slipperx

Do you have a cellphone? Expect they would give you a call in that case. In any case home visits are often more about neighbors than the person themselves (but that may vary from place to place). In your case probably not helpful as you are new.

Yes have a cellphone but need to go to another province on business for a few days - no visit yet - visa due for issue on April 6. Immigration telephoned me a few days ago to ask for more paperwork - the kids Tabien Baans. I had already provided them but the officer gave them back to me. No problem though to go back there and dealt with very quickly ahead of the queue so I am not moaning about that just a heads up to give the immigration office the tabien baan. Also prepared some paper regarding income from overseas but I have no idea why as I already gave them the bank statement showing the 400k in the bank for two months - they check every day for the past 2 months to make sure balance has not fallen below 400k so beware if you are running an account near the limit.

Still very pleased with how I am being treated here although i know application is in Bangkok for approval and not done locally. Bangkok immigration seem to be much more strict or maybe unhelpful even - applying a dictum of searching for any reason to refuse rather than seeking a reason to approve - overzealous might be an appropriate word for Bangkok from my experience.

I have papers from the court saying I am the legal father which I presume will be enough. I am moving from one province to another mid application probably as I want to apply 30 days befoer visa expires.

That might be a small problem if you will be under the jurisdiction of another immigration office, as you have to go back after 30 days to get final approval for the extension.

If a big problem you might get a 60 day extension and then apply for a new 1 year extension of stay when you have moved to the new location.

Just an update.

Went to BKK immigration in Laksi last December (retirement visa runs out March) who told me I could not CHANGE my retirement visa to a visa based on supporting the children. When asked if I could change on renewal I was taken to a female senior immigration official and handing her all the papers (court legitimacy papers, photos of us in house, birth certs, bank book - copies of everything in duplicate. She was anything but helpful, did not seem interested and basically said no without giving me any reason. I was basically no further forward and knew nothing further.

Went to Khon Kaen immigration (the same area as i was then living) 29 days before visa expired. A really helpful immigration guy there, very pleasant and spoke good English. I had lost my bank book and only had the copies up to December along with ATM print outs but gave him all the papers I had previously given the officer in Bangkok. He told me the ATM printouts were not acceptable but that in any case all I needed was a cletter from the bank confirming I had more than 400k in the bank and copy statements from the bank book were not needed. He said I had everything necessary but he could not process as I would not be resident in the area the whole time the application would be in process. Therefore he said better to move first and then apply in the new area.

Went to a central area immigration office near my new home. They had all the same papers from before plus letter from the bank. They were also very pleasant - both a female & a male officer. Were very thorough and spent some time reading the qulifications for the child support visa. However they said I did need copies of two months transactions from the bank book. I phoned the bank who said I would need to get a new bank book from my home branch. Home branch is at the ooposite end of the country at the moment so that was a major problem. However an officer from a local branch near my new home took pity on me and gave me a print out from the banks computer along with a covering letter. Back to immigration and the application is now waiting approval.

Not sure what gives with the house visit. Obviously not at home 24 hours a day and they apparently do not make an appointment. Guy in Khon Kaen said house visit was mandatory so what happens if you happen to be out when they call. I have to go out for food, sort out new school etc., so it seems all rather hit and miss. Anyone any experience of that?

Very good post, it was me who posted about Islam, I am not deluded, just I can read, read this one thereligionofpeace dot com

[Editedf for brevity]

Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, sparefor yourselves. (Numbers 31:17-18)

Well the quotes are from the Old Testament. I am not a scholar of religion nor do I have much to do with any of the religions to be honest but it appears to me all the texts can be looked at and passages found to support one idea or another. I do not think though that the basic concept of any religion is to kill others. In any religion there are do's and don'ts and murder is not one of the do's that any modern religion (extremests excepted) supports as far as I can see, I know the Muslims at the moment seem to have more than their fair share of hapless brainwashed folk going around trying (and sometiems succeeding) to kill people but many years ago weren't the Christians and worse still the Catholics (inquisition) doing the same thing? It is just individuals using religion to control people much as inter alia politics and the media is used these days along with religion. It all stems from a lack of personal responsibility I think but then I might be completely wrong too. Thanks for your post though, I think I understand where you are coming from.

By the way I also understand what you are saying about the people in the south killing, as you put it, 'in the so called religion of peace'. However most people would not accuse Catholicism to be a religion that supports murder except if you were living in the 16th century maybe you would hold a different opinion. I don't totally disagree with you, I just think religion has always been a tool to control people, commenced with good intentions and abused by people who just want power - another form of politics if you like - how political is the Pope these days one might ask.

I think it is a very hard line to be anti someone just because he or she might be of one faith or another although there are some things that I find very hard to accept. You are welcome and I will join with you against extremeists of any sort be they Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Seikh or any other. Another of the things I find hard to accept is blind circumcision especially when carried out on females. Who gave anyone the right to injure another - it is religionised and legalised abuse in my mind but so widespread now that most people just accept it without thinking. I am sure that comment will bring many a strong argument against me but I think as a human I have a right to be asked before someone else starts chopping pieces off of me for no good medical reason - I am not by the way. But that is just my opinion of course. It does make me think that someone might berate me for smaking an unruly child who has crossed a boundary of accepted behaviour, yet that same person may have arranged for their own child to have had their sexual organs mutilated. I just don't see how the two things fit together except that one is sanctioned by religion. Well I would rather pass on the religious practices rooted in practicality 2000 years ago or more, or less depending on the religion, and keep my nether parts in tact thanks very much.

Hmm well firstly his business partner has not admitted the deed and the 'divorce' case brings in another possible motive for the killing. It may well be the business partner was the instigator or maybe it was someone else - we simply cannot know as we are not party to all the information. Often even when all the information is known the wrong conclusions are reached or(and more especially in Thailand) the wrong conclusions are paid for. Have no confidence in anything you are told or read here in Thailand - lying and cheating is much more commonplace than many other countries and little is actually, in reality, exactly as it seems to be.

Sadly having people killed here IS easy and cheap and far too commonplace. It is useful to examine why that might be. Is it poverty, is it greed, is it a failure of the education system, is it a failing of the politicians, is it a failure of the religious beliefs, is it a failing of the police or the legal system.

It strikes me that Thais are failed by all of these things. Poverty can drive people to extrememes but in this case the manager who is reported to have organised the hit must have been employed and so would not be in poverty compared to most Thais, The education system is a failure on many counts not least that most Thais are not taught to rationalise, being taught to learn parrot fashion is rather more prevailing. Many Thais seem to grow up thinking they are never wrong, do things wrong and just do not understand or do not want to understand their responsibility for their actions or believe the law does not apply to them as they can always buy themselves out of a problem - a function of corruption for which the education system and politcal system are the main supporters by their lack of action to denigrate it - also maybe in part the religion as it is interpreted by some Thais? Many of the police are open to corruption and it seems to be a perk of the job and I have heard reports and often been told that some of the judges can be enticed to arrive at a verdict other than justice and the law would direct.

I have often read how wonderful Thai society is - and there are some lovely aspects to it. However there are many aspects that are deeply flawed and so often lay unexamined because Thais do not like to examine, look at, accept or even think about anything that remotely shows Thais or Thailand in a bad light. Sometimes however it is useful to look at the bad things and try to make them better for otherwise how can any person and by extension, society become better.

Killing someone outside of the law can never be right and there is NO mainstream religion which advocates it - there may be extremeists who twist religious texts for their own ends but the poster who suggests the Muslim religion advocates murder is deluded.

It is time for Thailand to look within itself and start making an example of the people involved and convicted by passing the harshest sentence possible under the law and by publicising the fate of people involved in this and other sorts of crime such as fraud and corruption. Perhaps if the general public begin to understand that Thai society will not suffer this behaviour and is educated by the wide distribution of the results to the perpetrators, then the crimes will become less commonplace and more people will accept their civil duty to report and help prevent such crimes.

Is it me or are we getting more and more large scale disasters happening more often? A hundred or so years ago it was a regular thing for the Thames to freeze over in London - now it never happens - it is not just the City has become hotter because of the housing and offices because in the suburbs around the weather is similarly warmer than before. I know we have had major disasters before it just seems that in the last few years their magnitude and frequency rate have increased substantially. But then again maybe it is just a trick of my mind? I fear more of the same thing and worry about this country which is so ill equipped mentally and practically to deal with large scale problems. Imagine if that earthquake had hit Bangkok - frightening.

I have papers from the court saying I am the legal father which I presume will be enough. I am moving from one province to another mid application probably as I want to apply 30 days befoer visa expires.

Need some help here folks.

I have three kids 7, 6 & nearly three. I have a retirement visa which expires in March. I do not have sufficient funds at the moment due to fraud, to support applying for the retirement visa to be continued. I do have sufficient funds to apply for a visa based on supporting my children here. I am not married to the mother who is unable to earn sufficient to support the children and in any case for reasons I will not go into here, she will likely be subject to an arrest warrant shortly. The children live with me most of the time, I pay for their schooling and everything else. Again I will not explain why but I need to move home from the house I rent here at the end of March but will apply for the visa before then so hopefully that will not be a problem.

So the question is is it possible to change from a Retirment Visa to a Family Support Type visa on renewal. What documents am I likely to need to support the application beyond:

Passport type Photos

Bank Book Copies 3 months showing 400k plus in bank since January

Photos of me & kids in house

Documents from court confirming I am legal father

Copy of house rental agreement (in area covered by the immigration bureau I am applying)

Letter from school confirming I am paying the school fees.

Thanks

I wonder why I can't ever recall any admission of wrongdoing by the Thai immigration. Maybe that is because it is impossible for them to be wrong since everything is 'up to the officer' at the time. Makes having even the complicated rules in place here a bit of a farce since even if you adhere to them all there is still room for the 'officer' to act on his own whim. At least in Europe there is a chance of a fair hearing it seems.

The wonders of the 'Rule of Law'

What is the point of the law?

Surely you first have to have a society with a consensus of what is right or wrong. Elected people from the society write laws to provide a system where someone doing something wrong is held responsible. The society also employs people to enforce the law and to provide people to whom individual members can complain and have the law enforcement officers look into the matter and take action as necessary.

The degree to which the offending person does wrong or the severity of the issue if you like is supposed to be reflected by the punishment received and in some cases protect the society from further wrongs that might be committed by that person - e.g. a rapist is incarcerated to stop him raping other women. In such ways that society should be protected from harm by people doing wrong either against it's members or against the society itself. Each member of society is RESPONSIBLE for behaving in a way that the society expects or at least not breaking the laws in place. As time passes the focus of a society changes and its laws change to reflect this. What was once an offence may not always be so - that is how societies grow - sometimes into better and sometimes into worse places in my opinion.

The system of incarceration may or may not take steps to rehabilitate the offender.

In Thailand the laws are written rather loosely allowing for a wide margin of interpretation. This is so with any society but in Thailand the margins for interpretation are drawn far wider. Unfortunately the system for enforcing the law is very poor and corruption makes enforcement in many cases abrogated. This is so from the lowest level police up to the higher level judges and into the government itself which is the body making the laws. Thais in general know that they can break the law and probably get away with it - the more prominent the person the easier it is, the more money you have the easier it is. Thus the society fails to instil RESPONSIBILTY on its citizens resulting in the irresponsibility and 'don't care' attitude in relation to law enfocement and in relation to abiding by the law. Education plays it's role by leaving ithe people ambivalent and unaware of how they should really behave amongst very amny other issues that prevent a persons full development.

With the driver underage she is guilty of breaking the law and should be punished accordingly. It is not always the case, indeed rarely the case that consequential events form part of the consideration of sentencing unless those consequences were fairly likely to occur from the offence itself - the likely connectivity of the consequence.

So a judge should decide how likely the event of the girl driving without a licence would be to the actual events that occurred. If she was drunk for instance then the likliehood of accident is much higher and the sentence should be accordingly increased. However there may have been other contributory factors - I earleir read there were a couple of other cars jostling with each other that may have collided with the van casuing the accident. How to apportion responsibility is the issue affecting the sentenceing and that is what the judge is there for. You cannot prescribe law to punish someone for an accident which is just that - and I am not saying that this was just that or not. There has to be some expectation of an event occurring from an action for that to be a consideration. The law is not there for revenge.

The point here is that the whole system of law and it's enforcement here in Thailand is woefully inadequate, underfunded and abused through widespread corruption and apathy. I wish Thailand would wake up and see the damage this is causing Thai society and its individual members. Corruption in the system of protection is I think the most damaging and worst sort. I would love to see the strengthening and vigourous enforcement of laws to make the system fairer and better enforced. That would be one big factor to reduce these sort of incidents.

Are you assuming that because the young girl did not have a licence that she is automatically guilty, why not wait until the facts are known before joining the hang em high brigade.

Yes guilty because 16 year olds are not allowed by law to drive. QED she is guity. My car was hit by a 15 & 13 year old on a bike. My car was parked although I was in the driving seat and the engine had just been started. They hit the front wing and bumper which proved to be enough to halt their speedy progress and resulted in a broken shoulder for one and a leg for the other, both could quite easily have been killed. I was still guilty according to police - go figure! The insurance paid. Mad!!

To add to my earlier post:

I read somewhere that the driver's family is not so poor. However the thought processes of each family member are developed within their surroundings which in this case are Thai and as such they will behave as Thais do. It is expected that when you are exposed for much of your life to people lying, cheating, bribery and corruption at every corner and integral to getting anything done then you will not develop a great respect for the law and will consider these things acceptable behaviour even if in your heart of hearts you know they are not good qualities or ways to behave. Not everyone will turn out to be a cheating lying corrupt person but it will certianly be an influence in the thought process. Hence my comments regarding the effect society has on the population mindset and why society has to change before we will see much change in the way people generally behave here. That an a proper education system - then force parental responsibilty big time. In the meantime no harm to begin with the introduction of some laws to encourage that responsibility

Intersting article but the law has to be in place before you can start handing out sentences to parents and whilst there might be some obtuse way of effecting a punishment on the parents it would be more nelightening for Thailand to pass a law specifically dealing with parent responsibility which I don't believe exists. Secondly, expecting a family to be responsible through education of its children is a tall order when there is no accountablilty in government or the law enforcement agencies. Thailand is so corrupt that until this is dealt with and accountability and transparency expected and demonstrated to the public by its elected representative and civil service / law enforcement agencies and court system then I fear this is too much to expect of parents most of whom are really quite uneducated. So where does the role model for the family come from?

Intersting. I did my 90 report in Bangkok about two weeks ago and they told me that there is no leeway if you report late. Also told me I could not change my retirement visa to the type where you are supporting children even though both are Non-O visas. Also told me that the papers I received from the court giving me joint custody were not valid to support a claim for the supporting the family visa and I needed 'more writing' on the court documents. I asked what else they wanted added and the lady replied 'more writing'. I said I don;t think I would far with the court without being more specific and she said 'You don't understand'. I said 'You are right I don't understand but never mind, I will do what I can'. I will go to a different office. I went with my 2 year old (one of three kids).

I was also advised in order to get the family visa I would need to exit Thailand without a re-entry stamp to cancel my Retirement Visa and then re-enter on a 15 day visa, make the application and they would see if they would grant a new visa which would take a month. I said well if I only have a fifteen day visa the other visa would not be ready until the tourist visa expires and that doing that might affect a later application for residency. I didn't get an answer except - well it's not my responsibility - it would be another officer dealing with that.

It reminded me of the UK where you are sent from pillar to post with rather unhelpful officials. Anyway I got my 90 day reporting done so it was not a complete waste of a day.

Was the failure premeditated or incompetence?

Looks more like lack of clear laws, regulations and jurisprudence. Lots of countries had to work ages on it to get it in a decent shape

Well if the correct procedure was not followed then the court was right to follow the law and throw the case out. The same thing happens in the UK and I would imagine in most other countries with a developed legal system. However the legal system in Thailand could do with some improvement. The lack of legal precedent is one thing that should be addressed - since in Thailand I understand that a decision by a higher court need not be considered in a similar case in a lower court with similar circumstances. Obviously every case rests on its particular details but a claimant or defendant is basically left to the whim of the judge presiding over his case even where a clear precedent has been set by a higher court. This is how I understand things and it begs corruption and bribery.

It seems sometimes the law is designed to facilitate bribery and corruption rather than prevent it which is a very dangerous thing in a country so throughly corrupt at all levels as is Thailand. I also thing the Thai language is generally somewhat vague and unspecific and I would imagine this tendency follows through in the way the laws are written to some extent at least. That leaves a lot of wiggle room.

I am looking to refurbish the bathroom in my Bangkok condominium. Basically I need the existing sanitaryware & tiling removed and new tiling and sanitaryware fitted. It is a pretty small job but does anyone know of someone suitable as the condominium builder wants too much for the job - I think paying a big commission to the condo management staff who are recommending him.

Please PM me with contact details if you happen to know someone suitable. Thanks

There was an article, I think the bangkok post, written by a thai which compared the thai mentality to that of an ostrich. Standing tall when things are ok, running the other way, head in the sand when things go wrong.

Yes I have seen that many times. Rather than confront a mistake it is common for Thais to avoid it, stop thinking about it and hoping it will all go away. Of course it doesn't and just gets worse.

Much like borrowing money from a money lender, being unable to pay the interest and running away until the asset is seized losing most of the value of the asset once held as the money lenders will only lend about 30% of value in the first place. Borrow 30% and lose 70% rather than confront the issue, realize one has been really stupid and selling something quick to get the loan repaid. That is one example of how how face creates a problem here.

If you know where McDonalds at Robinsons shoppingcenter are. Then drive to Phuket Immigration.

You had to go through a intersection with traffic-lights and turn left, then on your left side just 100 meter from this intersection you see a shop selling a lot of helmets. Stop and buy the one you like of boxes for your motorbike.

Thanks for that - I went in there but they only seemed to be selling helmets and when asked about boxes they did not seem to sell them. Lots of helmets though if you are after one of those.

So a start to stop this infantile behaviour would be for the government to come up with a sensibly thought out law. Given the lack of social responsibility amongst the vast majority of the population it makes sense to make efforts to stop the very poor from gambling their wages away instead of looking after their family. However a blanket ban on gambling is not the way forward since it just drives everything underground and in any case those that want to gamble don't give two hoots for the law since either they perceive it as a stupid law or just plain do what they want anyway (a typical Thai trait masked by social customs). If the rule of law is to gain any headway one first has to make sure the laws are sensible and at least in some part fair. Thailand is not alone in the stupidity of the people making the laws, I think we could all come up with a host of stupid laws from elsewhere in the world - the EU is famous for them such as designating a size for what could be called a banana for sale I seem to recall, and the UK for its host of absolutely daft laws - the swathe of health and safety laws being high of the list. It strikes me some brainbox has a good idea which is then taken over by idiots and do gooders to turn into a law to make everyone's life more complicated and line the pockets of those in the know.

Why are these people so egotistical, selfish and ignorant - hmm why do I feel like I am describing a common trait for Thais rather than just the people involved here? Something seriously has to be done to address the wide range of issues affecting the visitor here - the people here have become far and away too complacent but sadly I think do not possess the brain power to see what they are doing to themselves.

Guys thanks a lot. I'm off for a ride around Phuket Town.

Now I need a rubber mat thick enough to protect a wooden floor from darts - any ideas on that?

Thanks for that info.

For the GPS I saw somewhere advertised a setup which basically uses a sim within a GPS box. You could either set the thing to report every x hours or leave it off and SMS a command to the sim to capture the data. Obviously if using it to send every x hours the cost would be substantial in terms of SMS costs. I think I read it could be used with a pre-paid sim card. Actually I intended it to be used in my cars not the bike though it might not be a half bad idea the rate things are getting stolen here in Phuket these days.

Will follow links posted but it's crazy there would be no suppliers in Phuket.

As for bike box - thanks for idea but was rather hoping someone might have an address as I am not that familiar with Phuket Town and knowing me will be driving round all day without success. I have trouble locating my socks in the morning never mind anything else

Hi everyone

Sometimes it's hard to find things you want or need in Phuket because the directories aren't good enough and local knowledge is missing.

I am looking for:

A place that makes boxes to fit on the back of a motorcycle such as they have on the backs of KFC & Pizza delivery bikes.

A place that sells a GPS tracking device to report a vehicle's position on query - the ones I have seen on the internet use a box fitted with a regular phone sim that sends back the position according to how it is set up or on the box receiving a command via your own mobile phone.

Anyone any ideas please?

Anyone tried the Look Thai Dee restaurant in Soi Nam Tok Kathu yet? It's a family style restaurant with a children's play area and outside and inside dining areas. Worth a try?