< Magazine Index > < Index For This Edition > < Subscribe >

Live Better For Less Money In Thailand ! A Guide To Living, Retiring, Working and Doing Business in Thailand.  This EscapeArtist Special Report is intended for those readers who are seriously considering moving to Thailand for a prolonged period, or perhaps for the rest of their lives. The contents focus less upon the sort of information usually found in the popular tourist guides (hotels, restaurants, entertainment etc) and more upon the practical realities of moving to and successfully living in the Land of Smiles. Thailand is a wonderful place to live, but a move to the country is not without it’s attendant difficulties. This Report aims to help the reader to achieve a smooth transition to a new life in the Kingdom - Get The Details - Click Here -

Bill Heinecke is one of the best known expatriates in Southeast Asia. His father, Roy Heniecke, was a war correspondent, stationed in Bangkok, where Bill went to high school. I first met Bill, or I should say when I first saw him, was when he was still in high school, hanging around the Bangkok World newspaper selling ads for a harebrained project he had. That was in 1966 and I was a reporter for the World at the time. It wasn't long after that that Bill's father kicked him out of the house. Bill had graduated from high school but he didn't want to go to college. His father gave him an ultimatum: go to college or get a job. Bill didn't wanted to do either. "I wasn't rebellious, a drop out, nor was I on drugs," he said about the incident. "I had a car and a motorcycle and was doing something exciting. I felt there was adventurer here in Asia; I could pursue my driving here. I knew I couldn't do that in college." Bill did have all the things most teenage boys desire-a go-cart, a motorbike, his own car. And he felt proud that he had earned the money to buy these things himself. As I mentioned, he got his start selling newspaper ads, and he started his own advertising agency working out of the living room of his parents' house. Later, when go-cart racing became popular in Thailand, he convinced the editor of the Bangkok World to let him write a weekly go-cart column. His payment was half of the ads he could sell. After a couple months, he was making more most reporters. To further add to his income, he began cleaning offices at night.  He noted that businessmen around town complained about erratic office cleaning crews. So he started a professional janitorial service. He hired a couple workers, printed a few dozen cards and set up a company. "I used to sell ads, work at my advertising company after I got home, and in the evening I would go around and help my workers clean offices," he recalls.  "Friends would often see me washing cleaning a window or something. I was a regular laugh-in." Bill knew he was on the right track, and success was within easy reach, but he needed to raise more money to invest,  He couldn't go to his father. But he could race. If he could win a couple of races he could pump his winning into his business ventures.  The quickest and most simple way would be to get sponsors to back him on a Singapore to Bangkok drive.  He boasted that he could do the drive in less than thirty hours, and he let the sponsors he approached take up the challenge.  Furthermore, he told them, if he didn't win, they didn't have to pay.  It worked.

This article is was excerpted from the book At Home In Asia: Expatriates in Southeast Asia and Their Stories. The author Harold Stephens has lived a life that rivals Hemingway's. He has been a stand-in for Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty He did meet Ernest Hemingway. He's climbed the Matterhorn, as well most of the major peaks in North America and he even briefly joined forces with one of Sir Edmund Hillary's climbing teams. He was imprisoned by the Chinese Communists and escaped by swimming to a passing junk. He's driven a motorcycle across Australia, a jeep across Russia and hitchhiked and then driven a land cruiser around the world. He's sailed the major seas of the world.  It is easy to state that Harold Stevens is an expats expat, an adventurer as well as a prolific writer. He's written over ten books and thousands of articles. To learn more about Harold Stephens view  an article about him in this issue - To purchase At Home in Asia : Expatriates in Southeast Asia and Their Stories on line - Click Here - Or check out any of the great titles he's written by clicking on the "Go!" buton below: Find Books By: .. Escape Artists! For Expat Adventure Read Great Adventure Books by Harold! .

No one thought he could do it, but he was so sure of himself he was able to convince the Ford Company to give him not only a car but a bundle of money to boot.

Today, it's an easy drive, with paved roads all the way, even superhighways part way.  But back in 1967, the odds were stacked against anyone going the full distance without a mishap.  The route covered a grueling 897 miles, much of it over potted unpaved roads, across unbridged
rivers and through rough jungle terrain.

To get added publicity, Bill convinced the famous race car driver from Hong Kong, Albert Poon, to be his co-driver. Albert was an old friend who had given him some pointers on how to race go-carts.  To entice Albert to join him, Bill offered him half the purse, and when Albert accepted, Bill emptied his bank account and paid him in advance.

Now all Bill had to do was set a record. If he lost he would be in serious financial trouble. He might even have to go to college.  But he didn't think about that. He and his co-driver set out from Singapore on the morning of Friday 13,1967.

After crossing the Causeway from Singapore to Malaysia they followed the main trunk road to Kuala Lumpur, then turned north to Butterworth and thundered on to Alor Star and reached the Thai border in good spirits. But all was not well.

Albert didn't have a visa for Thailand. No amount of pleading could make Thai Immigration officers change their minds. Bill could see my purse suddenly vanishing, but he wasn't about to give up. He continued on alone

After losing almost two valuable hours at the border, there would be no rest stops and no slowing down even for potholes and river crossings. Bill had to put faith in his horn, hoping the blast would drive sleeping cattle off the highway. Logging lorries  moved when they saw his dust.  Kids in villages stood by the roadside and waved as he shot past. His body dust-covered, his Cortina splattered with mud, he kept his foot pressed hard on the accelerator. Nightfall came and throughout the black of night he continued. By late afternoon the next day he saw the outskirts of Bangkok. Twenty-eight hours and 40 minutes after leaving Singapore he arrived, to a hero's welcome.

Bill expand his advertising agency. He had newspaper experience, and now he turned to radio. He bought radio time and became the pioneer of radio advertising in Thailand. Then came a chain of art galleries which sold original paintings by Thai artists.  Help came from his high-school sweetheart, an American named Kathy. He began investing in restaurants, and food outlets.  By the time he was 21, when his classmates were graduating from college, Bill Heinecke had 400 people working for him.  He was grossing US$2.5 million a year, and made the pages of Life. The mere high school graduate with a slick, duck-tail haircut and a beard to make himself look older was rolling in money.

But racing was in his blood and he couldn't quit. After setting the Singapore-Bangkok record, his next race was from Vientiane in Laos to Bangkok. He drove a Honda S600 and made it to Bangkok in six hours. The next race, the "First Asian Highway Rally," was from Laos all the way to Singapore. North of Singapore, his Thai co-driver hit a bad second doing 150 kph, skidded, hit a stone kilometer marker and we went rolling over the side of the steep hill. He barely escaped with his life. Badly bruised, his jumpsuit torn, he walked into the Goodwood Park Hotel in Singapore where the other drivers were gathered. They all thought he had been killed.  "It was like attending my own funeral," he said.

A year after graduating from high school, Bill and Kathy married. On their honeymoon in Hong Kong, Bill bought Kathy a gold watch and pearl earrings, and for a present for himself, an E-typed Jaguar, a racing machine. He had graduated to the big time.  He shipped the car to Macau and qualified for the Macau Grand Prix. His was the first non-formula car to finish. Soon after came the Malaysian Grand Prix.  On a hairpin turn the breaks went out. "I went through the gears from fourth, to third, to second and finally to first, and somehow I got around that corner," he said.

Failing breaks did not stop Bill from racing.  He sold his Jag and bought a BMW Elva.  "A great racing machine," he said.  "Faster than my Jag, and I could compete in all the Grand Prix races now." His worst experience was yet to come.

"It was in Macau," he said. "The Elva had two big gas tanks, one on each side. I had new safety belts fitted and I snapped myself in. I did a couple laps, was picking up speed, going around a turn when the steering rod broke, just as I reached the corner. I went into the wall."  He was knocked out and when he came to he could hear the fuel pump which hadn't turned off. He could smell fumes, and he was now covered with high octane fuel. At any moment he expected he might become a big ball of flames. He grabbed the side of the car and heaved with all his strength to get out, but couldn't get free. He had forgotten the new safety belt. Bill smiles when he tells the story.  "I damaged two ribs, which I like to say I did in the accident, but I didn't."

Bill enjoys doing the Far East circuit to this day.  "I love it," he said, "but I also realize my limitations.  My abilities were not to be a world-class racer.  I enjoyed it for what it was."

In the meantime, business for Bill Heinecke was booming.  By 1974, his company had become a major advertising and marketing outfit.  Operating not only in Thailand but in other Southeast Asian cities.  Looking for an international partner, he teamed up with one of the world's largest ad agencies, and he became managing director of Ogilvy and Mather Thailand Ltd.

Clients flocked in, billing soared but after four years he stepped down as director and sold out. He started another company, without a boss over his head.

Today, William E. Heinecke has more than thirty companies variously tied to his empire and they gross more than $80 million a year. One would imagine with fame and fortune, he would have changed his ways and settled for a more sedate life. On the contrary, he now has more money to pursue the adventure trail.  He does it by mixing business with pleasure.  He took up flying.

Bill began his flying lessons at the Thai Flying Club at Bang Phra near Bangkok, and then went to the US and did a crash course in two weeks.  He got his license and returned to Bangkok.  Now he needed a plane. He started off with a two-seater Grumman Lynx, then  a Mooney M20, until he got my present aircraft, a Beech Craft, which he bought in the US and flew to Bangkok. His story about this experiences is reminiscent of the great London to Sydney Air races of the 1920s and 1930s. "You might have all the sophisticated navigation gear money can buy," he said, "but you still must fly your aircraft by the seat of your pants, over the same terrain those early aviators had to fly-across Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia."

His most difficult sector was flying across the Indian subcontinent. "I had to fly into Dum-Dum Airport in Calcutta under instruments," he explained.  "The weather was bad and we were surrounded by hills. The sky was alight with continuos flashes of lightning.  We were jilted around so violently we could hardly read the instruments. I couldn't stop thinking about Charles Kingsford Smith, and that didn't help matters.  It was here somewhere above Calcutta, after flying the first solo flight from England to Australia that he disappeared."

Since then, Bill has flown to every landing strip in Thailand, and he was the first private pilot to fly into Burma since World War II.  "Flying in southeast Asia has opened up for the first time," he said.  "Once a person is licensed he can file a flight plan and fly abroad to any place he wishes."  For his next plane, Bill is looking forward to a pressurized turbo jet.

Bill's other love is scuba diving. He makes two adventure dive trips every year, to places like the Grand Caimans, the Maldives, the Red Sea, Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, Truck in the American Trust Territories and the Australian Great Barrier Reef.  He charters a private yacht in the Red Sea and dives in a cage along Australia's Great Barrier Reef looking for the great white shark.  He dove on World War II wrecks at Truk and located Japanese zeros in the shallow waters around Rabaul in Papau New Guinea.

Bill will acknowledge he enjoys his life. He is making money from his many business; he is happily married with two fine sons; he goes on to diving expeditions every year; he flies his own plane; he lives in a great Thai house filled with priceless antiques; and he still races.  He mixes business with pleasure and takes along Kathy (she's out of the art gallery business now) and his two sons as often as he can. Bearded but still boyish looking, he pads around in jeans and T-shirt. He has no regrets, not even having not gone to college.

Article by Harold Stephens - To learn more about Harold Stephens view an article about him in this issue -
To purchase At Home in Asia : Expatriates in Southeast Asia and Their Stories on line - Click Here -
.