simey

OH Mucho Importanto: From what I´ve heard, the easiest way to get a Thai Girl to England is actually through Sweden... Sounds funny, and I´m not sure how the applications go, but dig around a little.

The way it works, is onec she is in Sweden, she can technicall travel any Schengen Country, (i think theres 12 or 15 schengen countries) with little hassle or problem.

The UK is not in the Schengen agreement, so getting into Sweden would still not get her into the UK. As a non-EU passport holder you are required to register when you live in an EU country other than for tourist purposes.

Also be careful of the terms of the rental agreement. I know that coconut will only get the maid to clean your place when it is rented, other times it's up to you. They also ask that you reserve your own place 3 months in advance if you want to use it yourself.

Check the maintenance agreement too, and make sure that you don't have to pay extra to appear on other web sites.

To rent my property I was quoted 25% charge, and if you advertised with one of the other web sites the 10% that they charge would come off first so you would be losing around 32% of your rental income.

I had not considered this forum before I saw the posts - there are many different areas on here and I don't read a lot of them. Neither am I particularly offended that it's not general invite - there are lots of 'in' jokes in the threads that the rest of us don't get.

However, a couple of points. Firstly I think the name might have been better chosen - having a VIP area implies anyone not invited is therefore not a VIP and some of the posters on this forum would take offence at that. Second, I can't help feeling that someone who posts 'you are not missing anything' actually means 'I'd like to mention that I'm invited and you are not'.

These are just general comments, I don't really care whats in this area just as I don't read the teaching forum much either. Maybe the experiment is to see how wound up people will get if you hide something - you know what curiosity did to the cat.

I'm off to get my visa next week here in Amsterdam. Their website says I can buy the following :

From 26 August 2003 the following visa prices are valid:

Tourist 1 entry Euro 30,- valid; 3 months

stay; 60 days

2 entries Euro 60,- valid; 6 months

stay; 2 x 60 days

3 entries Euro 90,- valid; 6 months

stay; 3 x 60 days

Id. Every 60 days you have to leave the country (pass the border).

I'm still assuming that I will be able to extend my visa at Samui Immigration by 30 days at the end of my first 60, but I might check first just in case I have to follow these rules and 'pass the border'.

Seems Yohan has moved on, otherwise I'm sure that this topic would be much longer and verbose than it is now!

OK, I have to defer to Paul as he would know more about their contracts than I would. I had been told that if you sold your property later for more than you paid for it you would find coco wanting a big share of the profits, however Samui thrives on second/third/xxx hand knowledge. I was amazed to find out how much people thought they knew about me when I arrived, and how little they actually did.

So where did you buy Paul? Are you happy with it?

theres a program called daemon tools that you should find usefull

don't have the disk space for all of them, and cd-r's are so cheap it's easy to use them as storage and delete off my disk when necessary.

Hmm, it says it can convert to POP3 for outlook express - I'm sure outlook can handle POP3 accounts (in fact I know it can). Still a shame you can't just enter your account details the way you do with hotmail - where I live my internet access is very dodgy and I usually do all my emails offline and then drag my laptop down to Samui IT centre and synchronise for a few minutes.

Maybe I'll have to consider one of the paid-for mail account providers. They claim that they can also read your hotmail folders and synchronise, but I guess that they will be under the same restrictions as a user with outlook - if you don't pay you can't synchronise. Sapmmers fill your inbox with junk and have now managed to mess up my email usage - they deserve everything that's coming to them.

and if I use Gmail can I access this using outlook? Is it still invite only?

Shame to lose my hotmail address but I don't want to pay for a hotmail account - if I pay I want something with a little more style than that!

I've just changed from kazaa to emule - it's a lot slower to start but after the qeueu wait I get high speeds and I leave the connection (adsl) running overnight to download, then run the stuff the next day. Seems quick enough, although you really need a cd burner to get the best out of it (for the bin and iso files).

I use outlook (not express) for hotmail and have for a while, seems fine (although I sent myself a message from my work address and it got put into the junk mail faolder - not sure about that!).

So now I have two options, I either pay for my hotmail or change servers. Anyone got any good reviews of things like Gmail, or maybe one of those paid mail services like runbox?

Good news for me, I bought my land in 1999 and built the house completion 2002, so any news of property going up is great.

I'm sure that there is a limit, however the island is still cheap compared to similar properties in Spain for example, and as flights get cheaper and faster it becomes easier to visit. I think that there is still growth in Samui, plans for a marina and second airport will help tourism and the value of our investments. It is also appearing a lot more in newspapers/tv etc. Last year the Sunday Times had a section on people buying abroad that featured a couples house on Samui, we had the 'Place in the Sun' special shown on satellite just recently where Gayle Porter was shown around some properties with a view to buying, Chaweng beach was put in the top 10 in some recent yahoo survey.

Samui will continue to grow until it achieves Phuket level of notoriety I think, and then stabilise.

Samui, sometimes.

Bahrain - was there earlier this year. Is the F1 club still going strong?

I've never dealt with them, but I heard that the restrictions in their sales contract are very harsh. I think if you buy a property from them you may find it difficult to realise any profit you might make.

Apoligies for the capitals. It was first attempt.

Cut me some slack, please.

No offence was meant, I was just first to point it out. Made some one laugh anyway.

To live on the island is a big jump and the more time you spend looking around and getting a feel for the place the less chance you stand of making a mistake. For example, there are several beachfront groups of houses where you can pick up a thai style house almost on the beach for 8 mil. Seems a good deal until you realise that the houses surrounding you are owned by investors who rent them out, so you get different neighbours week to week who care a lot less about their surroundings than you do.

There is a lot of land for sale right now, but you need to be careful with the type of land title you get and also watch for things like access, electricity etc.

Building a house is a good idea, there are a couple of good architects on the island. However I would recommend that you are present while the thing is being built as thais sometimes take a route that is less to the plan and more to the way they think it should be.

My advice would be to rent a small property and then start the networking - you will get much more info from freinds you make than from people who (nice as they may be) are still trying to make a living.

In case you wondered I speak from experience, I own a house in the hills in the Santi Thani development that I designed and had built from scratch, completed 2 years ago.

You are right about the mopeds - unless you are used to driving in Samui they can be a real spoiler for your holiday.

The smallest car you rent is a Suzuki Caribean (different spellings, usually wrong). You can rent a reasonable one of these from Avis or Budget but be prepared to pay something like 1100 baht per day. They are usable, but not comfortable.

The other way to do it is to get pickup from the airport by your hotel and then look around the place you are staying - there are lots of rental places around with differing standards of cars and prices. Refuse to leave your passport as security, it's not necessary.

Buying a car is not that easy, there is only a small second hand market and prices are high. Plus it's not possible to own the car in your name on a tourist visa.

tuk-tuks are those little three wheel motorcycle adaptions that you see in Bangkok, there are none (for hire) in Samui I have ever seen. Otherwise you take a regular metered taxi, a motorcycle taxi, or a songthaew. These are modified pickups that have two bench seats in the back (hence the name) and basically drive around the island picking up people as they go. They are cheap but don't run to a schedule, you just flag one down. Bargain the price before you get on, pay when you get off.

How long are you staying for?

Neither Visa nor Mastercard have really got their act together on the chip front, however you probably would not notice an ATM machine using the chip as it is pretty much transparent to the customer. You would notice in a shop/restaurant where the POS device would not print a receipt for you to sign but would require you to enter your PIN, and the chip itself would probably authorise the transaction so the response would be much quicker.

Clever things, those little chips on your cards.

Lots of people come here for a holiday and think they see an opportunity. But there is a big difference between the pal of scamp and scamp himself - the success. No offence meant, but the people that make money in this world do so by investing hard in their future by putting the work in - there is a definite correlation between the amount of work you put in and the amount of wealth you get out.

Scamp, I have to agree with other detractors that your idea of being an ideas man does not match with your responses on this forum, and if you are not prepared or don't have the time to put in the effort to investigate business ideas then you might as well stick to buying lottery tickets - you stand more chance.

I had some freinds come down from BKK last year by bus. They said that the bus arrives in Surat very early and dumps you at the ferry port, you then have to wait another couple of hours for the first ferry which is a pain if you have just had an uncomfortable and sleepless night on the bus.

The only way to fly to Samui (at the moment) is via Bangkok air. Despite the high prices I actually like this airline - they still fly small turboprops so you get to see the islands as you fly in, their waiting lounge at BKK is nice with internet access and free drinks, and they are usually very good about letting me change my flights (i.e. if I arrive early they let me get an earlier flight).

Check out the visas section for the arguments about one way flights - some people say OK, others say you will be denied boarding if you do not have an onward flight.

Let me know how you go with that. The ITC is very new and seems to not know exactly what it's aiming at, but I would think people like yourself would be a good market to aim at. I'm sure there are people living in Samui that would use an office-like environment with internet access and would be prepared to pay a little more that internet cafe rates for the privelege.

Don't forget to allow time for diving, trips to the other islands etc. And get your accomodation booked early, it gets busy there soon.

I'm sure it's open until at least 6 pm, best thing would be to email them using their contact email address on their website and ask what they can do for you. I think the guy that runs it is german so there should not be any language problems. Living close enough to connect would be ideal for you as they don't charge for that service. Shame you have to work every evening - it's much better to work during the hottest part of the day and then go out in the evening.

The itc has an area at the front of the building with some desktop PCs but other empty desks where you can take your laptop and plug into their LAN - it should all configure automatically. They also have wireless (with no security) so you can connect using that. If you were really lucky you could rent a house close enough to connect wirelessly...

I take my laptop down there regularly for half an hour to sync emails and download upgrades, usually very fast service.

I used to think the same about the BBC news, except for when I lived in Bahrain. There was some local unrest and I watched a report from Manama where the reporter discussed not being able to leave the hotel, tanks driving down the streets etc. Looked bad, except that I worked in an office block on the street he showed and would have noticed a tank, the soldiers he claimed were patrolling the streets were actually the security personnel all banks in the middle east employ (keeping un appearances) and I went out drinking that night as I always did without seeing any trouble. Sometimes even a BBC reported might use artistic licence to ensure that his report is seen and attracts attention.

Most liveable city in the world, voted twice I think.

Be careful transiting through the US, you don't stay airside any more. You actually have to complete the forms and enter the country through immigration, then exit again even if you are only stopping to refuel.

I went to Costa Rica from Amsterdam this year, in transit through Miami. They made us all go through immigration and everybody had to have a valid visa (or waiver) for the US as well as the country we were going to. So your Thai GF would need a visa for the US as well as a visa for Mexico.