filingaccount

I just came back from a quick run. (a point to note. Print the form available here and complete all the fields and attach your photos before you arrive. Make sure you have a copy of your passports "who you are" page. Ensure all your other needed documents are in order. Saves time and lessens your stress a bit.)

I left Monday morning via airasia to Udon and did the hoop jumping to the get to Laos and grabbed a taxi to the embassy. (negotiate the taxi price. I paid 200 baht, but they might go lower. A pet peeve, tuk-tuks are crazy pricey in Vientiane. Refuse their asking prices and walk. Saves you a ton of money you get to enjoy the scenery. Besides, a 20 minute walk is good for any one of us.)

I arrived at the embassy 10.30ish and had about 10 people in front of me in the queue. I was processed in about 10 minutes and was asked to go pay.

This is where they are a bit un-organized and perhaps a bit slow.

They called out names and people had to walk up and pay their fees. I was stuck in the waiting room a good 40 minutes and average estimates were that 200 people had submitted their applications before me.

Overall not bad at all, specially considering the <OMG HORROR> from many posters.

On the second day when I went to pick up the passport I decided to get there early, 11 am (and a friend said he'll do a later appearance).

At 11 they were still in full process of accepting applications, so I grabbed a seat inside the main indoors area.

The only difference this day was the queuing "system". They has numbered cards. There was much less confusion about who they called next.

At 12.40 they were still processing the last few applicants, and when that was done they asked us to leave, and queue up outside.

Outside was about 200 people waiting to pickup their passports. No queuing system was in place.

Many people queued up "normally" one after the other. Late arrivals decided to skip the line and started to form a ball of people at the front.

Queue cards were handed out, but many people missed to pick one up and had to go back.

Outside they would benefit from having a Hong Kong bus stop style (or Bangkok movie theatre style) queuing with clear indication where you should line up, one after the other. Having a guard managing the throng of people would be perfect. Also having the taxis and tuk-tuk's park on the opposite side of the road (and not directly in front of the entrance) or a bit down the road would be nicer.

It took them about 1 minute to process each person picking up the passport. I was out in about 20 minutes.

My friend who arrived later was out in about 1 hour.

I suggest coming really early and park your butt right outside to be first in line, OR come much later when the rush of people has disappeared. (This of course depends on your plans for the day).

Double entry still given to me, although I saw a few surprised faces when they only received single entries (One Italian for sure).

I was back across the border and at Udon airport with about 1.5 hours to spare before the last flight back to Bangkok.

I'll do a trip soon with 4 blank pages currently. Enter Laos takes 1 page, 1 page for the entry/exit stamps for Laos and Thailand. 1 page for the actual Thai visa. This gives me 1 full page left. I do not foresee any troubles.

If anyone does know a minimum amount of pages required for a Thai visa, please let us know. I know it needs to have something like a 6 months validity period left, but never saw, read or were informed about minimum amount of pages required (as long as there are enough for stamps and visas).

(For all you cynics/negative people: Yes, I have applied for a new passport, but it takes some weeks to arrive, and I have to renew before that.)

So I left with 4 pages, I returned with 2 pages remaining (1 page each for the visas).

They were nice enough on both the Thai and Laos sides to notice the low number of pages remaining, and leafed through to find empty spaces on earlier used pages and stamped accordingly.

All 4 officers looked happy when I thanked them specifically for the extra care taken.

Any advice for foreigners buying their first condo in BKK?

Ask questions. Then ask them again, and again, and again.

You'd be surprised how the answer changes a little each time. Eventually you'll get the truth. Be persistent and polite.

Never EVER get your information from the seller/agent/friend of <x> only. Double check, ask around. RESEARCH! Go to the sites without agents, sales etc. Go alone and get your own feel for the place. Have a cup of coffee and hang out a bit.

If you feel someone is vague, unclear, unable to give you the correct answers or avoiding. Double check with somebody else (unrelated to the first person).

Never put more than you are willing to have out of reach for a significant amount of time (unless you want to take some losses).

Realise that construction standards are NOT of any "standard". You will have to do a lot of things yourself if you "want it right".

NEGOTIATE PRICE! They will say "no", "impossible", "cannot" etc etc. You CAN get a lower price, free furnishings, fitting upgrades etc.

There area ton of things to consider. TAKE YOUR TIME. DO NOT RUSH. The sellers will pressure you to sign now, and pay up asap. Do not move forward until YOU are ready. (a suggestion: The more pressure they apply, the further you step back.)

If there is something you do not like about the place right off the bat, expect it to grow to a major irritation as time passes. Correct as much as you can IMMEDIATELY. Minor flaws becomes major headaches later.

If all else fails.... rent

The only thing they will transfer over are the latest entry and permit to stay stamps. You will have to carry your old passport when you leave to use the 2nd entry. Show them your old passport when you return to get the new 60 day entry.

Thanks. It will be tested in practice in a few months time. I'll make a follow up post then. (unless my memory fails me)

Thanks for all the answers,,,,,,,,,Just returned from immagrations and the transfer was a breeze. Submitted the embassey letter and the old and new passports at 9am and they were handed back at 9:10am NO CHARGE..

Yes, this is true. They make a phone call to your embassy and ask a question or 2. They confirm your passport change and it's done.

My questions though.

If you have a double entry visa, and change passports BEFORE using the 2nd entry. How does that work? Do you need to carry the old passport with you to show the double entry visa? Would they allow you to re-enter for the full duration? Would the transfer of the status to the new passport show the double entry status of the visa?

Answers would be much appreciated

I'll do a trip soon with 4 blank pages currently. Enter Laos takes 1 page, 1 page for the entry/exit stamps for Laos and Thailand. 1 page for the actual Thai visa. This gives me 1 full page left. I do not foresee any troubles.

If anyone does know a minimum amount of pages required for a Thai visa, please let us know. I know it needs to have something like a 6 months validity period left, but never saw, read or were informed about minimum amount of pages required (as long as there are enough for stamps and visas).

(For all you cynics/negative people: Yes, I have applied for a new passport, but it takes some weeks to arrive, and I have to renew before that.)

I for one welcome the "re-education" of Thais.

Keep the Thais ignorant, poor and believers in black magic. This way I, personally, will stand to profit HUGELY at the expense of the "ruling elite" of Thailand. The so called "elite" still depends on me (and others), the foreigner to supply them with all sorts of goods and services. They all think they are so clever and think their peanut "profits" make them "better" and "powerful".

When I buy goods from the Thais I always say I need a lower price or I wont buy. They jump and lower their prices immediately. I know the workers get less salaries because of it, but why should I care. I profit. They profit. The working class Thais lose. I don't give a <censored> <censor>.

I say continue to live in ignorance while us "outsiders" take 95% of the profits. Funny how it all works.

All of you moaning about this or that are just missing the boat to profit form the situation.

If you really think anything will be allowed to change, buy a clue. Others have positioned themselves to profit.

All of you supporting one side or the other, good luck.

Let us stop pretending that Thailand is not corrupt. (For those lazy out there. Red is corrupt, darker red is more corrupt.)

However, Thailand is far from the only country severely corrupted.

Shall we summarize the power grab already?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutocracy

The domestic terrorists are the Thai Rouge drunks. They're running around w/ clubs and throwing granades. The PAD are just sitting in buildings.

Get you FACTS correct

PAD supporters are not "just sitting in buildings".

Me thinks it would be an excellent time to test this baby right here. Non-lethal crowd control vehicle. This would get the people movin' and groovin' to the waves.

You do realize this one has been confirmed to boil people through microwaving and it IS lethal.

The way messaging works, putting everything in "conversations" as opposed to having inbox's, sent message folders etc. Guess not really HTC but more a windows quirk. Most mail/message applications go that way (bit like Gmail), but I'm a tad more old fashioned and would like to have everything in sent folders.

I'd like to quickly find the last message I sent, and what better way to do then look in your sent mail folder.

That is a WM 6.1 "feature" and can be disabled in the registry.

create a folder named OEM in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Inbox\Setting s

Then in the new named OEM folder, create a DWORD key called

SMSInboxThreadingDisabled

with a value of 1

Or download and run the attached CAB file. It does exactly as described above. (No warranty, guarantees etc are given. Your own actions are your own, but the cab file should work just fine)

Assuming 14 million arrivals per year by air to Bangkok

assuming each flight is carrying 400 passengers

assuming landings happen 365 days a year

(14,000,000/400)/365 = 95.89 flights per 24 hours. Rounding to 95 flights.

Assuming 95 flights per 24 hours

assuming THB 3,800 per person per day spending

assuming 14 day stays

total direct revenue loss per day 95*400*3800*14 = THB 2,021,600,000 or 2.021 billion (roughly US$ 58 million, EUR 44 million)

3 day closure is so far assumed to be THB 6,064,800,000 or 6.064 billion in direct lost revenue (roughly US$ 173 million, EUR 133 million)

This is of course only very rough assumptions based on assumed arrivals and each arrival is an average tourist. The numbers can of course be statistically proven wrong.

Edit: clarification on total arrivals

This is unconfirmed reports.

No overstay fees until Saturday when the airport has been scheduled to open.

With Tsunamis, bird flu, SARS, and other NON controllable "acts of God" tourists and business travellers are generally very level headed and understand that it is in no way the fault of Thais or Thailand. It will be business as usual quickly.

People, despite what -seems- to be the popular opinion here, are quite intelligent and are able to see the difference between "acts of God" and a man made <uprising/protest/violence/overtaking airports/etc>.

The difference with an <uprising/protest/violence/overtaking airports/etc> and bird flu and tsunamis is that it is under the direct control of Thais. They can choose to stage this <uprising/etc>, or they can choose not to. People around the world see and understand this.

The people around the world will not side with Thais and will not sympathise while this <uprising/etc> is going on. Particularly when it is a violent one as shown in the world media.

The people will say (and are already saying), screw Thailand and screw the Thais. Reason being anything from ruined travel plans, to lost business, to family/friends being stuck here and/or lost money by having trips cancelled, to loss of life due to critical medical supplies not making it on time and a lot more (feel free to expand on it).

Business will not return to "normal" quickly at all. The after effects will not be know for a long time, if ever. We can be sure, however, that the after effects will be felt and felt strongly all over the country.

Personally, I think it is great that this crap is going on as there will be a significant decline in the amount of people arriving, and most likely a stagnant Thai economy. If the Thai Baht loses ground to world currencies (particularly the USD) I stand to profit nicely. To this I say, go PAD, stay long and piss on the country as much as you like.

I'm seeing breaking news headlines in the U.S. (no additional info though) that the airport has canceled flights due to protesters surging into the airport.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27902801

The picture speaks for itself, now doesn't it?

Sad day indeed for everyone.

Does anyone know of any local Thailand / Bangkok seller/s?

Have you checked MBK? They tend to have all the latest. Sometimes cheaper, sometimes pricey as <censored>.

It defies logic the number of ads I see both here and in my local paper by so-called web designers and hosters who don't include their own web address in their ads. There's one long running one in the Phuket Gazette stating 'An interesting website can help your business', and then gives a hotmail address Are they all hoping we won't notice and just punt out SiteReptile sites to us at a nice profit?

Yes, it is quite surprising to see a large number of people use hotmail addys for their professional correspondence. Puts most people off from making a serious enquiry.

It doesn't take much to have your own domain, and proper email addy. At least it gives an impression of professionalism (true or not is another story).

I'm dabbling in a web business as a hobby/semi seriously in Thailand and I never get used to the same frequent extremely basic questions from Thai companies.

Eg.

"Why I have to pay every month? I pay you for the design already." They forget that hosting is not "magic". The hosting fee (and other fees) is clearly stated in the contract and has been clearly mentioned several times before signing.

"Why you so expensive? I can have website for 1000 baht." Yes, sure you can, and then I tell them that myspace is totally free and that the 1000 baht is a rip off. Their heads almost explode. There is a difference between having a "website", and having a professional site done right. Sadly, not many see the difference locally.

Then there is the issues with support. Their PC crashes, electricity is off, they didn't connect the PC to the LAN, they spilled their drink on the laptop etc. Yet they call me strongly stating that the website/email is offline and why I didn't make sure it was online. 2 questions later and it is sorted and nothing is wrong on the site side, and their network, power, human error casued it (and this repeats ad naseum).

There are many more fun examples, but I don't want to thread jack too much

In my own personal opinion Thailand, generally, is falling behind more and more regarding IT. It's sad to see as there is so much potential here for each business to expand and realise the profit opportunities they have.

hi again, after all this years... it seams that the internet connection in Thailand is not bettr than it was back in 2003 ?

I used to live in Phuket and Bangkok, and I had a 2000/512 adsl line both places. But the speed and internalional connection wasnt too bad, is it worse now or what is it?

Im planning to move back to bangkok in 2009, and will base my income from internett work overseas (Europe), and Im wondering what I can buy as ADSL speed in Bangkok metro area this days.

kap,

thanks...

http://internet.nectec.or.th/internetmap/v...etmap112008.gif

Keep in mind that Thailand has 14 million internet users.

I am not a technical person , so this question may sound a bit dumb to some, I have recently moved to a new house that has a TOT telephone line installed, first ive connected my computer to the internet by using the built in dial up modem, and the results are '' slow'' about 40Kbps !!! , so I went to see the TOT office guy and asked if I can have adsl installed, he asked for my telephone number and house address, He came back into the office and said I could not have adsl installed as my house is 2-1/2 Km too far away from some sort of connection box, how Can 2-1/2 Km make that much difference ? , I am thinking that may be the guys just quoting some sort of fixed guide line regarding the distance away from the adsl connection box,

In my non technical way of looking at this, say if the adsl was installed at my house , but due to this extra 2-1/2 Km distance

I could not hope to get a standard connection speed, '' BUT'' the poor speed I could get was greater than my current 40Kbps

I would still gladly pay for the adsl set up , what do you think ....

ADSL is technically limited. Normally the maximum distance between ADSL repeaters is 3 KM. So in your case the repeater is probably 3+2.5 KM away, hence the connection is not going to work. No, not even a little.

Find out if they can provide you with a WiFi link (with directional antennas at receiving and sending ends, and signal booster) from the last ADSL repeater. The connection is not going to be great (and I mean it will totally drop and you might have to realign the antennas frequently, and that's not easy) in bad weather though.

Swedish Church Sukhumvit soi 33 or some such I suppose.

I am interested in learning website design for e-commerce. Anybody knows how to get started? Is there any vocation school or evening classes in BKK that teach this subject (in English)? or perhaps I can find a private tutor (but needs to speak English). How much would be the rate for a private tutor?

The best idea is to start with an idea. Any idea for a website, in your case, e-commerce.

Start building it. It is going to be slow and sometimes painful, but the best way to learn and really know your site is by doing it yourself from scratch.

There are tons of tools out there to create virtually anything. The key here is the idea and your own imagination. The rest, if you really want it done, will sort itself out.

Is The Internet Shafted?

Yes, since 1994. Nothing new really.

The ultimate mobile device is the Dopod U1000 (aka HTC X7500).

5" LCD (640x480), qwerty keyboard, wifi, 3g, 8 GB storage, 624 mhz cpu etc.

Lenovo G400. with negotiations ~16000 baht. Decent specs and great keyboard and non reflective screen.