Jaggg88

Grow some lemon grass in pots and place them around your place. Mozzies can't stand the stuff. It's more natural and your wife can use it as well for cooking. I must be a mozzy as I can not stand the taste of lemon grass. Good luck and keep away from the chemicals as much as you can.

You get Citronella oil from Lemon Grass plants - they have a limited affect at repelling Mozzies but are better than nothing.

Open the light = turn the light on

If you are living in the UK and have concerns about the welfare of a minor I'm sure that there are many better equipped professional government agencies and resources there that are much more qualified than TV to deal with them. The issues are many and varied. Your "adopted" twin sons, their cultural adaptation, your ex-wife, her cultural changes and adapting to them, your marriage break up and underlying issues, your young daughter, her possible anxious attitude of trying to make sense of an adult world where, the two people she loves, her parents not living together and she is trying to make sense of the adolecent behaviour of her step brothers, also the cross cultural issues everyone involved are dealing with. There are also your own issues that need dealing with, whether you recognise them or not. These are just off the cuff examples, some may apply, some may not, many others still unmentioned.

Please, seek out some professional service, normally a good GP is the first port of call, not for total treatment, but for a reference to further help. Best of luck to all of you.

If you are in the UK there is a designated Child Protection Officer at every school so contact your daughter's school for an appointment ASAP.

Don't do it.

She isn't a piece of meat to be bought and sold.

No need for marriage, just live together.

I totally agree.

We do just live together, but she wants children very soon and says it would upset her mother very much so, to have children outside of marriage.

As she is clearly not following Thai tradition by living with you before marriage, you should be able bypass sin-sod too...

Unless of course your GF is cherry picking which parts of culture / tradition suit her / her families needs....

Unfortunately Thai women do indeed cherry pick their cultural traditions. I was informed a sin sod would have to be paid when I married but I pointed out as she had been married before no sin sod was required. A quick read of the book 'Thailand Fever' will give you a basic knowledge of Thai tradition.

Following proper Thai tradition you would court your wife with a chaperone and a trusted friend would negotiate a sin sod with her parents. The sin sod should only be paid if the girl is a virgin, never been married and has no children. Any girl outside this parameter has to accept a much reduced sin sod or none at all. However, in recent years a sin sod is paid by a rich farang so the family can show off to the relatives at the wedding and then return some or all of it to the groom. They are under no legal requirement to return the sin sod so if they change their mind you will be out of pocket. The same goes for the tradition engagement gold gift (khong man) .

Here's some legal advice:

http://usa.siam-legal.com/family-law/thai-dowry.php

Sunglasses as well. Should we outlaw sunglasses? What about long hair?

Are burkas illegal here then?

Here's what the legal experts say....

http://usa.siam-legal.com/family-law/thai-dowry.php

In the U.S., some crappy Thai and Vietnamese places that cater to non- Southeast Asians tend to avoid the fish sauce. Without the fish sauce, the flavor is TOTALLY WRONG. But there is such a thing as too much fish sauce, similar to too salty in any cuisine.

I realize some people just hate the flavor of fish sauce but it's vital in Thai cooking, so if you don't like fish sauce, you don't like real Thai food.

Fish sauce is extremely high in sodium. Absolutely and incredibly unhealthy. It should be avoided at all costs. Especially if you are older.

http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2010/04/08/2867126.htm

You need to avoid salt because it causes high blood pressure or hypertension, which the World Health Organization blames for 62 per cent of strokes and 49 per cent of coronary heart disease.

In fact, the amount of salt you eat is probably the most significant factor in raising your blood pressure, says Professor Bruce Neal, chair of the Australian Division of World Action on Salt and Health.

"It [high salt consumption] will increase your risk of anything associated with blood pressure. It will increase your risk of stroke, coronary heart disease, heart failure and chronic kidney disease – mostly vascular things," Neal says.

One tablespoon gives you 50% of your daily value for sodium. Unfortunately, the same can be said for soy sauce.

My wife doesn't cook for me with fish sauce. Nor sugar. There are healthy alternatives for both.

The fish sauce is used for flavour but makes the food bitter so they use palm sugar to balance the taste, and add to this a portion of processed white rice to give you a totally unhealthy meal.

My Thai wife has been exiting the UK with her UK passport and entering Thailand with her Thai passport for 10 yrs plus and has never had an issue. In fact she couldn't find her Thai passport one year and entered on her UK passport but the IO asked her why she didn't use a Thai passport as its easier. Advance passenger info for the flight booking is always the UK passport info.

She has also entered Thailand with an expired Thai passport without problems. The airline (Emirates) queried the expired Thai passport at check in (its produced to prove you don't require a visa for a 6 week stay) but came back and said it was OK.

However if EU citizens are stamped in and out of OZ then a sharp eyed IO may notice you traveled from OZ and query this. I traveled last year with a brand new blank passport from the UK but the landing card info said I traveled from Dubai (where I transited) - 30 day exempt issued without a blink.

Amazing that the hotel didn't take a valid credit card. Another note that this guy appears to be qualified to teach English to Thais.

"Hotel Staff attempted to clear his bill without success."

He might have presented a card at check in which they used when attempting to "clear" his bill. If you just present a card when checking in without an advanced booking, not sure they would always do more than check the expiry date and his name against some other ID.

When you present a card upon check in the hotel have the option to shadow funds on this card for the cost of your stay. If you leave without paying they can petition their merchanting company (card processor) for payment. Meanwhile the funds they shadowed on your account are not available for you to use.

Yeah right !. I believe, at last count, that makes "suspect " number 13 in 6 or 7 countries ! Soon the headlines will become scarcer, the police

announcements , ( accompanied by photo portraits of hundreds of the

police honchos ), will stop, and, over the years, no one will remember what

caused all the fuss !

Except for the victims and their families

Hello,

You'd be alright unless you should stop over anywhere they'll need your passport

to be good for at least 6 months before entering there on your way back home.

Good luck.

This is only a problem if you actually enter the country as apposed to transit through (changing flights)

Lambretta Thailand Club did a trip from BKK to Singapore and back earlier this year. They did a blog on FB and there's video footage on Youtube

If you don't want to go over the +- 6 teaspoons of sugar you should eat per day I think you should cut out the fruit and any low fat dairy products (fat is taken out of low fat products and replaced by sugar - in most cases). In many cases fruit juice and many commercial smoothies contains more sugar than fizzy drinks. Eat fruit and drink water = healthy

Spot on! Liquidizing fruit takes away the roughage and concentrates the sugar. Eat the whole fruit and drink water is the best dietary advice. World Health Organization has just halved the amount of advised sugar intake per day.

Asians have the highest incidence of diabetes in the world - even Thai diet coffee is full of sugar!!!

Windows 10 is great, but turn off all the hidden surveillance. Fast reliable10 Pro is better.

I've installed windows 10 on 3 different devices and they all work better than win 7. Tech News by Thaivisa had an article on how to turn off all the invasive sh*t. You get the upgrade that matches the win 7 or 8 version you already have installed. eg win 7 pro upgrades to win 10 pro etc.

What city is this taking place in?

Chiang Mae

Just tile it

Tiles get very hot!

If you buy quality German knives, then they're tough as can be, and don't need sharpening so much. If you buy locally then sharpening is something you do every second slice of bread it seems. I'm no expert though, it's just observation.

I have Japanese Global knives and they're the best I've ever used. They could do with re-edging now as my steel keeps them sharp but not as good as they were when new so maybe I'll bring them to Phuket - not in my hand luggage tho'

There are also floating rooms on the actual river

Wooden bridge - found it.

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/769263-mon-bridge-is-ready-to-open-saturday-with-grand-and-memorable-events/

Is that big wooden bridge rebuilt yet? I've never been, but sounds neat. And from what I've heard, a beautiful area. I guess you can stay on floating rooms in the lake??? Definitely worth an overnighter for that!

Yes the wooden bridge is rebuilt - there's a picture and story on TV somewhere. The girl at the front of the bridge is my friend who lives in Oxford - she had no idea she was was in the press photo.

If she is an Australian citizen she doesn't need a visa (or a passport) to enter Australia.

She does need to prove citizenship - the airline won't let her board without proof of citizenship. This is usually done with a valid or expired passport or an emergency travel document issued by the embassy.

Google :

"An Australian citizen cannot be granted a visa for Australia. "

Very clear it's not possible.

Patric

She is a Thai citizen, her aussie passport has expired. why pay for 2 passports for a short journey.

She's also an Australian citizen so cannot be issued with a visa. Its the same for returning/visiting Thai citizens with dual nationality - Thai immigration will not issue a visa. However, if you have an expired Australian passport that will prove citizenship for entry in to Australia. The airlines usually panic when you show them the expired passport but after checking they let you board. My Thai wife did this returning to Thailand for an extended holiday. The problem is I don't think you can leave with an expired passport - you need to check. My wife was told to renew hers before leaving.

Four pounds sounds cheap for an international transfer charge

£4 is the correct fee, and that is the lowest fee of any UK bank. My UK bank (Nationwide) charge £25.

Have just purchased Surface pro 3 i5 128GB, very fast, very mobile.very happy. But having trouble upgrading to windows 10, maybe thats a good thing.

Windows 8 was designed for touch screen devices and wasn't very good. However I've downloaded win 10 on 3 different devices and they all run faster with win 10. It took 2/3 hours for each one but I expect that will depend on your bandwidth. Win 10 appears to be an amalgamation of win 7 and win 8. Very impressed so far and it was free!

I bought my Surface Pro 3 last year (i7 fully loaded). Yes, a tad pricey, but it beats any other tablet hands down. Battery life is very good (don't watch movies). Mainly I just use it for internet access. What I really like is that it runs a real OS and therefor real programs, not just dumbed down apps. Anything you can do on your computer you can do on the SP3. It is definately a very capable laptop replacement. I have used it as such at times when my laptop is otherwise unavailable.

It has a full size USB3 port, so you can attach anything you want to it. For me the included pen is the icing on the cake. What I have hated most about the 'other' tablets was the total lack of precision when using touch. The MS pen solves that in spades. I should perhaps point out that I do NOT use the 'metro' interface, but use the desktop with Classic Shell. Here the pen shines.

The microSD slot will accept at least up to 128GB cards (that is what I have in mine). As it is really an SDXC slot it should be able to handle whatever the limits of SDXC is. Oddly enough, the specs I saw on the SP3 microSD card said it only supported up to 32GB. Probably a copy and paste error from an earlier SP version.

The microsoft virtual keyboard is a joke, in my opinion. I found a MUCH better FREE virtual keyboard here.

The android and apple tablets are dumbed down toys compared to the Surface Pro 3. I give the SP3 5 stars (out of 5) and a highly recommended.

Ah good point I forgot to mention the pen I didn't bring it with me to work so I have yet to explore what it can do. I also received a free docking station which I didn't try yet either.

One thing I know you can do with the stylus is draw on a PowerPoint presentation on the screen. I don't have a Surface, but a colleague does, and I was walking through a presentation with someone and needed to make a note of some edits to make later. So just figured I'd see what the pen would do and it wrote on the slides. Being able to just take the keyboard off and walk over and show something on the screen worked out very well.

Also, if you click the button on the stylus, it goes to a blank Onenote page and then you can start writing. Intended to be for quick notes. There's some option to switch which version of Onenote if you have both the desktop version and app version both installed. Saw that tip on Youtube and it does work.

With windows 10 loaded you can use edge (the new browser) and write on/make notes web pages. As previously stated - this is a very good business tool unlike other tablets that are just big toys.

1) In Spain the cultural fare is far more interesting: art, music, theatre, architecture, etc, etc are some of the best in the world, and far superior to the dummy arts that you find in Thailand.

2) You can have damn good conversations and fruitful discussions with Spaniards, things which are extremely rare in Thailand.

3) In Spain, many kinds of alcohol and especially wine are far cheaper and far easier to find than in Thailand.

Those are the three things that come immediately to mind. I'd move to Spain if I could afford it, but I can't.

If you avoid the obvious tourist spots then Spain is cheaper than Thailand. Meals out are more expensive but wine is far cheaper ( I get a very decent wine from the Bodega for about 1.20 euro / 45 bht) Many Spanish people think my Thai wife is Spanish and always speak to her in Spanish, much to my pleasure as she doesn't speak a word of their language. My wife is a British passport holder so we get all the benefits of EU citizenship. They do get cold weather in the winter - it was wet and only 4c when we were there in February but just a week later it was 23c. The infrastructure is first class (paid for by EU grants) trains, boats, buses, motorways/freeways and airports. The schools are also very good. I also feel much safer on a ferry in Spain than Thailand.

The bottom line for me though is that my wife wants to be near her family so Adiós España and Hola Tailandia.