marcus

From the Web site:

While the mahouts claim to have killed "only one" elephant, it is estimated that half of all elephants subjected to the breaking process do not survive.

"It is estimated" by whom? This is just something pulled out of a hat. It would never make it into a well-edited and professional newspaper, for example. It's unfounded speculation couched in language as if it were true.

It's not really important how many elephants survive (I suppose most of them given their economic value), but what's important is the fact that almost nobody seem to know about this torturing. Most of the tourists (and falang over here) still think that by booking these ridiculous "safaris" they support the poor local people (they support the owner of the camp who is already a millionaire) and they help the elephants because they read in the LP that "the poor elephants became unemployed the day government banned logging"

I agree with you that that website is written by some idealistic people without journalistic background, and you have to take it with a pinch of salt. However, National Geographic wrote in this article more or less the same.

Ask a mahout for the meaning of the word "phajaan" - I'm curious to find out their reactions

http://www.femail.com.au/elephantstorturethailand.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AR_Zife-c

Have a nice ride !

Are you sure meant to put the smile after that? I know what the phajaan is and not something you want to watch any part of.

The smile was ment sarcastic, I'm really curious to hear what excuses they will use when tourist will start asking the wrong questions.

Ask a mahout for the meaning of the word "phajaan" - I'm curious to find out their reactions

http://www.femail.com.au/elephantstorturethailand.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1AR_Zife-c

Have a nice ride !

Yes it is from Belgium. Hoegaarden, Leffe and Stella Artois are all from Belgium and all available in Bangkok. All three are available in Molly Malone's on Soi Convent.

I know it's a Belgian beer, but is the stuff sold here actually brewed in Belgium (rather than Northampton).

The bottles I saw were brewed in Belgium and imported by :

Company: BELGIAN BEER PARADISE CO LTD

Email:

Address: 66 soi pridee panonyong 26, Sukhumvit 71, North Phra Kanong Thailand

Zip/Postal: N/A

Telephone: 0851602366

Mobile:

Fax: 027117216

On Google no more information

what download speeds are you getting on your slingbox here in thailand and what ISP do you use?

650-800 kbps on a Maxnet 4 Mb Premium account. Before I had Indy 2Mb, and most of the time it worked also fine.

The bottleneck is not the Thai ISP, it's the upload at home (in my case 1 Mb up)

I get about 700 kbps ON TTT adsl 512 I get a very good picture I LOVE IT

What resolution HiDef do you stream ??

Thats the problem.. One mans 'very clear picture' is anothers muddy low res net stream.

I just wait a day and DL the Hidef torrents.. Rarely are they clear hidef tho, some of the 1080p BluRay rips do look good, those are worth the wait.

The slingbox is NOT a HiDef device ! The maximum resolution it can stream is 640x480, and only if you have a reasonable bandwith. This is OK to watch TV a comfortable way, but I have to admit, if I want to see a movie, I mostly prefer the torrent too

It's power is that when I turn it on, I have exactly the same viewing experience as my friend who is hosting my box 10.000 kms away. In an hour or so, I will watch the "Tour de France" in my own language - would be impossible without Slingbox

A while ago they had it in Tops Samui, if I remember well at thb 150 for a 25 cl bottle. Crazy if you think that in Belgium it costs less as 30 thb

what download speeds are you getting on your slingbox here in thailand and what ISP do you use?

650-800 kbps on a Maxnet 4 Mb Premium account. Before I had Indy 2Mb, and most of the time it worked also fine.

The bottleneck is not the Thai ISP, it's the upload at home (in my case 1 Mb up)

My guess is to wait till the "unlock software" is available and buy one in the US. Non 3G models are already becoming cheaper now (and who needs 3G in Thailand anyway ?).

Anyone has an idea how to ship one to Thailand avoiding the customs ? They even once opened a book I send through normal mail

you cant buy it without signing a contract in the store. so that idea is not going to work.

There must be a trick for this as I already saw several 3G iphones on the US ebay site

Already plenty on eBay : http://search.benl.ebay.be/search/search.d...&category0=

However, be aware that only very few were sold in Belgium due to no stock (most shops had only a stock of 15 !), so there is a very big demand in Belgium.

My guess is to wait till the "unlock software" is available and buy one in the US. Non 3G models are already becoming cheaper now (and who needs 3G in Thailand anyway ?).

Anyone has an idea how to ship one to Thailand avoiding the customs ? They even once opened a book I send through normal mail

Hi Marcus,

Thanks for your input. I do pay for AOL and i dont want to get rid of it as i use AOL messenger to contact my family and i also have multiple AOL mail addresses. I have seen these german web sites before but never on yahoo which is my home page. I agree that when i use AOL it is slower than IE, but it has never been a major problem. AOL say that you can access their services whilst abroad so long as you pay the minimum fee which is what i do.

Maybe i should consider using AOL web mail through IE to get my mail, buit saying that i have had German langusge site when using IE, but AOL has been running at the same time.

Thanks again,

Cheers, Rick

It's becoming clear now : you are an official AOL subscriber, and since AOL tunnels all his traffic through a proxy, it is normal that they do it with you too. (did not know that the service was available from Thailand) Unfortunately for you, you have a German proxy My suggestion is to contact their helpdesk, and ask them how to change it into a proxy you like more. I think it should not be a big problem, probably just adjust a setting in their browser .

For your IE : did you already checked if it uses a proxy (tools-->internet options-->connections-->LAN settings). The "proxy box" should be unchecked.

Good luck !

Marcus

AOL is the answer, but I'm not 100% sure of the question I didn't even know they still offered a browser. I thought that had died years ago.

Looks like there is some background routing going on, maybe Germany is the nearest AOL gateway? If I were you I'd look to use IE7 or Firefox, unless you have some pressing need for AOL. If so look at the internet settings, though if you've not changed anything {nor had an update} I'm puzzled as to why it has suddenly started doing this.

Regards

Hi A Traveller,

I have used AOL for many years as it was once the best ISP in the UK. My business e mail is with AOL and i am loathed to lose so i keep paying the subscriptions even though i have been in Thailand for the past 8 years. The browser is very good by the way and i prefer it to IE.

Just for your info i have also hed the German sites showing on IE when i check google for example so i dont think that it is the AOL browser alone.

Maybe i should just syudy German and call it a day ha ha!

Thanks for the suggestions.

Cheers Rick

A quick search on google learned me that the IP adress 195.93.60.71 is one of AOL's proxies. Every AOL user will be routed through a proxy, sometimes causing big problems. How you - living in Thailand - end up on their network is not very clear to me, I suppose that the fact that you still pay for your old subscription and still use their software has everything to do with it. If you are really considered as an AOL user, there is no way to get rid of it, except disabling/removing all AOL stuff. Open DNS is a good thing to have on your computer, but I'm 100 % sure it will not solve the problem.

But : did you notice this strange behavior before ? If you have a German IP adress, also Google (as you already found out ) and Yahoo should be in German ! I can hardly imagine that you never noticed this before If you have these problems only as from today, my guess would be that you changed something in your system, something which has to do with your AOL mail probably. Try to remember what you did the last 24 hours and undo it.

The one million dollar question is of course if this situation is good for you. Having a German proxy is something a lot of people are willing to pay for, why I am not allowed to discuss on this forum Zattoo.com should work, so you should be able to watch some exciting German TV also. Consider this as a bonus

But all your traffic will be routed over a German server, which can slow down your internet if the sites you normally use are located in Asia or the US. Maybe it's worthwhile to run a couple of speedtests and - if possible - compare them with tests you did before.

Are we talking about the new I-Phone? the one with 'push email' and 3G?

Yes, it is. I wonder what the old models will do on Ebay the next weeks... The new 8 GB version will be sold for 199 $ in America, so will the gadget freaks sell their old ones for let's say 100 bucks ? If so, I'm in for one

I might be wrong,but do you think there will be much people in line waiting for a 615 euro + shipping charges iphone?

Personally, I would not spend over 30.000 thb on a phone, but if I see how many people paid up to 25.000 thb for the first generation, my guess is "yes". I think we will soon see them in BKK for around 45.000

Why, they sell fashionable clothes and aftershave?

LOL ! No, I'm Belgian, so I can easily ask a friend or relative to send me some. I'm just a bit afraid what will happen if my friends find out

Nice. I wonder if it is possible to find a Belgian shop online that would ship to Thailand, as otherwise I think it will be a lot more expensive here.

Very unlikely, they will be only sold by the telecom operator "Mobistar". They have an online shop, but as you can guess, they ship only to Belgium.

Why do I have the strange feeling that I will become very popular soon ?

As from Friday, the Iphone will be for sale in Belgium.

Belgian law does not allow Apple to sell their products together with a subscription with a telephone operator, so poor Apple has no other choice as to sell them unlocked.

Price will be 525 Euro for the 8 GB and 615 Euro for the 16 GB model.

http://www.standaard.be/Artikel/Detail.asp...amp;kanaalid=16

I have used casing from Tesco and with a little cleaning and trimming they work just fine.

I have made my own salami as well using collagen casings bought in Thailand.... I ordered them via snail mail.

I have also been able to obtain salted sheep casings in Thailand for use in making breakfast links as well as salami meat sticks (SlimJim type snacks). They worked great.

Try GloboFoods in Thailand

http://www.globofoods.com/ingredients.html

Globo Foods Ltd.

482 Mu 1 Soi Pookmitr, Rod Rang Kao Rd.,

Samrongtai, Phrapradaeng,

Samutprakarn 10130 Thailand. Tel : (662) 384-0036, 384-2772-4

Fax : (662) 384-0817, 380-3035

E-Mail : [email protected] (Central)

[email protected] (Sales & Marketing Department)

They also have phosphates and sodium nitrite/nitrate cures.

Just about everything you need.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the link ! Looks like they have everything I need indeed. I'm just wondering if they will sell small quantities to a private person.

What do you mean by "bought collagen casings in Thailand by snail mail " ? You found a supplier in Thailand or just let them ship from overseas ?

We make sausages, and casings, which are typically intestines just about anywhere in the world, are difficut to buy because all the real sausage makers in the markets buy them up first. Makro sells them but we only saw them in 5+ kilo bags, probably for sale to those real sausage makers. That's a lot of sausages. But they were frozen so you could keep them for a long while. Good luck.

I found them ! Here they sell in bags of 1 kg, still enough to make enough sausages to feed the whole village, but better as 5 kg

And at the end, I'm finally happy with my Premier. To cut a long story short : I was lucky that the technician of the helpdesk who handled my case, is a very professional person. Last Saturday, we spend over 2 hours on the telephone trying to figure out what was wrong with my internet. That it was not good, he could easily see, but all settings in his system seemed to be ok, so we finally agreed that he would send a technician to my place to check the line. Around 23.00 Hr, he called me again for another test, and yes, the problem was solved. He told me my connection goes through 2 exchanges, and only one was set up for the correct speed. As a result, my speed was much to low. And now internet works like a charm. For those interested in bittorrent : I ran the "Glassnost Test", and found out that bittorrent is in no way blocked on my account.

On Samui : http://www.sitca.net/thai_cooking_school.htm

Probably it will be cheaper if you hire a Thai Chef for a month

Macro also has casings. It looks like intestine to me. It was frozen in the frozen meat section.

Thankx ! I will check it out this evening !

Think I found them, and it look indeed like intestines

I'm afraid that they are useless for sausages. What I heard is that you have to clean them carefully just after the animal died, and take away all the fat around them - a quite dirty job. The result would look completely different as the intestines you buy for Thai food. In Western countries you can just order them online.

What I really hope to find are the collagen ones, just as on this site . Of course I can ship them from the UK, but it would be much easier if I can buy them over here.

Not sure about what you use for franks and salami but we use fresh pig small intestine for UK style bangers, comes from Tesco or your local butcher

But this mean that you have to clean them by yourself, or can Lotus staff do it ?

Macro also has casings. It looks like intestine to me. It was frozen in the frozen meat section.

Thankx ! I will check it out this evening !

I have found the recipes, ordered a meat grinder, so I'm almost ready to make my home made Franfurters and Salamis. Just one thing is missing : I have no idea where to buy the casings. Anyone has a suggestion ?

Search this site for information on the Slingbox.

I don't have one yet but am seriously considering it.

Go for it, it will change your life as it did with mine

For UK TV, install Your Freedom + Zattoo, and log in to a UK server (or a Frech or German one if you are looking for French or German TV)

As far I'm aware, it not illegal in Thailand to watch the BBC