OldAsiaHand

Then Farang Magazine in English (?) which I use for cleaning the windows.

Probably leaves your windows dirtier than when you started....

But, oh dear, I guess that's a 'snobbish' response, huh?

The best Mexican Food I have ever had anywhere outside of the US was at a place in Pattya called Tequila Reef on Soi 6. I can recommend it without qualification.

As for Bangkok, well, Doug Harrison has a Mexican buffet at Bourbon Street on Tuesdays, I think. The food is plentiful, but not really great. And there used to be a Senior Pico in the Rembrandt Hotel, although I'm not certain it's still there. If it isn't, good riddance. It was terrible and very expensive.

That's about it.

Thanks guys! Any idea about Big Chili and Time Out?

Oh yeah. Forgot about those.

'Big Chilli' is put out in a more-or-less one man effort by a guy named Colin Hastinings, a Brit and former Post employee who is a long-time resident. He does a damned good job without getting too slick about it so the mag has a slightly home-made look and feel. Still, it's probably got the best real reading of all the local mag's, that is if you don't mind a good deal of Brit bias in the topics covered.

'Thailand Timeout' is published by a Thai who spent a lot of time in the US. It's slicker than 'Big Chilli' with better photography, but I'd have to say that the pieces are sometimes a little on the bland side as befits a mag that is more for tourists. All in all, I'd say 'Big Chili' has better writing, better gossip, and is more focused on expats.

Frankly I'd give Farang Magazine a pass.

It's strictly backpacker stuff. Painfully politically correct and only marginally literate.

Still, if you're a marginally literate, politically correct backpacker, well maybe.....

In my own personal experience, Kim Eg isn't very farang friendly. Probably the most popular brokerage with local expats is Seamico, but the overall experience just isn't going to be anything like you would expect in the US. Still, you ought to at least have a look at www.Seamico.com.

Your children will NEED an international school (if you care about their future at least).

In a normal Thai school they will learn diddely squat. Only Thai reading and writing, basic mathematics. Rote learning , No individual development at all.

Everybody say's that international schools are expensive. They also look like their expensive  , But since i have no kids i can't help you with that.

Thai schools are generally conceded by everyone to be a disgrace as educational institutions, and naturally, teach solely in the Thai language, so they would really be a disaster for European children. Worse, if you are still intent on your kids making their way in an educational system in another language regardless of its qualitity, you should know that even Thais only get into the limited number of Thai schools that you might find even reasonably acceptable through a combination of social status and outright bribery. The previous poster was exactly right. International schools are a necessity for every foreigner.

As for costs, count on an absolute minimum of USD12,000 per child per year, plus a major registration fee up front when they first join the school (another USD10,000 -15,000 per child). For the most respected international schools --- Bangkok Pattaya (British system) and International School of Bangkok (American system) --- tutition runs the equivalent of about USD15,000 plus another USD3,000 or so in other fees per child per year.

The costs are so high because very few foreign parents actually pay them out of their own pockets (although Thai parents, desperate to get their kids into the very small quotas available for Thais in each of the international schools often offer to pay even more, either on or below the table). A considerable majority of foreign students who attend international schools in Thailand are being paid for by corporations or embassies as a part of a parent's expat pay package, so the sensitivity most foreigners have to educational costs in not very high.

As European living in Asia for almost 30 years, I can say, that USA is not really open to American men, who like the idea to marry a foreign wife from Asia.

Regulations are unusual strict for a nation, which claims to be the center of freedom in this world.

Besides critics of radical feminists, racist motivated hate by American Asians and such groups, the Government does not encourage indeed the American man bringing back a foreign wife into the USA.

Oh dear, here he goes again. This guy is always good for a laugh, isn't he?

Probably he is actually posting in a clever parady of those dim-witted Europeans who can turn nearly any subject into an angry rant against Americans, or maybe he actually is...nah, this rubbish couldn't be for real.

Two out of the three highest ranking diplomats at the US Embassy are married to Asian women as well as countless lower ranking diplomats. But, come to think of it, maybe it's just some kind of weird manifestitation of their 'racist hate'.......

What what it's worth, I agree wholeheartedly with Lambada. I've lived in Asia for nearly twenty-five years and one thing has remained absolutely constant. Hong Kong and Singapore are significant commercial centers where westerners can and do build real businesses and actual lives. The best of the westerners who want to live in Asia for whatever reaxson, those with education and ability and a work ethic, live there. Bangkok gets the left overs.

I am a long-time resident of Bangkok, and while I enjoy reading this forum, I don't post. Still this time, I just can't resist.

From my point of view, there was a really wonderful slant on this whole discussion in the best of Jake Needham's Bangkok-set novels, KILLING PLATO, which was published last year in Hong Kong.

Please forgive me the inevitable typing errors, but here's the way Needham put it....

"The Thai press generally uses phrases such as ‘the foreign community’ to refer collectively to Bangkok’s non-Thai residents, but the truth is that there is neither anything particularly collective nor community-like about foreigners in Bangkok. On the contrary, most foreigners in Bangkok hate most other foreigners in Bangkok, and many of them go out of their way to inflict whatever harm they can on each other."

"My own residency was only a couple of weeks along when I started noticing the phenomenon. I began calling it the Jungle Jim syndrome, since the whole business rekindled childhood memories of a television series I used to watch every Saturday morning when I was about ten years old."

"The series told the tale of a suitably strong and naturally quite handsome white guy whose name was Jungle Jim. He lived in some nameless country in Africa, and he spent his weekend mornings having adventures in the jungle and rescuing people in distress, frequently damsels with quite amazing hooters straining against their tight blouses. The natives whom Jungle Jim encountered in the course of all these adventures respected him because he was a decent and honorable guy, and in return, he treated the natives he met with an equal degree of respect."

"But that was not to say that Jungle Jim had no human enemies. A frequently recurring plot line was Jungle Jim’s arrival in some isolated village where he would find a couple of old European traders already living happily among the locals. They were usually Dutch, for some reason, perhaps because they had funny accents. Regardless, these traders were inevitably grizzled old drunks who were working on all kinds of evil schemes for swindling the natives, but they were still living among them like kings and pulling all the babes since the locals didn’t know what pathetic losers they actually were."

"When Jungle Jim arrived on the scene, of course, all that changed. The attention and loyalty of the natives shifted instantly from the old traders to Jungle Jim, not only because he was clean-cut and handsome and decent, but also because he was . . . well, new."

"At first, the old traders inevitably claimed to want to make some kind of common cause with Jungle Jim, but by the end of the show you always discovered that it was these jokers, not the locals, who were Jungle Jim’s real enemies. His arrival in the village had put the continuation of their little scam at risk. The original white guys on the scene had to get rid of Jungle Jim somehow or they’d never get back to being the big cheeses, or more important, ever have all those babes to themselves again."

"Bangkok is exactly like that. "

...And that's the name of that tune.