An update from Bangkok

I moved to Bangkok in March, if you add in the 3 months I spent here last year, I’m coming up to the one year mark in total.

So let’s go back to the beginning. After staying in Phuket for a couple of weeks in February 2022 I arrived in Bangkok, where I stayed for two months. It was my first trip after being locked up in Melbourne for two years during the pandemic. I had a great time in Bangkok, some moments I could even describe as euphoric. I had my freedom again and I was loving it.

I spent the rest of 2022 looking around Europe and Asia for where I’d like to live. I think partly because I’d had such a good time in Bangkok the first time around, it stood out. It also had many other benefits such as cheap living costs and the quality of the accommodation. In Japan for example it’s hard to find apartments that match what they have here, even if you pay up big time.

Since Bangkok was in poll position, I came back in August of the same year to make sure. The second time around, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much. But I put that down to being tired from my travels and a recent bout of COVID. When I got back to Melbourne I created a spreadsheet to rank each city I had visited across ten different factors. Bangkok came out on top. Still, something about the move wasn’t sitting right and I agonised over the decision for a while.

I had to get some kind of long term visa, I settled on the elite visa, which gives you 5 years where you can come and go as you please. It was expensive though and I had a knot in my stomach as I transferred the money to the Thai authorities. I knew that I wasn’t 100% sure about moving over to Thailand, but then it was the best option I had at the time. I was bored in Melbourne, and to stay there and live a decent lifestyle would have meant getting another miserable (for me) office job. In Thailand I would be able to focus on becoming a better investor and live well from the income I was generating.

I planned everything out as best I could and in March 2023 made the move. I had a good idea about the area in which I wanted to live and set to work finding a suitable condo. Within a few weeks I’d found a great place and moved in by late April. I busied myself setting up the condo, it was furnished, but needed a couple of extra things. On paper things were going well, but pretty much from the time I landed I wasn’t enjoying myself.

I’m not sure what to put it down to, perhaps a combination of the heat, deafening traffic, pollution and filth, lack of nature and difficulty in meeting like minded people. Whatever the reasons, the place started to wear on me. Big time. But I didn’t see it that way at first. I took complete responsibility. It was my approach that needed correcting, I figured.

To remedy the situation I attacked it, like I was going to war. I created spreadsheets, log-books and stuck to daily disciplines. Again, all that led to accomplishments on paper, but I was still feeling pretty miserable. Still I pushed on, I was determined to find a way to get into the swing of life in Bangkok. My friends invited me to Pattaya, world capital of prostitutes, but they assured me it’s more than that. “It’s more family oriented these days”, they told me. So I agreed and went along with them. Actually it was nice to get outside of Bangkok and see the blue sky for a change. My friends took me to the back beach and it was quite relaxed and pleasant there.

The following night we went out, hopping from one go-go bar to the next. In each place you need to buy at least one drink, so before I knew it, I’d had quite a few. At about midnight I called it quits. It really wasn’t my scene. Walking back to my hotel along the beach I was confronted with literally hundreds of women lining the beach, waiting to sell themselves to some gross old man. It was a depressing sight. I felt a complete emptiness in myself, nothing in this place was resonating with me.

A few days later, off the back of too little sleep, and too much drink I came down with COVID and was laid out for the next two weeks. Laying there fatigued and dizzy I had to admit, this isn’t working. And as the days wore on and I cycled through anxiety about what I might do next, and feeling miserable that it hadn’t worked out I finally came to the realization that I was done feeling this way. At that moment I stepped into a much better state, one of acceptance.

I accepted that I’d thrown everything at this place and it had only got my so far. I accepted that I’d stuck it out and not thrown in the towel at the first sign of difficulty and in doing so learnt a lot about myself. I also accepted that like two volatile chemicals me and Bangkok could mix together to some extent, but we were never going to become one.

I always knew that Bangkok was not going to be a place where I’d stay forever, but my plan was for 2-3 years. That now seems unlikely. I’m still not sure about the next step (open to suggestions). I don’t have any regrets about moving here, I’ve still managed to have some great times so far and learnt a lot. Sometimes we don’t get the experience that we want, but the experience that we need in order to grow.

One of my biggest takeaways is to accept my limitations in being able to plan for the future. I was approaching it in a very head strong way. Like I was some omnipotent strategist, that could look into the future and create a plan that would position me to a point of supreme happiness. I think it’s fine to have goals, but there is a balance to how much you can determine the path. To some extent you have to let things unfold in front of you. Ideally, you are in a state of readiness and wait for inspiration or opportunity to present itself. That may not happen according to the timeline that you, your mind and ego desire, but instead according to the timeline that is fitting.

Another way to say that is, there was too much head and not enough heart in my decision making. Thinking and the mind have their limitations. Indeed they should be limited. The trouble is that most of us are so identified with the ego, that we think we’re one and the same with it. But try this experiment, have you ever had a time when you were so engrossed in the moment, perhaps while hiking or playing sport, that you weren’t thinking anything? You weren’t thinking, just being. So who are you in that case, the mind that thinks, or the being behind it?

I think for many of us our minds have become like an out of control AI, that starts to cannibalise and takeover the whole system. The mind was only ever supposed to be a tool that you can use. Not a tool that uses you to reinforce it’s own self importance. The end result of this perversion of the natural hierarchy is misery and suffering. That much I know.

For further reading I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.

Postscript: The Thai winter has finally arrived. Night time temperatures are down to 21 and the humidity has eased off. It makes for very pleasant strolling weather. Having accepted my limitations and the limitations of the place, I’m back to some level of enjoyment here. I now take the view that in time the next steps will unfold, without too much force on my part.