ThaiFelix

Just as an update I bought a 20lt drum of Lanko 751 for 3,259 baht from Global House Udon Thani. Thanks everbody for your input.

Fairly certain that PVC glue diluted with equal amount of water does the same thing as bondcrete.

I mean PVA glue not PVC. Sorry.

Exactly what bondcrete is. Aquadhere glue watered down.

Thanks, but not sure that is entirely true. I used to think the same but seem to remember reading that while they are similar, Aquadhere (PVA) glue does not give anywhere near the same results mixed with cement/concrete.. But I could be wrong, wouldnt be the first time, I seem to remember.........

Have you been to "do home" ? Biggest building warehouse shop i have been to. You can find them on the web. The one i went to is next to thai watsadu north of khon kaen.

Yes but I use the one in Udon Thani....very good range. There are so many outlets of this kind in Udon that they are very competitive....surprising the service you get sometimes by mentioning one of the other stores haha

Thanks folks, sounds like Lanko 751 might be the go if I cant find bondcrete.

Has anybody seen Bondcrete for sale in Isaan? Being from Oz I have had a bit of experience with it and its an excellent product. I have heard its available in Bangkok but have been unsuccessful finding it here in Isaan (I am about equal distance from Udon Thani, Kalasin and Khon Kaen). I have a couple of jobs coming up where it would be very handy, such as bonding old concrete/cement to new and using it as a water-sealing admix to concrete in a fish pond construction. If not, does anyone know of an equivalent product and where to purchase? Many thanks in advance.

Its about time...<deleted>.

"Dolly did it, I'm innocent!"

OK,glad it went smoothly.I've always found the staff there very helpful.Is copying the entire a passport a new requirement?

Yeah gotta agree with you wholeheartedly Jim, the staff there are always extremely patient and helpful, best in my experiences with Thai immigration over 10 years though I have never had a bad experience. It's actually quite a pleasant ordeal if it weren't for the distances we have to travel.

No offence intended to you/ your comments, but just to be on the safe side, I also had my wife ring the office to double check on the requirements and they stated every page in passport. For safety reasons I decided to go the whole hog and give them copies of everything. Not to say they maybe would have been happy with only that which was included in your list. I also know from experience that Thai bureaucracy is addicted to using up as much paper as they can. Makes me wonder where it goes? There must be huge warehouses full of the stuff....or is it sold off to recyclers and the funds used for the annual Xmas/New Years party??

I did my third "marriage" extension at Sakon Nakhon last week,your wife must go with you to sign a declaration but you don't need a witness.

2 copies of everything as well as the original documents where possible:

Form TM7

Passport id page

Visa

Departure card

Previous extension stamp

Marriage cert. and registration sheet ( this shows the signatures of you and wife,witness and registrar)

Bank letter dated the day that you are applying

Bank passbook updated to the date that you are applying

Wife blue book

Wife id card

Letter from village head + id card

Map of village with your house marked

4 Photo's of you/wife around the house ( 1 showing the address) you need 2 sets of these

2 passport type photo's of yourself ( obviously!)

The marriage certificate and signature sheet are double sided so make sure the copies are the same i.e on a single sheet of paper.

It helps if you fill in both TM 7 forms and seperate the documents into 2 sets

The outcome: Thanks Jim, I followed your much appreciated list and everything went smoothly. The only thing I did differently was to include copies of every page of my passport. The only ones they tossed out were the stamps immigration transferred to my new book when I renewed my passport quite some time back. They requested nothing more bar the hint that I buy him lunch plus a jacket like the one I was wearing.....yeah right!! Thanks again Jim.

Just a question for my own interest.

Why is a letter from the village head required and what does it say in the letter.

Is this something for small villages as i live in Phuket and i never heard of it.

Seems the village head is a "credible" witness to confirm you are known or seen as a couple in the village. The letter simply states the head knows you as a couple living together and for how long. Guess it counters those who are only seen together at visa renewal time

You will get a under consideration stamp. That is done for every extension of stay based upon marriage.

Thanks Ubonjoe. They told me last year that it would be a lot easier this year but it seems the only difference is not having to take a witness (and possibly not coming around the house hinting at fuel money and taking them for dinner )

I did my third "marriage" extension at Sakon Nakhon last week,your wife must go with you to sign a declaration but you don't need a witness.

2 copies of everything as well as the original documents where possible:

Form TM7

Passport id page

Visa

Departure card

Previous extension stamp

Marriage cert. and registration sheet ( this shows the signatures of you and wife,witness and registrar)

Bank letter dated the day that you are applying

Bank passbook updated to the date that you are applying

Wife blue book

Wife id card

Letter from village head + id card

Map of village with your house marked

4 Photo's of you/wife around the house ( 1 showing the address) you need 2 sets of these

2 passport type photo's of yourself ( obviously!)

The marriage certificate and signature sheet are double sided so make sure the copies are the same i.e on a single sheet of paper.

It helps if you fill in both TM 7 forms and seperate the documents into 2 sets

Thanks a lot Jim for your very detailed response. I imagine they gave you an "under consideration" stamp and you have to go back in a month?

My 12 month Non O extension based on Thai wife is due end of this month and as I live in Kalasin I have to go to Sakhon Nakhon. This will be my second extension at Sakhon and I am wondering what documentation etc will be required...ie different to last year. Last year I had to take a witness, his documentation, plus a letter and ID documentation from the village head here. As I live 3 hours from the SN office I am therefore trying to avoid any extra trips due to inadequate paperwork etc so any recent experiences would be greatly appreciated.

My wife is conspiring to kill me in the exact same way.....cruel and unusual treatment

if you buy the paint don't give it all to them at once cos they will steal some tins of paint and say we make 2 coats already. good luck with these people.

im sick off the thais trying to rip me off, I try to tackle as many jobs myself as I can with the help of a girlfriend

I am the same as you, getting so sick and tired of the continual attempts at rip offs. I would do it myself but a: a hopeless handyman and b. suffering sever back problems. c. two storey house..

Have been out pricing paint this morning and have just got a call from one painter who will do it for 120bht sq.mt. I have roughly calculated 220sq.mts. (I take out glass sliding doors x4 and some more for windows). Still comes in about 26k.bht for labour.

Just working on the paint costs at the moment.

Dont worry about taking the windows and doors out of the equation as unless you have them fully masked up they will get painted as well I just had some walls built up here in Isaan and when they had almost finished painting I noticed some cement spatters that had been thrown up by having the cement mixer too close to an existing wall. I asked if they wouldnt mind throwing a bit of paint on the splashes and I think that is exactly what they did. There was paint all over some ornamental rocks nearby and so much paint on some nearby plants they had stuck to the wall. I have learnt that when you have some small job rectified it is a lot easier to do it yourself. I am not knocking Thai builders but after dealing with four different building teams over the last year I have come to realise that while they try they just dont know what a good job is.

Some suggestions if I may.. My experience is that Isaan builders dont like using roller trays. They like to dip the rollers into the buckets which I have found consumes way too much paint. More paint on the walls is good but not when you have to drive two hours to buy more Dulux because they have run out early. Not using trays also means they decanter the paint into smaller containers and dont put the leftovers back in the original containers. The result at the end of the day is half a dozen containers of paint in buckets with various labels and no-one knows what is what...especially in my case where I had nearly all white eg flat white ceiling paint and semi-gloss white external wall paint. Also recommend a primer of a different shade or a tint as someone suggested so it is easy for them to see where they have been...again especially if you are painting white.

I made a decision to buy a lottery ticket and I didn't win. Can the government compensate me for my bad financial decision.

That was my first thought too. Its all a gamble and sometimes you lose. I do feel sorry for some of the farmers as its there only source of income but you win some you lose some. At the same time it seems crazy for the Govt to contract to sell to the Chinese at 60 baht which can only drive the price down.

How can a contract to sell at 60 baht per kilo drive the price down - it is currenlty at about 35 baht per kilo. Please enlighten me as I fail to understand your logic.

Sorry, my bad. I am guilty of that which I often complain where someone comments before reading or understanding the whole post. I misunderstood the current farm price as 60. Apologies for the confusion.

I made a decision to buy a lottery ticket and I didn't win. Can the government compensate me for my bad financial decision.

That was my first thought too. Its all a gamble and sometimes you lose. I do feel sorry for some of the farmers as its there only source of income but you win some you lose some. At the same time it seems crazy for the Govt to contract to sell to the Chinese at 60 baht which can only drive the price down.

Is this visible anywhere else?

Yes, anywhere in the northern hemisphere.

In Thailand look a little bit North of East

Gemini rises about 20:30 and will be almost overhead at 01:00 in the morning.

But I'm a Pisces?

What time should I get up to see it?

I doubt from your comments that you are capable of telling the time....when the big hand is.........oh never mind, have another drink.

Reminds me of the good ole days in Oz. We were group punished by being made to sit on the sun-hot tar of the playground... if you tried to lift a buttock off for relief, you were ordered to sit straight. And then there was the time at Sydney Boys High when the teacher caned the whole class for misbehaving while he had stepped out because he couldn't be bothered trying to separate the good from the bad. His nickname among us was 'Black George' for how he left your hands after a sixer (a six-times caning). That was in the dark ages of the 1970s though....

Me too but it was a religious school in the States and the brothers were returned GI's from WWII with psychological disorders.

Me as well, in the 60"s, they were Christian Brothers (they dont really deserve capitals but there you go). They werent veterans from WW2 that I know of but think they were selected purely because of their cruel, twisted, psychological disorders because there weren't any at all that were sane!

I used to work as a teacher for a large bilingual chain that starts with an "S" and daily saw the heads (always old spinsters with "S": vinegar tits) line the late students up to shame them in front of the whole school. I used to feel so sorry for them because 90% of these students were driven to school by their parents!! They were late because of their parents!!. Did the school ever say a word to the parents??? Not on your Nelly, we dont want to upset the customers! In the same way I would have parents complain about their child's test results but mentioning the fact that their child missed the first period every day was irrelevant!!

Is this visible anywhere else?

Note to terrorists and would be terrorists.. no body promise you a rose garden, you knew

very well what are the risks associated with those terrorist actives, we see you on Al-Jazeera

looking so smug and macho walking around with the ninja outfits and tone of emmo and guns,

now take it like the piece of crap that you're,

just say thanks to your Allah the Israelis didn't interrogate you...

Your post reflects badly on you and maybe attitudes like yours are the reason USA is targeted in the first place.

Why do you constantly make excuses and justifications for terrorists and try to demonize anyone trying to stop them?

The problem is the USA has found their techniques come back to haunt them. The orange jump suits and public torture have taken on a new dimension in the ISIS terrorists using similar tactics but with the added horror of beheading American and other captives.

Let us not forget Bush ,Rumsfeld and Cheney started all this and have unleashed a massive hornets nest.

Everywhere the USA goes with their crazy foreign policy they leave a mess in their wake.

Iraq,Afghanistan and fomenting the overthrow of Libya plus the huge drug industry in Latin America.

Can someone please show me a US foreign policy success in the last forty years?

"Can someone please show me a US foreign policy success in the last forty years?"

Yes easy, US foreign policy was successful in making an awful lot of money for the Bush/Cheney gang.