ukrules

I think it's called ebay

I believe that the street vendors initially buy all the tickets that they then offer for sale. If some go unsold, then the vendor owns them

Yes, I heard this too. Apparently they have a mark up on the ticket so earn a certain amount based on each ticket they sell.

If they don't sell them they own them.

Serial "runners" eventually find themselves closed down !

There are limits to Thai patience and "understanding !

Really ? I'm certain the immigration department will continue to apply the law which clearly allows for this at the moment.

It has nothing to do with 'understanding' or leniency and there is no leeway, if the law changes then things will change.

The rubber stampers at immigration do what they're told to do whether they like it or not.

It is a denial because there is no clause in the police order that allows for a 7 day extension so they accept the application charge the for extension and give you 7 days to leave.

I wouldn't suggest trying to do it on a monthly basis. I think they might consider it abusing a loop hole in the rules and is really only meant to used in an situation where you can't leave the country.

You don't have to sit for days to get a tourist visa. All nearby locations with the exception of Cambodia are next day service for visas.

Interestingly enough I went to get my 7 day extension today and while there I got my girlfriend to clarify in Thai the issue of doing this kind of extension every time with the immigration officer.

He said 'one stamp per visit to the country' explaining that after this 7 day extension I have to leave the country and then enter again. There are no limits to the number of times you can do this, but you can only do it once for each visit you make.

I guess if you're willing to pay them 271 Baht per day for an extra 7 days they're quite willing to accept it without limit.

I'm still going to get a tourist visa in a neighbouring country in about a month and a half from now but I'm going to do the 7 day extension next time as well just to push my eventual travel date back to Europe a little further into the summer.

Well I'm going for another 7 day extension in a couple of days time followed by another drive to Burma next weekend.

Maybe next time I'll fly out somewhere and get a tourist visa. That should see me through until June with a 30 day extension.

Where's the best place right now to get a single entry visa from without having to wait several days ?

In truth I don't mind staying somewhere for 2 nights but I've only really been to Cambodia in recent years and I heard it can take 2-4 days so I didn't bother going back.

"Where's the best place right now to get a single entry visa from without having to wait several days ?"

Don't mean to be snarky, but this matter of getting a tourist visa in a neighboring country has been addressed in countless threads. Have you considered doing a search? If you were a newbie that might not be an obvious way to find the answer, but obviously with over 2000 posts you have to have run across similar questions coming up many times each week and understand how the search function works.

I've done extensive searches countless times over the years, the information is constantly changing and often out of date and with a long list of countries it takes hours of trawling through pages of information to find what I need.

On the other hand someone in the know who's done it recently could simply post 'Vientiane - in and out in 2 days - use an agent, no problems, did it last week' which would really be a time saver. It would take only a few seconds to do that.

You weren't paying attention: TrueCrypt has TWO password levels. You store the things you WANT people searching you to find at one level, and, after you let them pressure and threaten you, you "reluctantly surrender" that password. However, there's a second level of encryption in the file--which is completely invisible--which is only able to be opened with the second password, which you never give them. The file looks just like one encrypted file, it's just which password you enter that determines which level of the file will be opened.

Of course, governments know about this by now (TrueCrypt is free and open source, and it's no secret that it has this hidden encryption level capability), and if they REALLY suspect you of something (that is, have other evidence to incriminate you beyond just your appearance), they'll confiscate your device no matter whether you give them a password or not. But they still won't be able to get into the second encryption level, if you have one. TrueCrypt is really, really good at what it does.[/qudumb]

Yeah...these guys are dumb but not that dumb.

Its pretty easy to see that the size of the decrypted data doesn't match the size of the folder/drive.

Haha...you don't know much about TrueCrypt, do you? Go to their website, read and learn.

And what, you dont think TSA knows how to read a website? Are you some Snowden wannabe posting from a computer in mommy's basement..have you ever traveled internationally...do you even have a passport? Yeah its all fine and good to drone on about the glories of TC (and I agree, it, and PGP, are the best encryption programs out there) but we're talking about the distopian world of US border security and not some Jeffersonian ideal of perfect liberty here.

I've know about and used TC for over 10 years. On my clean traveling computer I don't store any sensitive data so I've no need for encryption. Also, just having the program on a traveling device that is selected for enhanced screening will arouse suspicion. I'm not going to fight them, especially when I've nothing to hide. When I travel internationally, I want to get in and out of border checks points quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Using TC on a traveling device would defeat that objective.

Unless you really know what you're doing it's often trivial to recover TrueCrypt keys from a windows computer.

They're inside the swap file and if you've ever hibernated it it's all sitting there on the drive just waiting to be recovered at the press of a button.

I believe full disk encryption including the OS is the only real secure way.

Well I'm going for another 7 day extension in a couple of days time followed by another drive to Burma next weekend.

Maybe next time I'll fly out somewhere and get a tourist visa. That should see me through until June with a 30 day extension.

Where's the best place right now to get a single entry visa from without having to wait several days ?

In truth I don't mind staying somewhere for 2 nights but I've only really been to Cambodia in recent years and I heard it can take 2-4 days so I didn't bother going back.

My long term visa ran out and I won't be getting another one until June when I return to the UK - I'm not going now because it's too cold - I'll wait until the summer as that suits me better.

I'm not travelling to any other Asian country and sitting there for days in a hotel waiting for them to issue a single entry tourist visa - I don't want to do this so I'm not going to do it.

I have a British passport and I'm entering the country on a visa exempt stamp for the next few months which now gives me 30 days at either an airport or land border.

I can extend each 30 day entry stamp by 7 days by going to immigration and applying for an 'extension of stay' but they appear to deny it and give a stamp that tells me to leave the country in 7 days even though I do in fact get an extra 7 days from when I apply which is normally the date on the entrance stamp.

Going to immigration in Hua Hin is a very simple process and it's a small quiet office, it takes only about 10-20 minutes to do this so it's worth it and virtually hassle free.

Last month I got in the car and drove to the new Burma border crossing about 70km past Kanchanaburi which was just fine. I can do this once every 37 days, no problem.

This is the stamp they gave me in January - note it's a 'denial' stamp but I still get 7 exta days before I have to leave :

So the main question : Is this 7 day extension of stay what it appears to be ?

If I do this every month will they continue giving me the 7 day extension 'denail' stamps or is it going to create some kind of problem with the immigration department - I don't want to annoy them too much in any way although I don't mind pushing it to the limits.

Does anyone have any ideas if immigration have any problems with issuing these 7 day extension denial stamps on a continuous basis over 5 or 6 months ?

Ideally I'm looking to hear from someone who's done this 4 or 5 times back to back to find out if it creates any problems.

I'm going for another one this week so I'd like to hear from anyone elses experiences doing this and I'll ask some more detailed questions directly to immigration when I'm there this week.

Thanks !

To buy a property I believe you'll find you need a Foreign Exchange Transaction certificate from the bank certifying the money arrived from an account abroad before it can be registered in your name. To get this you need to wire it into the account from a foreign bank.

So there really is no choice unless you're not buying the property in your own name for one reason or another.

Surely no country in the world would be so stupid and short sighted to set up a set of rules that put itself in a situation whereby the basic infrastructure can't function due to a mere political issue ?

Did I say I was working in Thailand?

"I would be 'working', going online to do my work, and I would be 'in Thailand', therefore, 'working in Thailand'. Will I need a Thai work permit?"

If you work for a Thai company, get paid by a Thai company and are in Thailand then you're going to need a work permit.

If you're doing some work like answering emails, making phone calls, etc for a foreign company and get paid by that foreign company then you don't work for a Thai company so it's not possible to get a work permit and as such it's not regarded as working.

Just go and apply for a work permit for doing some work for your foreign company back home. You will probably realise your mistake before they stop laughing at you.

In Thailand I've found everything I need which is adequate infrastructure, a supply of western food and a reasonable internet connection.

My only complaint is that it's a bit hot out here sometimes.

Amoxycillin is the one I occasionally use, it's available everywhere from pharmacy chains like Boots to small private owner/operator pharmacies.

I keep a UK cellphone on contract just for this type of thing.

My next door neighbour had some problems with international mail while I had none.

I showed him exactly how I'd written the address down in English on my packages which came in from various countries around the world and it was slightly different to what he'd been using.

I suspect the slightest difference in an address can cause it be thrown in to the pile of mail to be trawled through at a later date due to badly formatted addresses.

I know one guy who often went down to the local post office and asked about his missing packages and they were located and handed over immediately so a trip to the local post office might be worth it.

Does anyone know where I can buy a 50w CO2 laser cutter / engraver in Thailand ?

Preferably a reliable brand with a local service center. It doesn't need to be that large, it's for making marks on small objects using some chemical fusing method that I stumbled across.

I don't really have a budget, but I guess anything upto around about $10k would be fine.

I know these can be easily purchased in Europe and the US so I guess I'm looking for a foreign manufacturer who has an established base in Thailand.

I'm posting this in the General forum for now as it will reach a wide audience but if there's anwhere else more suited to this kind of small scale industrial machinery requirement please move the topic for me.

Interesting, I'm going to a restaurant tomorrow night with some of the girlfriends friends who are coming into Hua Hin for the weekend. They arrived here this afternoon. As they have children I suspect they will head back to their hotel quite early.

My plan was to go to a few bars after the meal, I forgot about this election. I was planning on having a good drink after this meal as the last time I went out for a drink was New years Eve.

Oh well, maybe next week I guess.

Hi all.

New user here getting ready to depart for my first visit to Thailand.

I was pleased to learn of the 30-day visa exemption for UK (and others) passport holders when arriving by land border. However, it's still listed as 15 days on the UK Thai Embassy website, and a member of staff there told me today it was still 15 days.

What gives? I could understand that people don't update their websites, but what's with the member of staff telling me it was still 15 days? Has the 30-day thing been revoked or does the Thai Embassy in London need to...update their information?

Thanks...

It's simple, they're uninformed idiots.

Uhm - sorry - but did anyone actually read the wonderfully written article in Pattaya Daily News? There isn't a word about "execution" there - it says "...the judgment that sentenced Mr. Yossaphon to prison for 6 months in the allegation of carrying a gun and murder". Only in the headline does it say "Court sentences gunman to execution" - what goes???

Horrible writing, yes, but did you read the whole thing? I wish I could read this story in real English somewhere else.

But look at the bottom of paragraph two:

"...also he acted in a way to ridicule the law without being fearful for his offence by walking and dancing after murdering the 2 victims therefore the court sentenced to punish him with execution."

http://www.pattayadailynews.com/en/2014/01/28/court-sentences-gunman-to-execution/

I knew it, he was sentenced to death because of the dancing.

I often refer to the case of the foreigner who murdered his girlfriend in Phuket and dumped her body to rot in a suitcase, he got 10 years as he admitted it with a guilty plea. Contrast that with the recently released two people who were out mushroom picking and received 30 years in prison as the cops thought they were illegally cutting down trees. That's right, it's not a typo - they got sentenced to 30 years in prison because it was thought they were part of a group of people doing some illegal logging.

If this crime was not on video there's no way he would have got any more than 10 years assuming a guilty plea because murder just isn't that important a crime here.

Capital punishment is wrong and barbaric no matter the crime. It will be a great day when Thailand join the ranks of countries that abolishes the death sentence.

I personally believe that ending the Death Sentences is what encourages Barbaric acts like we saw in London with the Hacking Death of an off duty Soldier and there are many more in many Countries.

I have never been one way or the other , but in an instance like this YEAH . He Danced , give me a break !

When I heard about this story yesterday the first thing that came into my mind is 'this guy was sentenced to death because he danced, not because of the double murder'.

The best way is to setup internet banking on your US account and open a savings account when you get here.

Then you can wire the money directly to your new account using a SWIFT payment.

Double check that your bank back home allows you to setup a new recipient account in your own name in a foreign country and do an international wire on the internet before you come. If they don't then open a new bank account at a bank that does.

I believe $10,000 is the 'limit' for undeclared money. If you travel with 'large' amounts of cash in the US it will be subject to random seizure unless you have proof that it's yours so keep the bank statements and withdrawal receipts from your bank with you at all times when you're carrying it or they will take it.

They started seizing money in the UK as well, they have dogs trained to sniff out the ink on cash on trains and at airports, this is the same as they do in US.

This guy mentions a seizure of only $7500 in the interview so be careful ! It's better not to carry cash.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/videogallery/67817050/News/BSO-Cash-Sniffing-Dogs-at-Fort-lauderdale-International-Airport