hill16

Thanks for a great party, those ribs were to die for. Where can I get hold of them in CM?

One would imagine that you can get them in Tuskers from their menu. Just pop in when you're feeling peckish.

Sign me up + the hairy one please.

Kind regards,

Hill16

Government expresses readiness for 14th ASEAN Summit

The government has affirmed its readiness to hold the 14th ASEAN Summit in Chiang Mai this December while asking citizens to be a good host to help create confidence amongst the international communities.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat stated after attending a meeting in preparation for the 14th ASEAN Summit that Thailand is ready to host the event with all relevant agencies, including police and the Tourism Authority of Thailand, completely prepared. The summit, taking place on December 13th to the 18th, will be organized at the Shangri-La Hotel in Chiang Mai province. All relevant agencies will attend a preliminary meeting in the province ahead of the official event.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has submitted requests to the Bureau of the Royal Household for the various ASEAN leaders to be allowed audience with His Majesty the King expectedly on December 17th.

Prime Minister Somchai commented that as ongoing national turmoil is a cause for concern for many groups, all Thai people should be aware of their responsibility to uphold the nation's image and build confidence amongst the international community.

Chiang Mai will be granted public holidays from December 15th to 18th to aid in traffic and security for the summit.

Source: National News Bureau of Thailand - 05 November 2008

Anyone know if this means the schools are shut? What about the bars? Will it be yet another alcohol ban? If it is, will the big wigs have to remain dry too? What about traffic restrictions? Any protests planned? etc etc etc

Gai finally had to move out and the landlord immediately made her take all her signs down and would not allow her to leave a new one directing people to her other locations at Chang Klan Rd. (ph#053 820 761) and Nimmanhaemin Rd., Soi 6 (ph#053 400 577).

The landlord has put out what looks to be an assortment of lousy Thai versions of farang baked goods at tourist prices and is acting like it is the same bakery that has been there all all along. It is not even close.

If you want REAL Bake and Bite products, pass this place by and go straight up soi 1 a little ways to Inter Inn and look for "The Garden" which gets deliveries of fresh Bake and Bite baked goods every day and is affiliated with Gai. It is a nice, comfortable little place with the same menu as Bake and Bite and a very helpful owner.

When you say that the landlord made her take all her signs down, does that mean that he is not trying to run the business under the name of Bake and Bite? Or is he?

I hope not. That would be absolutely disgusting.

I understand people being annoyed with PAD, but I still think we should celebrate the fact that the traditionally non-confrontational and passive Thai people are taking a stand against a political system that allows blatant vote-buying. They're standing up for what they perceive to be right! Whether their opinion is right or wrong is of course, a matter for debate.

If you can't get your kids to school for a day or two, so what? The future of the entire democracy is at stake!

What democracy will there be if the PAD get their way? The same as in Germany 1933? The present government is deeply flawed but what the PAD are proposing and their means of proposing it (such as armed protestors occupying government offices) is reminiscent of Germany in 1933.

There is a Thai cable TV service that provides FOX News and Bloomberg. Sorry, I can't remember it's name but it is fairly cheap. I got a flyer on my motorbike a few weeks ago about it while shopping at the night market at Worarot Market. It also has ABC (Australia).

A good place to go and look for motorbikes is the Saturday market on the Hang Dong Road. Way, way past Hang Dong though. You need to go early. What they don't sell there on a Saturday they bring back to the Rimping market on a Sunday but add about Bt1500 - 2,000 to the price (Thai logic).

Yesterday I saw a shop on the road that runs from the train station to the Arcade bus depot with a lot of bikes for sale. It's the same road as the Indian consulate.

Hope that helps.

Hi,

If you are referring to WETV then you are nearly correct. It does have Bloomberg, ABC (Australia) as well as Aljazeera news, BBC World amongst others. It does not have FOX news but CNN instead. You can check out their website www.wetv.co.th or call them on 053-418720-6. They speak very good English. It costs me only 350 baht per month for approximately 50 channels including some English language movie channels and sports as well as the above.

Let's hope the OP wants Fox news for the entertainment value and not the far-right bias.

Kind regards,

Hill16

Forgot to mention that I live fairly close to the train station in Ban Ton Kham.

Hi guys,

Just discovered that I've no running water today. Anyone else experiencing this and does anyone know when it might be back? This seems to happen without warning and is a little bit annoying when one has to go to work.

Kind regards,

Hill16

What has this thread to do with Chiangmai?

Maybe the GF (or potential wifey) is from Chiangmai

Perhaps, but I didn't realise that Thai people from Chiangmai were treated any differently by the authorities in the countries mentioned. Unless your name is Thaksin of course

Isn't there a separate forum for this type of query?

What has this thread to do with Chiangmai?

Thanks for the kind words folks but I really think anyone would do the same, which is not really very much at the end of the day.

Unfortunately, nobody has come forward yet so it looks like fast-fingered Freddie will get away with it. He has, however lost his contract with my place of employment which wasn't a bad earner for him. What's that Thai phrase... Sum naam na?

Anyway, please keep an ear out for the owner if anyone should happen across them in the bars, restaurants, schools, temples, dens of iniquity of our fair city.

Thanks again,

Kind regards,

Hill16

Hi folks,

Today I came across a sawngthaew driver with a maroon coloured Blackberry phone. He's a regular driver for my workplace. Nothing really unusual so far. He then asked my colleague and I if we knew how to work his phone. He wanted to change the language from English to Thai. Still nothing too odd about this. We tried to press a few buttons to see what happens. Lo and behold this was not a new phone. In fact, it had a load of international phone numbers stored (mainly USA we think). Also, it contained a number of names in English, one of which was Nancy. We also noticed that there were a few missed calls on it, the last of which was at about 4.15pm this afternoon. I'm sure you can guess what we were thinking. Unfortunately, so did the sawngthaew driver. Quickly and without warning he took the phone back off us, turned it off and pocketed it.

I will be speaking to my manager tomorrow and will be asking her to cancel the services of this guy. I am also prepared to help get the phone back if the rightful owner should happen across this post and they then PM me. It will probably have to involve the police (tourist?) unfortunately but that's what happens.

Of course, I may be jumping to conclusions about the sawngthaew driver's intentions. Perhaps he was trying to save the phone's battery in order that he might return the phone himself....... LOL!

If anybody knows who owns this phone or comes across a distraught farang missing their phone, please refer them to this post asap.

Kind regards,

Hill16

Interesting post by p1p. Thanks. It was only a matter of time before this happened as it is a legal requirement.

My question is this: can we as the farangs in question go to Immigration and register ourselves if we have a copy of the landlord's Tabien Bahn and ID card?

Some landlords out there will be less than keen on doing this for us as it is a nuisance for them and mainly because it opens up the door to the taxman who isn't aware that they are renting property and therefore there is probably a tax liability of some sort.

I don't fancy being held responsible for a fine (or worse should they really crack down on this) because my landlord is either too lazy or just doesn't want to pay tax.

Kind regards,

Hill16

I was looking for some furniture yesterday and so I tried Chan Furniture on the Super Highway.

Ended up buying two beds, a mattress and a wardrobe all for an excellent price. They have a very good selection of furniture and very helpful staff. I went there at about 3.30, spent about an hour in the shop, the furniture was delivered was delivered at 5pm and the guys even carried everything up 3 flights of stairs and then assembled everything for me!!

A great shopping experience and definitely an example for a lot of other businesses in CM! I'll definitely be back to buy more as I need it.

Thanks Chan Furniture.

I'm also living on the east side of the river near the train station. Just moved in at the beginning of this month and have had nothing but trouble with TOT ADSL since.

I previously lived in Nonghoy (near the Holiday Inn), was on the goldcyber, 2048/512 speed plan and that went very well. While I didn't get the maximum speed, I did get close enough to it.

Since I moved here I have been doing speedtests every day and I'm getting ridiculous speeds like 37/20. Today is really bad and apart from Thaivisa, I can't access any other websites. Apparently, TOT has different offices to handle ADSL in the different areas. When in Nonghoy that office was on Changklan Road. For my new address, it's apparently the office on Thung Hotel Road.

I have tried calling the ADSL # in CM and TOT 1100 in BKK with little success. The line seems to be that it's to do with the satellite. I'm no techie but I didn't think satellites had much to do with providing ADSL to an individual house.

Another story I was told was that TOT can't provide 2048/512 to my particular neck of the woods. They conveniently forgot to mention this to me when I went to their office on the Thung Hotel Road on 01 Sept to pay the 1,500B fee to transfer my phone connection and ADSL from Nonghoy to here. They are now telling me that it looks like thay can only provide the 512/256 package to me at this address. Ok, I stupidly thought at first, until I tested it and found that they couldn't even manage that!

I'm up the walls with these idiots and their lies and disgraceful customer service. I went to the office again yesterday and I got a "guarantee" that the engineers would be out today and the problem would be fixed within 3 days. While I may not get 2048/512 it should be over the 1000/512 mark. In the interests of fairness, I will hold fire until the inevitable happens. I have told them that I will be cancelling their ADSL service, I will not be paying the bill for this month and I will not be paying the 3,000B charge for cancelling the contract as they cannot live up to its terms.

Having read the earlier posts on this thread, it appears that there are some of you in a similar situation with TOT ADSL east of the river (perhaps even in the same area handled by TOT on Thung Hotel Road). Here's a suggestion. How about we all meet up outside TOT on Thung Hotel Road next Monday or Tuesday with our individual cases and grievances already prepared and as a group we demand to speak to the manager and en masse cancel our subscriptions and insist that we are not paying one penny for doing so. Faced with the prospect of a group of cancellations of what I assume to be higher speed users paying the higher monthly charges this manager may be forced to act otherwise he/she will be deemed responsible for losing a not so insignificant amount of revenue. Perhaps then TOT will provide us with the service that we expect and that we are paying good money for. If not, we can then all go to CAT or TT&T.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Let me know what you think.

Hill16

Ouch! My head hurts. Was it the Jenever shots or was it staying out until 5am at Jackies?

Thank you everyone for making it such a great night, really top notch and a massive effort on the orange dress - it was extremly bright and colourful, Holland would have been proud.

Also thanks to Hugo for keeping everyone well fed with genuine Dutch delicacies - heerllijk

We'll do it again soon but first recovery.

By the way I believe I remain Chiang Mai's men's Spijkerpoepen champion!

And I am the Koekhappen champion!

Thanks TB.

Does anyone understand why they want to charge about 1,600B when I want to keep the TOT phone number and internet so as not to breach the contract for one year. All I want to do is take both with me to my new address (which already has an existing TOT phoneline)??

Kind regards,

(A still baffled) Hill16

thats a difficult one hill16. thats just their charges i guess. but hope you get an answer to why its 1,600!

So do I, TB! It seems quite expensive for what I imagine is a very simple job and this charge isn't exactly doing much for my opinion of TOT from a customer loyalty point of view.

Thanks TB.

Does anyone understand why they want to charge about 1,600B when I want to keep the TOT phone number and internet so as not to breach the contract for one year. All I want to do is take both with me to my new address (which already has an existing TOT phoneline)??

Kind regards,

(A still baffled) Hill16

I won't even attempt to write the names of those Dutch foods or games. I think you would need to be bananas drunk if you have any hope of pronouncing them correctly if you're not Dutch!

What I am interested in is the Heineken promotion for wearing orange clothes. What exactly is the promotion: what time does it run from-until, how orange to you have to be and what % discount is in place?? Food and games are of secondary importance to this question .

Kind regards,

Hill16

Hi Tigerbeer,

Thanks for your reply. So are you saying I should change from TOT to CAT or are they one in the same? The reason I ask is that we signed a contract with TOT for one year for the phone number and the internet so should I disconnect from TOT there is a quite a substantial baht penalty. I think, as part of the package, we got the phone number for free but if we don't see out the year we will have to pay 3,350B plus.

Therefore, I would like to keep the phone number in any event as we got the phone and internet connection at the same time. I just don't understand how it costs over 1,600B to take the phone number and internet connection to our new place.

Any further advice please?

Kind regards,

Hill16

Hi folks,

Does anyone with a TOT phoneline and high-speed internet connection have any experience when it comes to moving house? I got the above in May of this year but now we're changing address soon and TOT want to charge me about 1,600 for the pleasure of continuing as their customer in my new place (which is still Amphur Muang / city centre-ish area).

The new place already has an existing TOT landline so in my innocence I thought it was simply a matter of switching my internet connection (as well as my phone number) to this new landline number and perhaps taking out and reinserting a few cables.

I would appreciate some advice before I try to sort this out at their customer service office .

Kind regards,

Hill16

There are three laws.

One is house owner needs to report you and if rental/hotel or such they should. They will need your passport/entry information and arrival/departure card number. This should normally be done (but most spouses will ignore).

Second is a law that any travel of a non tourist that person must report themselves to the local police station. This is normally not expected or enforced.

Third is the reporting of address every 90 days. This was also unenforced until recently. Now it is enforced when noticed. If you move between reports they may allow you to report or they may request you just hold off until your next scheduled report.

Thanks for your help Lopburi3. Interesting to know, particularly one and two! I am quite sure that I am not the only one unaware of this info until now.

I have already paid a deposit for the new address but we won't officially be changing address until 01 September. The new landlord only took a copy of the picture page in my passport. Nothing else. Perhaps I will get the wife to ask if the new landlord will be notifying the local police. It is the law after all and should the authorites choose to enforce it (as with two), there could be repercussions.

Kind regards,

Hill16

Home owner is required to advise local police and there is a small fine for not doing so; and many Thai do not feel it is something they will do unless made to do so. Although there is a law that requires personal reporting for any move by those who are not here as tourists it is not in general enforcement and most people/police would much prefer it remain that way from reports.

Hi guys,

Can I just clarify a couple of things please?

If I move from one rented property to another, is it the new landlord's responsibility to inform the local police that I will be living at the new address? Are any documents required from me?

Also, I presume it is my responsibility to inform Immigration of my new address? Can I wait until my next 90 days reporting or do I have to notify Immigration on the day I move to a new address? Are there any supporting documents required by Immigration as proof of the new address?

Finally, if I am moving to a new address with my Thai wife (as opposed to renting a new property on my own) are the above queries still relevant?

Kind regards,

Hill16

A suicide bomber runs into a pet shop and yells, 'you've all got one

minute to get out!'

The tortoise at the back of the shop shouts, 'you c*nt!'

If they did omit this event, it may be because such photos were in contravention of the CM Mail rule that only the same 30 foreigners may appear in the photos each week.

It is quite a strange animal, the CM mail . In style, it seems largely to linger somewhere in the 1950's.

As does the CM Expats club...