ryanb741

Mortgage in Bangkok - 14000 Baht/Month for 3 bed house in a quiet Soi off Suttisarn Rd, Bangkok

Rent in London - 1000UKP/Month for a crappy 2 bed flat in Chiswick, West London

About degree vs. diploma...

I'm an American in the U.S. and haven't gotten to try teaching in Thailand yet, but I'm studying the idea. So I don't know what's required, but I wanted to check my understanding of what's been written here...

To me, you get a Degree on completion of a 4+ year post-secondary program.  It may be a B.A., a B.S., a B. Ed., or something else, but its a Bachelor's of Something Degree.

I'd assume that Master's Degrees and Ph D's also count as degrees, but they aren't needed since you only need one degree.

A Diploma is a large folio-sized piece of paper with a gold-colored seal suitable for framing or storing in the attic that they hand you when you attend the graduation ceremony.

So to prove to the MoE that you have a Degree they want to see your original Diploma, which you had best unframe and bring with you to Thailand, correct? I'm having visions of myself in a white shirt and tie traveling all over BKK and trying not to sweat while carrying around a huge folio like a beginning model or art student.

Now the whole concept of actually letting my Diploma out of my sight is not something I've come to terms with yet. I better worry about disreputable employers keeping it  hostage, shouldn't I? I can see them wanting to see the original and make their own copy of it, but letting it out of my sight? I have no idea what kind of hassle I'd have to go through to get a replacement from my university, or if its even possible after this many years. 

I used to be able to get sealed transcript copies, but there was a price per each, so I'd not want to have to cough one up just for an interview.  A job, ok.  How many copies should I have ordered up before heading to Thailand?

Would some of the more savvy employers instead of wanting a transcript rather call or email the university for verification?  Seems like if that Khao San Road place has people that can forge a diploma they could cook up the transcripts much more easily. When I last saw one it was a bad photocopy of a few pages stuffed into an envelope with a raised-stamp sealing the envelope and a scrawled signature across it.

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Regarding transcripts - I have no idea what I did with mine. I assume that if I ask the University they can provide another - it has been 6 years since I graduated though

Have you got B30,000 a month!!??

Where in Thailand do you want to be?

You will have to 'go native' for that!...not too many B120 beers in western bars..and yes Thai food....but you will have much more fun, particularly if you speak some Thai!

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if ican let my flat in uk i should have #600 per month . can you house share?

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that is 42000bt a month, you don't need to house share. If you are serious about living outside cosmopolitan areas that will be more than enough. You have it covered. get the house in the rental agents window

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From my experience, 35,000 Baht per month in BKK is the equivalent of having a 40 grand per year salary in London in terms of lifestyle - enough to be uncomfortable but not enough to eat at top restaurants all the time and get a car. 40 grand in the rest of England would be much different, as would 35,000Baht in Chian Mai compared to BKK

I did an experiment last time I was in LOS (in preparation for making a bit of extra cash when I come to LOS to live permanently). I watched all the farangs and what they were buying, and it tended to be t-shirts, shoes and things like Mortar and Pestles etc. Well T-shirts are a no-no due to the fact that the ebay market is saturated with Kratingdaeng and coke tshirts from Thailand. So I bought some ladies shoes at B150 each and 10 sets of mortar and pestles at b60 each and stuck them on ebay with Thai P+P set at b200.

The shoes averaged a 300% mark-up once sold, the mortar and pestles I sold 5 sets for the equivalent of b300 each and the other 5 didn't make reserve (maybe because I listed all 10 at once).

So yes, that was a fairly easy way of making about 2000 baht for little more than an hour's work (at Chatuchak buying the items).

Cheap jewellery (especially those 'healing' beads on an elasticated bracelet) would be a good earner IMHO - you could make them for about b20 material cost and easily sell them for b150 on ebay - think about it, a buyer will not hesitate to pay what to them is a relatively small investment for a piece of jewellery that looks good in a photo. If you are selling expensive items, forget it - the risk is too high. You had better have a superb feedback rating.

One word of caution - don't forget that ebay and paypal fees will eat into your profits and you can't get paid in baht - I just used my existing UKsterling paypal setup linked to my Barclays Bank account.

I was actually hoping I could get a kitchen AND bathroom done for 300,000 baht. I don't want to spend too much at this stage you see

Hi guys

My wife and I live in the UK (London) but last year we bought a Thai Property on the advice of her father (an architect) who said the rather dilapidated old house had massive potential. We bought it, 6 months later came back to see what the father had done with it and lo and behold it was an awesome job, absolutely stunning exterior in a very Thai style, completely renovated.

Some work has gone on internally, but the kitchen and bathroom(s) need a complete overhaul.

The upstairs bathroom is basically as the previous owner (ex Thai army general)had left it, western toilet but with a hose-shower onto the floor for drainage and a water-holder type thing made out of concrete for showers the old fashioned way.

We basically want to completely change everything in the bathroom, new tiling, shower unit etc.

The second thing is the kitchen. At the moment it is ridiculously small due to the fact that for whatever reason the previous owner decided to install a large toilet in the kitchen area (all walled off of course with separate door). We only want to keep the upstairs bathroom so we were thinking of demolishing the toilet and making one large kitchen. Everything would have to be done from scratch so basically it would the costs for building a kitchen.

Anyone got any ideas of budget? The house is in a quiet area on a soi off the Suttisarn Rd (Huay Khwang) and we paid 2.5 million baht for the dilapidated house and the wife's family spent another 600,000 baht on restoration.

In the context of the work on the kitchen and bathroom - would 300,000 be enough for a decent but not extravagant set-up? I really don't know the costs and the wife's father is an architect but has no idea as to internal costings as his focus is on structural engineering etc. Any feedback would be appreciated.

...You know those huge orb spiders you get in Thailand in the sticks (about 8 inches across with a white and black body and black and bright red legs?). You can't miss them.....

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I saw this one - I don't know if it's the type you mentioned - almost exactly a year ago up the "monkey mountain" (Tosae Road) in Phuket City. It was about 20 feet in the air on its web that went across from a tree branch to some power cables on the other side of the road

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Well the shots are from a distance but it looks similar to the one in the link I posted. They are actually pretty benevolent - I obviously pissed the one I handled off enough for it to bite (HUGE fangs BTW) but usually Orb Weaver spiders are OK.

BTW - those big black house spiders you get everywhere in Thailand are Huntsmen spiders and contrary to many locals who say they are harmless they most certainly are not - they are fairly aggressive, quick moving and have a painful (not dangerous) bite.

The only invertebrates in LOS that can potentially give a fatal bite (excluding those people with severe allergic reactions) are the jewelled blue centipede (very rare) and the widow spiders (like the Black widows in the US or the redback in Australia - they are basically the same species). I'm sure some of the jellyfish pack a punch but that's not my area of speciality.

But ANY Thai centipede can cause severe pain, as can the red 'fire ants' you get all over the countryside

Good evening chaps,

Pleased to report that I'm still alive.After writing to you and waiting a bit for a reply my brain suddenly kicked in and I went to the village clinic on the double. Riding the motorbike wasnt easy as my right hand was twitching badly.

Given some yah mong and Atarax.The yah mong was applied locally and the Atarax pills were chased down by kratom leaves munched all morning.I started work at 9am and by 2pm the pain and strange feeling had largely gone.Now(6pm)its 99% normal again.Strange thing there is no obvious bite mark.2 tiny marks about a cigarette end width apart but the pain wasnt centered there just all over 1/2 hand the same.

Thanks for all the replies there.I will be buying a pair of thick gloves before playing in the jungle again.I blame the new UBC programming with that Alan Titmarsh and Charlie Dimock.Thats where the clever idea of making a border came from!

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If you have 2 tiny marks you were most likely bitten by a spider

Hi Booma,

Big orange bug in last photo is a centipede.The smaller black creature with loads of red/orange legs is a millipede.

Centipede-100 legs

Millipede 1000 legs.This is an old asying and not exact

Centipede has a nasty bite,but not had the pleasure of a millipede bite yet.We have hundreds of them in our land and the cats dont play with them.I suppose they can bite as well?They are very timid and when prodded with a stick they roll in a circle and hide.Try prodding a centipede with a stick and he'll be up your legs before you hit him.They are very fast(and scarey!)

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Millepedes don't bite but the do secrete a toxin which will cause irritation

Here's a pic of the Thai Orb Weaver I am referring to;

http://www.arachnoboards.com/ab/attachment...tid=24963&stc=1

Just get it checked out. If it was in some logs it was most likely a centipede - you should see puncture marks if it was a centipede, spider or scorpion (Thai Scorps aren't dangerous though).

I actually collect tarantulas and exotic insects (e.g. praying mantis). There are a couple of Thai tarantula species that will give a painful bite (one is blue and very rare, the other is black and quite common - I have seen people around Chiang Mai eat them before!)

I remember coming unstuck once in Ratchaburi. You know those huge orb spiders you get in Thailand in the sticks (about 8 inches across with a white and black body and black and bright red legs?). You can't miss them.

Anyway, as they are an Orb Web species I assumed they would be harmless so I picked one up and let it run across my face to scare my wife. Good fun and all that but when I picked it up off my face to put back on its web it whacked me good with its fangs (drew blood) and the pain was awful. That's one spider not to touch, although the pain went away after an hour or so.

I own an African Starburst Baboon Tarantula - now if that gets ytou you KNOW you've been bitten! Ouch!

One other thing, it involves bringing cars TO LOS. There is a US car importer here in London and my wife and I are considering purchasing a HumVee and importing it to Thailand (at the least it guarantees me right of way in BKK's streets!). In the UK the fuel bills would be extortionate but in Thailand prices are much cheaper. Are there any restrictions on the types of cars you can import and would I have to pay any taxes?

BTW, replying to the original post, as a wedding present my wife's family bought us a Nissan Skyline R34 which we impotred to the UK (1500ukp shipping) plus 1500 ukp modifications to make it UK legal. The car had been imported from Japan in the first place. So it is quite easy to import into the UK

Well my wife's first name is Arvepan (Thai Chinese) but here in the UK and back in Thailand she is called 'Pat'.

Her maiden name is a real nightmare for people in the UK - it is 'Rungrodborirux' but pronounced nothing like it is spelled! Thank goodness she now has my surname!

NO- hate to be blunt but forget it, you would have to start your own business. I did sales here , started my own company SELLING, and I reckon I was The Best in my feild of expertise (selling and running my own sucessful business back home for years) but here I hit a BRICK WALL, 2m baht down, I realised that I was only GOOD back home-not here, it is so so different as you can NEVER close people. You wont get anyone to employ you as they have to employ five Thais to accomodate you, sorry to be the bearer of bad news but thats the way it works here-Sorry and good luck

TP

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Simply not true

Tryhttp://www.recruitsoffshore.com

I know a guy who did that and worked in BKK for about 600,000 baht a month (GBP equivalent). It's commission only, and you need to be very high calibre. When I move to LOS I'm thinking of giving it a go

They leave the home country and get more money for selling themselves, makes economical sense.

As for the stupid farang who is gulible enough to take one over, he deserves all he gets.

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Well I think you are slightly overgeneralising - put it this way, my wife's family are worth about 10 times what my own family is (and my own family are well off by UK standards). So I very much doubt it is always the money that makes the girls come over

...Finally I had to 'consumate' the marriage at the time determined by the monks with all the family outside the room,...

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Please explain what you mean by 'consumate'? Do you mean having sex with your new wife, next to the wedding party!?

Isn't that a bit contrasting to the "no-kiss and no-touch" attitude of respectable Thais?

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That's exactly right. The monks had ordained the auspicious time for the marriage to be consummated and we 'did the business' while the folks and close family were waiting outside the door (it was a suite so they were too far away to hear).

I don't know if this is a Chinese thing or a Thai thing but by consummating the marriage at that precise moment it was supposed to lead to luck for a happy marriage

7500 Baht for a wedding?!!? Blimey, that's good value. When my wife and I got married we had the religious ceremony at a 'hospital' for sick monks in Bangkok and the evening bash at the Oriental hotel. There were about 200 guests (including 5 that my wife's family had flown over from the UK and France) and the total bill was well over a million Baht. Luckily her family(Thai Chinese) paid, but the guests included the then mayor of Bangkok, various 'khunyings' (whatever the ###### they are I don't know but I got a bollocking for giving one a kiss on the cheek and loads of government and military types (the wife's mother is really high up in the Thai Government).

The only thing is I never got to touch any of the food, my wife and I had to stand in front of the ice statues all evening having pictures taken and then I gave a speech in English, French and Thai. Finally I had to 'consumate' the marriage at the time determined by the monks with all the family outside the room, as consumating it at that time was supposed to be lucky (well it was for me at least!)

Well I met my wife 8 years ago when she was studying in the UK. We got married 5 years ago and we both live and work in London. I will do the pros and cons of London vs Bangkok (her hometown) from her point of view.

Pros (of Living in London)

- Much more multicultural than BKK - my wife loves all the Indian, Moroccan, lebanese restaurants, carnivals (Notting Hill etc). Thailand is much less diverse with less choice. I can eat Tom Yum once a month, more than that and it's boring. But give me a doner kebab any day of the week.

- Work. My wife gets paid 10x what she would get in BKK. She pays for the mortgage on our house in Bangkok and still pays half our rent, food, going out plus saves money.

- Ease of Transport . People knock London's transport but it knocks BKK's into the dirt (even factoring in the Skytrain and Underground). London's transport infrastructure is so much more diverse. Plus she bought a powerful sports car (Nissan Skyline R34 GTR) which we drive on decent roads. Take that baby out on the tracks around BKK and you will need extensive work done faster than you can say 'knackered suspension'

- UK Pubs and clubs. Pubs, bars and clubs in BKK tend to be either full of fat b*stard western perverts looking for some poon tang or otherwise full of the 'hi-so' fraternity looking you up and down all the time. London has maniacal nightspots, nice friendly pubs, hi-tech bars and excellent nightclubs. BKK's just cannot compare

- TV/broadcasting quality. It might sound trivial but the UK has absolutely, 100% the best television on earth. Compare that to the crappy Thai soap operas or the 'oh-so-impartial' news that even though a plane may have crashed onto the vatican will lead with a story on what the Queen was wearing when she visited some village full of lepers that day

Cons (Of living in London)

- The people. Londoners in general are among the most self-absorbed, arrogant bunch of scummers on the planet. Compare that to the friendly thai people and you can see why Londoners piss my wife off

- The cost of living. We pay one and a half thousand UK pounds per month on a miserably small 2 bed apartment in West london. Compare that to the 12,000THB mortgage we pay on a 4 bed house in BKK

- The weather. It's cold and raining today. It will be cold and rainy tomorrow. It just will. Makes you depressed. BKK is nice and warm. Need I say more

- The housing. Like my wife, I cannot understand the UK pre-occupation with living in 'second hand' houses. In the UK an old property is considered 'full of character'. To anyone else, dilapidated. Drab grey, old buildings. Give me Baiyoke 2 any day of the week

- Away from family. That's the main thing she misses about BKK, family Oh, and maybe Somtam!

My wife has no Thai frineds in the UK (she met a few but said they were 'dodgy'). She hates the reputation thailand has gotten because of the actions of a relative minority. So her friends in London are English.

We have decided to move to BKK in 2 years permanently (big shock for me that will be - I'll go from earning an absolute packet to a pittance as a TEFL teacher. No more Singapore Airlines business class flights to BKK!). But overall, we BOTH prefer BKK to the UK, it's just much more fun.

I don't mean to offend anyone here but I have been married to a Chinese Thai girl for 5 years (I am 27, she is 25) and she is the best wife ever. She comes from a good family (Mum works for Thai Government, Dad is Architect) and she's definitely not in it for the money as she earns twice as much as me and even bought us a superb house in Bangkok.

Having Chinese genes, she is very focused on business and self-improvement and works very hard (we both live in London).

However, when we go back to Thailand every year is astounds me the difference in work ethic between the Chinese Thai population and the original thais or Issan people. These people are almost exclusively the ones you find in the bar trade etc. When in thailand my wife and her family deliberately avoid these areas, and I can see the shame on the face of my Wife and her family. Indeed, in the UK when asked her nationality she will often refer to herself as 'Singaporean' instead of Thai because of the tw*ts who will make silly remarks, and in any case even in Thailand most people think she is foreign.

The thing I want to know is in reality is there this massive gap between the Chinese Thais and the original Thais, and if so why is this the case?

Any thoughtful replies welcomed, no flaming please

Or you could teach in South Korea for a year. With overtime/private classes you can make $5000 USD a month and they pay your accomodation. You could save money there and go to Thailand with it

It was a fixed rate (can't remember what exactly - the wife's family looked after that. My wife paid another 2 million baht in a lump sum so there is now 1.9 million left and we are now paying 11,500 per month (from 20,000 previously). As I currently work in the UK (as does my wife), this is nothing, so when we move to LOS in a couple of years hopefully it will all be paid off.

You can try the positions on this website:

http://www.selectoffshore.com/pages/5/index.htm

Not sure how realistic it is but they are claiming you can earn $10,000 per month in commission if you are good

Well my wife and I got a 5 million Baht mortgage no problem and we still both live in the UK. My wife's mum sorted it out (she is in the Thai government so I could try and find out how she managed it). We got ours on a 20 year mortgage with a 900000 downpayment.

As this shop house is what the Thais love to call a "secondhand" house, there's a very good chance she is telling you the truth. 

There are some very easy ways to get around this.  The most popular, as has been suggested here already, is that you provide a guarantee for her debt.  Whether or not the bank accepts this will very much depend on how long you have resided here and if you have a WP.  Alternatively, Mum or Dad might be able to give this, if they're not considered too old (by the bank that is).

In all events, the bank obviously won't lend without seeing a copy of the land title deed first (the owner himself may have mortgaged the property - possibly following the recent European Championship  )

Anyhow, if you want to speak to a British [LL.M. - Masters degree] educated, English speaking, Thai lawyer (graduated from Chula), let me know and I'll pm her number to you.  Word of warning though, she's good - she's affordable, but she ain't cheap.

SM 

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Thanks for the reply - yes I agree I was a bit vague with my questions so what I will do is outline my exact circumstances and what I want to do and then if I could receive feedback that would be invaluable. I am just a little confused at the moment, so I am most grateful for your replies.

My circumstances;

27 years old

Degree from leading UK university

Have house in Bangkok (off Sutthisarn rd)

Wife plans to establish jewellery business

Wife's mother is gov't official

I have a British passport

I speak intermediate level Thai (I cannot read or write Thai though)

What I want to do is just find the most hassle-free way for me to be allowed to live and work in Thailand, and what I need to do to achieve this. I am not concerned about what type of visa I require, I just want to know what I need to do to be allowed to live and work in Thailand and I intend to settle in Bangkok permanently.