daeng12

Thanks very much for your help, Scorpio and grrr. I'll check the place out this weekend when I go up to Chiangrai.

Hi. I live in Phayao, but often get up to Chiangrai. Lately, the VCD movie rental places here in Phayao have been carrying very few English soundtrack versions of the newer movies. Are there any VCD/DVD movie rental stores in Chiangrai that have a good selection of English-soundtrack movies?

Thanks in advance for any help.

I use Truegoo in my tires. (I ride a Honda xl250 Degree dirt bike.) Most reviews I've read rate it as better than Slime. The Truegoo will plug most punctures immediately. It can be used in both tubed and tubeless tires, doesn't clog the tire valve, and doesn't upset the balance of the tire like other sealants do. The one time I picked up a nail, I think the Truegoo may have saved me from a serious accident, as I was riding the road from Maekajan to Chiangmai when it happened - lots of curves, which I tend to take pretty fast. So if I picked up the nail when I was in a curve, it couldn't led to a serious crash. But the Truegoo plugged the hole immediately. I noticed that the bike was handling a little differently, and when I checked the tires, I saw the nail. Unfortunately, Truegoo doesn't ship their product to Thailand. I ordered it over the internet, had it sent to my parents' home, and they mailed it to me. So if you have a friend in the U.S. who is willing to mail it on to you, you can get it. Here's a link to their website, and to a review at their website:

http://www.truegoo.com

http://www.truegoo.com/WriteUps___Relatables.html

By the way, can anyone tell me if the Lao Immigration officials at the border will accept (and give change for) a U.S.$100 bill when buying the $35 Lao visa? I have a $100 bill that I'd like to use, and I've not found any banks in northern Thailand that will give change in U.S. smaller bills. The only way to do that is to cash it into baht and then exchange the baht for U.S. dollars!

NO, they will only accept the exact amount in USD and make you wait longer than the people who pay in THB.

Not true!Many times paid with a 100 or 50 bill(not too much used)and they gave the change in $.May happen only if they are momentarily without change!

Thanks for your answer to my question, abdulrahman. Thanks also to visarunner for taking the time to answer. Looks like there's a pretty good chance that I can get change for a $100, but should probably have $35 in small bills just in case.

By the way, can anyone tell me if the Lao Immigration officials at the border will accept (and give change for) a U.S.$100 bill when buying the $35 Lao visa? I have a $100 bill that I'd like to use, and I've not found any banks in northern Thailand that will give change in U.S. smaller bills. The only way to do that is to cash it into baht and then exchange the baht for U.S. dollars!

I got a double-entry Tourist Visa in Laos two weeks ago. I got to the embassy at about 8:30 am (Monday, July 27), and there seemed to be about 60-80 people ahead of me, maybe more. I submitted my application around 10:30 and left. The next day, since I had a ticket for a 2:00 bus from Vientiane to Udon, I went pretty early to pick up my visa - about 11:40 (gates open at 1:00) - and was about 5th in line. As time went on, various people started to cut in front of me - looked to be mostly Filipinos, so, since I didn’t know if their line-cutting would make me miss my bus, I decided to do something about it. I went to each person or group who was cutting in line, and told them that they couldn’t do that, and had to go to the back of the line (which now was quite long). One Filipino guy told me that he had heard (no doubt from his Filipino friends) that you didn’t have to wait in line - that when the gates opened, everybody would just rush through the gates! Another Filipino guy told me “I’m just up here visiting with my friend; I’m not cutting in line; we know the rules”. Most of the other Filipino-looking people I talked to just backed off a few feet from the line (obviously planning to cut in when the gates opened). The only really polite people were two guys who looked to be Japanese. When I talked with them about no line cutting (they were actually sitting on the sidewalk near the front of the line), I realized from their response that they thought that everybody in line was there to apply for a visa, and they thought that since they were picking up their visa, they could be near the front. When I explained that everyone in line had already applied for their visa and were waiting to pick it up just like them , they nodded and walked to the back of the line. Three cheers for Japanese politeness! I had heard that when picking up a visa, everyone would get a number and then wait until their number was called. So I planned to actually find a consulate official and point out some of the line-cutters (I speak Thai well, having lived in Thailand 13 years). As it turned out, no numbers were given - the line just went forward up to the counter where the passports were handed out, so by the time I got my passport (which only took about 10 minutes, even though 10-15 people had cut in front of me), most of the people who had cut in front of me were gone. I’ve lived in the Philippines before, and I know how common line-cutting is there. What I plan to tell the Filipino line-cutters the next time is, if they want to work outside of the Philippines, they need to learn to act according to international standards of politeness, and that their line-cutting is giving their country a really bad reputation among a lot of expats in Thailand.

By the way, the 2:00 direct bus from Vientiane to Udon took about two and a half hours to get to the old bus station in Udon.

Yeah, and I'm sure there will be a steady stream of legally qualified (Degree & TEFL) teachers, just queuing up to work for £100 a week in poor conditions, with long hours & little or no help from the Thai staff in a country where they have a shortage of teachers as it is.

Actually, in rural areas, it's more like 20 pounds U.K. per week. When I checked out teaching possibilities in Phayao (northern Thailand) 6 years ago, every school I visited told me that the starting salary would be 6500 ฿ per month. That's about $38 U.S. per week, or 21 pounds U.K. per week. That was the starting salary for a Thai teacher. The only way that Thailand is going to be able to bring in an adequate amount of qualified English teachers is if the government subsidizes it (as happens in other Asian countries). That the Thai government has not done this shows a genuine lack of commitment to having the Thai people become proficient in the English language. One of my students (I teach private classes, not in a school) showed me a Thai newspaper article recently which showed that Thai students scored lower than students in almost every other Asian country in English skills. (There were two parts to the test; I think overall Thai students finished 7th or 8th out of 9 countries; I wish I'd xeroxed a copy of that article so I could report the data accurately.)

I live in northern Thailand and would like to get a mountain trail bike (since I sometimes go up to remote hilltribe villages), which I've seen sold in both Chiangrai and Chiangmai. These bikes are imported from Japan, and I've heard from several different store owners that the cost of buying a bike with a license (ทะเบียนรถ) is 50,000 baht more than a bike without the license! - apparently the cost of the import tax. So I could, for example, get a used 250 cc Honda Degree mountain trail bike for 50,000 baht without the license, or for 100,000 baht with a license. Something in me rebels against paying that much money just for a tax, so I'm trying to find out how much of a risk it would be to get a bike like this without a license (I could get insurance and the accompanying P.R.B. sticker, but I couldn't get the sticker that comes when you pay the annual tax on a vehicle, not could I get a Thai driver's license (which I currently don't have anyway). I've gotten varied advice from Thai friends. Some say it's too risky - that if the police find out that you don't have a license for a vehicle, they can impound it and you may not get it back. Others say that police understand that there usually aren't licenses for these types of motorcycles, and won't make a big deal about it, especially for a farang. Does anyone out there own an imported bike without a license? If so, have you encountered any problems with the authorities, or do you know anyone who has?

Thanks for any responses that come.

Sincerely,

Daeng