Thakkar

Fedex has always been a problem for me , in CM..... Won't use them any more

Who do you use now? DHL, EMS? Which is better? I want to dump Fedex.

Try TNT. Have used them. No problems. For a while, they were actually cheaper (and faster) than EMS for sending stuff to HK.

There's also UPS. Used them once. Bad experience.

Now, I know what you're thinking: Why isn't this bastard Thakkar disclosing the contact info for TNT? Well, I figure, why deprive you the opportunity of starting a new topic?

T

"... for the comics here its not her shoe and its not my rear end ."

What a waste of two perfectly good jokes.

Anyhoo...The Podology Centre - mft-thailand.com

Tel: 053 038 084

Saw their ad in Citylife once and have kept it for future reference. Never used them. Never hope to.

Good Luck.

T

I use it for both work and play.

T

the thai bars i go to charge 59baht large leo 69 to 110 bht for thai meals great groups, and many many very young serving ladies with great personalities.

When it comes to barmaids, the personalities that the op seems to be looking for are those that come in pairs.

T

Paranoid springs to mind here why do farangs think they are so special that they are being picked on. Far more Thais are fined at these check points than farangs. Sorry to say it but we are not special obey the law and you will not be fined .

Have the correct documentation and wear your seat belt or have your crash helmet on and you will pass through ok every time .

I was walking past a check point at the Wharwat bridge and said swahsdecup to a police man he returned my greeting and smiled at me. He returned it in proper Thai.

Was I being singled out. I am a foreigner.

Were you being singled out? If you felt threatened, then, yes. If it was a pleasant encounter, then, being a clueless foreigner, you were clearly mistaken, and it wasn't pleasant and you only thought it was. So, in retrospect, yes...erm, I think...

T

Why do people interpret singled out to be a negative.

I was referring to the smile.

Actually it was tongue in cheek as i have a lot of Thais smile at me.

Give them a chance and they will smile at you.

I find people who have a bad attitude towards Thais have negative experiences far more than I do.

I think even if they think they are being nice Thais see through them.

I too was being tongue in cheek (or trying to be). In fact, I was agreeing with you.

I see that my stubborn refusal to use smiley's has its drawbacks.

T

I've said this before. One of the harder aspects of running a business is getting customers into your place. Once they are in there, and you can't get them to spend, that's a failure of tactics. Still, even after all reasonable efforts, a shop will always have to contend with some freeloaders. It's the cost of doing business.

T

I have met so many American bullshit artists who are looking for 'venture capital' when their credit cards get maxed out here its unreal.

Right so I'm not just sponsoring your easy lifestyle, this baseness will make a fortune........right.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 6A using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

"American Bullshit Artists?" I have been here five years, and have yet to meet anyone who fits this description. Where are you hanging out? Most of the Americans I have met living here are educated and living in nice homes or condos. You ever here the saying, "Birds of a feather flock together."

Aaawwww go easy on the poor sod........ Maybe he and his group are too old to flock.

...that would explain the bitterness.

I am a good friend with Mr Thakkar, so maybe it is OK to say that I have a chooice in life, I love to eat ham, potatoes with horseradish sauce. It is just enough, salt, sugar and spices in it for my taste.

We are talking about the northern countries?? Like Sweden???

Glegolo

Please, call me 'grumpy'—my daughters do.

I love horseradish with potatoes. When it comes to ham, I'm very picky. The good stuff is so expensive here, so I rarely eat it.

T

Paranoid springs to mind here why do farangs think they are so special that they are being picked on. Far more Thais are fined at these check points than farangs. Sorry to say it but we are not special obey the law and you will not be fined .

Have the correct documentation and wear your seat belt or have your crash helmet on and you will pass through ok every time .

I was walking past a check point at the Wharwat bridge and said swahsdecup to a police man he returned my greeting and smiled at me. He returned it in proper Thai.

Was I being singled out. I am a foreigner.

Were you being singled out? If you felt threatened, then, yes. If it was a pleasant encounter, then, being a clueless foreigner, you were clearly mistaken, and it wasn't pleasant and you only thought it was. So, in retrospect, yes...erm, I think...

T

Northern "lanna" food sucks!!! Khao soi is ok but northern cuisine is much more than that.

Pork brain in banana leaf, pork fat stew with a strange egg, lots of strange and untasty vegetables... Etc...

You wrong! you wrong!

I eat 3 meals a day for 25b each and they are glorious! Glorious!

For 25 THB you are getting a small portion of the worst possible quality white rice, vegetables sprayed with chemicals, re-used palm oil, and the cuts of meat that would be used for dog food in the West. 10 years ago you could get decent food for 25 THB. Ever looked in a market at the cost of pork, beef, rice, etc.? Probably not if you eat out 3 X per day!

There's always one it goes flying over.

Or maybe your sarcasm wasn't as clever as you thought. Besides, you forgot the smiley.

T

I would bet there is no foreigner who drives more than me in Chiang Mai, and maybe all of thailand.

That's a big call, might make an interesting poll. How many total kms do you estimate you have up in Thailand?

54000 in 6 years,for me.

115,000 km in nine years.

T

I don't know how things are now, but during my6 first trip to Taipei in the late eighties, I was nearly run down by a motorcyclist while strolling leisurely on the pavement. I learned that only half the pavement is for pedestrians, the other half foe motorcycles, and individual cyclists decide which half.

Things here aren't that bad here. Motorists seem fairly tolerant of the many new Chinese cyclists, especially around the Night Bazar area that I tend to drive through around 4 p.m. on certain days, just as the vendors are setting up their stalls. Yet there's not the kind of havoc one would find in similar situations in, say, Mumbai. The cyclists, like tourists everywhere, seem mostly oblivious to the risks they're taking. There's nothing for us to do but behave like the locals and be tolerant of them.

T

If you decide to venture out of A/C i recommend Galae Restaurant. Ive always enjoyed it. Book early though and try book next to the water, you can also feed the fish then. I feed them some scraps or buy fish food. The setting is very romantic in the evening.

OP, forget all the advice from the guys. Listen to eek. I suspect she knows better.

T

omelette with Pak La (Cha om) with Nam Phrik Gapi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acacia_pennata

Mrs. T and our daughters love this, dammit! It stinks up the whole place. Even worse, it's so easy to prepare there's a low barrier to deciding whether to make it. I curse the guy that invented this dish.

T

For my tastes, Northern food tends to go overboard on most things. Either there's too much garlic, or too much ginger or too much chili, or too much sugar, and almost, always just a little too much salt.

You forget the msg, and if one mentioned "no msg" it taste like they double the salt, the wrong and overheated oil and the predominant taste of other northern herbs.
Sounds snobbish but I have to because I don't feel well after eating unhealthy food.

MSG: The way Mrs. T cooks, I'm grateful for it.

Good cooks don't need it, and, if they have the slightest pride in themselves, don't use it.

However I don't understand the bad rap MSG gets. It's useful for bad cooks and I suspect has saved many a marriage. Nothing I've read so far convinces me that it is bad for health unless consumed in seriously excessive quantities.

I agree about the oil. I really wish cooks here would be more judicious in its use. To some extent it can be avoided if you go to better restaurants. If a place does reuse oil, or use cheap oil, it's not hard to tell and you avoid going back there.


T

Another tasty Northern dish: Dtam Khanoon (made with young jackfruit) with sticky rice. It tastes good pretty much everywhere I've tried it.

T

For my tastes, Northern food tends to go overboard on most things. Either there's too much garlic, or too much ginger or too much chili, or too much sugar, and almost, always just a little too much salt.

I do like Kao Soi, but only from a select few places. There was a woman at the basement of KSK, faux market area who made excellent Kao Soi, but she's not there anymore. During the vegetarian month you get these stalls that pop up all over the place. Most of them sell terrible oily crap, but I've had some excellent vegetarian Kao Soi at some of these places.

T

Suan Hom Khao Ram (junction of Hwy 118 & 121—see Greenside's pinned map above).

A nice garden restaurant, but with a glassed-in air conditioned area as well where you are safe from the live music an occasional karaoke.

Is it romantic? What do I know? Mrs. T and I, even after more than twenty years, create our own romantic bubble wherever we are.

T

I have a delicate pallet. This is a result of growing up eating, at first, mild Gujarati vegetarian food and then the famously simple Cantonese food—both of which are known for simplicity and delicate preparation to bring out the authentic natural flavors. As my mom says, "It's not brute cooking and flavoring; it's teasing out and enhancing the flavors already there."

Northern Thai food is distinctly different from Issan or Southern food. There aren't many dishes that I distinctly dislike, but very few that I like enough to seek out and eat regularly. One such dish is a snack with the exquisite name, "A stroll through the garden noodle" ( Kwai Teaw Lui Suan). It is strips of (or diced, but I prefer the strip cuts—less messy) cucumber, carrot, tofu and other raw veggies wrapped in lettuce (sometimes seaweed as well) and wide rice noodle, served with chili mint sauce topped with fresh mint leaves. Simple as it is, this is not a dish that's easy to get right, and few places I've eaten at do get it right. Naturally, the veggies need to be fresh as does the noodle, which spoils quickly. The beauty of the noodle is that it has no flavor of it's own. If it has flavor, it's been sitting too long! The mint sauce is only good if it has the right balance of mintiness, sweetness, chilliness and saltiness—it's important that the chilliness and sweetness don't overwhelm. One place where it's done well is Suan Hom Khao Ram (junction of Hwy 118 & 121—see Greenside's pinned map above. Opens at six pm). Another good place to get this—and at much less than half the price, but it isn't always fresh enough, and sells out quickly—is in the Sam Yek market at the mouth of the old Sansai Rd in San Sai Noi that forks away from Hwy 118.

A desert I tried today, called Khanom Mo Kaeng is another story. It's your standard Thai custard topped with, what smelled like, fried shallots (spoiler alert—it was!). Mrs. T wanted me to try it. I keep an open mind; I know that something that doesn't smell right, like the smelly fried tofu sold on HK street corners, can taste fine. So I tried it.

I was thought at an early age, by a sharp whack to the back of my head by my mom, never to spit out food, and I rarely do so. Even if it's something I don't like, I'll swallow it (unless it's spoilt) and just refrain from eating any more. But this I had to spit out. Mrs. T liked it, which I find a little disturbing.

So which Northern food do you like the best, or can't stand?

T

Since the '97 crash, the Thai government has kept Thai Banks on a short leash, which means they haven't been reckless. Protection from foreign bank competition and a de facto cartel situation allows them high margins on all their products and lucrative interest rate spreads. This means their balance sheets are in good shape and they can withstand a property slump and will not easily foreclose or dump the properties they do foreclose. So I think little chance of a major dive in prices.

While 100% mortgages seem risky, I think those are just headline numbers and the more common loans would be more prudent, and the vetting of buyers very thorough. What matters is affordability rather than loan ration.

T

None of the reasons given so far constitute good explanations.

1

More money for immigration from the small percentage who report late and get fined Bt2k: increase the annual visa fee for all by 20% to achieve the same end. The 20% extra is expenditure neutral for us when you consider the time and fuel saved.

2

Creating work, padding the bureaucracy: allow reporting by post with stamped, self-addressed envelope included which immigration post back by double registered post that the recipient has to sign for. Immigration receives the signed slip so they can verify the said person was at that address. They don't actually have to check the details. It's not like they do any checking now, but it justifies extra staff.

3

Reminding foreigners they are mere guests: reporting by post achieves that.

My guess is that whatever reason they may originally have had (and that isn't clear), it's probably redundant now. Inertia has taken over, and they are just going through the motions. Bureaucracies are like that.

This system probably harms Thailand more than anyone realizes. I know that my wife and I would invest more here if my status was more secure and I wan't constantly reminded that I live here at the pleasure of immigration officials.

T