Meerkat

Yeah think this is the same problem I'm having. Unable to play PotBS this evening - can't get through to Sony Online's update server on port 7000.

Not really sure what you mean by the 5 year visa only being a de facto 1 year one. My visa was issued in August of 2006 and expires in August of 2011. I am still subject to the 90 day reporting requirements however, were I not leaving the country within that time.

The overriding issue with the scheme is still its long-term viability. TE have gone some way towards alleviating those fears by changing the contract to include a sort of money-back guarantee if the scheme folds (minus the value of services used by the individual during his membership), but even then, how guaranteed is the guarantee? All in all though, I'm more confident of the scheme's future now than I was, say, directly after the coup.

Another vote for the free suite, NeoOffice. I've been using it for a couple of years with no compatability problems with MS Office at all (I often need to create docs on my Mac but use them on a WinXP laptop when travelling). However if you create/use spreadsheets with extensive macros, then you may have no choice but to use Office for Mac as Neo won't handle them.

As with a lot of things, there are different qualities of "fake". Some of the fake clubheads that are going around are actually real, and run off the production-line after-hours to be spirited out of the factory. They are then usually attached to low quality shafts and sold off.

I bought a set of Callaway X-16 irons, complete with BB Driver, 3 and 5 woods, an Odyssey putter, umbrella, bag and travel case for 1100 HKD (around 140 USD) in HK a few years ago to use solely as a travel set. The club-heads are indistinguishable (to my eyes anyway) from my real X-16s but the shafts are noticeably not as good. To a mid-level handicapper they play just fine, and I'm still using the 7-iron as my real one needs to be re-shafted.

I had a similar problem with my Garmin 2720 being unable to lock-on. After updating the firmware via the Garmin website to the latest release (think it was Jan 08), it fixed the problem. Not only that but it now locks-on quicker than ever before.

Aside from that I managed to find a fudge to get it to work before I considered updating:

First of all make sure it's not on inside mode!

Once that's done, turn on the unit in test mode (on the 2720 that's done by holding down the Menu key while turning it on). Let it run the tests for about a minute then turn off the unit and turn it back on without holding any other buttons.

Instead of seeing "Acquiring Satellites", you should see "Locating Satellites", and if you look at the GPS page, the satellites should be numbered sequentially from 01 and up, rather than specific satellites only (eg 03, 05, 09, 15 etc).

You should start to see the satellites lock-on - but slower than normal. After a couple of minutes the unit will (should) work as normal.

This fudge worked without fail on the 2720, but you had to do it every time you turned the unit on, so was a bit of a pain.

Hopefully there's a firmware update for your model by now (the problem is well documented online by tons of people but not by Garmin!)

Here you go. Holds 16 cans inside and 4 more in (non-chilled) holders on the top. Has a switch to flip between cooling and heating modes. Does a pretty good job of keeping chilled things cold but don't expect it to turn warm water into ice! Can't remember what we paid for it, but bought it from Homeworks - the DIY arm of Central Dept. Store in Rangsit. From memory they might have had a smaller version too.

What the SET Boss says seems to run contrary to what Noppadope's spokesman over at the foreign ministry said...

Considering that the original article itself states that foreigners have been net buyers of Thai instruments to the tune of THB 5bn (just switching from equities to debt), it would seem that the SET boss is trying to make something out of nothing.

Also considering what we've seen happen in global equity markets over the same period, the SET has done just fine. It's off only half as much as the S&P All Asia index.

Move along please, nothing to see here.

Let's say you finance one million baht for five years. The interest rate is a LOW 3 and a half percent. That would be 1,000,000 times .035 or 35,000 baht a year. Five times 35,000 or 175,000 baht for the 60 months. Now you divide 1,175,000 by 60. Your monthly payment will be 19,592.58 baht per month. That reasonable 3 1/2 percent isn't that cheap, is it? Add on interest allows them to charge the full amount for the last year the same as the first year.

Another way to look at it is you are paying 175,000 baht of interest on a 1,000,000 loan. 175,000 is 17.5% of 1,000,000. Nice profit for the bank.

True, but that's only 6.56% p.a. which isn't all that bad when you consider that the Bangkok Bank's MRR (retail personal loan rate) is over 7%.

Nice one George! I'll take 010408 (or 040108 were I American).

The discrepancy between the selling price when you paid the deposit (899,900) and on the actual sales contract (10k cheaper) seems odd - maybe even an honest mistake. I have absolutely no idea when it comes to Thai law as to whether your signing of the sales contract overrides the fact that you initially paid the deposit on the basis of buying the car at 899,900.

As to the payments on the loan, Mazda's finance company seems to be correct in that the payment should be 13,889 (well actually 13,888.46 by my reckoning). You do understand that car finance in this country is done on a non-amortising basis ie you pay interest throughout the tenor of the loan on the entire intitial principal, rather than only on the amount outstanding?

I'm sorry to hear anyone who feels hard done by in situations like these, but I'm surprised that you'd sign a sales contract that by your own admission differs from the original deposit contract, especially as you dispute the original loan payment schedule.

Thanks for the excellent report Statt.

Just a heads-up regarding Kirimaya. Whilst I know it's in a different price bracket from the other courses in the area, they are doing some good stay/play packages at the moment which brings it down a bit. I'm staying there this weekend at 8000++/night for two nights including unlimited green fees (we usually manage two rounds with ease), breakfast and one dinner included (the restaurant there is excellent). From memory, golf packages start at around 6000++.

If it is such a dam_n good bargain that all you shrewd investors and high rollers reckon it is worth the Bt1.5m, then why didn't you buy the bloody thing before January and save yourself Bt500,000 ?

Ah, well I got mine at the old rate, and the visa is dated 24th August 06...you can imagine the groan I uttered when less than a month later my wife woke me up to tell me there'd been a coup...

A million baht at that particular moment didn't seem such great value then!

Seconded re the nurseries along Hwy 305 - amazing selection and great prices. They did our garden for us (just before Klong 3 coming from Rangsit) - something quite surreal about someone plonking a 30ft tree in your garden in all of about 20 minutes!

Another predictable Fortuner owner here. Been very happy with it over the last couple of years. Had a look at the Mu-7 on Monday when we went to pick up our new D-Max, and it seems OK, but pig-ugly! Does the new CR-V have 7 seats too? I remember we looked at the last series, but decided against it as we needed better off-road capability.

Do bear in mind that whilst you can comfortable seat 6 in the Toyota, you'll not have much room left over for luggage - and with the seventh seat down, you can't get much more than a couple of golf bags in the back.

and then things are taken to new all-time heights with Thai polls...

which is why, most often, they deserve the mocking they were given in this instance... although some might fail to grasp that...

Actually there well may be nothing wrong with the polling at all. What is wrong, however, is that we have only been furnished with one side of the results. That may well not be the fault of ABAC, but of the publication that commissioned the poll in the first place. I've looked at the ABAC website but couldn't find the full findings.

I've just noted that in your post above the one I've just quoted, you state that [there is] "nothing absurd at all in the highly reasonable response to that to say that 20% would participate". Actually that is an absurd assumption - at least statistically. By inferring that, you have chosen not to include both the "don't knows" and the "declined to answers".

Do we actually know the percentage of respondents of the poll who stated that they would attend the rally? Without that datum it is statistically worthless to say that 20% would attend or are unsure. The reason being of course that with such a large percentage polling to the negative, it would be reasonable (although naturally not a statistical certainty) to infer that an approximately equally high percentage of the "unsures" might also be negatives.

There a lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Nope, last time I looked the UK was not in Asia, or on the Pacific. Hong Kong is though, and Singapore. I am not sure, but I think if you have PR somewhere in a APEC country you can get a card from that country, but don't quote me on that.

Not sure about other countries, but HK PRs of any nationality can get the APEC card. Of course to get HK PR you have to have been there on other visas for 7 years, so a fairly long-winded way of getting the card!

The APEC scheme is extemely good (and good value). If I can wangle HK PR (6 years working there, 1 back in the UK then another 6 years there - they initially said I had to start again, but am hoping for an appeal), then I'll certainly be latching onto the scheme. I'll still enter Thailand using the TE visa though.

"Lots of people all over the world are reporting the same thing."

What people? Where are these reports?

From the Reuters article I linked to above:

"Jewellers across Asia rushed to buy gold on Thursday after prices tumbled more than $100 an ounce since spiking to a record above $1,000 an ounce this week, pushing up premiums in key bullion trading centres."

"Physical buyers and bargain hunters are buying back at the low. Everybody is rushing to buy," said a dealer in Hong Kong."

I think what the OP was alluding to was that it seemed odd that whilst on the one hand the interbank market has dropped off steeply, there is currently a squeeze on physical gold - again indicated in the article as buyers (and the OP) having to pay a premium to the spot price which is unusual (or at least that the spread has widened).

Looks like your anecdotal evidence is an accurate reflection of the broader retail market, especially in Asia:

http://in.reuters.com/article/businessNews...lBrandChannel=0

A couple of experiences come to mind, both from the late 70s:

Communist-era Aeroflot. Moscow to Maputo on a flight that stopped off in Odessa, Cairo, Djibouti and Dar-Es-Salaam. I'll never forget that one of the stewardesses was too "wide" to push the trolley whilst walking forwards, so she did everything moving sideways and was thus only able to serve one side of the cabin at a time. Come to think of it our connecting flight from Maputo to Mbabane was delayed for 24 hours because "plane not working". Having no visas for Mozambique we were obliged to spend our enforced delay in a cell, so I'll also add LAM to my no-fly list!

Air Rhodesia. During the Bush War - no, not "that" Bush War. Any airline that requires the stewardesses to carry sub-machine guns has got to be a bit iffy, hasn't it? The reason for this (which thankfully my father didn't explain to me at the time) was that two of these aging Vickers Viscount prop planes had recently been blown out of the sky by SAMs. Whilst one crashed killing all aboard, the other one had some survivors, but most of them were then shot dead by the guerillas that brought the plane down.

We're just spoiled nowadays aren't we!

A guy that I know that has an Elite Card tells me he dosn't have to do the 90 day reporting, he just calls up Thailand Elite and they come collect his passport and do it all for him.

Yeah I've heard the same thing, but as I'm constantly popping in and out I've never had to put it to the test.

What's the score with working when you have a TEC? Is it allowed (subject to the normal rules of employment and WP etc.) I assume the visa is not cancelled if you fins a job?

I think I've heard that it's not possible to tack a WP onto the Special Entry Visa that TE provides, but I'm not sure. You'd have to give them a call to find out.

Meerkat (are you from RSA by any chance?)

Brit I'm afraid (but I understand why you might have thought otherwise)!

One question: Do you have to renew it every year, or every five years? I did pick up that you have to do the 90 day reporting, but that is the same as us lesser mortals have to do.

Every five years. No idea if you have to leave the country in order to get the new 5 year visa, but I think you might. My first one was ready for me at the airport and was stuck into my passport when I flew in after joining.

There was talk from TE before the coup about extending the 90 day period to 180 days (or even longer), but that was nixed post-putsch (the scheme being one of Thaksin's). With a pro-Thaksin government back in power (for a while anyway!), I would expect them to try again to get this implemented as a way of boosting the admittedly dismal membership count.

Well it's worked out fine for me over the last 18 months, although when I got mine it only cost 1m baht (and what with the depreciation of the dollar in the intervening period, it works out as almost 50% cheaper than it is now).

Obviously it's not for everybody (nor was it designed to be), but with the absence of the 3m/10m investment visas now it does offer a painless way of staying here longer-term.

In theory you can sell the card on, but you have to pay a hefty cut back to TE and there are restrictions to the person buying it from you, so it's probably not worth doing it if you do want out of the programme. Likewise, whilst there is now an implicit money-back guarantee if the government of the day decides to cancel the scheme (less the value of services you've used whilst being a member), I think anyone joining should basically just fire-and-forget...

As an aside: Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Elite Card only give you permission to stay for 90 days at a time, so you need to keep doing border runs? For 5 years, and 1.5 mill? PLEASE say I am wrong on this!

Ok then, as you insist, yes you are wrong!

Firstly the scheme doesn't just give you a visa for five years, it gives you a five year visa which automatically rolls over for life (or perhaps more likely for the lifetime of the scheme). Once the original visa expires, you get another five year visa without having to pay anything more. Also, if you get a new passport because of expiry or because it gets full of visa stamps, you will get a fresh five year visa in the new passport (as opposed to a visa which just goes up to the original five year expiry date).

Yes, you only get a 90 day entry stamp, but you do not have to leave the country every 90 days to get another one. You can get 90 day extentions (all the way up to the five year expiry date) by going to an immigration office and paying the usual 1,900 baht fee.

We've been looking for a silmilar pick-up recently and had narrowed it down to the Ford and the Isuzu on paper - can't remember now why we had already dismissed the Triton. Went to test-drive both, assuming that there'd be very little difference between them and was pretty shocked at how unalike they were.

The Ford felt tinny (ie when you slammed the doors shut), the panel-fit wasn't good, the interior seemed to come from a bygone age, and it took 8 turns of the stater before the engine fired. I know it was 8 because after hearing the engine struggle to come to life the first time I switched the ignition off and did it again so I could count! The demo truck only had 3000km on the clock... The salesman, noting my obvious surprise, told me it was because the truck had been left outside on the lot in the heat. Hmm...

The Isuzu one the other hand just felt more solid (yes I know it's subjective, but so much of buying a car comes down to personal gut feeling), the interior, whilst not putting Lexus to shame, felt much more modern, the panel-fit was noticeably tighter, and it fired up as you'd expect.

In the Ford's defense though, on the road there was very little between them that I could discern. Obviously the road-test with either wasn't exactly comprehensive.

Anyway, no surprise that we went for the Isuzu (Cab4 SLX 3.0 Hi-Lander VGS A/T)...gets delivered on Thursday.