lookforzeros

RIP

You could live in Cambodia on a business visa and make your money teaching online and taking on the odd private student here and there. 

38 minutes ago, JustNo said:

Thanks, I have been to Vientiane 6 times before this but I have never gone there for am ED visa. 

Just to clarify, you suggest that I get a number for the next day, so that I should not intent to go on Monday only to get a number on Monday for Tuesday? Kind of confused lol 

As UbonJoe says, you get a number on Monday and keep it to pick up your passport and ED visa on Tuesday afternoon. Only I got my number before I submitted my docs. The lower the number you get, the less time you'll wait on Tuesday.

On 9/22/2016 at 8:07 PM, The manic said:

Hi so girls will never be impressed by a Farang but bar girls simply do not care at all.

Easiest place to hook up with "hi-so" girls is back in your home country, once they've figured out everyone assumes they're a whore for being Thai anyway. 

Get there before it opens, i.e. before 8:30 if you can. Go straight to the official at the white table next to the seating area to get a collection number for the next day (if you don't get an early one, you could be waiting around for hours to pick it up).

Vientiane is a nice city to explore on foot on on a bicycle. You can rent a bike from most guesthouses (you don't need to be a guest) for about $2 a day. Cycling west along the river is very pleasant and relaxing, although the road becomes a dirt track so it could leave you with a sore rear end. 

It's a small city so you can pretty much see everything by bicycle - have a look at https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g293950-Activities-Vientiane_Vientiane_Province.html for ideas. To get to the Buddha park take bus 14 from the main bus station on Mahosot.

At sunset, you should definitely go to the night market to see the views over the Mekong. Alternatively, there is a restaurant/bar called Bo Pen Nyang on the road behind the night market, on the 4th floor. You can get a great view of the sunset over the river, there. That place gets lively in the evening with both expats and Lao nationals.

Good luck and please report back on your experience!

Thanks everyone. Sounds like a motorbike taxi is the way to go, then.

@BruceMangosteen thanks for the suggestion, but the gf is actually making her way back from work at that time.

I have to make some visits to Soi Mu Ban Phu Thara, coming from Thepprasit and returning around sunset. Unfortunately at that time, the GF has the scooter, so I'm usually reliant on my feet or baht buses.

Is it realistic to consider walking back the whole length of Khao Talo after sunset? A bit of internet research suggests that I'd be a nice target for both muggers and angry dogs. Is Khao Talo really that bad?

Any advice on getting from Soi Mu Ban Phu Thara to Thepprasit at dusk would be much appreciated!

On 9/14/2016 at 1:33 PM, thaibeachlovers said:

 

I have asked bargirls if they ever have a problem with violent customers and always had a negative reply. Obviously it was a very small sample among the thousands of bargirls in Pattaya, but who would have a larger sample without asking every bargirl available? I disregard anything an NGO puts forward because they have a vested interest in the whole "abused bargirl" story.

OF COURSE there are stupid morons that will attempt to have sex with a bar girl without a condom, that goes without saying, which is why the onus is on the bargirl to refuse. After all it's her life at risk.

Yes, bargirls do get beaten up, but IMO it's far, far more likely to be the boyfriend than a customer, and I never met a bargirl that wouldn't have reported a customer to the police if they had done such.

 

The idea that violent men go all the way to Thailand just to beat up bargirls for sex without condoms is, to me, absurd.

 

Do we even know if the girl in the OP was involved in the farang scene, or was servicng locals?

Pattaya, 'servicing' farangs. She was actually married, but estranged from her husband - a Thai alcoholic who used to beat her up. 

Well, I'll be marrying my girlfriend in the new year. She knows I've barely got tuppence to rub together and she said there's no point in bothering with dowry or 'sin sod'. Her parents have a nice house and sell the fruit they grow. On top of that, they have seven kids, each sending them 2,000 baht every month. So it seems a dowry is not always something that needs to be paid.

When I first read about sin sod, I think it was here on TV: someone said that an unmarried girl, with a university education, could command anywhere between 200-400K baht as a dowry. Well, she's unmarried and has two degrees and doesn't want a penny.

I'm not sure if it has any cultural significance, but she's Thai, not Isaan or Lao. I often feel that there are many cultural differences between Isaan and central Thailand - whether sin sod is one of them, I don't know. 

17 minutes ago, jay1980 said:

 

Sorry to hear of your girlfriend's friends story, I am not posting to be argumentative but one part of your post I do not feel is true is the part above. The drugs to treat HIV are now not expensive and very available, and Thai national's can get them under the 30 baht health scheme. There is a seperate dedicated building at Banglamung hospital that is open on Tuesdays and Fridays for this purpose.

 

Another very good resourse for anyone affected by HIV is here:

www.okwecare.com (website in English and Thai)

To the OP if your gf comes across any other friends in a simular situation she could pass on this information to help them.

 

RIP to your GF's friend, it is very sad to hear of someone dying at only 30 years old of a condition that can be so easily and cheaply managed in 2016.

Thanks Jay, that's definitely a resource I will pass on. I don't know all the details about my GF's friend, of course. Perhaps it was just too late. She spent her life selling her body, getting beaten up, giving away her money to people who eventually rejected her. Hopefully the health scheme and resources you mentioned will be able to help others like her before it's too late.

A friend of my girlfriend passed away at the start of the week due to AIDS.  She was 30 years old. She had come to Pattaya from Khon Kaen as a teenager to make money to send to her mother. The money she sent back set her mother and siblings up in a nice big, new home. When she started to notice she was losing weight and feeling sick, she went to a clinic and was eventually diagnosed as HIV+ and having developed AIDS. 

When she told her family, their response was awful - they called her a whore and told her to stay in Pattaya. they didn't want her bringing shame on them back home. They said she deserved to be sick for doing that kind of work. They told her not to come home. So she ended up in the care of an NGO in Pattaya. Of course, there are drugs which can prolong and improve the quality of life for HIV sufferers, even those with AIDS. But they are expensive, and this lady was now homeless and weak. There was no way she could get the treatment she needed. In her last days, she talked at the NGO to other working girls and urged them to take every chance to learn skills to get out of the game - speaking English, hairdressing and so on. There was nobody from her family at her funeral yesterday. 

8 minutes ago, alocacoc said:

I will go on the 12th September to Vientiane. Probably by Airplane. When you plan to go?

I'll need to go before then - around the end of this month, although I haven't booked anything yet. 

Hi, after reading through the info on this forum, I'm thinking about going to Penang and staying for a week or so while I apply for a new SETV. The only thing that is putting me off is the possibility of having to withdraw 20000 baht to show at immigration, only to deposit it again. However, my understanding is that this isn't asked for when traveling by train at Padang Besar, but it is usually asked for when entering by bus at Sadao. Can anyone confirm this?

If Penang turns out to be more stressful than fun, I might consider spending a week in Laos and applying for a SETV at Vientiane or Savannakhet. What would you do?

Further details: UK passport, one visa exempt this year, one visa exempt last year and one METV last year. 

2 hours ago, ClutchClark said:

How can the dead guy be called an erstwhile son-in-law? Other reports are he was only a boyfriend and that He was currently married to another woman and had a family.

 

Poor reporting?

 

 

 

The quality of reporting is awful. Perhaps they struggle to attract good writers, or maybe they are content with mediocrity.

I'm sure I've read somewhere that Jomtien Immigration doesn't allow people to extend until the very last day... perhaps the OP is in Pattaya area?

Thanks, I'll take a look at that one on Soi 6 and see if I can find a nice cafe.

Hi,

I've been wondering if there is a library in Pattaya where people can study, read etc? I read about a library off Thepprasit Road which is closed now, and found a thread about one on Soi 6 of all places - which must have been a wind up.

Is there one? If not, do students here just stay in their rooms or what?

Thanks in advance!

My mate who used to run a bar used to stream games which were difficult to get on his laptop and feed them through to the bar's TVs. If you don't have such a mate, you can watch it on your own laptop at home or somewhere there's a connection. For the play-offs, try www.freelivefootballstreams.co.uk, has worked for me throughout the whole season.

Any violence or threats of violence from the missus and she becomes the ex-missus.

I have a buddy who put up with his wife hitting him for 10 years until she eventually nearly killed him. He divorced her and emigrated to Thailand when he got out of hospital. I could see it happening to him again, though - he's emotionally needy and lets people walk all over him.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Such a pity that people treat a beautiful country like a dump.

Exactly the same as you. I've got a lot of reading done this month.

I live in Jomtien and quite like it here. There are some decent places to eat and I am an early riser so don't need nightlife. The thing I don't like about it is the state that the beach is in. From afar it looks like a beautiful beach, and it could be, but when you see it close up it's just full of litter.

I'd like to take a look at other beach towns around Thailand to see if I'd be happier living there. My girlfriend isn't keen on leaving Jomtien as she likes going to the malls in Pattaya and the anonymity of living in a tourist city.

Is there anywhere you could recommend taking a look at? Or are most beaches close to towns equally full of litter? Any advice is appreciated!

Terrible time of the year for long walks. You have the heat, the smog, and the fields are brown and barren. That being said there are plenty of great walks. You can go north up the canal road to Mae Rim and then continue on the road through Huai Sai that goes to the Prem School. There are plenty of places to stay in that area but the road is much more scenic north of Huai Sai, but few places to stay. There is the small secondary road that parallels the main road just east of the Ping, and there is the canal road further to the east of the 1001 that runs behind Mae Jo Univ. As for Thai dogs, just carry a walking stick. If you can get use to sleeping in temples then your options open up. And if you do then walk with a pakama tied around your waist or wrapped around your head and use that to cover up in the public bathing spots such as you might find in a rural temple or local village. OK, you also have to get use to showering wearing some Thai briefs, don't go try to wash in public going commando with just a pakama. It also helps to have crossed that Rubicon and use left hand discipline and be comfortable using a low rise commode while only using the bowl and water provided. Good luck, but really, far too hot to be safe at this time of year.

How does one go about sleeping in a temple? Is it free?

Cheap charlies exist the world over. But the worst are those who don't even spend money on themselves. I know such a guy, one of the richest in the very rich city that I normally live in, who has worn the same sports-coat for 20 or more years, who goes to an Old Folks' Home to play snooker on a Saturday morning between 10 and 12 cos it is free at that time, who freezes rather than turn on the heating. (I suppose in LoS he would melt rather than turn on the AC.)

But he does have one feature that suggests deviance: he has been spotted by a neighbour walking around in his house wearing a negligé. Yet again, that is an activity that costs nothing, except for the buying of the negligé at the charity store.

I'd say your friend sounds pretty smart, having invested in a coat which lasted 20 years and not blowing his money on fashion fads to impress people that know him.

The staff in my local convenience stores are honest, helpful and friendly in spite of the drunkards that come in at 6am, mouthing off, fighting and either trying to hit on the staff or mistakenly accusing them of trying to charge them too much.