cocopops

Perhaps I'm the last to realize, but there are good quality official streams of todays odi on the "ecbcricket" youtube account.

The first is for the Australian innings, the second for England (hasn't started yet).

Unfortunately, Australia are 2 down for 11 already.

Kratom should remain prohibited.

The personal anecdotes posing in here as factual or accurate potrayals that illegal drugs are harmless/ a personal right/should be legalised /are victimless crimes etc etc are meaningless opinionated drivel and have absolutely no basis in fact or evidence to support them.

Illegal consumption of prohibited drugs of all kinds should remain illegal because of the potential harm and misery they cause. There is a great deal of evidence to support this point of view.

Do you have a link regarding the harm and misery caused by Kratom?

Cannabis is an illegal drug in Thailand. It is also a potentially dangerous one. You will hear the misinformed hedonists waxing lyrical about the fact that it never hurt anyone, but they never treated psychotic or schizophrenic patients whose misery was triggered by cannabis addiction. And, smoking it is linked to carcinoma of the lungs, cvd and a number of life threatening illnesses. Misplaced sympathy for someone trafficking in drugs is mistaken, foolish and ignorant.

Wikipedia disagrees with you with respect to the health risks associated with cannabis use.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_effects_of_cannabis

Drive up there (the 118), about 3.5-4 hours in this kind of weather.

Park left or right from the river.

Bring passport and 500 baht.

Buy fake stuff, booze, tshirts, watches, whatever.

Pick up you passport at Burmese side of the river.

Drive back.

Leave 8 am.

Home 6 pm.

You may or may not be asked to show cash on the way back into Thailand. From memory I think it is supposed to be 20,000B if you have a non-imm or tourist visa, or 10,000B if you're just after the visa exempt stamp. Based on casual observation, I reckon they ask to see the money less than half the time. Dunno what happens if you don't have it on you. There are no ATMs the Burmese side of the border.

Although I don't know of any specific incidents or have any reason to mistrust the people of Tachilek in general, it seems to me that this regulation means the rogues amongst them may safely assume that a good percentage of the tourists are carrying close to $700 in cash.

Wear you earpuff..

I'm not alone, and we like to exchange some sweet words while falling asleep...

You can't always have everything your own way. I've managed to sleep next to a construction site (I sleep late) for over a year now by playing music at a moderate level while I sleep. It even got me through 6 weeks of piling. When they start playing up next door you won't hear it over the music. I suggest you try SkyFM.com. You can run it free or pay a small monthly fee for better quality without the ads.

It may take you a few nights to get used to sleeping with music, but after that you'll come to enjoy it. You just have to pick the right channel out of about 60. "Relaxation" is a good one.

An alternative to music that I've used similarly is a recording of a thunderstorm or heavy rain. Works for me anyhow.

Quite amazing how many people recommend various forms of passive aggressive childishness (banging on the door at 7am and then acting disingenuously and so on). Does that kind of thing ever actually turn out well?

The majority of replies to this thread highlight my reasoning for not returning to this forum.

This is an 11 year old, who is obviously great at what he does. Whether the money goes directly to his education, pays for stationary, a desk, a computer, whatever, it doesn't matter. Just give him some praise you cynical, jaded lot.

What if the cash goes nowhere near a school, but straight into the pockets of drunken, gambling parents? Or if or when an 'agent' turns up in his village. That's not in the least bit cynical or jaded.

Unless I misunderstand, you are suggesting that it is likely that his parents are either habitual drunks and gamblers, or else the type that would turn their own child over to an "agent" with some dastardly purpose in mind. With little more than the young mans nationality to go on. I am genuinely interested to know what you would consider "cynical or jaded".

According to the American Mosquito Control Association (of America):

What can be safely stated, though, is that ingestion of garlic, vitamin B12 and other systemics has been proven in controlled laboratory studies to have no impact on mosquito biting. Conversely, eating bananas did not attract mosquitoes as the myth suggests, but wearing perfumes does. People drinking beer have been shown to be more attractive to mosquitoes.

http://www.mosquito.org/faq#attracts

Millions of years of evolution have worked to design efficient and robust human being seeking micro-drones. My guess is that we won't defeat this technology by fiddling with our diets or vitamin levels. Exposing it to something new, that it has not adapted to, can work though. Hence DEET.

Funny thing is that my friend thought he was being careful and flicked it down a storm drain so he wouldn't be littering. I can understand the reasons for fining litterers though.

Sent from my iPad using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

What evidence did they have? If they had video footage how could they justify the THB 10k? If they didn't have any why did the victim cough?

Something doesn't add up.

Eyewitnesses.

When you check in on leaving they will inform you you have overstayed.

You will then go to a little open office where you will be among fellow over stayers.

The office is staffed by Thai police.

You will be polite and civil and you will pay 500 baht for each day overstayed.

They will make out a receipt for you and when you have paid you are on your way.

This in no way will affect any future visa applications or entry into the country.

If for some reason you are stopped by the police before you exit the country and they find you have overstayed, then you are in trouble and will be put in the monkey house.

I would add that if the OP does try his luck at Mae Sai and gets stopped by the cops on the way up (which is not unlikely at all) he should keep his cool. I've never seen them check a permission to stay stamp - just that the picture matches the bearers head.

Dogs, like every other living thing belong on this earth, and deserve respect to their life.

All living things have souls and feelings.

Only the ignorant do not recognise these facts.

Respect for all life great and small.

Our WHOLE PLANET is just a grain of sand inside a whole living thing beyond even our universe (which contains BILLIONS of galaxies and untold planets full of life) .

May i ask, what are you doing in a Buddhist country in the first place if you do not recognise these most basic of facts.

If you want the clean sterilised all life has no f---in value lifestyle of the west, then go to the west.

The reason those security guards, who earn so LITTLE in comparisson to your wealth, feed those dogs, is because they recogise the beauty and sanctitiy of all life.

LOOK at that photo, look at that beautiful family.

You could embrace them, learn each ones individual personality and have some new beautiful loyal friends who NEVER JUDGE YOU like humans do.

Yet you turn your back to the very beauty of our world and embrace your own destructive sterile view of reality.

WAKE UP

There is a whole world of good and love out there, do not fear it, or hate it.

Embrace it.

My advice? Give the dogs some love and food, buy a set of headphones, and when you go to bed, listen to some Bhuddist chants to fall asleep.

Take care of yourself and your life, open your eyes and heart.

Count your good fortune you have the life you do.

You have no soi dogs problem eh.

Are the dogs the problem? or your outlook and attitude?

No doubt the OP's life would be much improved if he could adopt the Dalai Lama type outlook you're advocating. As could all of ours. Bloody difficult thing to do if you're not getting a good night's sleep though.

how can they know if they were wearing helmets?

or did they check the willy seize

and came to the conclusion : these cannot be thai weeners

..please dont go down that route, its one of those "zzz" fallacies (or should that be "Phallacies" ) that always has me scratching my head wondering why so many (straight) farang guys talk about Thai mens manhoods. Unless you guys are basing it upon on personal experience (in which case, bad luck!), then realise its just hearsay (or likely what you have heard from Thai ladies to boost up your ego). Its up there with the tooth fairy and the "handsum man" fable.

There's been quite a lot of research that shows Thai men, on average, can't match the length and girth of the average Western man. Google is your friend (he has a short penis).

According to this site: http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=4923

USA average is 5.1 inches

Aus average is 5.2 inches

UK " " 5.5 inches

Brazil " " 6.2 inches

Congo is 7 inches

Singapore and cambodia is 4.5 inches (burma 4.6)

So thats approximately half an inch difference between a man from the USA and a man from Singapore ..and it doesnt mention anything about girth...or performance.

Does that half inch (AVERAGE) difference really make you all think you are carrying some kind of salami in your trousers whilst the thai man has the equivelant of a pinky finger?

Ultimately the qualifier is that ive yet to hear of any farang woman thats complained about about noticing any kind of difference..

just my two satangs!

sorry..just gets a tad tedious reading certain things that are blown out of proportion over and over again..

Did they measure from the base or the balls?

Thanks for the information, I am very wary of equity based stuff, probably due to lack of knowledge on my part, however the Bangkok bank fixed deposits seem like they might be a good idea, thanks again.

If you really do follow through with the plan for 15 years, it is much more likely than not that avoiding equities will cost your kid money.

Say the savings plan averages 3% pa, a global market index fund 8% and you contribute the same nominal amount each month for 15 years. Your son or daughter ends up with a bit over 50% more money if you take the equities.

This is a most vacuous manifestation of the progressives tendency to search for moral relativism under any stone, rolling or not. The murderer represents a totalitarian ideology that seeks to usurp western democracy, which would presumably curtail music and youth culture in general, which gives Rolling stone it's raison d'etre. Saddest of all is the fact that had Dzorkhar Tsarnaev not been photogenic then his photo would have never made the front cover.

It's none of those things. If anything the opposite. There exists in the world a stone-age ideology that would be ridiculous if, in this era of increasing destructive power, it weren't so dangerous. From time to time it infects individuals more virulently than usual, with (literally) explosive results. Liberal thinkers, aghast at prospect of acknowledging the role religious beliefs play in this, search for explanations everywhere. Perhaps the true cause is poverty. Or some political grievance. Or anything that allows them to avoid any implicit criticism of religion - no matter how slight. Because if they do criticise religion - any religion - then they're stuck. They either admit that their conservative enemies are correct and Christianity is superior to at least some other religions in some ways, or that the whole thing is bullshit and we should stop dogmatically swallowing the "wisdom" of books written by people who literally knew too little about the world to keep faeces out of their food.

But this story knocks another chink in that world view. This good-looking young man had an American upbringing no different from thousands of others. No indication of mental illness (except in the broadest sense: to do what he did some part of his brain must be malfunctioning). And he ended up destroying his own and several other lives for no rational reason. A terrorist.

This is something worth investigating. A phenoma worth trying to explain. And honestly, I'd expect the folks at Rolling Stone to do a better job of it than most.

the point being for me...none of these "add-ons" cost me anything...the only thing I have to do is maintain my minimum balance thats all.

you seem to be fixated with paying fee's which seeing as you stated you have had "premier" account, you would know for most "premier" accounts you dont get charged fee's.

A high minimum balance that earns low interest is a fee in another name. At least it is as far as I'm concerned.

Right, but there is a fair bit of flexibility in exactly how you maintain that balance. Brokerage account, mutual funds etc. are all usually options. So a lot of folks can just shuffle stuff around a bit to meet the minimum balance - no need to tie money up in a cash account.

The Shanghai Composite Index has been in decline for the last four years. There is no bubble there, or if there is, it is deflating at an orderly pace.

H-Shares as well. HSCEI down to a PE of about 8 and a trailing yield of over 4%. Of course a lot of that is due to the shares of the big Chinese banks looking obscenely cheap, and who knows how they might turn out...

Still, if one were serious about buying where sentiment is most negative, are there any stocks in the world more hated than Chinese banks and coal companies?

The falling exchange rates are a good reason for regular Thailand visitors to open a Thai bank account so that when the dollar is high, you can fill up your holiday account.

That way, fluctuations in the exchange rate hardly rate a mention.

genius!

I'm afraid it is a sad case of pearls thrown amongst the swine

One simply times the FX market to ones advantage. No problem whatsoever.

RIP Jimmy. The first season of "The Sopranos" was the best stuff I've ever seen on TV.

+1

The Shield was also a very good US made tv drama - good cop/bad cop. But being a proper bikie, i prefer SOA to even the Sopranos.

You're kidding, no? The SOA team have done a great job with the storyline and even more so with the aesthetics of their show, but the dialogue and characters are very two-dimensional when compared to those other two. Charlie Hunman has come a long way recently I guess, but early on his attempts at sincerity were kind of painful to watch...

What the hell does a Bath have to do with this topic?

keep low Thai Bath , it will boost export and tourism .

Baht is an English word. "Bath" is the Thai word for Baht rendered using the Royal Thai General System of Transcription. At least, so I have always assumed...

Update: Now I'm starting to doubt the first bit... Where the heck does the spelling "baht" come from?

I think Interactive Brokers via Hong Kong will allow it.

http://www.interactivebrokers.com.hk/en/index.php?f=products&p=cfd

In my opinion it is an odd thing to want to do though....

Thanks for the helpful replies, except to Donald (if you think every farang here is stupid enough to trust any random gf, you are wrong)

I am doing this software project as a freelancer with a Thai friend and he got the cheque in its name. He cashed it and give me cash.

My dilemma was not about the cheque but depositing the money in the bank, but it looks for those amounts shouldn't be any problem.

Arcady has sensible advice here about PND90, probably the way to go.

For THB 100k cash I wouldnt be worried about putting that in an account, but of course you do know what your doing is illegal as regards the freelance thing if its not on your WP and if your company finds out there could be grounds for automatic termination from your current job as well...so would tread very carefully If I was you

I'd be kind of surprised if that kind of cash deposit raised too many eyebrows anywhere in the world really. It's only a few thousand dollars. If one were making such a deposit once a month or more often perhaps one should exercise caution, but for a one-off I'd be surprised if you ever heard any more about it. A friend could have payed you back a personal loan or some such...

However, where I'm from the problems would start if your customer is ever audited. Particularly if it turns out they are cheating on their taxes a little (or a lot), but even if they are not.

Seems like the easiest solution would be a bank account in a third country. Have your customer wire your money directly to Hong Kong (or similar). Then you can pull it out through an ATM here, or even just wire it back. The customers books look like they used a sub-contractor from Hong Kong, and nobody will look twice at you - you will be indistinguishable from the thousands of foreignors here who live off offshore savings or passive income.

RIP

2 more victims in the Hub of idiocy!

I like this hub of idiocy.

Not the reason I moved to Asia but one of the reasons I am still here is that it is not as heavily regulated as the west.

To a certain extent I agree with this sentiment. Regulation, even in the name of safety, can go too far. Last time I returned home to Australia I was amazed to see that you can now be ticketed for driving barefoot or wearing flip-flops. (!!)

On the other hand, a competition where local folks are encouraged to construct the kinds of things that can accidentally blow up a car in a nearby parking lot? I don't think it is too unreasonable to say the neighbour's right to safety is paramount in this case.

The average P/E since 1975 is just over 12. That includes several years

of single digits where it wasn't a particularly well known market, so a

high liquidity and risk premium. When things got frothy in the past in

1990's in reached a P/E around 27. I'm more comfortable with a historic

P/E of below 15 and div yield of 3-4%.

It's true that the current earnings and dividend yields are low all around the world compared to their "long-term averages". But it's also true that there are a lot of years with very high inflation and very high safe fixed income yields contributing to those averages. Is an emerging market with an earnings yield of 6% today (vs. 10 year Thai government of roughly 3.4%) better or worse than the same market with a PE of 10 when the 10 year bond rate approaches 7% (2005 peak) or higher*?

* As I suspect it was through the 80s and 90s. Can't be arsed figuring out how to check that now....

Interactive Brokers http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/main.php

are the best i've found for trading the world. I trade mainly American markets from IB and never had a problem with them and they have the best prices as well

trade station is another option

Do yourself a favour and research market cycles. If you invest now your investing at a peak.

Be patient and wait for a major dip

In my humble opinion all American blue chips are well valued at the moment and it's time to look for a selling point, not buy

Check this article out, makes some good common sense points

http://www.globalinvestorradio.com/content/future-dow-index-may-2013

If you are a resident of Thailand and use Interactive Brokers, you are taxed 15% on US dividends instead of the usual 30. Unless it has changed recently as a result of all the shenanigans over there. Not all brokers are set up to allow this.

poor guy , too young to die .... but one more time with a helmet he could have been saved ...... hope many thais will read this article ....and many foreign tourists also.

Let's be honest, very little will change in the next several years. Tourists will come here, leave their brains at the airport, copy what the Thais do, ride without helmets, have 'accidents' and die. This is how it has always been.

It will only change when the police enforce the laws and fine every single bike rider they see for not wearing a helmet.

And we all know that won't happen any time soon.

RIP tourist from Kazakhstan.

But now days even most of The thai's are wearing helmets.

Only the tourists think that this is only required back home and not in Thailand.

And racing at 01:30 on the beach road !!!

I said to my girl the other day while driving through Chiang Mai - "the police crackdown has worked, it looks like we're must be up to 60 or 70% wearing helmets now."

"Look again this evening", she smiled. And she was right. Here they wear them during the day when the cops are out, take them off at night when they are not.

Ah well. Wearing a helmet half the time is better than never...

Summary is:

I went along on Wednesday afternoon this week. Arrived about 2:00. Grabbed a hand-written queue number from the girl handing them out (she was sitting dead center of the big counter in the main room - same place they hand your passport back sometimes). Counter 2 on the right hand side of the room was doing 90 day reports. There are signs to indicate this. It took about 20 minutes for them to call my number, then 5 minutes for the fellow to check out my form and photocopies, and to do a bit of stamping. Once he was done he handed my passport back and I was out of there.

I found the information regarding photocopies and the link to download the form here to be correct:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/557382-90-day-report-procedures/