JacksonGlurk

Just like my uncle used to say to me about this topic, that ….”It doesn't bother me that they don't try to assimilate. I would rather have them stay the way they are(if that's what they choose). It shows me who I want to be with, and who I want to avoid......

So you're saying that, as a Thai, you want to avoid people who aren't (or don't try to become) like Thais?

Yeah, that's exactly the way I always thought Thais saw the world......

This thread seems to generate more heartfelt sympathy for a politically incorrect point of view than I have seen in years past in Thaivisa. I am pleased to note it.

It was only a couple of years ago when we would see very derogative posts about falang who chose to live their lives in Thailand as if they were living at home.

Not only was it politically correct to integrate into Thai ways, but even those who chose to eat western food, as opposed to Thai food, were missing something, so the jargon went.

Remember the post from the guy who put tourists down who used Planet Earth guidebooks instead of standing in front of a train station clueless but blundering on for the "adventure" of it. He even when on to say you were missing the "real Thailand" unless you went unguided.

During the days of the British Empire, Brits overseas were derided for "going native". That has all changed and it is politically correct to do it now.

As for retirees, why shouldn't they move to a foreign country for economic reasons and enjoy their golden years in familiar surroundings they create in the foreign country and with the conveniences they had at home.

Bravo, Luckydog. I am with you.

Thank you for a post of exceptional intelligence and maturity in a place that is little noted for either.

....Who cares?

What's wrong with Americans?

When someone's immediate take on a tragedy like this is to use it to advance his own personal generalizations about a nation of nearly three hundred million people, you can only shake your head at what the world must look like from such a pea-brained perspective.

I was in and out of LHR a couple of weeks ago. The restriction that causes the most problem is that you are permitted only ONE piece of hand luggage, regardless of what it is and regardless of what class you are traveling in. And everything in your hands counts. In other words, if a woman is carrying a purse, that's her one piece of hand luggage. If a man has a camera in a case, that's his one piece of hand luggage. The US rule of 'one piece plus a personal item' seems to be nearly universal, but not in the UK. One piece. Period.

St John's International School has both UK high school and a N.American high school. The fees are resonable. It is situated in Ladprao, Bangkok close to Prahon Yothin MRT station and accessible via expressways. You can call the headmaster on 0895222701.

Wow, I really can't agree that St. Johns is a good choice for anyone. One of our sons went there for a couple of terms several years ago, but we were so appalled at their low standards and the poor student body they attract that we took him out.

To tell you the hard truth, there are no good international schools here that operate on the American system. Our sons now attend ISB, for which we pay well over B600,000 per year each, and my wife and I both feel it's an embarrassingly second rate school. The facilities are fine, but the faculty is mostly made up of little more than the sort of migrant schoolteachers who hibitually seem to drift from job to job all around Asia. Some make a real effort, of course, but the mass of them are lazy and uninspired. They would never be tolerated in a school in the US charging anything like the same fees we pay to ISB.

Good luck. We've given up on international education in Thailand and will be sending our sons away to boarding school next year. It's outrageously expensive to do that, but we don't see that we have any choice if we are not to sacrifice their futures.

*sigh* Haters will hate, I Love Dubai airport, clean, neat, good food and good shopping.....Emirates is big on being classy and hospitable.

*sigh* I suppose, Nebukanezar may be right. My experience shouldn't count for anything since I'm just a 'hater.'

Maybe it's my all fault in the first place. Maybe I actually flew the wrong Emirates Airlines a dozen times or so last year when I encountered nothing but dirty, overcrowded lounges, crappy airplanes, barely edible food, and employees who on the whole couldn't give a stuff. Yeah, that's it. Must have been my fault.

Oh well, I guess I'll just make do with awful airports like Changi from now on and leave the delights of Dubai to Nebukanezar. At least that will make a little more room for him, which he'll need in order to make his way among the floor encampments where the migrant workers barbeque their goats.

I'm absolutely astonished at the answers above.

The Dubai airport may not be absolutely the worse in the world, but it's pretty darn close. It's dirty, crowded, smelly, and unpleasant. Even the Emirates first class lounge is a garbage dump with rancid food, nasty employees, and no place to sit most of the time. They provide ONE shower and changing room for the entire first class lounge (and, to my eye, they clean it once a month).

The worst part of the Dubai airport is the remote parking of aircraft. On numerous occasions I've had a twenty minute bus ride (standing up, of course) to get from the plane to the terminal and then another twenty minute ride to get back onto my connecting flight. There is one narrow road snaking around the whole airport that carries every passenger bus, baggage cart, and maintenance vehicle for the entire place. It's Sukhumvit Road style traffic twenty-four hours a day, which ain't much fun after a ten hour flight.

Avoid Dubai whenever and however you can.

There is no option to put money in the bank. The requirements changed last year and the new requirement for one year extension of stay is a family income of 40k baht per month and this has to be proven for the previous year tax receipts for Thai income and previous three months for foreign income. Requirement is strict and (proof) has changed at least once already.

Nope, not so. Previous holders of a visa based on marriage to a Thai national are grandfathered in on renewal under the old requirements of funds in the bank as opposed to the new income standard. I thought that was reasonably well known by now.

I assumed the poster was in Thailand rather than some beautiful country, but maybe you're right.

Just moved to Bangkok,

Anyone want to play tennis or recommend where to play,

Thanks

Luke

No offense, but want to give us a hint as to your standard?

My wife burst out laughing when she saw the paper this morning. Thai has big ads in both the Post and the Nation touting its new service, not to 'Don Muang' at all, but to 'Don Muaeng.' Of course, they served 'Don Muang' happily enough for -- what? -- fifty years, but how quickly they forget, huh?

Hummmm. I hope they can find the place better than they can spell it.

Now please don't waste your time explaining to me how Thai can be transliterated in different ways and that this isn't really a mistake etc etc etc. I've certainly lived in Bangekok and Thaieland long enough to understand that, but in this case....

...For a long while I was flying Emirates from Dubai to Bkk and then Thai the other way, Emirates were in a different class.

I agree that Emirates is 'in a different class,' just not a good class. Thai Air is bad enough, but after a dozen first-class legs on Emirates in the last year, I wouldn't fly them again for free. What a bunch of clowns. Arrogant, stupid clowns, at that.

Still, if you're flying back and forth between Bangkok and Dubai, I realize that particular pair of hopelessly inept, second-rate airlines is probably your only choice. I feel for you, brother. Why don't you try for a job in Singapore or Hong Kong instead? Then you could fly a real airline like Singapore or Cathay.

We had no problem at all getting our nanny a US visa to accompany us on several extended stays in the States. We simply told the consular officer the story of our plans in a straight up way and, as I recall, the visa they gave her was valid for three years, subject to the usual six months at a time entry requirement. We pulled no strings and made no special pitch.

Two caveats on our experience as it might apply to you, however.

First, our experience was six or seven years ago. And, second, probably more important, our nanny was a middle-aged spinster who had a long history of emplyment as a nanny with several prominent local families, including a fair bit of prior international travel. Since the most basic test for whether a visa will be granted is whether there is a significant risk of the person not returning to Thailand, my guess is that a nineteen year old single girl with no travel history would have a much tougher time passing muster than our nanny did.

...Good on Thailand, most countries are relying on the USA less ad less, hence the crap currency rate - personally looking forward to those 25 baht to teh US$ exchange rates myself.

What an incredible demonstration of sheer, overwhelming ignorance, even by the remarkable new standards this board seems to set most every day for that sad category of achievement. Incredible.

yep I agree with Alex don't think you can generalise so much like this, have met more than a few HISO types with money that more than know how to have a good time and met more than a few miserable LOSO types also

Disagree slightly, you can't stereotype but you can generalise......

Okay, then I'll generalize a bit, and the first generalization is to say that I disagree completely with all this myth-of-the-happy-peasant stuff. It's not even a particularly original claim. You can find multiple strains of the same, ridiculously romantic nonsense running through most societies all the way back to the Middle Ages. And they always proved to be quite wrong. Always.

......If you have a gold card, and you are on an international flight, perhaps you can use the business class lounge. You will find it more comfortable in that lounge, I think LAX has some shower facilities too!

I've received several notices from airlines I regularly use out of the Bradley terminal that all the lounges there are closed for rennovation, which frankly is long overdue. As I understand it, they have built a temporary business class lounge in another terminal (!) and converted at least some part of what was a public restaurant on the second level into a first class lounge. I wouldn't count on getting much there these days at the Bradley terminal in the way of lounge facilities regardless of what kind of card you have.

Oh, come on. That's no help at all. The guy wants a whole suite.

....Actually I'm interested in the new (Apple) Airport Extreme which is a combo wireless router and wireless (USB device .. including printer) server. But it probably won't be available here in Bkk for awhile....

All models of the Airport Extreme have always included a USB connection for a printer which allows it to function as both a print server and wireless access point. I've used one here for several years. As I recall, the set up was entirely automatic using the standard Apple software provided with it. Frankly, my Airport Extreme has been so reliable over the years I have never had to shut it down and I can't remember precisely what I had to do to get the print server function running when I did the initial set up. My best memory is that it was absolutely nothing. Just get the current model of the Airport Extreme and plug it in. Let the PC people worry about scripts and set ups.

The readers of a Norwegian travel magazine has voted for Thailand as the most beautiful travel destination in the world, with Hawaii as number two! And the most ugly? That is Hurgada in Egypt

well, i'll agree to thailand being the most beautiful destination in the world.....

Good Lord, surely you meant that as a joke, didn't you? If you didn't, I'd suggest you either drink less, or maybe more. I've been in uglier places than Thailand -- southcentral LA comes to mind -- but darn few.

....I have been told by an immigration lawyer, that immigration can actually stop someone from intering after 6 months abroad. So in other words, it is not set in stone....

Yes, it's all very vague. We recently entered the US after my wife had been out of the country for about eight months. The immigration officer told us she was supposed to have a reentry permit after six months and that, the next time she was gone more than six months without one, she would be denied entry.

At his instruction, we went to Immigration to apply for a reentry permit for my wife before we left the US the next time. I told them we were going to be away about eight months and they refused to issue a renetry permit unless we submitted an affidavit saying that we would be out of the US for over a year. They even gave me a copy of the application which clearly says on it that no reentry permit is required unless the green card holder is absent from the US for over a year. You can find that application online along with that insturction. Now we carry a copy of the application and instructions along with my wife's passport. I don't know if it will help should the subject come up again, but.....

Because the baht is not a freely convertible currency, both exchange and interest rates find their levels in separate markets onshore and offshore.

The quick and dirty explanation of what is happening now is that the idiotic screwing around the Bank of Thailand has engaged in recently has driven the two markets much further apart than they have been in the past. The baht has been consistently weaker in the offshore market and thus short-term interest rates have also been much higher there (i.e. since there is more competition to attract the holding of a weaker currency).

True seems to blame the damage to the internet cable coming from Korea.

Anyone else living in the land of smiles experiencing such rubbish internet service?

yes, go back a few pages and read all the other threads.

It's Taiwan, not Korea where the problem lays and it's not just Thailand, Singapore is not so good either. Last l heard it's still going to be weeks rather than days before it's all fixed. Some sites work okay but a lot of US sites are still very, very slow.

But everything in these other countries is operating normally now, or so I'm told, since their ISP's rerouted traffic around the damage and reestablished their normal bandwidth. Of course, that requires ISP's to pay more for the use of the rerouted bandwidth. No one who has lived here more than six months is remotely surprised that Thai ISP's haven't done the same thing.

The clowns who operate ISP's here are primarily concerned about collecting as much revenue as possible and spending as little as possible on whatever service they (have to) provide. After all, what are we going to do about it? Move to Singapore?

Hey, there's an idea.......

Darn.

I am now thinking Thai airways return to LA in business class, with Hawaii as a domestic side trip for a week.

Missus hasn't been to LA before, so she'd probably like that.

Not a bad idea, although that would be both an expensive routing and probably a tiring one, too. Don't forget that LAX to HNL is nearly six hours each way.

If you do fly that way, however, check to see if Hawaiian Airlines still operates the LAX route. A couple of years ago I know they did and they were a much better experience than any of the usual domestic suspects. Cheaper, too. First class for nearly the same price as economy on the standard US carriers.

That's silly, of course, but it's the kind of thing you get here when you try to deal with Thai travel agents.

May I recommend an American-owned agency instead? One actually run by intelligent people?

Email Will Herron at DTC travel. His address, strangely enough, is [email protected]. I've used him for the last couple of years and can recommend him without reservation (no pun intended).

We make the trip three or four times a year and I can tell you for sure that Lanny is correct. It's a bitch. Getting almost anywhere in the world from here is easier.

There are no direct flights from Bangkok to Honolulu at all. Lousy connections on lousy airlines are your only choice. Until about three months ago, EVA had good connections and good fares over Taipei, but they dropped the route completely on about twenty-four hours notice and left us here at the mercy of the crap airlines.

JAL is marginaly more professional and reliable than the other alternatives, it seems to us, although I have never tried to use Korean over Seoul. China Airlines is absolutely the pits and the two American alternatives (UA and NW) are pretty much in the same class. Connections in Tokyo or Taipei are of the four to six hour layover variety no matter who you fly.

Good luck.