Ryan wanted to build a life in Pattaya. He ended up sleeping rough and died of a heart attack back in England.

I want to tell the story of a guy I met in Pattaya back in 2014. His name was Ryan, around 48 years old, and he was from the north of England, an area near Newcastle.

I'm sharing this because it's a reminder that Thailand will chew you up and spit you out without a second thought if your finances aren't in order before you make the leap, no matter how well things go at first and no matter how convinced you are it won't happen to you.

Ryan had been visiting Thailand for years, a couple of weeks at a time, always going back to England with the feeling that his real life was somewhere else, before finally deciding to make the move permanent. Like a lot of men in that same position, he met a girl in Pattaya, her name was Nam, fell for her with the intensity of someone who's been alone a long time, and opened a bar together with savings built up over a lifetime working in factories and warehouses back in England.

In his head the bar would generate enough income for them both to live comfortably for the rest of their days. It never quite worked out that way, not even close.

Whatever money came in went straight back into the business, repairs, wages, licences that needed renewing every year, or crossed the street to Nam's family in the form of monthly help that never seemed to end or taper off over time, always some new emergency, a roof that needed fixing, a motorbike that had broken down. After a few years his savings had completely vanished and the bar was in her name, as is typical under Thai law when a foreigner sets up that kind of business, so when the relationship fell apart he walked away with absolutely nothing, not even a share of the business he'd built with his own hands.

When I first met him he was likeable, funny, always laughing and playing the joker of the group among the other expats we used to gather with in the evenings at the same couple of bars. He told stories that had the whole bar crying with laughter, the kind people tell over and over because they always land, and he always got the first round in even though it was never quite clear afterwards where the money for it had come from.

But one day he confessed to me, a few beers in by then, that he was down to almost nothing and that his only hope was an inheritance due to come through from England any day. Despite that he kept drinking in the bars almost every day of the week, something that made absolutely no sense to me at the time coming from a man who said he didn't have a penny to his name.

I went back to the UK for work for a few months and returned to Pattaya about five months later. The inheritance hadn't come through, and looked less and less likely because of family disputes he preferred not to go into detail about.

Ryan now had a new girlfriend, a girl called Bee who drank and smoked considerably more than I'd ever seen from Nam, and he was borrowing money from both expats and Thais just to get by week to week, small amounts here and there that added up without him seeming to keep track. Despite all this he was talking about opening another bar, eyes lit up as if none of the previous mess had actually happened, convinced this time would be different because the rent on the new place was cheap and Bee, according to him, had plenty of experience working in bars around the area.

The opening night looked promising, honestly, balloons everywhere, free food for the first arrivals, a DJ booked for the occasion, a decent crowd coming and going late into the night. That night I actually thought maybe this one would work out. After that it all went quiet bit by bit, week after week, until the place sat practically empty on weeknights. I'd drop in every so often to support him with my presence and the odd drink, and the girls working there would stand around bored by the bar while Ryan, already drunk by mid-afternoon, shouted orders at them that nobody followed.

I went home again and came back about six months later, hoping to find him doing better, maybe with the second bar still limping along somehow. The bar had been closed for a while, the sign still up but the lights off and a rusted padlock on the door. Ryan was drifting from bar to bar hoping someone would buy him a beer, sitting at the counter ordering nothing until some acquaintance took pity on him. His clothes were dirty, the same shirt several days running, he smelled bad, and he owed money to pretty much everyone he knew in the city, both expats and Thais, small amounts spread across so many people nobody kept an exact count anymore.

He'd been overstaying his visa for months because he couldn't afford to renew it, and every day that passed the accumulated fine grew a bit bigger, something that by that point seemed to have stopped worrying him entirely. Bee was still around, occasionally doing what she had to do for cash, while Ryan's friends, myself included, looked the other way knowing full well what was happening right in front of us.

I bought him a few beers that afternoon and told him straight, no beating around the bush, looking him in the eye: go home to England, claim unemployment benefit even if it hurt his pride, get back on his feet slowly over a few months, and only come back once he had an actual plan on paper, not just some vague hope.

He was terrified of the idea of going back, you could see it on his face just from mentioning it. He'd been living the Thai lifestyle for years, the heat, the beach, cheap beer all year round, and couldn't face the idea of returning to a cold, grey England having just turned 50 with nothing to show for all that time away, no house, no savings, no family of his own waiting for him. He kept clinging to the hope that something would turn around on its own, without him having to make the effort of actually changing anything.

Eventually things got to the point where he was sleeping rough, in some quiet side soi or under the awning of a closed shop, and begging for food from whoever passed by with whatever pride he'd once had long gone. A group of locals and expats who'd known him from the old days, people who'd once drunk for free at his bar, pooled together enough money to cover the overstay fine, which by then was considerable after so long, and pay for a cheap flight home.

Back in England he worked as a night-shift taxi driver, long shifts around the city, trying to pay everyone back little by little, a few pounds a month to each person, and save enough to return to Thailand one day with things done properly this time, an actual plan like I'd asked him for.

He never made it back. Ryan had a heart attack and passed away, alone, according to someone who was still in touch with his family and told me afterwards. That's what I was told, at least, that's how he went.

I think about him now and then, especially when I see some other guy starting down the same road, with that same easy smile and the same excuses for not looking closely at his own finances. He loved Thailand the way a lot of us do, with an intensity that sometimes borders on obsession, and he just wanted to build a life there, nothing more than that, nothing so strange or so ambitious at heart. But he made bad decision after bad decision, year after year, each one a little harder to undo than the last, and by the time he realised there was no easy way out anymore, it was too late for anything but trying to survive one more day.

Thailand is a wonderful place, the people, the food, the weather, the lifestyle, all of that is completely true and I still believe it after everything that happened to Ryan. But get your finances in order before you make the final leap, with a real cushion and a plan in case something goes wrong. Ryan's story is proof, sad but clear, of what happens when you don't.