Loom

If you are based in Ao Nang, chill on the Ralley beach, take longtail boats out for snorkelling/swimming, you can do rock climbing if you're into that, explore Ralley beach, etc. Plently to do in 3 days.

Recommended day trip via speed boat would be to Phi Phi for more swimming and snorkelling. There is probably a slower boat to Emerald cave, another day trip. Lanta might be worth exploring though I've never been there so can't say one thing or another about it.

That should just about eat up a week? If not then I'm sure you can get more suggestions from your hotel concierge.

What I meant was that Sing Air owns both Silk Air and a majority of Tiger.

We're going SilkAir, though I would guess the flight cancellation problem for Tiger isn't so bad now running up into the peak season.

Yeah, the tickets on silkair are running around $500 each.

However, I just do not want to run the risk of getting my fuse lit in some way by tiger. Given my past experience, I'd give it a high probability.

Singapore air wins either way we go.

Best,

Actually, I've learned that the Krabi-Sing leg has been cancelled at various times. Friends of mine had their "daily" flight cancelled for three days in a row and never got a refund, ended up driving to Phuket and buying another set of tickets on a premium carrier.

At the end of the day, it would have been far better to have gone directly to Phuket and driven down and back.

That's worse than bus service...sorry to throw cold water on the idea.

Than why don't you take Tiger Airways with daily flights Singapore to Krabi ? Sometimes as low as for SGD 10 plus tax one way.

I get the low cost ticket price, but you pay for what you get -- a ride in a cattle car. I'd rather pay a premium than allow the Tiger flight attendants, ground staff, and pilots stick their fingers in my eye. Part owner is Ryanair just and Tiger was recently shown to have had among the largest number of customer complaints of all the discounters operating out of Singapore. Ryanair was also recently looking into selling standing room tickets. Thnks, but no thanks....

Actually, I thought u were talking Sing to Phuket. Will check out SIng to Krabi even if it might involve the problems mentioned above.

OK, thks...I'm flying up from Singapore, so going to BKK to catch the flight to Krabi seems a little impractical. The direct flight to Phuket option and driving down seems best.

I've been there, done that with Phuket so would want to hit the road to Krabi from the Phuket airport.

There's an interesting cave or two on the way down as I recall. A driver should know(?)

Do you have any recommendations for side trips on the way down?

Taking a trip to Ao Nang and the answer to the above question will help decide if I go to Bangkok to Krabi by air.... or to Phuket and take ground transport from Phuket to Ao Nang.

I've seen a variety of responses for the road trip from Phuket to Ao Nang ranging from 2 to 4 hours. Is it closer to 2h or 4h? Thanks....

Yes, but schools normally have weeks/months of holiday and why not rescedule holiday to coincide with burning season. Only short term solution for the problem.

By the way, does the school do blood testing for drugs?

Admissions prospectus intro for the clean air comment. Why doesn't the school admit the very serious health hazard and declare a holiday during march and half of April?

The untruths come from the top. The standards may or may not trickle down. I've seen a bit of corporAte fraud over time. This would be a red flag in my book. They are clearly bs ing you in published comment. You have to wonder how far it goes especially if I were dishing out the dough.

For you these may be marketing blurbs but for me comments that have no basis in fact.

Another example is that 50% of their graduates got accepted at top foreign universities last year but in truth it was 50% of the students going to foreign universities which does not include those not going to "universities" and those going to Thai universities in the statistic. So it is not 50% of the students but something less, and how much less requires more digging for facts.

The latest edition of 'Prem Quarterly', volume 2 issue 4 available on-line at the PTIS web-site, appears to agree with you, and says "Of those students not staying in Thailand, 50% were offered places in universities ranked in the world's top fifty universities". So perhaps you would now accept that they're not making an exaggerated-claim after all ?

Very few schools claim to be a prestigious place where students enjoy the clean air. Without factual backup for both of these claims I would question the credibility of management, if not wonder how many issues are taught in class without factual basis.

I really would not want my kid to think it's right to make such statements.

Companies I would assess the same way. If they tell too many lies they will destroy their own credibility.

"where students enjoy the clean air"

I would agree that, while we all enjoy Chiang Mai and its surrounds for their natural-beauty & attractions, for March or April every year, it would be wrong to describe the air in Chiang Mai as "clean". Please could you show me where Prem currently make this claim, on their web-site for example ?

In fact we parents know that Prem are very concerned about the annual pollution-problem up here. They brief us exhaustively by email every year, concerning the air-quality readings, and try to use the smog to teach the importance of environmental-awareness to their students. Quite right too !

Also I would suggest that it is rather a big jump, from a couple of (possible) exaggerations by management in some marketing 'blurb', to drawing the conclusion that any/many "issues are taught in class without factual basis". That is IMO a very serious allegation to make, against both the school in general, and the professional integrity of a lot of qualified experienced teachers.

Very few schools claim to be a prestigious place where students enjoy the clean air. Without factual backup for both of these claims I would question the credibility of management, if not wonder how many issues are taught in class without factual basis.

I really would not want my kid to think it's right to make such statements.

Companies I would assess the same way. If they tell too many lies they will destroy their own credibility.

I was pretty impressed looking at results on lanna's web site. It really makes the prem website look a bit pale by comparison.

In Singapore three intl schools kept coming up when talking to expats who had already done some shopping. The IB school admissions people were very arrogant and offered no explanation why their school seemed to stack up well by comparison.

I ended up sending my kid to the school where I got the best sense for the quality of people, among other factors/

[

Widely discussed by those who are interested: The facts about how many students actually take and complete the IB program at Prem. Those who do not are offered a British IGCSE certificate.

According to the IB website the program began at the International School of Geneva, which itself was founded in the1920s for children of diplomats at the "League of Nations and the International Labour Office". Please note the British spelling.

Whatever it came from, the IB is full of no doubt lofty, but snobbish, mumbo-jumbo. Perfect to appeal to bigface rich kids. The whole thing is incredibly pompous and perhaps only tangentially relevant to whether a kid gets a good education.

A lot of 'I think', and I am here to tell you that basically, in regards to testing students, you are wrong.

I am one of those 'educators' that says that the testing is the way it is simply because you (and many others) simply don't know the real truth.

What's the "real truth"? All the tests you have administered have been graded unfairly and, extrapolating that, all other tests are graded unfairly. Therefore testing is useless? What criteria would you use to assess a student's abilities then?

In my 20 years of teaching in many schools in Thailand, I have never administered a test that was graded fairly. I never believe that grades equal any relation to student's abilities...

Did universities drop standardized test results from admission criteria? I don't think so and don't think that most educators think that these tests are unfairly graded. I suspect that universities do pay attention to test scores during the admission process. Even Prem tests incoming students. Do they ignore the scores and instead just have a hunch about a student's ability. Doubt it....

Grades may or may not relate to abilities and in some cases a student's strength may be test taking at the expense of creative thinking. But for basic literacy and math skills, I suspect that relative test results are indicative and that's why some emphasis is placed on test results for school admission.

I'd like to see Prem's IB scores compared to the average global IB scores.

Standards differ from school to school.

I'd like to see test results to verify claims that Prem is such a prestigious institution. The more prestigious international schools in Singapore regularly update test results and college admission results on their web sites. If it's not a selling point, then there would be no reason to provide the information.

Without backup information it's impossible to conclude just how prestigious an institution actually may be.

Most books about commercial tree plantations devote at least a chapter to the benefits and how to aspects of pruning.

I've seen large strips of bark stripped off tree trunks due to pruning by hacking with a large knife rather than a saw. Topping is just another abusive pruning technique.

We tried roundup 2 years ago partially on advice that the prickly weeds would never come back. It worked well until the next rainy season but the prickly weeds just came back.

We decided not to use roundup due to potential health hazards and cost. I also wasn't around when the stuff was applied but it ended up killing some grass that I would have liked to keep and some smaller trees.

So it's back to the weed whacker.

I'll try to experiment with beans or sunn hemp until the shade from trees starts to keep things down a little better. Ideally, tree litter (unless it gets burned when I'm not around) and shade will do away with the need to use a weed whacker more than once a year or so.

I think you mean "LOVE AT FIRST BITE". Cross the Narriwat bridge coming from the old city. Turn right after the bridge and take the first left down a small soi. There is a small sign on the wall at the corner of the soi. It's at the end of the soi on the right.

That name sounds familiar...thanks for the directions.

There was a shop I went to several years ago with excellent home-made pies and coffee. It was in the owner's house compound somewhere east of the moat and across the river.

If it's still in business, does anyone know the name of the business, the street address or phone number?

From looking at the pics, it seems the edge of the pond is higher than the surrounding land. In order to collect rainwater, you'd want the surrounding land to slope down and drain into the pond.

There are some threads in the farming forum on sealing pond walls with clay. To further stabilize the pond's slope, vetiver grass would probably work well.

Here's a rainfall forecast for the next few months:

http://www.tmd.go.th/programs/uploads/fore...s_EN_150116.pdf

The local yang na tree (dipterocarpus alatus) is tapped for oleoresin also. The resin from these trees is used for lamps and torches. Now more commonly used in paints and varnish.

Haven't seen anything discussing the use of resin from this tree as a fuel for motor vehicles, though.

Wife just learned that current going price in KPP area is holding up at Bt9,000/ton, flat compared to last year.

Report below mentions that government intervention prices are above world prices.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/gainfiles/200903/146347584.pdf

There was a fairly detailed discussion in this forum about lining leaking ponds using clay here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Photos-t133032.html