1 hour ago, totally thaied up said:

After thinking about it for a hour, I would prefer Australia due to a few things. I am only two minutes walk away from a World Class beach, health care is free and with the AUD to Baht being in the toilet, it is not much more expensive to live in Australia IF you own your own house or condo outright like we do.

 

I don't go out and eat pub meals or go to restaurants. Even here in Thailand, most of it is home cooking. I am married, don't need a bar or girl. I don't drink. I miss clean air and the beach a great deal. Chiang Mai has not got clean air and it is a long way to the beach. My wife after getting PR in Australia can become a Resident easy. Sure I may pay twice the amount for a coffee but you won't get the beach-side view I have got. If you drink, well, it's not cheap but then you have decent wines. The beef is real beef and even the taste of milk is different. I would kill for some Lamb now.

 

Thailand has treated me good; great wife and great family but nothing in the back of my mind beats the beach, free health care and clean air. I will remain in Thailand most likely for another 10 years but when my health insurance here gets too out of reach even for me, going home may well be the answer.

 

For many here, lack of funds in Australia and being on most likely a old age pension, living in Australia is not that easy, so most of SEA beckons. I know many Australian guys here that have nothing in Australia and no way back. With losing a massive amount in currency value, many of these people would barely make 34,000 a month now and would have had to tighten the belt a lot. For me personally now, it is about the same price to live in Australia to Thailand now once again, if you own your own property.

Am making more money in Thailand doing what I do than I could in OZ which is why i'm still here. I get the best of both worlds, western clients, their budgets, living in Bangkok a city that I love. Kids in a good international school and my wife also has a job she loves. We've worked to get to this point, but we are certainly lucky being in the right time and place for things too.

 

My wife and I both have Thai citizenship and Australian citizenship now. We've got a house near the beach in Victoria bought and nearly paid for so we'll stay here until the youngest has finished school, which is still more than 10 years away - touch wood. Investments in super and otherwise growing - and a british pension to boot at the end of it all.

 

So we will go back - mythical African crime wave and all -  but probably try and keep a small apartment in BKK so we can go back and forth.

 

The one thing i miss is the footy. MCC membership will be coming along in about 5 years, so that will be a nice thing to have for watching the Tiges.

2 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Yes, the driving is very safe and good roads etc but you do need to factor in the nanny state revenue collecting, parking fines, speed cameras, red light cameras, various other fines. I am a safe and slow driver but still used to get nabbed now and then by a camera for something that was just revenue, 65 in a 60 zone, or follow traffic through a yellow light.

Yep that is the downside. I got nabbed once for doing 62k in a 60k at 7.30am in the morning on an empty road. I was angry and when I read the details of the fine they gave me 2k off the 64k recorded for 'error'.  Nanny State is dead right. Total Scam.

  

3 hours ago, Yinn said:

Delicious food, warm weather, good music, dancing, not expensive, the Thai smile and lovely Thai people.

????

food... people getting fat all over, so no healthy

warm... too hot most of the time

music... kitchen music ?

dancing... not a go go client

not expensive... frozen for 20 years or something in ice ?

thai smile... if you take the knife in the back that goes with it

lovely people... calling farangs dirty ?

 

26 minutes ago, teatime101 said:

'Free' medical means everyone gets the same level of treatment, regardless of the amount tax paid. Better than the US system. My elderly mother received intensive hospital treatment for three months and was flown from Sydney to Lismore to a nursing home - all free. And the level of care was excellent all the way.

 

 

There is a couple of details posters seem to be overlooking.

Medicare and the public hospital system is free, yes. However, if one is looking at any chronic condition requiring what is called elective surgery, be prepared for a long wait. A guy I used to work with had to wait 18 months for a hip replacement, in pain all the way. If he had private health cover, he could have had it done in a private hospital within a month.

The other issue is a public hospital vs a private hospital. The publics are overworked, have inexperienced doctors at the front line, and putting it bluntly are giant petri dishes. Private hospitals won't get patients if they are substandard, so they have to be good.

I have top level private cover, and there is no way I would leave it.

4 hours ago, Yinn said:

Delicious food, warm weather, good music, dancing, not expensive, the Thai smile and lovely Thai people.

????

Agreed with most but awful music and stupid dancing

I almost forgot, education is obviously also an important issue.

11 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I almost forgot, education is obviously also an important issue.

You dirty,dirty.dirty,dirty old........yes I can't argue with that,in fact I think I would just say "yes dear".  

If I had known that iI could only get Australian Black Worms for my Discus fish in Australia  I might have moved there,

Sorry folks - just like others have said, I have never had private health cover in Oz in over thirty years. Three years ago, in a four day flood here in the northern-rivers, I had to get up at 0100 to try to repair a 100y.o. retaining wall made of 120kg railway sleepers. I lifted one and bang, an abdominal hernia. This, after radiation therapy to destroy the laryngeal cancer I got from the air in C Mai. All fixed for free by Medicare. Gotta love it. I did pay the surgeon who did my hernia $100 extra but hell, he is a Colonel (army reserve) and I was only a Captain, now retired and blxxdy wealthy ! Brilliant repair job for 2000 baht ? Strewth, I've paid more in a bar fine at Spotlight etc for top shelf stuff. My Thai missus needed an urgent operation on her knee, but no insurance so I said I'll pay. She said NO ! Wait ! Six weeks later a slot appeared and she got the op in a public hospital and walked out fixed the next day. Of course, I pay about $2500 a year in Medicare levy. Flaming bargain if you ask me. In my humble opinion, the only Aussies who choose deliberately to live permanently in LOS, even if they are married to a Thai and have kids, as I do, fall into just three categories (a) too poor, pensioners and saved nothing in their lives (b) seek cheaper rent and/or booze and/or smokes and/or NICE (not fat and ugly) pussy or (c) have lots of money but NO assets or property in Oz or anywhere. I have made more $ in the seven years since I returned to Oz, even given half of that time I was incredibly sick with cancer, than the twenty odd years I wasted in LOS. In 1990, I came to Thailand, seeking love or whatever. I returned to Oz with Thai missus and kid/s in 2013 and the missus says "she ain't going back to that cesspit, ever." Guess I have a farang wife after all ? But she's still Thai !

2 hours ago, Bender Rodriguez said:

food... people getting fat all over, so no healthy

warm... too hot most of the time

music... kitchen music ?

dancing... not a go go client

not expensive... frozen for 20 years or something in ice ?

thai smile... if you take the knife in the back that goes with it

lovely people... calling farangs dirty ?

 

You complain a lot.

Have some more?

3 hours ago, Joeythai said:

Agreed with most but awful music and stupid dancing

Think thai guy dance better the Aussie.

 

 

14 hours ago, madmen said:

It used to be cheaper but not anymore. In oz only thing more expensive is housing 

Not a single Ozzie I know has health insurance

Oz has too much PC, LOS not much at all. No contest.

8 hours ago, Aussiepeter said:

the twenty odd years I wasted in LOS.

No time is wasted in LOS unless one never leaves the house.

 

A Thai's opinion of LOS is probably influenced by how much they saw of it. Many probably saw very little of it. My wife had never been to the beach before I took her.

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Oz has too much PC, LOS not much at all. No contest.

What are you talking about? 
 

Thailand is full of ‘greng jai’ - tip toeing around so you can’t offend people and the defamation laws reflect this.

 

Maybe you are talking about sitting around the Pattaya bars making darkie jokes with your drinking buddies, but that isn’t thailand. 

12 hours ago, Yinn said:

Maybe he never go concert?

Morlam sing!!!

 

 

You call that music? He's narrating, not singing. Wurlitzer combined with gyrating pelvises, be still my fluttering heart.

THIS is music.

As I detest Australia simple really

16 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

 

You call that music? He's narrating, not singing. Wurlitzer combined with gyrating pelvises, be still my fluttering heart.

THIS is music

 

Ok voice

but..

Music should make you want to dance and sing.

NOBODY your clip is dance, not even the singer, band. Crowd sit down, nobody sing together. Some is asleep. 

55 minutes ago, samran said:

What are you talking about? 
 

Thailand is full of ‘greng jai’ - tip toeing around so you can’t offend people and the defamation laws reflect this.

 

Maybe you are talking about sitting around the Pattaya bars making darkie jokes with your drinking buddies, but that isn’t thailand. 

So Pattaya isn't in Thailand then!!

So add that to reasons why Thailand.

Oz don't know there geography ????

7 minutes ago, Yinn said:

Ok voice

but..

Music should make you want to dance and sing.

NOBODY your clip is dance, not even the singer, band. Crowd sit down, nobody sing together. Some is asleep. 

Oh very well, if you insist.

 

For a start everything in Australia that walks, crawls, hops, jumps, slithers or grows is pretty much deadly.

16 hours ago, Surelynot said:

Have you been to Pattaya?

I have, but I'd still opt for Thailand over Australia.

16 minutes ago, Rookiescot said:

For a start everything in Australia that walks, crawls, hops, jumps, slithers or grows is pretty much deadly.

Starting with the women.......

16 hours ago, madmen said:

It used to be cheaper but not anymore. In oz only thing more expensive is housing 

Not a single Ozzie I know has health insurance

it seems you forgot a few things

 

food is cheaper

power is cheaper

water is cheaper

hotels cheaper

massages cheaper

holidays cheaper

dentists cheaper

glasses cheaper

1 hour ago, UbonThani said:

it seems you forgot a few things

 

food is cheaper

power is cheaper

water is cheaper

hotels cheaper

massages cheaper

holidays cheaper

dentists cheaper

glasses cheaper

Depends how you want to live.

 

The wife and I go down to Australia annually, I've been down 5 times in the past 6 months. Things which stand out as cheaper in Australia are the weekly shop, a lot of white goods and decent quality clothes.

 

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

15 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

Especially the 3rd from the left.

I prefer the second one from the right.

Let's get real here, would you kick ANY of them out of bed?

1 minute ago, Lacessit said:

Let's get real here, would you kick ANY of them out of bed?

They could be Kronenbergs ????    need to see faces.

43 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

Let's get real here, would you kick ANY of them out of bed?

Absolutely! Left leg left side, right leg right side. ???? 

3 hours ago, Yinn said:

Ok voice

but..

Music should make you want to dance and sing.

NOBODY your clip is dance, not even the singer, band. Crowd sit down, nobody sing together. Some is asleep. 

Again you confirm your limited knowledge.

1 hour ago, samran said:

Depends how you want to live.

 

The wife and I go down to Australia annually, I've been down 5 times in the past 6 months. Things which stand out as cheaper in Australia are the weekly shop, a lot of white goods and decent quality clothes.

 

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

Food costs $5 to 10 a day in Thailand.

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

I prefer the second one from the right.

Let's get real here, would you kick ANY of them out of bed?

the 2 that have hiv