smotherb

4 hours ago, vukovar77 said:

From my point of view,people like You have very pure social life,they are not socialized here ,do not speak any of Thai language ,eat only expensive western food,etc.Maybe You are very old,peevish or  ugly or fat and You can be interesting only cos. a money?I have income for about 150K per a month and nice stock portfolio and savings,but I hate bars, do not eat western food,do not need a car in Bangkok.I have small condo 34 m and live with my Thai spouse (she cook Thai food) and I am happy with 20-30K per month.I can not eat more,drink more etc.I am socialized here and I can speak language pretty good.So maybe You can change Your bad habits and live much better with much less money as well.

Then go for it if you are so happy. However, from your response it seems my post must have hit a nerve and turn-ed you into a name-caller. It seems your naming only hit one in four. Better luck next time.

I live in a 3-story townhouse, I have many Thai friends.Just had Mother's day dinner with my Thai in-laws. My wife also cooks; she does Western foods very well, made some great mole de puerco last night and she cooks Thai, but she is not Thai. I spend about B120k/mo, almost all of it from my investment portfolio.

I would not want to live on B20-30k and I don't want to be like you. So, now what?

On 8/11/2018 at 12:05 PM, Neeranam said:

 

Ok, thanks, it's a nightmare. I wonder if I can travel abroad with it?

I ride motorcycles and  have  gotten my passport wet several times. I did not use to worry, but one time I was hassled at exit because they could not read my entry stamp. So, I guess the bottom line is to make sure all current stamps are readable; if not, new passport and visa time.

4 hours ago, JLCrab said:

Measured average height, weight, and waist circumference for adults aged 20 and over

CDC data

• Women:
  Height in inches: 63.7
  .https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

4 hours ago, JLCrab said:

Measured average height, weight, and waist circumference for adults aged 20 and over

CDC data

• Women:
  Height in inches: 63.7
  .https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

That is the world average height, and you did not mention the other average stats for women:

Height in inches: 63.7
Weight in pounds: 168.5
Waist circumference in inches: 38.1* (96.9 centimeters)

*Unpublished figure. Derived from converting published figures listed in centimeters to inches.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm

While the outlier you posted was 5’7” (170cm) and is taller than average, I doubt she weighs more than the average 168lbs (76.4kg) or her waist is greater than the average 38.1” (96.9cm), do you?

I realize there are exceptions; a US gf of mine was 4’11” (149.86cm) and weighed 79.2lbs (36kg). I liked to call her “Spinner.” However, I think Thai women are on average smaller than Western women; that, I believe, is one reasons so many of us like them. And, smaller may not be as much in height as it is in girth.

9 hours ago, JLCrab said:

Some are --some aren't -- PookLook at 170 cm

Small, compared to western women

2 hours ago, bwpage3 said:

Since the women have nothing and they are the only kind of women that will take these kind of men.

What kind of men? Are you saying, no man here can get anything but women who have nothing?

2 hours ago, JLCrab said:

Yes -- maybe several.

Sure, take two, they're small.

21 hours ago, AdamTheFarang said:

I am asking in general in the world of equality why do men still pay more than woman?

In the general world of equality; men earn more and have more than women. However, if a man established a relationship with a woman of means, she may pay more, especially if she has more than he.  However, here, it seems most farang men take young poor Thai women and pay more for them, since the women have nothing.

2 hours ago, hobobo said:

Definitely get bored in Vung Tau!

Well, I guess it depends on what you want. The OP wanted some nightlife, but it also has a beach and a nice hilltop statue of Christ the King or alternatively a statue of a seated Buddha complete with temple too.

On 8/5/2018 at 9:54 AM, baansgr said:

Yes but she isnt going to want to sell the house in her village so owning 50% is a moot point

 

I have a friend who was in a similar situation. The wife even admitted 50% of the house was his. However, miraculously, no one ever made an offer for the house in this little village. Finally,  the husband was really tired of it and accepted an offer from a Thai man of maybe 20% of the house's value. The farang was devastated, but after 5 or 6 years of waiting agreed to the sale, took his money, and left. Will wonders never cease; the wife still lives in the house.  Draw your own conclusions. 

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

What I mean is the number of guys I've met claiming "my wife is a respectable educated woman", with a wife that I had previously paid for sex in CM has entered double figures recently. Not that I'd ever tell them, shhhhhhhhh.

I too have seen girls I knew worked the sex trade trying to become respectable. On my first contract in Saudi, I was invited to my boss' house for dinner. I met his wife; she had been an old acquaintance of mine from Saigon. So, yes, it does happen.

However, I have thoughts on both sides of that equation.

For the ones whose wives were bar girls, yet they deny it; I think they just want to lose that stigma associated with prostitution. I understand that. I took two Asian wives to the US, and both were thought by some, to be ex-bar girls. I did not like that. I prefer a new woman. I want my wife to not have been married before, to not have had kids before, and to not have had sex before.

For the ones who doubt another man's wife never worked in a bar, especially if they do not know them; I think that is because bar girls have been the majority of the women they have met in SEA. I guess, I can understand that too; I know many expats who have had only bar girls. If you spend your time frequenting the bars and running around with bar girls; bar girls will undoubtedly be the girls you meet. 

Nevertheless, I have known some very good women who worked the sex trade. The key, I believe, is if the women want to stop the sex trade. Some get married, not to gain a husband, but to secure a long-term customer. 

I can give you a perfect example; I introduced a friend to a girl who worked the truck washes in Vietnam. If you are not familiar with the truck washes; suffice to say a short-time stop for truckloads of GIs. The girl in question was very good looking, so much so that GIs would wait in line for their turn with her. He was infatuated, and contrary to my advice, he married her. They went back to the US and she took in laundry and watched kids to help then get by. You could not touch her; she had changed, she was a wife and mother, no longer a sex worker. When my friend died, I went to his funeral, and she had me sit next to her. As the priest was giving his eulogy, she squeezed my hand and whispered in my ear that she had always loved me. I thought, Jesus, at his funeral she is coming on to me. I felt so ashamed as she continued. She said she loved me because I knew her where she came from and never told anyone.

So, you see my friend, if you don't believe it when someone tells you their wife was not a bar girl; let it be. See how she acts, maybe she has changed. Maybe both are ashamed of their past and are simply trying to make the past be exactly that.

1 minute ago, BritManToo said:

Doesn't matter, we're all fishing from the same pool, whether you know it or not.

Not sure what you mean. So, I guess I do not know that. I do not think we all have to use the same pool in which the pay-for-play ladies swim.

3 hours ago, possum1931 said:

There is nothing wrong with a brothel in Pattaya or anyone else, and no one has the right to be nasty about them, I do not use them personally as I do not have to, but as long as no one is getting hurt and no underage sex is involved, what people do with their bodies is up to them.

In all fairness, no one has to use a brothel; most people who do use them because they want to have sex and its a sure thing. However, there are some who simply do not like pay-for-play sex and the environment into which it often evolves. I have lived in and visited sexpat towns all over SEA and I can understand why some people would not want to live in one or take their families to visit one. I purposely chose a non-sexpat town for my retirement--because of the added cost and undesirable characters such a town acquires rather than some puritanical reason. However, I still visit the sex traps because I have friends there and that is where most of the good bars and Western restaurants exist. 

4 hours ago, BTB1977 said:

Scotland is not a english speaking country.  I have friends from there and I only understand maybe one word in every sentance. And many are very cheap. That is a fact. 

Apparently, you are not from an English speaking country either.

8 minutes ago, Gecko123 said:

I'm calling BS on this claim. Was there maybe a 10% reduction available to anyone which you weren't aware of and they brought it to your attention? Are you claiming that they cut the price especially for you because you haggled??? I don't even think their computer system has the capacity to do impromptu discounts. Mark me down in the extremely dubious column. I speak Thai well, have shopped there a lot, and tried innumberable times to wheedle discounts on major purchases, never with success. Would be extremely interested in knowing if anybody else can report that they have successfully haggled a discount at HomePro.

Well, one long-legged cashier cutie  . . . .

3 hours ago, ChiangMaiLightning2143 said:

Always. Thai friend was with her husband a trader said "Hey lady help me get some ngun off this Kwai"

Thai friend "That buffalo is my HUSBAND and it's my money too!"

You are fortunate. That attitude is common among bar staff, vendors, drivers, etc.; those who often interact with farangs with local women. They assume the girl is working the farang too. Unfortunately, I have seen wives who will go along with it--I guess they are still working their husbands too, like long-term customers.

21 hours ago, ChiangMaiLightning2143 said:

If the traders relented they still are profiting. Just not the huge fleecing they expect. The sell stuff like t-shirts at 10x markup from normal markets just cause they see a white man. Clearly it is racism, nothing less.


 

Not necessarily so. Like all businesses, vendors may sell surplus, unsellable or unpopular items for less than cost; better something than nothing.

21 hours ago, ChiangMaiLightning2143 said:

If the traders relented they still are profiting. Just not the huge fleecing they expect. The sell stuff like t-shirts at 10x markup from normal markets just cause they see a white man. Clearly it is racism, nothing less.


u,

It is not racism; it is gouging the uninformed. Watch and see. I see Malaysians and Singaporeans getting the same top-end price quote as farangs. My wife is Filipina, she speaks a little Thai, but will often refrain from speaking just to get the Thai price. Some vendors have even complained and wanted more money when they find out she isn't Thai. However, we have lived in the same town for almost eleven years and most vendors know her, so she regularly gets the Thai price. By the by, we live in Hatyai near the Malaysian border, when Thais find out she is Filipina and not Malaysian; their entire attitude improves. Apparently, the Malays have sort of worn out their welcome here.

7 hours ago, baansgr said:

Every Tuesday my 10 year old boy wears his "Scouts" uniform to school with hat and Scout badge on shirt......does the same at school as every other day, My older daughter wears her "Guides" uniform to school one day a week, and she does exactly the same as any other day. I get the jist, its just a show thing.

Oh, you mean like the paratrooper wings the police wear?

6 hours ago, David Walden said:

Your situation seems like mine Bt 8000 P/M for nice room in Condo in Cha-am.  I can afford this so it quite good.  Me perhaps a bit older (76) I don't drink much back in Aus  but I have to admit most of the social contacts I have where I live (Cha-am) are made mostly by meeting Sweeds, Brits, Danes, Yanks, other Aussies and a host of other nationalities as well as many Thais.  This mostly comes about in the Bus Stop Soi which is the Cha-am's modest girly bar street. Also at other restaurant locations in town.   About half the 15 or so bars in this Soi are owned by Foreigners Brits, Aussies Danes etc.  Some of these owners have tried to sell their bars to me...good lord I didn't think I look that silly!!! 

So I do have 3/5 beers each day (I admit some times more or less).  At least 3 times a week many of these bars put on free afternoon food and you serve yourself which can extend sometimes to 6/7 pm thus avoiding the need to pay for food (beer is food).  Whoever puts it on also invites the girls and owners of other bars to share.  Just about all these meetings are great fun, lots of B/S about football and other very light not so serious subjects.  We sometimes solve all the worlds economic and political problems in just a few hours.  As a result I go to at least 3 party type social functions a week.  I usually try to have 2  days a week not socialising or drinking but I must admit with a saddened heart I often fail.  The little Thai Pink Lady Bombshell bar in the Plaza Soi not far away is my favourite.  As a result of this socialising which does not happen in Aus. I know at least 100 people or more in Cha-am that when passing we will stop and say hello

   I do have a bit more then the Aus aged pension to live on but do know lots of Aussies who only get the basic pension, most have a girlfriend and seem to manage OK...great fun, try it. 

 

Good on ya David. You sound like you are enjoying yourself at 76.

14 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

True. However, one has to factor in the cost and stress of air travel as well. I travel business class between Melbourne and Bangkok. I really need the leg room. An 8 hour flight is my upper tolerance level nowadays. Places like Costa Rica and Spain etc. are all very well; however, I'd be gaga by the time I got off the plane.

Not complaining - it is what it is when you get older.

You're singing to the choir; I'm from Florida; we pay extra for one- or two-stop flights between 26 and 30 hours to Tampa or Miami; and then I have to travel two to four hours by car or plane to my local airport. Some airlines try to sell tickets BKK-Miami  where the duration is over 100 hours. Plus, we don't just get tired, we get jet lag; a feature your North-South flights don't provide.

However, I use my tried and true method for travel--I get little rest before the flight; then have a few drinks on the plane and sleep. Any layovers, have more drinks at the stop and sleep on the plane. Proper planning and you sleep most of the way.

3 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

Lol, somehow the thought of driving  an SClass in Bangkok isn't my thing any more. Nor strip clubs every night, all night casino bashes, moose hunts in Alaska and Rolexes. 

 

Glad ya did well under Obama, some folks do well in the Chicago Way.

I do none of the things you suggest to spend more than B40k here. I drove MBs when the company picked up the tab, have not frequented strip clubs since a teenager in DC, never liked gambling, never been hunting in Alaska, and the only Rolexes I bought were as gifts for others--and that was in the 80's when I worked in KSA.

As I said, if you don't  know what you could spend B40k/mo on, but somehow think these items must be in the mix . . .

You apparently missed the stock market growth during Obama's watch.

1 hour ago, Nyezhov said:

Lots of folks took a beating. But, YMMV. 

Just like the cost of living there. YMMV. Personally, I could spend more than 40k a month but wonder on what.....

Yeah, I took a beating, but it wasn't on Obama's watch; it was on Bush's. If you can't imagine what you'd spend more than B40k on, you probably haven't spent it