huckingfell

Huckingfell here,

        just a few things to point out, one of the reasons we choose the UK is that my wife prefers the UK to the Philippines, also I would prefer to be in the UK rather than the Philippines, it was just a personal choice that we both prefer the UK and as it happens she loves the cold! Regarding my name it was a close choice between two other names, Mucking Fuddle or Cupid Stunt.

       One point that many people seem to forget about, dying, in many cases it is not like switching off a light, a very dear friend of mine had a stroke, a bad one, she lingered on for 7 years, bedbound, paralyzed on one side, doubly incontinent, not knowing for most of the time her own husband or children, a fate that might befall myself or anyone, I did not wish to put my wife’s family in the Philippines through all of the emotional and financial hardships that would bring if I did indeed suffer a stroke whilst retired there. By the same token I over the years have heard the phrase, when Dad/Mum copes it I will inherit, the sad news is you may not, in the case of my father and ultimately my mother; the nursing home got it – all. Being that I am the only living family member left, there literally is no one to look after me, or indeed go back to if I needed to do so in the past.

          It is a lot more expensive here for us the UK for many things than Thailand, but we knew that before moving. Regarding where in Thailand we lived, as it happens we lived very near the land office in Pattaya if anyone living in Pattaya knows it, having the land office as a very near neighbor, things were nice and quiet, no discos, beer bars, motorcycle repair shops, etc, which is why I choose to live near it all of those years ago, the difference between then and now? A lot more cars in the street during the working day, as more house holders now have cars.

       Speaking of Pattaya here are a couple of questions for anyone living in Pattaya, do you remember hugely noisy Harley Davidson motorcycles roaring around town? And have you noticed there are now none? One small reason that I did not drive around town, is the now constant number of police stops that we encounter whether I am driving my small step through Honda or drive my truck, everything is in order, driving license, tax, insurance, etc. but it was a pain being stopped so often, Going back to the Harley riders and speaking to some of them, it appears that a small ‘fine’ would take care of the noise, but the fines became so high and often the HD riders agreed amongst themselves now never to ride in Pattaya or nearby, when they go out on a cruise to another province they all leave at 05.00AM or before, and return at the same time, it appears in other provinces the noise is tolerated, and in Pattaya the BIB do not get up early, so it is not only myself that has noticed the increase number of times that we were being stopped by the roadside for a tea.

       It was indeed a trial getting a visa for my wife, on two occasions during the application we received an email from the UK Home office, both times promising a decision in 15 working days, both times the Home office broke their word for each promised 15 working days, but there it is, we applied for the visa on 22^nd June and received the visa 2^nd November, the Home office guideline is 12 weeks, still we made it in the end.

        I do not know if Eagle delivers to or from the USA, also remember the price we paid is already way out of date as they kept to a quote they gave us months before.

        Not that I need to explain but one commenter seems to miss a valuable point, if you do decided to move out and leave your home in the in UK, or any where else for that matter, unsold and empty you lose a valuable income source, rent your now empty house out, which is exactly what I did, the trick is to find a reliable agent that you trust to work in your best interest, and as it happens I own a shop that gives me a small income in the form of a rent, moving back of course we have now lost the income from our home, but we are still comfortable with the rent from the shop, the state pension and a small annuity, I never got on the housing ladder, I bought my home in the UK in mid 1970s and have never resold or bought another since then.

           I should say it is not a fear of immigration, it is just that at anyone’s whim there is a chance that every 90 days your world could, and I stress only could, be turned upside down, there is no reason on earth that it should happen to us, far from it, but the thought is always there that someone on a bad day could say, ‘the computer says no’. I hope that answers most questions, back to us here, we are both so happy we made the move, we will of course be dropping into Thailand on our way to the Philippines every few years, wishing you all the best, Huckingfell.

I am not sure if this is the correct forum ,but here goes,

A short story of my years in Thailand, and why we left. A bit of history I was born in 1950 so I am now nearly 69 years old, after my first holiday here in 1983 I did everything I could to live here permanently, and made the big move in 1997, I will not go into ‘those were the days’, many have done that before, but I thought some may want to hear why after all of this time here we returned to Blighty.

       There were a few reasons and I will mention some of them, hopefully it may make a few decisions by others easier to make. The main reason for leaving was the rising price of health insurance here, the premiums have been steadily going up as I was getting older, for myself and my wife, the risk of becoming ill as my age increased was also of course getting greater.

       Whilst living in Thailand all of my income was from the UK, despite what some may think I am not a tax or National Insurance exile, I have paid all of my dues, so I do not have any feelings of guilt to go back to the UK if I should in the future become ill, in fact on the few occasions I have needed healthcare I have paid for it here and not put any burden on the UK, and it is the long term health care that I would advise anyone moving here permanently to consider.

         Most youngster consider themselves to be invincible when it comes to health, I did, but as I grew older more of my friends both here and in the UK developed health problems that were expensive and ongoing, so I would suggest you make sure you plan for emergencies, not only now but 30 or even 40 years down the line, many here have not, health insurance is expensive, not having it even worse, assuming your health care company pays up if you do need them, one friend of mine thought he was covered, but alas the company refused to pay, until he waged a long battle with them, not the sort of thing you want to do after major surgery.

        Before you do decided to come out here, what happens if things do go wrong and you need to return home? a few people I know sold up, their car, house, everything, sold the lot, spent most of it in Thailand and now if they do want to return they do not have a home to go to, what then? I guess staying with your kids is one option, but then as one OAP was told by his kids, ‘you ran off leaving us for 30 years, now the monies run out you want to come back and live in the spare room?’, not the best homecoming, so I would caution against selling your home to come here, I was convinced I would never return permanently to the UK in 1997, but here we are, thank goodness I did not sell my place in the UK.

         Inflation is a fact of life, no matter where you live, Thailand is no different, when I bought my truck 17 years ago I was told it had enough diesel to drive to the nearest U turn and get to the petrol station almost opposite Nissan dealership I bought it from, totally empty to full, 990 baht, when I sold the truck last year from empty on the gauge to just between half and three quarters full, 1,000 baht and the tank was nowhere near as empty as when I filled it the first time, never underestimate inflation.

        Above are some of reasons we left, but also other small factors helped us make the decision. Somehow, almost imperceptibly, there seemed to be a hardening of attitude from some of the locals towards us over the years, still lots of happy smiling faces, but noticeably there seemed to be an almost hostile element creeping in towards us from some of the local shop staff and population, maybe we imagined it, but I think not.

       The ever increasing trips to immigration, not a major factor in itself, but going to immigration is never a pleasant experience, every 90 days, plus of course the yearly retirement extension, also having been abroad few times every year the TM 30 had to be filled in, well it did at the time but I think it does not now if you stay at the same address, but I am talking about when we left, several months ago, not now, what for us was always a worry, was that for whatever reason permission to stay was at the discretion of the issuing officer, although we had all of the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed, it was always a worry.

        It was not a problem to keep 800,000 in the bank for 3 months; we never used an agent, we were told that we would both have to satisfy the financial requirements and have 800,000 each in separate accounts as my wife was not Thai, which we did, but on another occasion we were told as she is my wife we would only need the money in my account, which officer do you believe? So we both kept 800,000 in each of two accounts, not a problem, but keeping that amount in for 7 months and then keeping in 1.6 million for the other 5 months of the year for each of us would be a bit of a problem.

        There are a few other minor things that made the decision for us to move back to the UK easier, above are some. Thailand has been very kind to us, and I am sure we will miss the country a lot; the good news is that my wife has visited the UK with me three times and she loves it here, especially the cold!

Mods I am not sure if you will allow this paragraph, so please remove if it is against forum policy, as my wife is Filipino we make a daily post of our time together, so that her family and friends in the Philippines can see what we are doing, the blog goes back literally every day, so anyone can visit restaurants, islands and shows we have visited in our time together in Thailand, and now of course our daily life in the UK, <removed>

         As an aside the moving company we used was Eagle Movers (Thailand) Co., Ltd. The Ninth Tower 9 Huai Khwang, Bangkok 10310, we had 2 cubic meters of goods to go, and had quotes of over 200,000 baht from some companies, (I think the quotes of some were artificially high to keep small moves away), Eagle quoted under 30,000 baht so we went with them, the service is slow, but we were in no hurry, please note we have no association with Eagle other than using their services.

           I hope the above may be of help to anyone thinking of making the big move, best regards, Huckingfell.