grain

Yes, that is so true. I taught English to Thais for about 25 years. The big problem is they only use English in the classroom, for example 1 hour a day M-F, but the second they exit the classroom English stops and it's 100% Thai until next English lesson. My students were from a wide range, some business people, uni and high school students, military and gov workers, and the only students who showed any real progress were the bar & hotel staff, reason being they had access to English speaking foreigners and the opportunity to converse with them.

I saw that Bear Proof Bin and scratched my head and thought WTF ????????????

Yes, I was at the Samila Hotel, I set off early, 6am. On that stretch of sand adjacent to the Mermaid statue I counted 18 dogs, as I got around where that strip of seafood restaurants are, there were countless dogs, later as I got into Laem Son On it was ridiculous. There are entire packs and you can clearly see they are all from the same litter, so there are all these packs living in there. I watched one Thai woman roll up on a mc and throw food around for the dogs and counted 26 coming out of the bushes within a few seconds. As I said there must be hundreds of them living in that narrow cape.

I was there 2 weeks ago, the monkeys have always been messy, but the dogs are far worse, I did a morning walk up Laem Son On, and the amount of stray dogs living there and around Samila Beach is ridiculous, we're talking several hundred in a fairly small area. I've never seen so many packs of dogs anywhere else in Thailand.

I tried it for the first time a couple of months ago, thought it was a terrible buzz, like a real strong caffeine whack, I felt all nervous & jittery for several hours until the damn stuff subsided. Reminded me of a time in Hanoi and I had a big mug of black Viet coffee, way too strong, ruined my day.

It won't have any long term effect on the shopping mall. Perhaps the number of customers will drop off slightly for a few days but if so it'll soon bounce back. There was the shooting in Terminal 21 Korat a couple of years ago, it didn't make any diff, the place is always packed.

So what about the mother? She's guilty as well, pimping her sons for $150.

Yep, I gotta agree with that. Renting is by far the best. For one thing you never know what the Thais around you are going to do. One day you have a nice happy home, a house or condo, next day there's a damn karaoke pub next to you and your life is ruined. In my time in Thailand I've had to move maybe 15-20 times (over 40 years) due to funfairs, pubs, likay concerts, open-air cinemas, home metal-work shops and several other such things suddenly springing up nearby and ruining everything. Fortunately I always rented so the easy solution was to move.

They'll have a ball at Phuket, with over-loaded tour boats sinking, and getting muay-Thai kicks from the taxi drivers. Hopefully the Kazaks can give as good as they get and sort out some of those Phuket taxi/songteaw mafia thugs.

Just go and do your 90 days as usual, don't say anything about being late. When/if they notice you're late just act dumb like you didn't realize, you miscounted and thought you were doing it on time. You may get away with it. But if not the fine is 2K. You actually have a week after due date, so really you're only 2 days late, you may slip past OK.

That's why I always do my 90 days report in person. I don't trust Thai gov IT. Any errors with the system and it's my fault. The foreigner is wrong and the foreigner gets a fine.

I think I saw one of the Kazaks at Hua Hin Beach this afternoon.

Happened with me too a couple of years running when Darren at Key Visa was handling my retirement ext. A Thai from Jomtien Imm came to Darren's office to get me in his car, took me to the Imm office, took my photo, then drove me back to Darren's office.

I've had two 1 Bt gold chains that I wore around my neck. First one I had a minor mc accident and some Thais assisted me, carried me off the road and into a temple. When I came to my gold chain was gone and my wallet as well. The second one was snatched from my neck by 2 Thais passing me on a mc. So that's it. I've learned my lesson. No more gold for me.

Not so sure I'd go out to the islands for serious dental work, you'd be better heading for one of the big Southern cities, but avoid the tourist meccas, Phuket for example would undoubtedly cost you much more. Nakhon Si Thammarat or HatYai are ok. If me I'd look to HatYai. I lived there some years ago and knew a very good lady dentist, I just tried to find her but can't see anything online, so perhaps she's moved on. But there are many excellent dentists in HatYai.

76yo and I do 6km walk daily, start at 6am and back home by 8am, I can feel my leg joints stiffening a bit in the past year but I'll keep it up for as long as I'm able. ????

It saves a trip to BKK. I also have an Aussie PP, I renewed that last year too but had to attend in person at the Australian fortress in BKK. So that entailed a return trip to BKK and 1 night in a hotel.

Yes Paul. I was dealing with him from my home in Korat, I had the form and I phoned Paul to ask some questions about the form, he said just sign it and send it to him, they filled everything in correctly. Also he takes care of the UK fees, I just did a bank transfer from my Thai account to his, all very easy and fast.

I had to renew my UK PP last year, I saw Darren at Key Visa, then compared his quote with Thai Visa Express, and I decided to go with Thai Visa Express. I got very fast friendly service from Thai Visa Express, and I personally recommend them. Key Visa was run by Darren who sadly died a while back. I believe his wife and the Thai staff are now running the business.

I tried it for the first time a couple of months ago. Only took one small glass that a couple of leaves had seeped in for an hour or so. It was horrible. Like a strong caffeine whack. I felt jittery and nervous for a few hours until the damn stuff subsided.

Short memories. It wasn't that long ago there were no tourists. No income. Their businesses were boarded up and bars/restaurants empty. Thais were sleeping on the pavements. Long lines of people at Pattaya beach to receive handout meals and a bottle of water.

As these sizes you give me here are not that large (15GB + 12GB) I've now got a 300GB ext hdd that'll use, I reckon 2TB is going to be lots of wasted space.

Dunno about that one. There was a story here the other week about Soi Buakhao bouncers kicking a 60yo Brit, that man had chest pains following the fight and was taken to hospital. So he could easily have died too, and the consensus here among AN posters was good on the bouncers, the Brit asked for it, he got what he deserved.

Thanks again for a very helpful reply.

Thank you for a very detailed reply. However I don't understand #5: how do I know how much to set this to? Is this like a partition? I have a 2TB ext drive that I'll be using.