Disting

I came through about 2 weeks ago, straight through customs as normal, with a Dubai duty free bag in hand. i book the AOT limo and am walking out through the doors when I see the guy in the blue uniform eyeing up my bag, I know whats coming and he speaks to the AOT guy who puts my luggage down. He says you have cigarettes in the bag, I say no I dont smoke and I dont drink. (Bizzarely thats true). he still wants to look in the bag so I tell hime very politely that its a singing penguin for my 2 year old. He motions towards my luggage bag and again I say I dont drink and I dont smoke. He reluctantly lets me on my way without checking my luggage bag. I travel through the airport every 6 weeks so this does not bother me at all, its just an inconvenience but to a first time visitor who has just cleared customs and therefore is now totally groundside of the airport, it can be intimidating when these guys stop you from leaving the airport. Does anyone know who they are and what department they are with. is it official or a scam?

Have seen on the net on a couple of car 'spy' websites the previews of the Fortuner facelift. A small change on the front, different rear lights, Satnav screen where the stereo was, slightly different dials for the driver and the aircon at the back has been moved to the roof like the Mu7. also heard it might have cruise control. Doesnt look like they have done enough to the interior to make it significantly different to the old model. Was also a very small article in the bangkok post motoring section on it.

Think I will hang on and see the Pajero sport from Mitsubishi first. Should get to see the interior pictures at the end of this month after it is unveiled in Moscow.

This does look like it should be a serious contender for the Fortuner. as the owner of a 3 year old Vigo I want to change up to the SUV type quite soon but there has been no other choice than the Fortuner. The MU7 is probable the ugliest car I have seen in a long time and Ford seem to forget the styling when they did the Everest. Only thing that was holding me back on the Fortuner was the interior. Will be interesting to see the inside of the Pajero sport. Mitsubishi hopefully will do a good job on it. The top of range Triton has some nice toys in it. It may force Toyota into doing a facelift on the Vigo/Fortuner range too. After the Moscow motor show, the spec sheets should be available on line I hope. Hope they dont let the side down as there need to be some competition against Toyota.

I arrive on Emirates at 6pm so up til now its been grab 'limo', onto the xpressway and then straight into the traffic jam on the run round to Sukumvit. Always get a limo as the back seat is so much more comfortable for the hour ish kip I have sitting in the traffic. Cant wait til the train opens. All it needs no is some enterprising chap to start a business at the station where they have people you can hire to carry luggage to your hotel whilst you ride on the train. Trouble is, the 'fee' you would have to pay to the airport mafia to set such a thing up would ,I guess, make it unworthwhile.

You can also use Amazon.com. I use them a hel_l of a lot for books, DVDs etc. They come real quick and the postage has always been very reasonable. Only time it was a bit pricey was when ordering a load of hard board books for my littleun. They were quite heavy.

Guys, use any torrent site like piratebay or mininova and do a search under books. They have a dam_n good selection of books to download and also a fair selection of audiobooks. Beats having to pay for them.

THINGS TO BE CONSIDERED WHEN BUYING A PLANTER

We did a side by side trial, "Thai" made corn planter and John Deere finger planter from the US

RESULT 32% yield increase, reasons why? We assume because of plant population, accuracy of spacing and fertilizer placement.

Sap, do you mean corn or rice planter, I cant find any sign of a Thai made one. Only ones I have seen are Kubota ones imported from Japan. Also, where did you get hold of a john Deere planter. My JD dealer has no info. They shouldnt be giving us the cold shoulder treatment either as we have bought a tractor from then so they know we are serious.

Thanks

I had a similar experience with my delightful next door neighboors. Their son or daughter was working in Bangkok and had the nice looking showy dog. Only problem was that it barked so the solution was send the dog back home cos no one cares back in the village. now because this is a 'pedigree' mutt they wont let it run free so they tie it up on a rope just the other side of my wall. The dog barks all day about every 30 seconds so you can imaging the sort of state I get myself worked up into. I even got to the stage of lobbing rocks over the wall at it. After about a week I am round at the outlaws place with the missus on the other side of the village and we are talking about this bloody dog. I says I am going to kill it somehow cos I am at the end of my patience. Next day mother in law goes round to see the owner and low and behold, dog gets moved. Then I hear through the missus that the guys wife and all the nieghbours were really pissed off by the barking but no-one would say anything.

After that it was a couple of years of peace and quiet til his next 'business' idea is one of these huge speaker setups. Now this guy lives with whole family in a run down wooden house, kids in rags etc and he blows a load of money on this speaker system. Of course then he has to test it all day long at max volume, so loud that my place is vibrating from the bass. Again I let it go for about a week before again blowing my top round at the outlaws. Mother in law again went and spoke to them and its been nice and quiet for 6 months. I dread to think what the next idea will be.

i think a lot of the problem here is that Thai people will really be anti something but because of their upbringing and society pressure they will not speak out. This has got to be my only complaint against their upbringing. i am raising kids here and I am so glad that they are here and not back in the UK but I will insist that they question everything and also to speak up if somethings wrong.

Acting hastily and when pissed off will backfire here. We are all guests here, no matter how much we like to think otherwise. Thai verses Falang will always go against us on something like that. Much better to try and use someone in the village to sort problems.

Strange though that there is such a difference in price.

Thanks for gen on harvester. Wasnt looking at one just yet but thinking ahead. We are getting more and more land and it seems from what I have seen and what the wife says that fewer people are available to work in the fields each year. I guess the youngsters are all moving to the cities etc. May need mechanical help in a few years time.

Thanks for the replies guys.

me n her went up to Satuk today to get some fertiliser etc and stopped off at the Kubota dealer. Spoke with the sales girl there.

Walk behind type 160,000

sit on type 650,000

also out of interest I got the brochures and prices for the combines.

Smaller one is 390,000 and the big one at 890,000

Small one looks perfect for those small paddies. Dont think the big model would be very efficient in there. Let me know if you want me to post scans of brochures.

pnustedt, either there was a mix up in what you were asking for or they were seriously taking the piss with their prices.

midas, quite a difference between Bangkok price and up country price. I guess there was a little falang price involved too and that the family on their own could beat the price down somewhat. As we have a 3 ton truck and a pick up it would make sense to pick one up in Bangkok rather than pay all that extra.

Mk 2 Escort in Buri Ram. Looks kind of long in the tooth though. Been by the side of the road for a while and havnt seen it moving. Dont think it would be much fun over here as I guess it wouldnt have air con.

I have seen a new type of rice planter. Its a walk along behind rather than a sit on one. Have seen it advertised on telly but missed the details and have also seen one working in the distance. Our local shops dont have them yet but say they are coming soon. Any one got any idea of price for them. Shop wont tell me til they get here and cant find anything on the web.

Thanks

AFAIK Skynews is only carried on the South African Multichoice network.

Unfortunately, since UBC (now called Truevisions) has the sole re-transmission rights in Thailand for most of the premium channels (Discovery, HBO, National Geo...), watching Multi is basically in a little grey area of the law, even if you have an original card.

On top of it, getting an original Multichoice card in Thailand is outrageously expensive ( +50,000 Baht/year).

Of course the "other" ways of watching it are completely and highly illegal and cannot be discussed here!

I work in Africa and the DSTV Multichoice is by far a a better TV package than the rubbish provided by True. Is it possible to pick up DSTV here in Thailand, theoretically of course? I can get set top box and card when I go back to work, not that I would dream of trying to set it up over here.

Hi All

A while ago I stayed in a hotel, have long since forgeotten which hotel and where it was other than it was in Thailand and on their TV it had sky news. Does anyone know where to pick this up as UBC does not carry Sky news.

Thanks in advance

i guess most Buri Rammers have noticed the work going on besides Big C. Had the wife ask the security guard on the gate and we are getting a new cinema and bowling alley. Dont suppose we aill get many English track films down here but the bowling should be good for a laugh now and then

Well I hope someone from their company reads this and sorts their act out. Over to them.

As regards Siam legal, I recently started dealing with them on doing a visa extension. I was given all the information over the phone and by email and told that it would be done in one day. I also had a face to face meeting at the Times square office where I was told they could do it in one day. I duly got all the documentation and drove to bangkok. On arrival they asked me where my wife was, they hadnt told me that she had to be with me, then they tell me that it takes 30 days to process the application, not 1 day. Seeing as I was just about to leave the country this was not much use. all in all they wasted 2 days of my time off from work, cost me a trip to bangkok and 2 nights in a hotel and ended up in me leaving Thailand and letting my visa run out so I now have to do a visa run to get a new O visa. To say I was not impressed is a massive understatement. that was the most unprofessional firm that I have ever dealt with and i would warn anyone not to use them.

Driving from Buri Ram to Bangkok I passed what appeared to be a mint MK1 ford capri. Really did look in perfect condition. Had fogotten how small they were. Got the remains of a mk 1 ford escort on the road into buri ram but is in poor condition.

I paid 200k on the understanding with the mother in law that 100k would be returned. This gave better 'face' to the family and meant we had more to put towards the house. Worked fine. Remeber the dowry will be counted out note by note in front of all guests and the face thing is important here.

That is an extremely valid point. Whether its right or wrong, we are the bread winners in these situations and that makes shagging the guy at the end of the road a pretty short sighted decision. Then again, Thais do seem to live for today and not much thought to the future. Its one thing having the nice house and the car etc but can you imagine trying to maintain the above if the money tap is turned off.

Our power went off the other night, I guess around midnight. By 5 it was still not on but we could see lights around the village. Me and the missus get up to check the breaker box etc and the meter on the pole outside. All breakers ok and the meter is dead. Then the street light flickers so we try the house lights and get a flicker from them too. Then I start to hear all the appliances making clicking noises so its race round the house in the dark trying to turn everything off. Luckily nothing damaged and the problem was sorted by 7 am. That was afirst for our area. Its either on or off, never had a low voltage problem before.

I guess the overwhelming advise is to say nothing. Thats what I tend to agree with. Consequenses for speaking up can go so many ways including making me unpopular in the village.

I cant understand how he doesnt see what is going on. Most of us tend to live our lives on quite strict routines and when they change, something is normally wrong or there is a good reason for it. I suppose there are always two sides to any story but it just pisses me off to see it going on with somebody I know

What would you do in this situation.

I have known a fellow expat in the same area as mine for some years. I and all of the village know that his wife is shagging around. The village dont like it and they dont like his wife so much now.

Would you tell him or ignore it. Its a tricky situation to be in. Always the problem of what happens after you say something.

Any opinions?

I have never quite worked that one out. Ducks are vegetarians, yes? Feed to the dogs yes (In fact I recall a report about that) but ducks??

NO! Ducks will try to eat anything. If they can't swallow it they will slap it around and try to get a bite size piece. When the other ducks see one has something interesting, they all want a piece of it. If ducks scare you then you should be petrified of helium balloons.

On this subject. A few years back I worked at a place in Germany that had a mouse problem. The boss also had a load of chickens around so when we would be working on his aircraft there would be all these bloody chickens running around crapping everywhere. We set traps for the mice and would then throw them to the chickens. They would fight like hel_l over them. The winner would slap them around for a while, I guess to break the bones up and then swallow them head first. Now when you have seen a chicken with the back feet and tail of a mouse hanging out of its mouth, you have seen everything. From then on, we would feed all our leftovers to them including cooked chicken so they are cannibals aswell.

Was out and about showing my mother the sights of Phanom Rung and Muang Tam. I looked at golf courses on my satnav and it showed one about 4 kms from Phanom Rung. Had a quick trip down there and found a driving range with cows in it and what looked like a course but with nobody there. Had green greens etc. Odd place. Anybody got any experience there.