masuk

fantastic selection. Is it ok to get copies?

G'day.

I'm totally new here in this lovely city. I've got a non-Immigrant O visa, and looking at converting this to long-stay, but haven't made the move yet..

1) Does this mean I have to depart Thailand after 90 days for a new entry, or can Chiang Mai Immigration do a new 90 days?

2) As I'm heading overseas for a few weeks just 3 weeks after the current 90 days falls due, will Immigration do an extension of a few weeks, and thus issuing a new 90 days on return?

Certainly, it would be good to know if a kerosene fueled lamp (wick type) with glass chimney, is available anywhere.

Or maybe even the good old fashioned 'Hurricane' lamp.

I guess a Coleman or Tilley light would be hard to find.

Is there a list somewhere showing which airline flies to where out of CNX.

Might be nice to avoid BKK, KUL.

I was put onto Glacier water in glass bottles, and use this for all my drinking. Coffee is the exception - I boil a mug of tap water in the M/wave and no problems.

Some years ago, A school I was teaching at in Indonesia decided to save money by installing their own filtration system.

It worked fine for many months - and then 3 teachers all came down with the nasties. Classes cancelled, general chaos.

Local Staff decided it was time to change the filters!!

my fav. guest house was behind Spicy for some years, and they had a lot of negative comments made on the Internet and it was really hurting their business.

Fortunately, Spicy moved and the reviews have been re-written, the customers have returned. Bad luck really for the new owners. Isn't there a nice vacant block a few km out of town???

Moved into a condo 4 weeks back. those speaker vans sure are a pain in the rear end. At least it's down the road fairly quickly - until the next one..

I find the hours of hammer drills around the condo a bigger pain.

As I usually fly AirAsia, let's hope they move to the old airport soon. Thankfully, there is a direct connection from KUL to Chiang Mai, but at awful connecting times. Sadly, one must travel via BKK for most other international flights.

If Immigration are short staffed, who is going to work in the old place??

"An Immigration Police source said increasing checkpoint staff was not the answer. "All checkpoints are being manned to full capacity. The problem is not shortage of personnel," the source said."

That is certainly not my observation on the 10 times I have been through the airport in the past 2 months......On those 10 occasions I have always seen empty booths.

Methinks someone is telling porkies :-)

have to agree there.

I've been in and out numerous times in the past 6 months, and often the desks are only 50% manned.

Awful story.... But thats what you get when you fail to Earth properly...

RIP fella

that was my first thought when I read this story.

saving on a piece of wire, and not earthing anything.

100,000 THB would get you a great place here, plus a good standard of living. You'd be on your own for medical and hospital insurance.

Is that Defence Forces pension taxed or not?

You could rent a smallish, average house on the Gold Coast (QLD) for $1200.00 a month, but nothing as nice as you'd get in Thailand.

I've just left the Gold Coast and moved to Chiang Mai. air quality here somewhat dubious.

It appears that the Vietnamese are more advanced than Thailand and neighbors, at least from the point of view of no fires. (But also that the Chinese government not so.)

Perhaps northern Vietnam will become the next favourite for expats?

More advanced or stricter control I wonder. Also interesting to note from the map that Northern Australia uses the same ground clearing techniques, I find that particularly odd.

Burning the wild grass in northern Oz is an annual thing. It creates new growth and also reduces the summer fire hazards. A wild fire is uncontrollable.

The smoke probably upsets the camels and the kangaroos, but it's been going on for thousands of years. Not a real lot of people per 1000 square km there.

There are tons of older retired expats living all over Thailand that are bored to death and IF IF it were easier to do I think many of them would be happy to volunteer to teach a day or two a week. The first thing though is for the schools to be able to provide x number of work permits for these people. The idea that you need a work permit to volunteer to help out a bunch of kids for NO PAY is not helping. Many if not most of the public schools in rural areas can NOT afford to hire a native english speaker so they have NONE.

If you truly want to help some thai kids learn english why not stop by a local public high school and ask to talk to the head of the English dept and see if they might be able to pull some strings to help you volunteer without any work permit hassles. ...you might be pleasantly surprised. Do not expect them to PAY you as they have very little money. In fact over time you will likely find that YOU will subsidize the kids a bit by buying supplies etc with YOUR money.

It would be great if the Thai Govt was not so harsh in regard to qualified 'ancient' expats wanting to help teach English on a volunteer basis. I have just obtained a 'long-stay' visa, and as I did not have a letter from a Thai school, I was not able to obtain a visa which would allow even volunteer teaching. Maybe while I'm 'retired' I can get the required letter and try again in a year's time.

Recruiting teachers must be difficult. Thailand is the only Asian country I know of where prospective teachers must pay for their visas, air fares, a place to stay.

He may have thought that you were with the woman in front of you.

Either way, hardly anyone outside the UK has much idea about queuing unless they get a numbered ticket when they come in. When someone pushes past me I just say loudly and pointedly "Hey, there's a queue and it's behind me". It generally works. And if it makes them lose face or feel awkward or ill-mannered, so much the better.

Not true "hardly anyone outside the UK...". Here in Australia, next door in Kiwi land, we queue regardless of tickets etc.

It's only good manners after all.

What sort of interest is paid on Fixed Term Deposits in Thailand?

I'm wondering if it's more economical to have it stay in Australia at around 6%, and do a telegraphic transfer each year as required. It costs $30.00.

If the accident happened during evening hours, why was the "railway official" waving a red flag and not a red lamp? Why were cars "parked" (stopped) on railway tracks when the warning lights were flashing? Silly questions of course. T.I.T.

However these accidents also happen in other countries with supposedly more sophisticated warning and gate systems.

I hope the train driver is OK and also the idiots in their cars, stopped on the tracks, who were injured.

Have you ever been to that intersection? There are cars stopped on the tracks 90% of the day.

Usually, the police at Petchaburi / Asoke intersection let the lights run to clear the traffic enough to get the traffic off the tracks and the gates across. They must have been asleep.

I like your post script. At last, someone who can spell!!

I tried to book a room for a month in many of the Guest Houses, but got a message to say nothing was available for May.

I went back to Elegant Lanna Guest house, which is very pleasant but no pool, and got a room straight away.

Monthly rate is 8,500 Baht

Me and the GF normally fill up at the machine at the apartment reception, but the other day we filled up at another machine on the street.....and the water was definitely not right, tasted disgusting and not right, even in coffee.

We threw that lot away and refilled at our apartment.

The questions I have are:-

1. Does anyone know who looks after and services these machines? Or are they just left for years?

2. What actually does reverse obmosis (or whatever) actually do? What do these machines actually do?

3. I guess these machines are fed by mains tap water and the water comes out at a rate, so how does the water get 'cleaned' so quickly?

4. Are there any serious long term/short term consequences from consistently drinking tap water?

Just curious!

I've got a machine. There is a series of "normal" filters inside, going from 20 micron to 5 micron and then two activated charcoal canisters to remove the chlorine taste. Finally a sediment filter (1 micron) and then the RO membrane. The RO membrane has very fine pores which allow water molecules to pass but anything bigger cannot ( eg organic material, sodium chloride etc.) Its not quite distilled water but not far off. Finally most have an ozone generator which pumps O3 into the water to disinfect. Some also have uv.

Now maintenance. If the filters become clogged with sediment (and there is a lot!!!!) they will blind out and water will not pass. There are 2 choices: replace the filter or remove the filter. Depends who does the maintenance. As far as I know they are totally unregulated unlike in other countries. Same applies to the RO membrane

A word of warning to parents of young children. The filters are so efficient that fluoride is removed, and you're not getting 'mineral water', but fairly pure water only.

In spite of what the doom and gloom-sayers rant on about, fluoride is quite important for kids' teeth until around the age of 12. Practically all bottled water in Indonesia is labelled 'mineral water'; does this apply in Thailand?

My four had fluoridated water until 12 years old, and at age 40 and a bit less, there are no fillings yet! I only wish I could say the same.

as far as I can see this has nothing to do with hiring foreigners to teach English, it is solely concerned with hiring Thai teachers?

did u read the first sentence in this article?

"The Phuket Primary Education Area Office has relaxed the requirements for foreigners to be hired as English-language teachers at government schools in Phuket."

Else:

And of course there are English professionals out there without a degree but a good ability to teach. As well as there are qualified ones with degree who aren't worth a single satang...

There are also those of us who have gained the Cambridge University English Teaching Certificate, (TEFLA) have been teaching in Asian countries for some years, but are excluded as we don't hold any kind of degree - it can be in Agriculture, Dentistry or anything, as long as you hold a degree. Technical qualifications are not included.

Also, Thailand is one of the few countries, if not THE ONLY country which does not assist with a visa, air fare, accommodation. You pay your own way every step.

Indonesia pays for everything, China often provides meals on site.

Many of the temples in town would love to have someone come and teach the Monks English, or give them time to just practice there English. Doing that, probably no need for a work permit, but other organizations you should stop in and talk to the labor office to get information rather than on TV.

I know others who have gotten by without work permits for short times, but you take a risk that someone will find out. Up to you.

I came to Chiang Mai last year as a hopeful volunteer to teach English, which I had been doing in Indonesia for 6 years. This was with the ill-fated CMU scheme, where we all lost our $600 fee, and paid another $100 to study Thai in lieu. We were told that we could not volunteer for anything with the ED visa we had, (another heap of money) not even at the Wats.

I am planing to return next year, with the correct visa this time!

BTW Has anyone heard any more about the pending court case of CMU v. volunteers? Feel free to PM me.

As far as I can tell, none of the red songteaws have an actual route. They just go where they want to go.

The official rate is (I think) 15 baht, but, because of high gas prices, almost everyone that I see - including Thais - pays 20 baht for a ride if the driver just says yes to where you are going and does not ask for more. If you are going a long ways or somewhere that is not convenient or if the driver wants to rip you off, they will sometimes ask for more. You have a much better chance of paying only 20 baht if there are other riders going the same way that you are.

It takes a while to figure out which places are very popular and it is easy to get a ride at the basic rate, but it is not a good idea to start assuming that all of the drivers are trying to cheat you (as many newbies do), because most of them are honest and just trying to earn a living. In fact, I would say that goes for Thai people in general as you will hear a lot of crap about them being cheats and IMO a great deal of the time of the time it is not true. Of course, the longer you are here and figure out how things work, the less you have to deal with dishonesty, but it is always best to be careful without being paranoid.

If you head towards the river and the markets, you will find there are also yellow buses, which work in another area.

Yes, most of the drivers are honest and helpful. The only time I've been caught out was when I thought I'd hired one for 150THB, from the bus terminal to Thae Pae gates. However he continued to drive around the city collecting folk, and we eventually got to our destination - everyone paying 20THB - except for me!

Next time I'll use a tuk-tuk.

To receive the age pension upon reaching the age of 65 you must have lived in Australia at least 2 of the years between 60 and 65 . . . . . .

To get the full age pension and live overseas, you must have lived in Australia a total of 25 years.

Look up Centrelink on the internet, and then download the information. http://www.centrelink.gov.au/internet/internet.nsf/publications/int019.htm

There are some reductions, such as phone and power supplements. Also the Medicare card is cancelled once you leave permanently.

I was advised to keep my pension going to my Aussie bank until I really wanted to make the break.

I've had a KIA Rio in Australia for almost 3 years. Can't fault it, needs little servicing and has a 5 year warranty. I really enjoy the air con too!