Tapster

@Munich

I saw that someone had linked to my thread from 2014.

Our shipper (in South Africa) said that he would not put the statues in the container and that the whole container might be sent back to South Africa, if the statues were found.

That last part is completely untrue. The container would not be sent back.

Here's what I would do now, after six years in Thailand.

 - Firstly, 30cm-high statues are not what the Department of Antiquities are looking for. We have several statues of that size, in wood, and they went into the container without a problem from the shippers. The statues that were a problem were 1-1.5m high, made of stone, and were crated individually because they weighed hundreds of kg. If you don't have any of the latter type of statue, you're fine. 

 - if you are bringing a container into Thailand, with large, stone statues, I would pack the statues in the container and simply leave their description off the list of contents altogether, or describe them as anything other than artifacts. Make sure the statues are packed with some metal objects around them, to confuse the shape if x-rays were used to check the container.

 - Despite what some have said about the one-time free importation of household goods, you will probably be made to pay something by the shipping company at the docks in Thailand, for release of your container. This is Farang Tax, and you just have to pay up, though you can negotiate the fee/bribe/scam down to a reasonable level.

 - In the very unlikely event of the statues being found and an issue being made of it, the most likely thing is that you could arrange an on-the-spot fine (bribe). Thai bureaucracy is very corrupt, as you know. They will probably suggest that a tax is payable.

 - If all else fails, you might lose the statues and you might be fined, but with small statues, that is extremely unlikely.

I wish I had known all this in 2016!

We left our statues in South Africa. I still miss them, as they had traveled with me for 25 years, from Bali to the UK, then to South Africa, and I was looking forward to having them in a Buddhist country.

Just take the statues with you, and be happy!

Good luck!      ????

@Shot

I'm sure they must share most of the hardware. You couldn't have every ISP installing separate routers, exchanges, etc.

Having said that, if 3BB is slow and AIS is fast, on the same hardware, there must be some difference in the configuration of the different ISPs. Clearly, I don't know as much about this as I'd like to!

3BB say that a local technician will check my service tomorrow, so ... fingers crossed!

Still not great today, but certainly usable.

The very helpful, English-speaking helpline guy has taken my phone number and will keep me updated, he says.

I also learned that good old 3BB have upgraded my 200/100 to the new GIGA Fiber 1000/500 service, at no extra charge. That is very good customer service! Let's hope they can now come up with the correct speed.

????

@stevenl

I'm sorry you're having problems as well. 

I'll phone the helpline and see what's happening.

Cheers!!
 

This is today's poor showing:

@pagallim

Show-off!

Very impressive figures!

The average user in the First World would be extremely jealous.

We are very fortunate with the speeds in Thailand.

However, AIS in Chalong is to 3BB in Rawai, as apples are to oranges, unfortunately.

Thanks for sharing though.

This is bad!!

I have the 200/100 service, I think.

It's 200 Mbps down, for sure.

5th and 6th, for sure

We're in Rawai.

We had a set of outdoor teak furniture restored last year: a table and four chairs.

It was jet-washed, sanded and varnished.

It looked a million times better afterwards: it went from weathered grey to rich and slightly-shiny teak colour.

It was done by our Burmese jack-of-all-trades, Joe.
He had four men going at it. I can't remember the exact cost, but it was less than 5,000 THB.

Bear in mind that this wasn't antique furniture, so 'restoration' may be the wrong word. However, it started off looking bad, and ended up looking great!

Please pm me if you'd like his details.

????

 

Mr Moo had just what I was looking for.

Their racks are approx 5-600g each, a reasonable serving for one. They can get you bigger ones if you ask.

It's 250 THB/kg, but they are good ribs and don't need any trimming, just the removal of the thin membrane on the back.

Makro 'ribs' are approx 160 THB/kg, so a lot cheaper.

However, they're not really a rack of ribs, more a slab of meat/small rib/cartilage mixture (taste OK though), and you lose 20% weight after trimming, so let's say 200 THB/kilo after trimming.

For a BBQ where the appearance of the ribs matters, it might be worth going to Mr Moo, but for everyday home BBQ, I'll be happy with Makro.

@steelepulse

Excellent, thanks! This is exactly what I was looking for. I was sure I'd read that home gatherings were not allowed.

I realise that gambling was an issue in the article you kindly posted, however the 'emergency decree' breach, is definitely to do with the virus.

????

@beechbum

Yes, thank you.

I am looking for the official line on this, not your opinion.

As it says in the title: I can't find specific rules about people visiting other people's homes at the moment.

I remember for sure that it was forbidden recently, but has that changed since the relaxing of the rules of lockdown?

I haven't seen anything re relaxation of this rule, but I may have missed it.

????

Thank you all.

@pagallim

I'm going to try Mr Moo first, as he's all about moo.

????

Hi, and I hope you're all managing in these trying times!

As a new hobby in lockdown, I've been trying to BBQ meat 'low and slow', as the Texans say.

Results have been encouraging so far, with no cremated disasters. I think the key is that if you cook at a relatively low temperature, things don't go wrong too fast!

Anyway, I cannot find a decent rack of ribs anywhere. I can now see why so few local bars and restaurants serve decent-size ribs; they all get theirs from Makro. The cut of 'ribs' that they sell in heaps at Makro, are technically ribs, because there are ribs in them, but they are not a rack, like a row of soldiers, and they're never more than a few inches long. There's plenty of meat, but no long ribs.

I'm wondering:

If I ask them, will the butchers/servers at Makro, butcher me some ribs to my specifications? 

If not, where can I go to get a proper rack of ribs: cheap, untrimmed, but actual long baby back or spare ribs??

Thanks for any advice.

????

On 4/19/2020 at 10:04 AM, hansgruber said:

This lockdown is silly.  Thais don't adhere so why should I. 

I see people crossing from Chalong dam to Karon over the mountain. Also next to it is another dirt road to Nanai Rd. 

Thais just take the non conventional roads and dirt trails. 

I tried the road from Karon Temple up and over the mountain to chalong. Went to Villa market and back over again. 

Check out Google maps and you'll find a lot of little secret roads like the one from Kata to Naiharn going through Soi Pakjae. 

@hansgruber

Your actions are precisely those which lockdown is supposed to stop.

We're not supposed to spread the virus.
Since 40% of cases are asymptomatic you, or someone you come in close contact with, may have the virus without knowing it.
Your actions could spread coronavirus from Karon to Chalong. Well done. 

@Badrabbit
The above applies to you as well. You could go to Villa Market and stop the spread of the virus. I'd love to go to Villa from Rawai but, hey, we're actually in lockdown.

Somebody said that people aren't using masks in the UK. That seems to be true, and I have had Facebook 'friends' from the UK get quite indignant when I suggest that a mask might help, because they say 'masks are ineffective'. Clearly, that's the medical advice from the UK.

As with most things it's a little more complicated. I am a dentist and wore a mask daily for 24 years, in the UK.

Mask facts:

• If the virus is airborne, on 'aerosols' which are from people's lungs/respiratory systems, then a simple paper 'surgical' mask will not stop the virus.
• However, it is thought that spread is through droplets: larger fluid drops (still very small, and can float on the air for several metres). Any mask will do something to stop droplets, from people coughing, sneezing, spitting or, if you're close enough, breathing.
• Masks do protect the wearer ... from droplets. Any medical person who says they do nothing to protect the wearer, is plain wrong. You should have seen my mask after a day in the surgery, working on patients. I wouldn't have wanted to breathe in those droplets, filled with bacteria from people's mouths.
• Therefore, if you are going to be within 3-4 metres of people, wearing a mask is better than not wearing a mask. Why would you not do something that might help save you from being infected.
• Here we are in Thailand/South East Asia: people often wear masks anyway, and especially now. It's no good trying to explain that you don't think masks are effective. With a xenophobic health minister, anti-foreigner feeling may start to run high, so wearing a mask is reassuring to the locals that you care about them, and about safety. Your high-minded, Western stance against 'herd mentality' won't wash if you're perceived as a 'dirty foreigner', responsible for the spread of Coronavirus.
  
  Bottom line ... get any type of mask if you can, and wear it in public. Of course, better don't go out in public.

Be safe!

????

@kotsak

I have looked at this site as well. It looks legit, but how can we tell?

Do you have any source that tells you it's definitive?

Yesterday, someone said that there were 4 cases near me in Phuket. That may be nonsense, but the site you linked to hasn't mentioned any cases in Phuket.

It would be great to have a trustworthy source.

????

I agree, sharpening the chain yourself isn't easy, and it's very time consuming.

New Stihl chainsaw chain, 270 THB on Lazada. There are cheaper ones as well.

????

I can recommend a very good lady lawyer in Rawai.

She has helped us.

Khun Ploy   

Mrs.Thavalrat Kittisakorn (Ploy)

Lawyer/Notarial Services Attorney

S and T Legal Advisory Company Limited

[email protected]

S&T Legal Advisory Co.,Ltd.

26/14 Moo.5 Wiset Rd.,

Rawai Sub-District Muang Phuket District

Phuket Province 83130

Tel&Fax: (+66) 076-383-472

Put this search term into Google maps and you'll find her:     26/14 Moo.5 Wiset Rd.

Good luck!

@kwonitoy

You have just posted the best news ever, about transferring money out of Thailand!!!

50k USD per day, legally!!

Is this true? I have heard it before. It sounds so easy, compared with wheeler dealing with gold/Bitcoin/underage hookers.

So, even if you had 8m THB to transfer, you could still get it out of Thailand in six days!

You'd lose some money with the repeated fees for the multiple transactions, but that's a lot better than having to leave money in Thailand once you've left the country.

????

Argh!
????
I have no attitude (we are closing the company), and I don't necessarily see anything differently.

I'm just looking for advice.

I have the definitive answer.

Yes, you need a lawyer!

If you have a company, you need a lawyer to do anything at the Land Office.

One of the most important issues is that your company cannot have a farang in charge when the sale comes to the Land Office. The company has to have its structure changed just for the time it's dealing with the Land Office. The only person who can make that happen is a lawyer. Also, you have to trust your lawyer, because your name will no longer have voting rights. Clearly, the lawyer must make enough from the deal that skullduggery is unlikely. 

If I had my time again, I'd say ... never buy property in Thailand!!!

As of this morning, we have a lawyer and it's obvious that the accountant couldn't have done everything the lawyer is going to have to do.

The good news is that our accountant will hardly have to do anything, so there's some money to be saved.

Lesson 1.) NEVER buy property in Thailand!

Lesson 2.) See lesson 1

@Delight

Thank you for the advice.

You're right, it would be very easy, and cheap, if we were selling the house with the company. Unfortunately we're not.

What I'm asking though, is can an accountant do all this? Is a lawyer really necessary?

It seems nobody's sure.

@Langsuan Man

I don't have an attitude, certainly not a bad one.

Selling or not selling the company isn't relevant to whether I need a lawyer/accountant/both.

You seem to know something about the issue.

Why not make a useful comment?

The company owns the house.

We are selling the house, therefore the company is selling the house.

It happens that the company is not being sold with the house, but that is not relevant to this discussion.