Swiss1960

If you're not trolling, then that is really the most stupid question I have so far seen on TV... how the hell can anybody on here give you an answer on your question without knowing you, your personality, your hobbies, your goals, your job etc. at all? Have you ever in your adult life shared an appartment with people other than GF's?

There maybe some validity in what the OP is saying, lets face it Thailand has large numbers of foreign retiree's, hanger's on and wannbee's where as places like Singapore dont, the vast majority of expats in Singapore, HK etc are working there with reputable companies, therefore there would be a tendancy for there to be more undesirables in Thailand just based on numbers.

Based on my own observations of 10 years here and in comparision with other countries I have lived, worked in, Thailand does seem to have a lot more "damaged" , bitter, resentful, chip on their shoulder type expats floating around than I have seen on other places

Don't forget the poor young teachers who make Thai ladies wash their polyester pants by hand!

I had the most reads on my topic than any other in the last 24 hours! thank you all! And a BIG thanks to my beautiful thai GF who washes ALL the clothes and dishes with her hands. I am quite the cook though! I also see a big number of negative, narcissistic expats who hate other westerners they hate the thai's and are only here because its cheap and the only place on earth they can find a woman to sleep with them for there pensions. Me I'm young and poor and have a sexy GF still working and not leaching off of me like many of your loved ones are here from TV>.

OMG OMG OMG... now you make soooo many of us feel sooooo bad...

I'm from a poor european country=bulgaria and two hundred baht an hour is a good wage to have. Many of you looking down on me because I'm happy and in love with a girl who has stayed with me for over a year and never lied or cheated on me and continues treating me like a king in his castle(Even if my castle is a tiny one bedroom apartment with a fan and cold shower) I'm glad I'm not a rich handsome guy who owns a hotel in Hua Hin and is married to an ex prostitute. I guess I'm fortunate, thanks for the love guys!

Good luck to you and enjoy your happy relationship while it lasts

In Switzerland, if the state prosecutor asks for detention during the investigation time (either for flight risk, re-offending danger, suppression of evidence etc.), a special court has to decide within 48 hours whether to send you to prison or grant bail. bail can be money or house arrest or electronic feet cuffs or confiscation of passport or any combination thereoff. Detention during investigation has to be re-requested by the prosecutor on a monthly basis.

You are correct. I made a typo. I should have said 1 second per 1 kilometre.

As a Process Engineer in the Oil Industry we use the safety factor to announce site wide that when there is a lightning/Thunder count of 7 seconds we clear all structures site wide.

So in all reality in Northern Canada the 7 second rule would mean around 3.5 kilometres away.

You seem to be a bit confused...

First you repeat your typo of 1 second / km instead of 3 second /km...

And from all I know, even in Canada, the same physical laws about speed of sound are valid as in the rest of the world... so even in Canada, 7 seconds would give an average distance of 2.4 km and not of 3.5km...

Monna Lisa is supposedly correct, but it has been anglicised into Mona. I have no idea why it was changed to Labelle to suit the Thais though.

Whatever Leonardo called it is fine with me.

Anyone REALLY know?

Leonardo called the picture "La Gioconda" (the joyful), as the woman in the pictures name was Lisa del Giocondo

The french call her "la Joconde" which is just a transcript from the Italien but has no further meaning

Mona Lisa (German version) is a misspeling and should be Monna Lisa (Wife Lisa - Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo)

La Belle - or belle femme - is just what the French call her colloquial

I got the same info from Wikipedia but was just too lazy to copy it all to the post.

So I am a nicer person than you because I went through the hassle to copy it out

Its the way most Thais r educated. They learn about names of trees, plants, flowers, animals, etc.

Not many Thais have knowledge on topics of world history, Christianity,geography, etc.

The da vinci code isnt something for them. Especially with the Thai translation.

Sent from my XT910 using Thaivisa Connect App

You can also say it's the way most Westerns are educated... not many have knowledge of topics of Asian history, Buddhism, Maoism, Hinduism etc etc... and knowing how many Americans with average college education won't find Europe on a map... and hearing the bullshit some American politicians talk about (specially those who want to become president of the US of A...)...

Monna Lisa is supposedly correct, but it has been anglicised into Mona. I have no idea why it was changed to Labelle to suit the Thais though.

Whatever Leonardo called it is fine with me.

Anyone REALLY know?

Leonardo called the picture "La Gioconda" (the joyful), as the woman in the pictures name was Lisa del Giocondo

The french call her "la Joconde" which is just a transcript from the Italien but has no further meaning

Mona Lisa (German version) is a misspeling and should be Monna Lisa (Wife Lisa - Lisa was the wife of Francesco del Giocondo)

La Belle - or belle femme - is just what the French call her colloquial

Don't get disheartened. Just learn to discriminate between those who are seeking advice and those who post for fun.

And then there are those who post questions and think the seek advice, but all they want is confirmation for their preconceived opinions...

I doubt if he is a Canadian. That is what you meant by local guys eh?

Same same Thailand eh?

Ya, I've always thought Thai and Canadian men were pretty much the same as far as laundry goes.

Yet get a girl to hand wash your long-johns... that's the girl to keep. Also one that can help with your hockey draft picks is a good bet too, just don't let anyone find out.

I am rich and I am old... and I don't understand why you want to waist your girlfriends time to wash your clothes...

She may have an advantage not knowing what we were brought up with ? having read the book and watched the movie I spent more time analysing what I'd been told in the past, some parts made me say yes that is a woman at the last supper table other parts just made it a really good read.

I do wonder about translated versions if they have the same story line.

I agree with you, I also had to google loads of things in order to understand what's going on in the book. Without know-how of Catholic church history, it seems to be that a "regular" Thai person will not be able to understand the story bord of the book.

And looking at the differenced in the language concept between English and Thai, I can not imagine that any translation from English to Thai can bring over the story... I assume that if one is fluent in both Thai and English and would read both books, he would probably think that he reads two different stories.

Something like Financial Ombudsman or shall I contact VISA?

Dont' know about an ombudsman in Thailand, but definitely VISA has nothing to do with what appears on your statement and VISA does not deal with individual customers fraud problems. That is the banks job.

One thing that everyone should think about is each country has their own codes, the first numbers on the credit card, so someone from the US can have the same last 12 numbers of their card with the only difference is the first four numbers. This applies to all MasterCard, Visa, Discover, and American Express cards as well as many others from all over. Some of the cards involved are here:

You should read articles in more detail... it is the first 6 digist that identify the bank (and the product) who issued the card (BIN - Bank Identifying Number), followed (VISA / MC) by 9 random digists, followed by the Luhn number (check digit). I agree that the 9 digits in question are the same throughout the world (as mostly starting around zero and counting up when issuing a product), but the chance to see 12 equal digist on cards (given the Luhn number calculated on all of the first 15 digits) is pretty remote...

the card had been used in error in the US and England.

"used in error".... your card has been skimmed in Thailand and the transactions from US and England have been fraudulent, No other possibility.

I make it a habit now to check my credit card balances every week on my Thai cards and my US cards just in case. A word to the wise.

That is what we tell our customers almost every day... that's why we set up SMS alarm systems for transactions... but too many customers who think "I am careful, nothing will ever happen to me". As I am travelling frequently and using my various cards pretty often, I have fraud on my cards at least twice a year...

reading the topics of this "gentleman", I can understand the attitude of the Thai people towards him....

Agree, should be closed for Thai bashing...

Op: Don't understand why you worry about a Thai licence, if you're only here for 4 weeks... get yourself an international driver licence from your home country and you'll be set to rent and drive for that time...

Tag un Nacht in die Peiz, Swissie, du solch mal a rli wasser trinke stat nur Bier

U should not try to write in Swiss german if you don't speak our language... u disqualify yourself as a s***id German

What a very nice introduction of yourself to that website....

changing the wife might be cheaper than hiring an exorcist as the exoricist might be needed for years to come...

Observation: My USAA Visa card rides the MC Cirrus network -- I guess that's how USAA has overall contracted, and they *do* prioritize their MC option over their Visa option. Nevertheless, logo apparently trumps network -- so my USAA Visa card gets the Visa rate, not MC/Cirrus rate.

Very interesting observation. Could you please give me some information on that? I know that in some areas of the world, Diners has got rid of their own network and cooperates with MC for transaction processing, but I never heard that VISA transactions would be handeled through the MC network...

Yeap, totally agree if an ATM card only.

ATM cards are fine for banks when it is about keeping people out of the branches when they need cash only (ATM cheaper than staff), but not interesting when it comes to getting rid of cash, which is the first interest for banks (cash handling is very expensive). That is why Cirrus and Plus cards are not the preferred products for banks to sell, as you can't use them for buying goods.

ask myself, why don't the banks offer that you yourself can set limits for withdrawels, payment orders etc. - online? And especially for the debit cards. This would even save the banks a lot of scam money.

interesting point, but this is a question of

- cost to implement such features and offer them to the customer in a 7/24 environment (we talk about multi-million projects for each single issuing bank)

- usability of handling such rules for the customers (i.e. limits to specific countries, limits on specific merchant categories, limits on amounts) which could result in high numbers of customer service calls

- stopping the customer from doing "spontaneous" shopping, because the limits he did set might stop him from doing purchases.

As long as their is no business case that shows a massive reduction of fraud based on implementing such limiting possibilities, banks will rather invest the money in better fraud prevention solutions.

One condition, like mentioned: the money transfer to your bank account should be nearly in real time.

The concept of "real time" is not of interest for the exchange rate, as your transaction has day and time stamp that will be used for fixing the exchange rate to be used and that is independant of whether it is a POS or ATM transaction.

...................

Maybe once you'll understand that we don't have VISA cards issued in Switzerland. Our cards are connected to card issuing banks applying the official VISA exchange rate!!! The money transfer is booked within seconds. When I return from the village ATM with my Visa-debitcard, then I can already compare the official VISA rate with the booked rate on my card account. Exactly the same ( 1 or 2 cents - no diffence)!

This "may" show you that real time (NY) is important for the time of the ATM withdrawel.

What you write about immediately seeing your transaction on your card account (real time authorization) and what I write about transactions that must NOT be real time does not contradict each other.

While ATM transactions are mostly online / realtime (99.999%), we see more and more offline POS transactions, specially for small amount transactions where the Chip on the card decides whether he will accept such a transaction without online approval. You will NOT see this transaction on your bank account until days later. Most such offline transactions occur with VISA paywave or MasterCard paypass transactions (contactless products).

This transaction will have the purchase date and time stamp attached and this date and time will be used to distinguish the exchange rate to be used (can be VISA / MC, T&T, bank specific depending on your country law / issuer procedures), but it still is an offline (not even near real time) transaction...

Not being doctor, but from your post it looks like your attacs come more frequently when in an unknown environment...

So best recommendation is: try to make contacts as fast as possible with people you can trust and (most important in my eyes) start to learn Thai as fast and as good as you can... because that will enable you to talk with everybody around you and the feeling of being alone on yourself without knowing anybody and not being able to tell your story and your problems will go away fast...

Just my 5 cents, as I know how inseure I feel when I need to go to Russia / Ukraine on business and never know whether i find somebody talking a language I know also... I also feel pretty lost when i have nobody around me who I can talk to...

Don't quote me on this but someone told me it may have something to do with the fertilizer used on crops - affecting the xy chromosone in the Thai genetics.

and this wasn't someone in a bar it was a chap ( Thai) who teaches at KKU.

Teaching sports? Language?

Both at the same time - how did you know ?

ps he also sells non chromosone affecting fertilizer

Trying to be serious now: If their would be such an effect (fertilizer on human genetic), googling would provide loads of scientific articles on that effect... however I have not seen one so far... of course, their are articles about other effects of fertilizer use (specially pestizides) with regards to health issues, birth defects etc, but I found none that would create a context between fertilizer (mis)use and genetic variations leading to people becoming ladyboys / transgender

Their are articles about hormones and antibiotics used in meat production which create some context to possible changes in genetics... however in Thailand, meat production is not really an important issue as most Thai eat either chicken or fish and their is not extended use of hormones and antibiotics in this country.

That is why personally, I think all those stories - whether about plastics, hormones in meat or fertilizers used - are just that - stories...

Edit: and all above does not explain why in Asia, transgender / ladyboys exist for hundreds of years already... so for me, the cultural issues I mentioned before are still the best explanation.

Don't quote me on this but someone told me it may have something to do with the fertilizer used on crops - affecting the xy chromosone in the Thai genetics.

and this wasn't someone in a bar it was a chap ( Thai) who teaches at KKU.

Teaching sports? Language?

Post pictures! Of the wedding... Not the enema.

I guess you did not read what happened during the wedding night... otherwise you would not ask for pictures of an event Dorothy wants to forget...