Everything is possible here, but a great deal of patience and perseverance is needed to get what you want the way you want it. We hardly dare leave the site, even for a morning, because we fear something will go wrong if we do.

A plus to living here is the lack of planning restrictions. We bought a hill, built a house, and planted an orchard on it. We didn’t have to get planning permission and could have built a castle had we wanted. Of course, there’s nothing to stop someone building a piggery or outdoor karaoke bar next-door either.

We have planted more than 700 lychee and mango trees, among others, as the start of a farm. We have high hopes that in another two years or so we will have enough fruit to start selling commercially, and who knows, we may even make a profit one of these years. 

We would think twice about buying so much land again though. Not because we know as much about farming as we do about building space rockets—looking out over the rows of healthy trees gives me great pleasure—but because of the difficulty getting reliable labor and the sheer amount of work that has been involved.

We would hire laborers, and for a few days all would be well. Then they wouldn’t turn up because it rained too hard during the night, or because someone had a birthday, or because the second cousin of their mother’s best friend had died and they had to go to the funeral for three days. There is a casual approach to work here and it takes getting used to. Meanwhile, the trees need care and the grass is overrunning everything. 

We spend most of our time pottering on the farm, which is what we wanted. We didn’t come here to sit on the balcony and slap at flies all day, but we also didn’t want to be tied down to a 9 to 5. The low cost of living means we can live well on the rent we get from our house in England. The farm provides us with plenty to do and the prospect of a good income in the years ahead, as well as a place to spend our retirement. And we can take off whenever we want, when we’re not building. When we need a change, we take off to Bangkok or Singapore or one of Thailand’s unspoiled islands or beaches.

We have full-time help living on the farm for just $120 a month. Aaw helps in the house and with our animals, while her husband, Oowun, does most of the farm work. If we go away, we leave them in charge.

Patience Is A Virtue

Since we’ve been here we’ve had no really bad experiences, though there have been plenty of petty annoyances. Thailand is a developing country, so we can’t expect the same standards that we would in the West. I sometimes forget this and get myself needlessly worked up. Still, most of our experiences have been positive, and we feel comfortable here.

A Three-Day Funeral…etc.

It would have been simpler to buy an existing property with utilities already in, rather than starting from scratch. Although we had visited the area many times at different seasons, we should have followed International Living’s advice and rented for a year before we bought. This would have given us a better idea of the pros and cons of different areas. We were shocked by the noise from river traffic at some seasons, for example, even though it is a mile away. Noisy all-night fairs are held nearby, and we have found that April, as well as being very, very hot, is also unbearably smoggy because of the fires lit by farmers clearing their fields. Entire hillsides can be in flames, and the air thick with smoke and cinders. 

I’ve never felt any resentment about my being “One of those damn foreigners, coming in and buying up our land.” Nearly everyone living here is from somewhere else. My neighbors include an American, an Italian, and a Frenchman. Another is from Pakistan. Down the road is a hostel funded by a Japanese charity. Nearby, an extended Yunnanese family live next to immigrants from Laos and the south of Thailand. Hill tribesmen from Burma make up the bulk of the local village. With this sort of ethnic mixture, why should I feel an outsider? It’s not as if everyone can even speak Thai well, which makes me feel a lot better about my feeble attempts at the language.

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