are a a sort of a a a mutual respect for each other and and a mutual support for each other my misses she's got my complete moral support and and the person who said moral how can you have moral Poor to me means that you've got no bloody morals.

[00:04:25]When I was in Patea, right, there was a a bloke. I was I was talking to him in a in a bar as you do.

[00:04:35]And he said to me, "How long you been here?" I said, "It's about 12 months at the time."

[00:04:41]And he said, "What have you learned?" I said, "A lot." Because I make it my business to learn. I'm inquisitive and I'd like to know what's what.

[00:04:54]And and he said, you know, all thinking back to that day, that day he's talking to that bloke, he was absolutely right. I knew nothing. I knew absolutely nothing about the place. Now moving to rural Thailand where the culture really does come out and and it's a it's a culture shock.

[00:05:22]It's a it's a massive massive culture shock and it's very very hard even now sometimes it's very very hard for me to understand it.

[00:05:33]But it's that accept and reject and coming over here you have to accept everything. I'll tell you now if you don't accept everything if you don't if you say I I don't I don't accept what you're doing it's you know you reject everything but but to start with until you understand I warn you now you have to accept a lot of things that happen here that you you your your culture your culture is completely different and Yes, you have to accept a lot of things and then you start to understand why.

[00:06:16]This is a warning to anybody that comes over here that that gets involved in a relationship or even if you're not in a relationship, unless you keep yourself to yourself, you you will see things and hear things that you don't understand. You know, I can understand probably 50% of the conversations as long as I don't start speaking. number one Isan because I don't understand Isan. I'm learning Thai, not Isan. A lot of people here speak Islam and it's very hard. Anyway, whatever.

[00:06:48]I'm not talking about faithfulness in a relationship because my message is 100% faithful. I I can and she proves it to me every single time. But the things that you hear that happen in this culture would make the average westerner run a bloody mile. the things that I have seen I accept. I have to accept and then I learn why. Why does that happen? Why is it like that? And if you're not prepared to do that, then you're not you're not going to get on in this country. If you live alone and you live a life of a hermit, then you don't need to accept anything. You know, if you're single and then you walk around here on a daily basis and you say good morning, good morning to everybody and you pay your rent, you know, you get your own food, then that's fine.

[00:07:45]But if you want to get into a relationship over here, you have to accept everything that happens and then understand it and then you learn that in the future you can either accept it or you have a compromise. Relationships are all about compromise. Relationships are all about trust. Relationships are all about learning learning about the partner. You have to learn the culture. You have to learn the lifestyle. You have to live live both of those. I went to Patea.

[00:08:20]Um couple of weeks ago when I was driving down the streets in the pickup, I saw old men with 20 year old women.

[00:08:30]I'm talking about 60 or 70 year old men with 20 year old women. I didn't agree with that.

[00:08:38]I don't agree with that that massive massive age difference, you know, 50 year difference.

[00:08:45]I mean, my miss she's 10 years younger than me and it does show. It shows because I can't do the things that I used to do 10 years ago because 10 years ago I was, you know, fit as a bloody fiddle.

[00:09:07]And now I I'm I'm starting to feel my age to be honest. I'm still young at heart, you know, but but on the same we got the dogs coming out now. It's just a it's it's sort of a migration time at the minute where the dogs are still protecting their street, but people are walking it.

[00:09:38]carry on. As a westerner, you have to understand why.

[00:09:43]Don't say, "I don't like that."

[00:09:47]And because you ain't going to get any respect. It's my job to fit in.

[00:09:55]And I can't fit in if I don't understand things.

[00:10:02]And that's why I learn to understand absolutely everything.

[00:10:07]I have to that's my job. Whatever happens, accept it, then understand it.

[00:10:13]Then you can pro probably compromise.

[00:10:16]You know, say as a westerner, that wouldn't happen. I know it's happened, but what's the compromise?

[00:10:25]You know, there's there's there's been occasions where my misses spent all night like like this time, actually.

[00:10:31]Like this time, the first time that she went round with the family and she was there all night and she left her son here. She was there all night preparing food and I know that's where she is now.

[00:10:43]I've had the video call blah blah blah.

[00:10:47]And the first time she did it, she just disappeared. And I said to her, "Where are you?" And I didn't have any reply.

[00:10:53]And then I got a reply from her. And she told me and I said, "Well, well, next time you tell me. I hope I can make some sense of this video and and people can understand what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about him in in living in Patea. If you want to live there, fine.

[00:11:12]Live in Rayong, live in Banks, you know, go to go to the places where where it's it's understood that you're a westerner.

[00:11:19]You've got to accept it. But don't get into a relationship and then move to rural Thailand and expect to understand everything and expect that everybody will accept your western ways, your western culture because it won't to start with accept absolutely everything.

[00:11:35]Just just go along with it and and try try to understand why because if you don't you're not going to fit in. You're just not going to fit in.

[00:11:47]I hope it's a lesson to people. Well, I hope people can understand this and I hope people can can comprehend and and think about a future in rural Thailand in Isan where life is so quiet. But I'll tell you now, you've got to have a purpose. You've got to have a reason. And and that is very very hard.

[00:12:12]I still don't know what my purpose is. I don't know what my reason for living is.

[00:12:20]I've got to find it soon. I've got to find it very, very soon.