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duratanium
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Posts posted by duratanium
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When the g/f had to go to the police station over a lost handbag containing ID card etc she was very surprised when the officer dealing with the case did NOT ask for the usual 20 Baht for filling out the form.
She concluded it was because she was with a Farang at the time.
So, if a Thai has to pay to report something similar when a sleazy, smelly farang is not there then that smacks of corruption on Thai v Thai and nothing to do with Farang being here.
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Ha ha ha ha glad Im n ot the only one who's wife/gf gets in a huff!! Did she not say "you speakThai how good?" In a sarcastic way??
I just wondered if the measuring thing was more widespread, another example was I went to a glass cutting shop and i wanted 2 pieces of glass 315mm by 254mm by 4 mm thick. Oh my god did that cause a problem for them they couldnt understand why I didnt put 31.5cm and 25.4 cm and although I could easily see what they wanted to do to understand me they were bewildered by my use of mm instead of cm. This is ok but when i want 4mm thick I would have to put 0.4cm.
Always interesting
Love it when I get that
On how far... we were going to buy a fountain. I asked how far and she said abt 50 kilometres there. After 50 klicks I asked how much further.
'Not far'.
120 kilometres after setting off we arrived at our destination!!!
As for sizes it is all in inches and usually pretty accurate on that but distance... oh boy!! Deffo a full tank of gas to go further than the local market
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As a point of interest, I've just come back from looking at an 18 wheeler converted to NGV. She is a 48 tonne cement truck doing runs up to the Chinese border from Nakhon Sawan as well as more local trips.
Strapped behind the cab in a cage are 6 BIG gas tanks.
Seems this truck will do 1200 kilometres on 3000 baht of gas where before the conversion it would do the same trip for near 10,000 baht of diesel.
On a mountainous run he can do 360 kilometres for 1400 Baht.
NGV currently costing 9.5 baht here in N.S. abt the same as LPG would be.
The conversion itself cost 100,000 baht and the engine runs so quiet now.
I realise this may not equate well to a pick up conversion but it does go to show that a good NGV conversion can work very well on the financial side.
Plus, for him, he can sleep at the side of the road now without fear of being held up for the diesel in his tank
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6 % per month, compounding monthly, is 101.2 % APR. There is absolutely no way this is true! None, no way, no possibility.
You are either being lied to, or you misunderstood, and the 6 % from the bank is APR, not MPR.
(1.06^12=2.012)
Yes, that thought HAS occurred to me and that is why I opted for the 25k line.
Maybe it is previous bad financial repayments / risks or whatever but the local 'Union' here is charging a minimum 3% per month on loans and I have seen the paperwork.
So, time will tell what happens.
Some say give her / them the money, but to me that is a stupid thing to do. I earned that money and do not see why I should give it away - though lending in 25k chunks might seem to be doing the same. Yet 25k is not a lot. I am waiting to see what reaction I get now from her and the family at that suggestion LOL.
I realise it is a lot easier to say NO, but the family in question have done a lot for me. Maybe that is a softening up process, I do not know for certain but, I am hoping this idea of 25k chunks might show something up
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2) THEY asked me to lend the money on those terms and those term are a ###### sight less than the banks have offered - so go do some research.
3) How clever they are has nothing to do with it. And they have stopped building until getting the money together to continue with the next stage. Point is they need the new house finishing.
2) I doesn't matter who said what, it is a fact that 24% interest rate is highly unethical. So if you accept this you are not only breaking law you are also a bad guy. And why should anybody give money back to a bad guy.
3) So they stop building for a little bit longer and make the money first, instead of spending something they not have and end up with a credit that they can never pay back or will be hit much too hard for the little benefits.
This all looks like the stupid thing going on in your home country (guess you are from the states).
FYI... the bank asked for 6%. Strange then how the banks can ask such huge sums of interest if it is illegal to do so in Thailand. That means the Thais can borrow vast sums and then refuse to pay it back because the % rate is illegal
So, it makes me a bad guy... in your eyes, but a good one in their eyes. And <deleted> has it to do with what happens in Germany?
Anyway, as I posted previously, I have already come to a decision on what to do.
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The computer itself is about 6 months old. That will make 2 batteries in 6 months. There could be a defect in the crystal.
As for it reverting to present time and date, if the CMOS battery is failing then surely the computer will show the BIOS time?
The computer is on all day 12+ hours with no loss of time. It does only occur when turned off at night when there is (obviously) no power there.
I can always get a 3rd battery when I go to town next but feel that will not solve the problem. I will get one though, just in case the new one is duff.
The computer does not seem to be affected in its operations as I would have expected from a bad or almost defunct battery.
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If, for one day, you were allowed to drive any vehicle through the streets of your town / city without any consequences whatsoever to get your own back on those crazy thai car drivers and motorcyclists that like to carve you up on the roads etc. ... what would you drive??
Personally, I'd like to drive a turbo-powered JCB
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After seeing the clock on the computer lose time I replaced the CMOS battery and expected all to be ok.
Wrong!!
After 8 hours of the computer being turned off overnight I re-started it and found the clock had lost a further 1 hour and 8 minutes.
Now I am puzzled as to why this should happen especially as the battery is new and came in its proper packaging.
Any ideas please?
thx
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Ok, I have read all the posts - and would like to thank everyone for their replies. It has made interesting reading.
I have come to a decision, rightly or wrongly, to lend the money in 25k blocks. I will not take the land papers as security but I will take the papers for the car (even though I know that makes little difference, but maybe gives them incentive to pay back).
My reasoning is this :-
I know the house they have at the moment is in a very bad state and they have been building the new house for a long time. Also for the next 2-3 months work (on the employment front) is a bit slow for the husband and he can get on with the work on the new houe IF he has money to do it with.
25K is not a lot to lose in the event of forfieture.
I have rough ideas of the price of materials and can also look to see what work is being done as I am next door
If I see no work is being done then I can stop future payments. That may not make them happy, but life is life.
Also this way I can try and gauge better their and the g/f reaction to the offer.
I'll post later and let you know the outcome
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I often look twice when I see a Farang out here in the sticks but not in town around Big C.
Someone mentioned seeing a 'black man'. Never seen one yet here though I have seen more and more Indians Pakistani's etc.
The g/f often digs me and says... 'Look, a Farang'. As if she has hardly seen one before. LOL
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A short answear, no.
In fact I reckon my other half prefers me to be on the internet, so then she can watch her dreadful Thai Soaps
i agree with you ,thai soaps all day all night ,leaves me free from crap and gives me an escape back to the real world in the internet
'She' gets out of bed and puts on the tv first (usually) then has a shower etc. If friends come to visit, they all watch tv while they talk. Mamma comes, watches tv. Evening is the same and as the tv is in the main room I am slowly learning to switch off - more than can be said for the tv LOL
What really gets me though is going to bed with her asleep in bed and the 2nd tv still blasting away in the bedroom!!
So I do not feel in the least bit guilty sitting at the computer, or sitting outside in my Farang chair, having a smoke and watching the fish swim lazily about in their pool. Nor do I feel guilty at all on insisting on my own space now as I go to the pub on a Friday
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Most of what has been said in recent posts was covered earlier and like I said, I will sleep on it before deciding what to do after reading post on the subject.
There is often a balance to be found and I am also looking at any future possible problems - as TiT - an you never really know what is round the corner.
Also I do not really want the rest of the family coming on for similar amounts, that is why I am now considering holding the chanote so they see it more as a business loan than me simply handing out money... but that was all said in an earlier reply.
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I can only say that 24% interest rate per month is an insane amount and much to high for a
friendship credit. In Germany it is just 1% away from an illegal business.
They will realize this and then they or your GF will let you know and feel this.
Unfortunately i would bet that they are not clever to stop the house building, save money and
continue in a few month.
<deleted> are you on???
1) We are not in Germany now - unless you tried to annexe this country
2) THEY asked me to lend the money on those terms and those term are a ###### sight less than the banks have offered - so go do some research.
3) How clever they are has nothing to do with it. And they have stopped building until getting the money together to continue with the next stage. Point is they need the new house finishing.
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Also important is to find out exactly what the borrower's monthly income is and his/her ability to meet the repayments (obviously monthly repayments are preferable over yearly too). A lot of people take loans out without doing any maths beforehand on the feasability to pay them back. In this case it would be better to turn them down from the start and avoid everybody a lot of pain.
As a general rule, many Thai people (with poorer backgrounds) have little understanding of financial matters, management & committments, living basically hand to mouth from one day to the next.
If you sit down and do the calculations with them to get a clearer picture of their financial position and point out, for example, that to meet the obligations of their loan they will be 70% leveraged, & with interest (dork bia) as extra, they may not be able to pay back the loan, it may help them think twice about borrowing the money.
I have one family whom I lent money to five years ago for their rice farm who have paid me more interest than the original loan amount, however they have not even eaten into any of the original capital. I'm not sure they will ever be able to repay it & I'm not looking forward to the day that after two or three failed crops I am going to have to go and excersise my claim to "chanote" on their land because the debt keeps ballooning.
Security or not - be careful about lending money to Thai people, irrespective of whether the money is leant for (your) business or personal reasons. Debt collecting is hard & time consuming without getting real dirty & selling your debts to local loan sharks, police / mafia at heavily discounted rates.
Soundman.
Understood on that & thanks. Wise word as usual from you
Soundmans post illustrates why lending money for profit is a dodgy business, after already recieving more than the original sum back, the poor family still owe the original ammount.People may have a crop failure for 2 years running and will not be able to pay anything, what would you do, turn the people out of their house cos they are too poor to repay you and you want to profit from their misfortune?
Bad Karma as far as I'm concerned.
Money lending is a dangerous risky business in any country, here it can get you killed.
Well, I will not be taking their house from them as the Chanote offered is for a second piece of land they own and I understand lending cash can be a ddodgy business in any country, let alone LOS. I look at their ramshackle tin house and am tempted to help but am also looking at the implications of where I would stand before making a decision.
why dont you just buy 100,000 baht worth of the land and it put it in your gf's name? then let them save up 100k and buy it back from you her(you). you are more likely getting something back if she is the one controlling it, then if they are controlling it.I don't see as that would really help if things became unstable in any way and it would give her a lot of control over her sisters land and I feel it would make matters more complicated.
what is their income, how are they going to pay you back?
As for income, that varies depending on the time of year. The sister works all year round and the sisters husband works music that is quiet at the moment but takes off in abt 2 months. They can adequately pay the 2k a month interest now and are wanting to pay more when the music 'season' starts up again (usually after the rainy season).
All I can say is this ...If you do end up giving them the 100,000 and you don't get it back, whether you have a contract or not, just tell your girlfriend that you give to her as a gift whatever she gets back from her relatives. You'll have a good chance of getting the money back.
In my opinion, they probably have every intention of paying you back, but if they are able to is another question. At 2% that is 2,000 Baht per month. With up-country monthly salaries barely above that it's highly unlikely that they will be able to pay you back.
Yeah, I've taken that on board and pretty much answered it above - their salaries being adequate now and better later ( i know it gets better from personal experience).
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I'll have to sleep on this one and decide what to do.
This has been their suggestion and not mine, even down to the interest payments.
I don't really want to deprive them of funds or of the chance to finish the house as life can be hard enough in LOS for many Thais as it is.
On the other hand I do not want to simply gift them the money and have other family come onto me for cash.
One possibility is that I am tempted to agree to the initial request but not to enforce it with too much vigour and see how things fare down the line. That way the rest of the family will see that I have been given the Chanote for the land and I hope some form of understanding will take place that I am not simply giving money away - even though enforcing the Chanote may not be an option no matter what happens in the future.
Alternatively I could offer them half and if any situation arises it limits the financial damage - especially as people tend to ask for more than they really need
thanks for the input too.
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The long time g/f has asked me to lend her sister and her brother in law 100,000 Baht so they can get on and finish the house they are currently slowly building, that they desperately need instead of them, 2 kids and the mother living in the corrugated tin house they currently live in.
I have been offered a chanote (spelling) for half a rai of land near a main road that I have long understood to be worth 200,000+ Baht.
I am asked to loan the money at 2% p.m. over a period of 2 years.
There will be a written agreement (same as used by the money lenders) between myself and the sister including the fact that if the family fail to pay for 3 months in total that they will forfeit the land to me.
I understand a Farang cannot own land but am unsure as to the legalities of where I stand if I agree to the loan and they fail to pay or make payments. Also as we never know the future for certain and relationships do break down and that could lead to failed payments so in regard to that I would like to know :-
Can I take the land temporarily and sell it within a certain period of time?
Can I sell on the debt?
Or are there any other options available with regards to the land itself.
As an aside, if I lend say 50,000 against the papers for a car would the same apply in that instance if they fail to pay the debt for 3 month per the written agreement?
Thanks
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I have to admit that I was somewhat sickened and confused by the people complaining that Thailand is starting to get expensive. Yes, Thailand might e getting more expensive and the Thai people are doing better for themselves. More and more Thai people are purchasing their own home. Thailand's economy has done well these last couple of years and things are looking bright for the Thai people's future, but this seems to anger many of you. Do you instead wish the worst for Thai people because you want to remain in Thailand for cheap prices? Personally, I love the Thai people and I hope their economy grows quickly and I hope they continue to improve their standard of living. The rest of you should really take a good look in the mirror, the only thing that is special about you is that you won the birth lottery. So please excuse the Thailand having the nerve to experience economic growth.
I do not wish to see anyone impoverished and doubt many Farang do.
To ask us to take a good look in the mirror imparts that Thai wealth (or lack of it is down to us).
What about the Thai Banks??
A Thai family works like <deleted> to buy a house or a car or a motorcycle and they get hammered by the Banks interest rates of between 3 / 10 % a MONTH!! So they struggle longer and harder to try and improve their lot.
I do feel though, that Thais in general are happy with their lot in many ways than their counterparts in the West and maybe appreciate more those things they have like their mobile phone, washing machine, motorbike, cars etc.
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For those interested.... You will find Farang Music at the :-
Collection Pub (Pimarn Hotel) - usually after 10-30p.m. (before that it is generally Thai) and they do some requests.
Bansuan Hotel play a mix of Thai / Farang but the main emphasis is on Thai music.
Beautiful Moon (near the park) play a mix of Thai and Farang Music and will do some requests if they know the songs.
There are plenty of places that play Thai music that is pretty good like the Coffee Shop (Pimarn Hotel) and others dotted around the park.
Anyone who know of other places that play Farang muic please add them
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Apart from the fact Thais are supposed to vote by law (as I understand it), surely to abstain from voting means you have no right to criticise in the future if things do not go as you hope they will.
Voting NO / Yes at least means you have voiced your opinion.
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Seriously...... I asked the g/f and she said anything up to 100 Baht
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The last 6 times now I have used Etihad from Manchester / Abu Dahbi / BKK
2 hour stop in Abu Dahbi - enough to stretch you legs before flying onto BKK
Often they are half full and you get to stretch out and get some Zzzz's. The food is not too bad and I have found them reliable.
In economy you get screens on the backs of the seats for movies/ music etc.
A friend in BKK is paying £420 return from Man / BKK in October
They also fly from London.
I know Emirates have recently started from Newcastle to BKK but do not know fares or routes
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Strangely enough I have never been homesick in 30+ years of travel though I do miss the odd things that are unavailable in other countries.
I have seen people in tears from being homesick.... not a pretty sight.
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I understand that today being a special day that the pubs with music are closed and no alcohol will be served - at least here in Nakhon Sawan.
So all you thirsty devils out there might have to do without your tipple tonight
at least you can go eat food in the restaurant and drink water
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the murdered was a Farang or Thai ?
was a Thai.
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We are having the same problems with Saha farms, Interim payments and delays on recieiving the monies owed
This is why I changed my evap chicken-broiler farm to Tilapia farm, we had 5 houses with the total of 100.000 chickens, I started in 1999 and I quit in October last year, I was fed up with all the rules and the time you had to wait in-between crops + that they were cheating with the feed and the weight for the chickens.I really feel that the contract farmer is just bending over, while the big integreated companies are taking a dump on them.
Cheers
Tilapia.
Thanks for that. Appreciated.
Seems that big business the world over loves to do the same thing.
At least I can use that as a base for working out my next move regards the chicken rearers.
Are Farangs Who Marriages Failed Lucky?
in General Topics
Posted
From what I hear a lot of Thai women would prefer an older man. Though, if that means 30+ years I doubt. But I am told that many women prefer security and maturity.