billd766

The 85K income is what got you a retirement extension.

If you don't want a retirement extension don't show them the money for one. A lot of immigration offices will push you for the retirement extension if you have enough income or money in the bank.

Joe

I understand that NOW but it is what came out of my pensions from the UK and I DID tell them I wanted a marriage extension.

As I said before there is always next year in Nakhon Sawan, if it ever opens.

You are talking about doing your 90 days report. You can do this by mail, you don't have to go to Mae Sod. For doing your 90 day report you have a window of 7 days before and after the exact date.

Hi Mario

I realise that I don't have to go there but the point I was trying to make (and failed miserably ) is that the time I was there I did take note of the opening and closing times and like all good TV members I have the TV calendar which also gives me the public holidays. :D

I also downloaded a copy of the 90 calculator from TV.

Sorry for the delay in responding but I have just bought another laptop and I am trying to figure out how to make it do what I want rather than what it wants and I have gone from Windows XP to Windows Vista Ultimate.

I think you got an extension based upon retirement. That NON-RE stamp above the re-entry permit confirms it for me.

How much income or money in the bank did you show proof of.

I only had about 150,000 in the bank but on the exchange rate for my pensions it came to about 85,000 baht before UK tax

The red is retirement (or as the wife translates 'the last of your life').

Thank you, Bill, for attaching a copy of your latest extension stamp. The red stamp in Thai to the left of the issue date says it all: you are now good to spend “the rest of your life” (immigration jargon for “retirement” in Thailand.

Because a retirement extension is less work for the immigration office, some officers like to play this trick on an applicant and give him a retirement extension even though he applied for a marriage extension, when the money in the bank is enough for the retirement extension. Now you now why they all giggled.

--

Maestro

Sneaky little buggers up there ain't they. I actually applied for an extension for a marriage.

It seems to be the OP’s first annual extension of stay. The page in his passport to the right of the extension stamp has a visa, covered by the 90-day address notification advisory. Based on the information of the first post in this topic, it must be a single-entry non-immigrant visa, most likely non-O.

I wonder what, if anything, he wrote at the bottom of page 1 of the application form as reason for the application.

--

Maestro

I wrote that I requested a marriage extension

The paper on the opposite page was a 90 notice and was only stapled in and the Non Imm O visa underneath it was a 3 month one from Auckland to get me back on track when I came back from New Zealand.

It was not my first marriage extension but I have been working offshore for the last few years and the timing has not always been right for renewal.

The one before this which expired was for living with my Thai child and required no proof of income but that sadly has gone by the wayside.

Ah well there is always next year bin Nakhon Sawan.

My son was born 5 years ago this month at the army run hospital literally just after the traffic lights where you turn left to go to Makro.

It is OK there and not too expensive though I cannot remember the prices now and the staff were very friendly and helpful.

Just don't eat the food there as like most hospital food is is made to a price rather than to order.

However Big C food court is not far away with KFC and the Pizza company plus McDonalds and Pizza Hut also available.

For some reason my son was not into farang food at that time and he doesn't get much of a chance now either.

Are you saying that you applied for a 12 month extension based on Marriage and they gave you the extension in one vist?

That is not the norm.

A 12 month extension is what I applied for and, yes it was all over in 30 minutes.

Exztensions are always one year from end of current stay now - long time ago it was from entry. Is your extension marked marriage/wife or is it retirement? Retirment with the 65k/800k normally has no wait period.

Yes I asked for a marriage extension and not a retirement extension and if I am lucky I have attached a scanned copy of the stamp.

I think I got it because I look younger than I am, I am cheerful and not complaining, dressed in a white shirt and dark trousers, have a positive attitude and also I am a handsome man or so my wife used to say many years ago.

billd,

My father dug a pond some years back in the USA, and the pond would not hold water to the level we wanted. Being in the oil drilling business he came across some mentonite from a friend and spread throughout the pond, by sprinkling over the water and shovel fulls along the sides. The pond has been full of water for years and only rises and declines with the weather. Friends and faming spread the bentonite over a two day period. (Free BBQ & Beer)

He shared his sucess with others in the area and they also met with sucess.

The main problem I see with with Bentonite is that I will have to buy it from somewhere, get it shipped up to where I live and get some local guys to spread it and it should be OK.

However I have talked to Watersedge above about the stuff he can get in Mae Sot.

That would be 900 -1,000 baht a truck load plus 5,000 baht per truck delivery.

Once I have put my initial piping in then which I need to do anyway I figure it will cost me around 10 baht an hour to pump perhaps 2 cu/mt or maybe 30 baht a day. If I compare that to 6,000 baht a truck load then it becomes a cost issue as I will get evaporation and have to top up the pond anyway.

Thanks for the information though.

It seems as though I have to really think this through instead of going at it half-assed as I did in the beginning.

I am a Brit living in Chiang Mai on a retirement visa. This was issued on 23 June 2009 and valid until 23 June 2010. I have to report to the immigration office every 90 days, and have a slip stapled in my passport showing the first date to report is today, Sunday 23 August 2009. Went there, but the office is shut. Pity that the nice colourful leaflet that they give you shows opening hours but not opening days.

I'll be there again on Monday, but what should I say if they tell me I'm in trouble?

Duh.

I am retired also and I was due to report to the Immigration office today 23rd August, however when I was there last month I took note of the opening and closing times so I went last Friday 21st.

No problem for them and also no problem for me apart from the 200km drive each way.

There are very nice people in the Mae Sot office and it is a pleasure to go there.

I went to Mae Sot Immigration office on 24th July to apply for an extension of my 3 month Non-Imm O visa.

I took every thing I needed and made 3 copies of everything I could find.

I took my wife and son that day and I only missed one photocopy.

There was one other farang at the desk so we went to the other desk and in about 30 minutes it was all over.

I was sure that as usual I had to come back a month later as usual for "under consideration" applications.

I went back yesterday and I intended to get a multi re-entry permit.

So I went in around 11.30 and I was the only customer and spoke to the same lady I spoke to last time.

She asked what wanted and I said I had come for my extension stamp.

She looked at my passport and said something in Thai to the other Thais there and they all started to laugh.

Thinks to myself I have a problem here and I asked what the problem was and she said that last time they had stamped my passport with the visa extension.

They had so I started to laugh as well and tell them that the farang has lost a few brain cells somewhere.

They gave the the re-entry permit and all was well.

We had a few laughs and I left for home a happy chappie.

This morning I checked my passport again and I found that I had entered Thailand on 26th May 2009 and when I got my extension instead of a 9 month extension they had given me 12 months until 23 August 2010.

So at Mae Sot they are very very helpful and friendly and for my "marriage" extension the whole process was completed in 30 minutes with no pressure in a clean and tidy office, computer linked to the outside world (or at least the Immigration Department somewhere).

The staff are professional and very farang friendly and apart from my first visit when the other farang used an agent sitting with him, (I suspect more as a translator as I think he was European with a poor command of English) there are NO agents pushing, shoving and shouting their way in front of you as there was at Suan Phlu the last time I went.

I asked when the new Immigration Office was due to open in Nakhon Sawan ans was told "next month" maybe.

If it is as good as Mae Sot I will be happy.

The moral of this is always check and if you are not sure ask for clarification.

It cost me another trip to Mae Sot but it was a nice day out anyway.

:D

Thanks for the iformation guys.

Iwas away yesterday and my wife has been down to a wat in Lop Buri which left my mother-in-law.

A nice old lady (though actually 3 years younger than me) who can't speak a word of English and I suspect my por Thai confuses the hel_l out of her.

My wife grows orchids and a few other items plus on the land we have pineapples, bananas, jackfruit, pomelos, custard apples red and green, papaya and among some others is this item.

It is about 25 cm in diameter and about 20cm tall and it grows on some sort of vine but my wife cannot remember what it was she planted ages ago and I have no idea.

Can anyone help me on this?

A letter I have from the UK Inland Revenue/Pension Dept states that, "the UK retirement pension can be paid anywhere in the world".

I gave it to a friend and he has his pension paid into a Thai bank I believe.

Yes, it can be paid to anywhere the world, but they will not pay directly into a Thai bank, they will only send a Stirling cheque to a Thai address or bank, so they are technically correct about paying to anywhere in the world.

I find their website pretty helpful

http://www.thepensionservice.gov.uk/ipc/co...es/thailand.asp

I have read on the Directgov website that they will pay direct into a Thai bank from this October.....copied from the site

How the State Pension is paid if you live abroad

If you live abroad then your State Pension can be paid directly into one of the following:

• a bank in the country in which you live
  
• a bank or building society in the UK
  

Payment to a bank in the country where you live

Your State Pension can be paid electronically into any of the following countries: Antigua, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Barbados, Barbuda, Belgium, Canada, Channel Islands, Cyprus, Denmark, Dominica (Commonwealth), Dominican Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Grenada, Guyana, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, South Africa, Spain, St Kitts – Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenadines, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad and Tobago, United States of America.

From October 2009 additional countries will be: Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Colombia, Egypt, Greece, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey and Yemen.

Payment will be made in the local currency of the country in which the bank account is held. No charges are made for this service.

Interesting, very interesting.

When I draw 10,000 baht from my LloydsTSB offshore account it costs me 150 baht , no problem, and around £2.80 depending on the exchange rate from Lloyds.

A couple of months ago I transferred 40,000 baht at it cost me £19 at Lloyds PLUS a further £12.89 for "our agents" charge, something that I had not seen before.

If the state pension can be sent to my Kbank free of charges that will be a good saving every month.

I am also in the process of digging a pond. We started early this year but after getting down 2-3 mtrs everything came to a halt, because of the same rock (boulder) problems as you. I decided to put everything on hold and see if the unfinished pond would hold water and same as you it will not.

Once I come up with an idea and remove the rocks (boulders) i will spread Bentonite throughout.

I know from experience if the Bentonite is spread properly it works 95% of the time.

David

Hi laser

I hope that you are lucky and end up with a fairly flat bottom and easy sloping sides.

You say from experience that Bentonite is good 95% of the time.

Was that you doing it yourself in Thailand or an experienced work crew.

Every day I am out the front of the house with a petrol strimmer with the rotary saw blade clearing away the scrub and brush from the last 18 months. It varies from 50cm grass and weeds up to nearly 3 metres with trees and rocks hiding in it.

After 2 hours I am trashed for the day.

Granted that I am 65, retired and fat and I am doing it now while I am still capable as in a few years I will not be able to.

It is a form of exercise and also of will power and I will be damned if so piddly area of ground will beat me though in truth it is more like 2,500 sq/m.

:D

billd766

The weight of the water should not be an issue: using a large diameter pipe to reduce friction losses is always a good idea on long run with limited pump power, but at the start and the end of the run you can insert a "choke" - effectively a reducer, which will off-set the weight in the large diameter run to that consistant with the diameter of the choke. Weight is static - its backpressure and nothing more, and proportional to the surface area.

So don;t let the water weight compound the calc's for you.

If you share with me your ideal flow rate and the actual rise, I'll be happy to reply with a power/ setup opinion - and for what it worth, pumps/irrigation/hydraulics (fluid dynamics) is actually my speciality within ag engineering - ironically, although I've done a lot of courses and attended a lot of tarining modules over the years, I never actually trained as a dairy farmer (thats all self taught over the last 2 decades).

Hi Maizefarmer

Sorry for the delay in answering but we have had some friends over from the UK that we haven't seen for over 5 years and catching up and partying took precedence over TV.

My plan is to run a thick 2 inch blue pvc pipe from the klong to my fishpond.

It will rise around 2 metres from the klong using a flexible 2 inch hose to reach the electric pump.

The next section will be about 120 metres using the same thick 2 inch pipe and male/female connectors in more or less a straight line to the drainpipe under the road. This land belongs to another person and I am sure that I have permission to lay the pipe across her land and it will mainly be in the part that the flood water has washed away anyway. The m/f connectors are for easy dismantling of the pipe during the wet season. I am also going to put a blanking point in to the pipe at the drainpipe end so that when the system is shut down no creepy crawlies, bugs or rats can move in and make a home there.

From that point it is a 40 metre run of pipe and I will make 2 x 45 degree bends with a short pipe in the middle of them.

Another 50 metre straight run rising another 2 metres across my next door neighbours land but on the government side and then across his drive and I will sink it in a trench anyway.

2 more 45 deg bends onto my land and another 2 metre rise over 75 metres followed by another 2 x 45 bend to run alongside the fishpond where I will put a T piece with 1 leg going into the pond and the other leg running a further 50 metres to my water storage tanks.

There are 20 "ongs" each holding 1500 litres of water form the time when we had 12 people on site and no government water for a couple of months during the dry season.

I am planning to use a 5hp electic motor with a rated capacity of 500 litres per minute at the pump output but what I will get at the far end I have no idea. The cable will be 2 x2.5 sq/mm and at the pump end I have worke out that I will drop about 6 volts. There will be a circuit breaker at each end of the cable and at the point where the cable comes out at the road drainpipe I plan to raise that to well above the rain flood level and put in a waterproof plug and socket so that it can be dismantled easily as well. All the power cables will be in pvc pipes and the pump will be put into a large plastic box with ventilation holes to keep the rain off it.

I will also put in a 1 way valve close to the pump plus a tap to shut the water off and keep it in the pipe when the pump is not running.

I have a future plan of a sort of small market garden which no doubt will need irrigation and my wife is on about keeping chickens and ducks.

I have reduced some photos of the pond in its current state and I will clear all the trees out before filling the pond.

As you can see it is not really possible to put a PVC liner into the pond as it is too uneven.

Sometime later I will be cremated and I asked my wife to put my ahses on the land but it seems as though I may be going to the seaside and my ashes tossed off the side of a boat.

Must be Pattaya

Over my dead body as it were.

Never liked the place, Cha Am or Hua Hin for me, not that I will be able to argue about it.

But if she gets ir wrong, as Arnie once said

I WILL be back

When I go I have told my wife to stick a pin in me a few times just to make sure I am dead and after that I will be ready for the temple.

I know there will be no a/c (I will be dead so what do I care) and my wife and son will be there having a good time with enough food and drink for all our friends.

Sometime later I will be cremated and I asked my wife to put my ahses on the land but it seems as though I may be going to the seaside and my ashes tossed off the side of a boat.

I hope that it will be a calm day as I never have been happy on a boat.

I have asked a good English friend to come over and open up a folder called what to do when I die, on my computer and all the vital information will be there to make my wife and family's life a bit easier.

Also as I have been in the mobile phone business for many years I have asked her to leave a mobile in the coffin and give me a call just before they light the fire.

And if I answer it :D :D

I registered for self assessment tax on line years ago and the taxman knows That I live in Thailand.

I do my online return around November and any refund I am due is normally paid within a month.

The exception last yaer was that they sent me a cheque to my registered address in Thailand because I had forgotten to ask them to pay it into my offshore account.

I only pay tax on my pensions as I left the UK in 1999 and moved permanently to Thailand in 2001.

I rang my tax department yesterday afternoon over in Cardiff and we sorted out the extra tax I will pay now that I get a state retirement pension.

I spoke to a very pleasnt lady and the whole thing was completed in about 7 minutes.

Other than having to pay tax in the first place I have had no complaints with HMRC at all.

I spoke to K Orathai at Gadgetrend on Thong Lor but she had sold out of the parts I wanted so I ordered them.

It took about 3 weeks and cost me 2,065 baht including postage by EMS

Dear Sir

Ram-mount for your GPS

1. Ram-Hol-GA25U 390 baht

2. Ram-B-238U 300 baht

3. Ram-B-201U 650 baht

4. Ram-B-231Z 675 baht

5. Transportation expenses (EMS) 50 baht

Total 2,065 baht

They were delivered on Sunday evening around 6pm. :D

I fitted it this morning and went for a test run and the only 2 problems I have are

1) I cannot hear the directions at 100 kph wearing my helmet

2) I now need to find a way of charging the GPS on the move.

Find a bike shop that can install a cigarette lighter holder on the bike than use the car cigarette lighter charger. That's the easy part. I don't think your GPS has an audio socket so you won't be able to use an ear phone. Higher end GPS units have audio jacks.

Thanks for the advice Gary A

I am not really bothered about listening to the GPS as I can see the screen anyway but I will probably have to go up to Khampaeng Phet for the lighter socket unless I see one at the market in the next few days as KP has the nearest car dealers to me.

Like you I live way out in the sticks and sometimes when I take my son to the school bus in the morning all I can hear is the birds, bees and the bus about 1 km away.

Also as I am old and retired now I have the time to watch the butterflies and smell the flowers.

It is wonderful.

In my first picture that rock was the biggest that they could get out of the hole and if I remember it was about 1.5 x 1.0 x 0.5 metres.

In the second picture the guy digging the pond suggested we leave that one alone unless we wanted to either use a pneumatic/hydraulic pick on the digger or drill and dynamite it.

Either way we may crack the rock underneath so we left it there.

There is only about 1/2 metre of water at the deepest part now and the rest is dry and even has trees growing in it as I have been working offshore and my wife isn't too bothered about it.

I would like to sort it all out, clean it up and put enough fish in it to sell a few and keep my wifes shop stocked for cooking and selling on.

Purely as a hobby for me.

Regarding the post by Watersedge I could be interested but I live about 200km from MaeSot and I suspect the transport costs would be high to ship it that distance.

I am 65 and been married for 9 years but my wife has always refused to teach me Thai so I plod on with the books and CD and after working offshore for the last year I am trying to get back into it again.

Not speaking or understanding Thai makes life a bit difficult and very frustrating at times such as this week when I went to my local hardware shop I couldn't remember the names of some of the things I want and I have been going there for years on and off.

On the family social side you will find that the family will talk all around you and you will always be asking your girlfriend "what did he/she/they say just then.

My wife speaks fair English but her family speak none at all I I quite often sit there reading a book and if a response is needed or I ask a question My wife will talk to me.

We are used to it now but I do so wish I could speak/read and write as life in Thailand is soooo much easier.

Just keep trying as I do. :D

I spoke to K Orathai at Gadgetrend on Thong Lor but she had sold out of the parts I wanted so I ordered them.

It took about 3 weeks and cost me 2,065 baht including postage by EMS

Dear Sir

Ram-mount for your GPS

1. Ram-Hol-GA25U 390 baht

2. Ram-B-238U 300 baht

3. Ram-B-201U 650 baht

4. Ram-B-231Z 675 baht

5. Transportation expenses (EMS) 50 baht

Total 2,065 baht

They were delivered on Sunday evening around 6pm. :D

I fitted it this morning and went for a test run and the only 2 problems I have are

1) I cannot hear the directions at 100 kph wearing my helmet

2) I now need to find a way of charging the GPS on the move.

Bentonite, Gary - excellent stuff, but on the scale the Op is wanting to do it on, me thinks the cost would be prohibitive. Now that billd766 has laid out the detail a bit more, I am even more inclide to think that a plastic lining is his only viable option.

Billd766 - nice to see someone who has got to grips with the cost of moving water - its what I'm afraid a lot of folk don't do in Thailand, and moving water, wheather its through a sprinkler (always the most expensive), through a long pipe, up a hill ... or whatever, is always least expensive at low flow & pressure rates - and using ac electricity - think you could get that down to around Baht 10 p/cube (meter) - but as I said, it will be a low flow rate (meaning: what you are now moving over say a couple hours will take maybe 6 -7hrs. Still, if collectively, that is sufficient on a daily, or whatever basis, it would be worth doing, wouldn't it?

I have been trying to work out the evaporation rate and after guesswork and a few american websites the best I can guess is around 5 cu/m per 24 hours.

Assuming that the neighbours are agreeable to me running the pipes I went to my local hardware shop this morning and got some prices of 2 inch blue pvc stuff and a guesstimate for a biggish water pump. She had a 2 hp motor that takes 8 amps at a steady rate which is about 2 kw or 2 units of electricity and will pump 500 litres per hour at the pump head.

1 unit of electricity will cost me about 4 baht so to run that pump will cost about 8 baht an hour or 16 baht per cu/mt.

A bigger pump will be more efficient but cost more to run.

I have also tried to work out the volume of water and its weight in a 2 inch pipe 350 metres long which is pi Rsquared times the height or distance but the figures look wrong as I end up with 55 somethings using 50mm as the r2 and 350m as the height.

The original outlay for the pipes etc I have done a small spreadsheet and over a long term it seems feasable but it will be a bugger of a job top do.

I will have to glue the pipes and trench them in on my land and possibly in front of next doors property and through the drainpipe under the road and the power cable 2.5 sq/mm will be in the same trench.

On the far side of the road as that person will not allow me to bury the pipe I will put a male and female connector on each 4 metre length of pipe and screww them together for easy removal when required.

The power cable will be broken on the far side of the drainpipe and set as high as possible for safety during the wet season in a waterproof box. The next run of cable will be done in yellow 1/2 inch pipe with a male/female connection for easy dismantling.

The pump will need to be put in some sort of ventilated and drainable container with a circuit breaker at each end for the power.

The water pipe will have a one way valve close to the pump to stop the water flowing back into the klong.

water_pipe_prices.xls

From Boksida

Drilling grade bentonite is 8 baht/kilo from Thai Nippon Chemical. They have a website. There have also been several previous threads on bentonite which may have further information.

I did try them but I didn't get much sense from them probably due to my bad Thai and nobody I spoke to could speak English.

As they are based close to Bankok the transport costs will be quite high and nobody around here seems to have worked with clay.

There was a guy on TV called Somtham who rarely posts now. I went to see him several years ago and he was saying that he used clay but tamped it down by tractor which is OK if you have a flat bottomed pond. Unfortunately mine isn't.

No, they do not have any financial help from the UK government.

On the contrary, the current Labour government believe that they should run at a profit; hence the massive increases in charges since Labour came to power.

Only slightly off the topic.

Perhaps the Labour government (as they have been in power for many years) should also run at a profit, work regular hours and not have 4 months paid holiday a year.

Ponds side by side tend to establish equlibrium - of course the distance between them is a factor and you don't say how far apart they are spread (?)

R U sure it ain't leaking through the floor of the pond - in either case its a fair amount of clay that will be needed unless you can of course id exactly where the leak is.

Any dense clay should do the job, but plastic lining may well be an easier applied alternative (?).

Sadly I have only the one pond as we live on the side of a hill and the depth of soil is not so much before I run into rock.

We have asked around the village but unfortunately on our side of the road nobody has managed to successfully did a borehole.

There is a klong opposite that I used to get water from sometimes but that involved laying a pipe down the side of our land, under the neighbours drive, across the front of his land though on the government land outside of the power poles, through the drainpipe under the road, across somebody elses land.

A total of about 350 metres of piping and I only used 1 1/4 flexi pipe for most of it. Also it had to raise the water about 10 metres vertically as well.

I used a Chinese made "Honda" water pump and whilst I got the water up to the tanks and fish pond the was not a lot of pressure at the far end.

Last year I bought a 1300 litre water tank that fitted on my pick up and shuttled water from 3km farther back along the klong but I could only manage a maximun of 7 runs a day.

I was 63 then (65 now) and it knackered me plus the cost of diesel for the truck and gasoline for the pump cost a fiar bit.

As a comparison the rough costs per cubic metre were as follows

village water = 3 baht

pumped from the klong = 20 baht

shuttled from the klong = 24 baht

bought from the water tanker (from a different klong) = 50 baht

I the rainy season I can use the village water but not really in the dry season as it has to do all the village and not just my fish pond.

If it has as many murders as Ban Prang 4 where I live you should be OK because as far as I know there haven't been any in years.

Granted the village is a bit smaller than LA, Bangkok or Paris.

I have 2 barclays accounts and my posting address for both accounts has been in Thailand for over 6 years. Never been a problem until I tried to register with Western Union online. Apparently for them they need the posting address to be UK based.

My point is you can have a UK bank account and have all your cards, statments etc sent to thailand.

I still have 10 years or so before I get my pension

Once I get that I can let my weight increase and blend in with the other farang.

Did I mention I am hansome man already

That's news to me! I understand a British bank will only send cards to a UK address.

I have been with LloydsTSB in Jersey for about 9 years and they sort of have a policy of not sending cards to Thailand.

Saying that however they have always sent them to me here (including a couple that came with a letter that said they don't send cards to Thailand)

Last month I losy my debit card and reported to the lost and stolen depaertment and 9 days later at 6.30pm on a Sunday night I met the local postman in the village and he gave me my new card. Eat your heart out UK GPO.

It was sent TNT to Khampaeng Phet and EMS for the last 65 km.