Buki

If you have friends who were affected of the floods, an evacuation center for foreigners and Thais is open at soi 18 Sukhumvit 103 @ Bangna Commercial College, accessible by BTS train (Udomsuk Station). The center has a capacity of 200 people. With free wifi internet, beddings, mosquito nets, 24 hour security. For more information, please call 0819130117.

Will attach map and a video about the center. Many thanks.

1. I read online, that I need to go to Donsak Pier for the ferry to Nahtorn Pier on Samui. I am not sure, if I need to go to Surat Thani town to get a bus ticket to Donsak or I can get it at the airport?

Not 100% on this, as this is a bit of an odd route. Anyway, there are a lot of the busses from Surat Thani train station (outside in the car parking area) that go regularly to Samui. I would probably approach it this way. A ticket from BKK inclusive of ferry is about 700-800 baht, so this is a good measure of estimate for any other fares.

Ask at the airport. Thailand is amazingly good at transport. Ask for a ticket for Samui. You may only get a bus ride to Donsak ferry pier in which case you will need to buy your own ferry tickets on arrival - think its about 150 baht? cant remember :S If the fare is too much, get a songtaw to surat thani train station and get a bus from there. There are tour operators opposite the train station next to the cafes.

2. If I am on Nathorn Pier, what the cheapest way to Chaweng Beach?

Get a Songtaw. They all (should do anyway) display fare charts, which are per person. Nathon to Chaweng is about 80 baht i think ... If you just want to get there, get a Taxi, but expect to pay 300-500 baht even after haggling.

3. If everything works well on my way to Samui, will it work the same going back to Surat Thani Airport?

Nothing is for sure in Amazing Thailand, but that's all part of the charm As i pointed out before, travel is something Thailand does very well, so I wouldn't worry.

Thank you for your advices. I will start planning around them. thanks again.

Buki

from the airport you should be able to share a minibus to donsak which will take you to donsak pier.the cost of the ferry to nathon on samui is 150baht.once you arrive at nathon the same applies,share a minibus to chaweng same cost 150 baht.Hope you have a good time here.

Thank you for the quick reply. It's quite similar to Phuket, you get to share a minibus for 150 and they drop you off at your hotel.

When going home, from Chaweng to Nathorn, is there a minibus that is similar going to Chaweng?

Buki

Hello guys. I'm not sure if I am posting on the correct sub forum. But any help will do. My partner and I are spending 5 days in Samui next week. I have never been there and I have no clue on how to manage my way to the island. I did a lot of researching online and finding out on how to get to Koh Samui. But I am still not confident on all the information that i've gathered. Anyways, I will be flying to Surat Thani via 12go and land there around 14:20. This is where my problem starts.

1. I read online, that I need to go to Donsak Pier for the ferry to Nahtorn Pier on Samui. I am not sure, if I need to go to Surat Thani town to get a bus ticket to Donsak or I can get it at the airport?

2. If I am on Nathorn Pier, what the cheapest way to Chaweng Beach?

3. If everything works well on my way to Samui, will it work the same going back to Surat Thani Airport?

My apologies for being so clueless, I really don't have any idea what to do. I've read awful stories about tourist having been ripped-off or had a difficult time going to Samui. And as much as possible, I don't want to spend my holiday worried about all of these. I know that there are a lot of expats here in this forum that are living in the island, and I hope you can help me find my way safe and sound to Samui.

All your suggestions and advices are greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Buki

This was taken at Wat Pa Mok Temple at Arnthong Province.

Thanks for all your advices. They were very helpful. I decided not to buy a Nikon D80 but instead, I bought a Nikon D90. I read the reviews, the D90 sounds promising and without any hesitation, I bought one two days ago. I'm very happy with my purchase. It is an amazing camera. Since, I have invested so much money on this hobby, I think its about time to take it seriously and invest more time on learning how to use the camera, learning on how to take great shots, and learning on how to improve my post processing skills.

btw, I am glad that we have this forum to talk about these things, because beginners like me would be lost without the guidance of experienced photographers who know more a thing or two about photography. So, thank you everybody.

thanks for all your advices. The very reason that I have my dslr in the first place is because I wanted to pursue photography as a hobby(flickr: Nong Bee). I am still learning the ropes in photography. Though, I try not to be technical on how I shoot but I rely more on my instinct; to think whether it was a good shot or not. However, I sometimes feel that I don't have the best camera with me, so I want to sell it; or I would sometimes think I haven't really used the maximum functions of my camera, so I want to keep it for some time and work with it; thats the irony of things.

And looking at the nice photos taken by the D80 makes me want to buy one. But I also feel that I can really make use of what I have now. I recently bought a sigma lens (18-200mm 3.5-5.6 HSM OC) and its working fine with the camera. But there is a nagging thought of upgrading, and knowing that I might have difficult time learning again with a new and advanced camera. I placed some ads online, about selling my d60, and there are some decent response. So i am stuck.

hello guys. Can anybody give me any advice on something that I am thinking of doing. I was thinking of selling my Nikon D60 to upgrade to a D80. Is that a good idea? or it doesn't really matter if I upgrade. I bought a new lens a couple of weeks ago and it works perfectly fine with the D60. So what do you think is my best option. Keep it and continue working with a good lens or sell it and buy a better camera?

Buki

Thanks. I will try to experiment this weekend. I'm fairly new to photography, so this would be a real challenge for me.

I suggest you practice on creating panoramas and creating HDRs separately first.

Try creating HDRs of a single scene (not panoramas) first. A good subject to practice on is outdoors with sun and clouds. The dynamic range will usually be much too high for a normal photo, but with HDR you can see both the details in the clouds and the details on the ground.

You do shoot in RAW ?

cheers

nm

I don't, I usually use jpeg for my photos. I know that it's better to shoot in RAW but I still don't have the skill or the time to work with RAW on a good editing software.

btw, great photo. I do see your point on learning to do panoramic first.

this a very good thread. I've been trying to do HDR. But instead of having three photos of different exposures, I used the curves on one photo and made multiple copies. It didn't turn out well when I use them in Photomatix. Is that recommended? or do i need to go out and do the three photos? Any suggestion would help. Thanks.

Hi Buki,

The recommended method that gives best quality but takes most effort, is to shoot 3 or 5 exposures of each scene. I normally set my camera on the tripod, choose bracket +/-2 EV and trigger it with a remote control. Shooting panoramas then requires you to move the camera to the next position and shoot another 3 (or 5) exposures etc.

Using Photomatix and the Align photos function, I have successfully combined photos taken without tripod, using my camerabag for support.

If you have steady hands, it may be possible to handheld for the 3 shots and use Align. See attached (from Paris)

I do not recommend using the curves on the photo and use multiple copies.

Make sure you shoot in RAW, not JPG.

cheers

nm

Thanks. I will try to experiment this weekend. I'm fairly new to photography, so this would be a real challenge for me.

this a very good thread. I've been trying to do HDR. But instead of having three photos of different exposures, I used the curves on one photo and made multiple copies. It didn't turn out well when I use them in Photomatix. Is that recommended? or do i need to go out and do the three photos? Any suggestion would help. Thanks.

Does anybody have any flickr account that we can share photos with?

Buki

Hi Buki,

I have a public group called 'Terrific Thailand' so far there are 14 members showing various pictures of Thailand. Anyone on TV is welcome to join so we can share our pic's

Terrific Thailand link

Cheers, Rick

Thanks, just joined your group already.

Does anybody have any flickr account that we can share photos with?

Buki

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. It's mighty helpful. I'll try to look in those sites again for more references. Takecare y'all!

Heylo guys. I didn't know where to post this but I figured that this is more of a gay thing than a community forum thing. Anyways, I will be flying to Phuket next month for some R&R with the bf. It will be our first time there and we have no idea what to do and where to go. We did some researches but I figured that some of our regular posters are more knowledgeable about this than any websites. With that, I would greatly appreciate if anyone can give us some advices or suggestion for 4 day and 3 night affair. Thanks in advance.

love,

buki

good day. My Thai counterpart passed me one of her classes, which is to teach ESP to logistics management students. Does anybody here in the forum have any experience teaching this course? The school doesn't have existing curriculum and it seemed to be a bit complex course to teach since its very specific.

Suggestions, recommendations, or advices are greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

Hi, Buki. I'm sure ESP doesn't mean extra sensory perception, or English-Spanish-Polish. Is it EFL, ESL, or that specific English for Special Purposes? Are the students almost all native speakers of Thai, and not very fluent in English.

Logistics is a fancy word for "supply" and managers are the bosses of supply clerks and maybe truck drivers. Just guessing: how to read a shipping manifest? Words like inventory? Concepts such as 'just-in-time inventory'? Has your Thai counterpart not even taught this before, or taught it without notes? Are the students motivated?

Hi, its English for Specific Purposes. All the students are native Thai speakers and low beginners of the English language. This is the first year of this course and our Thai teachers haven't taught ESP for logisitcs before. I haven't met my students yet but I just wanted to prepare or design a curriculum to fit their needs. So I was thinking of teaching them 50 % of ESP and 50% of business English.

good day. My Thai counterpart passed me one of her classes, which is to teach ESP to logistics management students. Does anybody here in the forum have any experience teaching this course? The school doesn't have existing curriculum and it seemed to be a bit complex course to teach since its very specific.

Suggestions, recommendations, or advices are greatly appreciated. Thanks again.

i think for me, it all boils down to circumstances and choice.

y

I just came back from Manila. I liked the people, but this place is near to some kind of APOCALYPSE..... been to Jakarta for many times before, both places are dirty and the poverty is depressing, but still Jakarta is much much safer. Not to mention Bangkok....

The only good thing about Manila: I have never seen so many Pedestrian sidewalks anywhere in Asia (except Singapore), and not blocked by street vendors (so this means there was a lot of space for the street-kids to follow you hundreds of meters and beg in a sometimes very aggressive way)

the food is not that bad, but its rather hispanic than Asian....

and when I walked in that huge "KULTURA FILIPINO" - shop at the huge MALL OF ASIA, where they sell handicrafts and textiles and all that, there was a cultural performance going on and suddnely all the staff participated from one second to the other.... very nice to see, but I felt like I am in Mexico City or Guadalajara rather than in South-East-Asia.

Thats very easy to explain. The Philippines was a colony of Spain for more than 300 years. Thus explains the hispanic-like culture of the Filipinos. Its deeply rooted in their religion (same as here with Buddhism). I kinda miss Manila and Cebu.

*sighss.. massages with happy endings.

As a tourist did a little day trip up to Ayutthaya last summer (we're not adventure seekers, we just enjoy doing things off of our own back and going with the flow).

We just rocked up to the Hualamphong train station at about 8:15 and we were in Ayutthaya by 10:00.

Had a stroll down to the Pasak river and got a ferry across and then went for a little wander. Eventually got a bit lost and hailed down a Tuk Tuk driver who had his own guide book and between the three of us we came up with our own tour visitng most of the "best" sites. Think we settled on 300 baht an hour with him (probably a bit expensive but everyone was happy) and spent 4 hours visting the sites.

We're no experts but could only find the old temples as well as some still being used but the historical study centre was really good find, as was Wat Phu Khao Thong or "Temple of the Golden Mountain" a couple of clicks outside the centre of town.

The "park" areas in the middle of the island were really picturesque and great for a picnic or a stroll.

Really great day out and got the train back no problem, in fact the two train journeys were just as enjoyable as we had two Thai kids practicing their english on us and we practiced our Thai on them.

An alternative could be a trip either up or back by boat. We did look into this and their are many offering the trip but just decided to go on the trains for a laugh.

Seems that you really enjoyed your trip.

I'm off to Ayutthaya tomorrow. So goodluck to me.

From BKK get the train from Hua Lampong, nominal fare, not a long trip IIRC about an hour.

You can hire a tuktuk at the station they know all the places to see, not the ripoff mechants that they are in BKK, it's been a while since we went, sorry don't remember what we paid, I do remember it was cheap.

Thanks.

Are there other interesting sites to see in Ayuthaya aside from the ruins?

Hello everybody! I’ve been here for more than a year but never really had the chance to travel around the country. My partner and I have been wanting to go to Ayutthaya for the summer. But the idiot that I am, have no clue on how to go to Ayutthaya. I would really want to know where the best place to visit for only a day’s trip and what’s the fastest way to go there as well.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

try introdce your boyfriend to 3somes. it works for us.

Amen. It greatly helped in our relationship in the past. As of now, we stopped looking for a third wheel. We have moved on more important things in our lives. Like planning a future together; doing trips and visiting places, mutual investments, doing hobbies together and etc. That helped in sorting out problems, and sex became less important.

Communicating openly about your feelings will really help you put things in a new perspective for both of you. good luck.

hey guys, I have female mini duchshand. And a couple months from now, she will be in heat. Are there any male mini duchshand around to breed with?