I tried to warn you about Perth Lessu

Perth basically has nothing to offer other than a few nice beaches, which obviously at this time of the year isn't much help.

Also lol@burswood raising the rake again, I guess they aren't making enough out of their $10 whiskey shots already.

Although I know you guys like to do things by the book, but surely getting the dodgy 1 year visa +stamps service which can be got for 25k baht or so from travel agents in Phuket/Samui has to be better than spending 27,000 baht every 3 months to fly to a **** place like Perth. Basically they get you the same visa that you got in Perth because they have a contact in a foreign consulate who processes them for them, and another contact at a border who they pay off to stamp them.

It's not only the cost and inconvenience of the visa run, but also your lost income. I mean if you spent those 15 hours (time spent flying and getting the visa) grinding instead, you'd be far better off, not to mention the time spent sitting on your arse in Perth doing nothing.

If it's the non imo type O visa that Juha got then he only has to spend 27k once a year, so it's not too bad. I'd still rather do that than have some dodgy guy put a fake stamp in my passport.

Also you could just spend ~30k on a 1 year education visa and not have to bother with visa runs again

is going to see thai boxing at Lumpini a must see or overpriced/not that great?

I'm flying into BKK for a 3 days wknd on thurs night and was originally planning to go to Pattaya and get trashed all wknd but I drank too much this wknd and not really looking forward to more of the same at the moment lol.

For Pattaya have any of you guys rented jet skiis or something along those lines, done the elephant tours, etc? Or do you do that type of stuff in other locales in Thailand and just stick to shipping bargirls in Patts? I've only been in Pattaya once, but was on business and spent most of the day in Rayong so I didn't really do anything except have dinner and a few drinks. But the jet skiing and elephant tours looked pretty cool in a brochure.

1. Boxing is quite good fun if you like that sort of thing. As usual Falangs get f.ucked when it comes to seat prices. Its 1k for a rubbish seat and 2k for a ringside seat. Maybe if you have a thai bird get her the buy the seats while you stand around the corner, you can then go in on those tickets which are way cheaper. Basically if you are there when the tickets get bought you pay falang price.

2. I wouldn't bother renting the Jetskis unless you are desperate. Too many stories of people getting f.ucked for a lot of money after being accused of causing damage to the jetskis that was already there. Not worth the hassle and if you refuse to pay you will get a beating.

Just go and enjoy the legendary nightlife imo...........

Lumpini

^ ty for the advice. Might try and use your angle of getting a thai girl to get tickets. I'm not a cheap person but I don't like the idea of paying 2000bht for ringsides if there's a way to get them for a lot less.

Every time I try and set up touristy **** to do in Thailand it inevitably ends up in "ah **** it, I'll just sleep in, get some good food and then go drinking"

The cheap section where all the Thais stand and cheer actually looked quite good fun tbh. I reckon if I went again I'd try and get in there just for the comedy banter that was going back and forth. Think that was only a couple of hundred baht to get in there, but as usual if your a falang they only offer you the expensive options. P.isses me off tbh............

yea i took all warnings into account and didnt expect much

and like i said in my TR i dont have to worry about new visa every 3 months. i just need to leave/come back every 90 days. that can be done with airasia going to KL and back which takes 8 hours door to door. next time i need a new visa is end of september next year

1 more Q for you guys.

Does Dream have free wireless internet in the room? The website doesn't say so explicitly but it sounds like you have to pay. Otherwise, are there a few terminals in the lobby area where you can get free i-net?

Love racking up internet fees when it's for work but when you're on holiday it's tilting to pay $20/day or wtvr.

yes it is free i am on it right now

can't post this without name of train station and seedy hotel

Yeah it's the same visa, the only difference is that when they give you the visa, they also give you the 3 stamps so you don't have to go anywhere.

Doing it Lessu's way, assuming the phuket-KL flights are around 6000 baht return, the total time and money invested for the original visa + 2 visa runs is:

40 hours of plane travel
2-3 days in Perth
~45,000 baht

For each year. And that's assuming from Phuket, which is the easiest/cheapest place in Thailand to Visa run from.***

When you total it up the 1 year education visa is a far better deal, even if you have no interest at all in learning anything.

Does anyone here actually have that visa though, and willing to explain the requirements for it? I'm fairly sure that the reason everyone doesn't get that visa is because a lot of people (specifically older people) are not eligible for it.

** E.G. to do the same thing from Samui you would have to fly with Firefly, which only run 3 flights per week so a 2-night stay in KL is mandatory. Otherwise you are looking at an 18 hour return bus trip to visa run which will leave you laid up in bed for a couple of days afterwards. From Bangkok you could go with Air Asia to KL the same, but it's probably a little bit more than it costs from Phuket since it's a little bit further.

The Non Imo type O visa actually gives you 15 months if you leave and re-enter just before the 1 year ends, so that is a good bonus as well.

Also 6k each time *can* be avoided if you want, I did a couple of 1k baht bus visa runs from Phuket. So if you want to cut down on yearly costs that would be a good way.


I have an education visa from Chiang Mai university. It cost 30k baht for the 1 year visa and 4 hours of Thai lessons per week. At first it was not mandatory to attend any classes but they have now introduced an attendance policy of 80%, so they can cancel your visa if you never go. Each school can be different though so you could definitely find one that doesn't give a **** if you go or not. imo 4 hours a week is nothing though and you get to learn some Thai whilst you are here, meet some people etc etc, so I would recommend that to anyone.

I also don't have to do any border runs on the education visa, just head to the immigration every 3 months which takes like 20 mins.

I'm pretty sure any age is eligible for an education visa as well. Certainly no one on here would have trouble getting one, I've got some dinosaurs on my course who have retired in Thailand and just want to learn some Thai

well if you want to count hours in plane + money spent

initial trip bkk-per-hkt 20k + 13h
ive never paid more than 3.5k for the phuket-KL trips. once got it for 2.5k and usually its been around 3k and i will do it 4 times and every time it is total of 2.5hrs of flying

so total for 15 months will be 23h in plane and 20k+4x3.5k=34k baht + hotel in perth - winnings at burswood

At this point I think that the Education visa is the best available, AFAIK even if you are married and have kids with a thai you still have to do visa runs, but you don't with an education visa.

I think as a service to the growing number of ppl who want to live in Thailand and grind, we should put more effort into finding out about the universities that will give this visa, and the amount of hours needed to attend to keep it.

As you can see by Lessu's post and the hundreds of questions about visas in this thread, it's probably the single most important thing people need to know.

Since they changed the rules and you can't just do 1500 baht visa runs indefinitely any more, this sort of thing needs to be fleshed out for people who want to stay in Thailand long-term.

Does anyone have any info on medical insurance in thailand? I've seen some thai companies advertising it, are they worth looking at or should I just stick with my original provider from back home?

I would like to know this too.

hey guys--

i'm heading to bangkok (probably for a year) very very soon. just haven't bought my ticket yet.

i remember someone was talking about being a DJ in bangkok in this thread or the chatter thread. recently, i've been thinking that is something i'd really enjoy doing since a) it would give me an excuse to learn something new, and b) it would be really fun to play what i consider good music for other people.

so, how hard is it to get gigs? even if you're not a DJ, i'd be interested in how hard you think it would be. how difficult would it be to play at a place like the bed supperclub on a regular basis? (i see they have 3 resident DJs every week.)

i basically have no experience, but think my musical taste is different from most DJ/clubber types so that would be either an asset or a negative. i don't know. (i'd play bands like animal collective, modest mouse, old 50s rock like the everly brothers, psych, swamp rock, with a healthy amount of rap thrown in....overall i'd try to keep things "dancey"). when i went to clubs in tokyo they just played the most standard american hip hop songs and i felt ridiculous getting down to that kind of music - but thats probably what a lot of people want....

any info about DJing in bangkok would be cool!

I think it'd be somewhat hard to get gigs at a lot of places if you have no experience....

It's about as likely as you being invited to get up on stage and play guitar with AC/DC despite having no experience playing the guitar. I.E. not very.

since your plan is to mix rock i guess you dont need to know how to beatmix. but you still need musical understanding far beyond a "normal" person. and you must be able to handle a lot of mental pressure. all is cool when 1000 people rock to your tunes, but try an afterparty when 3 2m dubes comes up to you and demands deadMau.

thats a few things to think about. after that, we can talk about how to get jobs.

(i was a pro dj for about 8 y)

thanks for the replies guys. if someone demands deadMau i'd probably be like i don't know deadMau, brah. i think the main thing about DJing would be to have a very good idea of what i wanted to play beforehand, and how to mix/effect everything. could be wrong there. i'm sure a lot of people wouldn't be into the stuff that i'm into, so i'd have to tailor what i was playing to the audience while also tailoring things to me and making sure i like what's being played.

i'll be the first to admit that i am very naive about how competitive DJing actually is. the plan would be to learn how to DJ before i performed, of course. lol...i wouldn't just "wing it". so - to rephrase it - after i know just what it is i'm doing, and that it's obvious i have some understanding of how to dj, how hard would it be then to get a gig at a place like bed supperclub?

as far as musical understanding goes, i'd say my musical tastes are very diverse. also, i have a fair amount of recording/mixing knowledge. i recorded a cd in high school and sold it. i was contacted by several large indie labels that were interested in my stuff. from whatever buzz that was generated from that a new record label (now lefse records) sent my stuff to brian deck (awesome producer). he liked it and we recorded an album for a month in chicago. i possibly could use that as a marketing angle in getting a gig...even though that has nothing to do with DJing so probably not. but it's not like i'm just some guy who casually listens to music who wants to press play in iTunes and let the Genius function do it's thing. turned into sort of a brag....

i'm sure it's very tough, so i'd have to learn my stuff. i didn't mean to make it sound like it would be just a matter of me knowing a bartender there if that's the way it came across. how did the guy who just started DJing in bangkok get his gig?

You should keep in mind that bed+supper club is an internationally famous club in one of the world's premier party cities. It's probably not worth getting your hopes up of playing there any time soon.

You should probably set a more realistic goal for the short term if you are even halfway serious.

fair enough. i'm not much of a club goer since most of the cities i've lived in have been bar towns. i know nothing about famous clubs. it just looked like a cool place on youtube. maybe i'll have a terrible time every time i go there and give up hope.

assuming you would become a good dj, able to adjust to 20 different dj consoles and PA's etc etc, getting jobs is very hard. most dj's gets their jobs after very slowly getting to know organizers personally. an agency can also work, but for an agency to take you you need experience. of course its doable, and the way most of the djs i know did it was to hang at clubs at least 4-5 days a week, talking and promoting yourself, but not in an intrusive manner, with tapes, talking and general nonsense (afterparty snorting is an increible promo tool). the easiest jobs or sessions to get are from 6am to 10am at small afterparties. start from there and work up. .

thats how it was when i worked as a dj, hopefully some can chime in on local variations in bkk.