CrabbyinKrabi
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Posts posted by CrabbyinKrabi
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The process can be a pain in the ass, but its doable. Most American guys on here have done it themselves, its not hard, just time consuming.
I am sitting on a base in Iraq and just did one for my wife. She goes in next month for her interview.
If your friend legally lives in Thailand, which it sounds like he does, he should have a really good shot at it.
I recommend he get started on it now, before he actually figures out any travel dates. So there is no pressure. They don't hold you to precise travel dates, so there is some flexibility if it gets approved.
Make sure she has a passport before you do anything else.
What I did was get on Google and find a copy of the DS-60, and printed it out. Then I could see all the information we needed for it before I started the online process. You need to get stuff like her passport numbers, expiration dates, parents names, birthdays, etc. It goes a lot smoother if you have all that collected.
There are also some videos on YouTube, some in Thai, telling you how to fill out the forms. My wife seemed to get a lot out of them.
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Can anyone recommend a hotel near the US Embassy - BKK on Wireless Road?
We have an early morning appointment for a visa interview, and don't want to get hung up in the awful Bangkok traffic.
Would love something close enough to walk from.
I think the last time we had business there we spent more time in the taxi then we did in the Embassy.
Please give me the name, approximate price, and your basic opinion of it.
Thanks!
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Oops forgot to mention a few other things.....
The visa process I am describing took place four years ago. We just submitted for a new one, and wifes appointment is the end of next month.
Some things have changed. The paperwork all states that only SHE can enter the embassy for this appointment. If that is really the case, then she needs to be prepared to face them alone. I am not too worried about it this time, as she is more confident having done it once before. And she already has been to the US, as well as Kuwait and the UAE, so I don't expect them to put her through the wringer.
The other thing I wanted to mention, the officer told me that if you apply for the Immigration visa, then they are allowed to review the situation as a "whole", to include you and your assets, job, etc. He said she could be penniless and unemployed and it would not matter.
There are also several videos on YouTube that give some tips on filling out the paperwork. A few of them are in Thai...my wife seemed to learn a lot from them, and that helps her feel better about the process too...she knows whats going on. I think it was under DS-60 Thailand or something like that.
Hope that helps....good luck.
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I got my visa for my wife on the first try. We applied for the B2, not knowing it was the "hard" one to get. The officer explained to me that by law he is supposed to review a B-2 application purely on the requestor. They are not supposed to factor in the American spouse. That being said, they want her to show "ties to Thailand", that being something compelling to bring her back home. He admitted then that they look strongly at the spouses residency. If you are living in Thailand legally, and that is where you make your home, they look VERY favorably on that. But if you are doing visa runs, etc. and maintain your main residency in the US, they consider that more of a reason for her to overstay in the US with you.
So I think in some cases the age thing is an advantage. A retired guy, living legally in Thailand on a retirement visa should have an easier time getting his spouse a B-2 visa.
We also dragged in the big stack of paperwork...the wedding pictures, the land documents, the school enrollments, etc. Wife had taken my last name and updated her passport, son has US passport and Social Security number, we had been married two years at that point. I thought we looked pretty good for it.
But they were going to decline us because I did not live in Thailand. I usually work in the Middle East, and have a home in the USA, and have never bothered to get a Thai residency because I don't stay there for more than 30-60 days at a time.
Luckily, the officer had just left his last post in Kuwait, at the US Embassy there. He told me this at the end of the interview, and said because of that he believed everything I told him about my work (we knew some of the same people) and he would give me the benefit of the doubt. He also said if she followed the rules, we should get a 10 year next time around quite easily. I hope that is the case. Wife has her appointment next month.
The appointment process is a pain in the butt, for sure. Its a terrible system, terrible design. Prepare to be angry. Prepare to be patient. I am embarrassed as an American that this is how we are represented to Thais who wish to visit our country. They must wonder how we feel entitled to complain about visa processes in their country, when ours is so awful as well.
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I just got one for my wife about two days ago. We were told this is a very bad time to try and get one. All of the Thai students heading to college in the US are trying to get their visas now, and will keep things full until the Fall semester starts. I have been trying for about a week. The other day I logged in about 6AM (Thailand time) and all of July was full, with two slots open in August. As I was debating which of the two to take, someone snatched the earlier one, so I grabbed the second. Other than that it looked full for July and August.
It appeared to me that the staff must update the appointments around 6AM. So if they have a cancellation, you might get lucky. Otherwise, its going to be tough.
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At this point in our relationship I spend most of my time away from my family in Thailand working. My sons birthday is coming up soon, and I would like to send him a gift. Does anyone know of a reputable retailer that I can purchase from online and have delivered to my home in Krabi? He is just a toddler, nearly two, so just simple things like toys or clothes.
I have used the flower delivery service here on Thai Visa to send flowers to my wife for her birthday, it worked out very well and I plan to use them again. But they don't really have too many kids things. My extended family back in the US would also like to send my childredn gifts, but most of the time the shipping from the US is more expensive than the item itself. They would like to try something like this as well.
Anybody else in the same boat figure out something clever?
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I live in Krabi, and I have two boxes of 20 Mule borax. If you are in the area, and need it for treating a dog, you are welcome to it.
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Everything I have read about gut troubles says to avoid sugars and dairies as well.
The point of the yogurt is to build up the "good" bacteria in your gut to keep things working well. One site recommended that if you know you are headed somewhere that your guts may be challenged (i.e. village areas, Laos, Cambodia, Mother in Laws cooking, etc.) then be sure to eat a lot of yogurt in the weeks before your departure.
I even mention this to friends coming to Thailand to visit for the first time. I tell them its not that the food is particularly unclean or unhealthy. But you are on the other side of the world and your body is going to be meeting some bacterias, yeasts and parasites its never seen before. Add that with the stress of travelling and you are asking a lot of the body sometimes.
It would seem once you are having problems its too late for yogurt and you need to stay focused on hydration.
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We have a 9 month old French bulldog named Gucci. He is still a puppy, full of energy and mischief to no end somedays. He is of "pet quality" because his colorings are not to standard. But he is a bulldog in every other manner, snorting, snoring, burping, but thankfully no flatulence.
We just had a baby last week, and it has been very difficult with the dog and baby. Gucci absolutely adores my wife (a Frenchie trait) and wants to be with her 24/7. This just can't happen anymore as she needs to take care of our son. Gucci needs attention, and he will start being "bad" if he doesn't get it. This includes jumping on my wife, and grabbing things. I am fearful that between Guccis stubborn plays for attention and his jealousy that something tragic may happen to our tiny son.
By no means is Gucci a Bad Dog. I have had many dogs in my life and with a minimum of work he would be fine. French bulldogs also mellow out considerably as adults, they are well known as good apartment dogs. But I travel a lot for work and my wife just doesn't have the skills to properly domesticate Gucci. And with the baby she won't have the time or energy.
Like many bulldogs he has food allergies and has to eat non-allergenic foods or he gets skin rashes. This is easy enough to do locally, the food is available and is not expensive.
I am considering taking him home to the USA, but I thought I would try this first as that will be expensive. We would love to find him a home in Krabi or Ao Nang, preferably with an expat more familiar with "farang" dogs. Some place where we could still see him from time to time if the new owner was amicable to that. But we will let him go anywhere in Thailand that we can find him a good home.
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We have a 9 month old French bulldog named Gucci. He is still a puppy, full of energy and mischief to no end somedays. He is of "pet quality" because his colorings are not to standard. But he is a bulldog in every other manner, snorting, snoring, burping, but thankfully no flatulence.
We just had a baby last week, and it has been very difficult with the dog and baby. Gucci absolutely adores my wife (a Frenchie trait) and wants to be with her 24/7. This just can't happen anymore as she needs to take care of our son. Gucci needs attention, and he will start being "bad" if he doesn't get it. This includes jumping on my wife, and grabbing things. I am fearful that between Guccis stubborn plays for attention and his jealousy that something tragic may happen to our tiny son.
By no means is Gucci a Bad Dog. I have had many dogs in my life and with a minimum of work he would be fine. French bulldogs also mellow out considerably as adults, they are well known as good apartment dogs. But I travel a lot for work and my wife just doesn't have the skills to properly domesticate Gucci. And with the baby she won't have the time or energy.
Like many bulldogs he has food allergies and has to eat non-allergenic foods or he gets skin rashes. This is easy enough to do locally, the food is available and is not expensive.
I am considering taking him home to the USA, but I thought I would try this first as that will be expensive. We would love to find him a home in Krabi or Ao Nang, preferably with an expat more familiar with "farang" dogs. Some place where we could still see him from time to time if the new owner was amicable to that. But we will let him go anywhere in Thailand that we can find him a good home.
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I have a French bulldog in Krabi. As a puppy he got mange on his face and chest that eventually spread to the rest of his body. This apparently is not uncommon, the mites often pass from the mother to the pup when they nurse and thus attack the face. The pups young immune system may not be up to the task of fending them off.
I had to leave the country for work for a few months and left my wife to deal with it. I figured that with the amount of mange you see in the soi dogs that Thai vets would be very knowledgeable on the subject, and it would not be a big burden for my wife. This has not been the case entirely. She visited several clinics without much success and eventually found a doctor that she liked. His remedies have been largely effective for our dog.
I don't slight Thai veterinary medicine for this. As other posters have illustrated it can be a very complex condition with lots of underlying and related factors. There are different types of mange, different types of parasites involved, different underlying conditions and of course we foolishly bought a breed of dog that is known for food allergies and skin conditions that can look like mange or allow it a foothold on the dog. As well as many Thai vets (especially outside of "farang" areas) are not at all familiar with imported breeds.
One thing my wife did cleverly was call some French bulldog people in Bangkok. Her sister had picked up a doggie magazine off the racks. Apparently one of the most "winningest" Frenchies in the world lives in Bangkok now, and they did a full feautured article on him. As a result this issue had lots of Frenchie breeders and owner profiles in it. Many of them list their phone numbers and email addresses in the stories. So she figured they would know something about Frenchies in Thailand, and she called a guy. He was very helpful, and when he found out she could not get the medicinal shampoo he uses in Krabi he mailed her some. He also told her a good vet in BKK who knows bulldogs and she called that doctor as well. She tells me that once word got round the Frenchie circles there in BKK that Krabi did not stock these medicines one of the sales reps came down a few weeks later. He called her and said he would like to see the dog while in town. This was some months ago, and I was gone, I don't remember if much became of it. But we do have some good shampoo now!
The point of all that is that we got a lot of support from the Thai French bulldog community. If someone else with a purebred dog is having problems, perhaps there are local folks who can help you as well.
When my wife was initially having so much trouble, and our dog looked like hel_l, I spent a lot of time looking things up on the Internet and Googling what I could find on mange in Thailand. I found this site, EarthClinic, and it features a cure from a guy living in Thailand.
http://www.earthclinic.com/Pets/dog_mange_cure.html
I have not tried it, but I want to as my dog still has skin issues from time to time. The vet said sea water often works wonders as the salt kills a lot of bugs. While Frenchies can't swim our dog does love to wade and splash and run in the surf, and it does seem to help. I suspect this cure would work along the same lines.
If anyone figures out how to get Borax and peroxide let me know! And if you try this remedy I am REALLY interested in how it works out, so please let me know.
On a side note, we just had a baby last week, and I am considering finding a new home for our bulldog. This post is already long enough, so I am gonna stick one on the Krabi forum first. If you think you would like a little bulldog please check there.
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Louise,
I might be able to help you with this. Let me know if you are still looking.
CM
The Best Pizza In Krabi ?
in Krabi
Posted
Mark and Mays, near the Maharat Market serves a "Curry Pizza". I did not like the sound of it, but a friend said it was delicious and made me buy one. It was really good, and I have since recommended it to others (including my mom) and they also enjoyed it. Not your typical Italian taste, so if you are craving tomatoes and Oregano you should hit Viva, but if you are feeling adventurous, give it a shot.