Nai Harn Scorecard May 7th 2001

Three weeks can go rather quickly when you are enjoying yourself.

During my stay at Nai Harn Beach I didn’t;

Miss one day swimming or body surfing at the beach

Eat any European food

Feel any need to leave this rather sleepy Thai village

The guys at the bar in Patong bet me 100 baht that I’d get bored and wouldn’t last a week in Nai Harn. I had to go back there before I left Thailand to pick up some shirts from a Burmese tailor and I collected the money from them.

As a potential home I would have to rate Nai Harn as follows;

Environment (the beach, the lake, the jungle the mountains)                  8

Food (spicy, healthy, low fat, varied, extremely delicious and cheap)      9

Social (friendliness, helpfulness, welcoming, social opportunities)           8

Security (trustworthy, physical safety)                                                 7.5

Weather                                                                                              8

Accommodation (quality, comfort, cost)                                               8

Value for Money (living costs, entertainment)                                      7.5

Visa (availability and cost)                                                                     8

Total                                                                                               64/80    82%

A pretty good scorecard!

I really did enjoy my stay here, leaving was not easy. I had made some good friends. I was always in a good frame of mind here, the attitude of the Thai people is infectious. There were always things to do or other places I could go if I felt like it. The scuba diving is amazing and cheap.  Phuket is an hour from Singapore or Kuala Lumpur, and Air Asia has good inexpensive flights everywhere from here. With an exchange rate of 31 baht to the Aussie Dollar you can live quite well on a limited budget. The language is a difficult one, tonal in the way of other Asian tongues. The word “mai” means  ‘no ‘ in its most popular usage, but there are 5 other meanings if you use different tones, and reading Thai is almost impossible without making a study of it. But, fortunately, many Thai’s speak English, everyone wants to learn it, so if you can master the basic greetings and requests, and return the respect you are shown, it is relatively easy to get by.

Visa’s are not available for working except for Teachers (mainly English), Diving Instructors, or Real Estate Salespeople (time share mainly, but it seems the government’s tolerance of some dodgy practices in this industry has run out. There are signs warning tourists of unscrupulous operators). Many of these people do a “visa run” over the Burma or Malaysian border once a month to get a renewal. Otherwise, if you are a business owner you can get a 12 month visa, or if you are over 50 you can get a retirement visa for 12 months.

There’s plenty else to say, but I’ll leave that for another time.

I am actually wondering if I’ve found my perfect abode here, in Nai Harn, Phuket, Thailand, first up.

But, I must be off to the airport and the long flight to London and the next home on my journey!