Goinghomesoon

Dolphin Bay - quite a ways past HH. Kids love roaming round that place.

will be interested to hear as well

There appear to be some residency rules regarding being eligible.

Have you told them that you normally live in Australia, and are in Thailand for a holiday? Or have you made very clear that you live in Thailand permanently.

Apparently there are exceptions. After chatting with friends about this topic the other day I learned that a couple of people I know got the bonus. In both cases the spouse works for an Australian company, salary and superannuation is paid in Australia. They have rented out (not sold) their home in Oz and pay taxes there. Centrelink deemed that they maintained links to the country and were only 'temporarily overseas' and in both cases they got it.

The Guide to Payments Book at http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/inte...ions/fpr006.htm says

"In deciding whether you are residing in Australia, the Family Assistance Office may need to look at the nature of your accommodation, the nature and extent of family relationship in Australia, the nature and extent of employment, business or financial ties with Australia, the frequency and duration of travel outside Australia and any other relevant matters"

There is a clause that says if you are absent from Australia temporarily you can get the payment. Also if you are a 'resident' you can claim the payment. But I couldn't see in the documents whether they mean physically resident or simply a resident for tax purposes. Being a resident for tax purposes does not actually require your physical presence back home. I read somewhere the recent budget changed the payment so it is made on a fortnightly basis instead of as a bulk sum, but haven't looked into that. Good luck Mekka.

We have had some of this. My partner is dark but doesn't look definably Thai. Most Thais pick him as Malaysian or Indonesian, others think he is Middle Eastern. We were just commenting a few days ago how the service in one restaurant went from great to terrible after the waitress discovered he was from Isaan and not from Oman as she initially thought! We have lived together for many months now, the guards are still suspicious about letting him into our condo building alone, despite him having his own key and being formally registered with management as co-resident of our place. The examples go on.

We are very boring and have 2 or 3 western restaurants we frequent where they know us and treat us well. Otherwise we eat at Isaan places or at home (our maid is an amazing cook). Incidentally one of the places where he consistently gets treated really well is Starbucks, so whatever you might think about their coffee or business ethics they get a thumbs up on that front.

It consistently surprises me that my partner actually expects to treated pretty badly by his countrymen. But I guess then he gets to be happy when he is occasionally treated well.

Thanks MissisMiggins. We rang about the Ayara tiles this week. The service person who answered the phone was excellent, he could answer all my partner's questions and it sounds like the Classic will be a great option for us. Also they have a distributor really close to where we are building, so that's a thumbs-up.

If their hands are not filthy dirty then a big bottle of hand sanitizer might work, it could be placed conveniently near the baby. Maybe say the doctor wants everyone to use it?

too much $$$$$ spent on those different names of schools but yet the same bullshit is being taught all over and in all of them.

you'd notice many holidays, parties, trips ,shows, and all you would get in the end is your sons/daughters speaking English with a Thai pidgin or even(Thinglish) sometimes!

Haha Zaza, did you actually attend an international school? Because I have two kids that between then have attended 4 different international schools in 3 countries as well as a government school back home. I can assure you that neither of them speak pidgin. Even when they were initially enrolled as ESL students their schools always expected them to speak English to the best of their ability. They have fewer field trips here than in an Australian government school. Personally I would never put my kids into a Thai school because (a) they don't speak Thai and ( we will be returning to the west at the end of my contract, where they will be expected to keep up with their peers in the classroom. Not sure why anyone would have a problem with parents who make the best choice possible for their own family.

To the original question, I'm like SBK and only get positive comments. Most of my friends back home have young families and have been to Thailand at some point on a holiday. Generally they have the typical tourist view of it being a great beachy holiday place with a bit of shopping at MBK thrown in for 'culture'. The ones with kids always comment how great the Thais are with smaller family members. None of my friends even ask about the 'trade'. But that could just be the demographic of my friends and family.

(edit grammar)

My partner tells me foreigners and Thais are often scouted at the gym in Lumpini Park. At least once a week he mentions that agents came around looking for extras. This is around 5-6pm on weekdays at the main gym near the clocktower. He did it once and said it was so boring he would never go back. They pay Thais around 600 - 800 baht a day for crowd scenes.

I'm one of the few that would encourage you to try, otherwise you may always wonder what *could* have been. But as others have pointed out, do come with your eyes open about the whole range of possible outcomes. There are ways to protect your son so he is not exposed unnecessarily until you are sure the relationship is stable. I met my partner while walking down the street, he gave up a dodgy job for me and is a great father that my kids adore. It can occasionally work out.

Just to clarify I didn't say there were no NGOs, but friends working here have said it is hard for smaller ones to get registered.

We go to BNH for all our medicals because it's close to home but haven't given birth there. I wonder if the Thai tendency to follow 100% the doctor's advice contributes to the high C-section rate at most hospitals? I'm constantly astounded at how my Thai partner will blindly accept anything a doctor/nurse/orderly/hospital receptionist says to him. Two western colleagues and their spouses had babies at BNH recently and both were natural births. Maybe articulating your birth plan ideas to the doctor might be a good place to start. Then see what response you get and move hospitals if you have to. Have you been to St Louis, also in Sathorn? That is also a nice private hospital albeit bigger than BNH.

It would be great if you could post about your experience and follow up. At 35 my Thai partner has quite a bit of scarring to his scalp, back and face and continues to get that nasty boil-like acne in all those locations, but mostly on his scalp which he is self-conscious about. Maybe I can convince him to see someone.

For anyone in Sathorn area I have recommended Siri Sheen to a number of people, there are generally at least 2 or 3 foreigners (men and women) in there. It's next to the Somerset serviced apartments on Soi Suan Plu (Sathorn Soi 3) which is the same street as the main immigration office. Maybe good for a relaxing treatment after getting your visa extension The colouring is expensive for Thailand but a third of what I paid in Australia for my short hair. The owner has a foreigner husband, she speaks excellent English and is very friendly and open to ideas.

And in a final plug, they just installed vibrating massage chairs for clients to sit in when they have pedicures, now I am totally hooked.

Last time I enquired (some months ago now) they were not offering all classes listed on their website. As I work fulltime I wanted to do the weekend classes. They said they were not running any of the weekend classes advertised. Maybe with their move I'll try again.

I agree with Sheryl. My friend who now has a permanent job in the UN started as an Australian volunteer (AVI). When I lived in Cambodia, where many friends worked in this arena, most of them had developed their skills in normal jobs back home for several years before jumping into the aid game. My degree and almost-finished Masters are in development but I have chosen not to be employed in the field at this stage of my life.

Vis a vis aid work in Thailand - my understanding is that it is quite hard for small NGOs to be formally registered in Thailand and a lot of aid-related positions here work on regional programs, not Thai programs. I have 3 friends on aid work here and they run the gamut - one on an international posting with a UN agency, second works for a regional assistance program, and the third works for a small but well-respected NGO. None of them were recruited in Thailand and none of their organisations advertise for staff (except Thai nationals) here.

We have the same roof style on the place we will be building and have just been told the CPAC tiles we wanted would be too heavy, so this might be a solution for us too. Would be interested in any feedback you get from Bluescope.

Ha, I actually had one girl stand in the doorway of a shop and refuse to let me in while she repeated the "no have big size" mantra.

He he Mr Irrisistable I get the same effect as your wife but my partner is horrified at the thought...sigh.

We fund our maid's insurance. Ours signed up as a family member on her daughter's existing BUPA plan, and we paid the "new additional family member cost" which was THB 2,400 for a year. Not sure how much a stand-alone policy would be.

Thanks will have to check these out before the next trip. Our strange and highly strung animal has never taken to my Thai partner but according to him she started mewing and talking loudly and positively leapt into his arms after her 3 day stay at the clinic this past weekend. Then I found him asleep on the sofa that evening with the cat curled up on his chest watching TV. Seems the scary clinic was good for their relationship

We enquired at the Cambodian Embassy in Bangkok a few months back. We were told you have to apply well in advance and provide:

- a detailed list of which provinces you want to travel to in Cambodia

- copy of passport photo page, Thai & Cambodian visas for the driver & all passengers

- copy of the driver's Thai licence (they didn't mention need for international licence)

- copy of ownership, registration and insurance papers for the vehicle

Then there was some confusion but they *seemed* to think that after all the information was provided the Embassy in Bangkok would seek approval from Phnom Penh. Once this was received Bangkok would issue an approval letter They suggested that we should have this letter plus all the above documents translated into Khmer & authenticated to take with us.

I found it all too hard and haven't gotten any further than this.

We have just registered with BDM Victoria to marry at the Registry Office. We had to have our signatures witnessed at the Embassy in Bangkok on the Intent to Marry form and send it down to the registry with ID docs before they would book a time and date for the service.

No problem to marry on tourist visa. If you intend to marry at the Registry Office in Oz make sure you download all the documents and lodge them well ahead of time. You will need to get some documents copied and certified here in Thailand.