joekicker

This is a very good translation of the new immigration regulations brought in last year. http://www.tillekeandgibbins.co.th/Publica...ation_order.pdf Please note that regulations change, and practice may not always follow regulations.

I go over the big bridge, yep, that seems to be *the* main road. But bear in mind I'm coming from the north. There may be even shorter ways for you. You're just looking for the fastest east-west route from the Number 3 highways to the Number 4s. I'd just have to say, "whatever works". A detour into town for food is sometimes necessary though. Pak Nam. Yummy. mmmm And the rock salt is great for cooking. Take a sack home. Trivia answer: Cheng and Eng were found by the American entrepreneur swimming in the river in front of their home in Samut Prakan.

It's not dumb. The people who do Real Alternative 1. HATE Real Player and assume you do too, and therefore 2. assume you want to get rid of Real Player and want to help you do it. It certainly isn't necessary to uninstall Real if you don't want to. It's really an "up to you" moment. I don't like Real Player. It's big, it's kludgy, it's intrusive (starts every time you start the computer) and more. But that's me. I think everyone should agree with me, if only because I'm right, but I'm big enough to realise you may have a wrong opinion on account of being misguided and I agree it would be wrong to actually kneecap you about it.

Little One you are right. I did not factor in Rayong; I was thinking just from Pattaya even though the OP was clear. My error there. Yes, I'd say 5 to 6 hours from Rayong. And that assumes the roads are decent of course. The bloody "highway" towards Bangkok can be like a drive down Beach Road at times. But Bangkok shouldn't slow you down at all. So, in decent conditions: Roughly two hours to get to the left turn around Bangkok, then three hours to Hua Hin -- driving time. I THINK it's Highway 36 out of Bangkok, you can fire through Pak Nam, Ratchaburi and hit Highway 4 out of Ratchaburi. I don't have my map right here, I'll try to check. Little later. Highway 34 (of course). So follow the red route here. Go north past Chon Buri, then over to Highway 34 towards Chachoengsao. At the intersection of Highway 3, hang a left to Samut Sakhon (Pak Nam), go through there and follow the signs to Ratchaburi and Highway 4, another left to Hua Hin.

SSSSSS-WOOOOOOOOOOOOSHshsh

Leaving the other hand free for and this post ends here.

I haven't heard of such a thing anywhere. Maybe you could make a deal with a shop at Tuk.com mall Of course lots of hotels have machines you can USE -- business centre type of thing, say. But having it for your own by rental? Not common at all.

Absolutely no problems here. Clear your Internet cache. If you're using Internet Explorer click on Tools, Internet Options, Delete Files. ALL of them, yes. Then it's a good idea to restart.

Hard to say what's the problem, but if you start with good tools... Real Player is almost as bad as QuickTime. Try one of these, you should have both of them anyhow. (Totally free): Real Alternative http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm VLC http://www.videolan.org

Yes I would never phuock a girl from a bar that didn't play the right kind of music. And that's really the only reason I go to a bar, really, is to listen to the music. And the only reason I ever bought Playboy was for the articles, and I only watch the science channels on TV.

If you have a car, it shouldn't be more than four hours, five if you count the food stop and the farmers' market stop every Thai woman has to make. You don't have to go right to Bangkok, you hang a left over to Pak Nam (Samut Sakhon) well short of the permanent traffic jam known as Krung Thep. But yes, you DO have to go by road, there are no ferries.

jacko, here is the drill. You will hear of variations of this, of course, because this is Thailand and no rules or regulations are carved in stone. But this is what happens, whether in your face or behind the scenes: You get a non-immigrant visa at a Thai consulate. The visa is probably VALID FOR USE within one year of issuance - not to be confused with how long you can stay in Thailand with it. When you get to Thailand for the first time with the non-immigrant visa, the airport (presumably) immigration officer stamps the passport good for a 3-month stay in Thailand, counting from your arrival date. The day it expires, i.e. after 90 days, (maybe a day or two before), you go to the immigration department and apply for a one-year extension. They take it under consideration, stamping your passport typically for another month or 6 weeks. You need to put in paperwork with the application of course. You go back again after a month (say), and get a stamp permitting stay for the rest of the year that started on the day of your airport arrival. When THAT runs out, next year, you basically repeat the above at the immigration department. And this time you get 1 month (about) and then the rest of the year again. The first time you apply, immigration does its most intensive investigation of your circumstances -- bank account, income, status of wife, family, job, whatever you are claiming. After that, assuming you are a decent guy, the visits to immigration are very cursory and rapid, and you might even get the full year first time you go without the one month intervening. This re-occurs every year thereafter. If you want to leave Thailand but keep your "non-residency status" intact, you apply at immigration for a re-entry permit (and pay, definitely). This effectively just keeps your permission to remain in Thailand intact, with no change. If you don't get a re-entry permit and you leave, your non-residency permit is broken and you get to start again at the top, at the back of the line. PLUS there is the requirement to check in every 90 days, yep. MY UNDERSTANDING is that it is now both. I don't KNOW that up to date, because I don't have such a visa, so please check. But it is also my understanding based on a comment by an immigration person to me just last week that the 800,000 baht in an account for three months is definitely needed. Again, this is NOT expert, so please do check. One thing that is important, though: You are going to get two kinds of personal stories in here on retirement visas because the requirements were changed in October of 2006. Those who already had visas have different requirments to those now getting their first permits. The requirements changed in October of last year, but those who already had a permit were grandfathered under the old requirements. That is a SECOND excellent reason to check for official advice from immigration. Anyone who had a visa as of last September is under different requirements than a noob.

Obviously it's a real gold shop, the pictures show that -- as I said, lots of red and yellow. Prices are up and down. this week they're down $47 an ounce. The point is that TODAY's price is prominently displayed in the gold shop, or don't shop there. There is a LAW about displaying the price. It's not just enforced by the government, it's enforced by the hundreds and hundreds of honest gold shops. Any shop that does not PROMINENTLY display the price, move on, because there are lots of others.

I haven't a clue about United's policy, but I can tell you for a personally documented fact on four occasions in the past three years that the above is not United's actions. The last time was a weird one -- they asked me if I would be nice enough to take a different routing, which left earlier, landed at the destination earlier and took longer in the air, and if I was nice enough to agree to land earlier they would upgrade me, and not just one class, either. I was travelling alone and they needed one seat. For a few minutes I was a really nice guy, heh.

It didn't cause a problem. That is why he bought a grill to be used in Thailand in Australia instead of buying a George Foreman grill in the country where George Foreman lives and directs his grill business and sells most of his grills, which would have caused a problem.

UBC died. The connections on the back of Truevisions boxes are generally RCA plugs. They work okay (shrug). There are the usual 1960s antenna and 1990s coax, too. The single coax will go to the dish, but I suppose you could split it. I just use the RCA pins and they're okay.

You already had a visa last year when the requirements changed in October?

Well. Do not buy gold from jewellery shops. Ever. Real gold shops have the price of gold per baht weight prominently displayed. Currently that's a little over 11,000 baht, but you can figure it out from the newspapers. All gold shops have this, and if it isn't there, just pass on by. Real gold shops, and there are thousands, typically have a lot of gold on obvious display, lots of red and yellow (good luck colours) and NO JEWELLERY, i.e. gemstones, pearl necklaces and all that. You're going to get very little price variation from one shop to another. You WILL get unique gold works from one shop to another, so shop until you get the necklace, bracelet or whatever that really catches your eye.

When I went to the pix, I was trying to imagine if they were the 60-year-old "girls" and limp-wristed fellers with round eyes. Might not have been so sanuk about it, I imagine. What a phuocking nightmare. I'll keep an eye out for this biddy in the next few days. It would be nice to "run into her" in Bangkok.

Emil, yes. Again, the actual law is that you have to have 800,000 baht or more in a Thailand account for more than 90 days plus an income of 65,000 baht or more to qualify for a new retirement stay. And again the immigration people come through to help. (Those with older retirement visas are grandfathered with a lower, different requirement.)

You cannot obtain a one-year visa at a Thai embassy/consulate. They don't exist. You might get a 90-day non-immigrant visa which then can be extended by the immigration department after arrival in Thailand. You might get something less, but never something more. When I say "90 days" I mean the time you are permitted to remain in Thailand, not how long you have to use the visa, which could be one year. When you enter Thailand, you will be granted (at most) 90 days' stay. You will not be granted more on first arrival. AFTER you have been approved for a one-year extension, then you can get a re-entry permit, go out of Thailand, and when you return, you will be re-validated for the remainder of the one-year you have left.

I'm not running down anyone who succeeded, and it's very possible the next person might succeed as well. This is Thailand, and the rules strictly apply at all times, except when they don't. Immigration folks are very nice, and if you're not a total prick you're likely to get very good treatment from them -- not just professional, but kind and helpful as well. But do know, in case you run into an immigration guy or gal who had a fight with someone earlier in the day, that the rules are to get a visa, and you will definitely have less paperwork and running around if you get one. You might get sent out of the country to get a visa. As is stated many times on this board, the 30-day permission to enter Thailand is NOT a visa of any kind. You may be able to finesse it, but you should be aware of the situation. Part of our problem is this word "visa". Technically, it should only apply to the stamp in your passport given by a Thai consulate. But immigration uses it all the time to describe what are actually EXTENSIONS OF PERMISSION TO STAY and BMs use it all the time (very wrongly) to describe the 30-day thingmy they get at the airport when they don't have a visa stamped in their passport. I'm not complaining so much as explaining why sometimes it's difficult to get across what's happening. Your tourist visa (above) was an actual visa. The "retirement visa" isn't technically a visa, but a category of permission to remain, and extension thereof. To get a so-called "retirement visa" (permission to stay as a retiree) you first have to have an actual non-immigrant visa. The immigration folks handled that, good on them and good on you. After you have a non-immigration visa, there are about... I'm trying to remember I think it's 11 sub-categories under which you can stay. The most familiar on this board are people working (with work permit), retiree and sponsored by Thai spouse. The single effect of all of these is that you can stay one year, and renew, and never HAVE to leave. Don't quote me on the 11, but something like that.

Are you mixing up immigration with getting a visa? Visas are issued only by the foreign ministry. As the site says very plainly: Firstly, applicants have to apply for a non-immigration visa at the Royal Thai Embassy or Consulate in abroad before their entry into the Kingdom. AFTER you do the above, you can enter Thailand and start your work with the immigration folks. If you come in without a visa, all bets are off AS THE IMMIGRATION PEOPLE SAY. You might get the tiger, the tiger might get you.

Yes but this isn't a consignment, it's hand-carried and accompanied. The air and port customs are actually pretty good about unaccompanied consignments, although the paperwork is daunting but if you have it with you, the following is the Rule Number 1: All regulations apply except in cases where they don't.

I just have three questions for you: Yes? And? Do you have some indication I commented on it? Is there some reason you quoted my post to illustrate your advice? Okay, that was four. You don't have to pay for the bonus question.