From East to West - Part - 10

In Part 10, Noi's difficult relationship finally comes to an end and she surfs the World Wide Web looking for love 😊

Hi everyone, it’s only me again after yet another busy week here in the Thai Massage Room & Spa in Dalbeattie, Scotland. I really love my work here and the many wonderful people that I meet every day.

You may recall that when I left you in Part 9, I was in a relationship with an Englishman called Ian. Unfortunately, Ian was a very heavy smoker and drank a lot of beer and this tended to cause a problem between us as eventually I felt that I was being used only to act as his Thai assistant and translator. His promise of teaching me how to build computers also never really materialised to any degree.

Over time, Ian starting to talk a lot about how much he was missing his 4 children from his previous marriage. I was knew that he had been married to a Thai lady and that she and the children lived somewhere in Bangkok although I didn’t know where.

As he was obviously feeling depressed about losing contact with his children, I decided that I would look for them to see how they were. Eventually, after a lot of searching I found out where they were living and went to see them for myself to find out how they were.

After I found them when I arrived back to our apartment that day, I told Ian that I been looking for them and that I had found them and that they all looked well. I gave him their address and suggested and encouraged him to go and see them to find out for himself and he eventually agreed. Unfortunately after that, I then began to notice that our financial position was getting worse and we had to move into an even smaller apartment. In time I found out that Ian was giving a lot of our money to his ex-wife and the children as she had demanded that he start to pay back the support to her that he should have given them for years. When he started to pay them it had left us with very little to live on for ourselves and this put even more pressure on our relationship.

Sadly, despite meeting up with his family again, his heavy drinking and smoking continued and he ended up spending most of the little money that we had left after he paid his ex-wife.

One day when Ian had been drinking heavily, he was involved in a motorcycle crash and badly injured his leg, ending up being detained in hospital for a long time. The leg was so badly injured that it had to be amputated below the knee. After this terrible accident he was never really the same person again and used to become angry and agitated without any real reason.

A friend of his arranged for him to stay in a high quality and very expensive hospital where he could receive the treatment that he needed. The friend that helped Ian owned and operated a furniture manufacturing business that made and supplied good quality Oriental furniture to Hotel chains.

I later found out that the friend had provided the funding for the hospital treatment as he expected that Ian’s Health Insurance would eventually cover the bill. Of course then it came to light that Ian did not in fact have medical insurance as he could afford to pay the premiums and that then meant that we were then in considerable debt. I agreed to go to work in the factory so that over time we could repay what he owed his friend.

However, despite Ian's injuries and the reasons that caused them, he continued to drink and smoke heavily. This along with the added pressures of his continual mood swings, made it obvious to me that we probably had no future together as a couple although we still continued to try to work it out and be together for some time after that. After the accident, his personality changed and he also became very controlling over me and tried not to let me go out or mix with anyone else as he insisted that I had a responsibility for him.

As Ian never appeared to have much money, I contacted a Thai charity and even arranged to have a prosthetic leg for him. This made it easier for him to get around although it didn’t stop his heavy drinking or his depressive moods.

During this extremely difficult period, I had regularly kept in touch with my older brother and I had also told him about the problems that we were having due to our lack of money. At that point, my brother decided to come Bangkok and said that he was there to take us back to my home area where my family could support us and that they would help us to live there.

We agreed and when we arrived at my family’s home, they welcomed him and offered to help us in any way that they could. We eventually managed to find a small apartment situated in a town about 15 kilometres away from the village where my mother lived. My brother kindly gave Ian his car as it was an automatic and told him that it would give him to freedom to get around.

When we settled in the apartment, for a time we tried to develop a Dating Website but it was difficult and expensive due to the lack of a proper telephone and Internet connection. Around that time my brother decided to sell around 5 acres of land that he had, as he wanted to buy a larger farm fairly nearby. When the land became available I spoke to my brother about me buying the land from him and we agreed a price of around 100,000 Baht. I know that this may sound a lot of money but it was only around £2,500 at today's exchange rate.

Buying this land from my brother turned out to be one of the best decisions that I ever made as I allowed me to provide space for my older sister to build a house and stay there so she could look after the farm and crops. Not only that but it provided me with the opportunity to build a dream holiday home much later on in my life, after I had made a successful business for myself in Scotland, but we wont go into that any further right now

As I suspected, my relationship with Ian continued to have its problems as he missed the city life and found it difficult to settle down in a relatively small rural town. Eventually and amicably we decided to call it a day and separate and for a time he moved back to live in England while I moved back in to live with my mother. Despite being separated, we still kept in touch occasionally.

After I moved back to live with my mother, my younger sister who had been staying with Rung and me in the army accommodation had by now qualified and had become a teacher. She was by then married and had two children of her own. When a couple are married and have a family in Thailand, it is fairly normal for the children to be brought up by the grandparents, as city life can be difficult and very expensive for a young family.

While my sister and brother-in-law were working and living in Bangkok, their two children came to live with my mother in our home village and I found myself being responsible for looking after and caring for them while they were with us.

At the same time, I decided to enrol on a 2-year Computer Science Course at a local College. The course was run every weekend and it expanded my knowledge and use of computers. I did learn a lot there but sadly I didn’t complete the course as to me it was really meant to only be a hobby.

The children stayed with us for a few years and I really took on their parental responsibility for them while also helping mother in and around the house and farm.

However, after the children had left us to go to school, eventually it became time for me to fly from the nest again and I decided to go back to Bangkok to make my new future and fortune

Now being alone, unattached and having been introduced to the World Wide Web and with considerable experience running a dating website, I decided to try my hand on it myself. I uploaded my profile together with a list of my preferences and was so excited when I started to receive contacts from both in Thailand but more interestingly from other countries throughout the world, such as Australia and New Zealand.

Well folks, on that exciting note I’m sorry to say that this is where I will need to leave it for today as my next customer is due to arrive soon. I will be back again next week with Part 11 of my Journey from East to West.