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My wife will do her nose when we visit Bangkok for three weeks later this year. Clinics that offer this service are obviously all over the place so I'm keen to get some recommendations from people whose partners have had this done rather than take a lucky dip.

Any advice at all (e.g. cost, time to heal, complications, silicone options...) that you may be able to offer from your own experiences would be great.

Thanks!

Thanks ever so much for all of the information here. I've just been through, read it all and made a note of the websites mentioned. I was looking at the Pathumwan Princess but it's probably just over budget. The Baiyoke Sky Suite was a good price but on further investigation it looks to be a bit rundown. Ideally I'd like a 4* for 2,000Baht or less but not sure yet if that is possible...

I think I've tried all of the internal flight carriers' websites but I can't find an operator that goes to these airports, despite being almost certain that these flights exist.

Can anybody help please?

Thanks

I've just booked flights LON-BKK-LON for me, my wife and infant son. We'll be visiting in October and will spend a week in Bangkok before heading east to visit family.

Having done the cheap Banglamphu hotels/guesthouses we're keen to experience a little more of the high life (without going overboard) for our stay in Bangkok. We'd like to be in or around the Sukhumvit area.

Is it a case of Asiarooms.com or is there a better way to find a good hotel with a significantly discounted promotion/rate?

Would risking finding a room on arrival lower the rate that we'd be charged by booking in advance?

Would my wife (Thai) be likely to get a better rate if she phoned the hotel directly and made the reservation in advance this way?

They're quite general questions, I know. Perhaps somebody with direct experience would be able to share their knowledge with me?

Many many thanks in advance.

Hello,

I'm hoping to get a little guidance to help me plan a trip back to Thailand to introduce our son--eight days old today--to his in-laws later this year.

I've already arranged for his British Passport but I'm wondering whether I can get him a Thai passport too as his mother, my wife, is Thai? Is there some other form of 'registration' needed at the Thai embassy in London?

Will my wife have any problems leaving and/or re-entering the UK as she is still resident in the UK on an FLR visa?

Do I need a visa? As I understand I can get a thirty day visa on arrival but want to leave nothing to chance. Is there a possibility that the airline in the UK won't let me travel from London without a visa?

Thanks in advance for any help here. I'm looking into vaccinations separately, but if there's anything else that I may have overloooked then please let me know.

Hello,

We're due our first child at the end of the month and despite speaking directly to the Child Tax Credit department and the National Insurance department I'm not clearer as to where we stand!

My wife is a year into her FLR visa.

She has no NI number.

I'd like to know if anybody else in similar circumstances receives Child Tax Credit (not to be confused with Child Benefit)? I don't know if she/we are eligible and I'm also unsure as to what kind of hurdle not having an NI number will be. I'm told that you both need one to apply but can only get a number if you are actively seeking work which, being eight months pregnant she clearly is not.

Grateful for any help with his.

Thanks.

If you want to build the best wall for the least money then the first thing you need to do is to figure out why you want to build a wall and what functions is it will perform for you. Some people will think, "well its obvious what the wall will do...it will do this, that, and the other thing." Often however they are just parroting what a wall does and have really given no thought to whether they really need or want any of those particular features. For example: "A wall gives you privacy." ....but do you really need or want privacy? Maybe you do...maybe you don't.....do you like to walk around naked?....do you hate your neighbors? A good point to remember is that a wall will isolate you from your neighbors and will not only give you privacy but might give a thief privacy to do his job. I'm not wanting to go into all of this in detail...I'm just saying that you should consider what you want from your wall since you might really just want a fence, or a small section of wall with the rest in fence....I don't know, just a heads up.

Chownah

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I'm certain that I want a wall and I'm seeking some practical advice as to the costs and construction considerations.

Perhaps somebody with experience of having a wall built will be able to offer us some guidance?

Hello,

We plan to build a wall around our house soon and I wanted to get some advice on how much we should expect to pay.

I know nothing about wall building, although it would seem that we should build a cement wall (reinforced with steel) that is supported by concrete posts. There are blocks assembled between the posts like large bricks that are then cemented over giving a flat, smooth finish.

Firstly I would like to know people's opinions on the best way of keeping the cost down without sacrificing quality. I'm debating whether to pay for materials myself and then labourers on a daily rate or whether to pay a one-off total fee for everything included. I've been quoted 1,400baht per 'section' if we pay on a one-off basis. I don't know how long each section is although I believe it's a fairly standard method of wall construction. Does this price sound about right?

I want to also ask about drainage requirements, guarantees for work and whether there is anything else that we need to take into account before going ahead with this.

Many many thanks for any help that you may be able to offer us.

My wife and I are in London and we're now planning our first trip back to Thailand since leaving some time ago.

We're looking to find the cheapest fares for direct flights (Thai Airways?) but also some advice as to the cheapest times of year to fly. Also, is it cheaper to book way ahead?

We're considering returning around Nov 07 - Jan 08 although as this coincides with peak season (I believe) we may try to avoid it if it means a significant increase in fares.

Thanks for any advice that you may be able to give.

C&F

I'm just wondering what's happening at the Temple on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day? Has anybody been in previous years?

I want to get hold of a program of activities but there's nothing on their website that I can find. I'd be travelling a fair way so I'm keen to know if it will be worth the journey!

Thanks all.

naiin.com is in Thai but has an extensive selection of books online.

Thank you. They have an 'international' page written in English to, which will be a help.

http://www.asiabook.com/

thanks jing

Just bumping this up again in the hope that somebody can help.

Thanks

See also The Pregnancy Book: 2006 edition and Birth to five: 2006 edition

Cheers Vinny. You don't know any in Thai do you? I'm a bit peeved at the moment because we set up NTL internet on our set top box (a service that allows you to access the net on your home TV without the need for a computer) but it doesn't display thai fonts so my wife can't get any information herself!

Not a necessity, but an English site would be useful.

Thanks for the weblink, that's really useful

Thanks for the advice and your best wishes

We're over the moon!

It will be the first child for both of us and I guess we're as keen to get as much info as possible about pregnancy and childbirth in the UK. However, my wife could really do with as much info in Thai as possible. Could anybody recommend some good books and/or websites?

A concern of mine is that a Thai lady may need slightly different treatment to a British lady. Perhaps she has not had the same vaccines as Brits. Perhaps she should have tests for different things. Maybe she is not entitled to the same level of care as a British citizen. Will our child be considered as a British citizen and be entitled to all of the same rights as a child born to British parents? What about when we return to Thailand with our child?

These are just a few of the questions that spring to mind. I'm hoping that people who have had children in the UK will be able to share their experiences with us.

Exciting times.

Thanks

C&F

Hello,

We're living in the UK and I'd love to get my wife some recent multi region DVDs and CDs (we can't play VCDs here). The problem is that I've got no idea what the big films and albums have been in the last six months.

Is there a good source of this info (in English)?

Thanks

Worth pointing out that under the new commercial set up of Home Office visa section that getting an FLR stamp or similar transferred onto new passport from an expired one costs over a couple of hundred quid.!!

Absolutely disgusting! So each time my wife changes her passport (once she has ILR) we will need to pay through the nose for a 'new' stamp!?!

Somebody out there must have one!

Thanks all.

So it seems as though the cheapest mobile to mobile rate is about 17p per minute and that is gained by using the same 0844 access code as part of inclusive minutes.

Are there mobile-specific access codes?

I've got cheap access codes for calling a Thailand mobile from a UK landline, but I'd like to find a similar access code that I can use from my UK mobile phone (on the O2 network) whilst in the UK. I'm on a pay as you go tariff so I can quite easily swap networks if I have to.

Thanks!

Hello,

We're living in London and we'd like to buy a handheld electronic dictionary/translator for my wife to use to improve her English.

I wonder if anybody who either currently uses or has experience of them could recommend a model? A human speech function would be useful.

In an ideal world we'd be able to try some out in a shop and it would also be able to locate verbs with different endings, i.e. 'goes'. But we don't live in an ideal world, do we!

Thanks

C&F

Thanks Vinny.

That all sounds rather scary (what I understand of it anyway!). Is there any way to convert that site into into English?

Cheers