Priceless

I'll become 50 in a month, does that mean I'm still belong to the young people group?

[...]

Nienke

No way, Nienke, you can't be a day over 35 (and even younger at heart)!

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Emphatically YES! He is obviously working hard to establish/defend what he perceives to be his territory. Neutering will not only reduce the risk of his getting into fights, it will also make him a much happier cat. In my opinion all cats, whether male or female, should be neutered/spayed if they are not intended for breeding. Any breeding cat cat should also be neutered/spayed as soon as its breeding "career" is over.

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Thanks a lot for your replies, which I found very helpful; and since you referred to your national organization's policies, they are also authoritative enough for me.

I had just a few follow-up questions.

female #1

Waiting up to 12 months between litters will mean she will have to endure several heats in that period. Are post-litter heats as intense and troublesome as those before the first litter?

Does each litter 'age'/ 'wear out' the cat to some extent?

cat #3

Unfortunately this cat is already the fat one. Can the post-neutering added weight be cut back by cutting back on food intake or is it a biological consequence to be accepted?

Female #1: For a limited amount of time between planned litters, we've been using contraceptive pills (specifically for cats, as with all drugs don't try the human kind). Unfortunately I've never bought any here and don't know if they are available in Thailand. The brand I've used is called "Perlutex vet.", 5 mg tablets. The active substance is medroxyprogesteron. acet. Provided you don't keep at it for years, this treatment is reasonably risk free and probably a lot better than repeated heat periods.

Cat #3: In my experience cutting back on the food intake is usually both difficult and not very effective. Try a dietary feed instead, any well stocked pet supplies shop should have at least one brand. A lot of veterinarians will have Hill's Science Diet, which in my experience is very good (though expensive!).

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I am not a vet, so I can only offer opinions, personal experiences and some odds and ends:

Female #1: While I was still running my cattery (in the old country) I would let my female have 8-12 months between litters to recuperate. As a matter of fact, the European cat organisation FIFé, to which my national organisation belongs, only allows breeders to let a female have three litters within a two year period.

Female #2: The best time for speying is a hot topic among the "cat crowd", some say it doesn't matter, some say not before 6 months age and I say let her be in heat at least once before speying. In the US it is common to sell kittens at ~12 weeks of age, already speyed/neutered. My national organisation has been working for a ban on operations before 6 months.

Your next question concerning female #2: Yes, they are very likely to breed when she is in heat, unless you keep them physically apart. And yes, it could be bad thing to let them mate, inbreeding is a health hazard among cats, just like among humans. Cats however have no sense that it is in any way immoral with matings within the family...

Cat #3: He will probably put on a little weight after neutering. However, he will also be a happier cat. Imagine yourself "feeling the urge" for the rest of your life and never "getting any". It is as frustrating for a cat as it would be for a human. My males are neutered and happy, whereas they before would "Twist and Shout" when the urge came upon them. (Furthermore, fertile male cats tend to "spray" around the house to mark their territory and belongings. My younger male decided that his prime belonging was my g/f. When he three nights in a row had come up on her bed and sprayed, it was an easy decision to neuter him!)

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I have without any problems opened accounts with Siam Commercial Bank both in Bangkok, Head Office in Jatujak (on a Tourist Visa) and in Chiang Mai, Prapokklao Street office (on a Non-Imm O-A visa). Both accounts included ATM cards and the latter also gave me Internet banking.

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I thought (maybe wrongly) a retirement visa (over 50) was 400,000 in a Thai bank account for minimum 3 months ? and nothing to do with income based visa which needs consul confimation letter and minimum 40,000 a month if under 50.

Yes, this is wrong. The retirement (monetary) requirement is either 800,000 Baht in a bank (for a minimum of three months) or a confirmed income of 65,000 Baht/month or a combination thereof. The 40,000 Baht/month (joint) income is the requirement for a marriage visa, if I am not mistaken.

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Some posters like to emphasize the point that an extension of stay for purposes of retirement is *not* the same as a retirement visa. Why is this distinction important? Isn't the crucial issue the time period which a person is allowed to stay in Thailand before having to renew that permission? Does it matter what we call it? Or is there some important procedural difference that we should note?

My "Retirement Visa" (Non-Immigrant O-A) allowed multiple entries without any further documents/actions. On each entry I would get permission to stay for one year, starting from the date of entry. An extension of stay is just that, i.e. you must obtain a re-entry permit if you want to leave the country and come back without having to obtain a new visa. Furthermore, the extension has set starting and ending dates, these do not change if you leave and re-enter the country. (BTW, these dates depend on the date of your last entry under the original visa.)

To put it differently: A "visa" is a permission to enter the country, a "permission to stay", or an extension of such, is what the words say it is.

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I use Dr. Nook Animal Hospital (164/69 Changklan Rd., 053-818905) for all five of my cats. So far I have been more than happy with both competence and care. They do have an X-ray machine, as we had reason to find out a while ago. Dr. Nook (Ms Chutamart Saringkan, D.V.M.) speaks excellent English and is in attendance every day except Saturdays. BTW they're open from 09:00-20:00 every day.

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Please count me in, barring VERY unforeseen circumstances.

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I'm afraid that lopburi3's answer made mine a little redundant. I started writing mine and took a break for dinner, so I didn't see lopburi3's until after my posting...

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Hmm - maybe I'm a little thick, but I'm really confused by this.

I'm in the same situation. Like the OP, I'd like to shift my annual O-A extension renewal out a month or so, for the same reasons.

It seems the OP received a 1 year permission to stay upon arrival, giving him permission to stay until 15 Aug 2008. My understanding was that the multipl-entry permit did not extend the original permission to stay end date, but merely allows you to exit the country and return on the same visa, even past the stated "Enter Before" date on the visa.

In my case, I have an O-A visa with an "Enter Before" date of 12 Mar 2007. I originally entered on 23 Jan 2007 on this visa, and was granted permission to stay until 22 Jan 2008. In May, I obtained a multiple-entry permit, which is clearly stamped with 22 Jan 2008 for both "valid Until" and "Length of Stay Until" - the same as my original permission to stay end date. I then exited the country on 9 May 2007, and re-entered on 18 May 2007. My arrival stamp from this latest entry carries my original permission to stay date of 22 Jan 2008 - there was no shifting of the date.

Can someone explain how/why making a visa run on 19 Sep 2007 will shift the OP's permission to stay date from 15 Aug 2008 to 18 Sep 2008? - or, I'm I mis-understanding what the OP is proposing?

I think that we may be back to the confusion between "visa" and "permission to stay". I'll try to be a bit clearer: I am currently on a Non-Imm O-A multi-entry visa (applied for and received from the Thai embassy in my home country), NOT on an extension of my permission to stay. This visa expires on 21 Sep 2007, i.e. in two weeks time.

Whenever I have entered LOS under this visa, I've received permission to stay for one year, starting from the day of entry. However, when I start on my first extension of permission to stay, this permission will cover one year from my last entry under the original visa. In other words, any subsequent re-entry will not change the duration of my permission to stay. Hopefully I will be granted extensions of my permission to stay one year at a time, starting on the anniversary of my last entry into Thailand under the original visa. This is why it will be crucial for me to have a date of last entry that fits in with my future requirements. Otherwise I might have to go back to my home country and go through the hassle of getting a new visa.

Hope this makes everything clearer (and that I have interpreted the rules correctly ).

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Yes and yes.

WOW! 2 minutes and 37 seconds, is that some kind of record for a full reply? Thanks a million, I'll start my trip planning right away.

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I am presently in LOS on a non-imm O-A visa which expires 21 Sep 2007. My latest entry was on 16 Aug 2007, when I received permission to stay until 15 Aug 2008. If I have understood correctly I can apply for a multiple re-entry permit, which will keep me going until 15 Aug 2008 without an extension. This would however mean that I have to apply for my extension towards the end of July next year and this and all subsequent extensions would cover periods from 16 Aug one year to 15 Aug the following year. Is this interpretation correct?

I can foresee that I will probably want to be out of LOS from mid-June to mid-August every year, which would make the above dates extremely awkward for me. I am thinking about making a “visa run” to Mae Sai on, say, 19 Sep, thereby getting a new entry stamp with permission to stay until 18 Sep 2008. I understand that this way I would get into a (for me) more suitable “rhythm” of applying for extension towards the end of August every year and hopefully getting extensions valid from 19 Sep one year to 18 Sep the following. Is my understanding correct and does this sound like a good idea?

TIA

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The english spelling of thai words has quite often amazed me (a look at the street spelling translations anywhere will quickly confirm this).

Not being a native English speaker, I must add that the English spelling of English words has often amazed me.

A case in point:

Phased introduction of a pan-european standard for end-user communication

Having chosen English as the preferred language in the European Union, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study into ways of improving efficiency in communications between government agencies.

European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult; for example: cough, plough, rough, through and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased program of changes to iron out these anomalies. The program would, of course, be administered by a committee staffed at top level by participating nations.

In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using “s” instead of the soft “c”. Sertainly, sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard “c” could be replased by “k” sinse both letters are pronounced alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but typewriters and komputer keyboards kould be made with one letter fewer.

There would be growing enthusiasm when in the second year, it was announced that the troublesome “ph” would henceforth be written “f”. This would make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter in print.

In the third year public akseptance of the new spelling kould be expected to reatsh the stage where more komplikated tshanges are possible. Governments would encourage the removal of double letters, whitsh have always been a deterent to akurate speling.

We would al agre that the horible mes of silent “e”s in the languag is disgrasful. Therfor we kould drop thez and kontinu to read and writ az though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four yearz sins the skem began, and peopl would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing “th” with “z”. Perhaps zen ze function of “w” kould be taken on by “v”, vitsh iz, after al, half a “w”. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary “o” kuld be droped from vords containing “ou”. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuale have a rele sensibl riten styl. After 20 yerz zer vud be no mor trublsm difikultiz and evrivun vud find it eze to understand etsh ozer. Ze dremz of Mr. Orvel vud finale hav kum tru.

(Source unknown)

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Congratulations TP, I am very happy for you and your wife. Your story shows that sometimes reason prevails, even in LOS

/Priceless

Firstly, my sincere apologies for asking a question I am sure has already been answered here somewhere. My problem is that when I use the search function, I either end up with almost nothing, or enough reading to last me until X-mas.

Here goes: I am currently here on a multi-entry Non-imm O-A visa that expires on 21 September. However, my latest entry into the Kingdom was 16 August, when I was given permission to stay until 15 August 2008. From what I understand, the extension I can apply for is an extension of the permission to stay, not of the visa. So my question is: When does Immigration want to see me, a certain time (how long?) before my visa expires or before my permission to stay expires?

I am presently a little confused, not least so because of the widespread confusion (apparently sometimes even within Immigration) of the two terms. Can someone please help a first-timer?

Thanks in advance

Priceless

PS I think I have the hang of the different requirements and forms, the significance of 1 October etc. I intend to use both the 800,000 THB in the bank and the 65,000 THB/month income requirements.

We can help as well check out Home In Asia and/or I can recommend one of our competitors Chiang Mai Sabai both speak English

An interesting post... I would however advise the OP to look for agents with a bit more grasp of the local market. If he happens to be interested in HomeInAsia's property #407, he would do well going through Chiang Mai Sabai that are advertising the same property (their property HR-07) for 10,000 THB/month less

If, on the other hand, he is interested in Chiang Mai Sabai's property HR-08 which "is just finish and has never been rent out before" I must congratulate on his good taste. However, the house is about four years old and has had several previous tenants. The big drawback is that the house is rented out at the present time and the tenant has no plans to move out. How do I know? I'm the tenant since December of last year

Lotus Eater,

If you take the time to read my post above (post #19) you will find that I state the price to Sweden (which incidentally is in Europe), you will find that the Skype price to a regular, traditional, wired ("POTS") telephone there is 0.017 Euro. This is also the price to e.g. UK, Spain, France, Belgium and Germany, to name but a few European countries. This price is, as I also noted in my post, much lower than what you can get through CAT et al. Your statement "No one yet has said that they use it as the cheapest option to Europe" is obviously not correct.

Regards

Priceless (with 15 years of background in telecomms pricing)

You are absolutely right. I wrote carelessly. Am glad to admit it, and even gladder to know the terrific prices. Will hasten to take steps. Wish they also had such spectacularly cheap rates to mobiles - which is what the young (my daughters in Europe) seem to function on almost exclusively.

By the way is your cat a birman? I just bought a pair to join my persian.

No, she is not a Sacred Birman, although the breeds are not dissimilar so your mistake is quite permissible. She and our other four cats are Ragdolls, but this a very rare breed here in Thailand. As far as I've ben able to determine there are in total only seven Ragdolls here, so ours would constitute 70% of the total population

"Why do people keep saying skype's free? I understood it's free only to another sype connected computor - and that's not always going to happen.

There are lots of satisfied skype users above to America. Anyone using it to Europe? If so is it much cheaper than the ais 008, 009 option?"

Lotus eater, calm down and listen carefully. YOU CAN USE SKYPE TO CALL CELL PHONES AND LAND LINES. ONCE AGAIN, YOU CAN USE YOUR COMPUTER TO CALL A REGULAR PHONE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY, IT DOES NOT NEED TO BE ANOTHER COMPUTER THAT YOU ARE CALLING!!! YES, IT IS CHEAPER THAN THE PLANS OFFERED IN TH. WAY CHEAPER.

Since you seem to be holding out and not hearing what we are saying, here is the link to the prices for what it will cost you, LOTUS EATER to dial your friends anywhere in the world - EU included - from your computer. They do not need to have a computer with skype. If they did though, once again, it would be a free call.

Your link with rates: http://www.skype.com/products/skypeout/rat...ml?currency=EUR

We wouldn't keep saying it if we weren't onto something here.

I'm not sure that you picked up the queries in my post - nor did I think they were less than calm. But others can judge which of our posts is agitated.

My point was that skype was not free unless to another computor - you confirm that is so.

I asked whether calls not to computors were cheaper than the AIS callcentre calls - you have referred me to a site which gives me skype prices which I can now compare. Thank you.

I said that so far everyone referred to US calls. No one yet has said that they use it as the cheapest option to Europe - which is so. But I'll check it out.

No need to be too defensive.

Lotus Eater,

If you take the time to read my post above (post #19) you will find that I state the price to Sweden (which incidentally is in Europe), you will find that the Skype price to a regular, traditional, wired ("POTS") telephone there is 0.017 Euro. This is also the price to e.g. UK, Spain, France, Belgium and Germany, to name but a few European countries. This price is, as I also noted in my post, much lower than what you can get through CAT et al. Your statement "No one yet has said that they use it as the cheapest option to Europe" is obviously not correct.

Regards

Priceless (with 15 years of background in telecomms pricing)

Why do people keep saying skype's free? I understood it's free only to another sype connected computor - and that's not always going to happen.

There are lots of satisfied skype users above to America. Anyone using it to Europe? If so is it much cheaper than the ais 008, 009 option? Anyone know which of those is the right prefix for France and for the UK?

I'm using Skype to Sweden. The "basic" Skype service is indeed free, but I usually use the value-added service "Skype Out", i.e. exiting the Internet to the POTS network in Sweden. I then have to pay 0.017 Euros/minute. This is slightly more than a local call within Sweden but surely much cheaper than anything CAT et al have on offer .

/Priceless

Count me in, all on my own.

http://www.florahouse.4t.com/

Quite nice, my GF and I stayed there for almost two months. First searching for a house, then waiting for our worldly belongings to arrive from Sweden...

Some friends are there now and I'm staying in August for 3 weeks. I couldn't previously find a website. I see they're asking 8000pm. Did you get them down much on that?

Cheers..............

Nope, and honestly I didn't try. They were the only place that I found that would accept our four cats that arrived with us, so I was pretty grateful for that.

http://www.florahouse.4t.com/

Quite nice, my GF and I stayed there for almost two months. First searching for a house, then waiting for our worldly belongings to arrive from Sweden...

TP's suggested dates would be Saturday 18 or Sunday 19 August. That would suit me fine, as I return to CM on August 16. Assuming a date no earlier than Friday 17 August, I can confirm my presence (in case anybody cares...).

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With the pre-paid "subscription" that I'm on, you get 1 day validity extension per 10 baht top-up, i.e. 500 baht will give you 50 days, 300 baht 30 days and so on. I dont know if there's a maximum but I have once topped up with 2,000 baht and duly got 200 days extended validity.

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