ashacat

Hi,

Can anyone recommend a good driver who has a decent car with a babyseat to take my family (including 9 month old baby) to the airport?

Many Thanks,

Cat.

Apologies in advance for the boring nature of this post, but where can I purchase a replacement remote control for my Samsung LCD TV? I dont really want one of the cheapo multi brand ones as in my previous experience they are complicated to program.

Thanks!

Truevisions carried the whole opening ceremony live and re-ran the whole thing at 10.00am the following day. No cock-up there.

There is fantastic Olympic coverage on True, especially with the HD channels.

The F1 is due to start soon on ESPN-HD.

I wouldn't be so quick to defend the re-run, I watched it and at all the best bits, i.e. the raising of the olympic rings, the lighting of the flame etc, they cut to adverts!! And to add to the farce, the adverts were for the olympics!

didnt try it, but saw these offers at Le Fenix when I was last there

199 baht lunch (no drinks)

http://www.lefenix-s...enix-sukhumvit/

699 baht for free flow wine and tapas from 6 to 9pm

http://www.lefenix-s...stop-tapas-fun/

Free flow wine sounds a great deal!

I will eat my tapas at the place on the Suk by Cheap Charlies though i suspect....has anyone tried the tapas at this place? Any good?

If you mean 'Tapas' on Soi Aroi (next to CC's) then yes, it is nice and good value (buy 2 get 1 free until 7pm on certain tapas dishes last time I checked). But I have not tried the free flow wine and tapas in Le Fenix, but I am interested to hear if anyone else has...

Try Pizza Mania. They deliver incredibly quickly and the pizzas a loaded with cheese. Better than Scoozi IMHO.

Posted Today, 05:26

Three Thai people I know working in O&G who have first degrees in Engineering / Accountancy + MBA are each earning in the region of Bht200K per month. But they have around 10 years experience + MBA.

Another Thai guy I know with an MBA who works in Thai TV Business Development is earning considerably more than that.

Well done Guesthouse, you have the highest earning acquaintances

As the O.P. has asked for the average salary, I would think this would be around the 20-25k per month area.

In September last year I had buffet lunch at these hotels :

(I kept the info)

# Narai Hotel on Silom

450 nett

# S31 Hotel the S31 Café on Suk Soi 31

240 nett (with a 31% discount)

# Swissôtel at Nai Lert Park on Wireless Road

352 nett

# Arnoma Hotel the Buttercup (across from Central World)

340 nett

# Majestic Grande at Dine@7 on Suk Soi 2

300 nett

# Tai-Pan on Suk Soi 23 (close to Soi Cowboy)

250 nett

# Holiday Inn at Café G on Sukhumvit

269 nett

Tai-Pan, Majestic and S31 have rather small dining rooms. Maybe not very suited for a big group.

They all give fre water and coffee/tea. Café G has free flow of soft drinks (Coke, Fanta, ...) - great if you have kids.

They get very crowded on weekends.

For a group it's mandatory to make a resevation.

All these listed here are excellent. I've tried them !!

In particular I highly recommend the Narai and the Holiday Inn.

Wow, great post. My wife and I visit the Majestic Grand for their Saturday buffet quite often, but I have never been to any of the others, how do they compare in terms of quality, selection etc? Thanks.

Shwedagon temple is the main touristy temple and is visible from most of the city. I would recommend getting a day ticket and popping in during the daytime and again at sunset. Lovely place to visit.

I wouldn't go to Myanmar to party, save that for Thailand.

I stopped booking hotels in advance years ago, the taxi driver will do his best to get you a hotel in your price category. If you don't like it, he is waiting for you to go on to the next. Usually works unless there is an elephant festival or something.

What bizarre advice.

I bring my kid to the pub, whats the problem?

The owner is Canadian and you can google him and see his ridiculously large Phuket mansion on a website called; Homes of the Rich.

Yep, FatGutz is very nice, probably the best. I am quite partial to a late night visit to the Offshore chippy on Sukhumvit 23 as well (they seem to have improved their offering somewhat over the past year or so...)

By road just look on Google Maps. Easy enough, the way I used to go was over the Rama 9 bridge. The newer Industrial ring road bridge also drops you off nearby. By boat (walking only) the ferry at Klong Teoy near the Port Auth Of Thai gets there in five minutes. There is also a ferry at the Caltex terminal off Rama 3 I think - was last time I went 10 years ago? Loads of other ways aslo, including a laborious car ferry system that looks rather dodgy (if it still operates?)

Yep, getting a boat from the Port Authority is the most direct route.

Everyone knows drugs are more easily obtained by farangs foreigners than thais.

Anyway back on topic, I suppose that being the O.P. of this thread it was only a matter of time that I got stopped and searched, this happened on Friday night....

I was walking our babysitter to the paak soi of my home at midnight on Friday night (the location that I describe in the O.P.) as soon as the babysitter was in a taxi I turned back up my soi to go home when 2 policemen on a motorbike sped in front of me and blocked my path. This soi is pretty dark and being a dead end soi is very quiet, especially at night so I was a bit nervous. They searched my pockets and took ages going through my wallet and asked me, where I had been, where I was going, whether I had been drinking, whether I speak Thai and how long I have been living in Thailand.

Even tho I am pi**ed off at the blatant racial profiling by the police in targetting farangs in this area, I must say that they were not aggressive with me and did not try any funny business, once they were happy I was not carrying anything untoward I was allowed to go with a 'kob khun krap'...

You mate went 3rd's on the total bill, whats the issue ?

Must admit, I'm struggling to see what's so wrong about it also.

I was once invited out by a friend, he had his GF with him. I bought a round, he bought a round and when it came to her round....... They tried to claim that as a couple they only had to pay once, which of course left me paying double.

If the OP is expecting his friend to chip in when the GF doesn't, I don't think the OP's friend is the one that is being cheap.

Glad I'm not the only one who doesnt really see a problem there!! I re-read the post 3 times to see if I was missing something!!

Does anyone have any experience of hiring a live out nanny/maid?

Thanks.

Agree with the O.P. 100% common courtesy towards strangers is not common here, certainly not in the way it is in the West. In contrast to a couple of other posters in this thread I have always found the British to have high level of common courtesy and politeness (chavs excluded).

To the OP, so just to make it clear, did all the stories you hear happened in inbetween Thonglor and PromPong BTS?

Not that I often walk throught there, normally pass through by BTS train or taxi, but once in a while I go for looong walks.

Will be avoiding that area at all now.

The girl who had her shoes nicked was on Rama 4 near Sukhumvit Soi 26. All the others were in the area I described.

I thought you had to carry ID at ALL times when in Thailand? and she had none.

Ah, that explains why they took her shoes. Thanks travelmann.

I would be scared if they started going through my pockets.. Are there any stories of them planting stuff ?

Indeed James,I only had to read the name, Thong Lor to know the rest wasnt worth reading.

Is there anything special going on in that area comparing to other areas of BKK? Just wondering...

Not that I know of, for both questions.....

Forgot to mention; another friend (male) was recently stopped and searched right down to his boxer shorts(!) behind a bus shelter on Sukhumvit Road.

Nothing new here - check out bangkok page - been going on since moby dick was a minnow.

Hi James, thanks for the reply. I would like to reiterate that I have certainly noticed a huge increase in this happening. Indeed over the past 5-6 years I have seen this occur on a handful of occasions in my locality, as per my O.P. in the past few weeks I have seen it virtually every day, so respectfully, I think that it is 'something new'.

Hi,

Just wanted to share something that I have noticed over the past few weeks....

I have lived on Sukhumvit Road for around 5-6 years and have never really seen police stop checking people in the streets (especially at day time), however over the last month or so I have seen this virtually every day. The targets have been foreigners of all ages/demographics at all times of the day. They seem to be checking I.D. and then checking all pockets, wallets, socks etc....

The exact area that I have seen this happen personally is inbetween Thonglor and PromPong BTS. Having spoken with friends in the area I have learnt that others too have noticed this trend and indeed a couple of friends have been searched.

One girl I know was stopped late at night on the way home (she was in a taxi), she did not have I.D. on her nor any considerable amount of money. The police kept her around for a while whilst they discussed what they should do with her, when they realised that they were not going to get any money out of her, they made her give them the shoes on her feet(!) and let her go. Bizarre....

Anyway, just a heads up.

Cheers.

but things like this could just as easily have happened if they remained in UK.

Not really..... As per the post above, you are over 5 times more likely to be killed on the roads in Thailand.