n8sail

I go 1-3 times per year for work, usually Shenzhen/Donguang and also Shanghai. Have also been to Qingdao and Qingyuan, a place where I literally didn't see another westerner the whole 3 days I spent there. That was about 5 years ago, though. Recently, I have had trouble making purchases and getting cash with my USA credit card despite warning my bank and them swearing it will work. I have also many times not been able to use cash, so that IS in fact a thing, especially in the last 1 year. Maybe in big, touristy areas it's fine, but I go for work and only briefly visit these types of places. My SCB debit card worked no problem at the checkouts I tried, just make sure to enable 'international transactions' in the SCB app before you go. It does annoy people behind you in lines as scanning with wechat is FAR faster than credit/debit cards. Getting wechat scanning working for foreigners is basically impossible, co-worker has tried for years. My recommendation for internet is use an overseas roaming package. I use AIS, it works just fine. Co-worker from USA uses Verizon, also works. All our normal apps/webpages seem to work through overseas 4/5G connections. Use a VPN for sure if on any wifi connection. Co-worker has wirelessly had credit cards and data/accounts stolen from phone multiple times in past few years. He now uses a 'faraday bag' to store his wallet and phone to prevent hacking when in large public places such as train stations etc. Since starting that he has not been hacked. Can probably find on lazada. I thought it was BS... but apparently they actually work.

I could be wrong, but I'd say very unlikely this bus is actually a Benz. I just quickly looked at photos of at least recent ones, and none of them have a front grill or lights that look like this. I say this because one of the two busses that come to where I work everyday to drop off and pick up laborers is a "Mercedes Benz". Yeah, right. It's a Chinese bus, with the badges changed. Modified and repainted about 3 times in the 11 years I've been here. Maybe I'm wrong, though, have been before. RIP, what a disaster. 😢☹️😓

Evolt Official Line group sent a message out saying some their chargers will be preemptively shut off, and listed provinces where this might happen, and apologized for inconvenience. That is the only one of the 8 (yes EIGHT!) different apps/companies I have on my phone that are available in Thailand that said anything at all to its users, at least that I saw. Luckily I almost never use public chargers.

Quite a lot more money here than in NZ, USA, Canada, UK etc. https://www.one2car.com/en/cars-for-sale/nissan/370z Still nowhere near a "Supercar" or "Luxury". Ricemobile is what they call them where I come from. A Thai friend of ours has one. Was around 1.5 million baht. It is slammed, with ridiculous camber settings, like 30 degrees or so. I don't know how he drives it around on these roads.

Just asked her, she hasn't heard anything else. Like most news stories in Thai news media, this will likely be a 'one-and-done' story, unless one goes to see for themselves.

I have owned an EV and lived in a Condo for more than 3.5 years now. In the beginning, they provided 15amp standard outlets to charge with (Max 3.5kw, "granny charger", you provide the charger, which normally comes with the car). Each outlet had its own meter, and the security guards would check and record power before and after you were done with the plug, then Juristic office would send you a bill each month. At that time, very few EVs, so I basically just left my 'granny charger' there all the time. I lived for 6 months with only this charger, driving 100-150km every work day. No problem at all. 7 baht/kwh, so they made money on it. I asked Juristic if I could install the 7.5kw permanently mounted charger that came free with the vehicle at one of the spots. They said no. No biggie, I installed the charger at work, BOI zone, company charges me 4baht/kwh, so they also make money. I almost exclusively use this now as it is so incredibly cheap. A few months ago the Condo installed Pupa Plugs from PEA, which are smart plugs with 15amp service, no app needed. You simply scan QR code, enter phone number, input OTP they text to you, add money with QR code scan, tell how much money you want to use (7 baht/kwh), plug in your 'granny charger', and it all starts. Webpage stays open on phone and tells you status and lets you stop charging if you want at any time. Takes longer than just plugging in, but pretty easy compared to some other chargers, and NO STUPID APPS. I would recommend this to any Condo Juristic office as it is easy, security guards have no extra work, no extra billing needed, all automatic, and just need the Pupa Plug box, which is very simple to install. This is SLOW charging, though, have to leave overnight for any meaningful battery gains, which is totally fine for most usage. https://pupa.pea.co.th/ Note that our parking is covered, but outside the building, not underneath. A firetruck could drive right up to a burning car. Also note that burning cars from slow 'granny' chargers like this would be borderline non-existent. Your wife/girlfriend/kik's hairdryer probably uses more power. I'd be much more worried about 20kw+ chargers which stress the battery/BMS a bit more.

Vessels of this size, and prudent mariners on any boat, will generally have parallel filter systems, with a y-valve to quickly change from one to the other in the event one side gets clogged. This allows continuous running, and ability to change the clogged filter 'on-the-fly'. Often large boats 'polish' their fuel, pumping from one tank to another through a separate filter system to keep fuel clean. This being Thailand, you have to wonder how well their filter systems were taken care of. Dodgy fuel abounds in the marine industry, especially in SE Asia. They do have their anchor down, which is the first thing you do in a situation where you lose propulsion. Curious that in only 15-20 meters of water offshore from the island their anchor didn't set at all. A boat this size normally carries enough anchor rode to easily anchor in 30-40 meters of water. Generally sea-floor substrates in the Gulf of Thailand are Sand, ideal for holding, and the depth contours offshore do look like it's probably sandy, though the navigation charts I have don't show what the bottom is in this area.

Actually pretty common on boats. Diesel fuel can grow algae and have other particulates in it, which tends to settle at the bottom of the fuel tank(s). In very rough seas, the particulates get stirred up as the fuel sloshes around and clogs the filters (if there are any, TIT), or worse, the injectors themselves. When troubleshooting a diesel, there's three main things that go wrong. 1. Fuel problems 2. Fuel problems 3. Fuel problems. 🙂 And no, there is NO WAY this could have an outboard engine. It is probably a 150-200 metric ton vessel capable of carrying may thousands of liters of No2. Fuel Oil Some more photos below and also the location courtesy of my girlfriend who has friends in the marine department. Pretty nice area, this is the island where the small Cesna plane that crashed directly into a mangrove swamp a few weeks back was bound for. Luckily Diesel fuel is pretty 'light' and tends to disperse quickly, much easier cleanup than crude or other types of oil. According to the article in Thai, the small speedboat shown here is actually owned by the resort as it was apparently too rough for the marine department's boat to go inspect the scene.

Hopefully others can chime in with any Social Media Farang-oriented off-road groups, but I can give you my experience in off-roading here. In 2016 I also got a Ranger 4x4 and have explored around Rayong area some and also other places in Thailand. Tried multiple routes to get over Khao Nang Yong hills just north of Map Ta Phut area, never successfully. The trouble here is trails get washed out VERY quickly in wet season and go from 'beginner' to 'need A+ level expert driving and equipment' in less than a season. Also, vegetation quickly overgrows if no one is trimming back or driving a trail constantly. For a real "Beginner" trail that is well-travelled, I can recommend driving up to Phenoen Thung viewpoint in Kaeng Krachan NP. https://maps.app.goo.gl/Edif9NRGDM14a1Yy6 You can camp up there as well. Most vehicles are tours, but private vehicles can also drive. A 4x2 could make it, but you're gonna torture the transmission on the way up and toast your brakes on the way down. There was a new, red-plate Benz 'SUV' that had done it the day we did. Badly damaged the rims of his 22" wheels. "Talay Mog" (Sea of Fog) often seen from the top if you get there early enough in the morning.

Girlfriend bought a car at the show last spring in BKK. I think she got a better financing deal. If I recall MG would have brought it to our local dealership for free, however she picked it up in-person. For me, the best part about it was being able to see every single manufacturer all in a couple hours time. For someone like the OP who knows exactly what they want already, I'd probably just buy locally as I don't think she really saved that much money in the end. Red plate swap etc was all done at local dealership. The sales guy was indeed pushy, but was very polite. All in all, not a bad experience. I bought my car at the local dealership and it was pretty much the same but I didn't have to drive all the way to BKK.

Currently running in a lubuntu usb disk boot with clean Chrome install, just to get ALL the potential windows problems out of the way. Well aware of how the caching works and indeed restarting incognito was the very first thing I did after CTRL+F5. The "lesson22" page from your link above does indeed load correctly for me on this OS and browser and shows 1.3.0, and the "Read" buttons open a new tab and work correctly. However, the page I was referring to above does not, though it does display v 1.3.0 on loading. The page not working for me is accessed by clicking "Reading Course", "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ", and then "Play" in the "Notes" section of that page. The game that loads in the new tab is what is not working, it is just blank between each text area, the buttons on top and bottom of the page are not responsive, and the Console is showing the error I pasted the screen shot of above. So it looks like the main "1.Consonants ร, น, ก, ง. Long Vowels า, อ" page of the Reading course (and indeed some random others I tried) are not passing data to the relevant "Play" page as well? This is happening in lubuntu as well. Anyways, no big issue. I can use other sections of the site no problem. Just trying to help troubleshoot where I can, not trying to be annoying krub. 🙂

In that case, a massive thanks to you! Cheers mate. It appears an error is being thrown in the console. I doubt it's cache-related as I only browse the web in Incognito mode. Closed and reloaded that, still no go. Tried in normal mode as well just in case Incognito caused the problems, and that threw the exact same error. My setup is pretty standard. I'll try and boot into Linux next and see what happens there.

@ThaiNotes Are the "Reading / Play" pages still a work in progress? I've tried Chrome and Edge, Ctrl+F5 many times, no luck, the words to click on don't load. The HTML text is loading, spaced out what looks to be correctly, but what I assume are Javascript portions are not loading. Latest stable Chrome version on fully updated Win11. Technical problems aside, this is going to be an amazing resource, many thanks to you and the others that have made this possible.

10 year Chinese visa cannot be transferred. I have same 10 year visa in old passport, Thai visa in new one, I have to carry both passports when I go to China.

Interesting, I work well within 10km and dead downwind yesterday and we never heard anything about evacuation. I only got into it as had to drive to pick up girlfriend after her boat evacuation since her car had to be left behind at her work. Many thanks for all the updates yesterday 🙏 Update late last night from the horse's mouth (girlfriend was on meetings and calls with officials all night. They had to do a full shutdown from this, a huge deal) was 2nd tank appears to not have been compromised, as you suspected. However, from pictures I was shown I would say unlikely they'll be able to use it again, but maybe possible with a good restoration. This tank farm is actually owned by SCG. The company quoted in official press releases is just a subsidiary of them.

I think you mean 12,700 meters cubed.... 🙂 each tank. Yes both are gone. Girlfriend was sitting 1440m South of the initial blast, first photo to me at 10:39am. Her and entire company evacuated by boat. RIP to whoever was there and best recoveries to those who risked all to contain this. From 9.3km away as the crow flies, it was immense. And the evacuation was absolute crap. Notaone police officer out, huge traffic jams, 4 lane roads with 2 lanes completely jammed and opposites empty. What if it was a 'real' one?

Flights going into the USA are NOT allowed to depart the previous city with checked baggage aboard without a passenger connected to it. Happened by chance to us a few years ago flying from Vancouver to Boston on Air Canada. Got to Montreal to transfer, incoming flight was delayed slightly so we missed the connection and they let the Boston flight go with Thai girlfriend and my checked bags aboard but not us. The ticket person handing out hotel vouchers said someone in baggage transfer dept. would likely be losing their job as the fine to the airline is many thousands of dollars when a bag turns up from international flight into the USA without a person to collect it. So... they will almost certainly hold the Air China flight in Taipei as long as her luggage makes it to the next plane.

I have an MG EP 3 years old now, Samsung S23 purchased brand-new at AIS 1 year ago. Gmail/Google account is literally from the month after Google started offering Gmail nearly 20 years ago from the USA. Android Auto works pretty well for me other than the occasional hiccup like screen not coming on in the Auto app, or music pausing randomly. This happens maybe once a month or few weeks, so not really bothersome. Stopping the car, shutting off and re-starting fixes it. I drive 100-150km/day and so have a lot of hours with Android Auto running. Girlfriend has Samsung Z4 Flip, purchased new here from AIS and Thai Gmail account. She has a 1 year old MG4. Not aware of any Android Auto problems for her, but I'm not sure she uses it that much. The built-in maps in the MG4 are pretty good and she seems to just use bluetooth and wireless charger most of the time. Her's is the 'top' model MG4 with iSmart. I can't remember if I've used my phone in there and I rarely go in her car as it's a disastrous mess of everything AND the kitchen sink inside, so just sitting in the passenger seat requires 10 minutes of moving stuff. Next time I'm in there though I will try with my phone.

Yes, I do this with my USA bank. Works fine. I ported my 25-something year old USA number to Google Voice many years ago to do this, but you can just get a new one and it will probably work the same. When you set up Google Voice it gives you the option for ported existed number of new number provided by them. Can receive voice calls and texts and voicemails just like a normal phone, but through your web browser. There is only one time it didn't work for me and that was trying to get the PIN needed for e-filing federal taxes. They need a real phone number, not a virtual one as Google provides. Somehow they could tell the difference. My bank cannot and doesn't seem to care though. You will want to use a USA VPN to setup the account, and if that doesn't work maybe have a friend/family set it up for you at home. You won't be able to set up with a Thai IP address I don't think. I've used ProtonVPN before, it is free, but may not work anymore, haven't tried in a long time.

Foreigners can own any type of boat of any size and hull material AND captain it by themselves so long as the boat is only private use, not commercial and registered as such with Marine and also Harbour Department. No Thai captain needed. I think the island name is mis-spelled or translated to Roman characters incorrectly. There is a Koh Man Wichai, a long, narrow island to Southwest of Koh Larn. I have anchored there a few times, very tricky place to anchor. There is little to no protection from either predominant wind direction, and the tempting places to anchor that aren't 15+ meters deep are just shallow sand on bedrock bottom. So the anchor will feel set sometimes, but very easily drag as there isn't enough sand to hold well. Idiots not to have one person stay behind on the boat. It was blowing 20 knots out there at times yesterday from SSW.

I have a RUIO ZLT X21G from AIS, 5G router. It has Port Forwarding menu, as well as DMZ, etc. However, looking through their website, they don't appear to offer this anymore. It was exceptionally fast and stable for almost 1.5 years, but in last 3 months started locking up periodically. I suspect this is because I had to move to a different office further inside the building. If you could find a 2nd hand one, might be worth checking out. Was about 7,000 baht new. 1200 baht/month unlimited 5G up and down. edit: Looks like Lazada still sells them. Highly recommend if you have good 5G signal in your area with AIS. https://www.lazada.co.th/products/ais-5g-home-wifi-ruio-zlt-x21g-router-i3786962685-s19544406272.html?spm=a2o4m.tm80167383.2074280300.1.66cdciotciotgk.66cdciotciotgk

For the last 1 week, I was able to log in to the new "amazing" website but was NOT able to transfer money around within various accounts. It just locked up the browser every time. I exclusively use incognito mode in Chrome or InPrivate mode in Edge, no script blockers etc, and two factor ID every time. Was extremely frustrating, and order of business this morning was to get on the horn with them, which always takes forever. However, good news is this morning: I was able to log in on InPrivate mode in Edge and make a transfer between accounts. Halleluiah! Hopefully that's the last of the problems. In way more than a decade using the old website I cannot remember once having any problems. I refuse to use a phone app for banking, other than one Thai bank, and then keeping only very small amounts in the account. The risk is way too high for nefarious activities IMHO, especially for a bank that can't even seem to get a web page to work correctly in 2024! To each their own, though....

Just because you don't care about wind sports doesn't mean there aren't millions of people around the planet that are obsessed with them, and DO care about these things. King Bhumibol sailed across the Gulf in an OK class dinghy. It took him 17 hours. I've done it in 8.5 hours in my little 25 foot keelboat. So Shane has upped the ante. Proud of Shane, it's been great watching him learn and grow, and all of us in the kiting/winging community here in Thailand offer congratulations and continued support as he achieves his dreams.

I also like them, and their interesting noises and behaviors, however, they are not originally native to Thailand, so good riddance if they are actually decreasing. As mentioned above, a huge problem in Australia. Still see many of them where I work in Rayong, I've been working here more than 10 years and have noticed no reduction in population. Thailand National Parks - Common Myna My favorite intelligent bird in Thailand is the Hill Myna, or 'Nok Kunthong' in Thai. They are more rare than the Common Myna. In Paknam Pranburi, at this restaurant, there is a cage of them near the kitchen and upper restrooms, right next to where everyone parks their motocys. One of them can make the sound of a Honda Click 125cc engine start, literally perfectly. Difficult to tell the difference other than it's slightly quieter. Fascinating! Here is one speaking Thai language in a video. My girlfriend had one as a pet when she was growing up. They are incredibly intelligent even beyond speaking apparently, like ability to escape from cages, etc. (edit: original video didn't work)

If you can't find anyone up there in BKK, there's a few people welding 316 and 304 stainless in Ban Amphoe/Na Jomtien for the yachting industry. I had 316 stainless stanchions made up; impeccable welding, perfectly polished and less than 1/10th what I would have paid in USA. I suspect precision would be as good as whoever is cutting out the parts beforehand and how good your welding jig is. Each of the 4 pieces I had made are nearly identical in dimensions. I believe 1mm wall thicknesses onto 3mm plate was what they used, and solid 6mm bent rod loops as well. Rayong seems to be the hotspot for this kind of work. Refineries and the subsequent industrial processes require all manner of high precision stainless work. And to the naysayers about precision in Thailand... they build BMWs and Mercedes here. And Toyota, which is probably a better bellwether than the previous two brands given the reliability. A good friend managed precision metal stamping for the computer hard disk industry for decades here. Insanely precise tolerances. There are imprecise morons in every country in the world, and world-class engineers and technicians in every country as well. The average retired expat is extremely unlikely to meet or know about the latter here, hence the prejudice we see on this forum every single day.