bazza40

As you are married you have equal parental rights as his mother.

Yes you can take care of him especially if he is to be left with grandparents,it's better for him to be with his father.

Absolutely but if I do take him away from the inlaws.. Could they get the police involved..This is all in the case of his mum being not present

I'm ok if she is there with him and I still have access but if she is not present then surely under any law his place is with me

I would not advice you to attempt removing the child without his mothers knowledge/consent

You might very rapidly find yourself charged with kidnapping/child abduction etc and that assumes it is the Police who are sent to "question" your action(s).

There is some poor advice being offered here but I would urge you not to act upon such advice without seeking a professional opinion about your situation.

Maybe it's you giving poor advice,based on your assertion that he could be charged with kidnapping his own child. For your information there is no such law in Thailand regarding your own children.

Possibly you need to use some imagination. Extracting a child from a Thai village with the whole village howling for the OP's blood does not seem a sensible course of action. And who do you think the police will take sides with?

Consult a lawyer,negotiate with the mother, butter up the in-laws. One step at a time. Those posters advocating snatch and disappear forget the child also should have access to the mother.

I bring a letter from a doctor, and up to a year's supply. I've never been questioned over the past 8 years. The meds are packed in my hold luggage.

Thailand does seem to be clamping down on drugs such as codeine, pseudoephedrine and similar compounds, due to their potential for conversion. If needed, a hospital doctor will provide a prescription, although hospital pharmacies are quite expensive.

The OP has been on TV before whining about how hard life is. Guess he needs the attention he can't get anywhere else.

Besides any police or immigration, if you would want to rent from me a passport copy is one of the basic things you'd have to provide besides the deposit. That does not even touch all the BS that is going on with tracking of aliens, next thing is chipping us.

Your post seems a bit contradictory. Your tenants have to provide you with a copy of their passport, the next sentence says tracking of aliens is BS.

What do you want?

Just to make it clear, driving defensively means assuming everyone on the road is practically brain dead, right?

With 30,000 road deaths a year, isn't that a reasonable assumption?

Many, many years ago, my driving instructor taught me using the horn is a measure of your own competence as a driver. His proposition was if you anticipated the manoeuvres of other motorists well enough, you should never need to use the horn.

My main focus when driving in Thailand is driving defensively. No matter how aggravating the idiots are, there's no future in getting aggressive.

A valid proposition where those around you have equal training, have been tested to equal measure and (generally) follow the regulations with equal discipline.

Your instructor taught you to 'anticipate the manoeuvre of other motorists'..... I think thats why many over here would choose to use their horn... because, after driving here for a number of years we can anticipate the careless, the dangerous and the downright idiotic....

In short - the horn is used specifically in anticipation of what is about to happen... Isn't that the whole purpose of the horn ????

I think I've used the horn seriously once in Thailand, under extreme circumstances. A Thai in a pickup was moving into my lane oblivious to my presence, and I could see a side-swipe coming. Reason being he had draped his shirt over the driver's side window, presumably to keep out the sun. That qualifies as downright idiotic.

Each to his own. I've been driving scooters and cars here for seven years now. Hope we both survive.

He should have got a medal for shirtfronting the obesity emporium.

2 years ago I bought a one million baht car and after a while I decided to put it in my name, just to have ONE thing in my name.

Cost me, a very expensive (30.000) yellow book, for which I had to travel to BK twice (from Loei) with expensive paperwork.

And finally at the motordept, I was charged 8000 baht for the name change and a 22.000 for some prime insurance.

Since I am leaving I am only getting 500.000 for my car with only 25.000 km driven.

I am pissed.

There are people on TV who swear blind a falang should always buy new in Thailand, never secondhand. They refuse to acknowledge depreciation.

The con being,

When your gf leaves you, she'll be driving away in her car.

You've been quiet a long time - where have you been?

It's a real shame the Thai authorities can't see what is staring them in the face. They could improve the teaching of English in many schools by co-opting native English speaking retirees on a voluntary or honorarium basis to teach English for a couple of hours a week. I'm sure there are many retirees who would like to contribute, if only they were allowed to.

Retirees would also benefit by more exposure to the Thai language. The ingrained Thai respect for age would also be a factor.

MOISTURE is a problem here.....What I'm wondering is is I got some rock salt and put it in an old sock or small cloth bag would it work against moisture like the small bags of silica found in vitamin bottles & such....

You can get silica in quantities, possibly camera stores. Or look around at cat litter, some will be 100% silica.

Not much point in getting silica gel for drying if you don't know how much water it has absorbed. The small sachets are for once only use.

Silica gel infused with a cobalt salt will be blue in good condition, and pink when exhausted. It can be regenerated by heating in a low oven, then turning the oven off and allowing it to get back to room temperature while still in the oven. Silica gel is sold by chemical supply houses.

No, rock salt won't work - not hygroscopic. The cat litter may, but you won't know when it's exhausted.

Ban followers from any religion from working in security position, as any follower is by definition not fully connected to reality

Er - if you only employed atheists and agnostics, you'd be running short of employees.

Not a problem because I plan to hire hypocrites to fill the vacancies.

Politicians already have a job.

One problem I have observed with Nimman is vehicles trying to make right turns from or to the sois across two lines of traffic, impeding traffic flow. Traffic would move much better if left turns into and out of sois are the only turns permissible.

There could be a number of contributing causes to the overall tragedy, e.g. substandard lights, incorrect installation, locked doors etc.etc. The big question is whether anyone will learn from it and ensure it doesn't happen again.

Come to think of it, Australia learned from the Port Arthur massacre and ensured it wouldn't happen again. America refuses to learn.

Could anyone explain what the horn on my car is actually for?

It's to be used when you drive in Vietnam or Spain.

This 'afford to lose' is one of the most stupid statements I have ever seen and apparently comes from skint people. Smart people don't lose money period

There are many smart people who have lost money, picked themselves up and made it back again. What was that about stupid statements?

Many, many years ago, my driving instructor taught me using the horn is a measure of your own competence as a driver. His proposition was if you anticipated the manoeuvres of other motorists well enough, you should never need to use the horn.

My main focus when driving in Thailand is driving defensively. No matter how aggravating the idiots are, there's no future in getting aggressive.

Theft is theft, irrespective of age or nationality. He's lucky he didn't get the impulse to steal in Saudi Arabia.

Ban followers from any religion from working in security position, as any follower is by definition not fully connected to reality

Er - if you only employed atheists and agnostics, you'd be running short of employees.

Some Thai smiles cover embarrassment, some are genuinely spontaneous. It's a charming national trait, whatever the reason, and I'm just wondering why some posters on this thread are getting their knickers in a twist about it. Get a life.

Just how many Arabs come to Thailand anyway? I doubt if I've seen more than one or two in Chiang Mai.

I have my doubts about the AirBNB business model - what redress do you have if the luxury hideaway turns out to be a dog kennel?

As a wise man once said, sleep is the cousin of death.

That really does explain why sleep deprivation is one of the torture/brainwashing techniques.

She,,, up at 6am

Me up about 10 or 11am,, like i've said a million times,

a.) i don't want to be the first human to wake up

b.) i don't have any chickens, pigs (the real ones) to feed

c.) i don't work

d.) i get up when i want to

Catatonia is well established in your household?

As soon as you set up a Thai Bank savings account if you don't already have one wire as much money as you can for the future into Thailand.

Many Thai banks now require a work visa to open an account, but not all.

Kasikorn Bank Mgr. in Nana told me if I close any account I can't reopen another without a work visa even with my retirement visa extension. I've been a customer for 9 years.

I would also move to Thailand ASAP.

I really don't understand why anyone in their right mind would want to wire as much money as they can into Thailand. I wire yearly living expenses, and keep the 800,000 baht on deposit to satisfy the financial requirements of a retirement visa/extension.

The majority ( 85% ) of my funds are in Australia. The stability of Thai politics and policies towards falangs is questionable. Personally, I think one should never bring more money into Thailand than one is prepared to lose.

Even when we're in town and eating in the malls we always head for the Thai food section. Thais aren't very good at imitations, and that includes imitations of farang food.

I must be doing something wrong, because every time I eat in the Thai food section, I get the shakes and I'm hungry and very sleepy (to the point of being crabby) 30 minutes later.

That's not so prevalent in more expensive places, so I chalked it up to MSG in cheap Thai food, but maybe it's something else?

Because I love the flavors- but many Thai foods don't appear to like me.

It's probably the MSG, sugar and salt. Or perhaps the ubiquitous chili.

No-one has to eat Thai food here if they don't want to. All it takes is going to one of the multitude of Thai daily markets, where one can buy fish,meat, vegetables and fruit at very low cost, then take it home and cook it themselves.

I've been eating market food here for over 7 years,and have never been sick on it even once. It's not hard to discern the good food stalls, there are clusters of Thais around them.