......My Journey to owning a bar in Thailand..........continued.....
Lets return to early 2004..........
I'm 50 years old and unemployed!
But i have some cash.
I've worked my bollocks off for over 30 years and i need some time off.
I book my first trip to Thailand for February.
With no forum to refer to, i made loads of mistakes on that first trip.
For a start i booked a lovely resort in Naklua, north of Pattaya for 11 nights. The Evason - a gorgeous hotel with its own patch of sand, a huge swimming pool and wonderful service and food. The next 9 nights in Hua Hin, and a final 2 nights in Bangkok.
I still have a framed picture stored in England of the sunset of my first night.
But its a long walk to the action, or a short taxi ride.
I walked to the bar complexes on Naklua Road and met my first thai lady boy, Dhow.
Mistake number 1 was keeping her the whole 3 weeks.
She was a great companion though, and showed me round Pattaya, which was when i started to think i'd made a mistake agreeing to hang on to one! And it was really quite nice to have some company at the flash resort just outside HuaHin where we spent 9 nights. My last 2 nights in Bangkok were a separate adventure which i'll save for another time.
To cut the story short, i had a great holiday but knew i'd be back for solo mongering.
I went back in May the same year, and had a blast. I'll never forget arriving in soi 8 in the airport taxi (staying at the Sunshine Hotel) just as the sun was setting. The bars were just putting on their lights, and the girls were starting all their animated chatter. There was an air of anticipation of the night ahead. My jaw just dropped, and i unpacked in 30 seconds, and dashed out for the start of a proper mongering holiday.
Again the memories fade, so i cant really do a mini TR, and anyway that;s not the point of this post.
I returned to England, and told my family that;s it, i'm moving to Thailand!
However, there were a few loose ends to tie up, and eventually i was persuaded to stay and "Give England another chance".
I got a monthly contract at the Shredded Wheat factory in Welwyn Garden City, in the R & D department.
The business is/was a joint venture between Nestle and Cereal Growers(not sure if i've got their name right) of the USA. An excellent company to work for, and i met some lovely people there.
But, although technically self-employed, i was at the behest of the Head of Department. Although he was a great bloke, and i respected him enormously, he was still the boss, and i hadn't had a boss for well over 20 years. It all felt a bit alien.
And i was clocking in and out every day like the rest of them. Watching the clock for the next tea break, and all those things you do when in a boring job. You'd be amazed at how difficult it is to get nuts to stick to cornflakes! We spent thousands of man hours experimenting with different nuts, and syrups! We even had a request from their russian distributor to make a red Rice Crispey! Fascinating stuff.
The commute was, in theory a 15 minute drive from my home, down the A1. However, in rush hour it could easily take 45 minutes!
In 2005 i took 2 more holidays to Thailand, discovering Phuket and C & Ds, or Katoys-R-Us, as it was known in those days.
Fast forward to December 2005.
One night, after clocking out at 4.30. i arrived on the A1 motorway, where after a few hundred yards, we came to a standstill. Nothing unusual in that, in Rush Hour.
We sat in our cars until 3.30 am !! There had been a fatal accident some way ahead and it took hours and hours to rescue the victims, and clear the motorway.
I had to be back at the factory at 7.30 !
Not happy.
Not happy at all.
I told them at Shredded Wheat i would not be renewing my contract at the end of the month.
So, as we enter 2006, i am, once again, unemployed.
But this time i know i'm moving to Thailand!
I put the house up for sale, and start disposing of my "stuff".
The property market is at its peak, and i agree a sale quite quickly, at a decent price.
Disposing of furniture is not so easy, and despite my best efforts, i still had to literally throw away several items that broke my heart.
I made an exploratory run to Pattaya in May, thinking i might find something to occupy me, but i frittered the time away shagging ladyboys, and returned to England with no firm plan.
I booked again for October 4th. With a sketchy plan to teach English.
Then there was a coup in Thailand, a few days before my departure date!
I was not deterred and arrived in Pattaya with my worldly possessions packed into a single large suitcase.
I learnt that teaching was badly paid, and anyway there was a new regulation demanding that foreign teachers have a university degree. I didn't.
This was all the excuse i needed to drop Plan A, and adopt Plan B - to buy a bar.
I looked at a bar in Naklua. But the female Thai owner was so dodgy, i realised very quickly that i was being set up for a scam, and ducked out.
Next, i looked much more carefully at a bar in soi 8, english owner. But after running my accountants ruler over the (very) limited information i was given, and sitting for a few nights customer counting, i realised the guy was just looking for some cash to get home. It really wasn't viable. And i was sure he was withholding some important information about the lease, the share ownership, and how much he was paying in "protection". I smelled "scam" again.
I backed off.
Looking around Pattaya at that time, there wasn't much choice unless you wanted a bar at the back of some of the complexes.
I decided to go take a look in Patong, and took the short flight across the Gulf.
After a couple of days in a hotel, i found a decent apartment in Nanai Road, and wandered down to Soi Bangla for some "entertainment".
I knew NingNong and Nick (the aussie partner) from my previous visits and was greeted with the usual warmth.
On my second night in there i had a much deeper conversation with Nick, who having been in a LTR with NingNong, had found a GG that he fell in love with, and wanted to break away.
He told me he wanted to sell his share of the bar, and start something else (not a bar) with his new lady.
NingNong was fully aware of the situation, and was being very supportive.She was wary about who he sold to though, as it would mean working with somebody new.
After a few weeks though, of getting to know them both, she was enthusiastic about selling to me.
During this time, i took the opportunity to run my accountants ruler over it, and although, as usual, there were some gaps in the information, i could see that it was a viable proposition, and we agreed terms.
On Jan 1st 2007 i took on my 49% share ownership with the provisos that:
1) All dividends were split 50/50 with NingNong
2) All monetary transactions, cash or otherwise, would only be dealt with by me.
This has worked very well right up to the present day.
The first 2 years (as usual, sigh) were very difficult. We had signage issues Katoys-R-Us vs Cocktails & Dreams - how can a bar have 2 names?? We had to move the bar sideways after a few months which involved some expense, and (my mistake) we were behind a closed door, in order to have air conditioning. Closed doors rarely work! Air conditioning is expensive to run.
What's more Thailand is always trying to shoot itself in the foot with Coups, protests and so on.
And although the climate is wonderful, it also gets a share of natural disasters e.g. tsunami, floods, etc
Happily, in 2009 we were able to move into the current premises, and despite a dreadful 18 months after Soi Tiger burnt down, are starting to flourish again.
And thats it folks.
I had a great deal of luck in finding the right partner, who has never cheated me, and a good bar in a reasonable location.
If i hadn't stumbled into C & Ds at the right moment, i;m not sure where i would have ended up.
If you're thinking of trying to move and set up in Thailand, my advice is to be very very careful.
If you have sufficient income to live on, don't try to be entrepreneurial in Thailand. Its just too difficult. Just enjoy a leisurely retirement.
Thankfully, i have had incredible customer support. We have a large, regular, and generous, customer base who have seen us through the bad times. If you're one of them......thank you!
If you're not.....you should be, lol !
