Bardeh

I tried some of the Da Vinci deli's homemade cheese recently. Very tasty, and much cheaper than their imported cheeses.

The only place I know of which will issue a multi-entry visa based on marriage is the Savannakhet Thai Consulate.

Same paperwork requirements as Vientiane and no need to show finances.

I'm pretty sure you can get a multiple entry non-imm O based on marriage from any consulate. Savannakhet is special because they'll give you one without any financial proof.

OP

Sorry

You are fantasising !

At the age of 23, with little or no education or skill the chances of living in Thailand permanently range between zero and nil.

I apologise for being the the one to tell you the truth.

Its not as I I have no education but what I have is pretty useless in Thailand. I just wanted to know what skills I could gain to get a job there. I know there's not many as lets face it Thai people aren't stupid they can do everything foreign people can do to pretty much the same standard if not better.

The hospitality industry is one option, although hard to break into. Food and beverage, things like that.

There is no mandatory requirement to submit "old" passports with an application. Indeed, the guidance says that previous passports are a document that you "may" want to submit to evidence previous travel. So, it would be wrong for an ECO to refuse the application solely because previous passports had not been submitted. In such a case it would be good customer service for the ECO to ask to see the passports if he had any doubts about the answers to questions about previous travel in the application form. If the application should be refused on this point alone, then contact the forum sponsor - Thai Visa Express - and they may be able to assist.

I understand that it's not mandatory, but it probably will be very beneficial for the application for them to see that she's frequently travelled abroad in the past without any issues with overstaying etc.

Yes, for sure, it would be beneficial to the application. The point I was trying to make is that the ECO shouldn't refuse the application because the passports weren't submitted, and that if he did, then you would have a good case for a review of the decision. I was also pointing you in the direction of professional help, should it have been necessary. Fortunately it wasn't.

Thanks for your advice

There is no mandatory requirement to submit "old" passports with an application. Indeed, the guidance says that previous passports are a document that you "may" want to submit to evidence previous travel. So, it would be wrong for an ECO to refuse the application solely because previous passports had not been submitted. In such a case it would be good customer service for the ECO to ask to see the passports if he had any doubts about the answers to questions about previous travel in the application form. If the application should be refused on this point alone, then contact the forum sponsor - Thai Visa Express - and they may be able to assist.

I understand that it's not mandatory, but it probably will be very beneficial for the application for them to see that she's frequently travelled abroad in the past without any issues with overstaying etc.

Crisis averted - she managed to get back into the VFS office and they let her include the old passports in her application.

As for why she didn't hand them in originally, I have no idea. I love her, but I wish she'd take a few moments to consider WHY we brought them with us if not to include them. I would have gone with her to the counter, but I was in the other office picking up my own replacement passport.

Anyway, thanks for the replies and alls well in the end so no harm done.

The title explains the situation. She handed in bank statements, supporting letters, tabien baan for her house, current passport, marriage certificate etc. We're applying for a visit visa to stay for a couple of months over christmas and new year to visit my family.

However, because the guy behind the counter didn't specifically ask for them, she didn't give him her old passports which show that she's travelled in and out of Thailand plenty of times in the past and never overstayed her visas to other countries. To me, this would be a good thing to show in the application.

Moving beyond my annoyance (and I am very annoyed because we've come all the way down from Chiang Rai to do this, plus the application fees) is there a chance they'll ask us to send those old passports separately once they realise they're absent?

I can't see there being a problem with our financials or anything else, so if she gets rejected for this I'm going to be f**king livid.

Just as an update for this in case anyone finds it useful: my documents were accepted and my passport is ready for pickup. So it seems as if a rental bill or agreement WILL be accepted as proof of address.

In English I assume?

Yes, I had him write his name in English along with his contact details. The addresses of both him and the house I'm renting were in English too.

I hope it'll be accepted, but if it's not I'm assuming Liverpool will let me know and give me some time to send them extra documents. If that's the case, I'll go to immigration and see if they can stamp something for me to say I'm living here.

I did the application today and gave them a receipt for my rental payment signed by my landlord. The girl told me that it was fine, after checking that the addresses matched on that and my application form.

Seems they seek something official or governmental

The annoying thing is that if I just went by the UK government's official documentation, a photocopy of my visa would suffice as proof of residency.

The and/or clause would seem to imply the visa is proof enough. Anyway, I'll get a signed receipt from my landlord and hope it's enough.

Thanks Maestro, I'll do that.

Although, thinking about it, my wife owns a house in her village. We don't live there full time, but someone in an office in Liverpool doesn't know that. Could I just get something signed by her saying that I live there?

I have an appointment at Trendy tomorrow for a passport renewal, and I didn't think this proof of address stuff would be so important. Would a translated copy of my wife's Tabien Baan and a translated copy of our marriage certificate suffice, do you think? That's probably the best I'm going to be able to do on such short notice.

EDIT: Or could I type up a letter saying something like this?:

I hereby declare that (Bardeh) is currently renting the property at (my address) from me, (my landlord's name),

Signed,

(landlord's signature)

For what it's worth, I recently applied for my son's first UK passport, and the time between application and the email telling me it was ready for pickup was only 13 days.

Did you apply for this in Thailand? 13 days really?

Seems very quick, but then again the retarded civil "Servants" in the UK have been getting a hell of a lot of flak over passports recently so maybe they have decided to get off their lazy asses and do the job they are paid to do.

Yup, it was far far quicker than I was expecting!

For what it's worth, I recently applied for my son's first UK passport, and the time between application and the email telling me it was ready for pickup was only 13 days.

He's being a bit cheeky, but it sounds pretty harmless to me. As you said, why should you fear a carpark attendant? Similarly, why should you care what he thinks and says about you?

They're probably just shy and will warm to you in time, if you give them the benefit of the doubt. Or they're rude and they won't. It pays to make a small effort at first, to see if it's reciprocated. If not, you know where you really stand.

Chiang Rai gets pretty damn cold in winter, but is still ridiculously hot March-July. Also, after the winter you have to deal with the smog from the burning countryside - it might seem like a minor problem, but it's seriously awful while it's going on day to day.

I personally wouldn't want to live in Mae Sai. Like most border towns it's a little bit seedy and there's not really much going on unless you like to buy cheap knockoff Chinese goods. Chiang Rai is a nice town though with more going for it, and only 40 mins drive or so to Mae Sai if you really want to spend time there.

Download Steam and buy your games there. You can access them from any computer with an internet connection, they often have sales and deals, and it makes it easy to play with friends.

That Lenovo is grossly overpriced at $1300. Please don't buy it. Go to a JIB and take KunMatt's list of components with you. They'll have it built within an hour, and every single separate component has it's own warranty. It will be much more reliable, last much longer, and if you have any problems I've always found JIB to be very willing to fix/replace faulty parts.

Skyrim is a few years old now, and doesn't require a powerhouse system to max it out (unless you're into tinkering with modifications. It's amazing what modders have done with the game). However, there are plenty of amazing games coming out this year that you could then use your custom built system to max out. GTA 5, Witcher 3, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4 - all of these games will benefit massively from a GTX 970.

The main thing to be careful of is the PSU. If you've bought a prebuilt system, chances are that the PSU isn't very good and you are at risk of blowing it up if you put a power hungry GPU in the computer. A graphics card like the Nvidia GTX 750ti is reasonably powerful and doesn't use a whole lot of power. In fact, it doesn't even need to connect to the PSU at all - you can just plug it into the PCI slot and it'll work. Whether or not that card will be enough for your needs really depends on what type of games you're going to be playing though. I would recommend you go to JIB or similar and just spec out your own PC from scratch and have them build it for you. That way you won't get any garbage components that are so common in prebuilt systems.

A GTX 970 is the best price to performance ratio card out there right now - if I was building a new system that's what I would be buying.

At my house in Samui I have access to all the 3 major providers and also just used TOT in Bangkok as well. From my experience and that of many others, forget about TOT, extremly slow for international connections. True is kind of ok, but 3BB is still by far the best.

I've used all three ISP's too and I agree with this. ToT was the worst by a long shot, 3BB the best by far. I'm on True now and it's OK, but they've done something to stop torrents from working properly unless I use a VPN, which is irritating.

(The alternative is to replace the existing modem/router with a modem/router/WiFi version)

I'd just call your ISP and ask them to do this for the sake of simplicity. I doubt it'll cost much (if anything at all).

Yep, Cape Gooseberries. My wife has been buying them too - a little too sour for my taste, but I like the texture.