TheSiemReaper

Were the Irish (all Irish) ever asked if they wanted their country divided in two parts?

You must be insane if you think any nation ever asked the population about where their borders should be. The majority that lives in Northern Ireland do not consider themselves part of EIRE they want to be part of the UK. Self-determination beats the whining of losers every time for my money. Now hopefully; the folks of Hong Kong, Western Sahara, and many other places will get that option too in the future.

I can confirm that agents can avoid the "return ticket" scenario but may require a little extra grease at that point to get the wheels moving. If you want to avoid paying that measly sum; you can always make your own return ticket - in this day of internet booking; all you need is an e-mail saying that you have a bus ticket waiting for you in Bangkok... the requirement is to show ongoing travel rather than a plane ticket back home.

The most reliable, as voted on by local expats, travel agent in Siem Reap is the lovely Ouch Sopheak of Sopheak Na Travel - http://sopheaknatravel.com/

Thanks Siem Reaper, that's perfect.

Can I ask - do you know if double entry visa's are available or only single entry?

Can't say for certain but I'm pretty sure you can get a double entry; I think one of my friends did that last year...

The most reliable, as voted on by local expats, travel agent in Siem Reap is the lovely Ouch Sopheak of Sopheak Na Travel - http://sopheaknatravel.com/

An Apple user walks into a bar, orders a drink and pays twice what it should cost. The next day he returns to the bar; orders the same drink in a different glass and offers to pay five times what it should cost. Both times they leave happy.

If he is British the embassy can only phone and ask people back home to lend him money. Our Embassies do not lend plane fares (unlike other embassies).

He may find they can point him at a charity which can help but I doubt it. He's going to have to work out a solution that involves earning some money and then paying up... which is going to be hard given that he's an illegal immigrant.

I'd rather sandpaper my nuts than buy an Apple. Dreadful devices that I genuinely loathe. Windows has never been as bad as people seem to remember. I can't remember the last time I saw that blue screen of death. Boot times may be slower but my PC outperforms a Mac of a similar cost by about 3x. A PC running Linux can be 5 years older than a Mac and kick it into touch too...

To each his own. Disagree with assessment. Anyway...

You disagree because you're an Apple user. This means you have to find an excuse to have paid ridiculously more than you need to for hardware performance.

I'd rather sandpaper my nuts than buy an Apple. Dreadful devices that I genuinely loathe. Windows has never been as bad as people seem to remember. I can't remember the last time I saw that blue screen of death. Boot times may be slower but my PC outperforms a Mac of a similar cost by about 3x. A PC running Linux can be 5 years older than a Mac and kick it into touch too...

Get Visa on Arrival unless you want to pay $5 more for the evisa which doesn't take a whole page in your passport - then get it online.

$60 to Snookie is about fair - it's hard for them to get a fare on the way back. Stuff taking a bus and no Ibis don't run from the airport.

Must see: Tuol Sleng, Choueng Ek, National Museum, Royal Palace, Wat Onalom, The Central Market.

Guesthouses: Take recommendations from TripAdvisor, Booking.Com, etc. I like to stay on 172 because I know a lot of people in the area but there are better value options elsewhere.

Night Life: Street 51, Street 172, some parts of BKK1, and the girly bar districts and the Riverside

Thai Baht is a no go here in Siem Reap. However, the good news is that you will get a very, very good exchange rate for USD back into Thai Baht or vice-versa if you hunt around a bit. Get quotes from the row of money changes opposite the old market in the center of town - and get quotes from all of them. Two are brilliant and more than fair; the others are thieves pure and simple. I can normally exchange cash for about 0.5% discount on the interbank rate with no commission fees.

Filling stations are available on most highways but on many smaller roads there are only stands selling bottles of "gas" that seem to be suspiciously more like a vegetable oil/petrol blend. It's always best to try and keep the tank full in Cambodia when you're near a gas station...

So, if you want to work at a Language Center in Phnom Penh, for at least a year, without a work permit, what would be the least risky visa (or extension) that you should hold, and how much would it cost?

You won't get away with no work permit in teaching establishments now; they've all cottoned on to the fact in cheap language centers that they can charge 3x the price for a work permit and pass that cost directly on to you.

1 year = $285 multiple entry ordinary (sometimes known as business) visa, plus $100 for a work permit plus whatever a lousy employer can extract on top from you.

Yeah but this work permit business wouldn't apply to someone who gets a 1-year business visa extension who doesn't work in Cambodia, just comes for business or personal reasons and may actually be living in Thailand or Vietnam but who needs to make multiple journeys to Cambodia throughout the year and doesn't want to waste pages in his/her passport, right? Someone like me for example - I don't reside in Cambodia but have a 1-year multiple visa for the simple reason that I go there for personal and/or business reasons normally just for a couple of days per trip or I need to pass through Cambodia for the purposes of travel between Thailand and Vietnam and do so many times per year.

There is no simple answer to that question. The current official government position is that if you have a 1 year business visa; you must have work permit - even if you do not work...in reality, it's probably not going to be an issue if you can show you don't live here but that is the official position.

...the only reason to live in Issan is you can't afford to live anywhere else.

You're just full of gems aren't you? Can't yet grasp the fact that some peeps like it in Issan? Each province is like one of Thailand's 77 flavours, something for everyone!!

Of course they like Issan, they like it because it's the poorest place in Thailand and lets them eke out their teachers wages/abysmal pensions just that bit farther.

Society has pretty clearly demarked the definition of success

In your 'society' does the success of a orphaned, developing-world child reaching maturity safely and in good health, then going on to live a healthy and personally rewarding life equal the success of privileged child graduating from schools then going on to lead a life of monetary and material growth?

Are you trying to tell me that the majority of **** ups in this part of the world are Western orphans escaping care homes? I think you might want to recalibrate the advantages of growing up in the West and compare them to the disadvantages of growing up for most people in the 3rd World. Nearly every expat has had the benefit of a free education, free/subsidized healthcare, a decent diet, etc. the fact that they took all these advantages and turned them to living in a shack eating rubbish and drinking 20 lagers a day is not something to be proud of.

Suggest you speak for yourself about "living in a shack, eating rubbish and drinking 20 lagers a day". There are always exceptions, however, there are none that I know of living in this vicinity of Isaan, a city of over 40,000, although we do have the odd recluse.

I run my own business and wouldn't live in Thailand again if you paid me a million dollars a week. My favourite Thailand memory was having a bloke, smartly dressed in a suit and tie, begging me to buy his drinks in a bar because he'd run out of money... I also enjoy watching farangs live in shop doorways in Bangkok and under bridges. That's clearly got success written all over it.

Unless you're actually working (and teaching English does not count as "working") the only reason to live in Issan is you can't afford to live anywhere else.

So, if you want to work at a Language Center in Phnom Penh, for at least a year, without a work permit, what would be the least risky visa (or extension) that you should hold, and how much would it cost?

You won't get away with no work permit in teaching establishments now; they've all cottoned on to the fact in cheap language centers that they can charge 3x the price for a work permit and pass that cost directly on to you.

1 year = $285 multiple entry ordinary (sometimes known as business) visa, plus $100 for a work permit plus whatever a lousy employer can extract on top from you.

Society has pretty clearly demarked the definition of success

In your 'society' does the success of a orphaned, developing-world child reaching maturity safely and in good health, then going on to live a healthy and personally rewarding life equal the success of privileged child graduating from schools then going on to lead a life of monetary and material growth?

Are you trying to tell me that the majority of **** ups in this part of the world are Western orphans escaping care homes? I think you might want to recalibrate the advantages of growing up in the West and compare them to the disadvantages of growing up for most people in the 3rd World. Nearly every expat has had the benefit of a free education, free/subsidized healthcare, a decent diet, etc. the fact that they took all these advantages and turned them to living in a shack eating rubbish and drinking 20 lagers a day is not something to be proud of.

You don't need a return. Even a $10 bus ticket for Cambodia is proof of onward travel. Or just fake one; send yourself an e-mail confirming flights as though it came from a travel agent and print it out... they don't check.

What does expat success look like? Teaching English for less than a grand a month, endless visa runs, and living in a toilet that you would never consider living in with a prostitue half your age? Because that looks like failure to me. I'd rather go home than end up worse off in South East Asia.

I've been an expat for way over a decade and the vast majority of expats I've encountered have "failed" by any sensible measuring stick.

Staying in a country doesn't make you a success. It's what you do with your life that determines that.

and you figure youre the one that has what it takes to decide if others are living a satisfying life? rather presumptious i must say.

Satisfaction is not the same as success. Check it in the dictionary if you don't believe me. Society has pretty clearly demarked the definition of success; my example clear doesn't meet that standard.

You may feel smug about not judging but that's what life does to us every single time we leave the house.

The people who should enforce the return ticket rule are the airline that takes you NOT the Thai authorities. I was asked once if I had a return ticket at check in in Hong Kong; I said I had a train ticket on my computer for Bangkok to Penang and they were OK with that...

You can get any Thai visa in Siem Reap. You go to a travel agent and get them to process it. It takes 5 days for turnaround though because as people quite rightly say; there's no Thai embassy here.

Expect to pay about $20-$30 more than the face value of the visa as a service charge too.

What does expat success look like? Teaching English for less than a grand a month, endless visa runs, and living in a toilet that you would never consider living in with a prostitue half your age? Because that looks like failure to me. I'd rather go home than end up worse off in South East Asia.

I've been an expat for way over a decade and the vast majority of expats I've encountered have "failed" by any sensible measuring stick.

Staying in a country doesn't make you a success. It's what you do with your life that determines that.

@Baerboxer

You

You'd need to be incredibly dumb to actually believe violence could win over the long term. It never has and many of those who live by the sword die by it. Thatcher, I think, despised the IRA for the cowardly murders of people including her friend the WW2 hero Airey Neave, But she realized the the IRA, INLA, UDA, UVF and UFF were not the entire population. You can't strife for a fair and just society in the UK and leave out Ulster.

Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley saw this, and were able to put the past aside and work hard together to achieve real progress. Dinosaurs like Adams were sidelined.

Do you know of any politician who isn't two (or more when necessary) faced?

Me

The IRA didn't murder Airey Neave, that was the INLA.

Adams hasn't been sidelined and is still a leading figure in the movement to unite Eire after the unilateral partition of it by the English, thankfully a peaceful movement.

Thatcher was one of the most despicable politicians of the recent past. All politicians lie I agree but her lies destroyed communities.

However that all said I agree with your condemnation of violence.

It is never a solution.

Thatcher was a politician I will never forgive but she wasn't stupid and realised that violence had failed.

All sides including the govt have blood on their hands because of the violence perpetrated by the paramilitary groups. All of them.

That is past.

A treaty was signed.

Peace has been achieved.

We all need to move on.

Was it the INLA who murdered Neave? They claimed responsibility although other theories exist. Anyway he was murdered, probably by Irish terrorists which I'm sure Mrs Thatcher would have noted.

You may view Thatcher how you want to, from an Irish perspective, but she took over a UK that had become the sick man of Europe being completely <deleted> up by trades unions that had been infiltrated by the extreme left. She was the medicine the UK needed at that time, however unpalatable that may have been. She was democratically elected, the longest serving PM of the 20th century and the only woman to hold that office. So, many did not support your view. Like many, she arguable went too far in the other direction.

Violence creates more violence as a response, which creates more violence. A vicious cycle. Once someone becomes embroiled it's hard to break out of. Adams still spouts the old rhetoric. He's held in check, and pushed south of the border. Understandable. McGuiness, has the intelligence and honesty to admit the wrong doings, on all sides, of the past and expresses correctly how things that seemed right at the time, can be seen to be so wrong later.

A deal was done, an agreement signed. There are dissidents and criminals hiding under political banners who still need dealing with. This warrant jumper is possibly an example. Peace anywhere is fragile - just look at how quickly violence has erupted all around the world.

One poster on this thread supports the idea of political violence, and even advocates it in support of a united Ireland, even though the majority in Ulster want to remain part of the UK. Whilst people think like that violence will always be just below the surface.

... and the majority of people in the Republic want to see Ireland reunited again. So who do we listen to? The wishes of the people of Ulster or the people of the Republic? I know! Why don't we listen to what the "majority of people on the island of Ireland" want... both from Ulster and the Republic.

Ireland should be grateful that we're nicer in the UK towards terrorists than the Americans are. Otherwise we'd have just gone to war on Ireland to teach them how terrorists should have been dealt with. That process of listening to the needs of the British people would take approximately a week.

Do it as early as possible... they can add on up to 9 months of unused passport onto the new one anyway.