technocracy

The answer is unlimited - just the costs of the visa and renewing your passport basically every year when full (a Lao Visa takes up a full page plus the Thai stamps) . . . you can however extend a 30 day visa to 90 days if you can stay for 90 days at a time. This can be done by a visit to the immigration office in Vientiane (although you'll need to speak Lao to do that) the alternative is use an agency who'll you have to pay to do the leg work.

Sorry I've not been around - been somewhat busy - anyway the 12 month 'work' visa which I have previously mentioned I arranged via a Lao friend who knows the immigration system but it is based upon being married to a Lao citizen.

Basically the visa allows you 30 days stay at a time over the 12 month period - but you can come and go as many times as you wish i.e. Full multiple entry. It worked great for me as we'd often nip over to Udon or Nong Khai every month for shopping and the like.

The visa is actually intended for people who have business interests in Laos and will come and go frequently - but they will also do one if you are married - in any case if you work you are liable for sorting out your own taxes etc.

The alternative is to get a work visa sponsored through an 'agency' - this will end up with you paying 10% tax of whatever your declared salary is - a word of warning on going down this approach the Lao government has cut back on the number of sponsored foreign employees and your work visa probably will end up being assigned to some non-existent NGO or one that is based in distant rural areas. If you have any kind of run in with the police (simply driving down the road can cause this!) they will check your visa and the 'company' you 'work' for and you can end up in prison if they find out it's a visa of convenience and before you all start saying it doesn't happen etc etc. Well I know 2 people who have fallen foul of it . . .

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Oh also for people who might be interested I now know people who can arrange a 12 month 'work' visa that is the equivalent of a spouse visa - the only rule attached is that you must leave Laos every month, but once you have the visa you don't need another. When I say leave Laos you can do a border run over to Nong Khai and come back you don't have to be out length of time.

T, I am giving some serious thought to retiring to Laos later this year. Loved Vientiane everytime I've been there. Do you have any visa updates to share with us? Or can you tell us about anyone using this 12-month visa method? It's pitfalls, if any? Doing the one-month visa with two extensions comes up to about $500 US a year. If one can do this all in one stroke, I'd still pay $500.

Thanks.

Well nothing has changed on the visa front. You only have two option for a 12 month visa - that is a 12 month Work Permit or the one I mention above.

Either way the basic cost for either of those visas is $200 if done direct with immigration and if you get someone to arrange one for you it should cost no more than an extra $100 fee.

Although I am no longer in Laos . . . . now in Singapore for the foreseeable future. But obviously have plenty of ties and connections back there . . .

If parents' accommodation is adequate, then there is no need to move out.

Well I'd have no intention wanting to stay for an entire year at my parents - anyway the work wouldn't be near where they live...

. . . .

5 days sounds good as the work could be at relatively short notice. All this said I might not be going yet . . . but cheers for the info guys.

Thanks for that. I had a feeling it was 6 months but I didn't know about the 6 out of 12 rule.

Hmmm how long do settlement visa take these days? Taking into account our background i.e she previous had a settlement visa - initially we'd stay with my parents until I sorted out somewhere to rent (my parents house is plenty big enough being 3 bedroomed - we'd have a room to ourselves etc etc).

Essentially it's possible that I might be returning to the UK to work for about 1 year - obviously I want to take my wife & son with me. My wife has not only had holiday visa but previously had a Settlement Visa (of which she only spent 11 months in the UK).

My son has a British passport so there is no problems there. My wife also holds a Lao passport with an Oz Permanent Residency visa . . . we being living together married side of the UK for 3 years so not enough for the 4 years thingy. We've been married for over 5 years in total but as she's already been granted a settlement visa previously they've previously rubber stamped that our relationship is genuine.

So the questions are can you get 1 year holiday visas? Or would I need to go through the Settlement thing again (which seems OTT in my opinion)?

Cheers in advance for an advice.

Well that didn't go to plan then!

5 games - conceded 17 goal and 0 points . . . all I can say is you best hope you Home form doesn't dip or you're gonna slide down the table quicker than a very slippery thing on ice!

Is Nugent on loan or did you buy him - I can't remember? I am amazed he is still playing in the Prem - very very over rated and I was praying the rumours of him coming Stoke weren't true when they were doing the rounds!

You record Scottish signing up front (Fletcher is it?) doesn't look from what I've seen of him like he's going to score more than 4 or 5 this season.

When is Paterson due back (although I don't think he's quite a Prem striker - prone to missing far to many easy chances)?

You first lose at home will be the real sink or swim test of life in the Prem and if the heads drop.

Yesterday in my opinion it looked like a men v boys game I'm afraid. Blackburn bossed your players and they couldn't handle it, numerous times they won possession by just shoulder barging your player off the ball! Even Jensen! Coyle really needs sort that out and get them scrapping and fighting more particularly away from home.

I believe we've (Stoke) made our feelings clearly known to the Premier League and the Referees association. Of course the referees association disagreed and wanted our chairman to retract the comments but he refused!

I can remember getting Bovril poured on me at the old Stoke ground also, the home fans sat above the away fans, that was pretty bad.

Even the thickest coont doesn't waste Bovril!!!

Actually at the Victoria Ground the normal was for the away fan to have the full Stoke End. However in the lower leagues it varied from the lower terrace in the Stoke End or a part of the lower terracing in the Main Stand depending on how many were expected.

I remember a game against Hartlepool which was amusing purely for the lack of their fans! If I remember rightly it was about a 16k attendance and about 50-100 of them were from Hartlepool. The were in a small piece of terrace in the main stand and they actually took the lead and as always there was silence from the home fans and this 50-100 folks were having a mental but you couldn't hear them!

It was just so strange for there be such a lack of crowd noise after a goal!

But either way none of the upper tiers at the Vic were OVER the lower tier.

& no, it's not the old Ninian Park...

http://www.footballspotter.com/worst-football/

Mr Singh - have you by any chance been reading the Stoke message board!

Around 17 minutes til your lot receive the Britannia treatment . . . looking forward to this game!

The international break is a pain in the butt!

Although it has been said in this thread that opening an account in a Lao bank is easy, I have a different experience.

A week ago I tried to open an account in BCEL (Savannakhet Branch), but couldn't. They said that one can have an account only if one worked in Laos. As a tourist, even a regular tourist, I'm just to use their ATMs with my Thai-card. No account in Laos.

Are the branches in Vientiane different, or "more lenient"?

It's possible that they have tightened up - there was a campaign to stop money laundering going on a year or so ago so maybe since then they've bought in this rule.

It was over 5 years ago when I opened my account so lots could of changed in that time. I just walked in and asked for an account and the just wanted see my passport and where I was staying.

Maybe try a different bank - the BCEL are probably the strictest!

If they ever catch up with the rest of the world and have online banking that'll do International transfers Laos could suddenly become a very popular off-shore banking location given they don't have dual tax treaties with numerous western countries!

Wimax is dead already, Nokia and many other companies who developed Wimax has dropped it totally. They are aiming 4-5G networks.

in Finland and few other countries there is @450Mhz "wifi" netoworks that covers 95% on the nation. Ok it's only 1Mb network but still. It can be easily adopted to 470Mhz here in Thailand.

@450 radio cell has about 50km radius. They installed wimax also but just as a small pilots in small cities, tho no success...

Sorry my friend but you're talking out of you rear here. Nokia had very little to do with WiMax development sure they came up with some devices but that's about it. Whoever installed the WiMax obviously didn't have much of a clue on how to deploy it! WiMax is used globally with the largest deploy being in S.Korea. WiMax at 2.4-5Ghz with the right antennas has 20km radius and if Wimax in 900Mhz starts to become reality then it'll become even more useable.

I keep hearing about 4 or 5G networks however a full switch to 3G hasn't even take place even with god knows how many years of actually being live. All very reminiscent of the great Internet bandwidth rush and subsequent crash back in 2001/2 - constantly trying to push out more and more bandwidth but no customers to actually use it!

The last mile market place is so crowded that just like wi-fi if Intel finally start making it standard in there chipsets it'll soon become the standard that is just used because it's 'there' without the need for dongles and the rest.

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

I saw them in Homepro in Udon.

Grundfos MQ3-45 all the way . . . had one for the past 3 years and it has done nothing except work perfectly - so much so you forget it's there!

In short if you want good water pump then buy one from a company that specialises in making pumps . . .

I know people who had Hitachi, Mitsubishi and others because they didn't want to pay the Grundfos price - however my Grundfos is still working perfectly where as their poor excuses for pumps have either packed up completely or are on the verge of it providing sod all pressure.

An example of how good the Grundfos is - in my upstairs bathroom I have a large head rain type shower which if I open the tap full on it's quite painful on the skin . . . oh and if someone flushes the toilet or turns on a tap whilst I am in that shower . . . absolutely nothing changes! I love that shower!

Unfortunately I was 100% cold sober!

Just how many times did Terry, Lumpard, Cashley, Drogba (and the rest) need to surround the referee crying like girls because one of the big nasty Stoke players dared to tackle them??!?

I witness plenty of it from Manure last season but your lot took the piss on Saturday. Mike Dean if he'd had any kind of spine should of booked them the first time and told them piss off and if you do it again and you're off rather than just being intimidated.

Strange ain't it the 3 main stoppages in the first half which caused a supposed 8 minutes of stoppage time were Beattie, Sorensen and Drogba . . . even stranger that both Beattie and Sorensen were actually injured and had to leave the pitch whereas Drogba the dying fly was 100% ok and scored a goal. I mean who'd think it?

I don't care whatever way you look at it but I prefer my team to act like grown men not spoil brats spitting there dummies out at any man-sized challenge. Just like the 50/50 ball Shawcross and Cashley played for Cashley when down and rolled out like he'd been shot whilst Lumpy and Terry shouted at the ref whilst Shawcross just dusted himself down and continued (and for some reason got a yellow card!).

Footie is supposed to be contact sport played by men . . . I await to see how the Manure referee baiting goes a week on Saturday - god I hope we get a referee with a spine.

Did your boys on there periods or something? I have never seen such a bunch of mardarsed whinging cheating <deleted> in all my life. Just how many times did the have to surround the referee whinging like girls? Terry and Lumpard being the usual suspects - highly embarrassing.

Didn't like getting a bit of there own medicine did they?!!

Utterly pathetic.

Very pissed off we didn't hang on more than anything because it would of pissed them off even more. Oh and where did the 5 minutes in the second half come from?!? 2 or 3 max.

As for us - the two injuries screwed our chances as in the 2nd I would highly of expected us to have revert to 442.

So you got lucky and unfortunately 3 points.

Pretty Average!?!?!?!??!!

Robson is without doubt one the most inept managers ever to have blighted the English game! The reason Robson gave a positive response is that no English clubs would EVER consider hiring him. But at least managing Thailand he doesn't have a player budget to waste!

seems like he wanted to do both jobs. Possible? im not sure.

Very unprofessional.

Amateurish loser.

Showing himself off in the club kit, before the present job situation is clarified.

I wish him the worst of luck, and I am sorry for the Stoke fans that might read this, as it is nothing personally.

Nothing unprofessional or amateurish he actually had permission from FAT to help out TP for 2 weeks when he was seen on MOTD etc.

So your dislike is probably misplaced.

Well he is officially the Stoke Assistant manager . . .

http://www.stokecityfc.com/page/NewsDetail...1792346,00.html

He seems to have been doing a good job so far - so happy it's all sorted!

BUMP and PLUG . . . .

. . .look at the eyes on that . . .

Also just to keep this post somewhat on track - I amusingly noticed a post offering to buy peoples Amboyna burl for the generous price of $6.50 per kg bizarrely posted Job Offers section - I hope that no one was stupid enough to sell any!!! The very minimum per kg price of Amboyna burl is $30 and commonly higher depending on the quality and number of eyes etc.

Although if anyone has any I'll offer you $7

I didn't really get into footie until I was 16 or circa 91 - I'd been too busy on off-road motorbikes from the ages of 10 to 16 to take much notice of football. That was when I first attended a Stoke game with a friend (although my brother had been a long time supporter already) and that was about it! Even though Stoke were at nigh on their lowest ebb it didn't bother me one bit - then Lou Macari turned up and the whole experience became way more enjoyable! Now 18 years or so later I am reveling in our latest success and infamy!

Wayne "I've never taken a dive in my life" Rooney did a fine impression last night

oh come on now boj, rooney didn't dive on saturday. what he did was pull the defender's shorts, kick him and then claim a penalty. it's an entirely different form of cheating.

Yep, you're quite right stevie. I stand corrected

Ahh yes the very same Rooney who last season at the Britannia purposely tried to elbow Abdy Faye directly in front of the linesman then tried to claim a foul then proceeded to tell the linesman to <deleted> off (about 2 metres away) because he didn't give him one . . . of course not a word was said to Rooney!

Stoke City = <deleted> football ... however, they will stay up.

It's become a retirement home for ex-Sunderland players. Please come back in January and sign Daryl Murphy and Nyron Nosworthy. They're really class!!

i've been having this argument with a liverpool fan at work who insists stoke don't deserve to stay up because of the style of football we play.

The point of the game is to score points - which makes quite a few teams shiter than us at the moment!

I think if the big clubs have their way, it would be more like figure-skating and we'd all get scores out of 10 for how poncy we can play football. Anyway, that might suit the suits supporting the big four...

In short fuc_k'em! It's all jealousy regardless of who it comes from - basically no one likes to play us especially at the Brit as they know they are going to be in for a hard game unlike many others who have been promoted all to often just roll over. I REALLY cannot wait for the Chelsea game. They are gonna be in for a shock last season at the Brit we didn't have Rory - sure we had him at Stamford Bridge and even then Terry and Cech were all over the place with the throws. Then throw Tuncay into the mix who'll hopefully play although giving his WC Qualifier exploits I think it might be from the sub bench.

We really owe Chelski one after THAT loss last season - I ain't been so depressed after a game of footie for a long time!!

Also I have to it is really good to Kitson actually producing the kind of form we were expecting from him last season! I was a big critic last season and as I said on this thread I was hoping Reading got promoted and he left permanently - however now his off field problems (whatever they of been) seem to be resolved and he is putting in a Stoke City style of shift on the field he is turning in the player I hoped he would be, his performance against the Mackems was fantastic not just for the goal but for the work rate and intelligent short passes and off the ball movement. This season he seems to be genuinely enjoying himself at the Britannia and playing for Stoke which makes a huge difference to last season where he just seemed to be sulking and generally arguing with team mates.

He even apparently refused to sign some player cards at training the other days as the pictures had him in a Reading kit - which is a stark difference to last season to say the least!!

I also have to mention Arismendi a 21 year old Uraguian International who is ball playing defensive midfield enforcer that we've signed from Nacional - a signing that came from completely left field. He certainly seems to have the pedigree and attributes (and yellow cards tally!) to playing in the english league will be interesting to see how he develops and how much time he get on the field.

Roll on Sat'dee! This weekend dragged by without proper footie!

Here is all the info you need:

http://www.thewoodexplorer.com/maindata/we779.html

According to that it certainly a softwood with a density around 470kg/m3 which is much the same as Pine. Even though that wood explorer strangely states it has a high termite resistance I'd consider it be very wrong! Pine wouldn't last 10 seconds left on the floor near termites and I wouldn't expect this to do much different!

So in short treat it as you would pine and you won't got far wrong.