inf

On holiday in Pattaya last August:

- ZAB indeed gone. Was not my scene but I used to notice it on previous visits.

- Candy Shop still open; I believe it's under same management as Lucifer and The Muzzik Cafe further south down the road. BTW The Muzzik Cafe has live bands similar to Candy Shop, i.e. play contemporary dance pop (Dua Lipa, Calvin Harris etc).

I seem to remember diagonally across the road from Muzzik Cafe a live heavy metal bar so loud I crossed the street to avoid my ears being blasted off, but hey, maybe that's your cup of tea.

Thanks everybody for the suggestions of interesting books set in Thailand.

SInce it's such a vast and colorful country, I've always expected it to feature more as scenery in international thrillers than it actually does.

The famous thriller writers - Lee Child, Daniel Silva - always seem to fall back on European and Mediterranean countries like France, Italy and Turkey. That's also what you get in movies.

And I don't mean travel guides or history books.

Has anyone read novels, thrillers, etc set in Thailand? I remember once reading a Stephen Leather thriller - don't remember which one - where they kept spelling Jomtien as 'Jomtein.' Annoying, but I think it was not the author's fault.

Here's a new thriller out on Amazon Kindle just called 'Pattaya,' by Bannon Ross. Most of the story about terrorists trying to disrupt a Taiwan-China peace treaty is set at the Sanctuary of Truth.

Read anything worth recommending in a similar vein?

https://www.amazon.com/Pattaya-Bannon-Ross-ebook/dp/B08XQH4YP3/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Bannon+Ross+Pattaya&qid=1615596676&s=books&sr=1-1

I live in Taiwan but this month will be visiting Pattaya for the 8th time in 2 years (9th time in 5 years).

I agree with the original poster - Jomtien is my favorite area to stay in, I call it a mini-Pattaya: it's got most of what the center has, but in more amenable doses. Less pollution, less traffic jams, fewer bars.

Transportation is extremely convenient (24-hour service to the nightlife and shopping malls, if that's what you want, and close to the airport bus terminal), there are small restaurants everywhere - from Thai and Western to Scandinavian, Dutch, Russian, there's the night market, and there's the beach road and promenade where you can walk all the way  from Dongtan to Na Jomtien and back.

My conclusion: If I ever retire in Thailand, Jomtien will be my first choice, because it combines the quiet, the beach and keeps the busy-ness (night life, malls) at arms' length, but still within reach.

1. most things are cheap: food, transportation, clothes, housing ...

2. there is something for everybody: islands, mountains, beaches, forests, temples, shopping malls, nightlife ...

3. excellent food and a wide variety of it: if you're tired of Thai, there's Indian, Iranian, Russian, Turkish, Scandinavian ...

4. if you're a man, where else do you get dozens of women telling you 'hello' (or sawatdee kaa) all day long?

5. nightlife - I'm only there for the music, dancing and drinking, sometimes to watch football - but where else is the nightlife rip-roaring away 7 nights a week?

6. despite the chaos on the roads, transportation is still modern and highly convenient and cheap

7. lots of swimming pools and beaches for tourists

8. ultra-modern shopping malls and huge supermarkets with everything

Of course, I'm mainly comparing here between major cities in Thailand and Taiwan - where I live, which is 20 years ahead of Thailand in economic development, but which somehow lacks certain things - it is less cosmopolitan and has no beach culture, nightclubs close on Sunday night even in Taipei, which has 3 to 6 million people.

In short, for me, Thailand = holidays.

I'm a European who has been living in Taiwan for 20+ years, and I'm also considering retiring in Thailand.

Why?

Thailand has everything: excellent food, beaches, islands, history and culture, big shopping malls and supermarkets, good transportation, a great nightlife, low prices for just about anything, women who tell you 'sawatdee kaa' all day long ...

Compared to Taiwan, Thailand has no earthquakes (a big plus for me personally, especially after Japan's 2011 Fukushima quake and tsunami - if that happened near Taiwan, the whole island would be wiped out) and each time I return from Thailand to Taiwan, I notice how nobody says hello except the folks at burger joints who are trained to do so.

Taiwan might be more modern and still relatively cheap (only housing is terribly expensive), but it is less cosmopolitan and more US-oriented, so less European foods, no football on TV etc.

Conclusion: Thailand is the Spain of East Asia.

Just opened a bank account at a Bangkok Bank branch in Pattaya on a tourist visa last month ...

but ... I was accompanied by my real estate agent who brought in documents about me buying a condo and who knew somebody at that branch, so it's all about what the Chinese call 'guanxi,' personal relationships.

I wonder if it would have worked if I had been on my own and wandered from branch to branch.

So the verdict is  yes, you can open a bank account on a tourist visa, but it depends. If you rely on someone else, you might have to open an account at a branch that's on the other side of town from where you want to be.

Also, on a note, the bank employee said that because I was on a tourist visa, daily transactions out of the account would be limited to 50,000 baht a day.

For  anybody who might care about  the  procedure in Taipei, Taiwan:

1/go to a very crowded Thai  office between 9 and 11:30 am

2/hand in: the form (with one photo), your passport, copies of the important passport pages, copies of the airline ticket booking (they never asked for a hotel booking, though I filled in the hotel address on the application form)

3/pay 1,200 New Taiwan dollars = a bit more than 1,200 baht

4/pick up your tourist visa the same day between 4 and 5 pm

I went to see the movie here in Taiwan for the single reason that it was shot in Pattaya.

It mostly shows the alleys and a bit of beach. I wondered whether the place where they found a body was somewhere close to the northern end of Pattaya Beach Road.

Anyway, on the whole it's like a Hong Kong version of Taken, but more violent and much darker. A low-budget production it's not, since the actor Louis Koo (the father looking for his daughter) is huge in Hong Kong and the Chinese-language movie world.

So I went to Bangkok Bank in Taiwan and they told me:

1/no need to open a bank account at the Taiwan branch

2/to wire money to the Thai account, they will charge 300 New Taiwan dollars (=slightly more than 300 baht), look at my Taiwanese residency permit, give me the number of an account in Taiwan where I sent the money to that I want to wire to Thailand

3/the Thai side will deduct some more costs, but the Taiwan office was not clear about how much;

All looks OK, except for the regulations on opening an account in Thailand which look rather tough for me, being an ordinary  tourist without Thai work permit, Thai wife etc.

I'm now considering the following issues:

1/my Thai real estate agent suggests Krungsri Bank in Jomtien

2/I will probably need a certificate of residence from the  immigration office at soi 5, but not sure if that will work if they see I'm staying at a hotel address for only 1 week or slightly more

3/I might have to apply for a tourist visa  rather than just come into Thailand with only the form I filled in during  the flight

4/would it be necessary to go all the way to my European embassy in Bangkok to notarize my passport or the residence paper from the hotel = extra time wasted, extra money, and beforehand I really don't know whether they would do such  a thing, sounds a bit tricky to me.

The residence thing is a bit of an 'egg or chicken' situation: I need the bank account to buy the condo, but will they let me open a bank account before I buy the condo and can actually live there.

Thanks for all the advice.

I stayed at the condo where I'm buying, so I'm ok with it.

I'll visit the Bangkok Bank in Taipei today to see whether there's any advantage in opening an account with them here, maybe lower fees in moving the money from their Taiwan branch to the branch in Jomtien I want to work with.

I'm planning to fly in from Taiwan in November to do the paperwork for a condo I want to buy.

Would it be possible for me to do all the following within the space of one week = 5 working days?

1/open a bank account - I will only have a tourist visa, no residence permit, and plan to open the account preferably at Bangkok Bank Jomtien (because that's where the condo is and I plan to open an account first at a Bangkok Bank here in Taiwan)

2/transfer the money for the condo from my Taiwan account to the Thai one + get the FET from the bank

3/put everything in order with the Land Office for the purchase (hand in the FET and other documents, fill in the forms, make the necessary payments)

4/sign the contract, move the money from my new Thai account to the seller, get the yellow book (tabien baan).

Could it be possible for me to fly in on a Sunday, open the bank account on Monday morning, do the rest of the stuff during the following days, and fly back to Taiwan the next weekend, calling myself the proud owner of a Thai piece of property?

I know many of you will advise me not to buy any condo in Thailand, but I'm already set. What I'm wondering is, am I underestimating the bureaucracy, in particular the time needed for the bank account to be opened and for the money to move from Taiwan to Thailand and result in a FET?

Should I stay longer, a week and a half, even two weeks?

Thanks you all so much for your advice.

My wife and I are both farang in their 50s living in Taiwan.

I'm thinking of buying a condo in the Pattaya area to spend much time there and eventually live there full-time.

However, looking at all the regulations, my main problem is this: according to the laws - correct me if I'm wrong - if say, I die first, my wife would be unable to inherit the condo I bought and would have to sell it within one year.

Is there really no way around that?

Could we buy the condo as a couple, each of us paying half the purchase price, and could she not buy out my half when I die?

I'd love to buy a condo in Thailand, I don't have any problems with the 800K and the 49% and the visa hassles etc, but that inheritance rule is worrying me.

Ed Sheeran is having a concert in Bangkok on Nov. 16 according to concert organizer AEG.

No info yet on venue or ticket prices, but that could come on June 8 according to this Taiwanese news report.

http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3160017

Interesting thread and useful information ... since I'm also a foreigner hoping to buy an apartment in Thailand, maybe this or next year.

I live in Taiwan, where Bangkok Bank has a well-known branch, so I will be looking to open an account there and one at a Bangkok Bank branch in the Thai city where I eventually plan to buy. I guess that would make the transfer easier, I suppose.

The only difference I have with the OP is that my wife is Taiwanese, i.e. we're both foreigners, so we'll definitely have to stick by all the rules, the 49% ownership, the FE form with the condo purchase mention etc.

She was just having a bit of innocent fun.

Since nobody complained at the time, and police only found out long after the facts because of pictures on the Internet, the guy should not have been fined.

As to more pictures, well, Taiwan's Apple Daily went all crazy repeating the story at least 3 times yesterday.

The picture which shows her from the back shows her smiling and very much a woman, not a ladyboy. I wouldn't have expected anybody from Hong Kong to try this, but hey, it's a modern city.

http://bit.ly/1AblZsX

Used the airport link for the first time last Jan 18, and I am favorably impressed.

Unless you are struggling with lots of luggage and a bunch of kids, it is a cheap and fast (despite the 7 or so stops) alternative to the cab. 45 baht is a steal - where else in the world can you get that cheaply between an international airport and a capital?

The link with the BTS is also positive since the Skytrain was pretty much the only type of public transport we used during this trip.

Leaving BKK yesterday afternoon, we still chose a cab because an increase in our luggage - 205 baht from Suk Soi 11 to Swampy avoiding the toll stations and with traffic jams only along Asok.

Still, from next time we'll probably keep using the airlink.

Waited in a really long line yesterday ... but airport staff came along to call on passengers for a Qantas flight to Sydney to go first. Two Arab-looking men behind me asked the guy if they qualified to jump the line - they turned out to be Israelis heading for an El Al flight - and the guy said yes.

So if your flight comes around soon, you should be able to be allowed to go first - if you find someone to ask, that is.

Crossed into Cambodia by Aranyaprathet-Poipet in the late morning on Sunday Jan 9, and no major problems whatsoever.

The day before we took a bus from Ekkamai station to Aran and stayed overnight at Aran Gardens 2.

The next morning, a tuktuk to the border point (80 baht if I remember correctly). We filled out all the forms, paid 20 USD and 100 baht, didn't see any of the hordes of beggars, 3-hour waiting lines or major scammers mentioned on the Internet.

On the Cambodian side, we took the free shuttle bus to a bus station where haggling for a cab began. They wanted us to change money into riels but we already knew that was useless because dollars are everywhere.

For the cab to Angkor - an unmarked Toyota Camry like 80 percent of cars in Cambodia - they charged 48 USD. Finding a German couple to share, that meant 12 USD a person. Once we arrived in Siem Reap, they provided us with free tuktuk to our end destination, a hotel a couple of km outside the city.

Conclusion: no major hassle if you're well prepared, still, a flight would have been faster and more comfortable.

As stated in another thread, I have a mother who lives alone in Europe and is getting old. No Alzheimer's, but a lot of falling and unable to get back up again.

As the only son, I should be moving back to help her, but I have a job here - from which I get only about a week off per year - and a wife. Because of my age and my long stay in Asia, it would be hard for me to find a job back home allowing me to stay with her.

Bringing her to Asia would be an option, but a difficult one, because my mom would find it very hard to adapt to the completely different lifestyle. I don't mean necessarily the food, but the lack of contact with same-language friends, the being locked up in a tall apartment building because outside the weather is too hot and the traffic is too nasty for old people.

So it's a dilemma I'll have to find a solution for within the next few months.

Thanks everybody for all the advice, much appreciated.

I still have a couple of months left before I make a decision. Actually my mom lives in Belgium, which has excellent and affordable medical care, though retirement homes would be too expensive.

Thanks also for showing me the thread about bringing relatives out to Asia. So far, I haven't considered that because I fear it would be too much for my mother. The noise, the chaotic traffic, the heat. Also, she's living in the countryside in a house with a large quiet garden now, while here it would be a dozen floors up next to what to her would feel like a busy highway with 24-hour traffic.

I wonder if anybody here has been in the same situation and how did you solve it:

You're making enough money to live comfortably here in Asia but a close relative back home in Europe - a parent, a brother or sister - is getting old and weak, and needs you to take care of him/her.

Yet, if you moved back to Europe, it would be very hard for you to find a job because of your age, experience, and the general economic situation. High taxes and the high cost of living would mean a low standard of living.

So either you stay in Asia and make some money but you can't be with your relative, or you go back but with very little chance of making it.

What would you do?