A Divorced English man on a Blind Date. Derek’s First Hours in Chiang Mai
A Blind Date
The sky was bright and cloudless — such a contrast to the dark tunnel I had been living in. I realised this could be the escape I was looking for. A chance to get my life back. I hoped it was what Toy wanted too. I no longer wanted the plane to turn around and drop me back on English soil.
I began to relax and drifted into a light sleep. If I dreamed at all, I knew they would be pleasant dreams — not the horrific nightmares I had grown used to. I was determined to leave the past behind and face the future with a positive mind. My torments and unhappiness could stay at Heathrow. I was well rid of them.
Only a few family members and one or two workmates knew I was leaving for this twelve-day holiday. Since accepting Toy’s invitation, I had spent many hours reading about Thailand and its culture. Everything painted a glossy picture of paradise on earth.
I was becoming addicted to the idea of Thailand. Was I in danger of seeing only the rosy side? It was years later that I discovered the country has the highest motorcyclist mortality rate in the world and consistently ranks among the most corrupt nations. The political unrest that simmered beneath the surface seemed to be taken seriously by no one. Not so rosy, after all.
No Thai ever talks about it. Toy certainly never mentioned any of this in our conversations.
I had read plenty of stories on internet forums about money-grabbing women who preyed on Western men — offering endless love before moving on once the money dried up. Like many first-time visitors, I pushed all of that to one side and chose instead to focus on the smiling faces and the legendary helpfulness of the Thai people.
Looking around the cabin, I could see several foreign men travelling alone. I found myself wondering whether some of them would fall into the clutches of scheming women and arrive home broken-hearted and penniless. Would I meet that very fate myself? Were Toy and her daughter Kanya simply looking for a “sugar daddy”? I was convinced they were not.
I had no real idea what to expect when I arrived. Toy’s photograph was tucked in my wallet. I felt I knew her through our messages, but I had never heard her voice or seen her face to face. Would the chemistry survive real life? What would she make of me? What if none of this worked out? I could feel my heart pounding.
The plane touched down and, with the cabin door open, a wave of hot air flooded in. I had not appreciated just how hot Thailand would be, even at five in the morning. That first blast of heat was my introduction to the country. The memory has never left me.
I had failed to make my promised phone call to Toy to announce my arrival in Bangkok. My mobile had started displaying messages in Thai script, and I had no idea what it was trying to tell me. There was no way to reach her — and I was reluctant to call anyway at a quarter to six in the morning.
An Unkempt, Unshaven Male
It was a relief to stretch my legs as I walked through the concourse. First stop was the restroom. The mirror showed me an unkempt stranger — hair uncombed, face unshaven, clothes crumpled beyond repair. Derek, I thought, you look completely down at heel. The hours cramped in economy class had taken their toll. By now the heat was making me sweat freely.
I had sent Toy a photo of myself over the internet. Would she even recognise me now?
I had brought over some cheeses from England, tucked into my hand luggage. My attempts to blame my body odour on the Camembert and Stilton cut no ice with fellow travellers. Toy, I suspected, would not be fooled either. I had just over an hour before landing in Chiang Mai and something had to be done.
The answer, I decided, lay in the perfume counters. I set about spraying myself generously from the aftershave testers, hoping to make myself at least marginally more presentable.
In my haste, I failed to notice I was still gripping my cabin bag in my right hand. Only one side of me received the many liberal squirts of free aftershave. By the time I boarded the plane to Chiang Mai, I must have smelled like the entire left wing of a Parisian brothel.
From Bangkok to Chiang Mai
I had already given Toy my full flight details — flight number, arrival time, everything. She had promised she would be waiting in the arrivals hall.
As this was a domestic route, passengers were bussed out to a much smaller aircraft and walked the last hundred yards across the tarmac. Even during that short stroll, the sweat was dripping off me. Some passengers — mainly Thai — seemed unbothered. A few others looked as uncomfortable as I felt.
Soon I was cooling off in the air-conditioned cabin, sipping orange juice and fighting the urge to fall asleep. The jet lag was catching up with me. Through the window, Bangkok shrank beneath us — a vast, sprawling mass of houses, warehouses, factories and congested roads, smoke rising into the hazy sky.
The flight lasted barely an hour. On our descent, the landscape transformed. Buildings grew further apart, giving way to green fields and flooded rice paddies sheltered by the mountainous terrain of the North. Lakes and winding rivers threw back the bright sunlight, almost blinding.
We glided lower and lower, skimming over rooftops until the wheels touched the tarmac. I looked out in quiet wonder. We had landed in the shadow of the mountains, and high above the city, the temple of Doi Suthep glittered in the morning sun.
The Legend of the White Elephant
Doi Suthep offers sweeping views of Chiang Mai below. The temple’s most celebrated shrine is that of the white elephant. Legend has it that a fragment of the Buddha’s shoulder bone was placed on the back of a white elephant by the king of the Lanna kingdom. The animal was released into the jungle, climbed Doi Suthep Mountain, trumpeted three times, and died on the very spot where the temple now stands.
A few kilometres further up the mountain lies Phuping Palace, the royal family’s summer residence, set within immaculately maintained grounds. It is said that no building should rise higher than a temple, and no temple higher than a Buddha image — a principle that still quietly shapes the skyline today.
Waiting for Toy
As we taxied towards the terminal, my mind began to race. Would Toy actually be there? Would I recognise her? Would she recognise me? We spoke entirely different languages — I had no Thai, and her English, though serviceable, was limited.
Would she like me? More to the point, would she like what she found after nearly twenty hours of travel had finished with me? Would she be overwhelmed by the competing fragrances emanating exclusively from my left side?
There were too many questions buzzing around my exhausted brain.
I passed through immigration, retrieved my case, and — to my mild surprise — sailed straight through customs without being stopped. Perhaps, I reflected, I simply looked too scruffy and dishevelled to be worth the bother. The customs officers appeared to give me a wide berth, preferring to target the arrivals walking some distance behind me. Quite some distance, as I recalled.
I approached the automatic glass doors leading to the arrivals concourse. Toy had promised to meet me on the other side. She had also booked a hotel nearby — close to her school and, she had noted, not far from the airport. A hint, perhaps, that I could make a quick exit at any point.
In a few more minutes, after all the messages and photographs, we would be meeting face to face for the very first time.
Or so I thought.
No Show
There was nobody resembling Toy in the arrivals hall. She and Kanya had promised faithfully they would be there. Most of those waiting were Thai, but there were no mother-and-daughter pairs that I could see anywhere.
Perhaps she had been delayed. Perhaps she had changed her mind. I had no way of knowing — my phone had defeated me in Bangkok and there had been no way for her to reach me either.
I decided to give it one hour. If she did not appear, I would either arrange a return flight or spend a few days alone seeing the sights. I could not think clearly enough to decide anything beyond that.
Sitting alone in the arrivals hall, I felt heart-broken and confused. My thoughts began to circle. What did I actually know about this woman? She used an English nickname rather than her Thai name — which I had thought nothing of at the time, but now struck me as a little odd. Had Richard been right after all, with his stories of internet scams and Western men taken for everything they had?
Her family lived near the Burmese border. Was she genuinely Thai? Had she really worked on a neighbour’s rice farm, tended water buffaloes, made sweets to sell at the local market to put herself through school and university? These were the stories she had told me. They had moved me. But had I simply been played?
I glanced at the clock. An hour had passed. I was close to tears.
A young lad approached me.
Young man: Can I help you, sir?
Me: Not really. I’ve been waiting for someone for an hour. She hasn’t turned up.
Young man: Did you come off Bangkok flight?
Me: Yes.
Young man: Ah — because if come from within Thailand, she be waiting at Domestic Arrivals. People no realise passengers with checked-through luggage from abroad are directed to International. Happens all time.
I dragged my case through the connecting door into the domestic concourse and was met immediately by a loud buzz of voices. I walked towards the noise until I was standing behind a crowd of people, all holding boards with names written on them, all facing the domestic arrivals door — the door I had not come through.
Meeting Toy at Last
And then I saw them. Two slim Thai women with long black hair. Toy had sent me photographs along with a careful description — height, weight, what they would be wearing. Always meticulous, she had left nothing to chance. I walked confidently towards them, tapped one on the shoulder, and said: “Hello, Toy — surprise, surprise.”
They turned around. They were holding a name board between them.
My name was not on it.
I apologised hurriedly in English and stepped back, thoroughly mortified.
I turned around. And there, for the first time, was the woman who had captivated me across six thousand miles of internet. The Thai pronunciation of my name was the sweetest sound I had ever heard. Worth every mile.
She moved towards me with an easy, natural grace — slim-waisted in fitted jeans, long black hair cascading over her shoulders, high cheekbones, dark eyes, and an open smile that showed bright white teeth.
She lowered her head and brought her hands together before her face in the traditional Thai greeting, the wai.
“Sawadee ka, Dee-rick. Welcome to Chiang Mai.”
“It’s wonderful to see you, Toy. I was sent to the wrong arrivals hall — I’ve been waiting for an hour.”
I could not take my eyes off her, nor off the young woman in a white blouse and blue skirt standing quietly behind her, smiling. Kanya.
We walked out together into what felt like an open furnace. Toy’s dark green car had been sitting in the sun and was hotter inside than out. She set the air conditioning to full and directed every vent towards me.
Arriving Safely at the Hotel
On the drive to the hotel, I received my first lesson in Thai driving. Toy indicated left, slowed slightly at a red light — and then kept going, turning calmly as though the signal didn’t exist.
I must have gripped the seat.
She explained, quite cheerfully, that at most junctions you can filter left on red. The catch, she added, is watching for motorcyclists coming towards you on the wrong side of the road. I filed this under things I should probably have read about in advance.
As we pulled into the Phucome Hotel, two bellboys rushed out to collect my luggage. I followed Toy and Kanya into the foyer, where a round of wais from the staff greeted us. I signed in, my passport was examined and photocopied, and then Toy was handed the keys.
The room was on the third floor. The journey, the heat, and the emotion of the morning had hollowed me out entirely. Toy took one look at me and suggested a shower and some sleep. She and Kanya would come back later. She switched on the air conditioning, and the moment the door closed I was asleep.
The View from My Window
When I woke, I unpacked slowly and looked out of the windows. Toy had asked for a room at the back of the hotel, away from the road. The view was of the mountains.
By leaning out slightly, I could see the golden spires of Doi Suthep catching the afternoon light — the same temple I had spotted from the plane that morning. Below, the streets were busy with daily life. Women hanging washing on balconies. Tall modern buildings standing shoulder to shoulder with old wooden shacks and tin-roofed homes.
Some of those rooftops had garden sprinklers rigged up on them — jets of water arcing down onto the corrugated metal, a practical and quietly ingenious way of cooling the rooms below.
Toy arrived a few hours later to find me watching a television programme about King Bhumibol visiting a hill-tribe project. I understood nothing of what was being said, but the affection of the people on screen was unmistakable. On the drive from the airport I had noticed car stickers reading Kao rak nai luang — We Love Our King. The programme simply confirmed what those stickers suggested.
Lunch was my first experience of Thai food. Toy told me what to order and what to avoid, and she and Kanya laughed generously at my struggles with chopsticks. Toy called the waiter over and quietly asked him to bring me a spoon and fork. Much better.
I later learned that Thais use chopsticks only for noodle dishes — for everything else, a spoon and fork suffice. Food is already cut into bite-sized pieces, so knives are unnecessary. I have never been entirely comfortable eating with bits of wood in any case.
We returned to the hotel laughing and joking as I practised my ten-word Thai vocabulary on passing strangers. I gave Toy and Kanya the gifts I had brought from England. We laughed again when we discovered they were all manufactured in China.
Walking Around the Back Streets
At three in the afternoon we set out to wander the sois — the alleyways — around the hotel. I was spellbound by the markets, the street food, the noise and colour and the easy smiles everywhere I looked. It is difficult to put into words the particular quality of that atmosphere: unhurried, warm, entirely at ease with itself.
Only later did I realise that some of the small, discreet doorways we had passed were entrances to brothels. Toy never mentioned this aspect of Thai life — then or at any other point during my visit. Perhaps she was embarrassed by it. But prostitution is woven deeply into Thai culture, and pretending it wasn’t there struck me, in hindsight, as a kind of selective hospitality.
The Morning Rush
I was up early the next day and went down to breakfast with my meal tokens. The hotel staff were dressed in colourful silk costumes that moved beautifully as they worked. The dining room offered a full spread of Thai food alongside a perfectly respectable full English.
I chose the latter — eggs, bacon, sausages, toast and marmalade — followed by several fruits I didn’t recognise but couldn’t resist. All of them were outstanding.
Toy was coming at ten, so I had time to explore. The morning rush hour was in full swing. Motorbikes jostled for position ahead of the cars at every traffic light. Drivers without seatbelts. Riders without helmets, making U-turns and cutting corners without so much as a glance behind them.
All of this, I came to understand, was a practical expression of a deeply Thai philosophy: mai pen rai — never mind, it doesn’t matter, life is smoother without unnecessary friction.
One hand on the handlebar, one hand holding a mobile phone. A woman riding pillion, sitting sidesaddle, sipping iced coffee with one hand and combing her hair with the other. A schoolboy shielding himself from the sun with a textbook held overhead. The police watched and did nothing. The tourists watched and couldn’t believe their eyes.
Soaking in the Atmosphere
I wandered without any particular purpose, simply absorbing the life of the sois. Street vendors were already cooking — the smell of herbs and spices hanging warm and sweet in the air. The stalls were packed closely together, the passageways narrow, and at six foot I had to duck regularly beneath the low-slung awnings and sunshades that would later protect the stallholders from the midday heat.
I found a roadside stall and sat down with an iced coffee, watching the world move quietly past. The Thai custom, I discovered, is to always offer water alongside any food. At a street stall you are given a glass of water as a matter of course, or help yourself to a jug and ice. You pay for the food. The water is simply there.
Expat-run eateries charge for bottled water and get away with it because they have a captive clientele of foreign speakers. My advice: wherever you are in Thailand, avoid any restaurant where the menu is in English and the customers are not local. The best Thai food — cheaper, fresher, more authentic — is always at the roadside stalls.
Back to the Hotel
I returned to my room and took another shower. Acclimatising was taking longer than I had expected. At this rate I would exhaust my clean clothes before the weekend.
I waited in the hotel lobby for Toy to arrive, settled into a vast teak chair that looked built to withstand an elephant, leafing through brochures. A waitress appeared in traditional Lanna dress, knelt before me, and offered a drink on a small tray decorated with a fresh lotus flower. She left with a smile and a wai.
The clock struck ten. Then the quarter hour. Then the half. No sign of Toy.
Just after eleven, she appeared. I was learning another truth about Thailand: appointment times are approximate. Punctuality is not a virtue so much as an aspiration. The Mexicans have mañana — the sense that time is not urgent. The Thais share the sentiment, but without even mañana’s faint suggestion of tomorrow.
Mai pen rai.
Thai women take great pride in their appearance, and Toy was no exception. I had noticed earlier that morning how Thai women rode their motorcycles with perfect posture — backs straight, pillion passengers balanced sidesaddle with a grace that seemed effortless even through sharp bends.
The contrast with foreign tourists, hunched over hired bikes with their passengers clinging on for dear life, could not have been more complete.
Don’t Touch
Physical contact is a delicate matter in Thailand, and the rules are not always obvious to outsiders.
A woman must never touch a monk, or allow her clothing to brush against one. If she wishes to give him food or a gift, she places it on a cloth and withdraws her hand; he draws the cloth towards himself. On a bus, if the only available seat is next to a woman, she should offer to swap with a male passenger so the monk can sit without being beside her.
Walking beside Toy, I noticed that couples did not hold hands in the street the way they would in the West. Touching a child’s head in a friendly gesture — perfectly natural at home — is considered deeply inappropriate here. The head is regarded as the most sacred part of the body; the feet, the most impure.
When Thais sit on the ground, they always tuck their feet away from others. Pointing at something with your foot, or touching it, is an insult.
Thailand presents itself as an easygoing country, and in many ways it is. But beneath the smiles, it is also quietly, genuinely conservative.
A younger woman who knows you well may take your hand to help you cross the road — but the safest approach is simply to observe how Thais interact with one another, and follow their lead.
Toy and I spent the rest of the day visiting the sights in the centre of Chiang Mai. I was learning about Thailand, but more importantly I was getting to know this woman. Unlike every other couple around us, Toy held my hand tightly in hers as we moved from one temple to the next. She had just been telling me that Thais don’t do that in public. She was telling me one thing and doing quite another.
Temples appeared at every turn, each with something distinct to offer. Whether we were on foot, in a tuk-tuk, or riding pillion on a motorbike, the saffron robes of monks were visible everywhere.
Over dinner, Toy asked if I would like to visit her school the following day. I accepted immediately. I was already aware that my time here was short, and I wanted to spend as much of it with her as I possibly could.
It was nearly midnight when we returned to the hotel foyer to say goodnight. She told me she would be back in the morning.
For the first time in years, I felt genuinely happy — and completely at ease with the world. I floated back to my room knowing Toy would return. She was beginning, very gently, to take hold of my life.
Derek flew 6,000 miles from England to Chiang Mai, Thailand, for a blind date with Toy, a teacher he knew only from internet messages. After a nerve-wracking wait in the wrong arrivals hall, he finally found her. This is part of a series of eight posts in which Derek shares his hopes and fears of life with Toy in Thailand. Will the chemistry survive?
https://www.wikihow.com/Have-a-Successful-Blind-Date
https://understanding-thailand.com/dangerous-driving-in-thailand/
© Matt Owens Rees May 2026.
