Aussiepeter

Very little I can add to the kind words of so many other readers. I too had noticed that Joe had been a little quiet lately, before seeing this sad news. What a giant of a man to have helped so many on here for such a long time, without question. RIP Joe - your valuable input and vast wealth of knowledge of Thai immigration matters will be sorely missed.

Exactly what we did ten years ago. I'd put up with the pollution for over twenty years, but noticed it was getting worse & worse every year until one day, I'd had enough. We sold the house & moved to Australia in 2013 & my Thai wife says she is never going back to C Mai (or LOS) ever. After we returned, I was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer (non-smoker) & had 3 months radiation therapy to remove it. Our daughter was only three when we left & doesn't speak a word of Thai. Sadly, most Thais (and many expats) are not in a position financially to be able to leave. I hate flying too, but I still have friends in C Mai & will visit them each year on my own, in rainy season and only for two weeks. I wish you all the best in you move.

When I first moved to C Mai in 1992 the air in the city itself was pretty good most of the time. The only time I even saw burning was around Chiang Dao when visiting friends there. After marrying in 2001 we settled in Mae Hia near the airport & I noticed the smog was getting worse. Where it had only ever been noticeable outside the town from about March to June, now it was seriously affecting the city area. By 2007 it was affecting the city from January to July & getting worse each year. In 2008 we built a 2 storey house in Saraphi & moved out there, but when our daughter was born in 2010 it was obvious to me that the air would never improve & that it was no place to raise a family. By 2012 it had become so severe that I applied for my wife to migrate to Australia. We had spent several million baht building a home that we loved, but the filthy air had given me a serious cough (I am a non-smoker). Just as we sold our house in 2013, another Australian finished building a bungalow across the road from us at a cost of 4 million baht. It was immaculate. When he asked why I was leaving after all these years, I told him the truth - I didn't want to die early from lung disease. After we moved to Australia in 2013, I was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx, almost certainly caused by years of exposure to the filthy C Mai air. Six years after treatment, I returned to C Mai briefly in March 2019 and was horrified to see just how bad the air pollution had become. As we descended approaching C Mai and the aircraft dropped from clear blue sky into brownish soup, the obviously Aussie pilot laughingly commented "we will be landing at C Mai airport in about fifteen minutes - if we can see it" ! The second day there I was walking in town when a C130 aircraft flew over & dumped a load of water, in a futile attempt at helping the air quality. Last week I finally got the "all clear" from my ENT specialist, ten years after months of radiation therapy. I showed him the current pictures of the foul air in C Mai and he was stunned. He then said "nobody can live in that - there must be thousands there whose life expectancy will be massively impacted" & he was spot on. Every C Mai Governor for the last 25 years has been either unable or unwilling to do anything about the burning. Friends tell me the 'burning season' in Nth & NE Thailand now starts in December and goes pretty much till about August or the rains come, whichever is sooner. No thanks.

Ages since I posted anything & this subject reminded me of the 25 years I lived in LOS, until I got throat cancer from the muck they call 'fresh air' in Chiang Mai & decamped to Oz with my family. Had my annual throat scan last week at the local cancer clinic & ten years after I left Thailand & had months of radio therapy, it seems the cancer is really gone. As I sat in the waiting area, I saw a book of 'Andy Capp' cartoons on the table. When I lived in LOS, I bought the 'Bangkok Post' daily & cut out all the 'Andy Capp' cartoons & stuck them in scrapbooks, which now reside in my toilet. One in my scrapbook sums this topic up perfectly, given that this happened in LOS. Andy is sitting in the pub drinking a beer - the chap next to him, doing a crossword puzzle says "what's that thing called Andy, you know, where they tie giant rubber bands on your ankles & you jump off bridges & things" - Andy never even looks up but says, "stupidity" .....

Only a pervert would go around filming innocent folks at 0400 hours. Jail the perp & give a medal to the couple, who were obviously promoting the "unique quaintness of the world-famous quality family resort known as Pattaya". I haven't been there since 1989, but from the sound of it, nothing much has changed as far as I can see. Cue to "the most used four-letter word in a brothel"... ('Next' ) ...

Indian chap had obviously never seen the move "Crocodile Dundee" otherwise (if he had any suspicions) he'd have given the 'lady' the traditional handy greeting, before entering negotiations.

About twenty years ago a Swiss guy that I know married a wealthy petite divorced lady about ten years older than himself. She owned so much property in Chiang Mai that he couldn't lose financially, as at the time he was 34 and recently unemployed. After their legal marriage at the Amphur, her father, a retired Judge, held the wedding party at his home. He offered my friend five or six Thai bankbooks and asked him to select one, just as you draw straws for something, as a wedding present. He was not permitted to open the books of course. The one my friend chose had a balance of 83 million baht & his new father-in-law signed it over to the Swiss chap the next day. I was there and translated everything for my friend, who can't speak Thai to save himself. One can only guess how the old man had accumulated such wealth, on a lower court Judge's salary. At the time, I was still single and I just wished I'd met his wife before he did ......

I lived in LOS for nearly thirty years. Every time they sold any beer that was drinkable, it disappeared. When I arrived in 1987 I drank Kloster', then it was no more. Then the wretched mess with Carlsberg, one of my favourite beers, with the winner being that **** they call Chang. I hate Heineken - it tastes like kid's beer (old KB in Oz), too sweet. I'm no longer living in LOS but I'm visiting soon - can you still buy Tiger ? It's the only beer I can tolerate, apart from Beer Lao from over the river. Every other brand of stuff they call "beer" in LOS is putrid. I doubt the big boys will ever let the status quo be altered. Too much at stake, sadly. Nothing ever changes for the better in LOS. Like Sgt Barnes says in the movie 'Platoon' - "there's the way it ought to be, then there's the way it is" .....

In 1994 my ex-missus dragged me to this so-called private "zoo" and we were both absolutely horrified to see the gorilla that is the subject of this post - she looked totally miserable. Her cage was foul and all she had to play with was one old truck tyre, hanging on a chain from the roof - nothing else. I thought at the time that this was one of the worst instances of animal cruelty I'd ever experienced. Back then I was shocked that a Thai could ever do something as horrible as this, but after nearly thirty years of living in LOS on and off, I'm no longer surprised at anything that they do. The fact that she is still caged in the same horrific conditions nearly thirty years later, even after a huge public outcry, says it all to me.

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.