ginseng

Just to add to the list. I'm a frequent flyer on China Airlines and have always been totally satisfied. Buying tickets on their website is the way to go. I've needed to change and refund a few tickets and they were always very helpful. I would suggest the vegetarian meal even if you aren't vegetarian, it seems to go down easier.

Dude awesome story! I'm glad you survived. I have had some near death experiences myself. What this has done is both make me cherish the time I am alive and also to be careful about leaping before I look. If you've seen my other posts I am planning a permanent move to Thailand around the time you'll be there. For me just a few months wait is painful though as of today it's been almost a year since I've been to Thailand.

I want an Isanair T shirt

He may want to consider going to Singapore if he's concerned about the quality of healthcare in Thailand, if the issue is money then I don't know.

I appreciate this post. We all go wild dreaming of living la vida LOS and giving our home lands the middle finger. But many of take the high wages and social security of our home lands for granted and may be priming ourselves for a nasty wake up call if we cut ties too soon and end up a few 100,000 baht short on the hospital tab. I am cutting ties myself but a proper exploration fund and an eye on continuing my career are key to me.

Excuse me how old is the man in question who needs heart surgery?

Gotta agree. Business class is the only way to fly! But I also agree it's probably not worth forking out the dough to pay for directly. What I have done is use frequent flyer miles + My China Airlines credit card to get upgrades on the long haul portion of the flight. That's from SFO to Taipei. That part is like 13-14 hours. It makes a huge difference not to have to be around crying kids and having a seat you can actually sleep in. Also whether you sit window or aisle there's plenty of room to get out and go to the bathroom without disturbing anyone. It also entitles you to the premiere lounges during stop overs where you can relax and grab some food in a peaceful environment. With my miles + the Credit card I've been able to do this twice now. For the final part of the flight from Taipei to BKK I just fly economy to conserve air miles. That's only a few hours and by then I'm so excited nothing could bother me.

90 days

55555555

Damn I was too slow to steal Gabor, fortunately no one took Ginseng yet. Or maybe no one gives a fuck, I guess I don't either. Not sure how many more Pattaya boards we really need.

I would love to have a cell phone jammer. So many idiots on the train blabbing away for the duration of the ride. They are 100% illegal in the USA but the 11k fine for posession almost seems worth it. I think it's difficult to get caught if you have one, but obtaining one is the tricky part.

First of all Cowboy I'm terribly sorry to hear of this, my father passed away from Pancreatic cancer. I agree with Alexist however. You can't only live for today or tomorrow. It's up to each to decide when they have enough to fund their dreams. For me I've chosen to save enough to explore living in LOS and finding a job but not enough to retire.

That does sound ideal as my present health should allow me easy access to insurance. It's just stupid unrelated things from my past they can use to try to weasel out. What does BPH, and BUPA stand for? Can I get this right in Thailand? Me too. Michael Moore talks about this in Sicko and unfortunately it was a reality for me. I've been fine with my work group policy but I don't want a repeat of prior problems, when I go on my own again. The worst part was the letter they sent me, it was very antagonistic as if I had tried to commit a crime or something. I understand it's a business but some of them really do not want to play fair.

I am 32 and in perfect health however I have been denied health insurance before and don't want that to happen again. Here is what happened. When I graduated college I went off my families health insurance and had to get my own. I signed up for All State health insurance. I regularly made the payments for a year and a half. At this point I was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome which required surgery. I had had several doctor visits which were covered by my insurance, however after the surgery itself I received a call from the doctor stating my insurance refused to pay. I called in and asked why and they said it was pending further review. At this point I had to fill out a number of new forms, be blood tested for drug use, HIV and grant access to my entire medical history. 2 things, and perhaps this is my own fault. When I was 14 I had a head injury. This was fairly serious that required an operation and that I be hospitalized for several months. However after this I was basically fine, still in perfect health. Second thing, during college I got depressed over breaking up with some chick and went to see a shrink. He prescribed Paxil which I took for about a week then found a new chick. I did note that I had a head injury but I had forgotten all about visiting the psychiatrist. All State claimed that I didn't give enough information about my head injury, but in particular that I didn't note I had suffered from depression and received psychiatric medicine. neither thing had anything to do with my carpal tunnel whatsoever but basically that was a loophole that allowed them to get out from covering me. They refunded my policy money but didn't pay the surgery which was much more than I had paid into the policy. If I purchase individual insurance in Thailand I was wondering will they have access to my US medical records? I don't mind disclosing these two events but who knows if there is some other little thing I forgot about that will let them evade paying for my medical care. It seems insurance companies have become even more aggressive in avoiding claims and I wouldn't be surprised if some stupid thing popped up, like when I was 12 and broke my arm etc... What has been your experience buying personal insurance in Thailand. Most ideal for me would be if they did a physical and based my premium on that since as I said I'm in perfect health to my knowledge. Is there any Thailand based insurance company available for Farangs that doesn't have US based offices? I can't change the past so I don't want it to haunt me forever and prevent me from getting insurance.

Is this Mansion 75? If not can you provide a link with more info?

this place sounds good and I've even heard of it before. Under 10K is my budget. I will be arriving at the end of March, just in time for song Kran for better or worse. After this I'll be going to BKK as I'm sure I'll either go broke or insane if I stay in Pattaya more than a month, even a month may be too long.

How do expats handle this issue? How do you go about vetting new girls before determining if they are trustworthy enough to bring back to your place. Do you avoid taking them to your place altogether?

If I wanted to spend a month in Pattaya where could I get the best value for my baht? How much would I need to pay for a place relatively close to the action on Beach Rd or Walking street. If price drops significantly going just a bit farther out then I would consider that too. Also is it hard to get a place for just a month? I don't want to stay in a hotel and pay for house keeping and crap, I'd rather save my cash for the lady drinks. Even a small furnished studio would be fine.

I have a BA in English and with a refresher course I could probably distinguish a subject from an object in a sentence. If I chose to teach English should I get the CELTA or is a TEFL sufficient? I don't want to spend more for training if it's not going to equal higher pay.

I'm thinking of moving to Bangkok next year and will likely want to go with a bar girl on occasion. Is it foolish to bring her back to my apartment? Is there a such thing as guest unfriendly apartment complexes? I've only been in Thailand as a tourist so I don't really know the score in the residential scene. Also if you have a problem with a bar girl in your hotel room you can just change hotels, not so easy in an apartment so I could see caution warranted. However I don't want to be shelling out dough for a hotel if I have my own place and it's no problem.

I am confused too. I've been told you can extend the tourist visa for 30 days then renew it once and again renew for 30 days equaling 6 months. But I thought renewing it was only possible once. I wasn't aware there are different types of Tourst visas, I thought there was only one, single entry one.

Looks damn good what are the terms of the lease... month to month?

I'm sorry if you are going through emotional turmoil but divorce can be war so you need to think straight right now. It's not clear to me if you were married in Thailand or in the USA. Things are simpler if you were married in Thailand. I'll tell you my experience divorcing a Thai lady from California, I think I lucked out and some misinformation was given that favored me so I don't know if your case will be the same. Your biggest problem is the fact you signed the I-864 Affidavit of support to get her here. Even divorce does not nullify this document. If you can't agree on divorce terms and she refuses to leave the country you could be on the hook to support her for life in some form and to reimburse the government for any benefits she could obtain, this could range from welfare to student loans for college. However most foreigners would have trouble figuring out the system and actually getting those benefits that you'd have to reimburse. there are 3 ways out of this agreement, again divorce is not one of them. 1. She becomes a US citizen 2. She has 40 quarters of tax paying work which takes ten years of consecutive work. 3. She abandons the visa. This requires her to leave the country and not come back, I'm not sure how much time constitutes not coming back. Like I said if none of those three happen then you're in it for life. She and I agreed on a mutual divorce. We had no shared property or kids. I did have to pay her some money to get her to sign and though I felt she deserved $0, paying was the easier way to go and after meeting with a divorce lawyer he said the amount requested would be much cheaper than going through divorce court. We went to the Thai consulate twice. Once to ask how it was done, and the second time to divorce. The first time we went they told she and I if neither of us were contesting the divorce all we had to do was sign a piece of paper and the divorce certificates would be mailed to both of us in 30 days. The Thai lady at the counter also said my ex wife had to leave the country the day we got divorced as her visa would be invalidated. I don't think that last part about her visa being invalidated was true, but I was damn glad she said it. My ex wife's attitude was that Thai people were smarter than Farangs and anything a Thai person told her was true. So here was a Thai person telling her she had to leave the country, she wasn't going to question it. So we settled our affairs I bought her a one way non stop ticket to Thailand and we returned in about a month and got divorced. The day she got on that plane back to Thailand was the happiest day of my life. The one last problem I have heard about is if your wife claims you abused her. Almost with out fail the US government will opt on the side of caution and grant her a visa based on spousal abuse. I don't know how this works but from what I've been told they don't even investigate it, just grant the visa. So it is in your advantage to both agree on divorce terms. It's highly likely some kind of cash payment will facilitate agreement. By the way I do not plan to marry again.

How many times can you renew the 60 day Tourist visa? How does one go about renewing it within Thailand?

Rather than speculating and flaming each other to death I would love to hear stories of people who made a go at livin in LOS but it didn't work out for one reason or another. Particularly from the people themselves rather than 3rd person accounts.