Through this blog, we had the pleasure of meeting Ángel Villarino Pérez, correspondent for the Spanish newspaper La Razón and the Mexican newspaper Reforma.

After a year and a half of living in Thailand, when we read this article by Ángel, we thought it was excellent, and that's why we're including it here.

Sanuk.

By Ángel Villarino/Bangkok - 25/02/2008

"Tired of bad weather? Fed up with the cost of living? Worried about the safety of your home and your family? Why not come live in the tropics?" That's how the latest campaign launched by the Malaysian government opens, a campaign designed to lure retirees and pensioners from wealthy countries to its beaches. Like so many other Southeast Asian nations, Malaysia offers tax advantages, a 10-year (renewable) residency permit, and the possibility of collecting your pension from a lounge chair, listening to the sea, tax-free.

Countries throughout the region, much like many nations in Latin America (Central America especially), have spent years trying to attract middle-class pensioners, promising them that in the Asian tropics it's possible to live on a quarter of what you'd spend in Europe, Australia, or the United States, while enjoying a quality of life a hundred times better. Safety, they insist, is guaranteed. And at least in the case of some countries, like Thailand, they're not entirely wrong.

The advertising usually includes price tables to give you a sense of just how low the cost of living is in these countries. It's a small detail, but an illuminating one: the point isn't to attract millionaires; quite the opposite, in fact. The "example" used to illustrate the Malaysian campaign is that of a retired Australian police officer who decided to relocate several years ago with his wife, and who boasts of spending on his lovely beachfront mansion less than half of what his friends pay for an apartment in Sydney.

Malaysia is pushing hard because it wants to carve out a piece of a market where Thailand has, until now, remained the undisputed heavyweight of the region. Thai agencies hunting for the Western pensioner offer genuine bargains on paradisiacal islands where a couple can live comfortably for under a thousand euros a month in a house with a pool, enjoying good restaurants, excellent spas, and more than decent private medical clinics. The spectacular islands of the Philippines and Indonesia are also drawing hundreds of thousands of retirees from around the world with similar deals.

Although it's informally said that Westerners living out their retirement in Asia number in the hundreds of thousands, no official figures exist. On the island of Phuket, a figure of 35,000 permanent residents is often floated. Across all of Thailand, the estimate is that nearly half a million Westerners may be living there.

One of the main difficulties in counting them is that many don't apply for a special pensioner or temporary resident visa, but simply remain as tourists indefinitely, crossing the border each month to renew their visa. In countries like Thailand, it's a practice so widespread it has become an industry in itself, with hundreds of agencies offering two-day trips to the Cambodian border to renew the visa and, while they're at it, visit a new beach.

Beyond the prices, the temperatures, the beaches, the excellent service, and the high comfort standards these countries offer, governments are actively looking for ways to incentivize the arrival of new retirees by lowering the requirements to attract the middle and lower-middle classes. Reducing, for instance, the minimum income required for a residency permit. Or eliminating that requirement altogether, as Malaysia has done, now asking only for a "bond," a bank deposit of around 10,000 dollars to demonstrate solvency.

And while the Asian exile remains, for now, a largely Central European, American, British, and Australian phenomenon, Spaniards are beginning to appear. Maite, a 65-year-old former public relations professional who lives on the Thai island of Phuket, took the leap three years ago with her husband. "We're very happy. We never could have dreamed of retiring somewhere this beautiful. We've learned to scuba dive, we've made friends. When we're a bit older we may go back to Spain, but until then this place is wonderful," she says.