nkg

KBV are the largest company doing visa runs from Phuket. I have used them several times and they have never let me down.

On the Penang run they help you with all the form-filling etc, and their agents seem extremely knowledgable about each different kind of visa. The hotel they use in Penang is pretty good.

No bus service is going to be comfortable for your Dad - travelling by plane would obviously be much quicker. I just looked at the AirAsia flights Phuket > Penang for early December, they quoted 5200 Baht return.

My guess is that your Dad is more likely to get the visa he needs going with a service like KBV - they seem to be on friendly terms with the staff at Penang Consulate - but the flights would be much easier on his foot.

In high season?

2000/month is possible, for an older model, I don't live near Phuket Town though, and that's Thai renting to Thai price.

If you find somebody willing to rent for between 2500-3000 Baht a month to a farang, that's still a good price. 1500 - no chance

http://www.phuketthailand2014.com/en/daybyday.aspx

Let us know what province you are in

Poor bloke .... what a terrible thing to happen. I hope he gets out of Thailand safely with his son. Good luck.

Being frank, I don't see why a Thai candidate with the correct skillset and experience, if they can find one (which I strongly suspect is tricky, and might explain why they are open to expat packages), should not be paid the same as a foreign sourced candidate, and these are easily 250k - 300k / month roles imo - even without the management aspect. I wouldn't do them for less anyway, have all the skills and experience for them so am not making a blind guess here.

Not sure why someone Thai with the same experience wouldn't be able to justify the same rate, especially in this industry where they can work remotely direct for western co's if they want. But regardless, even if life is that unfair to them it's definitely, definitely a >100k role.

I'm sure many of the "superthai" candidates have already been directly hired by foreign companies like Oracle, Google and Microsoft, and are earning the 300K salaries that you mention.

It doesn't necessarily follow that the Thais that are left behind should be earning 100K-200K in their own country. Try living in London or San Jose without spending $50,000/year on the basics - Thailand is incredibly cheap by comparison.

Yes, 50K is a good wage for a Thai software developer. A lot of places will only pay 20K-30K.

If most of your team are on 40K-50K, with a few "star" devs earning more, you will be able to attract some excellent employees.

It sounds like the Police hit the Jackpot.

But can't complain, I still have a wonderful life here.

Just get depressed when I read news like that.

That's why I don't usually read the news on Thaivisa - it's usually sensationalist and depressing.

If Thaivisa changed the kind of stories they reported, me and many others would spend more time on this website.

I assume you are an Aussie. In which case you may be interested to know the Thai murder rate is five times that in Oz. Thai law and order has never broken down. It has simply never existed. We aliens are living in a bubble. Pays to keep your head down..

It's true - you are as likely to be murdered in Thailand as you are in the USA. That's super-scary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate

(Murders per 100,000 people)

Thailand 5.0

Australia 1.1

United States 4.7

Brazil 25.2

And did you know that Oz has a murder rate four times higher than Japan?

Japan 0.3

Australia must be really dangerous too. I'm never going there.

Why don't they go to Mongolia? Highest developped democracy in Asia. Constitution on the basis of German and French Constitution. Member of the OSCE.

Buddhist country and no Death Penality. They can send OSCE observers for the Elections in Thailand.

No, they would not. After the Teaching of Yingluck about "Democracy" in Mongolia they are not ready for the Thai level.

Excellent point. We don't hear enough about Mongolian democracy on this forum.

He's enjoying posing with that sword!

"Somchailander!"

Let's hope that somebody rescues that gorilla, before it's too late.

I did not know this was the under 16 forum.

Well, you don't look too old yourself in your profile pic

Well I have no idea what constitutes a "crime problem". But it's apparent that there is some representation of foreign criminals in thailand. So factually the article is correct. As for thai media being xenophobic, I don't know how you could say that. If you look at any Thai language TV news program or newspaper, on any given day the crime reported is overwhelmingly involving thai criminals and rarely foreigners. English language media has a vested interest in focusing on things that it's audience wants to hear or read about. I doubt that this audience really cares to read about the 50th Thai person that gunned down this week in Narithiwas province. However, when they hear someone from their own country committing crime they pay attention. Unfortunately, people like you think you're being picked on. Disagree?

Why would I think that I was being picked on? What a bizarre conclusion.

Thailand went through this routine a few months ago

1) Identify a "major problem" with foreign criminals

2) Crack down on various types of visa, including Tourist Visas and Ed Visas, supposedly in a bid to stop foreign criminals

End result - needless worry and disruption for tens of thousands of ex-pats living in Thailand. Now the same situation may be playing out again, or it may not. Why not let Thai police and politicians just get on with their jobs? Publicly goading them into an over-reaction would not be good news for any farangs living in Thailand.

More xenophobic rubbish. Of course there are foreign criminals here. Here, and in almost every other country in the world.

I wonder how many foreign criminals are currently within the borders of the USA, or the UK.

Are you paranoid? how is this story xenophobic?

It just stated they believe many foreign organized crime groups are active in Thailand. There was no mention of any other country with similiar problems.

Of course other countries have foreign criminals as well. Because they didn't acknowledge that in an article, you call that xenophobic!

Almost every day there is a news article about how foreigners are causing problems in Thailand.

I'm fed up of the reputation of "farangs" repeatedly being trashed in the media. Do you actually know what xenophobia means?

That might have been a bit too strong word, but that's how I feel when I see religious words combined with these kind of stories. It's a bit of using the moment of suffering to push own propaganda. I'm not against personal believes. If a religion gives a person comfort, that's perfectly ok. But religions should be kept private and not to be pushed to others. This applies specially to media organizations.

I admit, I'm strongly against the missionaries who are using their own book's horror stories to push their agenda to others, often weaker people. I have seen this "giving an apple and slowly bringing in the snake" act done by the missionaries right here in Phuket. The people who were pushing their religion might have been in genuine believe that they bring hope and happiness to the mentally weaker people, but in fact they caused a lot of damage by messing with the peoples mind.

I agree that the post should have been made under the author's own name, instead of representing The Phuket News. But in my opinion, this wasn't posted with the intent of being religious propaganda. Of course, if the Phuket News regularly posts statements like this, then perhaps they do have an ulterior motive!

Buddhism seems very resilient in Thailand. Instead of fighting other religious beliefs, many of the Thai Buddhists I know include parts of other religions into their own belief systems.

I agree that the days of missionaries should be consigned to history.

More xenophobic rubbish. Of course there are foreign criminals here. Here, and in almost every other country in the world.

I wonder how many foreign criminals are currently within the borders of the USA, or the UK.

It seems that currently The Phuket News quality is going downhill while it used to be much higher compared to PG.

Now TPN is openly selling their religious views on their facebook page. I find this behaviour revolting, specially when it's combined with tragedies.

Please say a prayer (or hug a loved one if praying is not your thing) for the 90 who perished, and 40 more who suffered (and still are suffering) injuries – on this day, September 16, 7 years ago in Phuket as the result of the tragic 1-2 go landing at the airport. Let us not forget the lessons learned from the investigation. Amen... Satu.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/thephuketnews/photos/a.205660402863523.45259.203769013052662/667673459995546/?type=1

I usually enjoy your posts oilinki, but I am a bit puzzled here.

Isn't "revolting" a bit of a strong word to use in this context? I agree that it's not a great idea for The Phuket News to be seen to support a particular religion. But the post in question seemed to represent the feelings of an individual (Satu), who certainly sounded genuine in giving their sympathy, even if misplaced.

Would a sentiment taken from Buddhist beliefs also be out of place in this context?

Ha ha, they are totally clueless.

Since internal batteries are equally dangerous, THAI's next masterstroke will be to ban notebooks and mobile phones from their planes.

"I don't understand why flight bookings halved this year, after all we are the safest airline in Thailand!"

I think this topic has run its course, but I appreciate the thoughtful reply.

I imagine that the answer to your question is a maze of intricate laws and exceptions that deal with every eventuality, in the interests of keeping everything "fair".

By a curious coincidence, that same maze of tax laws undoubtably keeps hundreds or even thousand of extra bureaucrats in a job.

How gracious of you to be negative about my suggestion. I probably would have considered the positive sides of it and been grateful that somebody has taken the time to try to help me rather than making a point of criticizing it. But you have your own style of doing things.

I now suggest that you completely ignore using the internet to get help doing the MANY things you apparently cannot do. I hope your negative attitude serves you well, and makes people want to help you, but probably not.

To be blunt waynethor, your suggestion was blindingly obvious.

Well, it's also the fact that it doesn't make much sense for an amount to be allocated to their budget from treasury - then tax on it returned to treasury (double-handling). Plus of course it's the tax-payers money you are spending.

I think in Thailand it was decided to do it this way to stop Government departments buying goods, then saying it was a mistake and recovering cost by selling to staff. Certainly there are still certain exemptions - have you seen the price list for pistols if you are working for a ministry or SOE? It's about 60% normal retail.

It doesn't make economic sense, but it makes a great deal of political sense.

Why do public sector employees pay income tax in most countries? A lot of paperwork could be saved if the government just handed out the salaries of doctors, government officials etc tax-free, with the "tax deduction" built into their new, smaller salary.

But then voters would get angry about the "elite government workers" who didn't have to pay tax, even though their salaries were exactly the same as before.

Sometimes political perceptions are more important than economic realities.

No Jeremy they do not.

We are currently selling a high value item into Thailand to the government from a (Thailand) tax free zone, full duties and taxes are applied and paid.

The government is not as dodgy as you imply.

This.

Imagine if the Thai government made a law excluding itself from paying import taxes and duties on foreign goods. There would be uproar - everybody would call them hypocrites, and anti-Thai.

They were given a budget, they worked within it, and a chunk of what they paid was returned to government funds via import taxes.

I realise that many people don't have a clear grasp on technology, and 50,000-100,000 Baht sounds like "a lot of money" for a microphone.