Sam Gold

Thank you both for the clarification.

Good afternoon,

It's unclear to me whether Savannakhet still offers a same-day visa service where you can submit your paperwork before 11:00 and pick up your passport with your new visa at 15:30, such as explained in this post from 2014:

If anyone could let me know, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Thank you very much Ubonjoe, duly noted.

Good evening everyone,

I know the topic has been covered a number of times, but the information is sometimes contradictory.

My Thai wife is currently in Europe until December. Myself and my 6-year old luk krueng son will be travelling out of Thailand to visit her in September. Here is the issue: he entered last January on his Thai passport which has now expired (we forgot to renew before my wife left). He has a valid French passport with no stamps in it.

Will he be allowed out of the country?

If not, how can we make a new Thai passport without my wife being here? I have his original tabien baan and birth certificate with me.

Thank you very much for your input.

"So they will approve my extension request if I provided the above documents and apply in person together with my son (without my wife present)?"

On 24/06/2016 at 4:38 AM, ubonjoe said:

Yes

Actually I just tried this at Pattaya immigration, only myself and my son with his Thai birth certificate. First they asked why my wife wasn't there, to which I replied she was currently abroad and back next month. I had to provide a signed copy of her ID, a signed copy of her house registration, signed copy of marriage certificate AND a letter from her saying she was basically ok with all this. They said it's to cover themselves. As she was abroad, they said an email was acceptable.

PS. In addition to the lease agreement, you now need to show the registration book of the property you're renting signed by the owner, signed copy of owner's ID AND proof of purchase of the property by the owner.

Seems like it's getting harder every year.

Good evening ladies and gents,

Well it's all in the title: I need to send some money domestically via postal money order, and would like to know if I can pay with my Visa card.

Thanks!

Crimes against foreigners are common in Pattaya.

In many cases including this one it's because foreigners get heavily intoxicated there, have no idea about Thais and their culture and make them lose face by throwing their weight about.

Most of us have been here for years and never had the slightest hint of a problem.

Very biased and questionable journalism there, trying to pass off Thais essentially as Farang-beaters.

Cha keow sy nom (sounds like this) is a herbal mixed green tea. It may have food color as well but the "chemical crap", I don't think it has. You can buy quality green tea, either Japanese style or dried leaf and make it yourself. The "latte" teas usually use the sweetened "milk product" that they use here, rather than real sweetened condensed milk. That likely has some additive and it is made with palm oil products - no milk.

They use Carnation which is a dairy product (and therefore contains lactose, worth noting for people with lactose intolerance).

If you don't want milky stuff you can ask for iced lemon tea which is ok as long as you ask for "namtarn nit noi" (not too much sugar).

Thai-style tea and coffee is full of heavy, chemical, dairy and sweet c**p.

If you want real green tea (I drink some every day myself) you have to make it yourself I'm afraid!

Perhaps you would like to extend your thread to 10 worst driving habits in France, UK, US, Belgium, China?

I suspect the 10 worst in the UK would be far worse than Thailand!

No way, there is no possible comparison with Europe. Statistics speak for themselves, anyway. Take France and Thailand, for example, which have about the same population:

Average annual road death toll for France: 3000

Average annual road death toll for Thailand: 26000

I agree with TacoGuy though to some extent, 95% of Thai drivers are safe and considerate drivers, but it's the other 5% you'll take notice of because they're the ones that cause you problems.

No way, it's more along the lines of 50%.

The worst thing about all this is that it isn't punished by the police, in fact they clearly aren't an example with their random road blocks with no forewarning that brutally reduce 3 lanes to 1 on speedways. <deleted>??? I will never get used to that even after tens of thousands of km.

I even saw a cop standing in the middle lane of the speedway once waving at cars to slow down, checking out drivers and them going "shooh buzz off" with his hands. He didn't seem intoxicated. There must be some form of logic behind that but beats me.

If I had a choice between a) being beaten to death by a lynch mob and running way like a scared little girl, I think I would choose the latter, even if I had to cop the scorn of Thai Visa punters

He ran because he did wrong, so you would do the same be a crazy driver and flee ?? Sorry but a sad post. You would not have shown some goodness to help the injured, it would show to everyone you were a decent man.

well you feel free to hang around at a crash then. i stopped in a crowd of thai gawkers to see some thai lying under a bus bleeding heavily. my instinct was to stop the bleeding until help arrived. my g/f dragged me out of there pronto as she heard the latecomers talking about 'the foreigner did this, get him'.

if i cause a crash im out of there and ill report to the police station later.

Exactly, as anyone who knows Thailand well would do, don't hang around or get involved with accidents, whether you're responsible or not. Thais are excessively hot-blooded in these situations, and the group effect takes over, no emotional control, no reasoning and if they spot a farang he will cop for it.

I am not a Thai basher, nor over-generalising, I just happen to know the place well and all this has been confirmed to me by Thais on countless occasions, including a couple of in-laws who are policemen.

Thai children are taught to be Thais in Thailand by Thais, it all makes sense to them.

If like me you would rather your child was raised as a Westerner and be spared the lifelong burden of receiving a Thai upbringing, the only solution is to move back to the West. They should speak Thai with their mum, learn about Thai culture of course and they can go back to Thailand later as they wish, as educated, reasonable adults.

It's all a matter of perspective. To a whole lot of guys, living full-time in Thailand is an inaccessible dream and staying in the West is second best.

It's normal to have doubts but if you follow your instincts you can't go wrong.

Will he serve time in jail?

Is the Pope Buddhist?

Telling the truth can be harmful too. It all depends on the circumstances.

That is the way Thais see it. I'm actually used to it now, after so many years.

The question I still ask myself on occasion is why would one bother to lie when the truth isn't actually that bad? It works amongst Thais, it's universally accepted and even sometimes, I suspect, expected.

Nothing to do with peasantry - the tradition exists at all levels of Thai society.

Most guys get it refunded too (and forward a lot less than 500k), you're nothing new and not smarter than anyone.

Hmm, the OP is trying to teach his girlfriend of three weeks, financial responsibility and budgeting, some of us having been trying to teach our wives such things for fifteen years or more and still we're not there yet!

The other striking point about what was written is the OP's complete lack of understanding of Thai culture, you're going to her mums house for the first time, sure you need to buy her a gift.

The part about the car and driver for 3.5k, silly girlfriend for doing that but doubtless she wanted to show an association to farang wealth, the issue there is 90% about "face", the 10% is likely that she wanted you to have a relaxed trip in comfort.

Good luck, you've got a way to go yet,

You've pretty much summed it up.

If her boyfriend was Thai, they would have chipped in 100 baht for gas, assuming the friend is using GPL as most Thais, otherwise 300 at most.

If you want to lead a stress-free life with the GF and her family, you need to understand face.

And always remain in charge: relying on Thai people to drive you around is a very bad idea and it's better to have your own car.

As long as you don't cause an accident, or you're done for.

Live and learn, and forget about the 3,500, you'll never see the money again, and the more you insist, the closer you will get to unnecessary and disproportionate trouble (voices raised, faces lost, local taxi motorbikes and authority figures getting involved etc).

Confrontation never works here. Now you know that a lot of Thais' (not all of them, thankfully) smiles and friendly chit-chat only bears one purpose, and that is to screw you.

encouraging someone who is working to drink on the job, you do know the guy could get fired don't you ?

it is not acceptable for them to drink it whilst on duty.

In Thailand, it is. Nobody cares about that stuff here.

If you live in Pattaya, Phuket and the likes it happens all the time and nobody cares.

I would not like to be accosted by her she looks one rough dude !!

The result of years in Phuket and Pattaya. She was probably good looking to begin with. Ah, yaba... takes the spark out of you. Look at her eyes, I've seen more life in a tin of green beans.