BKKBike09

First thing is to decide when you're going to change your car. You say "not this year" but that's less a month left! If you're not going to change for another 2-3 years, then the whole EV situation here in Thailand will be so different that answers today will likely be irrelevant. In 2-3 years there will be: 1. vastly more choice of EVs available in Thailand 2. many more people using them (and potentially competing for chargers at highway gas stations), so more body of knowledge and experience about practicality in Thailand (eg battery life in prolonged high temp environments) 3. more clarity about long term Thai government policy towards EV / ICE cars If you're concerned about costs then, as other posters have said, best to keep the Vios. Cheap to run, cheap to insure, can be fixed pretty much anywhere. The debate about fuel / electricity costs is somewhat artificial because both are subsidised in Thailand. That's not likely to change much over next few years because it is a hugely sensitive political issue. But MG, for instance, show 'cost savings' on their web site based on an outdated electricity price (elec pricing as of June 2020). Truth is that, as long as diesel is subsidised heavily, a diesel double cab pick up is as good a vehicle as any up country. The debate about battery longevity is however germane. As another poster said, your ICE doesn't wear out in 8-10 years (usually). Who knows with a battery? My current car (a VW Scirocco) is 11 years old and the engine pulls like new. But if battery change is modular replacement, then cost of a new battery may be more than offset by maintenance savings over the past 8-10 years. I'm buying an EV now (a BYD Atto - supposed to get it this month) really out of curiosity. I live in BKK, most of my driving is urban with the odd 300 km round trip, I like the styling and I'm interested to see whether it really makes practical sense, since it's supposed to have a +400 km range. At THB 1.2 million it seems reasonably priced. The price of the Atto in Australia has just been hiked by AUD 3,000 so maybe a price hike is coming here. Then again, BYD are building a production facility for the Atto and other models here in Thailand; when that is up and running in a couple of years, maybe the price will be massively cheaper and I'll have to take a big re-sale hit. All that said, I'll be keeping the Scirocco as well.

Many places (in BKK) lease copiers. Here's one for 1500 a month. https://gcs.co.th/รายละเอียดสินค้า-242636-canon-ir1730-rental-copier1500.html "what are the costs" depends on things like do you need to do colour printing/copying? How many copies/sheets a month etc.

The 'alleged' seems a bit redundant. A semi-auto 12 gauge. Yep. Shooting at them in the shop seems reasonable (If four guys, at least two of whom are visibly armed, break into your place of business, do you politely ask them to leave), but the guy in the shop also kept shooting at them once they were outside.

Thai media reports that this was the 4th time this guy had trespassed on the property to steal weed. https://www.khaosod.co.th/around-thailand/news_7402657 Plus he wasn't taking a few leaves - he took armfuls of weed as can be seen in the CCTV footage: As the houseowner points out, it took the thief a long time to seek medical attention. Good luck proving that he died as a result of injuries received that night - perhaps he tried to steal something else a day or two later and got beaten up by another person?

Good for them. I much enjoyed this photo of Papa Didi "giving a speech on bitcoin adoption in Tulum, Mexico" (pop. 93) to an entranced crowd. Not sure why he doesn't spend some of his billions to buy a few more t-shirts.

Prospective BYD Atto purchasers who can understand Thai might find this interesting - guy got 525 km out of his car. He explains (in endless detail) the route / driving conditions / speed etc. Basically he didn't go very fast because of traffic etc but I guess it's a real world trip so ... I'm buying an Atto (booked on Day 1) and am told delivery in Dec. Be interesting to see whether it's a practical alternative to an ICE vehicle. I've no interest in pottering along on a highway at 90 km. Atto says it has a 480 km range: as long as it can do a 250 km round trip and not use more than 75% battery, with music playing, A/C at 23 and highway speeds of 110-120 kmh then I'll be happy. THB 1.2 million for the BYD Atto seems reasonable enough - same price as in Oz/NZ. Adaptive cruise control, built in dashcam system, PM2.5 filtering A/C, panoramic sunroof, quirky interior styling (which I like), well built, not too much hard plastic etc. Test drove briefly and was quite impressed at how responsive it felt - albeit can tell it's a heavy car. Better tyres would probably help. Seems to me full EVs are probably at the point where they make sense for urban dwellers who rarely make any longer journeys and - key point - live in a house with space to park and have a home wall charger. Live in a condo? Out of luck in most, I'm sure. Hybrids make the least sense to me, at least in Thailand. Fuel and labour costs here are so much less than in the West.

I like the fact that whoever installed it appears to have had an old shower hose lying around and has recycled that as an inlet hose, although it's about a metre too long hence the convoluted fitting ... Is this one of the heaters with the RCB underneath?

I did chuckle yesterday when I entered the sauna at my local gym to find one other person in there, a Thai dude wearing an N95 mask! In 75 degree C dry heat. Go figure. Social pressure coupled with ignorance and fear.

Yes, yes. Right. People in the North of Thailand are particularly well served by your "countrywide" network ... As for a comfortable interior, leather seats, walnut trim and a mini-bar would do it for me.

Great STOL aircraft. Basically a Porter. Not sure if the RTAF ones still have Garrett engine or have been changed to a flavour of the PT-6?

Peugeot? "Countrywide"? Dream on. Apart from a handful in Bangkok, there's the extensive choice of Pattaya, Phuket, Ubon, Hat Yai, ... er, that's it.

See post below. I ordered the MB from Apple online and chose the dual charger option because it seemed like a good idea even if an additional cost. It's not clear that the plug isn't removable. So I ended up going to an Apple store to buy a standard charger ... As an aside - I wanted to buy the MB from a reseller but if you want to add RAM etc buying online is waaaaay quicker (days as opposed to weeks). Seems like Apple don't really want to support their resellers that much. I think that's correct.

Only had it a month so it's looking pretty new ... I like the Midnight colour - I wouldn't swap it for Silver. As you say, makes a change.

The charger with the ability to change wall plug fitting is also what you need if you use an extension cable with the charger. The cable on the new MB Air charger is longer than on my old MB Air charger, but I still like to be able to use the extension lead. Apple have also changed the design of their chargers so that the cable to connect to the laptop can now be removed from the charger. This stops the cable fraying where it joins the charger (nearly every charger I've ever had, had this issue after a while). I've never used a skin so can't comment on the tactile qualities. One other point about all the new MBs - they no longer have any USB-A ports, everything is USB-C. So you need an adapter to use any USB-A device ...

I have a Midnight Air (M2 with 16GB / 512GB) - just bought it to replace a 2012 MacBook Air which worked flawlessly for years until trackpad started playing up a bit recently. Midnight shows fingerprints much more than I thought it would. The latest MB Airs are basically comparable performance-wise to MB Pros from a couple of years ago. I think unless intended use is gaming or serious video editing, latest MB Air is a great choice. I don't know if local pricing will be changed to reflect weakened THB? I've used Macs for years - still use a 2011 iMac every day for WP / emails / internet browsing and watching Youtube. Works fine. Good luck doing that now with a 10 year old Windows clunker. The Thai-English keyboard is messy; the older versions used to be much clearer because the English letters were bigger than the Thai. But it's simple to buy a keyboard English only skin on Lazada or whatever. If you order a new MB online you can specify an English-only keyboard if you want. If you do buy a new MB, one tip is don't buy the compact charger because it has the wall plug pins built in. So you can't swap out the plug pins for a UK or other set if you travel etc. As I said above I think MB Air is a great choice for all round use.

Biden was at the G20 the week before - with Xi. A way more important forum than APEC. Once also has to admire ThaiEnquirer's flexibility as to where it stands on China-Thailand relations: "The 2014 coup leader who received his 1st approval for the 2014 coup against a democratically elected government from the Chinese government under Xi, seems to continue to be indebted to that stamp of approval and is willing to allow its head to be trampled upon as a payback. As they say, ‘payback is a bitch’ and as a Thai we all can see that with the way China is treating us today." https://www.thaienquirer.com/45926/opinion-xis-statement-about-apec-steals-the-limelight-from-weakling-apec-host-prayut/ All that said, I'd like to see a photo of Xi "mounting his aircraft back home" ...

Highly unlikely it will be made illegal again. Another 'go through the motions' meeting to make it look like govt is listening to all views etc. Elections coming next year - the government is really going to upset swathes of voters in the NE (and Anutin)? (Off topic, but they're already putting up electricity next year to THB 5.37/unit - despite which EGAT will still be on track to spend THB 140 billion to subsidise this price. So voters won't be happy about that).

It was me, not DrJoy, who used the e-gates. As per Yankee99, there are 3 different immigration halls. A good point. I don't know if they're working at all of them. I used the outbound / inbound halls I've circled on the airport map.

Yawn.

Correct. Suvarnabhumi.

UPDATE: E-gates also working inbound when I returned to Thailand earlier this week.

Seriously? Vaccines, historically, were "never made to prevent transmission"?? "Since vaccines were introduced in the UK, diseases like smallpox, polio and tetanus that used to kill or disable millions of people are either gone or seen very rarely. Other diseases like measles and diphtheria have been reduced by up to 99.9% since their vaccines were introduced." https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/why-vaccination-is-safe-and-important/ So why have vaccines been so successful against smallpox, polio, tetanus etc etc? Er - because they both prevent infection AND transmission. Covid 'vaccines' are singularly ineffectual at preventing infection and transmission. Hence the efforts now in some official quarters to try and make out that vaccines are developed not to prevent infection, but to reduce severity of infection. That Covid 'vaccines' do seem to be doing a good job in reducing severity of infection in certain cohorts should not be understated. But to claim that 'vaccines were never made to prevent transmission' and 'that is not how a vaccine works' is plain wrong.

China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Thailand ... "Fear, don't let your guard down, mask up at all times" Rest of the world ... "Huh?"

Mostly now they seem to be ink tank. If you don't use the printer much, it's a good idea to print a page or two once a week to keep the heads clean. Especially if the printer isn't in a mostly aircon / low dust environment (like an office). I have never had much luck with Canon / Brother. Bought a Fuji Xerox colour laser 3-4 years ago. Worked great till it didn't; fixed once (something to do with the fuser drum) and then it broke again after 6 months. Maybe because I used generic toner cartridges not genuine. Now using HP ink tank. One final point to consider: check out whatever printing app is needed for that brand and see whether it does everything you want. We need to print numerous photos on one sheet of paper and some apps won't let you do that (or will only let you print a pre-set number of pics per page, with no re-size options available). [Note to self: it's Saturday - reading an internet thread about Printers?? - you need to get out more]

Pleased to report that outbound e-gates were working today (3 Nov), including for 10-year passport (previously told by Immigration at SVB that the e-gates would not work with more recently issued 10-year passports, those with numbers ABxxxxxxx). Will advise as to inbound when I come back in a couple of weeks, unless anyone else posts on it before then.