mjnaus

Dude, this is Thailand... you can park your car wherever you dam_n well please, with or without a "for sale" sign.

The Diana shopping mall has a food supplement store that sells weight gainers, proteine powder and stuff like that. Somewhere on the 2nd or 3rd floor I think, quite expensive though...

We have a small web agency (www.chillyorange.com) in the south of Thailand and more projects then we can handle with our current team. We're looking for a talented web developer (front-end mostly, HTML/CSS and Javascript (jQuery)), if you know you're way around PHP as well, even better!

We can offer you projects on an ongoing basis, at least several big ones each month. Projects will either be paid using an hourly rate ($10 - $15 per hour) or we'll ask you for a project quote.

If you're interested, please shoot us a PM with some background on yourself and some samples of your recent work.

Matt

I have been living in Hatyai for the past 7 years and I can say it's truly a very nice place to live. The town itself is not that big, but indeed you'll find anything you need within reach. Inside the city there's a Carrefour, a Tesco Lotus, Big C, Central department store, Robinsons department store and a bunch of shopping malls. There are three theaters as well, although they hardly play movies with English audio anymore....

Hatyai is very popular with Malaysian (and Singpore) tourists, so the tourist scene mostly caters to Asian tourists (lot's of adult entertainment places around). There are plenty of bars (a bunch of which are popular with the expat community, which are mostly English teachers) and loads of great restaurants and other places to eat. There are also a bunch of clubs/night joints, although these are mostly visited by the locals (but definitely worth a visit!).

As far a beaches go; Songkhla's beach is nearest, however it's nothing great. The beaches are usually rather dirty and are nothing like other places around southern Thailand. Satun, Trang and Krabi have the best beaches in Thailand (I have seen most beaches and I found the best ones, beautiful white beaches and white sandy beaches, to be in these provinces). Satun and Trang are about two hours away and Krabi about three hours.

Safety wise, things are ok at the moment. We have had some problems with small bombs going off a few times a few years back, both in the town as well as at the airport. However, after that it has been quiet. Most people living here feel perfectly safe and the real trouble in the south is at least 200km further south.

Traffic is still rather ok, but seems to be getting worse quickly. Major roads get jammed during rush hour, and some are congested the entire day, however, pick your times when driving a car around town and you'll be ok. Of course, with a motorcycle traffic won't bother you (although it's not exactly safe ).

Muggins and theft; well, guess you get this everywhere and it's probably about average here, can't really say since I haven't had to deal with any of these issues.

If anything else, feel free to ask.

Ok. 200k for sin sod. That's a big loan on it's own. Where will the rest of the money come from to pay for the wedding?

My wedding cost 488k altogether. No sin sod but I had to lay out 200k for show and they gave me back after the wedding.

My advice to you would be wait another year or so and save the money up. That way you get to know each other much better and don't need to take out a loan.

488k for a Thai wedding

They get you one way or another

Sheesh |

i cant believe how people are so happy to throw their money away..... for what???? find a girl who doesnt want money or whose parents are dead its so much easier/simpler. That's my advice.......... yeah Im sure she's "special"

I got married for about 300 odd baht, that was the cost of the roadside meal for two of my wife's friends as witnesses.

4+ years later no problems.

Suckers!!

You do realize there are also people out there who do have $$ and who are happy to spend some on a nice wedding? We're not all cheap... no offense

its all right for you lot to be pontificating about the coverage after the fact but did any of you do anything whilst it was going on?

i complained bitterly to the Times on line, CNN and BBC about their biased one sided coverage

i also wrote to Al Jazeera to comment favourably on theirs

i spoke to the Sun newspaper by telephone and the British embassy about Jeff Savage whose name i broke first on this very forum.

i had responses from them all, not helpful but responses that made them aware someone was out there

i sent over 30 text messages to Abhisit's SMS service offering advise and support

if you want to make a difference then take a little time out and do it at the pertinent time, not after

its easy to comment after the game......

You might want to consider getting off your high horse since you have no idea what posters on this forum did or did not do during the protests.

Bragging about your "efforts" isn't going to do you any good either....

wow! Mr 37 posts newbie, your opinion is really valuable

so thanks for the suggestion but my high horse suits me just fine

as a matter of fact it did do me some good, i felt much better about actually doing something about a situation that i felt strongly about instead of just being an armchair warrior on TV

thanks got your response though it says a lot more to the reader about you, than it does about me...............

Thank God the value of one's opinion is not measured by the number of posts here on TV

Cheap shot: judging by the number of posts made by yourself; you might want to reconsider who you'd call an "armchair warrior on TV"

Moving on....

its all right for you lot to be pontificating about the coverage after the fact but did any of you do anything whilst it was going on?

i complained bitterly to the Times on line, CNN and BBC about their biased one sided coverage

i also wrote to Al Jazeera to comment favourably on theirs

i spoke to the Sun newspaper by telephone and the British embassy about Jeff Savage whose name i broke first on this very forum.

i had responses from them all, not helpful but responses that made them aware someone was out there

i sent over 30 text messages to Abhisit's SMS service offering advise and support

if you want to make a difference then take a little time out and do it at the pertinent time, not after

its easy to comment after the game......

You might want to consider getting off your high horse since you have no idea what posters on this forum did or did not do during the protests.

Bragging about your "efforts" isn't going to do you any good either....

I am a long term resident of Thailand (15 years) who was watching the only "live" coverage I could get from my hospital bed outside Thailand on BBC World. I was STUNNED at the coverage. I saw it as one-sided and with none of the analysis I would expect from a news organisation I respect and admire. When I read the article in The Nation this morning I felt my opinion to have been vindicated.

I don't want to take sides in the political argument only on the coverage which had none of the depth we got a few weeks later when Athens had violent riots which were covered with cause and effect commentary.

I think the one-sided coverage of the situation in Bangkok and Thailand as a whole for this event meant that many people world-wide remain ignorant of the many problems besetting the country which need to be discussed if only to get both sides of the political argument to look beyond their personal bank balances and spread some of the wealth fairly and equitably to areas of need. But that said the Army, for whatever reason and on whoever's orders, deserves congratulations for its handling of an awful situation which would not have been tolerated in many of our more politically "sophisticated" societies as the article quite correctly points out.

How great to finally read a comment addressing the subject at hand without pushing any political views. Unfortunately, discussing any matter related to the recent events in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand is basically impossible on these forums. Too many "know-it-all" expats seem to think the whole board needs to hear their opinion on the current political situation and grab every single opportunity to vent their views.

I definitely agree with the statement that many news outlets where extremely biased/flawed in their reporting (the same might very apply to local media by the way). After several days, it became clear that especially BCC and CNN were more creating their own story instead of creating a more realistic picture of what was happening and what was behind the recent unrest. I guess the mythical struggle between the "rich" and "poor" is better a story then the complex situation in Thailand (perhaps easier to grasp for the less educated folks?).

Difficult, but certainly not impossible.

Several years back I worked for company (foreign owned) doing alternative travel in Thailand and other parts of Asia and we always had several foreign guides helping out as well. Besides that, I know of one other travel company on BKK who does the same; so for sure there are options.

My advice would be to find a German owned operator in Thailand and hook up with them. Book a tour with them and try to get to know the people who matter...

And who are you Mr. Sherman. What are your credentials ? Did the Nation or the Thailand Government pay you well for your rebuttal ?

Thank you for your opinion piece, but it only supports the government and does not help any any type of national reconciliation. You are being used or willing being used. The government propaganda fight to ward off any blame at all in Thailand's problem is well served by you.

I for one would believe CNN and BBC and rather than Mr Sherman AND THE NATION, but I am a long visitor to Thailand to I do not need any of the propaganda to help me make my own decisions. I see it with my own eyes everyday.

You seem to ignore the fact that the above piece mentions a lot of vital information that was simply IGNORED by the mainstream press; forget about who's site you think you're own, this is just simply what happened...

Unlike the writer of the above piece, you immediately take a stand and feel the need to express you're political views. Why the need for this? Just discuss the topic at hand; nobody cares about your political views. The writer didn't seem to express any view favorable to either side; he just criticizes the reporting done by CNN and BCC, and I think he's right in doing so (and many others who have been criticizing the mainstream media).

Don't try to turn every topic relating to the protests in another thread about annoying farang Expats who feel the need to vent their views.

Sorry I can't help your further Explorer but I am struggling with the exact same issue (we have a bunch of foreign consultants and developers working for our Thai company). I found some info on a government site (most likely the same stuff you already read as well) stating we indeed have to pay 15% withholding tax (I guess we would need to pay this ourselves as our consultants won't be too happy paying some dumb Thai tax).

However, after talking this over with our consultant, she said we only need to pay 3% instead of 15% (but as far as I know, this would be the withholding tax paid to Thai consultants). Should I start looking for a new accountant?

I am sure many expat business owners are in similar positions, some info would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for the replies.

Interesting about the rep office however I am not really exporting an actual Thai product. An example of my sales cycle would be similar to;

Someone paying me to build a website, paying the funds into my offshore company account and me then paying a Thai to design/build website.

At first I would need to employ around 3-4 Thai staff, with the aim of adding an extra 3-4 over the first year.

I don't think there is much risk of a Thai company stealing my clients (if i contract out the work) as it is a lot more involved than building a website and the clients pay for a lot more than just the production of service.

It would be like saying a printers could steal clients from a window and door installers, becasue they have been printing brochures for the last year. However I do want to stay legal here so maybe setting up the Thai Co. is the way forward, but where is the line drawn with what counts as work? Can i open the Thai Co. and conduct business with another Thai Co. on just a B visa?

I am actually more or less in the same business as you; we use the following setup:

We have our own company here in Thailand that does the marketing, sales and management. The Thai company invoices the foreign/Thai (very few, mostly work with foreign businesses) and sources the production and actual work to our company in Hong Kong which handles the actual work.

I guess for your situation you could leave the Hong Kong company out of it (however, in that case you will likely end up paying more taxes here in Thailand).

I guess that would be depend on the nature of your business. Are there any companies operating in Thailand that you could partner up with? If so, I would say that would make take off faster.

However, if you're going to be working here, you will need a work permit, so either the Thai company you partner with will have to provide the work permit or, if they don't want this, you won't have much other options then to setup your own company and get yourself a work permit.

In my experience, the Indy package sucks big time; had nothing but bad experience during the four years I used this package. International bandwidth and share ratio are a joke and when testing speed with servers in Europe, it was always came to less then 24% of the supposed bandwidth.

The Premier package has proven to be a much more stable solution with a great International experience.

As long as you're not legally married in Thailand, I can't see how it would be possible to get divorced...

I can say skype is fairly secure, the servers are in countries in the balkans and other places. Further to this the logistics involved in monitoring the average expat on the off chance they could gain intel, are improbable. I doubt they are actively listening. However saying that anyone and anything can be monitored. The NSA in the states and GCHQ in the UK actively monitor traffic but its usually done only if a particular code word pops up in conversation i.e. 'Osama'. This is then filtered for content. Once its deemed of no Intel value its scrapped. i wouldnt go to far into conspiracy theories on this its just not worth a goverments time, energy or MONEY to be tracking the average man in the street. IMO

Skype is based on Peer-to-Peer technology; no servers are used for Skype connections (except for retrieving some routing info perhaps). So where ever Skype's servers are located has nothing to do with it's security.

The NSA in the states and GCHQ in the UK actively monitor traffic but its usually done only if a particular code word pops up in conversation i.e. 'Osama'. This is then filtered for content.

Right.... And without filtering all communication data constantly, how would "they" know if a "particular code word" pops up?

You might want to keep in mind that, even IF any government or organization is monitoring your communication, it's still relatively easy to make it very difficult if not impossible for anybody to track your communication.

First of all, Skype uses a very strong encryption protocol named AES. Without the required keys to the encryption (stored on your comp only and unknown to Skype) it's virtually impossible to decrypt this encryption.

As for email and regular web browsing, as long as communication takes place over unsecured connections, basically your data can be read by anyone who might be listening (they do need minimal technical knowledge of course). For regular browsing, there are many ways to decrypt your traffic (look into TOR or secure SH tunnels combined with a proxy server).

Google around and you'll find plenty of ways to secure your communication (do keep in mind that using certain encryption methods are illegal in Thailand as per the new communication laws from three years back).

As long as you 'show' an income of 100,000 baht you can freelance

I never heard of this before. Show this income to whom? And how does one document freelance (foreign) earned income in Thailand?

That you can get:

1. Stop fooling the people playing this face left-right paradigm, it's not football but a country!

2. Tell the NWO to F themselves and stop the 'war of terror' Agenda they present to the public

3. Get Abhisit out, the liar Nr.1 : one day "We don't use live ammunition" people die; next day "Now we use live ammo" !?!

4. Let the elites pay more than 150 Baht for their maids a day or better tax them!

5. Being G20 state obviously you have to play stuff like that on the road to more surveillance, ppl know that

6. Commemorate the death of the 88 people, mostly unarmed! and not the death of a fkn shopping mall

7. Get the rich ones and their 150 Baht ice-cram eating, iPhone twittering brats some education that teaches real values, like the life of others and not just how to wring out the next bunch of slave laborers and illegal immigrants which built BKK!

8. Get rid of the military rulers which actually via commands of their rich friends hold the country in their grip.

9. Tell the cyber-police to go and think a moment if they really want China style ruler-ship and 1984 happen to THEM.

10. Ask the real questions, like why are the Democrats not yet dissolved for their illegal party contributions? 236m Bt.?!?

11. Stop media censorship and so called ISA, curfew B$, this is not North Korea or China.

Get a life and move out of those control grid Moloch's like Bangkok. City of Angels and Demons...

Start thinking for yourselves.

All the best,

may Thailand reconcile and the people live in peace together, sharing the wealth of this beautiful, rich country!

Someone needs a hug

Many of us believe that Central World should not be rebuilt. Instead a People's Park should be built with a large memorial to the citizens slaughtered by the military in the 1976, 1992 and 2010 pro-democracy demonstrations.

, you're a funny man! Seriously, have another one...

"Many of us", that would be you, the misses and her family?

Being married to a Thai citizen will not have any effect on your ability to work here; you will always need to have a proper visa (non immigrant type "O" usually) + a work permit. You can get the visa in your own country once married (they will give you the visa when you can show you're married to a Thai). The work permit will need to be arranged by your employer (and will only be valid for that specific job).

Keep in mind that working in Thailand (find a job etc) is not something you should take to lightly. Finding a job an English teacher is usually quite easy (not sure for Asians though), anything else becomes quite difficult, especially if you don't have any connections here.

I suggest reading around here on the forums, most questions you have have been answered many times already.

Best of luck!

Seriously, what's with the drama queen acting huh? Maybe cut back on the Thai soap opera series?

In all seriousness; there are always these people who see the worst possible outcome for every situation. Keep in mind that the future is open and situations can develop in any number of ways.... your pessimistic views won't do any good, that's for sure!

Peace

Sorry to hear this man, must be quite frustrating ....

Did you try to get help from your embassy?

Can you not get someone back home to send you more $$ so you can get this sorted out? Sounds like going back to the border post where you re-enterred Thailand is the only thing you can do, with a few thousand baht this shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?

I wouldn't worry too much about that plain ticket at this point; without your visa/stamps sorted out, obviously you aren't going anywhere, so that should be your main focus at this point.

Best of luck