billd766

We live about 20 km from Pang Silathong.

I will have to tell my wife in the morning (I am in Pakistan).

I cut out all the quotes to save space.

pnustedt.

Good for you. If you are in a position to do this for your family then you are right to do so. For myself I cannot afford that much but I do help out all my wifes family whenever possible and I support her parents with a monthly allowance and help in part to pay for their pickup (newer than ours I must add).

They are my wifes family and we both know that if they can help us in any way they will and have done so before.

No one put me under any pressure to give the family anything and I feel at 61 years old I can make my own mind up. I don't give my wife any "allowance" but she knows that if she needs anything she can go to the bank and get the money out at anytime. If she does take any she always tells me.

A poster mentions that if the wife was getting 100,000 baht a month he would not be sure if it was him or his money she cared about.

Well I for one am certain that my wife cares for me more than the money as I am sure many others are as well.

When I die I do not want to be known as the richest man in the cemetery, but the one who has enjoyed his life the most with the woman and family who loved him and cared.

On the other hand I would like to be as well off as I can to leave it all behind for my wife, for our family and for her family. I can't take it with me but I am more than happy to leave it all behind.

It is never the amount of money you spend supporting your wifes family that matters, it is the fact that you do it willingly with what you can.

Believe me it will be repaid in many ways other than cash.

Thats good..Well there is another thing...maybe you could buy him a teddy bear....SO that he could remember that u have bought it for u ...

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I had thought of something like a Gorilla or an Orang Utang to remind him of his big hairy farang dad.

I will see what I can find over here.

Just give the child a nice warm hug :D

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I would love to do just that Tytus but I am working out of the country and I won't get back until a month later.

When I was home at the beginning of the month he was unsure of me for a while until I started singing to him the songs I normally do when I am at home. Unfortunately all of the men around him except me are Thai so I am a bit of a stranger really. He is OK after a while though he wouldn't stay with me just before I left for some reason. It hurt a little bit but I am used to it though he is not. On the other hand I won't be working away for ever.

High all,

I know this topic was started a while back  , but I just had to know if anyone else was suffering 30 second maximum gprs connections on their AIS 1-2-call accounts?? I have signed up for the 100 Bht 20 hrs package, but I'm literally not able to connect for more than 30 secs at a time. Well, the connection according to my coverage guage is ok, but I either get a "TCP Error" or less seldomly a "DNS Error". Now these have gotta be network errors over device errors right? My Nokia 6260 is brand spankers.

Not really what I signed up for!

Funnily enuff, the bod in the AIS shop suggested i try DTAC as their gprs service is meant to be better! Kind of sums up my experience really!

Any thoughts?

Cheers,

Wholiggen 

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A lot depends on where you live in relation to the nearest base station and if there any hills etc in the way. I live about 6 km from my nearest station and towards the edge of the signal strength but most of the time it is OK. If I walk away from the house up the back the signal drops off and about 50 metres from the house it get really good, but bugger working my laptop in the middle of the field.

Upstairs is a lot better.

I know this is slightly off the subject of (old age pensions) but is there anyone that can give me advice on Army Pensions being paid whilst living in LOS

i.e any problems i should be aware of

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I have an RAF pension which is paid into my UK (offshore) bank and then I can transfer it to my Thai bank account. As far as I can remember the Paymaster general will only pay to a UK source though I think that they will pay by cheque which you could pay into a Thai bank.

If you write to them they will give you chapter and verse.

If you want to PM me I will try to give you more info.

billd766

I have known my wife for 12 years and we have been married for 5. Before we were married I used to give her 20,000 a month and I never asked her what she did with it. Since we were married we have had a joint bank account and if she is going to spend on something big she will tell me first.

As we were married in the UK I never paid sin sot and since I was working in Thailand from 2001 I have given my wife's parents 6,000 a month. Her dad is retired with a small pension and her mother does not work. When we have enough money and her middle brother or her parents need money and ask us for a loan I will always say yes and sometimes it gets paid back and sometimes not.

When I was out of work for a couple of years my wife supported us from her savings and her family helped out as well without me saying anything.

My wife never asked me to give her family anything but when I offered she suggested the amount.

Her family are not poor but certainly not rich and they are caring for my wife's older brothers 2 children as he has left his family. I will try to help them through school and University if I can as I would hope that the family would help my wife and son when I die.

We have a small house on our property if her parents want to come up and live with us and as far as I am concerned they ARE my family as my parents are long gone.

It is a choice that I made and shared with my wife.

I do understand that some people have not been so lucky as me and I feel sorry for them.

He has the silver ankle bells already but if I can get the gold ones that would be good.

When I left in April he was rolling around and working out how to crawl and when I came back I realised why my wife had put the bells on his ankles.

He moves so fast now and everything has to be lifted about a metre off the floor level.

I wasn't going to give him a chain to wear but I think perhaps I will get it fitted to his ankle and nail the other end to the floor so we will know where he is. If we bought a gold chain for his neck he would certainly bite it and probably try to eat it.

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions and I will tell my wife and get her to choose.

billd766

when he smiles I look like this.

When his pampers are full...... I look like this

When his pampers are full he looks like this or this

Nickerelastic

Back to the original question, why not buy some childrens books which also have dvd's telling the stories or nursery rhymes?

My first gift to any baby is books. It's never too soon to introduce books to a baby.

I love books and I have been reading since I was old enough to get a junior library card and comics before that. I have worked in over 20 countries around the world and the only country I could not get books was Angola.

I hope that my son will be able to speak, read and write in Thai, English and Muser as we have a couple of hilltribe people working for us. Now is the time to teach your children as they will listen and learn much more easily than old men like me.

I do read to him and sing to him as often as I can and I do miss him so much but I will be back at the end of August for a couple of weeks.

I doubt a 1 year old boy would be interested in gold or a Buddha Amulet.  Is this for the mother or the boy???

Try buying the same thing Insight bought.

detachable, music playing, spinny thing in the end

Or horror of horrors, buy him some English children's books (Nursery rhymes with pictures that moves and etc). I know it is a horrible thought but it is educational. A lot of children lack the love of reading nowadays, never too early to start.

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The gold or a Buddha amulet is for my son and not for his mother, she has enough, but the problem with a Buddha amulet is trying to find a good one which is difficult for us farangs.

When I came back from Pakistan I did buy some nursery rhymes and fairy stories but he was more interested in scrumpling the pages.

Actually after 3 months he didn't recognise me for a while until I started to sing to him again after which it was a lot better. The day before I left to come back his mother was going to leave him with me but he wouldn't stay and cried a lot so she took him with her.

I was unhappy about that but what can I do? Stay home, not work and no money for their future or go away to work and earn for the future?

The support Thai wife requirement was just changed last year and it was not grandfathered (although do not believe many have been turned down just for a lack of cash).

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Do you mean to say someone has got their one year extension without having 400k in the bank? Tell me more - mine is up for renewal soon and I'm going to have to import a lot of cash to meet this new requirement (it was 200k last year) that I'd much prefer having in my safe offshore bank.

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Believe there are many with income that do not have 400k in bank. What you need is a total of 400k per year so they are able to satisfy that requirement without the full amount in the bank. If you do not have a pension or such that your embassy will confirm perhaps moving the cash would be your only way.

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My support visa is due for renewal in September and as I was in BKK I went to Suan Phlu to check on what I need for the extension and I was told either 400,000 in the bank, or 40,000 a month or a combination of both to give the total of 400,000 baht.

If you are not sure a trip to Suan Phlu will clarify the position completely. I have always found the people there friendly and as helpful as they can be within the rules and if it is possible to do things to help you then they will.

I thought the Non O 400k Baht covered me as I am supporting my Thai wife and son.

My son will be 1 in less than 3 weeks and I was thinking of buying him either gold or a Buddha amulet but unfortunately I am working out of country so I cannot be there. Any ideas of what my wife could buy for me?

Cheers

I have been coming to Thailand on and off and been living here for about 12 years and frankly my Thai is poor.

It is due to a combination of laziness and no spare time though I did go to the BIS school off Sukhumvit to try but 1 1/2 hours a week after a 9 hour working day was not the best way to learn.

My wife speaks fair English learned before I met her and she refuses to teach me Thai and suggests I go for lessons. We have a friend staying with us long term and she has offered to help but I am out of country working in Pakistan with 10 days off every 3 months which doesn't help.

Plus at 61 I find it hard to learn a new language which has 44 characters and 5 tones.

However when I get home again I will try.

People in the village tell me I can speak good Thai but I think that they are being polite though I do try now and again.

I first came here in 1993 for about 3 months to work, then returned in 1994 to work with Motorola and DTAC for about 4 years in Issan putting in the DTAC system. I loved it then having met a nice girl who worked in a bar. Eventually as all fairy stories do, the hero rode off into the west, (actually to a few other countries) to work leaving the girl behind. I n my last year (1997) I divorced my UK wife but still kept the girl in the East and in 2000 we married in the UK. In 1999 I quit working for a company and went contracting ending up back in Thailand again in 2001 working around Bangkok for 18 months after which the contract came to an end and I was out of work for a long while.

We had enough money and my wife had some land and we bought some more to build the house on. We now have about 15 rai we own, another 10 we rent, and we are looking at a bit more to buy.

After a while not working and after accepting that I would probably not work again my stress levels was way down and my "give a sh1t meter" barely moved and I was as happy as I thought I could ever be.

August 1 2004 my wife gave me the best present that I could ever have and it wasn't even my birthday. In 20 days our son will be 1 year old and now now quality of life is almost at the top of the scale being lowered by working and getting stressed again in Pakistan. On the other hand what I earn goes on improving the life we have out in the boonies 400 km from Bangkok and at least 45 km from the nearest farang fast food (KFC). The nearest western supermarket is in Nakhon Sawan 125 km away and if I don't have what I used to crave for then I can do without it until the next visit.

We live on the edge of the Mae Wong national park with my nearest farang neighbour about 12 km away (until my friend finishes his house and even then he will only be a part time neighbour).

I am working again in Pakistan this time and I find that after a couple of months my stress level goes up and my "give a sh1t meter" bends the needle but I come back home and unwind again.

Life is not always perfect and I do get frustrated when I want things done NOW and have to wait a week or two but life is really what you make of it.

Sign me as Mr Happy (most of the time)

I work in Pakistan and they take your photo on entry and exit. Perfectly normal and I am used to it.

However at Lahore airport you have to nget your baggage throught the scanner again on arrival and Pakistanis have no idea of the term Queueing up.

The first time it happened I was polite for 10 minutes and then jpoined the general crush. This time I will use the 130 kg of my body weight and snarl a lot. That should work.

I have been a member since November 2003 and I check the site a couple of times a day. I scan all the new post headers and read those which interest me. I have just looked at my controls and I am now up to 0.48 posts a day.

I figure at this rate I will be making my 1,000th post in the next 4 or 5 years.

I do it sometimes, then back up a bit, give it about 3000 rpm, drop the clutch and burn 500 km of the tyres in a cloud of blue smoke. But I can only do it if my wife is not with me.

Hey at 61 I have to have some excitement in my life.

Actually I think the standard of driving is OK here in Thailand. I have just spent 5 months in Pakistan and here is a copy of the rules for driving there.

Rules of the road Pakistan style

1. The assumption of immortality is a requirement of all road users.

2. Pakistani traffic is structured on a caste system and precedence is given in the following order,

Cows, elephants, heavy trucks, busses, official cars, camels, light trucks, buffalo, jeeps, ox-carts, private cars, motorcycles, scooters, auto-rickshaws, pigs, pedal-rickshaws, goats, bicycles carrying goods, handcarts, bicycles carrying passengers, dogs and pedestrians.

3. All wheeled vehicles are to be driven in accordance with the following maxim: to slow is to falter, to brake is to fail, to stop is defeat. This is the Pakistani drivers’ mantra.

4. Use of the horn (also known as the sonic fender or the aural amulet:

a) Short blasts(urgent) indicate supremacy i.e. in clearing dogs rickshaws and pedestrians from your path

Long blasts (desperate) denote supplication, i.e. to oncoming trucks, “I am going to fast to stop, so unless you slow down we shall both die”. In extreme cases this may be accompanied by a frantic flashing of headlights.

c) Single blast (casual) means: “I have seen someone out of Pakistan’s 150 million people whom I recognise”, “There is a bird on the road which at this speed could go through my windscreen” or “I have not blown my horn for several minutes”.

d) All horn signals have the same meaning (the actual size of the vehicle does not matter): “I have an all up weight of 25 tons and have no intention of stopping, even if I could”.

5. All manoeuvres, use of the horn and evasive action shall be left until the last possible moment.

6. In the absence (or non use) of the seatbelts, car occupants shall wear garlands of flowers. These must be fastened at all times.

7. Rights of way

a) Traffic entering a road from the left shall have the priority. So has the traffic from the right and the traffic in the middle.

All Pakistani traffic at all times and irrespective of their direction of travel shall occupy the centre of the road.

8. Roundabouts: Pakistan has no roundabouts. Apparent traffic islands in the middle of the crossroads have no traffic management functions. Any other impression should be ignored.

9. Overtaking is mandatory. Every moving vehicle is required to overtake every other moving vehicle, irrespective of whether it has just overtaken you.

Overtaking should only be done in suitable circumstances, such in the face of oncoming traffic, on blind corners, at junctions and in the middle of village/city centres. No more than 2 inches should be allowed between your vehicle and the one you are passing except in the case of bicycles or pedestrians when the limit is 1 inch.

10. Salvation may be obtained through a head-on crash.

11. Reversing: This is no longer applicable since no vehicle in Pakistan has a reverse gear.

Should this thread not be joined to the one about why I love to live in Bangkok?

I live up country.

I have had a Bangkok Bank account for about 4 years as I was working in Bangkok at the time. I used the branch on Sukhumvit near Soi 10 and they were fairly easy to get an account and my pension is paid in there.

We now live up in the country near Khampaeng Phet and the only bank is Kasikorn and it is a small branch.

I opened an account in joint names (my wife came first for some reason) and also an account in my name only for Internet banking. That took a little while to set up and it was even longer to get the joint account on I-Banking because I was out of the country.

Now it works very well and I have no problems. The people know me but most speak no English at all and my Thai is still not very good. I did call the branch from Pakistan one day and managed to get to get my balance.

Yesterday I wanted to transfer some money to the UK and I am the first person in the area to do so. There is a manager who covers 3 or 4 branches and she speaks good English so we worked out how to do it together an I think she has explained it to the other staff so when I need to do it again it will be easy.

The only problem with this branch is that I can only draw 20 notes at a time, easy from Thursday to Tuesday, but Wednesday id market day and the ATM only dispenses 100 baht notes, so I go in the bank and join the queue, no "let the farang go to the fron here". Join the queue and wait like the rest of us. I see more farangs on a Wednesday than any other day.

thanks, i did a search but still don't really understand. it seems Edge offers a PC card, is that a replacement for a GPRS mobile phone? ie. can i just buy the PC card and minutes from DTAC or something and voila, have GPRS access? also, in some areas DTAC doesn't work (for instance), so probably the GPRS wouldn't work either, am i right?

trying to decide between this and buying my own satellite system when i move to a rural area.

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Hi Girlx

I have been using a post paid AIS system with GPRS for over a year now and where I live about 50 km from Khampaeng Phet it is better than DTAC.

I use a Nokia 6260 mobile and I bought a Bluetooth adaptor that plugs into a USB port on my laptop. The software takes about 10 minute to load and set up and after that it is easy.

However you also need an Internet Service Provider so that you can access the Internet (you may need it with a satellite but that I don't know). CS loxinfo or any of them will do it. You can buy a card to give you xx amount of hours access at xx amount of baht.

I have a legal program which turns my laptop into its own server which is handy if you go off to another country to work or whatever.

I understand that you can connect to the Internet etc with a prepaid card such as 1-2-Call or whatever DTAC uses but it is a bit expensive.

I pay 900 baht for 120 hours of access a month or roughly 4 hours a day but you can get different packages at different prices.

Another poster suggests that you go with a satellite link but then you also have the cost of the dish, installation and monthly costs as well and I have no idea how much that will be.

I hope that the information is of some use to you and if you think that I may be able to help you some more please PM me.

Cheers billd766

Why are they pussyfooting around this issue and screwing up tourist traffic which generates revenue.

They can implement some very simple measures:

1.  Increase the tax on petrol/gasoline/benzene so that the price per litre is gradually increased by 25%, 50%, 75% and then 100% - which would effectively double the price of today. Will definitely help the coffers, and make many people think before they start their car.  Don't forget what it might do to traffic.

This would be a good idea if the poor people who live in the countryside on less than 150 baht a day can afford it.

2.  This would foil the plans of all those stupid people who rush out and buy a car as soon as they get a 10,000 Baht/Month job.

A good idea if it would work.

3.  This will also force others to use the Skytrain and the Underground more - improving traffic on those lines, as well as profitability.  Although I think it is time (may be long overdue) that Skytrain(BTS) added another carriage to all their trains, as it is not practical to only add carriages during peak time.

I would vote for that as soon as the sky train and underground reach me 400 km from Bangkok. There are far more people who live outside the cities than live in them.

4.  Increase the Sales Tax(VAT) on new cars only.  This would piss off Toxins's cronies.  Hey but we are trying to save the country.

Again another good idea providing that the tax is reduced when I buy my next pick up in about 7 years or so.

5.  Drivers turning off their engines at intersections like Asoke/Sukhumvit or Rama IV/Tarua Road as the wait is more than 5 minutes during peak hours (sorry do not know the name of the road, the one going to the port). Appreciate the new displays that gives me wait times which are supposed to encourage drivers to turn off their engines, but they do not work most of the time. These have already been identified as 2 of the 6 worst intersections in BKK.

The people out in the sticks have been doing their bit for a long time. It is about time the city folk did some as well.

If the government wants to save money, sell all the Benz and use Toyota Corollas converted to run on gas. There is a lot of that down there.

When my wife was building our house up near Khampaeng Phet.

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Love it. Made me chuckle that. My Mrs can't build a fire.

Mr BoJ

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The two most used words in our relationship are from me and they are "Yes Dear".

It works most times unless I really wasn't listening.

Actually it is true about my wife though she was on site supervising rather than building it though we did have one lady who was a builder, concrete mixing/laying etc. Did a good job too.

It took the best part of a year to build including a small house that went up in 3 weeks so that she could live on site. If she was not there it would have perhaps taken much longer with several re-does of thing that can go wrong. With her on site any problem was sorted out in a few minutes.

When my wife was building our house up near Khampaeng Phet I sort of directed the electrical side of it.

We have a Safe-t-cut earth leakage breaker on the 2 wire input from the meter.

It then goes to a circuit breaker box with different values of breaker depending on the load you want, low rated 8 amps for all the lights split across upstairs and downstairs, to 25 amps for all the sockets, split again, the 2 shower units and also for the air conditioners, one mcb for each.

I also got a 1/2 inch copper rod 3 metres long and that is sunk into the ground just outside the house and runs back on 25 mm ground cable to the main circuit box.

I also used 3 wire cables for all the cable runs but I over estimated the diameter of the cable and used 2.5 mm for the light circuits and 4 mm for the power. At least it won't overheat but in retrospect I should have used 1mm for the lights and 2.5 for the power cables.

All the sockets are 3 pin although you can use a 2 pin plug if you want to.

I am also going to run an independent earth line just fot thr PC stuff as most of the adaptors are 2 pin.

Cost a bit but it does give peace of mind.

Sorry about the mix of units between Imperial and Metric but that the way they sell the stuff.