loeuftok

in samui, when I went to renew my one year visa, I was received very pleasently by by a senior officer.

Once in his office, he gave me a list of documents that were neccessary for the application.

I gave him all the documents and mentionned that I had also joined the prove that I had paid my personel income taxes and the company taxes.

His face changed and the nice smile disapeared.

he had a look at the documents, asked me in thai if I could speak thai, than after my positve answer asked me if I could read thai.

the answer was no. the smile came back.

He than told me that my documents were not the right one.

As I told him that they had been prepared by my thai accountant, he replied that since I could not read thai I could not know if they were right or not...

He than refused my application and told me to come back with my lawyer.

I told him that I had no lawyer as I am a honest person.

Double smile than, and he handed me 2 names and phone number of lawyers in samui.

Even though I had no will to pass through a lawyer to get my visa reconducted, I called them to enquiry about their fee.

15000 (yes fifteen).

I went the next day to suratthani where I logged a formal complaint about samui, gave them the set of document and 2000, received my extension and 100 back, all that with the smile of the beautifull station officer.

Was told later on by a new friend of mine who is a lawyer that they leave tips of up to 4000/passport to get ultra fast service....

Most of the stuff listed in this thread is more about not being very smart than it is about cultural differences.

are you meaning that most of TV posters are not very smart.

when reading the different threads and the reaction about thai culture/ life style and comparing to your post one could come to this conclusion

now some of you guys will get offended...

the term farang comes from the fact that the first white skinned foreigner that came in siam were french.

Francais became farangset as the word did not exist in the language before their arrival.

Subsequently, every white skinned foreigner became a farang.

There is no offence intended when using this word until it is associated whith the adjective kii nok, which means bird sh!t.

usually used only when the referred farang strated to offense the thai couterpart big time

yeah, no more singha on our island already

will have to switch to other brands when my stock is over

it's a real pity that some people have to deal with too much liquid and other are running dry