Darrel

Check this link: interest rates Thai banks

This link, whilst useful, only gives rates for the basic types of account. There are other "fancy" accounts that may pay more, for example the 14 month account that pays some 2.6% for a headline 4.25% rate. I know of no site that lists these for comparison.

There isnt "a market" in Pattaya: there are at least two. The market for things that farangs can buy (ie 49% of a condo) and the one for things that they cant buy (ie everything else). These two are totally different for obvious reasons.

And even then, if you put any property up for sale at the right price it will sell. The reason that many places dont sell here is simply because they are grossly overpriced. Many of the prices I see here are approaching European price levels, and given the low cost of materials and labour here that just cant be right.

I heard about a condo on the beach in Jomtien last week. I visited it the next day. It sold for the full asking price within 2 days, but not to me as I'm an old fart and I was too slow. It wasnt a fire sale: just a reasonable price for a decent property. Compare that with crappy old places that are on sale for years on end with no viewings and fewer offers. They are too expensive and that's all there is to it.

If you want to discuss the reasons why farang quota condos are overpriced, I put it down mostly to these people who buy them by the dozen and then hang on to them waiting for who-knows-what. Perhaps there should be a rule preventing anyone from owning more than two or three? That at least would get the prices down to where they should be.

The March sounds good. Thanks for the comments.

only 8 chips.

That is barely a garnish, like parsley.

yet there are sometimes short interruptions in the transmission. What is the cause? Is it possible to have a buffer so that there is no interruption?

A buffer is built into whatever player you are using. Some players (like VLC) allow you to adjust the buffer settings and this may be of help. Another solution is to favour Ogg or ACC+ streams as they need less bandwidth than MP3 streams for the same quality. Prefer cable connections over wifi, if possible. But this is Thailand and my connection just sort of dies from time to time as well, even though the DSL link remains solid.

365 seems to have more advertising than before, do you have a preference in that respect?

I just listen to the stations that play the things I like. I dont use any particular channel groups. Many stations seem to play no ads at all.

it would be far safer to transfer directly to the developer .

As far as I know that is precisely what you should NEVER do.

Ah. Micra is a name I recognise. Thanks.

I love internet radio.

If the station you are listening to streams in MP3 I would prefer 96k and above. Preferably above. 256 or 320k is very good but there arent many stations streaming at this rate and in Thailand your connection may not keep up with it either. For AAC+ or Ogg you can say 48k as a minimum for similar sound quality to 96k MP3. The higher the better, of course. Quite a few stations stream in several different bitrates so check the station's website.

The best speakers for you are the ones that you like. Go and listen to some. If you already have a good hifi then you can just connect your PC soundcard line output to your amp using RCA leads (or your PC's HDMI or SPDIF socket to the HDMI or SPDIF socket on your digital amp if you are so blessed, as I am - this is REALLY good sound).

Shoutcast, Icecast, Radiotime, Reciva all have BIG lists of stations. And Google is your pal.

Thanks for those suggestions.

Some sort of automatic transmission would have been nice though to be honest I probably wont actually be doing that much driving in traffic: once I get into it all I will more likely be going along Sukumvit to get to Tesco or the weekend market than battling along 2nd road. I drove a manual transmission car for 35 years in much worse traffic than here so it wont kill me to continue!

Still a little doubtful about the low ground clearance of these small cars but I bow to the superior knowledge of other BMs. My main experience of Thai roads was 20-30 years ago and I can assure you that they were a hell of a lot worse back then. I was only joking about the road surface entering Jomtien: I know an ordinary car can handle that fine (at sensible speeds).

I was amazed to see that the labour costs for perioding servicing on the March appear to be free for the first 36 months, and that the total bill for periodic servicing over 5 years comes to under 15000 Baht. This is pretty astounding coming from a European country where one simple oil-change with filter costs about 25% of that, and anything at all out of the ordinary normally attracts a bill in the thousands of Euros. Indeed I always did all the periodic servicing on the Fiesta myself.

I suppose that these little cars hold their value quite well from new here, if ever I found that I really wanted something bigger/sturdier for more adventurous trips on worse roads.

http://www.scb.co.th...0113-rate.shtml

That page includes this quote:

“As a Year of Rabbit gift for clients, SCB will introduce a new version of its 'More and Even More' campaign, offering higher interest rates every 5 months, and allowing clients to make withdrawals anytime and earn interest at the rate effective at the time of withdrawal without penalty charge. With the new campaign, customers will earn a maximum rate of 4.25% p.a."

Unfortunately there is no mention of this on the SCB website that I could find. Does anyone here know more about it?

Thanks for the suggestions.

Our old Fiesta was a great car. 170,000Km and we never spent a penny on it apart from the usual oil, filter, tyres, brakes etc. It never broke down and it was pretty economical on fuel. It was also pretty lively.

Just wondering whether it isnt a bit low on the ground for Thailand though: even going from Pattaya to Jomtien is like a 4x4 off-road track at the moment, complete with water hasards.

Only thought about pick-ups because they look solid, I was told they are quite cheap and I dont need 4 seats. Dont really have anything to put in the back of a pick-up either though, apart from a take-away bowl of noodles or the occasional suitcase.

I would like to have some sort of green/economical engine type as long as that doesnt cost too much extra to buy and doesnt have too much impact on longevity and maintenance.

its the impression you give...be careful of that.

No, it's what you infer and you should be careful of that. Just because you think you can see ogres lurking in every doorway does not mean they are actually there.

I'm thinking of buying a car/pick-up for use over relatively short distances of maybe 10-15 Km to get from an out-of-town location into central Pattaya and/or the beaches/towns towards Rayong a few times a week. Also some very local trips to markets etc. I may also go further afield for short breaks at some point, perhaps some trips to the reservoir and the airport, but not often.

I only need two seats and little luggage space and couldnt care less about looks or street-cred. Just let it be cheap to buy, cheap to run, sturdy, long-lived and reliable.

It will probably not be parked under cover.

I have no intention whatsoever of buying used and would normally keep a vehicle until either it dies or I do. (My last car, a Ford Fiesta, was bought new 21 years ago and sold for 500 Euros when I left Europe last year. It was in perfect working order and I would have happily kept it for another 10 years.)

Suggestions and advice? TIA

But for me it was partly by accident where I was fortunate and happened to be in the market and bought at a Baht to US$ exchange rate of 41:1. Being closer to 30:1 today there has been (on paper) over 25% ROI.

That was totally by accident, unless you knew in advance that the Baht would appreciate. And if you had simply converted your USD to Baht and put them on time deposit you would have made the same increase (plus interest) with total solvency and no risk.

So any calculation of the value of Thai property over the years has to be in constant Baht and not in other currencies. If you bought a condo for x million 5 years ago and can sell it (easily) today for x + 30% or more then you have done nicely. Anything less is not so good, unless you have also had rental returns.

Thai doesn't buy a condo in the same or over price compare with a price of houses.

Of course they dont, but they have the luxury of having a choice. Farangs can ONLY buy condos, if they want to remain within the letter and spirit of the law.

I would also much rather spend 3MBaht on a freehold 3-bedroom house with pool and carport than on a 50sqm condo but I cant (without putting a great deal of trust in a Thai person or the Thai government, neither of which tempts me at all).

Quite a good site for further reading: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/foreign-currency-exchange

so if one guy is telling you that all he does is getting pissed everyday then you wont go there.

Some people would consider that a very desirable lifestyle.

My Moneybookers transfers from GBP to THB get changed into EUR 1st, for which, they claim there's no charge!

They charge me around £1.50 to send to my Thai bank account in EUR who then change the EUR into THB.

This appears on the "fees" page of the Moneybookers site:

"For transactions involving currency conversion Moneybookers adds 1.99% to our wholesale exchange rates for foreign currency."

Admittedly the processing fee is low at GBP1.50 but they make it up with the currency fee.

Sending small sums is always going to be uneconomical but if I wanted to do that I would investigate the low-price transfers that some UK banks offer for small sums. At least you wont pay the 1.99%

And above all one should remember that your money is not guaranteed in any way, shape or form with Moneybookers. If they collapse you will probably lose the lot.

It has happened before (and no, I'm not a Mirror reader: it was the first link I found, honest Guv).

So what is stopping people from putting "tourism" or "retirement" instead of "visiting someone"?

I cant remember which I put but I certainly put one of them.

To poison any animal is wicked and cruel, it takes them hours to die. You should have bought the owner a 75 Baht muzzle

I'm inclined to agree about the poisoning being cruel but in a country where both dog owners and the local authorities do nothing to solve the problem there often isnt any real alternative. It may just be the lesser of the various evils. Certainly for the wild dogs I wouldnt care to try to put a muzzle on them and I doubt anyone else would either.

i have had lots of friends and lots of dogs

dogs are more loyal and reliable

That is surely true.

However, I doubt that many of your friends would crap on your doorstep or bite your neighbour.

Personally I will go for the sanitary, non-biting 2-legged friend, even if he isnt particularly loyal.

You sound worried.

You know that if someone thinks about or chats online with young kids and what they want to do with them, that is the first step and can be treated as perverse and not even reality as it is the internet and in your mind.

But if someone takes the next step and acts upon those thoughts or chats, then they enter a new phase where the real possibility of them offending takes place.....if they do not intened to do anything, as many claim, why take that next step and enter the real world.

You seem very worried for these people that take the next step......I just wonder why.

What exactly is this rambling nonsense? Did you even look at the link I included in my earlier post, or what I said about it?

If you want to be in town there is a nice village between soi Buakaow and 3rd Road (south end) with town houses, the 2 storey ones going for around 2M I think.

Do you mean the Village or somewhere else? The Village seems rather run-down and dilapidated to me. Maybe I was there on a bad day.

I dont like dogs. Dirty, stupid, noisy, dangerous, disease-ridden ceatures that crap everywhere and stand in the middle of the road. I see no point to them at all. Dog owners are rarely any better. Both should be humanely destroyed, or castrated to prevent them breeding.

However while the selection of food is not vast, the basics are there and IMHO the food is for the price very good.

Order off the menu in any other Indian restaurant and see what you get for 199 Baht.

That's true enough and puts it in a better light. Why is Indian food expensive here anyway?