rio666uk

Thanks you for your advice people. My girfriend was married in Thailand and she is under the impression that she can get divorced preatty quickly. Presumably her husband would have to agree and go to Thailand to get a devorced, but im sure he will make things as difficult as possible for her.

I understand that divorce in thailand is a shotgun affair... so yes the only problem would be getting her husband over there - and if hes as much of an a$$hole as you say... i cant see him being up for that - unless you pay for his flights of course - in which case he may fancy a trip to thailand

One possiblity we do have is building property. I'm aware as a foreigner i can't do this but i believe there is nothing stopping my girfriend and her family doing this, and I becoming an employee

I would think carefully before funding this sort of project - there's a saying that goes "dont invest what youre not prepared to lose".

One other thing. I run a small business in the UK installing intelligent lighting and audio systems into exclusive properties. Would there be any problems if i was to restart the business in Thailand but trade to the UK?

No - spose not, but you would need to look into if you would qualify the need for work permits etc... have a look in the visa, residency forum.

all the best

Sorry For The Inconvenience - The Test Testing is now complete.

Thank You.

When i did this it was adultery or unreaseonable behaviour. It was easier to accept unreaseonable behaviour on my part rather than wait 2 years - even though i hadnt been unreaseonable.

I too had the option of doing this - however one of you has to agree to holding your hand up and admitting that you're the one at fault and its because of your actions that you are going down this road..

At the time my solicitor said that this was perfectly acceptable as long as I understood that at some later point, my wife, should she choose to, "could" persue claims for more money or the court could land me with all costs... despite us having a amicable separation - I decided to take your bog-standard divorce.

Although my situation was not as the OP's... if it had been, then yes get it over with asap and move on.

Dont worry about visas - dont think about setting up businesses or anything else for a moment... although its all very noble what you say i feel i should share some experience with you...

From my own experience in UK divorce, you need to demonstrate that you and your wife have been separated for 2 years and have both signed a petition for decree nici - meaning that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.

Proceedings can happen before 2 years - if the divorce will be based on grounds of adultery or domestic violence etc (you should seek legal advice on this).

It is advisable to find yourself a good solicitor that deals with matrimonial issues - I would go for one of the larger firms, they tend to be more expensive but spend less time fking about to-ing and frow-ing.

As I say above, your wife could petition for divorce on the grounds of mental bullying - however proving this and getting her husband to agree to this would be another story - You will need to take some good legal advice on this... I will not comment further as im not a legal professional, i did however discuss various things at length with my solicitor at the time, so am aware that there are things that can be done - at a price I might add.

Until proceedings are underway, I would not suggest moving to thailand. I had to return from thailand after 8 months to wrap things up... for what its worth it took a further 6-7 months from the end of the initial 2 year separtion to getting the decree nici, and another 4 weeks before getting the decree absolute. Cost in UK was between £700-£1K each.

The legal costs were low as we had already sorted out finances, such as the house, bank accounts and joint monies and debts.... also we had no kids - which made things relitively easy.

I would stress again - buggering off to Thailand will cause you more longterm headache until your divorce/s are either in hand or complete.... You should use this time to consider your future together and more importantly your future as a farrang in Thailand - unless of course you have a $hit load of cash to take over and spend your days supping beers next to your pool.

I wish you all the best.

You should have made this a Poll.

Personally, I think they can be a nuisance, but the guys that try to get you to hire them every time you standup on the beach are a bigger pain in the a$$.... but I dont see why they should be got rid off.

I do think they should be forced to operate out in deeper water and well away from swimmers - but they serve a purpose, plenty of people have a great time on them - and they can be perfectly safe if driven sensibly....

They are no more of a menace than the big superbikes you see tourists hiring to belt up and down the beach roads at patong, patters etc.

DAY 11

No cravings at all now - although not sleeping all that well the past 2 nights, keep waking in the night for no reason then feeling tired in the morning...

My resolve grows stronger by the day - particularly as i know that a few people are just waiting for me to give in and have a cigarette.

Cheers all for your comments

mindblend, so which is it - you in thailand to get pussy or to get to know the country?

I'd rather see a bit of the country I think. I can get pussy anywhere.

Liking the sound of Chiang Mai, maybe after the beach... 400 baht sounds bloody cheap for the APEX - looking that up.

Cheers guys it looks like a plan is coming together!!!

Yeah I can confirm that price for the Apex too.... at least it was last time i stayed there - - swimming pool a bit on the small side but its fine, rooms are fine and food not bad either.

if youre a real tight ass - you can make bacon sandwiches from the breakfast buffet and sneak them out to eat later in the day....

apparently

i would have said yes - somethings up - but if it can still read music and vds then im not sure....

have you tried software cds - does windows autoplay say a driver cd or any other software?

Good God, some people here can't even get along online. Imagine them in a bar after a few beers!!

(Honestly, however, it sounds like a good idea).

Good point - maybe a boxing ring could be installed too

Im affraid your description is not the most helpfull to advise on.. but

on arrival in bangkok, unless you dont intend staying there, head straight to Kao Sarn Road... plenty of cheap rooms here, choose fan over a/c to save further...

thats about it really - you can ask your fellow travellers where the cheapest places to stay are - and having done it before - most of the backpacker tribe will be falling over themselves to explain how to save a few baht..

you dont say "which beach you want to spend the first week chilling on", but i would guess if youre budget travelling you would be well suited to either the beach huts on ko tao, ko phangnan, ko samet or ko chang.... there are obviously more beaches but on a budget with 2 weeks im guessing you dont want to travel too far from bkk.

hope this helps - if not pm me a better idea of what you want to see/do and i may be able to help some more.

666

Great good effort, same as me, pure cold turkey, www.whyquit.com is a good site to look over each day, get the urge to smoke look up some of the horror stories, takes your mind off. Keep up the good work

I’ve still not smoked and according to my quit counter (http://www.xarka.com/freeware/)

My name is Steve, and I am a nicotine addict.

I have stopped nicotine for 4 months, 10 days, 3 hours, 34 minutes and 57 seconds (132 days).

I've not smoked 5286 death sticks, and I've saved 18 days, 8 hours and 29 minutes of my life.

Ahhh finaly someone has acknowledged my sucess... thanks man

Im off to check out those sites now then...

PS i may be PMing you about withdrawal as it only seems to be you and me on the whole forum that have quit.

thanks again

PPS sorry thairish - your reply has only just shown up - cheers

This would also be very handy for those of us members who are not expats and cannot otherwise attend TV meets. It would mean having somewhere to head to for a beer when we arrived in Thailand on our hols!

Great Idea

666

what does OT stands for?

Old testament....

old timer...

would need an example for anything other than a guess.

Over Time... thats what Ive always thought it was used for

DAY 9

Am I on my own - or did anyone else giveup

Hi all - Im feeling rather pleased/smug with myself this morning - after getting through my first weekend since New Years Eve without smoking.. even when drunk! Ive been known to get through in excess of 25 smokes in a single evening if drinking.

I had my last smoke around midnight as the clock ticked over and a handfull of fireworks hailed the arrival of 2006.

To date Ive not used anything other than willpower.... no patches, no gum, no hypnotists, although I must admit that after several drinks Saturday night, while watching a DVD I was climbing the walls for a couple of hours....

I was sure I would crack - there are, stupidly, about 50 cigarettes on the bookshelf and a further 10pack in the car that were calling me, but I didnt fail - I got through it.... not sure about all that "take deep breaths and have a glass of water" business... it didnt help at all.

It should be noted that although Im on Day9 - i fear the night that I have to go out for a drink in a bar or worse still "eating out" somewhere.

In addition to comments by Francois - you could try forcing your PC to do this automatically

Start > Run > type "services.msc"

Right Click DHCP Client > Recovery Tab and change

First Failure = Restart the Service

You could change all to "restart" this should save you having to do this manually in future.

I think you are manking something out of nothing. First off i dont see any people starving in isaan sure they are poor but no one goes hungry. And I dont see them adorne them selfs with gold unless they have excess money or it is a gift and the first hour of need it is sold off.

If you belive the people on this thread the only people that buy gold are lo-so farang and thai. Bar girls. And

greedy Thai farmers that wear it to feel important while there familys go with out. You people sit there with you flash comuters and dvd cameras and cars and you want to take the piss out of some people living up country that likes to wear a gold chain

Shit you people are un real bah.gif bah.gif bah.gif

nothing more to add to this comment - well said

i get the silent treatment - followed by sulking... if she's really pissed at me it goes -

tears - stomp off to bed - silent treatment... this can "go back to beginning for another go" at any stage, several times in some cases

i dont wear a buddha on a chain - but i do have a fairly large tatoo of this on my back.. does that count?

why? - its for good luck, and as a reminder of personal memories and experiences during that time of my life.

without any thought to how they would explain a 10 inch tattoo of a gecko on their foot to future employers in the banking industy

I can't say I have ever had to show my foot at a job interview, must be contracting at the wrong banks! - but fair go to you for making folk think at least twice about Tats.

I am glad someone mentioned NZ. overall the best country I have ever been to, but I can't explain why I never went back - apart from Thaland is enroute! Fortunately I had a good mate living down in NZ and although we did use the well developed Backpacker circuit, we were not married to it. Plenty of stuff to do off the LP agenda, but plenty of worthwhile stuff to do in the LP also. And some Great wine! And being able to talk to locals in the same language even just for 2 minutes just makes life so much easier.

As far as I am concerned it is the PEOPLE that make a place - and if can't communicate to some degree at least, then you DO lose a lot. One of teh big eyeopeners in Thailand for me over the years has been meeting nice Germans! I had never met any in europe before - because I had never met any! And had basically grown up on a diet of old B/W WWII movies - so to say my view of the Jerries was one dimensional would be an understatement.

I was at around 28/29 a bit older than the average backpacker, so was well used to travelling and not feeling like I "had" to do it in a crowd - I still remember down in Oz, where a group of guys and gals in a Hostel were all excited about a trip they had purchased for 100 bucks each and invited me along. The idea was that they got provided with a jeep and a tent and were "allowed" to camp on a beach for the night and could have a party. I tried to explain that I had in my life already been to Beach parties, already driven on Beaches and had already been camping - so the idea of PAYING someone to do all this in addition to Beer Money was quite a strange a concept - but I guess at 20/21 ish and you come from somewhere where their are no beaches then I can see the attraction, but still someone was making very good money from this!

But then again I was the only "Backpacker" I saw who bought their cheese pre grated when possible and their wine by the bottle (and the good stuff) rather than by the box (with the requirement being how much per litre) - so who am I to quibble about spending money

My take on BP's vs Expats vs Tourists is that in the great scheme of things it doesn't actually matter - the main point being to get out of Croydon (or wherever!) HOWEVER you can.

Amen

I always wonder why others think they are so much better than the KS road & people who like to stay there that they need to make snidey, snobbish remarks but they obviously feel the need to make themselves feel better or big themselves up. Sad for them

Boo - I cant speak for others but I never meant that I thought I was better than the KS lot... its not the guesthouses or everyone who stays there... just my own take on ammusing observations of the metamorphosis of some average joe to phileas fogg with dreads n beads... all in one afternoon

check-in, get pad-thai, sit at side of road for hours having hair braided, then go browse the tatoo shop.... i wish em all the best - wont knock em for it - but its still ammusing to see.

i had a mate who "before" he went away travelling, "had" to get his tongue pierced and a couple of tatts done... cos - and i quote "because im off travelling and i wanna look the part"

personally i dont like farrangs or thais going over the top with wearing gold...

in the UK its generally considered to be tacky if you see someone dripping in gold, be they rich or poor...

in Thailand it seems like a split opinion between someone whos showing off their material wealth, whos got money to burn, a rich boyfriend and those that say it looks tacky..

i cant be arsed to go into it anymore - because, as we all know, after the first few replies, this will turn into a bargirl thread and then get closed.

hopefully not, but....

we use knoppix here when this sort of thing happens... now im not a guru with it cos im a LAN tech bod, but i dont think it matters greatly if the bios cant see the HDD.

knoppix (if youre unaware of it) is a live cd bootable OS - the OS runs directly from CD... it wont be much bothered about if the bios sees the disk or not -

remember just because the bios can no longer see the disk, doesnt mean that its a totally unreadable disk...

have you hooked up your disk as a slave drive on another system?

what makes you think the disk controller is at fault?

usually with a totally stuffed disk, you either cant feel or here the disk spin up and whir at boot up - or it will make a clonking sound where the disk head/s are knocking... does this apply to you?

appologies if you already you all of this...

when you say dead - how dead - does it boot?

if so you could try using knoppix... i wont explain, but heres the link - free download, live bootable system that is very good at recovering files and directories.

knoppix.com

Looking at the original article and the other pics...

Be proud of this man Brits....he ia a fellow countryman

   

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

youre right - he is a fellow countryman - but im no prouder of that than I guess you would be about Warren Fellows...

eh sport!

I wouldnt go to mad experimenting - Im not sure why your internet connection didnt fail when you changed your MAC address.

When the MAC is changed a network disconnection would occur - then the newly addressed network card would request a dynamic IP address from your ISPs DHCP server.... until this happens you shouldnt have network access to anything...

but if it worked it worked i guess