Moving From Sg To Bkk

[Ducati]

Myself, wife and 3 kids (10, 8 and 6) will be moving to Bangkok from Singapore in 2006. We are Brits.

And of course we have lots of questions.

The most of important of which is which area do we live in? I will be working in the central business area, I believe the office is on the Skytrain route. The kids will go to an international school, preferably the British curriculum. I dont mind a long travel journey to and from work if I really have to - the kids schooling and proximity is more important. The school is undecided as present.

My company will give a good housing allowance. Will be looking for a 4+ bed house, preferably 5 with pool. Don't mind shared compound but single would be preferred. Driver and car will be supplied as well.

So which areas should I be looking at?....

[thaihome]

Here is a Website for international schools in Thailand. Harrow and Bangkok Patana School are probably best known British schools. Harrow is by the airport and Patana is on Sukhumvit 105. There are a number of areas you can look at for houses, with the biggest expat area probably being Nichada Thani, in Nonthaburi (northeast Bangkok). That is where the International School Bangkok (North American/International curriculum) is located. Lots of Brits that live there send kids to Harrow.

Inside Nichada, the type of house you describe is 200k baht to 250k+. You can get 3-4 bedrooms without pool for slightly over 100k. Entire place is gated.

The CBD is considered the Silom/Sathorn area and can take you 30 minutes to 1hour+ to get to Nichada from there. Depends on time of day and traffic.

House around CBD are even more and harder to find as they tend to be located on little subsois. Your office should be able to connect you to an agent.

Good luck, welcome to Bangkok. The adjustment won't be to0 hard from Singapore.

TH

[guy_braverman]

My suggestion to you is to choose a school first, then look for a house.

There is another gated expat community just off of Nang-Linchi Rd. (I think the entrance is from Nang-Linch- Soi 5). It is a lot closer to the CBD area and a little more reasonably priced than Nichada.

[Ithailian]

I recommend you live in Bangkok for a couple months before you sign a long term lease. I had many of the same questions you did. After looking around a lot, we decided that we did not want to live in an isolated housing compound outside the city (e.g. Bang Na).

Instead we have chosen to live in a large condo in the Sukhumvit 55 area and my kids go to Patana (which they love). The kids spend about 45-60 minutes in transit each way but everyone is happy to live in the city as we have restaurants, skytrain, movies, shopping right outside our door. In my humble opinion, isolating your family out in a compound full of Westerners dilutes the experience of living in Thailand, and in particular, such a great city like Bangkok.

[Greer]

Yes, live here first. Then you can see where to look for housing - the thought of wasting 200,000 baht a month on a house in Thailand horrifies me. What a rip off.

Once you get to look around you will have a better idea of travel times to your office etc. I recently moved from Pak Kret in Nonthaburi to a new house a bit further out (which I don't recommend if you are working in the city) but as long as you can pick up some basic Thai (and you will) you can live almost anywhere really.

I am a little biased in this, having been here for a while, but I have lived in Singapore, and although the infrastructure has a few "holes" Bangkok is a very enjoyable place to live too.