Michael W

Micael W:

"I also pay for food... and female crap (lotion, powder, cream and more lotion, powder, cream)"

But to be perfectly honest, I find it a bit infantilizing to take care of a grown person who is totally dependent for all of her needs. I mean no disrespect, but I've also found on many occassions that it is almost impossible to have an "adult" conversation with some of these women when they are out with their (farang) men, because the guys start behaving as if they must shield her from every single comment that has not been tailor made for her ears; fcking ridiculous.

Well, I can only speak for the relationship I'm in, and as my girlfriend pretty much runs the apartment in terms of deciding what groceries to buy and what we'll be eating that night to what clothes I'll be wearing, I'd hardly call her infantile in that regard. And as far as how she gets on with parents, family and friends, well it's all in Lao Isaan so I can't relate a lot of detail except she can be quite firm when the occasion warrants. Also, my feeling about the allowance I provide her is to in fact instill and nurture independence in her, for, again, the money I give her is entirely her's to decide how to use, including to provide for her to a degree if and when we ever break up.

As a result of many threads on this forum, I'm just wondering how come so many of you guys are so willing to financially support Thai women & their ENTIRE families when you were so adamant that your previous western female partners had to go out to work and contribute to the debt-ridden society that you had become so accustomed to...... and now you can't stand a bar of us?

Actually in my case it's really quite simple. I provide my girlfriend with a fixed allowance (500 baht/day) which she's free to do with as she pleases. As I also pay for food, rent, utilities, clothing (Pratunam), an occasional phone card, movies and other entertainment, her kaw neeo fix, and female crap (lotion, powder, cream and more lotion, powder, cream) the intent is that money should go into pure savings.

Unfortunately she also let slip to her family about the allowance, and the amount, and they, particularly her father, have steadily drained it from her almost as fast as I've given it to her! She's now finally gotten it into her head to put them on an allowance! She's told her father she'll only give him 4000 baht a month, paid fortnightly. Hopefully she'll start building up a savings now.

One of my girlfriends had one injection only. Her period started two days after (was not supposed to) and lasted for two weeks. Her period was soo heavy she couldn't leave her home. She finally got the doctor to see her told her there was nothing he could do about it. Her period finally stopped after the two weeks only to start again about eight days later while she was laying in her boyfriends bed after they had had a very lovey dovey time when all of a sudden a heavy swoosh of blood saturated the sheets and his bed.

From what I've read that's fairly normal and roughly matches what happened to my Thai girlfriend when I first put her on the injection (depo-provera). In her case before the injection we had unprotected sex and I thought the prudent thing to do the next day was to take her to Bumrungrad both for emergency contraception and the injection. The EC was a few pills she took over a couple of days while the injection happened at the hospital. I was advised by the doctor for the next week or so that I should either not ejaculate inside her or use a condom until the injection kicked in, and I did the former. I also asked him about any harmful side affects and he was pretty reassuring saying Thai women haven't had problems with it and it's been used here for forty years.

Well everything went fine for the next three weeks after which I had to return home to take care of some business for a month. Maybe a week or so after I'd left her period started again and continued, at times heavily, for the next two weeks. Needless to say, my girlfriend was quite frightened by this as she'd never been on birth control before, and all I could do was try to reassure over the phone that from everything I'd read this was a fairly typical reaction to the first injection, and that she could also go to a clinic and talk to a doctor, which she did, or started to. She spoke with an assistant who said that wasn't a lot to do at the moment and that the doctor wouldn't be able to see her until some hours later in the evening. She made an appointment but never went for whatever reason.

Anyway, after her period finished, it hasn't come back, for four months now -- also completely typical from all that I've read -- and she's now on her second injection.

I'm looking for some quality pizza in BKK (as opposed to Pizza Company, Pizza Hut, etc.) So far the only suggestion I have is from a few years ago to try Paparazzi's restaurant on the second floor of Chateau Du Bangkok on Soi Ruam Rudee (a five minute taxi from Nana Skytrain). Anyone been there recently or have any of their own suggestions? Thanks.

1. You do not need a return ticket to obtain a visa to Thailand at most Consulates, including Penang.

Thank you for your reply. My only data point on this (other than Web sites saying one was needed which I don't have the URLs handy for at the moment) is my own experience visiting the Thai consulate in Jakarta early last December. I presented my U.S. passport and asked for a visa application and, in giving me the form, the man asked if I had a return ticket out of Thailand. When I said I didn't but planned on purchasing one later in Bangkok, he said sorry I could not apply for a visa without a ticket beforehand. He was quite courteous and the place wasn't busy at all so I wasn't sure to what degree this policy was enforced at other consulates.

I need a little clarification on tourist visas, please. This is what I come up with for a six month stay travelling from Bangkok. Is this correct?

5 30-day visa runs: 5*1600 (thaivisaservice.com) or 5*2000 (jackgolf.com) = 8000 or 10000 baht

1 60-day double entry visa: 2000 (60 day double entry visa fee) + 1900 (first 30 day extension) +

1600 or 2000 (second entry visa run) + 1900 (second 30 day extension)

= 7400 or 7800 baht

However, for the 60 day visa, in addition to the above there's also an airline ticket out of Thailand (or tickets in this case?) that must be presented during the initial application. Is this strictly true in general for all Thai consulates in all countries, or in practice is, say, Penang different from Jakarta, or Phnom Penh from Hong Kong? If I should plan on consistency would I need to buy a throwaway oneway ticket to, say, Singapore on AirAsia or some other low cost carrier for a flight during the second month and then another ticket for a flight during the fourth month?

If this cannot be avoided then that's another 2000 baht roughly or only 200 to 600 baht cheaper than 5 Jack Golf visa runs. But 1400 to 1800 baht more expensive than 5 Thai Visa Service runs.

The other advantage of the extended 60 day visa is instead of the hassle of 5 essentially all day visa runs you instead have the hassle of the initial application and consulate visit, two visits to the immigration office for extensions, and only one all day visa run.

Do I have this basically right, or am I missing something. I've already considered making one of the airline tickets a round trip (for another 1000 baht) and using one of the flights to Singapore as a visa run but that means a round trip ticket that leaves and returns on the same day (if you want to avoid adding on Singapore transport and hotel costs) and since the ticket date would be at the end of the first planned 30 day exension, and be roundtrip, I'm not sure if a Thai consulate would accept it during the application.

Anyway, enough of this, how does it actually break down, in practice? Thanks.

With my girlfriend's urging, I've been kicking around the idea of setting up a sewing shop, i.e. a small, stereotypical 'sweat shop' (though I certainly will have proper and humane working conditions!) with maybe eight sewing machines each operated by a Thai girl whose job is to contribute to fulfilling orders from various clothing manufacturers.

My girlfriend has a far amount of experience doing this kind of work, hence she's very confident about the success of the business with her playing a major, perhaps leading role in the nuts and bolts management -- perhaps even running one of the machines as needs be. To her, about the only variable of any concern is simply finding enough sufficiently skilled and hard workers to keep up with the orders. As the one who'll put up all the money for this venture, my concerns are a bit more wide ranging.

Beyond finding skilled workers -- my girlfriend says she has enough contacts both in Bangkok and back in the surrounding area of her Isaan village to be able to recruit a sufficient number -- there's securing orders, renting a shophouse, and furnishing it. It's the furnishing part, specifically with industrial grade sewing machines, that for now has given me the most pause.

For now, I'm only considering second hand machines. And apparently, according to the stitch work, there are different models you need. Some run between 5000 and 7000 baht, with the advanced ones costing 16000. She tells me I'll need two of these, with the other six (if I'm trying to set up an eight girl shop) being the cheaper models.

I've as yet not done any independent research. I've simply gone on what she's told me and together we visited a shop where a friend of her's works and I tried to get as many of my business questions answered as possible, though the language barrier was rather limiting.

From the numbers I ran, this business has the potential to net at least 75k baht a month without a huge amount of hard work, after the initial startup, on my part. I guess my basic question is does going into such a business sound as reasonable as it does to me, or am I in my naivete and general ignorance missing something obvious?

When I let my paranoid and suspicious mind rear its head I immediately assume it must be a scam. Another case of a bunch of semi-literate Lao Isaan taking the stupid farang for everything they can, in this case 80k baht for a bunch of worthless, broken down sewing machines. Of course I have absolutely no good reason to suspect any such thing -- except for my few blocks of experience in Thailand and the horror stories I've read.

The other aspect of this, of course, are the legal issues. I've only at best taken a cursory look, and this was in another context some time before, but I think I understand that I can't own more than 49% of the business, so I'll have to find some sort of, maybe paper, investors or shareholders. And if I want to be at all active in the running, I certainly can't do this on a tourist visa. But in terms of a business visa and work permit I have no idea if an operation on this scale qualifies, and I have no intention of going around the law if I can at all help it. So I guess I should also look into getting a business lawyer.

Anyway, whatya think? Should I take the plunge or not? Thanks.

I've been using CSLoxinfo ADSL (1 megabyte connection) for the last couple of months with reasonable satisfaction. One thing I haven't been able to puzzle through (and my one attempt at calling tech support on didn't go anywhere) was setting up the firewall for some Internet apps (WinMX, Azureus, and an FTP server). Neither the setup program nor the manual cover this explicitly, but in following how I did this for another firewall, I went to Advanced Setup -> NAT -> Edit Virtual Server (my NAT translation is already set to 'Many to One'). From the Virtual Server screen I added the ports I wanted to open and gave the local 192.* IP as the IP address. On my previous router, a 2-Wire, there were both TCP and UCP port settings. On this Billion router I don't see this. Anyway, after doing all this, I'm still not getting any of my Internet apps to work. My suspicion is there's something else to set (perhaps on another screen) but so far I haven't been able to find it. Anyone been able to do something like this on this router or a similar Billion model? Thanks.