matseng

A long time ago I used to have a few pints with my mates every weekend, but over the years I've been drinking less and less. A few years back I was down to like 2 beers a year, a small glass of single malt 2-3 times a year, and a shot of schnapps at christmas. Today I haven't been drinking any alcohol in two 2.5 years since I'm on a strict non-carb diet.

I really like both beer, whiskey and of course a nice frosty cold mojito , but I rather stay clear-headed than indulging in alcohol.... Life is too short to go about having a buzz in the evenings and headaches in the mornings.

The foreigner is to blame because had he not come to Thai, this would've never happened!

Either meant as a funny remark, which it is not, of as a true remark, which it is not.

So why make the remark?

There's no truth to the statement at all? From what I understand a legal battle between a Thai and a foreigner usually end up with the Thai the victorious part. If it really is so or not would really be interesting to know. Is there any statistics?

Thanks all, sorry off topic a bit but would Malaysia be a better choice since it allow ownership of land?

Not for a mere 2.5 million Baht. The *minimum* value of a house that can be owned by a foreigner in Malaysia varies by state from 5 million to 20 million Baht.

The upside is that acquiring a 10 year visa is relatively simple with the MM2H programme. Basically you need proof of liquid assets for at least 5million (below 50 years old) or 3.5million (above 50 years) plus 100 000/month in overseas income or pension.

Pre-made curry is like pre-made salsa: loaded with bacteria. Best to find a dependable vendor of freshly made curry. Of course, if the curry is cooked at a high temperature for long enough, the bacteria WILL die. The key words are long and high. Freshly made usually tastes better, right.

How many bacteria strains can thrive in a paste made mainly out of chillies / ginger / tumeric / garlic? All of those ingredients have highly anti-bacterial characteristics.

Why support a franchise that charges three times the price? Keep mum and pop in business, buy from independent people.

It almost feels like stealing when having a cup of coffee at a small random place for 30-35 baht compared to the 100+ at the chains.... But it's fun to try new places all the time - I spent a few weeks this summer going to a new place every day, unfortunately I forgot to keep track of which places that served the best coffees. :-(

Doi Chang and Doi Wawee can produce excellent coffees, although the quality seems to vary from shop to shop. Amazon is adequate, when nothing else is around.

+1 on the Doi Chaang - most of their places make quite a nice americano. And the drip-coffee bags that you can get in most hypermarkets are almost as good as grinding freshly roasted beans yourself....

A bit off tangent to this thread - but why do most of these old geezers have a pathological need to walk with their GF-For-Two-Weeks holding hands all the time? Did they pay in advance and is afraid she will run off?

Another nasty narrow-minded and superior post. Do you personally know the couple in the photo? Do you know their ages and the circumstances of their relationship? You jump to the conclusion the woman in the photo is a 2-week rented prostitute. That's possible, it's also possible they have been married for 10 years and are a very loving couple. Posts like yours speak volumes about the state of your own mind.

I'm out walking about 200 km per month in Bangkok and I see a lot of people and pairs like this. I'm sure that there are some very loving and romantic couples out there and this couple might be one of them. But there are so extremely many of them that one can generalize a bit without being a condescending tosser. (The dude in the pic was about 60+, SEA females are extremely hard to guess the age of...)

You don't see this in Kuala Lumpur, London, Stockholm or Miami to nowhere the same degree. Maybe it's the Bangkok atmosphere that makes people overly romantic - there might me many who are getting turned on by the fragrance of the drainage system :-)

But as I said in another post, I don't mind what, how and with whom people lives - as long as they are considerate enough to not block the sidewalks.

A bit off tangent to this thread - but why do most of these old geezers have a pathological need to walk with their GF-For-Two-Weeks holding hands all the time? Did they pay in advance and is afraid she will run off?

My 42 year old Thai wife of 9 years quite likes holding hands. But she is a bit embarrassed in front of older close family members on a cultural basis.

Yea, it might be cultural, but 9 times out of 10 when I see pairs holding hands it's either a young thai couple (most likely still in the first overly romantic period of their relationship) or it's the old farang with a 20-something girl.

Hand holding is definitely a cultural thing, I couple of times when I lived in Dubai older local (non-gay) males sometimes took my hand when walking, especially if they were showing the way to somewhere. It felt strange, but when in Rome do as the Romans.... :-) But if I had held the hand of my wife it would have been frowned upon there.

I really don't care in general what people are doing what with who, but it annoys me when they block the already cramped sidewalks forcing the others out in the street because of their "affection".

A bit off tangent to this thread - but why do most of these old geezers have a pathological need to walk with their GF-For-Two-Weeks holding hands all the time? Did they pay in advance and is afraid she will run off?

Well.... Hate is a bit strong, I think that rather "dislike" or "not enjoying fully" might be a better word(s). It is a bit different to actually live here compared to just spending a fortnight as a tourist boozing, partying, sunbathing and (in some cases f*cking).

It's definitely not a paradise, but I find it quite livable since I usually just adapt and don't give a shit about the annoyances. I've been living here for about three years now mixed in with 6 years in Malaysia and before that 3 years in Dubai. Each place have its ups and downs, and I would get the hell out of here if the downs was too many compared to the ups.

If you can't bitch about stuff that annoys you then you'll just bundle up everything inside until shit happens - and you throw yourself of the balcony at the 20th floor.... So complaing away :-)

I usually drink bottled water, but if I'm out of them and don't care like popping down to the local corner store I drink tap water as is, and also make tea/coffee with it. No problems so far. I did the same thing when I lived in Dubai - and there I had friends that was so scared of the tap water they didn't even use it to boil potatoes or steam vegs. :-)

My point is that there is a huge lack of qualified software engineers in Thailand - can you point to any internationally known and used Thai developed software?

There might be a lack of qualified Thai sw engineers, but "point to any internationally known and used XYZ-country developed software" can be said about most countries.

Point to to some French, Hungarian, South African, Norwegian, Indonesian, Russian softwares that are well known internationally as in use worldwide. Without digging really deep you'll probably have a hard time coming up with any decent finds....

And I'm sure a Thai would work for less money than that.

Yea, they do. I recently hired a decent Thai PHP programmer and his asking salary was 35 000 which I happily accepted after interviewing him for an hour. Unfortunately his English isn't too good so I had to use an interpreter :-(

Back when I lived in Dubai the ruler (Sheikh Mohammed) all of a sudden issued a decree that from the following Sunday any lorry driver that jumped a red light would get the truck impounded, be put in jail for a month and then be permanently deported from UAE. It worked out just fine, the number of traffic fatalities dropped to like half the original number.

But it would be a bit hard to deport a Thai citizen from Thailand :-) In UAE all low level workers were immigrants so it was easy there.

DM is da shit (in the good sense) compared to Swampy. My record there is 4.5 minutes from exiting the plane to being seated in the bus that takes me to Mo Chit. At swampy it usually took between 40 and 60 minutes on a good day from plane to ARL.

Sure, DM is a bit run down and doesn't have as many shops and food outlets, but that's merely a minor annoyance for me, I'm happy enough with a 100 baht cup of coffee and some free internet for my laptop. I'm not there for shopping or eating shoddy food anyways, in & out as fast as possible make me a happy guy.

4.5 minutes. Rubbish. I am a fast walker from aircraft to exit, but 4.5 minutes is a huge exaggeration. If you want to be credible, pick a realistic time frame. Faster than Suvanbhumi? Sure. But no way its 4 minutes.

Go rub(ish) yourself :-) You want proof? Well.... Yesterday I arrived at DM again and put my phone in my shirt pocket recording me passing thru the airport and uploaded it to youtube for your enjoyment

The video is 5 1/2 minute long from Pier2 all the way to the A1 bus.

This time I arrived at another pier than the usual Pier2, so I started the recording passing by Pier 2. So lets add 30 seconds to the total time to simulate going from the walkway out to the main corridor.

At immigration it was one guy ahead of me, and the processing was unusually slow, it took almost two minutes maybe because of me using my non-imm B visa instead of just a visa exempt as I did on my fastest run. So remove 1 minute from the total time.

So it adds up to 5 minutes in total - Not too far from my stated 4 1/2 minutes that you called a huge exaggeration. If I didn't carry a heavy carry-on bag and also had to let my wife keep up with me this time it could have been 30 seconds faster.

DM is da shit (in the good sense) compared to Swampy. My record there is 4.5 minutes from exiting the plane to being seated in the bus that takes me to Mo Chit. At swampy it usually took between 40 and 60 minutes on a good day from plane to ARL.

Sure, DM is a bit run down and doesn't have as many shops and food outlets, but that's merely a minor annoyance for me, I'm happy enough with a 100 baht cup of coffee and some free internet for my laptop. I'm not there for shopping or eating shoddy food anyways, in & out as fast as possible make me a happy guy.

I say the same as Estrada. I've probably flown into Swampy or Don Mueang 50 times the last couple of years and used the "Visa Exempt" and I've never had any return ticket and I've only been asked a handful of times how long I planned to stay - they've never asked about return tickets or proof of income or how much cash I have.

The last 6 months I had a non-imm B visa, and when I travel with my wife we sometimes gets the question why she doesn't have a proper visa when I have it.

You apply for a business visa and a one year extension. The extension can be done by an agent without even needing to visit immigration. Once you pay the approximately US$400 price, you just move in and out of Cambodia as you please until it is time to get the next one year extension. No one cares whether you are working or not.

Hmmm... Isn't this a visa that is well into the dark zone of legality? From what I read and remember from reading so was this commonplace a bit back, but nowadays the govt have cracked down onto these "not kosher/fake" business visas. But maybe I remember it wrong, or maybe it was about another country.

Not wishing to sound Islamaphobic but both Malaysia and the Philipines are both quite hard core Isalmic states are they not ? Would you be very comfortable having to observe all their laws ? Limited booze, no bacon butties etc, and now some hardliners are slating smoking as being un-Islamic 'cos it harms the body.

Before I moved to Dubai back in 2006 I had the same feelings - but today I frankly don't care whether I live in a Islamic country or not, or whether my neighbors are Muslims or Buddhists or Christian.

In Dubai (which is the most western and least "hardcore" Islamic of the 7 emirates in UAE) all restaurants was closed daytime during Ramadan, you would get fined or put in jail if you even drank water inside your own car. But they had pork in the non-halal sections of almost all supermakets and all higher-end hotels had bars and nightclubs with plenty of booze.

In all of Malaysia (except a few stricter states in the north-east) you don't even notice that it is Ramadan except for all decorations in the stores and that all restaurants gets completely jam packed after sunset when the muslims is breaking the fast. Daytime all restaurants are open as usual, non-muslims are completely free to eat drink and smoke in front of muslims. I was almost disappointed because the nightly parties during Ramadan in Dubai was really nice.

Here in Malaysia most supermarkets, both small run mostly by Indians/Pakistani guys and the bigger like Tesco and Carrefour have both liquor and pork and many restaurants serve pork as well. Bigger shopping mall have plenty of bars and nightclubs.

So unless you actively seek to find problems with living in a Islamic country like Malaysia you can be perfectly happy here.

And the Philippines are a predominantly Catholic country I believe - at least in the northern areas.

...continued... But the main reason of selecting Malaysia was that back in 2009 when my stint in Dubai was over my wife and I wanted to just relax in SE Asia for a few years, so we looked into all available options for staying for a longer period legally.

At that time the only places with a longer term visa (or a relatively hassle-free 1 year visa) in the region ended up being Malaysia and Philippines. We ended up with Malaysia because the better visa option, better food and fewer typhoons.

I've got a Thai WP and a non-imm B, and also a MM2H. The last two years I've spent my time 50/50 between KL and BKK, before that I stayed for 4 years in KL.

I'm not sure what complaints about the MM2H you've heard, but for me it was an easy choice, and I encountered no issues during the application. It was just a simple form and a cover letter, then a wait for 2-3 month while they "processed" it. When I got the approval I had to deposit 300 000 Ringgits (about 3 million Baht) into a fixed deposit account on lien, get a medical exam and insurance. Done and done.

I didn't care about the perks like importing a car tax free or getting a maid with less red tape.

Penang is a really nice place, the tech/it community is growing there, but KL is of course a better place for IT, and there are some nice beaches - something that is hard to find on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia.

My wife and I are toying with the idea of moving up from KL into a smaller house in Penang since we like a change of scenery and now when living partly in BKK we don't need a 3000 sq.ft house.

If we compare Malaysia and Thailand in general we both enjoy Malaysia more. But we're married middle aged, so we don't really care about the availability (or lack thereof) of cheap booze and prostitutes. What we do enjoy is that almost everyone in the cities, even oooold people, speaks good english. In the countryside they usually know enough to have a simple conversation. People in Malaysia are generally more friendly and don't try to cheat you all the time - no "thainess" here :-)

What is all this talk about a serious breach of the data protection laws? A serious breach would be if someone got the wrong passport completely.

Heh... This (kinda) happened to me at the Swedish embassy in BKK about a year ago.

I applied for a new passport and about 10 days later I got a text saying that my passport was ready so I wen over to the embassy gave my old passport to the Thai clerk at one counter and said that I was here to pick up my new passport, she told me to sit down and wait until called.

Some minutes later a Swedish guy at the other counter called me over and asked me to sign the new passport while he voided my old passport by punching a hole in it. Just as I put the pen to the paper I had a peek at the photo in the passport and I though, "shit, I look really fat in this picture". Then I realized that it was not me, some other Swedish bloke also named Mats, but with Ericsson instead of Engstrom as surname.

Apparently the Thai lady thinks that all farangs looks the same and Engstrom / Ericsson is same-same.

So I was stranded in Bangkok for another 10 days without a valid passport before my real passport arrived. I was offered an emergency passport and also for me real passport to be sent to Kuala Lumpur which is my real home city nowdays, but I declined. Using an emergency passport seemed like more hassle than the non-refundable 3000 baht ticket I already had for going home the next day was worth.

I stayed mostly indoors in my condo the next 10 days since it was in the midst of the coup. Didn't want to take any unnecessary risks even if I would have been caught in a checkpoint with my cancelled passport they would probably just have accepted that. (I hope)

Different upbringings in different cultures/countries makes people act and think differently. What is the problem with that? Are you suddenly racist if you acknowledge that fact?

Things completely natural for a old Chinese farmer is completely alien to a young billionaires daughter in New York. The farmer wouldn't think twice before taking a dump in a hole in the ground or cook a dog for dinner, but both things would be completely unthinkable for the girl.

Is that racist? No. Saying that you hate all black people is racist (and stupid) on the other hand.

If you can't acknowledge that people are acting different depending on their upbringing (and thusly their ethnicity since upbringing and ethnicity are tightly linked) then you must have a serious PC-complex.

Why on this forum, people cannot be identified by something else that their nationality ?

A chinese blabla

A Norvegian blabla

Thai people blabla

Myanmar blabla

Then we have comments like : "i take back all the negative comments i made about thais, seems chinese take the cake" or "the Chinese should not be seated anywhere on an aircraft" ...

And after I see complaining about thai being racist ?

I think this forum has a problem

But I am open to discussion.

Cheers

C.H

Right, so what do you want do use as the identifier then? Body weight? IQ? Sexual orientation? Number of tattoos and piercings? Number of books read the last year? Income? Number of posts in the forum? Preferred dresscode? Religion? Meal preferences?

I can't see any problem doing generalisations of how a certain ethnicity from a certain social group behaves in general. As long as it is understood that it's an average and cannot be used for a specific individual.

Person should be banned from flying. Who cares if it's his 1st time flying. Did he not pay attention to the pre flight safety instructions from the cabin crew? Numpty

To be fair, I've never actually heard the cabin crew say: "please do not open the emergency doors except in a real emergency".

Perhaps they assume that people who are able to breathe and walk might actually have some kind of a functioning brain between their ears.

Evidently this is not the case in China.

AirAsia says something like this:

Don't open the door until being instructed by the captain saying "Evacuate, Evacuate, Evacuate"

Don't open the door until the plane has come to a complete stop.

Don't open the door if there's fire or smoke outside the door, or any other obstruction"

Blah blah blah, study the guide, blah blah, press the button or ask any of the crew, blah blah....