boogie

Cathay has direct flights to NY but I don't know if their prices are competitive or not.

I've just been checking Cathay web site and they gave me a return fare of $1882.90 inc taxes (JFK-BKK via Hong Kong) for August travel this year.

I am not intending to travel again until next year so just threw in a few dates to see what came up, I have a young family so want to avoid too many stop-overs or long waits between flights. I was intending to use the Thai airways flight from JFK but now that has gone I am looking for alternatives. Previously I have traveled on BA as I am in Bermuda and they have a direct flight to Gatwick arriving early morning and then I would get the Late flight direct to BKK having spent the day in a hotel day room. This worked great with the kids but is now becoming very expensive.

From what I can see at the moment Cathay looks a good alternative.

..now she wants me to father her child..so she can take it back to thailand.ok..if i do that and she goes back...what are my legal responsabilties??am i up for maintenance in thailand..

If this isn't a troll then you are very sad. "so she can take IT back to Thailand." You talk about the baby like it is some inanimate object, a thing of no consequence. I am truly sorry if your relationship is breaking up, but why on earth would you want to have a baby with a women who , from reading your post, wants nothing more to do with you other than get as much money out of you as possible.

Why would you want to have a baby that you will probably rarely if ever see ? A baby is a human being, to be loved and nurtured not something you decide to buy from the grocery store !!

One morning Harry wakes up and goes downstairs into the kitchen. It's his birthday. Its the third day of the third month and Harry is thirty three years old. He notices that the kitchen clock has broken and stopped at 3.30am. On the radio the weather announces that the temperature is 33 degrees. Opening the sporting section of his newspaper, he turns to page three, he sees that a horse called 'triple treble' is running in the 3.30. he rings up a bookmaker and puts £333 on it to win. It comes in third.

Al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed by U.S. forces in Iraq, has just met with the first of his 72 virgins that Allah had promised

Should I rent or should I buy ?

Here's an interesting perspective

Paul McCartney-Heather Mills divorce.

After 5 years of marriage, he paid her $49 million On the other hand, Elliot Spitzer's call girl Kristen charges $4,000 an hour. Crazy, right?

But...

Had Paul McCartney employed Kristen for 5 years, he would've paid $7.3 million for an hour of sex every night for 5 years (a savings of $41+million).

Value-added benefits are: a 22 year old hot babe, no begging, no coaxing, never a headache, wide open menu, ability to put BOTH legs around you, no bitching and complaining or 'to do' lists. Best of all, she leaves when you're done, and comes back the next day, ready for another round. All at 1/7th the cost, with no legal fees.

Is it just me, or is it better to rent?

Three men are sitting in a room smoking cannabis. After a few spliffs they run out of gear.

One of the men stands up and says, 'Look, we've got loads more tobacco, I'll just nip into the kitchen and make one of my specialty spliffs.'

Off he goes into the kitchen where he takes some of the spices from the spice rack, grinds them up and rolls them into a spliff.

On his return he hands it to one of his smoking partners who lights it and takes a long drag.

Within seconds he passes out.

Ten minutes go by, then an hour, and he's still out cold, so they decide to take him to the hospital.

On arrival he is wheeled into intensive care. The doctor returns to his friends and asks, 'So what was he doing then -Cannabis?'

'Well sort of', replies one of the guys, 'But we ran out of gear, so I made a home-made spliff.'

'Oh' replies the doctor, 'so what did you put in it?'

'Um, a bit of cumin, some turmeric, garam masala and a couple of other spices.' comes the answer.

The doctor sighs, 'Well that explains it. He'll be here for 3 weeks before he wakes up.'

'Why, what's wrong with him?' asks one of the men.

The doctor replies,

'He's in a korma'.

An Israeli doctor said, 'Medicine in my country is so advanced, we can take

a kidney out of one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work

in six weeks.'

A German doctor said, 'That's nothing! In Germany, we can take a lung out of

one person, put it in another, and have him looking for work in four weeks.'

A Russian doctor said, 'In my country medicine is so advanced, we can take

half a heart from one person, put it in another, and have them both looking

for work in two weeks'

The English doctor, not to be outdone, said 'Hah!. We can take an arsehol_e

out of Scotland, put him in 10 Downing Street and have half the country

looking for work within twenty-four hours

BA website

You can use them as in the above link. I only tried it once however and had problems. Our daughter was nicely settled and asleep ready for take off when the flight attendant informed me it wasn't an approved seat because it had a plastic back. I tried to find out from him the criteria, as I had checked in with the seat in full view, but he couldn't say exactly what it was. Anyway we had to take our daughter off the seat and sit her in my wife's lap which of course meant she woke up and starting crying. As a consequence I had a battle with the attendant most of the flight. It was only when we were getting ready for landing that the head flight attendant noticed that I wasn't exactly seeing eye to eye with the attendant. After we had landed and never used the seat the head attendant informed me that our seat was in fact OK !! On the return leg the seat was taken from us at check in and we were supposed to get it back when got on the plane, only to be informed that it had been put in the luggage hold and we couldn't get it until the flight had landed !!

So yes you can use them, but I would check with them first that your particular seat is ok and if possible get it in writing, because the flight attendants don't seem to have a clue !!

I don't know what the fees are like but KKVS might be an option for you. I know nothing about the school but the wife says it is supposed to be good. It's not an International school as such but bi-lingual.

KKVS

Try this

Visas for Thais

Can't find Rachel either - i thought it was a wind up!!

No she's gone aswell now !! They were all there when I originally posted. Shame it had me in tears.

Unfortunately the entries from Jason and George have now been deleted which makes it a lot less funny

See the below link. Read the review by "Rachel" first (about 4th

down), then Jason (a bit higher up), then if you can take it, read

George's

Up the Oxo Tower

It is not that he cannot afford it at all.

If anyone cannot afford what is considered the best education for their kids in whatever coutry they exist in, then naturally they go for the best they can afford.

It was his tune of comment that we waste our money, we dump kids at high priced schools, we do not do any research or assessment as to the qualityu of the school, then we run off to play golf and leave the nannies and maids to do all the work of taking care of our kids.

It is also that he thinks that a thai public school could do just as good a job.

Did you read the beginning of Woohoo's post about "please don't jump down my throat"?

Unless you suffer from Aspergers or something similar (in which case sorry, I totally understand), it is plain to see the spirit in which Woohoo was asking for advice and NOT condemning or generalising other parents behaviour. Give him a break..remember if you can't say something nice..........

Agree 100% thaiclan and nowhere has Woohoo said that he believes a Thai public school could do just a good job. All he is asking is if there is a viable alternative to the high cost of international schools.

By the way Mr Squigle are you going to teach your children the difference between "tune" and "tone" ?

OK great thanks Scouser. We must have been typing at the same time ! That's exactly what I wanted to know.

This is from the VAC Bamgkok web site

From 25th August 2006, multiple entry/ business visit visas will be issued for a period of 6 months or 2 years only, unless a person already holds a previously issued 5 year visit visa. The British Embassy in Bangkok will no longer be issuing 5 year or 10 year multiple entry visit/business visit visas until further notice, due to the introduction of biometrics.

It looks like what NY were telling you was that they are no longer issuing 5 year visit visas but as you have had one previously this note would suggest you could get one.

If you want your wife to be in possession of a current visa and ready to instantly depart I think you have already deduced the solution but you may have to settle for a 2 year visa for the time being.

The Embassy recommends that you do not purchase a ticket to travel before knowing the result of the visa application so they can hardly expect to see a ticket. It should be a perfectly reasonable request if you explained that you are likely to have to depart at short notice due to ill health in your family so you need to have a current visa.

Thanks Manhout Angrit, that's interesting about getting another 5yr visa if you already have a 5yr. The New York office never mentioned that.

Actually I did realise what they meant to say about 5 yr visas I just posted their reply as an example of what I have been receiving as I was getting frustrated at the lack of an actual answer to my question. I'm not too worried about the length of visa although obviously a 5yr one would be better. I haven't actually deduced the answer because they have not actually said we can get one to run after the expiry date of the old, be it for 2 years or whatever.

Your final sentence sums it up "It SHOULD be a perfectly reasonable request if you explained that you are likely to have to depart at short notice due to ill health in your family so you need to have a current visa"

I have actually explained the reason to them, but all I get back are standard answers about post dating, not currently issuing 5 yr visas etc. All I asked them was could my wife get another visa to run from after the current one expires even though we don't intend, under normal circumstances, to travel until probably next June/July ? They seem either incapable or unable to answer for some reason and I was wondering if anybody on here knew the answer.

After four polite e-mails to the New York Visa centre I am still non the wiser. This is my dilema. My wifes current 5 year UK visit visa expires in March 2008. We don't have any concrete plans to visit the UK next year, but in all probability it will be around June/July time. I have an elderly mother who has not been in the best of health recently. My concern is if we have to travel to the UK in an emergency prior to June/July. How can my wife get a smooth transistion from the expired visa to the new one. Can we just make up dates of travel, even though we don't intend to travel on those dates ? For her current 5yr visa we only had to submit the first travel dates and after that you can travel when you want to, so why do the travel dates have to be known ? I obviously haven't suggested to the visa centre about making up dates, but just asked them what we could do if we had to travel in an emergency after my wife's visa expired.

A visa apparently takes 5-7 working days to process, so by the time I have got it to New York and back it would be well over a week, probably nearer two weeks.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is the first response I received, which if read literally means they are not issuing any visas for another 5 yrs !

Good morning WE can only postdate a visa for up to 3 months but at the moment we are not issuing visa's for 5 yeares or more due to biometrics being introduced. The officer may need to see evidence of travel but the outcome of the applicaiton will be decided on the documents produced at the time. Kind regards NY visa

How about this one ?

I think I'll have the fish

Didn't see that "coming"

I have to say I was thinking exactly the same thing as Humphrey Bear. If a school teacher cannot write proper English on a web-site forum I'm afraid that is pretty poor. As a parent looking for schools for my children I would like to think that their teachers would at least be able to sit down and write a decent response on a forum like this.

I should add that I visited BEST last year and was not impressed. The brochure given me, which promotes a supposedly bi-lingual school, had two basic English errors in it !! I can understand why now !

REPS seems to be kindergarten / Primary only.

Is the Garden School the Secondary part?

They seem to run school buses from Pattaya for REPS. Same for Garden?

At the moment the Garden web-site is down, only REPS available.

Would appreciate further info.

The link to Garden is working fine now. Maybe you have their old site, just in case that's the problem here is the current one

www.gardenrayong.com

The Garden School is the International side, they have their own primary section and yes they do run buses.

We went to visit it last year. I have be trying to find out more about it as, until the recent posts , all I ever heard comments on were St Andrews. So I was pleased to hear positive comments on Garden/REPS

I was wondering if, apart from the obvious language difference, there was much difference in standard betwen REPS and Garden primary. My children are growing up bi-lingually although English is very much their dominant language.

So we are shopping for lots of baby stuff to prepare for the birth of our first. Yesterday we bought milk bottles. My wife told me we need a milk bottle steamer to sterilize the bottles. It's a machine for about 2000 baht which can do one thing only: Steam-clean baby bottles.

Ignorant skeptic that I am I didn't buy this very specialized contraption - do we really need that? It's not so much the price, I am just trying to avoid collecting useless and never-used-again kitchen equipment.

So - what is it for and why do I need it?

No you don't need a special machine

I've copied and pasted the quote below from Babycenter.com

" Do I need to sterilize the bottles?

Before you first use new bottles, nipples, and rings, you should sterilize them by submerging them in a pot of boiling water for 5 minutes. Then allow them to dry on a clean towel. After that, a good cleaning in hot, soapy water or a cycle through the dishwasher is sufficient. "

It does add that if you use wellwater it's best to keep sterilizing. If your wife is sceptical do a google search on the subject there are loads of links.

We bought a special machine for warming milk in the bottles, absolute waste of money. Think we only used it once. Just use a pot of hot water.