Back in the UK after 10 years in Thailand

[ThaiPauly]

10 hours ago, yogi100 said:

Try Northampton. They're even fatter.

My best mate out here is from Northampton

 

He's not gonna be happy about this????

[steven100]

10 hours ago, yogi100 said:

I got up to around 6.04.

 

The sight of an English native Londoner appealing to an African housing officer for a council flat in the part of London his family have lived in for generations turned my stomach.

I have to agree 100% ….  it's really gone bad  !   and Australia is exactly the same.

Try getting a forty hour a week job in Brisbane or Sydney … no chance,  maybe 10 hours a week if your lucky.

The youth  of today and even the 20-40yr old will have zero or minimum superannuation, no chance of ever buying a house, forget that idea.

It really is a mess …. 

[GalaxyMan]

12 minutes ago, FredGallaher said:

Thailand does supply some low income housing and benefits but they are not designed to keep people down. 

When a country like Thailand does everything possible to keep people poor, what more do you need to keep people down? The government tries to buy loyalty by spreading a few pennies around to the poorest of the poor, but the real power brokers, the ultra-rich who own 90% of Thailand and rely on the military and the corrupt political class to protect them, have their feet firmly planted on the necks of their money providers; the people of Thailand, their slaves in all but name, and they will burn Thailand to the ground rather than give up one baht of advantage.

[sanemax]

3 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

Your joyful experience at Thai immigration is overwhelming. 

its the ever changing rules which were the issue .

I was only on short term visas, 30/60 visas and due to the constantly changing rules , you could be refused a visa/refused entry anytime and you had to constantly keep up to date with other peoples experiences , knowing which embassys to avoid , which airport /land border crossings to avoid and which immigration officers to avoid......................all just to get another 30/60 days in Thailand .

  Its nice now not having to be concerned about how many more days Ican stay for

 

[sanemax]

3 hours ago, Victornoir said:

To summarize this long thread, I understand that there are many advantages to come back to the country:
 - We do not smoke anymore. Too expensive.
 - We no longer risk venereal diseases. End of naughty relationships.
 - We can be fat without complex. Others are too.
 - Medical services are better which is good for us to avoid dying of boredom.
 - The very high rent for modest dwellings with gloomy facades of ocher bricks gives a price to ugliness.
 - The sidewalks are clean and empty of merchants. Everyone at the supermarket. The beautiful life, finally.
 - Etc ...

 

Thank you Sanemax. I am sure that many people will follow your example to find themselves in the old country reminiscent of their memories at the tropics.

You seem to have misunderstood .

1 . I have wanted to stop smoking for years and 10 quid a pack has given me an incentive to do so .

2. I wasnt into being promiscuous in Thailand , so didnt participate in disease risk sex .

3 . People seem to be a lot slimmer in the UK these days , so being a bit overweight is noticeable , compared to Thailand where its quite normal to be overweight  

4. I went to a NHS hospital last week with bruised/cracked ribs and the nurse explained  to me that if my ribs were cracked , they wouldnt put a caste/bandage on , just send me home and sit it out waiting for it to naturally heal . 

  She checked to make sure that it wasnt serious ,didnt give me an x-ray and told me to get some pain killers if it hurt and sent me home .

  Had I been in Thailand , they would have given me an x-ray , done every test possible , maybe kept me in for a few nights , bandaged me up and given me a whole host of medicines (from their own over priced pharmacy) and told me to go back every five days for a check-up and more medication .

  Would have ended up costing 5-30 000 Baht in Thailand , whilst in the Uk , just had to get myself a pack of painkillers

[Thaiwrath]

42 minutes ago, sanemax said:

You seem to have misunderstood .

1 . I have wanted to stop smoking for years and 10 quid a pack has given me an incentive to do so .

2. I wasnt into being promiscuous in Thailand , so didnt participate in disease risk sex .

3 . People seem to be a lot slimmer in the UK these days , so being a bit overweight is noticeable , compared to Thailand where its quite normal to be overweight  

4. I went to a NHS hospital last week with bruised/cracked ribs and the nurse explained  to me that if my ribs were cracked , they wouldnt put a caste/bandage on , just send me home and sit it out waiting for it to naturally heal . 

  She checked to make sure that it wasnt serious ,didnt give me an x-ray and told me to get some pain killers if it hurt and sent me home .

  Had I been in Thailand , they would have given me an x-ray , done every test possible , maybe kept me in for a few nights , bandaged me up and given me a whole host of medicines (from their own over priced pharmacy) and told me to go back every five days for a check-up and more medication .

  Would have ended up costing 5-30 000 Baht in Thailand , whilst in the Uk , just had to get myself a pack of painkillers

I have been twice over the past 2 years to Government Hospitals here, and, yes, they did give me an x-ray, to make sure there were no jagged edges (as your great NHS hospital should have done), and with the x-ray, consultation and Tramadol painkillers, it was just over 500 baht.

No hospital puts a caste/bandage on for bruised/cracked ribs in this day and age, and to suggest 5-30,000 baht here is luducrous !

[BritManToo]

4 minutes ago, FredGallaher said:

I don't necessarily think that it is best to assume it's only a cracked rib and send you home with pain pills. My experience in Thailand is that they would order an X-Ray, and take it from there. I don't know where you were the the hospitals near me are pretty right on and possibly more thorough than in the US.

They don't treat cracked ribs, if one's broken you can see it's out of line.

No need for x-rays.

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

I don't necessarily think that it is best to assume it's only a cracked rib and send you home with pain pills. My experience in Thailand is that they would order an X-Ray, and take it from there.

The NHS nurse didnt know whether it was just bruised , fractured or broken , but she explained , whatever it is , no treatment would be necessary as its better to let them heal naturally on their own . 

   Bandages or castes sometimes distort the angle of how the ribs heal.

An x-ray would have been unnecessary , because it would make no difference to the treatment outcome .

  Point is : A Thai hospital would have given me an x-ray , maybe kept me in or bandaged me up , given me every treatment available (necessary or not ) and then given me a large inflated bill .

As the NHS would have paid for my treatment , they didnt carry out any unnecessary treatment

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

There's only two ways to determine if the rib is cracked or broken. One is by guessing and the other is to X Ray. X Rays are cheap, less than 300 baht at government hospitals. My friend was charged 220 baht yesterday for a hip joint X Ray. But I admit guessing is even cheaper, unless there's a law suit. 

Yes , but in my case , there was no reason to find out

 

12 hours ago, Thaiwrath said:

I have been twice over the past 2 years to Government Hospitals here, and, yes, they did give me an x-ray, to make sure there were no jagged edges (as your great NHS hospital should have done), and with the x-ray, consultation and Tramadol painkillers, it was just over 500 baht.

No hospital puts a caste/bandage on for bruised/cracked ribs in this day and age, and to suggest 5-30,000 baht here is luducrous !

If the bones would have been broken and out of alignment , I would have felt it  , I would have been in agony and unable to walk ,move or talk .

  As I could walk, talk and move without much pain , the nurse didnt need to take an x-ray to find the severity.

  I go to private hospitals in Thailand and they do prefer if you stay in the hospital for a few days , giving you as much treatment as possible and the final bill could be around the 30 000 mark

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

Sorry you feel that way. You must have poor opinion of heath care here. I definitely don't agree either personally or professionally.

Every private medical place that I went to in Thailand , I always got the impression that their primary concern was make as much money as they could , by giving you unnecessary treatment and medicine , that seemed to be the main priority ,rather than curing your ailments .

  90% of their thoughts seemed to be making a profit and they didnt seem to bothered about your well being

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, FredGallaher said:

As I said, I don't agree.

Yes , lets not forget that you suggested that you would have given me an unnecessary x-ray , which I would had to have paid for

[sanemax]

20 hours ago, Victornoir said:

 - The very high rent for modest dwellings with gloomy facades of ocher bricks gives a price to ugliness.
 - The sidewalks are clean and empty of merchants. Everyone at the supermarket. The beautiful life, finally.
 - Etc ...

 

Thank you Sanemax. I am sure that many people will follow your example to find themselves in the old country reminiscent of their memories at the tropics.

I didnt mention the cost of rent and brick buildings look so much better than concrete/rendered buildings .

  I also prefer that roads are used for vehicles and bikes , pavements are for pedestrians and shops are used for selling things , rather than the roads being used by cars /bikes/pedestrians /food stalls , the pavements being used as bike parking/food stalls/shop extensions and the shops being closed

[mommysboy]

On 9/8/2019 at 8:01 AM, FredGallaher said:

Welfare for a short time might be good, but people can't wean themselves off. If you work you either lose your benefits or they are reduced. This is a negative incentive to meaningful employment. Therefore. people are trapped with the only way out is very painful. Trapped people are essentially slaves to the system. They typically vote for only those politician who champion the "free be" system so things go on and on. Staying on it long term makes thing worse. Try getting a job with long spells of unemployment and see the results. When I was hiring staff, the applicant better have a great story to explain long gaps in employment. Of course there are good explanations, like having a baby or caring for a sick family member. We always check these out.

Sometimes long termed unemployed need to take any job to get back into the system. Some people feel that the loss of benefits and getting a low level entry job isn't worth it, so they stay trapped in the welfare system.

Thailand doesn't do it to a great extent and lets people freely rise to the level they are capable of. Its sort of "Hard Love" but it generally works better. Only basic services are provided but not much. 

Look at the homeless tragedies in Los Angeles and San Francisco and tell me how well things work.  

I would not want to confuse the welfare trap with the poverty trap.

 

'Some people feel that the loss of benefits and getting a low level entry job isn't worth it'- When dealing with young people it certainly is good advice to take a low entry job.  However, let's be realistic when it comes to breadwinners.  The real problem is the paucity of real jobs paying reasonable money. If there were enough then we would not need to talk of any sort of trap, would we?  Welfare benefits in the UK just about cover short term living expenses.

 

'Thailand doesn't do it to a great extent and lets people freely rise to the level they are capable of.'  Surely, we should write: lets people freely fall.  I find it laughable that you should hold Thailand up as some form of good model.  

 

 

[sanemax]

Been back in the UK nearly two months now 

First thing that I did was to apply for a new UK PP , even though my PP had years and pages remaining , I wanted a new UK issued PP with no Thai connections to my old PP .

   Applied and got a new *clean* UK passport and went online to apply for a new Thai visa in my brand new passport .

  "Where you staying" "How much money do you have" , "Return flights" ? In other words, *Will you be going to Thailand , arriving with no money and no where to stay and then be looking for a way to survive *

 *Prove that you are not *

*Please upload all the evidence making sure everything is 100% correct , any small error will result in your application being refused and your application fee wont be refunded .................best of luck with your application*

   Right , apply to go to an expensive  Country , where my visa application may be refused without a refund , I may be refused entry at the airport and sent home and get photographed and fingerprinted and the authorities following me around everywhere , by ways of TM30 reports .

    Filled out my visa application form, uploaded all the documents , filled in my bank details and pressed .................*Delete*

    I didnt and dont want to go back to Thailand .

The reasons for myself wanting to stay in the UK are the same reasons as why I previously liked going to Thailand , just reversed 

 

[OJAS]

On 9/9/2019 at 7:29 AM, FredGallaher said:

I also prefer that roads are used for vehicles and bikes , pavements are for pedestrians

I agree. But a particular source of irritation to me when I was living there was that pavements in the UK were also frequently used by bloody cyclists! Is that still the case?

[ylmiri]

On 8/10/2019 at 3:50 AM, RichardColeman said:

And it's lovely and cool at the minute without having to have the air con on or the fan on full.

 

I'm currently back in the uk, living on trifle, pork pies and english sausages  - the veg can wait until i get back to thailand next month.

 

I came back last autumn . I guarantee you'll be so happy when the trees start to change in a month or so and your lungs fill with those damp leaves

Hello Mr Coleman, "the veg can wait until i get back to thailand next month",  may not be a good idea i must say. You need all the veg you can get.

Why? Because about 3 months ago I ate a lot of beef and beef fats as well as pork, guess what happened? I started to pass blood in my stool and also external piles(not big one i was lucky).

The blood in stool was quite bad, every bowel evacuation there was blood. Very distressing and worried. Worried it would turn to Colon cancer.

Started fasting and also bought probiotic from pharmacy, nothing seem to work.

When I started eating my own home-made Kimchi it helps tremendously. The fermented Kimchi has lots of flora that heals the colon. The high vitamin C also help. I ate Kimchi for the first week and it started to show results, less blood. After about 12 days the tiny piles were gone. Now, almost no blood. Still see little stains of blood traces.

Gone off meat for quite a while. Now only eat very little meat. Avoiding red meat like plague.

Take care don't over eat meat. I did and learned a lesson.

[worgeordie]

On 9/4/2019 at 4:59 PM, sanemax said:

as they were all seated and you couldnt see below their chests , how cold you know their waist size ?

If it's the Toon,they would be standing up shirtless even in February.

regards Worgeordie

[worgeordie]

On 9/24/2019 at 5:34 PM, sanemax said:

Been back in the UK nearly two months now 

First thing that I did was to apply for a new UK PP , even though my PP had years and pages remaining , I wanted a new UK issued PP with no Thai connections to my old PP .

   Applied and got a new *clean* UK passport and went online to apply for a new Thai visa in my brand new passport .

  "Where you staying" "How much money do you have" , "Return flights" ? In other words, *Will you be going to Thailand , arriving with no money and no where to stay and then be looking for a way to survive *

 *Prove that you are not *

*Please upload all the evidence making sure everything is 100% correct , any small error will result in your application being refused and your application fee wont be refunded .................best of luck with your application*

   Right , apply to go to an expensive  Country , where my visa application may be refused without a refund , I may be refused entry at the airport and sent home and get photographed and fingerprinted and the authorities following me around everywhere , by ways of TM30 reports .

    Filled out my visa application form, uploaded all the documents , filled in my bank details and pressed .................*Delete*

    I didnt and dont want to go back to Thailand .

The reasons for myself wanting to stay in the UK are the same reasons as why I previously liked going to Thailand , just reversed 

 

I cannot understand ,it seems you now hate Thailand,never to return,

but are posting on ThaiVisa regularly, just wait till winter ,you,ll wish

you were back here.

regards Worgeordie

[bannork]

29 minutes ago, worgeordie said:

I cannot understand ,it seems you now hate Thailand,never to return,

but are posting on ThaiVisa regularly, just wait till winter ,you,ll wish

you were back here.

regards Worgeordie

He can check out but he can never leave.

[JimmyTheMook]

On 8/17/2019 at 2:49 PM, sanemax said:

My stomach did...............and my stomach takes preference over my arteries 

 

And obviously your IQ as well.

[sanemax]

On 9/25/2019 at 2:50 AM, worgeordie said:

I cannot understand ,it seems you now hate Thailand,never to return,

but are posting on ThaiVisa regularly, just wait till winter ,you,ll wish

you were back here.

regards Worgeordie

Not sure how you could"understand" something that isnt there .

I dont recall ever stating that I "hate Thailand" .

I dont like Thailand as much as I used too , but I wouldnt go as far as saying that I hate it .

I just dont like it enough to want to go there again .

[BritManToo]

On 9/8/2019 at 8:01 AM, FredGallaher said:

When I was hiring staff, the applicant better have a great story to explain long gaps in employment. Of course there are good explanations, like having a baby or caring for a sick family member. We always check these out.

How about 'whoring in Thailand' as a gap excuse?

[sanemax]

12 hours ago, BritManToo said:

How about 'whoring in Thailand' as a gap excuse?

That wouldnt be a good ideas and I'm sure that you dont literally mean it, you just wanted to mention sex .

  People in Thailand laugh when you say "sex"

[Khon Kaen Jeff]

On 9/24/2019 at 5:34 PM, sanemax said:

Been back in the UK nearly two months now 

First thing that I did was to apply for a new UK PP , even though my PP had years and pages remaining , I wanted a new UK issued PP with no Thai connections to my old PP .

   Applied and got a new *clean* UK passport and went online to apply for a new Thai visa in my brand new passport .

  "Where you staying" "How much money do you have" , "Return flights" ? In other words, *Will you be going to Thailand , arriving with no money and no where to stay and then be looking for a way to survive *

 *Prove that you are not *

*Please upload all the evidence making sure everything is 100% correct , any small error will result in your application being refused and your application fee wont be refunded .................best of luck with your application*

   Right , apply to go to an expensive  Country , where my visa application may be refused without a refund , I may be refused entry at the airport and sent home and get photographed and fingerprinted and the authorities following me around everywhere , by ways of TM30 reports .

    Filled out my visa application form, uploaded all the documents , filled in my bank details and pressed .................*Delete*

    I didnt and dont want to go back to Thailand .

The reasons for myself wanting to stay in the UK are the same reasons as why I previously liked going to Thailand , just reversed 

 

Tbh if I read all that I too would feel very despondent and would also be telling Thailand to poke it. Stay where you are Sanemex, I would.

[OJAS]

On 9/24/2019 at 5:34 PM, sanemax said:

 Applied and got a new *clean* UK passport

Which you were presumably able to accomplish online and have the new passport directly couriered to you. So no need for 2 potentially awkward and expensive physical trips to an HMPO office in some distant location in your case, then, I take it!

[worgeordie]

2 hours ago, sanemax said:

Not sure how you could"understand" something that isnt there .

I dont recall ever stating that I "hate Thailand" .

I dont like Thailand as much as I used too , but I wouldnt go as far as saying that I hate it .

I just dont like it enough to want to go there again .

Oh ! Ok , You just like to visit on ThaiVisa Forum,stating how much better the UK is,

just wait till winter comes around,and you are huddled in front of a candle ,to save

on Electric, if your happy there,good luck to you.

regards Worgeordie

[sanemax]

14 hours ago, OJAS said:

Which you were presumably able to accomplish online and have the new passport directly couriered to you. So no need for 2 potentially awkward and expensive physical trips to an HMPO office in some distant location in your case, then, I take it!

There is a HMPO office in London , so no awkward trips  , but they seem solely there for emergency applications .

   You are encouraged to do the application on line and its very easy , you can even take your own photo with a camera and upload it and they crop the photo for you .

  Just fill out the online form, post your old PP back and then send the new PP within 2 weeks , (although 6 weeks is the given time ) and you can track your application online 

[sanemax]

13 hours ago, worgeordie said:

Oh ! Ok , You just like to visit on ThaiVisa Forum,stating how much better the UK is,

just wait till winter comes around,and you are huddled in front of a candle ,to save

on Electric, if your happy there,good luck to you.

regards Worgeordie

I am an 8 dotted senior TV member with 18 000 posts and came second  to Colin in the group stages in last years poster of the year competition .

   Having spent ten years in Thailand , I am just giving  a personal report of how back home is .

  The days of people escaping the UK and finding paradise in Thailand have long gone and the UK isnt such a bad place , compared to 2019 Thailand (Which is a very different place to 2009 Thailand)

[Khon Kaen Jeff]

1 hour ago, worgeordie said:

Oh ! Ok , You just like to visit on ThaiVisa Forum,stating how much better the UK is,

just wait till winter comes around,and you are huddled in front of a candle ,to save

on Electric, if your happy there,good luck to you.

regards Worgeordie

As opposed to having a warm fan blowing on you here to save on electric? makes me laugh how some are so scared of a UK winter, it's not even that cold compared to Scandinavia, Canada, etc. if your'e going to try to diss the UK as being not a good place to live you really have to come up with something better than that.

[soalbundy]

On 8/10/2019 at 11:47 AM, Max69xl said:

You sound like a paranoid old man. Just because you are using a debit/credit card, doesn't mean that the "government" knows where you

spend your money. Your bank knows, of course. 

I agree with him, it's easier to get scammed with cards than to get robbed of cash, industry likes cards, especially credit cards because people using them tend to overspend.