tom yum goong

Thanks Thaiboxer. Good dish, crap film.

Yeah, have to say that stability is a concern with the Jazz's tall design. During my test drive it was just cruising around town so didn't really get to have a feel for the handling. - can any Jazz owners shed light on this?

About the crash protection, i dont think either car would be great. However, i have seen some pics from Honda where they did a 50% head-on collision with a Honda Legend. The Jazz didn't fare too badly.

This leads me on to my next point. I think the Vios, and possibly the City, are sold exclusively in the ASEAN markets. While the Jazz is sold in Europe and other continents as well. Not sure if this means anything but i would have thought things like having 4 star NCAAP results means that the Jazz is built with safety in mind, whereas the Vios is sold in markets where safetly isn't so highly valued. - just a thought.

I'm having a similar dilemma.

I'm trying to decide between a Vios E and Jazz Vtec, both manual. I ruled out the City 'cause even the new version is butt ugly.

For me the Vios wins exterior wise, while the Jazz has a better interior (plus those "magic seats"). I'm sure i could get the hang of the central console in the Vios, but i think it would still bother me a little.

Performance and handling wise, the Vios is great for a small car, nippy around town and perfectly acceptable for highway cruising. I drove one from Phuket to Hat Yai (just under 6 hours) and quite enjoyed it. Enough power to overtake those annoying pickup trucks and not too hairy on the corners.

I just test drove a vtec Jazz this afternoon. I didnt get to try it out at higher speeds but it seemed easy to drive around town. I suspect the handling wouldn't be as good as the Vios due to its height, but power wise i assume the Vtec should at least equal if not better the Vios's vvt-i.

I know reliability and servicing shouldn't be a problem for both cars, resale also should be fine. The Jazz is about 70,000 baht more, but u get slightly more in terms of trim etc.

Can't make up my mind at all.

Would love to hear opinions from owners of any of these 3 cars (Vios, Jazz and City - I could still be converted to the dark side )

I nearly fell off my chair this morning when i read this.

We are having a good laugh about this at my office. There isn't even a bus system to speak of. They should try sorting that out before even contemplating anything else.

Have they consulted the tuk tuk mafia about this I wonder?

i agree.

Not everyone who wants to discuss cars in Thailand is also interested in real estate.

asking if you've eaten yet

aint that the truth.

Don't agree with the rest of what u said though, in my experience, sex with a Thai girl has never turned out to be casual, no matter how hard i've tried.

How much would a 2nd hand jazz cost.

I've seen 1 year old Jazzs on sale for only about 50 grand less than their new price. Factor in the higher interest payments on 2nd hand car loans and it probably works out more expensive!

For 300,000 you might be able to pick up a 5 year old honda city or soluna. 2nd hand cars in Thailand are really bad value for money imho.

Hi John

If you want to get a good idea about SEO, take a look at webmasterworld forum.

start here webmaster world - link development and read and read and read.

Lots of good stuff in the other sections too, but if you want to rank well in the top 3 search engines, its pretty much all about inbound links.

Inbound links are links from other sites to yours. Most sites have a link exchange program, where they will link to you if you link back to them.

Avoid linking with sites that are related to pornography, gambling, drugs (viagra etc.) and any sites that have anything to do with SEO. You dont want to be associated with so-called "bad neighbourhoods".

Quantity of inbound links is important but quality is probably more so. By quality links i mean links from good sites that are related to your keywords. Relevancy is key.

How u define a quality site is subjective, but good a indicator is Google Page Rank. Install Google Toolbar and it will tell u the page rank of each page of a site. The higher the better. Other quality indicators are sites that do well in search engines, sites that have been around for a while, and especially sites that do not use any spam techniques.

The important thing about inbound links is the anchor text. This is the text that is usually underlined and is blue by default. You want to make sure your keywords are included in your anchor text. You should also try to vary your anchor text so that your inbound links aren't all the same.

To start off you could also try to get yourself listed in some directories such as Yahoo Directory and DMOZ. Some you have to pay for but it is sometimes worth it. However, be wary of link farms and other directories that are there just for SEO. Google and other search engines are beginning to penalise these sites and possibly sites that are listed within them.

As you can see, SEO is huge topic and we've only scratched the tip of the iceberg. The most difficult thing i find is that there are no hard and fast answers. Google et al understandably dont tell you how to manipulate their search results. Be wary of anyone proclaiming to be an SEO expert. Most likely they know a little and sometimes a little is worse than nothing.

My advice is to read webmaster world religiously. You have to sift through a lot of junk sometimes, but there is gold there.

PM me if you have any questions, i will try to help best i can.

Good luck.

I got one and its great. I'm really impressed with the camera functions and picture quality.

One word of warning though. I did a firmware upgrade from the Sony Ericsson website. There was a problem with the upgrade and the camera wouldn't work. Apparently this was a problem with the latest firmware version.

I took it to the dealer who said they would have to send it to Bkk to flash the firmware. It would be about 2 weeks. Nevermind that flashinig the firmware takes about 10 minutes.

I didn't want to be without my new phone for that long so searched around on the internet and found a 3rd party program that i could use to flash my phone back to the previous firmware version. Worked but cost me 10 euros

Anyway, becareful when upgrading your firmware.

Apologies for not using the search and asking a vague question.

Thanks for a very considered response though Bendix.

used to use Emule in the UK, but can't get a decent visibility here on TOT, tried everything, port forwarding etc, nothing works. Are they filtering out ports used for P2P?

Saying that, i am using Kazaa Lite Revolution and it works pretty well.

Hi

I've heard that the cost of living in Thailand is about a quarter of the UK.

I was wondering if this is true and how does this relate to wages?

I dont mean local Thai wages but more along the lines of wages that expats recieve working on local contracts.

If you were earning 70,000 THB per month (roughly 1,000 GBP), does that mean that for an equivalent job in the UK you could expect to be earning 4,000 GBP.

I'm sure its not as simple as that but would appreciate and comments on the subject.

Cheers.

Some good rides when conditions are right at Nai Harn, Kata/Kata Noi and Kamala. The best spot on the island is possibly Kalim, but its a rocky bottom.

Trouble is, its usually quite blown out. Afternoons tend to be bigger than mornings for some reason.

I'm using TOT ADSL too, and u don't need to use one of their modems. As the poster above said, better off to get a Router with a built in ADSL modem. SMC, Linksys and D-Link are popular brands.

Make sure u get the settings from TOT, username, password, VCI and VPI parameters.

If you keep your driving, shopping, eating, etc. habits in between 8pm and 6am, you can drive as fast and free as you want.   

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I think after 8pm is still a little optimistic. Drive after midnight and u will be mostly ok. Course, then by then most things are closed.

Dengue does exist in Phuket, and throughout Thailand for that matter. You will run the risk of catching it again during your stay here.

My boss had it about 3 months ago.

Having said that, he's the only farang i know in Phuket who has caught it. However, i'm sure its not rare among the local population.

Cover yourself in DEET and u should be fine.

Lumpoons is a rip off, u can get new stuff for cheaper.

There are a couple of second hand furniture shops on Thepkasatree Rd, just after the Rajabhat intersetion before you get to Supercheap. I've heard they're pretty cheap but not been in them myself.

Winner on the Bypass opposite Lotus has some cheap new furniture towards the back.

I heard Tony Jaa is going to Hollywood soon ??? Will be with Either Jet Li or Jackie Chan...And also he have been Approach by Warner Brothers....

I thought it was superb! Alot better than Ong Bak. But were my eyes lying or was Jackie Chan in the movie briefly? The airport scene??

Bang...........

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Really? better than Ong Bak? I and most ppl i've spoken to thought Ong Bak was so much better.

It was a Jackie Chan lookalike. Same thing with Sek Loso.

I watch a lot of Thai films and about the only good thing about the film (apart from Tony Jaa) was Tuck rubbing mud on herself.

There's quite a few schools in BKK teaching Thai to Farangs. It might be a good idea to enquire for a job with them..

Maybe the pay won't be very good, but you'll get valuable knowledge how to run classes. After a while you could go on your own, maybe taking a few students from the school along 

I took Thai lessons for a few months a couple of years ago. I started at a Thai Language school called Nisa, but after my initial 12 hour course finished i arranged private lessons with my teacher.

Worked out better for both parties but maybe it would be good to start teaching at a school to gain experience and recruit students.

Most of the students at the school were actually Japanese and other Asians. Only a couple of farangs.

that's it - how do you say it and where can i buy it?

thanks

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krod boric

(กรดบอริก

I assume that you want that ant chalk stuff? If so, you can get it at most supermarkets. I've seen some in Tesco Lotus in the same section as insect spray and mosquito coils.

aNy HockEY??? ice !! hockey

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Never seen any on Supersports. I don't imagine its very big in South Africa.

These are the numbers for Phuket Cable for anyone thats interested.

076 225 727

076 258 448

Not a local firm but maybe not too far away as they're based in Phuket.

Safeway Phuket

No worries

About the commercial rates for a guesthouse, i'm sure Phuket Cable do this kind of thing as i used to live in an apartment building and the cable was included in the rent.

I asked around for info on broadband and found out that TOT also do a package with 1024/512, called something like Gold Cyber Biz, supposedly for business use for about 2,500/month. I'm not 100% sure but apart from the higher upstream bandwidth, i've heard that the contention ratio is lower for the business package.

Compared with Loxinfo's top package, 512/256 for 7,500/month, its still a bargain.

I'm coming back to Phuket this week and having got rid of UBC in April am keen to know people's views on Phuket's alternative cable TV service. At 350 baht a month it's a fraction of the cost of UBC but is there anything worth watching? What's the sport like in particular?

Having had enough of dial-up, I am also considering the TOT broadband service.There are a couple of mentions of it on this forum but not too much. Is there anything better at a similar price?

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Hi

I use a company called Phuket Cable. Around 1,000 baht for installation, then 350/month. There are about 40 channels including Thai ones. The beauty is that you don't use a decoder like UBC, each channel is preset into your TV. This allows you to hook up to 4 TVs in your house without paying any extra monthly. (They charge a small fee for each additional point during installation, something like 100 Baht for each).

Most of the channels aren't terribly exciting. I get by with Star World, CNN, Discovery Science, A1, 2 movie channels and 2 sports channels.

The sports channels are great if you like football, cricket and rugby. You get two channels from Supersports South Africa. Its quite odd watching a South African sports channel in Phuket but its actually very good. All the English Premiership you can watch and lots of football from all over. The football pundits are much better than the monkeys they have on ESPN Asia. They also have Skysports News on for a few hours a day. (Gotta love Georgie Thompson).

One of the movie channels i assume is just the cable company playing pirated VCDs and DVDs. Quite often the films are suspiciously new and quality can be quite poor. The real giveaway is when they have to change discs half way through the film. Its actually not bad though, and i have watched some decent films.

There are a few other cable companies here, one of the main ones is called KPP. I have checked it out at a friends house and i would avoid it if you want sports.

Regarding broadband, I am currently using TOT's Gold Cyber package for which i pay 1,000 baht/month. I am supposed to get 1024/256. In reality i get just over half that on a good day.

However, its fine for me and i've only been without a connection on two occasions. As far as i know, there's nothing similar for the same price. Loxinfo charges 1,250 Baht for 256/128. I think TOT works out much better. Technical support has been OK, though i haven't had any real problems. Not sure what they are like if you don't speak Thai though.

Absolute scummers the lot of them. Airport limousines in Phuket drive like drunk maniacs, which most of them are. Many also partake in scams with dodgy travel agents to con tourists into book hotel rooms through them, claiming they won't be able to get a room otherwise.

Phuket would be a much better place if we could get rid these parasites.

Is Cherng Talay a part of Talang ?

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Cherng Talay is a tambon (subdistrict), which is located in the amphoe (district) of Talang.