JamesPhuket10

In that case, you are only mixing with poor people and it must be a poor neighborhood you are living in re-climbing into a pickup truck. You do not see the other half of Thailand where people live in nice houses like the Thais living in my area, Phuket, (99% Thai households) no one is climbing into the back of pickup trucks here, they are climbing into their nice new family cars. So that explains where you are getting your one-sided information from. If I went to England and only ever went into pubs and nowhere else I would probably arrive at a false conclusion and think every English person drinks daily and no one works.

If that is what you believe of all Thai women then you are probably not capable of asking any complicated questions. 🤣

It worked with me and my wife in England, both my parents, my sister and her husband, and all of the other people I knew who were fit and able to work. Now I know you must be joking.

Total nonsense, I will just laugh, you are either joking or you have some sort of mental illness.

I would find it really boring talking about football with a bunch of guys while the dim women sat around talking about makeup etc, I say dim as you said they sit and talk about makeup etc. I do go out with my partner, there is a daily two-hour walk around the reservoir here in Phuket, and there are hundreds of restaurants on my door step. Lots things to do here. But one great thing is a session with my educated male friends in a pub. If dimwits are talking about football we avoid them. It is a fact most Thai women do not drink or go to pubs etc. I know it is completely different in the North East as they are regarded by other Thais as party-loving drinkers, oh and gamblers. Now Rugby Union, that is a different story.

I feel sorry for you, if that is your experience of women then you must have a terrible life. I know many Thai families where both the man and woman work and pay for things together. Maybe it is different in the North East though, I have never wanted to go there. No hang on, when I had a house built six years ago in Rayong the builders were a Thai family from Issan, the Thai woman and the husband both worked on building the house. Therefore the guarantee you have made above has become instantly invalid. You said, "This is how it works the world over." I know for a fact most married people in the UK are in a situation where they both work, it has been that way ever since my parent's time and I am in my sixties. Yet another false claim. I will make a silly claim now, 100% of people are aliens.

"But the marriage is completely different as soon as the husband is a foreigner and the girl is mostly a bargirl." True I suppose because if the girl can sell herself for money every night in a bar then she would not think twice about cheating her husband out of his money. But there are many 'normal' Thai women who have long and happy relationships with a farang, I am one of those farangs. Not all Thai women are from "poor" (as they claim) backgrounds and have made their own wealth and way in life.

I avoid all of that, there is nothing more boring than couples mixing as one big group. The good thing about the majority of Thai women is they do not drink and going to a bar etc is not the type of thing they want to do, which is great as I can meet up anytime at a bar/pub etc with other guys in my position and have a good drink and talk nonsense session, all good fun. And another rule is, no talking of football in the pub (neither American nor real football).

Exactly, when some farang goes on about his Thai wife or gf and then says something like, "You know what they are like", at that point I decided it is time to make my excuses and go, or talk to someone else as I am tired of hearing the stereotypical nonsense they come out with. They say things like, " I had to buy her a car, a house and give money to the relatives etc, you know how it is?" I don't waste my time trying to tell them I don't know how it is as I have never done that, they assume all Thai women are money grabbers and lazy and have not made any money doing a business, etc on their own. I have decided it is not my job in life to educate them or waste my time.

That is the problem with many of the moaning farangs I have come across, in my experience, they are with women from the North East of Thailand as they probably met at a girly bar where the girl worked, that has been the story I have been told in most of the cases. So they meet a much younger girl whose aim is to grab a stupid farang with money to take care of her and her family for the rest of their lives and then are stupid enough to do it. The further problem with these farangs is they mix with other farangs who have also married the same type of women and then think this is the norm in Thailand, it is in fact quite the opposite. The 99 % of Thai women who are not ex-bar-girls are married to Thai men, they work as a team and all of the Thai couples I have met both work, and the women do not expect to be paid for. My experience of Thais is here in the South of Thailand. My Thai partner for instance has worked all of her life, when I met her she was already financially sound, I have not bought a house etc for her or paid any money to her family as she is from the South, and is not the norm. We pay our way together like most other 'normal' couples in the world and live a very comfortable life in Phuket (not the touristy part of the island). I have come across very young and beautiful Thai women who told me they like me etc and I just laugh, (I am old enough to be their father) I tell them you like my wallet not me, as is the case with such an arrangement no matter where we are in the world. A lot of these farangs then come to hate Thai women, but they should be blaming their own stupidity and old man lust, if you play with fire then expect to get burned, but they do make me laugh. 😄

Is it at the same office where we do our visa extensions once a year, or is the office up the stairs where we get things like a proof of residency certificate, etc?

Ok, I admit I got the brand wrong, it is a petty mistake. But you have yet again got the rest of your generalized rambling nonsense wrong. Regarding education, I didn't need to get the beer brand correct to do my MSc Software Engineering degree at Oxford, you appear with the generalised nonsense you write to have had an approved education, I think it was called Borstal. 🤣

In that case, I assume you agree smoking should be banned so the idiot smokers are protected from themselves, I refer to your logo of a guy smoking a cigarette.

I did the same, she said she preferred real cigars, not miniature patellas. Then she took out a magnifying glass. 😄

Tell him to try different banks and even different branches of the same banks as the clerks there all have a different understanding of who can and can not open a bank account. I opened a Bangkok Bank in Phuket with a 30-day visa. It all worked with an ATM, debit card, etc, but I had to get a one-year visa extension before I could use online banking also with the iPhone app.

Exactly, "as requested by the officer" so there is no way of knowing what that is until after you have followed the pamphlet given out to you, got the documents together, and then turned up to see what rings that particular officer will put you through. Even the pamphlets handed out are different depending on which areas you are in, then, in addition, it is a potluck what happens unless we somehow get hold of a crystal ball? Maybe the immigration officers throw off their Thai illogical ways when they go to work in London for example, as there everything is clearly defined and you know what is expected to get a visa as it is set in black and white, my last few visas in London were applied for online and were done almost by return of post. My last visit to the Thai Embassy in London was easygoing, we were told what to bring beforehand, and it took fifteen minutes to order a Thai birth certificate for my half-Thai son who was born in and has lived all his life in England. That was future planning in order for me to buy a house and the land it sits on in Thailand in his name as he obtained a Thai ID and passport. But in Thailand for some reason, the staff could not organize a piss-up in a brewery. 😄 Luckily, they do not do any real science in Thailand otherwise the world would be gone. But apart from having to do the paperwork once a year, most other things in Thailand are great so overall I am positive about being here. 👍

Again, it seems to be different depending on which part of the country you are in. In Phuket we do not need a residence certificate, the TM30 (done online) will do instead as I have used it twice so far + TM 47 (done online). One photo of you outside the house which shows the house number. Map showing residence, this has to be a satellite Google map picture showing the latitude and longitude of the house. One year of bank statements copies showing the two months, then three months, minimum 800k amount then minimum 400k until two months before the next extension application. Bank savings book copies showing 1-year history.

I laughed out loud when I read your comment, so funny. All Russians are one of the above you think, I have to laugh again, and how narrow-minded and ignorant you sound. Unbelievable. 🤣 There are many Russians here in Phuket, very polite, many Russians are couples, many with young kids, and they keep themselves to themselves. I much prefer them to the other farangs from the distant past, the tattooed, beer-swigging bar girl chasers, thank goodness most of the girly bars have gone and that type of tourist has bogged off to cheap Pattaya or wherever. If I was Russian and disagreed with Putin etc and I was rich enough to escape the war I would also do what they have done to protect their family. Phuket is now like the British TV Carlsberg advertisement of old, "Reassuringly expensive".

The Germans do it, I have worked there a few times over the years for six six-month to a-year stints. I was once given a parking ticket by the police (well I had 27 hidden in the glove compartment but I kept that quiet), as I did not have my passport with me I was handcuffed and put in the back of the police car and driven to my apartment, once they saw the Brit passport, the nice apartment and saw I was a software engineer they treated me like a very welcome guest in Germany.

I just realised, the chances are even less now as I have had all of my car windows tinted in silver, 40% windscreen, and 60% side windows and back, I can still see out as the windows are not black but the police can not see inside so my white farang face will not be seen, maybe I should put a British flag on the car roof so I have a better chance of being stopped. 😄

I go to the main immigration office in Phuket. When I went for the first extension in Feb 2023 they were not that friendly and were self-important, they were doing you a favour by processing you. During the Feb 2024 visit, I found the whole atmosphere had changed, they were polite and helpful and it was all a breeze, well it was for me as all of my paperwork was in order and it only took the officer ten minutes to process them. At a desk two away from mine a Swiss guying was denied his extension as he had not followed the 800k by 400k by 800k rule I assume, he was blaming his bank for the problems unless it was his monthly pension payments which were not correct, I did not have the details but it was something to do with money not being processed in the required time frame. Over the last thirty-seven years of visiting Thailand, I did not have to deal with immigration as I was only here for maybe three months at a time. I was here once from 2018 to 2019 for a year, I think I had a multiple visa valid for six months valid for sixty days at each visit, extendable by a month, then a trip to Malaysia, a sixty-day visa, extended etc..... I think they stopped doing those visas.

My bank account in Thailand is in my name only. Yes with WISE we can select how much we wish to send in £ or we can select how much we want to be left in the Thai bank account after the exchange rate and the bank charges so I will send 70k per month (to be on the safe side) starting in February 2025 when the new visa extension will start. So my Thai bank account will show exactly 70k received on the same date more or less each month.

Yes, that is where the state pension and the other income are paid already, into my UK bank account, but I thought you were indicating we have to prove where the source of the funds was from eg a pension company?

PS to myself. I have been waiting for months for the police to pull me over where they expect me to produce my UK licence and an easy 500 baht to be had, but I have not been stopped yet, hence my brand new Thai driving licence has not seen the light of day.

"Thai's do not flash to warn others of a Mobile Speed Camera etc..." They do flash their lights onto oncoming traffic in Phuket if there is a speed camera or a Police roadblock ahead. I say that as I have had cars flash me several times, as I am all legal etc I drive on and arrive at the police check. The drivers also phone their friends to tell them the info, which is why Police checks are not there for very long.