Khon Baan Nok

I will fly out of BKK Sunday morning, returning Thursday night. I've never dared to use the long-term parking, and am wondering whether those that have have found it to be a viable option. Is it easy to use, and is your car likely to still be intact when you get back?

Taxis are easy, but it would be convenient, especially with a pre-dawn departure and a midnight arrival. Tks in advance.

Lane Xang!? Desparately in need of a refit.

There is many a nice small hotel parallel with the Mekong - Riverine and InterHotel are just 2 which are nice. Or there is the Beau Riverage further up the road over looking the mekong.

Thanks to all of you for the ideas. I will have all day Sunday to mess around in Vientiane. Any recommendations on "must-see" spots? I live in BKK, so this short trip will just serve as a "sampler", and I'll get back on my own at a later date...

Cheers,

I'll be making my first visit to Vientiane on Sunday. Any recommendations for a comfortable but not five star hotel with a bit of Laotian flavor?

Tks much.

Thanks, Stuart and David. I have marked your table, Stuart, and will check back to see when the Burmese gets on. I see you are planning to include some other scripts as well, which will be interesting. Once upon a time I knew both Oriya and Bengali scripts, and it is fun to see them side by side, tks.

Your point, David, on ho nok huk and ro ruea is interesting. I came across a chart recently that was showing how ro ruea sounds from Thai often turn into "h" sounds in Isaan. Correlated?

I met a person at work today who had studied Burmese and had learned the script and so forth. I suggested that that might be helpful in getting a jump start on Thai, though my perusal of the Burmese script on Omniglot does not quite support that notion. It looks a lot closer to Devanagiri, which I can read.

Do any of you by chance have a chart that "pairs" the Devanagiri characters with BOTH their Burmese and Thai equivalents? And, in addition, includes the characters from Thai and Burmese that don't have equivalents in Devanagiri.

I have such a chart/table for Devanagiri and Thai, but before trying to fold in Burmese I thought I'd see if some of you haven't already done that.

Tks.

"Stink bean", perhaps?

I found this:

ENGLISH : Petai bean, Twisted cluster bean, Stink bean.

THAI : กะตอ Kato, ปะตา Pa ta, ปาไต Pa tai, ปัตเต๊าะ Pat to, สะตอ Sato (Satoo, Sator, Sataw), To dan, To kkhao.

"Stink bean" is precisely the name my GF told me. They have a unique flavor, and there's a street restaurant on Sam Sen Soi 2 called Jok Pochana that has a great dish with these beans and shrimp.

We've wondered whether the name stink bean is derived from the bean in its native state, or what it produces after being consumed by humans....

My advice here: any one method that you see advertised or recommended is only one method and no one method has ever, in my opinion, taught someone an entire language. I taught myself a lot before going to a school and studying their more advanced levels. What worked for me was basically buying every book, course and program I could get my hands on.

I have done all of the above, including Rosetta Stone which is ok, but no one method here is going to teach you Thai.

I am in complete agreement with Withnail on this, though my agreement is not worth much, since after two years of "self-instruction" my proficiency is a chaotic hodge-podge that includes the ability to read and write, knowledge of some very arcane and astounding--to Thai people--vocabulary, fairly precise pronunciation as long as I "stay in my groove", and an astonishing inability to participate in, for more than about 30 seconds, a standard Thai conversation. It's discouraging...

That said, one addition to Withnail's suggestion: start using the little black Moleskin notebooks and start writing down, in Thai, ever sign you see, every phrase you hear, every word you don't understand. I'm almost into my 4th notebook of this type, and find that even when I'm not able to remember every word, I can remember when I heard it, and can trace back through the books to the reference.

Attached is a Word document I made a year or so ago that summarizes almost all of the rules on a single page. (...)

I think you typed ฃ (ขวด) in the low consonant group instead of ซ (โซ่).

Ouch! Right you are. I just picked up my new glasses on Friday afternoon, and can see well enough to make the correction!

Corrected version attached.

thai_all_tones.v6.doc

Can anyone recommend a good hard cover Thai-English and English-Thai dictionary that goes beyond the Sor Setthabhut level? I'm looking for something I can put on a shelf.

Cheers

Xangsamhua

... my favorite is the Domnern Sathienpong Thai-English Dictionary, Third Edition, published in 2006 (dated 2549). This big, blue book costs 570 baht which includes a downloadable CD. If you are reading something on line, for example, you can copy and paste a word you do not know directly into the dictionary on your hard disk. Even though the book itself is Thai-English, you can easily do English-Thai by typing in an English word into the search text box on your computer version. All instances where that particular word is to be found will show up.

Finally, a click of the right mouse button on either and English or Thai word will produce the proper pronunciation from your computer speakers.

Domnern Sathienpong also ten appendices which provide specialized definitions for plants, animals, police and military ranks, and locations, among other lists.

I completely agree with the recommendation of the Domnern Sathienpong, though I have only found the yellow Second Edition from 1999. It does not have the CD, but only costs 450 baht, which is a real bargain. It has the same appendices mentioned for the third edition.

Unlike many, this dictionary has a very readable (in bold) Thai font and an excellent, open layout. It also includes all sorts of turns of phrase as well as a completely uninhibited inclusion of every slang term/phrase you would want to learn. The book is fun to just read.

I look at dictionaries every time I'm in a bookstore, and in two years have never seen one that I liked better.

Hi,

I've been teaching myself thai for nearly two years now and thought it was about time I learnt the tone rules.

It looks a bit intimidating to say the least.

Does anyone have any tips, tricks,mneumonics etc to help learn the tone rules?

I am determined to learn them but just could use some help.

Thanks!

Attached is a Word document I made a year or so ago that summarizes almost all of the rules on a single page. The only thing missing is the fact that the characters อ and ห can be used as silent (i.e. unpronounced) tone modifiers that give middle and high class consonant tones to low class consonants that can't otherwise produce low or rising tones. Two examples: อยู่ "is", or "is at", or "am", and หมา "dog".

I found it useful to base myself on the middle class characters which are alone in being able to produce all five tones without "help" from other characters, and they proceed in the correct tone order with "normal" syllables: M L F H R.

I worked next on the high class characters because I can hear a rising tone better than I can hear any of the others. The tone sequence with "normal" syllables is R L F, which starts from the easily audible R and then reproduces L and F from the above sequence, using the same tone marks.

I worked finally on the low class characters because they are numerous. Their tone sequence is M F H, for which my mnemonic is "Mother <deleted> High". Not very classy, but I could remember it.

I saved the dead syllables (second column in) for last, and still usually have to "deduce" the right tone by thinking through the consonant class, vowel length, and stop character. It's becoming more automatic, but I still have to think about them after two years of rather undisciplined and spare time study.

My original intent was to give you something simple to work with, but upon re-reading the above, it is probably inscrutable, and I'm not even "oriental"!

Look at the chart, I made it myself and I still find it the best "one-stop" visual representation of the basic tone rules that I've come across - I hope it is helpful for you. Good luck.

thai_all_tones.v5.doc

I'm shopping for a motorbike, and do some of my shopping on Thai language sites, which are also learning adventures.

Sometimes I get replies back to my English language inquiries that show signs of having plugged Thai language into a translation engine.

Below is an example in the ad itself, for a big V-Twin on BahtSold:

want , sell , small stump hill pierces , V , 1200register , take trees fully , an interest , call , I [ hair ] , bake , The every , time , that 0895064097 be glad , go to send , everywhere , in , Thailand ,

Any "reverse engineering" guesses on what this originally said in Thai?

With the third anual renewal you will get a 5 year licence.

I thought the five year one came after the first one year one. see pinned post Re. driving licence

Correct, the five year license comes after the first ONE year. I have the five year variety, acquired upon expiration of the first one.

Incidentally, I have two licenses: one is for automobiles, and the other is for motorcycles. I had the auto license first, and am not sure if it is possible to get both license types one one document, but I at least have two separate ones.

S.

Will be in Jomtien on Friday - if you are aware of any individual or dealer who may have a good condition, legitimately registered Ulysses, 620 Multistrada, or equivalent for sale: I will make the effort to come see it.

Tks.

People trying to beat the prices here do alot of talking but in the end never do it. It would be interesting if you went for B or C and then let us know the whole story afterwards. Lotsa luck

That's a fair challenge, Ajahn. Quoting from an email reply I had to this question:

"If it was easy everyone would be doing it right?"

I don't know the answer to that question, because I have not yet found a straightforward, step by step itemization of what one must do, and pay, to accomplish a legal importation and registration. If I DO go the importation route I will indeed document and put back on the record the whole process - I've been remunerated for doing that kind of work before and I know how to do it.

People ARE and HAVE BEEN importing bikes, however, and I would think that someone would have already established some kind of a checklist, or flow chart, that clarifies the steps that are to be followed, including which Ministries have to be contacted, etc. Does this not exist in a FAQ somewhere? Tell me where to look, and I'll do the homework...

Tks as always for pointers...

S.

Bingo. I knew there had to be such a thing out there, and here it is, from another thread:

http://www.customs.go.th/Customs-Eng/Perso...Nme=PersonalPer

Time to make the doughnuts....

People trying to beat the prices here do alot of talking but in the end never do it. It would be interesting if you went for B or C and then let us know the whole story afterwards. Lotsa luck

That's a fair challenge, Ajahn. Quoting from an email reply I had to this question:

"If it was easy everyone would be doing it right?"

I don't know the answer to that question, because I have not yet found a straightforward, step by step itemization of what one must do, and pay, to accomplish a legal importation and registration. If I DO go the importation route I will indeed document and put back on the record the whole process - I've been remunerated for doing that kind of work before and I know how to do it.

People ARE and HAVE BEEN importing bikes, however, and I would think that someone would have already established some kind of a checklist, or flow chart, that clarifies the steps that are to be followed, including which Ministries have to be contacted, etc. Does this not exist in a FAQ somewhere? Tell me where to look, and I'll do the homework...

Tks as always for pointers...

S.

THIS QUESTION IS ALSO POSTED ON GT-RIDER.COM - APOLOGIES TO OVERLAPPING MEMBERS...

Thanks up front to those who have been shedding light on the importation/registration questions, a couple of which I had posed myself, much earlier in my bike search. Based on that information, I had basically concluded that importation was out of the question on the basis of complexity, cost, time and general frustration. With apologies for adding further clutter on this topic, I'd like to revisit the issue in more specific terms. My question is based on the very limited availability of bikes in the niche market (mid-sized dual sports) I'm shopping in, and very high prices (partially accounted for by the dramatic drop in the value of the US dollar, the currency of my income).

Here's the scenario:

Bike A is a 7 year old DS in good condition, sensibly accessorized, with relatively low stated mileage and fully legitimate green book and clean pedigree from original date of purchase in Thailand. Price is, let us say, $12,000 US.

Bike B is the same make, model, and year, with much lower mileage though fewer accessories. It is located, however, in the US. It can be purchased for $4,000 and accessorized to my taste for another $1,000, bringing the total pre-importation investment to $5,000 US.

Bike C is a brand new bike that, unlike A or B, is exactly what I am looking for. It can be purchased in the US and accessorized for $7,000.

My question is this: Assuming that I'm willing to put up with the shipping and processing delay, hassle, and cost, isn't it possible that I could import/legally register either Option B at lower total cost (value proposition = same bike @ lower total cost) or Option C (value proposition = newer and better-suited bike @ similar or marginally greater cost)? Option B gives me $7K to work with after buying the bike, Option C gives me $5K. Is that really not enough margin to make the import/legal registration process worthwhile?

I appreciate your responses. I know the topic is tedious to those of you that have been through it many times, but the sliding dollar changes (IMHO) some of the financial elements of this decision, at least if one's income is dollar based. A bike purchased a couple of years ago at 41 to 1 becomes a different proposition at 31 to 1. Unfortunately the same is true of real estate, but that's another story...

Cheers and regards,

S.

I will have a layover in Auckland on Saturday the 27th of October, and have reserved a BMW 650GS to go toodle around for the day.

I have never been there, and would appreciate any recommendations regarding a nice scenic, low-traffic meander in and around Auckland, plus any must-see locales.

Thanks in advance for your help.

S.

Siam Racing Motorcycles .

www.siammotorcycles.com

038-425513

038 425757

Hmm, that's what I thought... But the bikes in the showroom are not the same ones on the web site. Thanks for the reference, I've contacted them...

I'm thinking of taking a road trip over a long weekend, and am thinking to go up to Isaan and look around for some good quality traditional music. I've never been beyond Korhat (other than barely across the changwat border into Chaiyaphum) and would appreciate any good ideas of where to go, where to stay, and where/how to find the music. I can get by in basic Thai and do not need much in the way of amenities...

Tks, cheers. S.

On Sunday I stopped at a motorcycle shop in Pattaya - it was closed, and I did not get the name of it, thinking that I had already seen it on the Web. I had not...

It is on the northbound side of Sukhumvit Road, less than a kilometer north of North Pattaya (Pattaya Neua) Road. It has, among other things, a Sportster, Ducati 1000DS, Africa Twin..

Can anyone tell me the name, phone and URL (if any) for this place? Tks much.

I live in Bangkok, though am presently in the US. I have a few very nice air guns (pistols and rifles) that I would like to bring back for plinking and rat shooting.

Are there any restrictions on doing this? Mind you, these are NOT firearms, they are airguns that shoot BBs or pellets.

Thanks for your advice.

am in the market to buy a motorbike in the next month or so.

I quite like the look of the Fino but havent yet test riden one. Has anyone got one that would like to comment.

the bike is going to be used for general trips to 7-11 and local markets, bank etc and not long trips- have a car for that.

cheers

I bought one of the first ones out last November for my girlfriend, though in Bangkok traffic I am usually the one driving. I've had many bikes, the last two HDs, and have been surprised at how much I like the Fino. The initial attraction for my GF was the looks, and I also like the neo-retro look of the little scooter. We buzz all around BKK on this thing, and I have zero complaints. While some have commented on the lack of dual rear shocks, we have not found it to be a problem. The brakes are good (get the model with front disk brakes, not the cheaper one with drum).

For the purpose you've identified - similar to mine - you should be quite happy with it.

...because I will ask ANYONE how to write/spell something, and they always enjoy looking over my shoulder at what I'm writing and what I've written.

You are a brave man! Always be sure to double check the spelling given to you. I have often found that many Thai people do not spell so well. Where does one obtain the Moleskine notebook of which you speak?

I'm not that brave, I just don't have much in the way of better alternatives... I always go home and cross-reference with the dictionary anyway, so the information I get will at least generally get me in the right section of the dictionary...

The Moleskines are available at a little homewares shop on the third floor of Siam Paragon, right next door to the Starbucks. I'm sorry, I don't recall its name, but it is a very modernish little shop to the right of Starbucks as you stand outside looking in.

The Moleskines are just incredible. I carry them in the back pocket, often, of sweaty jeans, or in steamy little backpacks, and they are nearly indestructible. They are expensive, though they were on sale when I was there last for around 560B. I believe I normally paid around 800, but then the baht was higher too... They run around $15-18 and are worth it.

I am thinking about purchasing an electronic talking dictionary. I have read much about the Lingo line of them and am looking for some prcatical experience and not marketing hype.

There are some that claim that you can speak english into it and it will speak translated thai back. and vise versa! I would like to hear if any one has actually used one of these. There are several models and range in price of 400 - 800 USD.

GWH

I have the model MD-88, which should be, based on price, toward the upper end of the range. It does not do what you have described. In fact it only "talks" in English, at least with the software that comes with the device, and that is after you have keyed in (or selected) a Thai lookup word. So you do not get the benefit of Thai pronunciation. And you do have to be able to read and type Thai in order to use it - it does not do transliteration. I consider that as an advantage, because I'm one of those who believe that learning the Thai script is an essential and early part of learning the language. It was one of the first things I did and I've felt well-served by the effort I put into that.

I use mine regularly and have found it to be a worthwhile addition to my learning tools. When I'm home, around my book collection, I will tend to use the larger and more extensive printed dictionaries, but when I'm out and about I prefer to have the TD with me. Mine is pretty much a constant companion, and it is rare that it will not have a word I'm looking for, even idiomatic expressions (though not slang).

For me the TD is kind of a companion to what I consider my main learning tool, which is the Moleskine reporter's notebook. I'm on my third one (I fill them up in about 6 months) and I write down (in Thai) everything that I can capture from conversations, signs, radio, or anything else. I seem to require writing things down in order to acquire the vocabulary, and the use of these notebooks helps me do that, as well as providing an invaluable entry point into conversations with lots of Thai people - because I will ask ANYONE how to write/spell something, and they always enjoy looking over my shoulder at what I'm writing and what I've written. You have to be a little cautious, however, if you are the kind of person who is a magnet for slang and off-color remarks. Obviously I am such a person, or I would not have given you the warning.

Bottom line: They are expensive tools. In Thailand you can build a complete library for the price of a good color screen TD. I recommend doing both if you have the means.

S.

Yesterday morning a large snake took an adult cat right outside my bedroom window. I heard it, but to my chagrin did not see it.

My girlfriend (also to her chagrin) came upon the snake as it had the cat about 1/4 ingested. It was apparently quite an adventure, as she realized that the cat was dead and reached down to remove it from the hole in which the front part of its body was located. She found it very "heavy" and when bending down to move it, she found herself face to face with the reptile, with jaws distended and the cat's head already down the hatch. She and some neighbour ladies managed to extract the cat, with difficulty, so that they could give it a "proper" burial.

Anyway, moving beyond the issue of whether it is a good idea to get into a tug of war with a reptile large enough to eat cats, we got into a discussion of what kind of snake this would be. We looked at snake pix on the web, and the most likely candidate is the Burmese python, which I'm not able to locate in any of my dictionaries, including the excellent Domnern one.

The most common names for large constrictors seem to be:

งูเหลือม

งูหลาม

The dictionaries seem to refer to these interchangeably as boa constrictor and python.

Any idea as to what the correct name is for the python, and in particular the Burmese python? Domnern calls งูหลาม

the Indian python, while it calls งูเหลือม the reticulated python. There's no entry for the Burmese. It does not have the Latin names so I cannot tell if the Indian and the Burmese are the same creature.

If geography helps, I live right on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok.

Tks for helping.