I quite surprised myself, having lived most of my adult life near the coast. I went on (at length) on another thread about how I came about to move here - I'm "Isaan Adjacent"- and your description of village life is spot on. For a lone foreigner it is difficult. There is no doubt. My nearest English speaking friend is a five-hour drive away and I do that twice a year (or birthdays, any excuse for cirrhosis-inducing fun) while others are six or even eight hours away - Chiang Mai and Nakhon Sakon. No one speaks English here and my life experience and career is so alien to the villagers here that they have no point of reference to remotely understand. The closest I can get is "I used to teach teachers" and "I worked with soldiers and police" . However, I had lived in a developing country with undrinkable tap water, cold showers, and no television when younger and took more anti-malarials than I had cereal for breakfast. I had also been stationed in remote areas for work (admittedly not for months on end), and have had relatives and family friends with farms of various types which I worked during holidays. So the farmers here were a bit surprised that I could fix a chainsaw, drive a tractor, and make an extension cord. But, now? Over ten years later? Yeah, it gets a bit boring but I don't owe anybody or any institution anything and apart from a car I bought new in 2017 and various electrical appliances, I haven't spent money on anything. I rent. I could, if I chose, just leave with nothing but a carry-on bag. But for all the downsides of being a recluse - something my friends for over forty years find odd me doing - has given me a life where I don't have to be any particular thing to anyone any more. The are no expectations of me. I've never been asked for money (apart from donations to the local temple and at weddings and funerals of course) and I have been - as much as possible considering the cultural, language, and lifestyle differences - "accepted". I have never been overcharged or dual-priced here and I pay the same as locals for medications at the pharmacy and for treatment at the clinic and hospital (I was at the outpatients in April-May when I needed tetanus and rabies treatment) and the cops have called on me twice to help some poor tourist (one was Italian and a couple of years later an Austrian) who has come to grief on the highway and no can understand each other. The place is quiet - apart from an occasional F-16 tooling about going between Nakhon Sawan and Korat airbases - with birds calling and Asian water monitors walking around wanting to make a meal of the family's chickens. Of course, being on an actual working farm I get the tractors preparing the fields, the men with two-stroke backpacks sowing seed, and then months later, harvesters. Just as typed that last sentence some older brother has decided to start up a brushcutter to cut grass for his cattle. My PTSD is (generally) under control and my blood pressure is down directly as a result of living far from people. I spend all my day outside in a a covered area I had constructed for me (okay, that's another expense, about 80k baht) which I have power and internet cabling to, ceiling fans, fridge and chairs, under a massive tamarind tree. I read, tool on the internet, watching movies, and television shows. And occasionally type text walls on ASEAN Now threads. If I get bored, I can book a hotel or a flight, and be in my car, packed, in less than fifteen minutes. Bit longr in the last few years with our neighbours implementing e-visas. Apart from rent, and my share of the power, no one relies on me. I live on very little money as well, as I buy everything pretty much from the local market or picked from the backyard. I don't pay for rice or anything the land produces. That's not being a Cheap Charlie, it's just how things are. When I go to Pattaya, Phuket or CM, obviously I only eat at restaurants. But not Thai ones. Why would I do that when 28 out 30 days I eat locally made or home cooked Thai or Lao meals? I go to Toscana on beach road, or a Mexican place in CM, or that Italian place in the Amari resort in Phuket One point that you make is very important. Regarding pre-internet or pre smart phones. I agree that there is no way I could live here without access to the internet. No television, no movies, no VOIP or Messenger/WhatsApp/Line/Signal. And I would have never been able to start learning the language when I decided to move here or continued to do so now. While I have been here for a little over ten years, my language skills are not up to many others of that "age". The reason - not the excuse - is that I am single. I only speak at the market (which is invariably about what I'm buying, how much the total is, and thank you) and when Beer o Clock comes around when my landlady knocks off work and we talk for about thirty minutes and anyone knows the "just knocked off work" discussion is pretty much the same the world over, regardless the language. Sure, maybe once a fortnight I'll go "down the road" to another of the family's houses on this massive property and have some bbq and lau khao with The Boys and conversation is understood by both sides (mostly) and it's fun. The rest is spent in English coming out of a speaker. I didn't think I could do it, but I have maanged so far. As for the "twilight years". Yeah...I'll see. Unless I get killed on the road (likely) or tree falling on me (also likely) I should be okay - until my hips completely fall apart - for another twenty years. Will I still be here? Don't know. But at this stage, I'm eleven hours' flying from Austria and nine to Eastern Australia. And I haven't been to all the ASEAN countries yet.
