Part One: Long Term Residency; Part Two: A Day In The Life

 PART ONE

This whole thing dropped into our slightly irritated laps a little over three months ago in Chiang Mai. It was time to do something about being able to stay in Thailand beyond the limit of our initial 60 day tourist visa and the 30 day extension of that that one can get pretty much automatically, and I was griping about probably having to leave the country after the 90 days to do a “visa run” to Laos to get another 30 or 60 day visa for The Kingdom. I didn't want to do it, and was saying that I wouldn't, and that if we had to leave the country we might just as well go back to India and start heading back West toward the USA. Earlier than I would have thought, but less hassle and less expense, it seemed to me. I was wanting to be able stay long term and at the same time I was talking about undermining this ambition prematurely. At more or less precisely this moment we received into our lives, serendipitously (HA!), the lovely and capable Ms. Wenika Thumkoom, Aimmy, who's work it is to assist farangs – foreigners – and others with Thai visa requirements.

Saphli (closer) And Thung Wua Laen Beaches From The Raptor Mountain View Point

No, we wouldn't have to leave Thailand at all. She could help us, in stages, to obtain first the Non-Immigrant Visa we would need to be able to remain a second 90 days, and then, within 45 days of the expiration of this new visa, she would help us obtain a one year Retirement Extension of this visa. Huh? We hadn't planned on this at all. Didn't even know about it; in anything other than the most vague of terms by way of discussions on the RetireCheap.Asia forum.

Well, to make this long story a bit short, last Monday, the 21^st of March, Nancy and I spent several hours at the little Immigration Office in Chumphon (Aimmy could have helped us with this in Chiang Mai, but we were able to do it ourselves in Chumphon) and left with our one year Retirement Extensions, which allow us to remain in Thailand until April 24, 2017.

This may not sound like a big deal, but it is. We are now long term residents, presumed to be now living in Thailand for the purposes of retirement. We also obtained multiple re-entry permits which allow us to leave and re-enter Thailand numerous times (one long timer says the actual number is four) within this next year without having to bother with additional visas. This is what most expats to Thailand work to achieve. From this vantage point it is only a matter of renewing this one year extension annually, and presumably indefinitely. One can now live perfectly legally in Thailand for the rest of one's life, should one wish to do so.

Jao Meah Kwin Im (Quan Yin), TWL Wat

We aren't calling ourselves expats – although this trip has brought me to the point, not previously a possibility, of being willing and able to say that I could be - because it isn't our current intention to live in Thailand, or to live abroad (India and Thailand?), permanently. It is our current intention to return to Thailand later in the year however, and we are now in a legal position to do so. Was it worth it? The time, the bureaucracy, the cost? Why not? Otherwise we'd have to deal with new visas whenever we might want to return, and pay for these anyway, and then have to be concerned, again, with renewing them after a short period of time. It dropped in our laps,and we accepted the gift.

Now there is the larger significance of this new state of grace. We have a new, or second home if we want it. We know we can live comfortably, simply, modestly and well on the limited amount of retirement fixed income we have. We know we can have access to high quality and affordable medical care if and when we will need it. We have a friend or three here now. We have discovered two beautiful locations in which we would be happy to spend extended periods. We would have no need to own a car, unless we really wanted to for some unknown reason. If we rented a place with a kitchen and cooked at least some of our food we could eat more healthfully than we do now, what with eating every meal out for the past six months.

                                                      

A New Look: Nancy Says She Likes My Mouth, Which She Hasn't Seen In About 20 Years

In other words, we have viable options for how and where we might like to live without needing to earn money. I'm thinking, contrary to when we left the US, that I am indeed retired. I have no current desire to return to the practice of psychotherapy, or to have to work at anything else. Might this change? I suppose it could, but why would it? Out of boredom? From a desire to help people? In order to be engaged in meaningful activity? Please see my last post.

In less than three weeks I'll be 69 years old. I will have completed nearly seven decades on this planet, and entered into the 70^th year of this life time. That seems significant. I don't feel the need to accomplish anything. I have in fact accomplished pretty much everything I've set out to accomplish in my life. I'm a “success” by my own standards. I have a loving wife and life partner, whom I love as well, and we actually get along pretty well, as clearly evidenced by our last six months in close quarters together. I have two inspiring children who are well on their ways in their own blessed lives. I care about people and people care about me. I love and I am loved. I am relatively healthy and vital, with only certain organic concerns to keep an eye on. (Well, I assume I am. An annual physical when we're in the States will provide a more comprehensive picture). I suppose I'll be a grandfather in the coming years. Am I missing anything?

It seems to me that the possibility of being able to live well – you have to think in modest terms here to understand what I mean by “well”; our needs are pretty simple, unlike many others'; our strategy might not work for other people on our level of finance who have more conventional needs - on the money one has; of being able to “get more life for less money” as the tag line of RetireCheap would have it; of not having to be concerned with making ends meet or earning extra money or more money for an indefinite period of time – like the rest of one's life, for example – is a nice place to be in. And to be able to do this on a small amount of money, or of fixed monthly income like what Nancy and I have, is a blessing indeed. When we sell our house and land and pay off some significant debt, which is the current plan, we will be in the perhaps enviable and certainly priviledged position of even having money to invest, should we wish to do so, so as to provide us with a home base in the States say, and/or additional income to save, say. Hell, by the time we die we might actually have something left to leave our kids. They might like that.

PART TWO

Yesterday, after six weeks of steady, daily work, Nancy finished her Flower Essence Case Study "Dissertation", about 150 pages of assessment, analysis, discussion, summary and clinical justification relating to three clients with whom she'd worked over a period of up to three years. I'd just like to say that I am so immensely proud of her, and duly impressed with her focus, her effort, her dedication and her talent. This is a huge achievement, and it sets the stage for her oral exam and, ultimately, for her recognition by Flower Essence Society as a Certified Practitioner in their methods of deep healing work using her counseling and flower essence consultation skills. Whooooowee!!!!

So what have our days looked like, for those of you who might wonder, or be interested in the day to day form of our current lives? "What do you do all day?"

We've been waking up somewhere between 7 and 8:30 AM lately. We stretch, move more or less slowly into the day, have our toilet, drink some water, and, separately, take the five minute walk down the paved country road to the beach. I've taken to walking through the Wat grounds which is on the way and just off the beach so as to pay my respects to the big Black Buddha and to Jao Meah Kwin Im, and to be able to enter the beach at a spot that I've come to prefer, and from which I start my long meditative walk down and back up the length of the coast. This takes about an hour and a half from door to door. Nancy is doing her version of the same. This walk is a highlight of my day. I love starting out this way, communing with the ocean and the Earth beneath my bare feet, maybe going in for a cooling off dip if it's hot, maybe not. Most days I'm singing the Hare Krishna Maha Mantra as I go, lowering my voice if I approach other people so as to not draw attention or confuse. At the time of day we walk - for Nancy more so than for me since she goes a bit earlier -  there are almost always very few to literally no people on the beach. It's a version of the mythical deserted tropical "island", at least for a while, and even when it's "crowded", like on the weekends when Thai people, like people everywhere, go to the beach, it's very tame compared to any beach I've ever walked on.

This is actually TWL beach

We return to our roomy room at the Albatross, Nancy maybe procuring a coconut to drink at our favorite little corner restaurant on her way back (it's confusing to us how difficult it has been to regularly obtain coconuts here at TWL; we had assumed that this being a tropical paradise of sorts they'd be readily available, but alas, they are not) where we turn on the aircon for a while cuz it's the hot, dry season here and by nine or ten it's already pretty toasty outside most days (high's these days of about 35C), unless it's overcast and cooler, or unless it rains, as it did a couple of days ago (yes, I know, I said it was the dry season; thank global climate change for the demise of all "normal" weather patterns). 

For the past six weeks, until yesterday, Nancy would set about to work on her dissertation, and I  might read a novel or listen to/watch, lately, my new "favorite" musician, Willie Nelson on Youtube. Having recently listened to Willie's audio book autobiography, I've become a fan of a man I've never listened to before, so I'm catching up. Sometime between noon and 2, typically, we'll decide to head down to the beach road for something to eat, many days going to our new friend Dtu's for his home made brown or white bread and green tea, sometimes eggs or French toast, or if it's a very special day - we can declare these as and when we see fit - his home made pasta and sauce.

The lovely Dtu in front of his simple kitchen

Quite often, if we go to Dtu's we'll meet up with our other friend Sidney. We've become good friends over the past six weeks. Sidney is another New York Jew, having grown up in the city and then on Long Island, while I grew up in the other direction, in Yonkers. He and I have discovered that we actually have a lot in common, including having attended the same undergraduate university, the State University of NY At Buffalo, he a couple of years after me; and both of us having a background in Philosophy and sharing a love of logic, Sidney having earned his PhD in Mathematical Logic, and having taught mathematics here there and everywhere for 40 years, including in Bangkok for many years.

Sidney is a lovable rationalist curmudgeon with a secret longing for a more genuine mystical experience and a more or less active interest in Buddhism, and we often argue about the differences between the knowledge that can be attained through the analytical capacities of reason and that which cannot, but which can be grasped all at once through intuition; about dualism vs. non-dualism; about flaws in logical arguments or the ultimately meaningless circularity of academia (his world) vs. real life. He's a pretty good sport and puts up with my wrathful attacks with something approaching a reasonable grace. He's been some 12 years in Thailand (quite possibly too long in his case), the last three of these in TWL, and has been throughout most of SE Asia, as well as Nepal and Tibet. Sidney is now my private Thai language tutor and I've begun formal lessons with him, which are quite fun, and which fulfill a desire I've had for some months to study Thai in a "classroom" situation, and which gives Sidney an opportunity to engage his teacherly self in a good cause.

Dr. Sidney himself

On some regular basis, perhaps 2 or 3 times a week, he and I will ride together on my motorbike to Saphli, the nearest "town" or "village" a few kilometers away, to go to the 7/11 there (yes, 7/11's are ubiquitous in Thailand, and a source for many routine items and services, as well as owning and/or controlling a significant portion of the Thai economy, we're told), or to the Sunday Market for fruit or for an odd kitchen item he needs, or for sum thaam, the spicy Thai green papaya "salad" I quite enjoy. Sidney is a cyclist, but these last many months he has been either seriously ill with some mysterious infection or recovering from it, and his energy has been and remains compromised, so he appreciates riding on the motorbike rather than pedaling his way to and from Saphli.

On some days Nancy and I will ride to "the magic coffee shop", so named by Sidney and our other new Canadian friend Gail, who we met last November and who is now back in Canada. This is a lovely place to sit for some hours and watch cattle graze in the large pasture adjacent, to read or write, or................to have the unanimously agreed upon most divine Thai foot massage on the planet. The young woman who provides this experience is, indeed, a divine being, and her work is a true gift and holy blessing to anyone fortunate enough to receive it. Oh, and just by the way..............this is also the place to indulge in some of the most heavenly - I didn't say "healthy" - on site made cakes in Thailand, baked by one or two head scarfed Muslim women who own and run the place, and which is really a hangout for local Thai yuppies and young families.

At some point in the later part of the day or evening it'll be time for dinner, and then the decision about where we will have this meal needs to be made. It could be at Oy's place, the aforementioned little corner restaurant, or at White Beach, also close by but more aggressively touristy and pricey, or our newest find, the Curry Shack/Crooked Palm, where one can get a version of an Indian spinach potato curry which I like well enough for a change, but which leaves Nancy cold, and a piece of (frozen, not fresh) apple pie.

There might be, on some days, an evening walk on the beach together, or just an early retirement to the Albatross for a movie - Netflix is now available in Thailand! - or a read or a listen or a phone or skype call with Aaron or Terra or my mom or friends in the States, and, of course, Nancy will use this time, if she hasn't done so earlier in the day, for her practice.

Most of our interactions with Thai people here are business oriented. Aside from Dtu, with whom we can have some personal conversation as well as buy his food, our relationships with Thai's are about our spending money, of course. I like to say that, aside from behaving respectfully and enjoying our status as guests in Thailand, our only other obligation is to keep spending. It is understood that, legally, we are forbidden from earning any money here under our current visa status (people do ignore this legality, but at their own risk, which may be virtually none, or small or large) so that the reason we are allowed to be "retired" here is because we can spend without having to earn. We feed the Thai economy without depriving any Thai of gainful employment. Fair enough. And because we don't speak Thai, naturally our ability to penetrate more deeply or meaningfully into Thai culture, or to readily develop relationships with Thai people, is severely limited. Time will tell.

We don't have a night life, although we could at TWL if we wanted to, what with a number of bars available, sometimes with live music. Well, we don't have much of a night life in New Mexico either. Apparently we're not night life people. Duh. So that's what a day in the life might look like these days, with of course variations as they arise. For example we've been invited to go snorkeling in a few days with our local friends Jane and John who own a diving company and will be heading out to sea with a few people for a day's outing. 1200 baht (+/- $35) each, all inclusive. We're assured that this is a wonderful experience, and one not to be missed. Looks like we'll go.