mark131v

Sounds to me like you have your answer, the British system has said that you fall outside the regulations on being able to support your wife due to your only income being drawn purely from UK Government Benefits, doesn't matter when the rules changed or how often the rules and guidance change they appear to be the rules right now

Like you said you now have the option to renounce your British Passport with all its benefits and get yourself over the border and use the EEA method with your Irish citizenship, it will be very interesting to see if the Irish Benefits system is quite so generous with the money they give out especially to someone who has voluntarily chosen to become homeless.........

Not having a go but I am trying to work out what happens if you renounce your British Citizenship, if as you are saying people on the Island of Ireland can choose to be either Brit or Irish then if you choose to be a citizen of one and renounce the other surely you have no claim on tax and benefits from the country you have renounced. I am not talking of duel citizenship as you could conceivably hold both passports but of what happens if you choose to renounce something you have already held in order to get around a rule of that country, doesn't seem right that the UK taxpayer should have to pick up the tab for a person who has voluntarily revoked citizenship, would you have to be assessed for benefits through the Irish system...like I said certainly not having a go but it does seem like a potential minefield

Family on the move I have had a CBX for about 5 weeks now and have already put 2800k's on it.

I have to echo what ll2 says as I have found it to be a really nice comfortable easy to ride bike and though I don't live in Bkk I have done quite a bit of riding through Pattaya over Xmas and New Year with traffic gridlocked and the the bike goes through the traffic just as easy as the RKV does but with much better visibility being as you are higher up. I have not really had any issues with the clutch in heavy traffic and it is pretty much impossible to stall, I initially thought I might miss the gear indicator but that has not been an issue at all

The seat and ergonomics are comfortable for prolonged riding and tbh the bike has got better and better, it feels way powerful enough for me and if you want to open it up it gets up to speed fast enough for most of the conditions that I have found and getting up to 150 is quick and easy

The bike is very stable on the roads and highways in heavy fast moving traffic and being 2 up does not seem to affect the power as far as I can tell. The brakes are really good overall though the back needs a bit of pressure applied but the ABS works really well

Overall I really rate it and I am struggling to think of any negatives and other than the position of the horn button and indicators that others have mentioned I cant really think of any, other than that I reckon it is pretty much perfect for Thailand and would highly recommend it, if you buy one I am certain you will not be disappointed....

I echo what Lenny said Khao Keow open zoo is a really good day out and far better than the Tiger Zoo and only a bit further up the road, If you have your Thai Licence driving licence it is all the same price plus in there you can do the flight of the gibbon thing as well....

http://www.keeway-thailand.com/%E0%B8%A0%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%84%E0%B8%95%E0%B8%B0%E0%B8%A7%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%AD%E0%B8%81/

There is no Sym Keeway dealer in Pattaya you need to go to Rayong for that, I have used them and they are good. You can get RKV 200's and the cruisers in Pattaya but have not seen the other models, the link is for the Keeway dealer stuff...

I have a Yamaha Spark a Mio and his and hers Keeway RKV as well as the CB500X, got to be honest the honda is the only one getting any attention now though....

I have just picked up my red CBX this week and for the bike with the protection bars and 40 litre topbox, extended windscreen and first class insurance it was B250k, it is a bargain and there is way enough power for 2 up and safe overtaking. It is really comfortable and easy to get through traffic and will get up to 140 really quick and easy. The CBR is the same engine so it should be basically the same, there was also a tricked out CBF at Pattaya Big wing with the bars and panniers and it looked really good and I was tempted to get that instead, if you are not a speed freak there is plenty of power and speed in the new 500's

Get yourself a usefruct costs only a few hundred baht and in the event that your wife dies before you then you still have the right to live in the house until you die, all legal and all above board with no need of dodgy shell companies and lawyers, very easy to do and only takes a couple of hours at the land office.....

I finished doing this today. I have a lease on the house until I die, even though it is 100% in my wife's name. 2 channots both have my name on them, though not as owner. I had to get a translation from a solicitors office signed by me and the solicitor and wife stating that I understand the conditions. The lands office don't keep this, they only wanted to be sure that i understand. Costs were 75 Baht per channot.

It was explained that there were 2 options. [1] that I could get 30 years that COULD be transferred to my child if I died, and wanted that, until the 30 years event was reached, or [2] until I die, in which case the wife can sell or do whatever she want's then. We agreed on option 2, as I'm sure my Aussie kid won't need to holiday in Udon after I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Any break up of marriage means the house cannot be sold until I die, or agree to the sale, in which case, compensation can be agreed to, legally.

Keeping an eye out for any strange chemicals or other potential poisons that might suddenly appear from now.

I think you are wrong reference not being able to sell the house if you divorce, I was told that if you divorce the usufruct can be broken but that said you still have the same rights such as your entitlement to a fair settlement on the sale of goods exactly the same as anybody else Thai or Foreign who gets divorced here, getting that fair share could be an issue but that is the same anywhere else in the world as well. The only way around that appears to be by not getting the usufruct off your wife or doing it before you marry, I am no expert but all these sort of questions where covered in the earlier thread I mentioned and it is well worth a read

http://www.samuiforsale.com/other-miscellaneous/usufruct-agreement-sample.html

There you go...!

The main reason I bought the 3.2 is nothing to do with engine size it is about safety and you quite simply cannot get the same safety features on the 2.2, it is not an option and there is no after market way to change that, couple that with the other extras in the 3.2 package and for me it was a way better option

I was lucky to order right at the beginning but still had to wait, that said we did visit Chonburi Ford and offer them 30k if they got us what we wanted first but as it happened Pattaya got delivery first of the colour we wanted though Chonburi had offered us other colours of 3.2 prior to this. When I buy another car from Ford I will 100% not use Pattaya Ford as their customer service is complete <deleted> and Chonburi were much easier to deal with

There are lots of people giving hypothetical advice here but I have been in the same position worrying about the same things but it is now sorted out and I do not worry about it any more as I have safeguarded my home for my lifetime, there is absolutely no need to speak to a lawyer in my experience they couldnt tell you what day it is most of the time, the usefruct is legal and binding in Thai law if you have this the family have no recourse as the chanote is annotated to say you have full rights to the property till you die and nobody can change this without your say so, the get out or sell within a year stipulation can no longer be used, that said if you are living in the sticks with the in-laws they could very well make your life so unbearable that you choose to leave, that is one of the reasons I keep a good few hundred miles between us and the in-laws

I was wrong it only costs 75 baht and not a few hundred it has been a while so I had forgotten, it was covered in depth here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/619015-usefruct-done/#entry6111336

I keep seeing Tara Pattana mentioned and the reason we did not consider there is because it is a sister school to Phoenix sharing some of the Teachers and management I believe, it is a very nice building and appears well set up and when we visited it seemed like a good option at that time

ROBBINPATTAYA I also had a lot of the same thoughts as you especially with the fact that my daughter will be staying in Thailand and not Europe hence why I first tried the English program Thai school option, for us this was not a success hence why we are going to MIS. I believe that the first few years are important and if she can learn properly from the outset then that can only be an advantage when she goes to Maryvit in a few years time, just a thought as a parent who has been going through the same issues....

We have just taken my daughter out of Phoenix in Jomtien and we have decided to start our daughter at Mooltripke Intenational School (MIS) in Nong Plalai, we found Phoenix to be more interested in money than education coupled with a complete disregard for the Parents demonstrated by changing the Teacher and assistant at mid term without even telling the parents. We have decided to try MIS as it is British Curriculum and only very slightly more expensive per year (10k baht) also there is no enforced sleeping time during the day which was always one of my bugbears, we are also looking at Maryvit in a few years when she turns 7 but at the moment we have found Thai schooling very frustrating and certainly not worth the money

Seems like some LTO's do it differently we used Mukdahan a few months back for a trip to Savanakhet and it was 75baht but we were only given the passport and a couple of sticky Thai stickers but no number plates, wonder if that is down to the country you are visiting's requirements either way Mukdahan where very quick and easy and the other plates where not required to get into Laos

I have 2 RKV 200's one at 5000 and the other at 4500km no problems at all, nothing has fallen off or broken and no problems with the lights or electrics since altering the headlight beam. Lots of people seem to like the look of them and seem shocked when you tell them the price, I would recommend them to anybody and it seems that all the Keeway bikes are pretty good value and quality when you realise that most of the alternatives are twice the price, I would like a bit more speed now and like the look of the Benneli 302 if they had a proper dealer in Pattaya I would seriously look at that or the 600 but I will probably end up with a Honda CBX purely because of the dealer and servicing situation

Duplicate post!!

<<The people of Timor drive on the right in East Timor and the left in West Timor… Ambidextrous drivers. >>

Have you been there and driven from east to west or versa visa?

I don't think there is any side to a road there - just goat tracks pretending to be roads

Wouldn't imagine it is a lot different from driving from Thailand to Laos really.....

By the way are you thinking of the same ASEAN that includes, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Australia as well as Thailand because if it is I really don't reckon they will be changing anytime soon.

Australia and Japan are not part of ASEAN.

http://www.asean.org/asean/asean-member-states

Cheers IMHO, every day is a school day, it is interesting to see the L/R breakdown in SE Asia and ASEAN is quite close really and in fact the majority of the more powerful nations and economically succesful countries in ASEAN are LHD including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Brunei as well as many of the other powerful economies in the region such as India, Japan, Pakistan, Australia and NZ, I don't think anything is going to change anytime soon no matter how much WS pouts about it

You prove your ignorance every time you open your mouth and I do find it amusing, easier and better- why? is it because you say so? sorry I don't see it that way and from your response I think you are a little bit full of it really. By the way are you thinking of the same ASEAN that includes, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Indonesia and Australia as well as Thailand because if it is I really don't reckon they will be changing anytime soon. I will leave it there as it is my bed time but I will leave you with another little snippet that you can take or leave though seeing as you know it all it is probably a waste of time but hey ho you never know:

• According to research done in 1969 by J.J. Leeming, keep-left countries have a much lower collision rate than keep-right countries. It is thought the reason behind this is that most people’s right eye is their dominant eye. Thus, the right eye in keep-left traffic is the one closest to oncoming traffic and so should reduce collisions. Another theory as to why this might be is that most people are right handed, so when driving a manual transmission car in a keep-left country, most people’s dominant hand is on the steering wheel; this could help in a person’s ability to maneuver accurately.
• The people of Timor drive on the right in East Timor and the left in West Timor… Ambidextrous drivers.
• Most horse riders and cyclists will naturally mount the horse or bike from the left hand side. In the cyclist’s case, this is why most bike chains and gears are on the right side of the bike so that the rider can walk along on the left side of the bike and not worry about getting pants or shoe laces caught in the gearing while walking beside the bike.

I took that from the link below to a site called today I found out.com which I bet is not something you manage to say very often Warp &lt;deleted&gt; anyway night night :

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/06/why-some-countries-drive-on-the-right-and-some-countries-drive-on-the-left/

A very interesting read if you are not too arrogant to learn something new, in brief most people drove on the left until Napoleon and Hitler changed it Britain never changed as they were never conquered by them, Henry Ford had some weird ideas about which side to drive on (nothing at all to do with safety or racing drivers WS!) couple that with the amount of European Immigrants and anti British feelings and it aint suprising the Yanks drive on the wrong side, couple that with the fact all US Exports where LHD in the early days and you have an answer but still sod all to do with safety or racing drivers though or any compelling reason why left is right (see what I did there) as our resident racing driver and all round expert seems to believe....!!

"Almost always, in countries where one drives on the right-hand side of the road, the cars are built so that the driver sits on the left-hand side of the car. Conversely, driving on the left-hand side of the road usually implies that the driver's seat is on the right-hand side of the car. It used to be different, though.

All early automobiles in the USA (driving on the right-hand side of the road) were right-hand-drive, following the practice established by horse-drawn buggies. They changed to left-hand-drive in the early 1900s as it was decided that it was more practical to have the driver seated near the centreline of the road, both to judge the space available when passing oncoming cars, and to allow front-seat passengers to get out of the car onto the pavement instead of into the middle of the street.

Ford changed to left-hand-drive in the 1908 model year. A Ford catalogue from 1908 explains the benefits of placing the controls on the left side of the car:
“The control is located on the left side, the logical place, for the following reasons: Travelling along the right side of the road the steering wheel on the right side of the car made it necessary to get out on the street side and walk around the car. This is awkward and especially inconvenient if there is a lady to be considered. The control on the left allows you to step out of the car on to the curbing without having had to turn the car around.
In the matter of steering with the control on the right, the driver is farthest away from the vehicle he is passing, going in opposite direction; with it on the left side he is able to see even the wheels of the other car and easily avoids danger.”

http://www.worldstandards.eu/driving%20on%20the%20left.htm

Warp Speed you do come across as a bit of a self righteous pillock mate, so physics is wrong and the fact most people are right side dominant is wrong, oh and you have analyzed it beyond my comprehension, fair one... if I could be arsed I would have a proper look but I cant to so here is a quick to find one for you concerning the fact most UK and European drivers drive manual and a lot of US cant or wont, don't worry it is written in American:

http://travel.usatoday.com/tips/2010-08-03-businesstravel03_ST_N.htm

and another bit that is more relevant to why the US chose to drive on the wrong side

"One of the final moves to firmly standardize traffic directions in the U.S. occurred in the 20th century, when Henry Ford decided to mass-produce his cars with controls on the left (one reason, stated in a 1908 catalog: the convenience for passengers exiting directly onto the curb, "especially ... if there is a lady to be considered"

"The drive-on-the-right policy was adopted by the USA, which was anxious to cast off all remaining links with its British colonial past."

so in summary bugger all to do with racing driver's or safety then and actually much more to do with throwing off the colonial past or putting Lady passengers onto the curb, I will leave you to it but just wanted to leave you with a few figures for manual transmission in the UK that I have just pulled out of my posterior, toodle pip!!

Same argument applies that most people are Rt side dominant so your dominant hand should be in control of the vehicle Ie steering, changing gear with the left hand requires no great skill or co-ordination as a very large percentage of the world can demonstrate

oh by the way reference using your left hand to steer and control a vehicle by the logic you have spouted that should be dangerous and un co-ordinated as for the vast majority of the time most peoples weaker or less dominant side is in control, I don't really think you thought that through

I don't have any figures to back it up but the vast majority of UK drivers drive manual whilst the vast majority of US don't or cant strange that....

Daosavanh Resort is good, it is directly on the waterfront overlooking the Mekong and downriver about 500m from the Thai Consulate, It has a nice pool good rooms and a reasonable breakfast, I think we paid about B2500 for the room through Agoda but I could be wrong

I would advise taking your car as it is pretty straightforward to do and frees you from being dependent on the shitty Lao Tuk-tuks that only seem to do about 5 mph. You can get the car passport from your local land transport office. I forgot to take mine but if you are not in a rush you can stay a night in Mukdahan then go to the LTO there in the morning, Took about 30 minutes to get the Car Passport which is probably a lot quicker than if I had gone to my local office

Savanakhet is a bit of a dump really though there is a large market in town and some old temple just out of town but to be honest there is not really much to do, I wont be rushing back until I need another visa but all things considered it was very straightforward and quite painless really