Doggsy

Hi Terev,

As people have already stated there are a couple of international schools. One is about 12km outside of Ban Chang away from the beach and the other is about 5km outside of Ban Chang towards the beach. You really need to get some form of wheels to get around otherwise taxis and stuff can be a bit of a pain.

Motorcycles are about 2500 baht per month and cars can be had a little cheaper at around 10,000,-12,000 per month if you don't mind having an older car just to get around in. A couple of my friends have rented these from contacts they were given at school.

One of the schools gives you accommodation about 4km outside of Ban Chang which altogether is about 9km away from school so you really do need wheels to have any independence.

Pattaya is only about 45 minutes away and Rayong about 30 minutes away so people sometimes go there at weekends to stock up on stuff or to catch a movie.

As stated above (below? where does my post go?) there are 3 beaches in Ban Chang but there is also a nice one about 20kms away as well. Koh Samet is easy to get to for a weekend break and if you do get some wheels then Koh Chang is easy to get to as well. Bangkok is only 2-3 hours away, depending on traffic and transportation methods when the small town really starts to get you down.

Having said all that Ban Chang is a nice quiet place to live and it is certainly nice to return to after a trip to Bangkok because of its laid back atmosphere and slower pace.

swedes - nice cheap alternative

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/sitecont...abritishcitizen government green paper on proposed changes to citizenship which they hope to introduce late 2009. my wife is eligible end of October, I hope by late tehy mean December!

every time i fly back into birmingham airport the non uk/eu queue is normally much much shorter and i just go through that one. equally now when i go to thailand i go through the thai passport control when i am with my wife. I had read that i could and when arriving at the airport we asked an official and tehy said it was possibly because we were family. I then told my friend about it and he told one of his friends. when this guy tried it they wouldnt stamp his passport even though he was with his thai wife and a kid.

initially my wife got very homesick but i think that was due to not really knowing any thai people in the uk. Then we made some friends but they lived over an hour away and due to working different days it was difficult to go and see them. However we have now moved back to teh area my family live in and have made friends with a number of thais that my wife can see on a daily basis. If she is not going out for breakfast with my dad she is round at her mate's house eating home cooked spicy thai food. She seems much happier this year with this support network that we ahve around us.

Equally we make a trip to the thai supermarket at least once a month and have now found one online that delivers so we never run out of the essentials. The biggest hurdle to overcome was trying to find a cheaper alternative to papaya as in england they are very expensive. It has been found that swedes taste similar in the salad and at 78p for 3 i dont mind if they eat it 5 times a day!!

I am a little worried though about how she will adapt back in Thailand. Being in england has been an eye opener for her as she realises now how hard people have to work for their money and watns her sister to come across, in winter, and earn some of her own money. We plan on moving back to thailand in about 20 mths and although this is something that she wants now I am a little worried about how she will blend back in. I worry abotu this because since I moved back from thailand to england I have generally hated it and I am doing everything I can to move back to thailand but with a secure financial future for us both.

I think the point is that if you have no air and you are not close to your buddy then obviously you have to swim upwards. Although you may have minimal air in your lungs at depth as you get shallower the air in your lungs expands thus filling your lungs thus giving you a more constant amount of air. If however you hold your breath you run the risk of the expanding air damaging your lungs that cant cope with the increased air volume in them

www.headrockdogs.org is the website of November Rains centre in Hua Hin

We had been together for about a year and a half. 1 year and a bit in Thailand and 4 months in England. We returned to Thailand and got married. The next day we submitted the visa application ( we werent going to do it so quickly but the price was about to increase by loads). I spent a week in Thailand but had to return to work whilst my wife remained in Thailand. The day i flew back to Thailand the visa was approved. With regards to all the other parts of the application: Due to not knowing whether we would stayin England or Thailand when we first came to England we were staying with my sister. I had only been in my current job for 2 months but provided a letter from them. At the time it was a basic entry level job but with further prospects. After trying to pay off flights and visas I had only 2k in my bank and that was before taking the money out for the visa application. My sister provided a letter to say we could stay in her house and we provded mortgage details and all the information about the house.

like somebody has said above we provided well above and beyond what evidence was needed that showed evidence of us being together and actual time spent together.

i second that. Please don't stop writing in thai script. I find it very difficult to work out other people's transliteration and find it much easier when i can just read the thai script. Helps me remember it as well.

a couple of days after meeting my (now) wife i had a small conversation with a worker in the family mart that went beyond what falang are supposed to know apparently. I was then told, in no uncertain terms, "never ever speak thai with me, falang that speak thai sound stupid". So i didn't but i carried on learning and carried on listening.

A few times i heard bits in conversation and joined in but answered in english and nobody seemed to realise that they had been talking in Thai and that they understood. However I made a mistake one day and read something in thai script. I was then given a ful test on how good my thai reading, writing listening and speaking was and when she realised that not teaching me was not gooing to work as I was getting on fine anyway she decided to help me.

However I am not allowed to learn swear words, apart from the ones I have already picked up. Just incase I use them at the wrong time and get myself shot apparently. And I am not allowed to learn isaan. I think she doesnt mind me speaking thai as she gets me to speak to everybody a little bit and is proud that I can but I think she likes to have her own dialect so that she can talk about me with her family and friends.

But at the end of the day that is fine by me as I know nearly exactly how much english she knows, which is above average, but I also know how to grammatically structure a sentence so she doesn't understand, what slang she doesn't understand and also I can drop into my local accent and she has no idea. So basically we can do it to each other.

I think i will lose my advantage soon though as she moves her in 2 weeks so is bound to pick it all up !

i have started using moneybookers.com. the only problem with them is that it takes a few days to upload money to your online account and then a couple of days to withdraw it into your thai bank account. However the fees seem to be very low and if you plan in advance the time it takes is no problem

I don't think that Tesco necessarily put prices up the more dominance they get but i do believe that they move their "bargain" prices around the store to get you in.

For example about a month ago the prices of Tesco finest yoghurts went up from 49p to 55p. There was no little sign saying these have gone up in price. It just happened. The lady that was putting them up saying that her first hour was going to be spent putting prices up around the store on certain items. The next hour reducing prices on other items but then also adding big labels say the the price had been discounted.

I think unless you take advantage of the BOGOFs and half price deals then over time your shopping bill will be very similar.

The other problem with the mom and pop stores apart from a small selection of items is the price. It's annoying when you have to pay 55baht for a 50baht 1-2-call top up card. As faran we already have to pay extra for everything, I can't be bothered to pay it when they have done relatively nothing for it.

However I do like to use the little stores for small items and convenience. Anything more than 5 items and i will probably just go to Tesco.

I know that Tesco, Heanor, Derbyshire, have just got them in stock!! I don't know how much they are at the moment but they had dragon fruit in the other week and it was £1.89 for one and they were tiny. I don't think i will be buying any this year!!

i just spent 20 minutes looking at the bbc website about F1 trying to find info. I didnt look at this window. Just the topic title and then went to a different

ok i have just spoken to the man himself.

apparently it is on the first floor, same level as the gates.

go to gate 19, face it and then turn left.

go towards gate 17. as you get to the stairs there is a posh cafe, just after the cafe is a small door. apparently it is not advertised from the outside, but there is a small sign once you go though. thats the best i got, hope it helps

my dad recently made an error booking his flights and he too had a 6 hour stop over in dubai. apparently there is a room with a free buffet for all emirates passengers with a stop over of 4 hours or more. I think he hd to pay for his coffee but water was free or something like that. Anyway apparently it is just a door with a sign on and it is not advertised.

i will try to remember to ask him the location.

my g/f was rejected in september last year. we picked the passport up on the thursday, read why we had been rejected, added more to the application, (we were rejected on not enough proof of a relationship, no invitation from the uk and no letter from her employer) and i submitted it the next monday. A week later she had her tourist visa. I only applied for 3 1/2 months the secondf time and 5 months the first time.

We then applied for a settlement visa a week ago and it was approved after a week. Due to our experience the first time with the tourist visa when we applied for the settlement visa we just put in as much proof as possible. Proof of everything, copies of my tefl cert, my degree, pictures throughout our relationship, and with my friends and family. Anything you can think of we included.

oh and thanks GU22. I included all the stuff from the last visa application and also explained the discrepency between how long she was here and how long she applied for. seemed to work!!

After using the sticky at the top of this forum as a guide I submitted my first attempt at spouse visa last wednesday. Got married last tuesday and submitted the application the next day.

Flew back to thailand at 8am and at 1pm my wife was informed her visa application was successful. I thought that perhaps my application was a little week but was hoping we would get an interview as i was confident that would go very well. However they gave an approval without even going to interview, and at the old prices as well!!

shame it doesnt start until the 28th may. last time i put a date in on a tourist visa they took no notice. this time they put the date down as far away as I said was possible. Oh well. at least the visa is there

forgot to say that this time i will be applying for settlement visa and not tourist visa

Hi all,

i have been a watcher for years but never really needed to post as i had no questions and didnt really know any answers. However now i have a couple of questions.

I returned from just under 2 years in thailand in october last year. The intention was to work 6 months then return to Thailand. I have been with my girlfriend about a year and a half and she came across to England on a tourist visa and is still here now.

We have discussed marriage many times and agreed that we would do it once I had a permanent job somewhere, be it in England or Thailand. So now i have a permanent job, I also have been advised to go forward for management training even thought I have only been in the company for 3 1/2 months.

So with the job sorted we would like to get married but obviously we cant as my girlfriend is here on a tourist visa. We are going back to Thailand next week and plan to get married once I have my affirmation of marriage thing from the embassy. Once we are married we would like to start the application process straight away as we have lived together since the early days of our relationship and we dont want to have to wait months to start the process only to be refused.

Generally my question is that if i have applied for a tourist visa before and my girlfriend has been with me here in England until we go back to get married will the embassy look upon the marriage as a marriage of convenience and refuse the application or would they take a look at the previous history of our relationship and the fact that we couldnt marry here in England.

What do you think? worth applying straight away or leave it for a while for the dust to settle?