inthepink

I've lived in Thailand for a little over seven years and owing to circumstances beyond my control, ended up moving to CM a few months ago. I am honestly at a complete loss as to why anyone would choose to live here though. The town is too large to be quaint and too small to be convenient. Taxi and tuk tuk prices are ridiculous when compared to Bangkok and the nightlife is dismal. There are no decent bookshops selling English language books (not that I have found yet anyway) and when buying Western food products such as Marmite, I've noticed that they too are more expensive here than in Bangkok.

I'm not given to moaning about life in Thailand, quite the opposite really. I just do not understand the appeal of this place. It seems like a reasonable place to be put out to pasture when you are waiting to die (and judging by the age of a lot of the Westerners I see in shopping malls, this is what many people are doing here) but I can't find anything to exicte me. A lot of people hate Bangkok and I can understand why but I honestly never got bored of the place after living there for over six years whereas the first time I moved to CM I left again 7 weeks later as I couldn't stand it.

Aside from traffic and the weather, can anybody tell me why they think CM is a better place to live than Bangkok, for an active foreigner who is not drawing his pension yet? Or...are there any other people living here against their will who agree with me?

I should add that I live about 30kms from the town centre and this does not help at all as I enjoy going for a drink and don't drink and drive nowadays, but the centre of town appears to be full of Kao San road rejects during the day so I'm not so sure that living there would improve matters...