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OldAsiaHand
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Posts posted by OldAsiaHand
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Jamman,
I for one enjoyed reading your thoughtful and interesting observations wrapped up in quite a reasonable piece of prose. I also think they have considerable merit.
That they were almost instantly attacked as 'cultural generalizations' is, alas, typical of this board. Any general observations made by someone that could possibly be construed as negative inevitably draw that sort of response. Make some general observations that praise our native hosts without reservation, however, and you're just another sensitive and perceptive brother. Good Lord, when are these folks going to develop even some slight sense of irony?
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Hello and respect to everyone seeing me. )
www.fccthai.com
Decent bar, and good way to meet press people, both Thai and foreign. Open to non-members, although there may be an admittance fee on certain nights.
No offense to the previous poster, but the people at the Foreign Corresponsent's Club are anything but the best and the brightest around here. Once it was a pretty good group, but no longer. These days the FCCT is strictly the left overs: the wannabe's and the neverwere's.
The original poster would be better off making his contacts directly, either through the English language daily papers (the Post or the Nation), some of the English language magazines (Metro or Tattler), or even with one of the better known English language novelists (Leather or Needham).
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......would be awesome if I didn't have to work here to live.
.....as would a great many other places, too.
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KTB was frequently a problem some years ago (they did indeed play games with holding the credit as long as possible and playing the rate), but now their international service is as good (or bad) as any other Thai bank. We've sent funds from the US into KTB many times over the past few years and have always found the exchange rate to be fair and the credit to be applied promptly.
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Agreed. And the Marriott is by far the best of that lot, also generally the least expensive.
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Yep, we have travelled to BKK many times on business and leisure. So am aware of the sights, smells and sounds.
More interested in what its like for the family in BKK. ie raising kids?
Sounds quite negative from the previous posts. I'm sure there must be positive aspects. We have some friends here who lived with kids in BKK before moving to SG and raved about it.
...I have 6 colleagues in my office with school age kids, average time here is probably 5 years and they all love it...
I have quite a different point of view on that. We have school-aged children and think this is unquestionably one of the worst cities in the world in which to raise children. There's simply nothing for children to do and no place for them to go. Worse, Thailand is a place that has little interest in or respect for education. If you're thinking of your children, stay in Singapore.
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The prior poster pretty much has it right. You're moving from the first world to the third. Thais can be quite warm, but in matters of daily life they are generally both dumb and slow. In spite of that, or perhaps because of it, life in the third world can indeed occasionally be fun; but more often it is both irritating and frustrating. Be prepared for that or you will be bery unhappy here.
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Brunos is a top class restaurant with top class food and wine.....
Only if you've been in Pattya way too long. Brunos wouldn't even make the top ten list in, say, Fresno.
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.... you can feel how up and coming/cosmopolitan Bangkok is really becoming.
Maybe it's a little better in some ways now than it was fifteen years ago when I first started living here, but not really very much.
The plain fact is that Bangkok just isn't a very sophisticated city and that's one of the reason it attracts the kind of foreigners it does. The most common complaint among well educated and accomplished expats here is the extent to which they feel isolated; and consequently a lot of people who say they live here really use Bangkok as a base from which it is easy (and relatively cheap) to travel to other places.
If you are happiest in London or New York, Bangkok will very quickly get old; but if Manchester or Dallas might be more your kind of place, maybe it won't.
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If you are talking about an extension of stay of the one year type from immigration that has to be done in Thailand. If the problem is in the future they may be able to do early if you ask and provide proof of reasons.
I tried that once and they told me that, regardless of the reasons, it could be done no sooner than 30 days before expiration.
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We had a similar problem. 'No can, no can,' we heard over and over. Then, a miracle occurred. My wife laid a few thousand baht into some senior hands at the District Office and all we heard after that was, 'Can! Can!'
Welcome to Thailand.....
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I have shipped things from LOS back to the U.S. via FedEx and regular mail and never had a problem. The last thing I shipped was a suitcase via FedEx. In it I had clothes (some copy items).....
I had a different experience. My wife did the same thing, but US Customs in Alaska (where FedEx clears its shipments) siezed the suitcase. They claimed she had copied clothing in it. She didn't. The clothes were all genuine and I had the (huge) American Express bills to prove it.
Customs couldn't have cared less. Finally, after a huge uproad, they agreed to return her clothes to Thailand rather than destroy them as they had been threatening. I offered to send the receipts, but FedEx said it wasn't their problem and did nothing.
It's really just the luck of the draw, but you can draw a bad card. Be careful.
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Change the address to that of a trusted friend/relative and
have them bulk it up, and send on by a secure method.
But be cautious. I had a batch of mail send by FedEx last year and I was charged duty on it. Yep, FedEx said customs wanted B2200 to release my forwarded mail and they told me to take it or leave it. They're such helpful folks at FedEx. I wonder what they do with themselves when they aren't pimping bribes for customs?
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Thanks so far...
And how about all these Thai daytraders (?) spending their days at the offices of their brokers in front of monitors and tickerboards. No doubt you've seen this on TV. Are they closer to the "news"?
My own view is that foreigners have no real chance of making money on SET short swings, other than with the intervention of a good deal of dumb luck and that's not much of an investment plan.
On the other hand, we often make good money on the SET by taking a longer view and buying a broad selection of stocks (or one of the many foreign equity funds) to ride through one of the longer cycles the SET throws up with some frequency. I's a good market for the timers to work.
There have been a half dozen opportunities in the past several years to enjoy an up cycle of 20%-75%. Of course, there have also been opportunities to enjoy down cycles of about the same amount but, if you're going to be a market timer, you've got to get it right.
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The longer anything takes, the more opportunities arise for people to get paid. QED.
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New York City.
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well, as it turns out. he told me that if you don't own the property for more than 5 years, you can't keep any of the profits you make on the property. you have to give it ALL to the thai government.
not only did he have to give ALL his profits to the thai government. he also had to pay some fees amounting to 65k baht to process the money he paid to the government. ..which is why he lost money on the deal.
I don't know if his story is true. but I would definitely check up on it for those of you who are thinking of speculating on property here in thailand.
As far as I am aware, if you sell within five years you get hit for a 3.3% Special Business Tax on the Sale Price. After five years I believe it is 0.5%.
I am not trying to shoot the messenger, but the claim the guy made to you that the government takes ALL the profits is just another load of Bar Room bull in my view.
Actually, it's not bullshit.
You forgot about capital gains tax, which is a very tricky animal here in Thailand with respect to property sales. The capital gains calculation has nothing at all to do with gain, oddly enough, at least in the normally accepted commerical use of the term. The capital gains tax is calculated on the gross proceeds of the sale. You are allowed an allowance to reduce the proceeds, but the longer you have owned the property, the smaller the allowance is. In other words, it is quite possible that someone would be forced to pay considerable capital gains taxes on sale of a property when he had in fact lost money on the deal. Strange,but true.
Of course, it's not a problem for any Thai 'of rank' who sells property. For them the matter is customarily handled...uh, 'by negotiation.' Foreigners have a much more difficult time doing that.
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The best International school for your kids in Bangkok is ISB but u must to pay 400-500k per years and locate in Nonburi area. For the oldest international school in Bangkok has branch in Bangkapi-Romklow area(10 min from the new airport and 45 min far from chonburi)
Many choices for you but the 1st thing should to look at the safety place for your kids and close to their school because we are adult we can ride o car and know how go easily.
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If you are looking at ISB, there is typically a waiting list...
Frankly, it depends on your nationality. ISB is an international school and sees its primary role to be one of serving the international commmunity here. There is a waiting list for Thai students, not -- on the whole -- for children of westerners who are on short-time assignments in Thailand.
You might want to have a look at http://www.isb.ac.th.
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It varys widely. Companies generally pay more, something like B12,000-B15,000 per month. Foreign individuals pay less. B10,000-B12,000 would be pertty normal. Thai individuals pay the least of all: B8,000-B10,000. There are many exceptions at both ends of the range, I'm sure, but these rates are reasonable generalizations. Incidentally, for these monthly salaries drivers work six day weeks and are available as you require them. Overtime is seldom paid except by companies.
How do we get to find these chauffeurs then? By advertising on the newspapers?
No. Hiring of household staff here is always done by word of mouth.
Frankly, getting a reliable driver (particularly one who speaks some English) is mostly a matter of having some good fortune. Your husband should put out the word at his company and you should put out the word with your neighbors. You tell everyone you know and everyone you meet that you are looking for a driver and, at some point, you will start to hear from people. A maid will have a husband who's looking for a job; a security guard will have a cousin who used to drive for a foreigner who went home; a girl who works in a restaurant will have a brother who just got out of the army.
That may all sound a little flaky, but that really is the way almost everything is done here. Forget everything you know now about methodical, sensible probelm solving or you will be very unhappy. The better your connections the easier it will be for you to live here, but believe me, even when your conections are gilt-edged, sometimes it's still a problem
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Many will disagree, but I believe building up a portfolio of assets is an important part of life, especially if you intend to have a comfortable retirement since it's not what you have earned but what you have saved that counts.
Yes, of course, but the problem is that property in Thailand isn't much of an asset. You can find people who claim to have made money buying it, of course, but this isn't the US or the UK. There is very little liquidity in the property markets. The 'annual increase in value' statistics you may hear are just utter rubbish put out by property developers and uncritically published by the Post of the Nation.
The cold truth, for the great average of foreigners who buy property here, is that you may never be able sell it again to anyone; and if you do, you will be lucky to get back what you paid for it. You may not believe that, westerners seldom do, but that really is the most common result here.
If you want a place to live, you will find that rents in Thailand are very cheap as an annnual percentage of purchase price, and renting carries no risk at all to your capital. If you want a good investment, find a nice diversified stock fund that incorporates a range of Asian markets. Neiter motivation is a good reason to buy property in Thailand.
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Bangkok ranked top city in Asia
AUSTRALIA: -- Bangkok has been ranked the top city in Asia by readers of Conde Nast Traveler, while Phuket won the 18th annual readers’ choice award as the top island in Asia.
--etravelblackboard.com 2005-10-25
Then my own guess would be that most of the voters must have never been more than 100k from home in their entire lives.
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Do you have any idea the rate for hiring a driver then?
It varys widely. Companies generally pay more, something like B12,000-B15,000 per month. Foreign individuals pay less. B10,000-B12,000 would be pertty normal. Thai individuals pay the least of all: B8,000-B10,000. There are many exceptions at both ends of the range, I'm sure, but these rates are reasonable generalizations. Incidentally, for these monthly salaries drivers work six day weeks and are available as you require them. Overtime is seldom paid except by companies.
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- some kinds of transport means to get around without car (cos I don't drive!!)
- a nearby international school
Those two requirements are going to be the biggest problems for you.
Firstly, other than taxis, there is no public transport that you would be comfortable with anywhere in this area other than the SkyTrain and the subway, both of which are in the Bangkok metro area only. The alternative, of course, is to hire a full-time driver, but it's frequently hard to find a reliable one and the cost of cars here is very, very high due to import duties. For your husband, driving from eastern Bangkok to Chonburi really isn't much of a problem (maybe an hour, depending on where his is going), and my immediate reaction is that you had better try to get close to either the subway or the Sky Train in Bangkok or you personally are going to have a very unhappy stay here.
Secondly, so-called 'international schools' vary wildly in quality and cost. Sometimes I think half the major families of Thailand are in the school business -- and, yes, it is big business here. At the top of the heap are ISB (International School of Bangkok) and Bangkok Pattaya, both of which are long-established, first rate, and very expensive (B500,000-B600,000 per year). From the area around either, Chonburi would be a relatively easy run, but both schools are far out on the edge of Bangkok and there is no access to either the SkyTrain or the subway from anywhere near them. Other than by car, they are unreachable.
Good luck. I really do think you're going to have to look at hiring a driver.
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For decades there was a book dealer here operating under the name of White Lotus Books. They moved several times and I lost track of them, but the owner -- German, as I recall -- was always 'the man' when it came to the sort of thing you are asking about. I'm sorry I don't a specific location for White Lotus anymore, but do try to track the place down. That's exactly the guy you need.
Dieter Ande
Telephone 038-239884
I saw him 2 weeks ago at the Book Fair. He's just moved from Sukhumvit 58 to a place just outside of Pattaya.
Thanks for that from me, too. But as for White Lotus now being in Pattaya, well.......
Journalist Topic
in Bangkok
Posted
Oh dear, here we go with the class warfare rubbish again. Look, the poster wanted to know how he ought to go about making press and other information contacts in Thailand and I suggested he contact some of the major publications directly rather than hang around the FCCT with the unemployables.
I'm sorry you two personally don't like the local English-language magazines, but a great many of them are well established and have made money conistently over a period many years. That seems noteable in view of your mutual conviction that these magazines don't appeal to most people, don't you think?
Gee, you don't figure there is a good possibility you have your heads stuck well up your little tushes while you are pushing your ode to the common folks garbage, do you? Nah. That couldn't be.