trainman34014

Ask them at Immigration which form to fill in, pay 1,900 Baht, passport with signed copy and wait. I think that's it....but I'm sure someone has a very recent experience and will be along shortly.

PC presumably stands for 'Pretty Crappy' !

They aint gonna like US prisons !

The plan is for the kids to get what's left anyway. So I'd see them through to adulthood and then bugger off to some cave in Tibet.

What's wrong with the caves at Chiang Dao ?

One more thing I just thought of. If you are on a non-o marriage visa, and your wife dies, would you have to leave the country and return on a entry stamp. Then apply for a dependant visa, using your son?

Not sure, however if you have a retirement visa, that this is neccersary.

The OP is 68 years old.

If he is presently on an non immigrant O visa on the grounds of married to a Thai, than all he has to do is change his status to retirement within 7 days after his wife`s death at the Immigration department, providing he has the funds and meets the retirement requirements of the Immigration department.

From a strictly legal point of view this is correct. However; I know someone who suffered the loss of his wife which effectively cancelled his marriage extension, but he didn't know the correct procedure and on the normal annual expiry date he simply changed over to a Retirement Visa. Nobody asked any questions because nobody at Immigration knew anything. He owned up to what had happened but they smiled and said they were sorry for his loss and just continued with his new visa. Compassion does exist in Thailand.

The questions should be, how many of you can actually afford to have mistresses or illicit affairs in Thailand, other than going short time on the commercial sex scene?

This practice of having a partner or a bit on the side was probably not unusual 20 or so years ago, but these days the fairer sex is one of the most expensive commodities in Thailand and the luxury of being able to afford more than one partner is not going to be possible for the majority of us.

For these reasons I very much doubt if Mia Nos or sometimes described as second wives are all that common these days, whether the official wife knows about it or not.

Dream on, baby.

My misses is still trying to get me to marry her sister (and we will all live together).

And I'm not loaded.

Go for it. They obviously think you are all loaded up in the right area's !!

I have thai friends who have very long outstanding debts, they do not care.

when the debt collectors call they simply hang up, change there number and relocate, they say the companies dont really care and only call once or twice a year, so most times they dont even bother changing the number.

Sounds like life on the run !

I like a pretty face.

So do I...providing it's on a woman !

In the villages around me there are plenty of new cars and motorcycles parked outside of dilapidated wooden or tin shack style houses, so one is bound to be surprised that the people who live in such homes can afford them. However; although it may look like the arse is hanging out of their trousers a lot of them own substantial chunks of Land/Paddy's etc and the banks loan them the money for all their worldly desires on the strength of said land. Even the tin shack is sitting on ,quite often, a fairly large area and although they appear to have no wish to build a new house of buy a tin of paint they still want all the gadgetry they see the Hi so's using in the Soaps. One can only guess what the bill comes to for credit in any one village but we are talking huge amounts.

In one recent case I know of a couple of Thai's bought a 3.5 million home in a Moobahn with a Bank Mortgage. Not satisfied with the original design out front they got some further builders in right away to build very ornate structures right across the front of their patch using Stainless Steel and good quality Hardwood etc etc and it must have cost a packet. Next thing a new Honda appeared followed by a giant Merit party with a live band and enough booze to sink the Titanic all over again. Three weeks later a big 'For Sale' sign appeared quoting phone numbers for Thai and English speakers, so I asked the neighbour what was going on. She replied ''Huh; big house, big car, big party, big face, BIG DEBT '' ! I was told in the nine months that they had 'owned' the house not one Satang had been paid off of any of the debt and the Bank had now told them they had better sell the house or it would be taken off them. The Honda has already vanished.

When I was a kid we stuck Lead Soldiers up our nose instead of Cocaine !

The head of the Thai paint industry is blustering back "there should be tighter controls on the raw materials that are imported." Well who but him is in charge of that? What a preposterous response from an industry leader. He wants "them" to clamp down on the raw materials his industry members import and use in their production. What an ass backward way to think about an imminent problem for kindergarden age children in Thai schools. He really cares about the children sidestepping the problem.

The usual response blaming Foreigners. Can't be Thailand's fault as everyone and everything here is perfect, right?

My motto: "If it ain't a Boeing, I'm not goeing!"

Check the statistics a little closer and I think you will find there are far more prangs with Boeing's than there are with Airbus's. But hey; I have a relative who was a senior Airframe Engineer with BA for more than 20 years. He wouldn't fly at all and when asked why, he would only say, ''if you knew what I know, you wouldn't fly either''. Now that's quite something from a bloke who could have quite a few free tickets to anywhere each year. Did I heed his words? Nah; I'll take my chances and die when it's my turn.

My Wife was a Midwife at State Hospitals for 25 years before retirement. They have to do the 25 years minimum to obtain their 10,000 baht per month pension. They work them like slaves with many a double and triple shift, unkind working conditions, quite often no breaks for many hours, and of course, lousy salaries. They get a maximum 10 days leave a year and if they don't say they are going away then the Hospital will call them and ask them to return to work as they are short handed. No days off in lieu will be offered later. Basically they have a work, eat and sleep life with time for little else, that's why there are large numbers of 40 something Nurses that remain unmarried. In my Wifes former Hospital there are large numbers of Nurses who have never even been on a holiday outside of Chiang Mai, and those that have normally travel on arranged tours with their workmates, so as my wife put it, it's kind of work away from work, as you are not meeting anyone you don't already know from the daily grind.

Meanwhile; the Hospital management are having a great time doing next to nothing apart from appearing at sporadic interludes when they are not running their 'on the side' business's. Many of said management don't even appear at their desks in their Airconned offices for days on end whilst the Nurses put up with the stifling heat of Un-Airconned Common rooms. Only the wards where the babies are have Aircon, the Mothers live with the heat for most of the day as the Nurses do.

Another problem is the number of Admin' staff. There are offices galore all around Hospital complex's and dozens of 'civil servants' doing very little occupy them. Many of them will be seen walking around with one piece of paper, in many cases going nowhere, other than to stem boredom of find someone to have a chat with. Nurses complain bitterly about these armies of useless jobsworths being paid more than them whilst doing far less work of any use to anyone. To make matters worse, should a Nurse need assistance of some sort and actually require these people to do something they are met with derision and downright hostility in some situations. The attitude is ''how dare you come in here and expect us to do any work which may involve the use of a brain''.

I know the medical services in the countries we come from are not perfect but at least medical staff have decent working conditions, plenty of vacation time and are fairly well paid. Yes; this is Thailand and this is just another example of how ordinary working folk are trampled underfoot on a daily basis by their own succeeding Government's, no matter what colour flag they fly. Maybe the Nurses will be the first people to stand up for themselves, and I hope a good many others follow as Thailand has a long way to go before it can ever call itself 'Developed'.

Things could get worse if he doesn't pay up for the other guys car or the restaurant damage. Upon leaving the Hospital after his 'repairs' he could find himself re-admitted with some worse injuries. I would think the best thing he could do is go to the BIB and let them 'negotiate' a settlement with all concerned. That way they get their slice and everyone is happy.

This is all very well, but do they have the 'Kiss me quick' hats and the Candy Floss?

Maybe it's just me but things don't seem as bad as Magpuy seems to think they are. Perhaps I don't see a lot of these burned out drunkards who can't afford to be ill lining up at Hospitals, or queues of grumpy old men at Consulates waiting to lie about their personal data. I do see a few very scruffy looking dropouts who only appear to own the clothes they are standing up in but hey; I can see that if I go back to my Mother country. I have a wide circle of ex-pat pals who are all retired and they have all come here well equipped for possible disasters. At the end of the day, if people come here and can't hack it for personal or financial reasons they always have the option of going back and living on state handouts in their own country, not that any of that is my business, for who am I to tell anyone where or how they can live.

With the driving habits of most Thai's, I think it would make sense to market both right and left hand drive cars and let them choose which side they want to drive on. After all; they do that most of the time no matter which side the steering wheel is fitted !

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I visited the graves of two relatives of mine who are buried at Kanchanaburi the first year i lived here; there is also another buried at the Burmese end of the line as well but I haven't visited as yet. The young generations of Brit's know so little of the price their forefathers paid for the freedoms they enjoy today and I always make a point of passing on my knowledge of what happened to my Children and Grandchildren. These men should never be forgotten.

In my opinion they lived here without me and survived and now that i am here it does not mean that i am their meal ticket. If you start giving more and more is expected. When I arrived here they tried loaning money for stupid things. I refused and now our relation is good and they don't ask.

They live in a normal Thai house nothing luxurious but are not dirt poor either. I would help out when there are real problems, but i'm not a cash cow. I don't see their other children contributing more as us.

Its a personal choice but if you want to be the one responsible for their welfare please do so. Some girls will only be with you for the money then. Its IMHO bad enough to pay your wife a "salary" but if your also paying everything for the outlaws............

Of course not every situation is the same, if give you an usefrunct (not sure about the spelling) for their land and you build your house there and let them live there too is different again.

Good post.

My take is that if I had not married my wife, what would they have done then, and why should that option change just because I did marry her?

Still, it seems to be a given amongst Thai people that farangs will give endless amounts of money to their Thai families. My wife is always telling me about how people at her work are asking why she is still working, given that she married a farang, and why I haven't built her a house, bought a car etc.

I don't care about them so much, but get annoyed that my SIL also thinks that I should be handing over the loot to them, and it's even made it difficult at times with my wife.

Just as well I made it clear BEFORE we got married, that no one else was getting any largesse, or it might be really difficult now.

However, I'd have no objection to the MIL coming to live with us if it meant that we don't have to move back to the village ( shudder ).

I think there are many Farang married, or involved with Thai women that don't understand the peer pressure they get from co-workers, friends,family etc who are constantly asking them about how much money/land/property/gold etc they are getting from said Farang. It got so bad for my Wife that I got her to retire at just 45 to get away from a lot of it. Can be a horrendous pressure for them especially in the workplace. A lot of the women are too scared or embarrassed to discuss this with their partners and it can lead to many problems in the relationship. Being 'Miafarang' is not all cake and honey for them.

I doubt that whatever tax increase they could apply would reduce sales by 50%. The seriously addicted smokers would continue to buy even if you dumped a much larger levy on their drug. Of course, any reduction in smokers is good for the health services and all the rest of us in general, but I don't think you can stop people from killing themselves however they choose to.

Personally. I would call this a very fortunate epidemic. Too many women here unfortunately have very little in the way of Boobs so if they do have something to flaunt, then why not?

The 'Where can I get proper Fish&Chips' Brigade, closely followed by the ' Where can I get Under arm deoderant' Brigade.