JamesPhuket10

Why the sarcasm over my comment about house prices, I was replying to another comment by someone so I listed the reasons why they were wrong when they said it is more expensive to live in Thailand than the UK, then you hijacked my comment. My list of prices are genuine, I was in England for five months earlier this year, only a fool would believed it is cheaper to live in England than Thailand. Cooking and eating at home in Thailand is also much cheaper than cooking and eating at home in the UK. Who would want to live on Greggs food? Thailand is cheaper in every way. What is it with your mad comments?

The myth of a failing UK is the biggest myth. It is still the 5th largest economy on the world, anybody with any skills, education and common sense already knows the UK is where to make money when you are young over places like Thailand. There has always been losers in the UK no matter what the state of the economy is, they are the ones making all the noises while those that have got on are getting on quietly. I know as I have two kids doing really well in the UK in professional jobs, they do not sit around watching YouTube etc all day long, they are too busy. Only idiots would believe in paradise stories.

A lot of farangs here in Thailand do not realise it is normal for most women to work as they have ended up with the same type of woman many farangs seem to end up with for some reason, the ones with an leash on the walking ATM. 😀

I just spent 5.5 months in England earlier this year, I was surprised at the cost of everything. I had a meal in a standard restaurant with a friend, we both had a main meal, I had some beer, the friend does not drink, she had two cokes, £110 which is about 4700 baht. A pint of beer in a pub £7.50 , 320 baht, a pint of beer at my local in Phuket, 90 baht A litre of Vodka, 900 baht, Thailand 420 baht. Taxi to the airport £67, 2900 baht, same ride in Phuket to the airport 700 baht. Cigarettes (I don't smoke) 640 baht, Thailand 150 baht for international brands. I sold a five bed house in UK South East in 2021, 34 million baht, three bed detached on a secure estate in Phuket, 6 million baht. The UK house is now on the market againfor 37 million baht. I bought a flat thirty minutes from London by train to rent out as an extra source of income, two beds, two bathrooms 14 million baht, rent 73,000 baht a month. I will not detail the council tax, NI, income tax, VAT 20% the price of cars, trains tickets etc. The price of goods and basics in the UK have risen 27% since 2019. People drive much bigger cars in Phuket on average than the UK because they are dirt cheap compared to the UK. One litre petrol UK 57 baht, Thailand 33 baht. I can buy a 1kg bag of frozen mushrooms from Makro for 100 baht I buy NZ, Australian beef in Makro, 320 baht a kg. Very good quality. A large bunch of bananas from Makro, 15 to 20 bananas costs 85 baht, in the UK 220. The prices quoted are for Phuket, it must be even cheaper in a village at the back of beyond in Thailand. 2019 was nearly seven years ago, go and have a look now. I am not sure where you got your prices comparison from as it is way out as if we farangs are getting income from the UK for example, it makes Thailand dirt cheap to live in.

I don't see what harm they are doing to anybody. Can you please explain why they are causing you a problem? Remote work? I have been a remote software engineer for years, what these two are doing is not my business, at least they are not sitting around moaning at nothing.

Not for the uneducated ones I assume.

I stated I make sure it is clear and then I go. There are not just two alternative one being drive off very slowly at traffic lights or blasting a horn, there can also be a system where all the cars in a line should move off at a good pace, there is no gain is having lots of gaps slowing down the traffic flow. The horn etc is common in Germany if you do not move off a millisecond after the lights turning green a horn sounds, I have worked there. England manages to move the traffic through traffic light swiftly and efficiently, no horn blowing involved. But in any case I an never in any hurry in Phuket, most venues on my list are only ten minutes or less drive from me, Makro, shopping centres, restaurants etc, I can not criticise Thailand on the way they drive as I am a long term visitor, if I don't like it I should move out.

Monkeys with brain damage could sort out the simple paperwork needed to extend a non-O visa extension, it takes me one hour a year to do the paperwork and an hour to go through the process at the Immigration office, what is it you find so difficult? Banking apps, phone accounts are easy to deal with in Thailand, the car driving licence took me one hour. I don't need a rental contract but they can't be that hard to get.

They do not have much choice, it is unnatural anywhere in the world for young women to fancy old guys and so if they want one of those they can only get one if they pay for them, they are usually bar girls, if they can sell their bodies for money they would not think twice about fleecing a stupid old farang. I do laugh about the stories I hear though, why are the majority of the Thai women in the stories from Isaan I wonder?

True, they can give it a try, they are young and can move if it does not work out, nothing ventured, nothing gained. One thing they will have to watch out for is being out priced by the property prices in the UK if they wish to move back in say twenty years time, that catches a lot of people out, they move back and can not afford to buy a house. I left a perfectly good job in the UK and took a riskier freelance job, it was for six months, my thoughts were if I can not find another one I can always go back to a permanent job but thirty years later I was still a freelancer working all over Europe and the USA, so small seeds can grow into big trees. One of my sons move to New Zealand from the UK three years ago with his NZ architect wife and baby girl, he set up his own business and now it is so successful he wished to move the family to Thailand as the tax in NZ is crazy so he is coming over for three months to look at private schools for the daughter and decided where to live in Thailand, he said he can give it a try for a year or two and then decide what to do next. He will have no problem with Thailand as he has both a British and a Thai passport even though he was born and brought up in the UK as his mum is Thai. He can work from home anywhere in the world. A lot of miseries on this blog are constantly knocking what other do or are trying to achieve due to jealousy, but they do make me laugh when I take fifteen minutes breaks now and then from my software work and I read their misery comments. 😄 They do not seem to realise they are temporary visitors in Thailand as I am, I for example have to get an extension on my non-O visa every year, there is no guarantee the rules might stay the same, anything can happen re politics at any point of time in the future. I have an escape plan in place if that happens, that includes property already in place in the UK.

There is no such continent as America, there is a country called America and they are the Americans, 23 countries are in the continent of North America and 12 are in the Continent of South America. They are North or South Americans.

Because the guy stated that Canadians are Americans, but only Americans can be Americans, Canadians are not American.

How can you see where you are going on the yellow bike with that big white sign stuck on the front of it, is it there to deflect the wind from your hair. 😄

I have been driving in Thailand for 30+ years on my numerous long holidays here. Some as long as a year. There is no reason why every car going through a newly displayed green light should go slowly leaving a large gap between each and every car. It only takes me a second to check if the cars on each of the junctions have stopped as I monitor that as the light turn red for the other roads, it does not take five seconds to check that. And statistically as the lights are green for 40 seconds and are red for 4 minutes the odds of the light being green if you speed between light is six to one so you would have to be a very lucky guy to have the light on green all the way on a journey. I have experimented on the same journeys over and over, sometimes slow, sometimes as fast as the traffic permits, no different on average time at all. I used to drive sixty miles from central London to Cambridge in the UK for a year, I also experimented there too, no difference in the time taken, a few minutes each way generally. If Thais drivers had the capability to be able to use roundabouts as is very common in the UK traffic would move a lot faster. There is one large(ish) roundabout in Phuket on the main road to the airport, it has four entry/exit points, they have blocked most of it off and now cars wishing to turn off on one of the exits have to drive a mile up the road and then back again after doing a dangerous U turn in order to get to their destination. Thai people drive at the same level a ten year old kid in the West would be capable of driving. When I do brake at red traffic lights I do observe my back mirror and judge my braking rate so the car behind does no crash into me as they seem to only brake at the last minute. I have also noticed on the straight parts of a road cars behind me zoom up close, then when we get to a mild bend in the road they drop back as they seem to think the car will topple over if they do not put on the brakes, then when we get to the straight they zoom up again and then drop back at the next bend, it makes me laugh every time.

No, Canada, the USA, Mexico are three of the twenty three countries in North America so they are North Americans, as there is no such continent as America so they can not be Americans except for the USA, then there is the continent of South America which contains Brazil and eleven other countries so they are South Americans.

When speaking Thai maybe or maybe the uneducated Thais say that as they have poor English, people from up-country perhaps and small villages in Isaan.

My partner has a motorbike in the small village she was born in near Sichon, when she goes back she uses it as the roads are very quiet and she uses it just to potter about on. She just told me she changes the oil about three or four times a year, a guy does it and the charge is 100 baht so that seems easy.

Good one 😀 Right I have had a good skive for an hour so now it is time to get back to 'work' on my Apple Apps programming.

After living for 2.5 years full time in Phuket and doodling around at 25 mph due to the large number of traffic lights here as no one knows how to use roundabouts, I went back to the South East of England for five months. I drove slowly and had queues of cars behind me so I then got used to driving fast again, on the motorway at 80 mph etc. When I got back to Phuket I drive fast, only to end up a red traffic lights twenty second earlier than the cars behind and sat at the light for between two to four minutes each time before doing the same at the next lights. So now I drive at 25 mph again as it is almost guaranteed the lights will be red and there is nothing to be gained by speeding. I think it is funny when I see a red light two hundred yards into the distance, I take my foot off the gas and are then overtaken by Thai drivers heading for the same lights. Then when the lights go green it takes the cars in front a few seconds to register the fact, then they each move off slowly with large gaps between each car meaning less cars behind them can get through the green light thus causing more traffic build ups. When I am first in the queue I zoom off and when I look in the mirror the next car is just about to move off, I do make sure all the cars on the other sides of the cross roads are stationary first though and no one is going through a red light.

Ok so it is a second or third language, no problem. If you ever do go to non-American influenced countries, using the word 'awesome' all the time is seen as sign of poor English, I am not being sarcastic, it is just a footnote.

It depends what you are used to, I lived in the South East of England about 30 miles from London most of my life and the traffic is worse than where I live in Phuket. Here in Kathy, Kathu I can get around very easily in the car. We went to a shopping centre yesterday, a massive supermarket and next to it Japanese, Italian, Thai and many more restaurants, with onsite parking it took ten minutes by car, I overtook lots of motorbikes on the way in the pouring rain. There is a massive Central shopping centre twelve minutes away and it had probably 40 restaurants and other things there, free parking etc. Most of the girly areas have now gone in Patong and have been replaced by restaurants and hotels as I think those types of tourists go to Pattaya nowadays, most tourists are couples, families or groups these days hence the numerous restaurants. Even soi Bangla has many music bars and clubs which have replaced many of the bars, the girly bars are mainly there to be observed by tourists as they walk past as is the case in the red light area in Amsterdam for example. I don't know how those empty girly bars survive any more. I go to Patong maybe twice a year when friends visit as I feel like I am on holiday when I am there even though it is just over the mountain, as it is so different to the rest of Phuket.

That is yet another reason not to have a bike.

Awesome, Einstein was awesome, not every day things, so you must be a Canadian as you stated you are not American. Or you could be an uneducated Brit as they use the word sometimes,

As we are in Thailand and we farangs are a visiting minority we should use the term motorbike as that is what Thai call them when speaking English, a moped has pedals.

Off topic I know but I see you have a picture of Maggie on your posts. She was the best prime minister we ever had, she sorted out those communist unions guys who were more or less running the country at the time. No electricity during Christmas one time, I remember we had to sit huddled around a candle, when it became really cold we used to light it. 😄 (A les Dawson joke)