markwhite
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Posts posted by markwhite
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Support her while she goes through the breaking point.
She will either break with you, or she will break with her family. You know her best and you know what is more likely. And she may need to go through the breaking point more than once before she gets to a place that's healthy for her.
I think this sort of thing happens in healthy, supportive relationships, for a variety of reasons. It's just that with Thai-farang relationships, it's particularly because of this issue of how relatives view the relationship and money.
She is talking to you about this in a way that seems fairly open and honest. There are many similar stories here where that is missing, and they don't always end so well.
Good luck.
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5 hours ago, it is what it is said:
strange so many boats should be at sea in such conditions. was the weather reporting accurate?
It went from being a bit overcast to sudden, very strong winds in the space of about 10 minutes yesterday morning. There may have been some forecast warnings based on what was coming in from the east, but on the ground this was a sudden, sharp squall. All over in about an hour.
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Not sure of the usual prevalence of these around the country, but I just had my first home visit in Nakhon Si Thammarat. This is after 17 years in Thailand and about 10 years on a non-imm type O (currently for retirement, previously for dependants) visa, with no changes or issues that should have flagged anything with immigration as being suspicious.
It turned out to be a form-filling exercise which took no more than 10 minutes. Two immigration officers in attendance, one filled out a form confirming my residency at the address and taking ID numbers from my passport/visa and my wife's ID card, which was signed by me and my wife and witnessed by the other officer. A few photos were taken, including one of me, my wife and one officer at the front of the house showing the house number. When asked, one of the officers confirmed that was as a direct result of the number of Chinese visitors found to be overstaying and/or running illegal businesses and had been ordered by on-high. It was suggested that this could be an annual visit. They were working through everyone in the area and had already visited other ex-pats in the area this morning including two foreign teachers at the local university.
So just a PSA in case this becomes a thing, and if people are wondering if that thing is happening to others. It may be perfectly usual for some, but this is new to me. That's all.
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As said, it depends where he's borrowed money from. If it is from a bank or other reputable organisation, they do not tend to be in the business of deliberately taking possession of secured property just for the sake of it. It is a very last resort, and usually one that is taken when all other options have absolutely and irretrievably failed. There is more money to be made from keeping a borrower in their house and milking them for interest for the next 20 years than taking possession and selling the property. IME there are two categories of deliquent borrowers: those who won't pay and those who can't pay. You get the "won't payers" out as quick as you can, but you give every chance to the "can't payers" until they prove repeatedly that they are not capable of keeping to any payment agreement in the long term. So possibly your neighbour has just burned too many chances and the bank no longer believe him.
Source: 15 years in retail banking in the UK, but admittedly all experience in the past in a different country may not be relevant to how things work here. Though I suspect the principles are somewhat similar.
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On a beach on one of the islands, walking back to my room, drunk, during a power cut, with no torch. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face it was so dark, so I was feeling my way (badly) with my feet. And didn't account for an unexpected drop from broken concrete on to the beach itself. So I went face first into the sand. No real harm done, so got up and went on my way.
Next day, I went back and looked where I fell, and it was just full of jagged rocks and other broken bits of concrete. My face had landed in just about the only place where it was safe to land. Missed a bad injury, and probably death, by inches.
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4x90 days is usually a bit less than the one year visa renewal date, especially when a 90 day report falls due on a weekend or public holiday so it gets pulled forward by a few days. I find this comes up every year, and I just did a 90 day report at the end of April, then a full renewal a couple of days ago.
If you want to pay the fine (or whatever penalty) for missing the 90 day report it might make no difference, but if you're not wanting to do anything that might cause problems with your visa renewal, just accept you'll be making two trips to immigration in quick succession* and get it done.
*or online reporting, though I have no experience of this.
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44 minutes ago, steevjee said:
Ok so I watched the 1 hour video and passed the test, downloaded my certificate, what’s next? Do I need to get another medical etc or do I just show up at any Land Transport Office and show my current licences?
Firstly, book an appointment at the local transport office. Ours was shut for 7 months and we got one for 1 month hence as soon as they starting accepting appointments. Very quickly they were fully booked for 6 months. They confirmed the existing 2 year license was still valid even though it had long expired by then.
When your appointment is nearly due:
Get the certificates from your local doctor - one for each form of transport (one for car and one for motorbike for example)
Get the proof of residence from your local immigration office (I got just one certificate that covers both forms of transport). Take a copy and self-certify the copy.
Take a copy of your passport photo page and current visa page and self-certify them (one for each form of transport)
The video/test is valid for a certain amount of time which I don't remember. If you've done this without an appointment, you might need to redo it closer to the appointment time.
Attend the transport office for your appointment. Complete one form for each form of transport, each with a doctor's note, an immigration letter, and a copy of the passport.
Wait for the physical tests (brake reaction test, colored circles test)
Pay your fee, have your photo taken, collect your new 5 year license.
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Our 2 year licences expired in Apr but the testing centre was shut due to COVID, so Mrs has repeatedly phoned to find out when they would open again. End result is we got an appointment for later this month with a grace period after expiry so we will still get the 5 year licence on renewal. No practical driving test required.
I need proof of residence from the Immigration Office, and letter of competency from the local doctor, and one of these for each licence (car and motorbike). We both need to take the test here instead of taking this at the testing centre on the touchscreen kiosk things. I've not done it yet, but Mrs says it's essentially the same with a printout at the end to confirm the final score and to take to the appointment:
This is Nakhon Si Thammarat. YMMV for your location.
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I've been renewing non-imm type O visas at NST as a "marriage visa" for about 7 years, then as a "retirement visa" for the last 3 years. In all those times, if the paperwork has been in order they've been handled quickly and easily. Overall my experiences with them have been very straightforward compared to some reports from other offices being unusually picky.
For retirement:
TM7 form
2 x photos 4cm by 6cm
Copy of every page of passport
Copy of wife's tabien bahn
Copy of wife's ID card
Printed screenshot of Google Map showing lat/long of a marker placed on the house
Photo of me and family outside the house showing the house number, photo of me and family inside the house
Make a small deposit into the bank before obtaining the next 3
Printed bank statements showing 800k continuous balance over 3 full months (eg: today I would do Jun, Jul, Aug as full months and Sep as partial month)
Letter from bank confirming balance as at today's date
Copies of updated bank book showing the same
When I turn up with the above in all prepared correctly, it's about 10 mins to get the visa renewed, and this was last done in August. I can't help with how they view proof of income as I've always shown sufficient overall balance without issue.
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7 hours ago, VocalNeal said:
Drive South to Songkla and join up with Songkla Hash House Harriers, every Saturday
It's a kind invitation, thank you, and it is nice to be asked. But I won't pretend I'm likely to follow it up.
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14 hours ago, Sparktrader said:Whats NST like???
I've lived in a small town about 30km outside NST town for 14 years.
TLDR; You need to like the quiet life, Thai style.
So there's not lots of amenities that can be found in more popular farang haunts in the country: 3 cinemas, a large mall and a couple of smaller ones, and literally a handful of restaurants offering non-Thai food (couple of decent pizza places, same for Japanese, one almost-fine-dining European cuisine, and some fast-food staples). Apparently there's a golf course inside the army base but I've never been. And that's about it.
It does have lots of good quality Thai restaurants (and a fair few bad ones) at proper prices with real Thai food, few foreigners (I think there are 4 or 5 regulars in the town where I live) though there are a fair few teachers in the main town, few foreign tourists at non-COVID times, limited English speaking locals, 30-60 mins from nice beaches, an hour from the ferry to Samui/Pha Ngan, a couple of National Parks and waterfalls, and no seasonal burning.
If you need nightlife, a large social circle of like-minded people, or a variety of provided entertainment, it's probably not going to be a good fit. If you're happy to make your own entertainment, are okay going months without having a conversation in English, and can eat Thai food everyday without feeling like you're missing out, then it's as good a place as any I guess. It suits me but it's not for everyone.
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Notwithstanding the knowledge of the members on TVF, this might be a good place to spend some time as it's a bit more specialist:
https://www.coolthaihouse.com/forum/
"Never thought it would be so stressful watching a build"
It sounds like you are not far into the building process yet and are still mostly planning. IME, it can get tough at times. Best of luck to you.
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I prepared my 90 day report yesterday half expecting to be told that it wasn't needed because of the delay order, but they* just dealt with it as usual. I also asked when I should apply for an extension to the non-OA based on retirement which expires on 15th May and they said to bring the paperwork in about a week beforehand. So no reference was made to the delay order, but that doesn't mean to say it won't be different again at Chiang Mai.
*Nakhon Si Thammarat immigration office.
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A reverse image search on that photo leads to:
https://animalcorner.org/animals/tangle-web-spiders/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theridiidae
But you'll have to dig around the images to see if one of these is the same of yours. Some photos look similar, but some quite different.
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I've been using ExpressVPN for a couple of years on a monthly plan with no complaints. I use TH or SG endpoint normally for speed, and NY, LA or London for getting around geo-blocking. Ping gets higher with the latter ones obviously, but they're all usable. Nord did have the security breach a while back and that's all I can say about them.
To exceed the monthly reading limit on sites you probably can clear cookies relating to that domain (and possibly others they use for tracking), or read them using a private browsing window/tab in your browser.
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The HG8240 has a hard-coded admin password that might be common across all Huawei routers:
user: telecomadmin
pass: admintelecom
It also opens up a few options not available to the provided admin account.
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On 2/7/2018 at 9:13 PM, phuketsub said:
My wife said it is a southern Thai thing, but I can't say definitively that it isn't used elsewhere. I don't ever remember hearing it so much when I lived in Bangkok or Phuket.
I've been told its a Southeast Asia thing. I heard it a lot in RP on vacation, but not so much in Thailand.
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I haven't yet… do you think it would be a good idea to pass this information on? It was a couple of years back now, hence my hesitation.
You started out my stating that you hope your information helped someone. But it has to be your choice on what you do with this.
I have little idea what is happening in the UK on this, but hear that it's the headline or second item on the news. So the UK police must have people involved with the initial passing of information between the Thai authorities and the family, and possibly to continue the flow of information now. Though it could also be done through diplomatic channels, too. If the police are still involved, this seems as good a contact point as any, though you may not be from the UK in which case I don't know:
http://www.police.uk/contact/101/
There have been two people who have given similar accounts as you have about AC bar on TV already, but yours is possibly the most personal. And at least one other person has commented on the fact that the AC bar gets a bit dodgy after hours. If everyone who felt the same or had similar experiences made the information available to their local authorities, it might make a difference. There have been plenty of high-profile cases recently in the UK where unpleasant acts have gone on for many many years because people didn't come forward about things that happened in the past for a variety of reasons.
Alternatively, you could approach the media. The UK newspapers seem to be covering this in detail from what I see on the web, and there are online journalists who must be approachable.
The above is easily dismissed given who currently owns the investigation, and it may not make any difference at all if you do raise it. But it might.
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Ok, so I wasn’t going to sign up here as there is enough speculation as to what happened on that evening but I can’t help thinking that my information may help someone.
Have you given this information to the police?
I was going to edit that to say local police, but decided to leave it as it is. You possibly see my point.
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Which ones are beautiful? Is it from Khanom to Sichon where decent ones can be found?
Hin Ngaam at Sichon is nice, as it Nai Plao (or Thong Ching particularly) in Khanom.
I don't remember if I can link websites on TV or not, so this might get pulled. But it has some more info on it.
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These suggestions may be way wide of the mark...
As I said I am accountant/economist and my wife is shop assistant.
Is there anything you can do to offer other expats advice on handling money?
I speak quite good english, german and french. My mother language is italian.
Have you considered translation work? You'll probably be in a big market and be very under-paid, but it might bring in subsistence wages.
Mark...
(in Tha Sala)
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I live in Tha Sala about 30km north of Nakhon town. A couple of years ago we had constant rain for 3 weeks and we were about 0.5 metre from being flooded, though neighbours said the moo baan had never been flooded before.
After three days solid, torrential rain, the flood plain at the back of the house had risen from normal levels to that of 2 years ago. From 9am to 8pm it rose by about half a metre and was 2-3 inches shy of coming into the house. Sandbags had been setup but I didn't hold up much hope of them being totally resilient.
It peaked ab out 3am, with the house being under about 3 inches of water. It subsuded and by midday today it had dropped the half-metre again and the back of the house was clear. It's taken most of the day to get things clean, but I reckon we got of pretty well. We've lost the bottom few inches of any wooden furniture we couldn't stack up, and the water pump is making a pretty sick noise. That might dry out, but I think the furniture well be forever curly.
My wife's office is in a lower part of town. Her landlady had stacked up the furniture, but it still looks like the water got into the bottom of the computer which was on a low table. The water mark was about half a metre up the walls, and this was confirmed by people who lived nearby.
On the way back home, I met a tourist who was trying to get directions from a local on how to get to Sichon, about 30km further up the road, which was completely flooded last night and claimed fatality of a woman who drove off the road and drowned. He just wanted a beach to stay at having travelled 'around the world for 15 years, walking everywhere and never staying in a hotel' (he had a tent). I told him he was in a disaster area, and that the amphoe office was filled with people who lived around the beach and had been displaced by the floods. But he was adamant so I wished him good luck and pointed him the the right direction.
All in all, not pleasant, but not as bad as some people have it. I had an hour of 'what if' about 1am, envisioning us all sat on the top of he kitched extension in a sea of water waiting to be rescued by helicopters, and wishing I was on the 3rd floor of the hotel in town. But it didn't happen, and I was at home in a bedroom with a few inches of water, and that was that.
I can't imagine for what it is like for people who really got hit by this :-(
Mark...
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I'm not sure that my experience has anything to do with being married to a Thai woman or not. I've never been married before and so have nothing to compare it to.
Sure, some of the things said elsewhere in this thread apply - communication issues, different societal values and ways of doing things, and I suppose the good old differences between how men and women approach life.
For me, I know without any doubt at all, that in the past I was far too selfish and emotionally immature to be married. I wasn't prepared to allow someone to affect my way of life to the large extent that living with someone and having responsibilities towards would bring. I lived in a small, safe (and with hind-sight, empty) world largely consisting of work, alcohol and weed.
I got over it.
I've shared my life with my wife for over 4 years now, and we have a son for us to share our lives with. I don't drink or smoke anything anymore, have very little need for things like splurging money on unnecessary luxuries, or needing lots of time to do 'my thing' on my own. I've accepted and welcome the responsibilities I have, even though it's not always plain sailing at times.
But life's like that. It just took me a long while to come out from being under the anaesthetic that I'd poured down my throat for 20 years and realise that it was okay for life to hurt sometimes. And I do enjoy my life, whatever it brings. Mostly
Short answer: for me, definitely emotional maturity. About the other stuff, you'd have to ask my wife.
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Banking Apps
in Jobs, Economy, Banking, Business, Investments
Posted
Same as you in that I resisted the need to move to a "phone for everything" as opposed to using a PC where I could control the environment the software ran in. But after Krung Thai removed their web front-end to online banking and went app only, I've installed and activated the app. And notwithstanding any insecurities which are not immediately obvious from casual use, it is useful. Booked some plane tickets in person on Sunday and scanning a QR code on the counter-top device and checking the transaction was right before hitting "Confirm" was a lot easier than making 4 withdrawals from the ATM and giving them cash. Same with household bills. I'm reluctantly seeing the benefits...
Anyway (for Krung Thai app)
1) It'll work over wifi or mobile data, so if you're only using wifi you should be fine (don't remember if it was mobile data only for install as suggested by OneMoreFarang)
2) Wifi only is fine.
There is no OTP. On install it requires a Thai ID card number, and should accept the NDID thing that farang can't get, so I did have to visit the bank branch to get it activated. The cashier knew what she was doing and it was painless. By default she set it to a fingerprint check for each transaction, though I changed that to use a PIN instead. So no OTP, but other secondary permissions are needed (though possibly could be disabled completely).