n8sail

We sailed to Koh Larn and back on Sunday, about 20nm total distance sailed. I have never seen so much floating trash in my 10+ years sailing these waters. Absolute miracle we didn't foul the keel, propeller or rudder. Multiple times had to make evasive maneuvers around huge bundles of trash. Jim above has it right; it is the change in the season and high tides in some of the early mornings floating this stuff out of rivers and khlongs, combined with the consistent daytime Southwesterlies we've been having pushing all the crap from the middle of the gulf on shore.

It was almost certainly "Fixed". Not sure what anyone would need that amount of 500 and 100 baht bills for 10 days before an election... https://en.thairath.co.th/scoop/theissue/2910949 https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/3185190/bot-flags-suspicious-cash-withdrawals-largest-case-hits-b250m

There is a new one called "Home by the Lake", I think construction complete now. Not sure if it has a lift or not, I just drive by it sometimes. 4 stories, appears to have covered parking on part of first floor. These look to be "higher end" apartments that local workers might rent, doubt they are more than 25m rooms. They would be pretty 'low end' for most westerners in that area. Hopefully you're okay with the annoyance of constant traffic noise and motocys from dek-wans racing up and down rt. 4095. It does look right out over the lake facing west, so sunsets will be very nice, although afternoon sun will be roasting hot. You could ride bicycle or walk straight across the road onto the bike/running path. https://maps.app.goo.gl/bXTXFdTvEtfB1P5EA Why not rent a house? Loads of nice ones there, sometimes about same as crappy apartments downtown.

Unfortunately for PP, it is very likely they won't get majority of parliament. Forty-four of their lawmakers are awaiting crucifixion by the almighty Supreme Court, which is completely controlled by dinosaurs. They are accused of ethics breaches for their signing of a pact to amend section 112 of the criminal code in 2021. This case has not yet been heard, but you can bet a lot of Baht that if they win majority on Sunday that it will be heard within days of election results. Both the first and second choice PP Prime Ministerial candidates are included in this group. The third one has a PhD from Cambridge, so perhaps we can pin our hopes on him. You reap what you sew, Thailand. This is Loong Tu's legacy. I've worked here 13 years and our company has been directly negatively impacted by his policies to centralize power and allow the fattest dinosaurs at the top eat as much from the trough as possible. If it weren't for the fact that I work in a very niche factory that happens to exist here in Thailand, we would not be here. China would be the next stop for me, for better or for worse.

If you can, from a boat is the best way to watch. Took my own last year, went on neighbor's large power catamaran this year. There are a number of charter boats in Ocean Marina that offer packages from ~2000 baht pp on up to silly amounts of baht for the evening. Another option for probably cheaper is one of the Thai wooden dive boats from a local dive shop. Downside is Ao Pattaya can be a very rough anchorage, so take your Stugeron or have a strong stomach. This year was no different, wind stayed out of NNW and swell coming straight into the bay. A few people praying over the side to Neptune on our boat. A little bit of a circus heading home afterwards, but it's all part of the fun.

Doi Ang Khang, about 135km west of Chiang Rai by car, is technically a National Park. However, you do not have to pay to drive in, only have to pay if camping. At least not when I went there about 6 years ago. There is only a checkpoint looking for border-crossers. I camped there for New Years Eve at that time and because it was so mobbed with people we didn't have to pay as we didn't even get a site in the camping area. I suspect at normal times it's quite empty. Anyways, this seems to be what you're after. You can drive right up, sit and chill, literally and figuratively, only steps from your car. Sunrise was well worth the effort. It was down to 3 degrees Celsius on that New Years Eve. I imagine it is regularly at single digit temps during December to January as it's above 1700m elevation. https://maps.app.goo.gl/w9CGdRJkghP5uPDs9

The "U-turn Spaghetti" is really NOT that hard guys and gals... It's simply a rotary junction compressed into a figure of 8 shape so that the 3191 truck traffic can cross over via flyover straight into Map Ta Phut Industrial area without disturbing traffic needing to turn or U-Turn. Looking forward to seeing the new office soon! The amount of Chinese completely filling up and screaming and yelling across the waiting area in the old one over the past 2 years has worn the nerves a bit... Note that as usual with Thais and maps, the 'official' location is incorrect. "Immigration Rayong neu" is the correct location. Nice work, government officials!

He was actually moved on Monday the 15th. What boggles my mind is that there is nothing in BKK Post about this, and only just now showed up on here. Bit weird, last time the whole country was up in arms, now they seem to be sweeping it under the rug.

I have a nice core i7 Lenovo Yoga notebook, about 6 years old now. in January, WInblows 11 started throttling my network interfaces. Only getting about 20mbps down and 2 up, on a 200+mbps internet connection. Okay, time for a full re-install... 6 or so hours later and I've got a brandy-new Winblows 11 install, all drivers working blah blah. STILL throttled the connection!! Tried back version drivers of both the hard-wired NIC on the USB-c dock and the WIFI adapter. No beans. Something deep in the network stack in Winblows must be responsible. Been playing with Linux since about 1999, was never patient enough to do it full time on a work computer, though. Exasperated with W11, I downloaded current version of Ubuntu onto a USB drive. Boots nearly instantly. Network interface full speed, no drivers, no nothing, wired and Wifi. After a week, I formatted the SSD and did a full install. I'm not that good with command prompts, know only a few BASH commands. However, nowadays, you just type into any search engine what you want to do and instanly have copy-past BASH commands for just about anything. Literally everything works on my notebook except the fingerprint reader. Linux is not hard anymore. It barely takes anymore patience than Winblows. 5+ months in and I'm never going back unless work absolutely demands it.

Hopefully OP will do well with this car. Some friends have this car and have been waiting 6 months already for a controller that died. Car sitting in driveway. I do agree that someone here will eventually figure out repairs. For anyone else following, if considering a 2nd hand EV, definitely check out MG EP. I just traded mine after 4 years 107k km. Flawless vehicle. Serviced once for 6400 baht at 100k (changed reduction gearbox oil, bled brakes, etc etc.) Traded at MG dealer for 255,000 baht, can find them around 300-350k baht on One2Car. Battery literally same as brand new. Mostly kept it between 40-80%, fast charged maybe 20 times total. I'd have sold to a friend/co-worker in a 2nd for trade-in price, but no one wanted/could afford it. Ah well, some tent dealer is gonna make easily 80k baht off the deal. SAIC (MG) is the largest and oldest state-owned vehicle manufacturer in China. Spare parts won't be an issue.

Just got a weird email from Krungsri saying someone attempted to open a Krungsri Biz Online account in my name in February of 2020. I have had and actively used a personal account with them since ~2013, and only use web browser on PC. (No, I'm not that old or tech unsavy (I run Linux only), I am security conscious and use another bank for my 'risky' phone app banking, with little money in the account, use Krungsri with no app for everything else) Anyways, emailed back, then got a text message only in Thai with a temp password. Wasn't sure what it was. 20 mins later Krungsri called, very nice, well-spoken English and explained the situation, all personal accounts moved to Biz Online, supposedly no monthly charges. Just logged in, changed password as prompted, and everything is there. Favorite transfers and all. The kind girl informed me this MUST be done in the next 7 days or you will lose all access and only be able to use mobile app. So us security conscious/elderly/stuck-in-the-muds can rejoice and keep banking through the web with Krungsri. :)

Of course a stretch, but not impossible. Police officers getting cars through seizure and auctioning: See Joe Ferrari. Inspection and report falsification? See SAO building collapse. They'd have made off with hundreds of millions of baht between them if the quake didn't happen.

For sure, and likely auctioned as they do with vehicles confiscated for other crimes. But one could imagine it would be very easy for someone to follow the car through the system and make sure it goes for the 'right price' when the time comes. Breathalyzer readings in the other direction make it through courts all the time, at least in the USA. Usually for poor calibration certification or some such detail that a well-paid lawyer can sniff out. I imagine a breathalyzer calibration technician making 500 baht a day would happily make the machine look to show more than it should for a 1000 baht note. Crazier things have certainly happened for inspection/calibration of equipment in this country :)

For westerners or 'unconnected' Thais with nice vehicles, this would be really scary. Crooked cop at a checkpoint likes your car. Makes paperwork that says you were drunk, takes your car. What are you going to do about it? Get a lawyer? Better have a lot of time and deep pockets.

It's 10 Billion Baht. Teflon Tony is worth more than 65 Billion Baht.

She may be correct about coming abroad, as my trip was inside Thailand. I've since been to Japan and Sri Lanka, and did a TM30 on return from both. Both trips reset my 90-day report timeline, so I won't find out until end of June if that was really necessary. My TM30 is done online and had no problems submitting both times.

I've lived in Rayong for nearly 12 years. Before late last year I only knew what a TM30 was because of reading about it on AN. Never once was asked for it. I had to do a 90-day report last year in-person and the IO asked if I had traveled in Thailand recently and where was my TM30 for my return to my Rayong address. I had been to Phuket and the hotel had apparently done a TM30 for me there. Of course I didn't have an updated TM30 for Rayong. Very luckily he let me go, but said next time MUST have TM30. He actually made a note on the 90 report receipt so that the next report the IO would see that I had been warned. I've also gotten many Certificates of Residency for cars, condo, licenses boats etc. at Rayong over the years, same thing, never asked for TM30 until last year. So something changed higher up at Rayong last year and they've gotten more strict about this.

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.

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.

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.