CbrLad

The sport question was pretty stupid and short sighted. I answered it correctly, cricket, but who is to say that the other sports are not popular. In many ways they are popular, just not mainstream. So it begs the question what has that got to do with the price of eggs, of weather someone is suitable for Australian citizenship? The whole thing is a load of rot. Oh I got 19/20, I failed on the number of Aussie states. Should have counted them in my head first, but that is hardly the point.

You know although a lot of people say the more info you give the better, at the end of the day for a tourist visa more info just makes processing that much harder (more stuff to wade through) and if anything probably pricks up the ears of those who make the decisions.

For a tourist visa, the important things are a compelling reason to go home and proof of money to fund the trip or a sponser to fund the trip. You don't really need to prove any form of relationship (as the guy above has shown after 3 months he got a tourist visa for his GF), so pictures, phone records etc are a little over the top.

Now if the app was for a settlement visa then I could understand the more the merrier view.

Contrary to what some think the use of nicknames for Thai's didn't come from the fact they are easier to say. It might be the case for non Thai's but for Thai's it is their language and not so hard to pronounce.

I read (I think it was in the Thai Airways Mag) a year or so back that the practice started because of a belief that there was a sprit that liked to steal children that had good propper Thai names. To fool the sprits the parents gave them simple, some could say silly nicknames, a tradition that still exists today. I understand that it is quite common for a parent to give the nickname at birth and their propper name is often given by a local Monk later.

Oh my ex G/F's nick is Ning (still not 100% sure what that means) and her real name Sukanya, which I understand means beautiful flower.

Dear holier-than-thou-oh-the-moral-outrage-of-my-taxpayer-dollars-ill-spent crowd:

Get off your hypocritical high horses and stop pretending you've "never ever" been to Patpong or similar. It's standard tourist fare and your protestations are pathetic.

Guess your missing the point. Not many people claiming to be holier than thou, and i bet this guy is kicking himself for being such an idiot.

At the end of the day, if ur in govt / a celebrety etc, you dont have a "private life".

Thats the thing he is not in government and he is not a celebraty, although after this he may well be. He is a pen pushing civil servant. People in Government are the pollies not the servants. Yes he would come under closer scutiny being a representative of Her Majesty, but he is in no way compensated for that scrutiny. It is his discretion that is the problem, not going there in the first place. Now if he was the Ambassador, then maybe yes, but see most Ambassador are political apointees and not true civil servants.

And no I am not one now, but yes in a previous life I work as a 'public' servant in the Australian Defence Dept, but now working in a non public service job in the UK for a Telco equipment supplier.

I just have a deeper sense of standards that says to me, that these people sign up for these roles, and are very well remunerated to represent their countries, so should be on their best behaviour, at all times.

If they aren't prepared to do so, then they shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. From the perspective of governence and government, why did I pay 17.5% VAT + a high marginal rate of income tax in the UK so that I could fund some blokes naughty nights out? NHS waiting lists, lousy transport etc etc etc come to mind back in the old dart.

At a more serious level, doing things like this can sure lead to being put in positions where you potentially could compromise your nations security interests?

Maybe I've just watched too many episodes of the west wing.

He is a civil servant not a pollie. Your 17.5% VAT plus income tax, sure it goes to pay his wage, but you are only paying him for 8 hours a day, not 24x7. Diplomats are just normal people, in fact they are just normal civil servants who are doing their job away from their home not in central London or elsewhere. Sure out of hours they are still representatives of Her Majesty but it doesn't mean they should be hung for doing things everyone else does. The silly thing this guy did was doing the blog in the first instance and identifying publicly that he worked in the Embassy, going to Cowboy and going with Bargirls is hardly a capital offence.

Oh A friend of mine worked for an embassy and he assured me the scutiny of diplomats sponsing visas is higher for them, for the reasons of public perception. Oh it said he worked for the Political section, in that area he would have nothing at all to do with visa's, belive it or not embassies do more than issue visa's, replace passports and provide consular assistance.

In my experience you get for what you pay.....cheap tailor sometimes means cheap and bad quality materials. Check materials always and ask if he has better (the price will change with those materials under the table).

So true, even though they are made in sweatshops somewhere else, the material comes from the tailor. Poor quality material=poor quality shirt or duds, or jacket or what ever.

I think it also depends on the environment of the bars. If your talking university bars in the West, you may find your sweetheart. If your talking bars/clubs in Thailand, you probably won't. One difference with Thailand and other countries like it is that it is not culturally acceptable for girls to hang out in bars. Therefore, most of the good girls that are marriage potential you will not find in the bars/clubs in Thailand. In the West where it isn't so taboo for girls to hang out in bars/clubs, you have a better chance to meet that special one. Unless a skanky whore is your type, a Thai beer bar is not a place to meet the future wife.

You kind of hit the nail on the head there. MOST bars where western guys will hang out in LOS the girls will be prostitutes. I wouldn't go as far as to say they are skanky whores though, many, from my experiance are very nice girls and if you met in a different enviroment you might have half a chance of happiness. But if you start your relationship based on paying for friendship and sex then you have already lost one of the corner stones of a good relationship.

I was with a bar girl for a good 18 months, but it turned bad because of money. I never used to send her money, I really don't belive in it if the girl is working, I know no matter how much I sent she would still be hawking the fork, so what's the point. When I came to Bangkok which was about one week in every 6 I gave her (paid?) maybe 10-15000b which is what she would have earnt in that week and to pay the bar, which I think is fair, but it all turned to shit when she started to get greedy. She now has a 65 year old boyfriend who takes real good care of her, I think that care is worth about 50000b per month. For that she now doesn't have to work, and because he is married to another older Thai lady only has to sleep with him a couple of times a month. A match made in heaven.

The good thing though is my current Thai GF was introduced to me through a mutual friend myself and the bargirl. The mutal friend said xxxx bad lady, I have good friend, she be good for you. Well she was right. This lady who I have now been with for 12 months is a Uni student from a family with some money. The difference is very noticable and the relationship much more enjoyable. The best thing is it been built on genuine mutal like and not money and paid sex. Now if only I could work out how to get a tourist visa to the UK for a single Thai female who is about to finish uni and hence has no job or property to return to. Would be a good graduation present for her and I!!

Lucky I use Rajawongse near Nana. 1000 baht for good quality shirts and 2000 for good quality pants. Don't be put off by the tailors on the touristy area's, there are good and bad everywhere. You just gotta give it a try if its no good you've done your dough, if good then recomend and keep going back.

I have it! Equip all toilets with a baby walker! BTW, do the Thai have similar problems with western toilets?

I don't know about Thai's, but I was in Jakarta once in an office building which had instructions on the back of the door for using the western style dunny. I learnt a think or two.

Oh today I went to a toilet at Victoria Station in London and thought I would take a dump. Paid my 20p but couldn't find one loo I would sit my arse on. I cannot belive how filty they were and the water and sewarge of sorts on the floor. I just took a leak and go out of there. For 20p you would expect a clean toilet. I did make it home, thank christ the train wasn't delayed.

I have yet to fly on a new Thai plane, infact I flew business class just the other day and the seats didn't have foot rests or electric operation and only a projection screen, obviously no upgrade in the last 10-15 years.

For a long while I was flying Emirates from Dubai to Bkk and then Thai the other way, Emirates were in a different class.

Where did you fly between? Was it a long flight or a short flight? Thai has upgraded the business class seats on the 747 aircraft that do the long haul, to Australia, Europe etc. They are now the beds, pretty much the same as the Qantas Skybed, only with subtle differences. They have introduced new aircraft inlcuding the A340-500 they use to the US and the new 777-200ER's like they run to Brisbane and elsewhere. The new aircraft unlike the upgraded 747's also have better IFE in economy class.

For short haul, which is most flights within Asia they operate aircraft such as their older 777's, A330's and A300's which have a lesser standard of seat in business class. Just like Qantas, British Airways and every other airline I can think of does for their short flights. I know I would rather be sitting in an old Thai A330 for 3 hours than the British Airways A319 I spent 3 hours on the other day. With BA intra-European flights business class the ONLY difference is the service. the seats are the same, so no extra leg room. They do move the middle handrests on the LHS seats but not on the right for some reason, and they do not gurantee 2x2 seating, it could be 2x3. Quite cosy. And IFE, what IFE, they don't even have the capability for audio, despite having nice LCD screens showing the moving map.

Yes Thai have been behind the times with their seating and IFE, but they are on their way, and as I said don't expect long haul standard on intra-Asian flights, because you wont get it.

One trick if you are going to come and go often regsiter for the Iris system. Non UK nationals can register too, then there is no problem at all. You rock up to the Iris gate, it scans your eyes an d through you go, you will never have to see or talk to an immigration officer again. The registration is done on departure with offices in all 4 LHR terminals and LGW too.

Seriously, aircraft valuation firm Avitas says A330s went out the door for around $94 million on average in 2006, so $90 million strikes me as believable but hardly compensation for two years of lost revenue.

The other factor no one is talking about is how the cracks are going to effect the A380s when they come in 2010. They cant land at Don Muang and sounds like these heavy monsters might just punch straight through the new runways. Its not a plane that can be diverted to any local airport. Could get more interesting as time goes on, thankfully its only tax money we are talking about with AOT, Airbus and Thai, not real money that people earn and use.

As someone else pointed out aircraft pricing is not as simple as averages. There are many other things that go into a package the effect the price.

Oh Thai won't be the first to land an A380 in Bangkok and it will be before 2010. As for the weights the A380 isn't quite the monster people think, yes its big, but its overall 'foot print' isn't that much bigger than a 747. Its wing span is slightly greater, but length is about a 747 and much shorter than an A340-600. As for weight yes it is heavier but when it comes to pavement loading it is how the weight is distributed that matters not the absolute weight, so an A380 won't be too different from a 747 on landing when it comes to pavement strength.

I heard rumor from a Thai friend that all the "tailors" get there work done at a Thai sweat shop around Petchburi Rd. They guys you meet in the shops are just salesmen. Any truth to this? Anyone with real knowledge on the subject?

Well it kind of is true. In most shops the clothes usually are not made in the shop and are made in 'sweat shops', where I wouldn't know. I wouldn't go as far as to say the shops are salesmen, halft the battle of tailoring is the messuring and fitting, but yes be assured in most cases these are not the people actually doing the cutting and sewing.

Actually I brought some trousers when I was there a few weeks back and they were missing one button. Pretty poor QA I say, but the funny thing was seeing the tailor try and sew one in. Did a shocking job.

That's the reason why I am using Firefox.

With No-script and Coockie-safe, Firefox is safer and faster.

Even my spelling got better when version 2 came out! : )

I agree with this. The two don't even remotely compare. I also set up a google mail account which is a really great free email service.

Watch out for Google Mail (gmail), Hotmail and AOL mail programs. Those providers block emails coming from some Thai-IP-Adresses, because they consider this mail automatically as spam. That means, a Thai person using a mail account with a local provider (i.e. maxnet) can send a mail out to you, but you will never receive it!

And I am not bullshitting!

It is not just Thai addresses it is common the world over, and many ISP's subscribe to black lists. For a period of time my Aussie ISP, Ozemail was on the blacklist. The problem is when an ISP leave open the port that used to send email, you know when you configure outgoing to SMPT.xxx.com etc. Spammers can use that to generate spam, thus the ISP gets banned.

Dont understand this. TG have been operating the 777 for a number of years already !!!!!!

I dont think so, they have been operating, 747's and MD11's internationally but no triple 7's.

They have had 777's for years. As pointed out these are an additional 6, but more specificaly 777-200ER's which as the name suggest (ER=extended range) have additional range. Expect to see them flying to places like Melbourne some time soon.

www.smarttraveller.gov.au (you had missed a couple of letters out)

Thailand rated a more dangerous destination than Cambodia, Laos, Burma, malaysia and India!!

Well actually no I haven't missed any letters out. Both will work, but look at the logo and the proper site name is www.smartraveller.gov.au. Think the Aussie government cannot spell!!!

Since the first bombing in Bali, the Oz govt was critisized for not issuing warnings.

Since then, they warn about just about every country.

Quite true and that was the point I raised above. sadly the warnings have little effect but take heat (unwarranted in most cases) of the government.

www.smartravller.gov.au is the site with the advisories, including for the UK and US.

Actually reading the Thailand one it isn't too bad at all, and cannot see too many glaring errors.

With all due respect my experience with Embassy security warnings is that they are about as useless as an umbrella in a hurricane. It's possible the Aussie embassy has it a little more on the ball than the U.S. embassy (not that difficult to do), but in my experience the main problem is that by time any real information gets down to the embassy level it is 3rd or 4th hand information at best. The security officers at the embassy try their best, but they are handicapped by the quality of the information they are given. By the time it gets to their level it has been hashed and rehashed until it is pretty much useless.

The biggest problem is the unrealistic expectations of people at home. If a warning isn't put out and, in this case an Aussie gets into trouble, the general public goes nuts and starts baliming the government. The travel warnings are just an arse covering exercise of the goverment. They may well reflect actual events, but well all know the realities and risks are a bit different. If you are in the wrong place, then you are in the wrong place, but sadly people can no longer see things as objectivly as that and are always looking to people to blame. As I said if nothing is said then fingers get point towards the government, but with warnings then they can say, 'we told you so'.

It certainly isn't a case of 2nd, 3rd or 4th hand information.

Myself and my Thai fiance are in process of working on her K1 visa to the U.S. I have been offered a new job (better pay, on the West Coast, and better benefits). The support papers we did for her have information pertaining to my old job. Since I will be starting a new job, do I need to redo our support papers and list the new job and my new salary? Having to do that would set us back but I don't want screw up our chances. Is the embassy going to call up my old company that is listed (in support papers and letter stating how much I make, ect.)? What can I expect and what should I do?

You will find that it is a requirement to notify the embassy of any changes and your change is quite major. The risk of not notifying them IMO would be much greater, and as you have stated the new job is better, so may in part strengthen the support part of your case.

strange that the wheel does not operate during the daytime .

What the one that is at the NIGHT market. Maybe that is why, the customers only come when the other shops are open.

So whats the answer?

Is there a district where you can go around and compare prices? Is the bargaining protocol different for gold than for other stuff? Do they generally try to over charge farang?

Experience? Advice? Anyone?

Overcharging Farang is a national pastime, so yes they will try to overcharge you. The trick is to know what something is worth and be prepared to barter and walk away of you are not happy.

Yeah, my post last night was made in the heat of the moment , mostly because problems with visa process . I know english skills and qualifications do play a part. My wife is Thai, a good middle class Bangkok girl who speaks reasonable english and studied two years in high school in Australia in the mid 90's (paying alot of money as well) , has a bachelor degree. But, still made to jump through hoops because of her nationality. I just wonder if a North American or Western European married to an Australian would have the same troubles. Oh well.

I agree that education for Asians in Australia is big business . Not only Universities, but private high schools as well . Don't get me wrong, wheni was at uni the Asian students would knuckle down studying and pass with honours, while most of the locals (myself included) spend most of the time at piss up society things or smoking buds. All that fun and still pay of the HECS debt:P

Well there you are you introduced two totally different reasons for immigration and tried to tie them together. If you are trying to get a spouse visa then your wifes education etc plays very little in the process. It is all about how genuine your relationship is with your wife. It doesn't matter if your partner comes from Thailand, the USA, UK or anywhere the issues are the same. That being said because of past history etc they may dig a little deeper with applications from high risk area's.

In relation to your other comments about education etc, then that would be more for a skilled migration visa in which case your relationship is of little relevance. In that their english skills, qualifications and area's where job vacancies are high come into play.

As for this whole article and the responses surprise me a little. The article is talking about migration to Australia, not tourist visa's, student visa's etc, it is talking about people who come here permamently. That would include spouse, skilled migration etc. To make a comparision we shouldn't be comparing the fact that migrants from the UK out number those from SE Asia, but maybe a comparision to previous years is in order. It may well be that the numbers are up for everyone and it just so happend the UK had more. We can always look at statistics in islolation and make comments, but that is hardly the way to do it unless of course you want to make a political statement.

Amanda Vanstone

Can't miss her if you're ever in Canberra.

Much better chance of finding her in Adelaide!!!!

Reading the first post you really have to wonder. There are enough holes and over emotion in the to make it very hard to belive as written. I have no doubt that the person was stopped for questioning but there are ALWAYS two sides to the story.

Firstly for the record your entry stamp is done by a customs officer. Why I don't know, but customs does that on behalf of Immigration (DIMA). The people who do this are trained to look for high risk people, and clearly you fitted a catagory that would have meet high risk. There are also people walking the halls and watching on video as well as intellegence reports to identify high risk people too.

An Immigration offical has every right to ask why you travel where you do, why you are in Australia for such a relative short period of time and your financial details. From what you are saying you should have NO ISSUE with DIMA, it seems as if they did the right thing and in the proper manner.

The fact that you were then passed onto a CUSTOMS official (or as you say, are you sure it was customs in a blue shirt), says to me they were susupecting you of brining something into the country you shouldn't be doing. I don't belive they refused you a translator, unless of course they suspected that your english was good enough to conduct the interview and you were playing them. These people have access to interpreters at the press of a phone button and it would have been in there intrest to do so.

You say your bag was searched but when did you get it from the collection belt? You said they took you straight after getting your passport stamped, which is before the bagage collection area. Did they take you to get it before you went to the so called interogation room. I am pleased they took a video as that will be availble to see what really went on if you were to take your issue any futher. But yes this is Australia where we lock illegals up in the desert (actually we now keep them offshore to be processed if they haven't already set foot in Australia) so the courpt officers will have destroyed all evidence. One more thing how long did it take them to go through every file on your computer and why did you refuse to allow them to check it in the first place? It is a condition of entry into Australia and you refused. No wonder they had suspicons. It takes about 1 hour to do a virus scan on mine, so to go through the whole computer manually would take an awful long time.

If as you said is true your issue is with Customs. It has nothing to do with the Foreign Affairs or DIMA, just customs.

As I said above I don't doubt for one minute you were questioned and searched, but I really do have my doubts about the harshness of it (you don't sound like you co-operated properly). These people are doing their job, which is quite simply to keep the undersirable people out and to protect Australia.

As to other comments about heavy handness it is sad but a fact of life. For those in Australia watch a program 7:30 on Tuesday to see what these people have to put up with. I laughed at the person complaining about the boiled lollies, as they are food and the question is clear. The reason I laughed was a recent eppisode had an Asian lady bringing in all this food stuff that she didn't declare, and she beleived (quite honestly BTW) that what she was brining in wasn't food. I cannot recall exactly what it was but it was quite ok for her to bring it in. Her words were no, that no food, that no food!!!. The bottom line is YOU MUST DECLARE everything, if in doubt declare it anyway, so anyone who doesn't and gets a grilling tuff luck. Half the heavy handness by quarantine people (these are the 3rd group in our arrivals area) is to put the fear of god into people who make innocent mistakes so they don't do it again.

These days all bags are put through an x-ray machine that is designed to differentiate between various organic, plant and man made substances, or they are manually searched.