Latindancer

My wife is a government-employed teacher, and because of this her parents are entitled to free medical care in any government-run hospital. These hospitals give a reasonably good standard of care. Her father is over 70, her mother approaching it, and both are  in good health. However when she moves o/s permanently to be with me, she is quitting her job, so mum and dad will need some kind of health insurance.
Can anyone make a suggestion regarding this, please ? I'm not sure about the various levels / standards of health care in Thailand, but in the West, private care is the best, and public is the worst. Where does the government system fit in, in Thailand ?

I used to be able to save gif files to my laptop and re-send them to friends, but I can't now. I have a Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop ( no issues otherwise) with XP.
Does anyone know why this might be ? It's vewwy iwwitating...

I'm trying to work out how much I need to pay VFS for processing my wife's application for a Tourist Visa to OZ.
On their home page there seem to be THREE different sets of charges.
We'll refer to the ones listed for Bangkok only:

Courier charges for Normal Visa Applications
These charges include  600 Baht of VFS service fee + courier charge which varies according to the location.

Bangkok
780 Baht for accepting applications only. 960 Baht for accepting applications and return of passports & other documents Payment must be by Bank Draft in favour of "VFS (Thailand) Ltd"
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Then further down the same page it says:

Courier charges for Evidencing of Visa Applications
These charges include  535 Baht of VFS service fee + courier charge which varies according to the location.

Bangkok
715 Baht for accepting applications only.
895 Baht for accepting applications and return of passports & other documents Payment must be by Bank Draft in favour of "VFS (Thailand) Ltd"
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And across to the right in the step-by-step guide, it says :

VFS Service charge of 600 THB for all visa types and THB 535 (including VAT) for Visa Evidencing per passport is applicable. Additional charges apply for courier services.  Payment through credit cards is not accepted by the Australian Visa Application Centre
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Apart from the fact that I don't know what an "Evidencing of Visa Application" is, it's all very confusing to have 3 sets of charges.
Can anyone shed light on this, or give a simplified version, please ? My brain hurts. Even the very first sentence at the top of their page is incomplete, leaving me guessing. http://www.vfs-au.ne...pplication.html
They then start talking about a "GDA Centre" but don't explain more. If my wife cannot get time off work and wants to send her application by courier, she  certainly can't get to a "GDA centre".

I am in Australia. My wife in Thailand is just about to apply  for a Tourist Visa to come and see me here in Oz for 3 weeks. She has been here before and got her Tourist Visa (3 months) quickly and easily. She has a respectable job as a government teacher.

What I would LIKE to happen this time  is this :

  She applies for and receives a 12 month Tourist Visa, stating that she wants to return later this year using special leave from work.
A couple of weeks later, she applies for the Migration Visa. Then she can come here again (after finishing up with her work....she needs to give a month's notice) and we can be together until her migration Visa is finalized. I know that in order to activate her Migration Visa she will then need to leave Australia for a few days and return.  However this way we can be together while her Migration Visa is processed. It's difficult to be apart for an indefinite time.

I'm wondering if they will grant her a 12 month Tourist Visa easily ? And should she state on the application  the reason for requesting  the 12 months ? Or just ask for 12 months, and give no reason ? Perhaps 6 months would be easier to get....her Migration Visa may well be completed by then.
I phoned the Immigration Department here and they said to state everything. But I don't like to complicate things when dealing with bureaucracy.

I live in a share house and we have a wireless router. There is a person whose room is right next to the wall the router sits next to, and when he gets on the net downloading stuff (especially movies) I cannot connect.....or I get connected, it says signal strength is good, but the web pages won't load because of poor connectivity. Other members of the house are also affected.
The person sucking up the bandwidth has a computer with twice the RAM as mine and a faster CPU  ( I just happen to mention this....I'm not sure if it matters).
Currently when connectivity disappears, I sit in the kitchen (as I am now) connected to the router with a cable.

Is there any way around this ?

I can't run a cable up to my room as it's too far. How is it that this person gets to suck up the bandwidth ? Proximity to the router ?