mgjackson69

American citizens used to be more supportive of other countries' efforts towards democracy.

We still are...but PAD is nothing to do with "democracy". It is only about Sondhi losing money (and face) to Thaksin.

Or perhaps the other voyagers, whose ships were scheduled to arrive in Boston during a certain tea-party, also felt they had lost face, and took their buckets-and-spades somewhere else ?

What is that incoherent piece of 'prose' supposed to mean? Are you suggesting that, had those erstwhile tourists heading towards "the New World" in the mid 1700s cancelled their trips upon hearing of the Boston Tea Party, the American Revolution would not have been successful?

I suspect that history was not your favorite subject in school...nor was composition.

Hi,

Is Thailand a fairly open minded country when it comes to race? I am a dark skinned Indian and obviously don't want to be treated any differently than lighter skinned farangs.

Thanks

To a Thai, you are not a "farang"...you are a foreigner...not the same.

FWIW, you dark skin will likely cause you to be treated differently. As mentioned by another poster, Thais treat dark-skinned Thais differently.

If you have a working "ToT/TT&T" router, and you do not need or want the wireless, a hub or switch would be a less costly solution.

AIS prepaid

Last January an ATM machine at petrol station in Bangna swallowed my card.

This what happened.

I put my Nationwide card in the machine, entered the CORRECT pin number and the the screen changed to the one where you choose the amount of cash you want, then that was it the machine frooze, wouldn't do anything, tried pressing different amounts, nothing happened, tried clicking cancel to get my card back, nothing happened, the screen was stuck on the page asking for amount. My thai wife went inside to get a member of staff to come and look, the member of staff came outside and said the machine was out of order and that this had happened many times. I was fuming, why cant some people use the brain they were born with, I was saying and my wife was saying in thai, why couldn't some one of put a sign on it saying "out of order" / "not working" in thai or english, anything, couldn't you have put some tape over the card slot, or turned the machine off, anything would be better than doing nothing at all. The member of staff did then put a sign on it but said they couldn't turn it off and they couldn't open it to get the card back. She gave us the number of the bank we needed to contact and my wife called them. They said the card would be safe and they said they would have someone come to open the machine. They asked the wife when we were flying back to UK, i would have been thinking quickly here and said the next evening but my wife told them the real date which was about 2 weeks time (at least she honest, too honest this time). We had to leave the machine with my card inside, the pin number entered and the screen on the page asking you how much you want.

The next day we called the bank and they were sending someone, this went on for a week, we went back to the petrol station, they had a stack of cards behind the counter ours wasn't there, the reason they had these was because the machine would sometimes spit the cards out after a while. We ended up going to the bank which was at the end of Soi 3 near Suk, I wish I new this earlier as we were staying at Soi 4. The bank said they had sent someone to the machine and my card wasn't inside. So in the end we didn't get the card back.

The thing that made me really angry was that nobody at the service station had thought to put any type of sign on the machine or some tape over the card slot even though they new it had problems. Common sense is a very hard thing to teach, most of us have it but some don't.

A situation like this is frustrating, certainly...but that is not the service station's ATM...they are not responsible for it. It belongs to the bank.

I do not have a specific model number for you, but I think anything D-Link or Linksys will treat you well.

I have some cheap Chinese POS right now, I forget the brand...based on my experience with this one I would not buy another.

You thinking too mutt

Cheap...Good...Fast

Choose any two

What abuot turning 2wd v 4wd? if you live near traffic and shopping malls etc...

Also, can someone offer and interp on canopy ofver the tray... Is that like covering the ash tray to show smoking is not allowed?

Typically a 4wd will have as good or better (shorter) turning radius than a comparable 2wd. Unless you are locked in 4wd mode on dry pavement, which you should never do...it is very hard on driveline components.

There are a few options for covering the "tray"...honestly, this is the first time I have heard a pickup truck bed/box referred to as "the tray":

1) Topper/shell/canopy - is completely enclosed, typically has glass in the sides and rear, is lockable.

Pros - gives you a bunch of dry, clean, lockable storage; good place for the extended family to ride

Cons - heavy, may require you to get the vehicle "re-certified" for weight, can be in the way if you need to haul something odd-shaped or tall

2) Cover/lid - This is a fiberglass lid that sits on the top of the bed, the rear raises up, it is lockable. Some (like the one I have on my PreRunner) can be raised front and rear to about the level of the top of the cab and locked there for use in the open position.

Pros - you get some dry, lockable, out of sight/out of mind storage, good place for the family to ride (except on the tollway...400 THB for that one )

Cons - can be in the way if you need to haul something odd-shaped or tall

3) Tonneau cover - a fabric cover over the top of the bed, similar to a tarpaulin

Pros - you get some mostly dry, mostly clean, out of sight/out of mind storage, inexpensive

Cons - not lockable, the fabric will eventually need to be replaced, easily torn, tend to stretch and not fit tightly over time

For my uses, I went with Option 2. So far (9 months) is has worked well, and has not been inconvenient. If figure if I need to haul something that will not fit, I will either hire a small truck and a couple of somchais, or rent a pickup truck. And sometimes it is good to be able to say, "Sorry, I would like to help, but that just will not fit in my truck."

O.K, I admit that I've never used my Fortuna off road and I've never even touched the low ratio knob .... but there's a strange and totally illogical appeal of having a vehicle that could, in theory, drive us all home if the airports never reopen!

yes, there is that

Having owned both 2wd and 4wd pickup trucks, the *only* negative to the 4wd that I can see is the purchase price.

"held hostage"? "Lives are being ruined"?

Get a grip

And as for over the counter drugs...Beware the Tiffy...Anti cold / headache drug that knocks you out fo a few hours.

And quite often that is exactly what is needed...a few hours of good downtime.

Yeah, agreed, but have you seen the television advert for Tiffy - It shows a noodle stand worker with a cold and then after taking Tiffy he is bright eyed and bushy-tailed working again with a smile on his face....More likely he will be asleep underneath the noodle cart!!

Agreed...it is not the thing to take before heading out for a road trip.

Splitting the country, a really bad idea. Worked really well for Viet Nam and Korea.

I agree...I hope the OP was not serious.

And as for over the counter drugs...Beware the Tiffy...Anti cold / headache drug that knocks you out fo a few hours.

And quite often that is exactly what is needed...a few hours of good downtime.

It seems to me that it would be no more appropriate to "out" a homosexual than it would be to go around talking about a heterosexual's activities.

You are mistaken my friend....Thais do *not* train their dogs to lie anywhere and everywhere...indeed (generalizing here a bit), Thais do not train their dogs at all. Hence, the dogs just do what they want.

Sort of like the children...

Where did you buy the phone, and how much did you pay?

I have the HTC TyTNII and am very happy with it.

Hi

Not sure which forum this belongs to, however, here goes.

I bought an iPhone in Thailand. The salesperson "unblocked" it and gave me a sim card for 121. Really I don't use my phone very often but I have it so that others get in touch with me. At first I had 100 THB and only used about 40THB before the date was to expire so I restocked 50THB, that only made my card valuable for a further 3 days. I never made any calls in that time so now the money is lost and the sim? will expire very soon, meaning I will have no number (I think)

Can anyone explain how the sim thing works and maybe give me a better solution?

Thanks to anyone who can help

Tony

If you have AIS and know somebody that also has AIS and they are a big user and has some extra validity you could get some more time by them dialing *140 and transferring another month or so to your phone.

Did that from the wifes to mine. Can also move funds using same number.

Yes...my wife and I do this all the time, with both AIS and True Move. AIS can transfer validity and/or minutes...True Move can transfer minutes only.

I have the max (1 year) on my AIS SIM...so when I need minutes, I will have the wife put the voucher onto her AIS number, then transfer some of the minutes to my AIS number.

On the other hand, she has validity maxed on her True Move SIM, so when she needs True Move minutes I put the voucher onto my True Move number (which I use infrequently), then transfer most of the minutes to her True Move number.

Why do we have SIMs with two different carriers? For her, it is show...makes her feel important I guess, having two numbers.

For me, having worked in the cellular industry for many years, for a company who sells high-availability hardware and software, it is about fault tolerance. Whenever I am working in a country, I buy a SIM on my customer's service (that is the one I want the customer to see me using), but I also buy a SIM from one of their competitors. This facilitates more thorough call-testing as well.

I have heard that "DTAC is best"...inside BKK anyway. I have no experience with that one.

Overall, I would have to give AIS/1-2-Call the nod. Best voice coverage, best data coverage, best international roaming (if that is important to you).

It certainly would be an excellent opportunity, to do the unthinkable, and solve that one too.

Yep....draw the line, put up a big wall like that between Israel and the West Bank, no crossing...done

BTW, that wall between Israel and the West Bank is an ugly, depressing thing to see...but you cannot argue with the effectiveness.

It is a common misconception that a 4wd vehicle will automatically use more fuel. Other than the slight weight difference between 2wd and 4wd, there really is nothing that is going to add to fuel consumption in the course of normal on-road driving.

Any noticeable increase in fuel consumption with 4wd is going to be due to the type of driving done while using 4wd.

And yes, I am speaking from experience on this.

Do not forget, while carving up the Kingdom, to give some section of the far south to the Muslims, to make their own country as well.

Don't try and work the dates out. Get a Visa. If you must go to London.

http://www.thaiembassyuk.org.uk/visa_main.html

I have to concur with K Lite Beer on this one.

It is certainly possible to suss out the dates, do a border run, and get your time in-country ok.

I would just get the tourist visa and be done with it. Save the in-country hassle and enjoy your time here.

I had an instance a while back where I was pretty sure I had left the card in the ATM. You know, something like this:

Insert card, enter PIN, get cash, counting cash, wife asks about something, get distracted, walk away without taking card.

Perhaps 30 minutes later, we were at a restaurant perhaps 2 km away..."Shit, did I take my ATM card back?". Check the wallet, not there.

I dash back to the 7-11 on the offhand chance that some good Samaritan just happened to see the card in the machine before the ATM ate it and gave it to the clerk...nope.

In this scenario, I could not be certain that my card had been captured by the ATM. So I immediately called my bank, cancelled the card, ordered a new one. This involved a bit of fiddle-farting around, since my bank would not FedEx it outside of USA. So, it went to my house in USA, the house-sitter FedEx the card to me in BKK.

Depending upon your logistics, it might be just as easy to cancel the card and order a new one.

That is the crux of the problem...the Thai deference to "authority". They just never think about questioning a doctor or pharmacist. And they see no reason to know what they are taking or anything else about it...if the doctor says, then it is ok.

My wife was absolutely floored when I told her the story about me raising hel_l with my father's cardiologist because I thought his course of treatment was wrong. She asked, "How can you do that?". I said, "Simple, my father is the customer...that doctor works for him. Since my father does not recognize the problem, or will not say anything about it, I am taking it on myself as the eldest son to try to fix it."

She was also surprised when she took me to a clinic in BKK for an ear infection and I told the doctor what to prescribe and how much. I did so in a respectful manner, and the doctor agreed with me. Later she said I should not tell the doctor that...my response was, "Why not? I had a pretty good idea what was wrong, and what it would take to fix it. Why should I not let the doctor know that I have that knowledge?"

I am in Chok Chai 4 in Bangkok if another poster is talking about the same Chok Chai (as in Lat Prao).

The Chok Chai I was referring to is in Korat...not the famous Chok Chai Farm, but Amphur Chok Chai, 30 km south of Korat City on Highway 244.

But, I also have a room in BKK in Khannayao, not far from Ram Intra/Eastern Ring Road Interchange...so in that regard I am not far from you.