turgid

The wine pub at the Pullman Kingpower Hotel

+1

I've been several times in the last 18 months. I like it but its very expensive especially if you add wine. You need to book if you want a decent table. And of course rain can be a problem.

In my younger days a drinking friend advised me that you never ask strangers for drugs because whatever you ask for will magically become available for whatever money you have. He had learned this from buying LSD which turned out to be blotting paper impregnated with shampoo. I heard a US comedian saying that most ecstasy sold in the US now is speed. People who take drugs are often not that discriminating in what they take so many people who sell will figure as long as it does something its worth the money.

I get this is Cambodia but does seem to indicate that such mistakes are possible.

http://www.dailymail...-honeymoon.html

Kristy Cadman-Jones, 27, died of a drugs overdose at a luxury hotel in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, towards the end of a month-long tour of the Far East .

At the time of her death in January it was suggested that she had suffered a heart attack. However, the inquest heard yesterday that she was killed by a huge amount of pure heroin.

Mr Cadman-Jones, a solicitor, claimed the couple had been offered what they thought was cocaine by two travellers they met in a bar that night. He ‘suspected’ that his wife, a recruitment agency branch manager, took some.

In his blog this week Andrew Drummond posted a further update on the performance of the London Nominees fund and its associated firms and people.

Looks like most or all of the money is gone then. Much like many alternative investments did well in the early years (on paper) and then suddenly all the news is bad when people want to withdraw.

And what actually did happen to their football fund I wonder. It just disappeared.

I bought a China brand one in Pantip although you can probably get in MBK and Fortune tower as well. I don't remember exactly what I paid but It was less than 1000 baht. Works fine. Typically I find with IT items they are cheaper in Singapore or US but for low value items the difference isnt worth the hassle of shipping or shopping around or delayed fulfillment.

I am a Singapore permanent resident. This got me a 1 Year Multi O-A Entry Visa with application in Singapore.

This will probably have a limited audience but may help someone. (THB 25 = S$1 at time of application)

Step 1: Procrastinate, whine, and moan for several months (Optional)

Step 2: Be aware of all documents required (this is the order she asked for when I presented)

a) Summary of application - 1 Copy = this list basically plus a note summarising why I wanted the visa..

b ) Copy of passport front page and Singapore re-entry permit – 1 Copy

c) Copy of Singapore PR card (both sides) – 1 Copy

d) Thai Visa application form – 3 Copies with photos

e) Thai O-A form – 3 Copies with photos

f ) Medical form – 1 Copy **see note

g) Certification of non criminal conviction - 1 Copy **see note

h) Bank statement or proof of earnings – 1 Copy

i) Letter of certification of bank statement 1 Copy

j) Proof of Expiry date of Singapore PR (online screen print) - 1 Copy

k) CV / Resume - 1 Copy

l) Return Flight itinerary - 1 Copy

m) S$250 Cash no change/no refunds

Notes from my experience

Do a general check in advance to make sure you have all the details you need for both forms specifically referee details.

I included “1 Year Multiple Entry” on the application form and my summary of application for duration of proposed stay. It seemed to work. Or maybe they were just in a good mood.

i: Medical - allow at least 2 weeks before submitting visa

I got 4 estimates varying from S$180 to S$500 for this. Nobody had seen the medical form before. Everyone wanted the Mantoux TB skin test, Chest X Ray and syphilis blood test before signing.

Other tests required varied depending on the doctor. I went to the Singapore General Hospital travel clinic and paid S$200. Nice people, it took them 3 days to process. Other places quoted much longer. The tests themselves with waiting lunch and walking around the hospital took most of the day. Take a photocopy of the medical form before you submit it because you only get one copy.

At date of this post, the template medical form on the Singapore Thai embassy site is missing words and has typos. Get the PDF form from the UK Thai embassy site.

ii: Certification for criminal conviction.

The Singapore police force will not issue these certificates for PRs since 2010. The girl I spoke to in the embassy was not aware of this so I included a copy of the notice with my application.

http://www.spf.gov.s...cncc_notice.htm

I did a statutory declaration. Process and basic form is described nicely here.

http://app.subcourts...px?pageid=10152

I created my own declaration and had that certified with a commissioner for Oaths . They sold me an additional service which will get the certification further certified by the Singapore academy of law with a nice wax seal and ribbon. Not sure if this is needed but I took it because it looked cool and very official.

Commissioner stamp and signature S$30 - (same day)

Law Academy certification S$70 (2 days)

If a lawyer creates the statutory declaration for you its probably going to cost you another S$50-S$500 depending on which lawyer you use.

iii: Proof of Expiry Date of PR

You can get that online here - you will need your Singpass

https://erep.ica.gov.sg/erep/index.do

iv: Bank statements/Income etc

I’m not currently working and I was a bit concerned about how to present this. I have 900k THB on deposit in Thailand and was able to show S$100K on deposit in Singapore. I got certified statements for both but they only wanted a copy of Singapore bank certification for the application. They said I would need the Thai one later.

OCBC Singapore charged me S$30 to issue a letter of certification and KBank charged me S$4.

v: Labelling

Put your passport number and IC number on every document you present.

vi: Photos

Note the photo requirements in Singapore - 6 photos with white background. It seems to be 3 elsewhere.

vii: Processing

I dealt with 3 different processing staff . One helpful and efficient, one brusque and efficient, and one I’d rather not deal with again. Apologise go away come back another day and 66% you get a different one.

For the application I queued at the embassy twice at opening time on a Monday and Friday. I got processed in less than 15 minutes both times. When I left there was no queue. On the “real” application I had to come back just before closing time with my flight details and PR form and there was a big queue of interesting girls who appeared to have just got up. So go early @9:30 but don’t bother to queue for opening would be my tip. Collection took 5 mins.

viii: Time

The application took 7 days to process including a weekend. I applied 30 days ahead of my trip because I need to make some other plans depending on approval status . The visa runs from the date of approval so I probably should have left it another couple of weeks.

ix: Whines I noticed in the Queue

There are no photocopying, photo taking facilities in or around the Embassy that are open before 11 AM. If you don't have it with you you will have to come back another day. They won't give any change.

The O-A Long Stay visa is the retirement visa. Do you have a one year permitted to stay from arrival date? Is you visa single or multi? entry?

Yes it is multiple entry. I haven't entered Thailand since I got it. When I applied for the OA I had the proof of seasoned funds on deposit in Thailand.

They told me I didn't need it now but would need it for the retirement visa. I take it from your response that I'm missing the pointr and when I want to extend this Visa I will need to show the local funds? What confused me was the statement made earlier that a lot of people skip the OA step.

Why don't you just get a single entry non-o visa (90 days on entry) and apply for your an extension of stay at immigration here that would only cost 1900 baht. You would need to show 65K baht income proven by a letter from your embassy or have 800K baht in a Thai bank for 60 days (first application) or a combination of income and money in the bank to make up the difference if income is to low.

That was good advice but the timing was wrong for me to take it for various reasons, the main one being that I have been procrastinating on getting this done. I'll write up the steps I took for others to learn from as a separate post. I have now been able to get a 12 month OA but it wasn't financially the most efficient way to achieve the end result. Learnt a lot though!

I just got a 1 year OA ME and have learnt a lot from this post so thanks.

I have one additional question. Is there any benefit in applying for a retirement visa before the OA has expired?

I already have seasoned money in Thailand and was assuming I would dive straight into retirement visa planning and actions. But reading this I can't see any advantage in the first year.

Just say you do not have these diseases and they shall proof on their costs, that you have it!

Friends forever!

Uh yeah. Not in Singapore. In Singapore to say you don't have Leprosy the want to test for it because everyone makes money.

Any Visa friendly doctors anyone ?

Anyone know a doctor who has done the mandatory health check in Singapore ? That should be obvious but my doctor doesn't want to do it and none of the clinics (and largest hospital in Singapore) have seen the embassy form before. One hospital was willing to build me an "a la carte" estimate of 400 Singapore dollars ( about 10,000 Baht). At this point i'm less concerned about the money than finding a doctor who "knows" the process. For those who haven't seen it the latest form wants the following

free from the following diseases:

1 LEPROSY

2 TUBERCULOSIS (T.B.)

3 ELEPHANTIASIS

4 DRUG ADDICTION

5 THIRD STEP OF SYPHIIS free from the following diseases:

Oddly HIV is not required testing .

Obviously nobody here has seen Pulp Fiction where Uma Thurman has a famous scene from overdosing on snorted Heroin. .

People will often travel and do things they wouldn't do at home which includes sleeping with prostitutes and trying new drugs. Lots of people go to Amsterdam for that reason.

That said I have been openly offered drugs in streets or bars (offer not taken) in the US (Florida, New York and LA), the UK, Holland, Indonesia , Spain and Singapore.

While I've always been told drugs are generally available in Thailand I have never been offered them or seen them being used.

That may just be my age now though.

As farangs we don't need to judge him lets give this guy some supporting advice that will help him get him and his son out of this hell hole of a culture of negative thinking that farangs are nothing but dogs? 10 million baht even here doesn't go very far... for very long! especially for a guy 42 years of age. He's young enough and most likely have family help in Germany! I wish him and his son luck!! get out while you can!

I agree on the judgement. Loneliness and love can do weird things to all of us and i prefer these forums to contribute to learning rather than personal abuse but a few thing strike me as odd about this story

His Grandfather had died so lets cut him some slack for being in an emotional state about that. That said I would say its pretty unusual for a man in is late 30s to "come to Thailand to look after his grandfather" for several years so I do wonder if that story will stand up to the test of time. It says he burned through the money in two years but he may well have been living an expensive lifestyle before that if his grandfather was funding it. It would be easy to spend 8M Bht on a reasonable house and car (it would buy an average two bed condo in BKK or Phuket) if you had the funds to support it He may also be smarter than we all think. There may have been a lot more money than reported. He's realized whats going on and is willing to write off the house and the car but doesn't want to have to give up half of everything else. She knows there is more and is holding the kid to ransom. He's raising the stakes by going public with it and painting her as the villain..

I know several people who have bought properties in younger wives names in either Cebu or Thailand. When i have discussed the total loss risk with them all three have been upset at me suggesting it but have also acknowledged the risk and not committed more than 20% of their money to fixed local asserts. They hold the rest offshore. Their worst case scenario is just to run away and write off 20% . However i know a 4th guy with Kids and his (second) thai wife has sadly just picked up a gambling habit which has drained his bank accounts and forced him to sell his car. But his house is on a loan so she has nothing more to gain and if he's smart his income is now outside of Thailand and he'll hold on to it.

How does someone use a fake card in an ATM machine? A card has to be linked to an account and a PIN. I guess he must have scammed that info from someone somehow? Scumbag!

Several ways. Everyone always blames call centres or bank hacking but mostly its much simpler than that .

The crims put a small camera in the top of the ATM booth and a card skimmer in the slot on Saturday after the bank closes.

Saturday night you need extra cash for booze or a girl or just plain old shopping and you take your credit card to the ATM.

The card is read and the stripe and pin is recorded for a normal transaction. You get your money and off you go.

Sunday morning the crims pick up the equipment with the pin and stripe recorded recorded for 50 cards . Then they make maybe 10 copies of 50 cards and distribute cards and pins to 10 teams each in different countries and then set them all off at the same time . You run a small transaction on each card to make sure it works. In 4 hours with planning you can maybe hit 10 teams x 16 ATMS with a 50 cards for 20,000 Baht . Thats about 400,000 USD for a mornings work and you pay out 30% to the suckers who get their photo taken at the ATM (not all ATMS have bank cameras but some do).

Most banks now are looking at or have anti fraud software which raises an alarm for odd patterns of withdrawal ( like 10 withdrawals in 10 countries at the same time). But the problem is in the busy times the fraud software will be throwing out thousands of false positives so the bank might not get to calling you for a couple of hours to verify the transaction. Since crims are usually lazy and greedy and criminal they normally keep the thing going until someone gets caught.

They are also nearby to stop other criminals running away with their money. And of course they always give each other up when they get caught. One of the problems with being a scummy criminal is you have to deal with scummy criminals.

Ways to avoid card skimming. Dont give up your cards in bars or restaurants. They can scan every card that comes in the bar and then just use an ATM camera close to the bar to to get the pin. Its a numbers game collect enough cards and videos of cards and pins and sooner or later you get a match.

Put your hand over the number pad when typing your pin at the ATM. I always like to show one finger to the potential crim cam

Put your hand over the top of the card when putting in the slot (this wont stop stripe skimming at the ATM , but will stop them matching the pin to a peviously skimmed card)

If your Bank offers SMS reporting of overseas transactions turn it on.

Read your bank statements (lots of people dont)

Obviously don't store your pin with your card.

Change your card pin (nobody ever does)

If interested do a google search for images of card skimmers. Bet you cant tell them from normal ATM slots if you saw them

If the card reader vibrates it normally means anti-skim technology is in place. But dont assume the crims won't find a way to fake the vibrate.

Of course its not unheard of for someone with a $2,000 bar bill they dont want to pay to come to a deal for their card and pin with agreement that they wont report it for a week . But its usually skimming.

I bought the ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe July last year and had some blue screen problems with it (one a day) for the first 9 months which reported as Nvidia Graphics driver problems. These have been fixed with the most recent ASUS Motherboard BIOS update so if its older stock make sure the BIOS is up to date. Since then it has been rock solid but the Win 7 reported performance has reduced slightly (memory went from 7.9 to 7.8) . Note that my Z68 board comes with some weird internal intel graphics processing support (no connector) and the ability to connect a small SSD cache to improve processing if you dont have an SSD. If you arent using these turn them off in the BIOS because they use memory.

I've tried sitting in a bar with a club soda and its a miserable experience. A number of people (including real girlfriends) have said you are much more fun when you 've had a couple of drinks. I despise other drunks when i'm sober as they remind me of me drunk which can be a total asshol_e. Generally my sober pragmatism and logic isnt a great girl puller whereas apparently my semi drunk BS is. But listening to people repeat themselves while they think they are fascinating is a pretty depressing reminder of how I am. I normally have food or watch soccer and then leave.

Secondly bars (and the people in them) get a bit of a glow after a couple of drinks - they both generally look horrible without booze. Try going into a 2nd floor patpong toilet sober at 2am for a really special experience. Thirdly the girls make money from selling drinks so i might order 10 for me and 20 for them if i'm drinking for the evening (and more if they get me on a roll) but on the club soda its 2 or 3 max. They are unlikely to be friendly for 3 club sodas.

There is also something pretty addictive about going into an after hours place and ordering a bottle with several girls who want to party because they are halfway there as well. I miss that.

I've been off the ale for a while and meeting nobody. My solution had been a weekly home 2 hour massage but she decided that as I was calling her regularly I must want to be her boyfriend and started requesting additional funding for school, medical bills for her kid, family, clothes, etc so she had to go.

If anyone has suggestions for single people to have fun without drinking i'd love to see them. You certainly save a lot of money not drinking though and I have a clear head and energy with nothing to do..

How about .."There but for the grace of God go I".

How about "there because I imbibed loads of drugs and booze and spent all my money and had no self control go I ?"

This didnt happen in a day. He <deleted> himself up over many years. If every time you have a choice you make the wrong one you end up with no choices at all.

London Nominees Football Fund just got into trouble via Bryan Robson who was making all sorts of claims related to abilities to influence the purchase and sale of UK football clubs (and Sir Alex Fergussons influence) to Thai and Indian investors . Is it just me being paranoid or are the same names that were promoting Profitable Plots turning up now promoting London Nominees. We have the old team of Robson and McMahon back again.

Just a little update on this. You need to take at least two rounds of the drug 3 weeks apart to be cleansed..

The drugs kill the worms but not the eggs - this apparently explains my experience with them coming back after 3 weeks or so. The eggs that hatched can be killed before they lay more eggs hopefully.

On the packet it says "you may wish to take another dose after 3 weeks". I can't imagine a situation where you would not want to unless you enjoy being a worm farm.

Just to add to this whole beautiful circle of life scenario they also get into your lungs and lay eggs there which you then cough up and swallow because you are in a meeting with a customer and the whole thing starts again. So add this to the list of STD's as you may want to avoid kissing your coughing masseur.

Also as a cheery note a link i read says for those that live in infected areas there is an 80% chance of reinfection within 12 months.

I would think that smoking causes far more premature deaths than unsafe sex - that's a ridiculous article.

You might think that that but smoking will depend on how long you do it, how much, your genes and other heath factors. Thailand had some pretty miserable HIV stats for a while which seem to have improved with Thaksins clampdown .

One shot of HIV in your bloodstream and without expensive healthcare (which would not be available to most Thais) you will die within 10 years and probably infect a lot of others on the way. Take a look at the horrendous HIV statistics for Africa where BTW a lot of people still die from lung cancer not because of smoking but because of smoke inhalation from open fires.

For girls pretty much all the STD's increase the chance of, or cause reproductive organ cancers which again can only be treated with expensive health care not available to most Thais.

It's an ugly stereotype. Or, rather, it's several ugly stereotypes rolled into one. And it's also wildly inaccurate in the case of many expats, who are decent people living in Thailand for any number of decent reasons. But like all stereotypes, it has a basis in reality. There are people like those I've described above living in this country. In fact, there are lots. And interestingly, most of the worst seem to hate Thaksin Shinawatra.

He's right. I did my six months of partying here I have been the stereotype a few times and i've seen a lot worse. I came late to the conclusion that it is partly a supply and demand issue so at least in my case I stopped supporting the demand. In the few conversations i've had with girls where they were willing to express an opinion (tell me what opinion do you want me to have ?) they have all quietly said they support Thaksin because they felt he could give them a better life. It may be hypocritical of me since i've used the services but I know change is needed. It would appear however that everytime real change is attempted here the military steps in and shuts it down.That is not democracy.

Of course Thaksin was corrupt. Its probably impossible at this point in Thailand to hold any kind of power without some level of corruption. The same was true a hundred years ago in the USA. The question is who is the best person to give the majority of the population education and choices.

As a side question does anyone here really believe a 22 year old girl wants to sleep with a 50 year old man ? See what has happened in Singapore as wealth and education have increased over 20 years The age gap in couples has decreased dramatically as has the availability of girls willing to sleep casually with older white men. The Sarong Party Girl has all but disappeared.

Well since i've just been freaked out by this i'll add my learnings. About 3 weeks back I had flu like night sweats , dry cough and when going for a piss I noticed something about 2cm long, brown and thread like swimming in the toilet. I was trying to convince myself that it either came from the flush or was on the toilet reading the paper and fell in but eventually came to the disturbing conclusion that it came from me earlier in the day. I went to the local pharmacy and they gave me Alben = Albendazole at 20 Bht for 2 x 200 mg. Albendazole is the key ingredient for Zental I read on the internet..

Friday the sweats were back with the cough and yesterday and today I noticed another one swimming each day.. Note every time i've seen these has been post turd flush and only one so there is still a part of my brain that wants to believe its coming from the water system I clean my teeeth with but i suspect not.

I've just taken my second packet of Albendazole.

I dont eat a lot of street food but i do eat a lot of these pre-packed salads and i'm wondering if its that with a lack of packing hygiene. Eitehr that or its eating my bosses shit every day.

I did the trip Beijing to Shanghai on the new train....absolutely fantastic...all the knockers of this venture should step out side their kennels and take the trip...they may learn something ...thats if they open their eyes...not just one of them

Here here. A Singapore to Shanghai line would be an amazing journey indeed.

Had a friend who wanted to do this so we went. It depressed the hell out of me to see the elephant being stabbed with a metal spike to get it to move. Not an experience I would want to repeat - we also saw the drugged tigers on the same tour..

Unfortunately however since pretty much nothing above the size of a cockroach can survive without permission of humans now I suspect if the elephants and tigers didnt pay their way they would all be dead. Everyone wants them around but nobody wants to give up the required space to allow them to live freely. If its big enough to cause trouble and you cant eat it or get it to entertain people obilterate it.

Its mans way.

Wow- a blast from the past! I started this thread 3 years ago yesterday!

Never did get involved in the deal. Sounded good at the time, but we all know what they say about things that sound too good to be true.

And 3 years on again they have closed all their offices, are under investigation by the Singapore authorities and investors have their own victim support blog.

http://profitable-group-victims.blogspot.com

None of the land ever got converted and nobody is seeing any money back despite an estimated 70 million pounds being taken from investors.

Nice money if you can get it.