Most Read Stories
We shared a room with separate beds and her family wouldn't let me pay for a single meal. My last night, she chose to sleep somewhere else.
After seeing plenty of bar scams in Thailand, a Swedish man was introduced online to a woman from Isaan looking for something serious. Months of daily calls and a visit to her family later, the relationship never quite came together. It wasn't the love story he hoped for, and it wasn't a scam either.
At 60, I flew to a village in Isaan for a wedding that wasn't mine, and for a few hours it felt like it was.
I was 60 when Kop, 37 years younger than me, brought me to her cousin's wedding in a village in Isaan. I met her parents, slept apart from her out of respect for her family's rules, and watched a full traditional Thai wedding, dowry included, feeling for a few hours like part of a family I barely knew.
I came to Udon Thani for a two-week hip surgery. The nurse who cared for me those two weeks is now my wife.
Peter, a 62-year-old Australian, travels to Udon Thani to have hip surgery at a private hospital, avoiding the long public waiting list back home. Ploy, the head nurse on his ward, becomes far more than his carer during recovery.
She suggested I spend some time in Pattaya alone. I didn't know it was a test, and I failed it.
A 54-year-old South African met Noi, 32, near Khao San Road in 2019. She never asked him for money despite her troubles, and the Koh Chang trip was perfect. But one night of drinks in Pattaya without her changed everything, and the pandemic finished it off.
Her mum had always planned for her to move to Germany and run the family business. I showed up two weeks before that was meant to start.
A 25-year-old British English teacher met Nisa in Khon Kaen, a university graduate from Isaan with zero interest in the nightlife scene. Her mum, living in Germany, had other plans for her daughter. This is the story of how he won the family over and decided to stay in Thailand.
I found her dancing in a Soi Cowboy bar. Nine months later our daughter was born in Thailand.
A 31-year-old Romanian recounts how a cheap flight booked on a whim sent him back to Bangkok alone, where he reconnected with Jit at a Soi Cowboy bar. A pregnancy, months of paperwork and a wedding later, they're now a normal family in the UK.
In Phuket, my girlfriend's younger sister looked at me and asked why her sister found me first
Ryan, a 38-year-old American, has been living in Phuket with his Thai girlfriend for almost a year when her younger sister asks him a question that leaves him speechless: why did her sister find him first. Behind the question is something he never expected to learn about this family.
I sent customers to her boat every week without asking for anything back. It took her family two years to stop suspecting me.
Mark, a 46-year-old Australian who runs island tours out of Krabi, starts referring customers to Nam's boat company, a 36-year-old widow who inherited the family business. The relationship builds slowly, and it takes his in-laws two years to trust him.
The German embassy asked me for a DNA test to recognise my own son. It took four months, and for that whole stretch my son legally didn't exist for any country except Thailand.
Felix, a 41-year-old German, discovers that legally recognising his son born in Bangkok, since he and the mother, Ploy, weren't married, requires a DNA test demanded by the German embassy before citizenship and a passport can be processed.
I'd been going to Thailand for fifteen years and thought I knew it all. One game of pool in Pattaya proved me wrong.
At 39, an Australian who considered himself a seasoned Thailand traveller met a girl over a game of pool in a Pattaya bar. Ten perfect days, a golf tournament in Indonesia, visits to her family in Isaan. All good until six months of distance for work uncovered that the Scottish boyfriend she said she'd left had never actually gone anywhere.
I met three women in three cities. The one stuck in my head is older than me, not younger.
A 54-year-old Swiss man tried his luck with three online dates in three different Thai cities. The Khon Kaen woman had a steady job, her own home, and paid her own way, but turned out to be a few years older than him. Now he's not sure whether to let that matter.
I promised her I was serious. I didn't tell her I already had a wife and three kids waiting at home in Ireland.
Conor, a 44-year-old from Ireland, spent months video-calling Ning, a 26-year-old from Samut Sakhon, before meeting her in person. The relationship survived a pregnancy scare and a confession he'd been hiding from the start: he was married with three kids. What he discovered about her afterward changed everything.