Carmine6

I've cashed US $500 cheques and Bangkok Bank had said they would cash US $1,000 cheques.

Just email and ask what denomination they would go up to for sterling.

This has been typical practice in the US for years. Best deal on the phone price is for new contracts. They eventually have gone to an upgrade discount once a contract is up, but it's still not usually as low as on a new contract.

At least in the US there is number portability where you can take the phone number to a new carrier. But all the carriers charge $1 or $2 fees to compensate for this.

It has NOTHING to do with companies. When title to land is sold or transferred taxes and fees must be paid.

The rate at which they are paid however was TEMPORALLY reduced in a promotion which ends March 28th this year, at which points rates go back to their NORMAL levels.

It has NOTHING to do with your nationality it applies to ALL transactions.

I think what's hanging people up is the article only talks about limited companies. Which gives the mistaken impression that only limited companies are facing the fees.

What it should have said is that fees on any transfer are going up, regardless of the form of ownership, whether individual, partnership, or company.

I may be wrong, but I think an exit row would be out of the question. Someone with an imobilized knee wouldn't meet the requirements.

But that's the US standard, it may vary elsewhere.

To change money at the airport at the airport or outside the airport? With cash it's simple - change the minimum at the airport and change the rest outside (pretty much anywhere - rates vary by +/- 10 satang). At the airport you're getting 1b per US$ less than outside. With travellers' cheques it could be different. Someone above commented that rates on cheques are generally better - but I wouldn't be surprised if they're still hitting you for the biggest part of 1b/$ at the airport compared to elsewhere. The advice about not bringing small denomination travellers' cheques to Thailand is good so keeping some smallish denomination foreign currency for changing at the airport seems good advice. The losses are nothing compared to the costs of making your way to a particular establishment in downtown Bangkok - whether you're sleeping in Bangkok or not - all places outside the airport offer much the same rates.

Most banks do generally offer about the same rate outside the airport. But there can be a significant differential for places like Super Rich. I've never used others like gold shops that other people have recommended, but apparently they beat significantly as well.

Right now Super Rich shows 33.02 for US $100 versus 32.57 at SCB and 32.67 at Bangkok Bank. For larger amounts, there's enough difference to make the trip if people are in the area. Adding a special overnight stay or taking a long taxi ride don't make sense, but it's right off the Skytrain. Another plus with Super Rich, is they seem more familiar with currency so seem less likely to reject bills. I think they have some counterfeit detection stuff in the back room.

For someone holding US $20 bills, the differential is even higher. 32.87 for Super Rich vs. 32.13 at SCB and 32.20 at Bangkok Bank. Note the 32.87 rate is higher than for US $100 at the banks.

http://www.superrich1965.com/app/our_rates.aspx

Don't you just love these increases whenever farang are concerned?

Not 10% or even a hefty 50% as might be expected, maybe?

But 650%.....!!!!!

(yes, yes, it's "because it was lowered 2 years ago")

Exactly, deadbloke, not exactly a subtle increase, eh? We all got bent over and they didn't even kiss us first!

All this after the tourism authority said they will start "appealing to the QUALITY and not QUANTITY of tourists."

This will not work qualitatively OR quantitatively. Not smart.

Oh, the poor land buying tourists. Next year they'll be steered to another country to buy land.

"Honey, should we go to Thailand for our holiday?"

"No f'in way. Have you seen the land transfer taxes there?"

I'd add some thick string.

For those items you wash or rinse by hand, it's often hard to find a place to hang them. Bathrooms don't usually have enough air circulation to dry clothes and most balcony areas are too dusty to put things down unless there are chairs there. Hang stuff up and it will often dry in hours.

People who buy a ticket from an agent or at an airline office will generally not be asked to show the CC at check-in. The agent or airline office is responsible for verifying the credit card user. But some may ask out of habit.

When booking online or over the phone, people might be asked to produce it. What they're doing is just verifying the credit card for a large purchase. But like many things, there's some discretion on the part of the airline employee, at the risk of disciplinary action if they don't follow procedures. If they don't ask, they're simply playing the odds that it's not a fraudulent transaction.

My wife and I did the 9 temples in a day thing a few years ago in Bangkok. There was a certain pattern that needed to be followed, so even if temple number 2 was across the street from number 4, we still had to go out of our way to temple number 3 first. I do not understand the method behind this, but we had a lot of fun . We started at 7:00am and completed our journey at 3:30 PM.

Wow, I'm glad I got the condensed version.

How does this work? Do you show up, sign up with a local guide/van and they do the tour? Or is it some map thing and you're on your own?

The rates at the airport are a little bit worse. I think it's less than 1 baht/dollar worse but it's enough of a difference that you don't want to change large amounts. Best to just exchange what it'll take until you're able to visit an exchange place or bank.

Super Rich does not exchange traveler's cheques so that's not an option anyway. They only do cash.

There is a per cheque fee (used to be 30 baht) so you're better off with large denomination travelers cheques like $500 versus $50. $100 traveler's cheques tend to come out about the same as $100 bills. The fee roughly negates the slightly higher rate they give for traveler's cheques.

Before you fly, check the banks like SCB and see how much different it is when you land. Then you can decide if you're losing a lot.

http://www.scb.co.th/html/exchange/bk-txtexchange.htm

I'm not that tall and honestly if the average hotel railing in Pattaya were raised 6 inches, I think lots of these suicides would disappear. Most railings I've encountered hit me above center of mass, but close enough that I could easily lean over and go. Or with momentum go over. For anyone taller or top heavy, going over the rail accidentally would be easy.

Go out on the balcony while drunk, misjudge the rail, and with no signs of foul play, it's a suicide. Even if someone really is suicidal, I think the extra effort required to go over a higher rail might be enough to make a few think twice.

This building's rails look higher than most though. About belly button height on the Thais in the picture. The bad thing in this case is if you're ever on the 6th floor of the Ocean Wing of the Ambassador, you have to wonder if that was the balcony.

I don't know for sure, but 9 temples in Ayutthaya might not be 9 operating temples with 9 entrance fees. I would think it would include some of the old temple ruins in or around the old city which didn't have the restrictions of an operating temple. Or at least no one told me they did and I was there with 3 former tourist information center employees. I wore shorts and the only restriction I remember was you weren't supposed to take a picture with your head in place of the Buddha's head where the statue's heads were cut off (for the underground relic trade).

For one entrance fee, I remember covering a lot of different buildings. Where you see walls around wats in most places, I recall a couple wats that had no walls and you just walked right up. Looking back, I have shorts, but I find some pictures that were clearly inside of temples and I recall being in one in particular. So I guess I went in with shorts (but in an a nice button up business casual shirt). I actually think this is less of an issue in less touristy areas, but perhaps I'm just offending everyone so don't go by my example.

I recall the entire day being really inexpensive, which would be consistent with Ayutthaya69's statement. At one point we needed to cross the river and took a 2 or 3 baht boat ride across. Maybe it was the cheap way in versus the tourist way in. I'm not sure.

I just googled "Bangkok Airport Express" where the fare stated on the website is still 150 baht. But, have 50 baht ready, they may like to play the "no change" game with foreigners. The frequency isn't stated, though I seem to remember seeing somewhere that it is every 30 min. You can catch it at any bus stop on the north side of Silom Road. If you are unaware of what it looks like, take a look at their website. Running time to the airport can of course vary with traffic conditions; I would estimate 60 to 90 minutes. After going north on Rachadamri and east on Petchburi, it then goes south and up on to the Stage I expressway, not coming down until it gets to Bang Na. You don't need to worry about crawling all the way to the airport in city traffic.

You mean this one right? Have you actually taken them back to the airport and do you just stand out at and wave them down?

I have taken them from the airport before and was trying to take them back recently, but couldn't figure out how to to do it. From their actual website which I can't find now, I tried calling their numbers and one rang for a while, but then 20 minutes gave the disconnected signal. A cell number just rang with no answer.

http://www.bangkokairportonline.com/node/55

http://newthaiairport.com/airport-bus-express.html

Thanks ever so much ralfbkk, richm7 & KhunDave!

Learned alot from this - has to be a direct flight as I don't want to wake a sleeping baby up to sit around in transit...good point!

I will be coming back before November the 15th (a couple of days before I suspect).

As for prices I will just have to keep monitoring and hopefully strike at the right time. I think i might well make it sooner as I don't mind paying around the 500 pound mark.

Finnair sounds good, are the direct from London?

Has anyone tried Eva air with a baby? They do a direct flight.

I don't have a baby so can only comment 2nd hand. Plus I don't know how big a 7 month old is so perhaps this doesn't apply.

EVA seems to put parents of babies right behind the bulkhead. Then after takeoff they pull out a baby bassinet (basket?) that sticks to the bulkhead right in front of the parent's seats. So the parents seem to be relatively unencumbered during the flight. I've sat nearby several times and can not remember a baby making a lot of noise. They seem to do very well laying in the basket.

I fly Los Angeles to Taipei and Bangkok so the aircraft may be different, as well as other things like length of the flight and number of kids needing a bassinet.

Can't help you with obtaining an actual Kindle, but there is now a free PC kindle app. If you had a tablet PC or something like that you could transport it around. Battery life would be of course not as good as a kindle.

One good thing is if you have it on different PCs, it'll download the same content. Also onto the mobile phone apps.

I'll look for the link, but for some reason I always have to search for the download at the Amazon site.

Edit: Interesting, Google gets there faster than trying to find the exact search at the Amazon website.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/kindle/pc

In Hong Kong (and I guess Singapore) a cash card can be used for mass transit, fast food, 7-11, etc. Rather than having to buy a subway ticket, you just walk up to the gate, scan the card and walk through. Then do the same upon exit and it deducts the fare based on how far the trip was. On the bus, you hold it to the scanner and it takes the fare out. No need for a specific transit card, it works on them all.

In 7-11, restaurants, or for movies, they total it up and you scan the card.

If the one in Thailand expanded to mass transit, chain restaurants, and food court cards it would be a great convenience. Unless someone eats KFC 3 times a day, 500 or 1,000 baht would last a long time before needing to recharge.

http://www.octopus.com.hk/get-your-octopus...t/en/index.html

animatic, good to read your posts.

What's happening to tiger is a pretty accurate reflection of the society he's brought up in. On the one hand you have movies marketing and most of the culture in america selling, and being obsessed by, sex, while on the other hand you have these pseudo-religious sorts displaying their rank hypocrisy and anti-human values. How often have we seen these apparently puritanical 'people' being exposed for their own sexual pecadillos?

And what about all the politicians and senators who are in all sorts of beds apart from their marital one?

The part of american society that demands tiger apologises (what the bloody hel_l for?!), be contrite, beg for forgiveness, is sick. It's all about image, and nothing about nature, free-will, being human and fallible. Those conservative people can be as conservative as they want, but why do they insist, absolutely, on everybody else living the same sorry pathetic miserable lives that they choose to?

I wish tiger had just said nothing, and left these puritanical sorts frothing at the mouth, dribbling their hatred for humanity into their own empty vessels. They got their pound of flesh, i wonder if they will now let him be.

People in society who spend their lives judging and moralising on others never see that their humanity is so much less than their targets.

I think this bears zero resemblance to what has happened. The people wanting him to apologize are those who are financially tied to him. There's not a pack of bible thumpers picketing his house. (Well actually the porn star mistress and her lawyer had a press conference right after asking him to apologize specifically to her. She isn't financially tied to him, but clearly wants to be.)

Many others are more accurately disappointed that his behavior fell far short of his well crafted image. (An image that is going to make him the first billionaire athlete.) Not for puritanical reasons, but for the deception. People don't like being deceived. Plenty of athletes and stars have a reputation of being hounds, and they're not being called to apologize by some miserable judgmental conservatives and neither is Tiger. Magic Johnson caught HIV while cheating on his wife, and that was a non-event because he made hardly any money from sponsorships. Rather, Tiger's sponsors just won't get the same return if his reputation keeps declining.

Note that the image reliant sponsors have been more willing to abandon him, while the golfing oriented ones haven't. Accenture (business consulting), AT&T. and Buick dropped him, Gilette and Tag Heuer scaled back their advertising with his image. Nike and Electronic Arts on the other hand have supported him. That's a lot of future income that just vaporized and only some restoration of his image brings back new lucrative sponsorships.

Tiger's advisors know that apologies go a long way in America. Fail to apologize for letting people down, and you end up like Pete Rose who waited way too long to acknowledge he bet on baseball. Had he apologized years ago, he'd have been largely forgiven, and might have a shot at the Hall of Fame. Few care that he bet on baseball, but he turned himself into a footnote by not apologizing to those he let down. He didn't even apologize when he admitted to gambling. Several of the baseball steroids guys are going to end up like Pete.

Come out and apologize, and pretty soon very few care. Kobe Bryant, Hugh Grant, Mel Gibson. They hit speed bumps, apologized, and came out just fine. Even Micheal Vick who went to jail for some horrendous dog fighting and torturing has fared surprisingly well, after one of the least believable apologies I've seen.

EVA's Taipei to Thailand leg is usually a lot emptier than LAX to TPE, so it should help fill the Thailand flights.

In the aftermath of this, I made other arrangements so that I never carry my wallet in any of my pants pockets anymore... I had a friend who showed me he had pants with zippered pockets... But I don't have any of those in my wardrobe, and don't plan to go looking for them. But so-called cargo pocket pants with button down pocket covers probably would be better than just open pockets, where I was carrying my wallet before.

..

One thing I do when traveling is carry a fat wallet filled with fake credit cards that come with credit card offers. If I rode mass transit at home, I'd do it here too. It gives a target for someone to go after. Otherwise they'll be looking for where the money and cards are.

I've never had it lifted, but someone almost got my pack of tissues once. I swung my arm back in time to catch someone going into that pocket. It was one of those fat tissue packs so must have seemed significant.

This is an awareness problem on the OP's part. Check in with the 2nd person and there are no fee or id card issues. Not that you won't be sometimes confronted upon returning at night, but if the person is registered, you're on your way. From the hotel's point of view, having an unknown person roaming the halls at night is not a good thing.

Also, I don't see mention of the 1,000 baht being claimed as a photocopy fee in the OP. It was clearly a joiner fee without any disguise as the discussion with the gf indicated. Many of the resorts in Pattaya charge pretty high joiner fees, which I think are designed to discourage that activity. But again, this doesn't come into play if the second person is registered.

On my last trip, after having had some newly made friends stay over (and needing to leave ids), my ex-gf stayed the last 3 nights. I simply went to the front desk, said my ex was going to stay with me and they just added her name to the room. She just showed her id when she arrived with her bag. After that, no one asked for id in spite of my ex dressing a little trashy.

I got my 12-call sim in April 2009, didn't get the year thing done, can't remember exactly when it said it was valid until when I left in May, It still worked in September and when I topped it up it said 'valid until xx/11/09' so I was thinking I'd need a new one in January but it still worked.

Going off my UK pay as you go sim, I believe that the date is referring to the top up credit rather than the actual sim card itself.

With AIS, there's a grace period after the credit expiration where you can revive the sim. It tends to get longer the more credit you've put though it. I think my last, hardly used sim was live for 45 days or 60 days after the credit expired.

This call by Faber wasn't intended to be a timing call, but it happened to have been a good time to go short. The big question is does the sell off continue as Faber was thinking?

I think people have been referring to the use of debt to invest in houses and businesses in China The government surplus doesn't prevent individuals from overpaying or levering too much. I don't have an opinion, but that's my understanding of what some besides Marc Faber have been saying.

I don't think so since the government has been tightening the rules for buying a first home in the past few months and even more strict in the past few weeks.

Mortgages always had to have a down payment already of at least, between 15-20% if not higher depending on the income.

People, willing to buy a second home have to make a down payment of at least 40% which caused a sharp fall in sales.

There are also very strict measures preventing buying-for-profit sales.

The latter rules didn't stop previous speculators of course, meaning there are real estate bubbles of course, depending which cities and provinces; some more than others.

Another -important- step, last week, by the government was that the Central Bank raised the deposit reserve requirement ratio for Banks by 0.5 percentage points, making it more difficult to lend out money for investments and mortgages.

They're also cracking down on present speculators in the realty sector now.

All in all they're on top of it, trying to prevent overheating.

editing:

China Banks Told to Halt Loans in Rest of Month, Securities Says

By Bloomberg News

Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Major Chinese commercial banks received verbal orders from authorities to halt new lending in the remainder of January, the China Securities Journal reported today, citing unidentified people in Beijing and Shanghai.

New bank lending in January may have already exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($146 billion) to date, the Beijing-based newspaper reported, citing unidentified banking industry analysts.

An unidentified Bank of China Ltd. official said the lender’s branch managers told sub-branches on Jan. 17 that they should in principle halt new lending, the newspaper reported.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=as5McNhYelxM

LaoPo

That's the thing. They're not trying to slow things down because someone just felt like it, they're worried about something.

What else is Faber talking about if not the area the Chinese are trying to trip up? Unless someone can drive by his house and ask, we'll just have to speculate.

Dr. Marc Faber:

China could also see an end to their bubble from too much debt,....

what does too much debt in the case of china mean?

one of our sister companies currently has a 5 yrs long term debt of 5mil usd.... it that too much debt?

it sure seems to be a huge burden of debt for some, for sure....

but for a company whose fixed assets exceed 50mil usd.... the huge debt of 5mil represents only a 10% medium term liability....

just curious about china's too much debt stuff.... LOL

That's a sentence which puzzled me also.

China's reserves grew to a staggering $ 2.399 Trillion so not much debt there.

LaoPo

I think people have been referring to the use of debt to invest in houses and businesses in China The government surplus doesn't prevent individuals from overpaying or levering too much. I don't have an opinion, but that's my understanding of what some besides Marc Faber have been saying.

Last March, Marc Faber forecast the US market turning just a few days before it happened. He was on CNBC and said something like we'll see the bottom of the market in the next few days or by Thursday. Something like that. I'd never seen him make a timing call like that so it caught my attention.

I'm pretty sure he said it would be a generational low, which is almost 50% south of here, so could be painful even if we never got that low again. But he might also have said low for the year. Low for the year was definitely right. Generational low, I hope is right.

His long term view on Treasuries is almost guaranteed to be right, barring miracles. The 2009 US Government deficit was more than the prior 5 years combined (2004 through 2008, inclusive). 2010 is going to be lower at only 4 years worth (2005 through 2008 inclusive), but not for lack of trying as US Government spending will still be 20% higher than 2008, increasing thereafter. The rough numbers are about $3.7 trillion in spending and $2.5 trillion in tax receipts, maybe $2.8 if you believe tax rate increases increase tax receipts. With $1 trillion deficits and the US GDP around $14 to $15 trillion, how long will buyers keep showing up for 4.6% 30 year T Bonds?

Thanks for all the tips, keep 'em coming especially the specific ones. Choosing and hitting the natural sites is the easy part I think, but being from Idaho, I'm not as competent navigating places like LA... but I really want her to enjoy that part of the trip. I hate clubs but she likes them, so I guess I should suck it up and experience a few before we get too old.

With regards to the Thai food, I'm just going to seek out Lao or Khmer restaurants if she has a hankering for something real. I too have seen comically bad Thai food... when we were in Canada she was served a plate of hot "som tam" mixed up with noodles served by Chinese people. I guess that's ok, but just don't call it 'Thai' food!

One other thing I'm going to try to do is get satellite wi-fi for my laptop for the trip- that should make things A LOT easier in terms of planning.

She doesn't have a driver's license- I wonder though what would actually happen if she got stopped.... so long as it's a minor traffic offense, couldn't she just hand the officer her Thai ID card and tell him it's a driver's license? A cop told me a Japanese guy did that once to him and he just assumed it was a license and let him go because of the hassle It would really balance the burden if she could drive some.

In LA, you have to go somewhere. It's not like say San Francisco where driving around the city can be interesting. But parking is so bad in SF, have a destination in mind there too. Not that there isn't stuff to see around LA, but you don't run into things while on the freeway, and you could just waste a lot of time if you don't have a destination in mind. And destination could be an area like Hollywood or Santa Monica. Lots of areas like those you can spend an afternoon walking around and then find a good restaurant in the evening.

There are good clubs in LA as you'd expect, but you might face some sticker shock. I've paid $8 to $10 for a domestic beer before, and that was 5 years ago. Save the clubbing for Vegas if you can and stick to restaurant/bars in LA.

Universal Studios is a good suggestion. It's interesting the first couple times, then is boring, but that won't be a problem for you. Since it's near Hollywood and Thai Town, you could do 2 days or do all in a day. You can get tickets to be in the audience for tv show tapings. Or sometimes even be in the test audience for a movie. Both of those are interesting to do about once just for the experience, but be aware they're more time consuming than you'd think.

Thai Town is nothing more than a cluster of restaurants and stores just to the east of Hollywood. Worth a trip for the food if you're already in Hollywood, but seriously, just when you realize you've reached it, you've driven through it. It's not an area when you can walk around and browse shops like Chinatown.

Here's a website that has a map. It's really that small stretch on Hollywood Boulevard. If you zoom out or pan left on that map, about 4 big blocks (yellow roads) over you can see the Hollywood and Vine intersection on the map. Zoom farther out and up to the north is Griffith Park that someone else mentioned, west of that is Universal City where Universal Studios is.

http://gridskipper.com/62407/las-thai-town-restaurants

Some other guides on LA since you'll have to decide what you like:

http://losangeles.citysearch.com/guide/los-angeles-ca

http://theguide.latimes.com/

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/los-angeles