digbeth

7 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

So, a few weeks ago when I went to Chiang Mai they have 2 mini vans leaving central at 4 am or 5 am.  The flight leaves at 625 am.  I chose the 5 am van, but when I got there the security guard said they left at 4 am and there is no van at 5 am.  Anyway, long story short it doesn't appear they service the 5 am van. AT least not on this day. I had to flag down a taxi on 2nd road and he wanted 1000 I got him down to 800, still too much but <deleted> had to go....

When I got to the airport I spoke to the AA manager and showed him my 5 am transport reservation.  He said I was right and sorry and to file a claim on the AA website.

Even if there's a 5AM van from Central you won't make it in time for the FD101 6.25flight

I live near Big C and when I take that flight to Chiang Mai, I leave around 4.30, and I drive my own car to park at the airport, some lucky days if there's not too many Chinese and Russians at the security screening I can manage to check/drop off my baggage in at the desk before the airside passenger lounge opens, but on some days you'll be lucky if you manage to get in before the check in counter closes, even without baggage and already checked in and printed your boarding passes online, that leaves the time until boarding gate closes at 20 minutes before departure, getting from Central to Utapao in exactly 1 hour is cutting it very fine 

7 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Couple of weeks ago, and I saw them still there alongside the railway.

Where alongside the railway? on the road heading to Don Mueang the old hopewell stumps have been removed and the new red line train are being constructed in its place

8 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

They still haven't demolished the Hopewell structures, .

Have you even been to Bangkok recently?

you'll never find 'เป็นกับ' in a dictionary as it is two words

it is never required for dishes like ผัดผัก or แกงจืด that's never served on top of rice 

but typical dish for ร้านอาหารตามสั่ง like ผัดกระเพรา ผัดกระเทียม(พริกไทย) where it is likely that if you order without specifying, they'll put in on ราดข้าว for you hence เป็น กับ

it's like in a western restaurant you can order french fries or salads 'as sides' you could argue that you only found 'side dish' and never 'as (a) side' in the dictionary and it'll only be correct through your limited exposure 

15 minutes ago, surfdog said:

So the restaurant is selling ราดข้าว, and you only want the dish, so you order ผัดผักเป็นกับกล้บบ้าน ? is กล้บบ้าน even necessary since you are ordering เป็นกับ
 

กลับบ้าน is still necessary since you could order เป็นกับ to be placed at the middle of the table on a separate plate, they would normally give bigger quantity and charge more than ราดข้าว too

wondered why the 'paying only for company and the sex was free' didn't stood up in prostitution bust before

I used to think that even on the worst days of traffic jams on the motorway near the airport (which Ekamai bus are not subject to) can't be worse than the 3+ hours on the train.

But the weekend airconditioned service seem to speed through Chachoensao and Chonburi and actual time from Bangkok (if you board somewhere like Petburi Rd  or Makkasan to Pattaya is less than 2 and a half hours for 170 Baht

The weekend service uses higher speed and skips through a lot of station, the weekday service leaving about the same time in the morning from Bangkok would arrive at Pattaya around 10/11 whereas the weekend service arrives in Pattaya around 9

If it could be run regularly, maybe three times a day it could make a dent against Rueng Reung coach for sure

สุวรรณ is gold not สวรรค์

ภูมิ is land 

ภูมิประเทศ geography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suvarnabhumi

2 hours ago, tgeezer said:

Are you afraid of sounding pedantic digbeth? If the seller thought one pedantic then they wouldn’t be confused would they? My feeling is that we are too ‘nice’ with our language, sellers are listening to the number and probably could care less what classifier is used. 

ordering (what you considered) a 'set' when the sellers don't usually expect it could cause confusion, like what does the farang buyer means by a ชุด

กับข้าว is normally the meat/veg dish you have with rice

but one exception is รถกับข้าว which is a 'food truck' but only carries raw ingredients that roam around village saying กับข้าว กับข้าว repeated over their loudspeaker 

at ร้านอาหารตามสั่ง you can choose between เป็นกับ or ราดข้าว where they put the dish on top of the rice for you, for takeaways they normally separate the rice anyway.

ใส่ถุง or ใส่กล่อง will be understood

หนึ่ง ชุด for set is only appropriate for complicated dish where there's vegetable and soups on the side, using ชุด with something simple like ข้าวผัด which although might come with small sides of 3 slices of cucumber, sachets of chili/sugar/vingar and fish sauce, you could considered it a 'set' but saying ชุด is pedantic and confusing to the sellers who would not be used to hearing ชุด applied this way

There are many 'silent' letters in English that reflects the origin of the words too

P sounds from Greek that don't get pronounced:

Psychology Pneumonia 

Knight from German

Even Japanese like Tsunami where the T is not pronounced

A learner of English would have difficult time remembering all these exceptions

Technically, pronouncing the mi at the end of Suvannabhumi is closer to the original Sanskrit than the way Thais pronounce it, but it does the difference between the way foreigner and local pronounce the word form barrier to communication? to taxi driver? even Bangkok and Krungthep is totally different word yet we got by just fine

The way things are written in Thai using letters that used to have different sounds like ฆ/ค  ฑ/ธ/ท also preserves the origin of the word as well.

Going by more recent loanwords from English for example, the word 'slice' and 'slide' when pronounced by typical thai as สะ ไล้  hence the transliteration include the 'silenced' letters of สไลซ์ and สไลด์.... to a Thai without knowledge of English, the silenced letters at the end can be considered superfluous and might view people who pronounce and distinguish the difference between two words as being pedantic/pretentious the way we view people who pronounce 'Suvannabhumi' to the full

how exactly does Thailand's visa requirement discourage 'genuine' western tourist 

20 hours ago, bluesofa said:

 

 

I'm sure it's a quite contentious issue, when a word ends up in English not necessarily easy for native English speakers to read. I have a friend who always sounds the superfluous "i" in Suvarnabhumi, and can't understand why it's there if it's not supposed to be read.

 

I have indian friends who upon seeing 'Suvananbhumi' understood the sanskrit root and understood the meaning immediately, whereas had it been written the way Thais spoke it as 'Suvannapoom' they wouldn't have otherwise understood the meaning

curious to what happened to the old vignette? was it peeled of or just stuck over with text 'labelled inoperative' 

and would this cause problems in some ports were the IO to find two similarly dated visa on the same passport

it's หมวกกันน๊อก/น๊อค as in knock your head on the ground

On 7/5/2561 at 11:06 AM, grin said:

I have an APEC card that allows me to go through priority lanes in APEC countries. In Thailand I have been redirected to the Thai passport lanes and other lanes but no one has ever asked to see my APEC card when I have reached the counter. Now when I enter Thailand I just pick the shortest priority lane and go there. So far I have never had a problem.

But if you didn't give them your APEC card, do they still give you 90 days?

22 minutes ago, galt67 said:

Incorrect. It's 'Kantary Hotel' and original plans were TWO buildings to be built on the lot.

http://newpattaya.com/pattaya/kantary-pattaya/

 

Regarding VT6 pricing, 48sqm with a view and 'farang' name is around 5.5M (nicely furnished).

 

Paying 4.6M (farang name, 26sqm) for this 'new' development seems to have a VERY poor ROI.

 

Example: If NETTING 15k/month ROR is 3.9%. To me, that is a POOR real estate investment with little expectation of cap gains.

If you clicked my previous link it shows that Kasemkij company owns the brand of both 'Cape' and 'Kantary' hotels, I think one is more tourist-oriented and other more medium term rental to working expats, I don't think they'll sell the units to the public as they only operate as a hotel so it shouldn't affect the buying market that much, but will definitely affect rental in the area.

But their brand is only big with Japanese working expats, I see a lot of Japanese wives in Central, currently they're all over Pattaya in smaller serviced apartments in pockets, I don't see the market moving more Japanese in Pattaya, maybe that's why the project is on hold?

it does make for some nice pun though....

what creatrure precedes the ไดโนเสาร์?

ไดโนอาทิตย์

could be an attempt at 'cute' misspelling of แหม

or 

a sound for wet dropping/ puddle 

https://dictionary.sanook.com/search/dict-th-th-royal-institute/แหมะ

21 hours ago, bkk6060 said:

If it was refurbished VT is very nice.

But, isn't that lot south still on board for a major project?

That lot  is supposed to be Kasemkij Hotel which is a Thai chain hotels/serviced apartment popular with Japanese corporate type, plenty in SriRacha, Rayong and near most industrial estates and these group do have some high end hotels in Phuket too, but it looks like they're not in a hurry to build on that lot yet

perhaps 'lobes' can be used to describe พู for durians