The will of an 'older youngster'…

From time to time the famous song by Boudewijn de Groot comes to mind and I sing: “After 62 years in this life, I am drawing up the will of my 'youth'. Not that I have money or property to give away; I was never good for a smart boy”. Why, you wonder? That has to do with what might have become of me if I had stayed in the Netherlands.

What do you do when you are 57 years old, divorced and have a bonus from your employer in your pocket? Most people will then live frugally behind the geraniums, do some volunteer work and then quietly and lonely die after years.

Fortunately, I have an extensive travel history. At the expense of my employer, airlines and tour operators, I have been able to see extremely beautiful parts of the world, from Argentina via Cuba and the US to Iceland and from South Africa via Kenya and the Gulf States to India, China and Japan. And also Thailand not to forget, because that's where I eventually ended up.

But spend the rest of my life moping on a luxury maisonette in the middle of the country? No way. And certainly not because I met a nice lady in Bangkok in 2000 on my way to Australia. She did not, by the way, because she turned out to be older than stated, in possession of a lethargic 12-year-old son and weighed down by enormous debts. Her wish to bring the son to the Netherlands was the actual breaking point. Despite her good care and excellent cooking, I kept looking for 'more'.

In a disco in Bangkok I met a beautiful and young girl, a true 'party tiger'. Now the most beautiful flowers still grow on the edge of the abyss. I knew rationally not to burn my fingers on this, but she kept pulling (at me) and with the prospect of early dismissal and the payment of a shit bonus, a future in Thailand slowly but surely started to take shape. In the Netherlands you assume that you are taken care of from the cradle to the grave, but the quality and quantity of that care have declined rapidly in recent years. And knowing that you may only have twenty years to go doesn't seem like a comforting prospect. You can lie dead behind the front door for weeks before someone comes up with the bright idea to take a closer look. Dying at home in Thailand invokes all kinds of evil spirits. Before the moment is there, you are already in a hospital. The spirits seem to have less control over that.

Of course, it would have been ideal to spend the remaining time alternately in the Netherlands (summer) and Thailand (winter), but that could not be accepted by brown. Moreover, you run the risk of becoming stuck between two cultures. In Thailand, this also causes problems with renting and moving again and again.

Thailand was ultimately chosen over places like Cambodia, Laos or the Philippines not only because of the girlfriend, but also because of the warmth climate (sometimes too hot), the excellent health care, the reasonable to good internet connections, English-language newspapers and the relatively favorable price level.

So to start with I rented a 'town house', what we would call a terraced house in the Netherlands. The living room was tiled from floor to ceiling; the name 'slaughterhouse' was quickly found. Despite monthly visits from the pest controllers, the place remained teeming with large cockroaches. And when I was sitting outside in the driveway eating my muesli, the neighbor would always come outside to clear his throat under his roof, about two meters from my breakfast. In short: you live on top of each other and that has never been my preference.

Because my girlfriend just got her driver's license five years ago, I bought a Toyota Hilux, but after a few hundred meters with her at the wheel, my buttocks were sweating. She turned out to have failed, but after paying 3.000 THB she got the paper anyway. Dangerous, therefore. In my student days I gave driving lessons at driving school Kovacs in Amsterdam for two years to earn some extra money. After that I vowed never to do that work again. Until I had to get back to work with my girlfriend. Still with the steering wheel on the other side and without double controls. After practicing for an hour every day for three weeks (and almost fighting each other the car) I felt it was sensible to let her out on the road alone. There have been no serious collisions and dents in recent years, just some scratches and inexplicable flaws. That is part of a female driving style…

Life in Thailand is a lot more exciting than in the Netherlands, if only because you never know what is hanging over your head here. I don't want to think about growing old in the Netherlands. There you are lonely, troublesome and superfluous; here at least 'Pi'. In a hotels in Pattaya I once saw an old gray man in his eighties come out of his room. With a nurse on his left arm and one on his right arm. There is still hope, I thought.

Especially after the birth of my daughter Lizzy, the clock started ticking again. Hopefully I can wind it up enough every time for years to come. In the Netherlands, that clock had long since ended up in the rubbish bin. Or should it now be classified as small chemical waste?