likerdup1

3 minutes ago, essox essox said:

why not phone them and get info from "the horses MOUTH "????

Yea, I'm just going to go there and ask in person to make sure now that you mention it. Sometimes advice on this forum is hearsay, inaccurate, out of date or just plain wrong. I need to take a trip this weekend and would like to go on Friday and stay through Monday.

6 minutes ago, ubonjoe said:

 

Have you been told you need to do it by your local immigration office?

If needed you could go on Friday or Monday.

forgive me, but are you sure of this.. I don't want any snafu regarding my visa.. Do you have direct experience or have seen other posts with the exact same problem at Chonburi/Jomtien immigration where going the day before or day after the weekend was acceptable?

YES, not only told but I was given an official appointment sheet/document with the date stamped on it that must be submitted along with my updated bank book copy and usual copies. However the date falls on a Sunday! ... clown show..

Hi, my 90 day extension of stay based on retirement bank check for 800k THB falls on a weekend day .. sunday dec 1st.

Could I go the Friday before? or the Monday after? I'm about to go down to Chonburi to ask myself unless somebody can give me a definte answer FROM EXPERIENCE ..

Anybody have a similar experience... Immigration constantly amuses me. They give me an official letter of instruction with a date to return but it falls on a day when they are closed... Sunday. And no instructions if that is the case.. TIT.. Anyways the resident experts please chime in..

47 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

The girl is wrong!

Yes, I've found that depending on who you talk to, some of them either don't understand your request or are just not well informed or just possibly even lazy. This has happened to me on numerous occasions. I tried to open a FCD at the downtown Pattaya branch of my bank where I originally opened my Baht account and the rep said I would need a letter from immigration or I could buy their health insurance...<deleted>?? .... so even at banks here the reps seem to feel free to scam you or just do whatever they want without fear. I went to another branch and opened an FCD account with only my Baht passbook and my passport.

My advice, try a different branch or different rep at the branch in question.

I finally found a gal at one of my banks branches who is very knowledgeable so I only do this kind of business with her if at all possible. There is another gal at the same branch who gave me pushback on even a simple request to change my phone number on the account.... how do they say it? Your Mileage May Very.

On 6/15/2019 at 11:11 AM, mikey88 said:

If anyone’s 30 years ‘sober’ and in the fellowship, surely they know that leaving is an entirely personal matter. You just stop going, relinquish any sponsee and chuff them off to someone else and do other things.

Finding those other things can be a problem..

Personally I never say never. I’ve seen too many go down the gurgler thinking they were fine..

There is a common misconception that people "leave AA". Nobody "leaves" the AA program. They stop going to meetings and/or stop putting the steps in their life. If they are real alcoholics this usually leads to a relapse because they turn their backs and stop following one of the main precepts of AA - to pass the AA message of recovery on to new people. This is the 12th step and the most important. (that is if they were doing this at all to begin with) which I have seen before.

There are so called alcoholics with over 30 years that go to Thailand meetings but don't do the steps and only go to meetings. Usually these are people who were only problem drinkers and not real alcoholics. They just like the meetings for the fellowship and stopped drinking without doing step work ... people like me who are real alcoholics have to do all the steps and continue to do them to remain sober for life.

Are the guys in the picture morning the death of the motorbike? You'd think they'd be looking over the barrier rather than at the bike. Wow???

1 hour ago, Tanoshi said:

Then put the equivalent of 400K THB in a 6 month fixed term and the other equivalent of 400K THB in a 1 year fixed term.

Good idea, I hadn't thought of that. I might just do that.

17 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

What makes you think they are not saying the same when an Indian asks the question. 

You do realise that you are not actually hansum right, that just what they tell you.

 

Of course they will tell you their least favorite customer is other than you or your nationality. Indian or Chinese is probably a good one to pick given a percentage of westerners are racist towards them by default.

 

Tell the customer what he wants to hear.

I am actually fairly handsome and some girls go with me free. In other words I have girlfriends who are bar girls that YOU have to pay. Why then do I rarely here them say Chinese man? Or Korea man. (some do sometimes) Your absolute logic won't give you any credibility around here dude. No sense arguing with your poor logic.

27 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

Its not hard to follow, she will tell an Australian guy her least favorite customer is an Indian, she will tell an Indian guy her least favorite customer is an Australian. Depends on who is buying the lady drinks.

 

Go to a bar today buy a girl a drink and ask the girl "out of all the customers in this bar, who is your least favorite, least attractive etc?

I wont be you, it will be another customer in the bar. 

This is not entirely true. So by your logic ALL bar girls don't have any preference, it's only a matter of money. This CANNOT be the case for all girls. Plenty of girls I've talked to usually say they do not like Indians and I ask why. They say Key Neo ( (In Thai means sticky <deleted> or cheap) Men (this is Thai for bad smell). Mai sa-at (in Thai means not clean) Some bar girls DO have preferences for customers...  On beach road, that may be another story. A lot of indians don't bathe regularly or wash their clothes often they are cheap as hell and make unreasonable demands (no condom).  Which in my view is the WORST possible thing any man would do with a prostitute is not use a condom. Pass on any number of diseases and easily pickup a few too. It's criminal to ask the girls around here to NOT use a condom. Guys that do that ought to be locked up.

7 minutes ago, Tanoshi said:

1 year fixed term account, yes.

If it's the OP's intention due to the exchange rates, to put sufficient foreign currency to cover Immigrations financial requirements for an extension in a Thai bank, then it would be fruitless to put that amount of funds in a Savings type account.

Well, not necessarily, if the OP wants to use the money after the 5 month lock up so to speak a regular savings account is the right choice. He could withdrawl money, move some back to USA etc.. which is why I have a regular savings account. But of course if he doesn't need to do that then a fixed term account makes sense IF that type of account is OK with immigration.

Anybody have experience using fixed term or even investment accounts, such as mutual funds etc.. for meeting the Immigration financial requirements?

I use a USD FCD account to keep my 800k THB requirement for immigration. I just renewed my retirement visa extension last week with a letter and bank book copies no problem at all. Immigration is used to doing currency conversions as they had to do it when using Embassy Income letters in the past. Works no problem. You are smart to not convert to THB right now. I am waiting for it to go up myself before I do any large scale conversions of USD. I however have not looked to closely at any other banks than mine for high interest rates etc.. Bangkok bank does charge 1 percent to withdrawl dollars but do not charge anything if you withdraw and convert to THB. They do not charge anything other than the usual wire transfer fees and .25% if one needs to wire the money back to a US bank.

I hope that helps.

50 minutes ago, Sticky Wicket said:

The reasons Thai's wai goes back hundreds of years and is to do with health and hygiene

People were worried about spreading disease so they used the wai instead.

Also the last thing you want to do is shake hands with somebody with a big sweaty palm in the tropics.

This is not so, do a little more Google research and you'll find it is more to do with why westerners shake hands. To show you don't have a WEAPON!

2 minutes ago, WalkingOrders said:

I Wai to Thai all the time, sometimes perhaps inapropriately, but I try to be culturally correct with this, as I am a guest within their culture. I

Degrees of Wai

As a rule of thumb, the position of your hands is indicative of the level of respect within the classic Thai greeting. All wais are not the same and the different gestures generally relate to who the other person is. The palms are pressed together with a gap between the thumbs and fingers and the elbows tucked in. The starting position is with the wrist either touching or near the chest or what yogis would identify as the heart chakra. As the head nods the hands move up to various points of the face.

The Peer-to-Peer Wai: This is used in general with people who you meet socially. As you slightly nod the hands move up so that the thumbs briefly touch the chin. This is a quick action, similar to a ‘hi’ rather than some drawn-out greeting.

The More Respectful Wai: This is used when greeting older people or those you deem to have a higher standing in some way. From the starting position, as the head tips forward slightly the hands some up so that the thumbs touch the nose. Again, this is usually a fairly swift movement, although a slower style is often used to give the gesture greater meaning and gravitas.

The Monk Wai: A real sign of reverence is used when Thais wai to monks. In this instance, the nod turns into more of a bow and the hands slide up so that the thumbs touch the eyebrows. When it comes to a wai to royalty, Thais will bow or curtsey whilst they slowly make this gesture.

15 minutes ago, ThaiBunny said:

Because Trump's 2020 campaign theme is "promises kept"

Promises kept to all his new friends at the top of Americans leading Corporations LOL!!!

Couldn't be cigarette companies with falling revenues pulling another publicity stunt to put people back on the old fire sticks?

I highly doubt "Thailand got it right" is the appropriate headline. That's right, hahaha, Thailand's many innovative scientists did extensive testing to find this problem before their US or European counterparts.

More likely that an official at the top was paid handsomely by big tobacco to make the ban on e-cigs and vaping to keep cigarette sales in Thailand rolling along at a nice clip.

Personally when I see someone using a vaping device and puffing out huge volumes of that "steam" I say to myself, this ALSO cannot be good.

1 minute ago, samsensam said:

 

like it, i enjoy watching guys sitting in restaurants or coffee shops with their thai lovely spouting their egocentric words of wisdom as the lady sits there a fixed smile on her face but eyes betraying a) they don't understand a word of what he's going on about and/or b) if they do understand they couldn't care less.

Ah, you've seen it too! I once was shown an apartment by a guy like that. His Thai girlfriend barely knew English but he would just go on all day long about how great he was "back in Auzzy land" and this and that... The condo he showed me..... WAS PERFECT FOR THE MAN WHO LOVES HIMSELF AND THINKS HE"S KING <deleted>.... IT HAD MIRRORS ON ALL THE WALLS!!! In fact the "bed chamber" looked like a small castle for the KING to do his deeds LOL!!!. it was so text book narcissistic it was pathetic.

1 hour ago, StreetCowboy said:

 

 

If they did not do a good job, I doubt so many multi-nationals would employ them.    

The companies don't have a choice, there is such a demand for IT staff that many Indians with half a brain take crash courses on IT, cheat on qualification exams and get hired into jobs they really don't know how to do. 

Anyway, I am done with my criticism of Indian engineers. I don't mean to be prejudice but I have worked in IT for a long time with many Indians. Some are quite good but many can be sophomoric and quite inept and down right dangerous for some projects... partially because they are unskilled and try to hide it AND don't admit when they don't know something or when they are wrong. This has been my experience. For all the Indian engineers out there. Do yourself a favor, study more, be willing to say when you are wrong or don't know things and learn how to do things right.

2 hours ago, captpkapoor said:

 

And thousands more in top tech companies.

Just my point. Careless and poor engineering by some of the thousands of Indian engineers. You wonder why so many large companies get hacked? I was hired to put back together the entire network of a hacked companys IT infrastructure which was poorly managed by a staff made up of a number of bad Indian engineers. I met these guys and found out how inept they were. Cost the company millions upon millions of dollars to rebuild after the hack. Again, not all Indian engineers are bad, but I have met quite a few bad ones.

I have a better poll. Why do some Thaivisa members make up lame Poll topics?

A) They think they are making earth shaking revelations but just only stating the obvious.

B) Here in Thailand they have finally found someone who will agree with just how important they think they are (namely their Thai girlfriend who is on salary and will tolerate listening to them talk all day long about nothing) and before long start believing what they have always thought about themselves.. that they are really very clever but nobody understands.

C) They need something else to do after looking in the mirror at themselves all day long.

53 minutes ago, DannyCarlton said:

Why else would you shake hands?

51 minutes ago, sanemax said:

When agreeing on a verbal deal

When agreeing on an herbal deal? Remember in Thailand the wacky weed is a very big no no! Unless they legalize it for medicinal reasons. Then you'll be have to Wai the Dr. if he prescribes for your legal high times ... ????

45 minutes ago, Isaanbiker said:

And many countries are seeking highly qualified Computer Indians who immediately receive a breathtaking salary, plus a passport from that particular country.

   

Highly qualified? I remember interviewing a number of Indian guys for a systems admin position we had in our engineering department. I was a senior engineer at the time. Many of these guys claimed to be "qualified" but failed to know simple questions that any entry level engineer in the field should know. It was clear these guys had cheated on their exams for their "qualifications" One guy had the gal to try and Google the answers while we were talking to him on a phone interview!! We could hear typing as he said, hmm let me think about that, wait I know it... blah blah.

1 hour ago, captpkapoor said:

Lots of Indian scientists at NASA, buddy!

"Lots"? A small percentage is a more accurate statement. Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually has very few Indians in ratio to the number of USA and European born scientists. Hey, I'm not saying that every Indian engineer out there is bad, just that in my experience I have worked with some who are not very good and not very logical or methodical...  well trained and educated engineers should be.  What do you do for a living buddy?