keestha

Early nineties, I walked into a bookstore almost next to Hadyai railway station, and they had Ordnance Survey type of maps. I bought a map of the Hua Hin area where I lived at the time, and I never stumbled across any maps of this type again. Yes, this thread is old, but the subject remains interesting, does anybody have a fresher lead?

Surat Thani railway station 077311213 should be able to tell you.

See that you get the road atlas called Thailand highway map, published by the Roads association of Thailand. It also contains detail maps of complicated junctions, and city maps. It is updated yearly, and obtainable in good bookstores.

Maybe you could go for the unofficial thai village type wedding where the local Monk pops round, throws a bit of water around, pronounces you man and wife, have a good party and bobs your uncle. No paper work and no problems, if it does not work out, you go your seperate ways, a lot more difficult for things to end up in court. This seeems to be what most thais do,

No. The prevailing social norm among Thais is still to get legally married, especially when it is clear they will be in it for the long term, and chances are there will be offspring.

1. 50/50 split of the Thai marital assets, court directed if necessary.

Only assets acquired after marriage are split evenly in case of a divorce.

I think my security system is pretty good, but I am open for suggestions to improve it,so that my life here can become even more easygoing and laid back than it already is. So hereunder I will describe my home safety system, in the hope to get tips to make it even more full proof.

My first line of defense is a 3 meter high wall around the outer perimeter of my property. At the corners, there are towers manned by well trained and armed marksmen. All of them are army trained snipers. At night they use night time visors, but anyway if there is an attempt to breach the wall, sensors will detect the motion, and everything will be flooded in light.

Right behind the outer wall, there is a 5 meter wide canal with crocodiles, quite a few of which are over 3 meters long. My wife, who is Thai, had to go through great lengths to finally acquire a permit to keep crocodiles as "pets". The bridge across the canal can only be lowered when we push a button inside the house.

Around the house, there is second 3 meter high wall, of course also fitted our with barbed wire. Around the wall, machine gun armed guards are patrolling with dogs 24 hours a day. The dogs are Napoletanos. They were not so easy to find, I ended up importing them from Pakistan, and it was in no way easy to import them legally.

If anybody would manage to find his way to our bedroom door, he would walk straight into the jaws of death. The steel door can only be opened through iris recognition technology, and if somebody tries to open the door in any other way, a highly poisonous gas is released automatically.

I am always open for suggestions to top up our security system even more, and I hope readers will come up with a few useful ideas.

Often inexperienced people opening businesses like this, just don't understand that you have to minimize costs, and maximize turnover. A mistake I often saw them make, is occupying too much space in the building or on the plot of land for their own (maybe plus family) living quarters. Also they tend to think they'll get by with just renting out rooms, it doesn't work. People prefer a guesthouse where they can also have breakfast. Also, the season is short and competition is fierce, and to stay afloat you have to grab every extra little piece of turnover you can make. This means adding things like a bar/restaurant, travel agency, internet room, massage, motorcycle/car rental and so on. This business is quite marginal, and if you want to remain you absolutely have to grab every extra 100 Baht you can conceivably get.

But with the water throwing starting tomorrow in Petchaburi, Prachuap and probably Surat provinces you can almost expect everywhere to be flooded again...good luck and be careful

not floded, but almost closed by Songkran celebration. I would wait until the 15th

15th/16th are also not so good travelling days I'm afraid. Once I tried to drive from Buriram to Hua Hin the 16th, didn't make it, ended up spending the night in a roadside hotel 100 KM north of Hua Hin. From Khorat (Nakhon Ratchasima) to Bangkok I made an average speed of 30 KM per hour, just too many cars on the road. South of Bangkok it was slightly better. Days like that, at the gasstations you hardly find a place to park.

Visiting the in laws, I always take a lot of books with me, and a bicycle. Always drive the car up there, nice to be able to go places. Just spending a few days should never be a problem, nice to slow down a bit every once in a while.

Will you also be doing breakfast? Preferably your guesthouse should have a restaurant/bar downstairs which is open the whole day, also not bad to add a travel agency ,an internet room, and motorcycle rental. You will also need wifi.

In case you rent, it is very important to have a long lease, a lease which is more than 3 years has to be registered with the land office. Don't rely on options to extend the lease.

Good luck.

This thread is 3 years old, what's the deal with aircards for laptops nowadays?

Kasikorn Bank issues virtual credit cards which can only be used online, if you have a Kasikorn account it takes about 5 minutes behind the computer to get one, will be usable in a couple of days.

Difficult to find pinball machines in Thailand, the authorities will tend to associate them with gambling, which is illegal. Same applies for factory made football (soccer) tables, once I spent a whole day in Bangkok fruitlessly trying to get one.

It is hard to believe that in this day and age, some people still don't get it. Greed is timeless. I guess.

I loved Maverick. Thanks for the reminder. Still grinning.

Easy.....the readers of this forum are usually internet savvy and pretty well informed, not everybody is. I also saw German speakers who have a limited command of English falling for well known scams, because of their inadequate language skills they don't have enough access to the main stream of information, which is in English.

Keep the grass short and see to it that they don't have hiding places.

I was told once that in Australia they put a round type of gravel around the garden perimeter, snakes don't like slithering over it.

Same thing happened in Khao Lak in I believe 2006. In the beginning dialling the old number resulted in a message notifying the caller of the new number, but this was stopped after a few months.

In my junkmail folder, they are competing with penis enlargement, fake hotel bookings and financial windfalls. Well, they are certainly reading this, and I hope it will make them rethink their marketing policy.

Honey hotel Sukhumwit Soi 19, from 800 Baht on (1 breakfast included), Tel. 022530646. They have a swimming pool, a restaurant and a few computers for public use.

Often enough driving long distances like this, I didn't take the trouble to go into any town for an overnight stop, but just stayed at a highway hotel, often next to a gas station. This type of place is invariably very good value.

On the road up to Bangkok there are very few 'highway hotels' that I can find. About the only 2 I have found are both in Thap Sakae which is just about the half way point, but don't use the one at the Shell Gas Station (it's a dump), stay in the newer motel style place just after the first Gas Station (think Esso). Both are on the north bound highway side.

There is a very nice one called Phengkepa Resort at the southbound lane in Tha Sae a bit north of Chumporn. They have a swimming pool, massage facilities ,a good restaurant and even a small zoo.

Often enough driving long distances like this, I didn't take the trouble to go into any town for an overnight stop, but just stayed at a highway hotel, often next to a gas station. This type of place is invariably very good value.

Thanks everybody, especially Phil Conners.

I got rid of the little bugger. I believe conficker prevents access to certain websites, like microsoft update. You instantly get a message a site cannot be accessed, and since my connection is slow, it is obviously because of something on the hard disk,and not because the website refuses access. After putting in the command net stop dnscache through Command Prompt, I was able to connect to microsoft update and download the removal tool, which partially deleted the bug, after that I had to finish the job using adaware.

Yes powderpuff, I had disabled microsoft update because it was constantly pulling my sleeve when I was trying to get work done. Wont do it again, from now on when uncle Bill (Gates) is trying to tell me something, I will drop whatever I am doing, and humbly listen.

Sorry it is probably not the first time this question is asked....

Adaware is teling me my laptop is infected with win32.worm.kido, and doesn't seem to be able to remove it. I am using Windows XP. What could I do to get rid of this infection?

Anybody replying, thanks for your time.

Driving around in different parts of Thailand, I saw signs with "homestay" often enough. Some examples coming to mind now: Kaper area, Ranong province, on the road to Phuket, and on the road from Prachinburi to Korat (Nakhon Ratchasima), both not touristy areas.

I was told that the accomodation they get is very spartan: mattress on the floor, no ensuite bathroom.

Googling homestay/Thailand I came across mixed western/Thai couples offering homestays. Wouldn't go for that if I were a tourist: you want to experience the real Thailand, which I wouldn't expect to find in say a mixed Thai/Dutch household.

I would be cautious visiting any Arab country right now.

The road from Phuket to Takua Pa is passable.