willyumiii

Immigration nightmares and horror stories..

I believe they have much to do with what immigration office you go to and how the officer you are dealing with deal with is interpreting the law on the day you are there. In some cases, your attitude can be a major factor as well.

Admittedly, my visa is a Non O married to Thai visa and not a retirement visa, but

All year I have been reading stories of people who have had their income letter rejected and had to provide bank records to get their extension approved for married or retired visas.

I went in to apply for my extension yesterday and came prepared to provide both.

As on every previous occasion when I have applied for an extension, the officer happily approved my income letter and never even mentioned providing any bank records.

I have never had a problem getting an extension.

It is very routine now, just copy the previous years forms and records update the dates and get a new income letter and photos of the family at the house.

Maybe I am just lucky to live where I do and have a nice and helpful immigration office and officers to deal with.

I think seeing the same officers every 90 days is a good thing. I feel we know each other, have a good working relationship, and cooperate with each other.

I believe I will pass on the online 90 day reporting.

P.S. I was not told to come back in a month to find out if my extension was approved or not. I was told to come back in a month to get my attention...just like I was last year!

To see and enjoy the best of Luang Prabang and Vietinenne you should have gone 15 years ago when things were half the price they are now,having said that the bulk of people have dragged themselves out of poverty and we should not deny them a better life.

One thing that stuck me while I was there 15 years ago was the fluency of the English spoken, far better than their counterparts in Thailand.

As has been said best sough dough and beer you could find anywhere and generally pleasant people.

Luang Prabang is being invaded by Chinese touriss tso if you are going pick their low season

If you think they were good 15years ago, you should have seen them 48 years ago as I did--Vientiane was a little slice of French Colonial heaven--the local people were so laid back and friendly, nothing could ruffle them; except the company--great food, wine, and other delicacies

Yeah, yeah...when I was a kid, we walked 20 miles to school every day, in the snow and uphill both ways!

In 20 years people will be talking about how great whing use to be.....today!

" I've never seen a site that didn't look better, looking back!"

"I was born under a wandering star"

From Paint your Wagon, sung by Lee Marvin!

The best thing about Laos is that the people don't like Thais, unless they have family in Isaan. Well that's my wifes opinion anyway. People overall are a much friendlier and are a happier bunch. Cheap beer and cigarettes. Good western style food from many parts of the world situated in the center of town. There aren't as many fights, scams pretty much unheard of, caddies are much younger and more sexy.

Overall just great people to work with.

Sounds good to me, and I agree.

But , what is a caddie?? I am curious.

Chok Chai, south of Korat

Been getting good thunder storms with considerable rain 4-5 day a week for a month now.

Drive by hit, AJD. Sarcasm. A poke at the 2nd amendment and the ensuing gun culture.

It can be argued that the OP incident, the Charleston incident, and 1000 others would never have happened if the US, both administratively and amongst the people, had a different attitude towards guns.

Not only could it be argued that these incidents may never have happened it is actually the only argument that is discussed.The one sided presentation of demonizing weapons has a "..Gods Must Be Crazy" consequence where an ignorant population comes to believe that guns, like the Pepsi bottle that fell from the sky, must have inherent first cause. "It is the gun!" It is not the gun nor has it ever been the gun, it is people.

In decades of liberal gun control in large democratic/progressive cities the only thing that has been accomplished is turning law abiding citizens into unarmed targets; thus the cities emptied of the productive and fruitful members, the tax base dried up, opportunities plummets, and then the cries of help us help us rang out- more government. The only problem with gun control is that the only people targeted are the innocents. Where it might be argued (but is not) that yes, the innocents are getting swept up disproportionately first but the policies in time will bear fruit and simultaneously we are applying pressure through the illegal market by..x.. y..z. The problem is, they do not apply pressures through the illegal market with any utility. The Obama administration is more complicit in illegal firearms trade than all the Americans who have ever lived, in all times, combined! This government, both domestically and internationally, stimulates the underground trade in firearms demonstrating definitively that government is less concerned about firearms then they are concerned with you having firearms. This palpable fact makes the ownership of firearms more incumbent.

Is the analogy valid? Yes! It is valid because the only crap that comes from this liberal drivel is more incremental obstacles to regular innocent people owning weapons.

Only a fool thinks disarming a population makes everyone brotherly. Disarming a population just makes targets out of moms and dads and cheerleaders, and churches and schools, and grandmas and disabled, etc. Only in a world with historical linkage broken do people not grasp the final and only valid reason to own firearms, to check government. Every other comment is epilogue.

Note: I should have noted your sarcasm; missed that.

Your research is flawed, if you did any.

It was not a Pepsi bottle.

It was a Coke bottle.

Don't go into these neighborhoods. The occupants tear them up, fill them with crime, and run the landlords off. This is where it happened.

dcfy.jpg

And that makes it o.k.?

America's enemies do not need to attack.

America's love of guns is killing them off quite nicely.

and then...

"He said searches of its employees found crystal amphetamine or “Ice” in the possession of one of them."

They could hire some brighter employees me thinks!

The following is the promised compilation of contributions to this thread.

I did not include a couple that made no sense, but other than that, none have been edited.

Thanks for all oof the input. I enjoyed it!

You May Be In Thailand If....docx

Deleted all 12 items as this is supposed to be a light-hearted look at things, and should not cover things like mushroom pickers and cop killers "justice" or drivers on the roads.

Oh...one can stay...

When people in restaurants sit cross-legged on the chairs.

Thank you for the "house cleaning" Seastallion!

This is the OP.

There have been some great posts so far!

But we all know there are so many more, let's keep it going.

Maybe I can compile them all into one list hen it peters out.

Thanks much to Seastallion for deleting the inappropriate replies...

Keep it fun.

I am surprised that so few have been about driving and traffic in Thailand.

How about.....

You may be in Thailand..... if it is O.K. to walk in the street and ride your motor scooter on the sidewalk!

You may be in Thailand if..... That line in the middle of the road is just a pretty decoration and people can drive on any side they choose!

You may be in Thailand if.... You see children riding on top of a school bus!

Thanks for all of the great input so far!

" 54,000 tons are white rice mislabeled as jasmine and sticky rice."

​Mislabeled?

How does that happen?

An interesting tidbit of information...

Maybe not food for people or livestock...

But definitely food for thought!

Lured = " Hey, do you want to make some easy money?"

Nice try lady!

For a while now, I have thought it may be fun to start a topic in the spirit of Jeff Foxworthy's " You might be a redneck if..." routine about life in Thailand.

There are things about life in Thailand that you do not find often in other places and I find many of them humorous.

I will start with a couple I have in mind and hope others will add theirs.

Let's try to make this a humorous thread and not another bashing one...o.k.?

Here are my first three:

You may be in Thailand if...... there is a roll of toilet paper on the table you are eating at, and no toilet paper in the bathroom!

You may be in Thailand if.....the police fine you for driving without a driver's licence and give you a letter stating that you can not be fined again for driving without a licence for the next 24 hours!

You may be in Thailand if....your wife refers to five different women as her grandmother!

What have you got to add?

If I had 100 baht for every Thai law that is not enforced.....

I could buy a government office

"He said only in one village in Tambon Ao Nang, there were dengue patients"

​This is an extremely poorly written article.

Just what are they attempting to say???

Does this really mean there is only one village where no people were infected?

How many villages are there in the Tambon??

Do our friends at TV even read these things before they decide to post them???

Webfacts?

What facts?

one died due of dengue and another 123 due of the fogging ....

I arrived an hour early to pick my daughter up at her school one day to find the school being fogged with the children present.

Teachers and students standing there breathing in the smoke/ fog like " What could be wrong with this?"

I may have lost some "face" that day as I cussed out the teachers, told them how stupid and careless they were and then rounded up all the children from my village and took them home early!

This took place on a Friday afternoon with only an hour left of school.

They could have "fogged" the school on a Saturday when no students were present....

We now ggo to another school.

This school was fogged twice the first week of school this term....after a three month break with no students present.

It does make me wonder when I read about the IQ of school children decreasing in Thailand.

Do you think maybe the two things could possible be related???

Then again, I need to remind myself...

This Is Thailand...Mai Pen Rai.

Its best to treat any snake with a hood as a Cobra, therefore dangerous,

just leave them alone,as more people most likely get bit provoking them.

Snakes are not poisonous,a common mistake,they are venomous.

regards worgeordie

Yep,

Curried Cobra is not too bad, but, like shrimps and lobsters you really got to hold the lid down when you drop it in the pot.

Everytime I've seen a cobra catched, they start by cutting of the head and bury it. Then the snake is skinned and cut into slices before put in the stew. I've tried it once, but it's extremely spicy. Usually eaten with lots of lao kao.

I don't know if the burying of the head is some kind of superstition or just to get the dangerous part of the snake out of the way.

In California, we were always told to bury the heads of dead rattlesnakes.

I'm not sure if it is true, but the reason for burying the head was, that if the yellow jackets ( meat eating bees) ate the head, they would pick up the venom in their system and their sting would be much worse.

It sounds far fetched to me, but this is what the story was.

Rattlesnake does taste pretty good,

but it is best if the bones are removed before cooking.

Please alert me when any archaeologist will dig up any thing bearing the name Palestine

or Palestinians buried anywhere in the Holy land....

or if they ever find anything that proves this god of Jews, Muslims and Christians is anything but a fantasy.......worth killing over!

What about the Typhoon style storms and rains we had over the last few days!!

Where was there typhoon style storms and rains? I definitely didn't notice any in downtown Bangkok. Those were merely the normal torrential downpours, nothing like the typhoon style storms that hits the Philippines or Hong Kong

To many expats here on TV, Thailand only consists of Bangkok and the westernized tourist resorts areas they know how to survive in.

Yes, there is much more to the real Thailand than these areas.

In these areas, we do not refer to an "Off season" and an "on season".

We do not have Spring, Summer, Winter or Fall either.

We have a Rainy season" a "hot season" and a "Cool season".

This is the start of the" Rainy season".

Yes, there has been some very serious weather in these areas recently.

Welcome to Thailand.

Destroy the breeding areas?

Bye bye rice farms!

Good luck with that!

ah, the American bashers are out in force...

For once we agree, the American bashers are out in force.

As are the usual crowd of posters who are using the topic as an excuse to bash the junta. I notice a lot of the "smarter" posters who are anti-junta are not touching this one.

The fact is they are making a mountain out of a molehill. Relations between the two countries is not that bad, and I bet trade has not decreased.

Yes, I am sure American consumers are still buying up all the cheap Thai frozen shrimp they can at Walmart.

Keeping slavery strong in Thailand.

Democracy in action!

the USA are so much in debt that they are out of the big picture. even Isis is making fun of the USA on you tube.

50 years ago , the USA would have blown up these f... rs in a weekend.

now, what do you get left in the USA? nothing...

Thailand is becoming #1

An almost creditable post,

until the last line...

Thailand does not even have a number..

#1 ?????

Three back to back tourist visas, looking for more and inquiring about an ED visa now???

It makes one woder what the OP's real reason for being in Thailand is.

If it is education, why so many of the back to back tourist visas?

Obtainng visas has become more and more difficult due to people abusing the system ( especially the ED visa recdently ).

Just sayning.....

The US are hypocrits. How about appling that same principle to the Saudis and every other non democratic despote they are friends with and have funded down the years and still do today. At least Thailand doesnt publicly behead its own citizens.

The US will support what is in their best interest to support. In fact this is the policy of every reasonable country , Hypocrisy and diplomacy go hand in hand

Hardly reasonable if they state its about democracy when in fact its not.

The U.S. is a republic, who falsely claims to be a democracy...and wants to force democracy on the world.

Now, please define hypocrite?