MrWorldwide

Here are some of the basics I take for granted in Oz, and would look for in a retirement destination:

- reliable power supply, periodic Summer outtages notwithstanding

- the rule of law, corruption notwithstanding. (If you think there is no corruption in Farang Police forces, you probably need to think again)

- access to decent 'toys', but it a Playstation3 or a Marantz amplifier or a new Sony laptop, without being hammered by import duties

- some sense that my possessions are safe behind a locked door (Sydney notwithstanding)

- the option to live as cheaply, or as 'high-end', as I choose - where else can you catch a train 3 or 4 stations from the slums behind lower Suk and be in the middle of a 21st Century consumer madhouse like Siam ? Even CentralWorld Pattaya craps all over anything I saw in Cambo or Laos - for many here, that will be irrelevant, but I like my toys/magazines etc.

For those who will tell me that I cant hope to get audio at anything resembling US/UK prices, show me where I can get this Marantz amp for the equivalent of 26K elsewhere:

http://piyanas.com/shopping/productdetail.php?cat=108.224&id=970〈=en

I've stayed in Pattaya for 3 months at a time for a fraction of what it would cost me at any tourist trap in Australia, and I'm confident I could do it for even less in Rayong : all with very little knowledge of the local language. For all their 'devious' ways, the Thais make it very easy for foreigners to settle in : whether that veneer wears thing over time is a tougher question, but even here in Oz we have no shortage of unhappy campers who whinge and moan about 'this %#^&&*! country and its racist, bogan underclass' -why would it be any different in Thailand ?

Is Thailand 'perfect' ? Far from it, and there are interesting times ahead politically, but I'm not going to write LOS off purely because a few Utopian dreamers claim they have found 'something better'. Whatever your opinion of the rule of law or the physical infrastructure in Thailand, they are much further down the development path than many of their neighbors. Even '21st Century' Malaysia suffers many of the same problems as Thailand, but KL looks more like Sillypore each time I visit (for better or worse ..) - just a shame about their obsession with palm oil plantations. FWIW, I'm also looking at options outside Thailand for my impending retirement (2014), but it will take more than a few gorgeous Filipinas to convince me that PI is a better option.

Bali sucks. Hated it never again.

Agree 100% - incredibly overrated, and the Indonesian government hasnt helped by relocating many Javanese to the island in the mistaken belief that the tourist dollar would extend to feeding and housing everyone. I took a Thai GF to Bali in 2008, and the highlights (!) were:

- every Balinese / Indo taxi driver tried to chat her up in Bahasa

- if I want to see Aussies getting drunk and making fools of themselves, I can do that right here in Oz

- Ubud is, indeed, very beautiful - just like the postcards - but many other tourists have the same idea.

- Uluwatu is a spooky place but seeing that side of the island in the dry season was a massive shock

- I would rate the food as 'edible', but my Thai companion wasn't happy

- the street vendors are the most aggressive I have encountered anywhere in Asia, including southern China

Jakarta, by contrast, is an absolute blast once you get past the incredible traffic. I would also recommend KL over Kuta as a nightlife destination - both will cost you more money than Bali, but the VFM equation is much better. Bali would have been an amazing place in 1970, and I expect that there are still pockets where that remains the case, but as a nightlife destination I'd give it 2 / 10. Strictly for young football players and their slapper girlfriends.

Guys, I'm curious - do retirees in Vientiane simply take a trip over the border to Nong Khai every month, get a new 30-day visa and go back to ;Laos ? I cant get anyone to give me a straight answer on this - beginning to wonder if there is some tea money changing hands at the border.

PI, same same as Cambodia, last refuge for Cheap Charlies who cant afford Thailand.

Some of us could easily afford to live in Thailand but prefer somewhere less xenophobic and where you don't have to jump through all the fiery immigration hoops. Expats in Thailand are not exactly the cream of the crop, either.

As opposed to the expats in AC and Manila ? If that's the cream of the crop, I think it's time to re-sow and hope for a better harvest next year

Because Chinese new year = any excuse

Thais = and moaning about the Chinese.

Older generation Chinese do the cooking then straight back to their business. Staff eat and drink.

Younger generation Thai-Chinese eat and shop.

As opposed to those of us who moan about ALL Thais ....

All that eating must make for an interesting office environment .......

http://www.ebroadcast.com.au/cgi-bin/TV/detail?date=Friday_8_February&chan=ABC2&state=NSWReg&descrip=LADYBOYS:+DOING+IT+FOR+THEMSELVES&fta=1&fox=0&opt=0&time=9.30+pm

(Sexual references) In the final episode of the series we soar into the skies with the world's first ladyboy airline, PC Air, the latest venture from Peter Chan, Thailand's eccentric answer to Richard Branson.

I think its produced by the same mob that do the 'Banged Up Abroad' series - same voiceover guy. You can find the series on Youtube - thought I'd post this as the gay / transgender community gets very little coverage on Australian TV. Clearly, it needs to be done by Poms who cant pronounce 'Pattaya' and rant on about the 'seedy bars of Thailand's Sin City' : for all that, it beats the hell out of Home&Away.

I celebrate Chinese New Year and I'm not Chinese or Buddhist?!

Someone call the party police!

I gave them a call, but they refuse to attend unless they get a guarantee that there will be free booze and hot chicks (also free, of course). I advised them to wait till Dec 31st.

I have a convenient third option - I just go straight to Sukhumvit, spend the evening in the company of old friends (or make a few new ones !) and make my way to Patts the following morning. Doesnt suit everyone, but after staggering off a longhaul flight I'm not inclined to mess around trying to get transport straight to Patts. Who flies all the way to LA to catch a bus straight out to Disneyland ?

Worst night I ever had at Swampy was arriving shortly after midnight to find that at least 3 flights of (non-Thai) Asians in the queue in front of us. I swear Thai immigration pores over Asian nationals' passports with more intensity than most Westerners, but take a Thai to another ASEAN country and they are virtually waved straight through IME. Even Malaysia and Singapore, presumably countries where a Thai woman could earn a lot of money 'hostessing', seem much more easygoing than Swampy.

(every few years, there are rumbles about Oz joining ASEAN, but it disappears as quickly as the Republican 'debate'. We remain an Anglo outpost at the wrong end of the globe, but I expect that there will be a lot more Asian/Indian faces on our streets by 2050)

As a kid here in Oz in the 60s and 70s, I didnt even know there WAS a 'Chinese' New Year - Jan 1 was New Years Day and everyone got drunk the night before. Over the years, Chinese restaurant owners have lifted the profile of their festival and almost everyone has gotten on board, even if it means little more than some fireworks and a few excited Asian kiddies in the town of 7000 I currently call home. Go to any of our Chinatowns - particularly Melbourne - during CNY and it is a *very* big deal. All this in an Anglo-dominated culture thousands of kilometres from the nearest Chinese majority in Sillypore. We do have successful Chinese-Australian business people, and we do have large projects funded by the Chinese themselves, but IMO none of that is responsible for the growth of CNY in Oz. I put it down to our love of exuberance, celebration and a bloody good feed.

Australia, like Thailand, embraces any excuse for a party. Gung Hay Fat Choi !

But as the OP pointed out, the THB over the last month or so has rocketed against various currencies, including the Malaysian ringgit (and anyone with an interest in this can comment on other Asian currencies), and I doubt that change has much to do with the deliberate devaluation of Western currencies.

The Euro, I believe, is prevented from devaluing for political expediency, so the Europeans will have to put up with deflation instead - a much more bitter pill than devaluation.

SC

Bingo - I was just about to comment on the THB-MYR relationship before stumbling on your post. For as long as I can remember, the two were in lockstep - now the baht seems to want to pull away from that cozy relationship.

Looking at the 5yr chart, it appears that their '10:1' relationship may simply have coincided with periods when I was able to travel to both countries, but the vast majority of that chart puts the Ringgit somewhere between 9.5 and 10.5 baht.

http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=MYR&to=THB&view=5Y

On a side note, I am a lot happier to see the AUD consistently at or above 3 Ringgit since 2011 - if it slumps below 2.7, I just wont go back to Malaysia in 2014. Fingers crossed.

'Last Bus to Pattaya' would be a superb title for a novel, methinks

Sadly, for some of us, it's the last bus ride we ever take. Still, I'd take 3 good weeks in Patts over another 3 years in this burg. 12 months and they can all kiss my lilywhite butt

Have to agree on the ferry across the Gulf - scary. Having done Chumphon-BKK a couple of times (once on the sloooow train - never again), I cant say that I would overly thrilled to do Phuket-Patts in a single trip : any money saved on the cost of flights would disappear as soon as I got to a bar

Fair enough.

But as for the SEAL who was shot to death at a gun range that doesn't really relate to people getting into bar fights, does it? Never mind. Monday morning mood maybe - I should have kept my opinion to myself.

Actually, the point was well taken. The point was that If you get involved in a fight you do not know the consequences of what might happen later.

I can absolutely guarantee that if anyone should hurt anyone in my family I would hunt them down and deliver revenge when they least expected it. Nobody can be on guard for 24 hours a day. And, you don't have to be a karate or fighting expert to "take care" of someone when they aren't expecting it. That is precisely what happened to the Navy Seal marksman.

The best plan is the OP's decision to just walk away.

I was also impressed by bonobo's incredible story. You never know where a confrontation might occur. I just think men have too much testosterone.

Of course, us women have our periods to blame it on.

Sadly, here in Oz the women are often in the thick of it - instigating fights and hindering Police when they try to break them up. I just wish they could capture some of the screeching banshees' antics and play it back to them (and their families and friends ..) the next day. It doesnt stop at curbside antics though - we have had some very nasty female-on-female violence here, particularly glassings. Permanently disfiguring another human being because they pissed you off is on a whole other level to a testosterone-fuelled punch-up, IMO : both can ruin lives, but glassing someone is seriously cowardly and malicious. Australian women in their teens and early twenties seem to have an attitude that they can do anything their male peers can - combine that with a binge-drinking culture and it's a recipe for some very nasty outcomes.

Don't buy cheap shit then.

+1

Is there a country on the planet where said 'cheap shit' isnt sold ? Plenty of it right here in Oz, and it sells by the container load.

Almost forgot this - doesn't matter how big and tough you are, or how many people you have actually killed in combat, there is always a 'bigger dog' - in this case, someone seemingly out to make a name for themselves:

http://www.independe...ge-8478695.html

A famous American marksman and author was shot dead yesterday on a Texas rifle range.

Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who claimed to have been the most prolific sniper in American history, had a bounty put on his head by insurgents in Iraq, who dubbed him "The Devil of Ramadi."

He was at Rough Creek Lodge's shooting range near Forth Worth, Texas, with another man. Both were fatally shot.

Absurd comparison.

BTW the OP wasn't about Thais beating up foriegners.

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa ap

No, the OP wasnt about Thais beating up Farang, but the post shortly before mine was about a Katoey attacking a Farang with a stiletto. I guess I should have quoted it, but assumed that anyone following the thread was reading each post. Lesson learnt.

Retiring next year, but that is the only 'definite' in my plan. Its good to have options, even if the traffic in Jakarta is worse than BKK (!) or accommodation in VT more expensive than Pattaya - if I allow things like that to deter me, I'll never leave Oz !

Almost forgot this - doesn't matter how big and tough you are, or how many people you have actually killed in combat, there is always a 'bigger dog' - in this case, someone seemingly out to make a name for themselves:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/most-lethal-sniper-in-us-history-chris-kyle-shot-dead-on-texas-gun-range-8478695.html

A famous American marksman and author was shot dead yesterday on a Texas rifle range.

Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who claimed to have been the most prolific sniper in American history, had a bounty put on his head by insurgents in Iraq, who dubbed him "The Devil of Ramadi."

He was at Rough Creek Lodge's shooting range near Forth Worth, Texas, with another man. Both were fatally shot.

Guys, seriously - would anyone here behave the way many young Farang do in Thailand (not to mention a few of the older expats who should know better) ? Who would act like that in a bar in London or Croatia or Moscow and expect there to be 'no consequences' ? I dont know what a schoolyard fight looks like in Oz these days, but in Thailand I doubt that it is 'one-on-one' : for a Farang, fight one and you had better be prepared to fight the village. I believe the same holds true in other parts of SE Asia - how many of us would confront a local in Jakarta or Manila ? Running out on a bar bill (be it 600 baht or 6000) is the equivalent of taking food straight out of their mouths and laughing at the bar staff into the bargain - a major loss of face - cant imagine why they might react violently ....

I'm not condoning the actions of the ladyboy, or anyone else involved in the infamous '15 Thais on one Farang' attacks that are standard fare in Stickman's emails each week, but if young Aussies behave stupidly in any of our capital cities, they know what the outcome can be. I think many guys get off the plane at Swampy, go straight to 'Disneyland' and think there are zero rules - clueless. The silly bastards mistake the Thai smile for weakness, completely failing to see the fist in that velvet glove until it hits them in the side of the head.

The last time I was in KL, a city I still consider to be safer than Sydney or Melbourne (bag snatchers aside), our cab driver stopped in the middle of the road to watch his colleagues beating the living shit out of another cabbie who had crashed into the median strip - presumably drunk or drugged. It was horrific - blood everywhere - and I told our cabbie to keep driving. About 500 metres down the road, we saw a badly damaged cab and another group of (clearly irate) cabbies huddled around it. No sign of the Police, 11pm at night and plenty of onlookers - it was clear that the cabbies had their own form of 'justice' and were prepared to mete it out to one of their own. Despite the horror of that night, I dont judge Malaysians by the actions of some of their lowest paid workers, and I try to take the same view in Thailand.

I'll leave it there lest I am accused of being an apologist. I'm happy to detail my misadventures at the hands of various Thai women for those who revel in such things, but in terms of unprovoked, overt violence toward Farang, I simply havent had the same experience as many here. Even in Jakarta, with some wannabe 'gangsta' mouthing off some crap about 'Yankee go home !' to impress his mates, I was able to walk away without saying a word : in Sydney, I wouldnt have had that option, and it saddens me that Oz has sunk to that level.

MrWorldwide

I've never wanted to teach in Thailand - too old now anyway (over 50) - but reading the thread about the guy who was physically assaulted by a Thai teacher was enough for me. Allegedly broad daylight, a wound serious enough to require stitches, in front of other Faculty members and the Thai teacher remains on the staff - <deleted> ? Not looking to demonise anyone here, but who the hell would work in an environment like that ??

If the only thing the Filipinos are doing is bad-mouthing the OP, I think he is doing OK .... just my two bahts worth.

]Ive gotta say your first line doesnt work for me. They dont "love" lots of falang food and my wife eats offal if I let her. Things like pig blood in soup and liver, kidney, heart etc. Personally, I hate that stuff.

When I see Thai kids tearing into A&W, easily the nastiest fast food I've encountered anywhere in the world, I'm afraid I tend to lose hope for the future, but I stand corrected about the offal : its a staple part of the 'breakfast' menu from many street carts. FWIW, I also 'hate that stuff', but it was a major part of my parent's diets growing up in the Depression. You ate what you were handed or went hungry - I guess I'd even eat A&W if it came to that ....

Maybe it is a Thailand issue - give people the anonimity of sitting behind a keyboard/steering wheel and they turn into morons.

If only it was restricted to the Thai-based boards ....

I'm convinced that it is an 'alpha male' thing - we have a massive forum here in Oz called 'Whirlpool Forums' and the keyboard warriors in a couple of the sub-forums are legion. Almost entirely male, middle-aged and absolutely convinced that they have the answers to the questions which baffle the nation's economists and lawmakers. Most are so far to the right of the political spectrum, and their ideas so firmly rooted in a non-existent 'Australian Utopia', that they can only be males of a certain age.

Most threads go something like this : one of the usual suspects finds a news item detailing some travesty of justice or other, this is followed by outraged howls from the masses, calls for tougher sentencing and, inevitably, a difference of opinion that morphs into a personal attack (or 15..). The mods - who seemingly *never* leave their keyboards - respond by deleting vast swathes of the thread and issuing warnings. Inevitably, the thread is locked and the horde moves on to another, It's like some sort of bizarre zombie apocalypse ....

I only visit that forum once every 3 months or so, but its usually exactly the same people (with the odd addition) engaged in the same 'point scoring' exercises. I'm convinced that there are guys who go to bed at night thinking 'Man, I really showed those clowns tonight !'. Difficult to imagine women engaging in the same madness, week in and week out. I guess we males are a 'special' breed

It's simple - we are (mostly) grumpy old men who pretty much know it all, and God help anyone who questions that.

FWIW, the audio boards I frequent are much the same - the mods have a full-time job deleting posts and warning people. Still not a patch on an old exchange (circa 2005) from a notorious Thai monger board where two would-be pugilists spent weeks calling one another cowards, each claiming that the other guy had failed to show for their midnight "let's settle this" appointment in Washington Square. Extensive descriptions of the physical damage they were going to do to one another had preceded the big day, er, night : they both talked a very mean fight, but anyone who spends hours boasting about bargirl 'conquests' is bound to be a paper tiger