Caregiver’s grief led to dementia home in Chiang Mai

After losing his father to suicide while caring for a mother with Alzheimer’s, Martin Woodtli moved from Switzerland to Chiang Mai in 2002 and opened Baan Kamlangchay in 2003—an informal-style dementia care home that now supports about 10 residents across eigh

By the time Martin Woodtli made the decision, it wasn’t just his calendar that had run out.

In 2002. he moved his mother—who had Alzheimer’s—from Switzerland to Thailand. carrying the weight of what his family had already lived through. He had spent years watching the disease change his home slowly. and when his father stepped in to care. the strain eventually proved too heavy. His father fell into depression and later died by suicide. Woodtli, an only child, was left to shoulder the responsibility alone.

Woodtli is now 65, and he describes the moment after his father’s death as a pivot point: “I had to decide what I was going to do now.”

Care options in Switzerland didn’t feel like an answer. Woodtli began looking at care facilities across Switzerland. but many felt institutional—“with a hospital-like atmosphere”—and they were also expensive. He then turned to a different possibility: returning to Chiang Mai. a city in northern Thailand where he had lived and worked with Doctors Without Borders for four years in the 1990s.

He saw the cultural fit before he saw the facility. During his time in Thailand, he noticed that respect for older adults is deeply ingrained. Over time, Chiang Mai began to look like more than a fallback. It felt like a place where his mother could live better.

In 2003, Woodtli acted.

He planned to live in a house in Chiang Mai with his mother, with support from a team of three caregivers recruited through local hospitals on rotating shifts. He kept the idea flexible. “If it works, wonderful. If it doesn’t work, we’ll go back after a two-week holiday,” he said.

The change wasn’t subtle for his mother. Woodtli said the move altered daily life for her in a measurable way. “My mother used to be very isolated because she was afraid to say something, especially in a group, because she noticed that she could not express herself that well anymore,” he said.

As the environment shifted—and as her care team became familiar—she became more confident. “She was not shy anymore,” Woodtli said.

Watching that transformation pushed him beyond his own family. As his mother settled into life in Chiang Mai, Woodtli—who has a background in social work and psychotherapy—began to see what he had built as something other families might need.

Within a year, he started Baan Kamlangchay, a dementia care home in a neighborhood just outside Chiang Mai city center. He funded it with money inherited from his late father.

That same year, a Swiss filmmaker made a documentary about Woodtli and his mother’s journey in 2003. After the documentary, more families from Switzerland and Germany began reaching out.

Chiang Mai was already drawing overseas residents. Its international airport is about an hour’s flight from Bangkok. and its low cost of living and relative accessibility had helped it become popular with retirees. Thailand’s long-stay visa options also supported foreign settlement. Thai civil registration data recorded 160,958 foreign residents in Chiang Mai in 2025, or about 9% of its roughly 1.8 million people.

Today, Woodtli and his Thai wife continue to run the facility. Baan Kamlangchay cares for around 10 residents, whom he refers to as guests. All live with Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia.

The facility is structured to avoid the usual cues of institutional care. Unlike many Western care facilities where residents live in a single building. Baan Kamlangchay residents are spread across eight houses in a residential neighborhood shared with local Thai people. Woodtli lives in a house in the village with his family.

Guests may move between their homes and shared spaces within the neighborhood with their caregivers. The idea, Woodtli said, is to make daily life feel normal—so guests can see different people and interact with others outside the care home. “It is a very natural way of living,” he said.

Baan Kamlangchay also reflects how Thailand classifies elderly care.

Elderly care facilities in Thailand are generally classified based on the services they provide. according to Kom Vachiravarakarn. a partner at the Bangkok-based law firm Kudun and Partners. Facilities providing regulated healthcare services require a medical facility license, Vachiravarakarn said. Non-medical elderly or dependent care businesses usually fall under a different license that covers services such as daily living assistance. accommodation. and supportive care.

Woodtli said Baan Kamlangchay operates as a registered company in Thailand with caregivers but no on-site medical staff. Residents rely on local healthcare providers when needed.

For families, the main question often starts with the price.

In the US. the average cost of nursing home care is around $112. 420 a year. or about $9. 368 a month. based on data from the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program Cost of Care Survey in 2024. Switzerland’s costs are similarly steep. Dementia care in a nursing home costs around 89. 756 Swiss Francs a year—roughly $9. 400 a month—based on 2019 estimates. the most recent available. from nonprofit Alzheimer Switzerland.

At Baan Kamlangchay, costs start from around $2,900 a month. Woodtli said that price includes lodging, around-the-clock care, and meals.

The pull of lower costs is only part of the story. Caleb Johnston, an associate professor of human geography at the UK’s Newcastle University, said he views the migration of people to Thailand for care and palliative support as a “small but meaningfully growing phenomenon.”

Johnston said people are driven by Thailand’s lower costs. a large caregiver workforce. and a growing private care sector serving international clients. At another facility at the top end of this market in Chiang Mai. comprehensive care costs around $3. 500 a month—including accommodation. meals. excursions. therapy. and a one-to-one care worker-to-resident ratio.

Johnston said, “You simply won’t find that level or quality of care in any Western country today unless you’re prepared to pay a king’s ransom.”

But he also warned that cheaper care comes with other burdens. “There are also harder questions about social networks. access to long-standing friendships. and the symbolic weight of dying far from where one has lived. ” Johnston said. For many families. he added. the alternative at home has become so difficult that Thailand can feel like the only viable alternative.

Inside Baan Kamlangchay, the care model centers on continuity. Each guest has a consistent team of three caregivers who rotate shifts and stay with them throughout the day. At night, one caregiver sleeps in the same room, Woodtli said.

Woodtli said the relationship matters far more than it would in a more typical care center. “The relationship is so important because it’s much more than in a care center, where you just do your duty and move from one person to another,” he said. “Here, the caregivers are very close to each guest.”

Woodtli estimates he manages about 50 team members, including caretakers, cooks, and other support staff. Residents, escorted by their caregivers, move through the neighborhood including a communal dining area and an activity hub with a pool.

Meals are typically European, with dishes like pumpkin soup prepared by a cook who previously worked in a hotel.

To keep independence alive, Woodtli runs a small convenience store open to everyone. Residents can pick up everyday items and interact with local villagers. He said it helps them maintain a sense of independence.

One of the people who credits Baan Kamlangchay with making dementia care feel less cold is Anke Blomberg. Her mother, Gerda, has lived at the facility for eight years.

When Gerda developed dementia, Blomberg said she first hired a live-in caregiver in Germany, but her mother wasn’t comfortable sharing the home she had lived in with her late husband. Blomberg then looked into local care facilities, but found them impersonal.

Eventually. she came across Baan Kamlangchay online and. with her husband and mother. traveled to Chiang Mai for a month to see it firsthand. During that time, Blomberg said her mother got used to the environment and grew comfortable with the close, hands-on care. Blomberg now visits her mother about twice a year.

“After so many years now, I’m really convinced I did the right thing for her,” Blomberg said.

Woodtli said many guests stay for years, and most remain there until the end of their lives. He said his own mother was one of them—she lived at Baan Kamlangchay until she died in 2006.

When asked what the facility feels like after everything he has been through, Woodtli described it in a way that still sounds like a promise made too late. “I think of it, really, as their last holiday,” he said.

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