Monkey Boy

I have been using tailybuddy online pet shop for a number of years now for all my cat food requirements. Excellent service, has English version of website, easy payment via banking QR code, quick delivery across Thailand. 

Guys,

Was Pfizer obtained in Bangkok? If so how?

Trying to get it here in Si Sa Ket but without success. Registered with expatvac but been told to only expect sinovac / AZ out here.

Cheers

Phoned local hospital (Princ Hospital) in Si Sa Ket on Saturday. Only Chinese vaccine available now. Moderna vaccine either finished or not in stock any more (translation not perfect). Expect more Moderna next year!

Local village / health authorities have also been visiting my village and surrounding areas in Si Sa Ket. Think it was more to see who was interested in getting the vaccine. I believe they also included me in the list, as they had my name. Maybe because I'm registered in the village and have a pink ID card? 

Anyways believe the general consensus in the village, is that there wasn't many interested because a) the Chinese vaccine was mentioned b) so much negative press on TV and social media about the vaccine has people scared.

So while its great that the government are saying they are going to vaccinate the whole population, in reality it may be something very different.

Thanks for the feedback folks. Most helpful.

As others have noted, it shows that we all should have a will in place. Something that I need to address as well.

Thanks again

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Unfortunately he wasn't married to his Thai partner but do have a couple of kids between them.

Again thanks for the comments.

Hope some body can help with a query I have. A friend of mine recently passed away.

His parents are trying to sort his estate out but it looks like he didn't have a will and they don't seem to be getting anywhere while trying to sort his estate out here in Thailand. Hence they have asked if I know what happens with regards property if a farang dies overseas.

He had a house in one of the large estates near Sukhumvit Road, Pattaya.

He had a Thai partner/wife and a young family.

In the UK I guess probate would be the way forward, but this isn't the UK.

Does anybody know if the house will automatically revert to his Thai family? Will it revert to his next of kin in the UK, who will then have to sell the property?

Any answers (please civil ones relating to the matter) would be appreciated.

“I hold my hands up — it was me, and I’m ashamed that I lost my temper,” he told The Times by telephone from his home in the Thai resort town of Pattaya. “I was tired and emotional and full of steroids. I said we’re going to burn down Central — I was being sarcastic.”

A Brit, tattoos, steroids, empty threats, throws tantrums, home in Sisaket and lives in Pattaya. I get the picture.

Not all us Brits (or expats from other countries) in Si Sa Ket are like this muppet. Some of us are really quite pleasant.

Living in Issan, I've started to see changes here but unfortunately the common red shirt man in the street (or farmer in the field) is either unaware of it or doesn't want to accept that it is non-Thaksin based improvement.

Examples being:

I had the unpleasant experience of visiting a relative in a hospital a few years ago (when the country was run by Mr. T). This was a major hospital in a major town. It was like walking into a war zone. Corridors and hallways full of people in beds (if lucky) because the hospital was over-crowded, under-funded, under-equipped and under-staffed. Now within the last 6 months a larger and more modern hospital is being built to replace it (when the country is not being run by Mr. T.) Also health care is now free after the scrapping of the 30 Baht system (admittedly it was scrapped under Surayud Chulanonts tenure).

Local infrastructure (well at least the major roads) are slowly being replaced and upgraded.

Corruption in government offices appears to be falling.

I admit some things are still not ideal. The education system still needs to be sorted out (as well as the large truancy levels here).

Maybe the government needs to better inform its population about the ongoing reforms and how and when other developments will occur.

As a side note, 3 pickup trucks drove around Si Sa Ket town the other night full of red shirts and their clappers (well about a dozen of them) trying to drum up support. The looks from joe public on the streets summed it all up. Not one person cheered or supported them.

Thai TV is now saying there were 4 grenade attacks last night. 2 exploded and 2 failed.

Going by the pictures for one of the failed grenades, a policeman was wrapping tape around it (either brave or stupid as he was not in any protective gear). Looks like the safety lever did not release and he was making sure it wouldn't release later. Possibly an old grenade or one thrown by someone who doesn't know how to use them?

Still it's amazing how Thai police control a crime scene. Looked like everyman and his dog where there hunched over the grenade with no exclusion zone and reporters happliy snapping pictures. So much for keeping a crime zone clean. Suprised they weren't poking it with a stick or hitting it with a hammer.

Bit of a side issue...

I took my Toyota Sportrider in for a service last week. This time I took English and Thai copies of the user manual which indicate what needs to be done at each service interval. I did this because in the past the service report was in Thai, which I cannot read.

Going thru the list with the staff in the Service department, they mentioned that things that should've have been done on past services had not been done. Just minor things like replace the brake fluid and replace the transmission fluid!

Got them to tick off everything they did on the Thai manual copy so that I could compare it with the English version.

Glad to know that while I look after my car by going to the dealership for servicing, the dealership haven't a clue about what to service except easy things like changing filters

Unfortunately living in the sticks outside Si Sa Ket the phone line connections are very poor, so for the last few years I have had to use IP Star and connect to the web via the satellite. First using CS Loxinfo and then via TOT. TOT was cheaper and had better upload / download bandwidth than CS Loxinfo.

I recently changed to CAT CDMA 3G because i) no need to install a large dish in the garden and ii) its cheaper. TOT IP Star was coming in at about 3000 THB a month.

So far CAT CDMA has been ok with better upload / download bandwidth.

I have read in this forum that other CAT CDMA users are having problems due to oversubscription of the service. This seems indicative of most Thai telecom providers who promise the earth, take your money and then sit back (guess Western providers do this as well).

With the CAT CDMA (small USB modem stick which I stick in my router) I have been able to run normal web things on the PC as well as go online via my PS3 and Wii. Online gaming is possible and I've only experienced minor drop outs / delays.

To compare, today (Sunday 28/02/10), using broadband speedtest available on this forum my Download speed was 1699 kbps, my Upload speed was 323 kbps with an average ping time of 393 ms to the server in Singapore.

Hope it helps

On Channel 7 news now (22:26). Looks like nobody hurt luckily. Looks like 2 guys on a motor bike threw a device which damaged cars and nearby buildings.

The wife has just mentioned that on Thai TV it mentioned that a bomb had exploded outside the Hoilday Inn in Silom / nearby Bangkok Bank. Anybody heard anything about this, as there is nothing mentioned in the media at the moment?

First she has to find out if she has sole custody or not. She can do that by going to the amphur and inquire about that. There is a form, por kor 14, that states that someone has sole custody. She will also need this to get Thai passports for the children.

If the amphur informs her she doesn't have sole custody, she will have to petition the court to get it.

Cheers for the info. Next stop the local amphur office....

I'm a little out of my depth on this one so comments/suggestions welcome.

My wife (Thai national) and I have been married for over seven years now. She was previously married to a Thai but he left her and their two boys nearly fifteen years ago. She later obtained a divorce from him and the marriage was anulled. At that time, other than documentation to say the marriage was anulled, no other paperwork was issued. No letter of custody for the children was issued, my wife just carried on taking care of them. The ex-father has not approached, contacted or supported the family after he left them.

The query I have is with regards offical custody of the children. I am working in Singapore but the IRAS (Tax Dept) has informed me that my wife needs to produce a document that shows the children are under her custody.

How and where do we obtain such documentation?

Are these calls scattered throughout the day or just, say early evening ?

Regards

All throughout the day start from 6 in the morning till 11 at night. Compiling a list of the numbers to try and see which numbers are popping up more than once (only about 400 odd numbers to check).

Get the list of numbers called and start calling them. It won't take long to find out who was making the calls. We had a single line to a station that everyone used and when someone didn't log their calls or confess to them we just called the numbers on the bill and connected the dots. worked every time.

Started doing that. Wife has phoned some of the numbers but other end just reply that nobody has phoned them from Si Sa Ket (especially the one number in Chang Mai were somebody spoke for 200 minutes in one evening!).

I did mention the police to TOT, but you can guess how they reacted to that.

I walked the line and so far haven't seen a tap, but I guess I would have to catch the scumbags red handed while they were hooked up.

I also mentioned to TOT why they aren't providing a secure service (especially as I'm paying for it), that one just got a smile back.

I recently received a letter from the Electricity Company to say that I had missed payment on my electricity bill and that they would cut me off within 7 days if no payment was made. I thought this was strange as all my utility bills are direct debit from my Thai bank account.

On checking the account I found that TOT had virtually cleaned the account out by debiting nearly 15,000 THB for phone charges. (Luckily I just top this account up for the utility bills and don't keep my savings there). This seemed highly suspicious as my normal phone bill is less than 500 THB per month.

Further investigation at the local TOT office showed that ‘numerous’ mobile numbers had been called from my land line. This was confirmed when their bill finally arrived and contained 4 A4 pages full of phone numbers (both sides, two columns per page!). It showed that for a one month period, for every day, there was 10 – 15 numbers being rung via my land line to every corner of Thailand.

On questioning TOT about how someone could hijack my line, their reply was “somebody must have been inside your house using my phone”. I had to point out that due to the number and length of the calls (some of the calls were 100 plus minutes in duration), that I would definitely know if somebody other than the wife and I was in the house.

When asked about compensation for the excessive charges the reply was,” bill paid already – nothing can do”.

I then asked how much my bill is for this month so far. On checking that was up to nearly 5,000 THB and was informed that I will have to pay or lose my line. I don’t want to lose the land line, as I use it for overseas companies to call me on.

The only help TOT would offer was that I could lock my phone with a 9 digit pin number and after making a call, immediately reapply the 9 digit pin number again. Thus preventing others using my line. I don’t know if this will work, only next month’s bill will indicate so.

Has anybody else experienced this situation here in Thailand and what can I do (apart from disconnect the line and use a mobile number) to prevent this and claim my funds back????

Rains have hit Si Sa Ket, but not as bad as we've seen before, yet...

Major concern out here is the rice harvest. It looked like the folks here were at last going to get a good season after a couple of years of it hitting them bad. Everybody here is worried that they will now lose it, as it's their main / only source of income.

Just received news that a colleague has passed away in his home in Pattaya. Steve Collins was a good man originally from Liverpool who lived here with his young family. He was working in Libya for a while but others may remember him while he worked in the UK / Philippines / Malaysia.

Story originally reported by local media but have only just found out due to being out of the country,

http://www.pattayadailynews.com/shownews.p...NEWS=0000005802

Please respect him and his family in your comments.

Don't know if this will make it any more clear - probably not; but this was available on the net.

http://www.lawyer.th.com/National_Police_O...er_Oct_2006.pdf

Hope it helps

Forgot to add this link to a supplier of Fords in Thailand:

http://www.mitalai.com/index.htm

It wasn't the dealership we used, but it did provide a bit of background info.

I can't remember the exact model number, but a couple of years ago we purchased a Ford / New Holland tractor. Ford / New Holland being the same company after Ford took New Holland over, if I remember right.

Also a lot of Ford tractors are actually second hand re-conditioned imports that come via Europe. I met a farmer in Ireland a few years ago and they were getting new tractors under EEC grants and then flogging the old ones off to an exporter.

Why did we buy a second hand Ford? Well we initially bought a brand new Chinese model and had nothing but trouble with it from day one. The dealership was reluctant to take it back as even their supplier in Bangkok was having big problems with this make of tractor. Eventually they agreed on a part exchange for the more expensive but second hand Ford / New Holland tractor.

Our tractor works virtually everyday and for a good part of last year / this year the guys working the land used it in shifts so it was sometimes running 24/7.

Did it break down or require maintenance? Yes but Ford parts are easy to come by in Thailand, especially in the sticks. Parts are cheap and it isn't a bitch to fix. The guys in the field can get it running in no time if they have a problem.

Sometimes buying new complicated stuff isn't the best way to go. Buying something strong, reliable and dependable is.

Hope it helps.

My current offshore medical certificate (for oil & gas industry) is due to expire shortly and whilst on leave in Thailand, I am looking to renew it here.

Does anybody know where / if I can get a new offshore medical certificate? Preferably with the medical / x-rays / tests etc in the Pattaya area.

Thanks.