Darrel

I renewed mine in Jomtien on Monday, 15 minutes max, you need 2 photos now, if you are doing visa on "income" as I did, no letter from bank required.

I did mine at Jomtien last week.

2 photos, photocopies of the various pages of the passport, passport, bank book showing balance over 800K, recent letter from bank confirming that the attached copy of the bank book was exact (this cost me 100Baht, including the photocopy), completed form, 1900Baht, 15 minutes in and out. Returned a couple of hours later to pick up the passport. No waiting at all.

Made in Thailand has been there for decades. Previously there was an open-air cinema behind it, and a strange open-air Thai theatre, all backing on to Soi Buakow (which was still a dirt track).

Certainly a shame that places like that should be pushed out to make way for condos or air-con shopping malls.

An alternative is the weekend Thapprya market. Or the Tuesday/Friday market in Soi Buakow near South Rd.

You could rename this thread "beggar patrol" and inform us on each new candidate.

I'm game. I have no idea why so many of them have surfaced recently though.

Incidentally, what do you think about handicapped beggars? Are they a waste of space or should they be allowed to live?

I think I covered this quite concisely much earlier in the thread

I feel sorry for people here who for no fault of their own are obliged to beg, and this includes handicapped Thai people. It does not include begging farangs in Thailand, as they can just go home.

I feel sorry for people who have to travel far from home to sell trinkets to tourists in order to make a living.

I feel sorry for people like the Soi Diana guy who clearly cant think straight. They need help and his Embassy or consulate should be helping them.

I care to a small extent when a farang makes a fool of himself (and by extraction of other farangs, including me) by sitting in the gutter begging, or getting plastered in public, or fighting etc. etc. etc., but I dont feel sorry for him. He can just go home and get a job, or go home and let his government take care of him. He has no reason to be begging/drunk/fighting here. If I were involved with Thai immigration I would deport them very quickly indeed.

your expression "untrained eye" applies. there are maids and there are maids.

Indeed. But you were quite specific that no Thai or legal Burmese person would do the job for under 8K all found, no matter how competent or not they were. I doubt that, especially when compared with the other job I mentioned.

as i don't know any english speaking restaurant girl who earns 5k Baht i can't comment.

Well, I do. The girl in question is nice and apparently reliable (she has been there 6 months to my knowledge). She produces food, drinks and condiments as required, and the tables are clean. I suppose that this would make her suitable for a maid's job. I would certainly take her on, if I wanted a maid. (Oh, and she gives me free fried beetles too.)

I also know the various ladies who clean/make up beds in the building where I stay. I dont think that the live-in ones (several live out) earn significantly more than 5K per month, though they do all get tips as well as it is a tourist building.

That may work. Depends on how official-looking the translation is. The requirements say "official" translation, which presumably means rubber stamps, signature in blood etc.

The really galling thing about it all is that it is so totally and utterly pointless. Any document like this proves nothing at all.

I think that I may try Kbank for something written in English mentioning my name and Thai address. They only charged me 100B for a letter.

Now, you can tell the UK government (I presume) that you are no longer resident in the UK for tax purposes. They'll waive whatever taxes are not applicable to UK non-tax residents, and you can instead hand taxes due over to the Thai tax man if you've brought those funds into Thailand in the year that they were earned.

All you need is a Thai Tax ID card, which anyone can get.

You dont need a Thai Tax ID card in order to be treated as non-resident for tax purposes by the UK authorities. You just have to leave and tell them you have done so.

However, even when you have left you are still liable to pay tax on all UK sources of income, minus your regular UK tax allowance. The only real exception is UK government bonds (gilts) which are 100% tax-free to non-residents. (Now is probably not a good time to buy these.)

Thai income tax on pensions is excluded by taxation treaties, at least in the US treaty.

Not in the UK treaty. Nor indeed on most others, I suspect.

houses in the UK are increasing and selling well?????

In London and the South-East? They certainly are.

Elsewhere in the UK? Probably not.

Location, location, location.

... they can with ANY safe irrespective of its size.

Sure. Nothing easier than stealing a 2 ton bank vault on the back of a Honda 125.

One nice thing about Pattaya is that in spite of the large number of 'soi' dogs there is surprisingly little dog crap on the pavements.

I, for one, am grateful as I can concentrate more on not falling into the potholes.

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Fool me thrice, shame on George W Bush.

"The thing is, if you're fooled once you can't be fooled again."

Yeah, right.

Someone needs to draw me a picture.

Over-enthusiastic World of Warfare players?

Actually I would say its an improvement, at least he wasnt selling drugs.

Can we be sure? It may be a front.

Either way I bet the Cambodian women who usually beg near there were pretty mad.

6 dollars doesnt go far even in Thailand these days. It almost sounds like it is unprofitable at those rates.

I've seen some people go there and eat very little. Not everyone spends half the day there (not even me!).

Plus it's probably better for them to be open and not make a huge profit than to be empty or closed. And presumably it attracts people to come back for other more expensive meals.

He is a rich man ,and can pay more .His employees are lucky and i hope they appreciate it .

I understand that. It's just the figures that dont seem to add up to me, and especially his conviction that no Thai or legal foreign maid would be happy with 5K all found.

Given the choice I think I would prefer to be a maid for a farang than to work in a Thai restaurant. Though there may be a question of tips etc. (or maybe the Thai owner pockets them).

Won't your bank accept other forms of certification of address?

Several posters here have talked about getting one for address verification for overseas banks, so I cant be the only person who wants an English document.

Yes, the bank will accept a letter from the consulate (but I'm not paying 2500B for that: I'd rather die first) or any utility bill or bank statement or government letter. Needless to say I currently dont have utility bills, Kbank dont send statements, and my farang banks all have a UK correspondence address precisely so that I dont have to worry about post going missing here. A residence certificate from immigration seemed like a perfect and sensible solution.

If it comes to the worst I will just request a state pension forecast or something similar from the UK. They will post that straight out to me here for free. All so pointless though, as getting one letter from the UK proves nothing about my residential address at all.

'they only come out at night"

As of today, they dont.

Walked past the Apex on 2nd Road at about 1pm. Squatting outside was a black guy with a smart rucksack, a copy of the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand, and a plastic cup with some coins and a 20B note in it.

He was addressing his attention to passing Thais, holding out his cup and saying "sawatdee kap".

It all goes from bad to worse.

most of the items are not filled up and you have to wait, sometimes till your ready to leave before its done. I rarely get the lasagna, it is always out and we are told its coming, most of the time it doesnt come. The sausages used to be great but they were changed. OJ and coffee and bread really good but half of the toaster doesn't work correctly. My eggs keep coming out greasy [sholuld be cooked on an outdoor grill] and I like my bacon well done which I can never get there.

Never noticed any of those problems at all.

Dont eat sausages or eggs though.

Never had to wait more than a few minutes for empty dishes to be replaced.

You wouldnt happen to be the miserable old American who was there a couple of Sundays ago, would you? He was bitching and moaning about the slow staff and his missing fried eggs, and all the while the small child with him was playing some handheld game at high volume. I leaned over and politely asked the old git to tell the child to turn the volume down or go outside; he nearly had a fit! I was laughing for hours about him.

CP also have quite drinkable grapefruit...whatever.

Grapefruit? If only........

I dream of grapefruit juice.

It's the same watery pineapple one gets everywhere here. My brain keeps expecting it to taste sharp like grapefruit, and it never does.

No, at Casa Pascal I just drink coffee, tea and water and am happy with that for the price.

if you want an english speaking maid in Pattaya you won't find a Burmese maid -without work permit- willing to work for less than 8,000 Baht and a Thai national with passable english will not work for less than 10,000 Baht.

You dont think that an English-speaking resturant girl from the north of Thailand would rather work as a maid in Pattaya than in a Thai restaurant in Pattaya, for the same 5K all found? The jobs seem similar to my untrained eye.

I would guess that Foreigners on extension of stay based upon Foreign income earned would be an easy place to start... as they have already sworn that they have earned income from overseas.

Which to me always seemed one good reason to go via the 800K deposit route.

The condo market in Thailand especially Pattaya is booming...

Which Pattaya are you talking about? Surely not the one I know. "Booming" to me suggests quick sales and rising prices. I see no obvious evidence of that here at the moment, quite the opposite in fact. Some decent places sell, when the price gets low enough, but there is a huge amount of overpriced rubbish that just hangs around for months or years.

I think it all depends on what you buy and how much you pay for it. There are good buys to be had in both the UK and Thailand, the potential upside in Thailand is probably higher, though the potential downside is probably higher also. I dread to think what would happen here if all the Russians decided to go to Cambodia instead.

Given the OP's phrase "inevitable move" I suspect that he would be well advised to try and keep a foot in both camps, thereby hedging a little against currency movements and future property price movements in both countries.

My personal opinion is that property has a way to fall in both countries over the next few years, prior to increasing again.

Your articles are about Hotels. We are talking Private residences.

I dont see what difference it makes whether you are in a hotel or not: if someone can get to your small safe then they can probably remove it quite quickly and open it later at their leisure.

I enjoy reading the posts of you loners. It gives me cause to think. After 50 years of sleeping with women every night should I actually try sleeping alone?

I once tried to get a certified translation of the immigration residence certificate....

Do you mean that it isn't in English?

I would have expected it to be in both languages, just like the form one fills in to request it.

I wont bother getting one if it's in Thai as it wont do.