Aussiepeter

I can't believe some of the silly uneducated comments made on here about Australia & the economy. Australian banks are amongst the toughest in the world, have good reserves and don't look like going backwards. Never have done since the Great Depression of 1930. A simple computer glitch in the transfer mechanism between banks caused a minor hiccup yesterday - nothing else. After coming & going to LOS for years, I moved to LOS & stayed from 2000 - 2013 and lived well, building a lovely home with my Thai wife and child. My army pension meant we could live well, but living like a farang costs $, so we saved little over those thirteen years. Then, after a cancer diagnosis, I made the decision to relocate back to Oz and it was the best one I ever made, according to the lady of the house. She will NEVER go back to Thailand - she has made that very clear. I beat the cancer & went back to work. My family has bred & raced thoroughbreds for well over 100 years. I inherited the business, but not for free. We sold our house in LOS & returned to OZ - nine years on we own our house and farm & now have millions of baht in the bank. Better still, Oz banks are guaranteed by our Federal govt. & as I studied law, I never let the balance go over 5 mil baht ($250K) in any one bank as, that is the limit for one person per account in one bank that is govt. guaranteed. As someone else said, our economy is resource based just like, say, Saudi Arabia. They have oil - we have unlimited high grade coal for steel-making, plus iron ore, gas, beef & grain for export and now lithium, needed by the entire world for batteries. Any talk of Australia going broke is fanciful, at best. I gamble thousands of baht every Wednesday & Sunday alone, on races in Hong Kong and, that's just for fun. I work hard, but the rewards are enormous. Yes, there are many lazy welfare bludgers in Oz, but there are plenty more just like my Thai wife & I who work hard & love it here. Yes the Oz dollar is low, but look at the UK pound and Euro ! I turned 70 today - my doctor called me to say my latest cancer test was clear - that's six years now. One thing is certain, I'd trust an Australian bank before I'd ever again put one cent in a Thai bank - at least here they pay interest to foreigners ......

As I recall, the last time this happened in Bangkok, it created a "soi croc problem" and from experience, I'd prefer a nasty soi dog to a hungry crocodile anytime (the crocodile farms were flooded and dozens of the 'inmates' escaped). Then again, crocs eat dogs, so .....

Me too - I lived in LOS from 1989 until 2013. Life under Thaksin better ? More fun ? No way, Jose' ! Bringing in stupid archaic new alcohol laws - this is LOS, not Saudi Arabia ! War on drugs ? Extra-judicial killings ? Life was great for an expat here before Thaksin. An old man who was a very good friend had lived legally in LOS for 14 years, happily married to an old Thai lady & living lawfully in his own home on a meagre army pension from the UK & hurting nobody. That was until Thaksin & his govt changed the rules to "get rid of the "lower-class farang" (the exact words told to my friend when renewing his visa in Laos for the last time). Suddenly, my friend did not have enough money to qualify to get his regular marriage visa anymore, so he just said "stuff you" and then lived happily for many years on overstay, until his death. RIP David Francis, HM Royal Marines. Proud to have known you.

Summed it up perfectly. I was living in LOS when a company owned by a very rich man sold a satellite to the Government of Myanmar - I seem to recall the cost was umpteen millions of $USD ? Only trouble was, the buyer didn't have the entire purchase amount on hand at the time, rather they had only a third of it, which they paid, in cash. Then the "govt" of LOS approved a "soft loan" to Myanmar for the rest of the purchase price - that would be many more millions of $USD, if my maths are correct. Sadly, there are still a few less-informed folk in LOS who occasionally expound the supposed virtues of that now extremely wealthy, but apparently permanently exiled, businessman.

Having read this, I can assure you all that nothing should surprise you in LOS, especially if you are a fluent Thai speaker. In 1994, I met a nice 26 y.o. lady from Chiang Rai. I was 41. After speaking northern Thai with her, she agreed to go home with me. It went well - she lived with me full-time, but kept her rented room. I bonked her for six months - it was awesome ! No fights, no buffalo stories, nothing. We got "engaged" & my father came to visit us. I bought her a 1200 baht gold ring (neung salung) and a watch. Nothing else. Not a cent, however I paid all our living expenses. She told me she once had a German boyfriend younger than me, but "it was over". So what ? She agreed that what we had was great, or so I thought. One day, she suddenly asked me for 1200 baht for "the electricity at her room". I was suspicious - the bill for my rented house was never over 500 baht. She huffed & I told her all I had was 700 baht. She took it, left to go pay her bill and I never saw her again. I went to her room next day - cleaned out. So, if you are reading this on here and you are German & your name is Robert and you married a then 26 y.o. Miss "Oi" (sugarcane) from Chiang Rai in 1994 (I know her real Thai name) - be aware that I was sleeping with her too, right up till the day before she met you at Don Muang Airport ! By the way, I hope you aren't insured, in Thailand anyway. .....

Be aware everyone - Thailand brought in huge fines some years back for bringing in any meat products whatsoever undeclared through Thai airports. I got picked up (x-ray) at C Mai airport with three frozen sausages which I'd thrown in with a six pack of my favourite beer from Oz. I was not aware of the new regulation about "absolutely NO meat" but as I'm fluent in Northern Thai, I managed to talk my way out of it. It was however explained to me by the Customs officer in no uncertain terms that I could have been liable for a fine of many thousands of baht. He explained that cheese is OK, as I had several blocks of that too. I know some folks that regularly brought in salami etc so if you are still doing it, don't, or be prepared to be raped financially. Cheers all.

We left LOS in 2013 because after building a home in C. Mai in 2008, by 2013 I'd had enough of the systemic & endemic corruption at every level of Thai society, plus I'd got throat cancer from breathing the supposedly "fresh air" and we had a 3 y.o. daughter that I would not let breath that ***t. I'm near fluent in Thai (reading & writing) but my wife has only recently learnt written English down here in Oz, as it is free, for (ha ha) foreigners. She and he ex-Thai friends in the English class, all aged over 50, agree on only one thing - that they all will never return to LOS, other than for a holiday. Tonight I asked her why she "won't go back there ever " - her answer, after watching the ABC news was " I never realised just how dangerous it was to live there ! " - they had just reported the daily death toll in LOS from motor vehicle accidents. The 'Na Ayuttaya nine dead but no penalty' incident sprang immediately to my mind. She was horrified. She is Australian now. I'm proud that I got her and our daughter out. Thailand kills in one day on its' roads, what Australia kills in months .... no kidding ...

Many, many thanks for this info. I moved the family to Oz permanently in 2013, selling our house in Chiang Mai. I use an accountant in Oz, but I had no idea that the Australian Tax Office rules had changed - especially the 183 day thing. I lived in LOS for many years, the last thirteen in C Mai and only went back to Oz for a few weeks each year, to do my tax and other stuff. Obviously, I could not do that now. I kept my property in Oz for years, thank goodness. The 'never put all your eggs in the same basket' rule made sense to me back then and, would apply even more to expats in LOS under the current administration there. As I've said before however, the missus has no interest in returning to Thailand, ever. . Our daughter doesn't speak a word of Thai, as she has only been schooled in Australia. I intend to visit again one day, but not under the current silly rules.

After over thirty years in uniform myself, I don't mind ladies who wear uniforms.. This one is about average to me though but to each his own, as they say. Best uniformed lady I've ever met was an Immigration Police Captain when I was doing a border bounce at Mae-Sai in about 2005. When checking back in from Myanmar I spoke only Thai.with the obviously very gay Lieutenant at the booth. He turned to his boss & said in Thai "I think I've found your new man" and she swapped places with him immediately. She was about 40, gorgeous with a young daughter & had recently divorced from her Thai husband. After asking me a few personal questions she smiled at me and said in Thai "you are obviously already married to a Thai, aren't you" ? I had to tell her the truth, as I was on a Non-O marriage visa. She then said "that is just typical of my luck" - but, she said it in perfect English ! She gave me her phone number and asked me to help find someone for her. Sadly for her, I never get involved in match-making. Might come back to bite me. She was at least a nine on the Richter scale though. Just my luck, too ...

Sadly, the bloke singing this song Graham "Shirley" Strahan who was the lead singer of the Aussie band "Skyhooks' died too young, as a lot of rock musicians do. He had just got a helicopter licence and was getting his hours up over Stradbroke Island near Brisbane in a rented 'chopper, when he flew to close to a cliff and was pulled in to it by either an updraft or downdraft - rotary-wing experts on here may know more. Great song.

I have to agree, US craft beers have come a long way. I live near a little country town in Oz, which has two booze shops. I've tried a load of unusual US beers in recent years and was pleasantly surprised. Tried Bud during my time in the army but it was horrid, when Oz beers at the time (1973) were always bigger, better and more importantly, cheaper. Always liked both Millers & Coors though, especially when the govt provided it for free ...

Very complicated indeed, the Carlsberg story. Here's my take on it. I first tried Carlsberg in Turkey in 1988 and loved it. You can imagine my joy then as an army officer in 1993 being sent to Sakon Nahkon for six months on farang $ to learn to speak "Lao" only to find Carlsberg at 3 big bottles everywhere for 100 baht ! Carlsberg had got itself a 'sponsor' to brew their beer in LOS, but part of the deal was that they paid for everything, including a factory, supposedly with two identical production lines. One line bottled Carlsberg, at about 5% alcohol, the other produced a new local brew called Beer Chang with a then unknown alcohol level, but believed to be at least 6% & probably more like 8%+ alcohol. A local Thai-Vietnamese shop owner explained to me that his suppliers forced him to buy Carlsberg, even though the locals wouldn't touch it at 45 or 50 baht a bottle saying that it was "jewt," or weak and for them anyway, expensive. The suppliers' deal apparently was "if you don't take '#' boxes of Carlsberg, you can't get either Lao-cao or Mekong whiskey from us" (his biggest sellers) - plus, they also supplied the new, much more potent and much cheaper beer Chang. Poor chap ended up selling me and an army mate four bottles of Carlsberg for 100 baht daily - I was a happy camper for months. Then I was moved back to Chiang Mai and in my first few days had to attend the funeral of a lovely 22 y.o. Thai girl who had died from renal failure after childbirth, in Chiang Dao. At the funeral I was given beer that looked like Carlsberg, but it was Chang. I drank three big bottles over four hours - three Carlsbergs that size would do me no harm normally. I was sick for three days. Never touched a beer Chang ever again. I returned to C Mai to marry in 2000 and Carlsberg was still available, but Thais wouldn't touch it at the price and so they gave away lots of freebies to encourage you to buy. I still have three folding camp stools, a load of Carlsberg blankets and heaps of pilsener glasses. The 'sponsor' pushed his beer Chang hard and Carlsberg sales rapidly declined (no matter how hard I & a few stoic expats tried to keep them afloat) ! Eventually, the board of Carlsberg decided to cut their losses and leave Thailand, "gifting" their sponsor the production plant, which immediately switched to producing even more horrid Chang beer. There was a Court case I believe - but we all know farangs hardly ever win. It was reported at the time that the whole sad episode lost Carlsberg more than $550 million USD. Why anyone would even try to do business in LOS is beyond me. Oz's National Australia Bank opted to open a branch in Bangkok for several years about the same time, but they also left with their tail dragging between their legs after massive losses/bad loans. They never openly admitted just how many millions they lost but I am sure it was just that, millions - which reminds me of an old joke I heard from an expat once "how do you make a small fortune in Thailand" ? Answer - "come here with a large one."

Precisely why I got my family the hell out of the place nine years ago and will never return, ever. Twenty-five years was more than enough. This is my first post in months. Maybe my last, as I no longer give a rodents' rectum about LOS. However, I will give some younger expats who don't know about me a laugh on my first experience of LOS' finest. In the early 1990's there was a place in Chiang Mai known as "the happy housewives club" (a 'Baan Sow' or knocking shop by definition). There is No prostitution in Thailand - "you can take that to the bank" ! Imagine if you can then, such a place operating within 400 metres of a police box. New to C Mai & the nuances of the RTP, I chose a lady for a 'walk in the park' and just as I had my trousers down, I heard the unmistakeable sound of the 'squelch' on an obviously RTP radio, coming from the next room. As a serving army Officer of a country friendly with Thailand I went into overdrive, grabbed my pants & bolted out the door, the young lady meantime yelling "mai pen rai". it was only then that I realised that the police radio in the next room belonged to a young chap just like me, there to enjoy a little horizontal relaxation .... only he was RTP ... Goodbye all .... "Those WERE the days"....

Not really relevant but I just "have to know" as I am desperate for a break from my Thai missus and daughter ! Is Greece worth a long look these days Terry ? I did a posting there 30 years ago & speak Greek really well. Many Greeks think I am from Crete, as they do have some locals with blond hair there.. I speak Turkish too, plus six other languages including Thai & Lao thanks to a career in the army, but after English & Thai, my third language is Greek. I can read it too, which was a real pain to learn, as they have different letters for upper & lower case (sneaky, that). Is Crete ('Kriti') worth a look these days ? With a stopover in LOS on the way, of course..... for shopping & R/R. I am a biker too, but motorcycles are a breeze to rent in Greece. Positive or negative comments are welcome ...Cheers !

So true. We sold our concrete 'palace' in what was a quiet area of Saraphi (Chiang Ma)i and left forever, having well and truly seen "the writing on the wall" with this horrid administration. In March 2019 I went back for a look at what was a once a beautifully designed farang home in an orchard, whilst in LOS for two weeks R/R. Our lovely lumyai (longan) orchard had been carved up & one side of our old home is now a row of tiny ugly townhouses, each with a front yard of about 4 square metres & several barking dogs. The other side is now a four storey el-cheapo rooms for rent condo, with horrendous loud music, screaming souped-up motorbikes and all the young tarts & their Thai boyfriends and from what I heard in just five minutes at 1500 hours, one hell of a lot of noise. Our little farm in the Aussie bush is paradise by comparison. No pollution whatsoever and no noise after 1700 hours. Thai wife has said she is never going back and anyway, our daughter can't speak Thai. My 30 year love affair with LOS is finished - which is a good thing, because deep down, I think Thailand is too, sadly ....

Life in LOS is what you make of it - whatever government is in power. As a foreigner you have no input anyway, so as many on here have already said, why sweat it ? In my case, after nearly thirty years in Thailand I got old, re-married & had a baby but worst of all, I got cancer twice (two different kinds). LOS is no place for an old farang with major medical problems, unless you have very deep pockets, otherwise I may well have stayed. On top of all that, my father was then 91 & running a thoroughbred agistment farm on his own in Australia and, the current administration in LOS gave me dysentery. So, we left LOS eight years ago and have no regrets whatsoever. I do miss some aspects of life in LOS, such as the cheap 'talaat nut' (moving markets) in C Mai, or shopping trips to the Burmese border. Nonetheless, my wife has happily settled down permanently in Australia and gives me no grief. Our daughter goes to high school here next year which is good, as she can't speak a word of Thai. My cancer is in remission, all of my medical care is either very cheap or free & at 70 years of age, I finally have several good racehorses in my stable and my 99 y.o. father and I are mates again, as I am about to inherit his farm. It's all good - as another person said "you never know when your time is up" so geography is not all that relevant, if you are happy. Interestingly, even though we are here to stay, the 'boss' allows me to go back on my own to visit LOS for a week or two at any time and I have done so several times. Spent almost half my life in LOS, so I've never really left ....

Those rubber trees on the Old Lamphun Road have indirectly contributed to dozens of road-deaths. Many locals want them gone and I know for a fact that several trees have been poisoned, resulting in their removal. My wife opened a locksmith shop on that road and her niece still runs it. I can remember at least half a dozen Thais smashing their motorbikes into those trees in the thirteen years my wife ran that business. She says the trees are "sacred" because of all the lives that have ended on them, usually when inebriated young Thais rode motorcycles into them after a night in one of the many karaokes that used to be along that road. The lighting on the Old Lamphun Road used to be very poor when I lived there & I doubt it has improved much. Just before I left LOS, a friend who had previously been married to a really nasty old B/G came over for a visit. Apparently the Thai son of his now ex-wife had been killed in a collision with one of those rubber trees and she had asked him to buy her an air ticket urgently, so that she could attend the funeral. Living on the dole in Oz with no funds, she had offered to 'take care of his needs' for a couple of weeks, if he paid for her air ticket. To me it seemed like 'taking coal to Newcastle' but he agreed. He can't speak Thai, so I went to the "Ngaan Sop" (funeral) with him & his ex. Almost as soon as we got there, staff from a local motorcycle dealer presented my farang friend with a bill (in Thai) & demanded that he pay for the brand new motorcycle the deceased had wrapped around a rubber tree. They explained nicely that he had to pay, as 'he was in some way responsible as the step-father and the boy was drunk, so insurance would not pay'. They were less than amused when I explained that my friend was no longer married to the boys' mother, did not live in Thailand and that she too lived in Australia and both had no idea who it was 'went guarantor' for the boy to buy a motorcycle. The air ticket deal proved costly too, as the 'lady' ditched my friend straight after the funeral and reneged on the 'arrangement.'

I think Thailand is finished for ever as a tourist destination, unless the current administration goes. In the main news across Australia tonight at 1900 hours (7pm) our government (ABC) channel spent several minutes airing the entire film of the alleged drug dealer being allegedly suffocated by allegedly real Thai cops, with plastic bags. The whole story and, how it was a senior cop allegedly confiscated dozens of luxury cars that had been illegally imported & then kept them for himself. They spared nothing and pulled no punches. Next they reported that Australia is gearing up to resume flights to overseas countries. The alcohol restrictions in LOS have already been widely reported here and it is well-known that LOS is a "dry" country for any potential tourists now. Even my Thai wife said "an Aussie or Kiwi who can't have a beer with a meal won't go there - they will go next door" (meaning Laos or Vietnam). She did mention 'mum & pop' shops, but they are of no use to tourists, who don't have local knowledge. I feel great pity for those expats stuck there who like a tipple every now and again. The glory days in LOS are long gone, sadly. We bought an apartment in sterile Singapore 3 years ago - at least I can buy alcohol there 24/7, in the unlikely event that I need to, when flights resume. No visa hassles either.

I was always on a Non-Immigrant 'O' visa which gave me 15 months total stay before a renewal. I learnt to speak northernThai and learnt about all the 'secret places' in the north that tourists would not know about, including "cathouses" and even secret "clubs" where they seldom see a farang. I was in my early 40's during the nineties and single, in a C Mai just starting to blossom. It was much easier to stay long-term, some just went to a border every month. The rot started with Thaksin's reign. His government made some truly horrid decisions - such as bringing in income limits that forced many harmless old-timers to either leave, or like a now-deceased best friend, to break the law. My mate had lived a frugal life with his legal Thai wife in Mae Taeng for over twenty years and always went to Penang for a legal double entry visa. Nobody cared how little or how much $ he had. He worked as a teacher for a Royal Project & had a small pension, but it was peanuts. Then one day the rules changed. He went to get a new visa and they told him that (his exact words to me) "we don't want your type of people here any more, so this will be your last visa". He chose to drop off the radar and never got another visa - living happily with his wife as always & hurting nobody, right up until he died from a stroke with a massive 6 year overstay ! Then there was their stupid restrictions to hours for buying alcohol. I had heaps of money and could easily work around their silly alcohol rules, but as the air in the north became filthier each year I'd finally had enough. A diagnosis of throat cancer (I'm a non-smoker) sealed the deal. I'm not even going to mention their horrific driving. After our daughter was born I made the decision to leave for good, as I did not want her to breath the muck passed off as "fresh air" in C Mai for seven or eight months a year, or become a road toll statistic. The 90's were a fantastic time to be in LOS, with little enforcement of any kind. You could even have a few beers on the train from BKK to CM & I bought the guards a few beers sometimes. That too has ceased, to the detriment of Thailand (I think). We've lived in Oz now with pristine air for eight years, own a farm and my wife is a now a citizen. I went back to C Mai twice before covid hit, but neither my wife nor my daughter, who only speaks English, has any interest in returning. Sadly, the good old days are over.

The chap who died from snakebite had consumed quite a lot of alcohol before going to see the movie and may even have fallen asleep. He was wearing shorts and flip-flops (thongs for us Aussies) and the cobra had bitten him on his foot. According to my wife, when the lights came on at the end of the film, the locals just thought he was asleep. She told me she wouldn't ever go in there - Thais tend to avoid areas that may be "ghost-prone".

Yes, I had a look through it but it was un-exciting, to say the least !

That was the one. I remember the cause was they put up a lot of water tanks on the roof and piped water up to them. The building couldn't handle the weight of the additional floors plus all the extra weight of the full water tanks and the whole place suddenly collapsed. So sad for a Medal-of- Honour winner to go that way. Over the many years I lived in Chiang Mai, I met a number of military veterans who had also survived major battles, only to die from 'misadventure' in Thailand.

I lived in C Mai for twenty-five years or so, but finally left in 2013. At one stage I visited many of the abandoned buildings and wrote a story about them for a local magazine, only to have them lose my draft. The movie theatre was still operating in 1989 as I went there once or twice - very nice & very cheap (no double pricing). I recall a sad occasion when a farang was found dead there after the end of a film. Apparently a cobra had slithered in at some time during the film and had bitten him several times - it was rainy season. If you go down Changklan Rd past the old theatre about 500m, just before the next traffic lights there is an abandoned 14 storey building in a Soi on the right - it's been there unfinished since at least 1990. It had been approved as eight floors from memory, but the builder illegally added extra floors. A similar hotel building that had been "modified" collapsed in the early 90's (in Udon Thani from memory), killing a US Medal of Honour winner from the Vietnam conflict, his Thai wife & others eating dinner. After that they clamped down on illegally modified high-rise buildings. They demolished the old railway hotel opposite C Mai railway station, but not before I climbed up to the top and got some amazing (pre-digital) photos. The best secret is Asia's first ever revolving restaurant, which sits on top of the long abandoned Bpoy Luang Hotel. It is on the main highway intersection with the road coming from the railway station. I left in 2013, but it was still there a few years ago when I visited. (I did write about it a while back on 'tv'). Assuming it is still there, it looks like a smaller round room on top of an old white rectangular building. I rode a Honda Dream up the ramp/fire-esape to the top about 20 years ago & climbed into the old revolving restaurant. It was a big G.I. hotel in the Vietnam War & had a disco-like mirror-ball in the revolving restaurant & it had a big swimming pool in the rear. All the lifts etc have been removed and it is just a shell now, but it was incredible back in 1968 or so. They started to refurb it in the 90's as a hospital, but the 97 crash killed it. They fixed up a couple of rooms and filmed episodes of a popular Thai 'soap' opera there in the early 90's too. I actually appeared in that show quite by accident, when I stopped & asked a BIB for directions (I speak local Thai). The 'cop' laughed and told me in perfect English that he was not a real cop but was an actor and, "would I mind riding my motorbike up the street again and asking him the same question, so they could film it" ! I was famous in local bars for a week to two. The 90's were a fantastic time to be in Chiang Mai (or elsewhere in Thailand for that matter) and, the air was clean !

This is not the first death on Samui caused by deadly box jellyfish. I recall writing about this subject on here previously. Several years back two young German ladies were both stung severely by chironex (box) jellyfish after going for an early evening swim on Samui. Both girls were in their early twenties. One girl died, whilst the other was horribly disfigured and was air-evacuated in a critical condition to Germany. As usual in LOS, absolutely nothing was done to prevent it ever happening again. In the rainy season in northern Australia, these creatures are so common that nobody goes into the sea between November and March, unless they are in a netted safe swimming area or wearing protective clothing. Warning signs everywhere. Only last year a very fit indigenous teenager died in north Queensland after being stung by a box jellyfish. Warning signs in multiple languages and safety nets should have been installed on Samui & other islands years ago after the first fatalities but of course, that might have put tourists off. The best treatment is aluminium sulphate gel applied immediately to the injured area or failing that being available, vinegar. The box jellyfish has tentacles up to 3 metres long and each one has a stinging nematode every 5mm - so victims usually get a massive number of stings. An alluminium sulphate product called "Stingose" in a tube is often the first thing into the bag on a beach trip here in Oz, as we have all manner of less deadly but still painful jellyfish. I feel very sad for the little boy who lost his life to one of these nasty creatures - yet another avoidable death in LOS. I am pleased that they have (now) finally installed safety nets on Samui.

Although I'm half British & have dual citizenship, I think the Australian Govt. looks after its' citizens better than the UK does but that being said, the UK govt has been broke for years - there is little else they can cut/do to save money, so I pity them. I often see on here that the UK Embassy doesn't look after their citizens in LOS, but my only dealings with them at the old (now demolished) UK Embassy back in 2000 were good. They gave my Thai wife a one year visitor visa when I only wanted 2 weeks, to visit my now late mother. Here in Oz, my Thai wife will inherit 67% of my army pension when I cark it, for the duration of her life. Our daughter would also be eligible to receive extra payments until she turns 18 - (she is 11 now) but chances are I'll be around a while yet, so it is unlikely our daughter will get anything extra. In the unlikely event that my wife wished to return to LOS to live, her 67% of my army pension is entirely transportable for life. That's not going to happen though - she loves it here and has already told all and sundry back home that she will never return to Thailand, other than for a holiday. As a legal migrant, she's become what used to be called "a New Australian" - only in her case, she's become "a New Farang" !