SURVEY: Thailand, Better or Worse?

[JamesRob]

I think it got worse with the advent of cheap air tickets from farangistan, thus allowing pikeys and various other low class farangs to travel more than 12 miles from where their mothers delivered them in the local pig shed

I think we should petition to government to tighten up on the visa process, and increase the financial requirements for long term stay

I find it easier to live where they wont.

Racist snobs

[puukao]

you can have a good experience with anyone, and give credit to the country. you can get off a bus in the "best" country in the world, break your ankle.....and not like it.

i'm sure you have heard this before, but I did have more fun in a 500 sq ft studio apartment in a big city in my 20's than in a house in my 40's in a nice, quiet neighborhood. we all crave certain things, and if we meet the expectations, great. money isn't a big deal in thailand. 10000 or 20000 baht, whatever....you know what you want and like. if you find it, you like it. if you don't, or if it's very hard to reach the same level of happiness as before, leave. trust me, you can find peace and happiness easily.....if u force it, it's not right. put down your insecurities, smile, relax, and just let go my farang friends!!!!!! you will reach nirvana on the next tuk tuk!!!!

and wow am i glad i wasn't in thailand 25 years ago......they should start hanging sex tourists and purge the bad image that haunts this place. i don't need to be around people who enjoy paying money for sex.....and i won't apologize for being mean. don't worry, there is still time to head to the temple and do whatever they do there!!!!

[northernjohn]

Difficult to answer. The government makes it a lot more complicated to live in Thailand, but there are on-going improvements in infrastructure and other areas that make life here convenient.

Also it asks what I think for every one. Not just my personal opinion for my self. How am I supposed to know what other expats think?

[peterb17]

Worse I think....

Crime, costs, etc etc etc...

I don't go to the bars much but I do remember going out 15 to 20 years ago and seeing lovely girls working and dancing everywhere. For the sexpats it must have been paradise. I went to Pattaya last week and went into 6 or more gogos and a few beer bars. I only saw one girl who I thought was really lovely. I saw one who I remember seeing 10 years ago still on the take.... Hahaha ... Times are a changing.

As has been covered, the bar scene may have declined in quality and quantity of hotties....which for the country overall, is a good thing. And cost, yeah, inflation is everywhere. A lot of it has to do with mismanagement in your home countries, i.e., the currency exchange rate. As for crime...what are you talking about? I see no difference. Safer in Chiang Mai than any big city in the USA. I leave home every day and don't even think about it. I can read the news and see crime going on all over the world, but I don't personally see it in Thailand with my own eyes. How do you guys find all this "crime" stuff?

Totally agree with you, I feel absolutely safe here. In London we had alarms ,and I felt nervous leaving our house unoccupied for even a day or so.

I left my MX5 on the street parked twice- it was always garaged- had it for ten years - MK 1 - both times - broken into.

City life in the West is a nightmare at times.

[TheSpade]

Wasn't here 10 years ago but definitely here now. Time of my life. I'm not stupid enough to think of it as paradise (it has it's downsides like anywhere) but I've been all over the world and visited 30+ countries and I quite like it here.

Young, money to spend (struggle to spend it tbh even though I'm out pretty much every evening), got good friends (thai and farang) and a great social life, lots of dating options, never been scammed or cheated or had any problem with locals, pretty much loving living in BKK.

Was it better 10 years ago? Maybe. I'll never know.

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

[YeahSiam]

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

I'm sure you've heard of the Elite Card, Spade, but

you should expect the curtain twitchers, visa purists

and the Bitter Old Men's Club to descend on you with

pitchforks and torches for poking a stick into their cage.

[AYJAYDEE]

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

I'm sure you've heard of the Elite Card, Spade, but

you should expect the curtain twitchers, visa purists

and the Bitter Old Men's Club to descend on you with

pitchforks and torches for poking a stick into their cage.

does your home country allow people from all countries to come and live full time if they can afford it?

[Soutpeel]

I think it got worse with the advent of cheap air tickets from farangistan, thus allowing pikeys and various other low class farangs to travel more than 12 miles from where their mothers delivered them in the local pig shed

I think we should petition to government to tighten up on the visa process, and increase the financial requirements for long term stay

I find it easier to live where they wont.

Racist snobs

How so ?

If you had said classist snobs you may have been right

[Soutpeel]

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

I'm sure you've heard of the Elite Card, Spade, but

you should expect the curtain twitchers, visa purists

and the Bitter Old Men's Club to descend on you with

pitchforks and torches for poking a stick into their cage.

the fantasy's in your head are getting more and more bizarre by the day. YS as is your fixation with old men

[mrtoad]

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

I'm sure you've heard of the Elite Card, Spade, but

you should expect the curtain twitchers, visa purists

and the Bitter Old Men's Club to descend on you with

pitchforks and torches for poking a stick into their cage.

the fantasy's in your head are getting more and more bizarre by the day. YS as is your fixation with old men

He is obsessed with old men, no idea why.

[YeahSiam]

Only thing that could be better for me personally was if there was a long term visa for those of us under 50 who have money to support themselves without having to work here.

I'm sure you've heard of the Elite Card, Spade, but

you should expect the curtain twitchers, visa purists

and the Bitter Old Men's Club to descend on you with

pitchforks and torches for poking a stick into their cage.

the fantasy's in your head are getting more and more bizarre by the day. YS as is your fixation with old men

He is obsessed with old men, no idea why.

So does the fact you're always referring to the

"Angry Little Boys Club" or ALBC infer you're

obsessed with little boys? Yeah, I thought so

Oh BTW, it's 'fantasies', not "fantasy's".

[mrtoad]

Are you a member?

[YeahSiam]

Are you a member?

Are you?

[mrtoad]

Of what? The Rotary Club?

[alex88]

Thailand is worse than 10 years ago but so is the rest of the world.

[pubboy]

As others have said, I think Thailand is just following the rest of the world in its attitude to not only to farang but to their own kind. It's the influence of the west that would probably be the route of this. 13 years ago when I first came here there was very little foreign media to follow, Internet was barely usable apart from email. Today the increase of modern media (faster internet, tv advertising etc.) Thai people see what the rest of the world have and they want a bit of it. There's nothing wrong with this in theory, but as with anywhere else you can't just have it if you can't afford it. Unfortunately they have been led by successive governments to believe they can and this is the route of a lot of their problems. Greed has crept into their nature and has caused not only an increase in crime but a breakdown in society as a whole including many family units.

I have worked in the retail sector in the UK for over 30 years and came to live here full time 18 months ago. I still feel Thailand is a better place to live on the whole but only the future will tell if it remains so.

[aussiesteve63]

No brainier really,It's worse now than when I came here 5years ago.the price of everything has risen.There seem to be more people on the roads with a death wish,more scams and blaming fulangs for every thing,less politeness.the world is changing not just Thailand

[stickylies]

Scams are getting worse

Violence toward westerners is getting worse

Corruption getting worse (more and more "suicides", not murders)

Cost of living increasing

Teacher's salaries staying the same, though contracts are getting shorter and shorter

More xenophobia

Foreigners getting blamed for everything....more cracking down on us, when they should be dealing with their own problems

Cost of going up (sorry)

Worse traffic jams

More pollution

Less natural environment

ah, EMPTYHEAD is in the house...

[stickylies]

As others have said, I think Thailand is just following the rest of the world in its attitude to not only to farang but to their own kind. It's the influence of the west that would probably be the route of this. 13 years ago when I first came here there was very little foreign media to follow, Internet was barely usable apart from email. Today the increase of modern media (faster internet, tv advertising etc.) Thai people see what the rest of the world have and they want a bit of it. There's nothing wrong with this in theory, but as with anywhere else you can't just have it if you can't afford it. Unfortunately they have been led by successive governments to believe they can and this is the route of a lot of their problems. Greed has crept into their nature and has caused not only an increase in crime but a breakdown in society as a whole including many family units.

I have worked in the retail sector in the UK for over 30 years and came to live here full time 18 months ago. I still feel Thailand is a better place to live on the whole but only the future will tell if it remains so.

thais are the americans of SE asia. blatant consumerism abounds here and "to have or not to have" is the main [relevant] religion. what i don't get is that everybody buys on credit. they even buy smartphones on credit [at tesco lotus]. phones they can't afford and can't use except for playing games and facebook. when will this credit bubble explode?

Edited January 30, 2015 by stickylies

[TheSpade]

the price of everything has risen.

Price rises keeps being mentioned.

I'm fairly confident that prices have risen almost everywhere in the world over the last 10 years or so.

This is what happens as countries progress and modernize.

So things are more expensive but it's still cheap here. Really cheap!

[YeahSiam]

Things are more or less the same as far as I'm concerned.

Ok so a few things are bit pricier but overall, it's still

wonderfully cheap to live comfortably here. I don't care

much about the sex scene but I can understand why those

involved in it might be pissed with prices going up while the

perceived quality of the experience heads in the opposite

direction but, ultimately, I do agree with others that it's good

for the country that the sex scene is less visible. Apparently

Cambo looks appealing to them now - more girls to exploit.

I certainly won't be sorry to see them go.

[Jimjim]

25 years ago, it was like living on a different planet. Phones were rare, and most apartment buildings had several lines and you got to call out or receive calls but could only talk for 3 to 5 minutes (depending on where you lived).

This was true of my apartment building just 10 years ago. I thought it was the weirdest thing. I doubt much has changed in my old building! Ha ha, I lived on the top floor and there was no elevator. The girlfriend did not like that but I told her it was good exercise, which it was.

I did like the 3000 baht rent though.

[Camelot]

The turning point was the 1997 financial crisis. That killed off the old Thailand. The Chavalit government blamed foreigners for the hardship that ensued and glossed over its own involvement in causing the crash. Attitudes among Thais changed, especially towards foreigners, and prices of essential products skyrocketed.

Forex exchange rates soared and this coincided with the arrival of the internet and the subsequent mass tourism and influx of foreigners. While the high exchange rates attracted tourists and opportunists, imports became very expensive and, in many cases, unaffordable for those working here and paid in baht.

[TheSpade]

Bad attitudes towards foreigners gets mentioned around here a lot but its another thing i just don't experience.

Are people throwing themselves at my feet and wai'ing me as i walk the street? No, but neither do i expect or want them to.

Almost everyone i encounter is either indifferent or polite and rarely hostile or unfriendly (though not overly friendly either, just polite).

The only place i ever notice any sort of slight attitude is from a few people in the tourist areas but i largely avoid those most of the time so not an issue. And based on some of the stuff i see tourists do i can't blame the people who work there for not being friendly all the time.

what was the general attitude beFore that makes things seem more hostile now?

[Scott]

The turning point was the 1997 financial crisis. That killed off the old Thailand. The Chavalit government blamed foreigners for the hardship that ensued and glossed over its own involvement in causing the crash. Attitudes among Thais changed, especially towards foreigners, and prices of essential products skyrocketed.

Forex exchange rates soared and this coincided with the arrival of the internet and the subsequent mass tourism and influx of foreigners. While the high exchange rates attracted tourists and opportunists, imports became very expensive and, in many cases, unaffordable for those working here and paid in baht.

I would concur with your assessment of the 1997 financial crisis being a major changing point. The neighborhood that I lived in had always been, for lack of a better word, colorful. At all hours of the day and night there was activity and it felt very safe. Most people saw a future and that future was bright.

After 1997, the attitude changed. The neighborhood went from colorful to seedy and dangerous. The attitude toward foreigners had gone from welcoming and respected to being viewed warily and targeted for criminal activity.

1997 was a very pivotal year.