crazygreg44

The " this is a troll brigade " !!!

As long as the security in front of Central and Paragon salute me, krap!, when I enter wearing jeans, sweated-through shabby shirt and sandals, sporting my tattooed arms and smirking back with a "lazy" attitude . . . . they can kick me out of any shop inside the mall if they like, coz I won't enter any of them. I simply just love to walk around, enjoy the scenery and buy absolutely nothing.

the " my Thai wife has never worked in a bar " brigade . . . .

I agree, it surprises me, too, that there are no more accidents. Given the sheer number of motosais that swerve and cruise around in neglect of simple traffic rules, it is truly "amazing Thailand" ! I once concluded that if they had the same traffic conditions in Germany, the road toll would be triple that of the Thai road toll. Taken into account, of course, you can adept to everything, and the Thais between themselves have all got used to their fellow road-ragers to act like they do - and everyone has simply adjusted to it. The issue with the Schools-out hours , you only see so many kidsaround for exactly this time, never many before or after this. The police takes it for granted the kids have to get back home safe and sober, no matter how. A Thai drivers license has absolutely no effect on driving lessons or skills - it is just a piece of paper, that's why the coppers don't enforce it.

Some posters mention India - my buddy once used to say, " in Thailand you must not only look into the direction where the traffic comes from when you enter the road, but reckon there might be someone going the opposite way down the road - so always look both ways, left AND right ! However for India, you must include looking upward for any drivers falling from the skies ! " This says it all about who might be world's masters of the chaos traffic universe !

In my opinion lot of european drivers are much worse drivers - they do stupid, abrupt maneuvers which lead to accidents. In Thailand, car drivers use to join the traffic in slow-motion, never in a quick move. I love the time lapse they give me in calculating their next move by 100%. Some western drivers are hard to be figured out what they will do next. Thai's seem to have their very own logic, and when you are fit enough to adept, you will LOVE driving here.

Of course I have had my large share of idiots on motorcycles . . . matter of fact I have an eye for them, the foot ready over the brake, and always expect the worst to happen. Power of Presumption has saved hundreds of motosai drivers from being run over by me in the recent years. I am mostly weary for those who don't have any rear view mirrors on their bikes. Also, kids on bikes always get to hear my horn and I pass them with a lot of space between us. Dogs get my horn as well. Motorbike riders not looking when they enter the road are a rule here, I am alright with that, since I see them first at almost all times and can put space between them and my car. Also, that's what the motorcycle track in the left curb is for - it is not meant for cars, it is meant for bikes to join the traffic without having to look first. So why complain, this is Thailand and it's supposed to be like that.

I think going through a red light is normal here . .ever watched what happens when the lights turn green - the first few in the junction tend to be a bit more weary - people who have been driving for some time KNOW there is a chance of someone running the red light. Only inexperienced and drunk are careless.

My five cents - drive defensively. Look ahead of yours. Ride safe, sober always.

you don't like it there, why don't you move ?

People are what they are. In Pattaya, Thai people fight for their share of the cake, and it means hard hard fighting. Maybe you are a farang who owns a large stash of money in backhand, so it is easy for you to complain.

in Pattaya, all these guys who live here, are too lazy to discover the living quality of the Thai province. Matter of fact, in Pattaya you get everything that does not stand for the "real" Thailand. Your impressions of people in Patters are correct, but please don't automatically imply them to the rest of the country

The funniest Wai I ever saw was this Farang, when he entered the room he bent over like Groucho Marx criss-cruising the room, and held the wai-ing hands in front of himself, about hip-high. Then while still walking nodded his head to everybody, clasped hands in up-and-down motion.

Why Groucho Marx came into my mind ? Guess he would have waied like this if it was part of his show . . . .

maybe a liter or two of boiling water down the drains every day, for a week, will solve the problem? Just an idea . . . .

What makes you think that you'll catch many more bumps in the years to come - are you such a bad driver ???

You are talking a "small" back surgery in the hospital for 100,000. An insurance which covers this would cost me around 3500 US Dollars per year, so your surgery was just a one-year's insurance fee. In Germany I am insured but if I can't fly back with a back problem, I would have to take the bite and pay up 100,000 as well. This in mind, I have no reason to back myself up with another insurance. Need 800,000 in the bank anyways for retirement extension purpose, and I look upon this amount as a form of health emergency stash.

I don't really understand your post- are you suggesting it's better to pay 100,000 per year for a health insurance (which in fact will not ocver anything resulting from pre existing conditions - and this is a lot listed in the smallprint!) than having to pay it for regular checkups and a smallish surgery every 5 years ? I don't see what's so profitable and senseful in paying a lump sum for an almost worthless insurance. If your post is a warning, thanks, but I doubt anyone will regard 100,000 Baht for surgery costs a reason to storm the insurance barns.

Yupp, I was wrong. I actually confused a re-entry permit with the Double Entry Tourist Visa.

to the OP - regard my post as obsolete and incorrect ! Sorry!

first,a double entry with your current 90-days tourist visa just means that you can leave and enter the country one more time WITHIN the first three months of the validity of the visa, without it becoming used up.

You must have understood this process wrongly - the double entry is not usable for extending the tourist visa. I smelled a rat when you wrote "I have a double entry tourist visa and need to cross the border to get my second three months" - you are obviously linking the double entry with a second term of the given visa.

What you must do is fly to a place that has a Thai consulate ( Vientiane,Phnom Penh, Penang) and apply for a new 60+30 days tourist Visa there. You first 60+30 tourist visa becomes invalid after 90 days and cannot be extended.

Indeed, you do not exclusively have to fly, you can take the VIP bus or the train or the Minibus-Tour, as it does not have any effect on a 90 days tourist visa if you have entered Thailand by land or by air.

If he were to apply to Thai courts for a divorce (abandonment?), then he could get a VISA extension to remain for the duration of the divorce proceedings.

THIS would be a FANTASTIC solution of all his problems, indeed !

He could but live on ED Visa for the next two years. You mentioned he speaks perfect Thai, so if they adress him in Thai at the immigration when he applies for the second year, there is nothing he would have to fake, except not really reply in near perfect thai !

I always suspected that imported French and Italian wines lost their taste and originality inside containers, parked off and baking in the sun at the Laem Chabang port. But that's over 14 years ago, and by the meantime the shipping of wines must have improved, as I rarely find a bad bottle among those imported from Europe.

and yes, xylophone stated it, the french wines they sell here are of the lower ranks in their own country. Called "Table wines" they are to become piss along with a good lunch, not meant to entertain you! Due to the high tax in Thailand, you rarely get to see a higher class french wine on the shelves.

Lately I have been positively surprised by the outstanding taste of some Australian wines. Many different grape varieties, made into fresh, sparkly, fruity wines. Wine drinkers worldwide have turned their attention from the slightly sour-ish and dry varieties to more juicy and fruit-resembling wines. The tastes have changed a lot. Thailand hopped onto the train many years ago, some regions produce a fairly good wine, but most others - in my personal opinion - taste like the grapes had at some points been left to rot awhile, or as if rotten grapes have entered the pressed juice.

Monsoon Valley and Loei make a good gift if you intend to stick with a Thai wine. Personally, I would add one or two bottles of another origin to the stack - so your friend has some choice and might be tempted to compare. It can be fun, though.

I think sandmann has a problem with english and thus using the correctly translated words. He obviously wanted to write "recycable plastic bottles" or "recycable items" but thought better just to write "trash", because he is too lazy to check gooo.......translator for the correct terminations.

On the farm we collect all the plastic, metals and glas bottles inside a 1500 liter water tank (the bottom has a crack and it leaks, so this was next best purpose for the outdated thing) and when it is full to the brim, sister of my GF calls somebody. They will turn up same day or maybe the next with two handcarts and pay - ya won't believe it - the royal sum of 80-150 Baht - for the "trash" ( sorry,"recycable polyprophylen bottles"). WE buy the kids some ice cream, everybody is happy and me too, for not having an empty bottle dump in the garden and the yard.

The "3 Baht per kilo" I think refers solely to METAL objects . . . you are invited to correct me on that . . .

He only appears to be eligible for Tourist Visas.

He could study Thai and get Education Visas.

Or Marry his GF when he can.

He cannot get another marriage legally signed and accepted by german authorities, unless he shows valid divorce papers concerning his previous marriage. To perform a marriage at the local Amphur also requires proof of divorce firsthand. I think that is where the dilemma lies in the request of the poster, or it would be easy to obtain a new marriage status AND a new visa based on marriage

I agree with what klubex99 already stated, I think going back to Germany on a stay long enough for getting a new passport and then do the back to back two tourist visa 60 days plus 30 day extension will be best next to nothing in his current situation. Within the half year of these two tourist visa he can come up with something like a one time ED visa. This would get him really close to the date when he can start the process of aquiring a retirement-visa.

I wouldn t look back twice . .what happened to his ex-wife is out of his reach already, ain't not worth the effort of further searching. He did what he could do in such a case. He seems to have built himself, his Mom and his Thai GF a solid base for making a living, and I wish him good luck!

by far the best advice here is, go visit Pathum Thani with your wife, stay a day or two, drive around and check what is available, also keep in mind the flooding warning when looking at areas prone to flooding. You will see many houses and lots with a "for sale" sign and your wife can call the phone number immediately whilst you are still driving around. First call to the buyer done by your (thai) wife always better than you going to contact buyer first - simply because when the farang asks, the price will go up!

There is no doubt that fossil fuels will run out, perhaps not in 10 years, but eventually. In the meanwhile, they become harder and more expensive to access, and the price of energy keeps climbing. The bad news is that the only viable alternatives currently are nuclear and hydro power stations.

Advocates of solar power will have to face the reality that the energy supplied is intermittent, though fairly predictable, expensive, requires huge areas of cells (which require regular cleaning to maintain efficiency) and there is no known means of storing the quantities of power needed to maintain a regular supply.

True.

Now some posters have come up listing alternative energy sources, fair and good. However, I am missing a special energy technique in these listings.

Thailand due to its high sunny-days rate days is a near to ideal location for hydrothermal solar plants.

In the south of Spain, EU combined efforts have built a project plant. It uses sunlight caught in half-rounded (half-parabolic) polished stainless steel mirrors to heaten a tube amidst their core that contains running water. The water is thus heated up to such high degrees, that a small and short input of more heating energy results in steam, which is used to propel turbines.

Thais should send their engineers to such places to learn about the dynamics of hydrothermal energy. Oil/Gas or nuclear based technologies are all but leading towards a dead end road.

Still has all the negatives associated with photovoltaic cells, the biggest being capacity factor - it only produces power <30% of the day.

you did not read the topic. It has nothing to do with photovoltaics. It means use of the sun as a gigantic cooker . . I agree that there is the yet unsolved storage problem. If technology would follow, one can use the energy at it's moment of creation to generate hydrogen, which can be stored in tanks and can be released when needed.

There is no doubt that fossil fuels will run out, perhaps not in 10 years, but eventually. In the meanwhile, they become harder and more expensive to access, and the price of energy keeps climbing. The bad news is that the only viable alternatives currently are nuclear and hydro power stations.

Advocates of solar power will have to face the reality that the energy supplied is intermittent, though fairly predictable, expensive, requires huge areas of cells (which require regular cleaning to maintain efficiency) and there is no known means of storing the quantities of power needed to maintain a regular supply.

True.

Now some posters have come up listing alternative energy sources, fair and good. However, I am missing a special energy technique in these listings.

Thailand due to its high sunny-days rate days is a near to ideal location for hydrothermal solar plants.

In the south of Spain, EU combined efforts have built a project plant. It uses sunlight caught in half-rounded (half-parabolic) polished stainless steel mirrors to heaten a tube amidst their core that contains running water. The water is thus heated up to such high degrees, that a small and short input of more heating energy results in steam, which is used to propel turbines.

Thais should send their engineers to such places to learn about the dynamics of hydrothermal energy. Oil/Gas or nuclear based technologies are all but leading towards a dead end road.

I remind everybody here that on most balconies of these hotels/condominiums , the railing is incredibly low. A foreigner is mostly taller than a Thai, let's say by at least one head taller. This leads to the rails reach only to the lower hip, so if you are a bit dizzy, smoking or phoning on the balcony and lean against the rail in a manner you would be used to on a balcony in the West, it's already to late. You would loose balance and just flip over the rail - and welcome to the Pattaya Flying Club . . .!

Rubbish. 'Been coming here for almost 30 years now. You might find low railings such as you describe on some of the guest houses, which are usually 3-4 stories at most. I've never seen any such in the high rise hotels though. In this case, you can visit the hotel's website (Furama Jomtien Beach Hotel) and see from their room pictures for yourself exactly how high they are.

I can proove you wrong on most Condominium Units here on Jomtien. And just re-read another poster a page back . . he also talks about low railings he found in said Furama. It seems to be in neglect of the ISO9001 standard. Personally I haven't been at the scene, yet, but when I was searching for a condo to buy 2 years back from now, I noticed the low railings in many locations. I am 1.85 tall and would never dare to lean against them, neither drunk nor sober . . the balcony of the condo I eventually bought had an extra railing attached.

I remind everybody here that on most balconies of these hotels/condominiums , the railing is incredibly low. A foreigner is mostly taller than a Thai, let's say by at least one head taller. This leads to the rails reach only to the lower hip, so if you are a bit dizzy, smoking or phoning on the balcony and lean against the rail in a manner you would be used to on a balcony in the West, it's already to late. You would loose balance and just flip over the rail - and welcome to the Pattaya Flying Club . . .!

I have often said driving in LOS is a nightmare. Just a couple of days ago I was 'recruited' to take hypochondriac mother-in-law to local hospital at Nong Wa Saw. Canceled lunch with farang friends. Turning into the ville, a dump truck in the fast lane only going about 30 Kph (supposed to be in slow, other lane) customized my 3 month old Chevy Z71. He claimed my fault because he could not stop in time, ugh, ahhh, urrrgh. My wife's ville, he looses, maybe, if his insurance actually pays. His ville, I probably loose. I was guppied into being ambulance for ting tong mother-in-law to Nong Bui Lam Phu, oh what a fun trip. Next day, no family member would go pick her up, you get the point, I did. I made a left turn at a no right turn light, from the left lane. No, No, No. Police very happy when he see farang inside. Says here is ticket, takes Thai drivers license and says follow me to cop shop. Luckily my wife standing outside hospital waiting as I drive up, gets in truck and we proceed to cop shop. She takes 500 baht from me at cop shop, says sow wow, stay in truck and goes inside. They wanted to arrest, 1000 baht etc. she told them where to get off, mother sick mak, mak, etc. and to keep the dam_n license. They got 300 baht. This was a farang scam. That being what is was, and a first time after several pleasant encounters at roadblocks etc. it still left a bitter taste. I used to love to drive in the states, and I can drive, drove many hot rods, latest was an '02 Camaro SS before I retired and moved fulltime. I hate driving in this country. Motorbikes and trucks with no lights, cut across your lane, turn in your lane, oh a flash of lights means I'm bigger than you therefore I have confiscated your lane to pass and you better get out of my way, etc., etc. it never ends. My wife just smiles and says "Thai people", my reply is dead people in the states. I realize that they have their own rhythm and yes we are different and don't adapt well. That still doesn't change the fact that most of them have no business even being on a back country road, walking, much less driving. Did I say driving in this country is a nightmare?

And for you that want to say if you don't like it go back to your own country, I've got something for you too. This is my home and I first came to SE Asia in 1966. You can take the unsaid rest however you want, up to you.

When in Rome, behave like the Romans. According to your rant, you must still be an all-american bloke , despite living in southeast Asia for said time. If you haven't made a few steps to assimilate to your environment since you moved, ya got all my pittance. I doubt if you have ever arrived here with your heart under full conscience.

A pittance, your rant. Even if I would agree with some of it.

Just got back from dinner with some friends, all of them Thai. Some just got back from pattaya. My friends complained nonstop about the Thai drivers in pattaya for about 15 minutes. Comments such as "a stop sign is just a recommendation to those guys!" and "right of way means who has the most expensive car", and " the lane markers are just an FYI to those pattaya drivers"

As I listened to them talk, all i could think was,

now i have to convince my Thai buddies not to bash the their own drivers?

I give up!

really ? Thais strting to discuss the drivin habits of their fellow Thais, this could be the revolving revolutionary effect. Hopefully it will effect into road-motorist-education. Let's talk about it again in 2113. In a hunnerd years to come. nothing will change.

Holy shit, I can remember a newsclip from 1976, which told us about the sinking of the plains Bangkok is built onto. The BTS wasn't built said year, and the most recent flood was almost forgotten.

Why is it still a secret to many, thatv cities built on delta silt are prone to sink ?

Is THIS such a story ? I would rather call it the obvious.