Thanh-BKK

Hi.

I've had my frame welded too but it was broken in the rear or rather in the middle, multiple breaks previously "glued together" with rebar as reinforcement. Bought a second bike of the same type without book for 2,500 Baht (got another engine and other goodies along with the rear end of the frame that i needed) and had it reinforced at the same time - solid steel rods into the frame tubes where they broke, then welded back together, that won't break or bend again in a lifetime.

Done by a small somchai-type shop for 400 Baht, rides as good as new and perfectly straight.

Best regards....

Thanh

Hi.

I remember in 2002 or 2003 when i got the Nokia 8910 for my boyfriend (it had Bluetooth) it came with an extra form that was to be filled in and brought to the post office, basically to obtain a special "license" to use the Bluetooth part of that phone. It was also clearly stated that otherwise it would be "strictly illegal" to use bluetooth.

After all Thailand is still the country that manufactures roughly 90% of the entire world's 11-meters CB radio devices however owning or operating one INSIDE Thailand can put you in jail for several years

And i've read somewhere that Israel has/had similar restrictions on Bluetooth/WiFi devices, a good many phones have been made specifically for the Israeli market without their otherwise standard Bluetooth component.

Best regards....

Thanh

Hi.

Add myself here - Isuzu D-Max, Garmin Nuvi 205. At 120 km/h on the navi the truck's speedo shows closer to 130 km/h.

Haven't tried it on my bike yet however i got a digital (bicycle) speedo there too and those are already ridiculously accurate - shows me that my Yamaha speedo lies like Pinocchio, at indicated 100 i go 95, at indicated 140 i go 131 and at indicated 200 i go 173 That's "speedometer tuning" for the bike enthusiasts to have something to brag about - "yeeeeah i cleared the meter" (possibly having 17" wheels instead of stock 18" on top of it).

Best regards....

Thanh

Hi.

My boyfriend just bought a Garmin Nuvi 205 at the Motor Show and we used it on our trip up north for Songkhran. This is the version with English language OS and also the map is in English.

A few observations:

1) The map is far from complete. For example, the entire village where we stayed is not on that map at all - the road leading towards it is, however, so the navi showed us in the middle of nowhere while driving around in the village. But then - Google Earth also stops a few kilometers short of said village

2) The spoken instructions - horrible! Every few hundred meters "after xxx meters keep right" (if there is a chance to make a left turn and we are supposed to go straight). Why "keep right" instead of "continue straight" or some such? Or, even easier - after the last turn simply "continue straight for xxx meter/kilometers" and save all those "keep right" messages which are very annoying if there are sois every few meters.

3) It often confuses "keep" with "turn" - like at Bor Sang intersection where we have to turn left, it says simply "keep left".

4) At times it seems to deliberately direct us to the longest available way out of several possible.

5) Yesterday evening somewhere around Ramkamhaeng it tried to send me the wrong way down a one-way road! And stubbornly insisted after "recalculating" - "if possible, make a u-turn". Yeah right, u-turn to go the wrong way.

6) Hardware - it came without a home charger however for some reason won't work/charge with any of the three mini-USB wall chargers that i already have from phones. However Nuvi's car charger charges the phones and also my mp3 player so they ARE compatible, just somehow Garmin wants to force me to get one of their crazy expensive original chargers. Nope, i've got me a 150 Baht adaptor to plug the car charger into a wall socket

7) Sales promotion - was supposed to get a free 2 GB micro-SD card along with it. A free 2 GB card i got alright - however a standard-size SD card that can't even be used with that Nuvi model. And not with anything else that i own either. Whatever, those cost peanuts.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

AIS and D-TAC do not maintain WiFi hotspots - they are cellular telephony providers. True maintains WiFi hotspots however they are a major (one of the largest, if not THE largest) internet providers, too, with True Move (their cellular network) only being a "side business".

You can buy True WiFi access without having to use their cellular service, cards are available at True shops and 7-Eleven. Also if you use True for your home internet you get, depending on your promotion/plan, free access to WiFi along with it, again no need to use their cellular service.

Best regards.....

Thanh

The downturn in tourist in Chiang Mai for Songkran was definitely noticeable.

Agree to that.

Loved Chiang Mai as always.... no traffic jams, no political mayhem despite red flags waving everywhere, friendly people, Songkhran water fun aplenty and i've got the darkest tan since well over 15 years due to riding around on the small motorbike all the time, wearing shorts for a change

Bor Sang, usually stuffed full with Bangkok-registered cars during the Songkhran and Christmas holidays, remained strangely empty the whole week (i stay near there and been through there every day).

The good side? The roads remained safe...... as the Bangkokians usually drive as selfishly as they do in Bangkok, so far every single time i have gotten into a near-accident situation here it was due to some Bangkok-registered car, usually (cliche, i know, but fact) a Fortuner.

Sadly the holiday is over tomorrow and i'll have to go back to smoggy, traffic-jammy, red-shirty Bangkok tomorrow. Can't it be Christmas next week? Love to stay on the peaceful farm here.....

Best regards.....

Thanh

No.

AIS, frankly, sucks. I am having nothing but trouble calling people who are on pre-paid AIS numbers ("1-2-Call"), i am always getting a message stating "the destination network is busy". The only way to reach an AIS number is from another AIS number.

Also, EDGE wise, AIS' speed is far slower than D-TAC or True.

D-TAC has about the best coverage "in the sticks" (despite AIS advertising otherwise, my boyfriend just had a good laugh the other day when we were in the sticks and AIS had no coverage whatsoever - D-TAC was fine. He was then joking with his mum about that advertisement with the hilltribe people worried they have no coverage and one says "don't worry, we have AIS").

If it has to be GSM i highly recommend D-TAC.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

I noticed a few times during some red shirt parade in Bangkok that they play one or two specific "red shirt songs", kind of rock and actually quite listenable.

Anyone got an idea what is the name of that song/songs and if they can be downloaded from somewhere?

Kind regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

Just go to the nearest 7-Eleven and buy another SIM card...... D-TAC from my own experience is pretty much the best network if it comes to GSM. Of course your iPhone has to be unlocked, i don't know if the ones from True are unlocked? Otherwise a cheapo "backup phone" will do, indeed one that can't do anything but make calls, those simple phones thank you with a near eternal battery life (compared to smart phones).

A SIM card can be bought for about 29 Baht (max 49) and is active the moment you make the first call, get a 100 Baht refill with it and have a second number ready all the time. If you go for D-TAC after you had the number for 90 days and/or have used 300 Baht for phone calls you can actually extend it's validity for up to one year without needing to buy further topup cards (it cost 12 Baht for 180 days, max 360 days allowed).

Plus D-TAC have great EDGE coverage, in fact it is the only one of the GSM networks that allows me to go on the internet with here 30 kilometers outside of Chiang Mai

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

Yeah, Amorn for sure (all three branches i went so far) have adaptor plugs for Scart, i.e. Scart male plug to the "old" (name escapes me) system female sockets so you can use a normal AV cable (red, white, yellow plugs) to hook up your DVD.

Most, if not all, televisions and related devices here come with those "old" type connectors, Scart seems to be a European-only system (and i HATED them when i had them because the cables were so rigid and the plugs would never stay in their socket, also turning on the satellite receiver to listen to satellite radio automatically fired up the TV and both VCR's along with it......)

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

The place where i stay right now has a similar setup, it, too, is branded "PSI". On the roof of the house sits a black satellite dish and on the TV sits a rather small box that has no visual elements other than one red and one green LED lights.

The satellite dish has TWO heads ("LNB's") and they are hooked up via an additional small device (splitter?) installed under the cap for the main head, i.d. only one cable runs to the little set-top box and the thingy can catch some 120+ free channels, most of them are Thai but there is also a bunch of Indian, Pakistani, Lao, Chinese, Korean etc thrown in.

The installation for the entire set (i.e. the set including installation on/in the house) was also 3,900 Baht and for 500 Baht more they would have added a dual-feed, i.e. the possibility to add a second set-top box and use both of them simultaneously or each one by itself, watching any of the available channels. The second set-top box can be in another room - or in another house. The required additional device can still be installed for 500 Baht.

The price for the dish and set-top box with only one head (able to catch some 80 channels) would have been 3,500 Baht, by the way.

This is in Chiang Mai and the installer/sales point is a small shop specialized on satellite TV but not under a specific brand name, they have all sorts of dishes and providers.

However a satellite dish is absolutely necessary, the signal has to come from somewhere. Yet they do have amazingly small dishes that can not catch all the channels, i have seen one at that shop about the size of a normal dinner plate and i was told with that i could catch 40 channels in good quality.

Best regards....

Thanh

Hi.

As to the "Mac OS does that and Ubuntu should copy that", well, Ubuntu does, sort of - you open your package manager (Synaptic) and drag/drop a .deb file in there and it will install. Easy. Any needed dependency will be installed along, automatically.

As to "Windows registry", it (the registry) is the reason why Windows slows down all by itself over time..... as stuff accumulates in the registry and makes this data-monster become huge and ultra-huge and the slightest bug in there can (and often does) result in a system that behaves badly or, worse, doesn't work at all. And Windows apps have the tendency to remove their folders and files upon uninstall, yet leave plenty of registry entries behind - and apps like "registry cleaners" do a poor job in removing those, they often remove entries that are still needed, too, creating more problems.

I am sitting in front of a Windows box right now, it has been freshly installed last Christmas with genuine XP Home and the user, a 12-year old boy, keeps installing and uninstalling games all the time. Also Windows updates put their entries into the registry. Although the computer is "clean" from a software point of view (also no viruses/spyware/nasties) it is really sluggish compared to when i first set it up four months ago.... my Ubuntu-box however still runs as snappy as on the first day despite me having installed a TON of apps on it (and also removed some again) and that is over a year (when Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 came out).

In Windows installing things and similar tasks have only one way because that is how Microsoft rules you should live your life - in Linux you get to chose which of several possibilities you like most. I know Linux users who prefer to do almost everything from command line - it gives them the ultimate control over what happens on THEIR computers. I myself am not good enough in command line work, i am a mouse pusher, but even as such i like to have choices and to try a second way if the first doesn't work how i want it to. In Linux you can even compile software from source, matching 100% exactly YOUR system, giving you the best possible performance of that software. That would be your ultimate way of installing something, starting with the source code of that "something". Hey, you can even build your very own entire operating system from source - "Linux From Scratch". Try that with Windows......

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

I am in Chiang Mai (or rather some 30 kilometers outside of it) right now.

Yesterday (last day of Songkhran, hence most people playing) i had to go downtown with the motorbike. The place i had to go was a shopping center so i wanted to stay dry. How to??

Easy - the people up here ARE lovely. Just keep the motorbike at some 50 km/h and wave politely with the left hand when you approach a spot where they play. They won't, with you.

I reached the destination without having a single drop of water on me.

On the way back then i was all in on the fun - magic recipe to JOIN them: Slow down when you reach them. Or stop completely and get SOAKED because it is BLOODY HOT anyway (40+ degrees).

Songkhran is all good clean fun if you avoid drunk Farangs because, indeed, they are the worst.

Best regards....

Thanh

Hi.

@geraitrickid

Since you quoted a bit of my post and i want to prevent quoting your lonmg post as it is just a few posts above, allow me to answer your question.

Why i bring it up? Because it is a true fact. And i have observed this with my very own eyes and heard it with my very own ears, no hear-say, no rumour, not from the newspaper or some television channel, nope, me myself and i observed it at the very same location where i am right at this very moment, a small village outside of Chiang Mai.

The PPP were the ONLY ones that came 'round offering the cash, and cash it was, 100-Baht-notes, one week in advance to the election. My boyfriend's uncle, a farmer, took the money - and voted for them. His reason? "They paid me for it so it would be wrong not to do it. Apart from that i don't care who runs the country because for me personally nothing will change anyway".

Apart from this "cash for votes" there was hourly propaganda coming from the unavoidable (unless with cable cutters) loudspeakers that are positioned in such a way that every single house in the entire village can hear them. Every hour, no kidding, speeches like "let's all vote PPP because they will give us a bright future" or, somewhat less nice, "vote for PPP or else..!"

These loudspeaker speeches were for those people decent enough not to be bribed to vote and still didn't know whom to vote for or maybe already decided "Democrats" just to make sure they will change their mind and sure vote for PPP and nobody else. Do i need to mention that the local PPP (former TRT, now PTP) guy has the largest house and the most cars (no less than four) in the entire village? Might be a coincidence but then...... his house is where the loudspeaker wires go to.

I am fully aware that not ALL of the PPP voters had been paid to vote, but a good many did and those who didn't had to endure the loudspeakers which, no doubt, did a similar job in other villages. Add to that the fact that no party other than PPP was allowed to campaign (Democrats who tried were chased out the village or had fish thrown at them, if not worse, death threads....) and it was pretty clear that PPP had to win the election.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Most of the problems we are having now can be laid on the taint (whether real or imagined) of the military coup and its effect on the current constitution and government.

i totally agree with that. love or hate Taxin, he was a democratically elected PM with 2-3 years left to serve. he should have been impeached for corruption and the courts to decide his guilt. everything has gone nom-up since the coup and i don't see it will ever recover.

Hi.

Thaksin was NOT "elected", he BOUGHT the election. If you pay people to vote for you then "elected" you become, but certainly not democratic.

Thaksin's own words: "You can't impeach me". So much for that possibility - he had his cronies in the right places to make sure he could not legally/democratically be removed.

Thaksin, at the time of the coup, was only a caretaker PM and as such was well over the time a caretaker is allowed to hold such position.

Thaksin's puppet party PPP's only goal, after the coup, was to amend the constitution in such a way that vote-buying becomes legal and Thaksin himself would be declared innocent of any charges.

As is PTP's goal. They don't give a hoot for country and people, they only care for one person, Thaksin. Money can't buy love - but it can buy pretty much everything else, in Thailand at least.

Right now a fresh coup would indeed be the only way to end the deadlock because if this current red fiasco ends in a win for the reds, the streets will be filled with yellows and it will continue just as it is right now, only with different colour t-shirts. Probably a good many of the protesters will even be the same, after all they do get paid to "protest" and would likely (just like with the votes) protest happily for the other side as long as the payments keep coming.

This country is definitely not ready for real democracy, as long as people keep selling their votes every election will be unfair regardless which side wins but specially if someone like Thaksin wins them who really has no other agenda than filling his own bank accounts.

Best regards......

Thanh

Hi.

So IF he dissolves parliament and calls snap elections, what will happen? The reds/PTP likely win. And then? Cue "PAD"..... Bangkok's streets will be filled with yellows and the whole circus starts from zero.

My guess is that a good many of the reds will go home, hand the red t-shirts to their wives for laundry, grab the yellow t-shirts from the cabinet and head back to Bangkok - "professional protester" at 200 Baht per day sure beats farming, no? And it doesn't matter who they protest against as long as they get paid to do it (same with vote buying, they don't give a hoot who they vote for as long as they get paid for it).

If it happens like i just wrote, i hope the yellows remember where they got their success from last time and head straight for those two locations. Saves time and lives. And once THEY win obviously it will be time to change the t-shirts once again, so prepare, Bangkokians, for mob rule over the next few years.

Or..... something involving tanks and guys in uniform happens, THEN we can have peace. Looks like pretty much the only way to have peace.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Wrong. Democracy has been stolen in Thailand. Here are the key recent events:

Sep 2006: Coup removes Thaksin (because he had established himself as a dictator, no othyer legal or democratic way to remove him)

Dec 2007: People Power (allied to Thaksin) wins elections (because, like TRT before, the committed electoral fraud and paid for votes)

Sep 2008: Constitutional Court removes Samak (because he had an illegal second job and took a salary for it, then lied about that before the court and presented faked "evidence")

Dec 2008: Constitutional Court forces out Somchai as PM (wrong - court disbanded entire PPP party for electoral fraud, see above)

Dec 2008: Abhistit becomes premier, with no election (wrong - he was elected just like Samak and Somchai were, in fact from the very same people in the parliament)

My own comments are in brackets.

This sad result of today's crackdown increases Thaksin's body count. Just HOW far will this megalomaniac go for his god-dam_n Billions of Baht that he obtained illegally in first place and that he now wants back, come hel_l or high water???

When will the red-shirted people finally wake up and see that they have been lied to all along, the neither Thaksin nor their so-called "leaders" give a hoot about democracy or the well-being of farmers but that this entire show is for Thaksin and nothing but Thaksin??

I have been among those red shirts, i have talked to several of them, but i know how crowd excitement and peer pressure work, and particularly a combination of the two.... it would sadden me deepest to know that people that i have talked to are now dead or injured because of that Billionaire who is too scared to come back to his home country to at least LEAD HIS OWN dam_n FIGHT!

Sorry for becoming hot tempered but i KNOW that the broad masses of the red shirts are neither terrorists nor violent thugs, they are a bunch of people who hope for a better life and who are being betrayed and lied to by their leaders and, above all, one Thaksin Shinawatara - whom i wish a slow and painful death!

Regards......

Thanh

Hi.

While in Bangkok my 3G phone (SIM card from i-Mobile 3GX/network TOT Mobile) always goes to AIS if the 3G itself has no coverage (which is the case quite often). However as i drove to Chiang Mai today i dfound out that that does not appear to work up country - already noticed it in Ayuthaya that the phone had no coverage at all, and whilst having a break in Kamphaeng Phet i made two calls to their call center. First try - useless as always, as i made the mistake of attempting to use English language, after 20 minutes on hold the same personj got back to me with the excuse "sorry, staff at lunch" (yeah sure, at 10:30 pm).

Then my boyfriend (Thai) called again and TALKED for 20 minutes, explaining roughly 75 times what the problem was (phone no coverage, not automatically going to AIS and when selecting "AIS" manually a message "registration failed" comes up even though the network shows (as opposed to D-TAC and True) as "available").

In the end he got the usual Thai B.S. - "i will inform technician and we call you back", meaning really "i want to watch my soap on TV, stop disturbing me".

So has anyone here experience with this matter, does it work for YOU..?

Kind regards.....

Thanh

Hello again.

I'll be off for Chiang Mai in a couple of hours..... here's a couple of photos i have taken myself around 9 am today at Rajprasong. They really don't look like top terrorists, do they?

And makes me wonder once again about the Thai people's ability to sleep just about in any position and in any noise level - those two were about 10 meters from a huge loudspeaker tower that was blaring at ear-shattering volume all the time.

Sadly right now the "war" has already started, reds are storming Thaicom, using molotov cocktails, and looks like they are winning - for now, because they out-number the army/police there by about 10:1. However i don't think that will stay that way.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Hi.

Wasn't there some announcement some time ago that "any foreigner found at political rallies will be deported" or some such? I remember reading that somewhere here.......

I myself have been among the red crowd a few times now, right outside my soi here in Bangna where they usually gather before moving downtown, at their big parade and today for the third time at Rajprasong intersection. My sole purpose of going there was to take pictures/video clips of the event and talk to some people if a chance arises (and so far i had that chance every single time).

To make sure i am not mistake for "one of them" i purposely wear a shirt of any colour other than red, even though i have a whole bunch of red t-shirts (it just so happens to be one of my favourite colours). I am not shy of "being mistaken for one of them" by the red shirts themselves but rather by some over-zealous cops who wants to nail some foreigner for illegally joining some political rally.

I think that we foreigners may well have our opinions about the political situation and of course also support one side or the other and discuss that in forums, however i feel it is not our business to actually join a rally and show that support "live". At least not as long as we don't hold Thai ID cards.

And nope, i didn't join the yellow crowds either.

Kind regards.....

Thanh

Ji.

Speaking of queue's (i never knew how to spell that correctly!), it appears to me that i am jinxed in that particular way as well. As in - my queue moves at snail's pace, the one at the next cash register is a lot faster. So i switch queues - only to bring the slowness with me, speeding up the one i left and slowing down the one i joined.

Works equally well for traffic/road lanes. How often did i wonder why two of three lanes move while i am stationary... only to switch lanes to find that my new lane stops dead while the one i just left starts moving.

Or at bank/post office.... it is always the one person right in front of me who has some sort of business that takes an hour. While i am usually done in 30 seconds......

At 7-Eleven i could explode every time when the person in front of me buys several items worth 99.75 Baht and starts counting it down in coins - right down to the 75 Satang, all the while my ice cream melts. And for some reason that happens EVERY time i am buying ice cream.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Oh well....

If i had my bluetooth thingy with me i could upload some 25 pics and a good 2 hours of video clips showing exactly the opposite..... my guess, 99.75% of the reds are indeed peaceful people, just a tiny fraction wants violence to occur - no different from the yellows there, it was precisely the same.

I went to their rally site at Rajprasong twice for the sole purpose of taking pictures, they even let me ride my motorbike right to the front of the stage, nobody in the crowd appeared angry or violent in any way, not even their security guys.

If it wasn't for their stupid leaders who are paid and commanded by Thaksin they would be just a friendly crowd of people, from my talks with some of them i know that a good many have no idea what exactly they are actually protesting for but all of them hope that whatever it is will make their life better.

I personally just can't stand the fact that this crowd of people is being mis-used by a few nutcases who do it for the money and their "dear leader" who is abroad and too scared to come back here in person.

I hope it will be over soon, that the ordinary protesters go back home, their leaders will rot in jail and Abhisit can finally get to do what a PM is supposed to do - run the country and start tackling the issues of those protesters, i am sure he would help them if given a chance.

Best regards.....

Thanh

(edit: typo)

Hi.

Several have stated that Abhisit should address the reds' issues, i.e. poverty, education etc. Have you ever considered that he very likely would actually do that, if it weren't for the reds themselves keeping him busy with the current BS..? Those reds should throw Thaksin over board, go home and let Abhisit do the job he is elected for, that is, run the country and take care for issues such as poverty and education.

Today i have been reading the term "unity government" for the first time but guess what, i've had that idea some time ago - if i were Abhisit, a sure-fire method of satisfying the reds would be to invite the PTP to take part in governing the country, i.e. form a coalition of ALL parties that received votes in the last election. After all, all of them have been voted for by some people so they should actually have a say in the government.

Of course, one (and one only!) condition has to be attached: Immediate and total stop of communication of any kind with convicted criminal, dictator-wannabe and red shirt paymaster Thaksin Shinawatra.

Let Thaksin live in Dubai or Montenegro or Timbuktu if he so chooses, but keep his nose and his fingers out of Thailand's affairs. If he chooses to return he will go to jail to do the time he was sentenced to, stand his outstanding cases and after all is settled he'd be welcome to stand for elections again. Gosh that guy has so much money that he can buy one new Ferrari every week for the rest of his natural life, just how much more does he want??

As to the reds - let them go home in peace but throw their "leaders" in the slammer with NO bail. Speed up the cases against the yellows so nobody can cry "double standards" (at least the yellows don't seem to want to flee to exile, not so sure about the red leaders....) and be DONE with this political chaos here.

Oh yes, and for all of the future, put this into the constitution, and also force every political party (as part of the rules for their legality):

"Buyer and seller of votes will be punished by jail sentence of no less than 250 years and/or fine no less than 500 Billion Baht"

That should stomp out this nonsense and maybe get some actual democracy going. Because - it is NOT democratic when a party wins an election due to paying their voters in advance.

Best regards.....

Thanh

Looks like more and more Reds are now coming to Bangkok, lots of Red convoys spotted heading to Bangkok.

People Power.

Hi.

People power? My @ss. "Money power" is the right word. If Thaksin's funds wouldn't flow all those people would stay at home and do honest people's jobs. Those people who are coming to Bangkok now sure know that they will be breaking the law the very moment they arrive?

Regards.....

Thanh

Well......

Why not let them have government house? Wouldn't that be a far better rally point for a POLITICAL protest than, say, a random intersection somewhere downtown? And then the yellows took that spot, too, so in this case i'm fully with the reds - political protests should take place at locations where politics is made, not on busy roads.

I went to the Rajprasong site again this morning (had to go to MBK again and it's on the way), they let me ride my motorbike right to the front of the stage. There were probably around 200-300 red shirts there, if that many. A VERY small crowd. And not even in one crowd but scattered around in smaller groups, seeking shelter in the shade of trees and pedestrian bridges. Got pictures to prove it.

Best regards.....

Thanh