cheshiremusicman

With all horrific stories one hear about San Paolo hospital I wonder why anyone would go there in the first place. The two local hospitals, Hua Hin Hospital and Pranburi Military hospital, are both good for minor cases but until Bangkok Hospital is up and running one should seriously consider going to directly Bangkok for treatment with more serious cases.

Does anybody have any further information as to when the new hospital here in HH is likely to be operational? Will they be recruiting staff from Bangkok or just lifting them from the others here in HH? Hope to goodness that they don't take staff from San Paolo; what with the track record there!

This is news to me and I am interested. What new hospital and where ? And when will it open ? Can anyone tell me please ? I know nothing about this.

You should find some info about this on another 'thread', but the jist of it is that a NEW hospital is under construction not far from Market Village and will reputedly be of the same standard as the Bumingrad in Bangkok. Great news all round for those of us who live in the HH & Cha-am areas.

Is this down by that new film school building site?

Yes, according to the name in the article, "new arts centre Vic Hua Hin", that should be the place. It is between Sois 114 and 116 on Phetkasem road headed south out of Hua Hin towards Pranburi for those who haven't noticed the place.

The 'Vic Hua-Hin' is clearly signed, and is on the right hand side of the road shortly after you leave the flyover going south from Hua-Hin.

Seems like a very valuable addition to the area. We look forward to going to some of the productions.

Was there last year with my wife, same as you had never been there for 16years but still found my way around ok. We stayed at The Largos Hotel one minutes walk from Jordan MTR all newly refurbished hotel even the carpets in the corridors were immaculate 2,000 baht per night approx.

Just across Nathan Roads Temple St great food from the cafe on the corner about 200 baht per dish and beer big bottle 90 baht, The Peaks an amazing place now with Madame Tussauds there but be prepared for a long wait for the tram not like before when you could just jump straight on for a couple of dollars.

The light show at the harbour starts 8.30 pm not to be missed, Wong Tai Sin Temple really nice place to visit right outside the MTR station and totally free.

Take the shuttle train into the city from the airport takes you into Kowloon Station and easy to get a taxi from there, it's nice not to have to fight to get the meter switched HK taxis won't take a set fee but they might charge you a couple of dollars for baggage.

I'm sure after 18 years away you'll still find all the familiar places Star Ferries still the best buy in the world although the terminal frontage on Hong Kong sides changed a lot, not as easy to find the bus station now.

Don't bother with the 'tram'; a waste of time, take the double decker bus and you'll see a lot more from the top deck. The light show is a must from Kowloon.

cost of electricity per unit is same anywhere in thailand - some 5baht. Just be sure, that landlord does not put a surcharge. Also look for properties with large, but secure windows, so you don't have to spend on aircon.

having the property right close to the beach will bring breeze most of the time

We live approximately 1km from the sea 10km south of Hua-Hin in a large modern villa with just under 1500 square metres of land. The villa comprises of 3 large double bedded en-suite rooms, kitchen, large lounge and dining area + separate music/entertainment room with its own en-suite bathroom, which has two entrances so that it can be accessed from the pool. Separate utility and storeage rooms. The swimming pool is 15metres by 5 metres and thus consumes approximately half of normal electricity useage. We only use the aircon for about 2 hours at night before we go to bed - we fitted extra fans in all the rooms and on the north facing verandah where we spend most of our days we fitted five fans, the house itself remains relatively cool - but I intend to install fibreglass insulation above the ceilings later this year that should reduce the internal temp by some 4-5deg C .When the house was being built we opted to spend a little extra and had 'solar glass fitted' which seems to work very well in reducing the heat input to the villa. We run two 'largeish' fridges + a chest deep freezer. We have both bottled gas and electricty for cooking - which we use a lot, the gas costs next to nothing.

Taking into account what I said earlier re the pool our average electricity bill is 3400Baht - some 40% of which would be down to the pool running costs.

Water 300Baht - and I reckon that we throw about 4,000 litres of water a day on the garden, having three large lawned areas to keep watered never mind the plants. 3MB Internet costs 1100B. Dstv satellite - two systems 600Baht. So all in all roughly 5,400Baht per month. We live in gated community which is run by the residents and therefore we pay annual fees which pays for communal maintenance and security costs, but these are based on the square metreage of each house so I have not included this in the calculations. Incidentally, we are on a 3 phase electricity supply which I estimate costs about 3.9Baht per Kw hour. A friend of mine is on a 2 phase supply and pays only about 1.7Baht per Kw hour. 2 phase is more than adequate, but the development has 3 phase. I hope that this info is of some use and if I can be of any more help just PM me.

With all horrific stories one hear about San Paolo hospital I wonder why anyone would go there in the first place. The two local hospitals, Hua Hin Hospital and Pranburi Military hospital, are both good for minor cases but until Bangkok Hospital is up and running one should seriously consider going to directly Bangkok for treatment with more serious cases.

Does anybody have any further information as to when the new hospital here in HH is likely to be operational? Will they be recruiting staff from Bangkok or just lifting them from the others here in HH? Hope to goodness that they don't take staff from San Paolo; what with the track record there!

Hi Bubba 1,

There is a local bus service that runs as previous posters have said from HH to Cha Am and the one running south will take you as far as Pranburi. It runs about every 30 mins, but I think that it stops running after 2000. The wife (who doesn't drive ) uses the bus to get into town if I am not around to take her and the bus drivers will stop to pick you up and drop you off virtually wherever you like. I think the cost is something like 15 Baht from where we live some 12 kms south from the centre of HH.

The local taxi that we use cost 250B each way if you need it.

I reckon that if you have a pool facility then swim as much as you possibly can as a starter, but as a previous poster said - if you are overweight then get your doctors advice as to what kind of exercises to start with . Good luck, but take your time, slowly slowly slowly and your body will appreciate it to start with - as will your heart etc.

But we use TT&T (think it's called 3BB now)

Their new name is Triple T.

Stick with the TT&T, overall they seem to give the most reliable service and the 'speeds' available are getting better all the time.

Hi 'Thaijasmine'

From what you have said I think that you would enjoy Hua-Hin. I remember reading ( but an't remember the source' that Hua-Hin has some of the best air quality in the whole of Thailand and it is one of the driest parts as well, so maybe this is something worth bearing in mind.

The beaches vary in HH and if you travel some 8 kms south to Khoa Tao you will find a beautiful, quiet, pine clad beach some 7 kms long. Plenty of excellent golf courses and one under construction (Military) alongside the beach mentioned above.

We have couple of National parks nearby and lots of decent restaurants. Flat roads for cycling and a small fishing village where you can obviously buy fresh fish. Pranburi to the south is developing rapidly and we tend to go there to Makro or the newly opened Tesco's or to the indoor market in Pranburi itself. Plenty of car dealerships for servicing and as another poster said previously we have got a new hospital under construction which should match the standards in BKK.

If you have any specific questions then just PM me and I will do my best to answer them for you. Good luck with the move.

My English wife and I have been here 3 years now and are very happy with the area and the local people etc.

More windbaggerry from the "United Nations". It's a pity that they can't find something useful to do like stopping genocide and religiously based slaughter. Still I suppose it's easier to stop road accidents.

I couldn't agree more with you about the 'United Nations', what a load of useless pratts travelling around the world with their entourages staying in 5 star Hotels ( or better if available) doing sweet FA in the end apart from issuing volumes of verbal diarrhoa, and trying to work out 'Who's turn it is to be the head of this or that department next year' irrespective of ability or aptitude.

As for the lack of 'High Tech Equipment' to assist the police in traffic enforcement, do they mean giving them all eye test and issuing glasses, or maybe a mickey mouse watch that wakes them up every ten minutes. Come on, just stop 3/4 on a motorbike; people standing up on the back of pickups doing 60mph; driving into oncoming traffic; random checks to see if people have got driving licences; removal of cars and coaches/bus's that have 'bent chassis' etc. ALL too blxxdy obvious, but they don't give a sh!t. Dream on Ministers of Thailand and go back to sleep and dream up another load of BS for the next public domain publication.

Safe driving everybody; remember, its better late in this world than early in the next!.

Some programs are hard-coded to open websites in IE regardless of your default browser settings. I would think that Microsoft Office Word that you mention is probably one of them since it's a MS product (I know outlook uses default browser settings, but might be different in Word I don't know).

I wonder if anybody out there has got any idea where I can go from here with this problem?

Click on settings on the top right hand corner of your Google Chrome page (the spanner symbol) then choose options. The bottom option of the 'basics' page allows you to choose Google Chrome as your default browser.

I've just checked this out and apparently 'Google chrome' is already acknowledged as my default browser. Any ideas where I go from here?

Click on settings on the top right hand corner of your Google Chrome page (the spanner symbol) then choose options. The bottom option of the 'basics' page allows you to choose Google Chrome as your default browser.

Many thanks for that advice, I will try it immediately. I just found it so annoying that IE was always selected and it is so much slower and unreliable ( as far as I am concerned ) than Google Chrome.

The only time I ever use IE, is to access some financial sites that won't accept Google Chrome as yet, but presumably they will alter that with time - I hope!

One of his long time friends and customers told me that the owner just vanished a little over a week ago. As the shop owed money to it's distributors, the authorities confiscated the stock and the place was closed down. The accounts are being sorted out now and unless the owner turns up I guess it's gone for good.

What a great pity! The business 'seemed' to be booming and as you rightly said the service was excellent.

Oh well, will just have to buy the booze from somewhere else. Pity for all the nice people who worked for them - another group of Thais who have lost their jobs - sad.

I have Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome on my laptop and would prefer to use Google rather than IE when I wish to send info out from say 'Microsoft office Word', but IE is always chosen by my system. How do I force it to use Google Chrome instead?

I am running XP Pro.

Does anybody know what has happened to the 'Halex' business in Hua-Hin. The front was a shuttered up when I went past the other day and the phone is no longer ringing.

Seemed like a very thriving business from my dealings with them over the past 3 years!

Correct, rectify the cause before you start trying to treat the result.

We had the same problem sometime ago and it was at the end corner of our 14m x 5m pool, so we initially thought that the water was leaking out of the pool. This end of the pool was at the opposite end to all the feeds etc so we excluded the possibility of broken pipes. I dug out where the water was coming from and did a test on the water to see if it had any salt content with the strips that I use to monitor the salt level in the pool. I found that there was no salt detectable and therefore concluded that we did not have a leaking pool - thank goodness. I was pumping over 2500 litres of water a day out of the hole with a submersible pump and came to the conclusion that someone or something had disturbed an underground spring with building work.

We bought precut slatted pvc pipe some 5 inches in diameter and cross drained the whole area around the pool. The pvc was wrapped in the fine blue mesh of the kind that they use for horticultural purposes and tied with wire. We laid down a thin layer of fine gravel and then laid the pipes on top of this before filling in with gravel and finally topsoil and replaced the grass sods.

The garden around the pool looked a real mess for sometime, but the work was not in vain and the water drained away very

successfully. We also put in a few drain inspection units so that we could monitor the drainage.

The whole thing was well worthwhile and we still to this day don't know where the original spring came from.

When we have the torrential rains the garden now drains away beautifully so it is well worth the effort of maybe doing other areas of your land at the same time.

Interestingly enough the last time that I lifted one of the inspection covers there was no water to speak of flowing.

I've got a pile of photos of the work and will try to get them sorted out and put them on here. Good luck and if you need any other help just PM me.

From where in Hua Hin can one buy the DSTV system?

If you would like to PM me I will send you the details. Don't think that I am allowed to advertise on here!

Ok, So what are the options to get Premieur Leagus football? I know True Visions have the option Gold package about 1500 baht month, Platinum 2000 baht. Does the Dstv South Africa install give you the football as this is my main requirement?

The DSTV has got football coming out of its ears. I must confess that I dont watch football but there is plenty on the DSTV along with rugby, tennis, golf , skiing. You name it sportwise and they have got it in spades. The South Africans are Sports MAD!

The cost of a single system is 400Baht per month or 600 if you have two 'Dream boxes' as we have. We had the platinum package from UBC before and gave it the heave when they got rid of BBC. That was costing some 2000B per month so we reckon that even with the installation costs we will be in pocket within one year plus the added bonus of lots of TV that we want to watch. Ironically you still get all the UBC chnls included in your 400B per month, so its a no brainer as far as we are concerned.

I have spent the better part of the last 35 years in either Saudi Arabia or Thailand. We are now spending most of our time between Udorn and Loei.

With my history of living in warmer climates, the cold now causes me some distress. I wear long sweat pants and the occasional jacket to ward off the chill. I have become acclimated to warmer climates and colder weather makes me uncomfortable.

All you snow birds can scoff at my predicament, but at the same time, I have played golf when the termperature exceeds 50C in Saudi. I'm wondering how many of you could walk 18 holes in that heat?

It's all relative.

I'm the same. Came from the UK 3 years ago to get away from the cold and damp for health reasons - very successfully I might add! The other week the temp dropped to about 20C( 68F) one evening and I was soon hunting out a vest and jumper.

Been watching the Thai Met offices weather maps and the very strong high pressure zone that has caused nearly all the problems seems to be dissipating, so hopefully the cold northerly winds will abate somewhat.

I wish all the people in the North well and take care.

When I renewed in September with a "Proof of Income" letter from the British Consulate here in Pattaya, no translation was needed. I can't speak for other Immigration Offices though - each may have their own rules.

Hua-Hin immigration accepted the 'Proof of income' in English without hesitation.

As usual the figures here are being thrown around without making a great deal of sense - as has been pointed out already they suggest that subsidence is a far more significant problem than sea level rising and are almost of different levels of magnitude.

Also how a rise in sea level of 3mm a year becomes 1 metre in 50 years needs explaining too.

If I remember correctly, not long ago one of the so called 'Thai Experts' was telling us ( and it was reported on the TV forum) 'That the gulf of Thailand would not be affected by the rising sea water caused by glacial melting at the south pole'. How do we do it? He had probably come to some agreement to ship the water to another country like Saudi Arabia!

Bump!

Is there really no-one who can recommend some accommodation as described above?

JR

I would recommend the 'Rajana Garden house hotel' which is located in the centre of HH. My wife and I have stayed there when we were viewing our house construction and were very happy with the place. It is a modern construction of stainless steel and glass frontage, very clean and has all the basic requirements - A/c, fridge, small balconies but no pool and no lift. The rooms at the back of the hotel and particularly the ones located at the top of the hotel are probably the best ones to choose. I would rate it as a 3 star. There is a largish rooftop verandah area for hotel residents.

We have stayed at the Thipurai and would not recommend this as we found it to be very noisy and poor value for money in our opinion.

The City Beach is also one that I would stay away from - we have not stayed there but from reports on the TV it does not come out well.

The Rajana has lots of its own parking spaces and a couple of small garden areas behind the hotel where they serve breakfast - The breakfast is simple but OK and cooked to order.

They even provided us with a couple of lockers in which to leave golf clubs and other stuff when we were going back to the UK before our last trip out to do the final inspection of the villa. Staff were always very helpful and linen and towels were changed every day. They do not have a restaurant but some 50 yards away you can buy some great Thai food etc in the open air, just on the corner of the traffic lights. also down the road is a very good fish restaurant called 'Friends' that does one of the best tampura prawns in HH. All in all I would recommend the place and let me say I have NO association with the hotel or restaurants other than having used them in the past. I hope that this info is of some help to you and wish you and your friends a good golfing trip.

PM me if you need any info regarding the local golf courses - maybe I can arrange for at least 3 of your guests to get half price at Lakeview and Springfield as I am a member at both.

I have no experience what-so-ever in this, so I can not really recommend any shop based on that.

I can just say that there is a big jewelry store (at least I think it is) on the corner of Petchkasem and Soi 51, don't remember the name, but the shop stretches quite a bit down soi 51, and all the Windows are black so I haven't seen what they have to offer.

Also there is a at least one (I think more) on the 1st floor in Market Village, I know of one who bought a ring in there and from what I heard she was pleased with it.

My wife and I went into the 'big jewelry store/manufacturing business Soi 51' some years ago and were very pleasantly suprised at the way it was run. We felt that we were not under any pressure to buy and the staff were most helpful. They have their own workshop where you can see the rings etc being made to order and prices run from the very cheap to the very expensive re the choice of stones/settings etc. We bought two rings and were well pleased with what we got for what we paid.

With regard to diamonds I don't have any advice to offer, so unfortunately you are on you own and will have to make up your own mind, but from a 'gut feeling' I don't think that you will be ripped off.

I have NO connection with the business and have just been a customer, and wish you the very best of luck.

Thanks, guys for no replies

H'mmm, let's see now who would have the replies to your questions within half an hour of you posting them?? The recipients of the Aid? might be a little hard for them to get on to TV right now, Government officials? No, sorry, a little too busy to answer some questions from a farang on TV! Perhaps you could use your indignation to fire up your research skills and answer the questions yourself. Good luck.

Dear Midas, where did you find indignation in my post? I asked genuine questions. At the time I posted them there were over 300 people reading the posts on this topic.

I am far from being indignant about no response. Actually I believe that nobody knows the answers. Not through ignorance, but rather from the 'no posted accounts of govt action/reaction to the emergency'. I do not blame the Visa community. I do not blame anybody, as a matter of fact. TIT for tat.

P.S. I stil believe the questions asked were legitimate and to the point. On the other hand, if nobody knows WHAT is being done, maybe the answer is NOTHING?

Probably correct! Still 'Thinking about who to appoint, and get a gold medal after the aftermath and get their pictures taken with the 'Local bigwigs etc' The usual bxxsxit and money going astray yet again for the poor victims - who my heart goes out to!