paul-s

Very true mate, but solve my current situation  

The horse has already bolted.

Plus she has had a UK passport for 20 years with no problems 

We have considered changing her name here on the UK, but travel to Thailand in 5 weeks.

And Hammer 21, we were asked whether she had a thai passport, and without thinking about we said yes

We are currently here is the UK. My Thai (partner) Wife is trying to renew her UK passport, that she has had for 20 years. The UK Passport office has refused renew it because the surname in the Thai Passport is different. Basically, they are saying the name must match exactly. in both passports They are telling her she must change the name in her Thai Passport.
She doesn't want to change her Thai name for a whole bunch of reasons.

What I am trying to prove to the UK passport office is: 
I order to change her name she will have to travel to Thailand and change her name in her house-book that is registered with the Ubon Ratchathani Province Ampur. before she can change it in her passport.
I cannot find any website that clearly states how she would change her name, and I ideally need it from some sort of official source.

Can anyone help or give suggestions please - thanks ????

At last something sensible written about the good side of  Pattaya
I have been here coming to Pattaya for the past ten years for a few months a year. We have a house here. It has much improved over the years since we have been coming here, with better and better amenities and hotels that are much more family orientated.

Crime is a problem as with any big city and corruption is an issue for sure.
In the UK I live near Brighton, but I feel much safer walking in the streets of Pattaya at night than I do in most towns in the UK.

My daughter and her two young sons have been here on a visit from the UK for ten days and they loved the place. There is plenty of good stuff to do and see in Pattaya  that doesn't include the bar and sex trade.

After that I feel like going out and buying an I love Pattaya T-shirt

Quote

 

Thank to all you guys for your helpful comments which will help me register a bike into my name shortly, when I get to Thailand.
I just have one question; do I need a certificate of residency?

My Thai wife of some 20 years often reminds me when we think of visiting a restaurant where the fish swim in tanks outside: A Thai family she claims she knew indulged themselves at a similar seafood restaurant in Bangkok and ended up having to leave their car behind as payment.

These expensive fish places have been around for years - I am so glad I don't really like seafood.

I have not posted on this forum for a long while, because everybody seemed be moaning and there was a good deal of Thai bashing.
I would like to say what a GOOD original post.

So true - look for good things and you will most likely find good things - look for bad things and you will most likely find bad things.

Keep it up Thai Visa!

Well it just shows "Planks" and "planking" is not just for a ships deck anymore!

The things a guy learns these days!

plank (plngk)n.1.a. A piece of lumber cut thicker than a board.b. Such pieces of lumber considered as a group; planking.2. A foundation; a support.3. One of the articles of a political platform.tr.v. planked, plank·ing, planks1. To furnish or cover with planks: plank a muddy pathway.2. To bake or broil and serve (fish or meat) on a plank: "Boards specially made for planking food have grooves . . . to hold juices" (Michael Stern).3. To put or set down emphatically or with force.

An extra difinition (UK) "plank" - a person who is as thick as a "plank"

For me that says it all!!!!!

I have been practising Tai Chi in the UK for over 15 years.

I will be coming to Pattaya shortly for a couple of months.

I would like to join a Tai Chi group in Pattaya to learn more.

Also, I teach Tai Chi a bit in the UK and I wondered whether anyone would like to learn it.

For those in the know, it is the Long Yang Style that I normally practice.

For those who don't it's relaxing, fun thing to do and suits all ages and fitness levels.

Thanks

Paul

Most places indeed have wifi now, if you really want to be mobile and independent, you can use the mobile pone network.

But as we still do not have 3G expect it to be on the slow side. OK for regular surfing and e-mailing but forget streaming video (audio a bit hit and miss but should work most of the time).

Cheap though, with a package (available pre-paid on both AIS and Dtac) you'll pay between 4 and 10 Baht/hour!

The dongles are available in TukCom (the main IT mall in Pattaya) for a tad over 2,000 Baht.

Many thanks for your reply, it is of great help.

All I really want to do is stay in touch with family and work while I am staying in a private house in Pattaya.

Paul

Hi Guys

I will be coming to Pattaya shortly and want to use my laptop on the internet. I was planning to buy a dongle when I get there and use the mobile phone network.

I would grateful of any advice regarding price and coverage. I will be over the other side of the railway tracks from Sukamvit Road.

Thanks

VFR (Visual Flight Rules - it was daytime) conditions are pretty easy. It takes a pretty bad situation before an aerodrome or airport decides to 'shutdown'.

I believe that in this case, the conditions were expected given the location & time of year, but a sudden & extreme condition is not something that we humans can generally deal with in a timely fashion.

At the end of the day & under VFR, it's up to the pilot to make these decisions.

I'm pretty sure dekka can add to or correct my evaluation of this.

It is my understanding that it would be very unlikely for an airliner like this to be flying VFR, if only to avoid other traffic. It is more likely to be flying under IFR (instrument flight rules) and this would only make it even safer. In any case the pilot has the final descision and good visability would be very helpful, but they can go down to a very low height before the descision to land or abort is made.

The pilot seems to have been 56 years old so he would have had a lot of experience.

As it was said earlier, speculation will not solve the issue and air crashes are usually the result of a number of bad events all coming together at the same time.

I would also like join all those who have previously offered their sympathies to all those effected by the crash.

looking girl's hot

and a crimson

from Bangkok's big

Wallet, kissed her

said "in Pattaya

in love with

Land Of Smiles

DOL why didn't I work that one out for my self - thanks

All this talk of pumps, do you know how much juice does a Water Pump for household water use? The house we often use in Pattaya seems to have the water pump on all the time. There is a water storage tank under ground (you need it in Pattaya) The pump is just to get pressure into the pipes.

And in any case, Thais have not the first idea about the concept of data protection. Almost all outlets still print card number and expiry date on receipts, approximately 7-years after most countries ceased this obvious security breach...

Oh to have that book... What a great shopping spree! (Joke - before the holier-than-thou flamers get started)

I have an a retail and internet shop in the UK - we now have the "chip and pin" cards and they have just updated our PDQ machine (card processing terminal). When we process a card the customer gets the a receipt with xxxx's on it for his card number - but we get a copy with all the full card details. We don't get the CVV number, but it wouldn't be hard to look and remember it. This is the new "High Security" method (so called) - a dodgy member of staff could easily go shopping on the internet. Card shopping is not so safe as it seems, but for most of us it seems to work out ok, thankfully. It probably better that getting hit on the head for all the cash you would have to carry around otherwise.

As far as the shop writing it all down - this is total against the card Visa and Mastercard rules and you should report the shop. Thai shops do seem to like their paper work though.

Paul-s...I am in the process of getting to LOS as we speak. I will arrive on July 24. Just today, I sold my restored Jeep. Tomorrow, I am selling my truck & getting a rental car until the day my plane leaves. I have an estate sale already scheduled. Things are moving along. It is a little daunting when you watch all of your "prized possessions" go down the road, however, it is, after all, only stuff. I am going to ship a crate of personal things that I cannot replace, but that, besides my clothes, is all I am taking.

Until now I have been shy to ask and please excuse my naivety, but why to some of you refer to Thailand as "LOS"

All your comments on electricy are helpful, but I think I am getting a headache trying to work out the options. Add to that - here in the UK I need heating and not aircon and I use part gas and part electricity, I have a smallish house and my combined bills are about £120GBP (8,160 baht) per month, and I think this is expensive. I guess I will have to be frugal with the air con.

It really depends on where you live, I lived in Los Angeles and the power costs went through the roof thanks to our idiot Governor. I spent 80 dollars a month and I didn't have air con, and was very careful about lights, TV, and the computer and that was for a VERY small apartment. Here in Chiang Mai in a smaller-sized house I have one air con on 24 hours a day and others 12 hours a day .. plus all the outside lights and tv and computers and we have a deep freezer and I only once in a while get close to 80 dollars a month .. during the real hot season I have all the air on 24 hours a day.

Also, partly because I am tired of being so hot all the time, I run an air conditioner most of the time in the room I am in. Usually only one (out of eight) is running because my wife doesn't need it but even with only one running our electric bill here averages 12,000 baht per month and has been as high as 17,000 during hot months. I had a large home in a one of the hottest places in the U.S. before moving here and it had central air which meant I was cooling the entire house 24/7 and I never had a bill above $250 (about 8500 baht) so

electricity is much more expensive here than in the states.

that's not correct. electricity has been more or less the same when one dollar fetched 40 Baht, i.e. 10 US-cents per kilowatt/hour. presently, with the dollar around 34 Baht one kW/h costs (for high users) 4 Baht = 12 US-cents. until a couple of years ago i lived in Florida and paid 10.5 US-cents for one kW/h.

using one aircon 24/7 and paying 12-17,000 Baht is virtually and technically impossible. even taking the lower amount of THB 12,000 and not considering the demand from other electric appliances your single aircon would have to draw 100 kW/h a day = ~4.2 kW/h an hour. a late model 18,000 btu/h aircon draws max 2 kW per hour, older more inefficient units might draw 2.5 kW.

i have 15 aircons (each 13,000 btu/h) installed in my house. out of which 4-5 are continuously in operation to maintain an average temperature of 26.5ºC. the share of my aircons of the total electricity consumption is approximately 55% and my estimated bill for the period 19th may to 19th june will be around 11,500 Baht, i.e. aircon share around 6,500 Baht.

you seem to have a severe power drain or (as another OP suggested) half a dozen neighbours draw electricity through your meter or... your meter is seriously "effed" up.

My wife has called the electric company and they came out and said our meter is ok and we turned off the main breakers to our house and the meter stopped, indicating no one is stealing from our meter.

There is some overlap in room A/C usage such that maybe we have 32-34 hours of single A/C usage in any 24 hour period but no more than that. Other appliances we have that run any appreciable amount of time are three water pumps on water features (i.e. pool, jacuzzi, waterfall). One of those runs 24/7, another runs about 16 hours per day and the third no more than 8 hours per day. Our main water pump runs maybe 4 to six hours per day during dry weather because we have a large yard to water. We have a lot of outdoor lights that are on from sunset until 11 p.m., and then a lesser number overnight but those are all energy saving flourescent bulbs. We have three refrigerators, one large and two small, a washer and dryer (3 loads per week), a dishwasher (1 load per week), probably 24 hours per day of combined ceiling/portable fan usage and a TV that is on maybe 8 hours per day. Other than that we only have small appliances that are on for short periods. All appliances including A/Cs are new (purchased within the last year) and all have a "5" energy saving rating.

I am looking at my bill from 21 April to 21 March this year and our usage was 4258 kilowatts for a total bill of 16,714.97 or about 3.93 baht per kilowatt.

So with the list above of what we use does our kilowatt usage make sense to you. All I have to compare with was a house (about the same size) also in Florida and like I said I kept it at 72 to 75 degrees F most of the time and never had a bill above $250... so MY electric bill here is a lot more than it was in the states (about double for roughly the same size house).

Electricity is our biggest expense here, even more than our car payment for a brand new car!

You must be operating some sort of business here in LOS. Electric expenses higher here than USA??? I lived in Arizona 10 years ago & my bill was $300 per mo in hot months. My higest bill in Thailand was about 1700 bht for bedroom AC, used mostly at night. Why do you need a clothes dryer in Thailand?? 3 loads per week? How many in your family?

Reading this thread, it appears that most foreign retirees living in Thailand have Thai wives.

Are there any forum members who've retired and are living in Thailand and are married to non Thais' , or, don't plan to marry Thai ladies?

It would appear that a very great part of the attraction that Thailand has for the average farang, centers around Thai women - if one removes this aspect, then, I can't see Thailand being a more attractive place to retire in than, say, Sri Lanka. One doesn't have a language problem in Sri Lanka; everyone speaks English, also, living in Sri Lanka is considerably cheaper than in Thailand. Additionally; Sri Lanka doesn't have the odd land ownership and bank deposits requirements that Thailand has. Sri Lankans generally are a very courteous and friendly lot, same, same, as are Thais'.

I will be taking my Thai wife with me, we met in Brighton and I didn't import her to the UK ( I hope I don't get charged corkage at Bangkok) She is the old fashioned Thai sort not the bar girl sort. I like the food and the hot weather. I genuinely really like the Thai culture and their family values, plus the fact that older people are not just pushed to one side. If I wanted it simple I would go to Spain where a lot of Brits live and is part of europe.

Paul-s...I am in the process of getting to LOS as we speak. I will arrive on July 24. Just today, I sold my restored Jeep. Tomorrow, I am selling my truck & getting a rental car until the day my plane leaves. I have an estate sale already scheduled. Things are moving along. It is a little daunting when you watch all of your "prized possessions" go down the road, however, it is, after all, only stuff. I am going to ship a crate of personal things that I cannot replace, but that, besides my clothes, is all I am taking.

I decided awhile back I was tired of the current state of affairs here in the US, so off to Los I go. I am heading to Issan. I will find a rental house or serviced apartment, get some transportation & then explore Issan & the north for about a year or so, prior to choosing a place to live.

Some people think I have gone round the bend. Most say they wish they could go to. I am anxious to get there & start the next chapter of my life. I say join me in Issan.

Regards, Tagaa

May I wish all the best of luck - I like the Issan area very much - My Lady comes from the Ubon area.