arminbkk

Many will still like you, and when you have loads of money, some will even pretend to love you.

There is secure "undercover" parking 100 meteres on the left before the crossing in Nong Khai. It was 100 Baht per day last time. I heard there is secure parking at the Savannakhet crossing as well.

As with the poster that posted a video, there is paid parking at border crossing Mukdahan to Savannakhet, over the Friendship Bridge.

I've left my car there twice, without problem. It's on the left side as you drive toward the border. You can walk from the car park to the immigration building.

A bit further up, between the paid parking and immigration building there is also a car park area, not covered, not paid.

I've left it there once too without problem.

As for crossing the border there: first by a bus ticket, for the bus that takes you, and everybody else, over the bridge to the other side where

the Laos immigration is. Ticket is 50 baht per person. The ticket booth is behind the restrooms. That's before you get to the immigration booths

where you 'stamp out'. Then you walk behind the booths to the waiting area for the bus.

Mind you that the bus is usually full every time, meaning if you don't get in early, you will have to stand. The trip is under 5 minutes.

The bus goes every half hour or even longer than that.

The bus will drive over the bridge and stop at the other side, where you get off at Laos immigration. There you will have to get a visa application form which you will

have to fill in and hand in with your passport and 1 passport size photograph (the form mentions 2 photos but they always give one back).

This is all done at the front booth on left hand side. The Laos visa costs 1500 baht if you don't pay with dollars. Wait to get your passport back.

Once you have your passport with visa, go to the Laos immigration booth to enter Laos. Once you have passed that, you will see Laos people

that will offer taxi or tuk tuk service. It's usually more expensive then in Thailand.

My surprise was (and I was probably ripped off) that each passenger has to pay 120 baht to get a tuk tuk from the border to the Thai consulate,

even if you share a tuk tuk with others. I thought a discount would be reasonable.

But since you are doing only a border run and are not getting a new visa, I guess you will go from the border to a hotel.

Since you are only doing a border run.......why stay overnight?

Anyway, hope this helps.

Lol...most posters are telling the OP to stay in US.

I agree though OP. No use in running away from your problems....they will follow you.

Either mentally or physically, i.e. your mental abusive girlfriend will follow you here.

What is your job over there OP? Probably not something you can do in Thailand.

Which means you will not find a satisfying job here, or not find a job at all.

You will then resort to teaching here, like many, which is just a means to remain here in Thailand, not really to LIVE here.

Unless your mother is rich, which she is not, otherwise you would not be scraping by with a "dead-end" job now.

OP if you want to settle here, first finish things with your girlfriend there.

Then, like others have posted, get a degree in US, something that you can use here to get a good job.

Then come over here.

So where is it that people actually also look happy/happiest?

All those comments on the age difference......well:

I want a 19 year old girl.

So, there you have it.

Thailand, freedom of choice and all that, remember?

Whenever a Thai girl/woman tells me she does not want a Thai man but a farang man, and I ask her why, she will usually say that

Thai men are butterflies, or 'jao shoo'.

I will usually explain then that farang guys are just the same.

I will tell them that there are just too many pretty girls in Thailand, too many for most guys to keep their eyes on just one.

And when I want to 'shock' a bit, I will add: "you don't eat "kaow pad" everyday do you? sometimes you eat something else, sometimes

you want a nice steak meal (i.e. variation)"

Some posters should not be so hard on the OP............most of us were still enchanted after only the first 6 months.

What I would like to hear from OP is: how did your, now ex, girlfriend take it when you broke it to her that

she was alright to be your number one and only one, for 6 months, but that you are moving on now?

From the OP:

"............. mismatched couples (where the man is with a girl he could never hope to attract back home) is right, ..............."

If you want a certain 'item' and cannot find it in the supermarket, you go to another supermarket, no?

So in someone's opinion, an old fat unattractive western man should have and old fat unattractive wife, just to make it a match?

Well in my opinion, if that is your opinion, and you are an old fat unattractive western, then by all means go ahead and get a matching wife to go with you,

but let others do as they want.

Usually when I pass such a 'mismatched' couple in Thailand, it is the couple that seems uncomfortable with it, instead of me.

Also, as another poster, usually the Thai female is actually not that attractive at all. Anyway, why should who you are with, be subject

to the approval of strangers??

Now, when I do see an older guy with a hot young girl, I will mostly think "good on you man", while I'll check her from top to bottom .

Thai women have a certain approach to a relationship where they will take care of their partner. Western women on the other hand

are more emancipated and see how to live with a man differently. Some guys like emancipated women, some don't.

Those that don't try to find what they do like. Some find that in Thailand.

People should be less judgmental.

Visit Kao San road or any place backpackers hang out.

What happened? Did a farang girl looked at you dirty/angry/dissapointing?

No, that can happen anywhere in Bangkok.

I don't mind troll posts much, it's entertaining lol.

Anyway, on the off change that this is not a troll post:

Maybe the OP adopted too much of the 'mai pen rai' attitude here and now he is broke.

I guess he was not one of the subjects of the 'Cheap Charlies' thread also running on here.

He still talks about his friends when it is safe to assume they can be considered ex friends by now.

I understand OP's disappointment and he has every right to be.

However, he keeps wallowing in that disappointment instead of acknowledging and accepting that that route of action is not working

and focusing on different course of action. The OP could follow the advise that others have offered: instead of borrowing money, ask a

friend if you could stay with him in exchange for helping out with chores or whatever. Meanwhile, find some work that at least pays something.

Cancel that THB 30,000 course and get a refund. Use that for food and bare necessities only while staying with your friend.

Use that time you have then to get that online business running again. He did it before, he could do it again.

He should be focusing on that only, and put aside all the other treats that makes him want to stay in LOS.

I don't lend money to people and I don't borrow money from people. Would only do that if I reallyyyyyyyyyyy don't have another choice.

And I would sure feel like a loser.

I was only able to come to Thailand, and remain here, by keeping strict finances.

This for example means turning down invites for drinking sessions with friends, just so that I can have a certain amount

from income saved at the end of the month that I aim for.

It is of course a different situation if people go broke from causes outside of their own doing.

But from reading what the OP wrote, although little, it would appear that this is not so in his case.

Running online businesses successfully for 10 years and then now broke? He made a mistake somewhere.

Anyway, I hope the OP, if not a troll, gets up and takes action, one that does not involve charcoal.

Maybe a side track: a Thai friend of mine in Bangkok, in his 30s, a real player, despite being married, once got a phone number from

a 17 year old girl while for work in Udon Thani. He convinced her to come to Bangkok to meet. We had dinner. She left later that night on the bus back to Udon Thani (she had arrived that same day).

My friend kept in touch with her via chat/sms................until a week later she wanted him to send her Baht 5,000 for cosmetics and bags.....he 'ditched' her right then and there,

broke off contact. Guess she thought he was gullible too. I later asked him about it. He said it was a "pity, because she had not put out yet".

So, Thais girls/women try the same with Thai men too.

A urine drug test under such circumstances....I don't think I could produce anything but an empty cup

OP, just tell her you really just want to say your goodbyes before you go to the airport and that doing it at the airport would just be too hard for you.

Tell her it would be easier emotionally for you to be at the airport alone.

Or do what another poster suggested: buy some cheap flight from Suwannabhumi to Cambodia with flight on same day as you are supposed to leave and

then just pretend it is your flight home.

For your sake, I hope it does not occur to her to check your flight reservation just to make sure that her sweetheart will be at the airport on time

You could try the food court at Robinson Sukhumvit. It's a food court, that's all I'll say.

Well I don't want to do a detailed breakdown of what I would spend, but I would eat a better restaurants (western food) everyday and go to pubs and bars more, and massage.

I also saw a similar army post today outside MRT Petchaburi near the bridge over the canal. Maybe 4 or 5 soldiers. This was in the morning.

@newcomer71 Thanks.

I reminded him that it might look like an iPhone 5s, but that it is just a Chinese copy and that its specifications are lower than those of the iPhone.

He still insists he wants it.

Needless to say I told him the risk is all his

As seen as you need some information, here is a link where you can find the phone you look for:

http://thaisuperphone.com/shop/superphone/default.aspx?page=productgallery&url=superphone&category=0061〈=TH

But... forewarned is forearmed!

A friend of mine did buy the phone, and besides the visuals and the casing imitating almost perfectly the original product, the phone specs are surely low, and the phone is just an ordinary China Android 4.2 one.

Of course no Apple store or iTunes, only Play Store Google (of course).

I also doubt any warranty is given.

Said all that: I'd avoid it like the plague.

Thanks!

Am I to assume that is the Goophone i5S?

Why would anyone want that when for a similar price you could buy a Motorola Moto G..

Just dumb!

Sent from my XT1032 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

As I wrote, it's not for me. I would not want one also.

To the OP: khaek/khek means guest or customer. Thais will refer to a customer by that term. Be the customer a western European or coloured African or Indian.

Of course, when one staff wants to ask the other staff about one of the customers and there is only a western European and an Indian customer,

it is obvious the word 'Indian' needs to be added to distinct so that the other person knows who his/her colleague is asking about.

So the word itself does not mean anything negative. However, how the word is used/spoken, the intonation, can give negative meaning. But that goes for most words.

You have had some unpleasant experiences in Thailand as you wrote.

However, I've had them also, and I am a white western European male, up there with the supposed beauty ideal here in SEA, or at least Thailand.

So maybe it is not always racist behaviour, just the bad attitude of the person you encounter.

Has anyone bought one of those phones, the Goophone i5S, either here in Thailand (if so, where?) or online from China?

What is your experience with the phone? How much was it?

My brother-in-law wants me to order it from China for him, for use in Europe. Anyone had experience with using it in Europe, or does anyone know of such experience?

It is supposed to be a very good copy of the iPhone 5s, but running on Android.

I once saw a Chinese copy of an iPhone 4, bought from Laos. Playing around with it I noticed that most was in Chinese, would be obvious I know, and that the Playstore did not work. That phone also ‘died’ after only 5 days.

The only thread on Chinese phones that I could find here on TV was this one: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/628765-china-phone/?p=6243357&hl=%2Bgoophone

Thanks.

Has anyone bought one of those phones, the Goophone i5S, either here in Thailand (if so, where?) or online from China?

What is your experience with the phone? How much was it?

My brother-in-law wants me to order it from China for him, for use in Europe. Anyone had experience with using it in Europe, or does anyone know of such experience?

It is supposed to be a very good copy of the iPhone 5s, but running on Android.

I once saw a Chinese copy of an iPhone 4, bought from Laos. Playing around with it I noticed that most was in Chinese, would be obvious I know, and that the Playstore did not work. That phone also ‘died’ after only 5 days.

The only thread on Chinese phones that I could find here on TV was this one: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/628765-china-phone/?p=6243357&hl=%2Bgoophone

Thanks.

So are all those 'high profile' people, including Phey Thai executives, that opened new accounts and/or deposited money with GSB, now going to withdraw their money and close their accounts?

A Thai lady friend (no BG) told me that a lady in a hair salon that she sometimes visits near her apartment building, always

tells her proudly how she has 4 to 5 farang boyfriends, whilst also having a Thai boyfriend she lives with.

The Thai boyfriend does not know she has these farang boyfriends. Whenever one of these farang boyfriends

wants to visit her she will relocate to another part of Bangkok temporarily to receive that farang boyfriend.

She will tell her Thai boyfriend she will explore some business opportunity elsewhere.

The Thai boyfriend does not mind that and will not ask further questions since he is a player himself (the girl knows this

but does not care). Her being absent only gives him opportunity.

The girl will tell my friend, while laughing, that she will pick the one that comes up with the most money.

So this is a normal Thai woman, in her 30s, not a bar girl, finding farang boyfriends online and dating, being involved with them,

at the same time, whilst also having a Thai boyfriend. Her goal is to get the best financial result.

The hair salon is in Bangkapi area by the way, nowhere near any tourist/bar scene.

Not to say that all Thai women are scammers, just saying that any one Thai woman, regardless of profession etc, COULD be one.

(I know farang women could also be, but this topic is about Thai women).

@inzman Thanks for your reply.

As I wrote, I am not sure if having no contact in US was the reason for rejection of previous visa application. Will ask again.

As for bankbook: any indication of what would be a nice minimum to have in the bank when applying for a US tourist visa, as a Thai?

These are your normal Thai government teachers (aged middle to late thirties), so not particularly well off. They might not even own a house or land.

I have personally never met them, just want to help them with a bit of advice (and advice only).