flash77

Quote

Did you expect to get both the 309 and 100 partner visa at the same time?

Yes. From all I've read most applicants that satisfy the conditions (3 years relationship when applying, or 2 years if have child) are granted both 309 and 100 at same time, i.e. don't have to wait the 2 years for permanent 100. We didn't do anything special in the application to request the 100.

40 minutes ago, steve0367 said:

Today my wife had a few missed calls on her phone from a 02 number, so she checked her email and her grant notice was sitting in her inbox.????

after ten months the long wait is finally over. 

Granted subclass 309 

Congrats!

Scrolled through your earlier posts and noticed about drivers license for Thais. Did you get an answer? At least in Qld, they can drive for 3 months a tourist, and then must sit written exam and practical exam. Not sure about other states.

My wife applied on 9 Feb at VFS and within a day received both an email from VFS with the visa application reference number AUX-TH-... and an email from Immigration saying they had received a valid application with an attached PDF with file number.

After that the next contact was an email on 28 June (4.5 months later) asking for the health checkup. Like you, we had already submitted the police check with the initial application (which may prove to be a mistake - lets see ...). After completing the health checkup there has been no contact since. Its 9 months since she initially applied.

Also, 3 weeks ago she applied for a Visitor Visa online - still waiting for the outcome on that as well.

I don't know if I have a genuine recipe, but a simple one that my wife has tried at home for 'kor mu yang' cooked in the table top oven. It was ok, but maybe not as nice as some restaurants. For 1kg of pork, 4 Tbsp of oyster sauce, 3 Tbsp of sugar, and 1 Tbsp of Golden Mountain Seasoning Sauce (green label). The measures are from memory, so some adjustments may be needed. Or are you looking to buy the marinade rather than make it yourself ...

I am dying for a pint and some tech talk but unfortunately i can't make it tonight. enjoy.

I can't make it tomorrow, but go ahead as I'm not sure about next week either.

I often do similar: bolgonese, green chicken curry and mexican chili. Another is a Japanese style curry. I buy a pack of House Foods (or similar) curry roux (available in Tesco, Tops etc), and cook with chicken, potato, carrots, onions and others. Nice with rice or on a schnitzel. The packs have instructions in Japanese and Thai, but English recipies are available from the US distributor, where its apparently called Vermont Curry: http://flavorofjapan.com/

At kiwi bar. have beard near pool table

So will I.

If Martin, airpinn or someone else confirms they are still attending, then count me in. Given its about 1.5 hrs for me to get there, if I don't see another response here by 5pm then I will probably not attend.

I plan to be there as well.

I'm also interested to get back into the Linux meetings. Thursdays in soi 8 or anywhere near BTS are generally ok for me.

I enjoyed all the popular places for 'vacationing westerners', i.e. Hanoi, Sapa and Halong Bay in the north, Hue and Hoi An in the centre and HCMC in the south. If you haven't been before, then selecting from them I think will give you a good, quick taste of Vietnam.

For something different, you can look into caves around Dong Hoi in the center of Thailand. There are some massive caves there, with tours that include trekking, swimming etc. We stayed at Phong Nha Farm Stay, which was great; there are few other places around to stay at as well, but the area is certainly not as touristy as most places. An accident meant we didn't do as much as planned over 4 nights, but a boat ride as well as walk into two of the caves was impressive. The farm stay website has a list of their trek options, which I guess are similar as to what is offered by other places.

Over the next month or two I'm unlikely to get down to Hua Hin, unless on a Friday or Saturday. If in Bangkok, I'd prefer Thursday, but could manage other days with some notice. For purely selfish reasons I would have liked to suggest a pub near victory monument or the Irish pub at Muang thong thani. But thats probably worse than Sukhumvit wrt protests.

I'll join again as well.

I also have TOT in Klong Luang, and although I haven't had any sites that would not load at all, I did notice rather slow access last night and possibly on weekend. I just checked my DNS servers: two are TOT (203.113.5.130, 203.113.127.199) and one is Google 8.8.8.8. As suggested above, try setting one of your DNS server addresses to a Google address. A quick way to test different DNS servers (and whether your default ones are working) is using nslookup.

PS Just as I tried to post this I had a problem accessing Thaivisa, which reminded me I had a similar problem today accessing TV at work. Maybe overloaded?

I came across this annoying rule a couple of years ago. My way around was to book essentially the same flight and cost via British Airways, who don't require a visit to their office. Now that BA and Qantas do not codeshare, maybe you could try via Emirates.

I know nothing about Koh Kood and have never been to Koh Chang, but have spent last week planning a trip there. It seems the first thing is to choose a beach on the island. Kai Bae beach may interest you. From what I read it is popular for families to relax at: not touristy as White Sands, not as many backpackers as Lonely beach, and not as upmarket as Klong Prao. Seems to be many bungalow style resorts there. Note the beach may not be as nice (sandy) as others for swimming. I'm planning on staying at KB Resort, but there are others that also look nice (Kai Bae, Siam Bay, ...).

But again, I haven't been there yet ...

I have OpenElec on my Raspberry Pi but primarily used for watching movies/tv from a local USB hard drive. For internet streaming I've only tried Al Jazeera and Youtube plugins. Youtube streamed fine; Al Jazeera was watchable but had some noticeable buffering delays. So I guess if you can find the plugin you want, then the limitation is your network connection, and in particular the international connection of your ISP. I haven't seen any plugins for Thai TV but seems there is one for BBC iplayer.

If Panthip is unsuccessful then maybe you could try to contact a uni book store e.g. Chulalongkorn www.chulabook.com. If you are lucky, the HP50G may be required for some engineering course ...

I got mine in IT City (Zeer Rangsit, but pretty sure saw them also in Panthip). Couldn't find in JIB, Banana or many smaller places. However that was more than 12 months ago. I do recall noticing one 1 or 2 months ago, again at Zeer. Good luck with finding one.

With the lack of responses, I will not be coming in tomorrow night. Enjoy beercamp.

I will be at the Thaivisa party on Saturday, so maybe catch up with some Linux users there ...

I will try to attend.

Last battery I changed was a bit over 2 years old (Syndome). Current one still running in office (APC) is at least 2 years old. One year sounds too short unless you are using the battery, instead of mains, on a regular basis. For a replacement battery I went into an electronics shop (NPE at Zeer Rangsit, www.mynpe.com) and they happily found the right size battery, replaced my old one and gave it a quick test. From memory, cost 600 Baht.