village life/city life?

by **trekkertony** » December 24, 2011, 7:39 am

Hi all,
I am assessing my options regarding village life as compared to city life and was interested to know whether many expats initially moved to village life but found the lifestyle change too dramatic and subsequently moved to udon or enjoyed the tranquillity of village life and only moved into the city for health or relationship changes.

by **WhoUrDaddy** » December 24, 2011, 9:25 am

Unquestionably village life for my family. Lived in Udon city before it was a congested slum, and simply a slum. The noise and lack of privacy was too much even 20 years ago. Nong Khai was a bit better, but we were not happy until moving out of Nong Khai. Now actually outside of local village, and not actually in the village, small at that, but again, noise and privacy is always an issue with us. Very happy with our decisions and living a comfortable life. Occasionally get to Udon, during the week, and leave before work and schools let out. Enjoy people watching, though just occasionally. Wife enjoys sitting at Vietnamese restaurant on Nong Khai River promenade, I don’t care for the food, but like the view. Enjoy our Udon visits, lunch or dinner at Book House and Coffee simply can’t be beat. The new Centara Buffet (lunch) is a marked improvement, though a step up in price, but better selection, with the exception of poor beef through out the kingdom. Other items excel.

If you enjoy pollution, congestion, noise, no privacy, then city life is here for you. If you came to the kingdom for a relaxed retirement, easy to acquire, just not near the indigenes residents.

by **parrot** » December 24, 2011, 9:40 am

There's no one-size-fits-all when it comes to living in the city or the country. I know people who live in the city (within the ring road) and have beautiful homes in quiet and clean neighborhoods, with little traffic in the area. And I know people who live within feet of a busy technical school road where I'd go batty from the noise. Likewise, the same problems in the countryside....the rogue karaoke bar or neighbor who decides to raise few pigs or open a motorcycle shop.
For my wife and me, we wouldn't change living in the countryside....13 years......but we're fortunate to have good (far away) neighbors, good water, telephone lines, stable electricity, and yet live close enough to town to make trips easy enough.
Living in the city/countryside isn't for everyone!

by **grievous** » December 24, 2011, 10:10 am

We tried living in Nongbualamphu and found it a little bit quiet for us and now we have purchased in Udon city.
Living in Nongbua you have time on your hands with little to do with it apart from take in the views of the mountain ranges. Visiting the same couple of markets (no tesco) and cafe's can become a little mundane.
My wife and I missed not having super markets, cinema's, having a pub to visit to watch the footy and especially having a bi-lingual school for our children.
Don't get me wrong I really enjoyed parts of country living however it became a little boring after a while.
I have a good friend in Si Chompoo who has a lovely country house that suits him as he likes growing fish, fruit, vegies.
I suppose you should look at what you enjoyed doing in Aus and try and incorporate that in to your thai life.

by **BobHelm** » December 24, 2011, 10:51 am

I think that the more import first question for anyone coming to Thailand to retire is to decide what they actually want to do in retirement.
In my opinion, going from having the large majority of your waking life organised by 'Work' to having all your waking time 'available' is a huge change in most people's life.
It is vital that you decide how you would like to fill that time.
For some it is sports (especially golf), for some it is to further your education (either by learning a new language, or just about anything via the Internet), for some it is a new 'mini career' (like building something... a building, a wall, a pond, anything) & some just 'do nothing'.
What you decide to do very much depends on your character & what you have already done in life. It is also necessary to consider that while having a great deal of free time on your hands might appeal greatly in the short term after years of being at others beck & call, it might pale after a while. It is better not to burn all bridges immediately on retirement, as you might be wanting to re-cross some of them after six months or so. It is equally important that you give it a real go though & don't think that the location is the issue when it is actually really other things.

Having decided what you are going to spend a great deal of your new found freedom actually doing, then the 'in which location' probably takes care of itself.
As others have indicated, having decided where is for you it is really important that you spend a fair amount of time 'testing the water' before jumping in to discover that, for example, sleep after 6 am in the morning is impossible, or before 2am in the morning - because of neighbourhood factors that are not immediately apparent.

I think, with the right attitude & outlook, either living experience can be either a pleasant, or unpleasant one. That depends far more on the person (& couple

) than the actual environment & can, certainly, can change as retirement progresses..

by **Peterplay** » December 24, 2011, 11:15 am

A lot of good advice in the posts above. One thing I would stress is to consider how much unpleasant input you can take from your environment, especially noise, choose you place accordingly.
A village nowadays is certainly not a guarantee for a quiet live, the karaoke and big loudspeakers have proliferated and the owners very often don’t care a **** what others think about the noise they produce.
There is hardly anything you can do about it.

by **old-timer** » December 24, 2011, 1:49 pm

Easy answer is get two places. OT's house is inside the ring road and if I hop on the Honda Wave anytime I can be at the complex in ten minutes. UD town is only a 10 minute car drive in the evening and that puts you in a nice position to do what you like, whenever you like, both day and night.
However, after many years of thinking that country life was farmers and the mentally impaired farangs, I have realised that if I built a place far from any neighbours and within a lets say one hour drive of Udon it could be quite tranquil in my retirement. A risk assessment on the likelihood of flooding would a good idea before buying a place in the country. I'm quite sure boredom will set in within half an hour of moving into a place in the country unless you busy yourself with something. OT's going to take up cookery and motocross.

OT.................. $\:D/$

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