Dont worry.

There will be no serious racist comments or even threats towards your friend just because of his skin.

Your friend will still have a good time, but he just won't get the full VIP treatment. We won't be denied entry or yelled at or anything.

in my experience, he'll be treated nearly the same as you as long as he's with some honkeys, and perhaps it's just black U.S. servicemen, but the thais do differentiate between black americans and africans from what i've seen.

Whar kind of price could you buy a cheap 2 bedroom BK apartment out there for??..

i may be wrong, but only thais can buy property

i think you're right.. unless you're married to a thai and she owns 51% of it..

you can buy condos. you can buy houses. just not the land under it. you can lease it though for 30 years at a time

and they just published a news a week ago that if a foreigner buys lans in her wife's name with his money the ownership of that land will be revoked. not sure if that was an old law that they just wanted to show some publicity for or a new one.

and that 51% is for companies. companies can buy land if they are 51% or more thai owned

I think youre wrong lessu, I think a foreigner can only buy up to 49% of a condominium.

I think it's that the whole of the condominium block can only be owned by 49% falang. The rest has to be Thai owned. Kinda what I thought anyway

I always wondered where people got the idea that there was speed in Thai Red Bull:

http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia...l-in-hong-kong

I can't tell if that's someone trying to get Red Bull off the shelves, or the company itself trying to sell more cans with unusual advertising.

i dont think i am

I just read a recent book about starting a business in thailand that had a a lot of laws explained and this was one of them. after the news from couple of weeks ago about foreigners are no longer allowed bye land through their wifes i read thaivisa and phuket gazette and they both stated that foreigners could still buy condos.

i googled a bit too and you are partly right. according to this news article there still was a law in 2007 that stated you could only own 49% even of condos but it was removed in 2007.

interesting, you can also buy houses but not the land under it? how does this work?

well i think most people used to do it through their wifes or in some cases they would lease the land. the standard contract for leasing land is made for 30 years and it is renewable but i am not sure if that is only for lands that you would use for businesses or for private use too.

you could also put the land in your wife's name and then give a loan on paper to your wife for the same amount to protect yourself. that way if the wife tries to kick you out of the land she would own you the loan to you and you could use it against her.

i dont know if there are other workarounds

You said earlier, foreigners can buy houses and lands but not the land under it.

How can you buy a house but not own the land?

You lease the land and then build the house on it? What when the leasing ends? What happens to the house then? Do you have any links regarding this issue?

no i did not. what i said was

the lease is max 30 years and it is renewable and it should say on the leasing agreement that it is up to the person who leases(sorry i dont know the exact terms in english) the land to choose whether he wants to renew the lease. so you would "own" the land basically forever.

the only thing you dont know is if the thai government starts changing the rules like they do all the time so you can never be 100% to own the land forever even if you obey all the currents laws.

i have no idea what, if anything, happens to the house if for some reason the lease ends/is ended by someone

Ok sorry I made a spelling mistake, you said you can own condos and house and lease land but dont own the land.

Thats interesting, though you are right that its not safe to say lease land in thailand build a house on it because they might just take it from you.

Similar things happened to the thailand elite card or more recently how the land purchased by a thai spouse with the money of a farang husband can be taken away like you said earlier.

Thai women are the best housekeepers in the world. You buy, they keep.

Some of the examples I've heard are incredibly sad stories (and sometimes the guy was just an idiot). Don't invest in a house in Thailand if you can't afford to lose it.

i read today that the elite card thing is accepting new applications now

lol and are the old ones beeing reinstated?

I guess someone just stole the whole thing and is now making a buck into their pocket.

lol no one owns land....

no?

I and a friend of mine is planning to go to thailand for 6 or 12 months in September/October, and so i have a couple of questions

- From what i understand u have to have your plain ticket ordered before you can apply for a 6 month visa, this is correct right?

- Say we order our tickets today, can we then apply for a visa now and say we want it "used" from Sept 1st to Feb 28th? or do the visa start expiring from the moment u get it accepted, so that we should wait until 2-4 weeks before we're going?

- Is it easy getting a 6 month visa, and like if you apply you WILL get it, or are there some that don't get it? and after the 6 months, when u have to leave the country to search for a new one, it's 100% sure to? (wondering cuz we think we're staying for 12 months, sux to rent a home for 12 months and then only use it for 6, and still have to pay)

- I've seen numerous real-estate sites where you can find villas to rent, should we find a villa and take it before we go, or should we fly down, live in a hotel for a week or two while we search for a place to live? and if we should find a place to live after we get there, how easy is it to get a place within a week or two? (we're going to phuket)

- Phuket or Bangkok, and why?

there is no such thing as 6 month visa

you are probably talking about tourist visas. depending on where you live you can get your tourist visa with up to 3 entries. for each entry when you enter thailand you will get a 60 day stamp. then about week before that 60 days is up you go to a immigration office closest to you and apply for a 30 day extension for 1900 baht. after the 90 days you have to leave the country. you can come back same day

if you get a double entry tourist visa it will have a 3 month validity. this means you have to use the 2nd entry 3 months after the visa was granted to you. for example if you got the visa today (10 of june) it would have a "enter before" date of 9 of september and you would have to use the 2nd entry to thailand on or before 8 of september. on 9th the visa would be expired already. you get the 60 days again and a 30 day extension for this entry too. so even if the visa is only valid 3 months you get 6 months of stay out of it if you optimize

if you get a triple entry tourist visa it will be good for 6 months meaning you would have to use all 3 entries withing 6months of the day you applied for the visa. nothing else changes

no. you would want to apply for the visa couple of weeks before your flights. obviously depending how long it takes for the embassy in your country to process the visa for you.

some countries are easier than others. meaning some embassies ask for some documents you might not have with you while others only need money, application and a photo. at the moment you can only get a double entry tourist visa from vientiane, laos (from the neighbouring countries). it is also fairly easy to do it there. you can also get single entries pretty easy from most neighbouring countries

definitely fly in and stay in hotel until you find a place. you want to see everything yourself, not just pretty pictures on a website. also the prices on websites are obviously more expensive and the agents get a cut which makes the prices higher.

in september it is still low season and with the tourist numbers going down i see a lot of "for rent" signs in my mind in the future

any more? i am bored so i could answer some more

forgot to answer to this one.

it depends on the embassy. the embassy in vientiane, laos for example doesnt require plane tickets or any sort of proof about leaving the country. some embassies like the embassy in helsinki want plane tickets for every single entry which is obviously ridiculous but what can you do.

so it depends where you are from and/or which embassy you are going to use