quick question: do you guys have thai cell phones or just use landlines and what are the prices like?

I don't think anyone has a landline. You can get a Nokia 1200 with sim card for like $40.

If you have any sort of decent US mobile phone that accepts changable SIM cards you can bring your own phone and just buy a Thai mobile SIM card (50-200THB). The call costs are pretty low like 1-2THB/min.

pfft
buy 40baht at 7/11 and get a free TRUE sim card..


thats how the thai pimps roll

I know that the banking, depositing, withdrawing is extremely tricky for travelers from the USA. I have read most of this entire thread, and I am still puzzled as what to do next...I need some help in what should be my next step.

I am from the USA, and plan to visit Thailand 3-6 months. My plane leaves in about 9 days.

I just recently began playing online (transitioning from live). I have only set up and funded one site (Carbon) and I have set up, but not funded, one other site (AP). I still want to setup FT,Stars,etc.

I have many decisions to make:

1) set up accounts with FT,Stars,etc. right now with USA address, or shall I wait until I get to Thailand?

2) finding an ewallet that WORKS and doesn't rape on fees, or forwarding checks to my brother at an out-of-state US address and paying him to deposit checks (and if I do this, will I need new documentation for the sites that I don't have, thus creating problems?)

3) using a proxy vs. not using one (once again, will this create more problems?)

4) attempting to set up a Thai bank and new verification processes vs. keeping american addresses

Just to make the waters muddier, my Drivers Licence address doesn't match my mailing address, neither which match the address of the place I'm staying. I don't have a utility in my own name. At least these 3 addresses are in the same city (thank God). But now that I am traveling, I feel this is going to get VERY complicated.

About the weed situation : you guys simply do not have the contacts.
There is some good stuff around for cheap. Of course smoke it at home ( no hotel ) and try to think a bit.

In downtown bangkok I never had anything great, was smoking quite a bit with some french friends, not horrible but average stuff. ( was a while ago when whoiam was living in the same building ).

Now i'm in the countryside ( sort of ) it's very different, some great quality stuff around, many places to smoke without police problems. The best weed comes from Cambodia, nice sticky stuff, strong buzz. The **** one is very dry and dark green with leaves and crap, it comes from issan.

Do not ever buy weed from a Thai, especially one you do not know very very well. It's just suicide. The guy makes 10k a month max, he can get minimum 10k if he tips the police that a "rich farang has some weed on him". Just think a bit... setups are common.

My suggestion is to try to mention about it casually in expats places. Most older farangs never get controlled at the border...

do not PM me about buying weed thanks.

5month no re-entry needed

ship ship

Change the address on your bank account to your brother's address. Most often you can do this online. When he receives the first of your statements just have him scan it and send it to you. Also scan your passport. These two pieces together will allow you to have checks mailed to his address and then he can deposit them for you.

When you get here get a lease on the place at which you're going to stay. Take this lease to a bank with your passport and open a bank account. Open a moneybookers account with the Thai bank info. Talk to your landlord about getting mail at the place as your life will be much easier if you actually get the letter from moneybookers they send out to verify your address. Otherwise there are still some things you can do to make the account usable but it won't be fun and will take a bit of time.

Best,

Bill

I need a lot of help....i have been scrolling through the almost 500 pages of info here and have found some good stuff, but im almost more confused then when i started reading...

i am a 22 year old midstakes NL cash game pro, i have a bit of money saved up, and have decided to move to thialand from the US for access to somewhat softer games, potential tax breaks, and just the experience and leaving the US....

I am planning on staying anwhere from 9-36 months depending on how i liked it......I would like to possibly get some type of furnished apartment, with a gym. My goal would be to play poker, but i would also like to maybe take a weekly lesson on learning the language......

I would love to hear from anyone who lives in thialand, any recomendations for the best place/area would be awsome....any relavent info/anything i need to know, feel free to PM if you can help...thank

matt: there is a ton of answer in the thread.
In order to help you please state:

- your monthly budget
- where you want to stay Bangkok the capital, Phuket the island or somewhere else?
- for a furnished and serviced apartment ( hotel like catering ) there are a lot a them in BKK, for 1000usd a month you can have something nice.
- what kind of facilities do you expect? western like or more "local"?
- easy access to nightlife important or not?
- do you prefer to live in a place with lots of poker players from the forum or can you make friends easy?
- do you prefer big cities or smaller more "local" places?
- next to the beach or 2h from the beach?
ect...

Once we know we sure can help you.

matt,

i would suggest coming over and traveling around the whole country for a month and see what it is that you like. furnished apartments are the norm here, so no need to worry about that. checkout bangkok, chiang mai, pattaya, phuket, koh samui and a couple of other random spots and see what you like the best.

Anybow know of any streaming radio even close to the level of Pandora that you can access from Thailand? I don't want to setup a proxy for Pandora.

Anyone know if there are any Thai-language sites about poker strategy? Friend wants to put his gf to work

Am pretty much in the same boat as you Matt - although went to Thailand and travelled about with some buddies for just over 2 months and have a relative taste of where abouts I would like to stay so I'd REALLY recommend heading out there first and getting a feel for afew places Khun Degen said...FWIW am moving to BKK in November (:

i'm sure last.fm works

just perfect, thanks

Wise choice I'd say

haha from thaivisa:

...nice crawling around on a city street with your baby begging from people, or being a 5 year old kid selling roses to sex tourists at 1am.... what do you think?


the bloke who drags himself along the pavement between sukhumvit sois 5/7/7-1 has a wife and kid and a little abode on soi 7-1..i've seen him up and walking around very proficiently on his crutches...nice little money earner he's got going smile.gif

...



The "night crawler" doesn't live on 7/1, he just changes into his "work uniform" there. He commutes to work every day on his motorcycle along with his family.

He can become remarkably ambulatory when the cops are cracking down and picking up/arresting the beggars which is pretty rare. One time, I watched him raise himself from his slow worm-like crawl to do a quick one-legged sprint up the BTS escalator to avoid the cops but they caught him hiding inside the BTS station. Unaware observers were probably astounded to witness this miracle change. ohmy.gif

Isn't it nice that he has multiple generations involved in the family business? I guess it is tough to be a one legged person in Thailand where having a disability generally mean that you will never get a half-way decent job. Sometimes begging is the only option.

I have searched everywhere in the Technical help/computer threads, and I cannot find any info on routers and wireless internet plans for laptops for Thailand...I will traveling to Thailand in less then a week and I need help understanding how the wifi situation works here...from what I understand, public/hotel wifi is weak and unreliable, and I need my own router and plan

Theres some USB devices that works, but how good connection it is i really dont know. I just heard that before was pretty bad with this connection but now with some latest USB thing internet should be reliable. If its reliable for poker i dont know and i hope some of the guys overthere has tried it and has something to say about it.

If you buy it in bkk it will only work there if you buy it in phuket or samui then it will work for both of these places at least. Its some kind of wireless thing that works with this small usb device and this usb device is called cdma CCU-680 CDMA.

Im thinking of buying it as a backup, has anyone tried this cdma CCU-680 CDMA exactly as im not interested in reviews on past models?

thats the best way to sum it up right there. its not like there is an amazing network here and you just have to figure out how to use it...it doesn't exist. service is spotty and different in different areas. take what you can get from each hotel is the best you can do. ambassador hotel has some pretty good wi-fi fwiw

i have CDMA as a backup, its pure **** a nd slow as hell..

but its free. just pay for it with a set address.
then next day move to a new address..

i moved 1 week after getting it.. 2.5months later its still working free.. phoneline+internet


use it for long distance

What do you use, i guess its usb device im talking about. If thats what you have could you please tell me what exact model number it is.

Thanks.

its that huge phone thing theres only 1 model of those

took me 10hours to make it work on vista though

i will sell the lifetime phone/inet combo for 10k baht

The one wich is suppose to be better then any previous is this one:




This USB device is not bigger then a lighter, Ive seen these or similair using 3g technology in Sweden and this one is suppose to be pretty much the same in terms off realibility. But then again all information is second hand, in 4 days ill be back in Thailand and give it a go i think.