jfchandler

I have BofA accounts in the USA. But you cannot have an account with the Bank of America branch in Bangkok. It is only a commercial banking office, and doesn't give you any ability to move money between Thailand and the USA.

The BKK Bank operation in New York in a better option in that they do have their own ACH address. Thus, you can ACH money from any U.S. bank account that allows ACH transfers to the BKK Bank ACH number, using your Thailand BKK Bank account number. The New York branch then automatically will forward it onward to the corresponding BKK Bank account in Thailand. That works for moving money from the USA to Thailand.

As to moving money from Thailand to the USA, BKK Bank has an international remittances procedure you can sign up for. But it is more limited, and mostly aimed at providing for school expenses in the USA or financial support for family members, which may be applicable to the OP's situation.

About shoe laces, it really makes me wonder....

I have a ton of men's shoes (dress, casual and sports shoes) from the U.S. that all are the lace varieties...

But when I think about the Thai people I know and see here, they almost never seem to wear lace shoes.... It's always the slip-on/slip off varieties and sandals, etc etc.. And of course women tend to wear those styles anyway, as opposed to men.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but could that be the likely reason shoe laces are hard to come by here... that Thai people aren't big on wearing laced shoes???

Thanks for the suggestion and advice. I don't have a grinder at home, at present, not to say I can't get one.

Silly me, though, looking for actual jars or tins of ground black pepper in the same places where I find ground white pepper and various kinds of salts... They may be there, but in those places, I've never noticed bags of whole black peppercorns. But I'll take a look again.

For the record though, I wasn't blaming Thailand for anything... including the apparent lack of ground black pepper. You ought to read what you're responding to...a bit more clearly.

But I'll add one thing I haven't found here... decent ground black pepper...

Buy a grinder and buy the bags of peppercorns. They are everywhere. Tesco's, Carrefour, Tops etc, etc. Never had a problem finding them. Cheap as heck, too.

Unless I am missing something*

(*it has been known to happen)

Excellent point - and with a reasonable grinder, you can even adjust the coarseness

Of course, that would mean you are in control of the quality of the grind and you wouldn't be able to blame Thailand for not having the right product

Sorry to sound like a Villa ad here...but...it is what it is...when it comes to farang food in Thailand...

I buy locally produced/no brand name jars of sliced sweet dill pickles at Villa for 55 baht a piece. They're typically located near the Mexican food products above the frozen food aisle.

Those compare to the jars of the commercial brand from the U.S., Vlasic I believe, which they have in spears...not slices, priced at an amazing about 350 baht for a large sized jar...

Take your pick... The local slices work just fine for my home hamburgers.

Chili - chili and beans type. Smokehouse, etc. with french fries and hot dogs and cheese.

Bagels

English muffins.

Villa Markets typically stock either Dennison's or Hormel's canned chili and beans, pretty pricey usually. They also stock several varieties of an U.S. organic brand, Healthy Valley, and sometimes carry another organic brand called Amy's.

Apart from the frozen variety, they're also stocking a decent, locally produced brand of fresh English muffins in their bread sections.

I sometimes also see fresh locally produced bagels at the various Villa outlets. The local Au Bon Pain shops have their own locally produced variety...which some folks don't consider real bagels.

Folks, what we need here are a few more ANSWERS on where to find things....

But I'll add one thing I haven't found here... decent ground black pepper...

Some of the markets seems to carry McCormick's brand Worcestershire flavor ground black pepper. Which is OK, but I'm not always wanting the Worcestershire flavor in my pepper.... How about just the regular pepper flavored pepper??

(And no... not the Thai style white ground pepper that's omnipresent...)

Quality hardware things. Plastic things that aren't rejects from China & that break or decompose years before they should. & good American style BBQ sauce - Not the Kraft or A1 sauce

Talk to owner Mark at BBQ Sandwich King in Nonthaburi... I'm sure he can provide whatever you need. Last time I was there, he was even willing to custom make sauce flavors....

chick peas for making humus.

Tahini.

Bilbao sausages.

In BKK, Toybits, those things are pretty easy. For sure, Villa markets carry cans of chick peas (in the canned beans/vegetables section), and I often see them stocking dried bags of them as well (in the grains section).

With the abundance of Middle Eastern restaurants around, surely tahini is available also. I know I've seen it in various of the farang oriented markets. Might even be able to buy in directly from some restaurants.

Can't speak to bilbao sausages, however, whatever those are!!!!

The posting above that includes the account by a supposed Thai journalist strikes me as disingenuous...

I worked as a professional newspaper reporter in the U.S. for more than 15 years, including a long stint at the Los Angeles Times.

While it's certainly the case that the details and accounts involved in news stories sometimes can be unclear or conflicting for reporters and the public, as a journalist, I never would have written or asked to be published any kind of diatribe like the one posted above.

I have no personal knowledge or involvement in the underlying story here. But if the supposed Thai journalist is really such, then he or she ought to be covering the story for his/her publication, and let the publication's news coverage speak for itself.

I took my (as yet non-chubby) Thai GF along for the first time on my nightly hour-long exercise walk at dusk the other day... She was a trooper and kept up admirably. Normally she's working at that time, but on this day was off early.

I suspect, however, that exercise walking is not her favorite thing. But in the course of our jaunt, she mentioned that she really likes swimming because she can do that and not get hot/sweaty here in BKK.... BINGO!!!

I do think the OP is being a bit of an elitist here, speaking as someone who lives in the area in question...

As in....

While I don't frequent their services, I can attest from personal observation that there are quite a few quite lovely young women to be found around Soi Cowboy, particularly IMHO, inside Baccarat and a few others there. But not sure if the OP considers that "lower Sukhumvit"

"disgusting ladyboys"???? Being a bit judgmental here, aren't we??? While not my cup of tea, I nonetheless find it quite interesting to live in a country (and a neighborhood) where even the Thai women often think that the local ladyboys are more beautiful than they are.... Plastic surgery reaching amazing new heights.... But calling folks of a different sexual orientation "disgusting"???

And ohh... perish the thought, a place where people are trying to sell you things on the street as you're walking? You mean, like the famous Chatuchak Market? Or any of the night markets spread all over Bangkok and Thailand? But in reality, you can apply that same setting to virtually any tourist area around Thailand for sure... Pattaya... Phuket.... and on and on... Where there are tourists, there are sellers.

As for "desperation", indeed, these are hard times with the economy for many farang and Thai folks also, maybe even headed toward getting harder ahead still. Given the way things have played out in recent months, that's probably a description that could be applied to pretty much anyone working within or depending upon Thailand's beleaguered tourism industry.

I've lived here awhile now... I don't much frequent bars or the ladies who work in them. But nonetheless, I think it's an entertaining, interesting, easygoing urban place to live. Only been grabbed on the street once by a hooker, and she was drunk and it was raining hard that night. Never been grabbed or accosted by a street seller. And the guy with the nudie DVD brochure gave up on me the fourth or fifth time I walked by and waved him off. After that, never even asked again....

Interestingly, the link above to the Phuket Wan news report about the arrest of the suspects in the murder of the Canadian has a second related article there on their web site...

The Phuket police commander is saying the BKK professional hit man hired in the Canadian's case supposedly has confessed to being hired by a Thai to do another killing of a different (second) expat in Phuket after he had finished the first one (the second hit now having been averted). There's an entire separate article on that here.

Re the encounter/observation above, it's called MARKETING!!!

Reporters don't belong in jail for doing their jobs, either well or even poorly (at times).

If (and just saying only IF here) there was something inaccurate or defamatory about the original report, let the aggrieved party sue...

Alleged libel should not be a criminal offense fought out in jails. It should be a civil one fought out in courts.

I had the opposite kind of experience when at the Landmark for breakfast recently... See review here....

The one downside with the USPS Global Priority pouch, as mentioned above, is that it's NOT trackable... It's a good price, and convenient for sending small items or paper mail. Never had any problem with Customs about it, and never had any of those envelopes opened.

But one Christmas ago, I had a regular package of forwarded mail shipped that way, and it took two months to arrive in BKK from the USA... I thought it was been lost, so went checking about tracking and found there was none. Then it showed up here in late February...

These days, use similar but more expensive mailings from Fed Ex or DHL, as they are trackable. USPS also has a more expensive international packages mailing program that is trackable, but it's not nearly as good a price.

dont fix your phone, fix your gf. i call whoever i want and get called by whoever. but i also tell my gf i date other girls. she accepts that im a guy and have needs.

I'm assuming she is a Thai woman... So...where do we get to the part where she takes a knife and cuts off your balls???

See my post above about rival GFs.....

MC2, that approach doesn't do anything to protect the privacy of your phone's address book....

And I'm not sure, depending on how it's implemented, if it would prevent those blocked numbers that might be calling from nonetheless showing up in your phone's log of missed calls...

I had a univ. student GF once who took this a step beyond... Without my knowledge, maybe when I was showering or something one day, she got into my mobile phone, and somehow managed to find the name and number of a rival. Later, when she was away from me, she ended up calling the rival lady (someone she didn't know at all) and screaming at her over the phone. That led to the other lady saying "adios" to me... and me saying "adios" to the univ. student. Ever since then, I never leave my mobile phone alone/unguarded.

Hmm... when Midori, her friend and I arrived about 7:15, there were probably already about 10 people sitting around the table...to which we added another 3... So give or take a dozen people within the first half hour.

Presumably, each of us had one drink on the tab... My JD and Coke came to 250 at the 2 for 1 special rate. Midori and her friend had sodas... If you multiply that out times a dozen or so people, you're getting into the 3000 baht neighborhood, I think.

I made the mistake of having the 99THB breakfast at MM's. The "soda bread" was a single piece of white toast. The sausages were foul-tasting, and no bigger than the tips of my fingers. Perhaps I was eating the tips of someone's fingers - the sausages were horrible. The bacon was nearly raw. The meal was served on a plate covered with grease. Absolute cr@p.

Since I was the one who posted about it based on their advertisement, but hadn't tried it myself yet, I felt compelled based on the comment above to try the 99 baht breakfast special on offer now at Molly Malone's pub on Soi Convent in Silom. And, contrary to the experience above, I had a very nice, satisfying, perfectly prepared breakfast there at a great price. No complaints whatsoever.

As the photo above attests, they served up a very good portion of eggs, which I ordered and received scrambled. One normal size sausage link, (unless one has enormously long finger tips), and two strips of bacon hiding under the fried hash browns patty. One slice of white bread toast (not sure if it was "soda" bread or not) and butter. And a large pot of boiling hot tea. Everything was well-cooked and there wasn't a hint of any grease on my plate, except for a bit that came off the bacon. Prompt and pleasant service. Total bill with tax.... 106 baht.

Certainly would order it again, any time I'm hungry for breakfast in the Silom area...

I've been around Thailand for about 5 years now, including having dined and drank at Spasso in past years, and I don't ever recall seeing an "E-tax" added onto my check as a separate item.

Of course, the 10% service charge is optional based on the wishes of the business. Has nothing to do with any government tax or regulation. So some do...and some don't...

I am not sure of the cost as I was the birthday boy, but for 5 people, and one person had the all-you-can-drink wine (for 595 baht), I overheard the total bill being 9,000+ baht.

I have a couple, friends, who are big wine drinkers... How's that special on wine work there??? You only can choose one variety, or you can choose among a selection they offer... or ???

And, is that only in connection with the buffet, or you can do the wine special solo???

You got it a bit confused, Zorro...

At Midori's shop, your meat is air cured... At Lolitas, your meat is washed and blown....