Reddog1

Lookup the Sunflower near Silom.  Quiet, cheep, convenient close to BTS.  Nice people with breakfast, street food and good coffee nearby (also entertainment if you are interested).  About a motel 8 level.  Since I found it.  I usually stay there on the way to Phuket (15 years of travel).  I have a condo in Phuket and have explored BKK a lot over the years.  I usually avoid the 4 and 5 star hotels.  Because I am often just passing through and not a general tourist.  Use Agoda to book the place.  There are lots of others near by.  The Royal Garden is also nice with a rooftop pool and bigger rooms farther out on the BTS.

Bangkok Bank has a simple online system.  But you need to jump through the hoops to set it up.  I think I remember setting up my ibanking at the main branch in Bangkok.  That is the easy way to operate.  They are very helpful there.  It is on Silom Rd one block from the Sala Daeng BTS station.  I use it all of the time to transfer money back and forth in Thailand.  Also to pay bills in Thailand from the USA.  And it is easy to transfer from the US to Thailand using a universal bank transfer. (I expect that the same thing works from Germany.)  Bangkok Bank can transfer money to other accounts, but you need to go into the bank branch to register people and places to pay.  And you can forget to do this when you are in Thailand.  The alternative is to have a Thai telephone that works in your home country.  Bangkok bank will send codes to this phone to authorize changes to your account.  I do not know if ibanking can be setup this way.  But you can try by calling them.  When you setup your accounts.  You should have had a phone number associated with them.  (I keep my Thai phone number active by putting 20-100 Baht into the account using ibanking every 6 months)  I understand that I can pay a fee to use my phone here in the states.  But I have not tried.  I am not sure if you can register your phone in your home country with Bangkok Bank.  But you can try.  For now, I think the best thing is to just send money from Germany into the account you need filled using the universal international transfer system.  Then setup Ibanking the next time you are in Bangkok.

What do you mean by "Thailand, who? Names please."

I have homes in Phuket (Patong beach) and (Reno) Nevada (USA), so I have some awareness of both cultures. Nevada in famous for it's gambling. And it is controlled reasonably well. This is a result of both experience and culture. I know any number of people in all aspects of the business, from designing and building gambling machines through casino workers and management, policing, and stage show production. It is not universally known that we also have legalized prostitution (in some counties) and lots of bars that never close. The State of Nevada is unique in it's culture (one of the reasons why I live here). Most of the natives take the gambling as a ho-hum thing. You might cash your paycheck in a casino to get the free drink tabs or, as I do, eat out in the casinos for the great dinner specials. We used to say that it was cheaper to eat out than to eat at home. I have met people that have made big money from casinos and others that should not gamble. For many, an evening out playing slots or the tables is better than television. And costs the same. The booze is free when you gamble. Many of us don't gamble very often. The casinos pay the states taxes for the most part. There is no state income tax in Nevada.

The basic city of Patong beach is similar to Reno. They are both tourist towns. Patong has the beach and we have lake Tahoe and snow skiing. Both cities have sites to see outside of the city.

I have also lived in Las Vegas and have visited gambling in Jamaica. In Jamaica the natives are not allowed into the casino (when I was there).

All this being said. There are issues with gambling in Thailand (Phuket and elsewhere). The first and foremost is governmental control. Once the present problems are sorted out (if ever). Casinos would require tight control. And the introduction of "outside" professionals to teach the business to locals. (You can't just open a steel mill, or any large industry without existing expertise.) Most cultures gamble on some level. But it is generally considered a local cultural norm. And it can be abused in any number of ways. The country could probably introduce controlled gambling on a stepwise bases. But the unique Thai cultural norm could turn it into a debacle. There are a lot of cultural nuances to be dealt with for gambling to be successful in Thailand.

I'm not quite sure how to make contact. But I'm a very experienced senior mechanical project engineer from the USA with a place in Phuket. I would love to be involved with a project like this. In any capacity that is allowed.

If not an occasional chat over a beer would be fun. To see how it is going.

I just brought out two new products in Bangkok. We are doing a market survey. So all forms of manufacturing in Thailand are of interest.

Maybe you can friend me in this forum somehow and we can take it from there. I don't think they allow posted e-mails here. But I think there are contact methods in the personal profile section. I think Skype is one and Facebook is another.

Yes - we all think this is horrible. And there has been a lot of feedback.

We should remember that hurting the bad guys is not helping the gal.

I don't know how to do it. But I think we should all kick in a little money to help her recover and give that baby a boost in life. It would mean everything to her to know that we all care and are willing to stand up against a wrong and try to make it less painful. If you count all of the angry comments, and turned them into help for her. We could turn her pain and life around.

I am willing to commit. Are you? It would not take much from each of us to make a big difference. 1000-2000B each would be huge for her. We could send it to the Thai Visa people for her.

Borrow some money from home. Go home, find work and start over. Negotiate and repay from home as you rebuild. Maybe something can be saved from there, where you can make more money. I have "lost" everything about 3 times. (I'm 63) And each time you learn to build it more secure and better. If you wife can not go with you. Then make a plan to cover this with her. Do not kid yourself, you are in a MAJOR situation. Don't just try to hang on somehow, hoping it is not real. And don't get trapped in reliving the glory days of the past. It is gone. And it is time for desperate measures. Downsize everything. Or abandon it and re-situate on a survivable level.

Use only a credit card. You never know about ANY internet security. And you never know when there system, or your system, will get broken into. This is a general rule that should never be violated. Banks are often as secure as it gets. But you should also be weary of online with them. But that is another subject. And I use a lot of online banking. I'm just careful.

Just for the record. There was a book about building in Thailand that might be of use. I built for years in the USA and Patong Beach (Phuket) uses the same building codes as Reno Nevada USA. (they don't always use them - but that is another subject) My condo in Patong has the same codes as my house and condo in Reno. It's kind of strange.

The book is - Building Thailand by Stephen G Haigh

try www.buildingthailand.com

Speaking for myself, I like Thai women from many differing levels of society.

I see a lot of western guys trying to analyse the women in an alien culture without much success. Women are women and men are men. This does not change all that much. And it is a wonderful thing that this is not a simple formula that can be sorted and solved. If it was,, things would be very boring. I find that western women are generally a confused mess from cultural norms and the brainwashing of church dogma. Thai women come from an old culture that is biased on a different norm. Western guys generally don't have a clue about any of this. They call Thai women names without understanding the base norms. Every year you read about some western guy that got his dick cut off by a Thai gal because he screwed his gals best friend. He thought it was ok because she had only been a bar girl. Get a clue. It is a complex and interesting society. Romeo was 14 and Juliet was 13. How does this fit with today's western norms. Cleopatra was 150 lbs and not tall. Cesar screwed boys. Also there are good and bad people everywhere. I live in Nevada USA where there are counties with legal prostitution. The girls have unemployment insurance and many really like the business. Go figure.

I thought I'd add a quick note. Low carb works. I have lost 25-28 lbs maybe 13-14 kilos in about 3 months. And it is staying off. The trick is to learn and change your eating habits. Not to just diet. Cals count as does the proper vits and minerals. I just switched a few things around and started reading the info on what I was eating. I should work out more, but there is no room right now. If I really crave something, I eat it. But not a lot. I gave up milk and put cream in my coffee. Butter is ok, but not bread. No more granola, but lots of meat, cheese, eggs and salads. Also veggies with dinner, no potatoes, no rice, no pasta and I can eat a bad desert if I really want a treat. Give up beer or cut way back, drink all the wine, saki or hard liqueur you want. Just not that often. I make non sugar brownies if I want a candy bar. The skin does tighten up over time. But I'm 64 and doomed anyway. The trick is consistency. The body learns to crave what it eats. After time, you are revolted by the bad stuff. And I should add that I am not a nut about this. I just decided that I did not want to be another fat bastard visiting Thailand. You naturally gain 1-2 lbs or 1 kilo a year. Our bodies are not used to getting all of the food we eat.

I know it is off subject. But what about Phuket?

Also, I'm from Nevada USA (where paid is legal in some counties). And I find that the honesty of some "short term relationship" type people can be somewhat refreshing. But Thailand is different. Emotions are involved. With western men fantasizing about finding some form of true love in an alien society (with women 1/2 their age). It seems that most of the confusion comes from our lack of true perception when it comes to what we are dealing with. I have some young Thai gal friends that can't understand why I don't entertain for money at night with them. And a long term connection friend that still wants to hustle me, just because I am a Firang (sp?). Yes there are variations. But this just depends on the territory and exposure. Years ago I lived in Las Vegas and the predominate theme was "just be cool girl, your just another pretty face, and nothing special". Try that with a small town beauty who is used to being the alpha girl in the territory. Some things don't change.

150 years ago in western societies it was the norm to have older established men with younger child bearing age women. A woman did not want a young man that couldn't support her. And an older man would want a woman that would not die in child birth. And men often wanted big women that would carry there own weight. Also Cleopatra was 150lbs and very bright. And the real Romeo was 14-15 and Juliette was 12-13. How many men paid dearly for the sex they had during their marriage when they settled up during the divorce. Not to mention the cost of dinners and such during the 3 date courtship. But then, we make more money on average.

I find the Thai situation interesting and stimulating. There was a lot of damage done to the western woman man relationships from the western church dogma. And the established Thai society is older than ours.

I think we should just enjoy it in all the variations. I have to hold back on my western self some times. I don't even know what I am looking at most of the time.

My first reply too.

When I went through immigration to return home from the airport in Bangkok a year ago. There was an office just beyond immigration on the right, that had a note about overstays. I asked them what it was all about. They told me that they assessed charges and collected them so people could proceed home. I don't know remember the rules but 500B a day sounds right. It looked like a straightforward deal. But you never know from time to time when you visit.

A few years back. I was got a certificate of residence to buy a bike. And the next time I checked (for a new bike), I found that the office in Phuket had moved and the rules seemed to be different. So don't trust that things will be smooth with overstay rules. I'm getting a tourist visa because It occurred to me that I was staying over 30 days this time and I am not planning a side trip.

Good luck with the situation.