paulsingle

Is theft at night different from theft in the daytime? 

On 3/26/2024 at 11:30 PM, Hummin said:

Why on earth would you live in KK if no relations there? Do you have a partner from there? It is cooking hot there. 

 

CM is ok as a travel stop a few days, ut Chiang Rai I fell in love with.

 

If Im moving anyplace from Isan where we live part time, it will be to a beach city for my elderly days. 

My wife's family live in Khon Kaen. I lived in Phuket for 8 months but I prefer the more sedate life of Khon Kaen with occasional visits to Phuket. 

On 10/13/2023 at 8:49 AM, Irish star said:

Korat and KK are not Farang friendly, no English Not many Western Restaurants AVOID 4 years in Korat and always aboid KK I stay in Udon and NK only 

I like Udon and Nong Khai. Udon for the nightlife and Nong Khai for the countryside along the river. 

I speak enough Thai for basic conversation so English is not a requirement for me. 

I have lived in Khon Kaen city for a period of a few months and have made numerous annual visits. 

I have visited Chiang Mai briefly 3 times. 

I feel a great fondness for Khon Kaen but I appreciate that Chiang Mai has much to offer. 

I would like to hear from others who have lived in both cities what they consider the pros and cons of each to be. 

This is from a retirement point of view. 

8 hours ago, KhunBENQ said:

Quite sure. About 2012 a mate went to Kasikorn with his age old "Thai Farmers Bank" book and his account was not finally terminated. He got his new Kasikorn bank book.

And as you had 10k in the account the annual fee could not have emptied the account.

Thanks for that. I'll take my passbook into the branch when I get there. 

I WON'T use the passbook update machine like I normally did in case it swallows my book. 

8 hours ago, HappyExpat57 said:

Just spitballing here, but I recently read verification that Wise can only xfer to 3 banks in excess of 50,000 baht. Maybe Kasikorn can't accept a transfer of this ammount via wise and Wise erroneously reported the account closed?

I only tried to send 5,000 baht just to make sure it was still operating OK. 

I just tried to send funds to my Kasikorn account via Wise using the details already set up which I always used in the past. 

The payment was instantly returned and Wise tells me the Kasikorn account is closed. 

There has been no activity on the account for 2 years as I'm in the UK and there is a pandemic so I haven't been able to travel. 

I think I had about 10,000 baht in the account. 

Does anyone know if I will be able to reopen my account by going into Kasikorn when I get to Thailand in a couple of weeks time? 

21 hours ago, KeeTua said:

I think going into Immigration without a Thai person to confirm your address will be a problem.

 

This forum thread has a lot of good info including going from 2 year to 5 year:
forum.thaivisa.com/topic/1041254-renewing-5-year-drivers-licence-in-bkk/

Thanks KT. 

I see differing statements on that thread and they pertain to Bangkok. 

I will go to the Por Lor Bor in Khon Kaen and make enquires before I do anything. I'm guessing I will not be able to renew 5 months before expiry. 

I will be out there again 5 months after expiry so that may be another option. 

I will try asking them. 

Thanks KeeTua for this.

My wife and I are living in the UK at the moment but I'm coming to Khon Kaen in January for a short holiday.

My 2 year car licence and my 2 year motorcycle licence, both issued in Khon Kaen, will expire on 8th June 2020.

1. Does anyone know whether I will be able to renew 5 months before expiry?

I was planning to take mother-in-law to immigration to do TM30 registration as I did originally but will be staying in a hotel in Khon Kaen but not for the full 2 weeks of my holiday.

2. Does anyone know if I could skip taking mother-in-law to immigration and rely on the hotel registering me? I will be at Chada Veranda just next to Tuk Com.

I used VPN so that I could watch BBC iPlayer. NordVPN I think it was. Occasionally BBC would recognise one of their server IP addresses but it was easy to log onto a different server and get back into iPlayer. 

I've now seen the chanote. The mother is the only person named as owner of the property.

Mother and son are named on the loan documents.

I'm relieved for my wife's sake that her brother can not sell the house or borrow more money against the property.

They borrowed 630,000 THB about 6 years ago and all they have paid is interest. 

I think it makes sense for my wife to pay the loan off as quickly as possible because currently the payments of about 9,000 THB each month are only covering the interest. She can get the title transferred to her own name when the final payment is made.

On ‎7‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 2:17 AM, ballbreaker said:

The land chanote and loan documents are two different transactions. If the mother is only name on chanote then she is owner of land. The bank has a lien recorded at land office and on her copy of chanote which the bank keeps until loan paid off.

Most likely the son is just a guarantor of the loan in case parents cannot pay. You can verify by reading parents copy of loan documents.
 

Thanks for this. I've requested to see the chanote.

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 3:42 PM, jackdd said:

This is my concern. I want to find a way to prevent that. We will have to see if we can arrange to buy the property. My wife will use her own money so there's no risk for me and she would then have title to the property.

On ‎7‎/‎24‎/‎2019 at 12:34 PM, BritManToo said:

Thanks Britmantoo. She knows she has no claim to the property at the moment but doesn't want her parents to end up homeless so she finances the property.

I think we will aim to 'buy' the property from the brother for a nominal sum by paying off the outstanding loan at the same time as getting some agreement of sale or transfer from the brother.

He claims to want nothing from the property as none of his money has gone into it but we'll see what happens when it comes to the crunch.

3 hours ago, Lannathaijohn said:

Do what you would in your own country - arrange meetings with lawyers. The Google World makes this easy for you. 

Indeed. And I'm doing just that but also interested in hearing from people who may have experience or knowledge of the issue. 

My wife's parents have a property which they bought with a loan from the bank. I presume this loan is a mortgage but I don't know and my wife doesn't understand the process at all.

I am told that the property is in the mother's name but had to have her son's name (wife's brother) on the loan as well because the parents are too old to have a loan on their own.

My wife is paying the loan and the plan is to transfer ownership to her when the loan is paid off.

We worry that the son may attempt to borrow further from the bank using the property as collateral and we want to find out exactly who can borrow against the property and who legally owns it.

We also want to find out if there are any options to gain control of the property without first having to pay the loan off in full.

My wife and I are in UK so I imagine it would be difficult to get a mortgage in Thailand while living and working in UK.

Is it easy to find professional advice? We will be there, in Khon Kaen, in October and again in January.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

4 hours ago, Rc2702 said:

Fair enough but we had to find out the hard way hence the post to warn others they have changed requirements.

Many thanks for this. It reminds me of the troubles I had there last year. I will make sure I'm prepared if I go there for an extension this year.

As others have said, forward the email to [email protected]

You will then have confirmation within about 48 hours of whether it is a scam email or not.

They are getting more and more sophisticated and convincing. I've had about a dozen over the past couple of months. The reply is always as below:

Nice post. I'd love to hear more about the route.

What were the elevation gains like?

Where did you stay along the way?

Did you have paniers?

Was water always easily available?

I like your choice of tyres. I have Schwalbe Marathon Plus and have never had a puncture with them :)

Beung Kaen Nakorn is great for a walk around or a few laps with the bicycle. The surrounding roads are a little busy but drive carefully and be patient and it's fine. I like the market every afternoon/evening.

We like to go to Ton Tan market in the evening. There is a bar up on a platform where I like to enjoy a beer or two and survey the scene while my wife browses the market.

Our favourite local bar/restaurant is on Glang Meuang near the corner with Ammart. There are three restaurant/bars in a row. Very good food and very reasonable prices.

We also like one of the bars near Tawan Deang. Salad Bar.

Outside Khon Kaen you have Ubolratana. It's a lovely drive if you approach it from the southern end and drive north along the shore towards the wall. There are dozens of lakeside restaurants and I intend to hire one of the big party boats one day for a family day on the water.

We found a great badminton 'club' called Jayathip a few kilometres north east from the centre but still within the ring road.

I've cycled all around the ring road few times. There's such a wide hard shoulder and it's in such good condition that it's safe and easy to circumnavigate the city. Obviously early in the morning when it's not too hot and one gets to see some surrounding countryside and a bit of rural life.

My wife's parents live in Mancha Khiri, about 60 kilometres from KK so that's an ideal distance from my point of view. We can visit them regularly but they can't pop round to us. I've cycled there from KK as well.

KK has everything I could want. I'm a huge fan.

Oh, nearly missed the point - we lived just off Soi Ratchakarn. Close enough to walk to the city centre but we normally drove. This area is fairly quiet and easily accessible. Beung Thung Sang and the health garden are only just over 1 kilometre away and a pleasant walk.

My experience has been that learning the full set of consonants and vowels/vowel combinations has helped enormously. Wikepedia can help with this.

I don't hear very well so when I'm unsure of exactly how a word is being said I ask for it to be spelt in Thai. Transliteration can be very misleading.

YouTube has been my main teacher. Just search "learn Thai" and similar phrases and there is a wealth of very good free videos.

I try to remember to find opportunities to practice new vocabulary and phrases with my wife and her family or Thai friends when we're out and about.

I often check when my I learn new words from my wife whether they are Isaan or Thai words. Some Isaan words are completely different to their Thai counterparts. I ask her to please try and focus on Thai rather than Isaan but as we mostly frequent Isaan I do want to understand Isaan people so I pick that up too. I just want to try to make sure I know the difference.

I can read a quite a bit but I haven't learnt the consonant classes and associated tone rules so I can't tell which is the correct tone when I read a new word.

I think I'm now at "upper beginner level". I can hold simple conversations about everyday subjects but I can't follow the average Thai conversation.

1 hour ago, Paulie Paul said:

I've had the very same experience for some months now, to the very volume of alcohol as you. My tolerance levels got me so worried that i thought something must be wrong. I came back to the UK thinking my time in Thailand is over, anyway went to see the doctor who calmed me of the situation but still sent me for all the tests, blood test, liver function test and a kidney test, waited about a week and all was ok, for which I was shocked. Anywaygot talking to the doctor for which she explained, it's an age thing,but what was surprising is i have an underactive thyroid and many people who have this tend to have an intolerance to alcohol, so my advice my friend is have that checked, have a drink, thing of the good times you had with your friends, and can still have by the way ,and smile at the money you'll save. 

I've been back in UK for 2 months now and had 2 sets of blood tests. There appears to be nothing wrong with my liver but one of the test components  (urase or something? )

apparently indicated that I was dealing with an illness of some sort and this indicator had dropped from 700 to 500 between the 2 tests and I'm feeling better. 

I've cut right down on drinking and now have 5 or 6 pints a week, usually in one go. I have a slightly thick head in the morning but that goes away within an hour or so.

I've had a struggling thyroid for some time now but the doctor tells me it is still performing its function fully. It just requires more of a kick from the pituitary in the form of higher levels of Thyroid Stimulating Hormone  (TSH). This is being monitored a couple of times a year.

I've come to the conclusion that I've had some kind of bug which has cleared up and now its just age catching up that I need to deal with.

I will reduce my consumption a little further or spread it over a couple of sessions and enjoy life without making myself feel unwell. 

One morning I found a toad in my shoe on the patio. I was about to set it free when my wife took it from me and fetched some talcum powder which she applied liberally to its belly. She then blew off the excess powder and stared at the powdered toad belly intently. Apparently this is one of the methods of divining lottery numbers.