JamesPhuket10

I think I remember I had to show I had had at least £10k or £20k in a UK bank account for a period of a year while applying for the 90 day visa online in the UK, so maybe that is whey I do not have to have insurance here in Thailand on my non - O visa as the amount in the UK bank is seen as available should a health problem arise here in Thailand, this comment is just a guess on my part.

I had a lower back problem in Phuket a few years ago. I went for an Xray and a scan at a top private hospital in Phuket, the doctor was a specialist in that area of medicine. He said I had spondylosis and it will get worse, I asked if I might end up in a wheelchair and I was told that will happen. I went back to the UK had similar tests, saw a similar doctor, no spondylosis present and no tissue damage including the disks in the spine, so he sent me to see another doctor. That doctor told me it was a muscular problem and so I followed a set of exercise routines, I was afraid to exercise from the point I was told of the false report from the Thai doctor as I though it may cause more damage to my spine. So in effect the Thai doctor's advice was making things worse. A few months after following the UK doctors instructions I had improved the strength of my core muscles and the back pain disappeared over time.

I am doing the same thing. I am happy with the one hour trip to the immigration office in Phuket once a year to get my old bloke visa extension with the 800k baht in a bank. I do not have insurance as the cost to payout ratio is not worth it. I save the insurance money and I have £50k in instant cash available plus £150k in instant credit available to get me back to the UK in an emergency. If that became the case then the 800k baht in the Thai bank would also be to hand as I could go back to the UK and if I then become well again I would get a 90 day visa in the UK and then use it to get a non-0 visa extension again in Thailand after three months. That way I know my emergency costs would be met without having to get the insurance company to pay up. Plus after nearly three years I do not feel I am permanent here, just a long term visitor as we are not allowed to have any permanent status, I know a few thousand a year are allowed to do so but the chances of that happening are slim, plus we are still treated like farangs so we will never be part of the country. I am in no way complaining about this, I wish the UK would have strict rules as they do here, I am just stating I know what I am in Thailand and I am happy with it as the airport is only forty minutes away.

I can speak English, German but that is no use and some French, also useless. Thai, no not fluent, it is a waste of time trying to be fluent as I do not work here, Phuket is international and so the banks etc speak English in order to be able to speak to all the tourists from around the world. Hence they would speak English to Germans, Swedes, Indians etc, some Thai sales people do speak some Chineses, phrases I think. I remember being in Portugal, a woman spoke English, Portuguese, French, German, Spanish and Dutch, she was selling french fries. It is much more interesting and a better financially to learn programming languages in my case. I have not met a farang who is fluent in Thai, so many farangs claim to be fluent but what I have seen is they only have the ability to spout out a few sentences, I have never met one who is able to read a technical/professional document. I used to go to an Australian bar in Phuket where a lot of farangs would meet up weekly, the owner of the bar was in Phuket on a student visa and was learning Thai three days a week at a school. He laughed and said it is still a waste of time as all of the girls working at the bar including his wife were from Issan and so spoke Loas.

I used the word 'work' , I am a retired freelance software engineer. UK, Germany, Sweden, Holland, Denmark, USA. But I still write my own iPhone apps and put them on the App Store for sale, it is interesting, keeps my brain active and allows me to keep on learning new things on a daily basis. Living in Thailand we have to find such things to do as we can only walk on the beach, go for a beer, restaurant etc so many times before it becomes monotonous. I 'work' from home and I am free to do as I please with no team pressure, my development system is under my own control. That is the reason I write comments on this blog as I take breaks now and then as I wish to do something simple to give my brain a rest for ten minutes plus some of the characters who live in a pretend world on this blog make me laugh. I do get offers of work in the UK and USA etc, my first thought is that is interesting, then I think of having to go into work, team pressures, good money but time would be ticking away. Time is now more important than extra money to me so I turn the jobs down.

Still no mention of my house being bigger than yours. You have just proven yourself wrong but do not even realise it, so funny.

Keep on taking the tablets, they might find a cure for your ailment in the meantime. Ps. can you send me a copy of your Thai Id card and Thai passport so I know you really are a permanent resident and not just a long term visitor.

😀 It is so funny what you make up about what I have said, cut and paste here what I have said about my car and house being bigger than yours, that is not possible though as it is all in your head. It is time for me to go back to my 'work' now as I have had a good skive off 'work' by writing these noddy emails, have a good day. p.s. I can not have mentioned the size of my house in Thailand as I do not own a house in Thailand nor ever claimed to have owned one.

Keep up the pretences and the things you make up about me as I think it is funny, you make me laugh, I never meet people like you in real life so it is a good experience to realise you do exist. I could meet your type though quite easily by going into a girly bar and hiring one for the night, how much do they cost I wonder. Right that is enough waste of time, it was a good skive for an hour or so, now time for me to get back to my 'work'. Have a good life.

I first visited in the 1987 and then visited for quite a few months a year after that, I have been living here for three years now with a visit back to the UK for a few months recently, what is strange about that? Do you have permanent residency or are you like me on a temporary year non-O visa by year extension which by no means shows I live here permanently or allowed to do so, the rules could change at any time. I do agree with you about American houses as I saw during my 1.5 years of living and working there is two areas, Texas and New Jersey, they were made of chipboard with a felt type of roof, no wonder they fall over when the wind is up. In Texas I saw a lot of houses which looked like garden sheds to me and they were not large.

What a poor sad life you have with such views of women, don't forget your mother, sisters, nieces, etc are women too. There is nothing more to be said, your view is fixed, what a pity. I fell sorry for you.

"The modern western culture and cultural values is an ABOMINATION to me." Well you are living in the wrong country then, ever since I came here in the 1980's shopping centres etc filled with 99% of Thais more luxurious than in the West have been present, that is still the case today even in Phuket, most shoppers are Thais, many of the Thais here are well off. Not all Thais want to live in shacks in the middle of the beyond, they want a quality standard of life. A lot of farangs pretend they prefer that as that is all they can afford. When it comes to getting rid of the forty million tourists who add to the Thai economy or the few hundred thousand farangs living on 2 dollars fifty cents a day, I think they will choose to get rid of the latter. It is yet another example of self importance some long term visiting farangs have, get rid of the tourists, who do you think you are to dictate what Thais want to do with there own country. Go somewhere else if you do not like it.

Your view of women is sad. The things you are inventing about me in order to make yourself feel good is also sad. "Nobody believes me"? All the people I know in the same situation as me believe me. It is interesting to see people like you exist out there as I never meet such types personally. Just because you have to buy women does not mean we all do, that would be also sad. I have never said I am special etc, I am just saying there are lots of independent Thai women out there who can do things on their own, but you do not wish to believe that as they would avoid you like the plague. You carry on buying your women, I will carry on building a life with my partner.

Erm, she has her own money, property which she worked for by setting up her own business. You would never know such Thai women exist as they do not hang around girly bars, you are the hypocrite thinking young bar girls fancy you, we could easily do what you do, you could never find a woman who does not want you for your money so you pretend they do do not exist, that is very sad my friend.

Yes we stay with our wife/gf out of choice, we too have wallets, we could buy a new young bar girl every day, we choose not to as we have relationships with our women. Go home to your bar girl, you are not special, any idiot can buy one. Or maybe you are one of those idiots who think young women like old men, a simple test would be to stop paying for her and see what happens. 😄

True. Yes a lot of Thais are shy of foreigners and in most cases Thai women are married to Thai men as lets face it we farangs long term residents are just a tiny fraction of the population and most Thai women never come into contact with us socially. If a suggestion is made of going to a bar to a standard Thai they would say they prefer to go to a restaurant. Thais could be world champions at eating but when it comes to a drink, they fall at the first hurdle. 🤣

"Also the going out and getting drunk "like most Thai woman". Almost every family I know here, the man drinks, and the wife doesn't." That has been my experience for the 30+ years of Thailand and the Thais I know in England, Thai women in general do not drink. But sometimes at a birthday or Christmas they might have a glass of wine, they then start to giggle and it turns out to be funny.

Yes, Thailand has a very clear set of social levels, most of the farangs will never see this as they only deal with the lower level in general as far as I have seen, but there are some exceptions. I live on a gated private road estate with about 350 detached houses, 99% of the people living in it are Thai, it seems both husband and wives work, not a bar girls in site, all decent hard working Thai families. I remember going to dinner with an Australian once and he introduced me to four of his friends , various Western nationalities, who all knew each other well. They were talking about how much they give their Thai wives who were all from Issan, the car they had bought them, the house they had build on her land in the sticks in the middle of nowhere, the money they gave to the wife's family etc, they said, " you know the normal". I said that is not normal, I said as far as I can see most of the Thais I had mixed with is where couples both work and contribute, I said I do not give an allowance to my Thai partner as she has her own income, property etc, and as far as sending money to the extended family I said I had never heard of it. They thought I was lying, I just laughed to myself. They also told me of how their wives like to party and booze, get drunk etc, "you know as most Thai women do" they said, I just laughed to myself as I was not going to waste my time with them. I also laugh when the farangs talk big and then leave on a motorbike.

And that is the basic truth and logic. Lower educated Western guys are with lower educated Thais as that is the only group who will accept them, most of them after the old guys for their money. They do not seem to realise the educated professional Thais interact and marry Thai or farang guys with a similar background and would not mix with the lower tier of Thais or lower tier farang, these guys just do not understand that. Who are the female doctors, dentists, lawyers etc in this country, they are Thai. Who are the Thais driving Mercedes and living in big houses? If the dim farang think all Thai women are dim then in turn they are dim, and dim farangs with their dim wives etc will never come across the more educated Thai, I wonder what Thai universities are for, they must think they are for show. 😄 I also avoid dim farangs as well as their dim partners.

You must be mixing with the wrong type of tourist, don't believe the rubbish you see on YouTube for example if that is your only source of info? I was in the Central Shopping centre in Kathu, Phuket yesterday, it was full of clean cut farangs with wives and children as was the case today in the Jungcelon shopping centre in Patong, the same scene. The number of restaurants, shops, hotels vastly outnumber the number of bars in Phuket and has been the case for over fifteen years. Phuket is reassuringly expensive as it keep the riff riff bar monkeys away.

The view of a country is determined by the viewer and their own particular activities. Some peoples view is of bars and prostitutes and that is what they think the whole of Thailand is about, what they fail to see that view is a reflection of their own life and not the 99% of Thais who are not involved in that market. I had a a large Thai restaurant in an affluent city in England for over 22 years (I never worked there but I enjoyed the food), the vast majority of guests who had been to Thailand mentioned the art, the culture, the beaches etc and not about the minority of the country where the bars/bar girls exist as that is not what they went there to see. The comments were from couples, families and mixed groups of people who make up the vast number of tourists to Thailand. I have met some guys who think the whole of Thailand is about bars and pros as that is what they were there to see. They mixed with bar girls as did their friends and that for them was the norm. There are prostitute areas in most free countries in the world so a a personal view of a country is really a view of your own life and activities. I have met many Arabs on holiday in London who think all English women can be bought and are prostitutes as those are the only type of people they mix with.

Cheers, I have set a reminder on my iPhone to tell me 15 days before the end date of the 90 days, I find it is best to go earlier in case anything goes wrong, I do the same with the visa extension. I did check with the friend and he said it was definitely the 90 days he reported a few days after his return from a three month trip to the UK. Maybe the officer made a mistake as he looked at his last 90 report and as it was 90 days earlier he did not check the last entry into the country stamp in his passport. That is one explanation.

I arrived back on the 8th September, I did the TM30 online the next day just in case. (The house registration of my address). That is what I though regarding the 90 day report, the count was set to day 1 when I arrived in Bangkok. In November last year I returned to Thailand after five weeks in the UK and so 90 days after that I went to the drive though 90 day reporting center in Phuket, the officer had an expression of surprise when he saw my last report was well over 90 days but I then pointed the entry visa from November and that I was reporting 90 days after that and all was OK. But the friend said they gave him a new 90 day report receipt when he went to the immigration office last week just six days after arriving back. I will check with him again.

Cheers, thanks for the info. I have found an agency in Phuket which can do it, it saves me going to Bangkok twice. Another question. I was out of the country for five months and got back a week ago, the last time I did that I did my 90 day reporting 90 days from when I got back but a friend who just got back after three months in the UK did his 90 day reporting in person at the Phuket immigration office straight away as he said it it now the new regulation. Do you have any info on this?

Cheers, thanks for the info. I have found an agency in Phuket which can do it, it saves me going to Bangkok twice. Another question. I was out of the country for five months and got back a week ago, the last time I did that I did my 90 day reporting 90 days from when I got back but a friend who just got back after three months in the UK did his 90 day reporting in person at the Phuket immigration office straight away as he said it it now the new regulation. Do you have any info on this?