photojourn

DDM has always been inconsistent... they come and go- I used to hang out there a lot about 6 years ago. At least they haven't completely died. It's my favorite little club too, I'm sorry I didn't get to go by before they slowed again this time.

It was FFfun while it lasted. I'll talk to the DJs this week and find out what happened.

Onwards and upwards. They'll be back somewhere with the same formulae I'm sure

I recently transferred the registration of a motorbike from another foreigner into my name at On Nut transportation office.

I had all the necessary government papers filled out as well as (1) a copy of the other foreigners passport, arrival stamp, departure card, (2) a letter from an office I do some work for confirming my address and stating that a work permit had been applied for, (3) copies of my passport and visa, departure card, etc., and (4) a rental bill for the past month.

They weren't interested in any of the passport pages apart from those with the current visa and stamps.

See what happens next year when I go to renew next year though

The whole embassy letter thing is a load of (expensive) crap and a nice revenue earner for providing a certified letter that is often backed by nothing other than the verbal or written submission of the person requesting it.

The best bet is to scan the original and churn out copies using any reasonable quality inkjet printer and submit those. The ones I submitted were accepted without question of being originals and if placed side by side with the original are almost identical anyway.

Sadly it looks like the hedonistic Saturday parties at DDM are over.

Went there last night and nothing.

Too bad, it was good music, nice people, realistically priced drinks, and wild party nights with some good local DJs.

Thanks a bunch for the info. A friend recently went to "Asavante" on Thong lo and walked out 35,000b lighter for not much done.

For the benefit of those who have been PMing me here is a photo of the Pratunam Dental Clinic.

No limo service, no fancy waiting rooms, but thousands of baht cheaper for the same work than the rip-off "super clinics".

Anyone who says that you need $A4,000 (Bt92,000) a month to live in Thailand is spending way to much time propping up bars and starring at bikini clad bimbos. As for Bt350,000 ($A14,000) a month to live luxuriously in Bangkok, the question would need to be asked; why would you want to spend that much to live in Bangkok when there are much better places to be for that much money?

For a $A1,000/month you will be able to live modestly. There is no shortage of apartments around Sukhumvit for Bt6-8,000/month and less expensive than this further away from the centre. Utilities will cost you less than Bt2,000/mth depending on your a/c use.

If you chose to live in a provincial location (excluding places like Phuket, Samui, etc) you could get by on a lot less.

You also need to budget in your visa costs.

It's fairly do-able, but remember you don't have medicare coverage here like back home.

Despite what plenty of people on here think though, ordinary Thai doctors, public hospitals and standard dentists who predominantly treat Thais provide good levels of service should you need them.

But as OriginalPoster suggested, better if you visit for a while first before deciding to abandon Kevin 747 for the land of sex, suicides and slime.

After seeing a number of secondhand pro film cameras on sale for fairly high prices at MBK I'm curious as to how many of use are still shooting film or own film cameras?

Just had this done at Pratunam Dental clinic 22/7 Ratchaprarop Rd in Ratchatawee.

About one kilometer past Indra Regent Plazza and on the same side, directly uunder a pedestrian walk-over. Fantastic local dentist and totally painless RCT on a pre-molar = two canals. Cost Bt2,000, Pin cost Bt1,500, ceramic crown Bt3,800.

Two visits for the RCT, one for the setting the pin and taking the impression and one for fitting the crown.

Fantastic. Forget the "super clinics" they are a real rip-off.

Also had a two tooth bridge made and total cost was Bt15,200. All work has been fantastic, painless and exactly as quoted.

oh, I had to pay for one x-ray - Bt100.

I'm totally bewildered. The OP posts a topic asking "what would you have done differently?" and then pops back up all the way through the thread arguing his point with everyone who has answered that he should have minded his (or perhaps her) own business.

Obviously the thread topic was a rhetorical question and invitation to debate rather than seek people's opinion and advice.

Reminds me of an incident in Melbourne, Australia in 2007 where two people intervened when they saw a burly guy dragging a woman out of a taxi. The "burly guy" pulled out a gun and shot the two would-be heroes and the girl - killing one of them, a 43-year-old solicitor and father of three kids.

Why go looking for trouble (unless it's your job)? There's enough dangers as there is without looking for it and getting involved in something so trivial because of your perceived "bonding" with the woman you sometimes share a van with.

In any event, she's Thai and a mature one from your description, so in a much better position culturally and language-wise to handle the situation if she was distressed.

Now she'll probably have nightmares, require countless hours of counseling, suffer sleep deprivation, flashbacks, post traumatic stress disorder, in addition to be liable to suffering any manner of phobias ranging from bus phobia to intimacy phobia, end up divorced (if married, or become a lesbian at best if not married) for failing to be able to perform her conjugal relations, and spend her elderly years wandering the streets looking for an outstretched "index finger".

Don't ask a question if you're not prepared for the variety of answers for and against you will receive.

Flame away.

eMartBuy has a horrible rating (4.76 out of 10) and poor reviews at resellerratings.com.

While checking the site won't help the OP this time, it might save someone from making a bad purchase decision in the future from eMartBuy or other online stores with less than stellar customer satisfaction ratings.

I agree. At the time of purchase (2007) they had a good rating but while I was trying to locate them this time I saw that they now had a less than brilliant rating. They also seem to have changed their trading entity a bit too, though the parent remains the same.

Just reminded me to go and put my comments on there as well.

If anyone is looking for dcom's Panthip service centre it's on the fifth floor same as IT City. Instead of entering IT City turn left and enter the old part of the building and follow the external row of offices. Very efficient service, counter staff with good English language skills, and a promise I'll be notified when the replacement becomes available - about two weeks.

Have to give this company a big thumbs up for customer service in this instance.

Spent a couple of hours tramping around Panthip Yesterday and found:

Several shops still selling Hi8/Digital 8 recording tapes as well as DV8 as well as accessories.

Four of these shops were out of stock of a cleaning tape – and I suspect they will not be getting any more.

Two shops who said they had never heard of cleaning tapes for video cameras and instead tried to sell me CD cleaners

One shop who said there was no such thing as a head cleaning tape despite the fact that they had DV8 cleaning tapes on the shelf.

And one shop with a solitory remaining Hi-8/Digitial 8 cleaning tape (Bt390).

Very hard to find and I suspect the tapes will be the same in the not to distant future.

Was just watching him on NBT news. The whole thing sounds mad and sad. Imagine how pissed off he would be at being throuwn out of bus shelters by homeless Thais after having allegedly been ripped off in Pattaya.

Hope he gets some consular help now.

Most of the postings I read about Thai companies tend to be about poor standards of service so I'm posting this to counter the impression that nothing runs as it should and customer service is an unheard of phrase here in the LOS.

Last week a memory module I had purchased in 2007 went tits-up in my Powerbook. I emailed eMartBuy in the US where I had purchased it from and received a gruff email stating that replacement would take between one and two months plus the time for shipping to and from the USA. I was also asked to send $5.00 for shipping or RMA processing or whatever.

The memory module has a lifetime warranty so I emailed Kingmax, the manufacturers of the memory in Taiwan and received a response on the next working day. Kingmax had already contacted its Thailand distributor, D Logis & Service Co., Ltd who are based at Bangna, but also have the Dcom service centre on the 5th floor at Panthip Plazza.

I emailed Dcom and received a reply back in less than and hour with instructions on where to take the module for repair/change-over, along with a map on how to find the Bangna office and instructions for the service staff wherever I choose to go in Thai explainign the situation. Absolutely brilliant!

Unfortunately they don't have that module in stock at the moment but they will arrange with Kingmax for a replacement unit which should take about 14 days - much better than the two to three months sending back to the US would have taken.

If this is the way Kingmax ordinarily treat their customers and the way that Dcom ordinarily support the products they sell there isn't any room to complain about either and both are well worth considering for future purchases.

JLF

I use Kbank and have found their internet banking service to be fine so far and their website to be quite good.

Last year I bought a pre-cooked chicken from a Tesco store in Chiang Mai and after consuming only a portion of it experienced extreme food poisoning.

An email fired off to the Bangkok head office complaining about the chicken in question and non-observance of HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point) standards resulted in telephone calls from senior management in Bangkok, as well as from the store in question, early on the Monday morning following the rather blunt email being dispatched.

This was followed up shortly after on the same morning by a visit from three very apologetic store staff with a consolatory basket of fruit (which I was in no condition to eat) and insistence that I get my self to a hospital and the store would pay all the medical bills.

Several days later I received a further telephone call from a senior foreign manager in Bangkok.

From my experience an email to Tesco head office would soon see this situation quickly rectified and I wonder why the OP – who has already gone to great lengths to impress everyone with his level of stated wealth and property tycoon status – needs to mount such a public slagging match with a defamatory topic title libeling the entire company over an Bt80 bottle of milk instead of raising the matter with Tesco head office.

Perhaps in the OPs case Tesco could send him a cow and crate of bottles.

Just back from doing the Laos visa run with Claudio and Sawasdee Transport Services.

Pretty much the way Laxman described. Get on the van at On Nut Tesco carpark and then off down Rama IX. Van stops every two hours which is a good thing as it helps keep the drivers refreshed. Arrive at the border around 5.30am and the staff take all the passports for stamp-outs. Onto the public bus across the bridge and all the passports and visa fees and transport fees are collected by the staff on the Laos side and given to Laos immigration.

Walk through immigration and onto Laos vans to the Thai consulate section. There was about 60 people waiting on Monday morning. Wait until your number is called and submit your passport and documents and then off to the hotel. A buffet dinner is included in the cost of the trip.

Next day depart the hotel at around 12.30pm and head to the border where we were passed through Lao Immigration while the staff went to collect the passports. On to the public bus back to the Thai side where we were again passed through immigration and loaded onto vans and taken to a holding area where cold drinks are available while waiting for our passports to arrive.

Everyone seemed to get the stamps they were after and staff were active in inquiring that all was okay. Back on the vans and back to Bangkok with vouchers provided for dinner at one of the roadside stops.

Over all a very good service. Only points to note are that the hotel being used in Laos is a little way away from the city center/river area but close to some of the foreign embassies. Rooms are basic but clean and comfortable with good air conditioning, cable TV and comfortable beds.

When we got back to Bangkok some people in our van didn't get dropped where they had asked to be and the driver was not cooperative in taking them to where they had asked to be dropped off. Apart from that a very smooth and painless service and only a few hundred baht more than if you did it all yourself, but without the hassles of changing buses and organising your own transport to and from the consulate.

Overall highly recommended.

Claudio can be contacted on 081.815.4803.

I have a Russian friend who has been doing land crossing for the last year and he is still getting 30-day entry stamps. Depends on nationality I think.

Last year I overstayed one day before crossing at Mai Sai and was charged Bt500 for the single day. I think the "day of grace" days may be gone.

Thanks for that Laxman.

I'm heading up with Claudio (0818154803) and will post a report when I get back.

Sounds like a good service and the price is similar to doing it all yourself but without the hassle of changing buses at Udon Thani, getting a tuk-tuk from the road junction at Nong Khai, and then the other bits of transport required to get to the embassy/hotel/back to the embassy, back to Udon Thani etc.

Sounds like border bounce time rather than playing Russian Roulette and running the risk of an IDC.

I tried searching for this but couldn't find any reference.

Apologies if there is an old thread somewhere.

Just dam_n unlucky. RIP.

A BRITISH backpacker who collapsed on a train in Thailand may have died from 'excitement', say medical experts.

Algernon Lendrum, 19, suffered a brain haemorrhage in 2008 while on a 14-hour over night train to Bangkok.

The teenage traveller from Stove in England keeled over when a rare undiagnosed congenital weakness caused a blood vessel in his brain to burst, reports the UK's Daily Telegraph.

More here: British backpacker dies on train trip to Bangkok

Here we go again. Another bad day looming for Victoria.

WARBURTON residents have mostly fled the town this morning, with the town facing serious bushfire threats.

The owner of Warburton newsagency Lindsay Jahn said he believed up to 60 pr 70 per cent of Warburton residents had already fled.

Residents have been forced to evacuate as as strong winds fan bushfire down into Warburton valley.

Shops have signs in the windows saying they are closed due to fires, while traffic out of the town is building.

Fire authorities said severe fire weather was predicted for today and people in the Warburton/Yarra Valley area and near Enoch Point should be prepared.

Towns evacuate as new fire warnings issued

Try Friend Optic on level 2 of MBK. Tel> 08.1870.8740. Great service and great prices. Better than any of the chain optic places by hundreds of baht.

National day of mourning and memorial service streaming live Sunday starting 7.00am at:

National day of mourning and memorial service live feed

I need a new Hi-8/Digital 8 cleaning tape. Tried a couple of Sony shops so far without success.

Anyone know where to get such an antiquated item?

Thanks

Good news. Sanity finally prevails.

However:

"Any planned celebrations on Mr Nicolaides' arrival will be tempered following the hospitalisation of his mother Despina, who suffered a stroke a fortnight ago.

Forde Nicolaides said his brother would be taken straight to hospital to see their mother, adding the family would still toast his freedom at the earliest opportunity."

Author Harry Nicolaides freed from Thai Jail