I think James has hit a sore spot with many readers here. These whiners and crybabies can’t or won’t save any of their (meager) salary and expect to be taken care of as if they were in their home country (usually a welfare state that is now on the verge of bankruptcy).James is right though; foreigners in Thailand have to learn to plan and take care of themselves. Just one thing said here that I don’t agree with: do readers here really think Thais ‘are taken care of’ by their social welfare system? Maybe the civil servants, but definitely not the millions of factory workers and farmers (and don’t even get me started about the exploitation of foreign laborers such as the Burmese). These poor devils have the worst of both worlds and can’t even complain about it. Foreigners in Thailand should save for a rainy day - or a flood in this case.

Hippolyte