How it all started!

So how did I get this idea, if not obsession, about one day visiting Thailand? Well it all started some time back in December 2012. My friends and I was sitting in one of our apartments, preparing for the regular night out. Now, this is Sweden, a country where in December temperatures can drop down to -18 C (-0.4F) and you get just about 4 hours of sun a day. And then we got into a conversation that went on about that we need to get out of Sweden. "Let's go to Thailand" i said. I was already on my third drink of the evening. "Everything is better in Thailand." Everyone, who was just as intoxicated as I was, agreed fullheartedly. But then we figured that we couldn't just live there without any income. So the logical decision was to open a bar. The rest of the evening is kind of a blur.

We woke up the next day with one hell of a hangover. Most of the evening, and almost the entire night was just a foggy mess of loud noises and unfamiliar faces. But one thought remained strong. I sat up, almost too quickly, and exclaimed "THAILAND!" in a loud voice. And almost immediately i heard one of the other guys scream "THAILAND!" back. The game was on.

So the first step was to figure out what we would actually do in Thailand. The most logical thing was to open a bar. We all got some experience with drinks, at least with drinking them, and the thought of a small bar at the clear blue ocean seemed alluring to say the least. So we checked it out. "BARS FOR SALE IN THAILAND" was input into Google and it looked promising at first. Hundreds, if not thousands of bars were for sale at the most lucrative places. But this got me thinking.

Another day passed and I started to dig deeper into the world of economics regarding Thailand and bars. What I found out wasn't pretty. Not only can't foreigners own land nor business in the land of smiles. You also had to be a pimp to run a successful bar. This is no joke. You have to have so called "bar girls" to lure in the so called "farangs." And then there was the uncertainty of who actually owned the bar. And the bribes. And the fact that most bars lasted about 6 months before burning through the staring capital. There were just a lot of wild cards that doesn't exist in a western economy. 

A new plan was hatched. We just had to go down there and get a feel on the culture, people, language, customs and traditions for ourself before actually investing in anything. So the new plan is to save up some cash to go down there on a "vacation" of sorts. But instead of just hanging out in a pre-paid hotel, sitting by the pool, and squander our time, we'd actually try to taste the country.

So that's how it all got started. A random drunk thought that evolved into something more, something bigger.