billd766

I am going to buy a new laptop when I come home next month and I was thinking about changing to Linux.

I am reasonably comfortable with Windows Office etc and thought that it should be fairly simple to cross over to Linux, HOWEVER looking at this and other threads about Linux makes me realise that I will have to learn a whole new language and work my nuts off just to do something different.

Unless there is some fairly easy way about setting Linux up and transerring all my stuff from Windows I will stay where I am.

Does anyone know where I can buy 60's 70's and 80's UK music CD around Bangkok/

I could always try to download them but it sort of takes a long time using GPRS.

Cheers

I have an account with Thai Military bank and was surprised to learn on my last visit that they have stopped paying interest to non-working foreigners. I used to get interest, but not any more.

I will have a look at BBL and SCB on my next visit. I plan to keep my Thai Military bank for daily living and use one of the above as a savings account which does get interest (I trust???). I have heard that a few scams go on and have decided not to have an ATM card, as I will use my ATM with Thai Military where I don't keep much money on a daily basis.

Anyone have any other good advice or views on my thoughts above?

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Believe fixed deposit type savings account (if that is what you are thinking about) require at least a tax ID number to open and they probably want a work permit.

Not sure what you are thinking about re ATM card as that is normal to have for any passbook type savings account but suspect you are thinking of the talk of atm modifications/cameras reading card and input of pin. Do not believe that to be the "huge" problem that some believe it to be but you are correct that to keep money in an account without ATM access will solve that - only problem is getting money when you may need it (in hospital as an example). So I would keep enough in ATM account to cover normal emergency needs. Most normal ATM cards have a daily limit of 50k or so. If you obtain Internet access (or even use phone once a day) you can detect any misuse before major loss if you are that concerned.

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I have a savings account with the Kasikorn (ex TFB) in the local village and my wife an I both have ATM cards, mine at 50K and my wifes at 25K. I also have internet banking which I use a lot as I am working overseas and I can use a Visa ATM to draw cash. The branch is only a small village bank and they know me in there. The divisional manager is a very nice lady, K Potchana who speaks good english and is extremely helpful.

She offered to give us a fixed deposit account at a better rate of interest (not much better but..) and I have no problems at all.

My salary is in the bank on the day that the company say it will be, I have internet access, they have even offered to lend us money if we want some and friendly service. I am the first person in the village to actually transfer money out of Thailand which took a little while the first time.

I would thoroughly recommend the bank but it may just be my branch that is very good.

Why not Nam Kao? She's your wife after all.  If you don't trust her enough to let her know your finances why marry her in the first place?

Don't your wife know how much cash you have?

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Not only does my wife know how much money I earn we have a joint bank account and as I am working in Pakistan she has closer access than I do. My Thai wife takes care of the money and tells me (gently sometimes) not to waste money and now I listen to her.

If I want to buy something reasonably expensive I will ALWAYS ask her first. I never used to so that as I saw money in the bank as a waste when I could spend it on something or anything.

She has certainly changed me for the better in that way.

Besides if I didn't trust her then why would I have married her?

My former wife in the UK knew how much I earned and she looked after the money over there.

There is no difference between them at least in that area.

At this stage as my son is only one it is not a big problem.

However firstly he is Thai and secondly he is English and he will go to the local schools up here near Khampaeng Phet.

I will teach him English and hopefully some of his school friends as well.

He will have dual nationality and as he grows older it will be his choice as to where he will go to school and what he wants in his life. We live outside a village and there are no english or international schools outside of the big cities so if he wants to go to one he will have to leave home and family and we will not force him to do that.

He was born and always will be Thai.

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I take it you are a falang??? It seems to me that a child wouldn't have the capacity to decide where he wants to go to school. He needs guidance and help to understands his options and he/she must be exposed to different experiences. If he grows up in the chonabot, his/her English skills will be limited to 'home speak' with you and with "some" other half Thai/English children. Would he/she really be able to make a proper decision about the benefits of leaving home and family? Also I have heard that village schools are mostly, although not always, lacking in proper educational standards. Shouldn't he/she be educated somewhere that will better prepare him/her for the future?

I'm speaking not yet as a parent but as a parent-to-be in a few short months and therefore this type of information will be of importance to me very soon. Am I not correct in my thinking?

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Yes I am a falang. We live near a small village where my wife owns some land and a house. Are you suggesting that we sell up assuming that anyone has the money to buy around here and go back to living in a polluted city where it will cost us a lot more just to buy a place and live there? Perhaps we should just find a boarding school that he can live at on his own away from the love and care of his family.

I am fortunate in that when I was young living in the UK I was not sent away to school but lived at home and went to the local secondary school. I have had a good life, lived well and worked in many countries around the world and managed to survive using english and as much of the local language as I could learn or needed to survive.

When our son grows up here in Thailand he will always have a good income from the farm and land and will inherit everything when we die. If he was to live in the city assuming that he got a good education he would spend half of his income trying to survive. A good education is no guarantee of a good job or life in Thailand as many of the university graduates would tell you back in 1997 when the baht crashed and graduates could not get a job anywhere.

In the Bangkok office where I used to work some of the staff were earning less than 15,000 baht a month and travelling 2 hours each way a day just to get that and they held Masters and Batchelors degrees. As for working overseas there are not that many graduates successfully employed in foreign companies compared to the numbers who pass every year and try to find jobs.

Most village schools are lacking in facilties and quality but if I can help the local people in any way I will. Also I dont have 500,000 or so baht to spend on education every year and I suspect that quite a few other people don't either.

At this stage as my son is only one it is not a big problem.

However firstly he is Thai and secondly he is English and he will go to the local schools up here near Khampaeng Phet.

I will teach him English and hopefully some of his school friends as well.

He will have dual nationality and as he grows older it will be his choice as to where he will go to school and what he wants in his life. We live outside a village and there are no english or international schools outside of the big cities so if he wants to go to one he will have to leave home and family and we will not force him to do that.

He was born and always will be Thai.

Did I blink and miss something here?

BAR 12 years ago

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Me too.

Met my wife in a bar 12 years ago, we married 5 years ago and our son is now 1 year and 2 weeks.

Best thing I ever did.

Be grateful that you have a TT&T line even if it does not always work.

TT&T are the only suppliers of land lines up country where I live and I have been waiting for more than 2 YEARS for a land line never mind a line that does not always work.

Why worry so much as at least you have TOT to fall back on.

To add a note of lightness to this thread, my Mum always told me to finish what is on your plate before starting something else that you may not be able to finish.

I think that she was right years ago and would be right today.

I think that we need a lot more women leaders in the world and there will be much less problems.

Thanks to everybody for the information.

I will go through it all with my wife when I get back at the end of the month.

I am not sure wich forum to put this in, general or central Thailand which is where I live.

Does anybody have a fish farm?

My wife is interested in starting a fish farm and we need to get some information as to whether it is a good idea and if it is profitable.

I have searched the forum and I can't find much though there is a fair amount on Google fish farming in Thailand.

I don't know if you can buy them in Thailand but there is an air horn available which fits onto a can of compressed air.

If you can find one then use that rather than a whistle as it may blow his eardrums apart which will stop him doing it to you or antbody else.

I have seen them used on boats and at football matches.

Far be it for me to state the obvious but I will anyway.

How can anybody be that stupid and still walk around?

While CDMA and WCDMA is very nice and useful if you are doing a lot of downloads etc it is not widely available outside the cities and main roads.

Spare a thought for us people living in the sticks where the choice is GPRS on AIS or DTAC. It takes a long time to download even some photos and 2 hours on line at one time is sometimes possible.

On the other hand it is a lot nicer up here where life is slower and mai bpen rai rules the roost.

St George  ...  what about the Dragon ? 

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The dragon is well and living in the UK.

We divorced 5 years ago.

how does one work from home then in LOS. Is it possible to be a 'consultant' and have part of your house as your workplace, and have a (legitimate) registered business at the same address?

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As far as I know, that depends on your landlord. Whether they are willing to let you use it for commercial purposes (which puts them in the books). If you own the place, I believe this should not be a problem.

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Yes, it is possible. I used to have a company that was registered at the house my wife and I had rented but the landlord did have to agree first.

I had to set aside an area which was my office pretty much fully equipped and though I was not there most of the time as I was consulting with Motorola on the CDMA project for Hutch.

I had to employ a Thai lawyer to set the company up which in retrospect was a bad idea but at that time I did not know about Thai Visa or Sunbelt which would have made my life easier.

At that time I had to register the company with 2m baht capital though I did not actually have to pay that much.

I had to employ 4 Thai people (family and friends), pay their salaries, pay social security for all of us though that got us medical cover at hospital etc. I also had to supply photos of my office and the toilet (for some reason), employ an accountant and a host of other things. I was also visited by the authorities a couple of times, once they gave notice and another time they did not but my wife was at home anyway.

I also had to do the following: -

1) Building owners certification that your business is a registered tenant.

2) Company name sign displayed at office entrance, with photograph of same turned in to Revenue Dept. (photo must show sign, and also building or office number)

3) Thai language street location map provided to Revenue Dept.

(Thanks to Indo-Siam for that info)

This also got me a work permit.

I closed the company down a couple of years ago as I was no longer working and even then it cost money for a while to sort out the closure with the accountant who is Belgian, married to a Thai and a very nice guy. Should anyone need a good accountant PM me and I will send details.

On the side my office was actually a real and not a virtual office.

I don't know if I would ever do it again but if I did I would take some good legal advice first. Time and money spent in preparation is never wasted.

I use Travelmate 290 series, I bought it last year.  Maybe 4050 has no problem but all friends who use ACER, we all got problems.

Good luck. 

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Thanks for the info

Here's that link for teak i said I'd find. Its actually talking about the area I live in. They recon a return of 58,000$ /hectar over 20 years with teak as the sole crop, that works out to about 370,000/rai. It does have some drawbacks though, not the least the long return time, and what could happen with the laws in between.

http://www.fao.org/documents/show_cdr.asp?...5E/x4565e10.htm

Hi RC

Thanks for that link. I will show it to my wife when I come home at the end of the month.

Cheers billd766

So are you suggesting that any farang can teach and all those alcoholic woman chasers are going to 1. want to teach and 2. be able to teach.  Teaching is a skill and an art and it takes a long time to be good at it and many/most people will never be good at it because they just don't have the right stuff to be able to do it.  To suggest that all those farangs already here should just be enlisted to teach is a poorly thought out idea at best.  Sorry if I'm being harsh but when I think of all those farangs in the bars and go-gos in Phatong and think about your idea.....well.....just think about it youself abit and then post what you think.

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chownah

Not all of us farangs sit in the bars and go-gos of Phatong. Some of us are living out in the country and if we were given some training we could do some good. Where I live there are not many farangs and some of us have time and may want to put it to good use rather than sit around and vegetate.

I am 61 and I know I want to help the people where I live.

I am sort of with you as unfortunately I am working in Pakistan for a while though I do get back 3 or 4 times a year.

Our son Tiw was 1 years old on Monday 1st August.

We used to have the odd rat or two up country but then the snake moved in on the land.

Now, no more rats.

If we meet the snake anywhere we both stop, and go in different directions.

I don't bother the snake and he doesn't bother me. Not the sort of thing to have as a pet but OK in its place.

Whatever but not ACER, I got some strong problems with it.

GGGRRRRRRRRRR 

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Which Acer do you have?

I was looking for a Travelmate 4050 or 4150 series next month.

Sounds like my wife has a twin.  Thanks for shareing, I get tired of hearing about all of this gold digging Thai women. I was thinking my wife was stange or something.

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Dakhar

No your wife is not strange at all. At least 6 of my friends are married and all of their friends are friends of my wife and they have known each other for many years even before we came along. One of her friends was married to a Thai and has a daughter. He used to beat her so she left him and went all over Thailand until she came to live with us and she is welcome to stay with her daughter as long as she likes.

I would not say that her husband is typical of all Thai husbands as many of my friends are Thai as well.

His behaviour is similar to a small percentage of men all over the world.

When I finally quit working I also would like to try to teach basic English and also some computing skills in the school near me.

I live right out in the country about 400 km from Bangkok and I don't remember the last time I saw the local police around here except at the Kings birthday fair in the village in December every year.

I will follow this thread as it seems useful and sensible.