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manfromoz

Thank you for your comments. They are sensible and what you have said is exactly the reason I think its a good idea to have farang Tourist Police Volunteers patroling in uniform in the popular tourist areas. I would expect these people have policing experience in their own countries then I wouldn't have a problem with it. As I have said earlier its about the type of people they may taking on. I don't know what the Torist Police are looking for from these farang volunteers. They DO have a power of arrest, as others in this post have said as well as me.

Davethailand Don't jump to conclusions! No one has said these Police volunteers are snooping on gogo bars. What I have said is the the police do use farang to do this, I know this is a fact, and they are paid 5000 Baht for thier time. I know these volunteers are used for undercover work sometimes, but I don't know what type of work.

As far as farangs sticking together, what a load of crap. You are just as likely to get ripped of by a farang here as you are a Thai. I for one would not protect a farang that was committing crime, it goes against everything I know and believe in. Yes of course farang should help each other, that is why I am also a member of Pattaya City Ex-Pats Club, but within reason. If you blindly support a farang no matter what just because they are farang then you're a fool.

Sorry felt 35 but you are wrong. If you are buying privately you don't need to show a passport of course. Its not the sellers business about your status in this country they just want to sell. If you buy from a dealership they WILL take a copy of your passport/visa/exit and entry stamps and tm card, if you are on a tourist visa you WILL NOT get finance. Why would a dealership sell you a car on finance when you are on a 30 day visa?

As far as a guarantor is concerned, you need ONE if buying in a company name. They don't need to have twice the income of the loan either. My guarantor earns 10,000 Baht per month, his money goes into his account and out again within about 7 days. My loan repayment is 9000 Baht per month. The most recent car I bought was LAST WEEK, and it was an 800,000 Baht car.

Kempos, go to any dealership and ask, thats the way to find out. The rules may change depending on where you are going to buy. I live and work in Pattaya where they are used to dealing with farang and maybe therefore a little more flexible? Please disregard Felt 35's advice it is wrong

I own 9 cars, (due to my business). Three are on finance, the others are owned.

Yes is the answer, you can get a car on finance. You need to have a non tourist visa of some sort, 'O' or 'B' for example. If buying in your name, you need to have a work permit and residency cert. from immigration plus lots of other bits of paperwork. Or if you have a company you can buy it through the company. You don't need a work permit for this. However you will need a Thai guarentor. The dealerships will make it a lot easier for you if you can put 50% down.

As far as insurance goes, fully comprehensive insurance is available here and its called 1st Class insurance. Works the same way as you would expect it to back home. Costs depend on the car and value, but for 1m - 1.5m you should expect something around 25,000 - 33,000 Baht as your yearly premium.

Smashes, yes experience of them too, 3 so far!, (Not me, my customers). What do you want to know?

eyebee,

As you know someone who you call a friend who does this, maybe you can explain a little about how it works, what they have to do, thier powes etc. if you are able to please?

cheers

The undercover thing I have heard about. I'm not sure if its these volunteers that go undercover in the gogo bars, but I do know they use farang to do this. I've heard they are paid 5000 Baht to do this, take video film etc on hiden camera's. I've been told that they use farang who are indebited somehow to the police, (pay back time). You can't believe everything you hear however.

George, what you say about work permits is not true. You can get special dispensation from the Thai Labour Ministry to do voluntary work without a work permit. I am a member of Pattaya City Expats Club and there are about 30 of us volunteering to teach English to school kids in Pattaya schools as well as getting involved with giving City Hall employees and local Thai newspaper reporters practice at speaking and listening to English to add to the lessons they are recieving. We are all in the process of getting approved and being issued with the notice from the Labour Ministry in Chonburi. I guess the same applies to these guys as thier work is seen as an asset to the community and government bodies?

As far as Howard is concerned, I've seen him on his bike riding around too, and also on New Years Eve leading a large group of volunteers (all Thai) in the Bali Pier area. He also goes out with Pattaya City Police after 2am when they leave the WS area I am told.

wilson steer, please give me some credit, I know the difference between US Military and Farang Thai Police Volunteers. There seems to be some disbelief by several posters that this is actually happening. IT IS!!!

They don't only patrol WS, they go elsewhere as well, and as I say they also work undercover (someone said to me that they use them to catch these sexy shows etc.) I do think its sad to arrest shoe shine boys, and I personally will have a problem with doing this, and indeed this is another reservation of mine.

As I have been writing this it has dawned on me that I need to ask them what they would expect of me, and then I can decide. I wasn't aware that they arrested the shoe shine people

monty,

Wish I could, however I don't have the time due to other business interests, or the motivation frankly as I don't really understand the things, and anyway a little knowledge is very often dangerous.

Thanks Stuart, email sent already. This Stuart isn't you by any chance?

Well done Judge. I also bought up two sons on my own after my divorce and a very nasty custody fight where my ex wife used all the dirty tricks she could to discredit me, of course mentioning my sexuality and the "threat to my children" Luckily the court service ignored this and I was given custody and managed on my own for 10 years. They decided to go back to their mother last year, which is how I find myself here in Thailand

Kids thrive in a secure and stable home, as mine did. They were not concerned about my sexuality and still aren't. It must always be what is best for the kids.

I also support patt/bkk hospital. I have had several treatments there including, root canal and crown, extraction and fillings. Pattaya International has also got a good dentestry dept which some of my friends go to and is as good as patt/bkk.

Good luck!

dr_pat_pong

Thank for the concerns, frankly pissed farang don't worry me, had years of dealing with them in the past, and I don't think I will be on my own, plus I'm still fairly young, 40. The hurm is really about maybe exposure to Thai authorities. Could being involved backfire for me? My lawyer, who is well conected says no and it can only do me good and is fully behind the idea, especially with my experience. However as I've said, I'm not to sure.

Hi, I own an Internet store in Pattaya, for my sins! I am having real problems finding good quality and reliable technical guys who can come onsite to repair pc's. Does anyone here know of anybody they can recommend?

I've had the same problem here in Pattaya with Tesco and tea. I used to buy Tesco premium also and was pleased to see it in the stores here. Likewise I used to buy it regularly and found it sold out many times. How can they say it didn't sell? Liptons is not good and Twinnings is bloody expensive.

OK, now I should come clean after seeing some of the comments, although no one has really said its wrong or right.

I have been approached to also become a volunteer. I used to be a police officer in the U.S and have some specialist experience also. I actually think its a good idea, if it is done with the right attidude. I agree that this may attract ther wrong type of people and I have no idea how the Tourist Police 'vet' the potential recruits. I would like to do it as a way of helping both the tourist/expat community. If I can help to stop these idiot farang drug dealers or farang involved in crime I will be more than happy to do this. Also I want to be able to help in some way with the victims of crime, and just to generally help people who have had a bad experience. I think that being a volunteer will allow me to do this. However, I have some reservations.

Am I exposing myself to something that may do me harm in some way?

What are your views on this, am I mad?

George

Don't take my word for it, walk down walking street in the evening and you will see them. They don't work every night so I can't say when they will be there. One guy I know, his name is Howard and he is the presenter of Pattaya City News one of the local TV news programmes, I have seen two others but know nothing of these two. Howard was a police volunteer in the UK. They call them "Specials"

TRUE!!!

I'm not sure which forum to go in with this one so I'll take the plunge in here!

For those of you who are not living in or have not visited Pattaya recently, you won't have noticed that walking around the Walking Street area you will find several farangs wearing Tourist Police Volunteer shirts and working as volunteers. They have a power of arrest, and do so, and work undercover too I am led to believe.

I am wondering what the view is here about this situation, for it or against it? I'll let you know my feelings later on in the thread.

I've just bought a car this week on finance. I have been here 9 months.

I have a company and the dealership said to buy the car in the company name as it would be easier. I put down 50%, I needed a copy of all the company papers and stamp, copy of passport and visa, copy of company bank book, Thai guarantor (this was my partner who is also a director of my company) bank book, id card and house book. And that was it, passed in one day by the credit company, picked up my new car next day .

If I put it in my personal name, I would have needed to give them a copy of my work permit and also got a residency certificate from immigration.

tukyleith,

I am not really sure, I think he was an arab? But I can't be 100% sure on that. He was also in his 50's I would say.

mrmnp, your post was well thought out and I agree with the sentiment, so don't be concerned by the reaction of mrentoul. It is FACT that most str8 people always assume that one must be the top, and one must be the bottom. Ones the man, ones the women, King and Queen etc. Its usually boll**ks. Yes of course you may have a dominant partner, but thats no different to hetrosexual relationships or marriage.

As far as stereotyping is concerned, Thai TV is awful and gays are typically shown as khatouy characters, and my bf will laugh along with this. I say to him why do you laugh at this, its so stereotypical. But he just thinks its funny and there is no deep thought process in it, it just funny and thats the end of it. He doesn't see that its a negative image, and just thinks I overreact. He will say he is closer to his mother than his other 5 brothers because he is "half girl" This makes me cringe. I say you are not half girl, don't say that. Its how thet are bought up. He came out when he was 14, no qualms, told his parents and that was it. His younger brother is also 14 and he has just said he is gay also, even though the family have been saying they think he is for the last 2 years. With me, I fought my feelings for 30 years and was still frightened to tell my parents at the age of 40!

Just want to relay a story to you all about an incident that happened to me and my bf yesterday in Tops foodcourt.

We were eating our food, and finsished up. Paid the bill and got up to leave. Now at this stage I would like to add we were just 2 guys eating, we weren't all over each other, embrasing or anything as we don't behave like that away from the gay areas of Pattaya. As we got up and walked away the bf said to me did you see that man over there he was really looking hard at us. So I said, just ignor him. We walked right down the other end of the food hall and the bf say, he's still watching, so I looked back and he was. He had turned around in his seat and just completely focused on us. So, I just stopped looked back, then he gets up waving his hand at me, I continue to walk out of the hall and into the carpark. The bf says, hes chasing after us, why? He then reaches me and says, "You people make me sick, why is it when I look at you lot you have to always look back at me?" So I say, "just <deleted> off and get out of my way" He then starts to puff his chest out pushing up against me and says, "You like to wear a dress, you like to suck dick you people..." etc etc. So i just give him a shove backwards and told him to go away, he said he wanted to fight me, so I shoved him again shouting for him to <deleted> off. He did, shouting something in his native tounge.

My bf was shocked, and typical Thai, saying to him "You misunderstand us, you've got us wrong" I said to him, don't be so bloody polite, he is only reacting like this because he hates us, don't you understand that?

Now I do not look or act as some would expect a homosexual to act, in other words when people find out I am gay they are usually surprised. I am not frightend of people and spent many years as a police officer in London. But I can say the incident shook me also, as it is the first time anything like this has happened to me, and it happened just because I was a male farang eating with a Thai guy and this idiot jumps to conclusions (albeit correct ones ). But I was getting so angry, driving home and I couldn't get it out of my head all night. I now know how blacks in London feel when being shouted at or called names, because of thier colour.

I've tried that, but it won't let me do it!

This just goes to show how people can read different things into the same set of figures or cicumstances. This is the same the world over. So called experts will take a set of facts and turn them into something to suit thier own arguments.

I am a business owner in Thailand, I started 10 months ago. I have had many frustrations doing business here, and working within the Thai structure which is so different to Europe. However I am settling down now and my business is doing ok. I have actually just listed my business with Sunbelt looking for a partner to join me to develop my business further.

I can understand some posters comments here about the corruption etc in this country. It is truely frightening to me. I was a police officer in the UK for a few years and this countrys way of working goes against the grain for me. However for the time being Thailand is where I choose to be and would rather be here than in the UK at the moment. I am not sure what I will feel in 2 or 3 years time. I have heard to many stories, (true ones), about things that have happened to individuals as the have upset someone at some stage. Just today I decided not to get involved in a project being run in Pattaya to help ex-pats/tourists who get into trouble with the law as it would expose me to the powers that be. Not that I am doing anything illegal, (far from it), but that is what this country is like. You have to be very carefull who you talk to, or get involved with as you can be completely ruined here very easily. This is what makes me feel uneasy about living in this country and to have a police force you cannot trust is completely alien to me.

You can bet your life 'people' monitor this site. Paranoid? No I don't think so.

Brilliant artical. Can someone tell me how I can forward this on to someone by email?