BradinAsia

Pattayadingo said:

That makes me wonder that if there were more policewomen on duty outside on the streets if it would be a better thing?

Do you think they would be as corrupt at taking tea money for so many offences or would they be more honest and straightforward?

Oh, I am sure that they would not accept tea money. The beer bar girls don't seem to except money when offered, and they have never asked me for any? Huh? LOL

I've never understood folks who hang around a cesspool by choice and then complain about the smell...

Ugh. Sounds like the OP has had an encounter with one of the uglier exports of my country, the US car driver. One of the reasons I haven't owned a car in the US since 1990, nor driven one since about 2006. My sympathies. Just be lucky he didn't have his gun with him!

But seriously, as I don't drive in Thailand, I've never encountered this new(ish?) type of farang poison, the Grumpy Expat Driver From Hell, but I often encounter The Angry Farang Pedestrian on Lower Sukhumvit.

These douchebags square out their shoulders as wide as they'll go, plant a vicious snarl on their face, stare straight ahead, and barrel down the sidewalk in an extremely aggressive fashion, barely missing anyone who doesn't swerve or jump out of their way. Usually it's a man "small in stature," if you get my drift--I'm nearly 2 meters tall--but once in awhile it's one of those huge, gorilla-like muscled buffoons, even taller than me.

By their body language, 100 yard stare and contorted mouth, it's very clear that this type of creature is the long-term expat farang who spends most of his time in bars, loves to complain about Thailand and Thais, and (specifically as regards walking) is disgusted with the way Thais are totally incapable of walking on a sidewalk with any sense of rationality or predictability (which is very true, btw) and "just not gonna take it anymore".

Anyway, I'll never understand why this type of scum, if they're so fed up and angry with Thais (AND their fellow expats), doesn't just pack up and go be miserable somewhere else...?

I've had exactly the same kind of experience on Sukhumvit. I quite agree with you.

Fortunately, I haven't seen such surly characters in Chiang Mai.

carib102@ -- I've become quite adept at stopping in such a way as to avoid gaps

I rode a motorcycle in Japan for about 15 years in traffic very similar to downtown Bangkok.

Japanese car drivers usually are quick to make a space for bikes approaching from the rear

through traffic. At first, I thought this was very odd -- I rarely saw such a thing in the U.S.

For a long time I thought, hmm, are they doing this for courtesy? But then I realized it was

not about courtesy. They simply didn't want the motorcycles scratching their beautiful car.

But, for me, it was much appreciated. Made my commutes a lot easier.

Driving habits differ from country to country. I didn't like the aggressiveness and road rage

I saw in the U.S. But that was 20+ years ago.

The Philippines required a lot of concentration to avoid collisions.

I haven't had much problem with drivers in Chiang Mai, except an occasional young kamikaze

motorcyclist bent on self-mutilation. I just try to stay out of their way.

You're not serious right? You don't understand the economic division between a rich mans goods and a poor mans goods. That's the whole principle behind luxury goods. It's purely a status symbol and unfortunately we live in a world where we don't want to be perceived as the 'poor man', so people who can't afford the real deal want to at least appear to be of 'similar class'. This is a product of society, if there wasn't such a huge gap between classes, then this type of thing wouldn't exist. So there IS a reason/need for counterfeit goods, because society dictates it.

I also agree that copies don't devalue the original brand, otherwise chanel, LV bags etc would be worthless, but they aren't, hold re-sale value very well, even with copies of high quality around. So it's a mute point.

The whole argument on copies is that it takes profit away from the companies that produce the originals, which is rubbish. 99% of the people buying the copies would never buy or afford the original, so there is no loss of profit for them.

Same goes with music, DVDs etc, where they have made millions, if not 100's of millions from cinema releases and then charge ridiculous prices for a DVD/Blueray.

Drugs and products are very different things. One only gives you the appearance of having something that has some inflated value, the other can kill you. Don't compare them.

"Society dictates it" - What a cop-out.

I guess by "society" you are referring to people who will pay for copied/fake/imitation products.

I guess people who direct movies, design bags, produce music, create new shirts styles, develop and test new drugs, etc, etc, as well as the millions who buy their "real" (not copied) products are not part of society too.

You have zero business acumen if you believe that copies/fakes have no effect on the profits of the company who created the original product.

For example, a colleague of mine tells me she only buys Coach bags when she goes to Europe (for the tax savings) and that she would never buy and bring back a LV because everyone would think it was fake. Apparently there are less fake Coach bags.

There are many products here that Thais won't buy because people might think it is fake.

LV corp is not hurting. They're worth a few billion.

The gap between the rich and poor is too great.

The gap between rich and poor is too great, true.

Yet so many of the rich seem to be clueless about the damage this gap does to national

economies and the global economy. When millions of miserably poor folks improve their

living standard the whole world benefits. Those millions of formerly poor folks become

big consumers of goods.

It's a win-win scenario.

Many of the rich seem to ignore this as if it were inconsequential. This apathy is much

more than simple passive greed. It is both bad economics, and self-defeating.

What a bloody fool! Some people deserve, what they get! First cheated by the wife and then leave it to MIL to sell the remaining assets. And share with him.

Would you care to elaborate as to why you feel he got what he deserved? Do you really know enough about this man to make an informed opinion of him as a person or are you just an ignorant buffoon who thinks it's clever to kick a man when he's down?

Can't see that's much different than all the people on TV who know nothing about the Thai women who marry farang but always blame them without any proof for murders and theft of assets. Any time anything happens to a farang, no matter the evidence or lack thereof, a Thai is to blame in the TV kangaroo court. So I guess it can work both ways ... "or are you just an ignorant buffoon" should be asked whenever that happens too.

Oh shut up. For every one farang criminal in Thailand, there are 10,000 Thai crooks. Wake up you deluded, flower-power fruit. It's THAILAND. Are you really going to try to assert that it would unwise to assume that a criminal in Thailand is of Thai nationality? Would you apply the same logic elsewhere (i.e. if someone is shot in the US, we best assume a foreign national was the shooter to be fair to Americans?!). Thanks for flat-out the dumbest post I've read in few months. Cheers, mate!

This may be flat-out most ignorant narrow-minded post ever.

Suradit69's post was quite reasonable.

Women are not up to it. In western countries police women have to have a big,burly policeman to protect them if they go out to patrol the streets. So what is the point?

In a violent situation they would just stand and watch...........or burst into tears.

Why dont women stick to doing what they are best at,like cooking breakfast and having babies.

After all,its only human nature. Women know what I mean.

It's pretty obvious why you escaped from farangland...

probably just ahead of the feminist lynching party.

Are you looking to export them?

Yes, in CKD mode.

Any idea?

No idea what CKD Mode is

There is a guy in Hua Hin who makes and exports them to Europe, doubt he would match the price you are looking for though

CKD is completely knocked down = fully disassembled.

CBU is completely build up = fully assembled.

These terms have been around for a very long time. Not sure

but the terms may have been coined in Japan.

What about the fake government and fake search for overseas people convicted of crimes and fake police and fake newspaper reporting and the list goes on.

Sent from Me to You.

I assume your talking about my country... but can't disagree.

The idea that Rolex is somehow damaged by all the fake 500-baht Rolexes being sold is a rather

big stretch of common sense.

In my case, well beyond retirement age, I've probably owned 117 watches in my life. These

ranged in price from about $1.50 to $150.

Only one or two were fake Rolexes. But even if I had bought 50 fake Rolexes, how is that

damaging Rolex company?

Do you think for one second that I would ever pay $6,000 for a dam_n watch???

Probably 99.99% (or more) of the fake Rolex buyers would never buy a real Rolex.

The volume of copyrighted material available on the torrent sites (I prefer kickass) is incredible. As I can transfer to my DVD player with a memory stick, who needs to buy dubious quality pirated DVDs?

They are very god quality, and offer both english and thai soundtracks. Not so on Torrent files.

Sorry if I'm affecting business, but there are many, many dodgy versions for sale, and you don't know until you get home. Torrent sites usualy offer a comment facility, and poor downloads are easily avoided.

BTW it seems there is no word in Thai equivalent to "refund" and "I want my money back" is a disgusting insult.

Evidently you've never heard of การคืนเงิน

Maybe your cultural immersion in Thailand is limited to tourist areas.

I signed up to buy a condo under construction. Paid $10,000 down,

Then after 6 months the company violated the sales agreement, so

I asked to cancel and get a refund. They didn't even hesitate.

Next day, I met their man at the bank and received 386,000 baht cash

refund in a brown paper bag. I counted it and said "Thank you."

End of story.

Depends on how you conduct business. I've never had a problem --

except being cheated by taxi drivers before I learned the language.

But I've also been cheated by taxi drivers in Memphis, Honolulu and

San Francisco even though I spoke their language.

And the Russians are tired of the Brits, and the Indians are tried of the Nigerians, and everyone is tired of the Americans (I are one, BTW) and....

Can't we all just get along? Even in a tropical resort?

Many of the farang tourists I've seen in Pattaya -- hairy, overweight, half-clothed, bad-smelling, Neanderthal types --

seem to fit in quite well together and surely deserve each other.

Precisely why I've been there only once since 2003 (for only a few hours) and even that visit I regretted.

Stay away, mate, nobody needs you.

Thank you for the good advice... even if I didn't need it. Figured it out for myself...

No surprise to see this thread has turned into yet another "dumb farang deserves everything he gets" thread, its kind of boring now and yet again shows the intelligence of the majority of TV members.

The main factor in this story is the ex is dead, Mr. Harpel will surely be up against it when making accusations against a deceased ex. I note the article does not state when the ex died, only that it was sometime after 2007. So has this case been going on since 2007, or has Mr Harpel recently found himself in the shit and has decided to re-visit his past in a last ditch attempt to get some funds ?

Even if the ex was alive he still wouldn't stand much of chance as he was not legally married, Thai law states that any assets acquired after a legal marriage (which they did not have) would be split 50/50. This was not his late wife, it was his girlfriend, no marriage certificate, no case ! The mistake this man made was not down to him marrying a Thai, the mistake was NOT marrying a Thai !

To all you blokes out there who have married a Thai women and not registered it by Thai law do it now, if your wife says "no darling, dont need to do, the monk say we marry already" then walk away, and walk away from any assets that are in her name !

Really? If you're a cut above the regular soi bar herd why are you advicing farangs to marry a girl here?

I cant think of anyhting more ridiculous than marrying a Thai.

In all our western countries Thai wives own property(farang money) run businesses and dump their farang husbands at whim.

Its all one way. Thais win here or there... we lose. Dont marry an Asian trophy wife. Works for me.

I can think of one thing more ridiculous -- a Thai lady marrying a narrow-minded xenophobe.

And the Russians are tired of the Brits, and the Indians are tried of the Nigerians, and everyone is tired of the Americans (I are one, BTW) and....

Can't we all just get along? Even in a tropical resort?

Many of the farang tourists I've seen in Pattaya -- hairy, overweight, half-clothed, bad-smelling, Neanderthal types --

seem to fit in quite well together and surely deserve each other.

Precisely why I've been there only once since 2003 (for only a few hours) and even that visit I regretted.

I ordered glacier water service.. I paid the deposit, got three crates, and we finished the water. I call them to order again, they ask for the receipt, which I threw away. I don't understand why thats important, but then they ask me for the number of the car that delivered the water.. again, how am I supposed to know this/why would anyone know? I don;t know, so they say there is nothing they can do. We sare stuck, unable to get more water, and have lost the 1000 baht deposit for the cases. Any idea how to get this solved?

Let's revive this thread.

Here's an update on the extremely poor service from Glacier.

We live in Wat Ket nor far from the train station. We had water delivered by Glacier.

The first two deliveries were quite slow -- 2-3 days wait. Then it got worse. I called

requesting delivery, they said "okay, we deliver tomorrow."

Next day no delivery. In the meantime, we're buying much more expensive water

and carrying it from 7-11. Called again. They said "sorry, tomorrow sure."

Next day no delivery.

Called again. They said "driver had accident, so sorry, call this number." Gave me

a phone number which I promptly threw away.

Don't know if I will ever get deposit back from Glacier, but looking for someone who

is running a legitimate water delivery business in Chiang Mai.

Any good suggestions?

Who the hell actually pays these ugly ass women? Wish they would all get the hell out of Phuket.

I hope to hell they all stay in Phuket. They surely fit in well there...

And I never have to see them...

Get rid.

If you got rid of everyone that 'breaks' the realm's morality laws there wouldn't be any Thais left

Surely you jest!

How many farangs would be left?

Expatdreamer@

"Agree with KuhnPaen above. I too once thought of the possibility of marrying a nice Thai gal, but after reading so many of these stories, I just cant see myself doing it now under any circumstances."

Do you ever stop to think how ludicrous and illogical such thinking is?

Based on a very small sample size (at most a few hundred cases) of Thai

wives scamming her clueless farang husbands, you quickly jump to the

conclusion that all the other millions of Thai ladies are untrustworthy.

Hasn't it never occurred to you that Thai ladies are no more or no less apt

to be deceitful liars than Ozzie women or Brit women or American women

or Russian women of Japanese women or any other women in the world?

This is not rocket science, just common sense.

Clare, could you post a few photos of the bikes?

I'm especially interested in the Honda Nova.

Very interesting.

Nonsense is starting again. I have said all important imo. So over and out. Have fun

Does it mean we can all log off now -- since you've already said everything important.

Or do I misread you?

I am normally a staunch anti Chinese bike fellow, but there are some plus points with this bike:-

1. At a 1/3rd of the price, that is a big difference.

2. If they have nicked/bought an old old Honda design, that is good.

3. If they have a tie up with Bennelli, there is some expertise there too.

4. If the engine is down on horsepower that removes strain, perhaps.

Ancillaries are not a huge issue, you can always get something to fit, it is engine and gearbox that are the issue. So, lots of oil changes, including one when you buy the bike, keep an eye on wheel bearings and change them for Jap ones at the first sign of wear and generally look after it. Jap bikes tend to accept some abuse and get it in Thailand, Chinese maybe not, so don't.

Still two minds, but 1/3rd price is a BIG carrot, looks nice-ish too. The Kwaka is overpriced anyway, should be 100k.

We can rule out #2.

Honda has not produced a pushrod motorcycle engine in over 50 years.

The reason I know that, I was in Japan in the early 1960s, riding Hondas

and worked on the engines.

But, this bike does look pretty good for the price.

Good Day, I live in Bermuda where for centuries now we collect water from our roofs and the water drains into a holding tank (usually) under that house. So most homes are built with the construction of a holding tank dug out of the lime stone. This holding tank can be of any size. One can do the calculation of how much water the tank can hold. The tank would be basically a below the ground room..a floor of 6 inches of concrete with re-bar or mesh wire. the the walls of 10 inch concrete block built to the height you want.(lets say 8 ft below the ground). the concrete block is then filled with rebar and concrete is poured into the block. the walls then are plastered with 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch of cement plaster and after a time then treated with a sealer. the roof of the tank is then concreted over with 6 inch of concrete. and then the house is built on top. but there are also tanks that are just built out into the yard with only the slab on top.

One can see that this is an expensive way to hold water but thats is what we do here. the water collects from the roof and any dust or whatever settles to the bottom of the tank. one can drink straight from the tap here with no filters.

In Thailand then one can pump water from your well into the tank but also catch from the roof. A pump then pumps the water into the home. Here we use pressure tanks to hold the pressure but you can use whatever you want. the pump is not submerged.

This system is expensive but you do not have to worry about the problems that arise with the other systems. The tanks can be cleaned out every 5-8 years depending on what is coming off the roof.

Thai's don't know what concrete block is and most cement block manufactured in Thailand is very poorly fired so it crumbles and breaks easily. In any event I would never let a Thai pour concrete for me, they don't know how to do it properly.

So that means all the millions of ferro-concrete structures all around Thailand

have been built by western engineering firms with all western workers?

How amazing. An entire nation of people who cannot pour concrete properly.

One thing that really, and I mean really does set my teeth on edge, is the Thai application of English words.

I had to top up the credit on my mobile phone tonight, went to one of the local phone shops and asked for "one two call, sam loi baht"

Blank stare, got the mobile phone out of my pocket and pointed at it......

"Oh, one tooo call sam loi baht"

btw, it's a computer, not a Com Pew TER.

I am trying to learn their language, can they do me a favour and at least not ride roughshod over mine.

Do you grieve over really petty things much?

Grieve?

Stick to Thai, your command of English is shocking.

My spell checker has not passed the Eng 101 test...

One thing that really, and I mean really does set my teeth on edge, is the Thai application of English words.

I had to top up the credit on my mobile phone tonight, went to one of the local phone shops and asked for "one two call, sam loi baht"

Blank stare, got the mobile phone out of my pocket and pointed at it......

"Oh, one tooo call sam loi baht"

btw, it's a computer, not a Com Pew TER.

I am trying to learn their language, can they do me a favour and at least not ride roughshod over mine.

Do you grieve over really petty things much?

All over the world, folks speak English with their own distinctive peculiarities.

How about English speaking folks who cannot pronounce a final "R". Like

John Kennedy, could not pronounce a final "R" except when talking about

Fidel Castro's "Cuber."

Does that bother you too?

"Yesterday I went to work. Went to the local restaurant. Spoke to several staff at work. Had a few text messages from friends. Called one back for a chat. And there was not one conversation out of the half dozen or so that weren't in English. So much for diminished world. Your point is?"

The point is -- only about 5-10 percent of the population is conversant in English.

Surely you don't expect to win any debate points using an example of a half dozen

folks you happened to communicate with one morning. Minuscule sample size...

I just tried to access their website and was unable. When I switched on my VPN it worked.

May I ask, what is VPN?