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Took him to Ayuttaya last time and we also drove to Hellfire Pass River Kwai might be an option. I remember having a night in Kho San with you and if my memory is correct I paid for a tattoo. But got rewarded later 😜

I have no property in Thailand now. I was last there for a month in August 2022. I loved the warmth and the food of course but I quickly lost interest in the people or what they were doing and rather counted the dates until my return flight. I was intending to look at a new place, a couple of places actually. There is a very beautiful house and land outside Hua Hin which reminds me of Spain with the view of the mountains and memories of a happier life. In a relative sense the house is not hugely expensive and is certainly more than I would ever require but I feel it would be a prison of sorts and I would either have to fill it with a partner I don't have or suffer the isolation alone. Or at least until Somchai decided he'd rather have what I have. Built it and they will come or so the saying goes but in Thailand, setting up a life for a family without first having that family can mean poor decisions swiftly follow. I know I could get lucky and find someone who swapped their time and affection for security and so forth and I am not delusional to think that is not the same the world over but it isn't enough to put me into house ownership once again. So I read this latest saga about being able to buy land if you do this or do that or qualify this way or that and I turn the page because I have heard it all before. Same same but different the locals say, or at least they used to.

I coulda set my cap for Thailand, my ex-wife was willing to make the required representations with family, land and village etc. to get me some sort of marriage residence. But the constant reports of going cap in hand, to the authorities to report and give them buckets of photocopies, of stuff they already have, put me off. Fate smiled on me and pushed me out into the road, and thence into glare of the headlights, of MLG who, for some reason, reciprocated my feelings. As it is, there is a possibility of a marriage visa in Laos and with MLG's government connections, it should be relatively easy, a chore, but a smooth one. However, USD600 gets you a work visa with an employer for a year and you can come and go like a butterfly, so the delights and attractions of LOS are but a train, bus, or drive, from Laos. Then $600 next year and so on. So yes, if I had a million dollars I'd not only live in Laos, but have a beach shack in Cambodia or Burma. 2 more years and I'll be Laos permanently-ish. MLG has made great strides in getting the house tiled, 'lectricted and so on. She's back tomorrow.