Awk

ok well send them to sacred heart school they have a very good program

if your child is interested in dressing like a German storm trooper and goose stepping around on sports day

the teachers had no idea they were goin to do this of course 200 children made the banners the uniforms in secret with no help at all lol

so no if thats the level of education children are given in Thailand im glad i had the snip 10 years ago

but as i said dont concern your self with minor details your child will get 80 percent on any exam just buy writing there name in the correct place

on the exam paper god i hope i never get sick here and need an op the thought of being treated by a high so thai that daddy paid the school

and collage a little extra to pass his finals scares the shit out of me

I recently had an eye operation in Chiang Mai. The surgeon, a Thai, has two degrees, one a masters, from John Hopkins in the US - one of the world's leading medical universities. I suppose you'd think that she paid them 'a little extra' to graduate.

P.S. You shouldn't fly Thai as the pilot undoubtedly bribed someone to get his licence.

Perhaps not, but that doesn't reflect much on Thai schools, does it? Admittedly bitewhentested does not give the impression of being a desirable posterboy for whatever mudhut-school he might (or might not) have graduated from, but it is does appear that there are not too many who have a good impression of Thai schools. As might be expected from that, Thailand also does seem to appear in the bottom quarter in various school rankings (e.g., the PISA 2009 ranking), which is probably not an indication that all is well.

If only Finland wasn't so dam_n cold ... :-/

Each service provider has different, and changing, offers. I think you can have to five (5) SIMs associated with a single number/plan/account. I think you can share data across all the SIMs, but maybe only have one SIM active for calls. You have to tell the network which SIM is active for calls, otherwise it wouldn't know which SIM to "ring".

Interesting to know, though rather more primitive than where I am currently working. A bit off topic as I am not in Thailand at the moment, but here I (unfortunately) have to carry a work phone with a phonenumber that is shared with several sim cards, all active in other phones. When that one phonenumber rings, all phones ring, and whoever is the first to answer, lives to see another day.

Well it looks like it will be an adventure. Nothing really "wrong" with the bike, its just a little old and "new" to me. Wanted someone to check it out for piece of mind. It sounds like, as I feared, this concept might be a bit foreign. Well, I can at least get the fluids changed and new spark plug.

On a related topic, when my bike idles the headlight is really dim, then of course brightens up with the increase of RPMs. Would this be from an old battery? Or is it a symptom of something else? And should I do something about it? Sorry I'm just not a motorhead. I'm used to following a recommended servicing schedule and leaving it at that . . .

Thanks everyone for your comments!

I'd ignore any village-idiots saying there is nothing you should do about a bike you just bought and know nothing about. Having it properly checked out by someone competent as soon as possible, as you first indicated is definitely the smart thing to do, lest you suddenly find out at an unfortunate moment that none of your brakes are working due to the 10 year old, never oiled, cables having snapped.

Unfortunately it might be a bit difficult to explain that you want somebody to thoroughly check out the bike without you knowing there is anything wrong. Typically they charge for the parts (which they of course get a commission on, just like in the west) plus a small service charge, but not for checking things. Naturally they then don't want to spend an hour looking at everything, not finding any problems, and then not having anything to charge you for.

250cc is not really in the 'large/big bike' category.... maybe 1000cc ++ I hope that wasn't you we saw this afternoon trying to do a 'Rossi' around the moat, arse all over the seat and knee stuck out on an elderly 250cc ish machine doing all of 40 km/hr. Almost had to pull over we were laughing so much!

I can't suggest any insurers in the city but AA Insurance at Rimping Meechok can surely offer a 1st class package for you.

Ride safe.

You're probably new , but in Thailand anything larger than 150cc is considered a big bike as far as the DMV and the rest of the government is concerned, insurance business included, so OP would be quite right in referring to it as a big bike, if he was.

40 km/h sounds about right when going around the moat, and old track-riders occasionally like to slip a knee down low, even when there's no need for it, just for fun or out of boredom. Dunno if you've ever been on the track yourself, have ya?

To the OP: you could check out the GT-riders forum (http://www.gt-rider.com), which is more or less based in CM I think. Originally I got my insurance through some group-membership thing they were arranging via Tony Dabbs and e-insure (http://www.e-insurethailand.com/). Think they have a separate insurance forum there.

In reply to you post, We were one of many cars and motorbikes that passed as this accident happened, and no one, be they foreigner or Thai stopped. The only person that did stop was myself, a little further down the road, when trying to get the policeman to call an ambulence for the guy.

I believe that is what is referred to as the "sheep mentality" unfortunately so common amongst us. I remember reading about several experiments where researchers staged various different "need for help" scenarios, and one common and very quantifiable factor was that most people did what other people did. If somebody stopped to help, it was much more likely that others following would also stop to help. If noone stopped, it was much more likely that others following would not stop to help either. Doesn't make those not stopping to help any better people in my opinion however.

Sorry to hear about Loaded's experience with those lowlifes, though I think I'd still stop next time. After all, how could I be sure the people bleeding to death on the road were lowlifes, rather than one of the Thais who came running to help when I myself skidded off the road once many years ago? One (or three) lowlife does not a nation make.

I used to be interested in martial arts until I realised thanks to the cinema that pretty, sexy, long legged girls can beat the crap out of any man so why bother. I've seem them clean the floor with hordes of large tatooed beefcakes, I'm now intimifdated by the stronger sex and fearful of abuse. Thank goodness Hollywood and Chinese cinema brought this to my attention, how many years of training wasted in vicous full contact Preying Mantis Kung <deleted> when most girls can take me out after a somersault and triple kick off the ceiling.

Go and watch the girls fight, that is where the true talent lies.

I don't think most of the women in cinema will beat the crap out of so many men in real life, but there are some girls who do Muay Thai and I suspect many of them would easily take you out with a Thai roundhouse kick or two to the head. Most of the martial arts women you see in movies have usually trained some "vicious" style of kung <deleted>, but never been close to a real fight, or even a boxing ring, and much less in it.

Can't help the op unfortunately, but there are only a handful of Muay Thai gyms in CM where you as a foreigner starting out would get by (tip: they're all googlable), so it's not like you have a bewildering amount of choices.

-- Awk, who trained a vicious style of kung-<deleted> for 4-5 years, got his ass handed to him in a real fight against what was either a kickboxer or Muay Thai guy, licked his wounds and pride, wised up, and started training something real instead.

'Tourism Minister Chumphol Silapa-archa had said earlier that the incident could not be considered rape. He quoted provincial tourism police chief, Pol Maj-General Loi Ingkhaphairoj as saying: "The woman had dinner with the Thai suspect and a foreign man. Later, she told the foreign man to return to the hotel before heading off with the suspect."'

Lastly, Khun Silapa-archa, as Tourism Minister how are you even slightly qualified to be an authority on the subject of rape and why are you quoting the local Roi Et as if you are something of an authority.

Utter madman this Silapa-archa character. There's no inference from the Maj-General's statement alone that he intended it as mitigation for the suspect. It's just a statement of what happened that's been dangerously misinterpreted by this total tool.

I wonder if perhaps there's some sort of buffer or link missing in the way the various Thai departments and ministries are organized. In other countries it is unfortunately also often the case that people who appear to have very little, if any, intelligence or knowledge of an area, are still put in charge of leading the department responsible for that area.

These clueless department heads however usually have some sort of advisor or press secretary that assists them with the public announcements, where to sit, and other complex tasks. Since these advisors to a greater extent have got their jobs through other means than simply brown-nosing or bribing their way into them, they are often not wholly incompetent. As long as the department heads thus have the slight amount of brain required to announce their often less than well-thought out opinions through their press advisors, rather than going to the press directly, the advisors are often able to save the department heads from countless faux pas.

In Thailand this advisor seems to be missing from the organizational chart, or perhaps the department heads are simply too eager in their quest to say something to impress their friends, to take advantage of the advisor. Instead one ends up with the proverbial shit hits the fan moments more often than otherwise necessary.

Its now on one of the big dutch forums like Thaivisa its not a hot topic yet but there is a link going to this forum now. I really hope it catches on. The stupid Dutch government would not apply any pressure.

What's stupid about that? It's a legal case, not a political case. No government is supposed to interfere.

That's a basic principle of democracy.

I assume things are very different up where you are, but down here, governments do interfere and apply pressure when they feel their own people, be they individual citizens or companies, are getting badly mistreated by foreign governments. Unfortunately it often requires a couple national newspapers to apply pressure to the government first, but these things do happen, down here.

Also, something does not become a "basic principle" of anything just because somebody more or less retarded claims it to be so.

It's been more than a handful of years since I had any involvement in Muay Thai, but back then there was also a lot of ignorant nonsense being sprouted here on TV about how all the fights at Loi Kroh and Thape were fake, and the only real ones were at Gawila.

At the Loi Kroh and Thape stadiums they both had what people called "show" fights a couple of times a week, and the admission to these were free. Other nights the fights were just as real as at Gawila, or anywhere else, and the same people were fighting at both places. Never saw any attempt to pretend the show-fights were real either, though I can imagine if you were too clueless to immediately see they were just joking in the ring and actually asked someone whether it was real, they might pull your leg a bit.

Apart from Gawila having closed, I don't have reason to think anything has really changed, though obviously the Loi Kroh and Thape stadions, surrounded by whores, ladyboys, and drunk tourists, is a dump of a place for anyone wanting to experience some genuine Muay Thai fighting atmosphere. For that, it is true Gawila was the only option in town. The fights were just as real at all the places however.

Nevertheless Thailand is promoting itself as a medical tourism hub and at the same time is refusing to honour its commitment to the AEC to allow free inflow of ASEAN medical workers by 2015. They still insist that foreign doctors and nurses must pass exams in Thai to treat the foreign medical tourists who cannot speak Thai. Duh.

Why is that strange? Even if the imported medical workers would have excellent English, surely there will be countless situations every day where they will have to communicate with local Thais, who no doubt make up the vast majority of staff and have dubious English skills.

Coupled with the pervasive habit of most Thais to nod in full understanding when they are not really sure whether you asked how much the broccoli costs or whether they'd like to go swimming with you later, I can't say I'd feel too safe with a doctor from Singapore instructing in English a local Thai nurse to give me a certain kind of medicine in specific doses at specific times. Nor would I feel much safer if the doctor was Thai and he was instructing a nurse from Singapore, for that matter.

California at esplanade in Bangkok is also open. I bought lifetime membership at 11000 baht 6 years ago so I can't really complain. I've had my monies worth.

Good for you, and I suspect there's quite a few of others of us, the local armchair economists not withstanding.

Unfortunately exchanging the acceptance of credit card for an ATM might also exchange credit card paying customers for non-customers.

Many banks carry a hefty fee for credit card cash advance from an ATM (e.g., one of mine carries a fee of something close to 300B + a percentage of amount), while there is usually only a very small fee or no fee for purchases done with the credit card. Add to that the 150B fee levied by all Thai banks for doing an ATM cash withdrawl with a non-Thai issued credit card.

The intentions is to transform Chiang Mai into some sort of cultural city that is believed will attract all those decent upper class visitors

I guess the only thing I can hope for, then, is that those of us already here will somehow become "grandfathered" in.

Many thanks! I was sure, that there is only one basketball court in CM - near Chiang Mai University, Doi Suthep. Dear Awk, which one you described??

I'm sure there are many basketball courts in CM, but the one I talk about is not near CMU.

The one I talk about is near Chang Phueak. Enter 18.800744,98.989283

into google maps and you might find it there.

If you mean what is often called the old 700 year stadium (the stadium in town, rather than the new and much bigger one outside of town), there's often some younger (15 - 25?) people playing there after 17:00. Doesn't seem to be organized training so I guess any friendly guy would be welcome to join.

what if he doesnt have a DL?

Then nothing. Doesn't look like anybody is trying to rip you off, you understand yourself that you were the one at fault, so I can't see why anyone would do anything but pay up.

Well, anyone except the lowlifes posting suggestions and "hints" on how to try to weasel out of this, leaving the innocent party stuck with the bill. If karma is good for anything, when it is they who are walking or riding down the road wrong, the driver will keep driving as he were, rather than risk more damage to his car by swerving and trying to avoid a lowlife tourist.

Will your children need to take a government issued test later on so they can get a diploma showing they have completed grade school?

How does this work exactly so they have the proper documents to further their education at a university or even get a job?

Thank you.

This I would like to know too. How would this work for university applications?

We have recently moved to Chiang Mai and my twelve year old has joined the Turkish school, Wichai Wittaya. The school is not terrible by Thai standards, and he has made friends there already, but I am concerned that as he gets older all of this This school style rote learning and memorisation becomes increasingly pointless.

I would like him to have an education that encourages creativity and independence, but I simply can't afford an international school education at this point. I feel bad that I am putting him through an education that I myself would be unhappy to receive. Maybe unschooling or homeschooling is the answer? I have plenty of time, just not the money for the international schools.

Is anyone out there currently doing this with a child of similar age? AND, most importantly, how is this going to impact on university options? Do homeschooled/unschooled kids have any university options?

Can't you unschool him through his M.Sc.?

I have not seen them in shops here myself, but I have never looked for anything but regular running shoes myself, so

would not rule it completely out. Since I see no relevant information in the other postings here (with one poster in particular, as usual, capturing the prize for "most irrelevant post"), my best suggestion, if you can not find them in the regular sports shops, is to ask somebody who understands what you talk about.

At the old 700 year stadium in town (in the Chang Puak area) at round 17:00-19:00 on most weekdays, you are likely to find a few young people doing track and field training, sometimes with track and field shoes, sometimes with regular running shoes. I'm sure they'd be able to tell you where they bought them.

I'm interested in any info your have concerning the BECC as I have friends moving to HH with the plan of having their children attending classes there.

Not much to contribute in this regard, positive or negative, so perhaps

I should not have said anything. I initially I thought it was a regular

school similar to others, but after reading more about it some things

made me concerned:

1) The classes are mixed-age.

No doubt it is difficult to start up a new private school and having

mixed age groups presumably makes some things easier in the start.

While I know there are some studies on the effect of mixed-age classes

suggesting the effect, if there is one, is more often positive, I am

not familiar with this concept, and it does not seem to be common

among other international schools.

I of course do know there are others who are fans of parent-run schools,

Montessori programs (which I think also uses mixed-age groups), and

other things, but myself I'm not a big fan of what I think of as somewhat

experimental education for my own child, and I am not convinced I would

be able to meaningfully gauge how this would work out.

2) The school is not accredited as an international school.

In fairness they do not seem to attempt to indicate otherwise either, but if I

were to visit 10 schools to make up my opinion, I would have started

with the ones that are accredited, other things being equal.

Somebody at the school said it is working towards accreditation,

but that it takes around six years to complete. I'm surprised that

it should take so many years, but perhaps it does.

Slightly off topic, but perhaps amusing none the less:

http://www.ebay.com/...=p2047675.l2557

The sale has ended, but according to another paper I read, that is the same PM monitor that is used at the governments monitoring stations in Chiang Mai. For USD 1,300, plus probably an enormous import tax, you could have your own monitoring station. Perhaps you would also be able to gauge the efficiency of your air purifier with it.

Myself I'm curious what difference a good air purifier (e.g. the Whirlpool AP51030K, which was rated as #1 by Consumer Reports in USA a couple of year ago) would do.

Now if everyone just pitches in a couple hundred baht or so for Priceless ...

I also like HH and have been doing the same for some years now, so can second that, though my wife says she feels like she's not in Thailand while there, due to the abundance of foreigners.

I don't like Hua Hin and think its a dump, full of foreigners, which is why I go to Cha Am right nearby during the time of year when the air is bad. You will still think you are in Thailand as there are not too many foreigners there.

Last year we were here during part of the burning season and we wore 3M masks for the first time but the baby was still coughing and getting bronchitis and infections. So we eventually left and went to Cha Am.

I can agree somewhat with that, but since we'd already been staying in HH the previous years and had found a nice (though expensive) place that fitted us well vis a vis things for my daughter to play with, it was a lot easier to stay there again rather than spend time looking for something similar in Cha-Am.

Perhaps the main reason was that the place we stayed at is a short walk from Market Village (an Airport Plaza-like thing), where there, for lack of anything better, is a large pay-per-hour playroom where children (age around 3-7 I guess) can play and run around in. Without that, I worry the only children my daughter would get to interact with what so ever would be her mother and father, who are perhaps children mentally, but not physically.

Should anyone know of something similar in Cha-Am, I'd be interested in hearing about it of course.

The Prem school in CM is regarded as one of the finest private schools for its age group in Asia, sorry I don't know their calendar.

Regarded as such by whom?

Any test results to support that regard?

Nope, not from me. Truth is I didn't even know the place existed and I've been here for nine years. But flying back from Bali recently I was seated next to an expat British lady who has lived on Bali for twenty eight years, was a teacher and is now past the official retirement age hence she is now classified as a consultant and she has permanenet residence there. To cut a long story short, we talked about a range of topics but education was a the primary topic, it was in the course of that discussion she mentioned the Prem school and it's global standing, apparently it is world famous in accademic circles. When I got back home I did a quick search on the web and indeed the references made to it are very impressive. So, I was just passing along information to a poster who I thought could use it, not expecting to be asked to justify chapter and verse!

Thanks, and it was appreciated. I too have read some favourable things about it, apart from the cost of it apparently being quite a few notches higher than most others.

I plan to check the calendar of it and the other schools, but would unfortunately be more than a little surprised if there should turn out to be any significant difference regarding when the long break is. It's sad that, afaik, none of the international schools in CM consider adjusting the school year so that the long break coincides with what is the worst period of burning.

Perhaps changing the school calendar is not possible due to other reasons, including that for all I know, all international schools follow the same calendar making it easier to change school for familys coming in on expat-packages from international firms, which I believe is at least the traditional market for most international schools. Only a few of the parents I talked with at the international kindergarten of my daughter came in on expat-packages though, so not sure if that's the case in CM.

As I posted earlier that we go to the beach with our 3 kids to get away. Hua Hin is where we go, small party scene as the King's Summer residence is there and rules are enforced more. It has a very good foreign infrastructure, which make it a nice change from the country setting we usually in here, and since there are so many westerners that have holiday homes here there is an abundance of excellent rental choices. I lived there for 2 yrs so know it well, enjoy the seafood, more quiet beaches etc less than an hour away make nice day trips and a lot of families vacation there for these reasons so it's kid friendly. If you'd like some more info or leads just pm me.

I also like HH and have been doing the same for some years now, so can second that, though my wife says she feels like she's not in Thailand while there, due to the abundance of foreigners. I can somewhat agree with her on that, but it still seems like a nice place, at least from the viewpoint of an occasional visitor.

Unfortunately this "going away when it's bad" is only practical as long as one does not have children of school age. It's not a big concern for me if my daughter misses kindergarten for one and a half month, but the same is not the case when she in less than two years will be starting school.

Perhaps it is possible to find good Thai schools in CM, but with my lack of knowledge and lack of ability to competently differentiate between them, I do not want to gamble on anything other than one of the International schools. She's been attending kindergarten at one that has a somewhat bad reputation here for post-kindergarten years, but the kindergarten and it's teacher/admin staff gave me a much better impression than the others I visited, so that's where we put her for kindergarten. Unfortunately attending an international school rather than a public or private Thai school means we would not be lucky enough to have the bad period in CM more or less coincide with the school holidays.

I have not yet checked them all, but I would presume all International schools follow more or less the same calendar, having the summer/end of class year break in June-August, rather than according to the Thai calendar, in March-May.

For a while I was considering moving permanently to HH as a backup plan for a way for us to still live in Thailand rather than go back to my own cold country, but after reading some more about what I thought was an international school in HH (BECC), I no longer see that as a viable plan unfortunately.

California Wow at airport plaza has it. Be aware that CWOW's financial situation is quite uncertain at the moment, so would recommend you pay as you go. No more than a month in advance for membership, and per hour for pilates. At CWOW Pilates appears to be a personal trainer thing, rather than a class thing.