SamuiRes

will be doing so next time they are issuing, but its not about me or the excess baggage i had, just about the potential for yet another scam going on

I think the rules have changed and you can apply at any time now.

If you are travelling that frequently surely you should get a Residents Card and get the extra baggage allowance?

Do you want me to link it to Real estate forum?

If you think that would help as I know rates are nation wide, but I put it in this forum as it occured on Samui.

Just had my electric bill for July.

The fuel surcharge for Jan to Mar was 0.8688

April as 0.6258

May & June 0.9581

July is a negative -0.0600

I am not aware of any significant change in fuel prices - or have I missed something?

Anyone know why this change?

i awlays used the main dealers, at least they are trained by manufacture's and about same price, guess it depends on age of the car. Steve would be a good one also if he still does cars. he kept Big Joes truck, old banger looking like new. Meeting up with Big Joes brother in couple of weeks trip back home, live nearby looking forwards to that.

Main Dealers are a laugh a minute:

1) Wanted a new "leaf catcher" for the front of the pick up. Baht 1,700 and took Baht 1,000 deposit. One month later gave me the deposit back because they were no longer available. Local garage took two days to get one, fitted for Baht 1,800.

2) Went to Main Dealer to have the headlights "professionally' adjusted. This involved parking the car behind another car and aligning the lights on that.

3) Anyone who has bought a new car from the Main Dealer close to the Taling Ngam turn will be well aware of the "Red Plate" scam they are pulling.

As with the hospitals here, only as good as the doctor you get - garages only as good as the mechanic.

Samui, did you have a local anaesthetic? If so, what did you feel when they operated? You said no pain but were you feeling something around the eye? Wasn't it disturbing to know they were cutting part of your eye? Asking because I'm concerned about freaking out on a local anaesthetic even if there is no pain. I assume Rutnin will also do full anaesthetic I imagine for additional cost. I wonder how they determine who needs the full.

Yes it was a local anaesthetic. They inject at the side of the eye - just a pin prick, a lot less than you get when you go to the dentist. That numbs the immediate area so that the main injection is totally painless. What you do feel is a tightening of the muscles around the eye but that is all. After that you feel nothing. When they did the first eye I could see nothing except a bright light which appeared to be moving, but I realised after the second op that this was just the operating light and the apparent movement was created by the movement of the surgeons equipment. When they did the second eye, for some reason I could see more and could make out the shape of the surgeon on my right and the nurse on my left.

If you really are worried, just think this. It will all be over in 15 minutes and that 15 minutes flies by.

I do not know if they do general anaesthetic - most hospitals these days avoid this if possible due to the added risks and recovery period. I walked out of the hospital within an hour of the op. You would not be able to do that with a general.

Really - do not be scared of this operation. I would rather go through this again than go to the dentist!

I have just had cataract surgery on boths eyes at Rutnin Eye Hospital on Asoke in Bangkok.

http://www.rutnin.com/eng/

Each eye was 55,000 Baht with a monocular lens - that is one that only corrects long distance vision and I need glasses to read. The more expensive lenses I suspect are the more advanced ones that also allow you to read without glasses. They would not fit those for me as they consider it dangerous if you drive at night. Ancillary costs were around 5,000 Baht for the pre-op testing. A basic examination there costs about 1,000 Baht which is very good value.

They do require a medical certificate from your own doctor to say that you are fit to undertake the operation and this includes various blood tests, EKG and chest x-ray. That was another 5,000 Baht from my local hospital.

They would not do both eyes together so I had the left (worst eye) done on 22 June and the right eye on 28 June.

Totally out patient procedure. Arrived 06.30 for a series of eye drops. Went to the pre-op room about 08.30 and into the theatre about 08.45 and was out by 09.00. Very quick and no pain. Same procedure for second eye a week later. Some post op irritation as you would expect and taking time to adjust to the light in the mornings. Have a complicated series of eye drops, two different drops for each eye on two different time schedules due to the gap between the ops - but manageable. Have to sleep with plastic cups over the eyes for a couple of weeks to keep pressure of the eye and keep the eye away from the pillow.

Difference is amazing and so worthwhile.

This surgery will not correct astigmatism so once the eyes have settled down in a couple of months they will give me a prescription for glasses so that will be corrected too.

Some good info on cataract surgery here - http://www.cataractcare.co.uk/index.php

also many You Tube videos showing the actual op and how quick and easy it is.

Rutnin has an excellent reputation and is used by the Royal Family.

During the Koh Samui Music Festival in 2005 every single performer and member of the production team had work permits, even if they were only here for two or three days. That was over two hundred people. It was a simple process agreed with the Labour Department where they were given certain specific information and passport copies of each person. The only strange part of it was that the accompanying photos had a requirement that they had to be wearing a jacket, shirt and tie - including the women. It is really a matter of knowing and complying with the law. How that applies to a tourist jamming is though something the authorities do need to sort out without a doubt.

Knew Steve all my ten years on the island. Generous in the extreme.

What great nights we had at The "Rugby" Pub.

Will be sadly missed. Thoughts with Lek.

PEA Rates can be found here

http://www.pea.or.th/th/eng/page.php?name=Residential

But if you own a property through a Thai Company you may be charged on the following rate

http://www.pea.or.th/th/eng/page.php?name=SmallGeneralService

our office had a really strange day. power was on and off repeatedly throughout the day, then off from 9pm until 1am.

no problems at home or anywhere else. bang rak has been really weird lately.

Yes it was one of the typical transformer problems - they overload and can reset themselves three times. The third time the lights go out you can reckon on one hour for the PEA to come and investigate and reset manually. That seemed to happen last night and the lights came on for about ten seconds after an hour but then went off for another two hours coming back on at 01.00 so the problem must not have been easily solved.

Listen to Air Traffic Control during the incident here

http://vgportal.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3523208/Plane-stupid-collision.html

i would imagine that the fallen rock will have to be removed with the use of dynamite. However, i would strongly suggest the authorities seek foreign help in this procedure, otherwise i can see the entire geography of Lamai be altered.

They appear to be drilling and then using small charges to split the rock rather than massive blasts. One of my clients informed me that they had brought in a small local team who are experienced in this kind of operation and had worked for her before.

Just driven through and they are starting to make progress on removing this. Still queues of traffic both ways.

PS. Note the Blue Sky - not seen that in a while!

You don't have to deal with crappy specialized drivers on your system which may or may not work - on Windows these drivers are usually bad. On Mac OS X, they're even worse.

I have used CAT CDMA on Samui, and while it was significantly slower than back home in the north (Chiang Mai, Pai), it did work. In one location in Samui I had a low signal and it was sort of hit and miss - it would sometimes slow down to GPRS EDGE speeds. Other times it would pull 700Kbps - not super fast, but usable. In Chiang Mai / Pai it used to get 1.5Mbps easily. However, these days it's slower up there too, I am not sure why. Either they slowed it down even more, or there's now many more people using it.

You might check into True 3G on Samui - somebody else told me that True had to turn it off, but you never know... I wasn't expecting it to work in Hua Hin, but it does. Then there's TOT and its MVNOs - check any IT place in Samui they should know whether or what is available.

"You don't have to deal with crappy specialized drivers on your system which may or may not work - on Windows these drivers are usually bad. On Mac OS X, they're even worse." Strange I found on Mac it is / was plug and play, no problem at all...

Initially on W7 Ultimate, there was a problem, since the Canadian manufacturer had not updated the drivers ... when W7 released. But no problem now. Any one who visits me and uses my dongle can plug and connect.... within seconds..... on Mac or Net Book

True 3 g not yet available on the islands, last I checked...

Neighbours who use TOT, is nothing but complaints about line signal being down.... happens most days....

Location is going to have a baring on signal strength, as I stated earlier. In the two years I had my dongle, there has been rarely no signal.... I'd say 99.9 % good... The CAT guys will tell you if signal good in a particular area.

Actually they won't. When I bought mine I told them exactly where I live and they did not say a word. Of course when I got it home - useless. I could connect one time in five and then the connection was so bad in the month I had it I managed to connect to a web page twice and my emails once. When I took it back and cancelled they just smiled but I had spent 3500 for nothing. Just had 3BB installed - no installation charge, cheaper and a million times better.

FYI signal near the Wat in Plai Laem appalling.

I have a CAT CDMA VW140. I cancelled it after one month as it simply did not work well where I live - ok in other areas but not in Plai Laem. Just had a 3BB land line put in for a lot less money and that is cheaper by far and works perfectly.

If anyone wants a CAT CDMA card, PM me.

One more thought.

I just flew in from Bangkok yesterday, in the lounge I ask many travelers to Samui (tourists)

none knew the cost of the flight to Samui, it is in the cost of the ticket.

I can not see how the cost influences tourists numbers to Samui!

This is an email I received from a Client recently on this subject - so yes it does have an effect on tourism

"November of last year during a softball tournament in BKK we decided to take a week and visit Samui or Phuket. Most of us chose Samui.[22 of us] However ,after checking flights we went to Phuket for 11 days.The reason,the flights were less than half the cost of going to Samui.I know 22 people for 11 days is not an economic boom but an indication of what flight cost can do. It has been reported that traffic at Phuket airport increased 35% last year."

Thai machine can add up but apparently you can't read thai

It is written at the bottom that due to the recent floods, you get 100THB discount on your bill.

You are quite right - I cannot read Thai.

Thank you for correcting me.

Have you checked your bill recently?

Seems as if the machines they use are dodgy - but at the moment in our favour - until they find out and come back for the money. I have seen this on every bill that has passed through out office for the last two months.

As an example:

Units: 259

Net 614.42

Surcharge 225.02

Total 839.44 but the bill shows 739.44

VAT 51.76 calculated on 739.44

Total on bill Baht 791.20 - but should be 898.20

Even the Thai machines cannot add up!

I wonder how long before they catch on and come back for the balance!

Wherever you buy them make sure they are treated against insect infestation. We bought some once and within a month they were being eaten by woodworm (or the local equivalent!)

For the last six months I have driven almost daily between Chaweng and Thong Krut and only occassionaly seen an accident.

In the last ten days I have seen 7 - 2 yesterday alone. 6 of these were in and around Lamai. All involved bikes. 4 were walking wounded but three were clearly more serious. Both foreigners and Thais involved.

There does seem to be far more traffic about during the day and a lot of frustrated drivers overtaking in dangerous situations.

As they say in Hill Street Blues - "Be careful out there!"

I know from experience that EMS service is (mostly) closed on Sundays sometimes whole weekends

I doubt it anyway if the package will be there Saturday when sent Friday from Bangkok...

You need at least two to three days.

DHL works, 24 hours ad day 24/7...

Do not under any circumstances use DHL. Koh Samui is not on their system despite having an agent here. Last package sent to us took 10 days from Hong Kong and bounced between the USA. Phuket and Bangkok before they put it in post.

I know I can buy Fire Extinguishers in a number of places but does anyone have experience of a reliable supplier who also does after sales service - i.e. annual check up and maintenance?

DHL are a nightmare. This is the last tracking route for goods sent to me from Hong Kong.

Hong Kong - Cincinatti - Hong Kong - Bangkok - Phuket - Bangkok - Hong Kong - Bangkok - Phuket - Bangkok and then they used EMS. Took two weeks. Complained to the Head Office (DHL is owned by Deutsche Bundespost) who could not give a s***.

About 4 years ago we had a small electrical fire at the office. QBE paid up with no problem. This year we lost the guttering in a storm and they paid 50%. Currently have a claim in for storm damage to the roof and water damage as a consequence.