williamgeorgeallen

think hot weather can have an adverse effect on battery performance. probably need to get one with good cooling measures to get the best mileage. i am interested in getting an electric plug in car but it seems limited range would be prohibitive. not so many hybrid plug ins around. bmw has one but the back up petrol tank in only 1.9L i just signed up to in interesting newsletter from plugincars.com which you may find interesting.

i went to koh samet a few years ago. some officials had been there the day before and wielded a metal gate across the warf where all the tourists arrive. apparently most or all of samet is a marine park and is not supposed to have buildings on it. guys cut the gate down the same day. wonder if there is not more to this. maybe bigger 'fees' are being demanded to keep these places open.

there is a side to the drug trade that many dont know about. if you are caught with drugs you can 'make bail' at the police station and never go to court. it is important if you are a druggie or a pusher that you have the 'bail money' so that you can get out if caught. 2 of my younger thai staff were caught with yabba at a motorbike police check point. i met them and their mothers at the police station and loaned them the bail money. i told them it was a one off and did not expect to see the money again. amazingly their mothers paid me back in full, i guess they were very great full to not having their sons go to jail for years. i doubt the police really want to get rid of the problem as it must be a good source of income for them.

second point is single mothers not having any way to get support from the father. choices have to be made. life working long hours on a farm or in a factory, or break the law selling drugs in the hope of giving your kid a better life.

i used to pay the cheeky philipino girl who works next door to go into jomtien immigration for me but it is so efficient i happily go in myself as they give such efficient service now. alot has changed over the last 9 years. hope the good general dosent get involved and mess it all up.

everyone gets morally outraged about this. this is nothing, you want to get upset about something get upset about all the single mothers in thailand who have no way to get no support from the father. who gives a f### about marriage and age gaps any more? way i see it if the 17 year old is consenting and as long as any kids they may have are supported then everything is just peachy.

Yeah, you try to impress your girlfriend and up in the slammer for 16 years.

Life's a bitch.

life is more of a bitch for those, through no fault of their own, are dead.

dont america get cheap cars and electronics for having america protect the DMZ?

sleazy idiot wanting to impress his girl by taking it too close to some island, then not coordinating the rescue effort. 6 months in jail for each death, sounds like a sentence from a court in thailand.

they respect nothing only MONEY.

So... like most people here then?

ah but the rest of us are not part of a cult who go around preaching how bad it is to be materialistic.

slow down. what was the point of killing the tiger cubs? they were kept in a freezer and may have been collected over a number of month or years. why didnt they get rid of them? they must have know wild life officers were going to raid them eventually, why didnt they get rid of them?

those tigers looked like they were being well cared for. i understand there were some allegations of tiger parts being sold for profit but at is also important to note tat these are endangered animals that are being breed to help keep the species going. hope they dont just 'vanish' like aot of other confiscated items do in thailand.

think the honda CRV was supposed to be very good with engine front wheel drive and electric engines driving the rear. not sure on the availability in thailand.

my girl (mine because we have 2 kids) drank like a fish while in and out of pattaya for 10 years. she said she did 52 shots of tequila one night working in her bar which i find hard to believe, think water was not so scarce back then. only saw her drinking once in the last few years and she looked like she was suffering the next day. not sure if that is the reason for her lack of drinking or because she is busy with the kids. most of the esan girls we get to meet get paid to drink so i would imagine a fair amount of them do.

arent thais supposed to be more innovative now? so use the same tuk tuk out fit as last year but make it different colours.

'still better than having to marry a ferang' (changed my tune since last post)

true love will ALWAYS find a way. 10 years in pattaya has turned me into a romantic.

Perhaps you could offer him his price. if he signs a long term contract and pays up front.

good ideas. so many places for rent. i wish i had not bought my condos now as it is so cheap to rent and it would have left me more flexibility. my friend has a place in paradise park, the tenant wanted a rent reduction and he said no. place has been empty for a long time now. tenants are hard to come by.

Funny looking water monitor, looks more like a baby crocodile

had a second look and you are right. i thought a water monitor could not raise its head up like that where croc can.

hope the girls sleeping there dont undergo any type of trauma. most thais are crazy scared of ghosts. many thais i know said they would not go to phuket because of the ghosts from the tsunami.

The closest affordable way to get there is;

• Set up a Thai company and get the maximum (45% shares) on your name.
• Thai company, which you own, buys the land and holds the land title.
• You'll need a few Thai partners to share the other stocks (55%) with.
• The Thai share holders can be restricted to have no decision making rights for undersigning documents, these rights are only granted to yourself as director. So you have the only rights to make decisions by yourself and with all this legal issued, you technically have the land title 100% under control.
• Yearly costs to run your company app. 500 USD. The whole setup should not cost more than app. 2500 USD.
• When you want to sell the land, you need to transfer only the shares of the company to the new owners, no transfer taxes to pay............ only minor costs to transfer the shares by lawyer.
• It will cost you small money yearly but it guarantees you holding your assets 100% under control even if struggling with relations or friendships.

I've lost valuable assets over the last 25 years in Thailand to so called ''friends for life'', I've been there and many others too. Life changes every day, we can't control the mind of others, neither their way of living.

Putting assets on friends names is a ''no go'' unless you are ready to give all away after all anyway. If you can't find a reasonable priced lawyer, I can recommend you one.

Do you know how many people have lost everything under this scenario due to forgery, etc.?

i have met several, often their wifes have forged their signatures and borrowed money against their house. court cases drag on for years. do a google search, one poor guy i met down in phuket lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in property when the mother of his 3 kids took out a small loan against his assets. happens again and again because people wont listen.

I know the case. It's a heart-breaking situation. And yes, I forget the exact numbers but basically the wife sold the houses from under him 52 million THB homes for what - 150,000 THB - or less)?

Actually here it is "...five properties, worth well over £1m ($1.5m)..." lost for a small loan. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34346620

i met the guy in person while waiting outside the court house in phuket on a different matter. he told me the whole story. was costing him 100 000thb each time he went to court and he was 3 years into the case which i advised him to walk away from, as he could not win. the loan sharks had taken his land and mortgaged it, the banks then took control of it. this was not just his friend. it was the mother of his 3 kids. cant trust anyone on these matters.

Venezuela should be a daily object lesson for the Western World. As Europe doubles down shoveling bad socialism after bad, and the US is forcibly choking on the Obama leftist/Progressive sandwich being forced down its throat, both regions also peddle amnesia.

Socialism/Statism poisons everything it touches. Venezuela is but one more horrible example of the impossibilities of socialism/despotism and it's inevitable tendency toward tyranny and poverty. In this regard Venezuela is an oracle for the West. However, it's not necessary to look to Venezuela's future, the past provides many examples of its degeneracy and bankruptcy and why it attracts inferior minds.

The situation in Venezuela has no similarity to social welfare programs in Europe of America. Apples and oranges. Also, America is not "choking" on the Obama leftist / Progressive sandwich being forced down its throat either. Americans elected Obama twice of their own free will because they wanted what he was selling. The economy has fully recovered from the 2008 financial crisis and now rates of uninsured are at historic lows. I'm not saying that all has gone smoothly but its gone pretty damn well.

the american economy is in extremely poor shape. interest rates are 0% when they couldnt lower them any more the government started pumping bailout and stimulus money into the economy to keep it looking healthy. eventually the money being pumped into the economy will run out, and debt servicing will exceed capacity. the number of homeless people and people on food stamps continues to rise. wealth is being transferred from the general masses to the rich. please read this article.

http://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1919092/dont-listen-ruling-elite-world-economy-real-trouble

The closest affordable way to get there is;

• Set up a Thai company and get the maximum (45% shares) on your name.
• Thai company, which you own, buys the land and holds the land title.
• You'll need a few Thai partners to share the other stocks (55%) with.
• The Thai share holders can be restricted to have no decision making rights for undersigning documents, these rights are only granted to yourself as director. So you have the only rights to make decisions by yourself and with all this legal issued, you technically have the land title 100% under control.
• Yearly costs to run your company app. 500 USD. The whole setup should not cost more than app. 2500 USD.
• When you want to sell the land, you need to transfer only the shares of the company to the new owners, no transfer taxes to pay............ only minor costs to transfer the shares by lawyer.
• It will cost you small money yearly but it guarantees you holding your assets 100% under control even if struggling with relations or friendships.

I've lost valuable assets over the last 25 years in Thailand to so called ''friends for life'', I've been there and many others too. Life changes every day, we can't control the mind of others, neither their way of living.

Putting assets on friends names is a ''no go'' unless you are ready to give all away after all anyway. If you can't find a reasonable priced lawyer, I can recommend you one.

Do you know how many people have lost everything under this scenario due to forgery, etc.?

i have met several, often their wifes have forged their signatures and borrowed money against their house. court cases drag on for years. do a google search, one poor guy i met down in phuket lost hundreds of thousands of pounds in property when the mother of his 3 kids took out a small loan against his assets. happens again and again because people wont listen.

please listen to the advice here. lease it, 49% company ownership, in a friends name, all bad ideas. fact that you want to save on lawyers, this will probably guarantee your loss. if you do it you need to find the best (which probably means the most expensive) lawyer recommended by some of their western customers. seriously only buy land here if you can walk away from your investment without feeling bitter, as this is what will probably happen.

i have been working in thailand for several years and i have a couple questions similar to this if someone can help me. i am living here on a O visa as i have half thai kids but no longer work. i will relocate to nz in a few years and will need to move some cash back with me.

first, can i show photo copies of my old work permit to prove where the funds came from?

second, can i use an ATM card to simply withdraw funds from my thai bank account when i am back in nz?

150 people on one of those boats? Seems rather a lot, and I really wonder if there were 150 life jackets.

of course the were enough life jackets. it was made illegal not to carry atleast one life jacket for every person on a public boat several tragedies ago.