briley

I've always found that making recomendations about accomodation is impossible, what I like other hate and vice versa.

My recomendation is turn up and book into a cheap guest house (there I will recomend Top North) and have a look around for a few days. You can rent almost on the spot and move in that day if you have a months rent and a couple of months rent for deposit in your pocket - say about 80,000 baht?

Collecting stuff from the airport is easy and relatively cheap BUT you must collect it quickly as heathrow charge storage after a few days and that is expensive - they want you to remove the stuff.

I've always done it myself from Heathrow but there are numerous small companies that will do it, check their prices first.

Ethihad go to Abu Dhabi but have a terminal in Dubai and a coach transfer between the airpot and terminal. Should be about an hour as Dubai and Abu Dhabi are only 180Km or so appart and the airport is on the Dubai side of Abu Dhabi.

But I have found that ofter the fare BKK to Europe via the middle East is almost the same or less than a fare BKK to Middle East. Why not look at Emirates to Europe that allows a stop over in Dubai in both directions? You might be able to tear up the Dubai Europe return part - or do a day trip!

You can buy genuine citizenship of a few, small, countries but it is not cheap.

Getting nationality due to residence is time consuming, rarely under 3 years.

'Buying' one of the 'diplomatic' type passports advertised and you will be refused entry to many, if not most, countries.

The countries you list have strict nationality laws, easier to get UK or US nationality.

There is a swiss site that gives details for all countries but I can't currently locate it!

You can get a 30 day extension for 1,900 baht from any immigration office (inc. Bangkok). That will not use up your second entry.

Thought this thread was on SMTP - reading properly it says newfeed!

There are a few free Text Only newsfeeds about. I use readfreenews, I think if you just click on this link it will open up in outlook express

news.readfreenews.net

Thier web page is www.readfreenews.net - but having just checked they are refusing to let you sign up to post messages.

Try googling for free news readers, especially in google groups as I know that this question has come up repeatedly on some of the UK groups.

If all else fails there is an italian site, www.x-privat.org that I think is Euro10 for access and the old german site http://news.individual.net/ that used to be free but is now Euro10 per year but has an excellent record for text groups.

British embassy are quite relaxed about the regulation, they do like a UK citizen but will accept any signature.

Make sure the person who signs can be contacted by phone as there are more checks being made that the person who signs does exist.

You have to set 'outgoing mail server' -- 'my server requires authentication' and put in you Yahoo username and password

My income is rental income - I showed the consulate in Chiang Mai the last three months statements and completed a short form saying I wanted the letter to say I was getting the sum on the statements.

Probably in your case a set of bank statements?

Why not phone the Embassy and ask?

But be careful - mail sent via TOT and TTT's smpt server is often rejected by other companies with talk of excess spam. Particulalry true of AOL who simply dump the e-mail, no notification of non-delivery to you and nothing to the recipient.

10 day extension maximum and then no more.

Believe that you get an extra 10 days whilst they make application for an extension for you to stay - which is then refused at the end of the 10 days!

I have always believed that you should send important documents of a small nature by ordinary post.

Why advertise the fact that it is important, and not just Aunt Fanny's weekly letter, by registering/recording etc the post?

Doesn't the resolution depend on the quality of the images google are using?

Chiang Mai is very good, in the town, but other places are just blurry.

I have a few 'friends' who insist on sending stuff.

Using Outlook express I have set up a message rule where for their e-mail address all mail is deleted at server if the subject starts with FW

Excluding fuel surcharge.

Maybe like air aisa's flight Chiang Mai BKK for 999 --- plus 800 baht fuel surcharge plus insurance plus booking fee plus airport tax, plus VAT. Think over 2300 in the end.

EVO - can you get this to work? I've been trying for the last 12 months with no success. It used to work but now............

Tesco - but very limited range, think only one with a nice blue dolphin on it.

bulmercke - BBC says @due to contractual rights the current programme on Radio 4/ world service is not available on the internet'

They have the rights to broadcast live football, F1, forget what else on radio to the UK, but this has now been deemed to mean only the UK, so they can't stream it live on the internet.

Note this is only for the LIVE sports content, all other programmes are streamed.

I beleive they know you are outside the UK if you IP address is outside the UK, but this must cause problems for all AOL users as their IP address is in the US regardless of where they connect from.

I am sure there must be a way around this problem but a year of research has got me nowhere.

I have a QBE policy but got it initially from some guy in Hillside 4 - I have now lost his contact details. It is special for condo's and was not meantioned when I initially went to QBE, but they happily renew it. If they don't meantion it push for details. Costs 5,000 for 2 million of cover and includes personal liability in thailand, earthquake cover and damage caused by buffalo. Also all documents translated into English, although the Thai version is the legal version. By the way I don't think it is quite 'new for old' cover but replacement cover for theft etc.

I went to Arriva (old CU) and a couple of other companies and found I could get cheaper cover down to about 3,000, but earthquake and other cover was often left out or cost 1,000 more.

FOr me QBE gives the right level of coverage at an acceptable price. What they are like if you claim I don't know, but the manager does support Liverpool so should be OK???????

Sorry Old Croc - so long since I've been in that state................

They don't in my experience.

Will only send it to your UK registered address.

And if you don't have a UK address you can't have a nationwide account - well not the flex account.

Small correction to Albert?

AFAIK your pension is frozen from the date you become non-resident if you are recieving a pension.

If you become non-resident before you are retirement age (65 or whatever) then it is frozen at the rate due when you reach retirement age.

But I would point out again that it is reasonably easy to convince the DHS that you live in the UK with all the benefits that that entails.

(Incidentally I am not yet getting my UK state pension so you can't tell tales on me!)

Taking about the debit card or (for some people) the ATM card. Not the Credit card that I think is called the classic visa card.

You pay for cash advances with the credit card.

My gut feeling is that if you are gay you think most retire's are gay.

If you are married to a Thai then then most retire's are married to a Thai

If you are a farang couple then most retire's are farang couples.

I think retire's split into 50% gay, 25% married to younger Thai's and the rest married Thai's ages back or are farang married couples.

What does that make me????

Would be interesting to build up a list of how ameniable embassy's are.

US seems willing to issue a 'pension' letter if you say you have X baht a year and no proof.

I know that the UK asks for evidence of income from any source to issue a pension letter, but make no checks.

Believe that Australia actually checks on you evidence!

What do the other embassy's do?