Darrel

30 minutes ago the open beer bottles were in plain view everywhere. The lights were still off though.

Personally I think this blatant lack of respect for the law is rather depressing, and doesnt bode well.

Just saw a sequence on Australian TV where they interviewed an Udon Thani woman working in a factory in BKK.

She is paid 5000B/month, she pays 1000B rent and sends 3000B back to Udon.

I suspect that she would rather be a maid for 5000B all found.

WP for expats is required in every country.

Not at all.

Nationals of any EU member country do not require work permits to work in any other EU member country.

Point of information: If you leave the change on the tray the tip goes to the house, but is often split amount the whole staff. If the waiting staff you have had are particularly good give a nice (not scruffy) 20 Baht note directly to the person.

Many times I have watched farangs settle their bill in a no-name Soi Buakow Thai restaurant that I often eat in.

Many leave quite substantial tips (often 10 or 20%) but they almost invariably do this directly to the owner, who is the only one who ever handles money. He always gives a wai in thanks but the cash goes straight into his apron pocket, where, I suspect, it remains.

On that place's turnover (which is extremely high, even though individual dishes only cost 30-50B) I am certain that the amount left to the owner as "tips" covers the entire wages bill 50 times over or more.

Walking around a somewhat dark and quiet 2nd Rd/Soi Diana area yesterday evening, I was interested to see the large numbers of farangs sitting at the back of darkened bars, all clutching large disposable drinks containers.

I'm sure that they were meeting there to discuss the elections over a CocaCola.

Trafic noise doesnt bother me. What I dont like is the noise of people. Asians are a noisy lot in general, and many Thais speak (shout) in a particularly piercing way. Add to that the inevitable barking dogs and I would much rather be in a condo than out in the sticks. If you choose the right condo you dont get any traffic noise either, even in Pattaya.

There are even a few condos that are themselves out in the sticks, and some of those are really excellent for someone who appreciates silence. I have my eye on a couple at the moment.

i can also accept reasons like "i prefer the quiet rural lifestyle with neighbours far away that i don't hear their farting or belching. for that i'm willing to forego eating french cheese, bavarian weisswurst, swiss bündner fleisch, italian salami, german bread

I would certainly rather have distant quiet neighbours than easy access to any farang food. I can easily live without that.

Trouble is, I dont think there is anywhere in Asia that has distant quiet neighbours, unless it is half way up a mountain where you probably dont have access to any food at all, other than fermented yak fat and boiled weeds.

What are crescents??

Surely croissants.

Dont try and stream the BBC over a VPN. The combination of crappy VPNs and crappy Thai international connections just isnt up to it most of the time.

Use the iPlayer website with the VPN on, select the programmes for download in WMV format, pause the download, turn off the VPN, unpause the download. You will now get full speed from the download.

Once the download has finished just reconnect the VPN for the time it takes to start playback in WMP. Once playback has started you can turn the VPN off again.

A little bit fiddly but it works perfectly.

I've seen that older versions of the PCX came in colours other than the bright red, white or black available now. Some rather attractive beige/tan/brown colours.

Are there any significant technical differences between these older PCXs compared to the new red, white or black models?

Has anyone seen a shop that still has unused stock of these older versions? Presumably they would sell for less.

There seems to be a lot of new condos in the under 1m baht range selling but they are of smaller size.

In general, Thailand property sales are booming

In Pattaya new 1M Baht condos are very small and/or located well off the beaten track. I wouldnt want to live in one.

The 1M Baht tag also rarely includes everything (furniture package, foreign name, meters, transfer fees).

As for sales booming, I would restrict that to sales of new property and even then I'm not sure booming is the right word. Steady would be more accurate, I think.

Sales of used property are not booming.

What many people do not realize is that when they buy (or even rent) a home anywhere in Thailand is that the resident ant colonies object to neat and tidy occupants. Traditional style homes, the ones that are built on stilts, seldom have problems with insect infestations due to the minimal number of entry points. All concrete homes have a massive insect problem that may never be rectified.

To an extent this is quite true.

I have seen severe termite damage in 10th floor high-rise Pattaya condos, somewhere that I never expected to see them. I've also seen ant trails on the 20th floor of some buildings here. The advantage of concrete though is that the little beasties cant eat the structure. So as long as you find them and stop them (and they cant travel through concrete, only up and down the service conduits and such-like) then the worst that you may have to do is to replace doorframes and wooden trim.

In a traditional wood house they can actually burrow into the wood and destroy the frame from the inside out. Or indeed eat through the stilts.

The best solution for traditional houses is to build them on concrete stilts. A squirt of insecticide once a month will stop anything going up the outside of the stilts. Or even ecological sticky trunk gum such as one uses on trees in Europe.

UK law relating to whether non-residents can hold bank accounts is extremely clear: there is no law at all prohibiting it. Not even a sniff of a law.

However, there are anti money-laundering laws that require banks to take steps to identify customers, by requiring information about identity (sight of a passport, or certified copy thereof) and about address (sight of an official document bearing name and address, or certified copy thereof).

This applies even to existing customers, so you may find that your bank of 30 years standing may ask for documentation one day, if they dont have it on file already.

Some banks find it easier just not to bother with all that and so refuse to open accounts for new customers living abroad, or close existing accounts for people who move abroad. But it is the bank's choice, and has nothing to do with any law.

Needless to say, if your account has hardly anything in it they will be much more likely to close it than if you have thousands on deposit.

My main UK bank account is provided by one of the "big four" who also hold all my shares on a Crest nominee account in the stockbroker arm, and they also have about GBP80,000 on deposit. I dont see them objecting to me living in Thailand any time soon. In fact if I told them I lived on the moon they would probably not be bothered either.

You are talking about a human, am I right, Darrel? For a moment it seemed like you are describing a wild animal, and you are afraid to even approach it

Maybe we can be little bit more tolerant about others around us? There are many reasons why people are really down on their luck, Darrel. No need to give them one more kick.

Wake up.

Someone suggested that I should take a photo of a big guy begging on the side of 2nd Rd. I thought that this might be a bad idea, in case he takes objection to being photographed.

No one is kicking anyone.

The clue is in the name: "no fixed".

Perhaps someone can take a photo and send it to me via PM. What nationality is he?

That was the first and only time I saw him there. Given that he had a rucksack and guidebook, there is reason to suppose that he was only transient.

I walk past there at least 8 times a day, and will keep a lookout for him. Dont think I would care to photograph him though: he was a big guy!

I'd love to see someone apply for a work permit for it.

The "strange open-air Thai theatre" you mention was actually a Likay theatre, it was quite a small venue.

Of more importance was the small bar area which was one of the few to sell draught beer at the time.

You will also remember the slums that were right infront of you if you had carried on walking towards Soi Buakow from the theatre mentioned.

That's right.

I do remember an area at the back of Made in Thailand that had a few cheap Thai restaurants in, from where you could see the theatre and the the cinema. And there was a wet market area across to the north also. You really felt you were abroad back then. Now its all hamburgers and 7/11s.

The really odd thing was to see Diana Estate sprout up out of the middle of nothing at all!

Actually the strange thing is that they require 2 photos and then they also take a picture of you using a webcam and print it onto the photocopy of the passport.

Now what's the point of that?

Yes, I also get a little interest from Kbank on a regular savings account.

If you want more interest there are other (fixed term) accounts from Kbank that pay higher rates, though some other banks have better accounts than Kbank that dont require fixed term deposits and which still pay up to 2.5% or more.

As they say "there but for the grace of god",live and let live i say it's thier choice of the way that they live,the only trouble is when you are on the slide there is only one way you go.

Indeed. I was just intrigued by the relatively high numbers.

The only one that actually bothered me was the Irish guy bumming cigarettes, and he was a nuisance.

Do you really think that the police and Thai Immigration are unaware of these people?

I dont know. Maybe they have bigger fish to watch for.

It's easy enough to spot a black guy begging in front of the Apex at 1pm: he stands out like a sore thumb. The guy with the plastic bottles should be easy enough to spot also. But a guy bumming cigarettes on Beach Rd at night? Not so easy. Do they catch all the overstayers in town? I dont think so. How many times have I read on here 'I just realised I've overstayed by 5 years"?

The 2nd Rd Cambodian beggars are also illegal aliens, but they seem to be there every day too. Maybe for different reasons.

I just hope the t-shirt and shorts wearing bottom feeders from the Apex and Lek dont discover the place.

Oh dear. I wear shorts and a t-shirt. But I dont frequent the Apex or Lek. Does that let me off the hook?

The staff are perfectly capable.

Indeed. Never had a problem with them.

The advantage of the London properties over the Jomtien one is that last time I needed a tenant, I had one within 3 days of the advert, the Jomtien condo took over a month to rent out.

My feeling is I will not buy anymore property in Thailand until I live there, but to have a cash reserve to buy any really good deals that would allow me an acceptable ROI even if renting out at the bottom of the rental range for the appropriate market. Also I would only consider buying property in Thailand I can own outright, so I am limited to the condo market.

Makes sense to me.