on-on

This one makes my skin crawl even more! (and it's in Penang, not far away!)

I'm okay with snakes and spiders, but scorpions and these kind of giant centipedes freak me out! Maybe it's because we don't have them in Canada?

That video is truly creepy. They freak me out too. Anything with a bunch of little writhing legs does it.

I have TOT.

For the passed 1 week, internet keeps dropping out for a few mins at a time and this happened the whole day. I have called 1177 call centre, the technician came to my house and the first thing he did checked <a href="http://speedtest.adslthailand.com/</a>" target="_blank">ADSL speed. I told him that my complaints was not about the speed but the connection kept dropping.

I just moved to around Soi Ari and was forced to use TOT. I have their 8MB package. This is the same thing that's happened here. The support was useless and kept saying to call the router manufacturer (hilarious). The building owner, having the same problems, called someone at TOT's NOC via a personal contact and they said there was some kind of outage at (his words) their local router. I assume this is their local switching station or whatever it's called. They said they were working to fix it. It got fixed a couple of days ago and now the internet's fine for several hours then drops constantly for several hours. This used to happen to me with True several years ago, but my last 2 years of True has been almost 100% problem free. I wish I could go back, but maybe this TOT stuff will work itself out.

Trying to make this post, for example, required waiting 3 minutes for my connection to come back up.

In general this area is frequented by predators and some of the worst people you'll come across in Bangkok. All vendors in and around the grand palace will try to cheat foreigners. They are some of the most despicable people you'll come across here. This is what I call "Thailand without it's mask"

Really? The jaded vendors who flock to heavily touristed areas where they can rip off foreigners are "Thailand without it's [sic] mask?" This is a little like saying that Times Square is "America without is mask." My experience is exactly the opposite. Most of Thailand has been fantastic to live and travel in and I only have issues (though only ever minor ones like this - and this is a very minor issue) when I go to places full of touts and tourists and jaded vendors. Seems a bit absurd to imply that this is the real Thailand when it only encompasses the immediate area surrounding any tourist hotspot (or, in the case of tourist islands/beaches, the entire island/beach area).

Anyone who thinks being ripped off is something endemic to Thailand and the developing world apparently hasn't taken many taxis in most major Western cities. "Hey, is that the Eiffel Tower again?"

and just move out of Pattaya I guess.

Now there's a horrible unintended consequence - the residents of Pattaya suddenly moving to where the rest of us live, heh. Down with this system! I vehemently oppose it!

Is this a sign that the US of A is loosing its shine? It looks to me like the US of A is in decline. Emerging economies like China and India seems to be creeping into picture.

It's a sign that we have a Democratic administration. Objectively speaking, Democratic administrations make more noise about human rights. Carter was famous for it as was Clinton. That's all that's happening here. When a Republican's in charge we make human rights noises, but only about strategic competitors (i.e. USSR, DPRK, China, etc). Whether or not one thinks that is a good or bad thing, or whether it even matters, is another question altogether.

Man, I really wanted to see how they did this. I can't relocate 4-5 pigeons five feet off my balcony without a fence or a cover, so whatever magical method they have for relocating pigeons to another part of the country would have been fascinating to see, heh. Maybe it got called off when someone asked, "How do we plan to do this?" My advice would have been to move my balcony to Ratchaburi, because apparently all pigeons consider it like the Studio 54 of pigeon hangouts.

People blocking the exits for people leaving the train are for the most part farangs who, giving them the benefit of the doubt (a courtesy that most here don't seem to want to extend to Thais) I would say are probably new to the system.

I agree with your general thrust in that people on TV love to lob increasingly negative cultural/racial stereotypes at the Thais and I find this ridiculous, but your assertion here is completely absurd. I commute via skytrain and subway almost every day and it is about 99.99999% Thai people who, at every stop now, line up directly in front of the door preventing you from exiting. It did not used to be like this - this has happened in the last couple of years.

There aren't many farangs here to begin with and while I've seen a propensity for tourists to do stupid things like lean on the pole and prevent others from using it or push around the car as they crane their necks around trying to read the map on the inside they seem to know for the most part that when there's a door you're not supposed to stand in the middle of it. I love Thailand, have very few problems here and don't spend my time sitting around whinging, but anyone who lives here who has not noticed that there is a very odd (by Western standards, which don't matter since this is Thailand) cultural ethic for dealing with entrances and exits to anything isn't paying attention. Whether it's the automated gate into the BTS, the entrance to an escalator, the entrance to the BTS, the top or bottom of the stairwell or anything else it's incredibly common for people to just stop and stand in the middle of that entrance or exit while they do whatever it is they're doing (or sometimes nothing at all). This behavior would get you knocked clean out of the way in many cities in the West, which isn't much of a comment on our hospitality when it comes to foot traffic, but is a comment on individual ability to order oneself so as not to cause problems for other people in a busy city of millions of people. The only place I see this kind of behavior back home is in a crowded grocery store full of women pushing carts around and not paying attention to where they're going. That's the only metaphor I can think of.

The only one that I do get tuned up about is the standing in front of the doors. I lived in DC and commuted by rail every day there and you never saw that kind of behavior. If I had I'd have put my head down and walked right over people there just like I do here.

there are a few farang out there that uttely despise me also.

True, but you go out of your way to be an antagonistic contrarian tit on the forums a lot of the time, so if that's any indication then I'm guessing you sort of expect it and maybe even welcome the attention.

The child has complained to her parents about being picked on and bullied by a teacher, who is clearly giving the lead for other children in the class to follow.

My response would be to meet with the Head Teacher, and face to face with the teacher concerned to get her behavior sorted out. If the Head Teacher is not willing to back you on this then move your child to another school.

That others in this thread are offering excuses for the Thai teacher is yet another indication of how many foreigners loose their compass when they arrive at BKK Airport.

I disagree only in that the person above you who said the first attempt to address this should be congenial was more correct in my opinion. On the internet everyone wants everything to be confrontational, but it's better to approach situations like this more openly until you ascertain the intent. If you go in and nicely explain what's going on and ask kindly for the behavior to change it might work and you don't cause a negative situation that could have ramifications. If the behavior doesn't change you can still bring things to a head afterward and you don't lose anything except maybe a week's time waiting to see what happens.

The Mick Jagger sightings always make me chuckle. I keep hearing of people who meet him in these incredibly random places in Southeast Asia. Last one was a friend who ran into him in Luang Prabang, but there are pretty regular sightings in various parts of Asia. I dunno if he just travels a lot, likes Asia or just enjoys going to remote places where he won't be bothered. hel_l, if I had a bajillion dollars I'd probably just wake up once a week and go "Yeah, I wanna see Petra today" or "A beer in Munich sounds good this afternoon" and snap my fingers and go.

I can't get five pigeons to move from my balcony, I gotta see how you get 10,000 to move to an Army camp.

Also, genius move on the landscaping. They should start landscaping any place that's prone to political instability. Next stop, Government House.

Who is the developer?

My personal opinion from the rendering is that it looks like a CGI building from a disaster movie after the disaster has happened.

Maybe it'll look better in real life

This was exactly my thought. The closeups look pretty cool, but the total work from a distance looks like it's designed to fit in among the post-1997 landscape without sticking out, heh.

The weekend market in Chatuchak is were I would take visitors wanting to shop and it's open quite late. Of course it's only in the weekend and far from the tourist areas, but it's a real market and more of an experience. I guess the night bazaar is ok for people on a quick visit, but I think it's remarkable bad value for money with the typical apathetic Thai vendors that you meet everywhere in the tourist areas.

ding ding

Suan Lum is a bad value for the money on the shopping side. Aside from a few specialty shops that are indigenous, pretty much everything there is bought at Chatuchak on the weekends, marked up and brought to Suan Lum. The point about where should tourists go to buy awful knick knacks without being accosted with sex shows is well taken. My answer would be: Everywhere remotely touristy except Nana, Cowboy and Patpong. Silom is chock full of that crap from end to end outside of Patpong. Sukhumvit is much the same and has a ton of stores all selling the same crap that is sold at Suan Lum. Khao San, of course, is wall to wall from the river to the temple now with the same. There's no shortage of cheap rice paper lanterns, knockoff prints and BUCK FUSH t-shirts in the rest of the non-pornographic city.

Obviously if you love Suan Lum I'm not here to pretend that my opinion should sway you. I guess my broader answer would be to wonder why one feels compelled to take out of town visitors to a place built to provide them with crap and charge them more for it than they'd pay somewhere else? There's plenty of actually neat stuff to buy in Thailand that wasn't made in China, heh. Yeah, tourism's an important part of the Thai economy just like fast food is an important part of the American economy. I would request that fellow Americans not take visitors to the food court at the local mall and implore them to check out the amazing American experience which is a pretty good deal, really, and easier to get to than anything authentic. The disturbing potential answer is that there are people who have lived in Thailand for a number of years who consider Suan Lum to be authentic and a good deal and to have good food and neat products all of which begs the question: What have you been doing with your free time?

I used to live nearby and that place is a really mediocre tourist trap. The only sad thing here is that it sounds like it's just going to be replaced with a higher end tourist trap. Given the choice I guess I'd keep the night bazaar as it at least had the beer garden area, but man is it ever full of utter garbage and crap, overpriced restaurants. Those pathetic sit-down joints they have in the back were God awful. They look interestingly decorated, but the food and service was ridiculously bad. Just another scammy market re-selling the same wooden frogs, decorative christmas light, heavily syndicated photographic prints and stupid, knock-off t-shirts. the beer garden was barely tolerable half the time too with the absurdly bad pop acts cranked up to 11,000dB. It's pretty bad that as bad as this place was, the alternative is even worse in its own way. Not as if the crap-tastic mall in the LH Bank building across the road isn't enough worthless wannabe-hiso malls full of chain food outlets for one corner, I guess we need another!

Did she take the little official consulate sign out of the drawer and put it on the desk when you came in like something out of a Coen Bros' movie? A friend of mine that used them reported that's how it worked, heh.

If you read TV every day, you can't miss all the deaths that occur around here.

A good chunk of ThaiVisa is basically, "Did you hear about this unfortunate thing that happened to a FOREIGNER!?" Just reading TV you'd think Thailand's one of the least dangerous places in the world. 60,000,000 people and only a few die every year, all foreign!

Just a quick rejoinder. Appeared this morning for my 9:30 appointment, had a consultation with the surgeon followed by a sonogram and a final consultation on the results. All told about a half hour waiting up front and an hour of work. Surgery was scheduled for 2PM today. I went back at 2PM, was processed quickly and put in the gown and taken to the OR. It's more casual than an OR back in the states for sure and I'd have to say a little dirtier, but everything seemed quite professional. Waited on the table for about 20 minutes, surgery took about 45 minutes and I was processed out in about 15 minutes. They even offered to help pay for a taxi to take me back and forth to have my dressing changed for the week when they misunderstood one of my questions. I received the usual mountain of prescriptions one receives in Thailand and what not and was explained to clearly how to take them, when and in what dosage. All covered by social insurance.

All told I spent maybe 3 hours and 30 minutes to 4 hours between registration, processing, arbitrage, consultation, diagnosis, surgery and processing out along with a couple of stints on the couch and talking over appointments. Everything was covered by social insurance. The only papers I was asked for were my SS card (that has the hospital on it) and my passport (since that's my form of ID). I was called handsome and told I speak very good Thai a number of times, neither of which is true, heh. Anyway, there's my very summary trip report of using the Thai social insurance at Kluaynamthai if anyone wonders what it's like.

I went yesterday a little late. They were open until 17:00, but they told me that the 90 day check-ins open up at 08:30 and cut off at 16:30. Very handy and convenient location. Thanks to the folks here who listed the data here and on Google Maps

I can only comment on my current experience at Kluaynamthai. I chose that hospital from my employer who offered me to choose. A previous employer apparently chose for me, but without malice, just filling out paperwork. I think the assumption was that farangs never use it anyway, heh. During the recent change I made sure to specify.

On a little side note, since I might as well post somewhere, Kluaynamthai is clean to the naked eye and a bit older. Staff are friendly and helpful. The doctors speak plenty of English in any case. I went in today, filled out a small form, presented them my SS card and answered a few questions about my problem and history. They sat me down and a minute later I was in my consultation. Ten minutes of back and forth and being poked and prodded by the friendly doctor and I was scheduled for surgery. The surgeon was busy today (it's not a super-serious problem), so they scheduled it for tomorrow morning. In and out in about 20 minutes total, give or take. The staff were helpful and friendly and challenged me with questions to make sure they had the details right, which is sometimes a problem here. I heard a lot about waiting and waiting from Thais and farangs (most of whom hadn't used the program), but my experience was much quicker than my paid experiences at BNH and others (not to mention back in The States).

If they cut my penis off tomorrow instead of yanking the cyst out of my back my opinion may sour, but so far it's been a pretty dear experience for an American to just be able to walk into a place, walk out of a place and not have to worry about arguing with someone for months about coverage and pre-existing conditions and co-pays and such. I can afford alternatives, work in a related industry and have always used other hospitals (BNH, Yanhee, Samitivej, etc), but I'm very appreciate of the opportunity I've been given by the gummint here and was, frankly, interested to see what my emotional reaction would be to the affair. Still, that's no reason for the rest of humanity to care, just my personal opinion.

The one stop centre at Chamchuree Square is open. Bangkok residents can use for 90 day reporting as alternative to Chaeng Wattana.

Excellent - thanks! On a side note, One Stop One Start is a very oddball name for a very welcome service concept. Especially contextual to the BOI. Welcome to the Bureau of Investment: One Stop One Start.

I noticed on the map here:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&c...006899&z=17

That they list a new OSOS center at Chamchuri Square (MRT Sam Yan) having opened on January 4, 2010.

Has anyone had a chance to stop by? Verification would be nice as I'm not too trusting of official open dates on government services here, heh.

I've got to go do my 90 day report today and figured I'd give it a try.

Phuket to become regional hub of imaginary crackdowns.

This is one of the more bizarre tangents I've seen and I've been watching it since it popped up in the Western food forum, but people are tired of us destroying threads by dragging them into "What is real Mexican food?" debates. I'm sure jingthing doesn't mean it this way, but since I'm one of the long-time debaters in the Mexican food threads and I've been eating it my whole life, I'll just say it: Just because Mexicans aren't white and don't make everything with potatoes and bread and cheese doesn't mean they're not Western. Mexican food s Western. Everything from outside Thailand is International. Most of all, which forum what thing goes in doesn't matter at all.

I'm not subject to this or at all involved, but given the state of what's going on with the ed visa market it seems entirely possible that they're spot-checking on some kind of random whim schedule. Or maybe they've got someone from the central immigration bureau who bumps around to areas with suspected fraud (presumably Bangkok, Phuket and Pattaya, etc) and is sampling the population to assess the state of the problem. I have no idea, but I can imagine there being various explanations for inconsistency in reports of being tested or knowledge of the staff.

What's the big appeal of this new place?

It's new and we're all Tex-Mex/Mexican/Cal-Mex fans in a city starved for decent entrees in that area, so we're all trying it out and reviewing it and then arguing about what makes a real salsa or taco and what's real Mexican and what's real Tex-Mex , etc, etc.

You know, your typical Mexican food thread on Thai Visa.