crazygreg44

I know that a lot of people like to slam Pattaya (and sometimes they are justified) but it is a place where you can easily enjoy Thai food, western food, the night life, daytime tourist attractions, shopping, tons of internet cafes, movies in English and cheap transportation around town. If you want to see or experience the night life it is easy, just as it is easy to hangout and then go to your room alone.

I hope the 70 year-olds have a great time.

agreed with this. Nothing wrong with Pattaya when you stay within well walked tracks !

I brought my mom to Pattaya before, and she actually loved it. Thought it was a great place. Even took her down Walking Street, and she was fine.

She liked Chiang Mai more though, for obvious reasons. More "normal", little quieter, but still loads to do and lots of excitement to be had. If anything, I'd recommend Chiang Mai for her.

Yeah, you can. But don't bring her over in January thru April. Or you will have to take her to hospital with a bad case of Asthma !

To the OP . . Jurgen, markets have one main characteristic : They all are CYCLIC ! There is a time when buying gold is promising, there is a time when you should sell some of your earlier accumulated real estate, there are times when one's stocks are low , and when they reach their cyclic maximum, you must sell and shift into an investment that is in low cycle with upward tendency.

Investing properly is a challenge in deciding into which cycle you are linking in. If you see a real estate bubble, don't invest into it. If you trust the cycle will still be swingin upward for a while, then invest. Allow one downward cycle, hold, and then watch your assets rise from the ashes again.

A good Timing is the mother of all investments.

I agree the Thai rental and condo market is running on empty. That's why I firstly suggested to Jurgen to invest into real estate in Europe - or even Florida. As this market is in low swing right now with a good outlook to the future ( fingers crossed ! ) buying in these shores I would make part of my diversifying. Real estate in Patters on the contrary has never been so unsure. Finding tenants now very difficult. Future uncertain.

For Thailand, I predict political unrest and upheavals IF the price race for essential food continues. Upcountry the poor already eat ants from the trees - they work chopping bananas, but can't afford buying them, because they get exported to Farang countries. My concern is that people's xenophoby might reach unexpected levels. This is a very explosive mix. ( I keep fingers crossed for better). So diversifying into a few different countries ( and currencies) as proposed by another forum member, might not be such a bad idea.

I agree that managing a lot of properties is difficult when you get older. Should restrict yourself to not the cheapest but also not the most expensive properties. Too cheap, you never rent out, too expensive, no one out there because they can afford to buy.

Some of us , with 50M, would want to start living like there is no tomorrow and life is a big party ! And spent it all, no need joining the Pattaya Flying Club ever. Toi Toi Toi ! 50M is big dough, yeah.

Latest report by Economist.

Careful of those investments in property, they are due a correction at some stage

Very interesting!

But I believe the Spanish market has corrected already up to 50%.

Thailand not on the list, I see it coming too.

as soon as it comes, that's a perfect time to buy !

if you are willing to consider Jomtien, and if your budget is tight, why not try Pinnacle Jomtien Resort & Spa. It's less than 2000 BHT per night and there are bungalows or rooms, kids pool and a large garden and beach access.

still got no reply from my buddy in BKK. Maybe you go into Sukhumvit Soi 11 to the German Beer bar and ask. They oughta know this guy !

when time comes you start missing the odd discussions with an argumentative western woman, better go finding them at home ! If you like not having to discuss everything, find yourself a nice asian match !

A bargirl/ countryside girl will never meet your expectations in regards of cultural levels. But hey, this would have been something you have learned in your first HOUR of being in Thailand.

I fail to understand guys who start to compare Thailand and Thai ladies with other places. There is nothing to compare. If you don't like to feel like an ATM, stop behaving like one.

naa, methink Hua Hin would just be great for your Mom. Patters is filthy, Phuket is a rip-off, and the islands are far out and crowded with drugged-up youngsters.

From what you write your Mom likes, methink Hua Hin is top. Tell her not the forget the Jazz-Jam every thursday on the corner not far from the old bus station.

I accept the advice from GreenSnapper so far . .of course here , diversification is a MUST HAVE , and real estate will bring up costs for managing and keeping which some people never dare to add inot their calculations.

To people here who like the idea of annuities : when you do a classic/traditional investment, i.e. park 20M in the bank, why not be your own annuitor? Some people here say, hey they guarantee your rent for a lifetime . . that's true but when you have children or a partner, you need to make sure that in case of an unexpected "premature" death it will not end up as a complete loss !

What I am trying to say if you invest into real estate, rent it out, from a certain age on try to sell the real estate one by one and such be your "own annuitor". It's a cliche that most investors neglect the inflation rate when investing in annuities, bonds, or fonds-based investments. The inflation rate can bring down your nice agent - promised interest rate by 2-4% a year. A 5% promise then turns out to earn you actually just half of this or even less.

That's one reason - cheers to GreenSnapper - why in my diversifications, real estate plays a big role. If I had the time to search & hunt, I might even mix Bangkok condos with Jomtien condos. I agree to GrSn in BKK prices are through the ceiling and it needs careful considerations. However, the same applies when you start looking for the right investment sheme.

Locations and again, locations, are the magic wand . I was surprised little to read that the original OP Jurgen G. noticeabyl made this 50M fortune by winning on a real-estate deal in HK. Lucky you are and you prooved some forum members wrong. You earned a measely 400% with a real-estate investment.

It s worth discussing on a civilized level. Ah and yeah . . anyone talking about 8% revenues and more in my eyes is a scammer or just plain gambler. Lets call al those who call conservative investment big BS, just gamblers. Well, gambling can win you 150, 200, 500 % , but it can also ruin all your assets. I rest assured the OP knows.

assumed the OP is german . .( the flaws in his use of english lead way to this conclusion )

i am a german national, I was planning to get married to my Thai GF inside Thailand only.

I found out that you require the certificate of "availability to get married" ( german: Ehefähigkeitsbescheinigung) not only need for

yourself, also you need it for your thai wife - EVEN IF YOU INTEND ONLY TO GET MARRIED in THAILAND !!!!

it does not make much difference if you want to get married here or in Germany . . the requirements are identical.

I did further investigations, which led me to the conclusions that actually my governemnt does not want me to get married to

a Thai woman ( probably because when you die, they inherit 60% lifetime widow pension, paid by german taxpayers, without having had to invest a single penny into the system).

My Thai GF had been married before, which added to the complications in applying for a certificate of being able to get married etc etc

I can say only one thing : FORGET IT unless you like roundabouts & carrousells with authorities and lawyers.

There is a german law firm right next to the german embassy in Bangkoks Sathorn Road, they have a very very informative website about the legal

constructions and obligations of getting married to a Thai . . they will answer ALL your questions !

all of this assumed you the OP is a german. If you are a brit, different ( easier) rules apply !

Welcome in real life !

All Veltins, Paulaner or Erdinger beers are WEIZENBIER ( light Wheat-beer ) which does actually does not taste like a Heineken/Carlsberg brand Lager or Pils beer.

I am working on retrieving the adress of the brewmaster in Bangkok and his tasty draft beer. And yes, he has kegs, coolers and all the outfit.

There is a german beerhouse in the Sukhumvit ( don't know the exact address, me think it is Soi 22 ) I once met the owner on a party. He is brewing his own beer (!!) which tastes REALLY well , a classic medium dark draft beer. I remember he said that you can buy small kegs as well as large ones from him for parties or to drink it at home. I will have to contact a buddy in Bangkok for the exact address and will post it here as soon as I get hold of it.

If I had 50 M Baht, I would just diverse them into partly real estate, partly classic savings.

30M = I would buy 20 nice condos and rent them out real cheap, cheap for ensuring they will be rented full time throughout the years. Cheap means to rent out for less than 10,000 BHT a month, leaving me with 8000 profit after management fees and taxes. This will sum up to 160,000 Baht per month.

rest 20M = take em to a "good" bank and put them into a savings account that can earn you 2.8% interest. Absolutely doable. So in effect, you cash in another 46,000 BAHT per month on interest. Means your monthly income is 206,000 BAHT and your assets do not loose value, except the inflation is eating up your 20M while they sit in the bank. However an annuity is also loosing with the yearly inflation. Mind you annuitites are not inflation-balanced !

Your 20M also serve as a good health insurance, should somethimng serious occure.

Other less serious medical expenses you can pay off the 206,000 monthly income.

Tenant change in the condos means some spending in furniture and renovation, yet this is cheap in Thailand.

You might like the task of managing your condos. Take fun in taking good care and enjoy the swimming pools.

For near 5000 Euros per month with no obstruction to my assets, I can show all these smart yuppies of the "insurance" and "asset" business my finger. Most of these 5%-8% yearly interest assets are high risk investments for which only one rule goes : Don't spend more money than what you are willing to loose!

When you get older, sell the condos one by one and use the money for a nice holiday trip or a cruise !

OP here- so I went for the Nivea Silver antibacterial anti-perspirant roll-on...works a treat,no odour or wet patch anymore 100%....SURE 48 hours should have been re-named NotsoSURE 48 seconds.....totally crap and now in the bin.

Razors -went for the Gillette Vectors and they are fine, as is the price. Gillette Mach 3 pricing just got disgusting....

THANKS.

Too bad the Nivea Silver did not work for you. Works like a charm for me even when I ride my bicycle for 50-60kms.

strange the NIVEA Stick did not work for you ! On me it works like a dream and I am a glibber-hung guy who tends to sweat a lot whenever motion is involved here in the tropics.

Maybe you forgot to hold it with the roll facing downward, otherwise there won't be any fluid leaving the bottle.

for an anti-perspirant, I use Nivea for men ( buy in 7-11) the roll-on stick ! For a good razor, I had to search further. I used to bring Wilkinson 3-blades ( by far the best, and probably all Gilette 3-blades, too) into the country in my lugagge, but as I assume you are an expat, this would not work for you.

What I do with my razors, after finished shaving, use an old toothbrush and clean the space between the blades under running water, then slam the grip onto the edge of the basin several times with the razor blades facing downward - this will propel all hair residues out from underneath the blades, where they otherwise keep sticking and become hard lumps. They shorten the life span of a blade quickly ! Make sure you keep the blades clean after each shave, and you will find out that the lifespan of the blades will increase a lot. Watch from time to time if the blades do not carry rust on them. Catching Tetanus from a rusty blade cut through your chin ain't a good idea to hit the bucket with . . .

as the financial and investment markets seem to be a bit unsafe, why not consider buying a whole multistory house for a lump sum of 25M Baht in an European country, and rent it's flats out ? Of course you still have to care about the tenants, but can combine it with a trip abroad. And the revenue is safe, whilest the money does not get less - real estate in a good location does not loose value. You can easily rent out 4-5 flats for 160,000 Baht per month altogether, pay some tax on it and not have to worry much more. And still have 25M Baht left for putting it into a foreign ( not Thai!) bank for a good interest rate, or just anything like spending it on the long run.

I think your worries are you do not want to die as a poor man, and you seem to feel unsafe if 50M Baht is enough?? Personally, i would like to die as a poor man, if I knew my lifespan. I do not want to die as a rich man. I like the idea of having spent it all on fun, more fun, good food and a lot of travelling. Materilistic views -houses,cars,yachts etc do not bother me much. They cost money in keeping. A life only goes a long way.

no, stupid they weren't. They tried a lift that Romanians have successfully used in Germany until the banks started to fix the safes containing the cash behind the actual ATM cases. Kudos from me to them for trying it. What I don t understand why they did not halt their plans after the first pullout went down the drain. They must have been desperate or just decided that something went wrong the first place, so let's do it again. After the second attempt you would guess they dust off. Coming back for a third time beats all odds.

Some poster here suggested only scousers would do it. This is an apple fallen not so far from the tree, i guess. They are still my heroes as they did not try to steal from the people.

why didn't they try to take money from walking ATM's instead of the ones cemented into walls ? So many so called uneducated girls develope more whizz in properly executed evasion of the walking ones . . . .

Ooops, sorry, guess it's against the rules here to pass such tipps. But hey, in Bangkok Hilton they will surely meet some professionals who can tell them about a sure method to lift ATM's . . .

Again sorry if i have tipped everyone off . . . ( not worth visiting hilton for the tipps)

I had the experience of a farang who drugged a friend of mine and he would of died if i didn't check on him. Here is the story.

Back in 1992 I was living at Cowboy Guest house in Chiang Mai for 3 month stay. I met a journalist named Richard who was also doing a long stay and I showed him around North Thailand as I could speak Thai and new many nice villages. . . etc.

........to get into his room. He was laying their lifeless and would not respond to my trying to wake him up. Next to his bed was a heroin kit with needles, spoon, heroin and everying to make it look like a drug overdose. I ran downstairs and flagged a Songteaw. 3 of us carried Richard to the Songteaw and rushed him to McCormick hospital. Richard did survive but only barely. His laptop, money, passport and anything of value from his room was stolen.

Be careful,

Randy

... are you sure his "LAPTOP" got stolen . . . . how come, a LAPTOP in 1992 ????????

( just saw there was already another post asking the same. Sorry for me doubling it.)

now it all adds up, all mouth and no substance ..... well that takes a lot of credibility out of your comments in a lot of peoples eyes , I am sure.

Well, you certainly answered the question about whether you have a brain of your own to figure things out.

Truth, logic and reasoning don't need a 'degree', gonzo the face.

Please keep us informed when the Thai 'authorities' with 'qualifications' start spewing drivel...so we will all be sure to sit up and pay attention and nod our heads...because...because Gonzo the Face says those with 'degrees' are always right.

Thats nice....

those with degrees are not always right, but those without degrees are many times more often wrong......

Oh and you must have forgotten...... your qualifications to be so right in your opinion as to disavow others??? you forgot to post them.... come on now you want us to believe you, tell us why your point is correct and others are not.

We are all trying to arrive at what could have possibly happened, and even a blind pig finds some acorns once in a while.

The true and correct suggestion just may put someone on the proper path for the real answer.

BLIND PIGS FIND A CORN ? What did you drink last night ???

(I've seen the effect of Warfarin on Pest Control operatives .... it takes a huge dose to cause acute any symptoms in something as large as a human, and so it could not be accidental)

"The toxic dose of warfarin is highly variable.....Superwarfarins are extremely potent and can produce prolonged effects even after a small ingestion; as little as 1 mg in an adult can cause coagulopathy. ...Bleeding is the primary adverse effect of warfarin and superwarfarin toxicity and is related to the intensity of anticoagulation, length of therapy, the patient's underlying clinical state, and use of other drugs that may affect hemostasis or interfere with warfarin metabolism.^{http://emedicine.med...821038-overview}

^{One milligram}

^{. . you are on track ! This is exactly what it is pointing too. And you are right, it could have been murder, if the room-pesticide suspicion CAN be ruled out . And btw, superwarfarines contain in parts arsenics, so your first reply to my post don't hold to the facts.}

The symptoms of the two victims - may they Rest in Peace ! - clearly point to insecticide - arsenic involved - poisoning.

did you just jump on the forum and not bother to read previous quotes? Arsenic has been dismissed as a possible poison. Rat poison with warfarin etc is the likely culprit.

They were murdered until proven otherwise.

...and contains arsenic if we can believe what others posted already.

Once on Koh Lipe, I ate pufferfish ( pla pakphoa) - knowingly - of which the poisonous liver had been carefully removed by the cook, me watching every step. I ate a fish-soup made from what was left of the fish's meat. Shortly after i returned to my bungalow, where I went asleep, I woke up about one hour later, sweating and to my stomach making awful noises as if there was a train driving through it. I barely made it to the toilet where I vomited my innerds out ! After it was out, my body calmed down and everything was back to normal !

The symptoms of the two victims - may they Rest in Peace ! - clearly point to insecticide - arsenic involved - poisoning. It is obvious the hotel is involved and so the label "food poisoning" will be used to whitewash their lack of responsibility. Since the Chiang Mai incident, we should be able to read the signs on the wall. It also would be interesting to know of more incidents that had not been fatal at all, but resulted in dizzy feeling or rash and nausea. If we could get hold of tourists who went sick ( without severe results, just common feeling nauseatic or headaches) after checking in into their rooms, it would proove that the heavy use of bug-sprays and insecticieds are responsible for all these cases. It would not overly surprise me, as the Thais love to use chemical monster toxins on their roomside and field fauna.

Will eventually be a 50% or more failure. To introduce high floor toilet seats does not mean that there are enough skilled people who are capable of fixing the porcellain cans neatly & tight onto the ground. My bet is that 50% of these crap-cans are going to tilt loose from down under you . . . It takes a whizz-kid, proper tools and proper screws to fix the seats properly . . . .

Ok, for 1025 Euros return, my earlier suggestion become obsolete. Not to have to pick up baggage and recheck is the most comfortable and recommendable way. The savings against a less convenient way are minimal if you choose a different carrier.

I crosschecked and picked a random date in June on the Ethihad and found a return flight for 923.- Euros Dublin-Chiang Mai. I could not find a direct link to Chiang Rai on the Ethihad site, however.

The 6 hour wait I would spend it over a beer or two and read a good book. Also maybe a short nap will get you through the wait really quick. 6 hours may feel being relatively long when imagined, but in reality can pass in a flurry.

Wish you a nice and safe trip !