Foreign husbands flock to Thailand's impoverished Isaan

But the region is not without its attractions, as an estimated 100,000 foreign husbands will testify.

"When I came up here 17 years ago, I thought, this place is brilliant," said Briton Martin Wheeler, 47.

"In terms of social infrastructure, everyone has a house, everyone has land, and the lifestyle is unbelievable," he said, describing his adopted home in Kam Pla Lai village in Khon Kaen, 350 kilometres north-east of Bangkok.

A former construction worker from London, Wheeler married his Thai wife Rojana in Bangkok and moved to her home town in Khon Kaen when she became pregnant with their first child.

"My wife warned me about Isaan being the poorest place in Thailand, but I thought, 'If this is poor, I'll have some of it,'" Wheeler said.

A London University graduate with distinction in Latin, Wheeler started out as a labourer and farmer, learned the Isaan dialect and eventually became an assistant to a rural-development project, working in community building and promoting self-sufficiency agriculture as an alternative to single-crop farming.

As Kam Pla Lai became known as a success story in rural development, Wheeler has become a popular figure and is often recruited by the Thai government to talk to farmers and civil servants, using Isaan slang, about the benefits of diversifying crops, self-sufficiency and wholesome country living.

"My primary point is you have to accept two truisms - most people are not going to get rich, and most will not get highly educated," Wheeler said. "If you accept these two truisms, the countryside has a lot of offer."

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