This was the question I probably answered the most when I made my plans to leave my old world and make the move to the land of smiles.
When I was a young flipstar I really enjoyed Muay Thai and my first trip on my own was to a trainings camp on Phuket.
I loved every second of the six weeks I spend here even I was laying sick in bed or running to the toilet for two of those weeks.
Training, beach, eating, meeting people from all over the world and going on small adventures with those people was what I did the four weeks I was not sick.
This is now about 15 years ago and while I got older, fatter, lazier but also wiser this time had a very big impact on me despite I had to make the distinction that this is somewhat not real life but a holiday but I also met people and for those it was real life.
The impact was this big that even the way I want to earn my money was influenced by this time
So when I earned my first $ via online poker it did not take long till I had thoughts like this.
But still a bit too scared to follow my dream I stayed home and went for a holiday a couple of times.
Then after some events I finally packed up my things and left. This is now 2 1/2 years ago.
It was mostly the Sport which brought me here and even I am not training Muay Thai myself anymore for years I somehow like being around it, if this makes any sense. While you meet many many assholes you also meet many many awsome people.
Since my first stay and now Thailand and especially Phuket changed a lot. It is like a soft escape from home. You find a lot here as well what you are used to and at some point the magic of being on this great adventure is falling off. Especially the feeling of total freedom I had 15 years ago is gone which was probably the thing which made everything I did so great.
But the 2 times I have been at home made me appricate what I have here as well.
The laws are changing and maybe it will be time to look for another place to call home for the next years soon but this is another ramble.