Peewee

My Thai wife and I (I am British) have been married for 15 years and have a 13 year old daughter and 7 year old son.

My wife has held a British passport for 10 years and maintained her Thai passport also. Both children were born in the UK and we visit Thailand often.

Until know we have not dealt with the issue of dual nationality for the children and would like to hear any advise members might have on the subject.

In principle we like the concept of maintaining the childrens dual heritage and providing them with a Thai passport as well as their uk ones.

1. What is the procedure to follow to get a dual citizenship?
2. Is there any downside to take into consideration?
3. Can my wife's property held in Thailand be left to the children once they have their dual nationality

I can imagine many of you will have been in this space prior to me and would welcome any advise that could be granted.

Thanks in anticipation

It's 21.35 now and I just got some important news, (but as yet unconfirmed). A colleague tried to drive their car off Phuket Island and over the Sarasin Bridge which connects Phuket with the mainland (PhangNga province). however, they were turned back by PAD protesters who have shut the bridge!

I can only confirm this by driving up to the bridge - so I might do this and report back.

Simon

Sigh, cringe, hold head in disbelief.... wait for more info.

Please let us know what's going on Simon and please say it aint so... (Re the bridge)

It realy would be helpful to know if the Sarasin Bridge is closed as I had planned to drive up to Bangkok (I am asumimng the airport will still be closed on Sunday) with my family, which includes a baby, on Sunday morning in order to get a flight back from Bangkok to the UK tomorrow night.

If anyone with knowledge of the area could report the situation it would be great help.

Thanks in anticipation

An Exceptional monarch and a wonderful man who is an insperation to so many. Thailand needs him now as always and we join together to wish him a speedy and complete recovery.

Long Live The King

Peewee, you really need to provide a minimum amount of information so your question

can be accurately answered. In this case you need to specify the nationality of your friend

as Thailand has varying visa rules for different categories of nations.

Lite beer assumed correctly we are from Northampton UK.

Thanks

I have a pal who will be visiting the land of smiles for the first time next February. He would like to work his away around the country and spend around three months. He was planning to do this on a visitors passport but I thought there was a 30 day limit? What is the best advise to give him given his length of stay??

Thanks in advance for any input to assist.

I recon' that if you worried about this sort of thing you would never be able to cross the road - more chance of getting knocked over by a car than being killed by a Tsunami.

Despite this philosophical approach I think there will be another earthquake in the region within the next few years - one big enough to cause another problem Tsunami. All the science seems to point to this as there is still a lot of pressure on the plates that have been moving recently.

If anyone gets the chance to go to the holiday resorts take it – at least the warning systems and starting to come on line and they will improve more with time. Some of the best resorts in the World have there potential problems – live a little keep chilled!

Thanks scamp, but it was not my intention to make anyone feel awkward about NOT helping.

Yes I'm lucky in that I can spend just 75% of my time working to make a living and the balance on fundraising and charitable work.

Anyway, the main point is that you don't need loads of money to help out - if lots of folks can give just a bit it makes a huge difference. What I and others have found is that it very difficult to know who you can trust your hard earned money with - that’s why I have gone direct to the people, found out what they needed, purchased it and then taken it to the camps.

When I found this charitable foundation helping the kids in such a positive way I thought others would like to hear about it - they seem honest and are certainly doing a good job in that they are making the kids smile again – its wonderful to see.

We have been visiting the south regularly (Waree, mywife, is there now) to try and assist the devastated areas - there is still plenty to be done and we have found several possitive ways of helping emmediate needs and with getting people back to work.

Waree came across an initiative to help the children get over there grief and negative thoughts - I think its a good one, we are certainly going to get involved.

****Please Do NOT post solicitations for donations on Thaivisa as we have no way of verifying the purported charities.****

What I recon is that there is a 'certain sort' of girl that you would not want to trust anywhere near your hard earned cash or your plastic. Shame some people have to generalise over nationalities - some of the Thais I know I would trust my life with, let alone my plastic.

I would recommend a review the 'sort' of people you are mixing with and perhaps change some of your habits and the places you hang around - maybe even some of your generalisations? Not all Thai ladies are out to fleece the so called better off.

UPDATE

The latest tremor struck at struck at 1729 local time (1029 GMT) and was felt as far away as Singapore.

Many people were reported to have fled their homes in Padang, after a radio broadcast by city mayor Fauzi Bahar.

"Many people in Padang are panicking," said Yusuf, an official from Indonesia's Geophysics and Meteorology Agency (IGMA).

"People have left their houses, specially those living on the coast," he said, according to the Associated Press news agency.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Honolulu, in the US state of Hawaii, said: "Earthquakes of this size sometimes generate local tsunamis that can be destructive along coasts located within a few hundred kilometres of the earthquake epicentre."

It urged local authorities to "be aware of this possibility and take appropriate action".

Scientists have warned that the Indian Ocean faultline could deliver another major earthquake, and tremors have been felt repeatedly in the area since the 9.3-magnitude jolt that unleashed the 26 December tsunami.

Two weeks ago, an aftershock from that earthquake killed more than 600 people on the Indonesian island of Nias.

On that occasion, rapid response plans put in place after December's disaster were activated promptly.

An integrated tsunami warning system for the region will not be ready until the end of next year, but most countries have a contingency plan.

Wimbledon is the best place - a great day there today.

I detect there are some spoil sports out there who would like to 'dampen down' (forgive the pun) the Songkran celebrations. As with all holidays you do get some that go well over the top but in the main the water thowing and parades are great fun, and for the most part, a happy and safe time is had by the vast majority. Shame some have to down too much of the liquids harder to take than the water - just makes everyone misserable and adds to the toll on the road death statistics.

If you are luky enough to be in Thailand - head for ChaingMai where the welcome and cellabrations go on for longer and with more agusto.

Sumatra shaken by new earthquake

A strong earthquake has struck near the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

The epicentre of the quake, which had a magnitude of 6.7, was about 120km (75 miles) south-west of the city of Padang.

There were no reports of casualties or damage.

The latest tremor revived fears of a repeat of the 26 December tsunami disaster, which killed an estimated 300,000 people in a dozen countries.

Two weeks ago, an aftershock from that earthquake killed more than 600 people on the Indonesian island of Nias.

http://thailandstsunami.com/

I have had a lot of Thais explain to me that they think its really funny when Farang living in their kingdom expect to be given the same privileges on price as Thai residents.

Farang living in Thailand usually get better prices than the tourists not always because they are looked upon differently but because they are more likely to know the difference between the different rates.

My pal is building a house presently and it drives him mad because he occasionally works out that after loads of time spent negotiating on materials his Thai wife will let him know that she could have got this or that cheaper if he had left things to her. The times I've heard him say 'but I live here – I’m no tourist’ tee hee the Thais smile – generally they are out to get you to pay what you can afford rather than what its actually worth.

Treat other people the way you want them to treat you..

Hi Lars noticed your sign off there ...

You probably heard but there was a program on the TV recenltly here in the UK which set out to find out from the masses what an updated version of the ten comandments would look like.

The first and most important one was voted as being;

Treat other people the way you want them to treat you..

What worked for me in this and other similar circumstances is the following:

If I have a nice roof over my head to live under, a decent income, have my health while there, and the ability to explore the city (BKK), and of course the Internet to stayed tuned to the world....all the rest I receive from life while there is a bonus.

Frustration occurs when reality falls short of expectation.  In Thailand, just adjust your expectation of where you came from to the expectation of where you are.  The "new" expectation will more likely be a closer match for the "new" reality.

This of course does not mean life will be perfect, but this cognitive shift will lower your frustration levels while living in a third world country.  It took me a while to do this but it helped.  It certainly doesn't mean if you don't like it leave, I hate that mentality.

Peace....

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Peace .. yes thanks, relatively speaking

I like the adjustment to the mind frame - important when a visitor in any other country

Not sure I like the reference to the 3rd world country though - most Thais would hope that they have moved on and have now deserved a better reference than this one by now and I don't blame them

I don't beleive that all 60 million Thais beleive that all Farangs are millionaires.

By millionaires, I presume you mean $$ not Baht, right ?

Perhaps this is more your perception than theirs.

US $ - Thai Baht, 1million is a million and to many thais it would not make much difference in terms of how you would be percieved - its still a lot of money

The security guards always seem to know a maid or two that need work 

Well, thats where we got ours from anyway, and for 8 hours a day/7 days a week for 4k baht, she does a really good job too!!!

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133 baht a day. Is that even legal?

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Ajarn - how does the maths work on this one

4000/7 = 133 ???

sure good method of bringing the hourly rates down though

"Sometimes you don`t realize how good your staff are until they have gone.

Always best if possible to compromise."

Actually, she was complete crap. I'd wanted to fire her for weeks, since I figured she was stealing some small stuff like cutlery and her idea of cleaning included rearrangign toothbrushes and not cleaning the toilet. She was recommended by the owner, though

The condo staff do - and will - clean the apt, I just prefer an outsider really. Less gossip for the staff and security guards... "oooo those farang... i tell you... "

neph.

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What you have not realised is that she is not rearranging the tooth brushes but useing them to clean the toilet - she must have thought you were a crap employer too.

Thanks, all.

I just said no to her. But I'm still afraid of her. Anyway, a girl without money in Thailand is dangerous. Hope she will be fine.

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Anna - why are you afraid of her - is she not a friend? Seems like you need to consider what sort of relationship it is that you have with her.

Because a lot of us feel that we should expect to pay a little over the thai rates anyway - everywhere u go there are rates for thais and rates for farang. Its not always worth the hassle of trying to get them down to somewhere close to the local rate - where’s your sense of redistributing the wealth more evenly?

Anyway why do you think it’s the land of smiles?

They just love to think they getter the better of us - if it makes then happy, and makes the world go round I don't begrudge it - all proving they know where they have to draw the line of course!

Never swerve to miss a dog/cat if it might cause an accident - your own safety has to come first.

I would use this principal to decide if I stop too. Ideally you would need/want to - but, would it be safe? Owners can be upset by someone killing their dog and its no always possible to calm them down with a couple of hundred baht.

In all but the most up-market Thai places this is unavoidable unless you want to try the following which works fairly well because usually what ever you order comes pity quickly.

The trick is that you order what you would like to come first - some times this is a starter - right?

Then, when they deliver that you order what you want to follow.

Continue in this fashion until finished and you get some that resembles a well balanced offering.

You can't beat the system but you can manipulate it somewhat - no what I mean!

Peewee

People (and especially farangs) who want to help out in Thailand’s Tsunami hit areas are a bit of an embarrassment to the officials who like to feel, and be seen, that they are coping very well on their own. Actually they are doing well considering the enormity of the problem, but the local people would say things are happening far too slowly.

The important point is that these ‘farang helpers’ are also an encouragement for the officials to keep on top of their own aid programmes and efforts, and so they should be encouraged to continue.

The outside help to the area over the first few weeks was very considerable, people arrived from all over the world. Things at this time were so serious that it didn’t matter to anyone where the help came from and Thais worked with farangs shoulder to shoulder without and sense of whose job this should be.

After 3 – 4 weeks the situation was becoming a little more sensitive, and perhaps political. Outside organisation s were told thank you but we are OK, we can manage. It’s right that people by that time were staring to be moved out of their tents and into temporary wooden and metal shacks, food was being provided and the camps sites were fairly clean and risk free of diseases.

Most of the displaced family’s had lost loved ones and so no circumstances would be happy ones for them, obviously. One of things I felt most at that time was that they needed hope and a reason to continue to strive for a future; for many, this was a real struggle. To see things around them getting better each day and that people really cared about their situation was incredibly important for them.

The situation during January was a bizarre one in so many ways. You could go into any shop or supermarket in Phuket and the shelves were full. 90 mins drive to the North and people (sometimes family’s of 4 – 6) were living in 3ft square tents with just their clothes and the meals which were being provided to them regularly each day.

Things are improving continually but I do hope that the Thai authorities will accept that farangs have a need as well as a duty to help out the Thai people that they have come to hold so dear to them.

I could not count the number of farang that have said or written about the incredible kindness and bravery that Thai people showed to them during the time of the waves. Many lives were saved due to Thai peoples feeling of responsibility to their ‘guests’ – no doubt about that at all.

It would be nice therefore to try and address the balance so that perhaps there could be as many tales of kindness and unselfishness of Farnag to Thais now that so much needs to be done to get back to some form of normality.

In the hope that it might create some inspiration and answer some questions I have prepared the following web site on Thailand’s Tsunami.

My Webpage

Respects to all, Peewee

What about the folks who do it for financial reasons?

Agree

Seems as though the child pornographers and greedy parents don't merit a lot of attention from Thaivisa readers - just the soon-to-be-nadgerless end users.

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Do any of these people actually do this sort of thing just for financial gain? - I didn't think so.

I could imagine that first comes their urge to be with the children and then the need to raise the funds to enable them to carry out their dastardly acts. The linking of one with the other just serves their purpose.