Pungdo

5 hours ago, Justgrazing said:

Dude on the left carrying the briefcase ? Are they the nuclear codes .. 

more likely 1,000 baht notes ????

I find Foremost rank and that Ditch Mill falls into that class as well, Meiji Full Cream is the only one I find palatable although I have not tried a couple of the brands available up north that have been mentioned

14 hours ago, AsiaCheese said:

 

It doesn't have anything to do with the time you pass through immigration (I was told once, just before midnight when I was still within my permitted days but the officer said "overstay"), but instead with the time the plane is scheduled for take off. Until such time (shortly after midnight, but hey, next day already) you still count as being "in Thailand", despite the fact that you're in a transit zone. Go figure... 

 

I have always been under the impression that once you have passed through immigration you are technically no longer in Thailand or what ever country you are exiting, a kind of no mans land

I got harassed by 2 Indian Customs guys at Heathrow in the early 90's for more than an hour over the contents of a box I had brought from Australia, it was packed by and belonged to my sister and sh had forgotten to take it back with her after her wedding.

I wasn't entirely sure what was in it but my mum had said it was some brides maid clothes, these 2 morons harassed the hell out of me about what was in it, I just kept telling them to open it and see because I wasn't overly sure.

When I said i believed it was the brides maids clothes from her wedding and that they had made the dresses themselves I got grilled about where the material was from and how much it cost, I was going right off at the <deleted> by the end and they never did open the box.

After they gave up on that they started on my new Pentax SLR I had bought to take with me and whether I intended to take it home or leave it in England, I just kept telling them it had cost me 2 weeks pay and there was no way I wasn't taking it home with me, eventually they let me leave, I just kept thinking welcome to modern Pomgolia. ????

I had that message the very first one I tried to do it online back when it first became available, when I went into Jomtien the lady that does the 90 day reports told me that she remembered looking at mine and that she had approved it and didn't understand why I got that message.

I figured it out for myself and have successfully done it many times since, like everyone is saying your details didn't match what is in the system, what I did wrong was I didn't have my address exactly as I had written it on my Retirement Extension application, but luckily I store my applications on my computer, so I consulted that the next time and have had success ever since.

One last thing, because I live in a house in a gated village, I put the village name in the "Building Name" section, whether that will apply to you will depend where you live I suppose.

Did I not read a post a while back saying that those with Retirement extensions returning to the Kingdom don't need to do the TM30 report, especially if you have been here a long while and living at the same address ??

For AUD, NZD and GBP a Kiwi company called OrbitRemit is pretty damn good, I use them for AUD and they only charge $4 and nothing this end, that compared to the $22 that Com Bank used to charge me and the 320 that SCB charged this end and a better exchange rate to boot.

This is an interesting subject, our house is in my wifes name and she claims to have added my name to the blue book as a "Person of interest" for want of a better term.

I have always been under the impression that it wasn't possible.

I am an Aussie and my daughter will be 7 this Christmas and speaks fluent English, with no Thai accent even though she also speaks excellent Thai and Isaan and it has nothing to do with any English teacher she has had at school to date and everything to do with the English I have taught her.

The really odd thing is her last English teacher at her Kindergarten, an English guy, told me a while back that before he met me, he thought her father was an American, I put that down entirely to the amount of American videos she had been watching on Youtube.

Khao Mai Keao Reservation Park if you have transport, plenty of trails out there and hills to test you, we do a lot of hashes in that area

My last trip up there in Feb to get my Sat Dec I took a different approach, I drove to Swampy and parked there, then took the Sky Train and one change to the subway and walked the last km to the embassy, I was there in 2 hours, would have been less but it was the first time I had ever used the trains in Bangkok and wasn't sure where I was going or what I was doing.

So I would think I could make an appointment and feel confident of getting there on time, maybe make it 15 mins later than when I think I might get there.

I have been using OrbitRemit over the last few months, only a $4 fee and no fee this end, the current rate is 24.3936, they tell you what you will get and it is guaranteed.

I used to transfer A$ from the Com bank, $22 fee, then a 320 baht fee this end from SCB, so OrbitRemit is a lay down misere for me, last one I did was in my SCB account that afternoon.

I was in there towards the end of last year and again in Feb this year and was told it was being trailed for some things but would most likely be introduced for everything, bloody ludicrous, there isn't normally that many people in there at any one time to warrant appointments.

My daughter just started Grade 1 after 4 years in a kindergarten that was run like a school, she did extra Thai and Chinese there as the new school teaches Thai, Chinese and English and it was considered it would increase her chances of being accepted into the new school, extra Thai was only 500 month, Chinese was a 1,000 I think, but the extra classes were everyday.

Now at the new school she is being asked to stay until 6pm everyday for "Extra Tuition" I'm of the same opinion, what the hell are they doing during normal school hours that they need to keep 6 year olds behind everyday for said "Extra Tuition" smells like just increasing the teachers wages to me.

Personally I think they are asking way to much of 6 year olds to do that many hours of school per day, reasonable in grade 7 before making the jump to high school perhaps, if that is where the split is here, my daughter is hating it and it's a crying session every morning, mind you she always seems happy enough when I collect her, providing I show up at 5pm and not 6pm.

She told me this morning she doesn't like her teacher which isn't helping any, because she Yak Yak's her too much, gets enough of that from her mother unfortunately ?, I also think that her teacher is one that uses the proverbial "Big Stick" to get whatever she is after, she walks around the room in the afternoons with a ruler in her hand.

Tip, for the copies required that she has to sign, DO NOT date them, I had a mate that bought a car up in Chaiyapoom, had everything he needed, but had to go back up there and get some replacements because they had been dated when signed.