Mario666

Dear all.

I have a difficult situation regarding my next (God Willing) extension of stay based on retirement.

My renewal date is July 1st.

My problem is this......My son is getting married in Rhodes on June 20th 2019.

The families are traveling from the UK on 15th of June and most will be staying 1 week in Rhodes at a resort.

I believe that before you could apply up to 45 days in advance to renew your extension , but last time I went to Samui immigration they said it has to be 10 days or less.

I know that this varies throughout the country and may change again (like everything does in LOS), but I do not want to come back to Thailand for a couple of months after the wedding as my mother

is elderly so I need to spend some time with her and I have new grand kids that I haven't met yet.

I have lived on Samui for 12 years and each year the Visa renewal process has become bothersome with increasingly difficult "Hurdles" to jump through year on year.

Ideally I would renew my extension before I travel back to the UK which will be about 10th of June.

If immigration won"t budge on the renewal window it means I will have to come back straight after the wedding from Rhodes via the UK and even then it will leave me with less than 5 working days to

go though the renewal process which on Samui has so many variables.

I would hate to miss the deadline and have to start over again with Visa Runs and all the hassle that goes with it.

Helpful suggestions most welcome.

Many Thanks M

5 minutes ago, PerkinsCuthbert said:

I have a rather tatty secondhand ocean liner with an illustrious history for sale, would you be interested at all?

 Former owners "Titanic Cruises of Thailand"?

BTW I have been coming to Thailand at least 3 times a year for 10 years, but still haven't managed to get laid and have a couple of drinks for less than 20,000 Thb a night. Am I doing something wrong?

Only Two Comments....Dickheads get what they what they deserve....Pricks don't always...... depending on the price paid!!!!

On 8/22/2018 at 6:41 AM, mogandave said:

Thanks, but to be clear, I never said I paid that kind of dough, I only said people did. I'm fine with a good steak from Makro...

 

 

That's good

3 hours ago, mogandave said:

 

I like Makro, and the steaks are okay, but great? I think not.

Okay mate...I agree they are not Wagyu or Proper Aberdeen Angus, but certainly good when you want a 2 minute steak (medium rare)..

10 hours ago, mogandave said:

Yesh

You must be "Ravin' Mad"  Pal!

You can buy great steaks from Makro at about a Fifth of the price.

3 hours ago, StefanBBK said:

Sorry to hear about this. Hope she will recover soon.

Suggest before coming to Thailand you use a good tropical medicine center in the EU. Guess you could use your Irish insurance card. 

Not sure if I am allowed to post a link here, but this one used to be excellent. https://www.bnitm.de/en/clinic/opening-hours-and-directions/

 

Before coming all the way to Thailand you may want to try the Liverpool School of Tropical medicine to get a diagnosis.

Short trip for you.

https://www.lstmed.ac.uk/services/clinical-diagnostic-parasitology-laboratory

Good luck!

21 hours ago, Food For Foreigners said:

Hi there We do have our Beef Burger ready to grill

 

I'm sorry We don't have them

 

Hey there Yes We can do a delivery to Koh Saumui via plane but you'll have to pick the order up from the airport. We use dry ice to keep the temperature in the box 

I am mainly interested in Bacon....I am English and only like bacon in true "English" or "Danish" style....I have tried Makro, Big C, TOPS, etc. all claiming to have "Wiltshire Cure", etc., but have been disappointed every time.

May I ask where you come from? ....as in Which Country?

Please also send link for catalogue.

Many thanks.

13 hours ago, Food For Foreigners said:

Hi Yes the free delivery on orders over 800 baht only available in Phuket Thank You

Can you deliver on larger orders to Koh Samui....If so how do you refridgerate it?

On 6/18/2018 at 11:56 AM, Darcula said:

When this story hits the newswires back home, he's going to lose his MCC membership.

He'll never Player for Yorkshire!

2 hours ago, Badrabbit said:

I'm 62 and with Pacific cross, drop Peter an email at [email protected] I've got a few exclusions on the insurance, my premium at the moment is approx 60,000 bht for 1.2 million cover, good luck.

Sent from my SM-G610F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Thanks mate..Email sent

Dear all,

I originate from the UK, but travel back rarely.....Maybe once or twice per year to see friends and family....But if I need to I can go back.

My health is generally good, but I do have some medical history.

I was diagnosed with MS aged 28.....However, I am "mega -lucky" (so far) in that between attacks I get complete remission.

I also get recurrent Cellulitis which first developed after I was kicked in the shin by a drunken ladyboy because I refused to buy her a drink at a Ladybar.

Also take Statins, Allopurinol for gout prevention and Furocemide for water retention and BP.

I turned 60 last year, but I am looking for medical/accident insurance.........Unless I win the lottery I think it may prove 'Cost Prohibitive'.

May seem like a 'Long Shot'..... but can any of you advise me where to get affordable insurance.

As always any replies welcomed with thanks!

9 hours ago, Mattd said:

For those interested, I have finally got the SmartDNS setup to work in the condo using True as the ISP!

 

Not particularly easy or cheap in the end, however, as I stay in most weekday evenings, then it is worth it, here is how I did it.

 

1. Purchased a new Linksys WRT1200AC router, although this could be any router that is easy to flash DD-WRT firmware on, Linksys WRT ones are very easy to do and easy to recover if it goes wrong.

2. Downloaded the correct DD-WRT firmware for the above and then uploaded it in to the new Linksys router.

3. Initial setup of the now DD-WRT router, which involves setting the connection to a fixed IP and gave it an IP address that was within the True modem router's range (192.168.1.35 in my case)

4. Made the Linksys router IP address 192.168.0.1 (it has to be on a different subnet to the True router)

5. Followed the instructions to the letter on the SmartDNS support site on how to enable bypassing a transparent proxy using the Linksys router running DD-WRT, this involves changing a few DHCP settings, putting some DNS settings in and running a start up  / firewall command in the DD-WRT settings Administration/Command Shell (Linksys router)

6. Login to the True DOCSIS Modem Router (Humax HV100-02) and enable DMZ and add in the LAN IP address of the Linksys router (192.168.1.35), so that the Linksys router is now bypassing the True firewall.

7. Hard wire the True router to the Linksys router, using the ethernet port on the True to the Internet port on the Linksys.

7. Reboot everything router wise.

8. Connect the computer to the Linksys WiFi network.8. Enable the IP address in the SmartDNS login.d the Amazon Fire TV box to use the DD-WRT WiFi and all the geo-blocked channels work perfectly on this.

 

Tonight I plan on modifying the script so that it uses the Singapore and Japan DNS servers, as opposed to the US ones that are in the original script, as this should make the DNS solution quicker and see if I can disable to radio on the True router to avoid any unnecessary contention on the WiFi channels etc.

 

Took a while to get there, but happy now, although it would probably have been easier to swap ISP to 3BB!!!! Lucky I like a challenge ?

Wow.....Congratulations......Finally got there mate!....Hat's off for achieving "Mission Impossible"......Not sure I would have lasted that long ?

Think I would have moved house....easier solution!?

Well done!

On 6/10/2018 at 11:31 AM, xylophone said:

Hi Mario666,

 

I hope you are fully recovered from your motorbike "incident" and thank you for posting.

 

Yes you've probably read my posts and as I recall you did mention getting a dedicated line some way back, however this was going to be impossible because he did not want any holes drilled or attachments to his building, and anyway it was getting to a point whereby I couldn't talk to him without fear of getting into a screaming and shouting match, as before.

 

He was right and I was wrong and an idiot and my computer and everything that went with it was sh1t etc, etc.

 

However I was extremely surprised when he angrily showed me a dedicated line which was already installed and luckily enough it came to a halt just outside of my room, so I will get 3BB to connect it up. Unfortunately they will not do it for a trial period so that I can ascertain its signal strength and usefulness, so I will have to sign a six-month contract and buy the modem and hope for the best.

 

If it all works okay I will have my own dedicated line and no interaction with him as regards the Internet, which is fine by me. Outside of that, apart from being grumpy from time to time, he's okay, but you never know when he is going to fly off the handle and sometimes when he does it with his delightful Thai wife, I get really embarrassed.

 

It was getting to the stage where I would have liked to have made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and I was practising with the cotton wool stuffed in my cheeks, but didn't need to go through with it!

 

 

 

Well at least now you're in a potentially much better situation.

Hope it works well for you.

As regards the motorbike incident mostly recovered thanks!

20 hours ago, xylophone said:

Thought I would give an update to the kindly folk who have endeavoured to help me here - - - Mattd, PeterW42 and others:

More fraught times with the landlord and seems to be going round in circles with him calling me stupid and the computer sh1t and Bill Gates an idiot and so, all the time I'm not getting any straight answers, however I did ascertain a few things which will probably nail it.

 

When he connected his apple in his room to get 96 Mbps, he plugged directly into the modem from a wire which he had hidden in his room, but he didn't tell me this.

 

Having said that he had no idea as to why if 3BB was delivering 100 Mbps, then why he was only getting 26 in my apartment, apart from calling me an idiot and everything else that goes with it (already mentioned).

 

I worked through a lot of things and came to this conclusion – – that the modem he had put in the box outside of the apartments to supply them all, was supplying a very weak signal, hence me not being able to pick it up, being the furthest away. I came to this conclusion because when the 3BB guys opened up the box, it turns out that he had either taken off the antenna or had folded them across the modem and stuffed it into this box, part surrounded by aluminium foil telling me that this would directly frequency towards the apartments.

 

I tried to explain that having the antenna tucked away flat (if indeed they were there because it wasn't obvious) and the aluminium just lining the box, would probably not be delivering the best signal strength. He has obviously looked on the Internet and seen diagrams whereby people do provide aluminium backdrops to the antennae, in an effort to direct the waves, but his effort falls woefully short of this and I suspect that's why I'm getting a weak signal, which gets even weaker when more people use the 2.4 GHz frequency, as I witnessed in the early hours of this morning, achieving 0.03 and 0.75 mbps on a number of speed tests!

 

I was at a loss because I had tried everything and the arguing was really getting me down, so my question to him was that I wanted to watch programmes and what was he going to do about it. Then in his anger he dragged me over to a type of conduit which he had running along the side of the building and explained that there was a direct line going to just outside of my apartment which would be connected by 3BB for a cost of about 690 baht per month!!!

 

Why on earth he didn't tell me about this some time ago is a mystery, however for him, in a way, it proves his point that my computer is crap and his setup is great so I have got to go outside of that to be able to get my crap computer to work. Whereas the truth is probably just the opposite.

 

I have asked his lovely Thai wife if she will get in touch with 3BB and ask if they would connect it for a trial of just a few hours, and if it worked I would enter a contract to have it a permanent fixture and would also by the modem from them.

 

There is nothing else I can do but to try this as I want to watch the football as well as the BBC channels and I want some independence from this idiot by way of my own Internet connection.

 

I will report back on progress, and wish to thank everybody for their input.

Hi Guys....Sorry I missed all the fun, but recovering from a Motorbike "Incident" from a few days ago!

Sounds as if we have got a <deleted> Landlord here who talks BS.

At the end of the day it should not make any difference whether you are running Windows, IOS or Android,

But, what a dick to stick the router in a metal box....I said very early on in this thread that the only solution is to

get a dedicated line....and for optimum performance connect with an Ethernet cable.

If the landlord doesn't allow you to drill holes in his walls.....Make him an offer he can't refuse!....He is Italian

after all!

??

3 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Thanks Mario...……..

 

My download speed as just tested is 3.78Mbps. 

 

As mentioned earlier would the 5Ghz router band make any difference??

 

Will try and talk to the owner, but he has done a lot for me in the past and I fear asking for too much!

 

I do have a satellite True visions connection for sport and movies...……..can that be used I wonder?

 

cheers 

Hi X...As I said you are seriously "under powered"...

You either need to get your fellow residents together and get an upgrade on the line speed or see if the landlord will allow you to install your own dedicated line.....as long as you keep sharing you will have problems!

10 minutes ago, xylophone said:

Thanks for replying Mr Mario...……...I cannot change the provider as it is a central feed and router to 8 apartments!!

 

However I do seem to remember that in setting it up the owner designated me a 2.4ghz band but there is one on 5 ghz (did I get that right?) So would that help or am I way off here??

 

The signal seems to be strong enough although I do have a signal booster I can install if that would make any difference?

If you are in a condo on WiFi there is little you can do except by a "Booster" as you said.

However, that will only improve your "Reception" and will not make any difference to your Download Speed......

You are seriously "under powered".

Are you friendly with the neighbours/landlord?....I would advise getting together and getting an upgrade on the WiFi....Who is your provider?

Also do a speed test http://www.speedtest.net/

3 hours ago, xylophone said:

 

Thought I would try "contacting" you guys because we seem to be on the same wavelength with regards to VPNs etc......... well at least you two guys are, because I'm still having some problems and I'm hoping you can help me with them! (PLEASE).

 

I have got the SmartDNS on a trial period and was reasonably happy with it, more so when I stream directly from the BBC iPlayer site because the quality is good and I just get a little buffering once or twice.

 

Completely different when I download it to the iPlayer application and try and play it from that, because it is a continuous "blip"/jump every four or five seconds, which makes it basically unwatchable.

 

Anyway last night I tried to stream a program directly from the BBC and I got this message, "sorry you don't have enough bandwidth to play this right now". This was rather surprising as it was 10 PM our time here and I thought the Internet would be fairly free of traffic by then?

 

I did a quick speed test on my connection and although it showed an average of just over 2MB/s, apparently the BBC site needs around 2.5MB/s to operate properly?

 

So is there anything I can do about this or is it just the 3BB network and something which is outside of my control?

Hi Mr. X,

You have to have a decent line or WiFi connection.......I have TRUE 50/20 , but still get some buffering problems...Having said that I live on Samui so everything is via satellite and accordingly it is affected by the weather....particularly thunderstorms!....

If you live on the mainland somewhere get the best Fibre connection you can...Should be less than 1,000 Thb per month for 100 Mgbs downlaod!

Good to go!

Keep us in the loop!

17 hours ago, Mattd said:

Thanks, if I can get through to True, then things should work out.

Born in Stoke-on-Trent, then moved to Chester at 16, been here since 89!

Love Chester....Lived in Altrincham 30+ years before LOS.

Still have 2 houses, 1 wife there!

2 minutes ago, Mattd said:

Well, tried SmartDNS on my home computer with 3BB fibre and it works fine with BBC iplayer, so obviously the problem lies within the True connection I have in the condo in Bangkok ?

 

I'll try contacting True (never easy as a Farang!) and see if I can get the info needed to get around their transparent proxy, I suspect that I need to add the DNS addresses to the setup page of the router, unfortunately right now that is impossible, as when I try to apply the settings, then it wants a user name and password, these I do not have, as it is UN & PW for the connection to True, hopefully these I can get from them, in any case, just subscribed to SmartDNS for 2 years, worth a punt for just 49.90 USD.

Nice one...really hope it works out for you Matt.....Let me know how it goes.

Trying to sort anything technical out over here is so difficult because there are so many variables and even the "Variables" vary ???

Add to that the generally poor support service and the language difficulties and Bob's your Auntie....

Which part of the UK are you from BTW.

15 hours ago, mikebell said:

So it's taken six years to put the warrant into effect: the Thai equivalent to The Flying Squad.   The arrest was not down to any investigation more likely a tip-off.  Cherchez-la-femme.

Not so much "Flying" as "Hovering Squad" !

Why not Zidane, Ronaldo and Bale go to United?

Never mind the expense!

We could sell Lukaku for a reasonal price...He is a great player, but has massively under performed at UTD and is clearly not happy.

He was after all Mourhino's Boy so let them go together and get United back on TOP where we belong!.....

Well I wish to contribute....I love chick peas be it in "3 Bean Salad", Humus or better still Chana Daal.

I tried to introduce my girlfriend to each recipe on separate occasions, but she rejected all after reluctantly "trying a taste"....just like when you

try to get a kid to eat broccoli.

No joy.....Grimace (even before tasting) and spit out!....As regards Chana Daal which is (for the uninitiated) a type of chickpea curry with Indian

spices..... she wretched. Funny really after some of the things I have seen her swallow?

I have seen this many times with various Thai girlies when I have tried to introduce them to Indian cuisine.....

It seems they don't like Cumin which is obviously constituent in many Indian dishes?

They say they don't like the smell......Of course if I was not a gentleman I might retort  "Well actually most Farangs don't like Bar Girls' Dog Breath

after eating Som Tam for "Breakfast" everyday

Anyone have similar experiences?

22 hours ago, Kohsamida said:

Yes, that's a good way to look at it.  Even though "10 years in jail" is probably "scare mongering", I'd hate to be the one they choose to make an example of.  Thanks for the advice.  Now I really have a reason to quit smoking, cold turkey ?

 

If I was a smoker in your shoes  I'd buy the cheapest crap Thai cigarettes I could get and chain smoke until the BIB come and get me....

Tobacco is currency in any jail around the world so "Top Up" your nicotine levels now before they drag you off to the Bangkok Hilton! ?

Fortunately tobacco is another Vice I managed to give up in LOS. 

If I give up anything else my right hand will get a headache! ?

32 minutes ago, ronaldo0 said:

Don't think you could buy any land of use on samui for 800k a rai .

Is it perhaps zee French ?? ?

I blame The Germans.....as always! ?