Na Fan

Yeah I know. The trolls and donkeys are the reason why I hesitate to post here in the first place. And I really only do it when I sort of need to for one reason or another. But thanks for the kind words. They are indeed appreciated.

ha ha the imagination is running wild eh! You're not that far off though. She is dating a dear friend of mine. No, no. Just odd. See my post above.

We solved that part of the equation. She will be able to pick up her passport at VFS after the embassy has sent it there. It will take a few days, so next week she will have her passport back, and be able to leave to Laos and re-apply for a Thai visa & work permit. Problem is that due to this dilemma, she's now 30 days on overstay of her Thai visa. Not sure how immigration will deal with that with Lao citizens. Might cost her some money to sort it out, but hopefully she can do so without getting put into the detention center. From what I know is that westerners can just sort it out by paying at the immigration desk, up to 20k. But there's a risk of being banned from coming back. That would be bad as she does have a well paying job here now.

Yes, we thought about the "borrowing" as well. It's hers to keep after all. We asked about the visa situation here as well and she says she has been on work visas here, but she couldn't do anything about it for a year since she couldn't get her passport back. She may indeed be illegal here from the PoV of the thai immigration, though I'm not sure about the specifics. She says she has a paper confirming that her passport is with the embassy.

She really just wants to get out of this mess and not be locked down anymore. Her passport (Laotian) is currently still held by the embassy and they are not just returning it upon request. I am wondering as well if we do not have the fully picture. The whole thing seems odd. But the embassy offered her only to "borrow" her passport (I saw that email from the embassy staff myself), which was really odd.

that is helpful - thank you

I know. But they live here and she's a friend of ours and the neighbors, for a start.

why don't you go annoy someone else 🙂

It's a wedding ring, not an engagement ring.

Hi all Posting here as due to the complexity of the situation it doesn't really fit anywhere else. Looking for advise, and I'll try to summarize best I can. - Person of Laos origin, lives and works in Thailand - Married a guy from Norway, was married for 8 years and has been to Norway several times - In the process of applying for residence permit in Norway, passport and documentation is at the Norwegian embassy here in Thailand for a year now - Got beat up severely (repeatedly) by the (ex-)husband, made police report with photos and all. Police took no action. - Wants to get divorced, but is now being blackmailed by the spouse (wants ring back, wants police report annulled or won't sign divorce papers) - Marriage has NOT been registered anywhere outside of Norway Of course there's lots more to it, but that's kind of the gist of it. What can one do to assist here? I'm European and married to a Thai myself, so I am somewhat familiar with the fact that things quickly get complicated when multiple countries get involved. But with this I guess I'm somewhat in over my head. But I've been asked for advise and I'm trying to help best I can. Some questions I have: - What if the current visa application is simply abandoned, passport cancelled and a new one is gotten? Can we just inform the embassy of that fact, rendering the current application null and void, and solving that part of the equation? - What about a divorce at an international level. We can't afford expensive lawyers. Looking for things we can realistically do ourselves. Either here in Thailand (we're here), in Norway (we do have some contacts there), or in Laos (family is there). - What if we were to just ignore the fact she's married in Norway. Could she get married legally elsewhere in the future? - Any other important things one should not forget? Thanks for any feedback Fan

Some neighbors just outside of our village have chickens. And loud roosters. And they don't care. So now recently, one of them, the loudest one, started escaping and showing up at our house at 5AM screaming around every 30 seconds. Wife told them repeatedly, and they don't care. Today wife went outside to chase the chicken away. Chicken had other ideas. Wife outside. Chicken in the f'n kitchen. At 5:30AM. Wife does them dishes thai style - in a huge pile. Yeah you can imagine how that turned out. Jokes aside, this really isn't fun. It's not how I intend to spend my morning. We caught the little rascal now. But what do we do? Is there someone that can help here? I'd imagine we could call the cops and say we have no idea whose chicken this is, and they might take him to the BBQ? Do we now need to disinfect the whole kitchen? Is TB still a thing?

including the land it's sitting on ? That's very cheap, if so. We're in Chonburi - prices are very different here.

Thanks @digbeth - good information there. @BritManToo What is 1M5bht ? 1.5M ? I can't see what you could possibly do with a 1 million baht mortgage. Almost all proper houses are in the 4-5 mil range. Thanks for the tip, but no sabotaging going on here.

Hello We've been trying (unsuccessfully) to get a mortgage. Based on my understanding it's because the wife has a bad credit score. Apparently that's a thing in Thailand. It seems difficult to find good reliable information about this. I've checked with our accountant too, who wasn't even familiar with the term. Can anyone shed some light on this? Can we publicly (free or not, but reliable) check it somewhere? What can we do to repair it? We have no debts. But also no running credits or cards are in wife's name. She's Thai. Is it helpful to just keep buying things on credit? Instead of paying 10k cash for a new coffee machine, do it in one of those 0% installment arrangements. Will this count? Will this repair the credit score? Taking out a new credit card, putting small-ish things on it (phone bills, etc) and paying it in full at the end of the month? Does that help? We don't have much, car insurance and phone bill is about the extent of what is in wife's name. What else could we use? I wouldn't even mind paying a few hundred Baht a month for a service or something we don't even need, but if that helps to repair the credit score so we can get a mortgage in a few years, then that'll be worth the cost. Any other useful tips? Thanks in advance.

If you look at the top restaurants, and then taste their food - it doesn't add up. Anyone else experience this? Are they now faking their scores there too?

This is the community pool at our village. Lots of kids swim in it all the time, incl mine. It smells like chlorine, the smell sticks around for 2 days (yes even through showers) and if water gets into your mouth, it's sour. Is this not dangerous?

No, not a typo. Case in point: And those, they used to be brown, chocolate brown: Anyway, the "pool guy" claims this is normal, and is because the pool is filled from ground water and not municipality water. What gives?

While it is nice to know what the law says, in reality it is largely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is the current rules, which depend on the immigration office (and sometimes even individual officer). Sad, but have personally learnt this to be a fact.

Abandoning the child isn't really something I could consider.

It's probably a mix of it all.

Central Pattaya, or Chonburi / Bangkok preferred. Any recommendations for someone that knows what they're doing and is proficient enough in both English and Thai? Our four year old is slowly but surely tearing our family apart. Wife is at her wits' end and so am I.

Chesa on Sukhumvit: https://www.chesa-swiss.com/ Eaten there many times over the last decade and it was never short of stellar.

So the rule is that you can get 1 bottle (liter) of alcohol person into the country without having to pay tax. Say you wanted to bring in 2 bottles, nice ones, and you wouldn't mind paying some sort of tax. What's the process here? To be perfectly clear: - Having to pay a fee, OK - Having the bottle taken away for the customs officer to enjoy with his friends: NOT OK. Can someone comment who has actually done this before? I couldn't find anything "official" - but I may just have been googling in the wrong language. Cheers!

Aircons are cleaned regularly. And we have a housekeeper twice a week who is scrubbin' like mad. I don't think it's environmental.

middle-aged, at the age of 3? ????