simon43

Yes, I had my polio vaccine and others... what vaccine are you talking about to protect me from drinking kefir milk made with pasteurised milk?

I make kefir milk every few days - just take my grains in a small jar when I travel and tell the customs guys that it is medicine....

An early memory for me is eating a sugar lump with a drop of polio vaccine on it. At my primary school I remember a boy using crutches with a withered leg. He hadn't had the polio vaccine. When I was maybe 8 years old, I got mumps (no vaccine easily available in those days). My mum put my brothers in with me to try to get them to catch mumps (since it can send you sterile if you get it at an older age). They didn't catch it from me lol!

Right, there is one small problem there - I don't have a spare 200k euro lying about the place... 🙂 I don't need citizenship, I just need a cheap, hot place with clean air...

^^^ As a young boy, I and my family used to take month/2-month long holidays on the island of Corfu (my father was a university lecturer and got long holidays). We would relax on the beach opposite the coast of south Albania, about 9km away. At that time, Albania was hard-core Chinese-style communism, with gun boats patrolling up and down the coast at night. I remember one early morning when a young Albanian man swam under cover of darkness to the village where we were staying. Nowadays, there are more Albanians in the UK, than in Albania! And most crime in the UK is committed by Albanians 🙂 Still, worth consideration as a retirement destination, as is eg Cyprus. The air quality is so terrible right now in Luang Prabang that I have just booked a flight back to Thailand tomorrow! I'm coughing, nose streaming etc. Impossible now to consider this location for retirement 🙂

Those places are still in Thailand! I want to avoid Thailand for a long-term retirement location.

The thing is, I don't do condos 🙂 I have a condo at Jomtien purely as somewhere to store goods etc, but it's not a retirement home. I'm a shortwave radio ham and I need a small detached house with a garden. I'm in Luang Prabang right now, and such properties exist at low prices. But the burning season is a major no-no for me! Sure, I could stay in Jomtien during that time, but I don't want my retirement governed by whether there is smoke in the air. Right now, the smoke in LP is terrible! Because there is this smoke problem every single year in north Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia etc, I'm half-thinking to find somewhere in southern Europe where I can legally live (I'm British so Brexit has made some visa problems for retiring in EU countries). I could stay in south Thailand, but I don't have 800k in the bank and I simply do not trust the Thai government not to change the visa rules...... Basically, I'm looking for a hot country with clean air, with a coast if possible, easy visa requirements for Brits etc, especially for impoverished Brits!

Think you put too many zeros on that price! 🙂

Jomtien is indeed full of Russians. My condo building is full of them - some Germans and me when I'm in town. But it's not a retirement destination for me. Also, my condo building stinks of cannabis 24/7, which is not nice... I was in Chiang Mai last week. Too much smoke pollution, and that's also the problem in Laos and Myanmar.

I agree! When you are self-employed or where you enjoy your employee job, there is little reason to retire 🙂

I thought that I had this sorted. Move to the Philippines so that I get my UK state index-linked pension (due to start payments in 6 weeks from now). But the lack of annual increases won't be a financial problem for me just now, and I've never been to the PI anyway... I was teaching in Mandalay. I came back to Thailand for a couple of weeks to sort out a 'base' condo at Jomtien Beach. 7,000 baht a month for a modern studio condo that's 300 metres from the beach 🙂 During my absence, Mother Nature decided to 'throw' an earthquake in Mandalay! Thousands are dead, many buildings destroyed. So I flew up to Luang Prabang in north Laos, the UNESCO city where I have lived off and on for many years between my teaching contracts in Burma. A beautiful place (NOT NOW!). Big shock on this visit! Gone was the sleepy Lao town by the Mekong river. Now, as a result of the new train from China, the town is bursting with Chinese tourists AND Chinese businesses. The central peninsula area is jammed with white tourist vans. The outskirt hills of the town are being scraped away and huge Chinese hotels being built. The Mekong river will become a non-flowing lake when the next Chinese dam just north of the town is in operation, (The Xayaburi dam south of the town already stops natural river flow). I'm so disappointed with Luang Prabang now.... 'paradise' destroyed by the 'locusts'. What to do? The local international school in Luang Prabang asked me to teach at the school. Then I got an email from Mandalay begging me to return to teach again. What I don't want to do in my retirement is simply do nothing, get fat, drink beer and catch STDs from 'professional' woman. What would you do?

OP, I had various vaccinations as a young child. Now I worry that I will die in this century......

Disgusting behaviour?? - She never complained - She never got glued to her mobile phone - She never asked for $$ for her family/sick buffalo etc - She was quite good at anal or oral - She never had bad times of the month - She never aged Seems pretty good to me!!! (I took her on Lao Airlines domestic flight once and no problems....)

My last partner was an expensive sex doll from China. Does that count? (Unfortunately we are no longer together. I decapitated her some years ago during Covid and disposed of her head in a trash can in Turkey...)

All students learn central Thai at primary school. This was a policy introduced yonks ago to unite the Thai people with one common language. Have you ever wondered why schools in Isaan do not teach Isaan? (of course, it is only a spoken language, no Isaan script as such). I'm not sure if schools in the far south teach Yawri - I think the central government might have allowed that to appease the Muslim majority, but I'm not sure...

When I teach online using Zoom, I can click a button at the start of the lesson to create an AI summary of what I teach. The Zoom AI 'bot' then interprets my spoken words (and that of my student), to create a summary at the end of the lesson of the topic that I taught. It's amazing to see how accurate it is.....

I get a good feeling when local people express surprise that I can speak (passable) Lao and Burmese. They are happy that I've made an effort to learn some of their language. and I'm happy that I can converse with them 🙂

A little story from today, (not about Thai language but about Lao language, but the principle is the same - knowing a language can be useful!). I flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang today. I spoke Thai with the staff at Don Muang and all was good. When I got to Luang Prabang airport, the male immigration officer was as miserable as ****, speaking curtly to every person who presented their passport. It got to my turn and I handed over my passport. He thumbed through it and then noticed many different Lao annual business visas over the past 15 years. "Do you speak Lao?" he asked me in Lao. "Yes" I replied in Lao, "but I have to practice every day!" His demeanour completely changed. He smiled and asked me if I had a Lao wife (and so on and so on), then asked me about my previous jobs as a teacher in Laos. All was great, his Lao immigration colleagues joked with me in Lao about getting a Lao wife, and I sailed though immigration in seconds 🙂 There is never a problem that you know too many languages.....

You should not need to get under the car to change a wheel! When I've changed wheels in Thailand (in the middle of nowhere with no solid block etc to support the car), I place the spare wheel right next to the failed wheel/tyre, jack it up just enough to remove/replace the wheel, and then pull off the old wheel and push on the new in just a few seconds, in case the jack fails. I'm not under the car, so no risk there, but it would be a big headache to have the jack fail when there's no wheel on the axle to support the car...

Today eggs.... next time ping-pong ball bombs....

Maybe. I used to teach spoken and written Thai to several of my online students in Germany and France. I also taught written Thai as a volunteer teacher at the Burmese school on Koh Phangan a couple of years ago. I will carry the guilt of these criminal offences for the rest of my life 🙂

I had a good time growing up in Leicester in the 60's and 70's. The city was multicultural, in that there were hard-working Hindus and Sikhs with their sari and jewelry shops. Not so many West Indians, but certainly they were there and never any problems. Then came the Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh (when it became independent from West Pakistan).... Everything changed. No-go Muslim areas in the city were the norm. My parents took me out of the government school because teachers were teaching us Urdu! The local council was very good about paying college fees. As long as you successfully passed the course that you were studying, they would pay the tuition fees and living allowance for the next, higher course. I studied 3 years for an HNC, 1 year for an HND, 2 years for a BSc and 1 year for an MSc. All fees fully paid, plus rent allowance and money for food/beer 🙂 Today Leicester is a cesspit. I know, because I've visited my old home town. It's like entering Islamabad.....

[quote] And this this kind of parking is unheard in US because it blocks the "sidewalk" even if partially. [/quote] If you are referring to that red car on the pavement (sorry 'sidewalk'), then it too would be committing an offence in the UK by obstructing the pavement. If you want to park all over the pavement without any comeback, come and live in Thailand!

Nope, not if you state that you have returned to live permanently in the UK. (Whether you lie when making that statement is up to you...)

[quote] Even your reply here suggests a fair amount of unhappiness. [/quote] I have to agree with you. The manner of his replies suggest an angry, impatient and stressed man. Having lots of money won't stop you dying young of a heart attack due to work stress and lack of 'inner peace'.