Thailand continue's to be a learning experience for both Rita and I, the Thai driving habit's never cease to amaze us. They appear to be very careless, not looking before turning onto the main road. Moving out into traffic as if there were no other vehicles on the road, changing lanes on a whim, or no staying between the lines painted on the road. It all makes for some very harrowing moments. Then there is the overloading of trucks, motorbikes, puchcarts, or whatever they can use to move people and things around in. They tend to ignore stops lights and signs as if they were not even in existence. Even a policeman on traffic duty runs the risk of being ignored or run down. There was a picture in the newspaper a few weeks ago which gave a light hearted view and we found quite humorous. Although not the best in quality reproduction I thought it was worth putting on our blog.



Someone had obviously overlaid this scene. The three girl's on their motorbike is a very common site here, what brought it to mind today was while out and about with Rita this morning she saw a mother and four boy's on a motorbike. Yes that is five people all together on one bike, I guess they left the pet dog at home today.
Which reminds me of another occasion, while driving to Phuket from Chiang Mai I came across a motorcyclist driving along the road who had his pet monkey siting behind him on the seat. A big monkey, just sitting there as natural as can be, enjoying the ride. Some of the things we have seen are beyond belief, you just have to see them for yourself to believe them.

We had also come to realize that even though Thai driver's think they can do whatever they feel like doing on the road, they get quite upset if a 'forang' (Westerner) starts to play them at there own game. That's when they start sounding there horn. But I believe that when in Rome do as the Roman's do, which ends up being quite funny.

From all that we have seen around Thailand, a lot of which we have found not to be that impressive. We have come to the conclusion that we much prefer the coastal area. Rita for sure is a beach baby, I'm not sure if I've ever seen her has happy as when she is on a beach or playing in the ocean. I think that we have decided that wherever we eventually end up it has to have a beach and sea. Add to that a warm climate and we will be in our element. Going back to last year, we loved Sri Lanka and both could see us living there. But we do realize that when there we saw it as tourist's and would need to return and view it from a different prospective. 

There are several other places in Asia that we have yet to explore, also the Southeastern and Southwestern US and possibly parts of Central and South America all have the potential of providing us with a desirable place to live. The fun part is the journey and the freedom of mind to choose.

Closely watching the declining real estate market in the US and reading the reports of an expected 10% drop in property values over the next 18 month's I see a tremendous opportunity for investor's like myself to help people who have overextended themselves on their mortgages, so a trip to the US is not out of the question in the forseeable future. Which in turn would give me the opportunity to show Rita my old stomping grounds and a chance to look at some of the wonderful locations over there.

But for now the Island of Phuket, the beaches Kata, Karon, and Patong. The surounding Islands and the Andaman Sea are where we choose to hang our hats and call home.