Filer

Fully agree with previous post (and the prices -- which are clearly listed). I always use the AOT service at the mentioned desk location. The cars themselves are just a short walk away on the same level after you exit customs.

Any recommendations for a good alterations service in Bangkok in the Silom area?

For several years I've taken a variety of alterations jobs to the two ladies who ran an alterations service in a small shop located in Sala Daeng BTS station - one of the last few shops on the left as you leave Sala Daeng BTS and join the overhead walkway connecting to Silom MRT station by the Dusit Thani Hotel.

I went there today with several jobs, but the shop is empty and the people have left -- maybe the result of falling business dunig the recent troubles, although the shop always seemed to be overloaded with work. Any suggestions for alternative aterations services in the general Silom area?

You might try Chawla Travel at 22 Patpong 1 (near Surawong end). You can easily find their Web site and email address/phones via Google. I used them for several years and they seemed to have all the best discount long distance/RTW deals. I just glanced briefly at their latest Web site - mentions RTW and all that -- although I get the impression that they're concenrating more now on the business class market. They/ve been around for a long time and are reliable. If you visit/phone, ask for Rani, who's the lady that oversees the business.

I agree with post #7: Art's Tailor in Thaniya was for many years acknowledged as one of the very best for quality of workmanship and first rate materials. I first bought from them about 1980. I am still wearing some trousers and shirts of theirs that date from 1994/96.

However, I found more recently that they were becoming very expensive -- although the quality was tops -- probably due to their increasingly Japanese business clientele looking for the very best that can be bought in Bangkok and willing to pay top rates for it. So recently I went more down-market and finally found good value for all my requirements, including tuxedo, in one of the Indian (Sikh) tailors in the Sukhumvit area near Nana, where I have been well served. This was Siam Emporium Tailors, originally based in Siam Center but now in two locations in Sukhumvit: (i) Corner of Sukh and Soi 8, close to Nana BTS exit (ii) 2 shops beyond Exchange Tower in Sukh at the Asoke intersection.

Like many other tailors Siam Emporium have been hit by the uncertainties in the visitor market this year and I now see that thy are making a big push to do business by mail order (you measure yourself) on-line from their Web site. It seems as though this is their main focus now. This could mean that they are going to be less and less geared to satisfying the special demands of personal customers and so I probably need to start looking for another change and following up some of the very interesting suggestions in this thread. This has come just at the right time for me!

Not staying there, but have a few thoughts that may be useful.

Looked at this place a few times over the past 2-3 yrs or so with view to buy (or rent). Inspected all the facilities and several specific units and eventually decided definitely against it end of 2013.

Leaving aside the high buying price/rent levels being asked, which are arguably justified for this premier, very convenient location and high quality spec, three things contributed to making it negative for me.

1. The units are generally very hot and the windows/walls are not very well insulated against solar heat (unless you want to spend a lot on pwer for air conditioning. This is especially so on the south side (downstream side) which gets sun from dawn to sunset.

2. The large site between the two towers of The River and the Taksin bridge (currently a drinks bottling plant/depot) looks a prime spot for development and another high-rise complex which would overshadow The River complex and block views southward.

3. There seem to be a lot of 'distressed sales' by speculators who had bought the units at launch with a quick capital gain in mind upon re-sale, who now seem increasingly to be opting to rent out (because they can's sell at anywhere near their target prices right now) -- and renting out on short term basis (even by the day) for holiday rentals. You can find many adverts for this on the Web. This seems to have been accepted as OK by the condo owners/management, although to me it seems to defeat the whole purpose of an upmarket, select condo development. This for me was the real killer. I just would not accept to pay good money to be surrounded by lots of short term holiday tourists, probably with a highlevel of kids, plus the obvious issues of security resulting from lots of short-term, unknown people having security access around the site.

The problems above probably apply to other prime Bangkok condo sites too, but in the case of The River they played a major role in turning me off.

I hope this helps.

There is a model railway hobby shop in Bangkok in 2nd or 3rd floor of JJ Mall (the aircond mall at the edge of the Chatuchak market complex that is open every day). They seem to stock a variety of gauges and international brands (although I haven't noticed G gauge there). It's called Scent of Scale and you can find references to it if you do a Web search. People there may well know about the availability of G gauge in Thailand. Hope this helps.

Currently in the South at Hat Yai. Town centre massage prices here, with most customers being the considerable numbers of Thai and other Asian visitors, seem to have held steady for some time at 200 Bht/hr (in some cases, such as in the hotels, maybe 250 Bht/hr). Very few western visitors here and lots of massage places jostling for business, all of which keeps the lid on prices. I don't have the answer to the OP's question about Phuket, but I suspect that the western expats who must make up the bulk of the customers in Phuket just represent a soft target if the massage parlour operators want to collude in moving prices up.

Many thanks for this, Puschl.

I've looked at the table of South Indian scripts and have to agree that there are definitely plenty of similarities here. I'll follow up with friends who have links with those cultures.

I'm not sure whether this is the right forum for my question, but it does relate to Thai language.

The pottery shard shown in the image was found on a beach in Malaysia. The letters look Thai, but I'm not sure. There is however something which could also be an elephant symbol -- which maybe supports it being Thai. It's just a flat piece of white pottery, maybe a fragment of dinner plate, but I'm curious since Malaysian beaches rarely yield bits of Thai pottery (plenty of Chinese, Vietnamese, European, etc, of all ages). If the thing is Thai, can anyone tell me what it says?

I have a Huawei E220 USB modem (labelled 3G Broadband/HSDPA/UMTS/GPR), which I bought and used successfully from a mobile phone co in another country. If I unlock the modem, which I can easily do with one of the on-line services, and put in a Thai Sim, from DTAC for example, and buy an airtime plan paid up-front, what sort of performance can I expect to get these days in central Bangkok? Is it worth the effort?

I’m looking at this as an alternative to taking the laptop to an internet cafe or paying costly hotel charges when I’m staying in Bangkok.

I see some oldish posts on this topic in the forum but I wondered what the situation is today.

Hi ladies,

My wife is looking for a good source of natural cosmetic creams (‘body butter’ creams, for example) in Bangkok. Any specific suggestions? The products must be free of any of the usual harmful or doubtful chemical ingredients. There are one or two old threads on this in the forums, including one moved to the health forum which mentions Lemongrass House, a Phuket producer of natural beauty and spa products, which used to have some outlets in Bangkok (Chatuchak). Are they still around?

We are happy to receive any up-to-date comments or suggestions on producers or retailers (by PM as well as by postings).

Hi ladies,

My wife is planning some face-lift surgery and intends to go for an initial consultation at Bungrumrad Hospital, Bangkok, in view of their substantial cosmetic surgery department and an apparently good reputation. Has any Thaivisa member undertaken any cosmetic surgery of this type at Bungrumrad and have any useful comments on any of the individual cosmetic surgery specialists there? Dr Amorn Poomee clearly seems to be well regarded among posters to this thread, but are there any other specific suggestions?

My wife wants to minimise the need to consult ‘cold’ with one of the 25 or so specialists in this field at the hospital

She had some very successful treatment of this type in London some years back, but wants an ‘update’ now and is ideally looking for someone who is comfortable working on a European face.

We are happy to receive any comments or suggestions by PM as well as by postings.

Hi ladies,

My wife has reviewed with interest the various postings on this subject in various threads on the Thaivisa forums and has decided, for her specific needs, to check out the following four names:

- Cotton House - Oriental Plaza

- I.F. Tailor - Surawong nr J Thompson

- Dino - by Robinsons, (Sukhumvit, presumably)

- Siam Emporium - Siam Center

She’s looking for a tailor experienced in making fitted office-type clothes for women, ie not just a good dressmaker. This includes fitted jackets and fitted shirts (for which they will need to have a good selection of proper quality cotton shirting material). At one time in the past she used a tailor in one of the Pramot/Pradit/Prachum sois near the British Club/Neilson Hays Library, who made all the female attendants’ uniforms for Thai Airways, but that business has disappeared now. The tailor needs to speak reasonable English.

Before she starts her visits to these places, does anyone have and more up-to-date or additional suggestions? My wife will in any case post the results of her visits here in this forum.

You can PM to us as well as post, if you prefer.

budget cuts and ejection seat not working. Some planes in the RTAF are like 20-25 years old? I read somewhere that a pilot flew in a jet that his father used to fly with

And a couple of the R1 Nimrods of 51 Squadron at RAF Waddington have been in service since 1974.

Departing from the original topic, but possibly worth a mention too re old serviceable aircraft........Recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of my very first flight (1959 as Royal Air Force cadet in UK in 2 seat Chipmunk trainer). Have been delighted to find that the exact plane is still in full working order and flying at a flying school in New Zealand -- verified by my flight log, aircraft serial no, photos and video.

How could these two foreigners (if the Daily Mail report is correct in its details) have bought these 48 acres of land legitimately under Thai land ownership rules?

Last year I had good quality and prices from the specialist place on ground floor of Robinson's main dept store in Phuket Town, which seems to have a lot of business. It's in one corner of the floor. Can't remember the name of the place or the actual prices, but they reproduced some color images of mine onto a card very well. Plenty of examples to view if you go there. Negatives -- possibly the choice of papers/cards is not as great as in a good print shop. They also cut out the cards from the printed page with a ruler and knife, not a guillotine, so somewhat basic.

Thanks again for the suggestions. We first tried the easiest option, which was the 'Jewelry Clinic' in the basement of Siam Paragon (ask at the info desk if you cannot find it), who have a small workshop behind their counter with a couple of craftsmen and they were able to do everything we wanted at reasonable cost: enlarge 2 gold rings to a new size (requiring additional gold), refix a detached gemstone on another gold ring, resolder some broken silver cufflinks.

The service was good and the jobs were done within a couple of hours. Maybe for something more complex or needing artistic skill, I might go to one of the other suggested options, but for straightforward things this place is fine.

That's a good idea, thanks. I know the area. Will check it out.

I've also been told of a repair shop called "Jewelry Clinic" which has outlets in MBK 3rd floor and Siam Paragon basement.

I'll put a note here next week of how things work out.

Any up-to-date recommendations for places doing miscellaneous small repairs on gold jewelry -- central Bangkok, within reach of public transport? Things like enlarging rings, repairing settings for loose gemstones etc. My wife has a backlog of small repairs needed.

Thanks, everyone, for some great suggestions. I'll be following these up in the next couple of weeks. I'll try and post my results here. I'll probably start with the shop at Fortune Town.

Thanks, rgs2001uk (the first responder), for your suggestion, but I'd prefer this time to be getting shop versions. I'll keep your suggestion in mind for another occasion.

Any recommendations for shops in Bangkok that have a really good selection of classic English language movies on DVD -- and who know what they've got?

I'm looking for things like:

The Third Man

Zorba the Greek

Indochine

Day of the Jackal

Castaway

Capt Corelli's Mandolin

The Shawshank Redemption

I've searched but can't find any mentions of the Ban Chiang restaurant in this forum yet.

Anybody know it or eaten there recently?

It's in Soi Srivieng in the area near the Holiday Inn hotel between Silom and Sathorn.

I want to take my Ilong-standing ndian tailor and his wife out for dinner to a restaurant with good Thai food, relaxed surroundings and atmosphere and foreigner-friendly -- and near to the Silom area where he has his shop. I could go to Ban Khanitha down in Sathorn, which is sort of the right concept that I am looking for, but possibly a little bit too up-market for this occasion (and possibly also losing some of its original charm if you're an old-timer like me and remember its Soi Ruam Rudee days).

On paper (which means largely tourist-oriented publications) the Ban Chiang seems a good choice and well recommended. I'll be coming in from out of Bangkok and won't have much time before the invitation to actually check the restaurant out myself.

All comments welcome. PM me if you wish.

What about EMS or another int'l courier service?  Do the bags really need to be there ASAP, or could you post these bags?

Thanks. For this stuff, DHL is the cheapest of the international courier services to Europe; the other ones available here including EMS cost more. Post is not an option -- haven't checked the cost, but there would be bureaucratic customs problems.

The airlines and the freight handling community seem largely to have given up on forwarding small consignments via multiple connecting carriers and now essentially do only point-to-point on their own or alliance networks, leaving the small stuff that requires connections to the international courier companies -- which can do a good job to almost anywhere in the world, but at excessive prices. It would be nice to see some EU or USA investigations into price collusion here, as we have recently seen into some of the big airlines' freight rate practices.

Posting this in Phuket forum as it's Phuket-specific, not just a general query re unaccompanied baggage (personal effects) out of Thailand. Hope this is OK with mods.

I'm having problems finding an economic means of sending two bags of unaccompanied baggage (20 kilos each) by air cargo out of Phuket to a minorEuropean destination. I'm looking for anyone with any experience of this. I already have one Phuket cargo agent looking for a solution for me, but I thought it worth while to ask for members' experience (or any recommended agent in Phuket). There are probably some of solutions available in Bangkok, but I'm here in Phuket.

I checked with Thai Airways and their local air cargo agent in Phuket and it seems that they will only accepted such shipments in Phuket for carrying to Thai Air on-line destinations. They will not eccept such cargo for transfer to another airline in Europe for the final part of the journey.

There is no airline in Phuket, and not even in Bangkok, nor any airline alliance, which flies all the way to where I want to go, so my unaccompanied bags will have to go via more than one carrier. I've done this a number of times in the past in various parts of the world and it has never been a problem. Maybe this is just Thailand, or Thai Airways being uncooperative, or maybe airline cargo practices have changed for security reasopns or something.

The regular rate for unaccompanied baggage from Thailand and neighbouring parts of SE Asia to European destinations is of the order of 260 Baht per kilo (plus some small admin charges for the shipment), which is OK.

Specifically I want to send the bags from Phuket to Greece and in particular to the international airport at Corfu in Greece, where I will pick them up on their arrival. Thai Air can carry them to Athens, Greece (the nearest airport Thai flies to), but will not direct them on to one of the two local carriers which take cargo from Athens on to Corfu. "No can do."

The only alternative at present seems to be DHL in Phuket where I can fill 2 of their standard 20kg boxes (unfortunately with less volume than my 2 bags) and they will take them all the way from Phuket to destination -- BUT for the exorbitant cost of some 9,300 baht per box (= 465 baht per kilo), since unfortunately Greece falls into one of their highest cost zones for some reason, dearer than going to USA even.

Any bright ideas would be welcome. By the way, I can't and don't want to take the stuff accompanied. I'm already max'd out with business class tickets all the way and gold card extra weight allowance.

Is it straightforward to transfer a sizeable amount (4-5 million) of Thai Baht by Swift transfer from a Thai bank account to a foreign account? Any likely complications? Any special care needed in arranging the transaction?

The scenario is:

- I sell some property here which I own and the buyer deposits Baht (several million) into my Thai bank account.

- I ask my Thai bank to transfer the same amount (in Baht) to my foreign bank account overseas.

- No foreign currency involved at all at any stage.

- If needed, I can document both the property here, and a corresponding transfer some time ago of Thai baht into Thailand for the purchase of the property (not to my Thai bank account here at that time, but direct to the property vendor’s lawyer). Again, I emphasise no foreign currency involved (I bought the Thai Baht at my foreign bank and will return Thai Baht there)

My lawyer handling the property sale for me says there should be no problem transferring the Thai Baht onwards out of Thailand. However, seeing that this is Thailand, I felt that it’s worth double checking with people’s actual experience.