Thailand: 'The nail that sticks up gets hammered down'

Asbestos innards and a stomach for gov repression required

Bring on the peppers!

“My digestive tract is made from asbestos and I give way to no-one in my ability to devour the fieriest chillies"

The Register: What's a decade in Thailand done for your chilli tolerance?

Eddie Croasdell: My digestive tract is made from asbestos and I give way to no-one in my ability to devour the fieriest chillies. My wife is Thai so we still have fiercely spicy food almost every day.

The Register: How's Thailand for kids?

Eddie Croasdell: My son was born in Thailand so his perspective is the opposite of most expat kids, for him the UK is the foreign country. In some ways Thailand is very different from other expat destinations in that most expats there are married into Thai society.

It’s wonderful place for kids though and I’d have no hesitation recommending that people bring their kids with them.

The Register: What's your top tip to help new arrivals settle in?

Eddie Croasdell: Learn some of the language and don’t be put off by the fact that it’s tonal. Understand that Thai culture is very, very different from Western culture and that it’s easy for us to misunderstand what’s actually happening around us.

Remember Ph is pronounced P so it IS possible to pronounce Phuket without embarrassment. Eat spicy food!

The Register: What advice would you offer someone considering the same move?

Eddie Croasdell: Thailand is a major tourist destination but it’s important to remember that as an expat you are not a tourist and will be judged by a different standard.

Outside of the tourist areas Thailand is a traditional, conservative, and modest country.

If you behave as if you’re on a two-week binge in Phuket or Pha Ngan you’ll be ghettoised pretty quickly. Also, and this applies to EVERY expat country, the locals are not particularly interested in being told how much better everything is back home.

The Register: How did you spend your weekends in Thailand?

Eddie Croasdell: We’d drive up to the mountains where the weather was a bit cooler, take picnics by the lakes, go to restaurants and festivals. We’d visit family members.

One of my favourite weekend drives was to go to Chaing Saen on the banks of the Mekong River and sit by the river in the sun drinking ice-cold brews and gazing at the unbelievable gaudiness of the Chinese casinos springing up on the opposite shore in Laos.

Quick trips to Myanmar or Cambodia were always an option and, as the preferred form of individual transport in Thailand is a 125cc step-through motorbike, tootling around on my Honda Dream was always a fun way to pass the time.

Have you made a move like Eddie and his family? Lots of you keep saying you do, then not answering my emails! So come on and do a hack a favour: if you've made a move, tell me about your adventures by dropping me an email. And those of you with interviews in your inbox, get to them, would you? ®