jonnyscot

I think jomtiem must be right up there with the best of them,, must be the beach food there that does it for me,,,,,

I think Pigeonjake has similar taste,,, but Yorkshire tea for me, Bisto, Scottish shortbread (so expensive here), lemsip and the last time we were over in October we also brought back a few of the tubs of fray bentos steak pudding which I hadn't seen before and were quite nice if compared to what's available here,, oh sometimes I come back with a shiny new passport using the express option but still have enough pages on both of them to last maybe another 2 years

Avoid Thai food and get on a one week water fast. It'll change your life, seriously! Gen yourself up on it.

Never heard of this water fast, interesting, can the water have a distinct flavouring? Perfect time for a 1 week fast,,,,,

A glass of cider ? Is this Thailand or the Cotswolds ?

one particular bar up kanchanaburi way has quite a decent selection of the cold draft or canned ciders, great breakfasts and some nice roast dinners to choose from too if I may add,,,

along the way can pick up a few of those cold low alcohol content offerings from most 7/11's, nice thirst quenchers during a hot ride

I have a rather large garden in the countryside to keep me from boredom, however as a break from that apart from keeping my family happy I get on my motorbike and ride for a few hours visiting other areas stopping off for a glass of cider or whatever's on offer to wash down a breakfast or lunch before returning home,

assuming you have a scooter why not explore the surrounding areas, then if you feel you enjoy it enough and having gained some experience then go treat yourself to an upgrade bike or scooter maybe around 250 or 300cc and venture further afield, if not for anything else the adrenalin factor of dealing with the bkk traffic will reduce the boredom

I would have saved 22k and just went to immigration.

As much as most would likely prefer, it doesn't appear to be a suitable option for everyone as has been earlier mentioned, particularly those of us working offshore on regular rotations such as 1 month on/off or 8 week on 4 off

Couple questions relating to this TM30,

1/ as I'm returning to wife's home in thailand from offshore work (8 weeks on 4 off rota), should My wife therefore be required to complete the form each time I return?

2/ nearest immigration office is over 40km away, can these forms be sent electronically, posted or handed in to the local police office, since it was the police station where I completed a form (don't remember the form ID number) notifying change of address when we moved to this area couple years back?

I dont see any pies in your link for shopping?

Yes it's fine.

You can have the visa vignette transferred to the new passport but it costs £122, though you have to pay in US$ at an inflated rate, and is totally not necessary.

Great, I think I asked a similar question here last year for future reference, but can't locate it

Thanks again anyway

Hi, just for confirmation, I'm assuming it is it ok for my wife to travel to UK with her Still valid 5 year UK visitor visa in her old/expired passport as long as she brings both her old and new PP's? Or should she have the visa transferred to her new PP?

I know I've entered thailand this way, hopefully it's the same when entering other countries too

Thanks

A couple years back at one of our local night markets I chased and rugby tackled a Thai guy who had a couple months earlier fooled my wife (and admittedly me) into some item purchase that wasn't quite as described without going into too much detail, after I picked him up from the ground by the scruff of his neck I found about 30 or more Thais around me, although at the time I wasn't concerned in what their interests were, I later on found they were all supportive of me due to the scamming nature of this guy I was holding and his gang,, my later visits to the local night market were greeted by smiles and sawadee's from the local stall holders to my wife's amusement,, so I'd say depending on circumstance Thais like I think has been mentioned earlier are mostly just as friendly as other nationalities

The wife deals mostly with the finances, although she does keep me up to speed with what's going on, I'm quite happy with that setup since she's saved us quite a few baht in the last few years,, she also gets involved some small scale investments, and works hard to get some small return from working our small piece of land we have, I know we'd be much worse off if I sorted out the spending,, joint decision when we purchased a new car this year, which incidentally was the first new motor I've ever had, all my previous motors in UK were second hand, so she must be doin something right with the money

Small local hospitals and I hear clinics in our area do hold anti venom, my sister in law got bitten on the finger 2 years back by a snake, it was around 5am and still dark so she couldn't identify the snake, she went to the hospital where they took blood samples to determine whether the snake was venomous or not,

I think the blood tests were mixed with some chemical and if the blood sample mixed then turned solid it would have meant the snake was venomous,

she spent 2 nights in hospital,, luckily the bite wasn't venomous. The hospital at that time did hold the anti venom

For those regular visitors to the savannakhet border who haven't previously experienced any issue with the bus system, possibly on the days in question last week there may have been a shortage of busses, mechanical probs or some related issues,

last year and the previous year I went there I didn't experience the same problem with the bus (although the first year I used the savan Vegas service)

whether it was due to as eddie mentioned the 2 day turnaround in visa drop/pickup (although the 2 day service was in play when I went last year too)or simply unreliable bus service on those days, I was just posting my experience, just to pre-warn others to possible delays on using the bus service

Easier yes, but why should you allow people behind you in the queue to pass you? If you were to be as cortious as that id hazard a guess that youd still be there waiting when the border closes in the evening,, which in my situation is not so good as I had to pick up our car from the hotel we left it at in mukdahan and drive across the breadth of the country or nearly 700km to get home after the crossing, yes I believe there are flight options, but not so convenient for us in this instance,,

The other solution due to limited availability lets just say was a one off.

This is a law of non-action. It only covers 30 tonnes and larger, where most Thai boats are well below that. If they set the bar at 20 tonnes, it would have an im[pacty, as it is, less than five percent of fishers are affected. "The fishing boats, which are non-powered, outboard powered and inboard powered boats less than 10 gross tonnage (GT), as well as the fishing gears "

Further There have been occasions when there has been a lack of raw materials for the fish processing industry. Hence, Thai fishers with support of the Thai government have sought new fishing grounds outside Thai waters to increase their catch and secure the national fisheries production base."

http://www.fao.org/docrep/011/i0573e/i0573e04.htm

Excellent link fangfarang, although it looks as though it's a bit dated info,, obviously the purse (ring net) and trawling sector is a large and ever increasing percentage of the overall catching power since those tables were published, I have quite a bit of experience in both those fields and would agree these types of fishing methods need addressing along with the monofilament nets, but my opinion bigger more powerful boats normally mean greater catching power, by way of bigger trawl nets bigger purse nets and bigger carrying capacity,, addressing theese bigger boats first would be a good start

So what happens with vessels that are less than 30 grosse tons?

Fix the bigger fish first, then catch up with the rowing boats later

I can confirm eddy IS talking about the mukdahan/ savannakhet service, I returned from savannakhet the day before him and we had similar issues, waited about 45 minutes and had at least 100 people standing (not counting those sitting) at the curb ready to jump on the bus when it arrived, luckily my wife found a better solution before the muk/savan bus arrived, as she knows what my reactions are to queue jumpers, I am referring to as eddy was to the bus pickup point after clearing Laos immigration and transporting to thai immigration point across the bridge,,, trouble is bus fills up at bus station in savannakhet, but then sell additional tickets for the same bus at the border to the people arriving at border by other private hire transport as no one wants to wait for the next one,,

we had left our car at the hotel in mukdahan. Luckily no problem with transport at the Thai side courtesy of a very nice imm officer who was going into town

Hi Silentnine, re; jomtiem palm beach, I think the one further away from the pool is the newer, but don't know which is named which, but the older wing closer to the pool is sufficient for me, I think many moons ago I stayed in the newer wing and didn't notice a great deal of difference in the room, anytime we go there we always book on agoda but have stayed there last minute decision and paid I think 2400 walk in rate, booking on agoda website was 1800 right enough, just confirmed with the wife

Just to update, I received my new multi entry non imm o 1 year visa from savannakhet on Tuesday,

now I remember where I was told an unexpired visa had first to be cancelled by the issuing consulate before a new one issued,, it was from the counter staff at the Thai consulate in savannakhet last year,

my wife asked the same question at the consulate in savannakhet this week and was given the same answer as was given last year, but this time by a different member of staff.

However on checking my old (but still valid) visa, I see no stamp over it or anything saying cancelled, unless it's down as cancelled in their system,,, now I'm not saying anyone on here who said an issued visa cannot be cancelled is wrong, but I'm just updating what we were told in savannakhet on two consecutive years by two different staff members, but as I said I cannot see no markings on the old visa

Progress isn't About the new laws, it's proving that these laws are being enforced and vessels involved in illegal fishing have been apprehended and the skippers and owners punished financially.

Does anyone know what will happen to the catches of those vessels who break the laws? Who profits from the sale of the "black fish" ?

The middle men will most likely profit by offering a reduced price for the % of black fish, (comparing to UK as I've no experience of the chain here in Los works), the boat owners will profit in the short term although suffer in the long term when they wipe out the stocks.

The enforced changes will certainly reduce the demand for labour, but won't reduce demand for cheap labour, and foreign workers fit the bill, paying out on one hand and taking back in the other by way of various hidden costs such as accommodation and food when they're not at sea, and believe me they will spend more time in port than they do now, I know the UK is a different sector and can't be fully comparable, but quite a large percentage of the remaining UK fishing fleet are crewed by Philippinos, after the fleet were reduced,

A start might be to remove fishing from the protected jobs category from foreigners as i understand is the case, appologise if my understanding is wrong, allow registry of burmese workers, as the fishing industry will struggle to be financially viable for owners after the authorities get around to implement catch restrictions and other measures,

Can't comment on the coffeecaps machines, but the capsules are compatable with nespresso and are ok

As a personal choice Id much prefer the jomtiem area, but we have younger kids (8 +6), dont much go down that way nowadays but we had an overnight about 3 weeks back when we travelled down to pick up our new car, spent the night at the jomtiem palm beach, pool was ok, rooms were clean and it was relatively quiet specially so since it was leading up to songkran, we also brought my mother in law and had adjoining rooms, but if you hadnt been meeting friends id have suggested you skip patts and head for hua hin or cha am, both pattaya and hua hin have recently opened water parks to enjoy

Just to add I think the jomtiem palm beach was 1800 each room booked via agoda