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So the Wednesday special is actually 800 Baht (+ caddy fee + tipp) for groups of 2 or more players?

Many courses have similar specials. Some give discount vouchers that only apply if you play in a group of 4, and only one person in the group can use the discount voucher.

174,000 baht to get a job paying 10,000 B per month. That's a 17 month period to break even. I used the word in another thread.......Muppets!

Pretty easy to judge others when you are born lucky, huh?

Maybe it is easy for somebody born lucky to judge others. I wouldn't know because I wasn't born lucky - but perhaps you'd like to flesh out your inferred judgement that I was, so I can understand your reasoning.

Born lucky = white male in a First World country.

You're assuming I'm Caucasian?

You have an interesting, but seriously flawed hypothesis. I suggest you start a separate thread on TV and see how others feel.

The Sri Lankan gentlemen in the OP are still Muppets. As is the Caucasian Frenchman who lost 276,000 to an internet Thai bride in another recent post.

174,000 baht to get a job paying 10,000 B per month. That's a 17 month period to break even. I used the word in another thread.......Muppets!

Pretty easy to judge others when you are born lucky, huh?

Maybe it is easy for somebody born lucky to judge others. I wouldn't know because I wasn't born lucky - but perhaps you'd like to flesh out your inferred judgement that I was, so I can understand your reasoning.

174,000 baht to get a job paying 10,000 B per month. That's a 17 month period to break even. I used the word in another thread.......Muppets!

I found this link that might help you. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001554.htm

Interestingly enough, it says that only 10% of people that threaten or try to commit suicide actually succeed.

Good luck - can't be easy living with that situation.

Don't have a big bike in Thailand myself as a scooter is far more convenient. I know a few blokes that do have big bikes and one has been trying to sell his Triumph for nearly 6 months with no real interest.

Prices are too high here for big bikes, and the size of the market for reselling is very small. Your average Thai won't buy one, neither will your average Farang. So you've got a very small number of potential purchasers - supply and demand really.

If everybody wants it as you say, but won't pay your price - implies its overpriced.

Years ago my then best friend of maybe 10 years was relocated back to my hometown after a 6 month transfer away. He'd bought a house while away and therefore had all his cash tied up. I offer to let him stay with me and family for a month until his house was sold and he could repurchase.

Biggest mistake ever made. An otherwise good mate, golf partner, bike riding partner, general all around good bloke turned out to have the personal habits of a pig and was as lazy as a sloth. The month couldn't go past fast enough. It caused our friendship to dissipate and also put pressure on my marriage. We still stay in touch but I wouldn't go out of my way to help him again.

Good luck with your 2-3 month visitor David - maybe her being female and Thai may make it a more pleasant experience, but consider what it will be like living with two Thai women for that length of time.

No we're not all the same in the eyes of all Thais, and neither are all Thais the same in the eyes of all non-Thai. To think otherwise is a sweeping bigoted generalisation that defies all logic.

Have you visited the Thailand News forum lately?

You'll have to enlighten me.

Once bought a Thai condo and my Thai bank had to show that the money came from falang land.

Depositing cash did not count.

TIT.

That's correct - but it does not have to be one specific deposit. The foreign transferred funds can be deposited to your Thai bank account over any period. It doesn't have to be all at once.

To clarify for the OP - your bank will record all your foreign currency transactions in a memo ledger. This is how they track incoming funds to either issue you the document you need, or indeed to allow anybody to pay money out of Thailand. You cannot remit more money out of Thailand than you brought in from overseas.

This memo ledger receives a "credit" when you bring money in, and a "debit" when you get the document required to purchase a condo, or send money overseas from Thailand.

Correspondingly, when you sell the condo you get the document that allows the bank to "credit" your memo ledger and allow you to remit the money overseas.

EDIT: You probably need to read my previous post No.7 for it all to make sense.

EDIT 2: The reason the dude buying the OP's house wants to send money to his Thai account, is so that he can get the document he requires to prove evidence of the arrival of funds from overseas. If it goes to the OP's account then he's potentially screwing himself.

If the money comes in to your account from another Thai account, you cannot get the proof of funds coming from overseas for those particular funds.

However, provided you have brought funds in from overseas in the past that are at least the equivalent of the condo purchase, you should be able to get the document from your bank. Evidence of the funds arriving in Thailand is not time sensitive, nor is it reason specific, so if you've been here for a few years and brought the 2 or 3 Million baht in from overseas during that time, should be OK.

I wonder how much larger the Thai/Thai v Thai/Falang sex trade is in Thailand. 50/1......500/1 ?

I think the OP lives under a bridge.

I tell them in Thai that I can't read it because I haven't got my glasses (which is true). Forces them to try and tell you in English, or if they can't and assume you understand Thai, they'll give it to you in Thai.

Only once has somebody written it down in huge numbers on a piece of paper. And once the person grabbed a bigger calculator with a bigger display.....ya gotta laugh!

It amazes me how they've taken the same script and made 12,000 odd soap operas out of it. Change a few names, add a few more Flintstone's sound effects and hey presto, a new soapie for the masses to consume. I'm sure they once showed a soap opera that was the same as another one using second cameras angles!!

Suggestion for the TV producers - try making a documentary or two. (not holding my breath.)

Took my wife back home and she was amazed that I could drive across the country without getting lost while relying solely on road signs or the odd question about direction from a local, which was invariably accurately answered. She lost sleep when she discovered we were going to areas that I had never been to before, or where there were no friends or relatives to call on for directions.

This topic amuses me because it is so true. It really surprised me when I showed a tuk-tuk driver a map written in Thai, and I knew exactly where I wanted to go, but didn't want to walk. The driver didn't have a clue how to read a simple map, even when written in Thai. Eventually I just had to tell him somewhere that I knew was close to where I wanted to go and I just walked from there.

I've drawn a simple map to show Thai friends where I live and they didn't understand. Obviously, rural Thais are not taught about maps in school and when they move to the city they still don't understand. That does not mean they are dumb. They just haven't learned the concept. It is like a farang raised in a city being put in the wilderness and expecting them to survive.

We can all read and write.

Many lower class Thais can't read and write.

Tuk tuk, m/c taxi, all the bottom of the pile, hardly any of them can read and write so that includes maps.

Not only the maps, but they can't read road names or shop names either.

That probably explains why I see a great number of taxi drivers reading newspapers while waiting for a fare.

My caddie loves to say "3 on, 3 putt, duppil bo-gee eek laaow!"

She gets plenty of practice

OP - without wanting to sound too critical, your questions imply a certain simplicity and lack of knowledge or foresight about Thailand. How many times have you been to Thailand and what do you know about the culture and ways of the country?

If you're going to live here then simple questions about hiring a scooter or insurance should be down the bottom of the list of things you want advice on.

Sorry if I'm making a wrong assumption.

My crystal ball is out of order

But I can guarantee that 50% of TV members opinions will be correct, and 50% will be wrong.

300 B per day is touted as the national minimum wage. However this really only applies to the rural provinces where the COL is considerably less than Pattaya.

You need to pay more and offer incentives to stay longer, with added bonuses for increased skills and longevity of service - and don't be thinking in terms of a bonus at six months. Six months is two eternities to a Thai.

Here's my suggestion:

300 B per day for the 1st month. A 2,000 B bonus if one month is completed, paid on the 15th of the following month, provided they stay. (incentive to stay 6 weeks, and if they leave when they get that bonus they forfeit 2 weeks pay for leaving mid-month). Average daily cost 366 B.

400 B per day for the 2nd month. A 2,000 B bonus for staying the two months, paid as above - gets the same retention incentive.

450 B per day fro the 3rd month. A 1,000 Bonus for staying the three months, paid as above.

500B per day from then on. And then for no particular reason, slip them the odd bonus, take them out for a BBQ, treat them well.....pays dividends!!

The chances are you will still have considerable staff rollover but a lot less than you would only paying 300 B per day. The incentives will possibly rarely be paid but at least you'll retain staff for longer periods. While the overall cost may look excessive I suggest you do yourself a little model that will show the average costs under various circumstances.

I'd suggest that your average cost will only be 400 B per day, plus you may get lucky and get one or two that may well stay the distance. If this happens you may need fewer overall staff because they are more efficient/productive....thus saving you money and having fewer staff headaches.

I have done something similar to the above and it worked very well.

Whilst for us the above stipulations are quite clear, I fear avarage Thais may find it a wee bit complicated.

I would go with 50 baht per hour and some perks after a month.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

You underestimate the "average Thai" I fear. If written in a Thai language employment contract it's perfectly understandable. Sometimes we foreigners are guilty of assuming that intelligence and ability to understand is race related - not so as proven in many studies.

I know a 24 year old waitress/cashier that explained to me how giving change is a science to maximise the tip potential. She judges the look of the customer, the dress, general demeanour, attitude, what they purchase, how they interact with the staff etc, whether they have a car or bike.... and that determines what format the change will be given in.

If the change is 100B, she will vary the denominations given to different customers to extract the highest possibility of increasing the tip potential. She explained the logic but some of the detail was way over my head. One example was that if she assumed the customer was a Baht Bus customer, she would not give any 10B coins if possible, only 20's. If she got good vibes from a customer she would make sure the change contained a 50 and a 10 - expecting a 30 or maybe a 50B tip. She had it all figured out and had her staff giving her feedback on the customer.