DP25

Disappointing, but even this watered down version would have NEVER been passed under any sort of Thaksin government. Nor would the proposed property and land taxes. The only sort of tax reform we ever got from them was lowering the corporate tax rate from 30% to 20%

The rates hopefully will be raised later, but getting them to exist at all is a huge step forward for Thailand.

Thai apartments usually have a latch to padlock the door. Just put a lock on it whenever u go out.

if you read thai news, you know bribery both giving/receiving punishable.

?what is the problem at the border to make you inadmissible without paying a bribe?

?just asking? ?why you would feel the need to bribe??

So I don't need to show a fat wad of cash.

20K is hardly a "fat wad". So, unless you don't have that kind of money, I don't see the problem with showing the required amount.

The problem isn't having 20k, it's carrying it around with you, especially when you're traveling extremely long distances. I'd happily pay 200 baht rather than carry 20k in my wallet.

"common misconception that all farang will be ripped off by their wives and end up losing everything. To be honest, in the 5 years I have been here, I am yet to meet a farang who has fallen this way."

1. you must not meet many farangs. I'd say odds might be 50-50, but if farang leaves common sense and judgement at the airport, who's to blame.

2. Plenty of girlfriends rip off too

3 General populace of many countries ignorant of anything beyond their borders: Thais think USA is part of Europe, know some Americans who think Taiwan and Thailand same place.

4. USA blasted regularly here with silly prejudices too, like everyone gets shot at. Thailand has higher gross numbers of gunshot homicides than USA.

5. Every place has it's issues and assets. Get used to it.

6. I started coming to Thailand in 1982, and it wasn't for sex.

So 50% of farangs you know have been ripped off by their wives?

Thailand has higher gun deaths than USA?

I hope you are not offended, but you are clearly lying.

He's not 'lying' about the gun murder thing, he is just misinformed There has been a gun murder statistic passed around on a site called Nationmaster for years that is wildly inaccurate because of a translation error. The Thais translated gun crime (including illegal possesion) as gun murders, giving them over 20,000 gun 'murders' per year, which is more than the US and up there with Colombia and South Africa. The reality is Thailand has about 3000 TOTAL murders per year.

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

3,307 murders in 2011

Food court prices in malls have been high for a while now, well before the military government. Dishes at food courts are about 10-20 baht more expensive than on the street or in a small restaurant.

Thai t-shirt sizes have always been smaller than the ones back home. Always gotta try a shirt on first here.

Are drinks included you will spend 100 -200 a day possibly just on liquid non alcoholic refreshment. Is electricity/ air con included ? Are visa fees included, travel ?

What on earth are you talking about? 100-200 a day on non alcoholic drinks? Water costs 1 baht a liter at machines. You can buy cheap Coke/Pepsi/Juice at Tesco, or better yet, in bulk at Macro.

Nightclubs are out really, maybe once or twice a month, maybe some very cheap local ones, but good Thai ones or tourist ones are 300 baht a drink or you can get whisky by the bottle and buy mixers which is cheaper but tourist places the whisky starts at about 1500 but you could share with friends.

A whole bottle of cheap whiskey at a Thai club is about 400 baht. Who wants to go to tourist nightclubs anyway

If his housing and food are paid for, $400 a month is just his travel and entertainment budget. That is plenty to go to a Thai nightclub on a Friday night and a weekend trip once or twice a month.

Lots of young women from Myanmar aren't on it, so no nursimg homes

The only reason young women in Burma are not on Facebook is because they are desperately impoverished and can not afford smart phones and computers. That poverty also makes them more likely to marry old farang men, so good luck.

Unless you plan on locking them in a cage, as soon as they have the money they will want to use Facebook or similar programs just like any other normal person their age.

Where is the best place to get a non-Facebook Asian girl?

Try the nearest nursing home

Old Thai guys don't go gallivanting around brothels like Pattaya as they have more class, Many practice renunciation in local temples. I know what I hope I'll be doing.

Old Thai guys definitely visit brothels, massage parlours, and karaoke bars. What they don't do is go gallivanting around with the hookers they meet there in public. You won't see them walking around holding hands with some tart dressed like a whore in MBK like you see farang do. Old Thai guys are more discreet than old farang guys, but they are probably more likely to use prostitutes.

I guess some of you are simply blind to all the old, overweight or just plain butt-ugly women that Thailand has to offer.

Obviously, most foreigners are dating one of them

Oh and, contrary to sour grape, farang-folklore, the West is teeming with slim, toned and firm women.

There are slim, toned men and women in western countries, but it is hardly teeming with them. Obesity and being overweight is FAR FAR more common in the west than it is in Thailand, or in any of the other east or southeast asian countries.

74% of Americans and 64% of British are overweight, compared with 32% of Thais. Even worse, 33% of Americans and 27% of Brits are OBESE. While only 9% of Thais are obese.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2228rank.html

It's a simple fact, people in the west, both men and women, are FAR FAR fatter than they are in Thailand. And Thailand is fat for the region, they are the second fattest after Malaysia. People in Vietnam and Japan are far thinner than the Thais are. Only 5% of Japanese and 2% of Vietnamese are obese. There is no comparison between these countries and any western country.

The nurses association of Thailand doesn't own the patent on nurses uniforms. Geez you have gay men dressing in nuns clothes and this doesn't damage the image of nuns. When I see a nun I don't think fat hairy man. I have seen bar girls dressed in school uniforms and when I pass a primary school I don't think dirty little prostitutes, the same when I go to a hospital, the word whore doesn't enter my mind either.

The bar girls don't wear outfits that look like Thai school uniforms, if they did there would be big problems and someone would be arrested. There have even been Chinese tourist arrested for dressing up like Chiang Mai University students and taking pictures on campus because they did not have the 'right' to be wearing the uniform. Thailand is very strange about uniforms and they take them seriously.

due to the fact that you can't marry a Cambodian girl of any age in Cambodia.

Foreigners can marry a Cambodian if they're under 50. They're only targeting old men

Uncle Tom's is fine. If you need a lot of cheap rum/vodka for jungle juice for a party it will do.

Learn from the experience and don't take bar girls into your house for more than a day or two.

Never take bargirls in to your house/apartment AT ALL. Aside from the dangers mentioned here of her not leaving or causing some type of problem, you look like a scumbag to all your neighbors by bringing home hookers all the time.

Just get a cheap hotel room for the night.

I do this with even 'normal' girls until I get to know them. It is dangerous bringing strangers in to your home. Too many of the chicks that go after farang are bat**** crazy

No real harm done

She was only trying to put food on the table

Brave lady

She could have killed someone.

There may have been accidents caused by her actions that are not reported in this article.

She caused damage to people's cars, that is harm done right there.

She damaged property and risked people's lives to make a few baht. She is a greedy, evil woman who should spend a long time in prison.

Guess the problem here is academic unemployment in the West.

Farangs that have a BA only have it hard to get a teacher's job in thr West, so they try in Thailand because life is cheaper there.

So they try to take away teacher's jobs from Thais.

The Golden Rule of most countries in the world is:

Foreigners only if natives are not qualified for the job.

As far as I know, many Thais speak perfect English, so they are first choice, of course.

Some Thais speak good English. VERY few of them become teachers in Thai government schools.

The level of English among Thai English teachers in government schools is horrendous. Most of them can not speak English beyond a very basic level. Many actively avoid foreigners since they can not communicate with them and want to avoid losing face. My ex girlfriend is a Thai English teacher, we spoke Thai when we were together as it was too difficult to communicate in English. And she was the best at English in her school.

A few teachers are able to communicate decently, a school will usually have that one interact with foreigners that come, in order to hide that the other 30 teachers at the school are unable to communicate at any reasonable level. Because they can not speak English, the average lesson from a Thai teacher will involve them lecturing in Thai for an hour about some useless grammatical detail and writing a few words on the board. It is no wonder that most Thais graduate from high school, after a decade studying English, and are still unable to respond to even basic questions. The average bar girl that has been working for a few years speaks better English than the average Thai English teacher. Although admittedly her grammar will be awful, she will be far better at basic communication.

A BA is sufficient to teach English in EVERY country in Asia except for Thailand. You can teach the rest of your life in Japan, Korea, or China armed with a BA in any subject and a passport from an English speaking country. Japan, Korea, and even China all pay FAR more than Thailand does, so it is no surprise that teachers are now leaving Thailand in droves for these other countries. These countries are serious about learning English. Schools in Thailand right now are scrambling for teachers, it is getting very difficult for them to get a foreign teacher at all, let alone a native speaking with experience. As a result, most students will have NO ONE in their school that they are able to practice speaking English with.

Villa on Soi 11 has some. Sushi, sandwiches, pasta, salad etc. I don't think I've ever seen Thai meals like in Tops though. They are the best when it comes to supermarket meals

Tuk Tuks can be expensive but if your Thai then should be the same price as Lao. Mainly they hike up the price for the white face.

That's not the case in my experience, the Thais I talked too all were getting ripped off too. They view Thais as rich foreigners and try to rip them off too. Thais may be able to negotiate easier because of the language but they will start off overcharged too.

The transport situation in Vientiane is really bad if you don't rent a bike. Very difficult to get around without paying a lot of money. There are some local buses though if you can figure them out, I used on to get from the friendship bridge to Vientienne and managed to avoid the scammers at the bridge that way.

It was indeed a retirement extension. Sri Racha immigration instructed my Thai partner that ONLY the 2 hospitals were acceptable. No such requirement at same office last year. Medical consisted of height, weight, B.P., sight test, colour blind test and 10 seconds of stethoscope on chest with no deep breathing. Oh yes and the question "How do you feel?" A joke and yet another rip off by the hospital. But maybe they had to share the 550 baht fee with immigration.

A color blindness test?

"It's official" based on a Match.com survey?

This isn't a site Thais normally use. The only people using Match.com in Thailand are chicks fishing for farang. Who obviously are not average and are going to have tons of hookers and professional farang girlfriends in the mix.

It is serious stuff. My ex gf also worked in a government office and every single person there was borrowing money from the government using this method. One girl in the office did a runner and the people who signed had to pay. These government office workers always seem to be getting in to bizarre money schemes