JamesPhuket10

I have a PM2.5 monitor in my house in Phuket, I live a few hundred meters away from the main road, and the roads in my area are private so barely any traffic, the measurement on the monitor in my room is never above 10, normally around 6. The problem with big cities here is as you say the cars and pollution. In the UK a car MOT takes 1.5 hours normally, important tests are regarding the car's emissions. I take my car for an "MOT" test here every year, the front wheels are put on a set of rollers, the front brake is applied, and the same thing is done to the rear wheels, total mot time is four minutes, passed, OK for the next year. I have my car serviced every year by Toyota and it is good for emissions etc but I wonder how many millions of cars on the roads do not have such service levels.

It is probably not a fact but a perception. Food in Thailand is cheap so the average Joe living here can afford to go and eat out almost every day, a high number of visits means more chance of a dodgy meal being served. The same people could not afford to eat out every day in their own country due to the cost hence less chance of a dodgy meal. That is one explanation. I for one hardly ever go to restaurants in Thailand, because I have seen the kitchens, many of them would be closed down in places like the UK. Another is I had a 200-seat Thai restaurant in England for 27 years (I did not work in it as it was a side business) so restaurants are not appealing to me. But I prefer to have my meals cooked at home with meat from NZ or Australia, with local vegetables, etc, that way I know I am getting quality food and know it is clean and healthy food. Plus I will never have the "I drank three beers but had to pay for four beers catastrophe as I don't think I could ever survive one of those". 😃

That would be a problem for me as I am almost 69 now and if I take a 30 lease out now where will I be able to live when it expires?

It can happen, I paid for my petrol and was given the change which was 300 baht, I then remembered I had a members card so I gave it to the petrol lady and she went off and processed it and then came back and gave me 300 baht change. I drove a hundred yards or more out of the petrol station and stopped, I thought hang on, did she give me the change twice, I checked my wallet and I saw in the 100 baht section I had 300 baht more than I should have, so I went back and gave her the money back. She looked relieved. Another time I was in 7/11 and in a hurry, my bill was 280 baht so I gave the female assistant what I thought was 300 baht, but she handed one back to back to me, it was a 1000 baht bill, I tried to reward her but she would not take it. I had a Thai restaurant in the UK for 27 years, the staff sometimes make mistakes seeing as they are human, not everyone in Thailand is a crook as some people on this site seem to suggest. I often wonder why many are still in Thailand if it is so bad.

My local "All Days" (previously called Family Mart) has narrow tables running along the walls in a separate room with seats, they also sell cold beer, so maybe I can have a 'party' in there with the girlies. 😄

I wonder where all of these people, are, I have been here for over two years and I have not seen this type of person. Dirty? Where is it dirty? The facilities are fantastic, the massive shopping centers in Kathu for example, I do see some Russians shopping there (your reference to Slavics), they are well-dressed, they are normally in couples, many with children, none of the males have bar girls hanging onto their arms, they are the ones buying the 2000 dollar handbags and other expensive items from Louis Vuitton, etc. Maybe there is some crap place in Phuket where the low-life hang around bars with other low-lives as happens everywhere in the world, it is not compulsory to go there. Phuket is 1/3 the size of Greater London, a big area and if people come here and only visit the crap places then that is up to them, but it says more about them than it does about Phuket as a whole. Take my area for instance, about 350 detached houses in a gated area, no traffic at all as the roads are private, most of the owners of the houses are Thai, and I think there is one Russian family with children. The streets are spotless, the community has a private park for the kids of the area to play in. I am ten minutes away from Central Shopping Center, ten minutes away from other large shopping areas, you can not compare the traffic here to crap places like Patong. I had to go to the immigration office in Phuket town which is about seven miles away, it took me a whole 22 minutes to drive there. But I do suppose outside of Phuket there are lots of places in the sticks that are cheap to live in and not at all busy, the problem with that is I would die of boredom after a week living there, and the reason they are not busy is because hardly anyone wants to go there. But Phuket is reassuringly expensive as it keeps most of the riffraff away, the ones who come, can not afford to be here and so have to make negative things up about their visit just to save face.

It seems he is providing a service, he gave you for instance something to write about (I am not being sarcastic). For me, as I stated before, I spend hours a day working on my computer writing/testing my iPhone apps and so I take a few minutes break now and then to do something simple like reading the comments here, I find it funny when people react angrily to Bob's comments as for me they are just funny comments. I know someone who genuinely does have around three hundred million pounds in assets from his numerous nursing homes and other property in the UK, he likes to tell everyone about his wealth all the time and he is genuinely a multi-millionaire so it does take all sorts of people.

Thanks for the info, I went to the drive-through today, only one car in front of me two minutes later I was served. I got out of the car and went to the window as my last 90-day report receipt was "due" on the 10th of December 2024 so I knew I would have to explain why. The officer looked at the 90-day receipt and made a sigh, I then pointed to the stamp in my passport which showed I had been out of the country for a month and back in on the 3rd of December 2025, hence my 90 reports were in order. Two minutes later I had the latest report given to me, so easy, so later on in the year when I have to do this again I now know what to do.

Or maybe he is just taking the piss.😃 I spend many hours a day on my computer writing iPhone apps, I take a break now and then and so I look on this site just to do something simple for a few minutes, Bob's comments make me laugh and the people who take him seriously and end up 'fighting' with him make me laugh even more.

If you can not read the letters then you press the circular arrow symbol and you will get another set of letters, keep on pressing it until you get one you can read.

Luckily for those old blokes, they do not need to be billionaires to get a 20-year-old bird, I have no idea what the price is but it is probably not that much. 😄 But I suppose they can not be that well off if they can only afford to live in Pattaya.

Many of us older guys have a wallet with lots of money in it, we could all have lots of 20-year-old girlfriends if we wished, after all, we are in Thailand.

Are you trying to make this forum any more boring, at least Bob is a good laugh with his piss takes. 🙂

A good reply, but Bob is a laugh, he must be doing it to take the piss and see how many people react seriously to his serial comments.😃

I agree it was easy to apply for my non-O visa online in the UK, it was then posted to me in the UK and when the 90 days had expired I had it extended three times, a year at a time, and it took one hour each time. But it is a lot easier for people to move and live in the UK. You get on a boat in France, land on the beach at Dover, say the word "asylum" and a taxi will arrive and whisk you away to a nice hotel for the next year or two all expenses paid. 😃

My reply when I am told something is possible but in all practical terms it is not, I say "Yes it is possible but highly improbable".

You must be from the Isle of Woman. 🙂

He must have been talking about the Island of Jersey. 😃

I see, I took it to mean if anything goes wrong, eg serious illness and we need assistance getting back to our own country (repatriation) then the cash will be needed in Thailand to do that, but of course, I could be wrong. I have a two million baht stash and access to 130k pounds sterling of credit available to use as emergency exit money as you never know what can happen.

I have lots of things to complain about. I had to spend an hour last week at the immigration office to get my one-year visa extension and at the same time get a multi-re-entry visa, I had to go back the next morning to pick it up where I was greeted with a big smile from the officer and was handed my passport back, that took another minute. I spend at least five minutes online doing my 90-day police report. I spend the same amount of time doing the TM30 When I got my car driving licence last year I had to watch a one-hour safety video while sitting in my aircon car on my iPhone. I then had to go back inside the building and step on a brake, it took two hours to get the licence. I bought a car a while back while on a 30-day tourist visa, it cost a few quid for it to be put in my name with a brown envelope, which took two minutes. I have to press a few buttons on my Swift app to send money over from my bank account in the UK and sometimes it takes a whole day to get here. Then if I wish to buy things from Lazada etc I have to press some buttons again on my Bangkok bank account app to pay for it, the items then get delivered to my doorstep but sometimes it takes a few days. It is all so frustrating but I manage to get through it all at the end of the day. 🤣

His career on AN is to be the prime piss-taker. I think he is hilarious. 😃

Seems like too much work to me. (Not a criticism) I must be the laziest shopper in the world, I buy online, and for example, I buy one Polo shirt I like the look of online, and if it turns out to be OK I then order 20 of them in different colours. Same with shorts etc, I just bought 25 pairs. Trousers I bought ten pairs online. Shoes five pairs, that way my clothes shopping is very infrequent. Now making one's food at home in Thailand using Australian beef for example and fresh veg is much better than eating out.

That is what I think about sometimes. (69 this year). But then again we never know what is going to happen, if we just suddenly die a couple of years earlier but have had a good time up to then, no problem, but if boozing causes us to have a few years of illness and a very poor quality of life that is another thing. I will think about it tonight as I "sup" a few beers. 😃

What is scary is that American politicians during many speeches say "God save America", now that is really scary as they have nukes. That has never been said in the UK, in fact only a small percentage of people are actively religious there, but that is growing though with immigration, and we have nukes too.

The "drug" I take is a "party drug" sometimes, it is available at every street corner shop in Thailand, it is called "a load of beer". 😄