maddermax

Despite being only applicable to those with roofs capable of holding solar panels it is a move in the right direction to reducing greenhouse gases. Next step is for EGAT to start investing in Solar farms and wind turbines.

My wife and I like a drink but do it sensibly, ie, we restrict ourselves so that we are not overdoing it. Very often I would like to buy a wine for the evening and cannot because of the 2-5 rule which I find ridiculous. This is because I believe anybody who is serious about drinking would buy twice as much before 2 pm or after 5 pm. Most of the supermarkets now sell it after 2 pm for cash and record the sale, obviously to control the possibility of people buying way too much which has worked well. Time for 2-5 to go!

I fully understand where he is coming from. You have to do your homework before jumping in. I also believe that those intending to settle down here should be aware of the pitfalls of buying property and have written a book with lots of information on this topic which is available on Amazon.com: 'Buying a Condominium Unit in Thailand' . This has been supplemented by 'Running a Condo Building in Thailand' as many are mismanaged. Hope they are useful!

Car drivers must sit through a one hour video which is a joke. The woman driver never uses her mirrors and worst of all, there is no equivalent video for motorcycle drivers.

The traffic rules are a joke. The police should take a trip up Khao Talo in Pattaya sometime. No helmets, excessive speeding and worst of all, non-existent motorcycle and car exhausts. The idiots driving these vehicles are completely selfish disturbing the population on a regular basis. RTP would win much kudos if they were to address these issues in Khao Talo.

Many thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

I have been retired here in Pattaya for 14 years and own a few condos, the rents of which supplement my meagre UK state pension. During this time I have served on each of the owners' committees, known as CoCs or Co-Owners Committees. I have also served as Chairman of the CoC at each of the condos where I sign documents regularly on behalf of the owners. The village in which I live is about to be handed over to the owners after 18 years being operated by the developer and a Home Owners' Committee (HOC) has been formed in preparation of the handover. One of the committee members is insisting that the Chairman must have a work permit to be able to act in the position. My believe is that, as volunteers not receiving any remuneration, we are not obliged to do so, and have not done so in the condos without any such problems. Getting any information out of the Labour Department is like getting blood out of a stone. Can anybody with knowlegde/experience of such situations please assist? Thanks

Six years ago I gave a five-day training course on LNG to EGAT middle managers. At the end of the course I suggested that they should also be thinking about solar power farms. They would have paid for themselves twice over by now!

The old adage mentioning stones and glass houses comes to mind here!

So now we know what all the protagonists stand for. They can ban MFP and its leaders but the people know what MFP stands for and hopefully will vote accordingly in the next election with an even larger majority which cannot be ignored or put down. Wherever you go in the world money talks louder than anything else. As long as the population is living well they will not stand up to the greedy bureaucrats.

I just tried to book flights to Phuket for next week. Tried the Thai Airways site with different browsers. Locked out. Then tried with the App on my phone - same again. So I thought I would try the call centre in Bangkok. Hanging on for 20 mins with no answer. So just how do I book a flight with Thai Airways??!!

They clearly have not flown with many other airlines!

It was bad enough when unsolicited adverts started appearing on your news pages. The saving grace was that we could shut them down. Unfortunately, we now have a pop-up appearing at the bottom of the page which we cannot eliminate. Shameful lack of consideration for your readers.

It's a sadly oft-repeated story. UK nationals paid into their social security religiously over many years with the contributions being index-linked. It is unjust that our pensions are not index linked in Thailand. Retired UK expats here are being recommended to register for a postal vote for the upcoming general election so that they can vote for the party which supports index linking of pensions.

This is another major hit on retirees. Medical insurance becomes harder to obtain as we get older. Often, due to existing medical conditions, eg, knee surgery, hip surgery, heart attacks, kidney/gaul stones, etc, the list of exclusions is so long that it is hardly worth bothering with. The premium is excessive and there is usually a very high excess/deductable. I believe it should be sufficient to show that you have sufficient funds to cover medical emergencies. This is another case of the government providing income for the insurance companies. What are they going to do if I fail to prove I have medical insurance? I have already spent a fortune in the hospitals here on such afflictions as those above!

I wish you would stop with this article as it is only causing panic. These laws have been in place for a long time but never enforced as I believe the Government realises that this would 'kill the goose that laid the golden egg'. Even though they do not get any income from taxing us expats they benefit in many other ways.

Some people have no scruples and will do anything for money. Hope the animals can recover and lead a happier life. It is the Chinese desire for tiger parts which fund such activities.

This idiot should be castrated so that he cannot produce offspring!

Here we go again with the Chinese commercial blackmail. If the Thai government folds on this issue, it will confirm what I’ve always believed that they have no backbone whatsoever!

The Thais will love you when you come to spend money as a tourist, hence the smiles. However, live here and they no longer like you because expats have the money, houses and nice cars. They tend to forget that it was many of us expats who were donating money to enable the hotels to give food to those long lines of unemployed starving Thais. It was expat spending which basically kept this place afloat. If they do anything to disturb the status quo they will slowly kill the goose that laid the golden egg.