galoubet

My god...... it's like walking down Traitors Gate to see the heads on spikes.

Traitor's Gate was (and still is) a river only entrance to the Tower. So, more appropriate that you might have thought!

The extent of the flooding appears to be increasing in the areas near where we live. Here's a link to a video taken yesterday morning:

This area was dry a few days ago.

Excellent vid. In full HD too. You have a very steady hand. I've sent the URL to my sister-in-law who is coming to Bangkok soon. I wanted to show her the lovely sunny weather and the smiling Thai people (despite everything).

Mate. if you talk to Thai's that ride big bikes then they will believe as most have similar equipment to yours (different brands but all high quality)

Also i'm not saying that the REAL brand is better than a Hjc or BMW helmet.

Next time you fly can you ask someone to take a picture of you in all your gear on the airplane..thanks

My big bike mates in Chonburi all wear crappy helmets. But they are Thais not farangs. I've never come across REAL helmets before. But then again I'm not really on the lookout for a helmet. Don't get many big Thai bikers in Kanchanaburi (where I have a house and keep my BMW) except the vistors from Bangkok. Most bikers in Kan are farangs who have rented a bike and go out in shorts, sandals, sleeveless vests (or no shirt at all!) and a cheapo helmet they give away with mopeds. Apart from getting horribly sunburnt they run the risk of dreadful skin injuries and infections even if they only fall off at low speed. Makes me shudder.

No one ever comments on my bike gear when I fly. Not security at Heathrow nor the cabin staff. But I'll try to remember to post a pic when I next come out in November!

I got up early today (5.30am, here in London) for a 160km ride in the morning sunshine in the Surrey countryside. It's the only time in the week I can have the roads to myself apart from other bikers that is. And not a policeman in sight. I usually ride in Kan around 8am before it gets too hot. I don't know if you've ever biked around Kan but the roads are superb. Beautiful scenery, good surfaces without potholes and mostly empty of traffic. Best to avoid the main road to Thong Pha Phum at weekends though. Highly dangerous!

I come to Thailand for 4 months every winter. I always bring one of my BMW full-face flip-up helmets with me (steel locking latches!). Besides being very comfortable and strong it also houses my stereo speakers so I can motor in Thailand to my rock 'n roll. I also bring out my BMW jacket, trousers,boots and gloves. I cover my body completely. They are "Air-Flow" with great ventilation but rather useless if it rains. But I don't ride in the rain anyway.They are heavy so I wear them on the plane out (not the helmet!) to save on my baggage allowance. When I go out for a ride I get amusing looks from the locals seeing me dressed like a spaceman but I don't care. The helmet cost me around 250 UK pounds (12,000 baht) and is worth every penny. Thais cannot believe you can pay this much for a helmet! But every Thai helmet I've come across is cheap and probably next to useless. You can buy BMW helmets from the two BMW dealers in Bangkok but they are even more expensive than in the UK. But what price do you put on safety?

Thanks for the info.

I'm also after a holiday home elsewhere in Thailand & currently checking a few places out, is there much available there or did you buy land and build? prices? Nakhon Nayok is also on my list, it's also nice there, been a few times as the wife has some relatives there - good roads also...

JH

Yes, I think there are plenty of places to buy. You will need to ask around locally as much land and many properties don't adverstise that they are for sale. My neighbours are desperate to sell but there are no buyers. No one has any cash. I bought my place 16 months ago for around 550,000B. Gave them cash drawn out from an atm from my bank in London! All done and dusted in just a few weeks. We moved in after I gave them 100,000 down payment. What attracted me was the house was ready built with all the necessities in place and had good shelter for my car and motorbike and a high fence right round the property to keep my dogs straying into the busy road outside. I can walk out of my front gate, turn down the next soi and I have just paddy fields and mountains to look at. Never tire of the view. And I'm only a few hundred metres from the river.

A warning if you are thinking of buying. You may never be able to sell the property so don't think of the purchase as an investment. Treat it as cash you will never see again then you won't go far wrong. But there are equally lots of places to rent.

Kan is a lot hotter than Chonburi. Often a good 6C warmer.

Good luck!

Snap! I have a house in Sriracha and now have a small holiday home in Kanchanaburi so I make the trip quite often. Takes me about 3 hours. Before I bought my home I used to stay at the RS Hotel (GPS N14.05878 E99.50061) which is at the far NE of the main road going through the town. Comfortable double or twin rooms are around 1000B including buffet breakfast. They have a good swimming pool. Ask for a room overlooking the pool, very pleasant! There is an enormous safe car park. The hotel is very quiet at night. No karaoke like the River Kwai Hotel downtowm and far from the dreadful noise from the rafts on the river.

Kan is my favourite place in Thailand. The roads are smooth and free from heavy lorries most of the time (except January to March when they are harvesting the sugar cane). It's perfect for motorcycling. The locals are very friendly. The scenery is wonderful. What more could you ask for?

You mean VISA electronic card from your saving account? if yes you can aborad in most ATM, maybe some from local small bank not work but all from international banks. I use often in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Laos, Vietnam and also Philippines. So it must work in UK too. Even you get the better exchange rate. I not remember the max amount but should be approx 300 dollar per day.

I've used my SCB atm card in the UK. So, yes they work. Haven't tried it for a few years though.

Slim.

Christmas time? She'll freeze, poor girl.

Forgot to add. Has a pair of really loud horns. Enough to frighten the largest pickup truck!

I have one in Sriracha. Excellent new condition. It's 6 years old now but hardly been used as I bought my BMW soon afterwards. It's been inside my house (right inside) all the time raised on paddock frames. Has a carrier frame and a din charging socket. I can't remember exactly as I'm in London just now but the bike has probably only done around 10k km. I start it up every year. Beautiful runner. But I don't use it as I can't ride two bikes at once! I'll be in Sriracha on 15 November. Phone me then on 0859423274. My phone's here in London so you won't get a response till 15 November! 50,000 sounds ok. You'll get a bargain. Taxed till next year. Green book all up to date.

Send me your email and I'll drop you some photos.

Roger ([email protected])

Thanks Kan. If I need luck finding a decent place I'm not getting my hopes up!

My Thai lady and I searched for ages last year for an apartment in Kan. Very few and the few we found were either full, very expensive or grotty. In the end we bought a small house south of the river.

According to Siam Commercial Bank I can withdraw up to 200,000 baht per day with my atm card

see: http://www.scb.co.th...ps_bc_atm.shtml but I have to use a SCB machine. Loads of those around.

They are talking about a Siam Commercial Bank ATM card, not a foreign bank ATM card on this link...

Yes. I know. What's your point?

I have a SCB atm card as I have a SCB account. I also have UK accounts and cards. Foreign bank card limits are normally set by the issuing bank.

According to Siam Commercial Bank I can withdraw up to 200,000 baht per day with my atm card

see: http://www.scb.co.th...ps_bc_atm.shtml but I have to use a SCB machine. Loads of those around.

Can I borrow your card?

Certainly!

According to Siam Commercial Bank I can withdraw up to 200,000 baht per day with my atm card

see: http://www.scb.co.th/en/pnb/pnb_dps_bc_atm.shtml but I have to use a SCB machine. Loads of those around.

Why not set a maximum limit on your card that can be deducted in one day so that someone doing this kind of thing can't run your card for 200,000 baht if they do get hold of it?

I was thinking the same thing. The maximum I can get per 24 hour period is either 25,000 Baht or less, depending on the bank's ATM. I wonder if he did call the bank right away or waited a week or more... Another tourist that will tell his friend's how wonderful the Land of Smiles is...

My UK bank only permits 300 UK pounds withdrawal per day (anywhere, UK included). Nowadays that's less than 15,000 baht. If I had tried several times to get more the card would be suspended or even cancelled. Last year the card was suspended as I had made withdrawals on several consecutive days (I was buying a house in Kanchanaburi with ATM cash!) and the bank thought this was suspicious. I had to phone the UK to get the card reinstated.

It begs the question about the effectiveness of this Norwegian bank. Of maybe there's something not quite right in this story. People have been known to fraudulently report a card missing when they've used it themselves. Not that I'd ever accuse anyone of such behaviour.

It's still working. I conclude the following:

Either:

1) The government misspelled the website upon entering the site name to the 'block' list, or

2) The government left it open to track which naughty Thai-based individuals went to the site thereby blacklisting all of us for future use or blackmail.

Take your pick.

I'd go for the first option. The second one implies some sort of intelligence, not normally associated with governments anywhere.

Just watched "The Video"...

What a s#ut!

Mmmmm. I thought the dog was cute!

Designer dog though. HM prefers real Thai dogs. As do I. I have 3 of them.

Thank you dear Thai government for blocking the WikiLeaks website. Even with the furore over the Afghan leaks I never visited the site before. But today I have. Well done! By your actions you have made this video available to a much wider audience. Mind you, I can see why the video is banned. It's the most dreadfully shot home video I've ever seen. I guess the Thai government was so embarrassed by the quality they wanted it suppressed.

It will be interesting to see how you get on. When a Thai lady friend came to stay in London a few years ago (on a 6 months UK visa) we enquired about a Schengen visa as she wanted to visit France as well. We were told by the French authorities both here and in Bangkok that she must apply for the visa in Bangkok. Getting a Schengen visa in the UK for a Thai national was not possible.<BR><BR>Consequently she never went to France. If the situation has changed that's very good news.

Please look at this a simply a sugesstion to assist you in taking very good pictures to the next level. You know how to use a camera and handle it with great skill.

I have done a 1 minute adjustment of your image to show how software may allow your creative instints a wider latitude. As this is a small JPEG picture you could expect greater freedom and creativity using a RAW file from the camera instead.

Editing with RAW files allows you to readjust the exposure from -2 to +1 stops as a rough guide. Digital sensors lose detail in the highlights much earlier than the shadows so it is normally better to slightly underexpose than overexpose. The white feathers are slightly overexposed by about 1/2 stop. So with the RAW file you could have shot at ISO 1000 to reduce the sensor noise and still retain a correctly exposed image via software.

In Adobe Camera RAW I underexposed the image by .25 stop and added some recovery to the highlights to recover some detail. Finally I added a little Luminance Noise Reduction.

Firstly you don't know how I took the picture apart from the basic info I chose to supply because I removed all the camera specific info before posting. The photos were perfectly exposed with exceedingly low contrast to preserve any detail I might want to work with later on. If I had wanted to present a perfect photograph I would have done so. It's simply a low res picture suitable for a forum. That's all it is. If you like it that's fine. If you hate it that's fine too. Van Gogh would have loved you telling him how to put more yellow on his canvas because his giant sun was lacking detail. Just before he bottled you with his flask of absinthe.

Maybe just over ISO 800?

You could try the Photoshop plug-in Topaz DeNoise to reduce the grain, can make miracles

I don't need to. I have plenty of similar photos and HD video. I studied these sunbirds for 6 weeks when they took to nesting in my kaffir lime tree at my Kan house.

But yes. ISO 3200. Needed it as was shot at 1/1000s on a Nikon D300 with an old Nikon 500mm F8 mirror lens. But it's the shot that matters, not necessarily the quality although I try for both.

Attached photo same speed/iso.

Great. So a maniac like this gets to stay in Thailand for years on, while others struggle to get visas.

Lots of maniacs seem to hang on in Thailand I'm afraid. My Thai lady and I are looking after her granddaughter after the girl's French father has been in jail countless times for drug posession and violence. He gets to stay on in Thailand seemingly forever while I have to leave as my visa's run out! Last I heard a few days ago he had 7 days to leave LOS for good but somehow I doubt he will. He spends all his money on drink and drugs and nothing on his daughter. Lovely guy.

Galoubet, wonderful pic. Just big noise (maybe too much enlarged?)

Noise? Photo hasn't been enlarged. It's been considerably reduced.

.....and the very small (in Kanchanaburi)

The very large (in Bang Phra) .........