Maeklong

The man in the center of the police image is dressed the same as the man on the right above. White T-shirt, blue jeans with a hole at the left knee, black cap with white lettering. Comparing the other two men in the pictures, the man on the left has a black-sided cap same as the police picture, and the man in the middle has the same color pattern on his shoes, with both men having the matching color of their pants in both sets of pictures. The authorities probably have better pictures than the one they released.

On 4/12/2558 at 3:37 AM, WhizBang said:

I didn't know Thai women had boobs.

 

You just have not looked hard enough.  My gf is a 36D, although she should be 36DD (she likes the tight fitting bras    )

My mixed Thai Chinese wife, an English teacher, was a natural 36C when I married her 24 years ago, and now she's a 36DD after having 3 children and gaining a bit of weight. The thing is, being from an era when there was no showing off or flaunting allowed, a good girl wore clothing that covered everything up, and I didn't know she was that large until shortly before the wedding. I was pleasantly surprised to say the least. And because of its rarity among Thai women, I appreciate what I see every day.  

On 5/4/2559 at 8:53 PM, Zam said:

Hello all PR holders.

I was told that now we can use the auto gates at the airport for all PR holders who have a valid passport with minimum 6 months and also who has completed 6 months from the date of issue of the blue book.

Make sure you have atleast 2.30 hours of time before your flight.

After immigration stamping go to the immigration box right after that and contact the officer and tell them you want to have the auto gate access.

He will ask you for your blue book and passport with the boarding pass.

He will give you a form to fill which needs a local thai contact with their Thai id and address with phone number. Once done you give this to the officer.

Sit down and relax he will do the necessary entries in the system.

Then he will ask you to sit infront of the camera and take your pictures

Then he will do the fingerprints and once thats through he will complete the process.

He will take you to the gate outside and ask you to put the passport in the scanner at the auto gate and you must use your index finger for scanning and look at the camera once it recognises gate opens and you are no more in the que waiting on your way in and out

Say Khopun krap and breeze in and out.

Cheers and a must do for all PR holders

I just did mine and its really cool.

I tried registering for use of the automatic gates in Suvarnabhumi airport last week (31 July 2016). I speak fluent Thai, so was able to ask questions in Thai and receive correct information. The registration has to be done at the large immigration desk after passing the Immigration counters near check-in counters J-K-L.  The Immigration counter at the far end of the airport (near check-in rows R-S-T) cannot do this registration. 

In the end, I couldn't complete the registration because I needed to have a minimum of 2 years remaining on my passport, but I had only 1 year 10 months left (meaning with a passport expiry of May 2018, if I had applied in May 2016, not July 2016, I could have done it). The Immigration Officer said come back when I had a new passport. Bummed out a little bit, because this point was not made clear anywhere, but the Immigration Officer apologized for not checking the expiry date on my passport before she took me over to process the application. My understanding is that the registration to use the auto gates at the airport is good for the duration of the passport, but you have to re-register every time you change your passport. So until I replace my passport, I have to use the remaining 1-2 channels for Thais that still have immigration officers.

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Humor aside, he is one of the few monks that seem to have an unwavering standard of sticking up for the principles of right and wrong.

This man has a lot of enemies among red shirts and a certain Buddhist sect that are aligned with the man in Dubai.

I hope he manages to stay safe, Thai Buddhism needs more people like this.

I'm pretty sure Roongmanee is a woman's name, and given that the surname is Brooks, she may have had a foreign husband.

The passenger, Jeerasak, was a 20 year old male.

The time of the accident was not stated, but in the caption below the picture it said "this morning".

Presumably, since the pictures were taken during darkness, that the accident happened in the early hours of the morning.

RIP.

This is an interesting topic for me. I retired at the end of 2014, have had permanent residence since 2004, but am working as a consultant outside the country because I don't have a work permit to work here. I thought the only option to get a work permit was to set up a company as discussed by the OP. However, as a freelance consultant, I really don't want or need to have a company with 4 employees. I do know that it is hard to find out reliable information when visiting most government offices, and permanent residence holders have a somewhat unique status. My experience in the past is that most regular staff in offices haven't got a clue what to do with permanent residents, but I suppose I should give it a try.

"Regarding the law, Khunying Chodchoy stated that an amendment to the Gambling Laws in 1960 allowed for such games, where money was not changing hands, to be played without any form of license or authorization from the Police or Government."

That statement is interesting in itself. One would have to ask why this hadn't been cited earlier to the authorities by those arrested considering the length of time the bridge club has been operating and assuming those running the club knew (and you would expect this, knowing the rules, especially with anything to do with gaming here).

Perhaps it was cited, and that would be the reason why they dredged for the 'more than 120 cards' regulation. That said though, if bridge is legal, amended by law, how can the 120 card rule apply to a legalized game?

Possessing more than 120 cards is legal, but only if each card has an Excise Department stamp.

Yep, noted. Forgot to mention the stamp issue........................

Wonder where they got the cards?

"Illegal" playing cards can be found in just about every dry goods market, whether indoor or outdoor, in Thailand. To be legal, each boxed pack of cards should have an oblong green paper sticker sealing it shut. Imported cigarettes, hard alcohol, and the boxed apple juice made from imported concentrate you buy in the supermarket all come with such seals. However, it is common practice for card clubs to use many packs of cards, and the boxes are usually discarded, since once opened, it is time consuming to put them back in. Since there are only a few common brands of playing cards (Bicycle is maybe the most common), without the boxes, the police would be unable to tell whether the stamp duty had been paid to make them "legal" cards.

With the arrival of the AEC, there is a movement afoot to eliminate antiquated, obscure and un-enforced laws, of which there are thousands on the Thai books (which Malaysia has done successfully to draws new investment), and the 1943 stamp tax law the police dusted off to save face in this instance should be one of them. Just imagine, in 1943, commercial aviation was in its infancy, and most people traveled to other countries on boats or ships. Tourism didn't exist for the commoner, only for the elite and very rich, and arrivals from western countries might have only been a few hundred/year. To use a law from that period to lock up a bunch of Western retirees playing bridge in one of the most notorious cities in the world is absurd.

I have had PR since 2004. I obtained my ID card in 2010 right after they were announced as available.

It was the first one issued in Samutsongkhram (number xxxx-0000001), by the local amphur office that issues standard ID cards to Thai nationals. They had no knowledge about the existence of the cards when I went, but a call to a Thai relative who worked as an auditor in the land department, and who knew of their existence started the ball rolling. A couple of phone calls to a central government office in BKK later, they got it done. They didn't care about PR documents, they only needed my house registration. They didn't have one of the cards on hand, but once personal information was entered into the computer, and a photo was taken, they asked for an address, and the card was mailed to me.

The card is pink, basically the old Thai ID card before the government changed to the new blue cards with smart chips. Translating the card's title, it is basically "Personal ID for a person that does not have Thai Citizenship". It is valid for 10 years.

The notices printed on the back say:

"This card is not a Thai National ID card"

"This card should be carried at all times as proof of ID when checked" (by police, for example).

Finally it says that

"this card is forbidden to be used outside of the jurisdiction where it was issued."

This last statement concerns me a bit, but being an official government issued card, I don't think it would be refused as proof of ID by any policeman anywhere in the country.

I might add that when I retired at the end of 2014, I took over ownership of my company car, and during the process of having ownership transferred at the Chatuchak Transport Division office in BKK, at the final stage they asked for photo ID with proof of residence (not a driver's license). A Thai would have just shown a National ID card. They wanted to see my red resident alien book issued by the local police (which I did not expect to need and was not carrying). Luckily I was able to use my ID card with photo as proof of my address instead of the red book. The clerk had never seen one before, and looked at it with some doubt, but after checking with a superior, accepted it.

Wow! France was the world leader in protecting animals in cosmetics industry! Now I understand why animals were and still are used in testing unknown chemicals.

These drugs would have already gone through animal testing... it's no guarantee of safety in humans (though better than going straight to human subjects).

An article on Deutsche Welle said the drug had been tested earlier on chimpanzees, the closest primates to Humans. Presumably nothing unusual was seen.

Search for "Green Net Organic" on Facebook. This is a Thai cooperative group that among other things, promotes and educates about organic farming. There are lots of pictures of local activities in Facebook.

They also have a website (both English and Thai) with many articles about organic farming. This is the link to English language.

http://www.greennet.or.th/en

I prefer online bike shops that ship by priority mail, dealing with couriers in Thailand is a hassle.

From England, I like Evanscycle, but have used Wiggle UK and Amazon UK too, which has got more decent bike stuff than Amazon USA. Mail delivery from the UK takes 10-14 days, but I'm finding mail from the USA now takes 21-28 days.

You can try Wiggle Aus, if they don't have something it will ship from Wiggle UK.

Depending on what you want, you may find it easier on E-Bay. If you stick with the main online sellers with thousands of recommendations,, there's not muck risk involved.

I've bought bike stuff direct from Taiwanese manufacturers via E-Bay, no problem.

I prefer online bike shops that ship by priority mail, dealing with couriers in Thailand is a hassle.

From England, I like Evanscycle, but have used Wiggle UK and Amazon UK too, which has got more decent bike stuff than Amazon USA. Mail delivery from the UK takes 10-14 days, but I'm finding mail from the USA now takes 21-28 days.

You can try Wiggle Aus, if they don't have something it will ship from Wiggle UK.

Depending on what you want, you may find it easier on E-Bay. If you stick with the main online sellers with thousands of recommendations,, there's not muck risk involved.

I've bought bike stuff direct from Taiwanese manufacturers via E-Bay, no problem.

It's not the guests problem ,it's for the homeowner

So The immigration department has the tm30: "Notification from House-master, Owner or the Possessor of the residence where Alien has stayed."

Then I'm curious why they also have a tm28: Form for Aliens to Notify their change of address or their stay in the province for over 24 hours".

Isn't this reporting the same thing? What confusion.

I suggest you search for "Buy n Sell Bicycle n Parts Thailand" in Facebook, and ask to join (it is a closed group). There should be someone in the group who can help.

Srinakarin dam is the only dam that is full. It is located in north Kanchanaburi near the Thai- Myanmar border, an area which is still all forested. Here's a picture taken 10 days ago

He forgot the third thing (the most important actually) that creates rainfall consistently. Forests. They create their own microclimate independent of storms and weather troughs. They respire moisture they draw from the ground, and the evaporation cools the air and causes rainfall. But what little forest is left in the northern areas is too little. Now CPF has people cutting down more forests to grow corn, before that it was orange trees or eucalyptus on plantations. The second problem with cutting down all the forests is that it is the reason it floods every time there is heavy rain. A virgin forest can receive heavy rainfall, but the water won't start seeping out for a week. The Queen has been telling people to protect forests and plant trees for years, but as usual greed wins.

Anybody have the problem of monks at nearby temples broadcasting sermons over loudspeakers starting at 5 AM? I live 1 km away but can hear it quite clearly through an open window. I'm glad I don't live nearby, and I'm sure the nearby residents are glad they don't do it every day.

Good question Sheryl, I didn't know. I checked bedside to see what my wife is taking, and as described in mls's earlier post, my wife is also taking Angeliq. Searching online, it contains 0.5 milligrams (mg) of drospirenone and 1 mg of estradiol USP. Drospirenone is a synthetic progestin, also used in birth control pills at much higher doses (20-30 milligrams in birth control pills, compared to 0.5 for Angeliq, which is really quite low). Wikipedia, for what that's worth, says that drospirenone works more like natural progesterone than other alternatives, and that taken orally, it has a bioavailability of 67%, so that means the actual working dosage would be about 0.33 mg. I'm OK with this, it's the results that count, and it's preferable to having my wife taking progesterone extracted from horse's piss.

It is the big swings in the hormones caused by shutting down of the ovaries that cause all of the problems in the beginning, followed by the slow decline to sub-optimal levels that causes hair loss, soft fingernails, loss of skin and muscle tone, loss of energy, loss of libido, reduced bone density, etc.

The post by mls makes an interesting point- that it takes a few weeks for Angeliq to start working. That tells you that the hormones in Angeliq are quite low, work subtly, and provide just enough estradiol and progesterone to stabilize hormones at near optimal levels in the body.

Looking at some of the posts above, this is a very important topic for many.

I've been there, and it was terrible, so I'll take a bit of time to give you all the information that I have.

Due to complications with endometriosis, my wife had an ovary removed at the age of 34. The remaining ovary had to work double time, and she went perimenopausal by 41. By about the age of 44, classic menopause symptoms started, and having a PhD. in biology, I knew what was going on. Family life and I and our three children were suffering.

I knew I needed to find a place in Thailand where we could get hormone replacement therapy. My wife had an excellent male OB-GYN, one of the best in Thailand, but for an HRT doctor I wanted a woman, some one who had the experience, not just the theory, of doing HRT.

Searching on the internet, I eventually found Dr. Khunying Kobchitt Limpaphayom. She is a Professor Emeritus at Chulalongkorn University, and at that time she was on the executive board of the International Menopause Society (The IMS has been instrumental in providing common sense articles to balance the media hysteria over HRT).

So I wrote her a letter, asking her to provide HRT for my wife, which coming from a husband, surprised her......and the clinic called my wife, and asked her to make an appointment.

A bit of her bio in Thailand-

Two terms President of Royal Thai College of Ob&Gyn
Four terms President of Thai menopause Society
Former President of Thai Osteoporosis Foundation.

The reason she is a Khunying is she is the OB-GYN to the Royal Family, and spends at least one month a year in the countryside working to educate villagers about menopause and cervical cancer.

This NYTimes story from 2011 is worth reading:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/27/health/27cancer.html

Dr. Kobchitt has a clinic called Menox clinic at Vichaiyut Hospital on Rama 6 Road, BKK.

http://www.vichaiyut.co.th/eng/doctor_detail.asp?id=44

Dr. Kobchitt is now nearing 70, and has taken HRT herself for many years.

She knows what she is talking about, and can answer every question from personal knowlege or experience, which is what helped my wife to overcome her fears of HRT from scare stories in the media.

One thing Dr. Kobchitt has said to us several times - my wife was lucky to start HRT so early after peri-menopause.

Starting HRT as soon as possible after the onset of menopause is much better than waiting for a few years when health and wellness issues from hormone deficiencies start.

My wife has been going to Dr. Kobchitt about 14 years now, and we visit her clinic twice a year. She usually provides enough hormones and vitamin E for 6 months, and I think we are now paying about 7-8,000 baht/visit, medicine included (don't quote me on that). The cost will depend on which hormones the Dr. decides to give your wife. The first visit will probably also require a blood test to check hormone levels. I think the Dr. did a second blood test about 3 months after starting HRT to make sure the hormone levels were where she wanted them to be.

During the first few years, when my wife was having mood swings and so on, the Dr. also gave her something to help her sleep and calm her down. Which was highly appreciated!

Some of our Thai female friends think going to Dr. Kobchitt is too expensive, but we don't agree. You get what you pay for.

The benefits to my wife's quality of life, the improvements in her health, her slow-aging compared with her sisters and her friends.....not to mention the improvement in our family life, have been worth every baht.

Fifteen years ago, my wife couldn't go shopping without needing to find a seat to rest every 20 minutes, now at 56, she does 2.5 hours of yoga 5 nights a week.

Good luck to all!

I have to go to Immigration at Chang Wattana Government Center to get a new "Duplicate of Certificate of Residence" book next week. The last time I did this five years ago, even though there were signs all over saying "pay only the required fee" the ladies in this particular section didn't have one on their cubicle, and seemed to think they could still make demands from their visitors. I hope that they have been scared enough by the current administration that they are now toeing the line. Last time, they made my wife so angry that she refuses to go with me anymore.

Even just for normal riding, having a heart rate monitor is a good idea. I usually ride with one, both on road and off road when mountain biking.

Now I know when I am breathing deeply on a hill climb, even with out the monitor, approximately how fast my heart is beating.

Another benefit in a hot country like this - you need to be concerned about heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

A fast heart beat, either strong or weak, is a sign of heat stroke.

So if you are monitoring, and your heart is beating too fast for your activity level, it's time to take a break and cool down.

Which HR monitor to buy?

I recommend the Wahoo TIKR.

http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-tickr-heart-rate-strap-1.html

It's not as easy to find as the Runtastic (which is made by Wahoo), but I recommend finding it instead of Garmin or Runtastic.

Garmin supports only Ant+, meaning you can't use it with a smartphone unless you have a dongle.

Runtastic supports only Bluetooth 4.0, so it works with iPhones and top smartphones but, not with Garmin.

The latest version of the Wahoo TIKR supports both Bluetooth and Ant+, so you can use it with your bike computer and your smartphone, as well as other bike computers that support Ant+, like Polar, Cateye, etc.

There is a picture of the other side of the car in this report. Not a chance someone was going to be getting out on this side. I'm not putting much credence on the claim there was someone else in there. http://www.cm108.com/bbb/topic/5201-ภาพอุบัติเหตุรถยนต์ชนกลุ่มน/

From Rayong east, CP is probably the largest private land owner, especially near the sea. CP owns a lot of land on Koh Chang and owns both ferries to Koh Chang. CP's largest shrimp hatchery is near the ferries, and they have a number of shrimp farms that can be seen when flying in to Trat Airport. I remember reading that CP also owns most of some of the smaller islands to the east of Koh Chang. CP is thinking thinking about making money from a lot more than just 7-11's.

The newest 12" Macbook is on it's way, but not available yet.

If you want a new latest model Macbook Pro (I want one too so have been waiting for the new updated-in-March models to arrive), they are available from the Apple.com/th store, but I haven't seen one yet, and I won't buy until I get a chance to check out the new Force Touch trackpad.

When I asked when the new Macbook Pro models would arrive at an iStudio by comSeven store last month, they said by the end of the month.

Expecting to be able to see one, I visited an iStudio by Copperwired a couple of days ago, and they said the new Macbook Pros had not yet arrived.

End of this month, they said.

I'm guessing they don't actually know, but they don't want to tell you that, so what else is new?

If you want to buy any of the basic MacPro models, or at least the standard specifications, you can buy them anywhere. iBeat, iStudio, PowerBuy, PowerMall, it doesn't really matter.

The iBeat (small) and iStudio (larger) are owned and operated by the original Apple distributors from years ago (Copperwired, ComSeven, Uficon and SPVi), and they have a very close relationship with Apple. I think that's why Apple hasn't opened a company store in Bangkok.

If you want to buy an upgraded model (faster CPU, more RAM, more HD storage), then you should buy it online from the Apple Store.

Apple will custom build it in China, and it will be at your door in a week, but If you try to order one at a local store, you will wait a long time.

From Apple's online store, I have bought a 27" iMac (upgraded CPU, upgraded video, maxed RAM and storage) and two 13" Macbook Airs, (upgraded to maximum RAM and HD storage), and you can track the shipments from Shenzhen China every step of the way. Fast, easy and secure.

Some of these distributors own and operate Apple service centers in some of the main cities.

here's an up-to-date list of authorized service centers

http://pantip.com/topic/31085665

I hope this info helps.

I'm really interested to know, what safety measures the Thai planes do not implement.

There must be something really wrong that the Japanese and now the Koreans don't like.

I started thinking if I should ever fly again on Thai planes.

Anybody can help here?

Not so much point taking the piss out of the Thais but more important to concentrate on the real cause of the problem.

The problem is not really with the airlines like Bangkok Air, AirAsia, Nok Air or Thai Airways, etc. (the exception is 1-2-Go). Nobody wants to lose a plane. It's bad for business. In most cases, plane crashes are the result of pilot error more often than mechanical failures.

Airlines have a number of tasks to perform to ensure safety and its DCA's job is to perform oversight (audit) on everything the airlines do. Are aircraft inspected on schedule, at the right intervals? Are problems reported and corrected, parts replaced on schedule, did flight systems inspections show any anomalies in operation? Are pilots properly trained and retrained? Do pilots log more hours in the cockpit than permitted by international regulations? DCA has to check all that, and more.

Basically, DCA was working with a 1990's budget and 1990's staffing, but all of the political turbulence in Thailand over the last decade meant that the government and politicians were too distracted to pay much attention. In Thailand, the bureaucrats in almost every Ministry dealt with all of the political turbulence by doing nothing. They were afraid that their next master (maybe the return of their past master) wouldn't like what they had done with the previous administration, so might punish them.

At ICAO's last audit of DCA in 2005, they were warned that there were going to be problems. I'm sure the government was warned that with the overall expansion of air travel, and the arrival of low cost airlines there was going to be a big expansion in airlines, pilots, flights, planes to inspect, and the government needed to invest in expanding DCA's capability. However, there was nothing newsworthy, no emergency, and no money to be made on DCA's budget, so they ignored the DCA.

ICAO had two problems with DCA. One was that the airline licensing authority should not also be the agency doing oversight/audit of the airlines; it was a conflict of interest. The Thai Govt. announced a couple of weeks ago that they had split the two functions.

DCA didn't have the budget to hire more staff or train them properly. Without enough budget and staff, DCA was behind in performing audits of airlines operations, because they did not have enough staff, and the staff were not properly trained (new aircraft means more training). Catch-22 situation. So you could expect a scenario like this - ICAO comes in and audits DCA, and sees that a DCA inspector signed off on a maintenance report of an Airbus A-380, but the auditor never received any training about the A-380. Would you trust that the DCA auditor had the skills to judge whether the airline had performed correct maintenance? ICAO didn't, and if ICAO publishes a report that says just that, why would Japan, Korea, etc. etc. not believe there was a problem and take action?

That's where the problem is, and why this problem can't be solved overnight. DCA has to find a lot of properly-trained new staff, and short of hiring an outside foreign contractor to do DCA's work in the short term, there's going to be a delay until DCA can satisfy ICAO's requirements. So the Government is galavanting around trying to convince foreign governments that the Airlines themselves are trustworthy, that they all have properly trained pilots and maintenance staff, that they take service and maintenance seriously, that they all have ISO 9001, so do regular internal audits and yearly external audits with independent auditors.

With a major airline like Thai Airways they are well known and have a history. However, when you talk about low-cost airlines, the first question to ask is - how do they lower costs? They are expanding, buying new planes, have a high debt load....so are they skimping on staff/training/maintenance/using uncertified spare parts? Is there anyone checking to make sure that low-cost airlines are not cutting costs this way? That's DCA's job, and that was not being done to ICAO's satisfaction. Was somebody being bribed to sign approvals even if there were problems found? I'm sure ICAO had doubts, if not proof, of that.

Japan and Korea have contracts with Thai airlines to permit scheduled flights and landing slots, for registered aircraft. They have fallen back to providing what they are legally obligated to do without breach of contract. But no charter flights which are extraneous to signed contracts, and no new aircraft and no substitution of aircraft outside of aircraft that have been registered. Whether other countries decide to take action or not, I think they are taking a wait and see attitude, depending on what steps they see the current government taking to fix DCA's problems.

If airlines don't take care of their planes properly, planes crash. There haven't been any crashes. Air Asia and some other low-cost airlines in the region all have fleets of the newest late-model planes, and it the long time players like Thai that have lots of aging aircraft. The odds are that mechanicals are more likely to occur on those old planes. I don't have any fears about flying any of the main players in the Thai airline industry, and neither should anybody else. Driving on a Thai highway, any day or time is much more risky.