matcube

Any recent update on travelling a Thai owned and driven car into Cambodia? Anywhere can one obtain official (or reliable) information? If not possible "on the spot", is there a way to obtain a "permit"?

Thank you.

So I ended up in page 2 with no reply. Nobody knows?

Thanks

Is there a direct bus from the airport to Ayutthaya, maybe leaving from the little bus terminal located just outside the airport?

Alternatively, is there some sort of bigger taxi (there is 7 of us plus baggage)?

Alternatively, do regular taxis (that is, two of them for all of us) go flat rate or meter on that route? How much?

I know of some non-convenient ways to get there (taxi/bus to Mochit + bus, taxi/bus to Hua Lamphong + train, etc...), I am looking for more convenient ways (possibly not too expensive).

Thanks

Interesting... so many complaints about Thai Airways. What are the best airlines to fly with, in your opinion? (I wonder if that would be off-topic or a specific topic already exists).

"This is a children-free flight. Children are not allowed anytime on board. There is a child-detector device in the lavatory. Whoever is caught having children in the lavatory or tempering with the device will be persecuted."

Sorry, not avaiable.

Does she need to speak/understand English? What do you mean by "professional"?

There was one that took care of my daughter (in BKK) for one year, and we were very happy with her. When we moved out of LOS we passed her on to a friend couple, which have been very pleased with her (1 year and a half now). This couple (and kids) are out of the Country too at the moment (without the nanny), and will be until mid January. My understanding is that they keep paying the nanny, she may go and take care of their house once in a while, but I am not sure. She is sweet, well behaved, reliable. But she doesn't speak English, and she is not educated, in the sense that she has probably never been on a plane nor is she used to "fancy" life; I tell you this because I don't know what your travel plans and needs are. And, anyway, I don't know whether the friend of mine who is hiring her would be willing to "rent her out" ... so to speak. Sure I can ask.

Sure things can be different even from town to town. I lived several years in Thailand as well, but my experience on the matter was not as negative as yours (I had Thailand in mind, or at least my view of it, when I wrote my message).

The second part of your message seems to be imply that cell phones may be a concern of unsafety, rather than safety, for you:

[...]

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his MP3 player in Belgium.

Last year, a teenager was murdered for his cellphone in Pattaya.

I am not here to deny that these things happen. But remember that TV and papers are a very concentrated summary of the whole word's happening. I invite everyone to run a mental count: how many people that you know, friends, or direct friends of friends, have had a relative that died or was terribly injured in a car accident? I could count more than 10, easily reaching 20 or 30. Now, how many that lost their lives or were terribly injured or kidnapped because of their belonging, race, sex (still among your "community")? I couldn't find one. I am not advocating for walking alone at night full with jewelery in the worst part of towns, in the same way that I am not advocating to shut yourself in your house because cars are too dangerous. I am not particularly fighting a war against car accidents (I could have picked other examples). I am just trying to put things in perspective.

As for the original question, yes/no to cell phones for kids, there are reasons for and against; I haven't made up my mind yet (my oldest one is 5 and she does not have a cell phone yet). One reason for "yes" that has not been mentioned yet (or that I missed) is responsibility, that is the teaching of. Is giving a week allowance to kids good or bad? It's bad because they will spend the money on (what to us appear to be) frivolous things. It's good because they learn money management at a younger age (well, maybe ...). A cell phone may be a similar concept, it could be regarded as a money and time management teaching system: do you spend all your time in front of the TV, speaking on a cell phone, or doing some more interactive activity? Those are skills to be learned, mostly by example (from your parents up to teen age, and from your friends thereafter), by the way.

I don't buy the "cell phone for safety" reason. To start with, most of concerns about safety are not well founded. Even allowing for a risk of - say - kidnapping , robbery, you name it, would your child have the time and cold blood needed to make a phone call? If you mean running into an accident, then someone will call an ambulance for her/him. If he/she gets lost, all she needs to know is YOUR cell phone number and ask anybody on the street to give you a call, or find a public phone.

I think most of the concern about safety nowadays is due to exaggeration of rare events broadcast by the media. Where I live (Italy) most of the parents would be really scared of letting a 6 year old child walk to school on her own (I used to do it when I was 6, and it was perfectly normal). Scared of what? Once they learn how to cross the street safely I don't see what they should be worried about. Kidnapping? Robbing him? Abuse him? If you look at the numbers, that has a 1/10 to 1/100 chance of occurring with respect to having a car accident; that means that a parent should be 10 to 100 times more worried when taking off for a weekend trip than for his child walking to school on her own. Still, most people I know wouldn't even consider the former as a risk and would be frightened by the latter.

In this context, how cell phone would help with safety I have no idea. Having said that, I think there may be other good reasons for giving a child a cell phone, as well as many other good ones for not letting him having one.

fare classes : baby (below age 2), child (below age 12), adult

seats: baby no own seat, even if you pay (safety reason)

bassinet: depends on the baby size/weight. It's quite hard to convince the airline to give you a bassinet for a 14+ month old baby

Costs: child is approx 80% of adult, and airport tax is full

baby is 10% of adult, airport taxes are about 50% of full. There is a big difference here among airlines, though, some will choose to use the "official fare" as the basis for computing the 10%, others will use the same fare as the accompanying adult. That makes a big difference.

For instance, I once had two options:

ariline 1: adult 30,000 baht + 5,000 taxes = 35,000. Child 30,000 x 0.1 + 3,000 taxes = 6,000 baht

airline 2: adult 22,000 baht + 4,000 taxes = 26,000. Child 80,000 ("official price") x 0.1 + 2,500 = 10,500 baht

Then it depends on the number of adults and children in your group, if you just want to find the cheapest option. But do find out the baby's fare. And do complain if the airline apply the 10% to the standard fare as opposed to your fare!

Well, I also have no clue what jcon is talking about. I am not here to side with Boo or give her support. I just plainly simply don't understand the message. It may be my limitation, in which case I am not the only one. And again, don't take me wrong, I am not criticizing jcon's post, I just would like to understand it. I won't repeat here Boo's comments, they are basically on the same line.

Ko Kret (end of Chaneg Watthana to the west).

Other places - visiting them once a year (if school did not just do it).

Agreed. One should have like 15 or more of such places and year would be covered. Nice topic started, should we compile a sort of on-line xl-sheet with places, locations, short description, comments by visitors, and appreciation votes?

Your final dots don't indicate whether the following reco's have already been explored:

- BKK: children's museum (near chatuchack)

- Children' science museum Nakhon Nayok - klong 6

- Floating market (samut songkran, 1-2h drive)

- Supanburi (lake, small zoo, acquarium, small water park downtown)

- Chockchai Farm (a bit commercialized-americanized, but fun for one time for the kids), Saraburi

- Sunflower fields (seasonal) - Lopburi

- Amphawa: resorts in fruit plantations and fire flies watching

Welcome to the forum. Interesting - and quite strong - views. What made you decide to drop this bomb out of the blue? You seem very informed, either for many years working in these matters, or for personal experience. Anticipating some dissenting replies and more questions from other readers, I encourage you to dwell (factually) a bit more on the subject.

I missed what the snipped comment was, but I'd say, let the guy have his saying (in a polite and civilized manner). Assuming that a 22 y.o. young man must necessarily be immature is just prejudice. There have been many examples in the past of famous (or less famous) people who, by that age, were well formed and achieved and said interesting and/or innovating things.

Well, apart from a couple of replies at the extreme of the spectrum (which, in my opinion, are welcome too), most posters have been balanced in their views. That is, while I was reading the posts, I never felt we were strongly judging or complaining or mad... just sharing point of views, experiences, and having some fun in the process.

Example: I read about lying and the example of saying that a Gecko is dangerous... it reminded of my father in law refusing to indulge my 3 y.o. daughter's request to be taken outdoor with him "because it is raining", to which she promptly replied "but I don't see any raining falling", and then again "well, it will rain soon", to which "we can stay outside and when it rains we come back inside". So when I read the similar situation I just laughed out loud; I didn't start blaming to the Thais as liers and this wrong model etc. etc, and most of us haven't either.

Excellent topic!

Lucky enough, my wife and I have mostly shared views, so no conflict there. But when it comes to grandparents and extended family, not one point was missed! I laughed so much while reading the list and the added comments, and I am relieved to see it's a common problem.

It would be nice to read (in another topic?) the top list for wanting to be in a thai-farang relationship. An outsider reading only this topic may think we are all crazy or what?

Chaimai said it quite clearly, the problem doesn't sound to be the lack of sex, IMO. If that were the case, leaving your wife wouldn't solve it... sure, a relationship that is deemed lost doesn't need to be dragged; but that means you have decided the relationship is over, and it can't be only for the sex issue... I would have left my wife at least three times then... and I would have regretted.

As someone else pointed out, it's really important to tell apart whether this is a consequence of problems present before the arrival of the baby or just a post-partum depression.

To rule out the latter, you should try to separate the mum's mind from the baby. It's hard for them (women) to care about sex while the baby is in their mind, let alone around them. Make an effort to help out, be kind and supporting, creating free time and space for her. See if you can take over the care of the baby for half a day, and let her go wherever she used to ... shopping, see some friends, what makes her feel "her", free, no worries and no thoughts. And yes, any pressure for sex is only going to destroy the fragile castle you are building. Make an effort to understand that if she is really honest (that is, she loves and cares for you) then the reasons for abstinence are not related to you, but is her own problem, a real one, that she would like to overcome too; support, patience, and giving up the idea that there will be more sex any time soon will help a lot. And sure, other sex options for the time-being (self-help or professional help, so to speak) may release the pressure and free your mind.

I would try that path first; I would invest 2-3 weeks with that strategy. Only at that point I'd start considering that it has to do with the first possibility and pondering a way out, as other suggested.

Here is my understanding, but opinions vary even among pediatricians:

- the MAIN purpose of having a child brush is to get the habit. It's rare that they will have rotten teeth before they change them, unless you are completely careless about it.

- flouride toothpase is not recommended before you are sure the kid won't eat it.

- some (most?) pediatrician recommend flouride supplement tablets from 4 months onwards. We did some research on the net and decided not to give any.

- we started brushing our kids consistently (morning and night) with child-like toothpaste from about age 2 onwards. Before that we let them play with the brush; they love it and as soon as they see you do it, they want to do it too. Our oldest one is now 5, has all the teeth and are in excellent shape; she will be changing them withing 2-4 years and I am sure this set won't have a problem. She has developed the habit to keep good care of the next set, which is the most important one.

Good luck for your new adventure! I assume you have already read all the posts in the pinned topics "advice for new mums and dads" and "having a baby in a Thai hospital". If some questions/concerns still remain, I guess you need to be more specific in order to receive prompt replies.

M.

My other suggestion is to try to keep it low profile and calm. The more you will escalate it, the more trouble you are going to face. I am sure there are other people more experienced than me on this forum, but in the occasions I had to deal with Thai bureaucracy it wasn't the law that made the day, but kindness, patience, and smiles. I hope you may be able to "win" also by taking the "enforcing the law" path, but I suspect it is going to be much longer, harder, and frustrating, and what for? for that final feeling of consumed revenge / rightgousness that is sweet but also bitter, and not lasting.

Hi, since no informed reply yet, I can tell you that I had two kids in Thailand, unmarried, the last one 18 months ago. No problem whatsoever for registering, but I could see it may depend on the local office and the people you are dealing with.

This is not an up-to-date information but I am pretty sure nothing has changed since, so don't worry too much and keep it cool while you wait for more detailed and informative replies.

matcube

In my opinion and experience they will not pick up a language simply because their parents speak it. My daughter didn't, and I know of other parents that had one extra "secret" language that they kept "secret" from the children; I don't know the dynamics, but in order to make sense it means they used it when the children were around (otherwise why bother...) and it has been a secret language to the children for ever.

In any event I don't think you need to worry about English for the first two years, especially if there is a chance you will relocate and/or you will send him to some English school.

matcube