XINLOI

There are so many companies here in Pattaya cannot find people for work, but many Thais are looking only for the 'easy' way.

Really? Can you PM the list as I have a couple of Thai friends looking for work......

Are you kidding me...are they at least educated enough to read Thai as there are signs at just about every restaurant, shop, and hotel in town looking for staff (both skilled and unskilled).

Yes exactly!

My girlfriend is working in a restaurant. They are always looking for staff. I go eat every day in a German restaurant in Naklua. They are also looking for staff.

I am also looking for a woman tp clean my house once a week. I pay 300 Baht for 3 hours work and I tried already 7 ladies. Mostly they quit because their buffalo is sick.

Never before in my life I saw so many lazy people like here in Pattaya. I get angry about this every day. Go in some shop and try to ask the staff about something. Mostly they cannot or dont want help you. Many of them feel that your question is disturbing them. I am happy that I dont have to run any business here.

The most interesting part of this I found was that David was arrested whilst using an ATM. For those doubters out there that keep saying the Police are useless, I suggest that they are not as inept as you all think. My experiences with the Cyber Crimes Division showed they are catching up with the rest of the world pretty quickly and "can" track people electronically pretty easily now.

Mass surveillance of civilian populations on the pretext of catching criminals is not a replacement for police work. It's exactly the opposite.

Most water systems, the main shutoff valve is before the meter, sometimes within 6 inches. Most of them in my area are installed like this.

We had a personal experience with Siam Bank (Worst and most unethical bank in Thailand in my opinion). We took out a loan for a 2.5m house in Chiangmai in 2006 and borrowed less than 50% being an amount of 1mil bht. All was fine and never missed a payment until we hit hard times in end of 2007 and then during 2008 we didn't make any payments for about 3 months. We approached them to allow a 12 month moratorium on payments by using the ample equity we had in the property. They flatly declined and commenced recovery which took about 4 months to get us to court. At court we told the judge that we had hit hard times and couldn't pay and had tried to negotiate with the bank to compromise. The judge ordered both the bank and us (my wife) to work out a compromise and bring it back to the bench. We talked with the bank's lawyer outside for 20 minutes and reached an agreement. We ended up agreeing to make payments of 5,00bht per month (about half the regular payment) for 12 months at which time we expected to be back on our feet and could then restructure the loan to make higher payments. They agreed and we went to the bank to sign the documents (none of which I could read nor was really privy to as I couldn't understand the full particulars,.. just went along with what I/we believed to be the understood basis of agreement). We made the next 12 payments every month without fail and then in the 13th month heard nothing from the bank so we went to see them to ask about the next steps in the process. At that point they told us they were calling up the entire loan of 850,00bht and wanted it within 30 days. We couldn't believe what we were hearing. We went back to the bank twice and finally spoke with the head branch honcho and told him this was grossly unfair and covert and manipulative. His response was basically "som nam na",... "we're the bank and we can do what we like". We had been deceived 12 months earlier when they were all smiles and rewriting up the new loan agreement (with the hidden agenda attached). We offered to pay all back interest (about 90,000bht) plus bring all payments from previous default up to scratch. They still refused. We offered them half of the debt (450,000bht) and asked for a loan rewrite but they said they would only rewrite the loan with a 6 to 12 month terms which was preposterous. Long story short,... we waited for about 6 months and then they placed the property with the executions office (Govt office) and scheduled auctions over the next 3 months starting at 1.35mi value (half its real value) We were able to frustrate that effort by getting our own independent valuation and submitting it to the executions dept which was accepted and now we had the auction starting price at 2.7mil. This gave us more time. The only reason the bank was so belligerent and hell bent on recovery is because they thought our property was easy pickings as they only had lent about 40% value and knew in a fire sale they could recover 100% of loan plus costs and that we could go to hell in the meantime. Thai borrowers have the luxury and protection of 90% LTV ratios but farang/Thai loans at that time (2006) did not,.. 50% LTV ratio was the best available. This game of cat and mouse and failed auction attempts went on for about 10 months before they were able to get a new auction valuation of 1,7miliion which we again fought and won and in the meantime we sold for 2.5mil so that put an end to a very horrible and stressful experience. It is worth noting that when we informed the bank that we had found a buyer and wanted a payout figure and needed to get the Chanott deed they played hard ball and made it extremely difficult. They said they would not stop the auction process until they had 100% of cash (and they really slugged us for every single baht and charge imaginable) which we couldn't give them until day of sale. Even then they were not willing to cooperate and the guy at the bank (an insidious little weasel) had the gall to tell my wife "actually,... the bank wants to buy your property and that's why they will not cooperate with your request to conclude the auction process and prepare to settle". At that point we hired a top gun lawyer who has over 20 years experience dealing with banks and these matters (recommended to us by a separate bank manager who wanted to help us). We paid the new lawyer 30,000bht and he had it fixed up and settled within 10 days and now we are free of those parasitical bastards who would be struck off the banking licensees list in any western country. Furthermore,.. when we had a valuation done by the registered appraiser we told him the story and he said that this kind of practice and corruption is rife within the banking system and that Siam Bank was the worst of all offenders. Hope that helps you.

Hello, just thought I would add my two cents. If there is a PHONE line running through or past your village, you may be able to tap in and get a ADSL hookup from TOT. If there is not, you will try and search for a nonexistant connection. I live in the rice fields outside of Udon Thani, all the other providers did not or would not work except for DATC, which was horribly slow at best. Beware of their claims. They will not tell you of certain terms, like disclose termination procedures. Any contract you might get will be for at least 90 days/3 months, whether you use it or not. TIP, Locate nearest TOT Main office to your village, not the subdistrict one. They may have WIFI available in your area too. Ist try to locate one of the little orange trucks that TOT runs around in and ask the technician, what is available. I managed to get ADSL 7MB sometimes. Ok for VIOP protocols and vids are slow but work, downloads are slow at times but fast also with no load on system, using TOT.

Construction of the initial stage of the railway project for the Bangkok-Chiang Mai route is scheduled to begin by the middle or second half of next year. The railway project for both routes will be completed until 2015.

Not sure what the last few words mean, but this is not a 2 year project.

Completely replacing the railway lines and building high speed tracks between the capital and the two northern cities is surely more like a 10 year project?

Perhaps someone with engineering knowledge might add something to this fantasy.

They won't be replacing the railway lines. The high speed tracks will be separate.

They always seem to rat each other out.. No bro-code those Thai thugs. Sent from my GT-S5660 using Thaivisa Connect App

Sorry but those poles don't look like power poles to me. Mainly because they don't have rows of holes staggered on all sides so the workers can climb the poles when they are stood upright. I imagine they are pier poles, the ones that are hammered in for bridge and large building supports. I do agree with the unsecured load idea because I have seen it in Thai about 1 too many times. The worst incident was just outside Kumpawapi about 6 months ago. Remember the cop car in the 1st "final destination" where the log comes bouncing through his windshield? Now imagine a truckload of those Eyucalyptus tree logs, falling out the back of a truck and hitting, bouncing into the vehicles behind it. Everyone who was sitting up in two cars behind were literally cut in half by those logs and so were the vehicles.....

Maybe I am wrong on this, but when you sign up to have payments processed by Visa and Mastercard don't they have in the contract that merchants are not allowed to assess additional fees to process the cards. Essentially for the customer it has to be the same as paying cash. The merchant has to eat the processing charge. Every time I see a hotel or restaurant try to take on that 3% for using Credit or Debit cards, I thought that it is against Visa and Mastercards policy. Am I wrong?

You are correct. Vendors are not allowed to add processing costs according to Visa & MC rules.

Please be advised that Bangkok Bank does allow for online transfers as long as you pay the high fees ($80 USD a pop) and do the required paperwork to be able to use that service. If you need to get money to Thailand , use your stateside bank's wire transfer services, ($20 USD) and wire it to BKKB in New York. They will deposit it right then for a fee or you can have the funds transferred to Thailand in US dollars and deposit it then. Then you still pay the fees (commission).

The US is keeping its ties with the Thai's because everywhere else in Asia, they have been kicked out of the countries they occupied. They need a FOB in case China gets too fiesty and starts trouble. Same with any other country in Asia.

I wish the would go back to the old way and allow it, we have too many ferals running amok in my village and the neighboriing one. You cannot go outside at night when they are running, they attack other dogs and cats and livestock as well. We even have a neighborhood watch that tries to chase them away because of the pack being 20 + strong. The local cops do nothing, what I wouldn't give for a 12 ga, right now!

I just completed my 1 year extension. I went to immigration with all the required paperwork and in turn was sent to Vientenne to leave Thailand and return. Upon return to Thailand my visa was stamped with a one year extension, which negated all the paperwork and the only thing I had to do then was get the re-entry permit. 3800 BHT. No muss or fuss. Done complete. Anyone else do this? First timer here....