observer90210

On 30.06.2017 at 8:04 AM, thaibeachlovers said:

Excellent post.

 

Unfortunately, most Western girls are not marriage material due to strong child support laws, divorce-rape laws, alimony, and brainwashing under name of "equality" - a relationship with a farang girl is statistically likely to fail.

 

You have it nailed. I learned that the hard way after getting taken by a farang woman for almost everything I had.

 

Unfortunately my Thai lady was almost as bad, and sex robots will not be invented in time for me to avoid real women altogether.

 

 

Both your posts a very pertinent and well thought guys. Unfortunately, nothing new under the sun...it's all in the evolution genes.

In those lovely prehistoric days, when our ancestors lived in tribes, the busty young ladies chased the men who where the richest - that would be the Mr Flintsones who were the best hunters..it meant good supply of food, skin for clothes etc...you get the point....

Except in those ages, when the guy could not hunt any more, and the gal decided to shift into the next neighbour hunter's tent, there was nodivorce settlement!! ..

The correlation between ladies, money, a decent living is in human genes....now obviously, "evolution" has somewhat developped the dogma and there are the good gals and the venal mercantile types...and I agree, it can be quite hard to make out in the begining of a relationship.......just don't get married, and make things such that if the relationship ends, she leaves the condo or the pool villa and that's it!...may not be that simple, I agree

41 minutes ago, Crossy said:

 

I discovered 'Floyd sort of by accident when "Time" was used as the music for a caving programme called (IIRC) "Worlds Without Sun" of which I can find zero reference on the net. Drug induced memory? Perhaps.

By the time I was ready to cuddle and date, unfortunately the Pink Floyd gurus had split up!!...

But a few years back, went to see the Roger Waters solo concert...it was breathtaking  expensive!!  but no regrets!!...those were real musicians and not a the actual, talented, musical computer geeks who hit the charts with a series of clicks on music composing software. Sorry for the off- topic break!

7 hours ago, pgrahmm said:

The guy we had had 2 triple row height banks like they use ar concerts with 10-12 big speakers per bank.....

Kept bragging he'd spent over 100,000 tb on just speakers & nobody was going to tell him he couldn't use them.....

 

Insane....

was the chap's home electrical fuse box anywhere around handy and with easy access????

Appologies for silly question, let's assume a farang is doing alone some minor work in his own home mowing the lawn, minor carpentry, mionor maconery etc....would that also be considered as work by a corrupt official???,

As technically the farang doing such work himself, is depriving a Thai from doing that job?....sounds ridiciculous, but have seen worse interpretations of the law!!

2 minutes ago, pgrahmm said:

We lived between 3 villages.....

Fair enough and glad things worked out for all of you!

Maybe it means "you are hansum, so for you 200 THB for a nice, long, wet, slippery

bowl of pad thai"

4 minutes ago, pgrahmm said:

Other than listening to it in some parts of the states blasting hip hop & hate rap out of their cars for intimidation + cover the sounds of drive by shootings, car thefts, & breaking and entering Thailand is the loudest I've heard....

Use to have one neighbor 400 meters away that would shake the slab flooring & could be heard over a kilometer away on the back side of the speakers... Finally had him removed, with some help....

 

They can be excessively loud here with no regard for any type of curfew times....

I'm curious...what was the nature of the help obtained, to evacuate DJ Noisy Neighbour?

Well to speak with my modest experience, European Dance Clubs do tend to "pump up the volume" a bit...but usually the bass pumpin' starts around 02:00 am when the club patrons are well heated up and boozed!!.....Some open air concerts of festivals do the same bass pumpin', usually when the band plays it's hits that made the charts!!...but many a local law, puts the maxim output noise in public establishments to a max of around 95 dB, if I'm not mistaken....

As for private homes, many european countries have local  laws that restrict use of excessive noise after 10pm...those who infringe get a knock on their door from the local boys in blue with badges, plus a fine!

On 26.06.2017 at 10:06 AM, timkeen08 said:

Sometimes those little fleas make a swelling infection over a minor detail leading to an unrelated thread that is rarely funny, is usually iritating, is usually distracting, is usually meant to be sarcastically degrading, and sometimes just so hard to stop scratching. They seem to gather in groups and jump at you one after another at any and every opportunity.

I will not comment on what I think about the way that some moderators moderate or themselves troll. Some moderators seem to be very good and very fair at what they do.

Why doesn't TVF make a forum just for fleas to jump around on each other and leave the rest of us alone? If you want a laugh just click on that forum.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
 

Very true and well said.

One could also tend to believe the little fellas who jump and bait on posts like a bunch of farm dung flies either with rude catty comments, racism, quotes taken out of their context or not fully cited or questions aimed to discredit posters........., these chaps perhaps just despicate that others had something to say, and themselves not as they did not think of it first????

On 28.06.2017 at 9:39 AM, janclaes47 said:

 

Then explain to me why 4 remote controls valued at $20 total on the accompanying commercial invoice, and shipped by DHL to Thailand, were withheld by Thai customs and valued at $100.

 

Since I disputed this valuation I was asked to provide proof of payment for the goods.

 

There are many examples posted on this forum where Thai customs don't accept the value declared on the invoice.

 

hum...so it seems that the best option is to carry your shopping stuff with you in your own luggage when flying back to Thailand?

If the corrupt Thai customs don't accept the invoice, an alternative if they make a fuss and refuse to give your stuff without a large tax fee, could be tto go to their office and destroy or see the goods being destroyed in front of you??....and if possible to have a body cam to film the corrupt thieves?

Culprits came from across some obscure border, swam upto the island and manipulated the girl(?) to suicide...case closed, next!

More seriously, looks like it's a majority of women?

Is it not about time to start purchasing decent "CSI Crime Scene Approved", DNA  Investigative equipment and training, instead of US Made Military crap?

5 minutes ago, Chou Anou said:

Thanks.  Yes, I realize the language thing is a tall order, but hey, if one is going to live somewhere...plus, for the most part (yes, I know there are exceptions), Thais appreciate an earnest effort on the part of foreigners to speak their language...it really does go a long way.

very very true and who would not appreciate? Immagine an Asian tourist loudly asking us something in a Chinese style language, on the streets of some European capital? ..

I noticed in In Spain, sometimes even the locals who speak your language, (either english, french or german)  will pretend not to understand until you utter a few broken words in spanish ....then after having said "no comprendo"...suddenly you will notice them responding in your languguage......(not all are like that, but I did notice this phenomena quite a few times in Spain)...and so on....dynamics of human nature seem to have gone global.

8 minutes ago, tropo said:

I use a cheap printer, but if you buy one make sure you use it often as the printer heads dry out if it's dormant for too long. I'm on my 4th printer now.

My dear friend you just resumed years of my frustrations with the home printers drying up as I naturally prefered to print out the online manuals with the printer at office!!

Solved the issue in investing in a laser printer...the stand by for the ink is unbeatably longer and no more issues with those damm ink holes drying up....the cost is a bit higher for the toner when they need change, but as the prices drastically plunged for these laser wifi printers and the toners in Europe, decided to purchase one 5 years ago and never did I regret it...Ultimately, it perhaps would be cheaper on the long run in not having to replace regularly the dried up ink jet cartridges or what so ever...

17 minutes ago, Chou Anou said:

1) Accept that as a newbie, you WILL sometimes pay "farang prices"

2) Keep things in perspective...50 baht is $1.47 USD, 500 baht is $14.70 USD, etc...i.e. don't lose it over getting "taken" for a tiny amount of cash

3) LEARN TO SPEAK THAI (yes, I know it's a slow process and an ongoing project, but if you're going to live in Thailand, begin as soon as you arrive)...knowing how to speak Thai well will not save you from paying "farang prices" on all things, but it will help with a lot of them

4) Always be polite and respectful when dealing with Thais in money matters.  And please don't say, "but they're not always polite and respectful, wah-wah, blah blah..."  You are a foreigner.  And you have a reputation as a farang (aggressive, crude, loud, quick to lose your temper) that it's YOUR responsibility to overcome.  

5) Learn the "real" prices of things so you can bargain accordingly, and be able to "choose your battles" (getting overcharged 50 baht is a lot different than getting overcharged 5,000 baht, etc.)

6) LEARN TO SPEAK THAI.  And make sure it's polite, and formal when necessary--not just "bar girl Thai"

7) Learn to accept the things (admission to state parks, temples, etc.) that you're just not going to be able to "pay the Thai price" for

8) LEARN TO READ THAI.  This will help more than you know, because sometimes prices are posted differently in English and Thai.  And trust me, if they see you've gone to the effort to learn to read Thai in order to know the Thai price, they will be impressed, and give you the Thai price (as long as you're not loud and arrogant about it...see item number 4)

Very sensible and useful recommendations, dear fellow poster!...Learning to speak fluently as you say is quite a lenghty process.

In the meantime, I always use a google translator in my phone and tweak out the phrase required in Thai. Some locals giggle but it remains friendly...nevertheless, it definately helps to get a buck less here and there, and more important they appreciate and respect the try.

Numbers are bit more tricky for non Thai speakers.. as you need to guess the figure and input the number in our usual indo-arab figures, in order to get the thai translation number and need guess if it's correct...guess it's good to start to learn the thai numbers first and it won't be such a big deal from 0 to 9!!

I like your non colonial approach to the whole issue. One could not abide more by the fact that the farangs, those who are the loud, drunk, arrogant, crude or impolite types,  tend to give a disastrous image for all of us and leaves a bad check for the farang expat communities. 

Just now, tropo said:

They helped him fill in the form and get the correct photocopies from his passport.

 

I applied for the same extension today, but I had used the "fillable TM 47 form" available on Thaivisa and printed it out at home and photocopied the necessary passport pages myself.

 

It only took 10 minutes. The trick is to go midweek late in the afternoon. Everyone thinks you have to go early and by late afternoon the officers have nothing to do and they're just sitting around playing with their phones.

Good Tip, that I'm sure will be very useful for those in need of the formality!...I think I will invest in a photo copy machine as it seems as vital  in Thailand as the a/c!!!

5 minutes ago, CutiePi said:

I didn't get a visa but an extension of stay to my non-immigrant visa. I think it was just not crowded...no line at the "retirement" desk.

ok thanks I added "extention" to my post....enjoy your (extended) period of stay!

5 minutes ago, wgdanson said:

Do you mean the photo copy shops, not the Visa agents.

 

cannot say, better ask the concerned

sad....very sad...due to the corruption and dishonesty of a bunch of thieves, society gets more suspicious....it will end of with people dying on Thai streets with no bystanders stopping to help....shocks our western attitudes where such accident scams are rare, but does happen a bit to often with the Thai boys in brown outfits and their golden wings, who condone straightforwardly "guilty"  the farang! Obviously cannot generalise, but it happens.

very good and congrats for your visa extention!!.....looks like if you use one of the "accredited visa shops" near immigration, the process seems to be faster?....some sort of accredited split of the cake?

sad world...

Who is worse? A Thai or a Farang girl?.....

Tempted to say neither...but also both can be as bad, if one is stupid, choses the wrong types and makes the usual mistakes,  especially at the start of the relationship!!!

why not just send your chesty Thai cutie GF to negociate or purchase and you'll get the "Thai price??!!!"

Usually as per customs regulations in many parts of the world, the seller is required to include a commercial invoice inside the package.

And if there is no invoice or declared value in the parcel, why not ask the seller to email you one?

The best bank would be a bank not taking a banking fee, that is not making you pay just to give them your money!!...in other words, no annual banking fee just to have an account, with a , monthly or annual statements, and provide basic writing skills to write the immigration letter to justify funds for the visas!!!...

Second, no fee to have an ATM card or a Debit and/or Credit Card...

Third, hassle free reception of funds from abroad without exorbitant banking fees for receiving the funds...

Fourth, english online banking available with easy steps to pay bills or transfer money to other accounts in Thailand...free of charge if possible?

I doubt that such a bank would exist in Thailand?...

Proving me wrong, would be my pleasure....so in the meantime, the big part of the grub remains in the bank here that does all of the above for free !!!...

Pity...if the Thai banks woke up a bit, they would get substantial cash flow  in offering such services without the regular ripoff hidden fees and hassles....

2 minutes ago, fishbrando said:

These taxi drivers don't yet seem to realize that they have competition now.

 

I won't be shedding much of a tear for them when they lose their business.

absolutely, and the tuk tuk crooks, as well!!!