by Alex Gunn
Two Years in
Chiang
Mai
By Alex Gunn
Two Years in Chiang Mai
Copyright 2018© Alex Gunn
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage or retrieval system without the expressed written, dated and signed permission from the author.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to give up everything and move to a totally unfamiliar place the other side of the world and never go home…
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1: Saying Goodbye
Chapter 2: Home in a Hotel
Chapter 3: Finding Somewhere to Live
Chapter 4: A Home So MASSIVE
Chapter 5: Starting The Business
Chapter 6: First Day At School
Chapter 7: Finding Our Son
Chapter 8: Elephant Cowboys
Chapter 9: A Brush With The Law
Chapter 10: Buying A Car From An Angel
Chapter 11: Learning To Drive
Chapter 12: Scraping By and Hanging On
Chapter 13: Christmas in a Greek Taverna
Chapter 14: A New Year and Business is Booming
Chapter 15: Scraping By and Hanging On Again
Chapter 16: Business Is Busting
Chapter 17: Our First Family Holiday
Chapter 18: Supporting The Tigers
Chapter 19: Fancy A Cock Fight?
Chapter 20: Needing A Bit Of Luck
Chapter 21: Turning The Corner
Chapter 22: What’s Different – A Year Long Lesson
Chapter 23: Where Are We Now
Book Two; Another Year
Chapter 1: One Way Round No Bumping
Chapter 2: Home is Where the Headless Geckos are
Chapter 3: Pleasing The Spirits
Chapter 4: Living With The Triads
Chapter 5: Songkran
Chapter 6: Thom And The Market
Chapter 7: A Little Bit More Understanding… a little less action please
Chapter 8: The Old Woman and the Barbet
Chapter 9: A Broken Spine (pronounced “Spy”)
Chapter 10: Loyalty
Chapter 11: Parents Afternoon
Chapter 12: Embassy
Chapter 13: School Barbecue Insect Invasion Hell
Chapter 14: The Rhythms of Life
Chapter 15: Loy Krathong
Chapter 16: Burma
Chapter 17: New Year
Introduction
Alex and his wife Chrissy decided that if they were going to change their lives and move overseas they had better do it before their two small children got too old and too settled.
They gave up good jobs, put their house on the market, gave away lots of stuff, said goodbye to friends and relatives, found new homes for their goats and moved from England to the other side of the world. They chose Chiang Mai in northern Thailand where they had no friends, no contacts and no income (and no goats).
Chapter 1
Saying Goodbye
It’s a very odd thing leaving your country behind, especially when the country you are moving to is the other side of the world, completely different from your own, where you have no contacts, no connections, no job and two young children constantly saying, “why are we going to Thailand?”
Life seemed to be trundling along fine, I was working at the local university and Chrissy, my wife, was running a small charity and a busy counselling practice and our two boys were enjoying school in the local village.
After work and school and at weekends, we all happily toiled away on our small holding in Devon, England, tending to a large orchard, a small herd of goats, some ducks, chickens, some excitable Guinea Fowl, a load of very boring quail and some very lovable geese. But, at the back of my mind I’d always wanted to be one of those people you hear about that suddenly up sticks and make an exciting sounding life for themselves somewhere else. The trouble is that I’m more like one of those people you never hear about that has a quiet but comfortable life, works hard in a good job and retires early to see out his days bumbling about in the garden muttering about aphids in the green house.
For many years though, I’d secretly been observing expats at foreign airports smugly waving off friends and relatives back to cold, grey northern climates. They looked comfortable and relaxed, like people who were not about to go back to the horror of credit card bills, Monday morning and real life. They were going to stay on holiday. They would smile and wave through the departure gates before turning and walking back to their car and driving back to their perfect villa to have one last swim before walking down to a little harbour side restaurant, where they would enjoy a bowl of steamed mussels, freshly baked bread, a chilled bottle of white wine and a few jokes with the waiter, with whom, of course, they were on first name terms. I wanted all of that as well.
Over the years this scenario had been enacted in my mind many times; the drive back from the airport, the villa with the pool and the harbour side restaurant. All it needed was a few actors to act it all out. It seemed easy enough. I could learn the lines, follow the stage directions and acquire the confident moves. Everyone’s done a bit of acting at school, how difficult could it be? Loads of people had done it and if we didn’t like it, we could always come home and spray the aphids in the green house.
We often sat up late after the children had gone to bed, talking through plans over the kitchen table. I was thinking Spain and my wife was thinking… Chiang Mai, Thailand. So, Thailand it was!
We tried to sell our house for a year before we gave up. The original plan was to sell the house and use the money to fund our new life. Instead we would have to rent it out, use the rental income to cover the mortgage and use our overdraft facility to fund our new life. Not exactly a perfect start.
Undeterred by this minor set back we found ourselves a perky little chap in a local letting agency who rather alarmingly found us a tenant within a week.
After a year of talking, planning and false starts, suddenly the pressure was on to actually do something. Dates were firmed up and we had to pack up, sell and give away furniture, organize shipping, decorate for the new tenants, put up new fencing for the new tenants horse, notify all manner of banks and organisations, install a new oil tank, re-lacquer the wooden floor, say goodbye to bewildered friends and relations, hold separate goodbye parties for our children, hand in our resignations at work, make emotional leaving speeches, hug lots of people, apply for weird sounding visas at the Thai Consulate in Hull (of all places!), register separate companies in England and Thailand, hire a company to make a web site and find homes for forty eight chickens, twelve geese, four goats , two hysterical Guinea Fowls, eight ducks and loads of boring quails.
I began to feel like a bough of a tree being pulled out of position and forced into a new unknown direction. The familiar underpinning network of my quiet comfortable life was being uprooted. I was so far out of what might be described these days as ‘my comfort zone’ that I would need a very small scale map to find my way back.
It wasn’t particularly unpleasant, just strange. It felt that overnight everything familiar was replaced with things from someone else’s life; attending design meetings for web sites where we all talked utter nonsense but everyone pretended it was meaningful, emailing Thai lawyers who had unpronounceable names, discussing something called ‘Search Engine Optimization’ with an Internet Consultant wh
o looked about twelve years old and writing him cheques for huge sums of money. It all seemed nuts.
You would think that our children might have found all the upheaval difficult and the reassuring parents would have to steer a true course through a sea of uncertainty. But, if anything, it was the other way around. Our kids couldn’t wait to get going. They said a quick goodbye to the animals, swapped email addresses with their friends, made sure they were all up to speed on Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media things, packed a case with computer games and Pokemon cards and were ready.
Meanwhile I was moping about in the field saying goodbye to my chickens and goats, pruning the orchard for the last time, watching the sun set over the rolling Devon countryside and wondering what an earth we were letting ourselves in for. I could hear the distinct sound of wood splintering as branches and boughs were being forced out of position and extensive root systems that had taken a lifetime to establish were ripped from the ground. This bit hadn’t been in the stage directions.
Finding homes for all the animals was more difficult than you might imagine. We gave a lot of the hens and other assorted poultry back to Dave, annual winner of the local sheep throwing contest and proprietor of the animal centre where we had bought most of them (except the highly strung Guinea Fowl that we won in a local fair...farming people can be very cunning). The goats eventually went off to Keith “The Builder” our good friend and indeed, a builder (‘what you want to go off to Taiwan for anyway’) but the geese where a lot more problematic.
I’ve learnt, to my utter surprise, that people don’t really like geese. We’d raised them all from tiny goslings when they were pipping little hot yellow bundles of fluff. Dave showed me how to ‘sex’ them (just to avoid any confusion, or legal action, this means telling which ones are boys and which ones are girls) and under his tutelage picked out twelve little ladies. Unfortunately, although they were very fond of me they were quite rude to any strangers and would flap and hiss and get into a right old emotional state. They also do need quite a bit of grass land to feed on and access to water and protection from the fox and lots of cuddles, reassurance and patience. Once you get to know geese and they get to know you, they will be your friends for life.
In the end, my long suffering boss and eminent professor at the college where I worked agreed to take them, on reflection, I think it was just to shut me up. He’d just bought a new house with a big pond with an island in the middle and thought they might look nice. I guess he’ll learn.
He turned up to collect them in his old Land Rover, and bless them, they sat on the back bench seats looking out of the window at me. I waved them off with a tear in my eye. They sensed my vulnerability as only animals can and instinctively knew it was their time to reassure me. They looked me square in the eye and said in their special geesey way “look buddy, there’s a big wonderful world out there, you can either stay with the flock and live a quiet comfortable life in the field or use your big powerful wings and fly over the hedge to fields unknown and pastures new. Yes, we’ve had fun and laughs along the way, like when Carrots got chased by the Guinea Fowl and fell in the pond, but there has also been sadness too, like when the fox came and it was getting dark and you decided to go to the post office, which we won’t speak about. Life is all about change my friend, we create it as we go along; nothing lasts forever. It’s okay for a branch to bend and grow in a different direction, for roots to be strained out of position. It might feel strange but it doesn’t mean that it’s wrong, whatever you do my friend, don’t let your anxieties stop you flying over that hedge”.
They were right of course, they always were. I wanted to argue, I wanted to say “but I don’t have big powerful wings, and I needed to get to the post office. What if it’s not very nice on the other side of the hedge, I’m just a man for Christ’s sake,” but it was all too late. Perhaps they would not have understood it anyway. I watched the Land Rover disappear down the lane, across the valley and resurface the other side of the hill and disappear for good. For a long time I stared at the spot where they disappeared. Slowly, I tramped back to the house and carried on with the packing wondering where my geese had picked up their profound insight and understanding of the existential nature of the human condition.
By the time we were ready to go, the house, true to the usual form of things, looked better than it had ever done since we brought it ten years ago. Walking around the big empty rooms felt sad and lonely. It seemed only yesterday that we battled with curtain rods, had an argument about fairy lights and where to put the Christmas Tree. Where on earth would we be celebrating Christmas this year? Did they even have Christmas in Thailand?
We said fond farewells to neighbours, friends in the village and teachers at the school. Derek, the village butcher, came out from behind his counter, I’d never seen him before without standing behind a cold cabinet stuffed with meat and for the first time ever, shook my hand and told us we were mad but wished us “all the bloody luck in the world... cos you’ll bloody well need it”, he added ominously. As we left the shop he waved a sausage at me through the window shouting something about “bloody missing proper bloody food”.
We said goodbye to colleagues at work, made jokey but meaningful speeches (‘...but most of all I’ll miss the canteen lunches....’), did everything we needed to do and one Saturday morning in August packed up our nice BMW with all our ‘travelling with us’ luggage, leaving a small space on the back seat for two very excited little boys. We set off for the first part of our new life; Essex, South East England.
We timed the flights so that we could spend time with family; my mum, my brother, and sister and also my wife’s brother and family in south London, as well as a few hotel stops along the way to say goodbye to old friends. It was all a bit of a blur. After months of planning, years of dreaming and trying to decipher the stage directions and learn the lines, the last few days in my lovely home country were trickling away. It was really happening. It felt like the play was about to start, the curtain was about to rise but I hadn’t a clue what to say or where to move. It felt as though I’d never seen a script let alone attended any of the rehearsals, I felt sick with anxiety. I’d have to make it up as I went along and hope that nobody would notice.
On reflection we couldn’t have spent our last few days in England better than if we’d spent a lifetime planning it. We popped down to Leigh On Sea, on the Thames estuary, and had a plate of cockles, some winkles, some jellied eels and those delicious little brown shrimps, while looking out over the ominous grey flat Essex skies across the mouth of the river Thames. We went to the Emirates Football Stadium (home to Arsenal Football Club) to say goodbye and visited Greenwich in South East London and marveled at how it had changed over the years since I was a boy.
Years ago as a child we would go to Harding’s Fish and Chip Shop where you could choose either; Cod and Chips, Rock Eel and Chips or Savaloy (a big boiled sausage) and Chips with a wally (a pickled gherkin). Now all of that’s gone. There’s no Hardings Fish and Chip shop, there’s no more cod left in the sea, Rock Eel vanished from chip shop menus long ago and Savaloys where just plain revolting. Change was everywhere I looked.
We had a quick walk around the Maritime Museum and marveled (yet again) at how small Nelsons battle dress is (he must have been absolutely tiny) and then drove out of London and had a lovely double pie, mash and liquor in what allegedly is David Beckham’s favourite pie shop near Romford.
Before you could say ‘actually could I have my old job back’ we were on the plane and bound for Chiang Mai in northern Thailand where we had decided to start our new life. It wasn’t quite ‘stick a pin in a map’ but not far from it. It just seemed to be the right place for our new business, and besides all the sensible sounding grown up stuff our children really wanted to live in a place where they could ride an elephant ‘through the jungle’ every weekend, if they wanted. Well, who wouldn’t?
We got a
taxi to the airport, checked in our baggage and that was it. We were left with two lap tops, two young children, hand luggage, some vague plans, no contacts, an overdraft facility, two weeks pre-booked into a middle range hotel in Chiang Mai, a rubbish website that cost a small fortune and a belief that if you keep saying “it’ll all be alright” enough, somehow it actually will be alright. We were on our way. It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright. It’ll be alright…
Chapter 2
Home in a Hotel
In a blink of an eye we were in Bangkok and on our way to Chiang Mai. Our children thought the flight was great as they could watch “any movie we want”. I’m sure they would quite happily spend all their childhood zooming backwards and forwards around the world laughing at Adam Sandler dressed up as a hairdresser, or a woman, or pretending to be a gay fireman or whatever else he thinks is funny. They also liked the fact that nice ladies bring them drinks and food and snacks all the time.
Before we go any further, and in case you are dotty enough to give up your job and move to Thailand, or any other place come to that, let me pass on a few things, that I realize only now, with the benefit of hind sight, that are not so cool, when you arrive in your newly adopted country; announcing how cheap everything is, comparing everything to something back home and with much unconcealed amusement from your wife and children, appearing at breakfast dressed like a yoga teacher.
Although I do still occasionally wear the black cotton trousers, as they might, just might, with a little perseverance, make me look cool, and beside which I have reached an age where I genuinely appreciate an elasticated waist ban, I do try very hard to cut out the other two. At times though I just can’t help it and relapse like a hopeless alcoholic on a free wine tasting holiday, because some things are really cheap (you can eat out for less than a pound) and really different (you pay all your bills at the 7 Eleven). I guess some people just seem to be worse at settling in than others, or just genuinely un-cool. In my case I fear that both boxes are marked with a big fat red tick. It does seem to take different people different amounts of time to settle, but everyone goes through three distinct stages; complete bewilderment, finding your feet and if you get through the first two, quiet enjoyment. For me, stage one seems to be going on for a very long time.