simon43

Right, there is one small problem there - I don't have a spare 200k euro lying about the place... 🙂 I don't need citizenship, I just need a cheap, hot place with clean air...

^^^ As a young boy, I and my family used to take month/2-month long holidays on the island of Corfu (my father was a university lecturer and got long holidays). We would relax on the beach opposite the coast of south Albania, about 9km away. At that time, Albania was hard-core Chinese-style communism, with gun boats patrolling up and down the coast at night. I remember one early morning when a young Albanian man swam under cover of darkness to the village where we were staying. Nowadays, there are more Albanians in the UK, than in Albania! And most crime in the UK is committed by Albanians 🙂 Still, worth consideration as a retirement destination, as is eg Cyprus. The air quality is so terrible right now in Luang Prabang that I have just booked a flight back to Thailand tomorrow! I'm coughing, nose streaming etc. Impossible now to consider this location for retirement 🙂

Those places are still in Thailand! I want to avoid Thailand for a long-term retirement location.

The thing is, I don't do condos 🙂 I have a condo at Jomtien purely as somewhere to store goods etc, but it's not a retirement home. I'm a shortwave radio ham and I need a small detached house with a garden. I'm in Luang Prabang right now, and such properties exist at low prices. But the burning season is a major no-no for me! Sure, I could stay in Jomtien during that time, but I don't want my retirement governed by whether there is smoke in the air. Right now, the smoke in LP is terrible! Because there is this smoke problem every single year in north Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia etc, I'm half-thinking to find somewhere in southern Europe where I can legally live (I'm British so Brexit has made some visa problems for retiring in EU countries). I could stay in south Thailand, but I don't have 800k in the bank and I simply do not trust the Thai government not to change the visa rules...... Basically, I'm looking for a hot country with clean air, with a coast if possible, easy visa requirements for Brits etc, especially for impoverished Brits!

Think you put too many zeros on that price! 🙂

Jomtien is indeed full of Russians. My condo building is full of them - some Germans and me when I'm in town. But it's not a retirement destination for me. Also, my condo building stinks of cannabis 24/7, which is not nice... I was in Chiang Mai last week. Too much smoke pollution, and that's also the problem in Laos and Myanmar.

I agree! When you are self-employed or where you enjoy your employee job, there is little reason to retire 🙂

I thought that I had this sorted. Move to the Philippines so that I get my UK state index-linked pension (due to start payments in 6 weeks from now). But the lack of annual increases won't be a financial problem for me just now, and I've never been to the PI anyway... I was teaching in Mandalay. I came back to Thailand for a couple of weeks to sort out a 'base' condo at Jomtien Beach. 7,000 baht a month for a modern studio condo that's 300 metres from the beach 🙂 During my absence, Mother Nature decided to 'throw' an earthquake in Mandalay! Thousands are dead, many buildings destroyed. So I flew up to Luang Prabang in north Laos, the UNESCO city where I have lived off and on for many years between my teaching contracts in Burma. A beautiful place (NOT NOW!). Big shock on this visit! Gone was the sleepy Lao town by the Mekong river. Now, as a result of the new train from China, the town is bursting with Chinese tourists AND Chinese businesses. The central peninsula area is jammed with white tourist vans. The outskirt hills of the town are being scraped away and huge Chinese hotels being built. The Mekong river will become a non-flowing lake when the next Chinese dam just north of the town is in operation, (The Xayaburi dam south of the town already stops natural river flow). I'm so disappointed with Luang Prabang now.... 'paradise' destroyed by the 'locusts'. What to do? The local international school in Luang Prabang asked me to teach at the school. Then I got an email from Mandalay begging me to return to teach again. What I don't want to do in my retirement is simply do nothing, get fat, drink beer and catch STDs from 'professional' woman. What would you do?

OP, I had various vaccinations as a young child. Now I worry that I will die in this century......

Disgusting behaviour?? - She never complained - She never got glued to her mobile phone - She never asked for $$ for her family/sick buffalo etc - She was quite good at anal or oral - She never had bad times of the month - She never aged Seems pretty good to me!!! (I took her on Lao Airlines domestic flight once and no problems....)

My last partner was an expensive sex doll from China. Does that count? (Unfortunately we are no longer together. I decapitated her some years ago during Covid and disposed of her head in a trash can in Turkey...)

All students learn central Thai at primary school. This was a policy introduced yonks ago to unite the Thai people with one common language. Have you ever wondered why schools in Isaan do not teach Isaan? (of course, it is only a spoken language, no Isaan script as such). I'm not sure if schools in the far south teach Yawri - I think the central government might have allowed that to appease the Muslim majority, but I'm not sure...

When I teach online using Zoom, I can click a button at the start of the lesson to create an AI summary of what I teach. The Zoom AI 'bot' then interprets my spoken words (and that of my student), to create a summary at the end of the lesson of the topic that I taught. It's amazing to see how accurate it is.....

I get a good feeling when local people express surprise that I can speak (passable) Lao and Burmese. They are happy that I've made an effort to learn some of their language. and I'm happy that I can converse with them 🙂

A little story from today, (not about Thai language but about Lao language, but the principle is the same - knowing a language can be useful!). I flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang today. I spoke Thai with the staff at Don Muang and all was good. When I got to Luang Prabang airport, the male immigration officer was as miserable as ****, speaking curtly to every person who presented their passport. It got to my turn and I handed over my passport. He thumbed through it and then noticed many different Lao annual business visas over the past 15 years. "Do you speak Lao?" he asked me in Lao. "Yes" I replied in Lao, "but I have to practice every day!" His demeanour completely changed. He smiled and asked me if I had a Lao wife (and so on and so on), then asked me about my previous jobs as a teacher in Laos. All was great, his Lao immigration colleagues joked with me in Lao about getting a Lao wife, and I sailed though immigration in seconds 🙂 There is never a problem that you know too many languages.....