pongosnodgrass

There's a shop on Petchburi Road, Huai Khwang in Bangkok that does them. They are called Ferplast but I cannot find the number on yellow pages.co.th. They are the distributor for the Italian company that makes them. Try phoning BUG on 1113 ( Telephone directory service) - they might be able to get the number for you.

I pass this place every day, though, so I might post later if I can see the number on the shop front. I got a couple of different sizes from here a few years ago that are lockable in several different combinations, so you can trap those cats that are already in - I have six cats and trying to get them in and keep them in can be a pain.

If they have suggested this amount of time then that is worse case scenario you should not make any travel arrangements until you have a valid visa for travel.

I fear as much. That's a pity. I'll have to spend my tourist euros elsewhere. The list of places Thai citizens can go without a visa outside Asia is fairly depressing, with a few exceptions, such as Brazil and Peru.

In Europe, Prague looks more likely. Apparently a recent change in July means that, as a ILR married to an EU citizen, there is no need for a visa if you can produce a marriage certificate.

Thanks for the reply, all the same. Do you happen to know which embassy(ies) processes a Shengen visa the quickest from Thailand? All my paperwork is in order. It's just the speed that is the problem.

Hi, I plan to go to Spain next month via the UK to celebrate my wedding anniversary. I leave on Monday the 13th September, which means I should really receive my visa back by Friday the 10th at the latest. Problem is, my appontment to hand in the visa application is on 30th August and they say it could take 15 days.

Does anyone have any experience of how long it really takes? Do they really mean 15 days or up to 15 days? I don't want to take the risk and book flights or hotels if it's too close to the knuckle. I'd really appreciate if any one has any knowledge on this to share. Thanks.

I am Thai and have indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and am married to a Brit. We are currently in Thailand.

This works well for me - we have seven cats who don't get on so there's lots of spraying going on. Very cheap too!

Get an old spray bottle, tip in about 2 Tbsp of sodium bicarbonate, fill the bottle with warm water and tip upside down a few times to dissolve the SB. Then add a tiny amount (maybe about 1/2 teaspoon) of laundry/washing powder which has enzymes in it. We use Breeze excel, the one in the gold bag, but you can use any as long as it is 'biological'. Then slowly tip upside down again (to avoid frothing). The less powder you use, the less rinsing you need to do. Quantities for both don't need to be exact.

I spray the area that's been soiled until it's saturated, then rinse with water. If it's fabric, I spray the solution, soak it up with a cloth and then spray again with water.

There are commercial products out there, most of them liquid - one by a local company called 'Bearing' is good and available at the petfood departments in most supermarkets in Bangkok but the problem is you'll have to carry liquids back with you in your checked luggage. The other thing is they leave a sort of residue - the best thing about the sodium bicarbonate and laundry powder mix is that the soiled area is clean and smells clean afterwards.

I was looking for an alternative to ivermec as I have a soi dog who looks like she could be part collie - Ivermec is dangerous for certain breeds and collies are one of them.

I came across a remedy on earthclinic using hydrogen peroxide and borax called "Ted's remedy". Many, many positive feedbacks from readers who had tried it. I had another soi dog who had recurring problems with mange which would not clear up, so I decided to give it a go. After three baths, the mange stopped and I haven't had any problems for over a year.

I don't think I can post a link but please do a search for either "Ted's remedy" or earthclinic. Ted, incidentally, is a Thai who has become a bit of a star for his very effective remedies on earthclinic, which is an American site. So we know his remedies take our hot humid weather into account!

You can get 3% Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) at most chemists in Thailand. The one I see most of is the "SB" brand - Siribuncha, in a brown bottle with a blue label. As it's 3% you need to dilute it with water three times its volume to get the 1% solution needed in the remedy.

I was able to find Borax in the "Seua Baa" shop near National Stadium/MBK in Bangkok. I think asking a motorcy or samlor around there for "Raan Seua Baa" should get you there. I think "Seua Baa" means "Cub Scouts" (although the literal translation is "Forest Tiger"). It's basically a school supplies shop and you can get everything to kit out a mini chemistry lab there, including bunsen burners , test tubes and Hydrochloric and Sulphuric Acid (and they wonder why the incidence of acid attacks here is high), as well as basic art and craft supplies.

Good luck. Oh yeah, your wallet will thank you as well as your dog!

My friend's cat, Miss Gingie, died yesterday, poor thing.

Although it's too late to save her, please think about donating for other animals in case you have a healthy pet at home. Thanks for reading.

Does anyone have the kaset animal hospital phone number and times for cat blood donation? My cat is ready for a donation.

The number for the Kaset blood bank unit is 02-942-8756-9, ext 2118 or 02-579-7540, ext 2329.

That's a really good deed you are doing! Thank you so much.

Please could I ask if you would mind if your wonderful cat, in this instance, will donate blood for my friend's cat - if you are in Bangkok, I can send my driver to help take your cat to a vet for a blood test, if it is inconvenient for you to travel. We are in Pattanakarn. Please PM me if you are able to help. Thank you.

My mistake/edit above - my vet is called Nakarin Vet on Pattanakarn 49, not Pattanakarn Animal Hospital on Soi 30.

It's the Pattanakarn Animal Hospital on Pattanakarn, just before the junction with Srinakarin. Doesn't look like much from the outside but I've kept many animals and I know a good vet when I see one. It looks like a very basic local set up, but the vets are permanent, not rotating young interns like many other places, while they take on lucrative lecturing jobs leaving inexperienced vets running the shop. They also speak English, are very people and animal friendly, and they really care about the animals. If you want white, pristine, and modern looking (and accompanyingly expensive) then Thonglor is a good option - a kind of Bumrungrad for animals, if you like. If you want good primary care at a reasonable cost, this vet, Dr Nut and his colleagues, are superb in my experience.

But Thonglor has many vets - incidentally, it was a Thonglor vet who botched this one up (not the hospital with the resident big golden retriever, though).

A friend of mine urgently needs several blood donors for his cat. Several are needed in case of poor blood group match but the vet has stipulated that the donor cats must be big (and healthy) enough - over 5 kgs. Not too many of those in BK. Cat's condition is critical - very poor vet skills meant that the friend's vet removed two very large areas of tissue from an anaemic cat and the cat now urgently needs blood. We have moved her to my trusted vet.

If you think you can help or have any suggestions, please PM me. Thanks very much. We can arrange collection of cat to the nearest convenient vet to you.

btw the vet told me that the central blood bank at Kasetsart Animal Hospital is very low on blood, so if you can, just think about making a donation for any cat or dog. I suppose we don't really think about it until we ourselves actually need it. Thanks for reading.

Good point, that man! I meant it more from the perspective that should earn their money. Actually, I asked her today and she knew her stuff.

Don't stop being nice - I appreciated the advice!

Thanks for the exact answer I was looking for, Quiksilva. I checked your profile and, as we're using CBRE, it's only fair that I should get them to do this on our behalf. If we don't get any joy, I'll pm you.

Thanks for the comments.

I am experienced in business and know the market very well so I did already do the business plan and analysis, which is how we attracted investors in the first place. In fact, our first year was all about keeping tight because of uncertainty from the GEC - we rented a serviced office for the last 12 months but have now outgrown it and we beat our first year projections. As serviced offices are expensive, part of our second year plan was to move into our own space. The difference is about 30% higher. We, of course, made provisions for the political situation but the destruction of buildings around Bangkok was unprecedented and has shaken confidence abroad. Everyone was taken by surprise and we're Thai - it's a tough call.

But our partners wanted to know if there was any get out clause, just in case - I asked because we don't know the ins and outs of property contracts in Thailand. Thanks, though, liveinlos for the suggestion of a shorter lease - the landlord is a big operator, it's probably the best commercial space at the moment and they won't go for it, unfortunately. We tried.

Our business has been doing well and we are expanding and looking at taking up additional premises (office space).

However, because of the uncertainty of the political situation here, our foreign investors have asked us to find out if it possible to take out insurance cover in the event that we would need to break a lease before the lease is up. I am assuming that for commercial property in Thailand your liability is for the full term of the lease, not that you only lose your deposit, but I could be wrong. The lease is only for three years and we're very confident that we will be fine but we need to look at if we can manage the risk as anything could happen here in the next three years.

Does anyone have any experience of this?

Thanks for sharing.

In another thread, someone very kindly gave instructions to go to a pharmacy near Nana. I did and managed to find the elusive epsom salts. As of last Saturday, 5th Jun 2010, they had some in stock. Directions to the shop:

From Sukhumvit head towards Ploenchit. Staying on the main Sukhumvit road, once you pass Nana Soi 4, to your left there will be a petrol station on the corner. Next to that is a small chemist shop and next to that is a bigger chemist shop, double fronted. Ask for the Dee-Kleua. He has it prepackaged in kilo bags for 50 baht.

Before that, I had tried to find it elsewhere and had no luck in big, small, old or new pharmacies. The older guy in the shop in Nana explained to me that most people don't sell it anymore as it is a real pain to package up. They buy it in huge sacks and prepackage it because once it's exposed to the air, it gets damp and goes hard. So most pharmacies can't be bothered to hack at a solid block of salt for 50 baht and therefore don't stock it.

I had tried the Chinese herbal shop route but I was told that Magnesium Sulphate is a Farang medicine, not a Chinese one so they didn't stock it. That route may be a bit hit and miss if you try it.

I'm definitely not Rick Stein. Liked Chalky, though. Although, 'like' is probably the wrong word because he was a bit of a nippy bugger, so it seemed but that's always possible with Jack Russells. Reminded us of our own, now sadly deceased, mutt, Bert.

Nadtatida, thanks for the offer of a Warrens pasty bag. I'm presuming that you don't mean a brown paper bag that's gone translucent due to the grease it's absorbed from the pasty. It's a very kind thought but I can live without the bag; I still have my Padstow Mussell Company tea towel. I just thought the Walen bag was a pretty poor swap, and ironic at that, as it's the one advert I always manage to tsk and roll my eyes at every time I open Thaivisa.

Strange request, I know, but did you take your shoes to be repaired at Tops in Robinson Sukhumvit in a cotton bag and end up taking them back in my Padstow Mussell bag instead of your Walen School of Thai bag? If this is you, you'll know exactly what I mean.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's just a bag but please could I have it back. I spent a wondeful time in Cornwall with family and friends and that bag (stupid as it sounds) means more to me than the Walen School one-year education visa bag.

Please PM me if you have it. Thanks.

something to think about

Suthikiart Jirathiwat and Pracha Maleenont are quite close to Thaksin Shinawatra. They are still on good terms. If the reds set the blaze it would not make sense at all.

Places burnt down are symbolic of regime/system and representation of success. However the perpetrators are sparing many business locations

Dusit, MBK, ASTV, Nation, SisaoTewes, Pullman Kingpower, all left untouched.

Those would've been the reds' targets. Remember who was feuding with Central and BEC before all of this? Who was the biggest enemy of the Central Group and Ch. 3 in the past 3 years? The direct beneficiary of the fire is not reds or Thaksin...it's the man who feuded.

The fire kills 5 birds with one stone: Channel 3, Central, Thaksin, Reds, Anti-Monarchists. Pongpat was used. Game over for Thaksin as he and reds are delegitimized, while opponents of Central/Bangkok Bank/BEC benefit. Think about this for a minute and you'll realise the missing jigsaw of this puzzle.

The men behind the blaze are the men who wanted to drive BEC/Central/BBL out of business and blame it on protestors. The fires irrevocably end the reds shirts movement for now, while Thaksin cannot conceivably ever return to politics or even to Thai soil.

The victims of the fire are not Thaksin/Reds's enemies. They are the enemies of Thaksin's enemies. Ultra-hardcore-right-winged conservative types stand to benefit from this chaos.

Watch the aftermath closely and you'll see. Those who are desperate about clinging on to power are required to create an element of fear in the heart of its population. The incentive is greater than those who are aspiring to attain power.

People will go to great lengths to protect remaining interests while the threat is eliminated to foster a rally-round-the-regime type of feeling.

The goal of the movement to eliminate Thaksin forever from the system was not accomplished until today. It is end-game for him. We lose. Regime wins.

May I stress not coincidence ASTV, Nation, PullmanKingPower, Dusit remain untouched. This battle is deeper than what meets the eyes. And SiSao is untouched.

I have a rather difficult time accepting this. Not because I would put it past anyone to use this situation for their own interest, but simply because if it was true Thaksin should be out screaming bloody murder.

He should be releasing hundreds of videos and statements saying it wasn't him, and telling any red shirts to go home and stop burning things. They would listen to him.

Where are his pleas? He seems quite content with the mayhem. He even predicted it. Also, this is kind of quick to come out. We still have several more days of possible arson attacks. How do we know ASTV won't be torched? Unless the person releasing this fanciful position is the same one coordinating the torching.

If anything, I suspect Thaksin himself chose these targets for a reason. Maybe there was an insurance angle to it. I don't know. I suspect the real reasons will leak out over the next few years as the whole story unfolds. Probably impossible to say right now.

For me, this theory is just too convenient for the red shirts, who are otherwise looking for a way to deflect blame from themselves. When you start bringing up secret conspiracy theories, remember that the knife cuts both ways. Unless you are prepared with a little more solid evidence, the only people who are likely to believe this story are the reds themselves. That may have been the intent all along.

Burn the city and cause mayhem, but make the up country red supporters believe it was a "third hand" so you don't destroy the movement. Much more likely scenario in my opinion.

The real originator of this on his twitter page (not the guy who posted it) has backed off from it. He has received a lot of flak along with additional info that has poked holes in his conspiracy theory. He now goes with Thaksin as the culprit along with everybody else.

The original author of these thoughts is Nattakorn Devakula, a former candidate for Bangkok governor. Please go to the original source twitter.com/khunpleum and you will see that tonight he is trying to present the opposing view. He admits that it's a work in progress. I'll give him credit that he's trying to be balanced but maybe that was a bad move to leave the argument hanging over to one side overnight, so it could be siezed upon by those whom it would suit. Unfortunately, that's the fallibility of Twitter's 140 characters. You can't present a very long argument. It also shows the fallibility of all these amateur analyses and conspiracy theories - that none of us really know and understand enough - the whole picture is simply not there for us to see. Including all those academics.

I had a bag hanging around, which I've used to top dress my lawn and noticed the contact details:

General Farm Supplies Co Ltd

Bangsue, Bangkok 10800

Tel: 02 913 9024 - 6

email: [email protected]

Comes in 1kg bags. Has a red cartoon worm wearing a scarf as the logo and the brand is 'Tesabarn'. Mix this with the bagged compost you can find just about anywhere (even in Tesco and Carrefour) to give you a rich, organic growing medium.

Okay, still keeping this topic going as it's now a project of mine to succeed!

I managed to get the last remaining lavender plant that was part of a Royal projects fair at Emporium and it did really well. The area where I had it had a constant, gentle breeze but full sun at the back of our house. Unfortunately, I went on holiday and left someone with strict instructions not to kill that plabnt as it had been so difficult to get in the first place but I got back and it was a brown twig.

Fortunately, I managed to identify it before it died. The University at Kasetsart also grows it for the Royal projects.

Unfortunately, they only do it sporadically and at certain times of the year when the conditions are favourable. ie, no fixed timetable.

Fortunately, I went back to the UK and found one supplier - seeds by size - who sells the seed.

Unfortunately, here I am, several weeks later and now back in Thailand, with no acknowledgement of my fully paid-up order.

Only certain varieties will survive here because of the humidity, therefore, avoid anything with leaves that are grey or too furry. Most English lavenders are hardy, meaning they survive the cold and are unikely to grow here.

The variety which I had is called Lavender dentata and has fern-like leaves. I might be tempted to sneak back cuttings next time I get back to the UK. Jekka's herbs sells the plants.

Anyone with any easier suggestions or experiences to share?

Wild rodents as food are a bad idea. They carry the fleas which are the necessary host for tapeworm, which your cat will eat and complete the cycle.

We picked up a Tom, who loved eating rats and he was constantly shedding little 'grains of rice' - of course, he needed regular deworming but I would have preferred it that he didn't get the tapeworm in the first place. Gross!

There are small bags of worm cast fertiliser, in both 'soil' and liquid form. Not sure where you are. but in Bangkok, the large shops around JJ should sell it.

Do they look like black sesame seeds? If so, you are looking at young ticks. If they are a bit rounder with their legs up front then it could be adult ticks, as yet unfed. When they are young you can pop them, when they are a bit older, they have an exoskeleton which makes it difficult to crush them. Unfortunately, they can give dogs quite nasty diseases - mine ended up with tick poisoning which damaged the nerves in her legs. Her back legs are still occasionally a bit wobbly. You'll need to get to the vet to apply some spot-on tick killer.

Or you could have carpet beetle, which is harmless to the dog but will eat your textiles.

The chemical structure of borax acts like thousands of tiny razor blades which will scratch and cut mites and many other insects, thus killing them.

Please can you ask your wife what is the Thai name for Borax. I would be interested in getting the Thai, not the Farang, price!

From: http://translate.google.com/translate_t?hl...=en#en|th|borax

And: http://www.thai2english.com/search/Borax+

น้ำประสานทอง náam bprà-săan tong = borax

Cheers

Thanks, Jingjoke and Rangefinder for your answers. I now find myself in need of "Ted's cure" as I have taken in a stray puppy who had a broken leg. Now that's mended, she got mange. She's getting ivermectin treatment from the vets but I want to try this because I have anoter dog who is starting to show signs of paw chewing.

Cheers.

I am looking for a replacement water filter for a PURE NUVO German made water dispenser originally bought at Carrrefour. Does anyone know where I can get them?

The company that is the distributor is Filtermart. They have a customer helpline 02 978 9000, which noone sees to answer but I had luck with another number, which I think is the head office number 02 885 8600. Press zero for operator or 1 for sales. Definitely there are several showrooms in Bangkok: there is one on the road to Bangna-trat, past Carrefour. On the same side of the road is a restaurant called "gor yor" and it's next to that. That showroom's number is 02 758 7744. I don't know about Pattaya, though, but a call to the head office should yield results.

The nuvo filter costs about 590 baht.

Happened to be looking for oil paints but found borax in the cub scouts shop "Look Seua" near national stadium.

As an aside, that shop's also handy if you want any dangerous acid, or common school lab compounds, which are sold at eye level to kids as well as adults. Amazing Thailand.