Going Home

[Jimbo]

I see many posts on coming to live and work in Bali but are they all success stories. What percentage of people come and cannot hack it and return back to their homelands.

Interesting topic for a straw poll? What problems do they face returning?

[Tracey]

Good Topic Jimbo...
I'd be interedted to read what & why people have left too...

We plan to head back in a few years or so....

So always looking & planning & researching things that could help us out for the big move!!!!

[mimpimanis]

Yes, I too would be interested to hear what made people give up...but maybe if they did they are no longer reading the expat forum.

[FreoGirl]

I know if we ever give up it will likely be:
1. lack of funds and unable to make enough money living in Lombok to have a decent life
2. Health - maybe we would move to Bali where there are western clinics, but probably would go home if a major health issue came up
3. old age - I can't imagine being elderly and living in Lombok, or Bali for that matter. I know of one lady who lived in Lombok for 25 years and eventually had to go home as she was getting too old. That would have been really hard I imagine, but kind of inevitable

Great topic though.

I also get the impression that there are those that come with an image of what life will be like and get disappointed and leave when it is not what they imagine, or when amazingly all the old problems from home follow them to Indonesia. :cry:

[pPamela]

Hi, I know of an Aussie woman June Young who lives in Penestan Ubud and owns Junias House. She is in her 70's and has been living in Bali for many years. A couple of years ago she had a major health scare, flew back to Perth, had a major operation, recuperated for a few months and returned to Ubud.
So she is one of the ones hanging in there.

[made marko]

When I finally arrive, I plan to only leave in a plume of Ngaben smoke...

[Jimbo]

One of the reasons I started this topic was because someone thought that being an expat was to give up material desires. Expats mainly go abroad to earn money and then (In an Englishmans case anyhow) return to a cottage in the country. Ala ex india.

Many folks talk about coming to Bali (Indonesia) to live but I guess (No figures here) that many go home for many of the reasons mentioned after a time whether months or years.

How many want to stay until they die. Thats the reason I posed the question in the first place. Seems that most will go back to a western society to retire?

As for me......when I can shake the responsibilities of my children I aim to come and stay until the end.

My wife is from Tanah Toraja where they do not bury their dead but keep them in caves high up on a cliff face. My cave is already there and my wife says she will keep me in the house for a few years until I am put there. :-)

[drbruce]

I think that you may have been able to tell from my writing that I plan on staying here for the long haul - in other words, until death do us part. I've been fortunate enough to have been employed here over most of the past 16 years, and I plan on staying around hopefully long enough to see the kids grow up and get a start on adult life.

My experience has been that folks leave for many of the reasons that brought them here in the first place: dissatisfaction with their life, a bad love affair, a desire for change, a lose of employment, a desire to find a mate, a delusion that tropical and paradise necessarily go together, and many more. Once you get past all this, well you can just sit around and watch the kids grow, the cattle get fat, and the sky get blue.

[matahari]

Jimbo

I didn`t mean that an expat don`t care for material things. What I ment was that if someone traveling around the world experience other cultures,living amongs people that don`t have those same materialistic values we westerns have and also not getting the constant mediavirus saying "buy this, buy that that or else you will not be happy". it would finaly after many years lead to having less of those material desires.


Bruce
I misred your post in another thread, and therefore my clumsy reply :oops:

I understand that most father would like the best for their kids and family and will do a hole lot for getting it so. As I`m neither a father or a familyman I don`t know to much about just that... but I still think that spending as much time with the family as possible is more important then working far away saving up money to send the kids to the best schools or buying a bigger house.

But what do I know, perhaps I will change my opinon on this mather when/if I also form a family.

[Jen]

Hey Matahari

The 'Mediavirus' is very much alive and kickin in ole Bali!

Some of the most greedy, materialistic, corrupt and shonky business persons I have met are Balinese.