mgjackson69

Once you buy a GPS-capable phone, you may or may not have to buy a GPS application also.

I have the HTC TyTNII. It is GPS-capable but does not currently have a "standalone" GPS app loaded. I have the Google Maps app loaded. It uses the GPRS/EDGE connection to get the maps for the area that you are in. Your rough location is calculated by the cell sites you are in contact with (here in Chok Chai, within 1800 meters). You can also activate the GPS portion and get your location down to a few meters, near as I can tell.

I did notice that as I got further north, the location fix without GPS was not functional.

This phone is Windows Mobile based...I think TomTom and others make some mobile GPS apps. For my needs right now Google Maps is sufficient. For more precise work, where I need lat/long and more capabilities, I have my trusty Garmin 12XL...it is a dinosaur by the standards of today's GPS receivers, no maps or automatic routing, but it does what I need.

I would highly recommend using a service to get you the paper from Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Most translation services can do this for you also...saves you from having to fight the bureaucracy there.

As I recall, it was not much more cost to have them do that than to just do the translation.

PM me if you would like the name of the service that I used.

Multi-level marketing is mult-level marketing, regardless of the wrapper.

For myself, I would not bother.

Gravelrash brings up an interesting point...that being, so many people buy a house thinking they need to make a killing on it whenever they resell, putting no value on the use that they got from the house while living there for x years.

If there is any doubt at all, go ahead and renew...then you have no worries (about the passport expiration, anyway).

Good luck.

Your categories are a bit limiting, but for the poll, ok.

In Thailand, I wear whatever I have on at the time...usually shorts, sandals/slides, t-shirt, plus half-helmet

In USA, jeans, boots, leather vest, denim or leather jacket, gloves (light or heavy depending upon weather), helmet if required by state law, eye protection (sunglasses in day, clear glasses at night)

The OP might have clarified what he meant by "good 4wd drive characteristics" rather than being such a rude c_nt.

BTW, "4wd drive" is redundant...sort of like you.

Another email for you my friend.

This option will not be available to everyone, but for those of us who maintain a home or mailing address in USA, you can request an absentee ballot and vote that way.

That is what I have done for the past several years...take whatever steps are needed to request the absentee ballot, it comes to my mailbox in USA. Our admin sends it to me in my twice-monthly "mail FedEx"...I fill out the ballot, mail it back to the election commission...done.

No tax due in Thailand for income earned outside Thailand when extending stay based on income.

For the OP, the problem with the marriage extension is most likely that he cannot be sure to be in Thailand for minimum 30 days at about the same time each year, ie starting during the last 30 days of his extension validity. Not sure if the same procedure applies to dependent extension, but probably does.

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Maestro

That would be a potential show-stopper...but he could make a trip, do the application, go work again, come back 27 or 28 days later, make his report date, go again.

Since he would have plenty of lead time to schedule, it should be do-able.

He certainly has some options.

Almost every mobile phone in existence is available in Thailand...go shopping

Can I ask why I should be worried about a "neat job" ?

As previously mentioned, the condition of the workplace is quite often an indication of the type of work that you will get. Take two places, side by side, offering the same mechanical work. Shop A is neat and clean, well-lit, the inside is painted. Shop B is the typical roadside "cave", dark, Somchai is working on something in the dirt in front of the shop...which are you going to choose?

Even assuming that both will fix the problem for the same amount, and the work will be done properly in both cases...which place are you more likely to leave from with a big grease spot on the seat from where someone moved the car, test drove it etc?

My experience:

I am a USA citizen, divorced in USA.

I went to USA embassy and got an "Affidavit of Eligibility to Marry" or some such nomenclature. I took a copy of a divorce decree with me, but the US Citizen Services did not ask to see it. Really, you are filling out a form, and the embassy is notarizing your signature. This took about one hour at the embassy.

Took this to a translation place on Wittayu Road. He translated the paper, got copies of my passport, wife's ID card, her divorce paper. He, or his courier, took all of this to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Chiang Wattana. A couple of days later he called me, he had the "permission to marry" paper at his office.

We then took the "permission to marry" paper, along with all of the aforementioned papers, to the "marriage place" at Bangrak. About 1.5 hours there, we are legally married. You can go to any Amphur to do this, once you have the permission to marry paper from MFA. We just walked in, no appointment, not much of a wait.

I very much doubt any Amphur will be open on Sunday.

Some poseur who wants to own a "4x4" but does not care if it actually fulfills its function.

As he said..."up to him"

Maybe true, maybe not...but certainly is plausible

I *did* have someone contact me here via PM telling me he was a Thai in USA and asking if I would "help me get a fake ID, preferably a Thai drivers license. Of course I will pay all costs."

The poster had joined TV just that day, zero posts.

I never replied, just forwarded it to one of the moderators. The user was banned shortly thereafter.

Well i suppose i cant blame them as they have 3 small children but i have friends that have just told me due to the NEWS they feel it unsafe to come here now,. Another couple have also cancelled,.seems a shame as i feel this will blow over well before they were due to come, but after reading the newspapers in the uk i can see their concern, .any of you had similar happen ?

I have had 7 people contact me via my website asking if they should come - it appears the media in the UK is painting a picture of widespread violence !!! I have emailed the Daily Mail and Times and pointed out they are sensationalising events for what ??

Bad news sells

"If it bleeds it leads"

Based on what others have reported, I would be somewhat doubtful as to the OP's chances of getting the one-year Non-O outside of his home country.

I would recommend getting the Non-O (whichever type you can get) and applying for extension of stay based on marriage. So long as you are not in-country over 90 days at a shot, the reporting becomes a non-issue. The only downside would be the yearly renewal...you would have to make your application for extension in person within 30 days of your expiry date, then report for the follow-up 30 days later.

If you are fortunate enough to get the one-year multi-entry Non-O, then you have put this off for 11 months. In the case that they give you a 90-day single-entry Non-O, you can get a Re-Entry Permit if you have to leave again before that 90 days is up...then come back with about a month left and apply for the extension of stay.

Skype Mobile is a bit flaky in my HTC TyTNII.

It does not behave itself real well when you switch from a WiFi to a GPRS/EDGE connection. Sometimes it takes a couple of start/stops to get everything working again.

I know that most, if not all, countries will not issue you a visa if you have less than 6 months validity left on your passport.

However, I have not heard of someone being denied entry on a visa-exempt stamp in a similar situation.

What have you been doing up to this point?

With your new job, how often to you anticipate visiting Thailand, and how long on each visit?

Thanks for the useful information nidge.

In my experience it is as lopburi3 stated...when the nice officer asks for something, it is not always a requirement, but him trying to understand some aspect of your application/qualifications/etc.

For my recent application for extension of stay, they asked about a bank account in Thailand and if I had a statement for that account. I replied "Yes" and "No", the man said, "It is no problem, I only ask you". They did ask about an ATM card...I showed my USA and Thai ATM cards. They had my wife go photocopy both...I have no problem with that, they cannot do anything with it that would be harmful to me.

It is best to go prepared, but offer nothing until it is asked for.

That *might* be what they are doing, changing the profile in the modem, or swapping the modem to one that has the username already configured for the new service...as petitechevre stated, because they do not understand how it works.

Where it would be much simpler to just give you the new userid/password over the phone, and you could configure it yourself. But then, stupid farang do not know anything...

...not to be confused with "decent assault"

"When in doubt do what the Thais are doing"

Thais are on a buying spree of undeveloped ocean land in the south and agricultual land in the north. I have no idea what the're doing in Bangkok, but there is more buying activity going on in land than in the 6 years I have been here, from my personal observations. Maybe they're buying the top, I don't know.

very interesting

I also hate the way investors buy property and then hike up the price afterwards, I mean Ok I know this is part of the game etc etc but they do it to such an extreme. For example a 3 bedroom condo in the new 'NEW YORK' on Petchburi Rd went for around 8mil when they started. I saw someone trying to shift it for 15 750 000 and it has only been two years max since he would have made the downpayment on the unit. This type of thing completely distorts the market and should not be allowed.

You can't believe everything you see. My wife, when she bought our house, put up a "For Sale" sign the very next day at about 50% more than she paid. When local prices came up to match her sales price, she was scared to death someone might actually buy our home and took the sign down.

Exactly so...just because someone is *asking* some price does not mean that is the *market rate*. People can ask any price they want...it does not mean people are paying that price.

My wife bought our house in Chok Chai several years ago for about 500,000 THB. I can stick a sign out front today "FOR SALE 1,000,000 THB". That does not mean the house is worth that, or that similar houses here are selling for that amount.

Now, if someone comes along and offers to buy at that price, then the house *is* worth 1,000,000 THB, at least to *that* buyer.

The point is, you cannot look at asking prices as any sort of guage of the market.

The Thai names are no harder or easier than any other names for me...but I am not real good at remembering names when introduced. I usually try to use that memory trick of immediately using their name in the introduction response...you know, make eye contact, say, "Somchai, very nice to meet you", that seems to help some.

I usually have to meet someone twice before the name is fixed in RAM.