jfchandler

And while not my personal favorite, pork chops with Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup is well-liked.

Ahh....that brings back memories, Bonobo... That dish was a staple with my parents and grandparents....and so of course I ended up learning to make it back in the U.S., and I actually very much like it....

However, once here, I tried it a few times for my Thai wife, and she had absolutely no interest in it.... even though of course it has lots of cooked rice..... She's more of a beef eater than a pork eater.... but I don't think that would have made any difference...

But it does speak more broadly to the point raised above: depending on their social status and past travel experience, a lot of Thais aren't especially interested in typical American foods.... Or if they are, even if they'll eat something, they won't necessarily go out of their way to choose it.

So I think the OP has broached two entirely separate issues here" 1) what kind of American things to bring or fix for a Thai family (which depends a lot on the particulars of that family). And 2) what kinds of food items that Americans typically use in food and cooking are hard to get here, or particularly overpriced.....

Your question really seemed to focus on the first one. So, I do think some variety of liquor is a good idea... And if your family happened to like wine (and a lot of Thais aren't accustomed to drinking wine), California wines and imported wines in general are tremendously overpriced here... So that would be a good and easy choice... But failing that, the JW suggestion above usually goes over well with Thais.

When I've brought gifts back from the U.S. for Thais in the past, I've often resorted to boxes of Sees candy, which I've never seen available in Thailand (though there are a lot of imported straight chocolates available here such as Lindt and others). But the Sees varieties are different, and I haven't quite found anything similar that's nearly as good here or even very similar. And, particularly if you pick the nuts or chews varieties, the Sees varieties do seem to hold up well to Thai heat.... unlike pure chocolate bars and such that will seriously melt.

While I was writing this, I thought about and asked my wife about the choc chip cookies idea mentioned above...and upon reflection, both consider that a non-starter. For me, I think about the shops I see when we go out to the malls and such, and they are TONs of cake type shops, but almost none selling cookies... When I broached the subject, my wife responded that cookies tend to be drier and harder, whereas the cakes are soft and more moist, which Thais prefer.

Beyond that, there are entire TV threads here on what thing Americans who live in Thailand bring back on their home country travels because they're unavailable or or very overpriced... And indeed, similar to what someone mentioned above, in terms of foodstuffs, on my past trip, it so happened I brought back some 8 oz cannisters of Kraft grated parmesan and romano cheeses (very expensive here) for use as a pastas topping, and some bottles of low-calorie but natural (no high fructose corn syrup or artificial sweeteners) pancake syrup, among some other food stuffs...

But I will second the comment above about zip type freezer storage bags... Regular zip bags can be found around BKK at least in some of the farang oriented places, but the more heavy duty freezer bags I've rarely if ever seen here.

I use Citibank in the US. Even though I keep a substantial amount of money in there and have direct deposits there from my pensions, they cancelled my credit card telling me that I need a US address.

Chase also cancelled my card. Only Bank of America has no problem with my Thai address.

Yes, I could use a family US address but it irritated me to have to use a bogus address.

Thanks for that firsthand report, Gary, and it's a telling one... considering that Citibank and Chase (along with BofA/FIA) are among the U.S.'s largest credit card issuers.....

BTW, in my experience, the regular banking operations operate pretty much separately from their credit card operations..

So I'm not especially surprised that Citibank credit card folks didn't cut you any slack based on your deposits on the banking side. One might expect it to be otherwise... But unfortunately, apparently not.

UPDATE.......................

Contacted numerous numbers in bangkok today (immigration) ...head office etc..and they state that korat is correct...that you still need to season the part and part..( for 3 f...ing months) ...so the police order 777 is a lie....and not one of the four/five officers i spoke to WOULD contact Korat to rectify their mistake...

This is kind of a serious issue being raised by the OP here based on his contact with the BKK Immigration hotline and Immigration locals in Korat...

If his account is correctly recounting what Immigration in BKK and Korat is actually saying, then that's a pretty fundamental change in the rules for the combination income method. Three months seasoning of funds has never been required under the combo income method.... So is Immigration really now saying it is required, contrary to what their own written regs say???

Perhaps TV member Lopburi or one of the other Immigration gurus here can shine some additional light on this...

It's one thing if some local upcountry Immigration officer goes off on a wild hair... It's another when the Immigration Hotline (supposedly reflecting central BKK Immigration) starts backing them up.

But the US credit cards are better to have since they provide standard and effective fraud protection. It's also necessary to find a US card that does not charge a foreign exchange transaction fee.

Capital One, for U.S. folks, is one of the best in terms of having no foreign currency fee credit cards across their entire spectrum of credit cards...

Unfortunately, in terms of this discussion, they're also one of the most picky in terms of only wanting accounts for customers with U.S. addresses.

There's a number of record shops in the hi-fi area of FortuneTown IT at the Rama 9 MRT stop...

What kind of things would you be looking for?

\

I think a lot depends on what country the OP is from and what credit card companies any particular person is dealing with...

I also think while Mac's advice above may reflect his experience, it's not reflective of the entire landscape...

Indeed, there have been numerous reports here on TV over the years of members having their credit cards non renewed, typically when the existing ones expired...because they were then showing/using a foreign (Thailand) address on their account.

Changing to a foreign address also may impact one's ability to open new accounts with a home country card issuer.

I'm not saying every credit card company does that... But no one likewise should be saying that people don't face that risk in using a foreign address on a home country credit card.

I prefer not to take that risk and just keep things simple with a home country address of record...

But if I was considering starting to use a Thailand address on a formerly home country credit card, I'd certainly do some online checking to see what others' experience has been with that particular card company.

FWIW, I've never in years of being a True internet customer -- first DSL, then cable, now both -- had anyone from True suggest I use their proxy server setting on my computer.

None of the techs who've periodically been out to my home, nor anytime when I've been on the phone with them....

Maybe someone who's more techie than me can explain, what exactly would be the purpose from True's end of things, as an ISP, in running its own proxy server?

BTW, since I believe the proxy settings are specific to individual browsers, one way to handle it for those so inclined would be, for example, to set Firefox or Chrome with the True proxy settings, and then IE without any proxy.... And then choose which browser to use depending on the purpose.

That's a different approach, vs. having to go into one's LAN settings in the browser to enable or disable the proxy every time....or using a proxy add-on extension as someone mentioned above.

Guys, I know what a proxy server entry is...and I've used them in the past...

But what I don't know is.... why should we have to set up our browsers with a True proxy address in order to successfully connect, as True cable internet customers, to places like the Social Security web site and the U.S. Consulate website for BKK? But most of the rest of the web seems fine without any proxy.

Particularly when the few same sites seem to be accessible with no problem via True DSL...

It's CRAZY to me to see these articles day after day in "The Nation" and not once, as best I can recall, did any of them ever broach the question or give any explanation, or even put the question to RFD authorities....

How did all these relatively recently built places get there in the first place while you were supposedly overseeing these areas???

BTW, re the elderly woman/local resident complaining above about having lived on her land for decades, I believe the RFD has already said their actions aren't aimed at any landowner or development that was in place PRIOR to the forestry land use restrictions being made law, in 1998 or so, from what I recall reading.

What the new government should do is reform the land titles to allow the locals to develop their business free of harassment and then go ahead with a crackdown in the forest department to make sure that the people who allowed the "big names" to encroach on forest land won't go unpunished. The Forest Department should also be reminded that its role is to protect the wild life, not to interfere with the economical development of the region.

What you're saying above generally makes sense to me... Except there's one hitch I think.

As best as I can decipher these various reports, it seems part of what's going on it is some locals were given land under some land reform scheme with some kind of convenant restriction that the land only could be used for farming.... And then various of those small fish folks turned around and sold or leased or otherwise conveyed the land to bigger fish, who then built homes and "resorts" and other such stuff on land that was supposed to reserved for farming.... And it sounds like some of that gifted land reform farm land was within the parks area....but now has developments on it.

That's not exactly in keeping with what the original intent of the land transfers was to the local small fishes.... Having sole proprietor local farming operations in or near national parkland is one thing. Someone building multi million baht houses or tourist resorts is quite a bit off from that...

We can debate whether the original restrictions on the land transfers should or should not have contained those restrictions. But the fact is they did.... And allowing the locals to simply ignore the terms of those agreements because they think they can make a bigger profit by selling out, instead of farming, isn't too kosher.

Well, as I PM'd Pib separately, I did a side by side test of this tonight...since I have both a True DSL and separate True cable internet connection in my home.

First tried the appointments page using True cable with both Firefox 5 and IE 9, and it wouldn't even connect to the page...

Then switched on the same computer to instead using my True DSL service, and the consulate web page loaded perfectly fine the first time, not more than a minute after I had failed using the True cable connection... about 1 am Thurs...

Then to double check, I went back a moment later and tried my True cable connection still on the same computer, and once again the consulate appointments web page would not load...

Something screwball's going on there...at least as relates to its interaction with True cable connections.

I'm sure there is a fascinating story behind what's going on with all these forest encroachment cases of late around Korat... Unfortunately, whatever the real story is, it's certainly not being reported here and in the Thai media...

The RFD "discovered" these homes and resorts??? Really??? From the various photos, some were under construction, but a lot were already completed and had apparently been in use and occupied for some time...

So where was the RFD during the proposal stage and construction stage for all these places? How about some explanation of that?

And how did the local land use officials grant construction permits for homes and resorts on supposedly protected national forest land? How about some explanation of that?

And if, apparently as is the case, this same kind of thing has been going on for years, why only now is there a ruckus being created over it around Korat.... Probably could find exactly the same kind of things going on throughout the country...

Which makes one wonder.... why now... why there?

I'm sure there's an intriguing answer to all this.... Unfortunate that we're not likely to hear it.

Why is it that pretty much every time the police make one of these porn DVDs or fake ED drug busts in lower Suk, many of street vendors they collar are said to be from Myanmar???

Do they have work permits? Formed Thai companies with 51% Thai ownership? Here on B business visas? Doing their 90 day reports?

I'm kinda surprised to NOT hear the police say... there's no law in Thailand against selling fake Viagra.... But we're busting them for working without a valid work permit... same as they seem to always do with the scamster farangs who get popped.

I just hope the local BIB or the BMA flatfoots came by to collect their weekly dosh from the vendors before they got hauled away.. Can't miss those payments, you know...

Two things here:

1. whatever happened to the original news report on this case and its account of, I thought, a dozen or so Thai men being the attackers? And this latest report only references these two guys...not any larger group... So what gives with that?

2.

“Tommy was in the group we arrested [in February], but we didn’t catch Johan. We charged them for working without permits, but nothing else because there are no laws against cheating people through phone calls like they did,” Maj Nackaphan said.

The gang has been based in Pattaya for years, selling products via their website, but many “customers” received either low-quality items or nothing at all, he added.

The police are saying Thailland has no criminal law against fraud? Really????

Well, if true, I guess it kind of makes sense... If there was, pretty much the whole country, farangs included, would be in jail now...

It's definitely a government thing, as per the web site redirects to the MICT web site...

Not sure if the govt's doing it centrally, or directing the various ISPs to do so...

It's an outgrowth of the Red protests....as stated above... They were doing the same with Ustream for awhile...

Unfortunately, once something like that gets put in place, trying to get it subsequently removed is problematic...

And the silly part is... those sites aren't Thai sites and 99% of their content has absolutely nothing to do with Thailand... But the govt still is interfering with the whole site.

I haven't checked the Siam Center location lately,,, but the ATM in the basement of Siam Paragon is still there as usual.

Any idea, Jim, why your brand of B&L isn't sold in the USA...

I wear a pair of hard lens by a different manufacturer from the U.S. that aren't available here... I had one Thai eye doctor in BKK, a rare one who deals in hard lenses, quote me about $1,000 to buy and import from the U.S. I politely said NO THANKS!!!

SofLens59 Contact Lenses

Please Note: SofLens59 contact lenses are not sold in the USA.

Bausch + Lomb SofLens59 contact lenses deliver clear vision with the everyday comfort you have been looking for.

SofLens59 lenses are made from a protein resistant material that combines excellent performance, comfort and visual acuity.

As is typical in these kinds of media report from the Thai police, no mention of exactly who the three people they arrested were or what their connection was to the two businesses....

Also no indication that the two businesses in question had/have been closed.... Give it a week or two, and I'd lay odds, you'd find both of those places back in operation more or less the same as before.... just different faces among their "staff."

Nearly 60 girls/women in one "karaoke bar" in a little nothing border city??? No way the local police wouldn't have known exactly what was going on there and who was being offered for sale.

Hope you'll be saying same thing, should the Thai police do the same with an absolutely innocent member of your family.... Perfectly acceptable...of course.... Give them a medal....

Sounds like an acceptable kill to me. In any war there will always be some innocent people killed, it's just the way it goes. Mai pen rai.

The link above to the AIS web page for their 3G plans seems to be broken...

Here's a working link for their 3G packages page, all in Thai, but you can get the idea...

http://www.ais.co.th/mobileinternet/3g/package/

Seemingly no punishment at all...

Except, the article doesn't mention what if anything happens to their status as police officers, given they now each have a criminal conviction on their records....

Promotions for each, perhaps?

To put it simply (I hope) there are several different 3G radio frequencies/services being deployed in Thailand, each by different companies like True, AIS, DTAC etc...

Whether your mobile is capable of working with any of them for 3G data service depends on whether your phone is capable of receiving the 3G band being offered/used by any particular mobile internet provider... Some mobile handsets can receive just one 3G band, others 2, 3 or all five bands.... All depends on your particular model of phone...

Right now, the Thai carriers and their 3G frequencies break down as follows:

True: 850 Mhz.

AIS: 900 Mhz

TOT/I-Mobile 2100 Mhz

DTAC: 850 Mhz

So check your HTC phone as to which 3G bands it is capable of operating on.

Location in Thailand also is a factor, however. None of those carriers have nationwide 3G available as yet.... True probably has the broadest coverage working right now BKK and several other larger cities.... AIS has several cities but is only just starting in Bangkok. TOT/I-Mobile are only in BKK right now and nowhere else for 3G... And DTAC is trying, but is being stymied to put up much of anything right now.

The OP needs to recognize the distinction between "notebooks" and "netbooks," which sound similar but really are two different classes of portable computer...

For purposes of the Thai lady, a smaller netbook probably would be fine, and indeed those can be had new in Thailand with name brands for 8000 to 9000 and up... Fine for basic web surfing and Skyping, in most cases...

It's more traditional, usually larger notebooks that probably have general starting prices around 15,000 baht....

The difference being, notebooks generally are somewhat larger and heavier, typically have more memory and a faster processor, usually a larger keyboard and almost always a larger and better resolution display.... Also better suited toward running multiple programs together because of more memory and faster processor.

And of course, another factor in the pricing of either is whether the unit comes with a real licensed version of Windows, or comes with no OS, or comes with some pirated version....

T Mobile has 4G. AT&T bought T Mobile to access their 4G network. But of course my house is in California, near Silicon Valley and I'm sure the network there is way faster than anything in Thailand...

Actually, I believe AT&T has reached an agreement with T-Mobile to buy T-Mobile, but the deal hasn't been consummated as yet and/or passed regulatory approval.

So for right now, to the best of my knowledge, T-Mobile and AT&T continue to operate as entirely separate companies and networks... until and unless the sale is finalized.

I'm not going to engage on the political debate on this subject...

But if anyone actually completed or updated their info on the STEP site, at the end, you'd see the following advisory notice:

PURPOSE: To notify U.S. citizens in the event of a disaster, emergency or other crisis, and for evacuation coordination, the information solicited on this form may be made available as a routine use to appropriate agencies whether federal, state, local, or foreign, to assist the Department in the evacuation or provision of emergency service to U.S. citizens, or for law enforcement purposes. The information is also made available to private U.S. citizens, known as wardens, designated by U.S. embassies to assist in communicating with the American community in an emergency.