John Galt Presents: Moving to Thailand

This week I read an article at cnn.com about a woman who is selling all her belonging on eBay. She was wanting a change and she reflected her thoughts as having too many things. She said that she "had all this stuff" or rather "all this stuff had her".

This reminded me of my decision to go east. Most of you have read my account of the "fun" tour I took in June of 2001. If you haven't, you can find that article on my site (look for my first time in Bangkok articles).

I had the time of my life in Bangkok and Pattaya. I did what most westerners did.... I came, I saw, and.... I spent the final 6 days of my 10 day vacation with a girl who really helped me remember what it was to be young again. I also found the cost of living to be extremely low compared to the west. The culture was agreeable, the natives were very friendly. I considered it a stunning discovery; economically and culturally agreeable in most ways. The question that came to mind was, was Thailand a financially viable choice for living full time? Could I relocate here and continue on with my youthful experience? Were there any dirty little secrets that I had yet to discover? What would be a "show stopper"? Would I be foolishly giving up a good job with stock options and prestigious title to come to a land that I knew little about?

I went home and thought about it for 3 or 4 weeks. I read about Thailand on the Internet (Stickman and the BangkokPost). I didn't want to make a rash decision that was based only on great sex and good company. I also knew my short venture out of my home country didn't happen because I was happy in the US, I went for a vacation because I was unhappy in the US. The question now was simply, can Thailand be a consistently happy alternative existence? I didn't want to make a move and discover that again, I was unhappy and now further from my own culture and family.

Well, I have always been somewhat a loner. I enjoy people, but I'm content to be alone doing something productive, so I wasn't worried about not have having friends or not being able to speak the language for a while. That didn't bother me. I've been through hard times in my life and I know how to "make things happen". I'm not bashful. I knew that if I came here, certainly if anyone can survive here and prosper, certainly I should be able to make that happen for myself. I also didn't want to solely make a decision that felt like I was running away from problems and situations in the US, because I prefer to solve problems rather than sweep them under the carpet.

So, I weighed everything out and I had a list of 10 or so reasons to go and a shortly list of why to stay. I reasoned that I wasn't getting any younger (I was 37 at the time). I reasoned that I needed more free time to exercise and direct my own life. I placed a value on the idea of getting back into business for myself (because, let's face it you can't really prosper all that well when you are not the big boss) and really I was completely pleased with the idea that no matter how old I got, I would still have access to young, beautiful, agreeable, and accommodative females. That was basically what I was thinking. Interestingly enough, I didn't realize at the time how well I would also enjoy being helpful to people in need and I also didn't not know how much I would feel part of the family inside my community. These were both extra bonuses that I realized at a later time.

I made the decision. I did some calculations. I made an initial timeline for the move and I gave my boss notice. I gave him a 4 months notice. He almost laughed at me. He just didn't believe it.

All my co-workers thought I had hit my head or something. They didn't believe it either. My friends thought I would never do it. In their minds, a move like this just didn't seem all that easy, I guess.

A few weeks would go by, and my boss would ask again -- are you still leaving? And I said yes. He printed out a 4 page article on Pattaya and handed it to me. It think it was called "Pattaya; The City of Sin". It focused on the prostitution and crime. I'm sure he was hoping that I would snap out of whatever mood I was in.

2 and 3 months passed. I sold my Honda Accord, I sole my Honda Interceptor. I sold my waterbed and furniture. I gave a number of things away. I threw out all the things that I didn't really need and reduced all my belonging to the size of a normal pallet about 7 feet high.

Within a few weeks of my planned departure, I purchased my ticket (one way), had my Visa in order, converted my small pile of money over to travelers checks and left the rest in a bank account. I had everything in order.

My friends were saying -- "I can't believe you're doing this". I said, "why not?" It didn't seem all that strange to me. Just 2 years earlier I was completely pulling up stakes in Florida and moving to California. I rather like the challenge and though California is a great place to live, my personal life was rather dismal. I was bumping into middle aged females who were explaining to me how they were "feeling the urge to nest". I also was approached my a 55 year woman who was exceeding rich. She actually would have been fun to be around as she was in pretty decent shape for her age, but that just didn't click for me. I have always liked striking out on my own - so her money didn't appeal to me -- and even though she was in really great shape and looked very good for her age (we would walk from her Del Mar Heights home to the beach 100 yards away and go boogie boarding together) -- I much preferred a younger 20's sometime kind of girl. So, CA was not all that agreeable for me.

One month prior to my departure, I made arrangements to send most of my belonging through a freight forwarder. (I'm going to tell you a bit about this process later in the article.)

In the last couple weeks, I had pretty much handled all the issues, I was mentally ready. My boss(es) had finally accepted the fact that I was indeed leaving and so did my friends. I think they were stunned. I had some who said, "Good for you -- getting out of the rat race". It kind of felt like they were cheering me on to some around the world sailing expedition or something.

For all I knew, my venture here could have been a complete failure. There was really no way for me to be certain that I would find everything to my liking and in fact be successful but, I think there are a couple of key elements that were important to my success and I want to share these with you.

First, you have to be emotionally self sustaining. I think its vital to have yourself solid mentally and not need to lean on others for direction. You have to have your head screwed on tight. I think a number of guys show up here and they get run over by fast women and con-artists looking to make a buck off you. Also, the Asian culture will challenge you on purpose just to see what you're made out of. If you stand up well, then they will respect you and support your efforts.

Secondly, you need to have skills OR a shit load of money or certainly some reasonable combination of both. I came here with the knowledge that I could work in technology almost anywhere. I knew that as a fall back position, I could hire on with a company OR just return to California and find a new job. In my case I felt that I came here with lots of skill, but medium to smaller moneys. Certainly, someone may be very successful with less skill than mine and greater amounts of money than what I brought.

Three, I think you need to take bold steps to insure your success. Don't keep one foot in your homeland and put one foot in Thailand. That will divide your efforts and energies. Make like Cortez in Mexico and burn your ships. Of course, I didn't exactly eliminate my opportunity to return to the US, but I moved everything that I owned to Thailand and bought a one way ticket and make no provisions to return. I set the stage so that I would be well motivated to succeed.

Certainly, one can come up with dozens of other important points for success. These are just the ones that seemed the most important for me at the time.

I was on the west coast so I discovered that most freight forwarders are in Los Angles. I believe this is the home to most of the ports in that area.

I called around until I found one that worked specifically in moving freight to Thailand. These companies can move almost anything. When I went to his facility, there was a Thai couple in there having a brand new refrigerator being send back. (I assumed this particular high end brand was not available in Thailand.)

Shipping my "household" type goods is done by volume and not by weight. I took advantage of this as I own mechanic's hand tools that to me are very valuable and I didn't want to re-buy this type of merchandise in Thailand, so I was easily able to have these forwarded.

I pulled up in a pickup truck and they reloaded my goods onto a pallet just as you see in these pictures.

The final process is that the the entire pallet is boarded up on the sides and top. From there is taken to the port and combined with other pallets and items to be loaded into shipping containers.

I paid $400 to have this placed on a ship in Los Angeles. I paid about another $250 (10k baht) to have it delivered from Bangkok to Pattaya. If I remember correctly, the whole process took about 2 or 3 months. It takes sometimes a couple of weeks to schedule it to board a vessel in the US, transit time is about 8 weeks and then there is some time for unloading and customs processing. I was not charged any customs fees that I recall. They brought all my goods in the back of a pick up truck to Soi Yamato in Pattaya.

One thing that I would have done differently, I would had someone who spoke Thai to call over to the receiving Thai company here and specifically quote a price for delivery before I struck the final deal with the shipper in LA.

If you have a Bangkok address to receive the goods, then your delivery charge on this side should be much more reasonable.

The process was fairly easy. It was my first time and I didn't really have any trouble with it. But, also remember that I hired an advisor to assist me here in Thailand. His Thai wife called the shipper here to make the final arrangements for delivery and I had to have cash in hand upon their arrival to my location. So, I think you will need someone inside the Kingdom who speaks the language to help you make final arrangements in most cases.

Below is the bird that brought me over. This was my second flight around the world, but this one felt special. We flew out of LA very late at night. The airport was still and quiet. I remember thinking heavily about my decision while standing at that chilled plate glass window, just staring at Boeing 747-400 knowing that this was my ticket to new adventure and a new start. A chance to be happier and more free and to see the part of the world. To this day, I am probably most traveled person in my immediate family. I am the great adventurer in the family. I paid a price for my travels. I never had a family of my own to come home to, but I also extracted a reward of challenging myself to see just what I kind of person I really was. There is nothing like knowing who you are - and upon discovery, finding that you like who you are. I am so solid within myself that I really never worry about what other people say about me. It has little or no impact to me personally.

In future articles I'll tell you about my first year in Thailand. That will include my first 7 months spent in Pattaya and I'll tell you more about my first girlfriend here, who was of course a bar girl. She always used the words "Lady Bar". Her picture is up in the top panel.

As an Aside: You are probably wondering how did I know to take all these pictures 5 years ago? The truth is that I never thought that someday I would post them on the Internet for everyone to see. I just have moments that I sometimes I like to record. I'm on an excellent adventure and I want to remember the past. When I was kid in grade school I hated history, but now I appreciate it for how important it is in guiding me to the future.

Also, in the move above -- I wanted pictures to record the condition of my goods. If had a problem with delivery and something was missing -- I wanted hard evidence that something had happened so I would have some method of recourse. (I have many more pictures of my shipment than what you see here on this page).

I don't frequent many Thailand bulletin boards. It seems like a number of them have direct ties to on-line money making machines and these forums (on occasion) censor open discussion if it threatens the income of these on-line enterprises. I do understand that some things need to be censored and brought under control. But, there are also some conversations that are censored for other monetary-influenced reasons.

I'm going to show you one example here of a posting over at www.PattayaAddicts.com where DaveTheRaveBangkok was publishing the new announcement that the Stickman Weekly was back on line.

Almost immediately one of their members, George66 (with 232 previous posts) said "I'm sure Keith who runs www.NotStickmanBangkok.com is going to have fun with this. He's the man who single handedly brought down Stick's weekly column for the last few months which was where the bulk of Stick's ad revenue was coming from."

About three pages of discussions occurred around this topic and DaveTRB was defending himself and attacking the George66.

To the right is a image of part of the conversation that includes all of George66's comments (the whole conversation is not here). As you'll see, this was pretty benign commenting, so why would PattayaAddicts ban him so easily?

I was told by another poster on that board that George66 was a trouble maker? So, why after 232 posts elsewhere - why do they wait until this conversation to ban him? Do they have a personal bone to pick with me? Is DaveTheRaveBangok extra sensitive to postings about "The Galt" (me)? What kind of weight does Dave exert over PattayaAddicts.com?

The moderator even went so far as to call this member a "cunt". I think that's low class.

Over all, it's not a big deal -- no one got hurt, but I think these money generating enterprises (like StickmanBangkok.com an DaveTheRaveBangkok.com, MangoSauce.com, and some others) are "thin skinned" and just don't like having to listen to others with dissenting opinions. They will scream and holler like little girls if they are censored themselves -- oh yes, but they don't have the character to take criticism and negative comments about themselves without wanting to squash the other party. I lose respect for people like that.

Update April 14th - PattayaAddict.com also banned me (JohnGalt) from their site. No loss to me. They are looking more and more like a big advertisement for DaveTheRaveBangkok.com anyhow. This unfortunately just creates a breeding ground for miss and dis-information where it pertains to farang services in the naught night life industry.

A couple of weeks ago I posed the question -- should I hold a picture contest to see who can take the best photo of MangoSquashDave? I promised some healthy sized cash prizes. This was only an idea at the time. I was asking for feedback and probing for the desires of the readership community.

Stickman says he knows David. David in one of his columns has denied this. So, I thought we might name the contest the "Stickman Meets MangoSquashDave Contest" and we'll bring David out of the closet so he join Stickman just like we brought Stickman out of the closet last year. (as you all know, I didn't know who Stickman really was until the readership told me). So, perhaps the readership this year, will tell us who MangSquashDave is)

Don't tell me yet. Don't tell me yet. We want to keep this a secret for a while until we have the contest set up and running. The winning pictures will be chosen by the readership and extra weight will be given to the who send in the photos first.

I asked the readers for their "Thumbs Up OR Thumbs Down" votes and here is what I received...

Well people, I'm going to take all this under advisement (because after all, I'm a sloooowwww learner). It's always good to take your time with hot topics like this one.

Perhaps we'll take some small donations from the readership at large so they too can have a part of bringing MangoSquashDave out of the closet.

This is not a dance, unfortunately. This is a very common occurrence in business practices that occurs at Songkran. Businesses in Thailand try to get the upper hand on others and borrow their money during the Songkran holiday.

Now, you might be asking me "What the heck are you talking about?". It's actually very simple. Songkran is a terrible time to do business. Most businesses shut down and their employees travel home to visit their families. Many businesses shut down early. Frequently, companies are advancing money to their country based workers so they have traveling money.

So, what seems to happen (and I have seen this several years in a row), is that the companies that I deal with will pretend to have an orders ready to ship about 3 or 4 days ahead of the holiday. They promise to send the goods at that time if you send the money. However, what actually happens is that "when push comes to shove" and you press them with specific questions about the order being ready -- they actually will not have the order ready and if you pay them early, they end up borrowing your money for Songkran and you are left without the ordered goods during the holiday.

I got burned a couple of times in the past several years with "sorry the order didn't ship" excuse. I had paid, but they didn't ship. Or, I would hear -- I swear the order did ship but the shipping company didn't deliver it. But in these cases, the shipping company could not locate the package as it had not been sent.

Thai companies are notoriously bad at passing the buck and blaming other insides/outside the company for being at fault (saving face), but as far as I'm concerned, much of this boils down to lying in an effort to get some extra money in the accounts before the employees leave for their break.

Let me give you two examples that just happened to me this week. You'll see how I foiled their efforts to deceive me.

Every year, I am required to close out my books in business and submit certified set of balance sheets to the local government. I can not do them inside my own company they must be done elsewhere at a special accounting office and then the paper work is sent back to me and then I submit it to the government. I must do this before the end of April (this month).

I had previously sent all my paperwork off to my lawyer/accounting firm. It's been there about 3 weeks already. I've been working with this same firm for a number of years now and we have been through this a couple of times with me.

Last week, I started to receive calls from their office saying everything with ready to go. I ask them how much -- my price this year is up to 27,000 baht. This includes monthly close outs certifying VAT taxes, etc. It's not cheap but I'm told this is about the going rate with a high performance firm who can do the work and defend themselves properly.

The office manager told me about 5 days ago, that everything was ready and that once the money was deposited, they would send the package of paper off to me without delay. So, I was organizing myself for Songkran this week (a few days ago), deciding what items to order and pay for, and as it turned out, I asked her to delay until the end of Songkran. I reasoned with her saying "You are all set, with nothing more to do, so why don't I pay for it right after Songkran and then you can send it to me EMS". I said, "That gives us about 20 days so there can't possibly be a reason that it will be late".

Then she back peddled immediately saying "There will be a mad rush on balance sheet processing just after Songkran and it would be best not to wait." I pressed her to reconcile her statements (you know how I can be), and she was forced to admit, that the paperwork has not been to the final auditor for it's final sign-off and certification. I asked her how long that will take. She said 2 or 3 days. So, I caught her in a lie. If I had paid 4 days ago, we don't know for sure IF the paperwork would have made it through the auditors hands and shipped in time to be received before Songkran. The office manager would have had an opportunity hold my money, delay the work, and then just give me an excuse as to why it didn't ship until after Songkran. She could have just as easily said "It wasn't my fault because the Auditor delayed returning it to me". Here is the Asian exercise of "plausible deniability". The net result would have been -- she would have borrowing my money for the holidays without consent. This is somewhat common. It's a lousy practice, and in cases where you are approaching a major holiday like Songkran, it's best not to place any orders if you don't want to be out of pocket for that holiday time frame.

I had a second deal going on at the same time with a vendor who was to send me about $800 worth of parts. They were late in getting the order ready. It was suppose to be ready 4 or 5 days beforehand. They they wanted to send it 3 days before the shipping company closed down for the Songkran holiday. I said (through my translator), can you guarantee that the parts will arrive before Songkran? They said, they should be there in time. Then I said, ok, I'll pay on the day it arrives (as the banks would still be open on those days). But, then they didn't want to send the goods (probably because they didn't want me to borrow their money). I told them that I normally pay just before the product is shipped, but they missed their agreed delivery time and that I wasn't going to pay until I could be sure of getting delivery before Songkran. (and I have been buying from this company for 3 years). It's not like they don't know me. I asked through that phone, "have I ever paid you late?" (the answer of course was no). I asked, "have I ever not done what I said I would do." (and the answer of course is no). But, she was fearful that I would take advantage of her and not pay on the day it arrived (or she had no confidence that the shipment would actually make it). OR, is it possible that the order still really wasn't ready and the company just needed a little boost to their cash flow for the holidays? So, here we are, Thailand, the country of distrust and low confidence especially during a long holiday.

I can not stress enough to you -- you must keep vendors under scrutiny otherwise they will take advantage of you. In fact, I get the impression that if you don't take the initiative to be particular and firm about your business arrangements, they will disrespect you and want to take advantage of you just because they can. (Does any of this sound familiar to you for other aspects of Thailand culture???!?!?!!!!) If you do not lay down your expectations and requirement and hold them to them, you will not get the services and goods you have bargained for. The will automatically lower their performance to your lack of pursuit of it.

My perception in doing business with my customers is 180 degrees from this. I try my very best to deliver my product to customers in a manor that exceeds my customer's expectations. The Asians try to reduce the quality of a deliverable until the customer complaints about it. As a westerner, we would dump a business like this. We don't like the feeling of being short changed. This could be one of the major reasons that as a foreigner, you may be able to come to Thailand and run a business from here and be highly successful at it. The locals just don't like the idea of spending any more money or effort for the customer than they think they should. They are not wired correctly for this. Again, I am reminded of the quote that I borrow from time to time from Marc of the Eden Club, he always says that good business is about delivering "Value for Money".

When I read this week's Stickman (Mark II) weekly, it seemed to me that I was reading an article that was written by the real Stickman.

This week's title is called "The Bangkok Effect". "The Bangkok Effect".... hum.... sounds familiar..... Hum... Hey, I wrote an article called "The Tom Cruse Effect". I know that article was popular but I didn't know that The Great Stickman had read it. (must have left a subconscious impression on him).

I wonder if Stick is still suffering from his "brain drain" a few months back where the pressure of his teaching job made it impossible for him to keep up his weekly column?

To top this off, the article was a bit lame. It would have been better titled the "The Thailand Effect" because married farangs all over the kingdom are very prone to cheating. Thailand is set up to an extent to provide opportunities for cheating. Their culture supports it. Their culture passively encourages it. Cheating thrives here in many many forms (if you haven't surmised this by now). His article was a narrow view.

Otherwise, the column was pretty decent. I don't see anything outrageously objectionable. Perhaps the "The Stickman Team" can help contribute to a more creative title next week.

Here is a post that I think you may find interesting. This was pulled from the MangoSauce where Sti

ckman does his dirty work. He won't talk about me in his own column. He secretly posts under the name "Concerned for All".

Is Stickman trying to Blackmail me? He made a point to say that this is posted from someone else in my home town, but there are so few farangs here, that I know everybody. And Stickman made some mistakes in his posting that are laughable.

What are blackmailing me for? You're threatening to publish more photos? Of what?!?

I know this is Stickman was in my home town about 5? weeks ago. This was discussed in his last weekly column.

KS1, is a picture of my motorcycle at my shop. This is what you see from the street.

KS2, is a picture of my first floor balcony. This the where I write the "NotStickman" material each week.

KS3, is a picture of one of the local discos. I do go here on occasion. This is where my two cute lesbian girlfriends hang out.

KS4, Stick, just turned around from KS3 and walked into a restaurant and ate dinner and snapped a picture of a restaurant that is right next to the disco. I had actually been eating here quit often during this time and I would not be surprised if Stickman actually didn't see me on this evening. (many farangs come to this restaurant).

This is the photo that trips him up. This is the photo that tells me a local has nothing to do with these photos at all.

First of all, there are so few farangs in this town, that I literally don't "break bread" with any of them. I do stop and talk with them sometimes, but I don't eat with them. This is true, and of course if someone from this town had written this posting, they would have known - but Stickman didn't know this.

The real big mistake are this pictures themselves and in particular one picture that I show you here. You can click on it for a closer look.

Notice the great color and very deep depth of field. Almost everything from about 12 inches to 40 meters away is in focus. Only a very expensive camera with a very sensitive CCD array could have taken this picture (at night even). In this town, I am the only one with a camera like this. The farangs here (most of them) can't afford a camera this expensive. I buy an expensive camera because my work requires it (otherwise I wouldn't own it either). The local farangs (all but one) are living very cheaply. So, with a photo like this, I'm inclined to believe Stickman was here. I am told that he own a very expensive Nikon camera system. And his photo gallery is full of very high quality images just like this one.

The next issue that is a problem for Stickman is that things change very quickly here. His photos become aged by the day. I took this picture today, April 12th. This is the same restaurant about 4 or 5 weeks after he took the picture above. See, the owner of this business went on vacation a month ago, she is just now returning. So, a local would have known this too. Sorry, its pretty tough to publish buffalo shit and not be able to figure it out.

By the way, the owner knows me very well, and if you want to dig up any dirt on me, just go ask her. She met me on the very first day that I set foot in this town. Better be careful though, she is no push over and if she suspects that you're sniffing around for trouble, she'll probably alert me to your visit.

Stickman has also threatened to post some really good pictures of me -- Wow, am I getting another 15 minutes of fame? What a joke!

I'm really surprised you came all this way to my town. That was a long distance. Evidently you are really needing something to help quash my publishing efforts.

If I were doing bad things in the town, then I would be afraid of what you might be able to take a pictures of -- but see, I'm not a nefarious individual (sorry to disappoint you hate mongers).

I have a tip for you Stick -- when I go for swim on my roof top, I'm normally swim naked, that is about a racy as it gets.

Go ahead and publish more photos. This will only draw more interested parties into our discussion. I like open discussion. It's all good for me.

The smoke screen "The Stickman Team" tries to maintain over me is clearing......and more people by the day are doubting your word.....

I think Dave is about to have an emotional break down. The post above (Stickman Blackmailing post) is in this MangoSquash article.

If read down this article, you'll see that other readers are beginning to take a stand against Dave and Stickman (Paul Owen) for their questionable publications.

Dave thinks that I had been over that making posts under false names -- when in fact I haven't posted at that site for about 6 weeks or so now... I don't post over there, and I wont' post over there ever again. Dave censors and rigs most conversations anyhow. So, I speak here in my own articles. Dave censored me a couple of months back so that's when I decided to not contribute on MangoSquash.

Dave, I know this is hard for you to believe but others are joining my cause to help "encourage" the best use of the internet by protesting this garbage and hate postings that you allow in your site. (novel idea isn't it?).

I don't post mail all the time (I do answer it). This one that I though you might appreciate.

Hi I have been reading your column for some time and I must say well done. call me thick if you like but I did swallow a lot of stickman's BS whole as I suspect did a lot of his readers as it seemed even people like me who have visited the kingdom a number of times. my biggest concern now is there is none to offer a comparable service and replace the misconceptions he has left us with . while I know running a business will take up most if not all your time you do seem to be the obvious choice. Is it possible you may at some time in the future accept and publish readers comments as stickman did but giving real honest advise/opinions

Here was my response: You pose a good question. I don't think I have the time to expand what I do at this point. Guys like Stickman have a team that pull together he weekly and make it look like one "superman" did all the work.

Keep in mind that not everything that Stick writes about is BS, most of it is pretty good material this is why he is able to twist just a few things to milk out the cash from the readers.

Let add to this answer -- I think forums are an excellent alternative to "one's man opinion" sites. However, some forums are highly biased to towards the direction of commentators. PattayaAddicts has some kind of deal with DaveTheRaveBangkok. PattayaSecrets is pretty damn tight with Stickman. There are few others. I personally find that TheTeakDoor is most neutral at this point (but I don't always get a warm welcome there either but I don't let it bother me.) I like fairness -- and of these three, the TeakDoor.com is probably the best moderated board. There is no obvious BS being sold or pushed from that site. It's more centered to the best wishes of it's readership. There are others that I don't visit that may be equally decent.

Hi John,

Have you seen the article in Bangkok Post Database today, page D7 "Between the Lines" where Dave (MangoSauce) is crying about his lack of Ad Sense income again, that's all fine and dandy but there's no reason that he would want to remain anonymous in this article if he wasn't up to no good so I fully support your attempts to out-him and even hopefully get a picture of him posted on your site.

I wouldn't be surprised to find that Dave, Marc Holt, Paul Owen et. all were behind the suspicious photo-trip and break-in to your premises recently.

Just as an aside, I have been living and working legally in Thailand for 18 years and I remember that Marc Holt was a small time contributor to the Bangkok Post Database section many many years ago whilst at the same time he had a shop house in Sukhumvit Road selling fake (pirated) games and PC software, not really of much interest I know but it does show that he falls in well with these other nefarious characters that are living and working here on dodgy terms.

I wonder if this is this true? Did Marc really previously sell dodgy software? How does one segue from selling copied software into the real estate business? I am told that Marc Holt will be a guest speaker on Sunday April 15th at the Pattaya Expats Club. I am told he is being billed at part of "The Stickman Bangkok team". Is he going to be talking about his exploits in the software business OR his current endeavors in real estate? I guess he'll say something about the Stickman Empire.

If anyone is at this meeting and hears him speak, I would appreciate it if you drop me a line and let me know what he talked about. Thanks.

John Galt I don't know much about you but what I have seen on your site is pathetic. Why do you continue to try and bring misery to others. Don't you have your own life or is it that bad that you have to ruin other peoples. I would say you are a complete and utter parasite and that I hate people like you. I have enjoyed Stickman's site for about three years now and who cares if he makes a profit from the site. What does it have to do with you. It looks and sounds like total jealousy as to what stickman has achieved and aspired to. A great deal more than you ever will. The stickman site has
brought enjoyment and help to many people so why should the creator not enjoy the profits. I've got one thing to say to you GET A FUCKING LIFE!

To this reader I say...... Why don't you let Stickman do a private investigation job for you? He can check to see if your Bangkok girlfriend has HIV with one of those test kits that he pushes from his site. While you're at it --- hum.... He can have one of his friends Marc Holt sell you a condo. You can trust them. They would never screw you, because you're a faithful Stickman Reader.

Number are still on the low side. No doubt about it. I don't provide as much raw information here as The Stickman Bangkok Team does on their weekly. So, I fully understand my lower readership numbers. I do appreciate people stopping by for a quick visit. Never know when we might break open a big story on a possible shady activity, so it's always best to come over for a quick "look see".

Completely up-rooting yourself is a large effort. Not everyone is cut out to completely change their lives and relocate to Thailand. One has to be very careful to do it for all the right reasons. Being happy is a very good reason and certainly one of those fundamental issues to consider. But, the tough part is keeping yourself objective. You don't want to just sell off everything, load up and come over here without thinking everything through.

I feel that I have been successful. I feel very solid here and happy with my community and my company. I have a future. Even if I get kicked out of the kingdom for any reason, I can continue to run my company from a distance and keep control of it's sales and income. I feel that my risk is fairly low.

Here, I have the female company that I prefer -- not every night -- but the opportunity is here and door can open at anytime and just that knowledge itself is a comfort and a stability. I can devote my efforts to this column and my company and still know that on any given day I can go out to the local clubs and get the VIP treatment.

I can exercise when I want to. I can sleep when I need to. I have more freedoms here then in my home country. So, for me, this has so far been a winning experience.

You too can find a winning experience in other countries outside of your own but, you'll need to do a lot of research. You'll need to experience the culture of the target country. I also really think you need to be physically healthy and strong and mentally unwavering in your decision to succeed.

It can be done. I'm one of many who have done it (and I'm not quite there yet, but I'm pretty close to being well on my way). And some of use have done this on a smaller scale, then so can you.

But, question everything you read. Investigate things for yourself. Come over for a visit and get a feel for the culture (if you're interested in Thailand). Don't dump a lot of money into anything quickly. Make friends. Network your knowledge with others. Breath a little bit. Enjoy the sunsets -- and the company of a few special friends if that presents itself. And if you make the move and find yourself here -- I may bump into you on occasion in Pattaya at the local bear bars or go-go's. I'm easy to spot, I'm the one with "finger up", ordering an Orange Juice.