Awk

8000 Baht? Seriously?? Real estate agents are typically interested in finding you a home, not a shoe box. Perhaps if you were in the market for a condo (or house) that cost around 20K Baht per month, then maybe they would entertain you.

Btw: 8000 Baht = US$250

I dont understand your attacks... We rented perfectly big townhouse, for 6000 THB...much more bigger then any condo. and with garden for our dog.

Ignore him. He is clueless. 5-10,000/month is a normal price to rent a mid-level house outside of the gated moo baans here in CM.

That said, at this price range I think it is normal to do your own minor maintenance. If a pipe is leaking, we call the plumber ourself. AC leaking? Same thing. We are paying 7,000B a month and are not interested in squeezing the landlord to pay for all sorts of minor things that will break.

A few years ago a more serious leak developed under the second floor bathroom, with water dripping down on the first floor. We called a plumber, and he said we would have to dig up the second floor bathroom floor to fix it, or he could just do a half-assed fix that would prevent us from seeing the problem, but which would eventually rotten the structures under the bathroom floor, which no doubt would be much costlier to fix later. We called the owner about this, telling her it was probably better to fix it properly now, and we could deduct a months rent or the equivalent, depending on what the total cost would be. The owner told us to sit tight and she sent some other plumber, who I think told the owner the same thing. It ended up with us paying 500-700B or so for the half-assed fix to her plumber. No problem, we can pay 700, but we are not paying 7,000 for something we did not break.

If we were paying 20,000B+ a month, I'd probably expect the owner to come and fix the small 500B problems himself however, or let us deduct them from the rent.

by all means I agree with you that we should not have to tell them which international pipelines to use however the company would not know as well what your primary usage is that's why more info for them would help maximize your speed

Internet packets (traffic) carry their destination, and routers should work to pick the fastest route.

A router does not look up that “this packet is from customer X who has a preference for US servers”.

Furthermore, incoming packets (i.e. downloads) are not under the control of Sinet until they hit Sinet’s servers (in Thailand). If Sinet has an international gateway to both Europe and Northern America, they cannot make data from Northern America come in over the European connection (unless they drop packets to make the European route look better).

So my guess is that they throttle international traffic to keep costs down (e.g. payment to their international partner(s) who carry the traffic, and/or investment in equipment at the international gateways).

If you complain about it, they may decrease throttling because you are after all paying for non-throttled speed, but may feed you a story about “moving you to another pipe” to cover over the fact that they sold you 15/5 but only gave you 5/2 out of Thailand.

Just my 2 cents…

What you say is true. However, an ISP is welcome to tag packets from a given customer as they ingress/come in, and use that tag to later on choose a different, perhaps more US or Europe-centric route on egress. I.e., instead of the router only taking into account the destination, the router can also take into account the tag (which in practice means to take into account that the packet is from a customer in group X).

I am not a Sinet customer and have no idea if that is what they are doing, or if they are doing what you suggest. If I were to make a bet, I'd normally bet on them doing what you suggest, especially if bandwidth was the only thing that improved, but I note that the "ping" (http connection setup I think) results posted by the Sinet cutomers here are vastly better than I get with 3BB when trying a few random times today and yesterday. I have not gotten below 300ms to LA with 3BB when doing this, yet I see Sinet-results quoted here down to 230ms. I would not think removing throttling would have a mentionable effect on a ping-style test, unless you are maxing out your throttled bandwidth.

If the latency is indeed that much better with Sinet, and the same holds true for Europe, perhaps I will switch to Sinet. Don't care much about bandwidth, but care about skype'ing between my children and my parents.

I am not sure if anyone here has asked Sinet to be switched to the "European pipe", but if they have, it would be interesting if they could post the speedtest result for some servers in Europe during a few random times of day.

Unless PM 2.5 is actually measured its value is assumed, the technology to measure PM 2.5 is not cheap - perhaps they are in the process of upgrading their equipment.

I can only guess, but I doubt the value is extrapolated (from e.g. the PM10 value). If it was, it would not make sense to do it only for monitoring station 36, and not station 35, and all other stations.

No, I don't think it makes any sense to think the pm2.5 value is "assumed", while the other values are measured.

As I recall from debates on this subject over many years, it was always said that Thailand did not have technology in place to measure PM 2.5, in fact, up until about three years ago not many countries did, even Canada had only installed this capability in very recent years. Accepted practice for PM 2.5 measurement, prior to the introduction of the newer technology, was to derive a reading from the PM10 element although I have no idea exactly how this was accomplished and whether it was extrapolated or assumed - either way, the reading is not/was not actual.

According to a wikileaks article, Chiang Mai has had the ability to measure pm2.5 for many years: https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09CHIANGMAI38_a.html

Unless PM 2.5 is actually measured its value is assumed, the technology to measure PM 2.5 is not cheap - perhaps they are in the process of upgrading their equipment.

I can only guess, but I doubt the value is extrapolated (from e.g. the PM10 value). If it was, it would not make sense to do it only for monitoring station 36, and not station 35, and all other stations.

No, I don't think it makes any sense to think the pm2.5 value is "assumed", while the other values are measured.

I btw also input the pm10 number for today (average) from http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php into http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=resources.conc_aqi_calc, for converting to the AQI number the mobilephone app uses, which naturally matches the phone app and results in a "moderate" verdict for the air quality.

Using the pm2.5 number instead, which the phone app does not seem to have yet (I will see if I can find out where to send an email, so hopefully they will update the app), the verdict from www.airnow.gov changes to a very bad "unhealthy" unfortunately, with an AQI number of 158.

I looked at the http://aqmthai.com/public_report.php site now, and noticed it now includes a pm2.5 option also for station 36. Have not seen that before and think this is is nice, as everyone seems to agree pm2.5 is more important and harmful than pm10. Looking at the pm2.5 availability, it looks like pm2.5 was added about a month ago to this station, while station 35 does not have it (yet?).

Ok ^^

I have finished 1 month muay thai camp ^^

And now I would like gain mass.

You think Power house fitness is good ?

it is near to where I live ^^

Help me for choose Thanks ^^

Unless you have been training long enough to not ask a question like that, which is not long at all, any half-decent gym is good enough, Powerhouse included. Choose the one closest.

Here is a very good research publication that goes in to great detail of the contributing factors for the smoke season and the primary locations. For those who doubt the contributions from neighboring countries, the details are pretty clear in the document. It is a 67 page paper but you can scan key indicators easily in it. It has pictures too.

Problems and Obstacles in Solving Smog Haze Problem in Chiang Mai Province,Thailand (pdf)

Tywais, with all due respect, exactly what details are clear regarding the contribution from neighbouring countries?

The PDF consists of several papers, of which only the first seems to be related to the smog, so please correct me if I am wrong.

At 11 pages, it is a quick read, but I do not see anything quotable in those pages regarding the contribution from neighbouring countries. There is nothing that quantifies what part of the problem experienced in Chiang Mai is caused by neighbouring countries, except some useless references to firemaps showing that there are fires not only in Chiang Mai, but also far away. So what? How much of the pollution from those far away fires reaches Chiang Mai?

If, before you read that paper, you had no idea whether one percent or 90 percent of the smog we will now experience in Chiang Mai is pollution blown in from neighbouring countries, you will, as far as I can understand, after having read that paper still have no idea. I still have no idea.

I would not say it is a very poor paper, but it is obviously some sort of student paper, perhaps an assignment part of an early or mid-level university course related to agriculture. Unlike some of the posters here, who in a retarded way blame the farmers for only caring about themselves, the paper does however show an understanding for that it is not simply up to the farmers to stop burning. The government must first provide them with an adequate alternative to burning.

What you want is a network engineer, or more realistically, somebody with some competence in networking, and possibly Internet-tv. Don't watch TV over the Internet myself, but would suggest you repost in the thaivisa Internet-forum with some more details (e.g., what Internet tv? Streaming from where? 20Mb from who?). You are likely to get more helpful answers there, as this is probably not a Chiang Mai specific problem.

Rules are rules, but there are people here also, apparently JIB not included, who understand that providing decent service should not be too much to expect.

After nearly 40 years I finally closed my retail operation because I got tired of people who thought that "decent" service should encompass that I should lose money because of the poor choices of others. Really!?! Sixty days after purchase and you expect every retailer to accept a return?

And addressing the original question, a seller as no legal obligation to accept a return, it is indeed a courtesy service extended by the seller to the buyer. A service much easier to provide in some high margin sectors such as womens clothing (ladies, you are paying through the nose on everything for all those returns) or some household items.

Actually, there is a quote in this thread saying the seller is required to accept returns under certain terms:

"5. Refunds: Merchants are required to give a full refund to consumers within 15 days after receiving the termination notification. However, in case the merchandise has been damaged by the consumer, the consumer must be responsible for such damage. A description of the goods and services to be excluded from this seven-day delay will be provided by future regulations, as will be the general procedures for returning goods."

This contradicts what you say. Is the quote wrong, or is it you who do not know what you are talking about when you say there is no obligation for the seller to accept a return?

Something tells me that, unlike the shop that had no problems with me exchanging the product I had previously bought, your shop would not see any repeat business from me. Nor would I be recommending your shop to anyone. Rather, I suspect I would tell people to stay far away.

Oh, and for what it is worth. I did not expect the shop to allow me to exchange the dress after two months. I brought it back with me because I planned going to a tailor and have it adjusted slightly. This adjustment would be much cheaper to do here in CM than in the expensive country I was working in. But I also thought it wouldn't hurt to stop by the shop I had bought the dress in, just on the off chance they would not laugh me out the door. Fortunately, I did not meet the Basil Fawlty of clothing shops, though he does appear to be alive and posting here.

Rules are rules, but there are people here also, apparently JIB not included, who understand that providing decent service should not be too much to expect.

After nearly 40 years I finally closed my retail operation because I got tired of people who thought that "decent" service should encompass that I should lose money because of the poor choices of others. Really!?! Sixty days after purchase and you expect every retailer to accept a return?

And addressing the original question, a seller as no legal obligation to accept a return, it is indeed a courtesy service extended by the seller to the buyer. A service much easier to provide in some high margin sectors such as womens clothing (ladies, you are paying through the nose on everything for all those returns) or some household items.

Actually, there is a quote in this thread saying the seller is required to accept returns under certain terms:

"5. Refunds: Merchants are required to give a full refund to consumers within 15 days after receiving the termination notification. However, in case the merchandise has been damaged by the consumer, the consumer must be responsible for such damage. A description of the goods and services to be excluded from this seven-day delay will be provided by future regulations, as will be the general procedures for returning goods."

This contradicts what you say. Is the quote wrong, or is it you who do not know what you are talking about when you say there is no obligation for the seller to accept a return?

Something tells me that, unlike the shop that had no problems with me exchanging the product I had previously bought, your shop would not see any repeat business from me. Nor would I be recommending your shop to anyone. Rather, I suspect I would tell people to stay far away.

I bought something a JIB, a USB stick, and then realized I had made a mistake and bought the wrong one. I tried returning it, before I had ever left the store, and it was a major hassle, and they didn't want to do it, but seemed to do so extremely reluctantly, only because it was brand new, I hadn't left the store yet, and had a receipt.

Crossing JIB of the list then. Not even leaving the shop, eh. That's just too funny.

Bought a two piece woman dress at one of the shops at the bottom of Airport Plaza once, before going abroad on a two-month job. The clothes were a gift for a friend in the country I was going to work in. Size ended up being slightly wrong unfortunately. Brought the dress with me back to the AP shop when the job had finished and did not have any problems exchanging it for another dress of the correct size.

Bought some other clothes at the same shop a few months later.

Rules are rules, but there are people here also, apparently JIB not included, who understand that providing decent service should not be too much to expect.

Picked up an app (Asia Air Quality) which supposedly shows the air quality at many places in the area - there are two locations for Chiang Mai, the City Hall and the Ypparaj Wittayalai School.

Currently shows a 70 level and "moderate" pollution.

I always thought (not really knowing) that a lot of the air problem around here was due to smoke floating over from Burma. But notice that the lowest reading in the area is Mae Hong Son....a 50....so that (for the moment) seems to dispel that notion.

I don't think any of the people who, whenever the topic comes up, tell us how most of the pollution present in Chiang Mai during this period is produced elsewhere, really know either. But since when has that stopped anyone from posting unfounded statements on ThaiVisa?

was arrested and held for some time and grilled in a very accusatorial manner by the Americans

An appropriate response would have been to tell them to ---- off and mind their own business.

Right of course Chicog but as you can imagine he was rather stunned and scared.

Well, that's what happens in real life. On the Internet, anyone can tell anyone to <removed> off, of course.

My credit union allows credit balances on the credit card account. I think I read posts in the past that European card issuers do not allow this.

If so, they were wrong, or it was something specific to their particular European country or card issuer.

There seem to be some conflicting opinions here.

At least some of those who are saying it is necessary to purchase insurance seem be speaking from experience, while I am not sure if those who say it is not necessary are also speaking from experience.

So may I please ask: has anybody here actually got a loan for land or house from a regular bank without also paying for the insurance?

Hi, we are, hopefully in the not to distant future, applying for a bank loan in order to buy some land to build a house on. Or rather, Mrs. Awk is, with me, working off-shore, serving as guarantee. From what I've read here and there, the banks will all try to push a rather expensive life insurance on us (or rather, Mrs. Awk) at very end of the process. Is this insurance mandatory, or just something they are selling hard?

Presumably the bank will not be lending us the whole amount needed to buy the land, but e.g. 80%, with us paying the remaining 20% from our own money. If we default on the loan, presumably they can sell the repossessed land and get back at least what they lent us, if not more. so I don't understand why the bank should require us to buy an expensive life insurance also. Before coming to Thailand, I had never heard about this concept, and it is not something used in my own country.

We had a similar problem when buying a new car a year ago, where the brand dealer was advertising a loan of about 80% of the sales price with zero interest. The finance institution (or some small bank I had never heard of? not sure) the car brand had contracted with sent some woman to the car dealer to talk with us, and this woman, at the end of taking down both Mrs. Awk's and mine details, said we would also need to purchase a life insurance for Mrs. Awk from here. Never having heard about anything like this at that time, I could not help but laugh slightly at her idea, and told her thanks, but no thanks, no, no way.

There were some tense moments, and the bank woman said it would be very difficult for us to get a loan without the insurance. I honestly thought the idea was ridiculous so just departed to another corner to examine the colour finish of one of the show room models, allowing Mrs. Awk to continue the conversation by herself. Mrs. Awk did not appreciate it very much, but in the end we then signed the loan application.

Never heard anything more about any life insurance, but a few days later the car company called to tell us the loan application had been approved.

So my obvious question is, is the life insurance the banks are pushing the same nonsense, or will they really deny us a loan if we do not purchase the insurance?

If purchasing life insurance is unavoidable, how does one get away with paying the least amount? I've read some posts indicating that Bangkok Bank will require the whole insurance, for the entire duration of the loan, to be paid up front. I think I've read some other posts indicating SCB will allow you to pay one year at a time, and if you only pay for the first year and ignore the bill for the subsequent years, apparently nothing bad happens.

When applying for the loan I want to apply for a long-term loan (20 years, or close to that), but if things go as hoped, I I want to pay of the loan much quicker. If a life insurance is forced upon us, I obviously do not want to end up paying for 20 years of life insurance if the loan will end up being paid of in 3. At the same time, I don't have much hope of the bank refunding any up-front paid life insurance payment for the remaining 17 years.

I've also read that some banks, and I am interested in which, will charge a lower interest for the first few years, and then raise it. This, coupled with "no fee" for paying of the loan early, which I will obviously have to verify is the case, would obviously be beneficial to somebody who hopes to pay of the loan quickly.

For the record, the loan will probably only be for buying land, while money for building the house I will get from another source. Kasikorn turned Mrs. Awk down as they did not want to lend us money to buy just land. They indicated things may change if she could also submit some (approved?) plan for the house to be built. Bangkok were about to accept the application, when the seller suddenly changed his mind (him having already received our deposit not withstanding).

Since then I've been told by others that Bangkok Bank is probably the worst bank to deal with and are unlikely to let us borrow much (perhaps only 50% of the price), and SCB would be much better. I personally have no idea, but thinking that next time I will perhaps try SCB instead? Or both? Would need to pay the land appraisal fee of 2,500 (at least, that is what it is in BB) twice then though. :-/

Thanks for any tips.

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I assume you can check the power usage yourself by buying one of those plugs that have a display showing how much power is currently being drained and asking to connect through it at the Toshiba shop if you explain why. Doesn't cost a fortune and is probably available at Home Pro or Amorn. I stay away from Big C as much as I can due to the utter junk they sell. Perhaps the Toshiba shop will even have one available for you to use for testing, so you do not need to buy one.

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You can check the power rating on the technical specs panel look under Watts.

Yes, but that is normally only one rating, for one speed, and it is not always clear for what speed either (average? max? min?). If you want to compare the power drawn by e.g. the bigger unit at a medium setting to two smaller units running at the high setting, or two smaller units at the medium setting to one bigger unit at the high setting, it will be difficult to do without something that measures the power drawn.

I want to use an air purifier in the master bedroom that is around 43 square meters. I found I can get Toshiba air purifiers for 43 square meters for between 12,000 and 14,000 baht. Or for what looks like a comparable Toshiba air purifier I can get one for 5,000 baht that cover 33 square meters.

What I am wondering is would it make more sense to buy two of the 5,000 baht air purifiers instead? It would actually be a little less and if I move to another house I might not need an air purifier for a 43 square foot room. Would the electricity cost be a lot higher with the two air purifiers or would I probably run them at lower speeds so the difference wouldn't be that much? Only other item might be the cost of replacement filters for two air conditioners vs one.

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone with knowledge in this area before I decide which way to go.

Sensible questions.

I'm no expert, but I would doubt that the only difference between the 12,000B unit and the 5,000B unit is that the more expensive unit has an, I assume, CADR-rating of only 30% more than the cheaper unit, yet costs 140% more. It would also indicate that by buying two units for the combined sum of 10,000B, you will get a lot (50%) more bang for the buck than you will by buying one unit for 12,000B.

I checked the price on two models from the Blueair company, two models I think are mostly identical except the CADR-rating. From Blueair the more expensive unit has a CADR-rating that is 52% higher, and costs 66% more. Those numbers make more sense to me, so I would double check that there are not some other significant differences between the two Toshiba units. Hopefully some difference you don't need to care about.

Some of the confusion here may be to use of terminology which means different things to different people. When I use or hear the term "cash advance", all I can think of is getting cash from a credit card (I'd never use "cash advance" referring to using a debit card - which essentially is just taking money out of my own bank account). In essence, a "cash advance" to me is borrowing money.

Hml's posts are a bit confusing too. If all you're doing is taking money out of your cash account and paying a credit card balance/bill, that's not what I'd call a "cash advance", it's just paying a bill.

I don't think that is what he said. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with this particular concept, but having a card with similar terms (except I have to pay a foreign transaction fee unfortunately, so I don't use it much), the point is that you can do a cash advance, up to your credit limit, and there is no fee incurred on doing this. Unlike when you purchase goods however, the issuing bank will start running an interest on the money you cash advanced from day one. So to avoid paying interest, you need to in effect pay part of your credit card bill in advance; the part you have to pay in advance is of course the exact amount you cash advanced. The cash is advanced for free. But it is up to you whether you want to pay of the cc/bank immediately, or run up an interest.

Most of my credit cards levy various obnoxious fees for a cash advance, but one still only levies interest, plus the FT-fee all unfortunately levy. A couple of years ago I had a cc that did not levy interest, but only the FT-fee. I could cash advance my full credit limit and just pay the bill as normal the next month. Then they changed the terms to start calculating interest from day one, and a year after that they also added other fees.

Many posts cleaned out - 2 members trading flames. And the popcorn gallery throwing in comments.

I thought it was peanut gallery...... did the corrupt pollys steal the name and change it ????

Being the author of one of the aforementioned "cleaned out" posts, I can assure you that it was indeed peanuts I was throwing from back here. I have in the past tried to throw popcorn, but found that it is difficult to hit what I am aiming at with popcorn. Something about their mass perhaps?

Anyone know of a rai or two of land for sale, within 20 km or so from the city, with a view of a mountain you can see well from the ground without squinting your eyes, or perhaps near a river? Perhaps even not too many kilometres from the highway? Within 1M per rai and with no access right problems? PM welcome.

Nahm Prea..

If you follow the sign where it says villa farang or village farang.. A turning past the obkham nat park one.. past the couple of bungalows.. Theres an open space with IIRC a white fence.. This 30 rai plot was going at 650 a rai and has been bought, subdivided and I am told with be walled, electric supply and internal roads and is asking about 1 maybe 1.1 a rai.. It has a nice view and aspect, real (not dirt) roads around it, and fits what you have said.. I have done no due diligence as I have a few rai in nahm preah but theres plenty around that village going for less than a mil thai to thai.. Theres also a lot of locked up red backed chanotes coming free in the next year or two so both opportunity and beware.

We were around that area, as I remember the amusing name, "Villa/Village Farang", some months back, but did not notice the plot you talk about. Quite a bit further out from the city than what we looked at last and thought we were buying, but might go have a look again, so thank you.

I of course don't mind opportunity, and we could probably have gotten the land we were looking at quite a bit cheaper too, as it was clear at the first meeting there were some economical difficulties and that they were a bit desperate to sell. Desperate enough to trigger some alarm clocks for me. Didn't want to take advantage too much though, so accepted the terms the owner initially asked for without haggling; they seemed pretty decent to me, though some here seem to disagree. Much good it did us though. :-/

In retrospect, I think we have gone about things the wrong way; driving around, looking for "for sale" signs, or looking on the Internet (bahtsold for me, and various Thai-language websites for Mrs. Awk). I now understand that many places, perhaps plots of land especially, will not have such a sign on them, and that driving around looking for them will to a large extent be a waste of time. Prices on the Internet seem to be quite a bit higher, and of course, far from everything is advertised there.

In the future, we will instead try to find the puu yai ban, or closest to that, and ask him or neighbours whether anyone nearby is selling. Hopefully it will not take another four months to find something acceptable again, but who knows. :-/

Thanks again.

Latency for 583? Its normal for the net to slow when work/school is finished for a few hours, but it seems there is more to it.

Are you using wifi to connect? you might be getting the slow times because of a nearby router using the same channel.

Yes usually the latency is 800-1000 and this is local Thailand server traffic, not international. As I said, 583 was a "good result" for when it has the problem.

I've also tried:

a) changed the service from ADSL (800 month) to their 1200/month service.

b ) got a new computer, tested from 2 different computers with all the other devices shut down.

c) replaced the router

d) plugged Ethernet cable directly into the router and disabled wireless.

problem still occurs.

You might want to lookup how to use the traceroute program, called tracert on windows I think. It might provide a good indication of where in the network path the latency increase occurs. Do some traceroutes while the latency is low/good, and then the same when it is bad, and compare.

Might want to find out if they're planning to erect powerlines along the road. Not that locals will believe the EMF dangers judging by the phone masts in back gardens splitting DNA 24/7

I'm 600m from the proposed bridge.

http://www.bcmj.org/bc-centre-disease-control/living-near-power-lines-bad-our-health

a more recent study showed an elevated risk of leukemia among children living in homes with distances much greater than 60 m from high voltage power lines.[3] This study involved close to 30000 matched case-control pairs of children living in the United Kingdom. It was found that children living in homes as far as 600 m from power lines had an elevated risk of leukemia.

Elevated. How high. .01% 10% or what your statement is useless with out a base to work from. They had an elevated risk but did any of them get it?

If you click on the link whiterussian conveniently provided, you will see the answer to your question: "An increased risk of 69% for leukemia was found for children living within 200 m of power lines while an increased risk of 23% was found for children living within 200 to 600 m of the lines." It also quotes other studies as saying the risk increase is 100%/double if living within 60m.

I don't think you can can do a study like this, measuring the increased risk of getting cancer from <something>, without some of the subjects exposed to <something> actually getting cancer.

Well. this seems to be a big job every Thai is waiting for. Why not check the internet how to handle allu in respect to paint/paint spraying and DIY.

If I were to DIY I would have to buy a new compressor and spraygun, which would be about the same cost, or more, as getting these pieces painted by a shop.

I'm going in again today to see if I can persuade some auto paint shop to do it.

If not, maybe you can try one of the shops who do motorbikes? Perhaps they will be more interested since they are used to small jobs (just the gas tank, just the side fairing, etc.).