Living In Thailand Blog
Monday 18th April 2016
Utility bills may be cheap in Thailand, but other expenses aren't. I don't think my parents paid a single penny in school fees for me and my two brothers. Of course, they paid taxes and some of that tax money was used to fund state schools. In Western countries private education is available to those who can afford it, but most of the state schools provide an adequate level of basic education.
There are some big differences in Thailand. For starters, very few people seem to pay tax. Many people earn such low wages that they aren't required to pay tax and the very rich devise ways to avoid tax. This isn't unique to Thailand and the issue was highlighted again recently with the story about the Panama Papers.
With so little money available, the municipal (tessabaan) schools are woefully poor. The ones I have seen have been like zoos and I used to know some Filipino teachers who work at Tessabaan schools and confirmed my thoughts. It is impossible for teachers and the Thai teachers I have observed seem to have given up any hope of being able to teach. The noise levels are deafening and it is impossible for those children who wish to learn to make any progress.
International schools are big business in Thailand and because I am a farang Thais naturally assume that my children will go to an international school. These places employ quite a few foreign teachers and follow a foreign curriculum. They have three terms as opposed to Thai schools, which have two.
There is a newly-opened international school five minutes from where I live and it would be very convenient, but it is too expensive. To start with there is an application fee and enrollment fee, which cost Bt75,000. The school also ask for a Bt50,000 deposit, which will be returned when all fees are paid.
Depending on the age of the child the yearly school fees range from Bt250,900 to Bt366,700. There are also other expenses, such as mandatory summer camps and additional tutoring is a big thing in Thailand. My income wouldn't be enough for one child, let alone two.
So, what is left? There are a number of private schools that fill the gap between the state schools and expensive private schools. Some are better than others.
My daughter goes to one of these and I pay around Bt13,000 per term (two terms). She has just started a pre-term summer camp and that cost Bt5,000. Lunch isn't included at kindergarten level. As kids get older the school fees are reduced, but lunch isn't included.
All Thai parents are concerned about their children's ability in English. The international schools are all English but, as I said, they are expensive. Some of the cheaper private school offer English programs, but these can also be quite expensive - around Bt50,000 per term. My daughter is just on a regular program. Her Thai teacher teaches a little English and they have a girl from the UK who teaches each class once or twice a week.
I'm not too worried about my kids because their language of communication with me is in English. My five year-old daughter is perfectly bilingual and I hope my son will be the same. As they get older I will start doing some school subjects with them in English to improve their vocabulary.
Thai students wear uniforms, but these last more than one school year and they aren't expensive. I like the idea and it stops the kids from competing with each other for who wears the most expensive designer trainers.
I was well aware of the Thai obsession with extra tutoring, but didn't want my daughter to start too soon. That didn't happen and my wife went behind my back to sign her up for extra tutoring on a Saturday morning. It costs Bt1,200 per month, but as Thai kids get older they do more and it gets more expensive.
I never did an hour of additional tutoring during my school days so I can't understand why it is so necessary in Thailand. Thais think that for children to be educated effectively they have to learn as much as is humanly possible, but it doesn't happen.
When I taught Matayom (upper high school) students they looked half asleep all the time and some did actually fall asleep in the classroom. The school day starts quite early and when it finishes they go straight to tutoring. After tutoring they go home to do their homework and some don't finish until midnight.
The next morning they wake up tired and then can't concentrate at school. If they were fresh and alert at school and studied really well for five or six hours they wouldn't need to do the tutoring and they could lead normal teenage lives. However, there is another reason why it goes on.
Teachers in Thailand are paid a pittance (as are most Thais) and their school salary isn't enough to live on - by a long way.
My wife started as a teaching earning around Bt7,000 per month and this was increased every year by Bt500 per month. I'm not an extravagant spender, but it seems that I draw Bt5,000 at the ATM every two days or so. Thai salaries are a complete joke and Thais need to do something else to supplement their meagre incomes.
When I worked at a dental hospital it was the same and every member of staff had some kind of a job outside of their main full-time job. Some sold food or drinks, some had apartments to rent, some had rubber plantations, etc.
The main way that Thai teachers supplement their wages is by doing tutoring. Students are encouraged to join their tutoring classes and I have even been told that some teachers hold back information in their regular school classes so that students are forced to get the information outside of school.
A teacher I dated before I was married told me that her salary was Bt9,000 a month, but by doing tutoring she could make Bt30,000 a month. This is about the minimum amount needed to live in Thailand and it is the amount that most foreign teachers will earn outside of Bangkok.
To earn Bt30,000 a month a Thai teacher will have to do tutoring every evening and all day Saturday and Sunday. A foreign teacher will think that Bt30,000 for just doing regular is a pittance and will want more. Thais won't be very sympathetic and will think the farang is being greedy because they earn so much more than Thai teachers.
Both sides are correct. A salary of Bt30,000 is a pittance for doing a full-time job so farangs are entitled to complain about low wages, but when you compare this to a Thai teacher's salary you can understand why Thais think farangs are greedy.
At the moment I probably pay around Bt50,000 a year for my daughter's education and next year my son should start kindergarten so this figure will be doubled. As they progress through school and are expected to do more tutoring it will increase.
My daughter attended nursery for a while and I think my son will also do the same soon. There isn't much of educational value, but it takes kids off their parents' hands for a while and gets them used to being in an environment with other children away from their parents. Prices vary, but the nursery we used for my daughter charges Bt3,500 per month.
I'm not sure about university fees, but I have some contacts and if I get some information I will post it here. My wife told me the other day that our kids' education wouldn't finish until they have Master's degrees.
For many years in Thailand the minimum qualification needed to get any kind of a job at all, whether it be flipping burgers in McDonalds or changing bedsheets in a hotel, has been a Bachelor's degree.
When I left school, going to university was far from necessary. There were lots of excellent jobs available with the best companies in the world after high school and a degree was only needed for certain professions. Now, the world has changed.
Yingluck's salary pledge for graduates
Thailand has been churning out Bachelor's degree students for so long and there are now so many that a Bachelor's degree certainly doesn't guarantee a decent job. Wages are so low for graduates that one of Yingluck's main policies was to have a minimum wage of Bt15,000 a month for graduates. This is still very low, but it is more than many graduates earn.
As I started family life at a mature age it seems that all I will be doing for the rest of my days is paying to provide my offspring with an education. Even after that my wife has no confidence that they will be able to find careers in Thailand that pay a decent salary and wants me to find a way of getting them to the UK.
This complete lack of opportunity in life for so many Thais explains a lot about the behaviour of Thais and the total obsession with money in the country.
Friday 15th April 2016
The nature of this post is such that figures can only be very approximate and individual people will experience large variations. However, it should give you some kind of an idea.
My utility bills in Thailand are highest at this time of the year because it is the hottest time of the year and air-conditioning units - by far - are the biggest consumers of electricity. Also, because of the heat, I water my garden every day and therefore my water bill is also highest at this time of year. Utility bills for electricity and water arrive once a month.
There is no natural gas distribution in Thailand and whereas my UK gas bill was quite high because I used gas to heat the house it is low in Thailand. I use gas canisters for cooking in Thailand and they last a long time - six months, or more. The last one I bought cost Bt420. I use less than two canisters a year.
When I lived in a typical one-room apartment in Thailand there was a minimum charge of Bt100 for water and my usage never exceeded that amount. My water usage is now a lot more, but it is still cheap.
I have quite a large four-bedroom house with four people living there (one of my wife's nieces is often here too) and we all take showers twice a day. Sometimes the kids play in a paddling pool, I have a large fish pond, and my garden needs quite a lot of water when it is hot.
Most of the year the water bill is under Bt300 a month. Last month it was Bt650 and I expect that it will also be high this month. The average monthly UK water bill is around £32, I believe, which is around Bt1,600.
When I lived in an apartment my monthly electricity bill was sometimes lower than Bt300. It averaged around Bt500 and even in the hot season it never exceeded Bt800.
In my house now I have six air-conditioning units. They are the inverter variety that use around 40% less electricity than regular units. At the moment two are on all night and daytime usage varies, but they are on quite a lot during the day because it is so hot.
At other times of the year A/C isn't required and we survive comfortably with fans. A year or two ago I replaced all the light bulbs in the house with LED bulbs. The cost was over Bt20,000 but the light is more comfortable on the eyes and they use a lot less electricity.
My normal electricity bill is around Bt1,700 per month and last month - with the A/C units running a lot - it was Bt2,800. My friend, who rents quite a large house but lives her by herself and I think she only has one A/C unit, paid Bt1,300 last month and her usual bill is Bt800 to Bt900.
It's difficult getting information and estimating costs in the UK, but from some information on line I guess the combined average gas and electricity bill in the UK for a house the same size as mine would be around £140 per month.
Therefore, utility bills in the UK (gas, electricity, water) would be costing me around £172 (Bt8,500). My actual utility bills in Thailand are around Bt2,000 most of the year and can rise to around Bt3,500 for a couple of months of the year. You can see that utility bills in Thailand are a lot cheaper.
Car filling up with LPG fuel in Thailand
Regarding car fuel prices, different vehicles use different fuels at different prices. The fuel my car uses (Gasohol 95) is quite expensive relatively and when I filled up a couple of days ago I think I paid Bt24.17 per litre. The current average for unleaded fuel in the UK is around £1.07 (Bt53), therefore over twice as expensive compared to Thailand.
My trip to Bangkok and Pattaya wasn't much fun last week for the same reason that going anywhere these days isn't much fun. We have two young children with huge reserves of energy who just run around all the time and they need watching constantly. It is impossible to sit down and relax or eat a meal in peace without having to keep two noisy children under control and out of danger.
I just read that Prince William and his wife didn't take their son George on their trip to India because he is too naughty and runs around all the time. This sounds very familiar.
The only difference is that I cannot choose whether to take my children on a trip or not because I don't have an army of personal staff and nannies to look after them. Then again, I don't envy members of the British royal family at all. They have privileged lives in many respects, but they are completely unable to do the normal things that normal people do. That must be very difficult.
Dying to have fun.
Death toll hits 181 on third of 'seven dangerous days'
An earthquake kills nine people in Japan and it's instant, front page news around the globe. The same thing happens when one person dies of a previously unheard of virus. Hundreds of people get killed twice a year, every year, on Thai roads during festivals but it just gets ignored by the media outside of Thailand.
Isn't there something wrong here?
Thursday 14th April 2016
This was an interesting article, even though I don't understand why it is 'sexism':
The sexism that female expats are still having to endure
Here's a quote from the article about a female expat in Japan:
"In regard to building a personal life in the Japanese capital, she found that neither Japanese men or male Western expats were interested in dating Western women. Ms Goodman, now in her 40s, says: "The few single Western women I know in Tokyo seemed to have resigned themselves to being single forever."
Do female expats really find this kind of thing surprising? Do they not understand how they are perceived by many men in their own countries? Do they have no idea what it is that men find attractive (and unattractive) about women? Do they not realise that a major reason many Western men go to live in Asia is because Asian women are far, far, far more appealing in all respects? Are they not aware that because of the way they were treated back home, many male expats feel quite bitter towards Western females? Are they really surprised that many male Western expats have absolutely no interest in Western females?
The satirical website 'Not The Nation' summed it up with this article:
Bar Staff, Sex Tourists Wait Patiently For White Woman To Get Off Go-Go Stage
I'm not a misogynist and I can count a couple of women among the few farang friends I have in Thailand. However, I still feel bitter about certain types of Western female because of the way I was treated. If I had stayed in the UK it would have been me resigning myself to being single forever.
Instead, I moved to Asia and the quality of my life improved beyond recognition because of the different attitudes and different behaviour of Thai women compared to their farang counterparts. When I read articles such as this I cannot help feeling quite smug about the boot now being on the other foot. Schadenfreude, I think the Germans call it.
6 Reasons Why Asia May Be The Best Place For A Western Male
My Thai wife
Wednesday 13th April 2016
Imagine being in a place where, on one day of the year, it was socially acceptable (acceptable, at least, to some people) to push custard pies into the faces of anyone you encountered. You could do it to anyone, anywhere, with total impunity.
Seven year-old children would love the idea, as would some adults with the brains of seven year-old children. However, for those adults who had managed to progress beyond the mental age of seven it would just mean not being able to do anything useful or constructive outside without the risk of being assaulted by children and childlike adults.
If you exchange custard pies for water - and in many cases, iced water - this is exactly what you have in Thailand at this time of year. I don't have a favourite day of the year in Thailand, but I have a least favourite day of the year. Today.
I have no wish to spoil other people's fun (especially children), but wouldn't it just be eminently sensible to designate zones where children and childlike adults could douse one another with water and leave the grown-up adults to get on with their normal lives without the risk of being pelted with water? The way things stand at the moment it is impossible to choose not to participate.
There is no responsibility or consideration with the water throwing. The last time I ventured outdoors on foot on Songkran day (many years ago) I was wearing contact lenses when an idiot unloaded his high-powered water gun in my face at point-blank range. I then had to return home to sort my lenses out. If you are carrying an expensive camera they will do the same and although they might apologise afterwards the damage has already been done.
Songkran in 2005 - the last time I participated
A couple of days ago my neighbour, who is a senior soldier, told me that this year Thais had to preserve water during Songkran and weren't allowed to go around on pickup trucks with huge barrels of water on the back throwing water at people they passed. This didn't happen and on a trip to the temple this morning I saw several such trucks with huge containers of water on the back. Thailand is experiencing its severest drought for 20 years and water is just being wasted for no reason at all. Oh, that's right, it's fun, isn't it? I forgot.
Please splash responsibly (not a chance)
The other thing that happens during Songkran is a huge spike in the already high number of road fatalities. After the first two days of Songkran 116 Thais had died on Thai roads. This figure is almost twice as high as Songkran last year after two days and most victims were motorcyclists. I saw several bikes this morning racing around at breakneck speed with two or three young kids on board. They wore massive grins on their faces, but none were wearing crash helmets. They get so caught up in the excitement that they can't control themselves, but quite a few won't be around tomorrow.
Songkran road fatalities nearly double 2015 after 2 days
If a sporting event or festival anywhere else in the world resulted in the deaths of so many people it would be a major news story and there would be an outcry that such a tragedy should never happen again. In Thailand it happens regularly every year (the same thing happens at New Year) and nothing is done to stem the death toll. A lot of lip service is paid to making roads safer, but hundreds of people still lose their lives.
I'm not a killjoy and I'm all for people having fun, but, depending on the kind of 'fun' people have, their activities shouldn't impose on those who don't wish to participate and any kind of 'fun' activity certainly shouldn't result in a huge road death toll (as it does every single year).
The high temperatures I've been writing about seem to be the highest Thailand has experienced for almost 60 years.
Forecasters warn of heat stroke as mercury nears record high
The combination of the severe heat and aquatic anarchy outside has made this a very good day to remain inside. Fortunately, Songkran only lasts a day where I live. Someone in Pattaya told me that it goes on for four days there and in northern Thailand it lasts for a week. It amazes me that the water throwing 'joke' can be made to last a whole day, but making it last a week is beyond my comprehension.
Tuesday 12th April 2016
My wife's sister is having a new house built and when she went to check on progress last week there was a motorbike parked outside that she wasn't expecting. Inside the house was a Thai man in the process of stealing all the electrical wiring in the house. This has happened several times already.
Her husband caught the guy and they contacted one of their neighbours, who is a policeman. The thief was in his 30's and quite a pathetic character. He didn't put up any resistance, but fell on the ground feigning injury. My sister's niece captured the episode on video using her phone and it was quite amusing.
He was a drug addict. I guess that he couldn't get employment and there are no unemployment benefits in Thailand. Thais with no income usually have relatives who can feed them, but not supply them with drug money. The only way to get money for drugs is to steal.
They will steal anything that they think has value and can be sold on, even for a fraction of the real value. There was a news story about a gang of motorbike thieves a while ago and they were selling the bikes they had stolen for Bt1,000, or so. All they are concerned about is getting another money for their next fix.
When my house was being built I called in an air-conditioning company to put the copper pipes and cables inside the walls so that nothing showed when the air-conditioning units were installed later. The risk of theft worried the construction foreman and he advised me to get everything removed. I didn't and nothing was stolen, but maybe I was lucky.
My house being constructed with copper pipes already in the walls
Most houses in Thailand have burglar bars on the windows and the security business is huge with security guards everywhere. They aren't always effective, but house burglary is a major concern in Thailand and it seems that drug addiction is the underlying reason for many burglaries. When I went away last week my biggest concern was leaving the house empty for several days, even though we live in a gated community with security guards.
I'm not sure how many addicts there are in the country, but in 2012 The Nation reported that there were 1.2 million. Lots of cheap drugs are made in Burma and Thailand's borders with its neighbouring countries are porous.
When Thaksin was Prime Minister he vowed to fix the problem and this resulted in his notorious 'War on Drugs'. A lot of extra-judicial killing was carried out, but the drug problem remained.
The road fatality rate in Thailand, which I write about all the time, is another major social problem. Every morning on the TV news there is a round up of the previous day's road accidents and it is horrendous. All over the country there are scenes of road carnage involving cars, pickup trucks, motorbikes, vans, and large trucks.
With so many Thais using dashcams now, there is also lots of video footage. Most of the accidents are caused by a combination of excessive speed and crass stupidity, although drugs and alcohol are also contributing factors.
I mentioned a couple of days ago that the taxi I was travelling in hit a bus in Bangkok and the reason was because our driver was using his mobile phone while driving. Every taxi driver has at least one smart phone and although they can be useful if he doesn't know a certain destination they are also very distracting. One guy (and I should have taken a photo) had his phone propped on the dashboard and was watching a Thai movie on YouTube while driving.
There are laws in Thailand about not using mobile phones while driving but, just like everything else, these laws aren't followed or enforced. An additional problem in Thailand is that the tinted glass used in most vehicles is so dark that no one can see inside. Even if the police had a will to catch drivers using mobile phones it would be very difficult.
Another problem is with drivers falling asleep at the wheel. This morning on the TV news there was video footage taken in a car that was following a minivan. All of a sudden, the van veered off the road and hit a tree. The driver must have fallen asleep. Fortunately, it didn't veer the other way into the oncoming traffic.
Minivans use LPG fuel to save money and many vans fit more gas canisters than is allowed by law so that they have a longer range between refuelling. However, the extra weight makes the vans unstable and it also creates a fire hazard. The van on the news this morning burst into flames and four people died. This is why I don't use minivans in Thailand.
On my trips to Bangkok I do notice that attempts are being made in the capital to try to enforce laws. As we were going back to the hotel last week a convoy of motorbikes was coming towards us on the wrong side of the road. At first, I couldn't work what was happening.
On this piece of road motorbikes aren't allowed, but Thais - as always - just ignore the law. However, on this particular day there were police waiting to catch offending motorcyclists. When the motorcyclists spotted the police they just turned around and went back along the road the wrong way.
The hotel I stay at in Bangkok is located on a one-way street, but it is necessary to look both ways when crossing the road because there is a constant stream of motorbikes going the wrong way. It is the same where I live. Most Thais will simply choose the quickest, most convenient route and they have no regard for traffic laws.
I was pleased to see speed cameras on the Bangkok to Pattaya motorway and when we went to the airport to return home there was a cop with a hand-held speed gun. Efforts are taken in Bangkok to enforce laws, but nothing ever seems to happen in the provinces. Excessive speed is a major cause of road fatalities in Thailand and I don't know why there aren't more speed cameras.
The main road near to me is crying out for speed cameras because it is used like a drag strip. The initial cost of cameras would be recouped very quickly in fines and it would make the road safer.
Why doesn't it happen? It is almost impossible to get answers to 'why' questions in Thailand and I can only guess. I have plenty of theories, which I won't go into here, but basically I believe the reasons are cultural. Thai value and belief systems are very different to Western value and belief systems and therefore how Thais behave is very difficult for Westerners to understand.
Monday 11th April 2016
It is never a bad thing to be able to speak and read Thai in Thailand, but last week I hardly used any of my Thai language skills. Thais who use English every day, such as air hostesses and Pattaya hotel staff, are fairly competent English speakers and they actually get very upset if a foreigner speaks Thai to them. It's almost as if they feel insulted if you use their language because it implies their English isn't good enough. If you ask a question in Thai they will reply in English. I can't be bothered playing silly games so if I get into a situation like this I just speak English.
Many of the signs and menus I saw in Pattaya were in English and Russian, therefore, there was no need to be able to read Thai. I feel a bit sorry for my wife sometimes when she can't get a Thai menu in her own country, but in certain parts of Thailand foreigners outnumber Thais.
Russian and English signs - no Thai signs in Thailand
Of course, I also met some people with very poor English skills so it was useful to speak Thai and wherever I go I read Thai signs all the time. It's a habit that I have had for many years, but it has improved my reading ability and it makes me aware of things that most foreigners just walk past.
In Pattaya I was listening out for expats talking to the locals and even when they spoke to Thais who had limited English skills they still spoke English. I had my hair cut and was speaking in Thai to the lady who owned the barber shop. She only knew a few English words related to cutting hair - short, long, etc.
I have no doubt there are foreigners in Pattaya who have very good Thai language skills, but it seems that most don't bother to learn. Most Thais in tourist resorts speak English to some extent, Thais start learning English from the age of three, and most signs are in English. What's the point of learning Thai when there is no real need, especially when doing so upsets some Thais who feel insulted when you speak Thai?
It depends on two things:
- Your attitude about this subject
- Where you live and travel to and how necessary it is to speak and read Thai in these places
Regarding attitudes, I find that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy with foreigners who object strongly to foreigners in their own countries not being able to speak the native language, but who don't bother to learn the native language when they move to another country.
Even before I arrived in Thailand I had already decided that I would make an attempt to learn and I started right away with 20 hours of formal lessons. After that I just used my ears and phrase books. The completely useless transliteration systems used in phrase books frustrated me immensely and gave me the impetus to learn to read. I taught myself to read without any formal training because I have always been autodidactic with subjects that I really wanted to learn. This may not be possible with complicated languages, such as Chinese and Japanese but, apart from a few anomalies and inconsistencies, the Thai writing system is quite easy.
Even if I had decided to live in a location where it wasn't necessary to learn to speak and read Thai I would have done so anyway. As it turned out, those skills have come in enormously handy over the years because I live in an area where English skills are poor and not all signs have English transliterations.
If you live somewhere in the sticks learning to speak and read Thai is invaluable. If you live in a tourist resort it's really up to you. I was also keen to learn in order to keep my brain occupied and there are other benefits.
Learning second language 'slows brain ageing'
In addition, I find some farangs living in Thailand to be quite embarrassing and wanted some way to distinguish myself from them. Acquiring Thai language skills is one easy way to do this.
The hotel I stayed at in Pattaya was near to the famous Tiffany ladyboy cabaret. I didn't go, but I have seen photos and some of the ladyboys do look very much like females. Outside in the beer bars there were also ladyboys, but they looked nothing like females ... at all. Most, actually, were quite scary looking.
Quite a few ladyboys I encounter concern me. Many have quite volatile personalities and some, in places like Pattaya, have criminal tendencies. Thai men are very strong. Many aren't that tall, but they are stocky and have immense upper body strength.
I'm friendly with the staff at a local restaurant. We eat there quite often and also order a lot of takeaway meals. I joke around with one of the young guys working there and the other week he gave me a playful bear hug. It was, in fact, like hugging a real bear.
It's very easy to upset Thais. Most Thailand commentators attribute this to losing 'face', but most of the time it has nothing to do with losing face. It's an ego problem. Many Thai men have exceptionally fragile egos and inconsequential things, such as overtaking a Thai man in his pickup truck, are sufficient to damage his eggshell ego and he will retaliate.
There is a lot of road rage in Thailand these days and with so many Thais carrying smartphones around there is lots of video evidence of these incidents. When incidents occur involving two people with fragile egos it inevitably results in some kind of physical altercation.
If you get involved in such an incident I strongly recommend not retaliating for several reasons. Firstly, Thai men are very strong. Secondly, Thai men who are prone to violence normally carry weapons in their car. Thirdly, they often have friends to help them. Fourthly, they can get so angry that a 'red mist' descends and then they can't control their actions. This can be fatal if they have a gun, and there are a lot of guns in Thailand. Finally, they never seem to know when to stop and violent confrontations occasionally result in death.
I know a girl whose young cousin was beaten to death by a gang of boys with clubs and recently on the Thai news there was CCTV footage of a man being beaten to death. A gang of men beat and kicked him until he died. It has also happened to foreigners.
Thai Police find South Korean Man Beaten to Death in Chon Buri Resort
Murder inquiry launched over death of British man on Thai island
I now do what Thais do. Men I know are fine, but I regard any man I don't know as potentially dangerous. When I first started to drive regularly I became infuriated at the things other drivers did and I reacted. This upset my wife enormously and on one occasion it actually reduced her to tears.
Reacting serves no purpose because a farang getting angry at how a Thai drives isn't going to change the way that he drives. In road rage incidents you never know who you are dealing with and you don't know if he has a gun. In the UK, for example, the chances of getting involved in a road rage incident with someone with a gun are virtually nil. That isn't the case in Thailand where a lot of people carry guns.
Back to ladyboys and I always regard Thai men I don't know as potentially dangerous regardless whether they are wearing jeans and trainers or a skirt and high heels.
Yesterday I mentioned the naive view of Thailand that most tourists have because the only perspective of Thailand they see is from the swimming pool of a luxury resort surrounded by very polite Thai staff. "Oh, Thailand is so wonderful and Thais are such lovely people."
Many are, but if you actually live in Thailand and especially if you drive regularly in Thailand and watch the Thai news you start to see a very different side to the country.
It's not all bad, but tourists such as the one I met last week floating in the swimming pool of a four-star resort telling me how much he would like to live in Thailand really need to do a little more research before they sell their houses and move to Thailand.
Tiffany ladyboy cabaret, Pattaya
There seems to be a belief among foreign male tourists that it is difficult to distinguish a ladyboy from a genuine female, but I have never found this to be the case. Ninety-nine percent of ladyboys I see (and I see a lot living in Thailand) just look like blokes in women's clothes, which is exactly what they are.
Picking up a ladyboy in the belief that he is a female, to me, just demonstrates very poor judgement of feminine beauty, but this is something that I also see a lot of in Thailand. Foreign men talk a lot about how beautiful the girls are in Thailand, but most of the Thai girls I see with a lot of foreign men are far from beautiful. Either that, or picking up a ladyboy in the belief he is a woman is down to a severe case of beer goggles. The moral here may be to lay off the Singha or Chang until after you have made your selection.
The weather at the moment is the hottest I have ever known it in Thailand. I haven't experienced any cold weather for 13 years and even though my body has acclimatised to the heat I start to suffer when it goes above 35°C.
We have heat insulation material under the roof tiles and as my office is north-facing it normally stays a few degrees cooler than outside. Very rarely does my office thermometer register more than 35°C, but today it was registering 38°C. Outside in the shade it was over 40°C. I have never seen it this high.
When we got home on Friday a neighbour told me that Hat Yai had experienced the hottest temperature in Thailand. This is unusual because the central, north and northeast regions are usually hotter than the southern region during the hot season.
There was also a kind of dry storm on Friday morning, which one neighbour said was quite frightening. There was no rain, but the winds were very strong.
For those who aren't aware, Thailand is currently suffering from a severe drought. There is only enough water to irrigate some, not all, agricultural areas and houses in some regions are only being supplied with mains water at certain times of the day.
This current hot spell isn't helping the drought and in Bangkok I saw huge billboard signs telling people to save water. Ironically, the Songkran festival is about to commence. This is also known as the water festival and what normally ensues is a massive nationwide water fight with billions of gallons of water being tossed around.
Someone told me that this year over Songkran Thais are only allowed to spray water from small atomisers, rather than using buckets and large water guns to soak other people. It will be interesting to see how responsibly people behave during this year's Songkran, but the words 'Thai' and 'responsible' aren't normally used in the same sentence.
It is also around mid-April when the first of the summer storms arrive. I can remember quite a few Songkran festivals during which there were very heavy storms. A few big storms right now would be really welcome.
My air-conditioners are running almost 24 hours a day at the moment. Thailand must have been unbearable in the days before air-conditioning. Coming from the UK I understand very well how miserable persistent rain can be but, believe me, extended periods of intense heat without any rain aren't much fun either.
Just as I finished writing this it started to rain for the first time in over three months! Just a little, but it feels so good I think I will go outside and do some 'Singing In The Rain' - the Gene Kelly, rather than the Stanley Kubrick version.
Sunday 10th April 2016
My daughter was scheduled to have another operation on her feet in Bangkok last week and she needed to have a blood test a few days before. My original plan was to do the blood test on Monday, take the train down to Hua Hin, spend a couple of days there, return to Bangkok on Wednesday for the operation on Thursday, and return home on Friday. I wasn't looking forward to it.
I didn't know what time we would finish at the hospital on Monday and we were travelling with two small children and quite a lot of luggage. In addition, the weather in Thailand at the moment is hotter than hell at the moment and it makes travelling around hard work. Following the driest wet season I can remember since I moved to Thailand, this current hot season has been the hottest I can remember since I moved to Thailand. It's brutal. I would love to do a train journey to Hua Hin, but decided that it would be too much hassle on this occasion and opted for somewhere closer and more convenient.
My dilemma was that I could only think of one beach resort that was closer to Bangkok and more convenient, however, it was a place I last visited 24 years ago and a place to which I vowed never to return. Still, I had read that there had been a lot of changes so went ahead and booked a hotel.
Pattaya, here I come.
On Sunday after arriving in Bangkok I did something that I hadn't done for a long time, but which I used to do an all my trips to Bangkok as a single man. I took my wife and kids to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for lunch.
For many years the Oriental Hotel featured in lists of the world's Top 10 hotels. Staying there is beyond my budget, even though it is a lot cheaper than comparable hotels in most other major cities, but lunch isn't that expensive and it's a fabulous atmosphere in a great setting.
Tourists to Thailand have a habit of trying to capture romantic aspects of Thailand that either no longer exist or have never existed in the first place. Backpackers search for 'unexplored' locations that in reality have been visited by millions of people already and package tourists seek out 'original' floating markets, but these places were never original and were only built to attract tourists like themselves.
I am not exempt and even though I know that the Bangkok I would like to visit completely disappeared around the time I was born I still enjoy visiting the Oriental with its polite staff, colonial atmosphere and photos of Somerset Maugham hanging on the wall.
I no longer enjoy trips to Bangkok. I used to love it and then for a long time I used to enjoy arriving, but I was desperate to leave after a few days. Nowadays, I don't even enjoy arriving. Every year it becomes less like an exotic Southeast Asian capital and more like any other big city in the world. New buildings and infrastructure continue relentlessly and with every addition the city just gets more claustrophobic.
Unfortunately, while trying to enjoy lunch at the Oriental I got a taster of what was to come during the whole course of the trip.
My children, aged 5 and 2, aren't really naughty because they are too young to understand what being naughty is about. They have boundless reserves of energy and object strongly to staying in one place. They can be left to run around by themselves to an extent, but at the same time they need to be watched very carefully in case they do themselves a lot of harm or simply go missing.
Throughout the entire trip it was impossible for me or my wife to relax or enjoy a meal for five minutes without having to retrieve children. Travelling with young children, indeed bringing up young children in general, is extremely hard work.
On Sunday evening I took my daughter to the Impact Muang Thong Thani exhibition and conference centre to see Disney On Ice. This is where the Bangkok Motor Show and other major events take place. It is a big place, but no different to similar venues in other countries.
On Monday morning it was time to visit the hospital.
My daughter's condition is very complex with no obvious solution and after a long chat with the doctor (the top doctor in Thailand for this particular condition) we decided to cancel the operation. I was then ready to return home, but the hotels and flights had already been booked and paid for. Besides, my wife (like all Thais) is obsessed with the Thai cultural notion of 'bpai tiaew' and was looking forward to the trip. So, it was onwards to Pattaya.
Pattaya has a beach, but it isn't very attractive compared to other beaches in Thailand
Pattaya's big advantage over other beach resorts in Thailand is that it is near Bangkok and can be easily reached by road. Lots of buses and vans leave Bangkok for Pattaya every day. They're cheap, but minivans in Thailand are very dangerous and travelling by bus wasn't convenient with young kids and luggage.
There are thousands of metered taxis in Bangkok and driving all day in Bangkok for small fares can't be a lot of fun. I asked the taxi driver who took use to the hospital this morning about going to Pattaya and he was keen to go himself. I expect that many would jump at the chance. He quoted me Bt1,400 and I gave him a Bt100 tip. I think the going rate is between Bt1,300 and Bt1,500.
He picked us up at our Bangkok hotel and took us to the hotel in Pattaya. This was very convenient with small kids and luggage.
The motorway between Bangkok and Pattaya is ugly. I've been on some scenic road journeys in Thailand, but this definitely isn't one of them. The road goes through several industrial areas and there is the usual sight of overhead electricity cables everywhere. In addition, this road is peppered with enormous billboards advertising hotel and other businesses in Pattaya.
It goes without saying that the general standard of driving was horrendous. There are speed cameras on this road which keep people from driving excessively fast, but the crazy weaving in and out of traffic still goes on and the worst culprits - as usual - were pickup truck drivers. Inevitably, our journey was delayed by a road accident. I snapped the truck on its side in the fast lane through the taxi windscreen. The Thais are obviously disappointed with only being rated second in the world for road fatalities and are desperately trying to get to the number one position.
I drove tens of thousands of miles in the UK and saw very few accidents, whereas I see accidents virtually every day in Thailand. When you see how Thais drive this isn't surprising at all.
Pickup truck on its side on the Bangkok to Pattaya motorway
I have read a lot about Pattaya trying to become a more family-friendly destination. Lots of big, family-friendly hotels have been built and I arranged to stay at one of them - the Amari Garden Hotel.
It was very pleasant. The grounds were exceptionally well maintained, as were the swimming pools, it was comfortable, safe, and the breakfast was excellent. I would definitely stay there again.
Swimming pool at the Amari Garden Hotel, Pattaya
I find it strange the way that tourists who stay at very nice hotels in Thailand and hardly ever venture outside of their hotel bang on about how they love Thailand. They never actually see Thailand, so how do they know?
I had a brief conversation in the swimming pool with an Indian guy who had lived in the UK since he was 10. He told me that he had been to India, but couldn't live there. He then said, "I could live here, though," while looking around at the hotel surroundings.
If he did move to Thailand I assume it would be very unlikely he would live permanently in a very attractive four star hotel. I told him that visiting Thailand as a tourist and living in Thailand permanently were very different things. He had no idea and in such a short space of time I couldn't explain why very well.
Sunbeds at the Amari Garden Hotel, Pattaya
Guests at this hotel are mainly from Russia and India, although the number of Russians has decreased dramatically since the Russian economy collapsed. Up until the beginning of 2014, Russians were getting around Bt1 or more to the Ruble. Now, they are only getting around half a Baht, so it is twice as expensive to visit Thailand as it was a little while ago.
The hotel signs were in English and Russian and there were Indian curries for breakfast. The hotel staff don't speak Russian. Most, but not all, of the Russian guests speak some English and can communicate with the Thai staff this way. I saw a lot of Chinese tourists staying at other hotels in Pattaya and there were also lots of Chinese tourists in Bangkok.
East Moscow
The hotel was in North Pattaya, which is tamer than South Pattaya. I was keen to visit the infamous 'Walking Street', but this didn't happen because of my children. On the first night we attempted to go somewhere and ended up coming straight back.
Nonetheless, Pattaya's world-famous sex scene was very much in evidence even in North Pattaya. I saw at least three aap op nuat massage businesses and Soi 6 was lined with beer bars and prostitutes. It amazes me that I used to think these girls were attractive because nowadays I find them decidedly unattractive. There were plenty of pretty girls in Pattaya doing regular jobs, but not the ones sitting on bar stools with 8" heels and tiny shorts that looked as if they would be too small for my five year old. For those who are interested, the girls were quoting Bt1,200 for a short time and around Bt2,000 for a long time with a Bt350 bar fine.
Sex for sale in Pattaya
When checking into the hotel there were a few differences compared to other hotels I have stayed at in Thailand. Firstly, they wanted a Bt1,000 per night deposit, which they told me was the hotel policy. Perhaps they have had problems with their Russian and Indian guests?
The hotel minibar was also a little unusual.
The hotel minibar selection says a lot about what goes on in Pattaya
They gave me two key cards for the room, but then gave my wife her own special green key card. At first I didn't know why. The reason was to prove that she had arrived with me when I checked in. Many male guests arrive and check-in on their own and then bring a prostitute back to the room later. Thai hoteliers know what happens, of course, and an easy way to make more money is to charge the guest a 'joiner fee'. It's a scam, but one that can be tricky to avoid because so many hotels in farang tourist resorts operate this policy. Away from the tourist resorts it doesn't happen.
I was surprised at how expensive the hotel rates were for walk-in guests. The walk-in rates were over double the amount I paid on-line. In Bangkok a couple of tourists walked in to the hotel where I was staying and asked about rates. The walk-in rates were about the same as on-line. Sometimes it doesn't make a difference if you book on-line in advance, but sometimes it makes a huge difference.
Another scam in Pattaya is taxis. Bangkok taxis are great, there are loads of them, they are metered and cheap. There were sawng-thaews outside the hotel, but they acted like taxis with fixed (high, unmetered fares). I could find no real sawng-thaews and it quickly became very apparent that I wasn't going to get anywhere cheaply. This aspect reminded me of Phuket and this is one of the reasons why I tend to avoid places in Thailand that have a lot of tourists.
Saying that, a big advantage of places like Pattaya is that there are lots of good restaurants. Real Thailand suffers from a serious lack of variety when it comes to food, but the tourists resorts offer lots of different kinds of food.
The expats I saw in North Pattaya looked quite low key and presumably they chose North Pattaya because they weren't that keen on South Pattaya. Most were on their own and I find that most look at me suspiciously. I think that a lot are quite naive when they first arrive in Thailand and then the things they experience make them quite cynical and suspicious of other people. The expat community in Thailand is extremely varied and diverse. There are all sorts of people, good and bad, and - just like the Thais - it is impossible to generalise.
There are lots of these in Pattaya
The out-and-out sex tourists and sexpats do exist, but I see some of myself in the faces of many expats in Thailand. They are basically decent men who, for reasons beyond their control, couldn't get the lives they wanted at home.
Years of globalisation, feminism and political correctness have turned most Western countries into miserable places for many Western men, especially those above the age of 40. It's not surprising that so many men - myself included - have turned their backs on their countries of birth and moved to Asia for a better life.
My impression of Pattaya was fine but, as I said above, I experienced the hotel in Pattaya rather than Pattaya itself. From what I saw of Pattaya, it was just like any other Thai town - a ramshackle collection of ugly, concrete buildings, broken pavements, and electricity cables. There are a lot more tourists than most other places, a much more cosmopolitan feel about the places, and a lot more sex for sale than most other places.
It's not a place where I would choose to live, but with so many large, family-friendly hotels it's somewhere I would consider going again for a quick break if I was stuck in Bangkok. From where I live in the south I can drive to some really nice resorts in Trang or Nakhon Sri Thammarat within a few hours and these places are a much better option for me than flying to Pattaya, despite there now being a direct flight from Hat Yai to Pattaya's U-Tapao airport.
Our schedule saw us returning to Bangkok on Wednesday for my daughter's operation, but as it didn't happen we had to make other plans. A major component in the decision making process was the weather.
Many years before I was aware that I suffered from asthma, I knew that whenever I went into a sauna I had breathing difficulties. I liked the idea of sweating impurities out of my body, but I couldn't breathe in the heat and humidity of a sauna. And that's how it was in Bangkok this week - it was just like being in a sauna. Stepping out of an air-conditioned building into the heat and humidity outside was like walking into a wall and I felt short of breath.
On previous trips I have taken the kids to places like Dreamworld and Safari World, but it was just too hot to go to any outdoors attractions. As much as I hate them, an indoor air conditioned shopping mall was the best option. I find some malls less boring than others, and MBK is one of those that is a little more interesting to wander around.
By the time Friday came around I was desperate to get home, but it wasn't a good day. The taxi to the airport hit a bus because our driver was looking at his mobile phone instead of watching the road. He ranted at the bus driver even though it was clearly his fault. After three toilet calls at the hotel in the morning my stomach started churning again at Don Meuang airport and trying to travel with young children when frequent toilet stops are needed isn't a good thing.
Eventually we boarded the flight and I remember looking at my watch thinking that I would be home in 30 minutes. Just at that time there was an announcement that the plane would be returning to Bangkok because it had developed a problem and needed to be checked. At the time I should have been home I was arriving in Bangkok again. The delay added about three hours to the journey. This was the first time I have ever experienced a problem with Nok Air.
Upon entering my house after I finally got home there was a smell like a decaying corpse. The fridge had stopped working and everything inside had melted. The stench was disgusting. This is the year that everything has decided to go wrong. I have had lots of problems with my car, two ceiling fans went bad, and now the fridge. I have a feeling that it hasn't stopped yet.
It is fortunate that I have another fridge because no one is available to repair the broken one. The Songkran festival is being cited as the reason why. Thais take a holiday at New Year and then there is another New Year's break for Chinese New Year. There are a lot of Chinese where I live and some businesses close for a week at CNY. Then, a little later, everything closes again for Songkran, which is the traditional Thai New Year. Thais certainly like their holidays.
There was a lot of work involved preparing for this trip, the trip was no fun because all we seemed to do was watch our children, and there is always a lot of work to do after getting back from a trip. This is a phase that will pass eventually, but the amount of work required bringing up children should never be underestimated.
I had some quite demanding jobs in the UK that sometimes involved working around the clock, but after the work had finished there was always time to relax. That isn't the case with children. The work is 24 hours and there are never any breaks.