What To Do In Rural Thailand

[chillybilly]

Hi will be retiring soon and wondered what to do apart from drinking all day I have heard there is a lot of rural alcholics out there

[gotlost]

More in Pattaya.

[billd766]

I live in Central Thailand 65 km southwest of Khampaeng Phet on the edge of the Mae Wong national park and roughly 1/2way between Bangkok and Chiang Mai.

It is a small moo ban, 1 street wide and around 2 km long and rural farming area.

I am up before 6 to feed the chickens and wake my wife and son around 6.15.

Put on my doctors coat and give my mother in law her morning insulin injection.

I go and see my 6 year old son off to school from the local village 6 km away,come back and eat breakfast, read my emails, the 2 English language Thai papers, my local UK paper and the BBC website news.

I finish that and wash up, hang out the laundry if there is any, spend an hour and a half each day cutting down the weeds and scrub around the 10 rai of land, shower and have a coffee then feed the cats up at my wife's shop and noodle place (closed down at the moment due to lack of paying customers).

Come back home and cook lunch then go online with TV and other forums, have another coffee.

Spend an hour in the afternoon catching up on odd jobs and then give my MIL her second injection.

Feed the dogs then shower and change.

In the evening go to my mates place where my wife helps out to eat dinner and get my first Sang Som and soda about 6.30 pm and maybe 2 or 3 more then go home and read for a while and usually in bed and asleep just after 10.

Some days I just loaf around or and some bits to the story of my life and where I came from for my son to read when he is older. Other days I may go out on my motorbike.

I am also trying to learn Thai and find the time to fit it in somewhere in the day.

I would love to be able to sit and drink all day but I did that years ago and found it boring plus I really don't have enough time to fit it in anyway.

Think of life as a challenge and be positive about it.

I have most of my health,some of my own teeth and hair, a still good looking wife, a great son. My MIL lives in a small house on the land and we keep an eye on her. FIL lives in BKK but he will probably come up here sometime and be welcome.

The weather is usually good, there are a lot of Thais in the area I know to some extent or other, I usually wave to the kids and get a wave and a genuine smile in return and to me LG, Life is Great.

If I sat and drank all day like a lot of expats I see when I go into the big city now and again I think I would go crazy talking about the same old things to the same guys all the time.

Not for me thank you.

Country living for me but it is not for everyone.

The food is good, the scenery (where I live in a valley is super

[IanForbes]

What does anyone do anywhere? It helps to have a hobby if you are not involved with working 9 to 5. I have many hobbies, so my life is always full and interesting. I fish, I write, I paint, I take photos, I hike, and I partake in pleasures of the flesh. I've built a home from the ground up and did all the cabinetry, wiring and plumbing. Many people have hidden talents they didn't even know they had. I've seem many men do incredible things after they were retired. I've also seen the opposite and watched men go down hill.

[chillybilly]

Well done lads ,what a couple of eye openers !!!! looks like plenty to do if you make the effort to stay away from the juice ,,,,,,,,,,, all I have read about on another forum is DONT go and live in rural Issan because you will end up like all the rest ,pissheads , well its bloody nice to know some of you are doing something with your lives ,,,,,,,,,, as much as my MIL carries her age very well I dont think I could inject her lol ,,,,, only mucking about mate good on you

[billd766]

Well done lads ,what a couple of eye openers !!!! looks like plenty to do if you make the effort to stay away from the juice ,,,,,,,,,,, all I have read about on another forum is DONT go and live in rural Issan because you will end up like all the rest ,pissheads , well its bloody nice to know some of you are doing something with your lives ,,,,,,,,,, as much as my MIL carries her age very well I dont think I could inject her lol ,,,,, only mucking about mate good on you

Sometimes if my wife gives me a bad time I think of giving her mother an injection as som nam na and I quite often say that I am off to stab my MIL though she is a good old stick really.

Most of the farangs I know around here in Nakhon Nowhere are not pissheads, some work, others do their own thing and more power to them.

I can do wiring and plumbing but carpentry is a skill I never acquired more's the pity. I can do it but the results are not for public viewing and I even failed that at school all those years ago.

As for pleasures of the flesh, we have several ducks, some geese are supposed to be coming soon, a lot of sharp knives and a wife with the ears that can hear for kilometres and eyes like laser beams.

I cook a lot for myself and I keep threatening to buy a cooker and make my own pies etc. I have made sausages and bacon and I have a bread machine but I have lost the books that came with it.

Life can be as good as you want it to be and only you can make it they way you want.

[bob4you]

Well I'm a city kind of guy, spend 80% of my time in Pattaya, don't indulge in sins of the flesh though because my 20 y/o Filipina wife wouldn't put up with it and she keeps me feeling young every day. I am up at 6am asleep by 11pm usually. I am very active in Pattaya City Expat Club, Tourist Police and Optimist club and with those organizations and TV I am on the internet 6 hours a day. One, two max 3 beers a day but sometimes none.

Only time I ever drank heavy in Thailand was when I was one of the many 2 week millionaires sowing his wild oats.

We do have a house in the country also, outside of Udon Thani that we visit monthly but mainly to maintain it.

With all of the volunteer work I do I have less free time than when I was self employed, What also helps is my wife does house work, laundry ironing computer networking on Facebook and playing computer games til about 5am and sleeps til about 2pm so we are compatible and tolerant of each others schedules.

If you were active in things besides your work before you retired you will continue to be active afterwards.

[chillybilly]

Well done Bob ,,,sounds good ,,,,,,,,, are you allowed to volunteer on a retirement visa ?? if so I would love to do some English teaching for the local scool teachers so they could teach the kids correctly in English instead of the thai interpretation of it

[bob4you]

Well done Bob ,,,sounds good ,,,,,,,,, are you allowed to volunteer on a retirement visa ?? if so I would love to do some English teaching for the local scool teachers so they could teach the kids correctly in English instead of the thai interpretation of it

Unfortunately that would be taking work away from a Thai and is forbidden unless at a government approved school granting you a work permit.