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...

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.

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".

@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 :-)

This thread turns from interesting to a big laugh at every page, I didn't expected that after the OP started. If its the bottom of TV, its at least a very funny one

Talking about cleanness I suggest you keep in mind, that many thai ppl use not only the bum gun, but also their left hand for cleaning! And thinking about toilets in the shopping malls reminds me, that many thai ppl leave the toilet without washing their hands.

I use EarthVPN to manipulate the routing. Its a normal provider for VPN services, but with 87 locations all over the world to choose as your VPN server and you can switch any time to another one.

Usually my route from Phangan to Europe goes over Los Angeles, what is fine as Asia-USA-Europe is better than Asia-Europe (although I think, its crazy).

But in case the routing takes different ways I choose LA as my VPN Server and force to route to go over LA.

Of course the bottle neck leaving Thailand is still there, but sometimes it seems a big difference, in what direction you leave Thailand :-)

After moving from Samui to Phangan I can now reassure, that 3G from True Move H is supporting Skype at Samui and Phangan as well. The problems I encountered in summer seemed to be unique it never happened again.

Thanks for that, it will help already. In the meantime I found a company in Nathon, they want to have 15.000 Baht and offer only small "lorry", in my imagination thats quite expensive, but I have no comparison, yet.

About the slow boat, I didn't know that, even after living at Samui for 3 years. Its a good fallback: If the lorry is too small, I could leave some big things at friends and they send it later with the slow boat.

What company and pier the slow boat is leaving?

Has anyone experiences about the price for a lorry for two days? I assume, they will load in the afternoon and go to mainland the first ferry in the next morning.

Samuijimmy, you remember, how much you paid?

As stated above we are moving from Samui to Phangan end of the month and looking for a moving truck (including a driver) and a moving guy. I guess, one truck is enough, if it's not a very small one.

Any recommendations out there?

Thx in advance...

The first bottle neck is local, if you use a cheap line (like 600 Baht/mo), as you share with 20 other users (especially the kids after school).

The second is as described above the bandwidth leaving Thailand.

I have a dedicated TOT fiber ("real" 19Mbit bandwidth, 1700Baht/mo) and usually its stable even in the afternoon (I get about 4Mbit per connection and use up to 10 connections simultaneously).

But sometimes I also experience a slowdown and in that situation I tested the traffic on TCP-level with my collegues in Europe:

We found out, that my line is o.k. until the last hop in Thailand, there we had packet loss of 40% up to 90% !! No wonder, that streaming is not working for some users here.

VPN is not solving that, as the second bottle neck also slows down the VPN connection (I mostly use VPN to Europe).

But it is interesting, that sometimes the bandwidth is cut on a port basis and not generally. E.g. once my connection slowed down from 19Mbit to 2Mbit, but when I switched the port to something unsual as 53 (DNS requests), I got full speed of 19Mbit again :-)

Of course, this requires the possibility to change ports on both sides of your connection, what is not an option for all users. But it may be a good hint for the tekkies here :-)

In our neighborhood we have

u,

a,

o,

all girls names. Thats what I call short names. Anyone knows "e" or "i" accidently?

I use Skype everyday for business purposes and also for private calls, I might say I talk over Skype 1 or 2 hours per day.

While using 3G in Koh Phangan (in Chaloklam and on several places at the west coast) I experienced this phenomenon permanently and like I said, both sides had video running fine and we are grimacing about it, but cannot hear each other.

The video conferences happened only on skype connections, of course, but I had the same problem while talking to landline phones (what I usually do), that mean they couldn't hear me and I couldn't hear them.

With WLAN I have no complains at all about Skype, but that is of course also depending on the internet line, that you use. I am currently at Koh Samui with 20mb fiberline from tot, thats results most of the time in excellent voice quality.

After so much feedback in this thread (thanks!) I guess, I have to make more checks, when I come to Phangan next time, because at Samui I never had such problems with Skype and 3G. Uups: That makes my first guess untenable! If True Move blocks Skype, it surely would do that not only at Phangan, but also at Samui. Sorry, folks. Looks like, there must be another reason for that behaviour.

Would be interesting to find other 3G-users at Phangan, who use Skype...

I use an iPad4 with Skype-App and True Move H (3G) with 2GB, but the probelms occured while usage was only 200MB from 2GB, so not a problem of fair usage. Generally I use 3G only when leaving the house, so I never reach the limit of 2GB within one month.

Like I said incoming calls are always o.k. and for outgoing calls I have a good video, but no sound.

But if this is a client problem, why the app is working fine with WLAN (TOT) and why there are no jitters for incoming calls with 3G?

I thought, True may block Skype calls to force customers to use (their) cell phone connection. But maybe you are right and thats quite a stretch.

I keep an eye on that ;-)