DrDave

Can Immigration impose the 5 or 10 year ban without actually arresting the offender? I would think that many over-stayers would happily pay 20K baht if that was the only consequence. An automatic ban if over a certain number of days and the possibility of a stay at the IDC would be more of a deterrent than the slap on the wrist of a simple fine and letting the offender board their flight.

I think the one-way system was implemented in response to the "Tonight, Tonight" Thai boxing promotional pickups plying the roads at a snail's pace. When the streets were one lane in each direction, traffic would be backed up for blocks as it was nearly impossible to pass these slow-moving vehicles.

I haven't been in Patong for a few years, but I recall that there was some sort of connection between La Capannina on Soi 2, and Pizzeria Da Moreno on Nanai. Possibly owned by the same family? Both are outstanding restaurants.

Our 8 year old grandson was diagnosed with ADHD last year, after his school requested he be examined by a doctor. He's not aggressive at all, but fits the profile of being hyperactive, easily distracted and generally having difficulty focusing on the task at hand (except for video games on his tablet). He has an appointment every 2 months with a doctor at a private hospital in Chiang Rai every 2 months to evaluate his progress and adjust his medication (Ritalin) as needed. We've seen that the Ritalin makes a big difference in his ability to focus and decreases his hyperactivity somewhat. I would urge you to take the boy you mentioned to a local private hospital for evaluation and a prescription for medication. You may need to do this yourself, at your own expense since the family seems to be dis-interested. We provide all financial support for our daughter and two grandkids, so we pay about 4-5K baht every 2 months for the doctor visit and Ritalin prescription, and our daughter is very good about keeping doctor's appointments at the hospital 90 minutes away from their home.

This is very extreme, but you may want to try the colonoscopy prep routine if you can't find anything that works, and you're determined to get cleaned out. In my case, I was instructed to buy a 20-pack box of Miralax powder, and dissolve 1 packet in 8oz (235ml) of water and drink it every 15 minutes the day before my colonoscopy. 16 packets in all. After the 4 hours of Miralax every 15 minutes, follow-up with 4 tablets of Dulcolax. After the first 3 or 4 rounds of Miralax, you'll find yourself on the toilet every 15 minutes, corresponding to each successive round. As I said, this is very extreme but your colon will be clean as a whistle. Miralax is a form of polyethyeneglycol (a very close cousin of antifreeze), so I'd do this only if absolutely necessary. And no, I'm not an MD.

Phone is connecting via local wi-fi (I don't have international roaming enabled for my Thai SIM). After 3 days of not being able to connect, I tried it again a few minutes ago (5:30PM Thai time), and K-Plus is now working after just a short delay to connect. Whatever problem they were having seems to have been worked out. Thanks for your response.

Remove the SSD from your old computer and put it into an external USB enclosure. Connect that USB enclosure to your new computer, and run a disk cloning/partitioning program. I use ECHO 5, which works very well. The software will setup your new computer to temporarily boot an alternative OS, allow you to re-partition the M2 drive if desired, and then clone your SSD to your M2. When finished, the temporary OS is removed and your new computer will boot normally.

I've been using K-Plus (and its predecessor) on my phone from both Thailand and the US for years. For the last few days, the K-Plus app stopped working from my home in the US. The app just hangs while trying to connect, then after several minutes, a message pops up saying they're experiencing a high volume of traffic which may affect availability. Same thing is happening on my wife's phone, except she gets a message asking if she wants a call-back. K-Biz on the Kasikorn website works, but it's incredibly slow. A couple of minutes to process the login, and a couple more to access account details. It's the same situation whether I'm using a VPN or not (our phones are not using a VPN). It was working fine just a couple of weeks ago. Anyone else having similar problems?

When passing the temple at the top of the hill, they honk for good luck.

Nearly all of the privately-owned tractors in rural areas are equipped with disc units that could be used to turn the stalks over after harvest. But, while most rice farmers will pay someone with a machine to harvest their rice, they won't pay to have their paddys plowed under afterwards. The alternative to mechanized harvesting is days and days of backbreaking labor, while the alternative to paying someone with a tractor to turn the soil over is to simply burn it at virtually no cost. Simple economics. Another problem that won't be going away anytime soon is the burning of garbage. Outside of urban areas, trash collection is virtually non-existent. While some metals and plastic bottles might be recycled (depending upon location), the locals have no choice but to burn the majority of their trash.

In regard to the government possibly reversing position on weed, I think it's just noise at this point. In Bangkok, there's a proliferation of weed shops especially in the lower Sukhumvit area. These shops are occupying some extremely expensive real estate, and considerable money has been spent on fitting out the shops. I suspect that the owners are well connected, and have assurance that they'll be able to continue conducting business after investing hefty sums.

If the developer doesn't have your blue book, it's very possible the building hasn't been registered as a condominium. What about all of the other buyers? Do they have their blue books? You can also go to the land office and see if they have chanote titles on file for the building. There should be one chanote for each unit, listing the owner.

No, Kasikorn Bank's web-based system is working just fine. It's now called K-Biz (they merged the personal and business apps into one quite a while back). Also, the K-Plus phone app works as well. I got a new phone yesterday, and had to download and install the app just as a new user would do. When linking the app to your account(s), it asks you to provide the account number as well as the Thai gov't ID number, or PASSPORT NUMBER associated with that account. Obviously, it works for foreigners as well as Thais.

Have a license to charge unreasonably high rates.

I think I'd need all my fingers and toes to count the number of failed establishments that have opened in that space over the past 15 years or so.