fa4960

5 hours ago, HampiK said:

I registered in Bangkok, about 2 months ago and nothing yet. 

Someone told (wrote) if Bangkok you have to go there in person to receive a password... not sure this is true. But it seems Bangkok is very slow now or not give the Information online anymore... I will wait about 1 more month... then look if want go Chaeng Wattana in person.

I did my registration 5 weeks ago with a Bangkok address and nothing happened since I verified my email address. I need to do my 1 year extension early August so will enquire at Chaeng Wattana then if still nothing.

First of all apologies for the slow reply but for some reason or another I got no notification that any had replied so I thought it was dead already.....

Really appreciate the replies and for the heater & chiller questions you confirm the conclusion I have also reached in the meantime. Will also install 2 fans to help keep the temperature reasonable. Will likely go for discus so I need fairly warm water anyway.

I have already spend many hours at the JJ Mall aquarium market at Chatuchak, amazing place.

I am just about to pull the trigger on a tank, so now I just have to wait the 2 - 3 months it takes to get it build and sent from China.

Thanks again.

Hello,

last time I owned an aquarium I lived in Europe and I was a teenager but now I want one again! I am looking for some advice and experiences from those members who are running aquariums in Thailand or similar climate countries.

Some basic information.

I am looking to set up a fairly big tank with approximate dimensions of (L x W x H) 220 x 80 x 80 centimeters, i.e. a maximum capacity of 1400 liter (370 US gallons) with a 250 liter sump underneath to handle the filtration. As it is going to stand in our living room I am looking to buy something with a cabinet. I have so far located 2 possible suppliers of "full" systems:

http://www.thaiqianhu.com/aquarium-accessories/fish-tank

http://www.nisashon.com

Qianhu is part of a large SG owned company and have a guy who can speak English and cabinets, tanks etc are made in China but looks nice with aluminium cabinets. Nisashon is run by a Thai with limited English skills but very friendly and accommodating. Cabinets are more traditional in wood style or fake wood (plastic) to better withstand humidity but can still be made to look reasonable modern.

Both have shops out in JJ Mall. Does anyone have any experience buying tanks for either of these shops or any other shop with similar capabilities?

I have not decided which fish I am going to have, but have decided it is not going to be Arowana or similar larger territorial fish as I want a minimum of 10 - 15 fish in the tank. Hence the next questions may be difficult to answer, but what do you guys do in terms of heating/cooling?

The tank will be placed in a large room (100+ m2) with good ventilation and generally temperature does not deviate too much (at least I think) but is probably mostly on the warm side as we seldom run aircon for more than 2 - 3 hours a day and we typically have the blinds down when the sun is on the windows (Tank will not face direct sunlight even if blinds are up). With the tank and sump capacity I don't see a few hours of aircon having any significant impact but I wonder if the general temperature will be too high and I need to cool the tank? Don't really want to run the aircon every day just avoid overheating the tank. What do you think?

There will be more questions later I am sure but for now this is where I am.

Best Regards

FA

One thing worth mentioning - although I think you got it covered in your plans.

As my kids are half Thai and born in Thailand as well as likely to complete the secondary schooling here also, I consider Thailand their home country. Hence my wife and I have from very early age had a lot of focus on them learning Thai. We have had a Thai teacher coming by every weekend for several hours teaching them Thai since they were app 3 years old. My oldest is now 10 and I see that many of his half Thai half foreigner friends from school have little or no capabilities in Thai and their mothers now suddenly find themselves jealous that our kids are fluent. Most of these mothers have university educations, travel the World every school break and still seem to find it unimportant for their kids to learn Thai from a young age - however as many of them now seem to regret it they find it close to impossible to get their kids to put effort into it at the age of 10 or older... No matter how good an education these kids may get at an overseas university they will struggle landing a (well paid) job in Thailand later should they desire to come back here again.

The situation is of course different for those where both parents are foreign but there I have also seen amazing result where a Thai nanny has been involved and only spoken Thai with the kids.

I think language is an important thing we can give our kids and I do regret not doing it a little better with Danish from the beginning.......but better late than never!

13 minutes ago, Bob12345 said:

Another rule is to only teach them your native language, as my wife speaks English with a Thai accent and I have a Dutch accent. 

But they will be exposed to English anyways as we need to communicate together in front of them also.

 

I am sure going to try it, and know it will be a rough ride. 

 

Do you boys get an exposure to your native language later on?

They won't reach "native" level anymore easily, but on holiday trips to your home country they can get a lot of exposure anyways and maybe pick it up as a "foreign language"?

English will come no matter what but you will probably find that if sending them to an International British or American school they will be behind at the start but they will catch up quickly. My oldest was but not the youngest as he has benefitted from them speaking English between them 95% of the time.

It is amazing to see bi or multilingual children grow up and develop their language. At the beginning you will hear them mix up the languages, basically not being aware that it is different languages and then suddenly you will hear them having it all sorted out in the "right" boxes and then always know what language to speak to their parents. If you send them to international school you will likely see them adopt English between them as this is how they would communicate with all their school friends and also what these schools demand. When meeting new Thai kids mine always try in English but quickly switches to Thai if/when they realise the Thai kid only speaks Thai, or prefer to speak Thai.

My kids will get exposure to my native language (Danish). We leave for DK tomorrow and they will spend 2+ weeks with the DK cousins and due to tougher rules in Denmark regarding the ability for them to keep their DK passports in the future I have also signed them up for DK language classes here in Bangkok, plus online learning. So all is not lost but what probably is lost is them being truly multilingual, having to settle for bilingual speak/read/write in Thai and English but hopefully able to speak and maybe read at least some Danish, plus whatever foreign languages the chose in school later (oldest son having Spanish also since last year).

There is a ground rule that should be followed according to various language expert in my children's international school that I have spoken to:

One parent, one language!

Those who manage to do that seems to succeed. It is however easier said than done when you don't understand Thai and your wife doesn't understand Dutch - and also the reason I failed myself getting 3 languages implemented with my boys. The need to explain everything twice was what in end got me to drop my native language teaching of the kids but I do regret it and would persist if had a second chance so hang in there!!! If you send them to an international school later there is no need to worry about English, it will com easily. If you don't plan to do that it could be more of a challenge to make them truly multilingual.

Best of luck!

Hello,

I will soon need 1 - 2 SolidWorks guys/gals and I was wondering if you have any insight into salaries for such profiles here in Thailand?

Something like:

1 - 2 years experience with SolidWorks and English language capabilities good enough to work with customers in Europe as well as in the region

3 - 4 years experience with SolidWorks and English language capabilities good enough to work with customers in Europe as well as in the region

It is for a new startup so I am basically without any detail knowledge of this area so any help you can provide would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

fa4960

Hello,

I am currently testing out BolehVPN and when enabling the VPN from my pc everything seems to work fine. However I would prefer to configure the VPN at the entry point (HUMAX modem) so that all connected devices are secured via the VPN without individual actions.

I found an instruction for an older model from Germany here: http://humax-digital.de/gw/products/product.php?gid=524&pid=6

However it doesn't work on my modem and leaves me with some questions like:

I am not sure where to store a pre-shared key?

Do anyone have experience configuring BolehVPN or maybe another VPN on a True HUMAX modem?

Thanks in advance.

My friend sent up MR to purchase a villa. The MR / THB rate was rubbish. The best rate he was able to get was to convert to US$ in Malaysia and send that up to his Thai bank. The Thai bank convert to THB at a reasonable rate.

Yes. That's also my experience. Also, if you open citibank accounts in both countries, you can do instant online transfers between them for free. But they charge 2 % on top of xe.com rate, still a lot better than what you'd actually get from any other means.

Hi,

I assume this requires me to set up USD accounts with Citibank or CIMB in both countries?

I just checked the MYR -> USD -> remit -> USD -> THB and it seems I can get exchange rate 9.76 by doing that, not great but much better than 9.26.

Dear forum members,

I work in Malaysia, get paid in MYR, pay my taxes there etc. but I live with my family in Thailand, mainly because I don't want to move myself and the family, instead I fly down from Mon - Thu every week and spend the remaining week in Thailand.

I need to remit some of my salary to Thailand and has to my dissatisfaction found out that I am not allowed to remit in MYR, rather I must remit in USD or THB. However the exchange rate I am offered from Maybank is really poor, close to daylight robbery actually.

Two days ago I inquired on a remit of MYR 100.000 on a day where the www.xe.com exchange rate was 9.93 I was offered 9.26 by Maybank. I didn't check the USD rate I expect this will only cost me money at both ends as USD will need to be converted to THB at Siam Commercial Bank in Thailand and hence probably not a good choice either.

I have checked with "The FX Firm" and "Smart Currency Exchange" via www.mycurrencytransfer.com but it seems that nobody can help and I assume this is because Malaysia disallow remittance in other currencies than USD or the receving country's currency?

I don't want to carry loads of cash and on the day the exchange rate for MYR notes were 9.10 in SCB so not a good deal either.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to obtain a better exchange rate?

BR

Fa4960