Estrada

These cables are not exposed as they are insulated, telecom and fibre optic cables and there is no danger whatsoever of electrocution.  This looks like a new pedestrian footbridge that has been built in the path of the cables so that there should have been contact with the telecom companies to move their cables before the bridge was constructed.

"These kinds of containers could be decomposed into carbon dioxide, water and bio waste which will pose no danger to the environment" In fact the plants they are made from adsorb CO2 from the atmosphere but on degradation release the same amount of CO2 back into the atmosphere. Therefore they are not environmentally friendly as we need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and lock it away.

22 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

There have been reports of people being offered refunds for the disruption during the mourning period. 

They agreed on 25th Oct. to refund me in next month's bill after I complained that BBC entertainment was not restored at the same time as the other channels. Today I got BBC Entertainment back (27th Oct.)

18 hours ago, IMA_FARANG said:

As i said before in many areas of Bangkok the high rise buildings are drawing off the subsurface water table.

In addition in some areas ther are subsurface storm drainage pumps which are supposed to remove rain water and pump it into the river.

Because the land in Bankok is subsiding due to the lowering of the subsurface water table, during periods of high tides that happen to coincide with heavy rains and a high water level in the river, these buried storm drainage pumps are now lower than the river and tidal water level in some lowlieing areas of Bangkok

So that mens that in someareas the storm drainage water system which was intended to pump storm drainage water into the river which was lower than the land now have to pump the storm drainage water up hill to river which has become higher than the storm drainage channels.

It is only the concrete walls around the river that are keeping the river from overflowing into the storm drainage channels and the sewr system when high tides and a high river water river level happen to coincide.

Obviouly if this situaton  continues as it did in November 2011 Bangkok is going to have another 2011 flood situation sooner or later.

The real problem is cauded by the subsiding of Bangkok land area by the removal of the Bangkok water table levels due to the drawing down of the subsrface water by the many high rise buildings now being built in a growing Bangkok.

result will inevidently mean more floods in Bangkok in the future years.

 

There are no pumps drawing water from the water table below Bangkok, that was stopped on my advice to the BMA Governor 20 years ago. Previously industry and hotel owners could pump as much water as they liked for free. Since then the ground has subsided at a much slower rate. The major problem here, is that a vast area of Bangkok and its environs have now been covered with concrete so that the rain water cannot be absorbed must go to drain causing flooding. Secondly the water level in the Chaophraya has to be lowered by bypassing excess water around Bangkok via the yet to be built, Super Floodways, and the Chaophraya River Barrage has yet to be constructed to hold back the high tides.

14 hours ago, partington said:

Poor people tend to vote to increase their own poverty: I don't know why this is.

 

 I would be surprised if the majority, 80-90%, of those being forced to leave because of the low exchange rate didn't actually vote for Brexit and bring about their own demise.

 

Those not on the edge of survival mostly voted remain I think.  

It seems that this is the case. I found the majority of my British friends here, said they were voting for Brexit and I warned that the GB Pound would fall by 20%. They said that they were still voting for Brexit and that the fall in the GBP would just last 1 to 3 weeks then it would recover. Very few of these friends now admit to having voted for Brexit as, like myself, are losing 24% since the proposal to hold the Brexit referendum was made. Only one Brexiteer now admits to the severe financial fall out of Brexit, but he says it is "Worth it to avoid Sharia Law!" The problem is going to get worse, as the pound has at least another 10% to fall if article 50 is invoked.

26 minutes ago, Faz said:

You can choose either of the options to pay via the Faster Payments service or BACS.

 

BACS is the cheaper option costing £15.  Pounds Sterling converted to Thai Baht using the London Branch's exchange rate, with no transfer fee.

Usually takes 3/4 working days to reach your Thai bank account.

 

Faster Payments service costs £20. Pounds Sterling converted to Thai Baht using the daily TT buying rate at Bangkok. An additional international fee of 0.25% of the transferred amount will be deducted by Bangkok Bank Thailand before crediting funds to recipient account (minimum 200Bt, maximum 500Bt).

Takes less than 24 hours to reach you Thai bank account.

 

Personally I've always used the Faster payments method.

Because of the time difference, I've made online transactions at 6pm Thai time from my UK bank to BKK London and it hits my Thai bank account 9am the following morning.

That's 15 hours!

 

You cannot open an account at BKK London, it is only used as a Clearing Services bank.

You can open an account at Bangkok Bank London, I have one. You can have current, fixed and time deposit accounts. I used to have a business account there 24 years ago also but now only use it as required by HMRC to pay in my quarterly pension payments using Swift to transfer to my Bangkok Bank Account in Thailand. Another pension provider makes my payments using Citibank and that is fast and reliable. Another pension provider refuses to send the 6 monthly payments to BBL London or use Citibank and insists on sending me a cheque which takes around one month from them sending it to me until I receive the funds via Bangkok Bank.

Voter fraud hardly exists in the USA. Only 33 cases were identified in an in depth study carried out going back years. The system is of course rigged, since previous Democrat majority Governments have made sure that the Democrats have more chance of winning the Presidency and Senate by arranging the voting constituencies to favour them. Republican majority Governments have rigged the vote for the House Representatives by rearranging constituencies to make sure that Republican voters outnumber Democrats. Billions of Dollars are spent, over a farcically long 1.5 years process, to elect a President whilst the World has to watch and wait. The whole system is corrupted and rigged, but not at the ballot box. Once in power the Representatives have to spend up to 80% of their time soliciting money from special interests, such as the NRA, in buildings close by the House and Senate, and are given a target by their parties. 100% of their time should be representing their electorate.

2 hours ago, NongKhaiKid said:

So far TRUE Visions haven't relaxed anything on the movie and entertainment channels and that includes their radio feed.

I suppose they can't monitor international movies  etc so may err on the side of caution and will not show anything.

 

Will BBC World still be monitored and as soon as Thailand is mentioned the broadcast cut until the report is over ?

As of the time of your posting, no BBC Entertainment or movies, but entertainment channels 555 and above (History Channel) etc are running 666 and above sports channels are running 777 and above news channels are running. 222 and above movie channels are not running with the exception of Fox Family Channel. most 333 and above cartoon channels are also running.

14 hours ago, Crossy said:

Do you have :-

 

1. a visa (obtained from a consulate outside Thailand)?

or

2. an extension of stay (obtained from immigration inside Thailand)?

 

If 1. just keep the old passport, the visa remains valid, present both passports when passing through immigration.

 

If 2. Once you have your new passport nip down to the embassy and get a letter stating that you have a new passport, then off to immigration to get your stamps transferred, they will use up a whole page doing it so better order the jumbo passport if you travel even remotely regularly.

 

I renewed my UK passport in May this year (9 day turnaround). The British Embassy does not want people going to the Embassy for the letter stating you that they have a new passport. Pre-signed letters are given to you when you collect your passport from Trendy Visa who are the agents for UK Gov. Passports. Immigration also wants to see the Visa, extension details and re-entry permit transferred into your new passport.

A confused story. Firstly, the Airport express service was shutdown due to the breakdown of 4 of their Airport Express trains due to the fact that the SRT did not buy any spare parts when they bought the trains. The remaining airport express trains have been running on the Citi Line due to the passenger numbers now reaching 62,000/day and many passengers now cannot get on the train when it reaches Hua Mark, so they give up and take the bus. Originally the Citi Line was designed for 42,000/passengers/day but only had 20,000/day and nay sayers, like they say about Purple Line and the BTS in 1999, were saying that it was a waste of money. Now the potential passenger numbers per day should increase to at least 72,000+/day if they had enough trains to give a frequent and reliable service. Only one train has been refurbished so far with 3 more to return to service by end December 2016. However, the Airport Express Line is unlikely to return to service until more express trains are delivered and the extended line reaches Don Muang Airport. At this time they intend to go out for bidding for a private operator to run the services.

Far from there only being a few companies, if any, interested in bidding, there are too many companies interested in investing in these projects. So now's the time to put the frighteners on so that he hopes that BTS and BEM have less competition. Already 9 companies have picked up bidding documents. As for profitability, they said the same thing about the BTS being a waste of time and would never make a profit when it opened with only 200,000 passengers/day. Now the same people are complaining it is over capacity at 755,000+ passengers/day! The Pink line monorail will certainly make thing easy for going to Immigration at Changwattana, Impact Exhibition and Arena as well as Pakred. It links with the Pruple line so that will boost passenger numbers for both lines as will the Purple line Phase II to Prapadaeng..

I recommend Tom Waller, see IMDB http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0909084/

His latest movie is Mechanic Resurrection. Also Patong Girl, The Last Executioner, Battle of Memories and more.

Next time just go to Chaengwattana and go downstairs to Kasikorn Bank and get your letter there. It takes 10 minutes.

My State Pension is paid into my account at Bangkok Bank London and transferred by them directly to my Bangkok Bank account here in Thailand. It is not hard to open an account at BBL London, just go to their web site.

2 hours ago, chiang mai said:

BOT rules are that funds in ALL bank deposit accounts must be immediately available, upon request. That means loss of interest in the case of a fixed rate deposit, there is no such thing as a fixed term bank deposit in Thailand.

All Thai banks offer fixed rate fixed term bank deposit accounts. Bangkok Bank market them as fixed interest rate time deposit accounts. The funds are immediately available with loss of the premium rate of interest so that meet the criteria of funds that are readily available. Immigration officers prefer to see the fixed time deposit accounts as there is only one entry of say B800,000, whereas the savings accounts can have many entries that are hidden due to consolidation, so that it is hard to tell whether the funds have dipped below the magic B800,000 minimum. Last year I used a 5 month maturity Time Deposit and this year I am using a 7 month Time Deposit Account to extended my permission to stay based on retirement for the 5th time.

2 hours ago, phuketjock said:

 

You do not have a retirement VISA as there is no such thing.

You probably have an extension of permission to stay on the grounds of Retirement,

which is NOT a VISA.

 

 

Yes at Phuket.

Wrong Info. The Non "O" VISA for retirement (as stamped in Thai above the VISA explaining that it is issued for retirement purposes) is the only visa routinely issued in Thailand by Changwattana Immigration. If you think about it logically you will realize that Thai Immigration can only issue a Non "O' Visa in Country providing they stamp above it that it is for retirement purposes only. They cannot issue a Non "O" in Country currently for any other purpose than for retirement. I have posted screen shots of the stamps in my passport several times before to prove this point. 

22 confirmed cases only. A completely overblown problem. What is a problem is the 93,000 cases of TB contracted here per year.

3 hours ago, yogi100 said:

It was terrible to actually see it taking place before our eyes. I also remember the sickening spectacle of Muslims dancing in the street celebrating the event in the weeks that followed. I can't imagine the followers of any other religion behaving in such a disgusting and repulsive manner. That was so sickening and liberals vilify those of us who have not forgotten nor forgiven and have few feelings but hatred for them.

This is not true, there is no video of Muslims celebrating 9/11. The story came from anti-Islamic hate mongers who posted a video of Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait in 1991 which was 10 years before 9/11. As for you not being able to imagine any other religion behaving in such a disgusting manner you only have to look at the American Catholics who gave the keys of New York and several other cities to wanted Irish Republican Army terrorist leaders who were responsible for numerous bomb attacks and murders in the UK. They also paraded them through New York as heros! Irish Americans in particular funded the IRA Catholic terrorists and supplied arms via Libya. This funding only ended after the Libyans put a bomb on the Pan Am flight that blew up over Lockerbie. As the Bible says "As you sow, so shall you reap". The predominately Christian US funded and trained Osma Bin Laden's terrorists in Pakistan to fight the Russians. As a result the US created Al Qaeda and gave rise to ISIS. Had the US not funded and created Osama's terrorist brigade the twin towers would never have been taken down and the World would be a much safer place.

1 hour ago, ratcatcher said:

Before everyone gets totally wound up, there is a report in "that newspaper" explaining that it was a rainwater collection pond and not a sewage pond. Still not a nice place to swim. It is still an irresponsible and dangerous practice.

It is a swimming pond for the school. Not very nice but this is where the kids swim out in the country.

Gulf Air used to be a JV with BOAC. I used to fly with them a lot in the '70s and '80s and at that time they were excellent. Gulf Air went through hard times and quality went down so I switched to Qatar Airways. As far as I understand from friends, Gulf Air is back in the black with new planes and worth considering at the price. Used to fly within Oman in the '80s by Oman Air. Oman Air has new planes and I would consider flying by them.

Just bought a return to London for B24,000 direct with British Airways for a non-stop flight and shortest time, leaving Sept 16th return 26th. Price drops a lot for flights in October.

4 hours ago, useronthenet said:

Perhaps the headline should read...

"Deadly deeds: Death of former Phuket Land chief lifts lid on island’s corrupt, murderous past (and present)"

You mean "Past, Present and Future".

10 hours ago, BigBadGeordie said:

I hate you.......I want one..

in the '60s, a welder friend had one  at Castle Donington Power Station in the UK and ran it on Trichoethylene. We used to make our own silencers and he made one for the Jowett. After he installed the silencer he could not figure out why the car started and then quickly cut out. When we checked the silencer box we found that he had forgotten to cut the holes out for the exhaust gases to flow through the silencer!

I installed a Stiebel Eltron 4-stage wall mounted cartridge filter module which includes Ultrafiltration for drinking water only. Cost is B6,300 from Lazada delivered to your door. I got mine from Home Pro with free installation in Bangkok. Water for coffee/tea/soup etc I use an electric kettle pot from our mains water. I am a water treatment engineer with 50 years experience including the manufacture of R.O. plants, so I concur that R.O. water is not good for drinking.

Several immigration officers have told me that they prefer to see the B800,000 in a time deposit account because it is easier for them to check that the balance has not fallen below the B800,000 in the two to three months waiting period. The problem with the savings account is that if you have a lot of entries and you get the book updated on the day you hand it over, it could be consolidated and not show a possible dip below the magic B800,000 minimum. It actually does make sense that you have this as an emergency fund in addition to your savings account and not to live on.

"Over 40 million passengers visited Suvarnabhumi Airport this year"

Your headline is incorrect. This is from October last year until July this year so the figure for passenger numbers so far this year is more like 28 Million.