Gary

Maybe things have changed in Los Angeles. (??) I tried for a retirement visa there a few years ago. The Thai lady there then was not helpful at all to the point of being downright rude. She answered no questions for me and only shoved papers at me. I was able to figure out what I needed from the papers. I got my police report, had no problems with the financial part but what killed me was the doctor's report. My doctor refused to sign off the document without actually running all the bullshit tests. It turned out that my insurance wouldn't cover the cost and the tests WERE expensive. I settled for a tourist visa and had absolutely no trouble getting my retirement visa in Pattaya (now Jomtien). As far as the 800,000 in a Thai bank you CAN use this money throughout the year and them top it back up three months prior to your next extension. In fact immigration likes to see a lot activity from your Thai bank account. If you have wire transfers from your home country recorded in your Thai bank book, this also helps.

I wouldn't deal with AIA PERIOD! A while back I had appendicitis and after being released I was met by some Thai guy in a suit. He explained that he was with the insurance company. As it turned out it WASN'T my insurance company but was actually an AIA agent. An ambulance chaser in Thailand. My wife explained to him that I already had insurance. I wanted to get home and finally walked away from him. I'd bet that this guy called 20 times and came to our home. I refused to talk to him but my wife isn't as rude as I am. He was really a pest. The last call my wife got, I could tell it was him again and took the phone from her. I told the guy NOT to call again and that since I would NEVER buy AIA insurance he should save his money and quit calling. With such high pressure tactics there must be some big commissions from that company. I did look through all the material he delivered to the house and it appears they are pretty much a life insurance company with all sorts of scams to get your money.

I live in the boonies of Loei province. I have been up here for about three years. I have bought two small farms for my wife plus a building lot very near our home. My wife now has more than 20 rai and she can earn a decent living from that 20 rai after I am gone. Her folks have earned a living from a 10 rai farm all their lives. The reason I am telling you this is because I have seen farangs come up here and build 3 and 4 million baht homes for girls who have lived in homes built on stilts for all their lives. I live in my wife's home and have invested CONSIDERABLY less in farmland than the farangs who fell in love and wanted to impress neighbors and family by building a huge home. I can show you five homes very near where we live that have been built by farangs who were in heat. The farangs who built these beautiful homes are LONG gone. My marriage could turn to shit too, but I have not spent more than I can afford to walk away from. Why does a girl who has lived in a tin roofed shack all her life need a mansion and why do stupid farangs want to build them? They build these huge homes, the family moves in with them and everything turns to shit. My wife can move family members in with us if she wants, it's her house, BUT she knows that I will be headed back to the farang ghetto with or without her. Some guys like and can accept Thai style family living but not me. My privacy is important to me and I refuse to give it up. If my wife had had children she wouldn't have ever been my wife. I'm a selfish crotchety old fuck and that's the way I am.

I don't pay any rent so that skews the figures a bit. As far as food, my wife is a great cook. Fruit and vegetables are VERY cheap up here. My wife also raises some of the fruit and vegetables and barters for others. She raises ducks and sells and trades them for other things. People up here may not have much money but they DO eat well. The electric bill is between 800 and 1,200 a month depending on how much I run the air con. The water bill is less than 100 baht per month. (3 baht per cubic meter). I go up on a mountain to a little watering hole maybe twice a week and the lady charges me 30 baht for a big bottle of Archa. I can't drink more than four big bottles. It's really hard to spend much money living out in the boonies. My Internet costs 1,600 and UBC TV 1,500 baht per month. My health insurance is less than 2,000 baht per month. I have first class insurance on the car and pickup. That is a waste because we sure don't need two vehicles. That insurance is less than 3,000 baht per month for both. When I first moved to Jomtien my entertainment expense (beer & women) cost 19,000 baht per month and I no longer have the desire or places to go to spend much up here. I am quite content with my life.

The fact is that I live VERY well on about 20,000 baht per month. BUT, no way would I want to be confined to a 20,000 baht per month budget. I like expensive toys that I don't need, but I enjoy them so why not? To have to look at something I wanted and know that I couldn't afford it would be pretty depressing to me. I'm not a wealthy man be any means but I can afford some luxuries. I just happen to be happy without too many REALLY expensive things. I bought a new car about six months ago. There sits a million baht in my garage. It has about 6,000 kilometers on it. I'd rather drive my pickup truck. I have a new four wheel drive tractor and implements for it. Another 500,000 baht that was spent on something that I absolutely don't need. I figure that's just money that my kids won't inherit.

Black scorpion? My wife has no fear of the black ones. She says they are not aggressive at all and are big and easy to see. The small brown ones apparently pack much more of a sting and are harder to see. She IS terrified of the big centipedes. She says they are more dangerous than any scorpion around here.

Since most farangs are now aware that they CANNOT legally own a house, the prices for condos that can be in a farang name have gone WAY up. There is a glut of new construction that may or may not ever be finished. If a new development is finished, you will pay double that price for a similar size unit. No doubt he will be able to get his 1.5 million. I have a 60 square meter one bedroom corner unit that I bought about four years ago for 1.1 million. I turned down 1.8 million over a year ago. I was told when I bought it that I was paying too much.

Thai families who have an income of 20,000 baht per month are damn few and far between. When I was living in the US, I paid 60,000 baht per year for a 17,000 baht deductible car insurance policy. Here I pay 15,000 for a zero deductible policy. I never had any claims or DWI's in the US. I drove a Honda Civic. Property taxes and home owners insurance in the US are equally ridiculous. Here I pay no property tax or home owners insurance. I don't remember how much water, trash pickup and sewage tax cost in the US but I remember it was pretty expensive. It cost me 10 baht per month here for trash pickup and less than 50 baht per month for village water. I'm pretty lazy and dislike the common cleanup and yard chores. My wife hires one of the locals for 150 baht for a days work. What would a handyman cost in the US per day? My last visit to the US, I stayed with my parents. I had severe sticker shock when I went to the supermarket and bought groceries. The price for a pack of cigarettes there also gets you attention. You simply cannot accurately make the statement that you can live in the US for ABOUT the same money. My condo in Jomtien has a maintenance fee of 600 baht per month. That covers trash pickup and insurance. If I remember correctly, the monthly maintenance cost for my Florida condo was about 6,000 baht.

My tired old body no longer tolerates cold weather very well. Low humidity and cold weather makes my skin flake and crack. My joints ache like hell when I get cold, AND more than likely I wouldn't have a nice little bed warmer back in the land of cold fat women. I love Thai food and my wife is a great cook. We have many different delicious varieties of fruit that I had never seen until I came here. My wife raises some of our vegetables and we have a lot of fruit trees. There are several fresh markets near us that have everything that we don't raise or barter for. We eat mostly duck eggs because my wife likes ducks and has about 40 of them. She also has 7 VERY stupid turkeys. I have a new little tractor that I play gentleman farmer with. I was clearing some brush the other day and when I got home I had a flat front tire. I took it off the tractor and my wife took it to the village. It had a thorn in it and it cost 50 baht to get it fixed while she waited. I got a really bad ear infection and with no appointment went to an ear, nose and throat specialist to get it looked at. I got it cleaned out, an injection of antibiotics and four different kind of pills for less than 500 baht. My wife and some hired workers were planting rice and the workers wanted me to help them. My wife pays the help 150 baht per day and I told her that I wouldn't work for that. She insulted me by saying "GOOD", because I wasn't worth 150 baht a day. I pay 30 baht per bottle for big bottles of Archa beer at my favorite scenic watering hole up on a mountain. The only traffic problem here is cattle and buffalo on the road. The boonies isn't for everyone but I'm quite content here. Life is good.

My actual living costs are VERY cheap. I give my wife 20,000 baht a month. With that she pays all the utilities including UBC TV and my 2,700 baht per month fucked up Ipstar Internet. That covers clothes, food, eating out and even my cigarettes. She still has about 5,000 baht per month left over to put in her savings account. We pay no rent and I collect rent from my Jomtien condo. She doesn't pay my bar tabs or for my occasional little trips. My bar tabs are pretty cheap since I go to a little Thai place where a big bottle of Archa beer costs 30 baht. I buy the big ticket items and pay my own insurance premiums. She pays for a health insurance plan through her Siam Commercial bank account. I have no idea what it costs her. Since I am now collecting Social Security, I'm going to give her a 5,000 baht a month raise.

I think Joseph decided that he asked his question to a bunch of cynical assholes. Many of us have been here too long and seen too much. How many times have you heard a rookie say that "MY GIRL IS DIFFERENT"?

I know two guys who each live on less than 20,000 a month. Both rent and both are over 70 years old. One is quite fit for his age and is a balloon chaser. The other is pretty frail and seldom leaves his neighborhood.

Maybe I'm different from a lot of guys in that I HATE to live alone. Sharing the condo with a girlfriend makes it get a LOT smaller quickly. I enjoy my privacy. I want to be able to sit at my computer for several hours at a time. I want to be able to watch English speaking TV or a movie once in a while. I want to be able to cook and have a washing machine. It's hard to have that in one room. Condo living has advantages and disadvantages. I loved the Olympic size swimming pool, beautiful grounds, a mini mart and a small restaurant within a couple of minutes walk. My condo has a large balcony for the bedroom overlooking the pool and it is great to have breakfast and coffee sitting outside. The living area has a smaller balcony that was used to hang laundry. I still have that condo and have no desire to sell it. I rent it to a friend of mine. Living up country in a house also has advantages and disadvantages. I have no swimming pool and must drive somewhere to buy everything. I have a dog and a garden. We have a lot of fruit trees. I have a workshop and a lot of toys including a small tractor. We also have some farmland where I can play gentleman farmer with my tractor. I can live either place happily but I really did miss having a dog, a garden and a workshop. Different strokes for different folks. I didn't rent out the condo for a year after we moved up country. I wanted my own place to stay when I needed a break from country living. My trips got fewer and farther between so I decided to rent out the condo. Fortunately money was not an issue as to whether I rented it out or not.

Before I bought, my main requirement was that it have a separate bedroom. Mine is 60 square meters and I find it plenty large enough. I think the bedroom is as big or bigger than the rest of the unit. I have a very efficient air con unit in the bedroom and have plenty of storage. I have a king size bed and plenty of room for my computer and computer desk. I looked at two side by side units. Both were 28 square meters and by the time I would have altered them to make one unit I would have had more invested than buying a bigger one to start with. Even then I would still have a cobbled up unit. Having a separate bedroom also means that you can have two televisions. Not important? What stations do you think the girls want to watch?

He's a Brit. I have no idea if any other nationalities can get the Non im that easily.

A friend of mine was able to get a tourist visa in Vientiane, Laos. Another went back to the UK and got a non im multi entry from Hull. He said he was in and out in fifteen minutes.

I understand that Penang is now issuing non im O visas good for one year. As long as you have a visa, tourist or non im you will be able to stay as long as you like. What you can't do is stay longer that 3 out of 6 months with NO visa. A visa on arrival that is free and good for 30 days is NOT a visa. Try to get a non im visa before you come or a tourist visa is better than nothing.

Maybe your reputation precedes you, or maybe they are smarter than you give them credit for. I have found Thai bar girls to be very perceptive.

Thailand has 1st class, 2nd class and 3rd class insurance. 1st class covers everything and has no deductible. 2nd class covers fire and theft plus liability but no collision. 3rd class is only liability and is VERY cheap. 3rd class will cost you less than 5,000 baht per year and the best part is that if you have an accident, you call the insurance company to represent you. They certainly DON'T want to pay unless it was clearly your fault. Just because you are a farang doesn't automatically make it your fault.

When I bought my condo in Jomtien, it wasn't on a baht bus route. I got tired of walking almost a kilometer to catch a baht bus. I still think anyone who rides a motorbike has a death wish, but, I bought a motorbike and found a safe place to park it that was on the baht bus route. After I knew for sure how much it cost me to live in Thailand I decided that I could afford a pickup truck. Even after I had the truck, I still took the baht bus to Pattaya.

Well Joseph, I'll be a little hard on you but not to give you a hard time. Where do they live now? Are you planning to live there too? Why do you feel you have to build them a house? I would guess that they live in a Thai style house with a tin roof built on stilts. I would also guess that the wife wants to build a mansion. Am I right? If you answer the questions, I will try to give you advise.

Grande Assets, the developer of "The Sails" has gone broke. A company called Lehman has apparently agreed to bail them out to the tune of twelve BILLION baht. Terms are to be announced. Buying pre-construction at this point is asking for trouble.

I have my health insurance with a company called Liberty Mutual Group. The company may often be referred to as LMG Pacific. I have had it for about four years now and must stay with that company because they promise not to drop me after a certain age. The earlier you start the better off you are as far as premiums. I pay about 22,000 baht per year. That covers hospital bills and no outpatient care. The maximum payout per occurrence is 1,250,000 baht. They do NOT cover preexisting conditions. I take medication for hypertension and anything relating to high blood pressure will not be covered. That's the way it is, take it or leave it. I have used it one. I had appendicitis and the bill was about 49,000 baht. They paid all except 15 baht. I didn't complain.

You can and usually do make friends with some of the bar girls when you live here. Fortunately they have no problem sleeping with their farang friends if they have not had any luck getting bar fined. Some of the bar owners had problems with this. I have been accused of screwing the bar because of not paying the bar fine. These girls would call me and ask me if it was OK if they came to sleep with me IF they had no luck finding a customer. They worked until the bar closed so I never felt that I screwed the bar. They were there and available during working hours. One of the girls quit the bar because she said that she was not the property of the bar owner. She said that the bar owner is not her mother and the bar certainly did NOT own her. That particular bar lost a good girl and a good customer because of that bullshit. On the occasions that I wanted them early I DID pay the bar fine and paid the girl the same as if I were a regular customer. When they came over to my condo after the bar closed it became a different thing. Many times while in the bar I would recommend different girls who were my friends to guys I knew. The girls would normally sit with me while I was in the bar and I would buy them a few drinks, but when a potential customer came in they went to work. I have had guys ask me if it pissed me off that the girl left while they had a drink in front of them that I bought. I always told the guys that we were just friends and that her job was to make money.

I'm not sure if I'm lucky or unlucky. I have a problem with alcohol. Not the problem that I have to drink but the problem that my body doesn't like it. A hangover lasts for two days, sometimes three days if I was REALLY stupid. I also find that when I go out and start drinking that loosens my purse strings. I'm strictly a social drinker and I very seldom drink at home, in fact I usually don't have any alcohol in the house. Choosing where I'm going to go drink pretty much decides how much I'm going to spend. Neighborhood bars are normally my choice and it's hard to spend more than a thousand baht for drinks. Living in Jomtien was an advantage. Getting on a baht bus is easy enough but it is kind of a pain in the ass. I'd say that I went into Pattaya no more than twice a month. After you have lived here for a while, you find steady bar fines. You get to know the girls and they get to know you. Many times I would get a call from one of my regulars asking if they could come and spend the night. They are happy to have a good bed in a nice cool condo. I alway had food to eat and I always gave them a couple hundred baht in the morning for transportation. Most of them liked the swimming pool and would come over during the day just to swim. I'd give them a little money to go buy take out food or sometimes they chose to cook at the condo. It was a good life. Two people eat pretty well for less than a hundred baht. So, yes you are wrong. You soon find out that you can't stay in holiday mode every day because you wouldn't live long. It may be hard to believe but you also get bored with the whole bar scene. After a while and it becomes a pleasure to sit by the pool and read a book. A lot of my hard core bar hopping friends have found a girl and now live out in the boonies. I too said that I could NEVER live out in the boonies. Things change. If you ever do decide to try out living in the boonies, just remember rule number one. NEVER spend more than you can afford to walk away from. Being trapped in a big fancy house that you can't afford to walk away from would be a miserable life for sure. My Thai wife is not the jealous type and I have the freedom to pack a bag and head out whenever it suits me. Believe it or not, that only happens about once every three months.