cheshiremusicman

Cuban, Your post was polite, comprehensive, factual & informative.

Not a lot more to be said, though if it was me I'd be saying Many Thanks.

I could not agree more with you! It seems a great pity that people who come on to the TV site can't take the trouble to phrase the real questions that they want to ask before slagging others off who have spent time and effort in replying with what to me would appear to be sound responses. If the OP wants specifics about 'a specific vehicle' then why the heck don't they say so. I feel sure that the OP will get 'specific' responses here on this sight if they can have the patience to wait!

My wife and I have just recently applied for and got our 5 year driving licence in Pranburi and I just thought that I would pass on some details that might help others.

1. ALWAYS make sure that your existing licence has EXPIRED, don't turn up on the day it is expring, or they will tell you to come back when it HAS expired - daft as it sounds that's the way they apply the rules.

2. You WILL require a current medical certificate - which took 5 minutes and 30B each in Pranburi high street.

3. One copy of the main page of your passport and current visa page both signed by yourself - little shop just outside the Pranburi offices will provide copies for 2B each.

4. Proof of place of residence from local immigaration department, not older than 30 days, cost vary place to place.

5. You do NOT need to provide new photographs, as they now have a new system in Pranburi whereby they take the photograph and this is incorporated into the new style driving licence, which not only incorporates the pic of yourself but the details of you name and date of birth etc in English as well as Thai.

6. Total cost 630B - This was for a CAR licence only, so don't know if it cost a bit more for combined licence.

Hope that this info is of some use to people.

Due 90 days from return. You should keep the paper so that know you have reported previously - they will see your arrival stamp and ignore the date on paper (or they should).

Agree with 'lopburi3', but my wife and I recently renewed our 90 days on the same basis as above; we had visited the UK for a few weeks and thus our '90 day date' had been pushed forward, because of the fact that we had a new date of re-entry along with or multiple re-entry visa, so no problems ! Whilst sitting waiting for our passports to be restamped I happend to read a notice that had been stuck to the desk in the 90 day reporting office which read that "If you move out of the area in which you are registered as resident for more than 24 hours, you must report to the local police station in the area in which you have moved too or are visiting", surely, this is nonesense, otherwise we would all have to be running around like headless chickens every time that we go away for a few days outside the area in which we live! Anybody come across this being implemented?

I hadn't really considered the septic system, and now wonder if a bleach solution is a good thing to be draining into the septic system. (There is a slight bleach smell after flushing when there has been a siginificant time lapse since the previous flush.)

it's a bad thing!

Yes bad thing, the bleach stops the natural bacterial breakdown in the septic tank, a corectly working (bacterial working) tank will go between 5 to 10 years before it needs emptying, if no natural bacterial action is taking place you will need to empty it in a matter of months!!

Hint: to restart the natural bacterial breakdown in your septic tank..chuck in a dead rabbit / chicken!!

Don't know how true it is, but I was told that 'natural Yoghurt' will get a septic tank kickstarted? it sounds feasable!

And even though they have medications to increase the air passages (I dislike pills, nose sprays and atomisers), I'm leaning towards a proactive (hate the buzz word but it fits) treatment. Like playing the flute.

After googling, I read that almost any musical instrument such as the trumpet (not a good idea in a condo) or bagpipes (again, not a good idea) would help to increase lung capacity.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? And no, I'm not the type to play a didgeridoo... at least I don't think I am...

Why not just buy a packet of ballons and blow these up regularly in the comfort of your own home, NO NOISE and LOTS of LUNG excercise

yes ,the idea is to get the relaxing enviroment but then..what about other part of the day..

to sit on the beach can sit for about 3-5 hours a day max..

we'll see.. until now,it sounds really boring place for old people..

From you comments I would suggest that you stick with Pattaya, it sounds like your kind of place ! Personally, I think that Pattaya is a dump, but every one to their own!

Weren't there torrential rains two years ago that lasted for 4 straight days? The worst in 40 years?

That's what all my friends with leaking roofs told me.

That was a 'tropical depression' that sat over the Hua-Hin area for some 4/5 days and boy did it rain. Other than that, I haven't seen heavy continuous rain that lasted more than an hour or so in the 20 months that I have lived in HH.

The main road in the town at its lowest point has flooded a few times though and I understand that the local authorities are trying to clean out the klongs that have been left blocked.

Homepro and others sells Stay Cool fiberglass insulation made by a division of Siam Cement Group I believe

We did our house with it over a year ago now...huge difference..us ethe thickest possible.

What thickness did YOU lay above the ceiling, I am thinking of putting maybe 8 inches over the main bedroom and lounge?

Did you buy yours from an outlet, or direct from Siam Cement Group? I don't know if that is possible, but I would imagine that some of the building supply merchants must stock this as a matter of course. Any info would be very welcome.

When you say "a huge difference" , did you measure the typical temperatures before and after you fitted the insulation, or did you find that you didn't need to use your aircon after you had done the job?

More info----------maybe a trip to a Homepro would help?

See the attached pdf for some info

StayCool.pdf

http://www.staycoolforhome.com/index.php

Thanks for that 'longball'. I'll give Homepro a try. I just wondered if builders merchants might be an easier place to buy it in bulk.

Homepro and others sells Stay Cool fiberglass insulation made by a division of Siam Cement Group I believe

We did our house with it over a year ago now...huge difference..us ethe thickest possible.

What thickness did YOU lay above the ceiling, I am thinking of putting maybe 8 inches over the main bedroom and lounge?

Did you buy yours from an outlet, or direct from Siam Cement Group? I don't know if that is possible, but I would imagine that some of the building supply merchants must stock this as a matter of course. Any info would be very welcome.

When you say "a huge difference" , did you measure the typical temperatures before and after you fitted the insulation, or did you find that you didn't need to use your aircon after you had done the job?

Please can anybody tell me where I might buy Vermiculite in Thailand. I live in the Hua-Hin area.

Also does anybody know is it possible to buy rolls of fibreglass insulation or the pour type of bead that was available in the UK.

I would like to use any of these materials to provide heat insulation for the ceiling. I will need a considerable quantity as the house has a footprint of some 250sqm and I dont intend to scrimp on the job.

I was there to take a look and most things are overpriced.

Like others already said they are good for the special things.

For instance a nice selection of mustard, raw hams, European candy, etc.

I will only go there to buy something special. Nothing more nothing less.

Just returned from a visit to Bangkok and had a look in at one of their stores there. The meats looked very good and they had a very large (if expensive) selection of wines. Wife and I are going to have a look at the HH outlet in the next week, so better go and see the bank manager!

Can anyone tell me the best/cost effective way to learn to play golf here in Bangkok?

Cheers

I most definitely agree with previous people on here that you MUST get lessons from a Pro. Whatever you do; DO NOT let any of your golfing FRIENDS try and give you instruction, unless they are a very low handicap (Scratch to 3) player.

It is so easy to pick up bad habits and once you get them into your swing it's the devils own job to get rid of them, so start the right way you will not regret the money spent.

I used to play golf in the UK with a lot of very nice people who would never make a decent golfer as long as they had a hole in their axse, ONLY because they were so blxxdy stubborn regarding having any lessons. They would quite willingly go out and spend thousands of pounds a year (No kidding) on the very latest clubs, expecting this to turn them into a decent golfer - No way - get the lessons it is money well spent and you will never regret it!

I hope that you get as much enjoyment out of golf as the rest of us and when you get down on yourself ( as you will), just remember that the pro's can make right mess of it now and again and they are doing it as a job.

[spot on! When you sweat you loose water and electrolytes (salts). Hence the salty taste. The best way to go is to buy proper MINERAL- drinkingwater. The "standard" drinkingwater has no salts in them, and your body needs longer time to establish liquidbalance.

I recomend Minere, not too pricy and has all the needed minerals.

The body has a very good way of telling you if you need more water - drink until your pee is clear, not yellow!

I was told years ago by a Urologist that the only way to check if you are drinking 'An adequate amounts of fluids' is to monitor the colour of your pee. It should be "a very light straw colour" provided that your kidneys are functioning ok.

A dark yellow or worse - your not drinking enough!

A clear pee - your drinking too much.

Obviously, as previously stated, it depends on lots so factors, but this way it is easy to monitor for yourself - just look at the colour of your pee and go by this.

Hello all fellow golfers,

I am off to BKK in the next few days for a short visit and because we don't have any local facilities to try out golf clubs I would like to get some info on where I might try out ( on simulator ) or range (preferably) some Utility clubs to replace some of the 1,2,3 or 4 irons in the bag at the moment

I will be staying in central Bangkok at soi 18 sukemhvit and would be grateful of any info as to where to go and details of which sky train stations to exit on.

If you have personal knowledge of/or preferences as to the above again I would be glad to know.

Many thanks and may your game get better.

Wow you carry irons 1,2 and 3......Sports City, just up Prachachuen Road from Ngam Wong Wan Mall, towards Changwattena (about 3kms from junction with Changwattana ), Quite a few makes available to try on the range. My wife has recently borrowed Tourstage clubs to take to play at the golf course. Kasco are there, Nike and S-Yard to name a few. Balls are 5 trays for 100baht before 4pm Mon-Fri.

Hi 'John45',

Thanks for the info re sports city. Yes I do still carry 1,2&3 but not all of them normally. I'm just turned 65 and finding the really long irons a bit difficult so must adopt some new tactics to make-up for the old age, the muscles are not what they used to be and have to admit defeat and as they say "Go with the flow". I think that the hybrids are the way to go - If the Pro's use them then that says everything as far as I'm concerned.

Again thanks for the info.

Thank you cheshiremusicman! Good info there. Where I live we rarely see the sun and it can get depressing at times, so the more sun the better.

Hi there 'dude123', you will definitely not get depressed living in HH. Good place to live, I also came from a dismal climate that really got you down at times. Here you 'just might' get fed-up of TOO much sunshine, but I doubt it!

Some of the rats on my soi are so big and bold they have fought off the cats. The cats instinctively perch on trash cans licking their chomps but are terrified to go for the kill on these massive beasts. One made a go for me on a rainy night but fortunately I had my umbrella and after an extended battle it retreated. . The rats seem to like fast food best of all. I saw one scurrying towards a hole with a Big Mac yesterday all the while squealing with delight. Hopefully they will die off from obesity soon.

Quite obviously an 'American Imported Rat' - Ratus Macatus' or 'Ratus Burgerus' filthy eating habits all of them!

Seriously, take the advice and get a couple of cats, they will clear the area quickly. We had rats when we moved in and so did our neighbours, but after some 4/5 months we were all virtually clear and only now do we see the odd one after the cats have left it as a present for us - dead of course and usually minus its head. they don't seem to have any trouble no matter what the size of them is! Once they start to catch th beggars the rat population will plummet quickly as they kill either of the sexs the breeding rate goes down and if they kill the female then the offsprings don't get to feed and they die.

Other advantage of keeping cats is they extend your life if you enjoy stroking them - proven fact not just heresay!

Must confess that we have had NO problem with the 'Mess from the cats'. Ours do there business outside and most cats are very fastidious about covering up there mess and only unhealthy cats leave a mess according to vets.

I ask this because I have been following HH weather on the internet for about 2 months now and see nothing

but clouds most of the time Is it just a sales pitch about HH being the sunniest area in Thailand?

I can't find any figures for the 'sunshine hours' but if you go onto the Thai meterological site at http://www.tmd.go.th/en then you can look at the 'climate' record and you will find that Hua-Hin has got the lowest rainfall (313.5mm) for the records upto now for the year as against the highest at Phliu Agromet (2455.3mm) - this is on the East coast.

Think that this gives you some idea of the weather in this area.

We have only been living here in HH for some 18 months and I would reckon that if you live here you would not complain about the amount of sunshine - my wife loves it when the sun DOESN'T shine and it gets a bit cooler, as it has been for the past week or so, when we have had some light rain which the gardens needed very badly. We are now coming into the rainy season Aug/Sept and then it will tail off again and probably have no rain from the end of Nov until May. The average temp hovers about the 90F mark most of the year and even at night the lowest that you will probably see is around 75F.

Hua- Hin is reckoned to have some of the best quality of Air in Thailand as the prevailing winds come from the East/South east for most of the year and therefore come overland from Burma with no smog/muck. Maybe some other posters will have more info as to some other sites, that will give you more detailed info re the weather etc. Hope this has been some help.

Obviously - avoid holidaying in the rainy season and come from Mid Nov onwards until March if you want the sunshine.

Hope that you enjoy HH when you come, even if it is for just a holiday.

Hello all fellow golfers,

I am off to BKK in the next few days for a short visit and because we don't have any local facilities to try out golf clubs I would like to get some info on where I might try out ( on simulator ) or range (preferably) some Utility clubs to replace some of the 1,2,3 or 4 irons in the bag at the moment

I will be staying in central Bangkok at soi 18 sukemhvit and would be grateful of any info as to where to go and details of which sky train stations to exit on.

If you have personal knowledge of/or preferences as to the above again I would be glad to know.

Many thanks and may your game get better.

I wonder if anybody can enlighten us as to what, if any, are the rules with regard to what a a developer can do with regard to altering the contours of land near to the base of a mountain.

A development is in the process of taking shape at the back of our estate on which we live and the developer has (and is still in the process of) increasing the height of the land behind the wall that terminates our estate. The land has now been built up by some 3 ( three) metres and the surface is now some one metre above the wall height - which had previously been increased by some half a metre to give more privacy/security in the past. The developer is 'cutting' the land and removing surface soil from the rear of the development and dumping it progessively to level the land.

Our question is - Is this legal and does he have to have applied for permission (and been granted same) from the local authorites in order to undertake this restructuring prior to building properties.

How 'close' to base of a mountain can this kind of development take palace. I understand that there was an edict from the King of Thailand banning development close to the base of mountains or close to the high tide marks.

ANY information would be gratefully received.

so i understand that there are obvious benefits to becoming fluent in Thai my question though is do you think it is rude to Thai people if you stay here long term without learning to speak Thai fluently? I think it would be embarrasing to meet your child's teachers and tell them you have lived here X years while not speaking fluent Thai.

I have a hard time making time to learn Thai. For awhile I had it in my IPOD, but then I realized Id much rather listen to music. I would not call it an enjoyable hobby. Yeah, I was thrilled when I went from noob to intermediate, but going from intermediate to fluent seems to have very limited benefits besides face/bragging rights.

For those who have been here many years without speaking fluently, are you embarrassed about it? Is your wife embarrassed about it?

I don't think that it is 'rude' to Thai people, but I do think that in trying to learn and speak Thai ( no matter how badly ) shows respect for the country and the people of that country in which we are living.

My wife and I, now spend about 2 hours on a sunday morning with a new Thai friend. She wants to improve her English language skills and we want to learn Thai from a native speaker. The lady in question has studied English at University and speaks and writes English far better than a lot of born-and-bred English people that I can mention. In fact, here knowledge of the grammar is quite amazing; but SHE still wants to improve - so why shouldn't WE. Our time is split between us and we try to help her in formulating letters for her business matters, as well as answering here questions about English.

I don't have a good memory - my wifes is much better than mine, but I am now in the process of trying to memorise the Thai alphabet and am finding this challenging but fun. Admittedly I can only write the first 15 consonant characters correctly after some 3 weeks of struggling with the memory, but even now this minute amount of info has helped me to try and pronounce some of the Thai words or at least have a guess as to how they end - but a heck of a long way to go I know!

I am sure, that I will never become 'fluent' iN Thai, but I do think that you gain some respect by trying - no matter where in the world you are.

I have the greatest admiration for anybody who tries to learn new skills and I have to admit that we the English, are renowned for our insular attitude regarding learning other languages - always expecting other people to speak English for our benefit.

Good luck to all of you for TRYING to learn Thai.

Haven't heard any other problems with water in Hua Hin. How far from Petchkasem Rd. do you live?

I've never measured it from the road to the estate, but I would imagine that it is about 3kms.

I don't know if the 'Queens Low Cost Housing for Thai's' , which is on the front of the Phetkasem road just before Soi 126 is having a new feed put in - heck of a lot of single room apartments going to occupied when this lot is completed and hence a lot of water going to needed, so HOPEFULLY they will have factored that into the build, I say HOPEFULLY. About 10 months ago I met some of the engineers who were working on the build when I was out for a meal and they told my wife and I that a 'New Water Main' was planned for this developmet and assured us that we would not get a reduced supply, in fact the converse; as we would be supplied by this in the future. Maybe this is the cause of the problem at the moment but I don't know.

Anybody else got the same problem and where are you located? I would be interested to know, then we can approach the Tessaban with some more facts. Apparently people on the 'Baan Thai' development on Soi 126 have received letters from the Tessaban apologising for the water shortage, but NO explanation or statement of when the problem will be resolved.

Am planning a holiday in Hua Hin and wanted advice on golf courses/hotels in that area..are there any resorts where the total price is affordable and not too far from the nitelife..Tks

What time of the year are you planning on coming to HH?

Just asking... anyone ever had a male peacock? Is it a good pet for a large yard? Pros/Cons? I am interested in one if it is possible!

I saw my first 'Thai Peacock' a few weeks ago on the Milford golf course just south of Hua-Hin. There must have been about a dozen of them, mainly males and they were calling all the time, making a heck of a racket. As previous person stated they can fly and I must confess that I hadn't realised this until I saw it with my own eyes - quite magnificent to see. It scared the shxt out of my playing partner when it soared over his head about 10 feet above him, as he was about to make a shot. he described it as a Boeing 747 when his heart rate dropped back to normal! The following week I saw two of them by the side of the road on the way to another golf course and again the were both males with tremendous plumage.

I would suggest that they would be TOO NOISY for a small garden and you would have the difficult (if not impossible)problem of keeping them in the property. Geese make very good guard pets and boy do they make a racket when they want, but you won't have the problem of keeping them in the garden as they can''t fly ( as far as I know!!) and they will also keep the grasss nicely mown.

For the past three weeks at least we have had no water supply on soi 126 and beleive that that is the case in most of Hua-Hin. We understand that the Pranburi Dam have said that they will no longer supply Hua-Hin with water, but no more information is forthcoming.

Does anybody have any information as to what is happening?

We have heard that the Tessaban have said that they have got the money in place to install a new or upgraded feedline but that they are still getting quotes from contractors. Where the water will come from on this new/upgraded feed is a mystery!

We are tankering water in and the driver/owwner has told me that he is obtaining the water from the Tessaban and paying some 340Baht for 6000litres of clean water, which is a darn sight more than we would have to pay for the same litreage of water - so the Tessaban would appear to be doing very nicely thank you! Maybe this is one way of raising revenue for the new/upgraded line, who knows?

It's called Brasserie de Paris. And yes, it's owned by a Belgian guy. (I wonder if his daughter took the rein since 2 years ago he said he would quit and wanted to just golf around.) The restaurant's nice, pricey but it's worth it.

No, Stephanie went back to Belgium some 6 months ago and is apparently running a travel agency there.

The food is good, particularly the fillet steaks, but I think that the fish dishes are a real ripoff - very very small portions.

A very good restaurant is the 'Boat' at khoa takiab - excellent allround food and very sensible prices and pleasant staff - take your own drinks if you wish - no corkeage charges whatsoever.

The 'Anantastila' at KT is very good, but not in the low season as there is hardy anybody there and thus no atmosphere.

Excellent pizzas at the 'Windmill' in the Grand plaza square. Bam Bam's behind the Tiporia Hotel is very good and 'Friends' on the road upto the railway station/driving range is very good for fish -excellent tampura and again very nice staff.

Enjoy your food