mikebike

@ the 'soldiers follow orders' brigade: y'all do realize that the Thai military is not a homogeneous unit right? There are at least a dozen different military fractions all loyal to their own financial and political agendas.

@OP: Whether you agree with what they are doing or not is it not better to actually be part of what THEY believe in rather than being the mighty keyboard warrior dissing those that actually get off their sofa?

what they might believe in would be okay in their home country's ,but in Thailand they could get in to some serious trouble freedom of speech is a whole different ball game in Thailand.

Right, so just shut up and be a good farrang... Weren't all the American Revolutionaries British Subjects at the time? - Subject to British Law and death for their participation? But of course, do not want to upset the powers that be! Cajones.

Must be liking going to a KKK meeting in USA

<deleted>? Meds wearing off?

I do find it amusing that when the BIB's actually do their job and enforce the law it is always seen as a scam. As with every country I know the law says you need a license to drive a vehicle on the roads. How is Thailand some how different ?

Would a European going to America expect to be exempt from having a license to ride or drive there just because he was a tourist ?

As a matter of fact, yes. Most countries, including Thailand, USA and UK allow tourists to drive for a certain amount of time using their home-country licence. Its just that if you wanna ride a bike you NEED to have a bike licence from your home country...

Its considered a scam when farangs are targeted and helmetless and underage thai riders just proceed through that same checkpoint.

Sorry to deflate your opinion but it's exactly as I seen it.

Farang stopped and Thais waved through.

Maybe a busy day for Farrangs but I have seen many a Thai stopped at the checkpoints. IMHO the BIB have been very equitable in their targeting. Thais are also quicker at seeing the checkpoint and changing direction, dumb-ass tourists just roll right in!!

KB - I did know I lot when I ran it a few years ago and the things I mentioned have not changed. As for beer price now - no idea, I do not live in Phuket anymore, hence why I started the thread and asked the questions - lingering interest!!

BTW - to IrishIvan: staff is crucial to having return local clientele.

However, some things with The Lighthouse can be directly compared with it's competition.

The geographic location is the same. The view is the same. The climate is obviously the same. The parking the same. The security is the same. The product (beer) is the same. I read they seem to have lost the niche yachting crowd - so the customers in the area are generally the same. The facilities and hygene are similar. Someone mentioned wifi - I don't know if they are offering it.

Anyway, that just leaves the price. If they are 5 or 10 baht more than their competition - ok, but 20, 30 or 40 baht more, can it be justified, and who is going to pay it?

What are you getting, that the customer nearby is not getting, for paying an extra 20%, 30% or 40% more for your beer?

The view is much better at the Lighthouse as you are about 1 m above the road and 2.5 m back from it, whereas the others are ground level or lower and right on the road, vehicles both block the view and spew exhaust at nose level, especially at afternoon 'rush hours' when one million mini vans pile through.

The Lighthouse has a large private parking lot at the rear.

The overall ambiance and quality of materials in the Lighthouse are light-years ahead of the others.

Up to the customer to decide whether these things are worth a small premium.

OP: "Would you laugh about it or tell them to get the **** out your house?"

Laugh, <deleted> get upset?

I just turned 40, and have lived here for 3 years. I realy dont know why I am still here to be honest, it is to me an incredibly boring place. When I say 'boring', by the way, I mean boring in a broad sense.... There isnt very much to do, the local ex-pats all seem a little bored and fed up and the nightlife is shocking.

In my opinion, HH breaks down as follows:

Infrastructure. Not too bad, realy. The roads are ok for the most part but it does suffer from patchy flooding in some areas when it rains. The traffic is quite bad though and a weekend drive through the town center can take 45 minutes, end to end

Shopping. Average. There is of course Market Village but I genuinley dont see the attraction with the place, unless you like Clarks shoes, Thai style clothing brands that have no hope of fitting the average Ferang, a multitude of boring-as-he11 coffee shops, dougnut shops and T-shirt stalls selling naff shirts with "we love Hua Hin". There are a few outdoor style malls around the outskirts such as Santorini with its big wheel and reverse bungee - surrounded by truly crap shops and the new Venetia, which laughably tries to replicate Venice Italy. The shops there are dead and have no hope of surviving as again, they largely sell souveniers targeting the Bangkok Thais, who are renound for spending no money down here. Both mals are basicly full of Rich weekend Thais walking around taking photos of everything and anything whilst spending no money at all.

Lots of supermarkets around town and of course Villa Supermarket.

The nightlife is painfull. I have mentioned this before in another HH thread. Its basicly two areas: Bintabhat and Soi 80. Bint is full of crappy beer bars with the exeption of a couple of bars that have made a real efort to impress - but failed misserably as the target market of older ferags are not interested in anything other than low priced beer and cheap brass, which only the crappy beer bars are able to deliver by cutting costs. Soi 80 is laughably poor, an entire street on the edge of town consisting of truly low class beer bars with no decor. There is (in my opinion) one good pub in the whole town: El Murphys. Its a real pub with draught beer and reasonable food. Usualy an ok crowd and the owner is a nice bloke.

Kao Takiab is a nice little 'village' type area 10 minutes from town. Some ok local type bars there but can be a bit clicky.

Ex-pats are mainly scandinavian who in my opinion like to keep amongst themselves.

Im bored out of my mind here. The only reason I havent moved is because I just cant think of amnywhere else to live. Phuket - too many issues these days, ruined. Pattaya - I dont trust myself to live there, as I work from home and would probably end up in the pub every night which isnt great for me. I love Chiang mai but its miles from anywhere and I lived in Samui 10 years ago, when it was nice. Now, its ruined.

Im 40, so no way in he11 am I going to move to Nakhon Knowehere with the Mrs and live in the middle of an isarn village. maybe when im older, not at 40.

Just my 2 cents. Im pretty certain I will get kicked around for this post so again please let me stress, just my opinion.

Khanom.

Thanks for that perspective Mike. Good to get some real life numbers. Plus up 5 years and 100K/month rent (or 83.33K/month long term lease) sound about correct. Given the tourist/visitor downturn (in that sector) then it will be a struggle to break even.

Our core customers were yachties and most were gone as soon as the Thai's took over, the rest when ACYC moved up the beach... The Lighthouse is very poorly situated for the tourist trade. Expats have found other venues... Good luck to the new managers but I see a big mountain to climb in their future!

So maybe VINs have been covered before... I searched but could not find anything.

I am converting a 9 digit Thai VIN to a standard 17 digit VIN.

The Thai VIN is 4AP037961

The converted VIN would be JYA-4AP00-3V?-037961

The problem I'm having is finding out what the code is for Yamaha motorcycle plant in Thailand (that's the question mark in position 11).

Background - the bike is a Yamaha TZM150 which I am 99% sure was built in Thailand. (I have tried it with an "A" for their main Japanese plant but that no worky!!)

Thanks in advance for any help!

Mike

Nah, it's OK, but It's A Wonderful Life beats Miracle on 34the Street hands down.

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Tranquility on Sai Yuan next to the Yellow bank. Canadian RMT - better than Cracknell was IMHO. 1000 baht/half hour.

Could you please share more details? New here have no clue what's Sai Yuan or yellow bank

Perhaps website/ phone number?

PM sent.

Tranquility on Sai Yuan next to the Yellow bank. Canadian RMT - better than Cracknell was IMHO. 1000 baht/half hour.

So has anyone been to the newly renovated Lighthouse at Chalong Pier?

Any reviews, photos?

Was by a short while ago and it looked like they were really dressing the old girl up!!

Buy heavy gauge copper wire (for outside electrical. Nail it through the sandal, bend the ends to suit with needle-nose pliers. Done and dusted.

Khanom is all good!

I used to live really lovely house just few hundred meters from the beach, that house is now for rent and other house behind my old house is free now too.

Both houses have big private garden area and basic furnitures, not too much. Internet is easy to get there, i need to find out how much cost the optic cable there, not too much if nearest TOT box is not too far away.

Both houses have 2 bedroom and 2 bathroom, my old house is now about 12000 / month and other is 9000 / month

U stay long time so maybe price is negotiable.

I lived there almost 4 years and really liked.

Location is perfect, near the beach, near the center and 50m away from main road, that alley have only 3 houses and it is dead end road, NO traffic.

If u look from map just near from GOLDEN BEACH hotel

I have brand new houses for rent too but my houses are fully furnished and equipped + not on the beach

Good luck and welcome to Khanom

Great answer Sibelius, thank you for posting - we'd certainly be interested in seeing these places in January if they are likely to be available for March onward - could you PM me any contact details etc? In fact I will PM you regarding your brand new houses as well, we wouldn't rule anything out, especially a new house.

I can vouch for Sib and the houses he has built. He was invaluable to us in our search!!

Never talk about Flight School

Why not? That's what it's called in the UK. Pilots have to learn their craft and skills.

He was making a Flight School - Fight Club reference, not directly commenting to you!

Hi mikebike!

Firstly thank you very much for taking to time to give such a detailed and informative response.

The pool is definitely a nice-to-have, especially if we can find very close to the beach, but I thought I would add it to the 'Desirables' list just in case

My wife is Thai so communication with Thai landlords is not a problem. If we find the perfect place and it happens to be furnished we can put some stuff in storage if necessary, but it would certainly be nicer to find somewhere empty (was hoping to catch something brand new before they had a chance to furnish) or a landlord that is amenable to storing their own stuff instead.

I am very glad to hear that the internet is better than I had anticipated - we had a very bad line in the hotel we usually stay at and they indicated it was a problem with the area rather than with their line - sounds like it might have been a fib.. We did hear elsewhere that fibre optic was available on the main stretch of beach, is it more widespread than that? To be honest ADSL is fine so long as it is reliable - are 3BB or CAT (or TRUE) there now, or is it TOT only?

I've certainly spotted some online claims of scams / rogue agents with property in the area unfortunately, this is partly why I'm trying to get info from a few avenues on properties available and to set aside time in January to go and look at options. May I ask how long it took to find your place / how many places you looked at?

If you are able to send us any photos or phone numbers via PM that would be very much appreciated - We buy beer and food for people who do things like that - I'd also like to know what we should be budgeting for if you can offer any advice on this?

Thank you once again!

Hi again RWD. Sorry the reply is so slow, I got caught up in real life!!

Not much NEW construction 'on the beach' so I would be interested in knowing your needs on actual proximity to the beach… 50-100 metres from the beach is a different real estate world to 1km from the beach...

I am not entirely sure of the penetration of fibre-optic off the main drags. TOT is the only game in town for adel-based internet. True Move air cards are popular also but not all that fast.

It took us about 4-6 weeks to find our place.

When I can I will take some pics and gather numbers and forward them to you as a PM. Re budgeting - our home is a little beachfront cottage, 1 bedroom (its just me and my wife), clean, unfurnished 3yrs old @ 70,000 baht/year. The house posted by Jody at 25,000/month would be the (very) high end of the scale.

Hope that helps again, Mick.

Apple pre-pays the customs duty so no additional charges.

. Sorry I know this is not related but I don't know how to start a new post, do you know if I can pay for WIFI for my IPAD I have nowhere for a SIM card, I know I can use WIFI from other people but I want my own for when I go away. Thanks Fred.

iPads come in two configs: 1. WiFi only; 2. WiFi and 3/4G

If your iPad is WiFi only you must be in a WiFi zone. If you have a 3G/4G iPad you can pay a local mobile supplier to have a connection anywhere.

Weird,Apple Thailand is Singapore .

Apple Canada is in the USA… They use regional shipping rather than by country if it saves costs… not so weird.

A decent smart phone with removable memory card can eliminate one piece of equipment to carry around.

32Gb can accommodate a lot of music.....

Also, you can get some bluetooth speakers and have your own room stereo at home.

Yes this is something I have thought about. I've got a Samsung Galaxy but 32GB still wouldn't be enough for all my music. And it of course makes sense to eliminate a device

Many wallets now come with tiny pockets for microSD disks… stick with the phone and split your music/podcasts/books onto two SDs… Simple and cheap!

Conversely many of us have no problems whatsoever.

Surely it is a simple matter to demonstrate where income is derived from ?

My income comes from more than one source but I have no difficulty showing that !

I suspect those that have "difficulty " are those who "swear" affidavits regarding income.

Those of us who have to provide evidence before the Embassy will issue a letter have no problem

I have done six consecutive extensions using an income affidavit and have never been asked for any additional proof.

But I always have my bank book with me that shows my money coming in every month just in case they did ask. A bank book like mine is the best proof you can have.

I too have found that the affidavit is the easiest way to go… guess it all depends on location - of the immigration office and your passport!