4evermaat

Just now, NilSS said:

Yes we'll take a copy but grumble about it.

So what is the big deal if you will take a copy?

What does the jury need 2 weeks of deliberations for? Or does it take some time to figure out/feign an acquittal. 

Like a sword with two edges, Thailand has a fun side and a "flip side".  The fun side attracts us.  The flip side tests our cultural differences to the core sometimes.  

I think you already know what you can and cannot change.  And what you need to do to rectify the situation.  You just want some of us here to validate this solution for you.

At least you don't have any kids.  You may think you are married to your job, but the only decision that needs a little planning is whether to sell the business, or just hand it over to the GF (soon to be ex-GF???) and walk away.   You don't have to continue to suffer for no reason.

8 hours ago, jamden said:

so with the marriage visa we need to do a border run every 90 days? is that any border? and from Embassy?

obtaining the ME non-immigrant visa must be from an embassy or official consulate; honorary consulates only do single entry visas).

With multiple entry (ME) non-o visa, you would need to do a border run approximately every 90 days from the date of entry.  Any land or air border that allows same-day "Out-In" border runs are ok.  Very few do not (Poipet / Aranyaprathet is a notable exception, Sadao/Danok may require overnight stay, etc).

Where in Thailand do you plan to stay primarily?  That would help us locate the nearest or most practical border for you.

So can someone elaborate on exactly what these fees of 120/1500/month are going to?  (e.g which service plans are affected?)

On 1/30/2019 at 8:28 PM, snoop1130 said:

“Their [the websites] combined cash flow is over Bt300 million,” Pol Lt-General Surachate Hakparn said yesterday in his capacity as chief of Thailand’s Action Taskforce for Information Technology Crime Suppression.

Yeah.  So where will this money go now? ????

You can get single entry non-o (marriage to Thai national or retirement) at virtually all Thai Embassies/consulates/honorary consulates in the US and most countries, including Laos.

You can get multiple entry non-o (marriage to Thai national) at all Thai Embassies or Official consulate in the USA (home country), or Savannakhet, Laos, or Penang, Malaysia or Kota Bharu, Malaysia.  Not sure about Vietnam or Indonesia. Savannakhet requires no financial proof.

You can get multiple entry non-o (retirement) from Thai Embassies or Official consulate in the USA (home country), or Penang Malaysia.  Not sure about Kota Bharu or other locations..

You can get multiple non-o-a (long-stay retirement) from Thai Embassies or Official consulate in the USA (home country).

On 1/29/2019 at 12:17 PM, Skallywag said:

Yes ATMs give out 1000 baht notes.  Just saying if you are worried about not receiveing correct change, go buy a 10 baht Mentos at 7-11, break the 1000 baht so you have some change with you.  Calculator app a good idea.  Will likely happen to me sometime then I will be pissed for not following my own advice.  ???? 

There is a 5 and 6 baht 7-eleven branded drinking water in the refrigerated section.  Perfect for breaking 1000 baht.  I often wondered if there was anything cheaper like a lollipop you could buy.   

Another option @NCC1701A suggested is to pull 400/900 from the atm vs 500/1000 baht.  This works best if you have a local bank account w/ atm card opened in the same province that you are withdrawing from.

On 1/30/2019 at 7:17 AM, KittenKong said:

I learnt many years ago that in Thailand (and many other countries) you should always check everything carefully. If you dont then you can guarantee that someone will steal from you.

 

I've experienced short-changing or overpricing in large supermarkets, small convenience stores, condo offices, markets, food stalls, restaurants and once bank staff even "forgot" a bundle of 100,000B at the rear of their counter where it was invisible to me but fully visible to them. Luckily in every case I always checked and always got what was mine in the end.

 

Trust no one.

Trust, but verify.

I normally mention the amount of the bill when handing it to the cashier.  Minimizes confusion.

After visiting a few shops and several youtube videos, the conclusion is that the LED screen is bad.  A used one is 1200 (very hard to find) and new one is 2-2500 baht depending on the local shop. 

Advice wants 900 to install.  Maybe i might take a crack at it myself or let the local guy do it for 300-400 baht. 

Can someone elaborate on what they required to open the FCA account?  Minimum deposit, documents, etc

Not just Bangkok Bank.  Any Thai bank where you were able to open a FCA.

Do they all charge 1% conversion fee from the foreign currency to THB?

I have an older eMachines d732 laptop that a friend said suddenly didn't work anymore.  After inspection I noticed that the laptop powers on, but the screen is mostly grey without a discernible image.   I then plug an external monitor in and that displays the desktop just fine.  So I've deduced something to do with the laptop screen internals is busted.    

Is it the backlight?  inverter board? Something else?  i'm not sure the name of the part.  Any ideas?  Here is a photo:

Thanks.

On 1/18/2019 at 9:31 AM, Nyezhov said:

The 14" Lenovos have some good specs and I can get up to 16gig DDR...but they all have onboard video.

 

Maybe that is the questoin...is discrete video card necessary if you run 16gig.

for any kind of video editing, especially 4k/RAW video editing......YES!!!   2GB GPU card is pretty standard with i5.  4GB is with the gaming/H series i5/i7

I have 3rd gen i5 and my laptop has 2gb nvidia.  Really I don't understand why 4GB isn't standard and 8GB is the "higher end" by now in 2019 for graphics cards, especially considering how crypto took off in that time.

Actually my next laptop was going to be 8th gen 8250U OR Ryzen 5 2500U.   You can  get a little bit more from AMD for the same money.

20 hours ago, Nyezhov said:

Just short clips, cropping and piecing together. The primary purpose is photos.

 

It has to be 14". I travel

They all seem to be 15.6"  If you go down to Pantip or FortuneTown, maybe you can find something more specialized.  A little extra space would be good for a full keyboard and room for the heat to be ejected.  The U series processors can get away with a smaller enclosure, as they produce less heat.

20 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

.....
I intend to upgrade the drive to 1 terabyte from 500 GB, at least . I like the suggestion of converting the DVD bay, as that should allow installation of the new drive (I think) and allow me to back up the current drive before it shuffles off, which it gives signs of. .....

 

The time to have a proper backup of your important files was yesterday.  The 2nd best time is NOW.  If you need an immediate solution, you could backup to the cloud.  Or clone the drive to a 2nd USB HDD

The main drive with the OS should be ssd 128GB minimum (256 recommended), and then the 2nd drive in the DVD tray can be whatever you want.  If you don't care about speed performance, you could use HDD for both.  It's kind of hard to go back to HDD once you see the speed difference.

20 hours ago, Bill Miller said:

I do recommend the largest display you can manage. I know you are young yet, but you are right on the average cusp of needing "cheaters" to read, and that does not get better as you get older.????
There, my two baht worth.

Use reading glasses (the + numbers) to relax the eyes.  Distance glasses (-) actually stretch your eyeballs over time, requiring a stronger pair every 6-18 months.

The test is to try on "+" reading pairs such that the image you look at is just slightly blurry at the distance you will normally use them for.  Then after using them for about 10+ min on a computer/smartphone screen, you can remove them and notice your eyes will not be as strained when you look at far away objects.  Your eyes won't hurt as much either.   Myopia.org has some more details on the pitfalls of distance glasses for prolonged reading.

Did they actually check their own website before going live?  (Visit the individual pages to see if they showed ok.)

The tourist visa info page:

The Non-Immigrant O info page:

????‍♂️

q:  will each embassy be managing their own eVisa applications, or will the system be centralized?

Edit 4K/RAW on a laptop?  You essentially are looking for a "desktop replacement".  Should have:

- graphics: dedicated graphics card 4GB (2GB min) in addition to the integrated graphics and

- processor: i7 8750H  (i5 8300H min, but really i7-8750H or higher is what you want; don't bother with anything less than 8th gen).  You can go for the U models which are less power intensive,  

- RAM between 12-32GB.  It would likely come with 8GB on 1 stick, then you add your own 8 or 16GB stick.  - Display:  Screen should be minimum 15-15.6" FHD (1980 x 1080).  You can get 14" if you really want it, but wouldn't you want more screen real estate if you are editing 4k video?

- Drive:  250-500GB SSD only for the main drive with the OS, preferably the M.2 variety that is more directly connected to on the motherboard.  

The 2nd drive can be SATA 3. 2TB HDD 7200rpm (2TB min, 4TB if you need extra space),

might be a good idea for it to be SSD also.  Anything above 500GB will still be expensive for SSD, particularly M.2.  You put the raw/large files that are accessed infrequently here.   
- DVD RW drive.  If somehow the laptop comes with this, you want to remove it and convert it into a SATA3 drive tray.  Let this be a 2nd/3rd hard drive.    MemoryToday in FortuneTown has this and they usually discount it if you buy a drive from them and/or will install it for you at no additional cost.  You can also convert the internal DVD drive into an external drive should you need to use it.  The enclosure would add more protection, but the usb to sata3 cable itself could work.

- And I highly recommend an external vacumn fan, such as Opolar suction fan to help keep the internals cool.

Consider increasing the budget to 25-35k baht minimum.  Maybe a little more if you want 17" screen.  Another 10-20k if you need the larger SSD.  Good news is that you can get the minimums for the M.2 SSD RAM etc and then upgrade them later if you need.

Or get a desktop with same specs as above and save 40%.  Really a desktop is more appropriate for dedicated 4k video editing.   A laptop it can be done, but it depends on how much editing you will be doing.  Are you just doing short clips of a couple of minutes, or hour long videos?  Are you mostly cropping the video and piecing them together or will you be adding animations and such?

33 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

I've noticed some new style SCB ATMs (very fancy) at places like Central Chidlom in BKK that have signs posted on them saying they'll allow 150,000 baht withdrawals. But obviously, your bank card has to be set to allow such a large amount per withdrawal or per day...

 

It's not clear to me, though, whether that amount applies when using those ATMs with ANY bank card or just when using a SCB debit card... I will ask the SCB staff there next time I'm in the neighborhood....

 

That's 150- 1000 baht notes on a single pull.  

are these ATMs standalone or next to their branch?  

I would imagine these atms would be targets for theft as they would have a much higher amount of bills in them.    Or maybe they only have 1000 baht bills stored (no 500 or 100 baht bills).

6 hours ago, superal said:

I transfer from the UK to Bangkok Bank and 20,000BB ATM withdrawal no problem , however if I go to the ATM and draw on my Barclay debit card I am limited to 12500 baht because of the exchange rate . Barclays allow 300 pounds a day max . This dam Brexit crap is making every Brit poorer .

Can you contact Barclay's customer service and request a temp/permanent daily limit increase?

On 1/3/2019 at 6:02 AM, StephanieMomo said:

I'm Malaysian married my husband myanmar in Thailand and register in Malaysia.we have a baby boy.

Can you go into more detail as to the exact procedure you needed to do in order to get married.  A summary of each step please. 

38 minutes ago, DrJack54 said:

If OP intends to fly out/in, won't he need an onward flight to satisfy airline? Depending on where he is located (sounds like bkk as mentions flying) but border crossing might be better option. eg Vientiane. Could fly to udon transfer to non khai and return. One day. 

 

Knew someone who did this recently.  They were switching passports EU to Canadian.  Did it 100% by air chumphon > Don Mueang > KL and back the same day.  Had some errands to do that apparently couldn't afford the time of a layover on any of the legs. 

Obviously I would advise you to layover for such a long journey.  Any delay in one of the legs (particularly at Immigration) would have thrown off the entire sequence. 

Also need photo of the non-o-a visa... right-side up please.  Do you know when the original non-o/a expires?

Edit: But based the second stamp, you should be good to go until 26 Aug 2019. I think is the one that counts.  

If you live near a border, it might be easier to just exit and re-enter (depending on when the o-a expires)

Can you post a photo of all the relevant stamps inside the passport: O/A visa, extension [if any], entry stamps [last 2 or 3 if possible].  Black/Blur out any sensitive info like names, visa #.  

Also the country of the passport is helpful.

And I concur with @Bullie, 100% check of passport stamp when you enter/reenter or do anything that requires an entry into your passport is strongly advised.

You must tell them (Kawthaung Burmese Immigration) that you intend to stay for a couple of days.  Otherwise they will assume you are doing a "border run" and will put the entry and exit stamp at the same time.   I'm not sure if they still hold your passport.  

Make sure the $10 bill is crispy and new looking (no tears, creases, or writing).  

Edit:  you could also extend at a local Thai immigration on top of your visa exempt entry for 30 days.  How many prior extensions or visa exempts have you had over the past 24 months?  What is the country of your passport?

Yes.  It took no longer than 5-6 days and that was it being applied in Chumphon (traveling passport staff) or Surat Thani.  1000 baht + 40 for EMS.  

In Bangkok, I would imagine as someone says it would take 2-3 days max, since it is processed there.  Plus the post office would drop it off wherever.   I would imagine only in cases of emergency would you consider same-day service.   At best, plan on next-day service (or the EMS route to bangkok address) and save yourself headache.

If as UbonJoe has hinted you will be traveling to other parts of thailand, the application can be made at any regional office.  And you EMS it to any Thai address 1040 baht.

54 minutes ago, mikehongpark said:

Thank you. Was planning to have kids ASAP. I will eject myself from this 4 year relationship. Funny how just after posting this, I just received an approval email from the National Visa Processing center after 9 month wait and this must be a sign to NOT proceed with the wedding reception. Have around 30 confirmed booking from the USA to Thailand. Guess, I will have to go to Thailand anyways and treat it like a vacation with 30 friends. However, it's going to be a nightmare to break this news to all my people and family.

"The second best time to plant a tree is today" - Chinese Proverb

There were a couple of thai private investigator websites.  But I'd just say it is less stressful to just download tinder and try again.

What about world news?  Perhaps this recent video might also shed some light on a related issue:

Doesn't only seem to be a US citizen problem.  They seem to have an irrational fear of too much foreign influence.