Trip to Issan - My experience

July 27

Just though I would share my experience of a trip to Issan I had in 2012, Firstly I would say if you get the chance to travel with a girl back to her home, take it, I had a great time.

I was 55 years, divorced with 3 teenage kids. Some mates were going to Pattaya for two weeks in April 2012 and i decided to go with my friends. On my 2 night I met a 18 year old girl in a beer bar in Soi made in Thailand. I was smitten and I spent 10 days and nights with her. I was so upset leaving to go home, heart broken. the drive to the sirport with her was terrible. but after I got home we kept in touch and after three weeks at home I had to go back, so I booked a flight and when back for another 10 days.

We talked about getting married and buying a site in her village and building a house. So the next step was to meet the family. It is so easy to fall in love with these beautiful woman and of course it is never going to work out but it is a roller coaster ride.

So when I arrived, I meet her in her bar and I paid her bar fine for a week and we went to meet her family in Issan. We flew to Udon and when we arrived her mum and her 2 year old son and her cousin meet us. Then her cousin drove us to Nong Khai, where we all had a big meal. I was treated like royalty as of course I was paying for everything. Left Nong Khai and then we drove north for about 2 hours to a "hotel" (6 huts on stilts on the side of a road) we checked in and the others went off to her village. we were close to the Laos border.

Next morning at 6am her father turned up with one of her friends and they took us off on the back of motorbikes to her home and by 9am we were drinking Thai whiskey with a big group of locals. Then I was taken to meet her grandmother and to meet her neighbours. We went and look at the site where we would build a house and at houses build by other Farangs an Italian guy and a Swiss guy. Later she cooked for me and her friends came by to drink, one of her fiends also worked in Pattaya and had an Australian boyfriend/sponsor who sent her AUD2000 a month, i talked to him on her phone and he told me how I should visit every couple of months and send my gf money. She hit me for 4000bhat for medicine for her dad and 4000bhat for petrol for her cousin! But I was so loved up I just said sure.

At about midnight we got on a motorcycle in the pitch black and drove in a rain storm back to our hotel, amazing experience. I had another four days like that before we flew back to Pattaya, she took me to a gold shop and we bought a ring!! and we spent a great few days together before I flew home again. Then reality of the situation hit in, I couldn't get time off work to holiday in Thailand again and I wasn't going to give up my job and go live in a jungle (I'd have no money and then no honey). I sent her a £100 and then thought that sponsor is a mugs game and stopped. Then she stopped contact and that was the end, I was heartbroken for months. However I have no regrets, It was an amazing experience. And I had a lucky escape as I know she would have taken me for everything I have.