billd766

Ok I just recieved some very interesting news/e-mail.

As my company will have a new market/sales manager for Asia they asked me to move back to SG to work closely with him and learn him what is needed to do in Asia.

Ok I proposed them I will stay in Thailand and travel every two months to SG in order to update eachother on the market developments together with the product managers.

January I will stay one month in SG to help him understand the bizz here in Asia.

I feel good now knowing that they appreciate my experience and knowledge.

thanx all!

Alex

Good for you Alex. Just remember you don't have to tell him all you know, just in case.

Bill

Billd766 you are in a different situation I think as you have a child.

If I had/have a child, to be honest I would immediately 'mentally' write everything off financially.

I dont mean that in a nasty way really - its simply that my pre-nup with my wife would be null and void in that case anyway.

Also if my wife were no longer around, because of either of the 2 scenarios in my original post, then I would still want contact with the family for the sake of my child.

So I reckon you have done the right thing - and good luck to you and your family.

Thanks dfsbrit

It is not so much that I have written off everything financially, more a case of falling in love with my wife during the first 3 or 4 weeks that we were together.

From the early days of our relationship i told her that I was married with a teenage son and she stayed through that part and when I told my UK wife that I wanted a divorce she stuck with me then.

I got my divorce and about a year later we married and then 4 years later our son came along which was a bit of a surprise to us both as she didn't realise that she was pregnant. He is now 2 and a bit and I love him as much as my first but I have more time (and less energy) to be with him.

My work has gone up and down though we have enough to live on.

I had to go for a double angioplasty when I came back from Bangladesh and she came down from upcountry where we live with the bankbooks and all her gols in case there wasn't enough money in the bank(there was) for the hospital bill.

If she dies first as the house is in our son's name I will look after him until he is old enough or I die.

We have never had a prenup agreement (I wish I had the first time around) as if we divorce (hopefully not) then as you say I still want to be around for my son.

I have 3 spare copies of Ubuntu 6.06 if anybody wants one. Also through blind stupidity I appear to have 10 copies of Kubuntu in transit somewhere.

I borrowed some Suse 10 and the Ubuntu double cd, also a Kubuntu cd to try to get at least one working on my spare laptop and I now have so much Linux when I start up I am totally confused.

I am also running windows XP and that still works.

How can I clear, uninstall or reformat the whole hard drive as I have a windows back up on an external drive?

My wife and I were worried about our 2 year old son and wouldn't let him go and play without sandals but in the last few weeks unless we superglue or nail his feet in them they are off half the time. He runs over the stone chippings on the drive, plays in the sand, trips over rtree roots but if he goes out he always puts his shoes on and now he knows if they are on the wrong feet.

If children won't put their shoes on what are you going to do? Keep them in, bash them with a big stick, cut off their TV and movie rights?

My feeling is to let them be free while they are still young children as they will have to conform soon enough.

Just read the back of a Savepak packet of sliced bacon:

Fully cooked

Just heat and eat.

Place in pan of boiling water, turn off the heat.

Wait 3-7 minutes

If you COOK it properly its not too bad though clearly the company don't want to tell you whether it is smoked or greenback.

Anyone now how to get the super rich boss of the very large CP sit down and eat a bit of his nice warm wet bits of stuff?

Roger in Surin

If that is the same CP bacon that I buy from 7/11 it tastes Ok if you chuck it in the frying pan and fry it with some sausage, a couple of eggs and some fried bread. At least it did at lunchtime today. 42 baht a pack.

When I am in Bangkok I usually go to Villa and buy canadian bacon which is mighty meaty matey rather than the streaky stuff. I wouldn't feed that to my dogs and they eat most things.

I am still trying to fully come to grips with the subtleties of moving from the company land ownership to land in my wifes name/house in my name scenario.

The sticking point for me is the thought that on divorce or death the land may be owned by my wife’s family and they would not agree to sell so I could ‘move on’.

In either scenario, death or divorce I wont want to continue living here.

Is it possible to write the lease for the land such that we have to sell the land (and house) on divorce or death of my wife and I simply pay half the money received to my wife or her family (say).

I emphasise the lease being used above to do this as this will be a legal document signed by all parties.

Whereas a Will is a legal document that is signed by just one party - and could conceivably during the years of the lease - be changed.

ning & john

My advice for what it is worth;

1) Do not put in your wife's name more than you can afford to lose!

2)Your wife or her family will want to see cash so you should be able to negoiate a settlement

3) You could try a I.O.U as well as the will

4)Yes the will is always superceeded by the following will

As I have no idea of your family circumstances (ie children) it is not easy to comment.

I went the easy route with land and property and it is all im my wife's name. To me it is of no consequence that she owns it all and in our separate wills we have both left everything to our son. In my will she looks after him when I die and if she dies first I am to be his legal guardian until he is old enough or I die in which case his uncle will take over as guardian.

Hopefully I will not be able to put my guardianship to the test as my wife is 21 years younger than me (I am 62) and our son is 2.

to answer ning and john

1) Everything is in my wife's name because I love her very much and want her to have a reasonable life when I die.

2) If we divorce then what my wife wants will probably happen and her family don't look at me as an ATM or cash cow. Bear in mind that if you divorce in Thailand the courts will probably be in her favour and she will get more than you anyway. Also what happens if she refuses to sell?

3) Does not apply to me.

4) That is the same in most countries.

I use a Nokia 6070 via an IR link to my Thinkpad T41. The Nokia 6070 is priced at 4,710 baht at Jaymart, so maybe closer to 4,500 baht at a counter shop in MBK? It's also tri-band, GSM900/1800/1900, so I can use it in the U.S.A. (T-Mobile/Cingular).

Use a mobile phone with EDGE capability, not GRPS. It has three times faster speed than GPRS.

Get a motorola V360 which is cheap and fast.

Or a nokia 3230, cheap too.

Most Thai phone seller don't know about EDGE, so make sure you ask for what you want.

to find out which phone has EDGE, go to www.gsmarena.com.

tslau

It will be hard to find a mobile that has EDGE and not GPRS as well. EDGE is fine in the big cities however it does not cover all or even a half of Thailand. If there is no EDGE coverage and you have no GPRS, what are you going to do next?

Back in 2002 I was on a frontage road in the right hand lane and we were all stopped to allow entry to vehicles from the left.

We had just been allowed to go when I heard a load bang and looking around a motorcycle had come up on my offside and smacked into a concrete pillar. On my car it looked as though the was a toe mark from a shoe in the dirt on the car. We all stopped again and the traffic controller (a security guard really) came ove r to see what had happened.

I don't even think I got the car in gear to go anyway. I had to wait for the police and called a Thai colleague to help me out. I was lucky enough to have my camera in the car and took a load of photos and eventually the police turned up after the rescue ambulance (a pick up truck).

My friend and I went to the police station and sat around for a couple of hours. Eventually I was given some forms in Thai to sign and my friend checked them first. I signed them and was allowed to go. The police said it was all the motorcylists fault and no blame was attached to me. On the way out the policeman asked for a copy of the photos which I delivered next day.

The police were friendly and helpful and I had no problems at all.

Farangs don't always get the blame and no money changed hands at all.

I am a contractor in Telecommunications and go where the work is.

I spent 7 months in Pakistan last year and worked for 5 different managers (all expats) in that time.

This year I worked in Bangladesh for 2 months.

My problem is similar to Alexlah in that I am honest. I always ask my managers if they want good news all the time or the truth.

The always say tell me the truth, so I do, and most of the time the truth does not quite fit the picture that has to go to head office.

Unfortunately I was fired from Pakistan followed a month later by most of the other expats to save money. The manager who got rid of me did not even have the decency or courtesy to tell me and it was left to higher management.

I left Bangladesh for a similar reason plus I had to come back to Thailand for a heart operation. 4 months later the project was pulled as the end customer was not satisfied with only 40% of the work completed in the allotted time.

In my trade it used to be said, never mind the price just look at the quality. Now it is a case of never mind the quality (we can fix that) just look at the price.

You get what you pay for most of the time, pay peanuts get monkeys. If you want more, pay bananas.

Alexlah, my honest advice to you is this;

If you need the job and the money, keep quiet, smile a lot and take the money, but ALWAYS cover your ass.

If you don't and think that you can do a better job, then tell your bosses what they need to know, but remember, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.

1. sell them to a second hand bookshop.

2. give them to a prison library (for falang prisoners.)

3. give them to the siam society library (of mostly non fiction material)

Give them to a poor reading deprived expat living in the boonies.

Me

Pretttttttttttty pleaaaaaaaaase

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

Hi Tim

Thanks for that information. I will take a couple of photos of this water thing and then just try it on the hose pipe to see what happens.

I was in the village and for 10 baht I bought a packet of Chua Yong Seng round eggplant seeds.

Also when I eat cantaloupe melons I just throw the seeds at the edge of the veg patch and it looks as though I have some of them coming along as well.

Bill - I cant help you with any quantities of Papaya seed, but I canm help you with Makua seed (Tiger variety) and with drippers.

The pump you have sounds fine for the job.

Tim

Hi Tim

Thanks for that information. I will take a couple of photos of this water thing and then just try it on the hose pipe to see what happens.

The thing all foreigners married to Thais need to be very careful of is that debts by individuals do not become debts 'of families' (the expat included).

It's not a huge leap of imagination to extend 'Mamma has a hospital bill' to 'Pappa has a credit card debt.... mama is going to be thrown out of her home by the bank if she can't come up with...'.

Also, keep a very close eye on where your land deeds are kept.

If they are not in your name, they might very well wind up in the bank.

[edit]

I should add that exactly these circumstances occured to many expats at the ecconomic last turn down, I know two guys who found out their wive's families' had run up debts.

And what do you do? Like mama is in debt and you don't help out.

And one final point. Thais very often sign credit for family members who can't get credit - YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW DANGEROUS THAT CAN BE.

We are all wise if we keep a very close eye on our Thai family's credit usage.

I was very lucky in that respect as my wifes brother who is a minibus owner/driver got into debt last year and we helped out with a loan (non returnable as it is family) and blow me down if he didn't do the same this year.

It got to the stage that my wife was asked if I would sign as the gurantor which we very reluctantly agreed to but fortunately the company would not accept me. We gave him more money and his 15 year old daughter gave 20k baht and he promised to turn over a new leaf. It seems that 3 months later he is still as stupid as ever and this time my wife said NO WAY.

Fortunately the deeds to our place are up here and he is down in Bangkok. Although his children and my wife's parents are more than welcome to stay he IS NOT. Not now or ever.

Hi Maizefarmer

Thanks for the information and I will explain it to my wife.

We have 1 rai free at the back of the house which we can use as a "test bed" for both crops and I have found a place in the next village that can supply most of the things we need except for the button dropper. The do sell an item which plugs into the pvc pipe and when it is screwed down tight no water comes out and it can be adjusted to pass the water as a sort of very low pressure fountain rather than a drip feed. It was 3 baht and I will try it out later today and photograph it to paste on the thread.

He also showed me a tool for making the holes in the pvc pipe.

I have an electric pump and I am probably going to use 1 inch blue pipe as that is the size of the inlet and outlet pipes. It is rated at a max 90 litres a minute or 5400 litres an hour and it should be OK as there is only a little slope to pump up.

Where can I get commercial quantities of Makua and Papaya seeds?

I will be quiet on this thread for a while as I need to set the operation up which will take some time.

Cheers

Bill

Open "My Controls"

Edit Avatar.

Choose a pic from yr HD or online storage, (Photobucket, et al).

Hi Udon

I did that yesterday a couple of times and I can see the same one again.

SBK

Also, don't forget to delete all temp internet files after you change the avatar or the old one may still show up on your screen even tho (to others eyes) it will have changed.

I didn't delete the internet temp files which may be the problem.

I will try again.

I am trying to change from Dick Dastardly to Klunkhead

Does anybody grow Papaya for papaya pok pok?

I have been following Maizefarmers Makua thread and spent some time chasing up the basic bits for irrigation and when I spoke to my wife about it she said;

If we grow too many where will will sell them.

We need better water supplies.

I have no answer to the first question but I can deal with the second.

Then she said that she was thinking of growing papaya for papaya pok pok.

We have about 10 rai available of sloping therefore well drained land though there is rock about 1/2 metre down and a lot of it is planted with man (tapioca) which will be harvested as usual so that part of the land will be free and cleared.

We also have another 10 rai about 3 km down the road also planted with man but this has a klong behind it which we can use for irrigation.

Has anyone ever grown papaya commercially?

Somewhere a long time ago I remembered how to change my avatar but I have forgotten since then. I did a forum search and couldn't find it and I went into my old messages and I still can't find.

Can somebody please help me?

Cheers

Maizefarmer

I have been following this thread with great interest which is what I am trying to get my wife to show.

She thinks it is a good idea with a couple of reservations so far.

If we grow too much for the local market where will we sell it.

We need better water supplies.

We have about 10 rai where we live mostly planted with man (tapioca) and we are on a slope so the runoff is OK and the ground does not stay waterlogged, and another 10 rai about 3 km down the road also planted with man. This land has a klong running at the bach so it is possible to get water pumped in the dry season but the main land is rock about 1/2 metre down so we cannot drill for water.

She is talking about growing papaya for papaya pok pok on the second piece of land but I will open another thread about that.

Thanks for the help and information on this thread.

Do you have any anti-virus software running? I'm using IE6 and have noticed just the same as what you are experiencing. I have Zone Labs Security. Whenever I shut down the ZL, things open fine for me, but when it's running, the pages open fine for a few pages then it starts acting up, just as you mentioned.

Its funny that you should say that as I am running Zonelabs as well.

Perhaps we should drop them an email asking why.

Oddly enough this thread is staying open to its normal width but when I looked at it after I posted it, it shrank again.

Then when I looked for it to edit it was back to normal.

Yes I have had a drink but it was only a Sang Som and coke (twice).

Can anybody help me out. On some threads the post is about 80% of the screen width which is how I normally see it, and on others it starts out there and then shrinks to 40% and then down to 20%. I can still read the thread but it narrower and longer.

It is the same on Firefox and on Flock as well.

Another annoying problem I have is that I change pages or threads and I get the message "Firefox cannot find www.Thaivisa or Google or whatever.

They had started on the Sukhumvit extension from On Nut to Suk 107 3 weeks ago and Sukhumvit road after midnight is absolutely horrendous and even dangerous to travel on.

either ways im glad they're finally deciding to get the sky train done.

I was here when they started the Skytrain and the traffic problems on Sukhumvit then were really bad.

Sukhumvit used to be 4 lanes wide and during construction works it was down to 2 lanes. A friend of mine took 2 hours one night to get from Suk 26 to Suk 22. I have a Thai friend I stay with when I am In Bangkok and she lives on Suk 101/1 and she tells me that it is really bad from about 11pm to about 5am when they are building. At least this time the trucks with the concrete beams will be able to get in from the expressway at Suk 62 or the Bang Na end.

It do think it is a good idea provided that they put in car parks at the terminus. I really have no idea why they stopped at On Nut and Mo Chit last time.

It is not a big problem for me as I live up country and only visit Bangkok every couple of months.

They had started on the Sukhumvit extension from On Nut to Suk 107 3 weeks ago and Sukhumvit road after midnight is absolutely horrendous and even dangerous to travel on.

Hi all

I live just 10km south of the city and wondered if any body knows of a general meeting place for falang in the city also if I can get decent breakfast sausages any place in the city ?

Plus where are all the falangs around here they seem so few and far between my nearest neighbour that I know is a Dutch guy Peter and that is 50km away ?

Hi mgc

I live about 60km southwest of Khampaeng Phet near the Mae Wong national park.

My nearest neighbour is Danish but he is only here a couple of times a year, there is a French guy I believe about 4 km from me nearer the village, an American guy living in the Amphur 20 km from you, and I believe Mouse is about 10km north of Khampaeng Phet. We ahve quite a few neighbours but not really on the doorstep so to speak.

I renewed my Thai wife support visa in August down in Bangkok (before the rule changes) but I started it a month before it was due to expire and apart from forgetting to copy all the pages in my passport it went OK. I did not have 400.000 baht in my account but I did meet the monthly requirements OK (confirmed by the documents and the embassy) and I had to report back a month later to pick up the full stamp. This is my 4th renewal and at no time has anybody ever told me not to spend any money from my account. Perhaps it is due to the fact that I am extremely handsome that won over the hearts of the ladies at Suan Phlu. (go hock)

I asked my wife if she had registered me as I am the only farang in the moo ban and the response I got was mai ko jai. I explained it to her, same response and she has been to the Amphur offices today as well.