zzSleepyJohn

On 5/17/2021 at 7:45 PM, EricTh said:

I think there's a mistake. The Mor Prom is supposed to be for Thai and permanent residents.

 

The app forgot to reject those foreigners with pink ID card, it should be a bug because it's already stated Thai first.

 

Wait for the foreigner app.

In case Mor Prom is a mistake, I'm wondering if MorChana which shows up on Google Play from the Digital Government Development Agency and says its a self-protection tool  from Covid 19 outbreak for each individual,  might be the one that handles on-line vaccine registration.      First impression after downloading it though is that it's intended mainly for doctors, nurses and medical staff rather than for us the public,  so maybe your "Wait for the foreigner app" advice is all we can effectively do just now.

Could you be more specific about that Mor Phrom app?   I've found several Mor Phrom options in Google Play,  but unclear which one to install for vaccine registration in Chiangrai.   Tks

On 4/22/2021 at 10:12 AM, brommers said:

[.......Thailand will open registration for vaccination in early May, via the Mor Phrom app, only on Android phones. Actual vaccination is due to start on an undisclosed date in July.]     Could you be more specific about that Mor Phrom app?   I've found several Mor Phrom options in Google Play,  but unclear which one to install for vaccine registration in Chiangrai.   Tks

 

On 2/10/2020 at 10:03 PM, sometimewoodworker said:

The majority of people are running the meters backwards or just very slowly forwards. It is difficult and expensive to install a system where you get officially paid

Not only is that process difficult and expensive,  it might be hardly worth it considering the official feedback rate per Kwh is less than half your ordinary domestic forward rate.

 

I used to think a grid-tie system feeding unofficially into an old style mechanical meter at the forward rate with the idea of turning it backwards might be a good idea,  but I'm not so sure now.

 

I'm reading that although some old meters' discs can turn backwards under reverse power,  their dials may be ratcheted to prevent them following.  Not clear because since unapproved unofficial attempts to feed power back to the grid are illegal,  it's hard to find anyone admitting on-line that they've got it working.  

 

Not only that,  new digital smart meters which are set to replace old mechanical ones will only register reverse power when you've paid the money for them to do so, and then only at the abysmal official backward rate. 

 

So I'd caution anyone budgetting for a new grid-tied solar system to check carefully and not to necessarily assume ordinary domestic forward Kwh consumption rates in their calculations.

 

On the other hand,  I can't see there's anything to prevent an unofficial grid-tied solar system from simply reducing ordinary forward consumption bills due to aircon and fridge and freezer etc.  during the day when the sun is shining.   - Or even at night too if you add a big battery.

Ha yes!!  Just moved my location to London, and now it's working!  Must be a local Isle of Man problem.   

 

Anyway,  thanks for your help in getting TOT's URL right.

  

    Cheers,     +  John

21 minutes ago, Stocky said:

https://www.toteservice.com/MainEs/#

I've got a # on the end of it,

Hmmm... tks,  but no, .../MainEs/# isn't getting me anywhere from here either.  I'm in Isle of Man,  not exactly UK, so I suppose some local DNS trouble can't be ruled out.  I'll try from a different location with a VPN and see if that helps.

Thanks!  Good to know that, Stocky.  

Exactly what URL are you using to access toteservice,  may I ask? 

My attempts to https://www.toteservice.com/MainES  are all timing out from here.   Even my simple  PING to www.toteservice.com (203.113.2.51) gets no replies (100% packet loss),  but it was working fine from LOS last month. 

I've been successfully paying my TOT internet bill on and off for the last 2 years now,  using https://www.toteservice.com/MainES/ and my Bankgok Bank on-line enabled debit card.  No charge on this service so better than paying Bangkok Bank their 10baht i-banking fee each time ?    The English version of this TOT site has been updated in the last year and it's much easier to navigate than it used to be.

 

But until now I've always made these payments while I've been in Thailand.   

 

I'm now in the Isle of Man (near UK), running into difficulty because I've been trying to pay my latest TOT internet bill remotely from here.  Just can't get https://www.toteservice.com/MainES/

page to come up at all.    It repeatedly times out and on a couple of occasions I've seen my attempts trying to go to mc.yandex.ru before timing out.    Dunno, but beginning to wonder if there could be a DNS issue causing this??

 

Has anyone else  been using or trying to use this TOT site from overseas?   Grateful any reports.

 

     +   John

Useful comments there Oby and true blue. Thanks. How about English language capability? Could you communicate with the dentist about the details of your treatment easily? (I'm talking about the dentist's capability, not yours!)

I ended up accepting treatment at the first clinic I visited after landing back in LOS, Dr.Sunil in BKK, basically 'cos I wanted a quick solution, 'cos I was too travel-weary and didn't really fancy traipsing round to check out other clinics in BKK and CM, and 'cos other patients that I chatted to in the waiting room were full of praise for Dr Sunil and were coming back for more.

Yes, prices were more expensive than those you quote for Fortune, but I was seeking reliabilty rather than savings. Two out of the three treatment plans I undertook there went well, but the 3rd is causing me some trouble, and it's looking like I'll have to go all the way back to BKK from here in Chiangrai to get this fixed. That's quite a nuisance, and in some ways I wish I'd chosen to try CM in the first place; going back to CM would have been much easier. We live & learn!

You need to use TOT E-Service to pay online. Credit cards are accepted. https://www.toteservice.com/home/ebill_service

I do NOT have TOT E-service (or a landline phone), payment from Bangkok Bank online no issues.

You DO need E-service if you want to view your bill online, so sandman would be needing to go that route.

Thanks, and that all sounded as if it ought to be do-able. I've got as far as successfully registering for this service, but now I'm stuck because I can't see how to add my TOT Wi-net account & bill on this system. Looks like I could add a phone bill account there, but it's the internet bill and not the phone bill that I want to pay. Has anyone managed to pay their TOT internet bill via this service?

Dr Sunil told me afterwards that he wasn't a regular dentist at the clinic. He was apparently the top Thai dentist and was a visitor doing some sort of a deal with Dr Sunil at the time. I vaguely remember there was some sort of connection between him and some training going on in New York. I was just lucky to get him as a once off. Very impressive, but of course I didn't realise how good he'd been till I got back to my Guest House, my injection had worn off, found I had no pain at all, and the wound and stitches he'd done were hardly detectable by my tongue. Although he did introduce himself as Dr Something, I'm afraid I didn't register his name as I haven't with any of the other dentists at Dr Sunil's. In any case it would be a hard job getting him to do any further work for me since he was only visiting. Sorry, can't give any name.

What doctor or doctors have been handling your procedures there?

Apart from Dr Sunil himself who has personally overseen each treatment plan I've undertaken both at its start and at its finish, the individual dentist who's treated me has changed every time, So no real personal rapport has built up. I think they allocate their dentists partly according to their specialisation and partly according to who's available at the time. Lots of their patients are on short term dental holidays from overseas and have their return flights all pre-booked so their appointments are largely geared towards getting their jobs finished before the patient goes back home. I daresay Dr Sunil uses lesser experienced dentists for more common treatments like fillings and tooth whitening. Crowns and bridges are somewhere in between, but I have to say the Thai dentist who did my surgical extractions and implant was absolutely superb; in all my "3-score-&-10" years of using dentists all around the world I've never had a dentist to match this one in terms of either skilled surgical experience or of patient interaction and comfort.

Yes, there's an element of luck in who you get to treat you, which I suppose is true with all big dental clinics. I'm currently on my 3rd treatment plan since starting with Dr Sunil in mid-October, and my session yesterday (preparation for a couple of crowns and bridge in an awkward part of my mouth) was definitely an uncomfortable experience, having to keep my jaws wedged open on the operating couch for over 3 hours. Phew! Was I glad when that was over! Difficult to say whether that was because it was an awkward job, or whether it would have been more comfortable with a different dentist.

Although I'd originally planned to hawk my mouth round to several dentists before deciding which one to use, I changed my mind and plumped for the first one on my list, Dr.Sunil, since my first introductory experience there was very positive. Not only very friendly, welcoming and communicative, but good reports from other expats (mostly from Oz) I got to talk to sitting in their waiting area. I've now had 2 surgical extractions and one implant done, and am currently half-way through getting 4 crowns fitted, and so far I'm finding it all positive and professional. They are very much geared to handling expat customers, and I suppose that must add to their costs, but that gearing also implies adopting expat standards, which is giving me a lot of confidence. The only downside from my personal point of view is that they are in Bangkok, and I'm in Chiangrai, so I'm going to have to make several trips down there in the course of my treatments, but I feel the high standards of professionalism I'm getting, make it worthwhile. .

I had an implant done at Empress.........

Thanks, that's quite interesting. May I quiz you about how you got on? Did you need a bone graft or a sinus lift? How about immediately after the implant was done, were you sore and tender for quite a while? How did you avoid eating around the area of the implant until it all stabilised? How many return visits did you have to make before the final crown was fixed on the implant, and how long was it before you reached that stage?

Have to admit to being a bit nervous about having implants myself. Most reports I've read seem to conclude it was all worth it in the end, but don't say much about their interim healing period or how long it took to get there.

I doubt bkk will offer more professional services or expertise. Why would it be better there?

Some other people are saying that perhaps because it's bigger, because it has more international patients so there's more of an obligation to gain accreditation from international bodies, and because with economies of scale they can go in for more specialists instead of one or two dentists just doing the occasional implant. . Hard for me to judge as a mere individual with no personal experience of implants, but these sound like fairly credible reasons to me. I'll have to weight up the merits of these reasons against the inconvenience of having to make multiple visits back to BKK once I've got a clearer picture from my first quote and treatment plan in BKK this Friday.

Thanks Circusman and thanks ilostmypassword for those two suggestions. i'm going to stop over in BKK on my way back from UK this week and go in for an examination and treatment plan from Dr.Sunil clinic there and then based on that decide whether to take their treatment there and then, or come up to CM and hawk my open mouth around dentists there. It will partly depend on how many return visits they expect might be necessary. One or two extra trips down to BKK would be OK, but if it's likely to be more than that, then having the whole thing done in CM would be more convenient. I expect the general expertise and experience available in BKK will be better, but I'll have to weigh that up against the extra inconvenience of return visits there. If I decide in favour of CM, I'll certainly bear your suggestions in mind.

Your comments much appreciated, TallGuy. Thanks. From what I'm seeing, it looks as if they go out of their way to make foreigners comfortable with things like free transport pickup and drop, a free night in their accomodation, communication in English, Those must all put their prices up I suppose, and this makes it harder to judge how much a clinic's prices really reflect the quality and experrtise of their actual dentists. Anyway I'm going to use them to get my first quote and try to gain a better idea of what treatment plan I need. From what you say, it might be sensible for me to be cautious about plunging headlong into their full treatment plan without getting at least a second opinion. Apart from my major implant and replacement bridge requirement, I'm just now finding another tooth is starting to crumble, so I might try letting them loose on repairing this as a kind of test before making a decision about my major work.

Anyone else got any first-hand experience or story to tell about Dr.Sunil?

I'm an old codger in my 70s and usually live in Chiangrai but I'm in UK now where my 3-tooth bridge has fallen out and left me with a big gap and diminished chewing power, so I need to do something about it fairly quickly, and I suspect I'm going to need some serious implant work to anchor a new bridge on. Probably a surgical extraction and maybe bone graft too; it's hard to tell.

I haven't found any dentists in Chiangrai who can speak good English and who have regular reliable experience of implanting, so I'm trying to weigh up the relative merits of having this somewhat scary work done in Chiangmai versus Bangkok. I believe it's a lot safer to go to clinic where they've got specialists doing implant work all the time..

Sounds like this kind of treatment is going to require some return visits to my chosen clinic so obviously it would be easier and cheaper for me to go to and fro to Chiangmai than all the way to Bangkok. On the other hand Bangkok probably hosts clinics with considerably more experience and expertise on implant work, so not easy to choose even before price comes into it.

I've also posted my dilemma about choosing a clinic on the Bangkok forum at http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/697713-best-dental-clinics-in-bangkok-endodontists-and-crowns/page-2#entry9939506

I'll be flying back from UK to Bangkok next week so by staying a few extra days in Bangkok before coming north I could get my treatment started there straight away, but then I'd be lumbered with an unknown number of return visits there.

Just wondering if there's anyone else from the north who's weighed up the merits of the better available expertise in Bangkok against the hassle of having to keep going back there several times?

Yes, thanks for those two comments folks. What you seem to be saying is that there's not much point spending a lot of time and effort traipsing round to research a best clinic because at the end of the day it's going to be down to pot luck and what individual dentist you land up with anyway.

However I'll try and keep this thread warm for a few days in the hope that it attracts someone else who's used Dr.Sunil and can report how they fared.

Hmmm... not finding it too easy to make a well-informed choice for a reliable well-certified dental clinic for some serious inplant work in Bangkok. I actually live in Chiangrai, but I'm in UK at the moment where a complete 3-tooth bridge fell out in August which has left me with a big gap, So need to get something done quickly. I suspect I'm probably going to need a couple of implants and a new 3-tooth bridge to go between them, so quite serious work, but needs a well-qualified and implant-experienced dentist to give a proper recommendation. Pretty sure I won't find the necessary expertise in Chiangrai so I thought I'd better choose a well recommended clinic to use in Bangkok when I pass through on the way back to Chiangrai next week. I realise implants won't be a one-day job, so I'm prepared to hang around in Bangkok for a few days until the first phase of my implanting and perhaps bonegrafting is over, but I'm not so keen on having to make loads of follow-up trips back to Bangkok. For that reason I'm also wondering whether I could get equivalent-standard to Bangkok treatment in Chiangmai instead.

From what I can see, BIDC seems to have the top place in Bangkok, but it's prices seem to be roughly 50% higher .any of the others. Plenty of good comments about it on here, and a few adverse ones too I see, so not easy for me to guess whether that extra 50% would be well-spent or not.

Another apparently highly-rated clinic is Dr.Sunil, and I've seen a couple of good comments about them on here, but those hardly amount to a substantial concensus of good experiences about them. Nevertheless I've been in email contact with the Dr.Sunil clinic and booked to go for an appointment with them as soon as I land in Bangkok next week. Since I'm still not well-informed about what my detailed dental requirements really are, and indeed am somewhat naïve about how to deal with clinics, my dilemma is going to be whether to plunge in and accept Dr.Sunil's recommended treatment immediately, or spend a lot of time going round and checking out BIDC and Chiangmai clinics in person first.

So the main purpose of my post here is to ask if there's anyone else who's had experiences of using Dr.Sunil, and if so, how did you get on?

Why not just take a taxi and be done with it?

Costs money, that's why! [grin]

Anyway, too much luxury and pandering to convenience is unhealthy for us personally, and unsustainable on the planet. A bit of hardship within reason is good all round. That's my philosophy!

Go ahead and argue this point if anyone likes, but I'm going to be too busy packing that heavy luggage ready for humping it up the Saphan Kwai escalator en route to my departure from LOS next week to have time to defend that philosophy.

This page http://www.bts.co.th/customer/en/02-route-area.aspx gives you an area view of every BTS station so that you can check which stations have what and where the facilities are located.

http://www.bts.co.th/customer/en/images/area-map/N7_update.gif

That's quite interesting Lakegeneve because it shows two blue symbols on opposite sides of the road that look very much like 3 white figures standing in a lift. However I've checked the latest (2012) Google Street View for Saphan Kwai and can't see any lift entrance. Also when I look at this page there's a list of stations not including Saphan Kwai where there are lifts, so richsilver is probably right after all.

Hmm.. tks Richsilver. Bit of a struggle but p'raps I'll manage.

Does anyone know if Saphan Kwai station has a lift? As an old codger I'll be coming on my own with heavy luggage and it will be difficult to manage it all at one go on steps or even on an escalator. Tks.

......But then when you are as hansum as I am you must expect to be a tourist attraction.

Oh well in that case I clearly made the wrong choice this week taking my annual renewal to Chiangrai rather than to MaeSai

But having said that, it all went very smoothly at Chiangrai. Granted I'm an old hand and took a stack of possibly-needed photocopies with me, most of which turned out to be unnecessary, but there was none of the usual old sending me away to get more photocopies or unexpected new demands that I've got used to expecting in the past. The process was straightforward and efficient, and the lady in charge who sits at the desk behind and scrutinises everything for final approval, actually exchanged a nice smile with me when I first came in. Maybe it's partly because a reduced number of tourists this year are now being serviced by two offices instead of one, but I'd also hazard a guess that they've been on a customer service course 'cos I'm seeing a marked improvement in their attitudes and communication skills. Long may it last!