naka

try to open nationwide account - the best exchange rate, no commision.

£2.5k is a lot of cash to loose

Or TC's for that amount.

Naka.

You will probably get a better exchange rate if you do a single Bank to Bank electronic

transfer (SWIFT)

Unfortunately huh! British banks seem not to like posting their rates online ... I wonder why ?

You would need to talk to your bank re this.

Naka.

Bt 50 thousand in Baht cash I believe. But (almost) any amount if you do the

transaction through the official channels e.g. Bank.

Oh, and it's 500k cash if only going to surrounding countries.

Naka.

Been to Don's many times and his Ribs are really wonderful, It's what I always order !

Now if I want a Rib Eye then it's gonna be a US grainfed cooked on my Granite hot plate at home (for 20 seconds flat )

No offence Don, as my raw slab of steak costs more than a nice meal with dessert at your place.

Good luck Don ... Naka will be back ... p.s., you have lovely, friendly and attentive staff and

you have been a favourite of mine for years and years.

Naka.

I retired here with my husband about 18 months ago. We had been married for 28 years. Within 10 months he dumped me so that his Thai tart could move in!

A friend of mine here says this is a common occurrence, but is it?

I know lots of single men come here for the bar girls, but does anyone know of any similar stories involving married men?

I'm confused ... Exactly what is the problem ?

Naka.

Seeing as it's free ... Why worry ?

Naka.

System Restore has stopped restoring.

It creates Check Points and Restore Points, but every attempt to actually implement a Restore fails.

I get the message:

Your Computer cannot be restored to: (Restore point)

No changes have been made to your computer.

I've tried different points.. it always fails.

I'm running WinXP Pro, Sp2. It's a legit OEM Version from the USA, and I have the disk.

How can I restore "System Restore" ????

Thanks for your help.

CS

Hi Cs,

I had exactly same problem few days ago, it started with pop up saying "windows explorer has stopped working...."

Tried "system restore" just to get message " your computer cannot resto..." so I decided restoring to company default and my wife fcked it up by ejecting the

disc while com was running,..etc, etc.

I ended up taking my laptop to ACER service center

I suspect this problem started with installing program called "SUPER DVD COPY" .

good luck

JC

ps: I'm on VISTA sp_2

And the wife ........ What happened to her ? ... Ok, I'm off now.

Naka.

Possibly you get what you pay for ... There again Naka is no expert ... He just

knows that you get nothing for nothing and very little for sixpence.

Anyway, all the freebie providers also sell their (better ?) products ... Why would they give out

their quality stuff for free ? A one month 'teaser' perhaps ... But never free.

Naka.

Rule No.1 is never take your funds from another country via ATM ( Okay Nationwide folks ... I hear your fingers tapping )

If you can ? then leave the funds at home for as long as possible then have your bank send the funds

to your Thai bank by Bank to Bank electronic transfer ... Wire Transfer for you Americans.

Much better terms this way. Yes I do like Champagne ... Thanks for asking, but Cava will be just fine.

Naka.

A question for some of our more financially savvy members:

I'm looking at a 9% term deposit investment (in New Zealand). In the material it says the interest is calculated daily but can only be paid out at maturity (in this case, it's a one year term deposit).

Now, if I invest here, at the end of the year would I get just 9% return or - if its compounded daily - would I get the effective interest rate of closer to 9.4%

To help explain further, I currently have money in a 30 day term deposit, where the interest of 8.3% is paid at the end of the 30 day term. Now, when that interest is paid, the principal compounds and after a year the EFFECTIVE interest rate is closer to 8.6% . . . .

Thoughts?

Bendix, Something you should consider is your cost of getting into the NZ dollar and then the cost

of getting back out of the NZ dollar, assuming you do not have assets in this currency to start with.

Some countries have horrible IN/OUT exchange rates. (Thailand is superb in that particular respect)

As a starting point I would call your chosen bank and ask them "What's your buy and sell rate viz the US dollar (or whatever)

right now".

If the buy/sell differential is large then it could easily wipe out a whole years worth of (anticipated extra) interest.

Just as an indicator, here is today's Bank of NZ buy/sell spread for the US Dollar for TT transfer ... Ouch !

0.7859 - 0.7676 That 9% just turned into 3% after a one year term (not so bad for longer terms).

Naka.

CM This might be a good starting point ... Just register for the forum and ask your question.

Lots of smart cookies here regarding expat tax.

Forum

Naka.

How is HSBC?

I have been considering them because they have branches in US. Thailand. Singapore etc.

Also I see if I open a prefered account now from US I can also link a Thai branch pretty easily.

Anyone using them?

Thanks

But how far will you have to travel to get to your nearest branch (if you need to) ... If you live in Phuket

for instance then it's a two hour flight each way

Naka.

It hasn't really drastically crashed since 1997 right? Seems unlikely to happen again. Looking at the charts (since I was in elementary school at the time), that was pretty crazy, it was like 25 baht to the dollar then jumped to 40 something by the end of the year. All I can say is that I hope to no end that it crashes again, for u that have businesses in thailand, i assume your hopes are the opposite

Man, 25 baht to the dollar in 97? Was thailand more expensive then or were prices cheaper?

I was a kid in Bangkok in the early seventies and my dad bitched endlessly that the price

of beer in Thailand was the highest in Asia. Only Singha and Amarit in those days

and ice cream was almost impossible to find. As for milk or cheese ... never to be found, so no Pizza.

What an awful place to take a kid, Bad Dad.

The only bright spot was when he was able to (teary eyed and begging) get us in to one of the US militay owned R&R hotels

where we could get a huge US prime rib dinner for the amazing (subsidized) price of twenty five cents US and

babana split for dessert. Hey ... I even got to see the in house gogo dancers

But can't complain, it was better than Tanzania where the local kids taught me to make a

car out of a sardine can and four coke bottle caps, or a guitar from a cooking oil can.

Oh ! the Baht ... forgot about that.

Naka.

What Naka is referring to is the Sea Rescue, not 'water police'. I have never heard of this before, and am sure there is some kind of mistake here.

Mea Culpa ... Naka is indeed very sorry to have misinformed, as it would appear

that the Sea Rescue Unit is (perhaps) run by City Hall.

Naka.

I thought I was going to be able to answer this ... But could not.

Anyway, another kindly soul came to the rescue.

Naka.

And Angeles City was nowhere in the top ten

Congratulations on some brilliant research - sit in yjr local bar and "Where you bin then?" covers it all.

Yes, very true ... But I confess I am more worried about PhilH's report regarding the demise of the happy ending,

if indeed that's what he meant.

Naka.

Like Woofer said, how do Aussie pensioners cope with their government's draconian

requirement to front up every three months or so ?

And geeeze ... Why do they care ?

Naka.

An easy to use formula is 8 bags (25kG) to 1 cubic meter of premix aggregate ... for a basic 20mpa mix.

But hey, why not ask google particularly if you must have high strengh concrete.

Naka.

Well it certainly sounds like they do, never noticed it myself but will be alert next time I

shop at one of the hi-so establishments.

Naka.

Being a bit of a cynic I suspect the kid could be used as leverage … perhaps

further down the line. Anyway, tread carefully.

Naka.

Jingthing's theory makes a lot of sense. Anyway it's still 800k at time of renewal.

Naka.

im 27 years old. never married. not ugly. not a virgin. not a bar girl. no kids. have bachelor's and master's degrees from an overseas university. i speak, read and write fluent english. i make the equivalent of 140k baht a month. family is relatively well to do and infuential.

question: how much am i worth as far as a sinsod is concerned?

But never learned to capitalize

Naka.

just buy her a dog ,or enlist her in an adult education college,save her the strech marks

Yes ... A dog would give her something to love.

Naka.

With all the bashing of rural Thais that goes on here, I'd like to know how many ppl have actually found their Thai partners get sick of the family always asking and never giving in return.

Everyone is always having a go at the bar girls, but I'm sure there are those who realize the only one who's ever really helped them out is their partner. Not just by taking them out of the bar, but also by encouraging them to study/work and have more confidence in themselves.

In contrast they may have realized their families had no problem with them working in a bar and just wanted the cash.

I'm not just talking about bar girls, but rural Thai men/women in general. Usually one sibling will be a good worker and the rest a bit lazy, often there's a brother who is worse than useless.

It would be good to hear some postive experiences for a change.

Come on Mixed ... Give us your side.

Naka.

Immediately upon arriving in Thailand, I, and I have no reason to doubt, everyone else, gets bombarded with a number of 'truths' about Thai culture - The Closeness and Mutually Supportive role of the Thai Family' being a fine example, there are many others.

Observation and a little critical analysis reveals many of these 'truths' to be more of a 'myth'.

Added to this is my own observation that Thais are singularly adept at denying or avoiding providing information to non Thais that does not fit the 'Truth'/'Myth'.

With this in mind I think 'perceptions' of wider Thai feelings (no matter what particularly feelings we are discussing) need to be treated with some caution.

What you are told in Thailand and what is the reality are very often not the same thing - especially when the subject is one of those cherished 'Thai Institutions' - for example the family.

Supportive yes - in many cases, but recall a few posts here on TV and the flip side of controlling parents making unreasonable demands, abuse of trust and worse are, I would argue, common place.

Happiness and its counter part unhappiness are part of the human condition - I do not see that the Thais have cracked the code to having one without the other, any more than any of the other many places I have lived.

So I say, Thais are no more and no less happy than the rest of the world - Why would they not be? - They are human.

Exactly what I wanted to say ... but did not have time to do so ... Good on you GH. Another good report !

And ... How anyone could assume that happiness is based on a single paramater begs belief !

Naka.