newnative

Purely unscientific but I have two Thai nieces and one Thai nephew. All are upper-middle class, educated, and attractive. They are all in their middle to late 30s. None of the three are married, none have had any children, and, it seems, none are planning to ever have kids. My Thai spouse is one of 5 children, now in their 50s and 60s, and, among the five of them, just these three were produced.

I am in Thailand to be with my Thai spouse. It's been great.

Which is the same number won as India, with 1.3 billion potential standout athletes vs. Thailand's 73 million.

Now if we can just get the Seal U plug-in hybrid SUV.

Nailed it.

I still remember my first visit to Cambodia with my spouse about 12 years ago. We took a van to the border and then hired a car to take us to Siem Reap, on National Highway 1, I believe. The entire trip, almost every cross road to the paved highway was dirt. When we got to Siem Reap, many of the streets were very bumpy gravel. The pot holes were so deep on some streets that we could barely go walking pace on the 3-wheeled vehicle that took us around town. When we left Siem Reap to do some touring, it wasn't long after we got out of the town that the electric poles stopped--no electricity after that point. No electricity out of town and also no running water, wih the houses mostly small 1 or 2 room wooden structures on stilts. We both were comparing Cambodia to Thailand--two countries right next door to each other yet one so advanced and the other still so primitive. We had sort of taken for granted up to that point that most places we went in Thailand we'd be on a good road to get there--and would have electricity and running water when we arrived. The visit to Cambodia really was an eye-opener as neither of us expected such a stark difference in development. Happily, we returned to Cambodia in 2017 and we noticed some progress, especially in Siem Reap, where our visit was centered.

With the Motorway improvements it's no longer 2 hours to BKK airport. Leaving Pattaya right now, it's 1 hour 21 minutes according to my phone map app. We can usually be at our downtown Bangkok condo in 2 hours or less, non-rush hour.

So true. And, if they did actually visit, it was years ago and they didn't venture far from Soi 6 or Walking Street.

I think your title is incorrect, at least for me. I certainly don't 'hate' Phuket. My spouse and I had a very nice time when we visited. For living year-round, though, we prefer Pattaya, hands down. We like being just an easy drive to Bangkok, where we have a getaway condo. We like being close to a big airport, for when we travel. We like Pattaya's size--not too big and not too small--it's easy to get to the places we go to frequently. We like Pattaya's wide variety of housing choices at all price points to rent or to own, and it's different, interesting neighborhoods to choose from. We like the wide variety of shopping choices, and health care services. And, we like the expat community here, where we have made some very nice friendships.

Yawn

True about the Chinese and number 4. If you notice, in Pattaya, there are highrises View Talay 1, 2, 3A, 3B, 5C, 5D, 6, 7, and 8. But no View Talay 4 highrise. The first and last condos my spouse and I owned did have floor 13s--we lived on floor 13 in the first one. Likely some of the others also had floor 13s, too, but I can't remember.

A number of countries use mail-in voting, including Canada, the UK, South Korea, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, and others. Idiot Trump, fortunately, loudly opposed mail-in voting in 2020, citing all sorts of completely false claims regarding it. His opposition to it, and urging his supporters to wait until Election Day to vote, possibly cost him the election. Yaa! Dems, alas, will not be so fortunate this year. Trump, apparently finding some heretofor deeply hidden and never-used brain cells, has done a complete flip-flop regarding mail-in voting. Guess what? All those lies he told regarding mail-in voting? Never mind. Just lies. Mail-in voting, according to Trump, is now hunky-dory and he is urging his supporters to use it. Boo! Why couldn't those damn, lazy brain cells of his have just remained inactive until after Election Day?

Terrible decision.

Seems like Thailand is getting along just fine without a submarine. Find a better use for the money--and that would be just about anything.

555 You have to hand it to them--they can spin anything.

Horrible. Men, too.

I think you need to distinguish between tourists, who visit once for maybe a week or two, and others who visit frequently and/or live here for extended periods or year-round. My four sisters visited Thailand in 2017 for 10 days and they had a wonderful time. Everything was new, interesting, exotic, and so different from where they live in the US. They still talk about their trip and the fun they had and the new experiences. One of my sisters even had a little travel book made for everyone with lots of photos and descriptions from their trip. That's a typical tourist. If you think back to your first visit, it was probably something like that, too--as was my first visit in December 2009.

Around 80,000 baht a month.

I liked the first sentence of your second paragraph. There are definitely Thais with money to buy homes. The other day my spouse and I were on the Motorway from Bangkok back to Pattaya. I think I counted at least 10 billboards advertising new housing estates with prices ranging from 30MB to 50MB and more. Plus a number of other housing projects with more normal prices. My Thai brother-in-law is house hunting in the BKK suburbs. He looked at one new small 3-bedroom 2-story on a tiny land plot for about 7MB. No air-con, no finished kitchen, no furniture, no appliances, no built-ins. Not even shower glass in the bathrooms. Left to think about it. Went back a few days later. It was sold. Most of the project is sold and the developer didn't want to reduce the price much on the few remaining homes--and, apparently doesn't need to.

A number of the desirable condo projects in Pattaya have reached the 49% limit. But, you are right, in most other areas, without high concentrations of expats, it's not a big factor with condos and the proposed increase in foregn ownership will have little or no impact on prices.

Luckily, trying to overthrow the government and election tampering do not fall under official duties.

Hello. I looked into Cigna Close Care when it was mentioned some weeks ago on another thread. I am male and 72, close to your age. The quote I got for Close Care, with coverage in Thailand, was $397 a month with $3000 deductible, 10% cost share, and $2000 out of pocket max. If I remember correctly, there are several options to change the deductible to reduce the monthly cost. At that point in the application process, which is as far as I got, they did not ask for any of my medical conditions. I currently have hospitalization insurance with April International insurance, out of Paris, and I am paying considerably more than the Cigna quote, although with no deductible, which is not available with my plan. The Close Care was tempting but I decided to stick with April, mainly because I have been with them since around 2011. One thing possibly of interest, when I did not immediately sign up for Cigna, a few days later they sent me an email offering a 10% lifetime discount if I signed up befoe the end of June. Should you decide to go with them, you might wait a few days and see if you get the same 10% dicount offer. Good luck with your health care search.

Unbelievable.

Once again, hold the ridiculous hype in headlines and reporting.

Could have been worse. I have no recollection, as I was just a baby at the time, but I remember my 3 older sisters talking a number of times about a train trip to Pennsylvania to visit the grandparents when we lived in Oregon. Dad was on an extended overseas assignment with the military and Mom decided to make the trip on her own with the kids even though she was short on money. Apparently, they ate peanut butter crackers the entire train trip there and back. I think to this day none of them can look at peanut butter.