Led Lolly Yellow Lolly

Maybe a new 'Coffee Machines in Thailand' subsubsubforum to add to the clutter?

My family and I spent 3 and a half years in the UK. My postpaid DTAC SIM was functioning normally the whole time. I just kept paying the bills. Why don't you just get postpaid? It's easy enough.

I'm thinking about constructing my own SPD devices because we're losing loads of televisions and aircon boards. I have bags of MOVs I put in a delta on outdoor lighting, works a treat, but I want something that'll take a big hit that I can put on upstream 3-phase distribution panels. I'm still researching this but it seems to me these industrial strength surge arrestors are little more than banks of small MOVs in parallel. I could construct these myself with bus bars, some heavy cables and a case. In any case it's not just lightning you need to worry about. I've been having problems with snakes bridging thousands of volts onto the LV side of transformers (why I'm losing TVs etc etc). This is what a Golden Tree Snake looks like after putting itself across 32,000 volts. This one blew itself off the circuit and fell to the ground (it basically just exploded from the inside out). Others are little more than charred bones when they're pulled down. . .

Of course. I tell them I did it. Actually the Crown Property Bureau paid for it. I've no idea how much it cost but it would have been very expensive. It also has multiple transformers. I'm responsible for it. Right. It's business critical for me. I have a microwave backup link in case someone cuts the line.

We have our own private power grid that stretches around 2 kilometres. I have my own 6 core fibre private LAN hanging from it. I'm really anally retentive about taking care of it. If some idiot from an internet company comes to string their own cables, I'll cut them down. They keep coming, I keep cutting them down. Eventually the penny drops and they realise it's not a public road and they need to come and ask me first. . . I'm reasonable, I tell them they can hang their cables on the condition they follow my rules because I don't want my poles turning into the same spaghetti soup that's on public roads, and I don't want my cables damaging. I give them these (the Thai version) to make it easy for them. . . I also make them agree to take down any abandoned cables.

My mother in law poos on the floor as she shuffles around the house. I keep trying to get her to wear adult diapers but she won't. Just tell your wife this is how she's going to end up.

Interesting topic. I have very mild psoriasis. It caused me some problems as a teenager but now it's a couple of coin sized patches on both knees. . . I just had my third covid vaccine. First two were Sinopharm, my booster a couple of days ago was Moderna. I've had a mild fever, felt like hell and felt like my arm was punched, but it doesn't appear to have effected my psoriasis at all.

Hmmmm. Hmmmmmm. Let me think...

Credit lines are extended to hotels with a good business profile. No bank will sink money into a business doomed to failure unless it's part of a land grab or equity/real estate trade off. If the core business metrics were sound, they'll survive. We're surviving because we carry no debt. The 'Mom and Pops' were never really in business. It's just their hobby.

Could care less suggests you care. I never understand why north americans say this. No, we're not opposites. I'll stay anywhere clean when on the move. Family vacations need high standards. Life is short. I place value, in value, in any star rating. Incompetence and poor maintenance is something I hate. Most Thai chains have high staff turnover, poor training and poor maintenance. International chains invest in staff and maintenance.

Prime locations I said. I never stay at Thai managed hotels unless I absolutely have to. The lack of professionalism is endemic. In March I stayed at the Railway Hotel in Hua Hin, now owned and operated by Centara. The service is a mere shadow of what it was under Sofitel. They just don't go the extra mile, the food was garbage and the building maintenance is slipping. They'll just run it into the ground.

The hotel industry was in need of a cull. Just too many mediocre, badly managed hotels. Survivers will ultimately benefit from a leaner industry profile. The well managed international chains will be just fine. Examples the the Sukhumvit JW Marriott and other prime locations have had relatively high occupancies throughout the pandemic.

Very common for this kind of reparation. Wait 45 years until they're sucking their last breath and say, "This is for you to have a better life".

I manage a large hotel in the far north, over 200 rooms. I can tell you beyond any doubt the recovery is a myth conjured by TaT. We've not had a foreigner check in since April last year. We have actually fully reopened, but it's domestic Thais desperate for a break, and offices of the civil service using our meeting facilities and having a company jolly at the tax payer's expense... The irony of all this is that there has never been a better time to holiday in Thailand. My family and I have had 2 wonderful luxury beach holidays during the pandemic that we'll remember forever. Empty beaches, deserted coasts. It's like I imagine Thailand would have been in the 50's before mass air travel. In a way I have the pandemic to thank for that. We never really had many foreigners here anyway, excepting bus loads of Chinese churn and burn groups at bottom Dollar, and lord knows I could live without them.

We get a number of bookings up north from Bangkokians during the cool dry season, keen to enjoy the cool fresh air and mountain views. You can imagine their disappointment when daytime temperatures are blistering hot, the views are obscured by smoke and the nighttime air unbreathable.

Bangkok is an extreme primate city. It sucks in vast swathes of 20-somethings from the provinces and they mostly live in grim accommodation and have little money for working long hours. It's painful for the parents but the reality is the children are better off in the village, where they're registered. The vast majority of these children are loved.

The post you quoted appears to have been deleted. I guess it twerked the sensibilities of some mod, in any case it's completely true and broke no rules. Me and my siblings are presently involved in a huge land deal on the Thai/Laos border, something like 800 rai. The whole deal almost collapsed because the puuyai baan of the village involved didn't know what a cashier's cheque is.

You can buy ready grown trees. They're delivered in the back of a truck with a few square metres of soil and roots. They dig a big hole and drop the ready made tree in. We did this in our hotel way back when we opened to get the gardens established quickly. The mistake people make is planting too close to buildings. It's all very well growing right next to your house for shade and privacy, but. . . They get out of control without regular pruning and become hazardous in storms Rats use the branches to access your roof and then you're screwed

Actually @Gottfridis correct to say 'any bank'. There is no law preventing a tourist opening an account at any of the banks. They all have their own rules and their own rules are interpreted arbitrarily from day to day from bank clerk to manager. I've been opening accounts at various banks for a long time in various capacities. . . My first Thai account was at Kasikorn 20 years ago, I opened it with nothing but a tourist visa and a hotel room address. Next was BangkokBank, Non-O. Next was SCB in my new wife's home town. They said no, they wanted to see a work permit. I went back with a work permit, they opened my account. Some Banks will want to see a yellow Tabien Baan. I think any SCB will open an account for a foreigner with a Tabien Baan. . . but as I said, depends on the staff off the day. I stuck with SCB for many years but they never really tried to be a retail bank and I don't like their attitude towards farangs and rules on spending limits. . . "Farang diff'len lule", I think they have that line on a rubber stamp. . . These days I use KrungSri, who also furnish me with a credit card. I find them to be much more professional and their mobile banking app is great.

I went with warm white because I prefer to keep the feel of the old halogen lights.

Biggest I use is 160 amps, although one of our transformers is 400kVA the fuses never blow on it. I have boxes of them in my drawer (see my picture). Sometime I'll ram them into circuit and if there is a direct short somewhere causing the blows the arc can be pretty spectacular. I sure WOULD NOT want 400 amps shorting in my CU. I'll always deploy a screw mounted breaker on the pole, it's useful isolation for routine work and good protection for the scenario you mention.

... needs a clean though. Doesn't get much use thanks to covid...

. . . BTW the only machete attack I witnessed was that dimwit aussie farang with road rage.

Uggh, here we go again.

Well, I agree with you, but expatriate foreigners were all the rage for the tourist industry during the covid pandemic, even being called 'heros' for travelling domestically. . . but no, nobody in Thailand gives a hoot about a few old farts shaking a stick at a wall shouting "Yaa'll miss me when I'm gone dang it!". No one cares.