leola74

avis will be the best more than probably.

Yeah, I tried that one, and it comes up with a price of 0. Yes, zero!. So apparently, their website isn't working. I emailed them a couple of days ago for a quote, but I think the chance of getting a reply is the same as that price their website quoted...

What price do you think I should expect for 2.5 months?

My family and I will be in Samui for 2.5 months from April 1 until mid-June next year. Since we're staying in a relatively remote area (west coast), we want to rent a small car for the whole period. So far I've tried:

http://www.samuinewcarrent.com

http://www.economycarrentals.com

http://www.autoeurope.com

http://www.budget.co.th

and the best I've come up with is around €540 per month (around THB 21,000) or €1350 for the 2.5 months. This seems rather steep. I wonder if anyone knows a better place to get a long-term car rental. This topic has come up in this forum a few times over the last few years, but the answers were never satisfying. Maybe the situation has changed though...

If you have something to recommend, please keep in mind the following:

1) We need a compact car, NOT a Suzuki Caribian. We have a two-year old daughter, and the Caribians don't have seatbelts in the back

2) Basic insurance coverage is OK, as long as the deductible for the collision-damage is not way above the more-or-less standard THB 5000

3) Please don't suggest buying a car and selling it at the end of the trip. I don't want ANY hassle. I just want to rent a car.

Perhaps I should start a new thread, since this no longer fits the headline ...

I've found an alternative to "The Place" in Lipa Noi, which is Baan Tropicana in Ban Tai. The rate is about the same (50,000 per month) for a 2-bed villa, and supposedly it's only one minute from the beach.

Any opinions on this one? How is the beach in that area (click here for map) compared to Lipa Noi? Is it crowded?

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Hi,

I am looking for a 2-bedroom villa for the period mid-March to end of May 2014 (some flexibility on dates). I will be staying there with my wife and daughter (who will turn three in April 2014)

Details of what we are looking for:

1) walking distance to beach -- the villa does not have to be on the beach, but the development should be beachfront

2) pool -- can be private or shared

3) small kitchen

4) location on a "quiet" beach, i.e. not Chaweng. Something like Maenam, Choeng Mon, Lipa Noi, ...

5) high-speed internet is a MUST -- I need this for work

6) budget around 80,000 per month

If you have something to offer, please drop me a PM.

Thanks!

You also have a DEDICATED pinned real estate section on Samui forum & FREE classifieds. Please use these in your search.

Good point, will do. Thanks!

it might be worth considering some of the 2 bed family bungalow options to be found at some resorts, where I'm sure they would consider doing a long term deal for you. Somewhere like Smile House resort in Bophut etc.

I'll check on that particular one, but in my experience those resorts don't do long-term rentals at competitive rates. They always provide daily breakfast and maid service, and thus the rates are more hotel-like. I already checked with the Coconut resorts in Maenam, they had absolutely no interest whatsoever.

If you know a particular resort that really offers this, please let me know.

Sorry - a bit confused.

Post #1 reads 'walking distance to a quiet beach'

Post #5 reads 'beachfront' which is it?

What months are you looking at?

I'm looking for a villa within a beachfront-development. "Walking distance" means walking distance for a two-year old. "Quiet" means not in Chaweng. West or South Samui are fine, as is Maenam, or similar.

I'm looking for something like mid-March to end-of-May 2014 (some flexibility here...)

Any suggestions welcome - please keep in mind that high-speed internet is a MUST, as is the distance to the beach. Also, a pool would be great - could be shared or private. Budget 80,000 per month...

I don't know it but Lipa Noi is a long way from anything and you'll be hard pushed to find any restaurants there. Shopping you'll have to either go to Tesco in Lamai (limited goods) or the slog into Chaweng to Big C, Makro and Tesco. Alright it's not hours, but the roads in Samui are not the fastest in the world. I suspect if you're getting a cheap deal the place is not finished and you'll have building going on all hours of the day and night. I'd keep looking, there are loads of villas on the many holiday rental sites and many would welcome a long term let that time of year.

I don't mind having to drive to Chaweng for shopping - not like I need to go there everyday. Also don't mind having to drive to Nathon or similar for dinner. It's not a holiday, I'll be working most of the time anyhow.

Regarding other villas, I've been drawing lots of blank with several different agents. It's tough to find a long-term beachfront 2-bedroom house for a reasonable rate. Most beachfront properties (or rather, properties in beachfront developments) are 120,000 per month and up, and are much bigger than what we need. We'd be totally fine with a 80-sq.m. 2-bedroom house, as long as it's a beachfront development.

If you have any suggestions for villas, please send me a PM.

Hi,

I'm looking to rent a villa in Samui for ~2.5 months next spring, with the following characteristics:

If the OP is Brit BSAC (British Sub-Aqua Club) or the RYA (Royal Yachting Assn) would be a good place to start but I would advise against his plans for next year.

Sent from my MT27i using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Make your holiday easy.... ask around and hire a local boat guy....

It's not a question of easy or hard. I WANT to learn how to navigate a speedboat, including "traffic rules" and the whole shabang. Maybe at some point I want to go boating in other parts of the world, too. At home, I don't live near any sizable body of water - while being in Samui would be the perfect time to learn.

I'm going to be in Samui for 2 months and a bit next spring, and I'm thinking about getting a speedboat license.

I have no experience with boats whatsoever, but I like the idea of renting one, taking my family out to uninhabited beaches or just cruising to nowhere.

So here are a few questions:

1) The boat I have in mind is something like one of those small boats that waterskiers use. What kind of license is required for that in Thailand?

2) Is there a school ins Samui that will provide classes etc.?

3) How many lessons are required to obtain the license?

4) Cost of lessons / license?

5) Once I have a license, where can I rent a boat for a day? How much?

I'm not interested in answers like "just give the guy who rents out the boat B1000 and he won't ask for a license". I genuinely want to learn, I think it would be great fun actually.

Thanks!

Don't have a pricelist handy, ballpark B100 per 2GB?

Looks a bit more expensive, actually: http://thaiprepaidcard.com/2012/3g-data-plans-for-12call-dtac-and-true/#.UcbnsedSnng

More like B900 for 5 GB, or am I missing something? Where would you go to get the best deal?

Yes, they use true move h, no idea how good that is. But it seems that doing the prepaid thing is a lot cheaper.

By "wired account" you mean Adsl or similar, right? I just want the mifi in case the dsl fails...

OK, got it.

So what's the going rate for, say, 10GB at a time, lasting a month. Just trying to figure out how much I can save by not using thaismileconnect. If it comes out to almost the same price, not worth the hassle...

@boosta

So you're suggesting the following: Get a sim-card from True and a couple of GB worth, test it at the location, if no good try another provider etc. Fair point.

What are the going rates for a "big" GB package? I take it from your email that this is a prepaid deal, right? What's the best place to go to get it? (Sorry, never dealt with cell phone/internet before in Thailand)

Regarding the hardware, I suppose it's better to use a mobile hotspot router than my cell phone (Sony Xperia Sola), since the former hopefully has better reception. Please let me know if you think differently...

I am planning to be in Thailand next year for 2-3 months, probably in Samui. I will be working most of the time, and for that I need a reliable, fast internet connection (I will use rdp to log into my PC located in New York).

As a backup to whatever internet connection is installed in whatever house I rent, I would like to have a MiFi - in case the DSL line is too slow (e.g. too many other users sharing same line) or goes down completely.

I've seen that thaismileconnect offers MiFi via 3G - unlimited volume for 250baht per day (incl. rental of the device). THey have a monthly package for 5000baht, but it's throttled after 14GB, which is a bit tight for me. For unlimited volume, I'd have to go with the daily rate, which amounts to 7500baht a month - very steep!

My questions:

* Are there other providers who offer a "true" flat rate, or at least 15GB a month, at a lower price?

* Is it possible to get just a one-, two-, or three-month contract?

* Can a farang without a Thai bank account get such a contract?

Please focus on the above questions. I am not interested in discussing DSL options / speed / latency - I already cleared up those questions in another post

Thank you!

I have to use Citrix, which is the only way supported by my company. I have no choices whatsoever.

Ok, nobody is replying to my question about MiFi options ... I'll start a thread in another sub-forum, since this is no longer a Samui-specific question

I appreciate everyone's help regarding internet speed and latency.

For those interested, I was actually able to simulate a 2Mbps speed with a latency of 500ms on my remote desktop, using this: http://www.softperfect.com/products/connectionemulator/

The trial version only let's you simulate 30 seconds at a time, then you just click start again. Doing this a few times, I was able to try different applications on my PC in NY via rdp. A very cool tool, indeed! And very easy to use.

So, working with a 500ms latency isn't great at all, but it IS managable. A price to pay for being able to live a Thai life for a couple of months

Thanks everyone!

That's overkill, especially for 2-3 months.

I'd be happy having a decent LAN or WiFi connection, and then MiFi via 3G as a backup. So can I get some opinions about cost / "true" flat rates / possibility to get for farang w/o Thai bank account?

I know that, but I want a backup in case the LAN fails

Sent from my MT27i using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

I agree with PoorSucker.

You really need to be able to work locally on your machine, then upload (by VPN) your work/files to your office network/server. I couldn't image trying to use Word or Excel on a desktop PC via RDP on a 300ms connection. It's bad enough working on local servers here in Thailand at 60ms...

Impossible. Firm policy won't allow me to move things outside of the firm network. I can probably do 10% of my work locally and upload, but for most things I have to actually do them on the NY PC. I'll have to live with the 300ms. Again, from Germany I have 200ms, so it's "50% worse", whatever that means....

I'd like to come back to the MiFi question again, just in case I find that the connection in the house sucks (e.g. overloaded by other residents in the development, broken down after storm, or whatever):

thaismileconnect has a monthly 14GB package for 5,000 baht (incl. rental of the device), which is quite steep I think. Do you know any company which offers 15+GB (or ideally totally flat) monthly packages? And can a visiting farang sign up? Or do you need a Thai bank account?

What are you trying to do exactly? Could you not rent a VPS server in Singapore or an Amazon EC2 instance and do the work on there?

I work for a big company based in NY. They're not going to do anything for me other than let me use remote desktop to my PC in the NY office. Heck, I'm glad they're willing to let me work from Samui for a couple of months..!

In terms of what I will do on that machine, it's writing some code in a (mildly) graphics-based editor (Matlab, to be precise), and using Excel (with graphics). I currently work remotely from Germany, logging on to that same PC in NY, with ping times ~220ms and download speed ~4Mbps. So I know what a lag feels like, but I don't yet know what a 300ms lag feels like

I guess it will be doable but not great ...

300ms is about the standard ping time to the USA.

Your remote desktop won't be quick, it will be OK, you'll just have to manage as it is. Just make sure you have it set to the lowest experience setting.

But is my example with typing an email approximately correct?

18.06.2013 3:20 PM ICT xxxxxxxxxx 12.75 Mb/s 2.77 Mb/s 300 ms New York City, NY ~ 13850 km

18.06.2013 3:19 PM ICT xxxxxxxxxx 9.66 Mb/s 2.58 Mb/s 298 ms New York City, NY ~ 138

So here's a (stupid) question for the uninitiated (me):

With a 300ms ping time, would I expect a minimum delay of 0.3 seconds to my PC in New York. So for example, if I type an email on my PC in NY from Samui, the letters would show up on the screen at least 0.3 seconds after I hit the keyboard?

That seems like quite a lag, even in the best of scenarios....