8 years in Thailand as an Expat report card

The questions are, in this report card of 8 years in Thailand,  did I do good or bad?

And was it a good decision or a bad one to move out of the United States?

by Jack Corbett

 I'm going to answer these two questions on several levels:  1. Financial, 2.  Comfort level of lifestyle, 3.  Fun level, 4. Medical, 5.  Travel Opportunities and 6.  Whether my new lifestyle is more or less interesting than it was before.

Financial

Of primary importance is cost of living here in Thailand compared to what it had been in the U.S.  A few months after moving to Thailand eight years ago, I estimated what my living expenses were living in Thailand compared to what I had actually been spending in the United States.  I had been using the Quickbooks accounting system, and still do.  This is quite possibly the best accounting system in the world for small business and personal use.  Using Quickbooks I was able to pull actual figures which I then put into an Excel spreadsheet and then I estimated what I felt my expenses would be in Thailand and put those figures in a column to the right of my U.S. expenses.  A sampling of some of the accounts I used were auto insurance, auto repairs, auto depreciation, state license fees for cars, Internet costs, cable television costs, condo maintenances fees and condo debt service (interest plus principal payments on condo I bought in Thailand), Land line and cell phone  telephone costs, travel to the U.S. to attend annual director's meetings, other travel expenses, cost of feeding my gun addiction (for shooting at the local run range and purchasing guns), beer, and girlfriend expenses.  I figured I was saving $1829.36 per month living in Pattaya over what I had been spending in the United States.   If this discrepancy were to continue I'd be saving $21,952.32 each year which amounts to nearly $220,000 over a 10 year period.  Keep in mind that these numbers are very realistic, so the next time anyone asks me, Why did you decide to move to Thailand, I should really reply, "so I could save enough money over 10 years so that I can buy a house in the United States and pay cash for it."

Keep in mind, however, that back in 2005 when I bought my condo here in Pattaya that the U.S. dollar was worth 40 baht.  But now it's gone down to 29 baht to the dollar.  This means that a 200 baht dinner back in 2005 that would have set me back $5.00 would now cost me nearly $7.00.   The same holds true for what I spend for electricity, internet, new computers, beer--everything.  So that $1829.36 monthly cost savings from becoming an expat is no longer valie due to the declining purchasing power of the U.S. dollar.  But I had always been betting that the American dollar would undergo a significant decline, which is why I bought my condo here in Thailand in the first place.   When I bought my condo when the dollar was worth 40 baht,  I had told my friends that I felt the U.S. dollar would decline to 33 baht and that if I chose to live in Thailand for a long period of time that I could not afford to miss out on the low prices of 2005. 

I wound up paying just 27,000 baht per square meter for my condo.  That was April of 2005.  So I moved up to Naklua just North of Pattaya, an area that is often jokingly referred to as Little Germany, and, you guessed it, I bought my condo from a couple of Germans.  Thank God.  I got lucky.  Real lucky.  In the past eight years I've learned that most Germans are very reliable, trustworthy people, and it still amazes me that we ever decided to fight them in two world wars.  Germans are also very logical, intelligent thinkers so I wound up with a terrific condo in a great building just 150 yards up from the beach.  But back in 2005 the street I'm now living on was very quiet and so was the street adjoining it that I now take whenever I go to the fitness center at the Centara Hotel which is less than half a mile from me.  There was only a single Family Mart within a couple of blocks from me, but now things have really changed.  Within that same single block there are now two Family Marts, one Seven Eleven Convenience store, and one Lotus Express Supermarket.  Since then, the five star Centara Hotel with its 650 rooms has been built down the street from me and so has the North Point condo building with its 54 and 46 story twin towers.  But there's also the 30 level AD. condo building one kilometer East of me and another 30 story building directly North of my condo.  Recently the luxurious Cove Condominium complex has been built just South of the Centara Hotel while North Point is busily constructing two new towers, 54 and 37 stories high right next to its already existing 54 and 46 story buildings.  And as if that's not enough there's three new buildings going up just a few hundred yards North of me and  those are going to be at least 40 levels high.  If the population of Pattaya's more than doubled in the past eight years, I'd say the population of Wongamat Beach has at least tripled and that it's going to double again in the next three years. 

Meanwhile those prices we were paying of around 27,000 baht per square meter are now more like 100,000 baht to 160,000 for the new condo developments in my area although there's much lower prices to be found in some of the older buildings in the area. 

Does this mean that I can go out and sell my condo for say 60,000 to 100,000 baht?  From what I've seen so far, no way.  Condos from older, well established communities simply are not selling.  Meanwhile it's become a renter's market.  For instance, with an annual lease one can rent a nice 55 square meter (600 square foot) condo at either Park Beach or Sky Beach condos. for 15,000 baht   or so depending on how the owner has maintained his unit and what floor one is on.  They are sister buildings that have the same style and outward appearance. Both have large attractive swimming pools that end up right on the beach.   The views from the balconies are majestic and the air circulation from the sea breeze flowing through the buildings is out of this world.  

I made one helluva deal when I bought my condo for 27,000 baht per square meter.  However, one is not going to find anything close to this kind of price for what one is getting today.  So would I spend 60,000 baht per square meter and buy a condo today?   No way, and I certainly would not be buying one for such insane prices as 100,000 and up.  I think I'd be going for a condo at Park Beach or Sky Beach as a renter.  However, I'm really happy with the arrangement I made back in 2005 and now feel I've got a quiet, well maintained home that I'm very proud of.  Almost all the owners or renters in my building are Westerners coming from Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, the U.S., Australia, Norway, etc, and so far most of the owners have shown they are willing to pay for a high level standard of maintenance.

Comfort and Lifestyle

Believe it or not, living here is far more comfortable and convenient than it is residing in practically everywhere I've ever lived in the U.S.  For one thing you don't even need a car.   The international airports about sixty minutes away and it only costs around 30 bucks to get there by taxi.  And the normal taxi service is excellent.  There's also the baht bus style taxis that normally take well established routes.  They are abundant and cheap and only cost around 30 cents so long as one stays on the established routes.  They are converted pickup trucks with fiberglass roofs over their beds.  Each baht taxi has a large step that goes up to the back of the pickup's bed which makes it easy for passengers to mount or dismount.  The pickup's bed has two long bench seats so that the passengers sit facing each.   The last feature is a set of push button buzzers within easy reach of the passengers that resemble doorbells.   So when a passenger wants to get off the taxi he just pushes a little button which signals the driver to stop. 

I already mentioned the Lotus Express, Family Marts and Seven Eleven all within one block of my condo.  Each has an ATM machine  so I can get cash in an instant, and of  course there's all the snacks, liquor, groceries, and other convenience items one can easily get from these establishments. There's also all the nearby street vendors selling Shish Kabobs, fish and other food items--many of them, again within one block of my condo.  There's at least half a dozen restaurants within the same single block.  And if I am allowed to walk or to ride my motorbike a distance as far as three blocks one can add at least one more Seven Eleven along with four or five more Family Marts as well as an additional dozen restaurants. 

Almost every expat living here has at least one motorbike.  Since the weather is always warm one can ride his motorbike 365 days a year.  My motorbike is fully automatic and it can get up to 65 miles an hour or so which is more than enough to handle any street or road within the greater Pattaya area.  One can park these small bikes practically anywhere and they can easily slice and dice through heavy city traffic while all the larger vehicles near you are at a standstill. 

There's well over 2,000 bars and night clubs here which host practically any type of entertainment imaginable.  Most of us think that the night life here is better than anywhere else in the world, and as for the women, well let me put it this way, "There is no such thing as having it better elsewhere than what one can easily get in Pattaya."  There's also a huge number of restaurants available selling a tremendous variety of cuisines.  And since I live in "Little Germany" there's a huge selection of good German restaurants to choose from, most of them serving up excellent Thai dishes as well. 

The shopping here is terrific although it must be kept in mind that a lot of things such as cars, watches, cameras, stereo equipment, and even Rayban sunglasses are cheaper in the United States.  Nevertheless a lot of items are substantially cheaper while the variety of things one can guy here is incredible.  It used to be that Bangkok was the Big Apple in Thailand and where all the good shopping could be had.  It still is, but Pattaya is rapidly catching up, and when you check out  the license plates of many of the cars here on the weekends you will find that large numbers of them have Bangkok plates on them.  The truth is with all the political disturbances that have occurred recently in Bangkok, the recent floods, the fact that Bangkok is slowly sinking, and the terrible traffic there, many Bangkodians really can't wait to leave the place which is why so many of the new condominium complexes going up are marketed directly to residents of Bangkok who want to have a second home for their weekends or who wish to move to more pleasant surroundings. Perhaps the most noticeable feature on the shopping landscape here is the new Central Festival Shopping Center which claims to be Southeast Asia's largest beach front shopping mall. 

There's a lot of variety to be had here as far as nearby attractions such as zoos, beaches, tropical gardens, etc which I have already covered here in the Jack Corbett Twelve Wonders of Pattaya.  So with its incredible lineup of bars, night clubs, restaurants, great shopping, beaches, zoos and other activities, it's very difficult to ever get bored here.

As far as my condo itself, I get excellent internet service, and I get satellite television for around twenty bucks a month that includes HBO, the History Channel, Discovery, National Geographic, a number of other movie channels, the BBC, Fox (False News), and CNN.  There's 1300 square feet here with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  I have a leather Lazy Boy reclining couch with a matching large Lazy Boy recliner.  The condo is a corner unit, and it's completely quiet, especially when I close the double paned German glass doors and windows that do an excellent job of shutting out all the street noise.  Within thirty meters of one of my two balconies is our condo pool that is specially outfitted with a state of the art salt water apparatus that eliminates much of the need for directly adding chorine. 

Overall the bookstores here are excellent and my bookshelves are full of the many books I've purchased here in Pattaya.  But now I'm getting many of them from Amazon on my two Kindles so purchasing a new book now takes less than five minutes from my lazy boy recliner.  The larger of my two bathrooms has a small jacuzzi in it. 

Medical

I have my health insurance from Bupa which is about as good as it gets while my hospital, Bangkok Pattaya, has rooms that are equivalent to what one finds in a five star hotel.  The health care here is far superior to what I'd be getting in the U.S. and so much cheaper.  And I should know because I've already tested Bangkok Pattaya  Hospital by having three different operations, none of them really all that serious, but all of them required overnight stays plus I stayed yet another night when my girlfriend was operated on for still another relatively minor procedure. 

Fun Level

My friends and I all agree that there is nowhere else in this world that's more fun to live in than Pattaya.  Think about it...you get to ride motorcycles and swim every day of the year.   You have over 2,000 bars to choose from.   There's massage parlors all over where you can get foot massages, oil massages, Thai massages and even soapy soapy massages.  And believe me, when you only have to pay 200 baht or six dollars to have a woman massage your whole body and to have to focus her complete attention on you for a whole hour, you've really got something.  So whenever the huge cultural differences or hazardous traffic conditions start to appear to get a little overwhelming an hour or two while being administered to by a female Massage attendant immediately brings one back to the many wonderful things that brought you to Thailand in the first place.  Although I haven't gotten one for years I should mention the soapies.  It used to cost around fifty dollars but I'm pretty sure it doesn't cost all that much more than that now.  It amounts to a full one hour and a half's massage in the nude by an attractive Thai woman whose job it is to completely indulge her customers for that hour and half which ends with a happy ending which usually means in this case full intercourse.  It all starts when the customer first enters Sabai Land or the Sabai Dee Massage establishment or one of its competitors when one sees over twenty-five young attractive women seated behind a glass panel all of them wearing numbers across their chests.  Whenever the girls see a new customer sitting down at a table in front of the glass panel each of them starts to vie with the other girls for the customer's attention.  Typically the customers order either liquor or soft drinks from a waiter or waitress, and when he sees a girl he finds attractive enough he tells one of the attendants, "I want number ten (for example)"  The attendant then goes behind the glass panel and has a few words the lucky girl who then comes out to have a drink with the interested customer.  Once the pair agree that they want to get together in one of the rooms, the man pays the attendant after which he follows the girl into a small room upstairs.  The girl then puts him in a small Jacuzzi or possibly on a tiled floor near a drain after which she lets water into the tub or over the floor to a depth of several inches.  The massage then starts, as a full body massage with the woman completely nude as she rubs herself all over the customer with soap suds as a lubricant. 

Personally I prefer the Thai massages to the others---most of the time that is.  For one thing at 200 baht it's the cheapest.  Another thing is I really do have back pains and other muscular ailments.  It must also be borne in mind that a good Thai massage girl will work on most of a customer's joints and muscles from his toes all the way up to his forehead.  She will even massage the joints between the fingers, and since I have been told that I am susceptible to arthritis due to my breaking my hand in a bicycle accident when I was hit by a car and my advancing age, it really makes sense to get my fingers and hands massaged on a regular basis. 

However, even a Thai massage can get a little dangerous at times.  The Massage girl's hands will inevitably run close to a male customer's privates even if the girl has no intention of ever doing anything sexual to him.  And once she gets her fingers down into his pleasure zone for very long it's nearly impossible for a man to back off and to tell her, "No, I do not want."

As for the oil massage, it's a lot like a Thai massage except that the man is usually lying down completely nude as his attendant baths his body completely in oil.  I personally think having to give a customer a Thai massage for an entire hour is awfully hard work so I feel that a good Thai massage girl is worth her weight in gold especially if she's reasonably attractive.  So I will usually give the girl a forty baht tip.  However, if I should ever get a happy ending that is administered by either the hand or the mouth I feel that I just tip the girl two hundred or even three hundred more bath.  I usually try to avoid the happy endings because usually if I have a girl who's doing her utmost to seduce me, I'm really not getting the best massage, one that is that's good for my aching muscles, sore back, or joints.  I also feel that so long as I'm wanting to have a little sex why not go elsewhere such as Soi Six and get the entire treatment for just a little more? 

Getting an oil massage for me is especially dangerous because the girl's hand is already down there close to my pleasure ornament and there's nothing quite so pleasurable as having oil rubbed into that area.  If the girl moves her hand just another inch she's getting oil all over my pleasure rod.  At this point I cannot resist any longer.  So I tend to stay away from the oil massages because it's so tempting for the girl to go for a 200 to 300 baht tip over what she might reasonably expect from giving a massage with no happy ending.  For this reason I will oftentimes go to the Harmony Massage here in Naklua where the girls normally don't try to go for giving massages with happy endings.  At Harmony it's hard to get a bad massage because the girls are trained well there, and I think it's the policy of the establishment to provide legitimate massages for the type of customer who really wants to get a good massage. 

Walking Street alone has over forty go go bars--which are quite similar to strip clubs in the U.S. except for the fact that Walking Street has by far the prettier girls.  This is where you will find a lot of tens.  In the go go bars sometimes the girls are completely nude whether it's while they are dancing up on the stage or lying around in a hot tub.  The entertainment can get pretty wild and wholly, but rather than to describe it in detail here I will have to ask you to look up the go go bar action in Uncle Bufford's Go go Bar Reviews. 

Then there's the promised land.  This is in my opinion the single best street in all of Pattaya.  It's Soi Six.  On Soi Six one gets the full sexual treatment for around 30 bucks but once again I'll have to ask you to go  to Uncle Bufford for advice. 

In Pattaya it's not uncommon for a man to have a girlfriend who's half or even a third his age.  Pattaya and its women is truly the land of enchantment, of fairy tales and of dreams that turn out to be actually true.  So with that thought in mind it's time to turn to some other fun activities.

Have you ever wanted to ride elephants or to feed a Rhinoceros from your hand?  Here you can do it, whereas in Western countries such as the United States you will never be allowed to get so close to the animals.  The United States has become a police state, a land of law suits where a zoo will not even let you get up close to a chipmunk for rear that the chipmunk will bite your hand and that you will wind up suing the zoo for a million dollars. Truth is, the United States is no longer a free country if it ever was while it has become a country of sterile cities, a "Wasteland as was described by T.S. Eliot. At 66 I am now down to my college weight of 165 pounds, but the average American woman has gotten to be as heavy as I am while the average American man can't even manage to walk a couple of miles down the street.  The U.S. is not the country it used to be when a large percentage of its women were slender and attractive, when pizzas were not part of the national diet and one would never have dreamed of driving cars up to a McDonalds takeout counter so that a person could be out on the road munching his burgher and French fries within five minutes of placing his order.  But here, you can go to the zoo where you can buy a small parcel of Rhinoceros ready long stemmed veggies.  There's only a short wall separating you from the Rhinoceros you are about to feed.  If he wants to get you he can by hooking you over the short wall with his horn, but not to worry, you will be alright, and afterwards you can go somewhere else in the zoo where you can feed the deer by hand, the giraffes, elephants or even the monkeys.  But beware, the monkeys will be by far the most dangerous animals for you because there's a good chance that you will be bitten, but oh well---that's your problem and not the zoo's.  Go ahead and try to sue the establishment because you will be kept waiting until the next ice age. 

Elephants used to come right into Pattaya's bars.  They'd have their handlers with them who'd come in handing out bananas for twenty baht to that the customers could feed the elephants from out of their hands.  I think that somewhere down the line a couple of people got killed so it's now unlawful for elephants to come into the bars.  But it still happens, but rarely.  Once in awhile I might see an elephant walking up my street.

One thing I've been doing a lot of lately is exercising.  My girlfriend and I have annual heath club memberships at the nearby Centara Hotel.  An annual membership fee is very costly here, but the place has wonderful tennis courts that are free of charge to its members.   Some  of the exercise machines will cost $10,000 and there's a lot of exercise machines in the place.  It's all state of the art, and then there's the swimming pools between the beach and the main building of the hotel.  it simply doesn't get any better than this.  We will go between 5 and 6 times a week.  The best part of it all is after I've completed an hour's exercise and drinking all that cool water while eating pineapple, watermelon, honey due or cantaloupe which we can eat as much of as we like for free.  I've managed to drop from around 80 kilos (176 pounds) to 75 (165) which was my ideal weight when I was 21 in college.  While I was lettering on the varsity college cross country team I was actually at 162 pounds so the other day I told my girlfriend that I'd be trying to hit that weight next just to see if I could do it at the ripe old age of 66, but she told me I'd end up looking too emaciated if I dropped another kilo.  It costs around $1000 a year for the two of us to be members at the Centara.  Is it worth it?   You bet.  I'm 66, weigh what I did in college and have an energy level that's way beyond what's to be expected for a man anywhere near my age. 

Most Americans and Europeans once they start living here very seldom want to go back to their home countries even if it's just to visit.  It really is that much fun to live here. 

Travel Opportunities

One of the reasons I moved to Pattaya is so that I could use it as a base from which I could explore an entirely different part of the world without having to spend much time on airplanes or spend much money.  I loved the American West and had been so many times down highway 70 to Denver and beyond that I had worn ruts down the pavement.  But Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia would present opportunities I would have had to pay dearly for if I Kept living in the United States.  And Pattaya's only an hour and ten minutes from the new International Airport. 

Since moving here, I've gone to Vietnam four times, including two trips to Hanoi and two trips to Ho Chi Minh City.  It only takes an hour to an hour and a half flying time while my tickets so long as I fly Air Asia only run two to three hundred dollars, but that's for both my girlfriend and I.  We have also gone to Malaysia where we rented a car to tour the Cameron Highlands where American silk magnate, Jim  Thompson had disappeared.  I've also traveled to a number of destinations inside Thailand such as prime beach destinations such as Krabi, Phuket, Koh Samui, Koh Chang, and Koh Samet along with Chiang Mai, Korat, Udon Thani, Bangkok, Kanchanaburi where I visited the River Kwai and Sisaket where I watched my good friend get married.  

Hopefully it won't be long before I will visit Thailand's next door neighbors, Burma and Cambodia where I'd already traveled to once but only for a couple of days and that was before my actually moving here.  Air Fare to both Singapore and Hong Kong is equally inexpensive, but the hotels in both are quite expensive--otherwise I wouldn't think twice about taking my girlfriend to both places.  On the other hand, I figure, why go there again when I can go to Vietnam and stay at a really nice centrally located three star hotel in either Hanoi or Saigon for around forty dollars. 

And there's still so much to see here in Thailand, especially now that I've recently gotten a new Honda Civic.  As for the rest of you who are contemplating a trip to Pattaya, I urge you to take a close look at my Jack Corbett Twelve Wonders of Pattaya that includes the magnificent Kheo Keo Zoo, the Crocodile Farm, Siracha Tiger Zoo, wondrous Nong Nooch Tropical Garden, and Underwater World.  There's just so much to see and to experience right here.

Is my new Lifestyle more Interesting than what it would be back in the U.S.

When I was in the U.S. I was working, and even once I had quit farming I was writing for magazines and doing professional adult photography.  Due to the variety of work I had to do while working in the adult entertainment industry, life never got boring.  I was also being constantly surrounded by beautiful talented women on a regular basis. 

But in Thailand I am being constantly surrounded by even more beautiful women, but here it's far more difficult to avoid having sexual encounters with the pretty women than it is to have them.  So having a gratifying sex life poses no challenge whatsoever.  Moreover the fun quotient is without end for there's always a party in one bar or the other where there's free food.  When faced with constant  temptation it becomes quite challenging avoiding becoming a fat, bloated slug whose primary interests consist only in drinking, having sex, and sleeping.  For me the solution is to stay busy working at my writing, photography, videos, reading and keeping up my six day a week exercise program. 

There's probably not one place on earth that's as interesting as Pattaya.  With must 1.8 % of all visitors being Americans, one's choice of friends come from everywhere, be it Germany, England, Scandinavia, Holland, Australia, etc simply because there aren't enough compatible Americans to go around.  Then there's all those Russians who are starting to take over the place.  Now didn't we fight that war in Vietnam to keep the Russians out of Indochina?  Ironically you won't find many Russians in Vietnam, but here, where we had some of our largest air bases during the war if you see a Caucasian walking about it's a solid bet you are looking at a Russian.  Yesterday, I spent several hours at the five star Centara Hotel reading my Kindle next to the beach before meeting my girlfriend at 5 to exercise in its superb exercise facility, but today I took in a one hour Thai massage for all of $8.00 as I lazily contemplated all the beautiful women I want to be with, and can be with, anytime I feel like it.  Here I'm having 100 % of a woman's attention on me, her goal single minded and absolutely devoted to making me feel better.  I have a bad lower back.  My leg muscles are sore and prone to spasms at any time of the day.  Arthritis is setting into my left hand where I broke it in two places from a car running into my bicycle back in the states.  I have one spasm then another while the woman's actually giving me a massage.  This might be because I'm over exercising and my advancing years.  Nevertheless I'm now 75 kilos (165 pounds) which is the same I weighed while earning my Varsity letter on the college cross country team.  My eyes are now closed as I revel in how good the massage is feeling.  I think I'll be getting a lot more of them in the near future.  Next time will it be an oil massage with me lying prostate as the masseuse's hands glide all over my body? 

Life is short.  One should do what feels good if that's at all possible.  It really doesn't get any better than living Living here as an Expat, which when you consider the good weather, easy living, all those inexpensive massages, and beautiful young available women makes this truly a sensualists paradise.