newnative

One thing that continues to impress me is Thailand's road system. Spouse and I have traveled fairly widely over Thailand and it has been mostly on good motorways. I still remember visiting Cambodia and, at that time, a lot of the roads were dirt. Siam Reap had horrible roads, very bumpy, some just gravel. On my last visit I noticed the roads had improved a lot but I'm always grateful for the good roads when we go traveling in Thailand. However, some of the vehicles on the road . . .

I'm wondering, does Trump's official Presidential Lying Tally get reset to zero for his second term or does it continue where it left off, at 32,736,495,102? Sent by God . . . Add another one, either way.

Already answered the last time you asked this on another thread. See Nixon pardon. Try to keep up.

The 'future of Jord' should be a quick death.

John F. Kennedy Inaugural speech: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." Donald Trump Inaugural speech: "Drill, baby, drill." The worst president in US history just gave the worst Inaugural Address in US history, lazily digging out his tired and stale campaign speech from his back pocket.

To echo a previous poster, Pattaya's for you. Lots of neighborhoods, lots of variety, lots of housing choices, several good malls, cheap transportation, all sorts of restaurants and inexpensive food courts, and still close to Bangkok if you want to visit now and then--as my spouse and I do.

I certainly hope not! My eyes! My eyes!

Thanks. That was my thinking, too.

I found your post confusing. But, in any case, having to pay taxes in Thailand, and likely not a big amount, would certainly not be my reason for ever leaving. I suspect the move to somewhere else would cost tremendously more in relocation costs than staying and paying the taxes, should I ever have to. So far, I see no evidence that I will be required to file, let alone pay, any taxes. So far, my latest check with several bank managers here in Pattaya resulted in the same answer they gave me before--nothing new with banking regarding taxes. So far, there is no requirement that I produce a tax return to obtain my annual extension. So far, my strategy remains to do nothing. Don't obtain a tax number. Don't file any taxes. In other words, my strategy is the same as most Thais living here. I think too many are letting themselves get too upset and too bothered over something that, so far, isn't even happening and, perhaps, never will. Buh bye bye to the OP.

Where are all the other people supposedly in 'clear view' of the incident and supposedly 'outraged'? I only see the Indian group. For the record, this Pattaya resident is holding his outrage for something a little more outrageous.

For a start, ban tourists from renting motorcycles.

I don't know anything about Udon Thani but I do know Pattaya, having lived here for 14 years. My advice, however, would be the same no matter what two places you were considering. I think the most important thing for you to do is to first take an honest, hard look at your lifestyle. What are your interests? How do you spend your time each day? Any hobbies or things that you like to do that one place or the other might be better for? What is a typical week like for you? How is your health? Are you a social butterfly or a hermit--or something in-between? Do you like to have other farangs around to socialize with or would you prefer some place with fewer? What sports do you play, or other physical activities, such as going to the gym, snorkeling, etc. What do you see yourself living in--rented condo or rented house? What's the budget you have to work with for either? Are you looking to keep your usual routine when you move or are you looking to shake things up with your life and make some changes? Once you have done your lifestyle review, one or the other of the two places you are considering might come out on top--for you. For someone else it might be the opposite--depending on their lifestyle. For my spouse and myself, Pattaya was the best choice for us, after we first lived on the beach outside of Rayong, and found it too isolated and limiting--for us. Pattaya was a much better fit for our lifestyle. We arrived with limited funds. Fortunately, Pattaya has an abundance of different housing available, both to rent or own, at all price points. We started with a small condo we bought--all we could afford. As our finances improved, so did our housing. Over the years, we have sampled about all of Pattaya's neighborhoods, each with its own vibe. There's a neighborhood in Pattaya that likely has what would suit just about anyone--depending on their lifestyle. Beachside, I think my favorite neighborhood was Wongamat. I liked that it was quieter but still close to the places we spent time, such as Terminal 21, Central Festival, Big C Marina, the big box stores. Bangkok Hospital wasn't far and I liked the beach right outside our condo. As we got older, our needs changed and we wanted more space and privacy than a condo offered. Again, Pattaya had a wide variety of houses, and housing projects, for us to choose from and we ended up on the Darkside near beautiful Lake Mabprachan. We're finding a whole new world in this part of Pattaya, and liking it a lot. If you venture away from the adult entertainment area, which is actually small in relation to all the other areas, you'll find that Pattaya can be a great place to live year-round--whether you are on a small budget or a large one. But, for you, choose what city works best for your budget and lifestyle.

And, how he could have come up with that baffling interpretation is beyond me.

Very few AN readers would have read, and commented, on this much ado about nothing article if it had not been incorrectly headlined as happening on Pattaya Beach.

Totally agree. A handful of cases, way over-publicized. As you said, 35 million tourists, the vast majority acting normally. No different than tourists places all over the world attracting very large numbers. Much ado about nothing.

There's plenty that's stunning in Pattaya. For much of it, though, you need to get away from the touristy areas. Although, even with that, I'm of the opinion, having had a condo with a beautiful Pattaya beach and shoreline view, that the beach, if maybe not stunning, is still quite attractive with the improvements that have been made. I certainly enjoyed looking at it from my balcony with my morning coffee and an evening drink with the sunset, watching the lights come on in the shoreline highrises.

I don't need to ask myself. Pattaya is 'always in the news' because stories about Pattaya garner more clicks, for whatever reason. Pattaya is the 15th most visited city in the world by international tourists, just behind Phuket at #14. Of course there will be incidents like this, with millions of tourists visiting and intent on cutting loose while on vacation and having a good time. This story is a good example of your 'Pattaya always in the news'. Some drunks in a 'brawl'. Really a nothing story--and would be a nothing story in other popular tourist places like Miami or Vegas. But, so far it has produced 3 pages of comments on Asean Now--with a significant number of the comments not on the 'brawl' at all but objecting to Pattaya's beach being called 'stunning'. Arguably a more important story in the same news feed, regarding the arrest of a Chinese tourist for suspected human trafficking, has, as of this writing, produced zero comments.

They're already here--with plenty more on the way. Pattaya certainly has them. Mercedes just opened a fancy, new dealership--and I thought the 'old' one--just a few years old--was quite nice. That one will be for used Mercedes--apparently enough of a market here that it needs its own space. Just about every other luxury car brand has also set up shop, along with a number of the Chinese brands. From Audi to Zeekr, they're here. Beachside, Arom Wongamat is selling smallish 82 sqm 2-bedroom condos for 16MB. That's 195,000 baht a sqm. Copacabana, a fairly new project in Jomtien, has even smaller 72 sqm 2-bedrooms for 18MB. That's 250,000 baht a sqm. Back in Wongamat, a new project just getting started called Once Wongamat, near the Circle, will have high-floor 73 sqm 2-bedroom condos for 19.3MB, 265,000 baht a sqm. That project will supposedly be the tallest in the Pattaya area. Several other mega condo projects, likely equally pricey, are under construction or soon will be. Just for comparison purposes, the 1 bedroom/1 bath condo my spouse and I owned at Northshore was 79 sqm and neither of us thought it was especially spacious. Paying about double for about the same space as our very nice NS condo means you are attracting some affluent buyers. As someone who knows a little bit about condos in Pattaya, I am rather astounded that these super-pricey projects have been built with these breath-taking price tags, for not especially spacious condos--and with more proposed. Over on the Darkside, by Lake Mabprachan, D-Space III has pool villas for sale for 49MB. Siam Royal View has a house listed for 189MB, as well as a number of others ranging from 23MB to 150MB. One of the larger projects on the Darkside, the starting prices at SRV are now around 18MB for some of the original smaller homes. As dear old Dad used to say, 'Too rich for my blood.' There are new housing projects scattered all over the Darkside, which is a booming area. Many of the new projects have starting prices of 12MB or more. One example of what is happening on the Darkside: The Baan Pattaya company has built 6 projects, all successful. The first 6 projects had houses with starting prices under 10MB, with somewhat escalating prices as the projects were built and material and land costs rose. Baan Pattaya 7, just breaking ground, is a departure. The houses will have a completely different look and the starting prices will be much higher--14MB. This points to where the single-family housing market is heading in Pattaya, with builders targeting the more affluent buyers who are either relocating to Pattaya or are investing in luxury property to rent out--also a growing market here. Just scratching the surface with my remarks, but it is indeed eye-opening when my spouse and I drive around and tour some of these really nice, new high-end projects, which we have been doing a lot of lately. We could probably visit a new project every week and never run out of new ones to visit. To conclude with what I started with, the affluent foreigners are already here--and have been here for years. Some are my neighbors.

Spouse and I have not found owning here to be a 'shackle' on our lives. And, we are apparently restless, move at the drop-of-a-hat types. We arrived in Thailand in 2009 and started in Rayong. Bought one condo, lived in it for awhile, then bought another one. After a time, we decided we wanted to live in Pattaya so we sold the second Rayong condo and moved to Pattaya in December 2010. Since our move to Pattaya, we have hopscotched all over town, always owning wherever we moved and selling when we got restless and wanted to try living somewhere else. We started at View Talay 3 and our last condo we owned was at Northshore--with 9 stops at different condo projects between those two--if I have counted correctly. When covid hit, the condo's pool and gym closed down. We decided it was time for another change so we sold our 1 bedroom 1 bath condo with a gorgeous ocean and shore view and we decamped to the Darkside--which we had hardly ever visited and knew little about. We bought a large 3 bedroom 3.5 bath pool villa right across from Lake Mabprachan in a nice housing project. After buying and renovating it, we still had 500,000 baht left from our Northshore sale. So, big pool villa for less than a 1 bedroom condo. As I have said before, real estate is topsy-turvy here. Lived in the house for awhile, got restless, sold it, and bought another pool villa on the other side of the lake. Fixed that one up, lived in it for awhile, and then decided we would try our hand at building a house from the ground up, so we could design everything from the get-go to accommodate and highlight our antique Asian furniture and art. The first house turned out quite well and rapidly increased in value once the project was finished. Bought one of the last vacant lots in the same project and last year built a bigger version of the first house, with one more bedroom and bath and a bigger master bedroom and Thai kitchen, while selling the other house. And, that's where we are--for now. We are loving living on the Darkside and, especially the beautiful Lake Mabprachan area. We like having our own pool and home gym, and enough space for family to visit. We also like having an EV charger in the garage for our plug-in hybrid suv. Non-rush hour, it's an easy 15 minute drive to T21, Central Festival, Index, Home Pro, the hospital, and everything else around there. We can also be at Big C South Pattaya in 15 minutes--with no traffic lights until we hit the shopping center. By my count that's 15 moves, about one a year. Several of our friends also own, and have also sold and moved to other places they have bought. But, I think we hold the record as frequent fliers, err, buyers.

A good example of why I've recommended using reputable real estate lawyers to work with you when buying or selling property here. Make sure they provide you with a photocopy of their lawyer's license and current, not expired, certificate. They will review the contract and any other paperwork to make sure your interests are protected and the contract has everything in it that you want, and nothing in it that you don't want. Review the finalized contract carefully and make sure you understand and are ok with all the clauses before signing. At the contract signing your lawyer will make sure, as the seller, that you receive the agreed upon non-refundable down payment by cashier's check in your name, which, depending on the contract, either you or your lawyer will hold until closing. On the closing date, which they have scheduled in advance, they will deal with the Land Office staff, review all the documents, explain what you are signing, deal with the tax and other closing cost payments, insure that you receive your closing paperwork, and, finally, they will only give the Chanote to the buyer when you, as the seller, have received in your hand the final payment due by cashier's check in your name. If you are buying, you should also have your own lawyer to protect your interests in the same way, especially if you are new to the whole buying/selling process, which can and usually does move much faster here than property transactions in places like the US or the UK.

Feel like you? No, not at all. I like that sales staff take the time to check that all the contents are in a package before I get home and discover something is missing. Nice to know everything is there. In my experience, they carefully repack the box and reseal it--and I haven't noticed any dirty hands with sales staff. We just bought a new car and when we picked it up we were presented with a large bouquet of fresh flowers. And, an assortment of drinks and snacks in the very nice waiting room while we finished the paperwork. The sales person took all the time in the world to explain the car's new features--which were plenty--and patiently and politely answered all the questions we had. And, yes, they took our photo standing next to the new car with a big red bow on it--I found that to be a very nice and endearing gesture. Buying a new car is a very big deal here for a lot of Thais--and, actually, for my spouse and me, too--and the dealers know this--and let their customers know, too. We left the dealership feeling appreciated, and well cared for. We have also called a number of times with questions that have come up and the salesman has patiently answered them for us, in some cases walking us through several different steps. In the US, they threw the key to me, told me where my new car could be found on the lot, and sent me on my way. Buh bye bye. I like there are lots of staffers when I go to the Big Box stores. Usually we can find one that can assist us with what we are buying--plus checking on a product's supply--plus assisting us in figuring out how much of something we will need, such as floor tile--plus getting something down for us if it's too high to reach--plus running and getting a cart for us if we decide to buy something once we are well into the store--plus if it needs assembly they will do that for us--plus if its a large item they'll carry it to the checkout counter for us and then carry it to our car for us--plus if the item is too big for our car they'll arrange for delivery at no or little charge, and usually in just a day or two--plus--well you get the picture--that's a lot of pluses. Again, try that in the US.

I've enjoyed every one of them. Currently reading 'The Waiting', which also features Renee Ballard, an LA detective who heads the Cold Case unit. Excellent so far, as always.

'We rent', you say. But, then you say, 'We also have a condo in BKK area she can sell'. So, actually, you rent but you and your wife also own property here. Which, I think, is a good thing because, as you also say, when you pass your wife has the option of selling the condo and getting some 'money from the condo sale'. Same with me. When I pass my spouse will also have property we own here--to use for himself or to sell should he need the money.

I shave every day. I think very few men look good with a scruffy beard or stubble. A well-groomed full beard can look good on taller men but not so much with short men.

Spouse and I saw a new black Atto 3 the other day and we thought it looked really good--especially with the change to the new black C pillar panel from the previous silver.