JamesPhuket10

Oh no, many miserable skint farangs are out in force again thinking they have some say in what goes on in Thailand. The Thai government and tourist authority are not interested in your constant squealing about prices, you are nothing compared to the 40(ish) millions of tourists who come to Thailand to spend each year. They have been saying for years they wish to cater for more upmarket tourists willing to spend a lot of money over a two week visit, they are the target crowd not the winging so called ex-pat (annual temporary visa extensions) on their miserable £1500 a month spending budget. Phuket is reassuringly expensive (compared to the back of beyond, up-country squalid village) , it keeps the moaning skint ex-pats away. I have not met any tourist or so called expats living in Phuket who thinks it is expensive compared to many other countries in the world, as far as I can see it is dirt cheap.

If you changed 'boarders' to 'borders' then I would agree, the border seems to encapsulate Pattaya thankfully which keeps the nutters at bay.

Most farangs are fun, you have to learn to spot the wingers and avoid them unless of course, they fit in with your negative attitude to life. 😃

I bet you do not look like you are on death's door like this guy, I can't imagine any airline taking him. Too much risk, too much at stake. A simple example, two weeks ago I was on a plane out of Bangkok bound for London, and I almost choked on a piece of chicken (I know it sounds funny) I had assistance from a doctor on board who was a passenger, I was OK after ten minutes as the object popped out. But by coincidence, we had to return to Bangkok as another patient had a medical emergency, and at Bangkok airport, a team of medics rushed onto the plane and took the passenger off to the hospital, then attended to me and then gave me a fit to fly certificate for the next day. All of the passengers had to stay in Bangkok for the night and fly the next day. I doubt very much if the guy in this article is anywhere near fit to fly, no airline would take him.

Which planet do you live on? A commercial airline would not accept him as a passenger in his state in case there was a problem mid-flight causing the plane to divert. Two weeks ago I was on a flight from Bangkok to London, we flew for 2.5 hours, there was an emergency on board, a passenger was ill, we turned back to Bangkok and spent the night in a hotel at the expense of the airline, we flew out the next morning, the sick passenger could not get a "fit to fly certificate" and so was left in Bangkok. Airlines are commercial businesses, they are not charities, and there is no way a standard airline would accept this guy in his current condition.

Some of the educated Russians I have come across in Phuket over the last 2.5 years speak better English than some Brits and are not as scruffy. No bar girls hanging onto their arms as they walk down the street and not a tattoo in sight. 😄 As far as keeping people away, Phuket is Reassuringly Expensive (in comparison to other places in Thailand), but still a very cheap place to live.

I worked for General Dynamics on the F-16 and A-10 developing the head-up display system, Marconi Avionics in the UK, AT&T in New Jersey, and was head of testing the new GSM mobile phone system the USA was about to introduce into the county. Lots of other projects and countries for which they paid lots of money for my brains, but I never came across any geniuses, there were lots of bright people though.

The topic is not about genius, which was never mentioned, there are only a very limited number of geniuses now or before, Einstein for example, we are unlikely to ever come across a real genius in person. I wonder how many of those Aboriginal people realised living in the bush is not at all interesting and left to do something a bit more demanding. I suppose we could take that idea over thousands of years, we all started In Africa, then some groups would have said, "I wonder what is on the other side of that mountain", so they moved, over thousands of years, Europeans, Japanese societies were created for example, they contain the brains and the less intelligent remain in Africa still.

I think my property is safe in the UK from anyone in Thailand. But my partner here already owns nine houses in Thailand, seven are for rental income. She bought them over time with her income from her own Thai Tour agency.

But Rambo, we live in the real world, not in a Hollywood movie. But I do get your drift, I had to go through rigorous training to be able to open the door of my house, get into my aircon car, drive it to Lotus for example, and walk across to the aircon building to do my shopping. Phuket and many other cities as so dangerous, for example, what would I do if I had forgotten my wallet, ah I have had training for that scenario too.😃 Paper degrees? Would you go and see a doctor if he only had a paper degree and not a degree in imagination like a lot of people seem to have? Would you get on an aeroplane built by people who are not qualified to build it?

Just look at how many patents are granted each year in the various regions of the world, Nobel Peace Prizes in science, the origination of top-end science projects, I could go on.

Yep, smarter than the average Thai, American, and European. I have a master's degree in software engineering from Oxford University (Trinity). I won't list the other qualifications. I was a freelance software engineer for thirty years and worked for many large international companies in Germany, the USA, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and the UK. In addition, I had a large 200-seat Thai Restaurant near London for 27 years. I also had properties developed which was a good business. I did start a few years late after leaving school at fifteen years old, it is called the "university of life" by some, I realised how crap such a 'university' is so I went back to school, then to a real university and never looked back. Even now I still write commercial iPhone apps from my computer set up at home in Thailand. I am not saying this to show off, but if I claim like many others that I consider myself more intelligent than the average Thai then I have to show why I think that.

Which point are you refrering to, what has a law firm got to do with it? This is not a sarcastic reply but I am just a bit confused.

I knew it was a mistake to comment on this subject, it seems the majority of comments come from people who have only ever met girls from bars. I will leave it there.

You seem to be super dim, 50% ? Even more dim, that is millions of women. So when you see a doctor, dentist, or bank clerk you think they were prostitutes at one time, I would go and see a doctor if I had the same mindset as you have. I remember talking to a guy from the Middle East many years ago, he hung around in the expensive hotels in central London, went to clubs, and paid for so-called "high-class" prostitutes, he thought all Western women were prostitutes. Was your mother one? I say this as you are saying the same thing about Thai women. It seems you only hang around with low-class prostitutes and that is why you have such a stupid attitude. I am glad I do not come across low-life people like you in person.

It took me just a few hours to realise how crap Pattaya is and the people who go there so I left. I went back ten years later just to see if it had improved, it was worse. I will give it a try ten years from now.

Do blow-up dolls need paying, you seem to be an expert on the subject, how much do you give to your blow-up doll every month? 😄

That is the sort of attitude guys who have only ever met bar girls have, there is a big world outside of those places you know, and if you do not know that women other than bar girls can also be pretty then it shows your stupidity. I gladly avoid such people.

My only cost concerning my girlfriend was a pump I bought a year ago, she is generally OK for a week or so until she goes flat or has an air leak, she is cheap to transport as well as I can carry her everywhere in my suitcase.

Can you tell me where in the world is anyone welcome if they do not have money, oh I know the Salvation Army.

It has been that way since I first came here in 1987, you turn up, get a stamp in your passport and then you are on your way.

A nice generalisation, but incorrect. I know people who have been here 20, or 30 years, they love the place, I am new as I have only been living here 2.5 years, but have been visiting for six months sometimes over 35 years, not everywhere is as packed as Patong, etc, nice and quiet here in Kathu, of the three hundred and fifty houses in this private residential area maybe ten are farangs, the others are working Thai families.

I am happy with the detached house in Kathu, Phuket, not many tourists here, I hardly ever go to Patong, Karon, or Kata, but when I do go there I feel like I am on holiday even though they are just a few miles away. Life here seems normal as most people living in this area are Thai, but I do like to go to the tourist areas now and then as it is like having a day trip to Blackpool, plus it feels like I am in Europe. "Where did you go today", "I went on a day trip to Europe." 😃

Yet another reason not to go to Australia. In England, if you bought the property before you lived with the girlfriend she will get nothing. My property back in England is all mine. My partner's eight houses in Thailand are all hers, we are both financially independent of each other which must be the best scenario to be in, I am not a walking ATM like most farangs seem to be in Thailand.

Ah, you mentioned "walking street", so that must mean Pattaya. I went there in 2019 for a short visit as I was having a house built in Rayong, I would never go again, it does not represent Thailand in any way, it is Farang land, and the worst of the tourists go there. In Phuket, Patong for instance does not represent Thailand where most tourists seem to go, the other places in Phuket for example Kathu and Phuket Town do represent Thailand as 99% of people living there are Thai. As far as Thai politics goes they do not affect me living here, we are second-class citizens anyway regarding not being able to settle permanently or vote, but I knew that before I came here and I have my five thousand pound cash stash of emergency money in case I need to leave in a hurry. There are millions of tourists coming to Thailand each year, but the news never states that forty million tourists visited Thailand this year without causing any problems, only a few did. I have lived and worked in Germany, the UK, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, the USA, and live in Thailand, Thailand is a great place to be, except for Pattaya that is. We are farangs here so we should put up, shut up, or leave, I am tired of hearing farangs moaning about the country.