yorkie100

Well there used to be one in Bophut, but the woman cancelled many tickets which her customers had purchased through her, and ran away with all that money...

I used Highspeed in Chaweng (little soi opposite Centara) a couple of times, and found them helpful and reliable. But rarely that they could match a specific offer I found online.

Safest and cheapest is to book yourself via credit card. If you can't, make sure you take out a travel insurance, which includes refund of tickets, if someone runs of with the money, or airline goes bust, or whatever else may go wrong.

Yes, agree GS, Highspeed, Soi Colibri I think.

They can process the ticket there and then.

Some smaller agencies (where they say come back in an hour for your tickets) use them as well.

I have found they gave me the same price as online.

I always fly Qatar but have loyalty card with them for the perks.

Maybe use a screenscraper first, the go ask the price at Highspeed?

It is a double edged tragedy as it seems the incinerator was procured on the cheap and budgeted funds siphoned away, then a company who won the contract to operate paid to much for the license and has gone bankrupt, hence the breakdown as no one wants to pay for repairs. ( seems there is a 20 year operating contract.)

In the mean time the rubbish is no being dumped in the valley around the site, which it seems has affected the flow of water from the nearby mountain. The run off, full of toxins is polluting all the klongs, streams in the area. These steams eventually run into the sea, and also in rainy times flow into wells and other sources of human water.

All in all thoroughly unsatisfactory.

Everyone complains about the garbage problem on the island.

How many of you pay the government fee to fix it?

Sorry - this is an old rant of mine. I pay almost 1,000 baht a month because I think that this is important. How much do others pay?

Collecting garbage on Samui is not free. But most of my neighbours pay nowt and they live in big villas worth tens to hundreds of millions of baht!!

Cheapskates or what?

I agree i pay i think 300 baht for each house i should really charge this to my customers. Then allot of neibour just through their rubbish in my bins. i dont want to emmploy a security guard also to protect my bins that job would just bbe rubbish and would stink

Well done Big C.

So that is two of us contributing to try and solve the garbage probems on the island. Any others out there?

Yes, me, as and when they bother to come and collect it. (The money, not the rubbish)

I don't even have a bin, I have to take it to the main road for collection, but have no problem with this.

Ar least they collect (almost) daily here, not like back in the UK when they are making it only once every two weeks.

If you thought the service was bad just write on a piece of paper 'Tip for DTAC, please train your staff to a higher standard' and place it in the 'tip' box.

What would be the point of that?

Same staff would open the box and throw it away when they shared out their 25 satang coins.

The staff in the DTAC shop are useless.

I didn't notice the tip boxes when I was there (and I spent a lot of time there trying to resolve problems) but they would not have got a tip from me.

It is solely due to the inept, untrained 'kids' they employ there in Big C DTAC that I 'ported' my number to AIS in Tesco where they have trained professional staff who are helpful, knowledgeable and smile.

Even insisting to them I wanted to port my number was almost beyond their comprehension and took ages to do.

It cost me 1200 baht in charges, they said.

I have no idea(nor could they explain), what the charges were for, but I had to pay.

(I had an English speaking Thai with me at the time, so language was no barrier).

Disgraceful.

BigC, did you buy a lot of food, water, in case you quarenteen for a long period?

yes now i have to put my space suite on and go out and get some more things as i have cained everyhting

Masochist.

....and yet another smash, this time at the top of Soi 4 (Soi Piangjai) where it appeared that a pickup failed to stop at the top of the road and careered straight in to the side of an oncoming car from Choengmon.

Happened about 12.30 am this morning. Not sure about injuries, didn't want to stop and rubberneck.

Add to that the terrible accident around three weeks ago I saw near Sabinglae restaurant where the two English guys were killed and the one I saw that started this thread and I've really had enough.

When will someone do something about this carnage on the roads?

Yesterday evening, sometime around 5pm another car, again, clearly going far too fast failed to make the bend and embedded itself well into a concrete electricity pylon, this time coming from the opposite direction.

Not sure if there were casualties although it would appear so as there was no-one else there apart from the driver of the truck which arrived to tow the car away.

I have just heard there wont be electric in Bangrak tomorrow (29/04) from 8am to 4pm , anyone heard the same?

Thanks for the heads up Captain. Sure enough, electric off 8.20.

I must have been following right behind SamuiRes. The scene looked very bad. Glad to hear no-one seriously injured.

What struck me was the number of onlookers gathered and gawping as though someone was putting on some sort of entertainment show!

Also the bikes trying to get past the scene weaving in and out past the crash with, as usual, complete disregard for everyone's safety standing around.

As Carmine says, extremely dangerous corner, the very least that needs to be done is erect large lighted chevron signs warning of the corner, unlikely to happen though I suppose.

Just a thought, I know Thailand is on the same PAL system as the UK (I'm assuming that's where the op is coming from), but are the Television channel frequencies in the same range and compatible over here?

Anyone from the Hotels Association thought thought of telling BKK Air? Oooops wrong topic.

Are you asking if they thought twice about it???

With respect, I think you will need to give more detail before you can expect a successful reply.

Not sure about boring, but sure, all same, same.

I appreciate you are looking for the S2 or S3, but check out the price of the Galaxy Grand. 5" screen and not at a bad price new either.

Many shops selling them now.

Nice try at free advertising methinks.

The Aussies have overtaken the British in terms of rudeness! And don't go blaming it on the Aboriginals.

Another sweeping generalisation and just another ill-informed comment.

There are many rude people, SE Asian, eastern European and western around, just like there are many polite, likeable people, like Carmine?

Songkran? Not in Plai Laem yet. Too cold for them-pussies!

Looks like we may be missing the worst of the rain.

11.50 pm and the rain has finally arrived in plai laem.

Plants are happier.

Plants are flattened!

Toads are happier.

Tropicalevo's quote

"(Personally, I stop the bike and shout in a loud voice at the dogs - NO!)"

Unless it's an English speaking doggy, it may not understand "no"

The Thai's say what I always thought was "BYE" but I was corrected on that the other day, it's more like "PIE" or "PAI" !!!

Another word I hear them say is "Yang".... the dogs seem to respond to that too!

I think it's more correctly spelt bpai, means 'go'.

What you actually say to the dog makes little difference. (We have no idea what commands it understands - if any).

It's the very loud, sharp, aggressive noise that makes the dog back down.

I have a friend who has a soft voice - dogs ignore her.

My wife is a schoolteacher - dogs respond to her voice! (So do I. )

i normally chase dogs and bite them in my spare time. i have a gang strong of other dogs behind me we protect our turf and fight to the deathl pissing in strategic points to claim more ground today i musy go and own a car so i must prepare and get allot of fluids down me

Go for it BigC

Tropicalevo's quote

"(Personally, I stop the bike and shout in a loud voice at the dogs - NO!)"

Unless it's an English speaking doggy, it may not understand "no"

The Thai's say what I always thought was "BYE" but I was corrected on that the other day, it's more like "PIE" or "PAI" !!!

Another word I hear them say is "Yang".... the dogs seem to respond to that too!

I think it's more correctly spelt bpai, means 'go'.