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

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 agai

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 f

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 b

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 tr

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 tras

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 be

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

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 fo

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. H

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. Th

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 be

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 ba