masuk

I have never heard of a good Parasite so I wonder how they will clean this up in such a short time. What can this Parasite do to you, Kill you ,cause a rash. Well come on they are still letting people near this water. WHAT THE HELL !!!!!

It sure looks like a common leech. If it settles on you for a free drink, salt will make it go. Pulling it off might leave parts behind.

I've had a good few on me in other countries, and the worst that's happened is that the anti-coagulant they inject to stop the blood clotting, can cause an allergic itch for a few days.

Whatever, I'll avoid the water-throwers around the moat, and stay with the tap water.

SOHO bar always supplies lots of cold water and other cold goodies!

Same thing happened to the Australian Embassy n Chiang Mai

Must be for that people go to a Embassy so that way things done in a controlled office

I've only been here 3 years, and was unaware that there had been an Australian Embassy in Chiang Mai.

As long as there is still an honorary consul here, we might be able to battle on!

Same thing happened to the Australian Embassy n Chiang Mai

Must be for that people go to a Embassy so that way things done in a controlled office

I would love to spend songkran in the rain.

I've never seen rain over songkran (9 years here so far), but have often wondered if they'd run for cover and the streets empty.

It really poured down late one afternoon during songkran in 2013.

As I was halfway back to the car, watching people running from the rain, it seemed a bit odd as we'd been pouring water over each other all day.

Bring it on!!!

You are not wrong. There are some real window rattlers roar up and down outside this condo, and they are LOUD!

No decent enforcement obviously.

Just 100?

I have visions of about 300 fleeing the country in case it's one of them.

That's what I like about ThaiExpatTV. If you miss your favourite show, you have 10 days available to go back and watch, or record.

Weather has heated up, A/C working harder.

Fridge will be working harder too.

EDIT. What temperature do you have set on the A/C? Does it ever attain that? Do you have bills from last year this time to compare?

A common thing when the refrigerant gas runs low and the A.C. struggles to cool the air - it doesn't stop and doubles your power bills.

Also, be realistic about the temperature setting. 27C is normal for most.

Are the air filters clean? In a Chiang Mai climate, they might need removing and hosing clean every few weeks. If you use the 3M microfilters, I find these are very dirty within 2 weeks.

In the meantime, the BIB set up their checks at exactly the locations where it is quite likely that they will get foreigners, and a few stray Thais too, whilst ignoring the sheer size and volume of the problem..

I don't think that's accurate. Thapae is hardly the only spot that sees very regular checks. Also Santitham/Chotana, Nimmanhaemin: all nightlife areas with mostly Thai people visiting.

I think it has more to do with convenience and having enough space available. After all you need to set up tables for testing, and once you get someone you're then stuck with a vehicle that needs to stay somewhere. Thapae is of course super for that. That's why I think it's their spot of choice.

Whether or not it's a regular thing I don't know, over New Year they set up a roadblock right outside Lucky and started stopping bikes only. They then proceeded to search everyone they stopped (mostly single males) and search their pockets and their bikes - apparently for drugs.

Not sure if this was in response to a tip off or not.

Not a breathalyser in sight.

They'd save more lives by checking on motorbike lighting and helmets. One in five have no rear lights, and a good few drive around at night with the headlights blocked by their shopping in a basket.

Well the 90 day online reporting launched today also seems to be a joke also.

Certainly not working yet, at least for a couple of people who have tried!

I wonder why?

maybe some folk from the other side of the date line think it's April 1st tomorrow!!

Many shops will have 2nd hand models at reasonable prices if you want something cheap for temporary use.

yes, there is a tendency for folk to want the latest model mobile phone, and as others have suggested, there's a good range of used phones around.

I've recently been told that there might me slight frequency differences, but I'm out of my depth there.

I'm told by one who knows that most KSK shows are in Thai. Maya has mostly English.

It's all on the internet.

What I'd really like is a theatre which shows movies from Europe. However, I can't see that these would interest a Thai audience.

I really miss the 'arts' or Film Society theatres found in many Aussie cities.

I had a problem before moving to Thailand: I had 50 years worth of slides, black and white and colour photos, and did not want to put these into storage.

I bought a Canon scanner, which scanned 5 x 35mm slides at a time. I had to dust and clean each slide, and then colour corrected each one using photoshop.

The system worked fine and all 4000+ slides were scanned over 3 months, numbered and titled.

The scanner also came with negative holders, which printed colour and B & W negatives and gave a 'right way around' (positive) images.

Finally, my prints in albums were scanned.

It was a slow job over winter, and I had many backups, before the originals were eventually scrapped. A tough decision.

The last chore was to make DVDs for each of the family, and send these off.

I would never use that blue 'thingy' lol

I also the type in picture 5, and I would like to point out that the terminations are different! Neutral and Earth are reversed.

How do you mean? Yellow/green is earth, isn't.

What will happen if, L and N are mixed up? My house is consistently wired for black = N and grey = L, which I didn't realised in the beginning when changed some of the wiring... Now I'm not sure and ought to check each time before I do something.

A real hazard is the two-pin plug which can be put into a socket either way. An electrical expert once warned me that this means that the appliance can be 'live', even though it might be switched 'off'. i.e. the power runs to the appliance and is stopped on the return by the switch. Off course, many Thai outlets don't even have a switch.

When I was renting a 'modern' house with 3-pin sockets throughout, I used an earthed power board (many are not). To overcome the Thai problem of having a different plug for each kitchen item, I bought a bag of Aussie plugs, and an Aussie powerboard with switches and overload switch and changed everything over.

Maybe something to get on your next trip to your country, is a bag of your own plugs and powerboard.

It was interesting to note that China has/is converting to the Aussie plug system.

The last house I rented was 2 story, and the downstairs part remained cool in the day but I had a large fan drawing air in thru the day until it was time to close the doors and let the place stay cool.

I didn't need the large downstairs air con on at all. Upstairs was another matter, with the usual false economy of not insulating the roof cavity. I left all windows open during the day and at night blasted the bedroom with the aircon for an hour or so after I closed up the room.

Power bill stayed down.

I spent some money on putting up some gutters to prevent water splashing into the living room, and added screen doors from 80% screened to 100%. No more mosquitoes.

Worth the small amount paid, to have no bugs at night, dry floors. Oh yes. Added extra lights to the kitchen. I hate working in the dark. Thais seem to work by feel.

I was told by a skin specialist just last week to stay for about 20mins of sun, before 10am. Longer than that was just plain stupid he told me, as he zapped about 8 sun spots on me.

Might be worthwhile to look up natural sources of Vit. D.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/vitamin-d-deficiency

You've all forgotten lounge chairs! I really dislike sitting on the sticky plastic protecting new furniture, and it's left on. Leave a pool of sweat as you get up.

I live in a gated community where you need a keycard to enter and exit by car. If you don't pay your fees or dues, you don't get a keycard. Problem solved, unless you don't have a car.

We have the same set-up, but the problem is that owners all paid when the remote keys were issued, but now a year later 17 (all Thai) have defaulted on their maintenance. So unless you change the keys every year, an expensive proposition, it's very hard to make them pay. I can see the writing on the wall, now that 17 out of 39 have defaulted, the rest will start to drop out as well, myself included. These bloody free-loaders want all the facilities like street lighting, road sweeping, pool maintenance, security etc, for free. They just don't seem to grasp how quickly a village will go downhill once it's not maintained, which of course affects property values.

Is it possible to change the code, as they do in hotels, and only financial members get the new card and code?

No. It's not a key card it's a remote to open the gates. There is still security there as well in case someone forgets their remote, but it would require everyone to be issued with new remotes to prevent access. There's no easy answer unfortunately.

Surely the machine which reads the cards can have a code-change?

or else, everybody gets 14 days warning (true or not true) that only financial members will be able to bring their cars through the gate after a certain date.. That might get their attention.

This is an abomination.

Supposedly ozonised and chlorinated drinking water is not safe to drink? Disgraceful

Recently I mentioned that my 20 litre bottles of water had green gunk growing on the inside.

Maybe I should go back to a system our maid in Indonesia used; she would boil 10 litres or so in the evening, and let it cool, before storing it in the fridge next morning.

Best thing to do long term is buy one of those machines that makes water from air. Pure water is the final product. The basic one is about 28 k last time I checked.

Who in their right mind would extract air-borne water from polluted air?

Whoa, 10 years...you really held out. I've been here for half a year and already looking to leave. Thanks for your advice about the carbon mask -- didn't even know those exist. Your point about all the convenient locations having the problem is spot on.

I have lived in Silom for 10 years....I now have asthma (only in Thailand) and I get sinus headaches (despite 3 sinus operations here) and must take strong meds to get them to stop. One helpful precaution is to wear a carbon mask on the street, something I now do automatically. These are gray (vs green) and are sold at Wassons....far more effective than the cheaper masks but still not really expensive.

At the end of next month I will move back to the USA - will still visit Thailand once a year but can no longer live here full time because of the dirty air. I realize I could live in a better area but any convenient locations in the city all have a problem. One step the government could take is to get the old red buses off the road....I often see them spewing black smoke. Buses over 20 yr old should not be on the road.

Paper masks only filter out dust particles, sawdust. Carbon filters will absorb most chemicals, and hopefully this includes a big killer, which is diesel exhaust.

At the risk of repeating myself, I was impressed with the efforts of some Chinese cities, in banning diesel fuel. Buses, trucks, pick-ups, etc, run on LNG or similar. Motorbikes are almost all battery operated.

you're so right about Thais and water management.

Every day I see the gardener next door watering lawns in the heat of the day, instead of before 8am and at dusk, where the majority of the water will not evaporate.

In Australia, even the toilets have a choice of 'big' flush or 'small' flush, depending on the use. It saves a couple of litres per use, and it all adds up.

Hopefully the thunderstorms forecast for next week will bring some rain.

I'm due to fly out this afternoon on AirAsia.

Just wondering if it's likely they'll stop flights as they have done recently.

Visibility is certainly R.S. this morning.

I live in a gated community where you need a keycard to enter and exit by car. If you don't pay your fees or dues, you don't get a keycard. Problem solved, unless you don't have a car.

We have the same set-up, but the problem is that owners all paid when the remote keys were issued, but now a year later 17 (all Thai) have defaulted on their maintenance. So unless you change the keys every year, an expensive proposition, it's very hard to make them pay. I can see the writing on the wall, now that 17 out of 39 have defaulted, the rest will start to drop out as well, myself included. These bloody free-loaders want all the facilities like street lighting, road sweeping, pool maintenance, security etc, for free. They just don't seem to grasp how quickly a village will go downhill once it's not maintained, which of course affects property values.

Is it possible to change the code, as they do in hotels, and only financial members get the new card and code?

I think most of us who live here day in and day out understand that our interactions with Thai folks form our opinions and feelings about the Thai. Even simply observing Thai behavior without close interaction can cause some to form strong opinions.

What would really be interesting is to ask this question of TV readers who spend little time here in Thailand. I know that there are a number of readers who visit for a short time each year or who are contemplating a move to Thailand. How has reading TV affected your view of Thailand and its people?

I checked out the web site for CEBU. It was so totally full of whingers, moaners, complaints about everything, that I decided I'd come to Thailand.

Join TV

Guess what?

I can't see why most of these folk even stay here.

Yes, I've been duped and there's a possibility that my new car will be lost to me; however it was my own stupid fault, trusting my friend enough to register the car in his name.

Now he's used it as surety for a large loan