Jaggg88

Mosquitoes need still water to lay eggs and breed. One way to stop them using stored water is to pour a little cooking oil on top which floats on the water and the mozzies can't land.

For country that is so dependant on tourism a strong Baht is not good news, The economies in USA, EU and UK are all in recession or at least very weak and have historically low interest rates so international investors are looking for a better returns - consequently money is pouring into Thailand and thus pushing up the exchange rate. This must make many government ministers feel quite proud but as they say, pride comes before a fall. This can only be a short term situation as the same investors will jump ship at the first sign of trouble. eg Thailand's overblown house price bubble bursting, people's individual debt becoming toxic as growth reduces and shrinking balance of trade ( strong Baht = more expensive exports and reduced value for money for tourists) to name but a few. So sit tight and we'll soon be back to 50+ Baht to the GBP or there will be a crash like '97 - but lets hope not because that won't help anyone.

Well the pound was at it's lowest in over a year Yesterday,hate to think what exchange rate they are offering in the uk 43,44?

Yes spot on - Tesco in the UK were offering 43 last Weds

If you want to start a family make sure you don't impregnate your wife before the settlement visa is activated ie she has actually arrived in UK - otherwise the pregnancy will not be covered by the NHS. When my wife fell pregnant she had to produce her visa and passport for checking with the hospital administrator and it was pure luck that the confinement date was 3 day after we arrived - PHEW! would have cost a fortune

here's my house in Nakhon Sawan

Does not look good, do you have insurance to cover the damages or does it not cover disasters like this?

yes we have insurance but don't know if it will cover this. It flooded a little last year but locals say they haven't seen flooding like this for more than 20 years.

Thanks for the help guys.

I looked on the Border Agency website and I can see where she got this exempt theory from as the listing of exempt ppl is badly worded. It says parents of uk citizen are exempt but doesnt say these parents must be dependant or have extreme emotional circumstances eg your recently widowed mother in law.

I'm getting conflicting info so can someone give me a definitive answer please. My wife is on a two year spouse visa which runs out next March. We have a son born here in the UK last August so when she applies for ILR next March does she need to have Knowledge of Language and life in the UK certificate or is she exempt being the mother of a UK citizen (our son)? I know she will have to do the KOL if she wants citizenship but we are just interested in ILR for now and dont want to do the KOL if she doesn't need to.

There's no hard and fast rule. Some officials say yes some say no. Coming back to Manchester in Jan this year I was told to join the Non EU line, even tho me and son both have UK passports.

Ban Nawai is even cheaper.

Not sure it qualifies as a city with 700 inhabitants.

You need to have a 711 to be an official 'City'

Looks i good idea the cash plus card just had a look at the fees

Looks like £3 for atm transactions plus 2.99 foreign exchange fee

I was looking at this site also http://escape-travel....com/index.html

Current rates and best buys

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money#prepaid

Since we can't really comment on the charge then, who is the falang looking guy in the background with all the badges on his shirt?

Is it Colonel Sanders?

My wife has just returned to Thailand and renewed her passport - it only had 2 months left. When you get back to the UK it would be wise to use your UK passport for entry so you will have to renew that as well. The airlines insist on 6 months remaining on your passport but this will not apply to a Thai national travelling to Thailand.

Good news for when I retire next year

Koh Samet by a long shot...! Apparently according to the guide books Koh Samet is supposed to be the driest place in Thailand because of it's micro climate, however it has recently over the past few years seen more rain than any other area in Thailand and also has a wicked cool breeze most nights.

I've just come back from a week in Koh Samet via Pattaya and can confirm Samet was much cooler!

Thank you everybody for showing how incompetent the government is in this country. Honestly, as much as I don't think Thaksin should come back, he would have the balls to do something about a situation like this. Unlike the current PM who sits in his office and gives empty threats of a crackdown. Maybe the reds are right. Abhisit has sure shown it the last few weeks that he's unfit to handle any critical situations. How can a government be in power that can't even maintain order in its nations capital.

I’m not disagreeing that the current government is showing incompetency, but that is not really the full reason to this ongoing dilemma. What Thai military, law enforcement, and government have in common is a passive nature that reflects on the entire nation. Thai’s are typical passive in manner and would go to extremes to avoid a physical confrontation. As a result, protesters are allowed to carry on, push the limits and press their luck to achieve their goal. Indeed a sterner government is needed to end this conflict.

If Thai's are so passive why are the Reds demonstrating so aggressively? What is needed is not a sterner government but a democratically elected one. An election in 3 months is the only way to avoid escalating violence or even civil war. The current government and yellow shirts have virtually no support outside BKK so it is Thailand verses BKK and civil war means we ALL lose!

What are the yellows??

Burr,

the Yellows are/were the crowd the Bangkok Bandits wheel out when they lose an election. Unlike the Reds, the army does not shoot them when they occupy an airport, etc.

Most of the farang posters here seem to be right-wing authoritarians who have not a clue about democracy. In a real democracy, ultimate political power is the will of the majority of people, as expressed at the ballot-box. It is not some elevated elite possessing unlimited money, troops, tanks, guns, & English-language newspapers.

I see one of the latter has dubbed the Red-supporting majority of Thailand as 'terrorists'. Nice one for all authoritarian anti-democrats. It's a simple 'law 'n order' situation, so bring on more firepower! Were Adolf Hitler & Joe Stalin alive, they would be cheering behind you.

By all means let the legal attrition against Ole Squarehead continue. Meantime, howsabout a free election, dudes?

Couldn't agree more. If we were back in our home free democratic countries we would be cheering on the protesters who basically want a free democratically elected government and not the military backed current Junta. The blatantly obvious propaganda I witness on state controlled TV is laughable if it were not so serious. The Red Shirts only failing is their misguided support for Thaskin, who did more for poor people than any other Thai Leader but unfortunately he lined his own pockets at the same time.

The agent we spoke to recommended that as we have only known each other for 9 months, we would be better gettng a tourist visa first, then when we applied for settlement visa, we will have lived together in Uk for 6 months and our case will be stronger. But obviously this means paying twice for everything including agents fees!

We really just want to be together here, and so want to be successful in whichever visa application we submit. Is it really so difficult to obtain a settlement visa?

I only knew my wife for 9 months before we applied for a settlement visa. The first one was refused because we didn't supply enough information to support a sustaining relationship. Like you we hadn't kept enough MSN logs (msn only keeps logs if you configure it to do so) or documents of my visits etc so with the next application we included statements from our respective families confirming our relationship plus anything else we could get think of (lots of pics). My advice is supply all the documents the website asks for and then at least double that amount of information. Quantity appears to impress the ECO more than quality. chok dee

Quote

Where she got flashed it was a temp speed limit from 50 to 30 due to roadworks on a 3 lane carriageway(no school or houses etc) just about a mile after the M3 and normally people are still doing motorway speeds and the junction you have to do a least 40MPH up a ramp from under a blind bridge to join and no markings until you were on the carriageway(i checked it out)and then the cameras are right in front of you.Nice money earner,over a Millionpound!!! Unquote

When she got the NIP (notice of intended prosecution) pity she didn't give an address in Thailand that could send it back to her in England. The "safety camera partnership" would probably have written to her address in Thailand and she could have replied that she was indeed driving at the time but wasn't aware of any offence caused. After that the matter would have been dropped. After all, what more could the SCP do?

Ah! I have to admit it was probably one of my colleagues risks assessments that set the speed limit on these road works. Gatso cameras do almost nothing to protect the work force (but did raise lots of revenue) as most drivers slow down for the camera and then speed up - that is why we now use average speed cameras.

My cousin is a USA citizen and visited a number of years ago where she hired a car using her USA licence and subsequently was flashed by a Gatso speed camera. As she had used my address for the hire company they sent all the letters to my address which I forwarded on to USA. She was asked to pay the statutory fine and warned about her driving when next in the UK. If she should wish to apply for UK citizenship a CRB check or even a DVLA check would not show this incident. Indeed even the National Audit office would have difficulty tracing this transaction.

Anyone now how I can get the "Certification that the applicant has no criminal record in his or her overseas domicile", I'm originally from Canada but have lived in Thailand since 1994, haven't been back to Canada since 1995.

Appreciate if someone knows of a way to get this in the shortest period of time, I would like to apply under the spouse category, I have over 10 years continual stay uninterrupted, but I don't have the above certificate.

Thanks in advance for all that reply.

I am from the UK. I wrote to the central police department (found it on the web) and they wrote back saying they are not allowed to say if someone has a criminal record. They did write that to the best of their knowledge I did NOT have a criminal record and local immigration accepted that.

In the UK under the Data Protection Act everyone is entitled to a copy of their criminal record or proof the isn't one. I did this a couple of years ago and it cost £40 plus I had to send ID to the local police HQ in Manchester where I live. No doubt the current government has increased the fee since then.

Does anyone know the nearest imm offfice to Nakhonsawan?

It's been a while since I posted so here is a brief summary of my situation. Applied for settlement visa in April and I came back to the UK in May. My wife got refused (accomodation and my work). Got about 70 pages of evidence together and Appealed. Got a letter in September from Asylum and Immigration Tribunal in England saying 'Appeal was lodged on 17th August 2009, The Tribunal directs that you (the ECO) to send all the evidence of application etc back to the UK by December 7th.

As it's now the 1st of December I thought I would ring the embassy to see what was happening. The woman told me that the evidence had already been sent back to the UK and that it still hadn't been reviewed locally, the review should be done by the 20th December.. I then phoned the Tribunal office in the UK and they told me that they hadn't received the bundle yet, but it was common practice to sometimes send the bundle back to the UK before it had been reviewed....

Anyway, the 'December 7th' date which I have been clinging onto as a last hope seems to be meaningless... So do I sit and wait until the 20th and call the embassy again? Do I book a flight back to Thailand and spend Christmas, January and February with my wife in Thailand (assumming the application isn't overturned) and wait to hear when the UK tribunal date is before deciding whether to start a new application? Or do I freeze my arse off in the UK knowing that the visa will eventually be granted and everything will be ok?

I'm so sick of waiting and not being able to plan anything. It's been going on since April... and I feel like I'm going mad..

My GF's application was refused in August and somebody at the Embassy convinced her it would be better to apply again rather than appeal as this would be quicker. I jumped up and down screaming they just wanted more money from me but she convinced me otherwise. We re-applied on 27th October and it was granted in two weeks. I suspect re-applications are just checked on the area you fail. A more expensive option than appealing but am glad she talked me into it as we are now settled in the UK and planning our wedding in January. We both wish you the best of luck with your appeal Ridgydidge.

<font color='#000000'>Thanks for that, it does work for free on a 56k dial up.

Now then, have you got another one for bbc1, bbc2, itv ??</font>

Try this one and let meknow

http://www.timezonetv.com/

I'm over in the UK now so the misses will be travelling alone. Fingers crossed she doesn't get lost!

Not sure where your TW is transiting through (if at all) but when my TW came through Doha she got a bit caught out. She can read english at a slowish speed but the departure boards switch between English and Arabic so quickly even I have trouble catching it. I'd advised her (it was a quick transit) to find someone friendly on the first leg who was going on to Manchester and follow them! Which is what she did and arrived safely. only to have a bit of an inquisition at Manchester airport (as mentioned in an earlier post)

shame shes coming for winter not summer (I made sure my wife came for summer didn't want to scare her back!)

Good luck with your future life,

Regards,

Exotic Matter

My wife insisted on a direct flight for just that reason. She's still concerned that she will get lost on Heathrow but I've assured her that it's just a case of getting off the plane and following the crowd.

I agree, summer time would have been a better time to come and if we'd got the visa when we first applied that would be the case. Ho hum, at least she's coming!

My GF is in the UK now and she also wanted a direct flight so I flew her into LHR - £376 was the best price I could get. The drive from Manchester was a small price to pay after the previous stressful 7 months. I was also reliably informed the Border Agency staff aren't as petty as in Manchester and am glad to say she sailed through. I know how you are all feeling but just stick with it as it's worth it in the end. Good luck to everyone applying from Ian and Chotika.

PS My heatings also on full blast and she's still got two coats on.

Got the visa!!!!!

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Total of 8 months since we started this and I'm glad it's over. Best of luck to everyone who is waiting, at least the waiting times are coming back down to a rational level.

Off to get very drunk.. Strongbow here we go!

Congrats Fluidfusion......It took us 7 months...but now feels like we won the lottery..lol