mattias33

Took the car to Bangkok on the last tuesday and was surprised to see we where going from a brand new pier in Nathon!! I did not even know they where building one and now its finished! Offcourse, im not in Nathon very often. Even more surprised when i saw it was a carferry i never seen before. Very nice boat, far better than the others and seemed very new aswell. According to the wife all the signs on the boat are in chinese language so it appears it comes from there.

Anybody know whats up with this? Is this boat suppose to be in Samui-Donsak permanetly or did they just borrow it for a short time to service the old ships?

Anyway it was a more plesant ride than it usually is. Good initiativ, hope its here to stay!

Rainy season and low season means many shops are open on random days; no customers means no need to work!

btw, nice advertising for the guy: maybe you also want to broadcast where you buy other illegal items, substances...

Is there a good piratcopy dvd shop in ban rak? Hahahaha.

Just kidding.

We are doing a border bounce this afternoon and someone has just mentioned to us that the Ranong border is closed. Does anyone know for sure or how to find out? We will quickly reroute south.

Thanks

Friend did a ranongrun in saturday, at least then it was open. Swing by immigration in Nathon before you live the island. Probably they either know or at least can check for you.

...but d'ont forget, this SIM cards are not registered on your name..... if you go to south-thailand u will no have any network there If you buy your SIM in a TELEWIZ shop and register with your passport then u will get access to the phone-network everywhere in LOS. (incl. south provinces, eg. Narathiwat, Yala, Pattani, Nakhon Si Thammarat, Satun, Trang, Phatthalung)

Got any proof of t his or is it heresay? I might then be in the possession of a "magic" 1-2 Call Sim...

yes i have my own proof about what i wrote here.

I go to Malaysia with 2 mobiles and 2 different SIM-cards from AIS.

The registered one was work properly after HadYai until TakBai (everywhere in the South).

The other card (from 7/11) was not working when leave HadYai to the border of LOS.

Everybody on the trip have had the same problem and they wondering why it's not working there.

After that, i call AIS and ask why this happend. They told me about the terror-attacks in the south.

So about this reason they cut off the networkcells in souththailand for everybody who are not a registered customer!

Clear to understand....or not?

If somebody has a unregistered SIM from AIS and she working allover LOS......goodluck...maybe a mistake from AIS.

Absolutely right. Have a sim-card (12call) that i registred in pantip placa, bangkok, it works everywhere. Even send and sms to Thailand from Sweden with my last bahts the last time i was there! And never any problems in penang or anywhere in Thailand.

Never thought it was due to the registration, but it always worket fine. Globaly i think.

Stop now. What are your chanses to get away with misleading info on this forum, filled with expats? I understand you scam the hel_l out of people that dont know anything, but here i think it would be wise to stick to somekind of truth.

1. I opened a bangkok bank account with a visa on arrival. Bank account is no reason to join walen.

2. After a year with my Thai wife teaching me 10 words every evening i speak more thai than the walen students i met. A frend of mine been a student for a year in walen and when he speaks thai my wife ask him to speak englich. She dont understand a word he say and she is born and raised in Bangkok.

I dont say nobody learns thai at your school, im sure they do, im just saying that your statement "join us or be able to say only kop kun kap" is nothing but another step in your scam-program. Stop it.

To people moving here:

There are alot of people and companies that want to take advantage of your little or none knowlede of the Thai-system, ruleas and regulations. Be aware and careful. People that say "give me your money or you wont be able to stay in Thailand, have a bankaccount..and so on" are many times scam-artists, with the only intention to make money out of you on your little knowlede.

Beleive nobody, doubble-check everything, ask around, and keep reading for instans forums like this.

MacWalen, the last advertisement of yours I saw in the Bangkok Post didn't even have

the word "School" or "Thai lesson" in it. The wording on the website was only corrected

after you were pressured to make it so. "For the lessons only" does not appear as fine

print on any of your ads. I'm sorry to tell you it is false advertising. Intent to mislead.

True scam-artists.

What if i have a visa already and joined the "school"? I still pay 29 500? Even though i dont want you to fix me a ed-visa?

Macwalen, wake up, time to answer.

Hi there, Does anybody know if there is a sea plane service from Samui to Koh Tao or if there is a Sea Plane for hire on Samui. I've noticed a Sea Plane parked at Samui Airport on a recent trip in September this year. I can be contacted on ***email and phone number per forum rules***

Many thanks, Ric Darne - Swaziland, Africa.

Sorry. No service that i know of excisting at this time. The plane you saw on the airport is cocos nr 1 brag project called "fly and dive". (They even put the "A.S" name on the side of it to impress even more people, hahaha, amasing how patetic some people can be when the hair fall off!!). Never got airborne and dont have a pilot , he left the island since he did not get paid, (who in cocos history did ever??).

I dont know of any seaplanes licenced in these waters, i know there are some in phuket but never heard of any for rent. Might be something to start up. Im a licenced pilot (ppl ir) and ill be your nr 1 costumer if you start this business up! Or maybe even a flightclub in samui with planes for rent for its members? I would be a sponsor of such a thing. I even go in as a co-owner with one or two other investors to create a flight-club. This is the one thing i miss over here at the moment.

Rainman say:

"It gets me thinking ..if it's already so bad now, how will it be in 40 years? There won't be less traffic, there will be more. Much more. Every family that now has a car and has 2 or 3 children, each one of those children will have at least a car as well. That makes at least 2 or 3 times the traffic we have today. How can my children live with that?"

I say:

When you are thinking, try to do it the whole way. If everybody stop making children, how will it be in 40 years?

And every car with a mom and a dad and 2 children. Yeas, the 2 children will most lightly drive cars 40 years from now. The mom and the dad most lightly will not. No increase.

My advice to you: dont think to much. Or think more. Right now you seem to be stuck in the middle of thinking and not thinking, and thats not good for you, hahahaha.

Pls tell me this thread is not for real?

Hey, no offence. But i understand your post like a westerngirl hoping to find a vikingman, maybe i got you wrong??

[sorry for being OT]

None taken. But I am curious about what you mean by *post like a western girl*. In case you're thinking that this is not normally the way I talk (oh of course I don't go on and on about Swedish o Nordic vikings every spare minute of my time), then you don't really know me, do you?

And no, I don't talk this way just to lure a viking, although, thanks for letting me know that there is a certain way a girl must talk to *find* one. I'll keep that in mind the next time I visit Vikingland or wherever these mystical beings inhabit.

As of now, I'm only intimately familiar with IKEA and meatballs+cranberry sauce. Just saying. =P

Sorry, my mistake in writing. Should be "i understand your post, like a.....". Came out like i said something about the way you talk, witch i did not at all claim to do. My mistake.

Meatballs with cranberry sauce is nothing i during my 32 years in Sweden ever seen anybody eating. Swedich meatballs are served with mach potatoes, and lingonberry perserve. Sometimes with brown gravy.

Anyway, if you do head for the "vikings" might be good to do some research about them. I did that when i left Sweden for the Thaigirls and it came out very well, hahaha.

Good luck

What a load of crap. Not even worth a comment. So............ will i.................No.

Read it and believe or read it and .

To each their own as we say on this forum.

Dont this link say exatcly where its going?????? (off topic, but still interesting)

It does now that sbk has un-blinded it.

An example > Click me

Inside it points to "realbigspamsite" (not a valid url in this case, but a good example of what could happen) but what you see doesn't tell you that. You can hover your mouse over the link and see it in the status box of your browser, but some members may not be aware of that. Even now, I will hover over a link to verify where it is going before clicking on it.

Now i understand! Thanks for clearing that up!

Check out this Thailand related fishing website www.thaifishingguide.com/fishtechequip/fish/saltwaterfish/threadfin_salmon.html

Naka.

SBK ... What's a blind link ?

Naka.

It's a link that doesn't really tell you where it is taking you to. The above non-clickable link is clear what it is about. Put an obvious identifier in the link title to let members know what site it is going to such as the name of the site.

???????

Im i the only one who got lost here??

Dont this link say exatcly where its going?????? (off topic, but still interesting)

The banner (already posted on this thread) say: 1 year ed visa - no visaruns required. Only 29500 baht per year.

If this is the truth it is not missleading.

However reading this whole thread it does seem like there are alot of extra costs. 1900 baht every 90 days....

When i read the banner i get the impression that anyone can pay 29 500 baht to walen and the visaproblems are solved for a year. Anyone that is a visa-expert sure understands. But the guy who just move to thailand and never heard of extensions andvisaruns may get the impression to pay the money and then its done. Id say this is pretty missleading advertising and not realy fair.

I think it would be fair that walen share the costs that come after the 29 500 with the students. And i think instead of defending the banner it would be better to change it, macwalen?

Obviosly, ment or not, many people get it wrong and get surpriced when the extra costs come. Whats the point of this?

When macwalen brings up cardealers in his defence, thats when my suspision grows about this school...........

Anybody know of a similar thing in Samui, pls post.

If your neighbor doesn't have any problems, you should check and make sure your power consumption is under the rating of the cables to the house! If you are overloading the cables, this is a big fire hazard.

Do you have a clamp-on meter amp meter that can go around one of the conductors of your incoming supply? If not, check your voltage in two different places, at the meter, and at an outlet as far away from the meter as possible.

Automatic Voltage Regulators are great at protecting yourself against PEA problems, but if the problems are internal, they do pose a higher risk to yourself. They will continue to draw equal power, no matter what the voltage is. This leads to higher current consumption at low voltages.

175-305V is not a normal range for the utility. 200-240V is beyond western specifications, but not too unreasonable for Thailand. The excessive voltage variations you see, especially at the high end, suggest a real problem. Be careful.

Very good post, tjo o tjim. Actually the fire hazard is something that got forgotten in this thread. Anybody with electric problems need to check why the problem is there. Can many times be something that leeds to fire. Good you brought it up.

By the way, i do occasionaly enjoy your 100 bath/tre bottle chang!! It is a great place in the middle of expenses, but i gotta say it is one of the most boring bars in the whole island. Absolutely NOTHING going on exept for a few swedich tourist with alot off attitude sitting in the way of nice looking thaigirls with no attitude, hahahaha.

I think the name attract these tourists. And me being from sweden dont enjoy that. Id say, spend the extra money on the chang and find a place with something going on. Alot of the places in green mango area is great. Viking bar??....Hmmmmmmm. No. Try it out though. Cheapest beer in the area, i personaly think seven eleven is more fun and even cheaper.

Although I haven't personally been to Viking or Samui (YET), I've asked a couple of folks who've been there and they really seem to enjoy the chill-out ambience and love the Shot Challenge too. I am dying to see one of those in action actually. Happened to come across a guy doing something like 11 shots in under 8 seconds on youtube and I'm utterly impressed and ! If only I dare to as well...but my liver and I shudder at the thought.

Can't wait to pop over next month and meet Judy and her family of super nice and friendly staff...and maybe a few cute Vikings along the way too.

Hey, no offence. But i understand your post like a westerngirl hoping to find a vikingman, maybe i got you wrong??

Anyway, if it is the case i think soi green mango in Koh Samui might not be the best place for this. Quite high competition. If you want vikings i can strongly reccomend going to Sweden, and once the vikings are over there they are quite open for suggestions, hahahaha.

Here? Wouldnt thinks so......

(if you go to sweden this time a year, make sure you bring thik clothes and absolutely no smiling!! Anybody smiling in Sweden between october and march is considered an idiot and stand a good chance of being arrested! )

Summers good though.....

Hi Mattias

No worries. We are all here for some good fun. Drop by one day in our 'boring' bar and introduce yourself. If you are good, I might think about letting you buy us a drink...ha ha ha

Cheers

Hehehe. I might bring you to some of the newly renovated bars in the soi. Im glad you dont renovate or rebuild the vikingbar (allthough it seems you need a new place to put your computer?) its good there is someting to recognise in soi green mango if i make it down there this season.

And dont worry, have a lot of Swedich touristfriends that are boring enough to only sit in "Swedich places" all their holiday, that are heating here this winter, so im sure i will be bying a drink or two in viking bar also this time.

I will intruduce myself and by the Chang-bucket for the staff.

Hi Mattias

Sorry if you find us boring. Guess everyone's needs is different. If you want action, try Heaven bar.

And yes, we can never beat the price in 7-11 or Family Mart. After all, you get to stand by the walk way, drink your beers and watch the traffic that passes by

For sure. (comersial allowed o the visa i guess.....?) Anyway, everybody seen already that the forum-rules is different from post to post..who cares. We are all happy.

Viking bar is great. Its good. I like it., Sorry if anything else came up. I just wanna make fun of you comersial on the forum, witch normaly is not allowed, but there is seriously nothing at all wrong with vikingbar. Cheap beer and Swedich guests (who ever likes that).

By the way, since promoting now seems to be ok on the forum, i would say in soi green mango there is a few bars that are good: Blessing bar for instans. And green mango itself.

And already mentioned viking bar if you want to drink cheap beer chang (3 for 100 baht, dirt cheap, get drunk, have fun,).

My wife and I are moving to Krabi area next month from U.K. My wife only has a provisional license but has had lots of lessons. Is it possible to obtain a full Thai license on a U.K. provisional or does she/can she do the Thai driving test? Looking for as much info on this as possible as she really does need to be driving out here. I have also heard the Thai test is a nightmare for foreigners as it is completely in Thai? Is this true?

The Swedich licence they convert to Thai (at least in Samui, but must be same everywhere?). I am not sure what the law says about uk-licence but another poster in this thread claimed he converted the uk-licence as easy. However, to be realy sure you should apply for an international licence already before you leave uk. That one is valid everywhere and also changeable to a Thai-licence.

I recently had a renewal of extension of stay based on married to Thai woman.

It was a piece of cake because I was grandfathered last year and I had all my paperwork well done.

The new rule was that we had to take some new photos at home showing us together; the front of our

house and all rooms in the house was required.

They wanted 6 new photos and told us to come back in a week with the new photos.

They told us also to be prepared for the same rules next year (2008) renewal with deposit of not less

than 400.000 baht at least 3 month before the application but without any new photos of cause.

That's it...Good Luck.

That's certainly good news that the 400k in the bank is still ok.

I have a related question that someone may be able to help with.

The next time I go for my 1 year extension I will only have 11 months left before my passport expires.

Do I

a) Apply as usual and hope they give me an 11 month exension?

Apply 1 month early and ask for 1 year?

c) Go to my embassy and get a new passport before applying?

If c) How does that work as I then have an invalid passport with a valid visa in it and new one with nothing in it.

Any advice please

Visa and passport are 2 different things. You get a one year extension even if your passport expires in 11 month. Then the next time you extend you bring the old and the new passport with you.

Or you go and transfer the visa from the old to the new at immigration once you got the new one.

Today I renewed my Thai wife visa at Kaep Chong (think that's spelled right). The lady here was very friendly as usual. I didn't have 2 sets of copies of the bank letter and bankbook, so I had to go out and get that done. Keep a balance of 400K but last month went under, due to an automatic deduction for life and health insurance for family members. She didn't say nothing about it, anyways this month it was toped off again. She asked about proof of income, I said I had none because I didn't think I needed it. I had originally submitted such proof in 2002. She said that was OK, she just wondered if I had. No photos were asked for, although I took some along, due to all the talk on this forum. Anyways all went really well. I was really expecting all kinds of problems, and my wife and son had to put up with me being in a bad mood about this false expectation. I hope other Farangs get the same good and polite treatment as I did today.

I did ask about people on retirement visa, because of the requirements of having 65,000 Baht/MO income. This sum is about $1,800/MO for an American and about $600 to $800 more a month, than the average working person will get on social security. To me this means that this rule basically says, that Americans are not welcome or allowed here. They are priced out by unreasonable expectations of retirement benefits, or basically discriminated against, or both. Either way I hope the American government is aware of this and takes action in making it as difficult and expensive for Thais to go and stay in the USA. If you are retired and this is all causing you problems, fill out a report and complaint, when you are at the US Embassy, getting whatever paperwork you have been told to chase after. If you are too lazy to help yourself, and help bring change about don't complain. Nothing gets done without paperwork, and if you don't care no one else will.

Good luck to all getting your extensions, and I hope the officials are nice to you as they were to me.

Do you realy think American government need to make it expensive for a Thai to go and live there??

I never been in America, i know it would be quite cheap for a european to go and live there, but the general thai have 7-10k / mounth. Baht. Thats 200-300 $ us.

I think it would be fair to say its already quite expensive for a Thai to go to America!

Do not try to buy a licence on Samui

The lady that issues the licences is probably the only one on this island you can not bribe.

You need the following:

2 one inch photos.

Copies of passport and Visa (must be Non-O or Non-B )

Medical certificate.

Letter from Immigration with your permanent adress.

Copy of International driving licence. (if you do not have this then you will need to take the tests)

If you intend to take licence for both MC and car then you will need all of the above in two copies.

You will need to be att motor office 9 AM for color blind test, reaction test and split vision test.

You need to bring your motorbike/car, they do not have any to lend out.

Thanks for this info.

As you are on Samui can you tell me if its good to look to buy a car there or get one from the mainland and drive it over. Would this be cheaper. My wife is currently over there looking for both a house and cars.

If you buy a car on the mainland, buy in surrathani.

You must register the ownership in the same province.

So, if you buy one in Issan, you must travel there to make the transfer.

I would recommend to buy on the island so you don't have deal with other motor offices.

PM me, if you need help.

Well, if you buy a car in isaan, you probably go there already when you buy it, and do the transfer already then?

Ive had my car a year and a half and i never had to deal with ANY motoroffice (except for the driverslicence), what are you meaning, poorsucker?

Perhaps you need to buy a car before you start assuming things, ???

Now, heres the real thing:

Buy a car wherever you want, but for your own benefit i recommend to use a cardealer, and preferable one that speaks good englich, witch i personaly think you stand a better chans finding in Bangkok than in surat or isaan.

Make sure the cardealer do all transfers for you. A good cardealer needs nothing but the cach for the car and your passport for two days, and then he fix whatever for you. Insurance, tranfer to your name, tax, whatever.

Pick up the car and drive it /get it delivered to you home.

Thats it.

No reason to complicate anything here. Its realy easy.

And like i said its as easy with the driverslicence. Bring your passport /uk-licence top immigration in nathon. They provide you with all the copies, papers and tell you were to go for medical, and show you the way to motoroffice and 2 hours later you got the licence.

As easy as this.

Dont make it complicated poorsucker.

So you don't think the automatic voltage regulator would do us any good then? Our neighbor is closer to the transformer than we are but I really don't see him doing anything about this since it doesn't affect him.

Yeah, maybe the automatic voltage regulator will help. Maybe not. The bottom problem is the to low power in the small line, when everybody is using electric, like you say when he is fully booked. This is because he did not spend money on an transformer, witch he (i think by law?) should do when he builded the new bungalows.

Im just saying, without knowing anything in your particular case (who own the land, house etc), that for me it sounds like your neighbour should pay. On the other hand, if you get away with buying something cheap and get it to work properly it might not be worth the hassle.

But, have a talk with him, maybe if nobody complained he is not even aware of the problem. He might think that "i try, if i dont hear anything its ok, otherwise i have to buy a transformer".

Worth a try anyway.

Like it or not - no choice on the matter from the OP description.

1. Make a fuss, no job, and doesnt graduate.

2. Work 6mo and graduates.

It's not ideal, but seems 2 is the only option.

And fact being the people i this thread care probably more about this girl leaving her passport than she do herself. We western people have a way of making things more complicated than they should be. In these pages i even read serious things like "human rights" !!!!

This is getting realy redicolus now.

Leave her alone and let her graduate.

I bought my car in bangkok and on my pricerange (paid 270 000) i reccon i saved at least 100 000 baht on that. You are wasting money if you buy the car on this island. Any carshop in bangkok deliver it to samui for less than 5000 baht. My car they wanted to deliver for 3000 baht but i ended up taking the thai "family" to drive it here (even cheaper!).

Paperwork is realy easy to transfer between defferent provinces. The carshop i used did it all for free. As far as i know the owner of the car was from the north and i just told the cardealer in bangkok that i wanted it in samui, and they did it all included in the price witch i beleive is at least 100k less than the same car in samui.

But dont forget to mention you are gonna take your car to samui when you buy it, so you get the cardealer to handle all transfers and costs in the price you pay. And maybe even delivery if you dont like driving on the mainland.

Dont buy it in samui. Thats a real waste of money. It is so easy to buy it in Bangkok. And so much money to save.