PlanetMan

I'm trying to improve my Thai language skills. Especially my reading and writing. I thought that a LINE Group might be a good way to casually and continuously engage. Has anyone started LINE Group for this? Or perhaps can suggest an alternative to achieve the same objectives.

The objectives I have in mind are these:

Place to read and write simple, short Thai phrases written in Thai script.

Nearby English translations

Get feedback on common Thai usage.

Arrange the occasional coffee, beer or other excuse to meet.

I'm not certain LINE would work, or even if these are reasonable objectives. But I hope the Thai Visa Firehose will have some ideas.

Thanks

Water level in Raminthra Soi 23 down another couple cm overnight. Some cars my find it passable. Boats still getting through, but our boat taxi yesterday bumped along the road in several places. So the era of boat taxis nears an end.

Yesterday maid visited MIL's house near Wat Phrasee, at Phaholyothin/Raminthra Wong wian. Still flooded, the Phaholyothin tunnel still full of water. She didn't say how much water was in the street.

I'm returning to Hawaii tomorrow. Many thanks to all and TVC for being an excellent source of news.

Best to all. My work here is done!

Raminthra Soi 23 still has about 35 - 40cm water its entire route. Boats still servicing passengers. Large trucks geting through, though day by day smaller and smaller trucks can pass. Still too deep for cars.

Raminthra Soi 23 at Phaholyothin Soi 48 (aka "Soi Saiyut" on some maps) water remains around 30cm in front of my house. It's down 25cm from the crest, and drops a bit everyday.

Raminthra itself still trucks only both directions from around km4 west. I've not been further west than km2, which is soi 19. Large trucks can pass. East-bound lanes still has water much deeper than west-bound.

Foodland at Raminthra Soi 37 still closed.

Friend lives in Soi 19, Ram Intra and he has to take the army truck and boat to get to his home deep in the soi

GM Link How deep are they? That is ... I mean ... how deep into Soi 19?

Normally a to minute drive where the soi really gets narrow

Returned home on Raminthra Soi 23 from Chiang Mai yesterday evening. Raminthra itself still impassable to cars and taxis Lak Si-bound beginning 100m from Foodland in the direction of Fashion Island. Trucks are still going through. Boats are still providing taxi service into Sois 19-23, 60 Baht/person one way. Water level in Soi 23 has dropped 10-12cm since we left for Chiang Mai Thursday, so depth is 35-45cm. If it drops much further it may become too shallow for the boats. There could be a water depth that is too deep for most cars but too shallow for boats. That would suck, so let's hope not.

Wife saw last night on local TV news that vandalism to the BBB near Don Muang might cause the water in this area to rise again. She said BBB but I'm not sure if the BBB actually extends to the Don Muang area. The news piece might simply have referred to some other barrier.

Raminthra Soi 23 update. Water level seems to have peaked Sunday. Down about 5cm since then.

Quite the commercial boat taxi service has sprung up, centered at Soi 19. Totally analogous to the motorcycle service on dry land. 60 baht per person. Gotta admire the resilience of that Thai entrepreneurial spirit! :jap:

I know tollways are currently free, but can motorcycles go onto tollways at the moment?

Thanks

I was thinking the same thing last week, or will we have to continue to use flooded pothole riddled road to get to our destinations??

Not all tollways are free. on-ramp at Raminthra was free yesterday, but interchange to Rama 9 tollway and interchange headed to din daeng are collecting tolls. We were driving from Raminthra to Ploenchit and back. I recall seeing no motorcycles on the tollways during the trip.

Does anybody know about flood at Raminthra Road? Is it flooded already everywhere? Is Fashon Island still dry?

Raminthra towards Lak Si closed to taxis and cars around soi 37. Trucks and some motorcycles still going through. Min Buri-bound is more flooded. Wong wian tunnell at Phaholyothin completely flooded, 60-80cm on the surface. Only large trucks are passing all the way to soi 37. Foodland closed, I couldn't tell if Big C open, but looks flooded.

I heard late last week conflicting reports Fasion Island completely closed or only ground floor closed. Call your retailer to be sure.

The median is preventing more water from heading south across Raminthra. But at the u-turn breaks there is a huge current going that way.

Choi dee

Raminthra Soi 23 update as of Noon Thursday.

I came from the east where there was a police barrier and signs preventing cars and small trucks from passing. Raminthra at Soi 23 passable in either direction only by large trucks and boats. The center median was dry yesterday at noon but the wakes of large vehicles almost completely swamped it. The sidewalk was knee deep or a bit higher.

Following Soi 23 the water is mid-thigh for most of the soi's length, with a couple stretches where it is waste deep. Only the very largest commercial trucks were even tried with one exception. One 4WD with a snorkle drove by. I'll bet that snorkel made the drive feel pretty smug; I sure would.

Soi 23 T-bones into Paholyothin 48, where the water is a bit more than knee-deep, and continues so moving east. I live where soi 48 doglegs to the left. knee+ deep.

Overnight the level rose only 2 or 3 cms. I hope the water has almost peaked. The low point of our home is still 30cm above the water, so when they aren't typing these fingers are crossed.

I just want to thank Thai Visa and everyone for all the great information. I've learned more about the flooding here than from all other sources combined.

I'm leaving Honolulu tomorrow expecting to arrive in Bangkok late Wednesday. Will overnight at an airport hotel before attempting to navigate my way to Raminthra Soi 23 and thence to home. The wife tells me soi 23 is a cvanal these days, 60cm deep in places. Yikes! But can't let her man the barricades all by self, now, can I?

Best to all!

Update, Ramintra Soi 19 and 21 are half a metre now. Looks like its climbing pretty fast.

I wish to update. Ram Intra Soi 19 (20cm), Soi 21 (15cm) and Soi 5 (10cm) is now flooded. My security is now pumping water out of my moo baan Patra's drains, inside moo baan is still dry.

If you go along Ram Inthra towards Minburi, can you have check the odd soi side around KM.8?

Our neighbor said that the fields there have some water. After that, maybe go up Khu Bon Rd?

Live in Soi 5 Ramintra. Ramintra main road is high and dry. But water had creeped in at Soi 19 now's about 10cm or less. Expect to rise further but not much and fast.

Thanks joetys. I live on soi 23 but work in US right now. Any update this morning on water level? Many thanks!

Hang on, we have sent a copy of "MySQL for Dummies" to Dr Pat Pong. He will revert asap.

He'll no doubt shelve it next to PHP for Dummies

Based on the statistics I posted 2 days ago, I checked the number of posts at 7:51am this morning and it was 982,062.

That's 3,135 posts in 2 days, or 1567.5 posts per day.

Projecting this number forward as a daily post count, one could expect the millionth post to occur sometime during the evening on the 28th or early morning of the 29th of this month.

But that projection assumes a lot and is based only on the last 2 days worth of posts.

Each thread in each of the 50 or so rooms has it's own tally. Is there any way to know which post will actually be the one millionth post?

If punters are being encouraged to wager on the time of the millionth post them some consideration should be given to day-of-week and time-of-day variability in the rate of posts. I'm guessing it will be posted sometime Tuesday morning in Bangkok.

To determine the millionth post, would it be a simple SQL query run after the count exceeded 1 million?

Regardless of how is is done, the impressive thing is that it has been done at all. Look around, there are many forum sites on the Web; this level of popularity is uncommon. Kudos to the TVC team; what they've done is bloody difficult!

I utterly failed to anticipate that my message could possibly cause any offense. But my sincere good wishes and thanks to the folks at TVC remain. Best of luck towards your continuing success!

Thanks for providing this wonderful resource. Looks like you've a hit on your hands.

It is fairly common knowledge that Thailand has but a single connection to the global internet: expats in Thailand learn that everytime "the Internet gores down". So the plotters can easily shut off outside Internet access.

But what of Internet access *within* Thailand? How long can this coup last when the email networks kick in and people begin organizing opposition to this extra-democratic regime change?

As unpopular as Toxin was/is, I should expect every right-thinking Thai patriot to oppose such a blatant power grab. Wasn't that era passed and far behind us?

It is fairly common knowledge that Thailand has but a single connection to the global internet: expats in Thailand learn that everytime "the Internet gores down". So the plotters can easily shut off outside Internet access.

But what of Internet access *within* Thailand? How long can this coup last when the email networks kick in and people begin organizing opposition to this extra-democratic regime change?

As unpopular as Toxin was/is, I should expect every right-thinking Thai patriot to oppose such a blatant power grab. Wasn't that era passed and far behind us?

Thunderbird stores your user data in this location for Windows XP:

Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Mozilla Thunderbird

On Win XP the actual inbox, any subfolders and all messages you previously had will be in this directory:

Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\<random string>\Mail\<incoming mail servername for account>

On Win98 try here:

Windows\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\default\<random string>\Mail\<incoming mail servername for account>

My versions of Thunderbird don't add "mozilla" to the "Thunderbird" directory name, but don't be confused if it is present. The "default" directory is only present on my Win 98.

The <random string> isa sequence of letters and numbers, and might have an extension like ".slt" or ".default", depending on the release of Thunderbird you use. Release 1.0 is now available, and recommended.

The <incoming mail servername for account> may look something like "pop.loxinfo.co.th" or similar.

Cheers

There is hope on the horizon though. Recent announcements say that the new Thai independent telecoms regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), will finally elect someone to head up the organisation. The 'name in the frame' is retired Army General Chuchart Promprasit, who looks like being the the front runner to become chairman ahead of its seven members being submitted for endorsement to His Majesty the King.

The first job of the new NTC must be to dessimate CAT's stranglehold on international communications and give everyone in Thailand a chance to get on-line properly with gigabit (or even terabit) peering pipes rather than pieces of megabit wet string.

We all would do well to remember that the richest man in Thailand made his billions in the Telecoms industry. As such, we should not expect him to strangle the goose that laid his golden eggs. If he is re-elected we will likely describe progress in Thai Telecoms liberalization using words like "glacial" and "tectonic". Proof of this can be seen in the obscene amount of time it has taken to seat any NTC at all.

Cheers

I was reading something today about a guy who married his Japanese fiance and was given a passport immediately......is that true?

Maybe its about time for same in LOS  

Only if your resume includes success as a world class chess Grand Master. Sticking your finger in the eye of the World's remaining superpower doesn't hurt, either.

Dear Members.

I'm going to build a house in Bangkok and wonder if anyone out there can recommend a good construction firm... I guess many of you have already build your house and have some experience using a Thai const. company. If anyone know a company which are reliable, honest, does a quite good job and have at least minimum required equipment i would be very grateful for the information...Thank you!

I have used "Zenith Engineering" for several fixups on my house in Bangkhen (near Raminthra.) Khun No is the Managing Director. He is honest and decent, English is excellent. Our first experience whith Zenith was ewhen they repaired our roof after 2 previous Thai contractors happily took money for really shoddy and late (read: "typical Thai") work. Apologies for dissing all Thais, but we have had 6 separate contractors work for us over the years and this was the first lot what did good work and to treat us decently.

Full disclosure: I am in no related to Khun No, nor have I any financial interest in him or his business. I'm just a happy customer.

His company did good work for a good price, on time, and provided good support afterwards. I was happy to pay more than he asked, after several bad experiences with other Thai contractors.

I continue to contact him anytime I need work done around the house. Not sure his company undertakes complete home construction, but if they do, I'll use them when I build my next house. Wish I knew them when we built our present house. Whether or not Zenith would undertake a complete house construction it would be worthwhile to have Khun No work with your architect to assure that the house you ultimately receive conforms to your expectations.

Khun No (family name "Kraiwnit", given name "Panno")

Managing Director, Zenith Engineering

M: 01/928 2992

O: 02/939 9993, press number 2 (must be PCT phone)

I would appreciate if you use my name when you contact him. Kindly report back to the forum (or PM me) with your results.

Good luck,

Russell and P'A (Thai wife)

Now is the time to set up an integrated transport policy, one ticket for bus, skytrain and underground,  like Singapore

Like Singapore, Hongkong and most other modern, decently governed countries.

suicide???

took me a minute or two, but I got it.

Sowicide? Mad Sow disease?? PSE (Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy)??? Sick to death of pork barrel politics? Austin Sowers wanted his "baby back, baby back, baby back....ribs?" The Curious Incident of the Hog in the Night? ...

That's too bad. There must be something unique about VoIP ports. They have a service that gets around port 25 (for mail servers) getting blocked by your ISP. I thought VoIP would be similar. You can search Google for other sites like no-ip that might be willing and able to do what you need.

CAT is the Thai government monopoly which provides all of us living in Thailand with incredibly high prices for international telephone calls and Internet Access (and the odd "Internet is offline" outage.)

VoIP allows telephone users to avoid high international telephone charges of the government monopoly, in essence providing folks like us a competing choice. Hard to imagine CAT (or any monopoly) would be very helpful in making this happen.

TIT

Cheers

Maybe a bit off-topic. But I would love to know why UBC et all blank the commercials aired on cable broadcasts originating from outside LOS. Anyone have the real reason? I assume there is some Thai law, so I would also be interested to what was the rationale for such a law.

Having lived here some years, I know enough to ask "for whom was said law written to help?"

Cheers

Can anyone give me a rundown (value, quality of instruction, etc) on thai language schools in central Bangkok?

I'll be arriving in August and would like to spend a few weeks doing some sort of intensive language course.

I've read some not-so-great things about Thai teachers, but would appreciate hearing from somebody with firsthand experience.

Cheers

I attended Union Language School (ULS) on Surawongse Road in Bangkok for several months and found it excellent value at ~THB 6,000/month. 4 hours/day (0800-1200) is fairly intense, so be prepared for a commitment. Classes last for 4 weeks, and are ordered by difficulty. Class size is 10-20 for the early courses, fewer as the courses advance. When you enroll ULS will test your current Thai skills to place you in what they believe the proper course. 1st 2 months speaking only, though they also give you grounding in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA, very helpful when one does not know Thai writing) as a teaching aid. Month 3 and 4 they teach the Thai alphabet and reading; month 5 and 6 are practice, usually reading short stories or articles. The formal course ends after 6 months, and they offer several additional courses of 4 weeks each: newspaper reading, bible study (ULS is sponsored by Bangkok Christian College; many students are foreign missionaries to Thailand), social problems, and preparation for the government Thai language certification test.

The teaching method was OK with me (I'm American) and the effort helped my Thai skills tremendously. It took me a few weeks to adjust to the teaching method but after that it was OK. Any troubles I have with Thai are my fault and shouldn't reflect badly on the instruction. ULS 02/233 4482.

Whilst I was studying at ULS last year, several of the ULS teachers whom many students (self included) considered to be among the best left to form a competing school, Thai Language Academy (TLA, on Silom Road 02 631 2712). I never attended TLA, as I had almost completed the entire 6 month program when it was formed. I have heard only positive reviews of TLA, and will contact them first when I resume studying. I believe the curriculum, method and fees are about the same as ULS.

Both schools are near Bangkok Christian Hospital, a short walk from Sala Daeng BTS station.

Good luck,

Cheers