Newest Stories
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.
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.
The lockdown wiped out the businesses she'd spent twenty years building. She never once stopped calling me every morning and every night.
On a group tour of Thailand in 2019, an Irishman met a divorced woman running several small businesses on Koh Samui. Lockdown forced her to move back to Isaan, but they never stopped talking every single day. Years later, he's planning to propose on his next visit.
Her dad had supposedly been in an accident and the hospital wanted money to release him. Months later I met a woman who never asked me for anything.
After a separation, a 41-year-old Belgian tried south east Asian dating sites and ran into scam after scam, starting with a Filipino woman who always had a new family emergency. He then met a Thai woman who never asked him for anything, and married her on her fifth visit to Europe.
She showed up at my hotel unannounced, and that night I paid the bill for her whole crew. It was the first of many red flags I ignored.
On his first trip to Thailand, a 34-year-old Frenchman met two women: a genuine massage-shop worker and a Patong bar owner who started asking him for money for everything, food, petrol, even the pool table rental. The story of how he told one from the other.
It sounded exactly like the scam I'd been hearing about in Thailand for twenty-five years. Instead of sending the money, I got on a flight.
A 54-year-old Austrian had been travelling alone to Thailand for years when he met Aom, a pregnant woman, with no expectations between them. Months later she asked him for 60,000 baht for her mother's hospital bill. Instead of sending the money, he flew to Kanchanaburi to check it out in person.
I went looking for four quiet days in Bangkok. I came back planning to move near Edinburgh for a 47-year-old woman.
A 43-year-old Welshman went back to Thailand looking for a quiet holiday around Bangkok and Pattaya. He ended up meeting, almost by accident, a 47-year-old Thai woman with kids in Scotland. Now he's planning to drive up to Edinburgh to see her and maybe move there with her.
I paid for her whole day out in Pattaya. Half an hour before midnight, her Canadian boyfriend showed up.
On New Year's Eve 2023, a 44-year-old Dutchman spent the whole day with a bar girl in Pattaya, covering food, pool and beers at a Soi 7 beer bar. Half an hour before midnight, her supposed Canadian boyfriend turned up. Months later he found out the same setup kept repeating with other foreigners.
I spent my last night in Bangkok with a waitress. Years later she was my boss in Phuket, and not the same person.
In 2009, 30 years old and out of work after the crash, a British plasterer from Nottinghamshire landed in Bangkok on his way to Australia. A 24-year-old waitress, a month of island-hopping and years of cheap flights later, he ended up living in Phuket: first at her travel shop, then running a bar on Bangla Road. Never a work permit.
The bill said 6,000 baht, no breakdown. The real one was 2,194, and she was already gone.
Before a trip to Bangkok, I met up with a woman from a dating app. She said it was her birthday and took me to her favorite restaurant. The bill came with no breakdown: 6,000 baht. When I asked for an itemized version, she got up and vanished. The real bill, from the kitchen, was less than half that.
I went to Pattaya to forget a divorce. I ended up proposing to her at Bangkok airport.
A divorce sent me to Pattaya on holiday with my brother. There I met Nat, a single mother who'd lost her partner before her daughter was born. I fell in love, started doing bike deliveries at night to support her, and months later proposed at Bangkok airport. We've been married four years now in London.
I went to Thailand on holiday after an eleven-year breakup in Scotland. Nineteen years later, I live with twelve in-laws under one roof.
Graham, a 51-year-old Scot, first came to Thailand at 32, on holiday after a long breakup. In the bars of Koh Samui he met Dao, the woman he'd later marry. Nineteen years, a Thai wedding, and a house built in Isaan later, he lives surrounded by her family and wouldn't change a thing.