Aussiepeter

They are absolutely 100% true in Chiangmai at least, as my Thai missus' uncle has been in debt to them for over twenty years - as long as I have been married to her ! He has never had any violence as far as I know. Uncle is a tradesman (locksmith) in Chiangmai and always has work, but lives from day to day. Some good days, some not. Every evening at about 1700 hours (5p.m.) for the fourteen years that I was living in Saraphi and certainly still until this day, the two people he owes money to appear. One who I call "mu-uck dang" ('cos he wears a red hat), is a likeable rogue who always has a ball of cash in one hand and almost every Thai person in Pratu Chiangmai (Chiangmai Gate) market is in his debt in some way or other. Last year when I went back to get dental work done, I bought a Thai lottery ticket on the day before I was leaving and won the two digit part - two thousand baht. Flying out next day and no way to cash it - he cashed it, less the 40 baht commission. Guess he wanted to show it off. I had seen him in the market when I bought the ticket and he already knew what number I always bought, so he did me a favour. He is not violent. Uncle is also in debt for thousands of baht to a vicious, nasty Chinese lesbian who owns lots of local real estate - she too turns up at 1700 or so. Uncle, only 52, has now been diagnosed with lung cancer from breathing the air pollution in Changers for so long (he's a non-smoker) - he has told no one and I hope his debts will die with him. Should this very nasty lady ever 'succumb', the better it would be for a great many very poor folks. She has 'minders' and they can do a lot worse than just knees. Trust me all you naysayers, - LOS is most assuredly chockers with illegal loan sharks. You just never see them, probably because many of you can't or don't speak enough Thai to be aware, but the sharks are out there - for 100 % certain.

Gotta love T/Visa, as it keeps me amused during the lock-in. One heck of a truly amazing government in LOS ! Probably the only country to have a convicted heroin trafficker as a government Minister. I have just looked through several of the financial disclosures that these lads had to make to be politicians. (All on the net). After the heroin guy got six years in prison in Oz, served four and was deported, he seems to have bounced back quite well. He and Mr Anutin are both a bit wealthy, as they say. The ex-con chap gave his net worth as $42 million USD ! It seems these bods also share a common love of fancy watches and nice cars too. The ex-con owns a Bentley, a Rolls Royce, a Benz and a Tesla, just to name a few. Good to know LOS in in the safe hands of like-minded, humble business folk. Obviously, since these luxury items that they own were all manufactured by foreigners, Mr Anutin and his pals don't really hate us at all ! He must have simply been mis-quoted. 

Sorry folks - just like others have said, I have never had private health cover in Oz in over thirty years. Three years ago, in a four day flood here in the northern-rivers, I had to get up at 0100 to try to repair a 100y.o. retaining wall made of 120kg railway sleepers. I lifted one and bang, an abdominal hernia. This, after radiation therapy to destroy the laryngeal cancer I got from the air in C Mai. All fixed for free by Medicare. Gotta love it. I did pay the surgeon who did my hernia $100 extra but hell, he is a Colonel (army reserve) and I was only a Captain, now retired and blxxdy wealthy ! Brilliant repair job for 2000 baht ? Strewth, I've paid more in a bar fine at Spotlight etc for top shelf stuff. My Thai missus needed an urgent operation on her knee, but no insurance so I said I'll pay. She said NO ! Wait ! Six weeks later a slot appeared and she got the op in a public hospital and walked out fixed the next day. Of course, I pay about $2500 a year in Medicare levy. Flaming bargain if you ask me. In my humble opinion, the only Aussies who choose deliberately to live permanently in LOS, even if they are married to a Thai and have kids, as I do, fall into just three categories (a) too poor, pensioners and saved nothing in their lives (b) seek cheaper rent and/or booze and/or smokes and/or NICE (not fat and ugly) pussy or (c) have lots of money but NO assets or property in Oz or anywhere. I have made more $ in the seven years since I returned to Oz, even given half of that time I was incredibly sick with cancer, than the twenty odd years I wasted in LOS. In 1990, I came to Thailand, seeking love or whatever. I returned to Oz with Thai missus and kid/s in 2013 and the missus says "she ain't going back to that cesspit, ever." Guess I have a farang wife after all ? But she's still Thai !

Oh hell, it is 2315 hours in Oz and I turn on tv and get "Thai horror story number 297,867 ... or was that 868" ?

I contributed to two of those numbers so I should know - then twenty-five years ago I stopped dating and trying to 're-humanise' Thai bar girls/hookers and instead learned to speak near fluent Thai, as I wanted to meet a good girl. Married twenty years now and have a kid. Never bought her a thing if I didn't want to. Missus has said many times in the seven years that we have been in Oz that "she will never return to LOS ever again" and, she means it. Good luck to the OP, but I'd running like all shxt right now ....

We are in lockdown here in Oz and after years as a teacher in C Mai, I am home-schooling our daughter. By comparison with LOS, we have it great with pure, clean, air. I am not a great fan of our PM, but he has shown himself to be well up to the task in leading Oz during a wartime situation. No alcohol ban here - that would only cause WW4. I am stocked up anyway - just came back from the supermarket in our little country town (I was one of very few wearing a mask) with 2 cartons of my favourite beer (Tooheys) - 30 cans to a box, cost about 1000 baht in total. It's actually on special ! The big surprise (still no toilet paper after six weeks) was they got a load of tins of mushy peas (from the UK) and are knocking them out at 30 baht ($1.50 Oz) a tin. Locals here don't know what they are ! Wifey was happy - only 5 Thais in this town so the asian food section was chockers and I got all the things she needed. They are talking here that this lockdown could go on longer than six months. Hope not ...

I saw first-hand the havoc this stuff causes, in C Mai in the nineties. I was a frequent customer of the old 'Spotlight Bar' and I would estimate that 50% of the ninety or so girls available back then to bar-fine 'out', were taking what a young lass euphemistically told me she called 'pink tablets'. One girl told me in Nthn Thai - (& yes folks I AM near fluent, in all three dialects of Thai and can read and write it too, so please excuse) "it makes girls go to sleep, and men do crazy things". No shxt ! The hell it does. Nong Yinn has a close handle on it, to her credit. I reckon about 30% of young folk have tried 'ya-ba' in LOS. Mostly those with no education or basic workers. When I left CM for ever in 2013, it was out of control then. We lived in Saraphi, C Mai. It was rife in our community. Dangerously rife. After Covid 19 - who knows ? What I do know is that poxy criminal Taksins' stupid war on drugs killed a shedload of very innocent folks, for sure.

Many thanks to you 'cardinal blue' for only confirming my story and the truth of this matter. Chiang Mai as a city is finished, forever, due to the greed and selfishness of a few, very wealthy, Thai people. A totally polluted xxxxhole on the planet, for almost three quarters of a year now, every year for the last fifteen years. Just an OK  place to pass through, when and if, and I mean "if", it is raining ... Thanks also to "dunroaming" who had the balls to save his childs' life and get the hell out of 'turd-mai'. Too many friends back there, to even contemplate their demise due to pulmonary disease.

Hey daoyai - not ONE bum gun but, I literally brought about TWENTY bum guns back here from my final trip to CM in March 2019 (I travel Bus Class) ! Every house I've had in Oz since about 1998 has had one. My 98 y.o. dad even has one in his place, after a visit to my place in C Mai in 1994. Greatest invention (somehow I doubt that a Thai ever invented it) on the blxxdy planet ! We have one in our 100 y.o. Aussie timber home, hence that is why I only need a bit of newsprint to soak up the water/leftovers ! I bought a couple of the really expensive (stainless) ones too last trip, as I am planning on a new-build, when I find a decent block near the ocean that is not over-priced. (Yeh, I have a few quid). "Bum guns - made for just such a dunny-paper crisis - cos you use bxxxer all paper". Could be a sales pitch ? Would have loved one when I was growing up mate - we had a 'thunder box' ! Maybe I should market them now in Oz, due to the paper crisis ?

Don't take any notice of the 'knockers' moonjar - you do have my sympathy. I was in the opposite situation seven years ago. I got cancer after breathing the filthy air in C Mai for umpteen years and we had to sell our palace in Saraphi in a 'fire sale' in order to return to Oz for treatment. On the market for several months at 2.5 mill and worth every cent. Word got around - sharks approached - sold it for almost a mill less than the boss wanted, but got cash. At least you still have a property in Sydney - ride out the storm and in another year it will be worth even more, not less. My dad owned two properties in Sydney and the value only ever went one way - and that is up. Does depend on the area of course. Virus or no virus, Sydney rules the roost in real estate prices in Oz. Cheers to all of you on TV who are stuck, wherever you are. Our only problem at the moment is having to use old newspaper as toilet roll !

My family have gone into total lockdown on our little farm in NSW Oz. An ex-army officer, I have always been prepared for the worst and in fact one farang ex GF dumped me over thirty years ago saying "I fxxxing hate it - you are always so blxxxy well organised" - well - I ain't no doomsday prep guy, but on our little farm we will be OK. Got about six months supply of whatever. Plenty of fresh veg in our own paddocks. Plenty of Corona beer in 3 fridges. My 98 y.o.dad called today from his farm, to see if we were OK - (he was). He's an ex WW2 fighter pilot - to him this virus is a bit of excitement. But, to answer the OP,  if you really, really, must travel to an island right now, - the one Tom Hanks landed on in "Castaway" would probably be my choice at the moment ! Cheers ! 

Can only comment that when in doubt, go home, if you can. There is no NHS or anything health-wise in LOS for a foreigner without lots of $$$, if one is seriously ill. That being said, you sound young - but the other readers seem to have all missed the bit where you said "I am not interested in Thai girls" - so I must ask 'just why did you even come here to LOS, - to avoid a UK winter' ? Personally, I am now in Oz, near a tiny country town with only 1500 folks and the town supermarket (only one) has been cleaned out of over 50% of everything - (dumb buggers). I am ex-military (Infantry/Para Officer) and I think that the govt. - every govt. that is - is not being entirely 'truthful' with us about the real danger/extent of this. Additionally, I have a much younger Thai wife and kids that I adore, but I also have a farm (thoroughbreds) to run. So far, we are OK and this illness does not seem to have affected my horses. Whatever you decide, I think you will be just fine. A friend told me "viruses can not live in alcohol" - he may have a point.

Clever invention, like the Victa mower or the Hills' Hist maybe in Oz. When we moved back here to Oz 7 years ago to escape the filthy air pollution of Chiang Mai, I included several different bum guns and it was the first thing I installed in our 100 y.o. heritage home. With a Thai missus and half-Thai daughter who both use heaps of dunny paper, in the stupid bog-roll drought that has hit Oz during the Covid 19 scare we are so far in front of the masses in this bush town. 

Saw the chemist today to get my cholesterol pills - he commented that there was no dunny paper to be had anywhere and I then told him "no matter - got heaps - but we have a bum gun so we use very little". I had to explain what it was - he is nearly 70 and had never seen or heard of the bum gun. Got several spares, so I'm giving him one tomorrow for a look. Perhaps LOS will now, in the world's most desperate hour, become famous for an export item ! 

Lovely photo Bangkok Barry. One of the things I miss about Thailand is the Tookays' mating calls. On the subject of the Thai centipede - avoid them like the virus ! One crawled into my bed in Chiang Dao about 25 years ago and bit me on the ankle. Like the white-tail spider in Oz, it has a necrosing venom. Hurt like hell for a few hours, but a few beers solved that. Then it started to rot. Took about four or five months to finally heal up and I still have the scar today. 

Please spare me, all those CM expats who live in utter denial because they either can't afford to leave or have invested too much or like 'Logosone', say that this extreme pollution is only for "about two months a year" - what utter bilgewater ! I lived in Chiang Mai for over twenty-five years. From 2000 to 2007 I lived in Mae Hia and then, after building what I thought would be my last home, from 2008 to 2013 in Saraphi. The air in CM started getting really bad 20 years ago and got worse and worse until I finally had enough and took my Thai wife and child to Oz in 2013. It has only gotten worse in CM each year since then and now the air is heavily polluted past any sane world danger levels for about eight or nine months a year ! It started last year in August and it has now been filthy for seven months - my wife calls her family several times a week and "muang CM folk don't lie about it" - you "unbelievers" are in complete and total denial. I should know - I had to suffer four months of being driven eighty kilometres every day of the week for radio-therapy in Oz, in order to kill the cancer that had grown, unbeknown to me, in my larynx from breathing that xxxx every day for so many years. No amount of air purifiers or filters will save you from losing ten to fifteen years off your life expectancy. Want more proof ? Today, my wife called her uncle, who like her is a locksmith and has owned and run the same locksmiths shop at the intersection of Wualai Road (walking street) and the canal for the last thirty years (I met my wife there over 20 years ago.) He has never smoked either, but he has cancer in his lungs/nasal passages, after being exposed to this filth all of his life. He is 55. Life is cheap in Asia.

Am I the only one to see that this plane seems to have once belonged to 'cranky Franky', as the registration number on the engine is M-YWAY ... think about it !

I think it's unlikely the bloke who came back to Oz from a trip to LOS caught the virus in Soi 6 - he is 81 y.o. (that being said, my dad is 98 and still likes to get his leg-over occasionally). Two deaths now in Oz. Worse, an idiot doctor aged 73 came back from USA with what he "thought was the flu" and went back to work and treated over 70 patients in a posh suburban clinic in Melbourne, before it was confirmed he had the 'big' virus.  Another health care worker has infected patients in a nursing home - all old folks. Somehow, I suspect the Thai govt is not being completely honest about the real numbers in LOS !

It's getting a good hold in Oz as well. The latest person to be confirmed with the virus is reported as being an 81 y.o. man, who just arrived back here from LOS ! ! !

Sure as hell makes the 2 million baht we got for our place in Saraphi in 2013 one of the best 'fire sales' (sold to the manager of Boon Rawd Brewery) ever by a farang in CM. Meantime at our little 100 year old wooden bungalow somewhere on a hill in NE Oz, you can see for thirty miles today (and usually every day) and the air is so clean I wish I could bottle some and donate it to those less fortunate expats and their families who are still forced to live there. We won't be going back to LOS (sadly) as I don't what a second bout of laryngeal cancer.