paulbrun

Brilliant..! Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch..!

'Steak of the Day' is pretty good. It is located in a block of shop-houses behind the centre of Mae Rim. You turn left at the lights if you are heading away from town, and drive a block, and then turn right into the shopping area. If you heading towards town, then you turn right at the lights, and right again. They do lunches as well as dinner, I believe.

My son has an Alienware laptop, which I bought directly from Dell in Malaysia, about 2 years ago. He has had a few issues with it, and overheating is one of them. He bought a special tray that it sits on with 2 fans inside, drawing air underneath it. That seems to help a bit. He has also had power problems, and had to replace first the adaptor, and then the battery, just last week. We live in Chiang Mai, so I can't advise about a service agent in Bangkok, but we have used a Dell-authorised shop up here in Pantip Plaza, and they seem to know what they're doing. If you want their contact details, I'll get them for you.

I expect he recovered his wallet and phone from the scene of the crash, and possibly did some shopping, while waiting for the BiB to turn up..?

Thanks very much for the advice. We will investigate further. My younger son has decided to be a cadet, and the older one will have to deal with it when he comes back from college..?

Will my sons need to do some sort of military service..? Both were born in Thailand, and have Thai and British passports, at the moment. I thought they would just be able to give up their Thai passports, at a certain age, and become exempt from any form of Thai national service. But my wife tells me otherwise..?

Hot on the outside, cold on the inside..!

I agree there is no easy way to tackle the burning problem, as the people just do not seem to care. In our village, most people put their rubbish out for collection, including garden waste, but not our immediate next door neighbor..? He tries to save 20 baht by burning his trash at night. Now we have the garden hose at the ready, and as soon as he lights his trash, we douse it with water..! He is not happy.

Phuket is also very efficient, and straightforward. The expat 'helpers' tell you exactly what you need, and help you fill out the forms, and then you get a number. It still takes a couple of hours, but it's quite civilised, compared to up here. I needed a re-entry the other day, and it took about 2 hours.

I don't see an English flag anywhere in this thread..? Maybe Sabaii69 should put his head somewhere so he can see better..? ;-)

Great news. Will check it out for Christmas..!

My son was downloading an App yesterday, and now the iPad is 'frozen' on the Settings screen. I can't get back to the main screen, and I can't turn the thing off, and reboot..? I can move through the various tabs in Settings, so maybe in one of them I can restore things..? But I don't know how. If anyone can help, or at least suggest something I can try, I would much appreciate it. Thanks.

Thank you, Ricardo and Nancy. I will investigate both ideas further.

We are about to move back to our old house in a fairly small village, just outside Chiang Mai (10km). We last lived there about 6 years ago, at which time, we were still using a dial-up modem. It appears that things have not improved much, if at all..? We have been using Triple B for the past few years, but they tell us they have no lines available in that area, at the moment. And that they will have to run a new wire from the next village, about 1km away. So we will have to wait, and then get a big bill, I expect..! Does anyone have a simple, temporary solution in the meantime..? We must have internet access, so which other companies can we try, or is there another way of getting an internet service (wireless) while we wait for a line to be put in..? I would appreciate any help on this. We already talked to True Move, but they can't help us, although they will be setting up the UBC satellite TV dish for us. Thanks.

Khun Udom Surin is very honest, and speaks good english. Let me know if you want his contact details.

I am thinking about renewing my UK passport in the UK, rather than here. I will fly over there next week, and as I have 2 passports, will be able to send off the one that is full, with my Thai visa in it, and be able to travel to work on the other one. On the way back, a month later, I will pick up the new one, and the full one with the visa, hopefully, and fly back to Thailand. Does anyone see any issue doing this..? I have an address in the UK where the passport can be sent.

Well, I don't suppose anyone will be too surprised about that..? It is one of the worst airports in the world, and I avoid it as much as possible..!

I went to take a look at it today, and they have totally ruined a good driving range, and not a soul was using it..! Quite what they had in mind, I don't know..? All they have now is a 100 yd range with some sort of crap targets to aim at..! It used to be owned by the doctor who built the original Sankampaeng golf course, but he must have sold out..? What with the loss of that place, and the old Sansai driving range being razed to build more houses, the options for practice are severely reduced. I don't particularly like Lanna, and the new range off the Mae Jo road stinks of the pig farm next door..! Star Dome is OK, but I am not going to fight the city traffic to get there, unless I happen to be passing that way.

I would bet they did it on purpose, to see if they could get away with it. Otherwise they would have said something at the time, and as another poster said, made the second transaction for 146k. I don't trust any of them, particularly the chinese. I always check my change, and have frequently found mistakes, though always short, never too much..!

As with so many from that part of the world, they have a blase attitude towards safety, so it is no surprise when they wash up on the beach, having got into trouble. The buddy system is designed to prevent accidents. It sounds as though his wife was in the boat receiving the fish he was illegally spearing. And the last catch was himself..! Sad, but inevitable..

Mr. Legros means Mr. Big so let's hope it refers to his bank balance..! Good news that he got rescued. A boat like that is no fun without an engine, in bad weather and at night.

Very good place in Phuket Town, on the way to the ferry terminal. I seem to remember his name is Luk..? Ask around, as he is the best.

I drive pretty slowly, and it took me 2.5 hours from our house in Sansai to the top of the mountian. We did have a couple of stops, for coffee and photos though. It is 105 km each way.

I drove up there today with my family, and it was quite busy. We left early enough to get ahead of some of the minibuses, but once we left the main road, it was fairly steady traffic all the way up. I just let the crazy ones go by, and took my time. We were on top by 10am, and it was very pleasant. We did not stop at the two stupas, because they were packed out. Some big monk was visiting today, apparently..? We took our own lunch, so didn't have to worry about finding something to eat/drink. The board walk was fun, as we hadn't done that in a while. Driving back was worse. It is a long, tiring day trip, which we don't do often. The first big waterfall on the right was in full flow, but the rest were not as exciting. Have fun..!