samjaidee

I live in District 7 in Ho Chi Minh City, also called South Saigon.

This should give you some idea.

I live in new 2 bedroom, two bathroom house with open plan living, kitchen, dining room in a quiet, friendly residential cul-de-sac. I pay US$550.

An apartment in Phu My Hung, also in District 7 would range from $350 - $700 depending on size and furnishings.

Serviced apartments in town go for up to $2,000.

A villa or big house could be $1,500 - $5,000.

My electric bill for a small house, living alone, is 600,000 - 900,00 VND per month. ($30 - $45), depending on use of air-con.

Water is about $3 per month.

Internet with reasonable speeds and free unlimited downloads is 400,000 VND ($20).

Draught beer in an expat bar is $1.50 - $2.50 for a small one.

Cooking at home, you could live on $500 per month, but you wouldn't have a great social life.

Hope that helps.

I have a slight problem of attention span alone without a light in the middle of Cuci

sorry only two out of three levels

What is Cuci?

Malaysian movie?

colitis ulcerosa crónica inespecífica (CUCI)?

Cuci The Musical?

Enlighten me please.

APRIL FOOL!

"She had no conception of Thai culture and should have maybe focused on theforeigners them selves, the majority that visit the country show little respectfor them selves and even less for the native culture.

This is the attitude that local Thais learn from the so called civilizedwestern countries and is causing more harm to the society than development."

What exactly is Thai culture????

Bribery?

corruption?

money = power = untouchable?

slicing a girl in half then driving 10 km with half a body in your car?

being a 15 year old and driving uninsured with no licence and killing people without conviction?

Mafia run tourist areas?

"This is the attitude that local Thais learn from the so called civilizedwestern countries and is causing more harm to the society than development."

I don't think so.

Cant ever remember the 'mafia' controlling the donkey rides in any UK seaside town.

Go to any Thai town (not heavily populated by westerners) and see the crap they just throw on the streets.

"If its not mine - I dont care about it" is a very deeply rooted thought for all the Thais i have met.

The difference between a 'civilised country' and a developing country such as Thailand is that for the most part a civilised country has laws and people to enforce those laws and a checks and balance system.

Thailand has laws but if they are never enforced then nothing will change.

What exactly is Thai culture????

One aspect of Thai culture, and Asian culture in general, that came up in the show was leaving your children with your parents and going away to work. She made such a big deal about this yet it is completely normal all over Asia.

I watched about 15 minutes of the show and was so frustrated by her ignorance I had to turn it off.

I think the terms 1st or 3rd world country is obsolete these days as it was used to define so called non-aligned countries during the cold war. It just so happened these countries tended to be South America, Africa, and parts of Asia and were not very well developed at that time.

It is much more accurate to classify countries as developed, developing, or undeveloped based on their social-economic progress.

The OP was trying to show that many developed countries have lower economic growth rates and as much income disparity as many developing countries. He couldn't put the GDP per person in as that would make it obvious what he was trying to do.

TH

I agree to a degree. It is the old system but the terms are still in common usage. But are the new terms truly much more accurate?

So would the States be underveloped or developing because of their staggering debt (and crumbling infrastructure)? Is Thailand developed because of low unemployment and low per capita national debt along with strong industrial growth?

Maybe we need new factors defined and new terms?

A developed country is a country that has become too expensive to manufacture goods at home. When countries reach this point they become dependent on the developing countries for manufacturing output.

A developing country is a country that is indispensable to developed countries.

Developed countries have economies producing on paper rather than real products.

One point here I don't understand - If your goal is to make the army responsible for killing your protesters or others - Why use a weapon they don't have?

It would be easy to have the same weapons the army had, the police were handing them out for two day before the clash. Recall the hundreds of weapons returned under protest as seen live on TV. It is not like they could not have had many of them if they wanted.

It would seem if you wanted to kill and make someone responsible for it you would use a weapon that you don't have or one you can claim you don't have and surly use one they use.

Now who makes that claim? Just an observation.

2 possible reasons.

1 ) they aren't too bright

2 ) they might have thought that they could make the government fall before it got into an investigation, they take over, and then they could white wash it themselves if it even got that far.

Ballistics is about the marks of bullets and their deformations relative to the weapons used.

Forensics or Medical Forensics is about the affects on objects and beings of those projectiles and what happens after they hit something. ie what type of hole does a particular bullet make entering when fired at x distance, and what typer of exit wound if it exits, and what happens in between and what ancillary affects it has on the target and it's environment. And also coupling that to any media, such as CCTV or photos or news cameras, and/or eye/ear witness accounts to determine what happened.

In this case they would have nothing resembling a 'pristine environment' and if the bullet exited the person it would be lost from a ballistics viewpoint. Using DNA if that bullet is found it might have been matched to the victim, but there was no reports of a successful forensic search of the riot scene for anything.

So, by the obvious constraints the forensic and ballistics teams are under, it is improbable that much more than what they have stated CAN be found out.

Ballistics is, according to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Law:

1) a: the science of the motion of projectiles (as bullets) in flight

b: the flight characteristics of a projectile (as a bullet)

2) the study of the processes within a firearm as it is fired

American Heritage Science Dictionary:

The scientific study of the characteristics of projectiles, such as bullets or missiles, and the way they move in flight.

I'm not talking about the 2-4 weeks tourists, but about long time expats who are wearing shorts an short sleeve shirts.

Why do they do this?

Hi,

I have seen alot of things asked on Thai Visa, but this is the stupidest question I have ever seen.

FD

Do you ever leave your room /house ?

I have to say I agree with Fatdog. I wear trousers to work and the minute I get home I change into a pair of shorts. Any time outside working hours I wear shorts. Why would I want to wear clothing that is hot and uncomfortable through choice?

Temperature recorded at 3.4 degrees Celsius on Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai; Pattaya locals see waves as high as 1-2 m leading to tsunami fear /TAN_Network

Really, seriously, how can anyone be worried about a tsunami when there are waves caused by the weather? Particularly in Pattaya!!

They're Thais. Not exactly famed for their general knowledge.

Yes, but what culture is?

Fair point. I'll rephrase that. The education system doesn't encourage students, who then become adults, to search out information that will broaden their knowledge base.

Global warming causes cold weather?

Did the onset of the Ice Age signal rising warmer temperatures?

Does rain cause things to get wet?

Is snow really cold to the touch or does it just feel that way?

Is the sun really yellow or does it just seem that way because people haven't stared at it long enough?

why is orange jam called marmalade?

If you really want to know, Scotlands Queen Mary, the one who got her head chopped off, had a very bad cold, they brought her oranges from Seville in Spain and chopped them up and made it into a thick orange stew, this was for .. Marys Malady .. which over the years changed to Mar-malade, it sure caught on.. and still full of vitamin C... Bring in the toast....

Wrong, nothing more than a myth. See my other post for correct answer.

Temperature recorded at 3.4 degrees Celsius on Doi Inthanon in Chiang Mai; Pattaya locals see waves as high as 1-2 m leading to tsunami fear /TAN_Network

Really, seriously, how can anyone be worried about a tsunami when there are waves caused by the weather? Particularly in Pattaya!!

They're Thais. Not exactly famed for their general knowledge.

Global warming causes cold weather?

Did the onset of the Ice Age signal rising warmer temperatures?

Does rain cause things to get wet?

Is snow really cold to the touch or does it just feel that way?

Is the sun really yellow or does it just seem that way because people haven't stared at it long enough?

why is orange jam called marmalade?

most historians believe the term came from the Portuguese marmelo for quince, from which original marmelada was made. Marmalade first appears in English print in 1524. By the 18th century, the Seville orange (a bitter variety) had replaced the quince in marmalade popularity.

CP donated 250,000 baht of food - laugh. Cheap ass buggers.

Ignorant fool! What have you donated?

Holy crap...

Also to add, so what they are saying is that most men in Cambodia is not giving their wives a decent life, if their definition is set at $2,550/m (75k baht/m).

Just take them across boarder to Merma or Thailand and marry and go back

Maybe I'm wrong but I thought that Cambodia had borders with Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. I looked very carefully on several maps and couldn't find "Merma". Is this some in-joke I'm not aware of?!

I bought a bottle of gin at Saigon airport, where they put it in a sealed clear plastic bag. I flew with it to Suvarnabhumi and then on to Udon Thani. I then flew back to Suvarnabhumi and then back to Saigon, still with the gin in its sealed bag.

Never once did I have a problem taking it as hand luggage.

That was in January this year.

By the way, I did finally open it when I got home to Saigon.

The News of the World in the UK have been doing it for at least 2 years and the Thai government have only just realized it could happen in Thailand also?

Don't they follow international news?

It's amazing how parochial the Thais can be at times.

Whatever happened to Quinton Quayle. Though he was the UK Ambassador in Thailand. This Asif Ahmad must be very new.

He arrived in Thailand in November 2010 and is currently Ambassador Designate.

Quinton Quayle was from 2007 - October 2010.

"Thailand Concerned Over Growth In Young Drug Users"

I thought it was about concerns that drugs slowed of stunted the growth of young people.

This ambassador sounds like a wimp.

Give England's Queen a chance to air her views, she does not mince words

I think he sounds like a sensible man who considers his words and actions carefully. Where, in the article, does he appear wimpish, bearing in mind he's a foreign diplomat not an elected Thai official?

He looks like he probably has a fair understanding of the cultural differences between countries and hopefully knows how to play with those differences to his advantage.

The ambassador does not mince words either. His approach is clear yet diplomatic. Whether it will achieve anything is a different matter. TIT, after all.

"More than 3,000 Thais went to work in Libya last year alone. There are 33,000 Thais working in the Middle East, sending home remittances of more than Bt55 billion each year, according to a Labour Ministry report."

So......the average amount sent home by a Thai working in the Middle East is more than 1,666,667 Baht per annum. That's equivalent to US$55,556.

How is it possible that Thai workers, after living expenses, have that kind of disposable income?

Me thinks the Labour Ministry might be fibbing.

Whats wrong ? you jealous over the possibility a "Thai" may be earning more than you ?....your post is completely pompous & arrogant

I know of many Thai nationals working oil and gas overseas earning a lot more than $ 55k year in disposable income....$55k in the O&G game relatively speaking is peanuts as a salary.

I have no problem with anyone earning more than me. Why should I?

I will admit that pomposity, at times, is one of my less attractive traits but I can't see it being displayed in my previous post. Could you enlighten me as to the pompous aspect of my post?

I'm well aware of the money to be earned in the O&G industry. That having been said, I am surprised that there is such a high average amount of money being sent home per capita when you consider that many of the Thais working overseas are on very small salaries, albeit larger than they would be able to earn at home. There could of course be one person sending home millions of dollars which would bump up the average considerably.

"More than 3,000 Thais went to work in Libya last year alone. There are 33,000 Thais working in the Middle East, sending home remittances of more than Bt55 billion each year, according to a Labour Ministry report."

So......the average amount sent home by a Thai working in the Middle East is more than 1,666,667 Baht per annum. That's equivalent to US$55,556.

How is it possible that Thai workers, after living expenses, have that kind of disposable income?

Me thinks the Labour Ministry might be fibbing.

South Korea and Indonesia could kick Thailand's arse.

Thailand could kick Malaysias, Cambodias, Burmas and Laos' arse.

My understanding is that Thailand and China are building stronger relationships. If the USA and Thailand fought in 15 years time, who would Thailand side with?

Since you're obviously an expert on armed forces in Asia; any idea how Thailand would fare against Vietnam? How do their armies, navies or air forces compare?

Hope the scumbags get some serious time.

Scumbags is a bit harsh don't you think?

They stole money, they didn't hurt anyone except the banks. Was Nick Leeson a scumbag because he stole from Barings Bank?

Committing which crimes makes a person a scumbag?

Phuket has been ruined by greed and poor management, not tourism.

Koh Samui's the same.

Innocent until proven guilty.

Sorry, didn't read the whole story.

Send him back to the UK immediately.

When you buy prescription contact lenses from an optician for the first time the optician will always emphasize the importance of cleaning and storage.

When you buy fashion lenses from a market the chances are they aren't even selling cleaning solutions let alone tell you about cleaning.

I'm quietly confident this would happen in any country where non-prescription contact lenses are freely available. Kids particularly, don't care. They think they're invincible.

I think I would have tried them if they were available when I was a teenager; wouldn't you?