gejohesch

I bought a number of steel beams (6m long, 1.5mm thickness, various specs : 4" by 4", 4" by 2", 3" by 1.5") to make a new roof for my wife's house in Isan. They are now parked in our courtyard. However, I just decided not to go ahead and have the work done now, for personal reasons, but January next year. I'm concerned the steel will corrode, what with so many months left outside with the rain etc... I thought maybe I can buy strong and watertight tarpaulin-like material and wrap around the steel. Would that work?

Having been employed (as an expat advisor) for a few years in a very large Thai organisation, years ago, I can confirm : learning from others is not very much the Thai way. Yes, Thais may listen politely, but often any advise will be let to fly over their heads. And, btw, there cannot be much of a comparison with Singapore - totally different culture.

That's a good point. I did not think of that. Similarly, I remember that I get a travel insurance thrown in when booking with one of my CC's. I will check further.

That's a good question. In view of a few less than perfect experiences with the Schengen visa services in Bangkok (see above, myself and richard-smith-237), I would hesitate banking on that.

That link indeed does not open!

I'm not familiar with VFS, I guess that's the service to use for certain EU countries. Myself + partner, we have used TLS to apply for Schengen a number of times in the past, either for Spain, Portugal, France etc. TLS have their office in Sathorn. I used to be allowed in which was rather helpful as I could answer a number of questions directly. Last time we went there, however, I was nit let in. The guy who dealt with my partner caused a hell of a lot of an issue about the "missing itinerary". He could not understand that I invited my partner to stay with me at my permanent address in the EU, and therefore there was no "further itinerary" than that. Past that dumbwit, the visa was delivered in due course without any further questioning. This is just to say that some of the staff they have in those visa service offices seem to be rather incompetent ... or intellectually lazy (which is another type of incompetence).

Hahaha! Interesting comment! Maybe you have a point!

Hi! I'm planning a trip next year, myself + my Thai partner (been with her for 15 years already, so not just a GF!). Trip duration about 4 months, of which 3 in Schengen area and 1 month outside Schengen (Mexico to be exact). I hesitate between 2 insurance options, 1) with ALLIANZ = "Worldwide Hiphop"; and 2) with AXA =" Worlwide". Allianz would cost 3640 THB; AXA would charge 3061 THB. Both would provide sufficient coverage to qualify for a Schengen visa. I checked a few other options, e.g. Europe Assistance and Mondial Care. They would be significantly more expensive. As we hardly ever, maybe even never, had to put a claim to any travel insurance we've taken, I would not really see the point in paying over the odds for what could be a "more robust" insurance package. Therefore, I'm now looking hard at either ALLIANZ or AXA. Would anyone have any experience with those insurances that could be shared in this discussion? Thanks a lot in advance for your contributions!

That's a good comment. IN plain english, "Not getting involved seems part of the culture here" translates as "people don't give a <deleted> about (nearly) anything".

That's another issue indeed! I've been going regularly to the OTOP shop in town, while my wife does the market for fresh food. Always specified "not much sugar", in Thai (I speak it quite OK). The woman there always gave me one of those sweet iced coffees which I can hardly swallow down 😖. I think the woman must be a bit dumb....

Thanks, that's useful

Thanks, I will try via Lazada then (although I don't like their site much, too "busy" and confusing)

Not a single hill tribe area coffee I have tried suited me, that's why I posted here. I found all that "black and shiny" dark roast type that I don't like very much.

Like so many people, I love my coffee. I could say I'm addicted to coffee 😉. I grind the beans fresh to make coffee with a Minimex espresso machine at least twice a day, first thing when I wake up, and second when I emerge from my midday nap. My issue here is that I notice quite a difference when I use beans bought in Thailand or beans bought in Europe. I do not buy the most commercial beans (e.g. what can be found in Big C), I rather go for what I would call "specialty" beans from northern Thailand origin (I go to Makro for that purpose). The Thai beans are always very dark and shiny, which obviously indicates they are "high roast", and I find the result rather "earthy" and not very aromatic. That's why I bring coffee from Europe - obviously not "coffee grown in Europe" but coffee imported from the Americas or Africa etc - and I buy from coffee shops. A full kg bag would cost around 35-50 EUR. Those beans are always light brown and not shiny, so very different from the Thailand beans. The result is far better : less acidity, "sweeter", aromatic etc. That's the type of coffee I like and I don't mind paying extra for it! But I cannot bring several kgs of coffee in my luggage when I come to Thailand. So, sooner or later, I have to fall back on those dark and shiny thai beans. Help!

Thanks!

1 month later, after a lot of work, I think I have finished tiling up the main part of the area I was talking about (I still have to do the "kitchen" part behind the 1/2 way wall which has those white tiles). I post 2 jpegs for an overview and for the detail. It's shining nice because I just rinsed the tiles 😉. Granted, it's not a pro work, but for an amateur, I think it's pretty acceptable! Still have to do a few cosmetics, repaint the bottom of the walls and columns.... It's a lot of work, for sure. At the same time, I have the satisfaction to have acquired new skills and I feel proud about it. Sure, next time I will do better!

Not so much!

What was rather stupid in the first place, to me at least, was to opt for submarines. The Gulf of Thailand is ca. 60m deep in average, and never above 85m. If I remember right (it's not my field), a submarine has to be sthg like a minimum of 20 m below sealevel not to be detected too easily, and has to clear the seabottom by a minimum of 20m for safety reasons. Which leaves on average a 20m depth range to operate. That does not sound a lot to me! Then of course, the Andaman Sea is much, much deeper. But what would be the purpose of a thai submarine? To face off India, the obvious big player in the region? No chance to compete whatsoever! So, thai submarines sounded to me like toys for the guys on top, and a complete waste of money.

I would add to the qualifications required that a teacher must also have an "acceptable" accent. As a non native english speaker (proficient with 4 other european languages), I find that certain native speakers have accents which are rather painful to hear. I know this is a delicate and obviously subjective matter, but it also has to be said.

"Thais' reading skills" - yeah, that's also sthg to talk about. I read somewhere that Thailand is one of the countries where people read the most. That's total BS to me. Have you ever seen a bookshelf in any house in Isan??? Not a single person in my wife's family has ever had a single book (maybe with the exception of 1 or 2 booklets about religion, religion and religion) .... I guess that's not only Isan....

I guess several persons, native speakers of (say) language A, will have issues with the way native speakers of language B speak that particular language B. Personally, not being a native english speaker, well educated in how my native language works (grammatically etc), I find 2 mannerisms with English speakers that irritate me. Here are these 2 "mannerisms": 1 - What I call the double "that". I read lots of writings by British people like this: "I think that, because of blablabla, that we should do etc etc". That repeat of the conjunction "that" does not sound correct to me at all, but several British told me "it's correct". 2 - So many transcripts in the media of discussions between supposedly very well educated persons, eg on TV, are complete gibberish. Maybe that's more the case in the US (I read lots of US material)? Maybe that's because no efforts are spent in those transcriptions that are rather meant for short term use?

I tend to agree. As a EU citizen, I was clearly told (I asked!) by my home country tax authorities and they said loud and clear "if you travel around and are not taxable anywhere, then by default you will become taxable here". How much taxable depends of course on the particular country's rules.

Too americanised to my liking. Not much proper and interesting culture compared to Thailand. Food is a lot better in Thailand too. Not talking about the females' side here.

Does one have to become a priest to become resident in the Vatican?

Coming back to your comments. First, I attach a jpeg showing the prices quoted by PEA for installations ranging from 3 to 5 KW (1P or 3P - Standard or Premium). As a bonus, the jpeg includes the 10 Kw 3P option ????. The quotes are ranges, depending on the particular equipment one would select for an installation. The PEA website peasolar.pea.co.th offers indeed a variety of brands etc. To the right, it says how many square metres about the installation would be. For 5 Kw : ca. 30 metres; for 10 Kw : ca. 60 square metres. We ourselves have an ideally positioned roof of a bit over 30 sq. m available - facing the south and with no obstruction. So, obviously we would be limited to the 5 Kw option, which is actually the maximum we would be considering. Also to the right, in the orange box, an indication of a typical range of equipment that would be powered by the solar panels. I guess that is purely indicative. I'm a bit puzzled by 5 Kw driving 2 AC's of 12,000 BTU. That's not a lot of AC running at a given time, I think. However, that does not worry me too much, if we run a lot of equipment (during day time) and need to import from the grid (and pay an average of ca. 4 THB/unit for it), so be it! .... I will have to do some detail calculations at some stage to see how economical a 5 Kw installation would be for us. Note that we are absent for 3-6 months each year (traveling abroad), so any electricity produced by our solar panels would be bought back by PEA (at 2.2 THB/unit) - that would help the economics, I guess. Finally, about the overall costs, we seem to concur that the PEA quotes tend to be OTT a bit. Going to another provider for the installation leads to 2 questions: - which one? Would anyone have recommendations around Khon Kaen? - would a solar installation done by others than PEA still allow for the excess electricity generated to be bought back by PEA?