Sanpatong

In my defence though, I'm trying to get shit done at the govt office, and on my back taps this dreadlocked red-faced bearded aboriginal looking dude with horns growing out of his skull.

I mean, I know looks aren't everything but I'll admit you threw me a bit there.

Generally speaking though in such cases, best to ask a civil-servanty looking Thai guy or gal with questions you prefer a solid answer to.

> sounds like BS to me.

Yeah, or any other large mammal's S.

No doubt it's a seriously dodgy place though, I think anyone with an ounce of common sense shouldn't go anywhere near it.

Meh, big (.)(.) would be: ( o ) ( o )

Not to mention (___0___)

Anyway, what's the topic again? Ah right, :Has ASCII art lost it's allure? It was SO cool in the 80's and early 90's on those green & amber screens. What the hel_l happened?

My view is unique, as a gay, elderly (ouch! I hate that term) American

Which term of those three?

Anyway, it's interesting. The OP is saying he wants to leave because Thailand is getting more strict. MY primary reason for leaving would be that Thailand is by FAR not strict enough on just about anything.

I guess if you think Thailand is getting too strict then time to move down the ladder.. Cambodia, or some other basket-case failed country

Not female. I only love them. I thought the girl in the avatar had an especially wholesome beauty, plus she's Thai, so why not?

Use it on her balls then and see how wholesome she remains.

I my self think the Tena is a much more interesting car, specially the dash looks great, not so boring as the Camrys and Hondas. Anyway i think the depression of the value is the same. A Tena 4 cylinder (if you want buy a 4 cylinder) cost about 1.2 mil, and you'' get after 3 years about 600.000. so you will lose 600'000. the Camry cost about 1.6 mil. Baht. Hes resale value after 3 years will be at 800.000 maybe 900'000 Baht, if you compare with the today market. So you lost 800'000 Baht. You; lle get more, but you spent 400'000 more and you'll lose more, so i think the tena is amuch better buy. Think about!

Thinking.... thinking....

I think I'll go buy that 3 year old Tena for 600,000 and SAVE 600,000 instead of losing it!

The big question though is: Do I want to drive a car named after an incontinence product for elderly people.

Right, as it is in Chiang Mai. Meter ALREADY starts at 45 or 50 I think.

But they don't think that's enough, so they want another 50.

In other words, they want 100 baht just to get off their bottoms and into their cars.

I suggest telling them where they can shove their meter, so as to at least get SOME use out of the thing.

I like South too. South-West-ish you really don't get airplane noise, while still being within a 10 minute drive of the airport & town.

The North East blows chunks.

Or Amsterdam.

I don't normally call people, and of course nobody calls me, but I did have trouble getting a GPRS connection during lunch just now.

O-kay...

THE selling point / strong point / raeson d'etre for the Isuzu truck is fuel economy, and reliability. But especially fuel economy. IF this widget, a rubber tube, costing around 1000 baht cost price (if that) which represents about 0.20% of the price of the vehicle (if that), WOULD IN FACT HAVE, the advertised FIFTEEN TO THIRTY (!!!), percent, improvement on FUEL ECONOMY, which again is _THE_ reason why people buy Isuzu trucks, IF THAT WERE THE CASE

THEN

do you suppose Isuzu would just fit it in the factory? Or?

I'd live in town. There's ###### all to do out near Payap other than shop at Carrefour.

Suggest you learn to ride a bike on the proper side of the road real fast.

And wear a helmet.

On the plus side, you'd save LOADS on rent. No way do you have to spend 12K. Start with a hotel or guesthouse you like and ask for a monthly deal. THen during that month you can explore apartments that you may like.

Another advantage of going with a hotel or guesthouse first is that everything you need is there: furniture, food, laundry service, people to talk to, etc, etc. It can suck to be all by yourself in a boring apartment room in the outskirts of town..

Heck, just use some used Camry bits to replace the missing parts and there you go.

(Might actually make the vehicle MORE reliable as there's less Italian parts. )

Sorry for getting late to this discussion, but I always write 'pharlung', has this one been covered yet?

I stopped to help at a road accident in Thailand - and I'll never do it again.

I was driving down a quiet country road up near Chai Nat when I came across a woman (aged about 50) and a young girl (aged about 10) layed out on the road, their motorbike along side of them with the egnine still running. They were both cut up pretty badly and the old lady had a huge gash to the side of her head.

I had a first aid kit in the car so I slapped a first aid bandage on the old lady's head wound and was washing the girls arm would before bandaging it when a pick-up came by.

Two young Thai guys jumped out - ran over to where I was with the to accident victims and then proceded to pick the old lady up and put her in the back of the truck, moments later they took the young girl, put her in the back of the truck, loaded the bike into the truck said somehting along the lines of Jai Dee Farang and and then headed off to the local hospital.

They even refused an offer of cash to help with any incidental bills.

I'm disgusted that they a) took over the situation didn't bow scrape and grovel infront of my own largesse and c) refused my furhter offer of help with minor bills.

Worst of all the old lady thanked me for stopping and helping.

I'm sooooo disapointed to have found such normal people needing help.

You do have your moments... Thanks for posting!

And.. I agree. Some people seem intent on forwarding Urban-Legend-Bar-Stool-Myths so they have one more excuse to stop showing basic humanity, beacause 'this is Thailand', somehow.

How many bar fines do you pay per month?

Um.. about 1 every 6 years. I go there for the coffee. I hope that one day this will yield me the Brown Bandit cert.

Guess I have about as much chance at a SL cert as I do attaining Gold on TG.

...

Hey, I think we're sliding a bit towards the slightly off-topic boundary area. Stop doing that!

Question: how much is tuition at Payap? [ I'm more of a CMU person so I better keep quiet on Payap. ]

Well I have to say I find most replies heart-warming so far. On many a (sub)forum you always get a whole lot of people endorsing rabid tipping, but this has mostly been a breath of fresh air.

Indeed if a place charges service charge then that's it for me; sorry. Mind you, a personal pet peeve place that ranks very high on the hate list is actually S&P... NOT a Farang/tourist place at all, but the bastard cnuts do try it on while exploiting their workforce.

A lot of folks in the service industry recieve either a very low salary or no salary at all so tipping is good manners in many places. The problem for the foreigner is figuring out where and when. Car park attendants at restaurants are usually unpaid. Normal tip of 20 baht is ok. 100 cars a night x 20 = 2000baht

LOL.. Not sure if this is serious or joking or maybe my sense of humour isn't in gear at this hour, but you think it's just fine for some idiot parking lot dude with a whistle to make 2000 baht on an evening? (Or anything at all really, they're after all more of a nuisance than anythign else.

Whooo hay, thanks for making my windscreen wipers stand erect, pretty-boy-whistler-you, here's 20 baht? Oh and thanks for illuminating the contact keyhole, man if it wasn;t for you I would just NEVER have found that back. Waddayasay, could you follow me to the bathroom for a bit, I need some illumination on my bunghole too willya?

Give me a $*&(#^Y$&@&@#(*$*& break.

Anyway, that almost got me on the topic of bathroom-massage-dudes, and those REALLY upset me but I'll save that rant for later. Stay tuned.

If i wanted to study thai language where should i study?

AUA. WOuldn't hurt to ask around CMU, but what they have officially is expensive. Informally, it's very possible to learn stuff there.

And how about other kind of studying?

I hope to qualify for the official Spotlight Certificate soon. Keep fingers crossed.

I don't get out much, but I've been told that several late-nite venues around have been visited by a special police squad taking names and samples, especially Fri/Sat nites...

one way to avoid it- dont take anything illegal

I see.. you can avoid being held and forced to pee in a little cup for analysis by police at 1-2am while on holiday or having a good time and you can avoid all this by taking anything illegal.

Please explain how that works, it's intriguing.

Hey, I know another way to avoid it: Don't holiday in Thailand but in a sensible country. Guess that's the message?

I never had a bridge to begin with.

So therefore nothing to burn, which was nice for my carbon footprint.

(Also, are rents seriously increasing or is it just me? (well, him.) I used to rent a house of that type in a popular compound for 5000 baht. Yet all he finds is 13K and above. Ok it does have furniture and airconditiong, but who cares about those; you can just BUY those and own it, AND have quieter aircons and furniture that's above newspaper quality.

Also he's a writer/journalist, almost 40 years old and very well behaved. So don't let that stop you recommending a place next door.

Washing a smooth impervious surface with dish detergent and then rinsing is all it takes...no special disinfecting is needed....unless perhaps your immune system is not working properly.

..or unless she's Mysophobic. But then Thailand wouldn't really be the place to be.

Hey, I guess I said it all in the title.

Sorry, I'm in a foul mood because of some bone-heads posting ill informed political crap elsewhere, but you're joking right?

I mean, you'd have to import it into Thailand, meaning INSANE duty, plus the steering wheel would be on the wrong side.

But I'm missing something right?

Can we all stop blathering on about the relative merits of furnature and keep on TOPIC for f@cks sake?

I honestly think they're well aware of it but do it on purpose.

Might as well leave them in their own little retired world.