siamkiwi

I prefer the west coast islands. Koh Lanta is a good base for day trips to smaller lslands or diving. If you really want to get away from it all Koh Ngai is nice, no roads, no 7 11 only resorts. Take every thing you need though because they charge a premium at resorts for booze smokes snacks etc.

Here's my two cents worth.

1. Road worthy inspections for vehicles. Especially older ones in NZ I think we now get a 3 year certificate for a brand new vehicle and 6 or 12 months after that.

2. Stop tinting front windscreens. If you've ever driven one of these cars at night you will know it is insane. Hard enough to see people, dogs, motorbikes with no lights cows elephants etc etc. You wouldn't drive around at night with sunglasses on.

3. Maintain the roads, you can hardly see the road markings.

4 Stop putting whatever bloody coloured lights you want on you vehicles headlights are white. Index Catonsville are amber and brake and tail lights are red.

atonsville are

Check out the link below, there are some frightening statics. Should be an interesting read.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2833369/Thailand-one-dangerous-tourist-destinations-Earth-Ex-pat-investigation-lifts-lid-dark-Land-Smiles.html

What more proof you need to believe Koh Tao murderers were Burmese!

Look! They are also vampires too! Sucking blood and sh!t!

I was married in NZ. I am in Thailand as is my wife, she is in another town 2000KM away.

Can we get a divorce without me having to go all the way to the town she is in?

Should be simple, no kids, she can keep everything we have here.

She is Thai.

It is an overnight service. Put it in one day, and collect the next. The easiest way ( at least I think it is the easiest way ) is to get a company to do it for you. I used a company in MBK. They translated the docs, then took them to the MFA for legalisation. Returned them the next day. Cost was about 1600 Baht for everything, and I spent the day by the pool at the hotel ! The company is MBK Translations on the 6th Floor at MBK. They have a website, so you can ask them price, arrange everything etc beforehand.

Thanks. This sounds a lot less painfull.

It is done at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs office on Chiang Watanna Road (Passport office). But you can have a translation service do it for you.

Can I get the whole thing done at internal affairs or would it be quicker to get the documents translated and then get internal affairs to certify the copies? Am I likely to get this done in one day? Are the red shirts protesting in that area?

Thanks for the replies.

Was at the amphor again today and they won't budge. It seems, to further complicate the issue when my wife arrived at the hospital and in my absence her brother put his name down when they admitted her. Now it is my understanding that this is pretty standard, but now makes him the legal gaurdian. The hospital is saying whats done is done and they can't (won't) change the birth certificate. The amphor are now telling me I need to get my passport and our marriage certificate translated into Thai and have copies of these certified by the department of internal affairs. (Any advice on how to get this done would be appreciated). They have also mentioned lawyers police testimony and DNA tests! It seems every time we go to see them they come up with a new story.

We have now sent a representitive who knows the big boss man to get a list of requirements.

So for now it's still wait and see. As far as I'm concerned this is total madness and a classic case of Thai bureaucracy tieing itself up in knots.

I know I've seen something about this sort of thing before, but I've done a search and can't find it.

I need to get my passport and mariage certificate translated into Thai and then get copies certified for the local amphor.

I am pretty sure they said I need to have the copies certified by the department of internal affairs.

I figure this means a trip to Bangkok. I plan to be in Bangkok all day Friday.

Can anybody tell me how and where to get this done.

Thanks.

As Mario2008 says, never mind the papers from the hospital, never mind the 15 days either actually because you are not going to make it in time anyway it seems. Doesn't matter, penalty is 1,000 bath.

Make sure that the formal birth certificate from the Amphur is NOT issued in another persons name, that is VERY difficult to change. Forget the foreign marriage certificate at this stage, it has no legal value here regardless of it is translated to Thai or not actually. You need to take the original and the certified true translation to the ministry of consular affairs on Chang Wattana Rd to get legalised (it's a bizy place, be there 8:15 AM, you can fetch it the next following day, if translation is correct). Then you need to take those papers to the amphur and get you foreign marriage registered, actually what you practically do is to get the wife registered as married to you, that's the only thing Thai officials care about anyway, where it happened is irrelevant. My personal opinion is that it is first after the amphurs computers show that the mother is registered as married to you that the foreign marriage certificate has a value in Thailand - it's done what it should do .

This you cannot get done before you fix the birth certificate anyway and it doesn't matter, it doesn't have to be done before, it only affects custody, nothing else. The only thing the amphur needs is your original passport and copies and the hospital birth registration paper (not sure of the exact name of the form) with your name as father on. I have no idea what the amphur will say if the hospital paper doesn't have the fathers name on it but I would think that the amphur will process it if the mother and the father goes in person.

Good Luck

Thanks, We spent about 4 hours at the local amphur last Monday. Still no luck, everybody seemed to want to help but didn't know how to deal with the situation. In the end we were told to come back on Monday after Songkran when the big boss is back. I was hoping to avoid a trip to Bangkok with all the drama there at the moment. We'll see how we go on Monday.

Cheers.

You are marreid to the mother and by law the father. You are legally married as far as Thai law is concerned. The birth of the child must be registered at the amphur where the child was born within 15 days, or you get a fine. In your case it is not important who does the registration, that can be the mother or another family member.

That the hopital doesn't want to name you as the father is rediculous, but their birth certificate is not that important. What is important is the birth certificate you get at the amphur.

Thanks, I know that we are legally married but the certificate is pretty worthless to Thai officials. I probably need to get it translated and verified.

It seems the problem is with the amphor. The mother and law went and registered the birth before I got here and the amphor required some ID for me. Of course as with anything involving Thais and Thai buractrats organising anything on your behalf its always going to be a srtuggle getting to the bottom of it.

I have a 10 day old son. Cute as a button by the way.

I was not in Thailand for the birth as the wee fella was a couple of weeks early.

The problem I am trying to resolve is, the hostpital would not put my name on the birth certificate because I was not here and we are not legally married in Thailand.

We have a New Zealand marriage certificate. We have started making inquiries but everything is closed for songkran, and I can only stay for a couple of weeks. I am sure I will get the situation resolved myself, but any information will be usefull. Especially, are there any time restrictions on this sort of thing. I don,t think I will be able to register his birth with the NZ embassy untill I have a birth certificate with my name on it.

Thanks

I made a solar hot water matrix out of 1 inch blue plastic pipe,it was built to fit on a standard 8x4 board.

8 vertical runs with a 2 inch header and footer.

It was propped up on the side of the house for ages then some workers came to do some plumbing work,they were short of pipe and cut it up !

Typical! how did it work befor it was cut up.

Does anyone know where I can buy a solar hot water heater in Phuket.

I am interested in alternative energy as we do not have access to the grid.

Currently use diesel generator at night and charge a truck battery with a battery charger while the generator is running.

I then use a 500 watt inverter to provide power during the day. I can watch a dvd charge phones or computer even run a fan for a while.

Does anybody know about building a bigger system that can be recharged using natural energy.

We use gas for cooking and have no hot water so energy requirements are pretty low.

Any opinions of Koh Sukorn? I've been eying the Sukorn Beach Bungalows as they're affordable and seem to have a lot of positive reviews online.

So which island is the most beautiful around TRANG ?

Thanks.

I think Koh Rok is the most beautiful but is best as a day trip. Koh Ngai (aka Koh Hai) has great beaches, no roads, shops etc. It has 10 resorts and is a great place to chill out. It has good coral so great for snokelling and is close to lots of other small islands for day trips. A great place to stop for a few days or more.

This was done by Steve Johnson in New Zealand.

you can use ACDS .

Open the picture

Click full viewer

On the left tool bar, almost in the middle of it, you will find a little flower, and when you click on it it will show resize. Select %, adjust, and then click estimate the new size. If OK click done, and save... That's it

Cheers

I use paint.NET its a free download program.

Thanks, Ill check it out

I want to add pics to a post but can't work out how to resize them.

Help anybody?

I'm looking for pics and info on Tattoos in Thailand.

How about some pics of your tattoos, where you got them and who did them.

Has any one got some from Jimmy wong?

I have tried to attach some pics but cant work out how to resize them.

If someone can tell me how to resize the pics I will add them.

My question is, if your friend lost his passport, why did he wait 5 months to get a new one?

He will probably be in the crap with his embassy too. They get suspicious of people who take a long time to report missing passports.

I had a similar experience about 4 years ago.

My passport was used by someone else to leave Thailand and recently turned up in Iran.

My wife asked me what she could call me as an english term of endearment, Like Love or Honey or Darling.

At the time I had put on a few extra kilos and I said "up to you, you can call me anything as long as you don't call me fat".

From that day on she has called me "Fat"

I don't mind, and it still makes me smile.

Her. I love your bum more than your face!

Do you think there are any issues here?

Could be time for a shave or a facial.

Or shave your arse and start walking backwards

Thanks for all the advice. I,m sure Fletch is rite and sleep will be the hardest thing to get. We are down south, so Phuket is the closest place with any real selection when it comes to shopping. Trang has a Tesco but its pretty limited.