teevee

My dealings with the Australian Embassy and the Visa Section have always been pretty easy as they are very approachable and straightforward.  Dont leave any blanks - put "unknown but approximately xxx" and I'm sure they will sort it out without anyy hassles.

I understand the problem as I've spent two years planning our house and looking at numerous builders.  We finally chose a small Bangkok-based builder who was introduced by friends who worked in Phuket for a long time as the project manager on some major jobs prior to starting his own company a few years ago. The builder, his right hand man and myself have designed the house (no architect) and the very impressive 3D software they have used has made that pretty easy.

As for speaking English 1) that's not going to happen with the builder we have (we speak Thai) but his wife speaks reasonable English and she helps run the business as well as being the interior designer and 2) thats rule out a Phuket-based builder we very nearly used who built a friend's house and did a great job on it.    

We intend to start building on a headland in Kamala in a month or two so feel free to pm me if you want to talk as the house design and builder are critical decisions and Thailand (like other places) is full of horror stories of jobs that went seriously wrong.

I've eaten there many times and, in my opinion, the food is great (based on many years of indulgence in good Tex-Mex food in Houston & San Antonio) and the quality consistent.

In simple terms, its worth a visit even if that includes driving across Bangkok like we have to.

See below for two specific "older" condos which are well managed, and in good condition, als much bigger than most new dinky condos. The prices are accurate and current to the best of my knowledge but its a buyer's market so may be less.

Asok Towers on Asok +/- 260 m2 for +/- 15 million baht

Tower 33 just of Sukhumvit 33  +/- 320 m2  for +/- 16 million baht

For me, at 15 years plus its a definite YES.  

There are things that irritate me in Thailand. However, whenever I spit the dummy, I think about our last trip home to Oz which was planned for 6 weeks and turned out to be 3 weeks (which in itself was about 1 week too long) as we simply had enough of life in Oz. (I love the place but just cant handle living there).