funlovinkid

I renew my car insurance every July, and this year, I received a notice from my insurance broker that their rates have increased because the Thai Office of Insurance Commission is now requiring that policies provide increased coverage for third parties injured or killed in an accident.  I asked them for a copy of the notice sent by the OIC, and they did send it, but it's written entirely in Thai.  I searched for anything related on this site, but couldn't access the "Car Insurance" forum, for more than a day now.  Can anyone confirm if this policy change is true, or can someone please direct me to the appropriate forum, assuming one exists?

22 hours ago, johng said:

unfortunately there seems to be no "proper e-waste recycling centres" around the Pattaya area...

 

 

just leave the batteries by the side of a bin and they will be gone in no time.

 

That looks like exactly what we need here.  Just out of curiosity, where was that picture taken?

18 hours ago, jacko45k said:

I have a scavenger with a hand-cart who comes round once every 3-4 days who gets the cans and bottles I collect, and a guy in a truck (with a disturbing loudspeaker) comes around once every month collecting stuff you describe, he even offers a bit of cash for it. 

Like the old 'rag and bone' man!

Thanks for the feedback.  The guy in the truck you describe above, is he specifically interested in this sort of electronic waste?  If yes, I suppose that means there's a market for the stuff somewhere.  Also, I'm wondering what area you happen to live in?

I've been diligently collecting my electronic waste over the past few years, with the intention of recycling the stuff into an E-waste system, and I think I've finally reached the point where I need to get rid of it.  A quick Google search of "E-waste disposal Pattaya" didn't produce anything useful.  I've read that some of the phone company shops in Bangkok will accept recycled phones (but only phones), but I have a variety of other stuff (electric shaver, lead-acid batteries) as well.  Does anyone know if there is an e-waste disposal location in the Pattaya area?

On 4/4/2019 at 4:49 PM, sunnyboy2018 said:

healthhut

Soi Town in town

HealthHut on google maps

near first pacific hotel

not far from harbour mall and foofland

go past powerbuy and turn right

 

Thanks for the information above.  I myself just began searching for healthy food in Pattaya, and I came across your thread here.

So far from this thread, I've made a note of:

BetterGro market;

Health Hut market;

Five Star J restaurant.

Since your quest for all this in April, did you run across anything else you found useful?  I had a friend mention something about a health food store in Bangkok which he believes will ship to Pattaya as well, but I haven't pursued this yet.  Thanks for passing along anything you might have discovered.

5 hours ago, KittenKong said:

No power is one thing. No internet is another. No one ever died from a lack of TV torrents or Facebook or Youtube (as far as I know).

 

Even in Europe you would be unlikely to get any internet repair service coming out on Easter or Christmas etc., even if the call centre has some sort of token staff working.

 

I do see your point though.

These days, the internet is more than just a connectivity service for entertainment - entire businesses and livelihoods are based on it.  Is it as important as electricity?  Probably not, and if it is, a redundant provider should already have been established.  So, your point is well taken.

However, in this particular case, no one was required to come to my condo to resolve the problem - and this is very typical.  Normally, all that is required from a support standpoint is to have someone "on call" who can remotely diagnose the source of the problem, and who can also very often resolve the problem remotely, and quickly.  If the local support person identifies the problem as relating to another vendor, then the support for that vendor is contacted.  I spent most of my career in IT support, so I know how this works - or doesn't.  I wore a beeper on my belt for years.

Aside from the outage itself, I guess my concern increased as I followed every possible avenue of contact made available to me, only to discover yet another dead end.  So, it appeared to me that there was a clear recognition on the part of the provider of the importance of having alternate methods of contact available for the customer - but not quite good enough to actually establish contact.  Consequently, I wasted even more time and energy than otherwise would have been necessary, following these dead ends.  And this, after having tried on and off for a week to establish contact in order to pay my overdue bill!  Anyway, maybe this helps put my experience into perspective.  Thanks for your feedback, which is always constructive.

11 hours ago, KittenKong said:

Two of the biggest Buddha days of the year. Wait till Thursday.

True enough, and thanks for your observation here, but no internet provider should assume that their customers should be willing to wait out an outage, for any reason - any more than PEA should assume that customers can live without electricity during a holiday.  I'm not shooting the messenger here, but when the vendor provides "emergency" contact numbers, and then has no one answering these numbers because it happens to be a holiday, it certainly seems to defeat the purpose.  They apparently think that I should just be willing to accept a pat on the head whenever I do manage to re-establish contact.  It would probably be better if they didn't bother establishing "emergency" contact numbers in the first place, so that customers don't waste their time making multiple, unsuccessful phone calls.

Update on Wednesday: their office is open again, and they have resolved my connectivity problem, with another giggle and another apology - and an inquiry as to whether I've paid this month's bill yet.  In addition to the fact that they promised to call me back to confirm whether the problem had been resolved, only to apologize for having forgotten to do this when I called back a second time.

I mention all of this not so much as a means of venting my frustration with Sophon, as much as to help any potential internet customers considering using their services to make an informed decision.  In my case, my older condo building offers only the original coax cable and telephone lines for incoming internet access, which limits my options for an internet vendor considerably.  My friend living in a house a few blocks away is using 3BB fiber direct to his house, and he regularly tests his connection at 500/500.  I would leap to that option in a heartbeat if it were available to me in this condo building.  As it stands, at the moment, I'm living with incessant giggles and apologies.

And please don't tell me TIT.  Yeah, I know - I've been living here for more than a decade now.

On 7/3/2019 at 12:29 PM, gunner07 said:

Thanks @funlovinkid for the concern. Due to office renovation, our landline (038423000) was cut temporarily. We expect phone connection to be back to normal this week. Meanwhile, you can still reach us via the mobile phone numbers 084-8634448, 084-8634449.

 

We will roll out the LINE business account soon. Stay tuned! In the mean time, you can communication with our staff via the LINE account of SBN marketing 084-8634448.

 

We appreciate your patience and thank you for your understanding.

 

We want to the serve the Pattaya community the best Internet Service experience with excellent international gateways.

 

Regards, 

Gun Tiwapong 

CEO of SBN

Thanks, Gun, but here it is, noon, Tuesday, July 16th, and my internet has again been down and out since last night, and I can't reach your people using any of the methods you mention above.  Although there is now a slight improvement in that I no longer receive the "out of service" message for your primary phone number, now it just rings endlessly, with no answer.  And your "emergency" mobile numbers are all redirected to a callback service, but I've never received a call back.  Not to mention that your feeble attempt above to provide me with the Line ID your company apparently uses never resulted in me successfully finding anything remotely related.

This is all in addition to the fact that, because I never received an invoice from Sophon for the month of July, I've been trying (unsuccessfully) for at least a week now to contact you in order to faithfully make the July payment - which I refuse to do unless I have an invoice number for reference purposes.  At the time, I didn't worry too much about not being able to contact you, because my internet was still functional.  Now, I don't have even that.  I communicate to you at the moment using the mobile data plan on my phone, and thank goodness for that.  How hard do you expect me to work to keep you as an internet provider?

Other than physically going to your shop, do you have any recommendations?  Smoke signals?  Carrier pigeons?

"Excellence"?  Really?  Is this supposed to be a joke?

Congratulations on executing the absolutely worst customer relations example I've ever seen, even in Thailand.

3 hours ago, oxforddon said:

PS they have three numbers ... 

038-423000, 084-8634448, 084-8634449

Thanks for that, just added these numbers for future reference.  For what it's worth (5:30PM Monday as I write this), the Internet functionality has been restored again as of around 3pm, but their main phone number is still out of service.  So, I guess they're not out of business!  Bad customer relations move, though...

4 hours ago, oxforddon said:

I had that problem with their phone number. But I also have a LINE link to their customer service (SBN Marketing is the ID). At this time they are changing invoicing and payment to an email system for invoicing and that whole exercise could be interfering with other things.

Thanks for the info, but I tried every imaginable permutation of "SBN Marketing" on LINE in order to add them for future reference, and I couldn't find them.  Is there any particular spelling combination I might have missed?

I also recently built a gaming PC (though not nearly as cool as the one in the pics above), and got my components about 50/50 from JIB and InvadeIT.  Invade did everything they said they would do, and all parts arrived quickly and with no problems.  Would definitely recommend them as well.

As far as the pics above, there's no doubt in my mind that thing has teleporting capabilities.  ????

I've been using Sophon in the Jomtien area for 4 years now for my Internet service, and their phone number has always worked.  I noticed last night that my Internet was down, and I did all the things I could from this end to resolve the problem (like rebooting their router).  Having no success in restarting my Internet, I just gave up and went to bed, thinking that I would resolve the problem this morning after their office reopened for business if the problem was still unresolved at this time.

So, here it is now, Monday morning, and the Internet problem still exists.  And now I find that their phone number (038-423-000) is "temporarily out of service", something I've never encountered before - especially in the midst of an Internet outage.  Considering the fact that yesterday was June 30th, I can't help but wonder if they've just closed up shop.  Thank goodness for my AIS mobile data package, which is the only Internet option I have at home now.

Anybody know if Sophon is having serious problems which could lead to it having closed for business?

13 hours ago, Golden Triangle said:

As I mentioned in an earlier post my Mrs went up there while I was still in me scratcher sleeping the sleep of the innocent ???? But yep, I can't remember how many steps to get up there 400 comes to mind, but I told the Mrs no way was I going up there,on our travels down south we did find another temple perched on top of a mountain with well over a 1000 steps to get up there, Air Ambulance would be required for me LOL - I'll see if I can find a picture of it, I have one somewhere ???? 

 

I think you're referring to the Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi.  That climb is 1260 steps, and I did it last October.  My philosophy is, once you start something, you don't give up - but, OMG, did I end up paying dearly for that.  I'm a pretty big guy, around 105 kilos, and I thought I was in OK shape, playing badminton and exercising regularly.  My hiking companion was a Thai friend who weighs around 50 kilos (not to mention being considerably younger than me!), and he didn't seem to have any problem, either on the way up or down.  One thing I hadn't considered was that my legs were reasonably strong on the hike up - but the hike back down uses completely different leg muscles, and I was forced to cling to the hand railing for about the last half of the journey back down (and I noticed other [considerably younger] visitors doing exactly the same thing on their way down as I was on the way up).  By the time I reached the bottom, just walking was truly a struggle.  By the next day, and thereafter, my thighs were absolutely killing me, and I suffered for two weeks before the symptoms subsided.  I later realized that I had done the equivalent of climbing up and down a 120-story skyscraper (with a leisurely snack at the top), in about 3 hour's time.  What...was...I...thinking?  ????  The "path" to the top is essentially a staircase, with very little in the way of horizontal travel.  But I must admit, the views at the top were spectacular, with a 360-degree panorama.  The whole experience was very memorable - for a number of reasons.  Air Ambulance, indeed!

3 hours ago, Andrew Dwyer said:

Yup, it’s a hike for sure, late afternoon is the best time and yes a stick is recommended for the monkeys !!









But it’s a great view from the top !!

Great pics, thanks, they really help me get a sense of the place.  Looks pretty nice!

36 minutes ago, poohy said:

Humour! maybe difficult to understand but there you go

Also we have to keep out/dissuade the Riff Raff

 

PS if you read my address you will have seen i live there and worked the above out

If you want to dissuade the riff-raff, that's a good sign.  ????

27 minutes ago, cornishcarlos said:

 

Why would that be !!

I've stopped there a few times, as it's roughly half way between our place and BKK.

I found it to be a nice little town, not too crowded but still a vibrant market/fishing town feel to it.

Great pier and views from the beach road and just south, at Ao Manao, a good beach to swim.

There's a selection of hotels from budget to middle level and a sprinkling of Western style eateries, if that's your thing.

I'm not sure what there is not to like about it, unless you are looking for non-stop nightlife...

I happen to live in the Pattaya area (4 years now), so I'm familiar with your description above, and that's definitely NOT what I'm looking for.  I moved here primarily as an escapee from the infamous smoky season in Chiang Mai, and I like all the amenities that Pattaya has to offer - with the exception of the nightlife that you describe.  Also, I live at the beach (Jomtien), and I love it - but it would be nice to be able to actually swim in the water without getting sick, which is impossible anywhere around here because of the pollution and street runoff into the ocean.

I'm hitting my early 60's, and beginning to feel myself slowing down a bit, enjoying a bit more peace and quiet than I did in the past.  But I'm wondering if PKK would be outright boring.  I hear Hua Hin has all the amenities, but is too often swamped with Bangkok tourists and traffic, which doesn't sound very appealing.

So, does PKK have any amenities that a typical Westerner would want (some air-conditioned restaurants, a supermarket catering to Westerners [like Villa Market, say], a hospital with English-speaking staff)?  I guess this was the gist of my original posting.

25 minutes ago, Mahseer said:

Hua Hin is correct forum as PKK is one hour south. Throw some questions out here and see how you get on.

Thanks for that (and I will take your advice accordingly hereafter), but if this is true, shouldn't Thai Visa at least include a reference to the province in the sub-heading for this forum?  I notice that other Local Forums make a note of mentioning all the provinces which are meant to be included in the grouping, but PKK is nowhere to be found.  Don't know if I'm correct in assuming that the TV moderators will pick up on this as a result of this thread, or if I should contact them directly.

Basically, I was hoping to stumble across any existing comments from expats about PKK city itself, rather than throwing out loads of question into the emptiness.  ????

I posted this here in the Hua Hin local forum, but I'm not sure this is the best location for it:

I've had a couple of friends here in Thailand express interest in visiting (or living in) the city of Prachuap Kiri Kan, and they've piqued my curiosity, but I can't seem to find any reference to it here on TV.  I would like to learn about PKK, but every "Local Forum" here references virtually every other province in the country but this one.  Does anybody know if there's a correct place on TV for forum discussions about PKK - or, for the Thai Visa moderators, if maybe there should be?

14 hours ago, maryone said:

because I need some advice! 

Sorry, I don't really have any experience in that area...yet.  ????  I did have one friend who recommended using Adobe Photoshop for editing the photo after scanning it into JPG format, but it's my impression that this is an extremely capable software package for professionals, with a steep learning curve, which is why I'm currently banking on buying a slide scanner which includes its own (hopefully user-friendly) software for that purpose.

11 hours ago, maryone said:

so are you using photo editing? Did you have to contact photo editing services?

No, I haven't even reached that point yet.  But rather than using a service, I think I've decided to buy a slide scanner, and apparently some of the good ones include their own software for that purpose.

On 6/15/2019 at 4:35 PM, Swiss1960 said:

In the last.days / weeks, PWA has done loads of pipe work throughout Pattaya city and Jomtien. Maybe they used more chlorine to get the new pipes up and running? Just a thought...

Sent from my SM-A730F using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app
 

Looks like you called it correctly.  The chlorine odor has subsided now, so I'm guessing it was only a temporary measure, not an indicator of a new, permanent condition.  But all the feedback above has been very useful to me.  If the situation re-occurs permanently, I'll make an effort to test the water.  Thanks to everyone above.

2 hours ago, dotpoom said:

Just wondering, why is it a concern who put it in (if somebody did)?

The concern wasn't particularly related to who put it in, but rather that the ability to understand that might help explain whether this phenomenon would continue.  I suppose my biggest concern was that I thought I noticed my eyes burning (presumably from the increased chlorine) whenever I washed my face in the shower.

On 6/15/2019 at 11:32 PM, bbi1 said:

How did you notice the chlorine in the water? Are you using it as drinking water?

Not at all, but I have a pretty good sense of smell, and I distinctly noticed it when showering and brushing my teeth.

I have recently noticed that I'm smelling the distinct odor of chlorine in my tap water, whereas for the past 4 years, I never noticed this.  I happen to live in a Jomtien condo, and my building management tells me that they don't add anything to the building water supply, so I'm wondering if either Pattaya city or Chonburi province have started adding chlorine, or have increased the amount used in our tap water.  Anybody know anything about this?

I've been dragging boxes of old slides/prints/negatives around with me for literally decades now, and I've finally worked up the desire (and the time) to convert the good stuff into digital imagery.  I recently took a stab at this when a friend offered to loan me his little slide scanner, but it turns out this particular one didn't work with Windows 10.  But now my interest is piqued, and I'm wondering if anyone knows of a good, trustworthy place offering a service to perform the conversion.  I have 35mm slides and negatives.  If not, I might break down and buy a decent slide scanner, but I know the good ones can be pretty expensive.  Maybe buy a good used one?  I'm open to any suggestions here!