Moving to Rawai

After 10 months in Chalong, we decided to move further south on the island of Phuket to the community of Rawai. It is almost a flip move being about the same distance from the traffic cericle in Chalong to the south , as we were to the north. Access to our usual markets, the vet and shops are actually closer!

While we liked the house in Chalong, the issue was more to do with the landlord relationship.
We were renting from a Thai woman married to an American and they live in the USA. While we own a property in the US, we have a management company that handles all the issues related to renting a property, for a monthly fee. While that option was here, the landlord decided to opt for trying to manage from abroad. Our advise to anyone renting here, is that you need to have access to reliable communication and services related to renting. As an example being without a water pump for 3 days in the tropics is significant. The landlord husband however felt it necessary to send us an email describing Thailand as a third world country, a laid back one at that. My only comment would be that he has obviously not been in Thailand for a very, very, long time. My second comment would be that when you charge Farang rent, you need to provide Farang service. The final straw was when we had to give notice on renewal, and the new rental terms would include that we paid the same rent and paid for ALL repairs. Nice work if you can get it.


So far, the new place is proving to be a much different experience in that regard already. Issues noted prior to renting were all addressed before we even stepped foot in the place. Issues we discovered afterward, minor as they were, had been addressed the day we arrived, and follow-up telephone calls and texts from the landlord to make sure everything was okay. Yesterday he asked us to join his family and our new neighbours for a dinner.

Perhaps the biggest change for us is that we have a swimming pool! So it has probably been one of the less stressful moving experiences of our lives. A few car loads, and then our friends Deb and Gary came with their truck and two loads later we were moved. 24 hours later we are fairly settled and will spend the week organizing. The dogs and cat are right at home, and even have the ability to go outside at night to sleep or do their business. The neighbourhood wandering cats have already marked the property to warn off other strays, lest they find themselves trapped with 4 Bassets and a swimming pool on the exit route.

I will be off to Canada later this week for a few weeks, so blog entries will be few and far between.