scorecard

35 years for me, worked here over 25 years, now retired and living with my Thai son, his wife and 4 Thai grand children. My work sitution set me up for Thai Permanent Residency (PR) but without longer-term legal work PR is not available. As other have mentioned the so called Retirement Visa not all that difficult. For me best decision I ever made, but as others have said, Thailand is not for everybody and same for every country. As eluded to, good idea to use the gap years to learn Thai, some preety good web sites nowadays. Good luck.

Background: I've been looking for free short stories in English to help my young Thai granddaughter with her English reading skills. I found a large comprehensive site, developed / maintained / operated by the Philippines education ministry. Massive amounts of materials for all subjects, admin. stuff and more. All showing as free. But when I selected something and clicked download I got the message about gmail login. However just 5 minutes ago I tried again and althought the same 'g.mail' message is on the screen the downloading is now workng just fine. Sorry to bother you.

You have reminded me that DVA says they have started testing a new very secure e.mail system. If it passes the 'tests' maybe it will be used acrosss other departments. Wait and see.

Some hotels will send fax for outside persons. Did this before, hotel initially refused and wouldn't discuss, then I offered 200Baht to reception manager, fax sent 1 minute later. I had to do this letter for OZ DVA six months ago. Concernd about the return date I called DVA, got transferred quickly to correct section, DVA lady quickly said e.mail is fine. Sent it by e.mail, 2 days later an e.mail from DVA confirming they had received my scanned proof of life form and confirmied it was accepted. So maybe (repeat maybe) C'link will accept by e.mail, perhaps call then on the toll fee number to check, and if OK get a specific e.mail address.

Question: Is the guy who spent several yearsin jail in Aust. for drug offences a member of same party?

So what's the point of your rant?

Expensive way to get an i'net signal, and maybe there's an extra charge for that item?

But not in Vietnam where they are available at quite reasonable prices, but not in LOS where there's one marketing monopoly.

Yes, the borrower surrenders the borrowers copy of the chanut for the lender to hold as security. But the original copy is still held / always held at the Land Titles Office.

True, written on the back of the original copy of the chanut, held at the Land Titles office and on the copy.

If there's a usufruct on the property chanut with your name it's not compulsory for you to live in the property, not at all, where you live is up to u!

American chese? Tasteless, and why, many wonderful european cheeses to choose from.

Do you get a cabin with a window and a sea view? If the cabin is totally internal, no windows, that's not healthy long term, especially if the passenger has depression, panic or anxiety issues.

In my son's case there is no 'nominee' involved and there is no 'lease' involved.

In fact the name on the chanut was transferred from the development company name to my son's name several years before he got married.

Further, just to clarify: From my post above "...Deliberately in his name only because his wife's older brothers and sisters make continuous comments that if my son dies the property must go, by law, to his wife and they will insist she transfers ownership to her elder siblings). " Son's brother in law & sister in law both believe they know eveyrthing about Thai law and they insist that if "...my son dies the property must go by law to his wife" Which is of course not true, especially since my son has already made a legal will which bequeaths his property equally / jointly to all of his kids and nobody else.

And you conveniently forget malfearence in the rice marketing activity, for which her minister was jailed for 42 years.

An example: My Thai son owns 2 blocks of land (adjoining) in a modern gated village not far from CM city centre, with a large house across the 2 plots. Chanut is in my son's name. (Deliberately in his name only because his wife's older brothers and sisters make continuous comments that if my son dies the property must go, by law, to his wife and they will insist she transfers ownership to her elder siblings). Son has a will bequeathing the property equally / jointly to all his children, wife deliberately not mentioned. Son's wife quite happy with this arrangement because she's frightened of her elder bro & sis and fears they would pressure her (and they would) to give the property to them. Reality is that I gave my son the land and house as a wedding gift and my son and his wife promised they would provide a roof over my head and care for me until my death. To protect me and the kids my son put a usufruct on the chanut. The usufruct: - Is valid/cannot be changed whilst I am living unless I generate the change and sign to approve the change with several witnesses, including my now 18 yo granddaughter (who has been harrassed several times by her aunts and uncles; most recently tried to convince her to stop uni and give the uni tuition fees to them. She hates them). - Property cannot be sold without my written/winessed approval regardless of whether my son is alive or deceased. About 4 years go my son went with local trusted lawyer to local LTO to discuss the above with LTO manager who agreed all possible and legal. Son went ahead and added the usufruct. Son's brother in law and sister in law know that something has been added to the chanut but my son totally refuses to let them see the chanut.

"... seeing cultural comparatives as competition. " What does that mean. Seems to me that rampant manic capitalism, strongly encouraged in many countries is a main driver of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer situation* and which increases 'the gap', which is part of why I believe in a mixed system: - Selected socialist policies: health care, education etc. - Controlled capitalism. One e.g. China clamped down on Jack Ma and his massively wealthy companies because they were getting too rich. China wants to see much more spread of the wealth. *Globalization was touted as 'the great leveler.' In reality it made the gap bigger.

If revolution not necessaily colour revolution. Times have changed, youngsters are looking for serious worthwhile change with focus on equality, different to the red / yellow days.

But I suggest it was easy enough to misinterpret!

Read your post again. I suggest some folks (repeat some folks), including me, would assume you were making a negative comment about obama being elected. Thanks for clarifying that my interpretation of your post was wrong.