6 Months In Thailand
It’s been about 6 months since I moved to Thailand in November now. During the first few months living in Thailand I struggled to adapt to life. The culture shock hit me and I felt incredibly homesick, in fact, I could only look forward to the day I went back home, rather than appreciate my new life in Thailand.
I felt lonely and outcast living in Thailand society, taking every little reaction from a Thai person personally. Despite seeing no point in staying in Thailand any longer, I perservered, determined to see my stay through and past the 6 month mark.
Expat friends living in Thailand who originally moved only temporarily have ended up staying permanently. People always say to me, once you get past your first 6 months in Thailand, you’ll never want to go back home…. And they were all right! I pushed through the first 6 months in Thailand and now it has become my home. I’m happy here. But now I find myself in a quandry; not wanting to go back to England but not wanting to abandon my friends and family there either.
In one sense, through taking the big step of moving to Thailand, I have succeeded and found my place to belong in the world. Yet in another sense, I have given my life more confusion and anguish by being torn between two homes. The way of life in Thailand, the people and the laid back simplicity have trapped me here now. I have other lifelong dreams like travelling America and seeing the rest of the world, but I’m simply left feeling drawn back to living in Thailand now!
When I picture myself returning to England, I see myself feeling homesick for Thailand. I struggle with the thought of leaving my new friends in Thailand… It seem like I’ve gone and put myself in a lose-lose situation now!
Once you get past the 6 month mark living in Thailand, Thailand has you…
🙂 I’m here living in Thailand. Will you come back again for travelling?
I’m Thai…
Welcome to Thailand 🙂
Thank you Phatnasorn! I am still living in Bangkok at the moment actually, still don’t want to move back home 😉
LOL, I know how you felt. I was the same when I first moved here, although for me it only lasted about 3 months. But I only came for a year — 10 years later? Still here 🙂
Yeah, I think Thailand takes a while to grow on a lot of people! But 10 years is impressive.
Tastythailand.com – Really great website by the way 😉
Great blog. I actually found myself after the 3 month mark wanting to head home back to australia everyday. Facebook being the biggest downfall seeing friends on there back home, seeing what was happening and me thinking I was missing out…..I actually made the mistake of returning back to australia and didnt make the 6 month mark only to be back here and nothing had changed and still going around in the same circle as before…..so now I find myself wondering why I didnt let go of australia for at least 6 months!!
We are actually making a return and this time I am deleting my facebook account! haha
Hi Glenn. Yeh, homesickness is hard to get through… After over a year of living here I’m actually heading home myself next month. Although I’m super excited, I just know I’m gonna feel really homesick for Thailand – I bet seeing all my Bangkok friends on Facebook will probably just make me feel even more jealous too! Glad to hear you decided to move back to Thailand though – my advice would be to push through the homesickness and meet lots of new friends in expat pubs and social networks. That helped me through it anyway!