The adhoc plan today was to ride out to Jomtien Beach and meet a cyclist friend for beers.  This is the same guy I bumped into at the tail end of my own journey coming back from the electricity office last Friday.  We were supposed to discuss routes to Cambodia and share information but the conversation kind of drifted away from that.  He leased a place out in Pattaya for a year and immediately made me realize *this* was the way to do it.  Much better than buying.  

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More happened on the ride back.   Just out of curiosity I swung my bike into the compound where my Italian friend lived and dropped in to find the bar that Pamela ran.  She wasn't there, but another bargirl said "I haven't seen you in a few days".  I said, "Madam it's been almost a  week" and the 78  year old retired guy John started laughing at that.  We got talking and he basically shared his life story.  That story was fascinating to me at least but the bargirls started getting really bored and looking at their phones and watching that goddamn TikTok.  Side fact:  most of these bargirls are over 50 years old and that fits in with the overall picture of Pattaya and what my colleague observed the other day.

Anyways, he told me that he served in the army and learned Thai.  The mission he was on coincided with what I mentioned in the last entry:  to help the Thais contain the threat of communism.  Specifically, they were worried about the North Vietnamese army at the time.  He didn't physically come to Thailand until much later until he discovered Pattaya and retired here.  He explained that his mother died when she was 103 years old just recently, and she never went to a nursing home.  She stayed in her own house, kept active, did her own cleaning and cooking, and only had minor help come over every month.  When it was time to die, she said it was, and had no regrets about it.

This all got me thinking that death adds value to life, in the sense that when we accept it will happen we then resolve to live longer by cutting out self-destructive behaviors and engaging in life enhancing habits.   

As if on cue, he told me that he keeps active every day by playing golf in the morning and bridge in the afternoon.  He explained that, "You have to give your brain and body something to do."  He was 100% correct.  Mix in a little bit of sitting at the bar and talking to girls and we're on point.  The human brain and body need multiple forms of stimulation and if there is only one thing you do all day this gets boring fast.

I then told my story and in particular the bike rides I was doing around Pattaya and trying to apply for these schools.  He said, "My advice is don't do this.  The pay is very little.  With someone like you who has your exceptional skills and talent, you should be spending the next 10-15 years somewhere else making sick cash and building your retirement nest egg."

I said, "Really, only that long?  I thought I need to work another 20 years before retiring."

He said, "BULLSHIT!!  You can even do it in 5 years with your skillset.  Aim for something like 7-8 years with 15 years as the absolute max.  You only need a million baht (around $30k) a year to retire comfortably in Pattaya and that is with supporting a wife or partner as I do and still play golf every morning"   

Side note:  Thai retirement visa has the requirement to prove you have a million baht in a Thai bank account every year so this all matches nicely.  If you account for inflation and future policies, this amount will no doubt increase.  Even so, make a conservative estimate of needing a $50k float per year in the bank, it can easily be done with my calculations. 

But John was entirely correct in that you need good solid financial management, budgeting skills, and strong self-discipline to stick to some sort of a routine.  The default option is what the vast majority of long-term tourists do in Pattaya.  They don't really have a plan.   They just sort of float in here, spend a bunch of money, and get too comfortable.  It's only when they're forced to leave that they realize they have no idea what's coming next.  They only know that it's going to suck big time.  The bottom line is that Pattaya can be very affordable if you have the disclipine to make it so, otherwise you're just screwed.

John went on to say, "I get why you're attracted to Pattaya, it's obvious and you have a condo here blah blah blah, but I'm sure you know how many people like the lifestyle.  Just look around.  And then many want to stay longer so they apply for these jobs.  Those schools won't even look at your resume.  You're competing with literally thousands of applicants and it doesn't really matter if you teach math or science."

This really sucked to hear but I had to admit he was right and he was refocusing my thinking.

He went on to say, "Most people come to Pattaya, they might stay here for awhile, do this thing or that, apply for jobs, whatever.  But none of them think about what happens afterwards.  Isn't that right?  You're smarter than all these morons here.  What you want to do is build your nest egg and make that sick cash somewhere else and THEN you retire here in Pattaya in the future."

As he said this, it suddenly dawned on me that he was my father's age and it was as if my Dad had come back to life as version 2.0.  This time, however, the advice came with encouragement that I could actually pull this off.  My Dad would tell me very similar advice over the years, but what lacked was two simple words:   then what.  You could follow the advice to save for retirement all you want, but what would you actually *do* when you retire and why do this?   More importantly, could you actually enjoy retirment?  John could answer this all in one word:  Pattaya.  Unlike my Dad, he was actually living the advice that he said.  For as great as my Dad was, he worked too hard and couldn't relax.  There was no longer any doubt as to what my life plan entailed.  John was giving me both the advice and the confidence to actually do this.

I realized at that moment that if I didn't do what he said, I would be squandering massive opportunities and the meeting would not have happened. 

So I then tried to explain the whole China thing and he said, "No no no, I would be getting out of China if I were you.  Like sooner rather than later.  China is dying.  The economy is in the dumps, and the demographics are even worse than Japan with nobody having children etc..  Again for someone as smart as you, it baffles me why you don't know all this and it makes no sense why you're still there.  What are you suffering for anyway?"

I was gobsmacked to hear this.  Well if not China and not here for relocation, where should I be going next?  He had a lot of advice to say about that matter, and I will act on it.  We'll leave that for a future blog.

I then played a couple rounds of pool with the bargirls and bounced.  On the way out there was a sign saying, "See the world, find yourself."

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During the Shanghai lockdown, while a prisoner in my compound there was a school with a sign saying, "See the world, be yourself."  This was all starting to get a little too scary.