Returning to Where My Life in Thailand Began
PMY Resort Rayong was the place where my life in Thailand first began in 2008.
I arrived in Thailand as a stranger, unsure of how long I would stay or where this new chapter of my life would lead.
I did not know how long I would stay, how my life would unfold, or whether this unfamiliar country would ever feel like home. Everything around me was new—the language, the food, the heat, the roads, and the rhythm of everyday life.
Rayong became the first place where I began to settle down.
I worked here, lived with my colleagues, and slowly learned how to build an ordinary life in Thailand. Eighteen years later, I returned on my Honda Cub to the place where that first chapter had begun.
This was not a ride to discover somewhere new.
It was a quiet journey back into my own past.
A Familiar Road Through a Changed City
I left central Rayong and followed the road toward the coast.
The direction was still familiar, but much of the scenery had changed. Roads had become wider, new buildings had appeared, and modern local facilities now occupied places where small restaurants and neighborhood shops had once stood.
Across the river, I could see Phra Chedi Klang Nam rising above the landscape. The old pagoda stands near the mouth of the Rayong River, where the water continues its journey toward the sea.
The chedi remained a familiar landmark, but the road beside it no longer looked the way I remembered.
As I rode slowly along the river, memories began to surface.
There had once been a restaurant there.
A small shop had stood somewhere nearby.
I tried to recall the people, the signs, and the evenings spent along this road. But each remembered place appeared only for a moment before the Honda Cub carried me past it.
The memories came slowly.
The road moved faster.
A Mermaid from an Old Thai Epic
As I approached the coast, I noticed something that had not been there in 2008.
A colorful mermaid statue now stood beside the road, accompanied by a small shrine and offerings.
She was a character from Phra Aphai Mani, the celebrated epic composed by the great Thai poet Sunthorn Phu. In the story, the mermaid helps Prince Phra Aphai Mani escape from danger across the sea. She later becomes the mother of Sudsakorn, one of the epic’s best-known heroes.
The statue was new, but the story it represented was far older than any of my memories.
It felt strange to meet a figure from an old Thai legend on a road filled with my own personal history.
Rayong had added a new story to the coast.
I had returned carrying an older one of my own.
A new story Mermaid statue from Sunthorn Phu’s Phra Aphai Mani has appeared along the coast, while I returned carrying memories from 2008.
The Coast I Once Knew
Turning toward the sea, I saw Kantary Bay Hotel on the right.
The hotel had already been there when I first lived in Rayong, and it still appeared much as I remembered it. In a landscape where so much had changed, the familiar building became a quiet point of reference.
Yet the beachfront around it felt different.
The small food stalls that once lined the coast had mostly disappeared. Cars now occupied many of the spaces where vendors had once prepared food and customers sat facing the sea.
Some buildings remained almost unchanged.
Others had been renovated, enlarged, or replaced entirely.
I searched the roadside for traces of the old coast, but there was no clear boundary between what had survived and what had vanished. The past and present stood side by side, sometimes within the same building.
Every corner seemed familiar.
Yet nothing felt exactly the same.
Some landmarks remained familiar, while food stalls, shops, and old roadside scenes had quietly disappeared
Back to the PMY Townhouses
Eventually, I arrived at PMY Resort Rayong, the place that had once been my first real home in Thailand.
On the right stood the long row of townhouses where I had lived with my fellow employees for about a year.
This had once been my first real home in Thailand.
We went to work together, returned in the evening, ate meals, talked, and shared the small routines of daily life. At that time, I was still learning how to live in this country.
Later, I invited my family to stay here for a month.
For a brief period, the unfamiliar place became a family home. We shared meals, explored the surrounding area, and experienced everyday life in Rayong together.
The townhouses still looked much as I remembered them.
The structure remained, and the long row of rooms still followed the same familiar line. But the paint had faded, and many units appeared empty.
The buildings had not disappeared.
They had simply grown quieter.
I rode slowly past the rooms, trying to remember which doors had opened each morning and where familiar voices had once come from.
Eighteen years had passed, but for a moment I could almost see the people who had lived there beside me.
The townhouses still stood in the same long row, but faded walls and empty rooms revealed the passing of eighteen years.
Doors That No Longer Open
At the far end of the townhouses were the places I remembered as a restaurant, a karaoke bar, and a massage shop.
Their doors were now closed and locked.
Perhaps they had gone out of business.
Perhaps they were waiting for new owners.
I could not know for certain.
What I did know was that these places had once been filled with movement. There had been music, conversations, meals, workers, customers, and lights shining into the night.
Now there was only silence.
Standing before the closed doors, I realized that places rarely disappear all at once.
First, the people leave.
Then the voices fade.
The doors remain closed a little longer each day.
Eventually, only the building is left to hold the memory.
The hotel that became my second home was still standing, but the renovated lobby and faded exterior made the passing of eighteen years impossible to ignore.
The Hotel That Became My Second Home
On the left stood the tall PMY Hotel.
After living in the townhouses, I moved into this hotel and stayed for another year or so.
For a long time, this building was part of my everyday life.
Each morning, I went down to the restaurant near the lobby for breakfast. It was a simple routine, repeated so often that I never imagined I would one day return and remember it with such emotion.
This time, the lobby restaurant was under renovation.
The place where I had eaten countless breakfasts was covered with construction materials and signs of change.
I passed the lobby entrance and stopped in the parking area.
From there, I looked back at the entire building.
The hotel was still standing.
The shape was familiar.
But after eighteen years, it appeared faded and tired. I could not tell whether the building itself had aged so greatly or whether my memory had preserved it too brightly.
Perhaps both were true.
I remained there for a while, looking up at the rooms.
One of those windows had once belonged to my everyday life.
Now I was only a visitor passing through.
The hotel that became my second home was still standing, but the renovated lobby and faded exterior made the passing of eighteen years impossible to ignore.
Leaving a Former Home Again
I slowly rode out of PMY Resort.
Leaving felt different from arriving.
When I first left this place many years ago, I was moving forward with my life. I did not think of it as the end of an important chapter. It was simply time to move somewhere else and continue.
This time, I understood what I was leaving behind.
The townhouses, the hotel, the breakfast restaurant, and the closed shops were no longer parts of my present life.
They belonged to the person I had been in 2008.
I had returned hoping to find traces of that time.
Instead, I found that the place had kept only its outline.
The life that once filled it existed somewhere else—in memory.
I rode out through the familiar entrance once again, this time understanding that I was leaving not only a place, but an old chapter of my life.
A Newer Coast Beyond the Old Resort
After leaving the resort, I continued along the coastal road.
New buildings appeared, freshly painted and neatly arranged. Some looked modern and prosperous, as if they had only recently become part of the shoreline.
The coast was continuing to change.
This was not necessarily sad.
People were still building homes, opening businesses, and beginning their own chapters here. The road that carried my memories was also carrying other people toward new lives.
On the left, close to the sea, a few small local shops remained.
They were modest places with simple tables, open kitchens, and shade provided by trees or temporary roofs.
Among all the newer buildings, these small shops felt closer to the Rayong I remembered.
I chose one and stopped my Honda Cub.
Beyond the old resort, newly renovated buildings and a changing coastline showed that Rayong had continued building new lives while I was away.
A Simple Meal Beside the Sea
I parked beneath the shade and sat down to cool the sweat from the ride.
There was nothing luxurious about the place.
A few tables stood near the sea. The kitchen was simple, and the sound of the coast drifted through the open space.
I ordered a modest meal and a cold beer.
After riding through so many memories, the ordinary food felt comforting.
I had spent the morning looking for the past, but here I was reminded of the present: a motorcycle resting nearby, food on the table, a cold drink in my hand, and the sea continuing to move as it always had.
Perhaps life is mostly made from moments like this.
They seem small while we are living them.
Years later, they become the moments we most clearly remember.
At a small seaside shop, a simple meal and a cold beer brought me gently back from old memories to the present moment.
Sharing the Last Meal
A dog wandered near the shop.
It seemed to belong nowhere in particular, moving quietly between the tables and the edge of the road.
I gave it some of my food.
The dog accepted the meal without hesitation, and for a short while we ate beside the same sea.
Watching it, I thought of the person who had arrived in Thailand in 2008.
I, too, had once been a stranger in an unfamiliar place.
I did not know where I belonged or how long I would remain. Yet people shared meals with me, offered me a room, worked beside me, and gradually made this foreign place feel less distant.
Perhaps that is how a life begins in a new country.
Not through a grand decision, but through small acts of welcome.
A room.
A shared meal.
A familiar road.
Someone waiting for you to return in the evening.
At the end of the ride, I shared my meal with a wandering dog—a small reminder of the kindness that once helped a stranger begin a new life in Thailand.
The Place Remains in Memory
The buildings around PMY Resort had faded.
Some shops had closed.
New construction had replaced old scenery, and many of the people I remembered were no longer there.
But the journey did not leave me feeling that everything had been lost.
The road had changed because life had continued.
PMY Resort had aged because eighteen years had passed for both of us.
I arrived there in 2008 as a stranger.
I returned on my Honda Cub carrying the memories of an entire life built since then.
The townhouses were no longer my home.
The hotel room no longer belonged to me.
But somewhere between the old resort, the changing coast, and a simple meal shared with a wandering dog, I understood something.
A place does not need to remain unchanged to stay with us.
Sometimes it survives quietly inside the person who once lived there.
I started the Honda Cub and prepared to leave.
Behind me was the place where my life in Thailand had begun.
Ahead of me, the coastal road continued. And once again,
I followed it.Behind me was PMY Resort Rayong, the place where my first chapter in Thailand had begun.
The buildings had changed and the years had passed, but the sea remained—quietly carrying the memories of where my life in Thailand began.
Visit PMY Resort Town House
View PMY Resort Town House on Google Maps
PMY Resort Town House stands along the Rayong coast, near the place where my life in Thailand first began in 2008. The buildings have aged and many businesses have changed, but the location still holds the memories of my earliest years in Rayong.