KenUdon

base1

You can not generalise about these things. The licensing office I went to did not recognise a UK licence, and as they had never done a licence for a UK person before, they made me take a test.

Also, several insurance companies have also refused to be drawn on the legality of a UK/International permit, so you can guess what would happen if you tried to make a claim.

hahaha ... who is dum enough to take for granted all what the tv say? .. fox, cnn, whatever the channel, they report what they want and surely what thay can

or what they have to  

This is America, not Thailand you know!!

We basically do not care whether IMF will help us again or not. If Thailand economy suffer, the effect will not be an isolated sitaution only for them.

What will happen to all Foreign Investment in Thailand

They will learn never to invest in Thailand again!

What will happen to the other countries in this region that are closely link with each other?

That is why Thai People do not think about the Next Economic Crisis and whether IMF will help again or not?

They all know that they will not evaporate alone.

So, it is ok to chuck yourself off the cliff....as long as everybody is doing it??

Deputy Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, in charge of national security, has rejected the Singapore report, saying all necessary precautions had been taken and no detail overlooked.

VERY Reassuring!!.... ???

he milk of human kindness huh ?

The British Embassy could do with reading this forum, to find out just how worried THEIR subjects are.......but they are not known for their caring attitude!

JonnieB.   No, I used to live in Udon when I first registered here, but am still in Issan. Probably much the same everywhere.

Maybe he only wants you to have the extra 200,000 Baht when you go into his office, but not when you come back out.

TizMe...Like that one... ....Very likely!

I suppose it depends on whether the Thais want to maintain the status quo, or kick out all the cheap living long termers

MaiChai, you will find the answer to that in the new thread about Retirement Visa Extension.

At the risk of this thread getting blocked or deleted... AGAIN, here is my experience of renewing my Retirement Visa.

Last week, went to Imm. Office, (smartly dressed and smiling) to get the extension forms for my ext. visa due this week, and while there the Officer went through all the requirements on the list. When we got to the Bank account details, they were VERY insistant that this was important. Ok I said, no problem I have the required amount. "Well exactly HOW MUCH have you got" they said. I told them 850k, to which they replied that they would "PREFER" to see 1 Million in the account!!

Errr... exactly what do you mean I said??? Just that it "makes it easier" was the reply.

Ok I left that one, and said all I need now is to get the medical certificate. No no they said, you only need that for the FIRST visa. NOT when you extend it. Excellent news I thought........hahahaha

So, filled out the form, took along all that was required in the way of photos, letter from Bank, copies by the dozen, money etc.

Went back on the appointed day.

The place was very busy with a lot of very worried  and annoyed looking farangs, all trying to be very polite, but totally frustrated too.

It came to my turn, and sat down with the Imm Officer who went through everything, and said, "where is the medical cert?

Smiling beautifully, I said I didn't think I needed one, but they said, oh yes EVERYBODY has to have one of those. OK, "This is Thailand. No Problem.

While I am sitting there, every time another farang came in,  one or the other of the officers would say in a very loud voice "Thailand only wants RICH farangs here now. Many farangs can not stay in Thailand if they not have money"

There were many farangs there who had obviously not had the up to the minute info, but none of us appreciated being told that if we were not rich, we were not welcome.

The question being, WAS IT REALLY NECESSARY? to shout it out in an office full of already worried and frustrated people.

And if 800k is not sufficient now, is the "unofficial figure" to be 1 Million, or do we have to depend on whether the Immigration Officer gets up in a good or bad mood in the morning?

Before you flame this, consider that I DID get the extension, so this is not written in a fit of pique, but is an accurate albeit shameful account of the experience.

This Board, in allowing an email to be sent to members stating that 360 farangs had been arrested, and not having a shred of evidence to back it up is totally irresponsible, scaremongering, and in the present climate absolutely disgusting.

Combine this with the total lack of response from the Admin when asked to expand on this claim, there is total SILENCE.

This board is very quick to leap to Thailands defence when they see the slightest criticism of anything Thai, but are guilty of gross sensationalism in a matter of such dire distress and concern to many of their own members.

For me, this board has lost all credibility, and in the future, they must expect ALL of their over the top nationalistic everything Thai is wonderful postings, to be viewed for exactly what it is.

If one of the farang asked them their opinions of any other asian country I'm sure the response would be interesting.

We did actually touch on that slightly at the school. The general consensus (on the day) seemed to be:-

Burmese and Cambodians - Bad people! - No Argument, just bad!

Vietnam/Koreans - Want to be like Thais/Thailand

China - Clever people. Help Thailand a lot. (Look at Toxin)

Japanese - Rich, but not nice. (Same as farangs?)

Didn't know what to say really.

shouldnt be allowed to post.

just imagine if one of us put

interests - shagging as many women in thailand as i can.we would  be slaughtered by the thai apologists.or destroying thais.

there are also people in the south who do just want to do just that so please moderators do not allow idiots like this to post unless there is an apology first.

I will go even further to say that the mods should not allow NAMES like that to be used. It is very inflammatory.

if me and my friends were the powerful wealthy rulers of a country and we had invested money in the ruthless pursuit of power in that country the only thing on the agenda is getting our return on the investment.so how do we do this ?

we wack up the budget which is spent on industries we own and loan people easy money knowing full well that money will come back to us "clean". everything else is just smoke and mirrors.if the economy goes tits up so what we are still rich and furthermore can have the pick of anything decent left in  the aftermath that we dont already own.win win situation.

as for foreigners you have your uses but this is our playground.

over simplistic but you get my gist

Says it all I think!

When I started this thread, I did not intend that it turn into an "anti-American" diatribe. I am not American, and not anti American either, so have no axe to grind either way.

Certainly in the discussions at school, there was no specific reference to Americans, or any other nationality either.

I would like to add that the notion that farangs are judged by the actions of the foreigners in places like Nana Plaza, Pattaya etc and that this is where the anti farang sentiment comes from is probably not true in this area. It is hardly likely that the students here would have witnessed anything like that as there is really no comparable night life here.

There is more to it than that. It appeared to be a more media inspired bias - a result maybe of following the Govt. line as portrayed on the Thai TV and papers.

2. Is it going to be an AND or an OR arrangement for the financial qualification? In other words, if you can show the 800K baht, you don't have to show income; or if you can show the required income, you don't have to show savings. Obviously for people living on investments and savings without a pension, if it is AND, that rules them out. I read awhile back that some immigration officers in some regions (Chiang Mai?) intrepret this as and AND situation, even though technically the current rule is an OR.

You will find that although the rules clearly state OR, that many immigration officials will NOT accept income only, and require you to show money in the bank also.

plachon and taxexile:-

Two very very good posts there. A lot of truth to what you both say I suspect. It was quite fascinating to hear the many voices that spoke of "The IMF" I was totally unprepared for such young people to know anything about this, bearing in mind that some of them must have almost been in nappies then :0

This was one area where I did try to expand the converstaion as it has been so recently in the news, but it did seem that there was no reasoning on that particular point. The IMF was to blame for all of Thailands ills, and the crisis was only due to outside influences out of Thailands control. In fact Toxin appeared to be held in great esteem, because he had managed to rid Thailand of such an "unfair" burden.

The school is in a large Provincial city. The "audience seemed have been gathered from several different schools in the district and the ages were from 14-18. The school I spoke at was a large (1200pupils) mixed modern school in the city.

Yes I am somewhat surprised at the response, although the young people can not fail to be influenced by the general anti farang sentiment of the Govt now. The "debate was cut short at question time, as I think the staff sensed an embarrasing situation for me.

I was asked to give a talk on "Being a Farang in Thailand" by my daughters school. I told them also that there were likely to be less long stay farangs in Thailand in the future due to the recent new regulations. They didn't comment much until I asked them at the end what did THEY think of farangs in Thailand.

The overall response was that there were far too many farangs in Thailand now, and they would be better off without them. One even went so far as to say that "we don't want farangs here" (Think that must have been a relative of Toxins)

If this is the future generations thinking........mmmm???

when was a motorist there ever stopped for speeding?

snowwolf :- I have been stopped and fined TWICE for speeding out in the sticks, on a fast dual carriageway road. Once at 100kms/hr once at 120kms/hr. Both times I had to show my Thai licence, and one time when I had misplaced it, it took some very fast talking from my Thai wife to avoid being taken to the police station, even though the licence did appear in the end.

You can not pretend that what the Thais do, and get away with, will be the same for you. Try claiming on your insurance without a Thai Licence!! They will laugh at you.

d) The Thai authorities realise their mistake. The rules change

Greg :-It will be too late then. It will be a question of "face" and the Thais are not known for admitting their mistakes.