Bruce1

Can you PROVE that the earth is round, or do you just accept it word of mouth?

It must be working - five people I know have bought tickets to Phuket on Air Asia in the last 3 days.

Visiting friends and relatives generates up to half the tourism business in many parts of the world, so gee, I wonder why people aren't going to the LOS? Just can't think of the answer...

The Thai parents of my Thai students studying in Oz are telling them to stay away from the LOS for as long as possible. Some of my Thai students say they hope never to go back.

And that doesn't even get to other issues like political unrest, visa ripoffs, corruption, scamming etc.

Time for a major reality check for the LOS, I think.

It's quite common for properly designed surveys with 1000 people to have an error rate of as little as 2% so this survey could be broadly correct if it was carefully designed for factors such as age, background and geographical distribution to reflect the larger Isaan community.

I suspect if you took the same survey in many poor areas around the world the results would be broadly similar. Women would want a man who could give them a better life and treat them well. Nothing surprising there. Look at The Philippines for example. It basically exports a huge number of women, ostensibly as nurses or maids, to get the repatriated income.

Racism is certainly alive and well in Thailand. The Bangkok Chinese elite look down on their darker skinned neighbours in the north and south. You only have to see the way the country divided over Thaksin to know that is true.

Look at the models on TV and in the ads. They are all light-skinned Chinese types. Light skin is regarded as a sign of beauty in the Bangkok-conbtrolled media. I laugh because the models are often lighter skinned in the ads (thanks to Photoshop, I suspect) than the western women they try to copy.

If the Isaan women are happy to get older farangs who treat them well, and the farangs are happy to get Isaan women who probably treat them better than western women would, then everyone is happy, so what's the problem?

I think you're saying the same thing, basically.

You CANNOT just turn up at the airport in Hanoi (where we went last year) and get a tourist or other visa on arrival. They will deport you at your expense.

You MUST, as others said, pre-apply for the visa. Either a travel agent can do it or you can do as we did and do it online. You apply, pay, they send you an email after a couple of days which you print and present at the airport on arrival, to get your passport stamped.

I repeat, you MUST apply and get confirmation before you arrive so you can present it at the airport.

The officials are surly enough without making them crankier by turning up without it.

My opinion is that sex with children is ALWAYS wrong, no matter what the country. If the child comes on for sex, then that just proves they're been exposed to poor influences, it doesn't justify the adult taking advantage of that. The age thing is obviously arbitrary whether its 16 or 18 or what.

This teacher abused her responsibility to this boy. She should have counselled him, or got him counselling, not taken advantage of his accelerated interest in sex. Teachers, males or female, should never have sex with their students. That's my opinion, anyway.

Certainly a stupid change. Its not so difficult, so why can't they follow the example of the rest of the world?

1. Install a computer system which links all immigration offices to one centralised database.

2. Allow connections from any Immigration office.

Problem solved!

(But of course, I'm only a farang, so what would I know? Sorry...)

Bruce1's post is about an office in the NE with almost the same spelling.

I wonder if somebody at immigration made a mistake when they wrote the memo. I have done searches on this forum and the internet and can find no info for the office mentioned in the memo.

So maybe your wifes contact at immigration is right.

No, as I corrected myself up a bit, I was confusing it (sorry about that) with the Labor office in Nakhon Pathom. I didn't mean Nakhon Phanom at all.

Thinking about it some more, I may have been thinking of the Labor Department office in Nakhon Pathom. We also went to Suan Plu but I believe there is an immigration office at Kanchanaburi.

If it wasn't a teacher-student relationship, then probably not many people would care. But because its an official relationship she has abused her position of power. That's the basis on which she should be disciplined, not so much for the sex or the age.

I mean, if he was over the age of consent, say 20, it would still be an abuse of power by her.

This goes totally against the international trend to use computers and links to centralise record-keeping for the sake of standardisation, and then to have multiple access points for the convenience of users.

So, Thailand goes in the opposite direction to the rest of the world.

I predict this will result in numerous variations between the applicaiton of policies and procedures at offices. In about 12 months or so the tide of complaints about individual offices will be so high that someone will announce a centralization, and it will all be reversed. Based on my experience of the Nakhon Pathom office, which was an overcrowded and under-resourced shambles, the offices will have to lift their game to make this work. We always went to Bangkok. At least they had people who spoke English.

They should centralise vehicle registrations and licences nationally too, its stupid having them differ for each province.

If you roll up to a national park gate with your Thai social security card they are supposed to give you the local price, but sometimes they refuse to believe it. Get a Thai partner to do the negotiating...

Hope I'm not that full of myself...

I had a problem once when I paid to join a tour and sent my passport off to the travel agent and was told all the visa situation would be sorted. I got to the airport, the agent handed me my passport and there was NO reentry stamp. Fortunately the office which is apparently now closed did it on the spot. That would no longer be possible.

It taught me a lesson and from then on I made sure I always had a multiple entry permit to avoid a repeat of the problem. Once a year and 30 minutes. Easy.

QUOTE (Bruce1 @ 2009-01-15 19:58:14)

I have no problem with them locking up illegal entrants, but it would be nice if the new government adopted a far more realistic and welcoming attitude towards foreigners seeking to enter and contribute legally and positively to the country. After all, most of the crime in the LOS is committed by Thais, not foreigners, so they should put their own house in order rather than blaming foreigners. As for me, I don't NEED to live in the LOS, but I would like to spend time there, if I felt more welcome, which I currently don't.

So Bruce, you don't NEED to live here but you do WANT to spend more time here. Would you be willing to pay taxes here?

I lived there for three years and paid the taxes and made social security contributions and all the other costs of living and contributed to the society in various ways. It actually cost me money to live there, compared with what would have been my situation back in Oz. Financially, I'd have been better off not to have gone to LOS.

I don't live there at the moment, but would like to go back one day. I like the place and the people. Satisfied, smartypants?

The simple answer is to spend about an hour a year and get a multiple entry visa, which is what I did and all was OK.

The LOS isn't perfect (where is?), but I didn't find the Thai bureaucracy any worse than in other countries. All bureaucracies have problems.

I have no problem with them locking up illegal entrants, but it would be nice if the new government adopted a far more realistic and welcoming attitude towards foreigners seeking to enter and contribute legally and positively to the country. After all, most of the crime in the LOS is committed by Thais, not foreigners, so they should put their own house in order rather than blaming foreigners. As for me, I don't NEED to live in the LOS, but I would like to spend time there, if I felt more welcome, which I currently don't.

If they really want to revive tourism and attract foreigners they should:

• Offer a 12 month free tourism visa on arrival
  
• Introduce a Malaysia or Filipino style long stay visa system with real property rights.
  

Otherwise, they're just not serious.

Very sad.

Hope its criminal and not a political act.

I guess there's a good chance this is just the govt. trying to scare people into staying home by conjuring up an external threat, which is a very old political tactic.

In the same way it appears they're trying to make themselves look good by cooking up a reported 32 les majeste charges, including one against an Aussie Harry Nicolaides, who is currently in prison in Bangkok after beign refused bail. See here for more:

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/

These people are not threats to the monarchy I wouldn't think, but simply pawns in a power struggle, like a lot of other people.

Assuming the legal process is valid, it's a good verdict for the reputaiton of the Thai legal system. And it sets a useful precedent for the LOS to oppose T's attempts to gain asylum elsewhere. olpe the British Ambassador is taking clsoe notes for his advice to London.

The tragedy of T is he did some good with some mainly economic policies, but appears to have lacked the character to avoid the temptation to break the law himself. A very flawed character.

I see Warren Buffet has just invested some $5 billion in bluechip stocks, as a long-term investor, so he sees bargains.

I just sold my Aussie house for a 25% profit over 4 years. And signed to buy a smaller house at a 10% cut on the advertised price. My bank is behind me all the way. So its not all bad news out there.

However, America's debt binge may finally be coming to an end, which is long overdue. You can't lend to people who can't repay and expect to just keep playing 'pass the parcel' with the debt indefinitely. Sooner or late, someone has to drop the bundle.

As for politics, the American presidential election is rubbish and should be ignored. Neither McCain nor Obama can deliver on their promises. Forget tax cuts, forget big spending, they'll be lucky to get the budget back into balance within 4 years, after the irresponsibility under Bush.

By contrast, the Aussie Government has NIL (I repeat NIL) net debt, a big sum stacked away in a Future Fund and the Big Four Aussie banks (the National, ANZ, Westpac and Commonwealth) are in the top 20 in the world for being capitalised and having low mortgage default rates. Australia just led the way with a 1% interest rate ut and inflation is low, so we should ride out the storm.

Commodity prices have fallen because ignorant people think China's growth might slow as America stalls, but China's internal consumption is so great the predicftion is its growth will fall on ONLY 9%, which i s still huge. And the big Aussie commodity suppliers like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto have locked in their prices years ahead, so they'll be fine.

As for Thailand, if vehicle and electronic exports hold up and rice stays highly priced, the LOS should be OK provided the Thai banks don't fall over because their capitalisation is too low. How long do you reckon it will be before the Govt is forced to consficate Thaksin's frozen assets and use the money to prop up the Thai banks?

Interesting times.

Oh, and the Jewish conspiracy theories are ignorant rubbish. Grow up people.

I thought I read a while back that about half the money from the sale of Shin was locked up, but that could be wrong now. Still enough change to keep me happy for my life, were it to be offed to my bank accound (hint, hint).

Thaksin still hasn't been convicted of anything, you know.

I wonder if most of Thaksin's money is still frozen in Thai banks accounts, and how long it will be before the courts order it turned over to the government.

Once he's allowed into the UK and becomes a permanent resident, won;t it be easier for Thailand to seek his extradition?