Makhao

24 minutes ago, churchill said:

Thanks. Could you provide us with a link to this english version please?

As far as I know of a hospital here, there are at least two known cases on Samui, but of course this is kept confidential. No one wants to scare away the tourists...

Bang Por has cheap Bungalows, about 50m from Beach, no longer for 299 but afaik about 450 now. They are at the west end of the beach opposite King Bush Reggae Beach. They are small and easy, but clean and close to the beach. Bang Por offers empty beaches and nice restaurants, but no party scene and no shopping. Keep in mind, that April is the hottest month on Samui and the water starts getting low (although Bang Por still has more water than some other areas in east or west), so you might can swim only at high tide. I would recommend October, January and February for holidays on Samui...

I am not sure, this worked in the past, but currently if your paypal account is from Europe, you are not allowed to add a credit card from Thailand, because the invoice address from your home does not match the address from your credit card and you cannot add a Thai address, only additional addresses within your home country are allowed (they simply removed the country field, so all addresses are automatically added as your home country).

I know a university in Germany, were they study allergic reactions from all over the world.

The funny and true thing about it:

All kind of European allergic reactions like hayfever etc. are gone in Thailand, BUT that is the same with people, you move from other areas to Europe: They studied ppl from arab countries with heavy allergic reactions to camel hair (quite common there) and guess what happens, when they move to Europe: Not only their allergy is gone in Europe, they also don't get European hayfever etc.. The scientists say, you grown up in an environment and maybe get allergic reactions there, but that stops immediately, if you move to another area in the world. On the other side, if you live long enough in a new area, you may - or may not - adapt the allergies, that ppl have there.

I had a similar experience in Singapore, where I tried to withdraw money from an ATM with a credit card. The card was charged and I got a receipt - but no money! The machine simply put out all, the card, the receipt, but the money slot didn't opened and after some seconds the ATM was "ready for the next transaction". I was afraid, the bank will not believe me, but next day they assured, the withdrawal will be cancelled on my credit card - and yes, they really did. So it looks like, the bank knows, what's going on with the ATMs.

No problems at Tambon Maenam, too. But after living at Koh Phangan some years ago with permanent water shortage and no water supply at all by the official water supply system, I don't trust the official water supply anymore and recommend a well, even if Samui has no shortage at the moment. You never know, what will happen in the future...

I got Zika twice already, on Samui 5 and 4 years ago, so I assume, you can get that everywhere and at anytime. And not only in those areas and at those times, where the media currently knows about it.

And btw: My wife did not get Zika, so either it can't be transmitted through sexual contact or she is somehow resistant :-)

And for the non-pregnant people Zika is quite harmless, I suffered much much more from dengue some years ago.

The immigration at Samui was and is a mess, I report there since 8 years and getting a visa is every year a process full of frustration, even after paying accounting and all "fees", that they request. That did not change with the new location and it did not change with the new "management".

For professional use I can not recommend 3BB, as they seem to use some kind of proxy, that cuts the line several minutes after a request didn't return an answer. I frequently request statistic data from a website, that takes about 15 minutes to return. AIS and TOT have no problems with that (the browser simply waits that time), but 3bb quits the connection and returns "server not available" after some minutes and doesn't wait for the result. Sure, the webserver could send some data in advance to prevent this, but sometimes you cannot change, how other websites are managed.

Also my VPN to Europe often fails with 3BB due to long latency within handshake, whereas AIS and TOT currently have no problems establishing and keeping the VPN connection.

On the other side I agree, that AIS and TOT both slows down in the evening and especially on weekends, when private users go online. But as I work in daytime, this is not a big problem for me.

Btw, I use fiber 30Mbit with AIS and the (more expensive) business version instead of the private one, but still have issues in the evening/weekend.

I am playing it sometimes... To rate the game, you need to play more than only some hours, e.g. get a warp drive and discover other solar systems etc.

The graphic is not perfect, but the idea behind the game is. Also the different climate, flora and fauna of the worlds are making you curious to discover more.

You can PM me, if you like to know more..

*sigh* *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*

(I put it all in one answer, but please consider this as 4 answers of same content)

"...yesterday evening said there were signs of improvement...

The average PM10 amount during the past 24 hours has finally reduced. It dropped from 369 to 365 micrograms..."

Thats the sign of improvement?? A drop of 4 micrograms?? Such a small amount is changing on every measurement, as the concentration is not exactly 369 on a wide area.

The article mentioned above about Angel Yanagihara is very interesting and yes, she is still working on a treatment. This article is newer then the former one and also explains, that the jellyfish feeds in the night.

http://islandjanemagazine.com/island-jane-of-the-month/dr-angel-yanagihara/

I cannot agree with many of the postings here. I lived 5 years mostly in Samui direct on the beach (meaning its hot with high humidity), having all windows open, but using the aircon only, when I was sick. After the years I was getting more and more used to it and feel very good. Now I went home to europe for some month and even in summer had to start the heater to get at least 24 degree in the room, otherwise it would be too cold for me. Now I am back on the beach and happy to have it warm. I was fine 3 days after arriving already, so I am still used to the warm weather.

It looks like, some ppl like me get used to it after many years, but also get problems at the home country, because the body isn't used to the cold weather any more. There is always two sides of the story :-)

I am currently not in Thailand and discussed this issue with the hotline form AIS (1-2-call). They said, for unregistered simcards only outgoing calls will be blocked now. And they said, the simcard will remain active (for incoming calls) until end of august. Until then (end of august) you still have the chance to register and reactivate your card. After that your simcard will get permanently inactive.

If you are out of the country same me, AIS also accepts copies from your simcard, your passport and a letter of authorization, that you scan and email to someone in Thailand. This person can register your simcard for you, too. For me, it worked though, I just get registerd this way.

I had the same issue. Buying an iPad in Thailand (2 years ago, same price in Europe and Asia, as the currency was quite stable that time), I had to register with a european address and credit card to avoid restrictions especially in the offered apps (some apps are neither shown nor buyable in tha-based app-store).

The biggest pricing difference IMHO is the vat. If you are self-employed or working for a company and get a refund for the vat, you can compare the net prices instead of the gross. And yes, they differ! As apple tries to keep the (gross) prices equal in all countries, they cannot avoid to have different net prices, as the countries have different vat. So it makes sense to buy the iPad in a country with a very high vat, as it lowers the net price :-)

@OP, thanks for this very informative article. Most appreciated :-)

I assume they improved the ventilation to dilute the smell...

I am afraid, I cannot name company and phone number, but on our search at samui we simply asked the locals for transport companies in our area. Most of them are not exactly moving companies, but do any kind of transportation including big parcels and pallets, that some companies not ship with the post, but with private transportation companies. So even if locals not know them as a moving company, they know them for transportation of any goods.

The bus is the cheapest solution and maybe working. If you don't trust that, a simple lorry will do the job. We had one for moving with 10m length and of course there are smaller ones, too.

If you have nothing else to transport than the kayak, you can also ask the lorry company for other customers, who have the same way, and move together. Moving to Krabi should happen more often.

The company we used at Samui is driving to Phuket several times per week, theres a lot of moving around here :-)

Erm, first of april was already this yeah, or not?

I use my aircon only, when I am sick. Usually no aircon, no fan, only windows opened. I am used to that and it makes it easy to go out and not get knocked out because of the temperature difference. November at Phangan is so cold, that I even use a thick blanket at night

In Thailand we have a lot so called Pharao ants ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharaoh_ant ) and they are used to inhabit all kind of electrical stuff.

Of course this is not about keeping your keyboard clean or not to eat on yor desk. They come for the warmth and they like heat very much. Keeping your computer running over night is making it even more attractive to them.

In my case they came over night, not some of them, but the whole colony. After they occupied my brand new notebook every time I started to work, they swarm out of my keyboard.

I tried to kick them out with heat (playing some games with 100% cpu and gpu load making the computer VERY hot), but they enjoyd even more to stay there.

You know, what helped me? Put the Computer in one room mit aircon and cooled down to 18 degree for the whole day. After that they were gone!

To prevent getting them back I now use the special bowls filled with water for the table base (the base stays dry, but around is water). You can buy them in the 10 baht shops. And I make sure, no wall is connected to the table and plug out the powercord over night. Thats all better than inviting them back in my notebook :-)