Changian

There is meeting going on this afternoon between locals and various govt. officials. So far the Trat Governor hasn't shown any interest in their plight as he refused to meet them when they went to his house the other day. Therefore, if the protestors don't get what they want then they will block the road near Klong Son starting on Friday. If the road is blocked the ferries will have to stop. The organiser is a local official with a lot of PBT5 land.

Exact details are a bit sketchy but the car ferries to Koh Chang will stop running for 3 days. This is due to a dispute on the island regarding the issuance of land title deeds.

It will be interesting to see how resort owners / Bangkok Airways etc react. Not quite on the scale of closing Bangkok Airport but it's not often an island is cut off.

If you are leaving or arriving on the island during this time check with your resort to see what plan, if any, they have.

(Of course the ferries might still run, but it looks like the closure is for real as all the local government offices & National Park have been told it will take place.)

5000 down to 1000 gamblers, that will make them think.

'Them' being the wealthy Thais that own, or have large shares in, most of the casinos on the Cambodian side of the border.

I dont think you can compare Samui to Koh Chang. Tourists who I meet who have visited Samui before say Klong Prao beachr reminds them of Chaweng 15 years ago and a few days ago I met up with an American guy who has just sold his businesses on Samui and is planning to relocate to Koh Chang for the peace and quiet. He thought it was heaven compared to Samui.

So still along way to go before it can stake a claim to the the title of being the 'Most paradise lost' island

How sad is that, a bunch of people come to Thailand and end up watching panda's on TV and complaining about how boring it is - the term, "get a life" doesn't even begin to do justice.

Do I detect a bit on envy that some of us have Truevisions satellite whilst you don't? If you want a DVD of the highlights - let me know.

You're missing Linping having breakfast right now. Looks like it's having Khao Tom this morning washed down with green Fanta.

Fpr sure it's a nice coffee table magazine for anyone who hasn't been to Koh Chang before and who relies on tour agents or hotel websites to tell them what the island is like.

Some good photography but tempered with 'palm fringed, tropical paradise' type blurb with the usual plugs for advertisers featuring prominently and one of the most sychophantic interviews you will read anywhere.

The mag's been available for free download from www.kohchangmagazine.com for a year or so now regardless of how special a member you are

But maybe some of you will want to advertise in the 2009/10 edition . . . which I'd have thought should be out soon. (To be honest I didn't expect there would be one.)

And to top it off 'Bryan' is also spelt incorrectly. As is 'manager'.

Pandaphants - the cuteness of a panda combined with the Thainess of an elephant. How could it fail to impress visitors?

You do wonder why if things were so rosy hotels would be reducing their prices and online booking agencies such as Agoda even cutting into their commission to undercut others in order to sell rooms to price conscious tourists this 'High' season. Many reosrt on Koh Chang are still very quiet and Loy Krathong was the quietest for a while with very few Thai visitors.

There again, this November is very busy for us, which is all I really care about. But people visiting now are those who didn't have a holiday earlier in the year and so have vacation time to use before the end of the year. That coupled with discounted flights from Europe to Thailand has increased visitors who are looking for good value, rather than splashing out.

Tune into True Channel 18 to see what must be the most boring reality show ever. A live cam inside the cage of Lin Ping, Thailand's panda cub. Right now it is either sleeping or dead. Hard to tell.

Thailand Jumped The Shark, New Mandala and the excellent Bangkok Pundit are way more informative than The Nation when it comes to anything political in Thailand. The Nation has been caught out many times rewriting history to suit it's master's views.

Not on Koh Lanta, (on Koh Chang, Loy Krathong 2007) but another example of what happens when paper lanterns dont drift out over the sea and instead come down on dry grassland.

I am also wondering why not offer a free option that includes ads peppered in the text?

You think the paid for version won't have ads peppered into the text?

I think the 49 Baht/month charge will go to paying to employ one native English speaking sub editor. Otherwise, you may end up with the COO of The Nation looking a bit of an idiot, for example, as in the official press release for this service which no-one bothered to proofread:

Pana Janviroj, COO of Nation Multimedia. "We have hundreds of thousands of foreigners living in Thailand, and we will provide them with Thailand related news content from a foreigners prospective

Is The Nation good for anything other than a few laughs at typos and state approved news?

Under 15 minutes. Only 2 resorts with AC - Pakarang Resort and Koh Wai Beach Resort, others are basic fan huts

You cant live on Koh Wai and Koh Laoya. Laoya is privately owned and there are only four small resorts Koh Wai, no shop, no road, and I have only ever seen one plot of land for sale there for a very high price.

Koh Chang or Koh Mak are your choices for living here. Possibly Koh Kood if you can find any small plots of land with title deeds - but these are very rare there.

D*mn those Bangkok lawyers, with their adherence to laws, the idea of giving 'best advice' and refusal to bend for friendly developers.

From the Benchmark site:

Although Thai law prohibits foreigners from owning land in Thailand, there are various options you can choose to legally become the owner of the land, and still comply with existing Thai laws:

....

Option 4: Limited Liability Company - This is the most popular way of owning Land and House among the foreign clients or investors as structure of the company can be arranged in a way to ensure maximum protection for the minority shareholder where majority Thai ownership is compulsory under the Alien Business Law. The requirement of Thai law is 51% of the shares be held by Thai juristic persons, however, any company with more than 40% foreign interest that purchases land will be investigated by the Central Land Office in Bangkok (under Section 74 of the Land Code) to ensure that the company has not been organized in an attempt to circumvent the prohibition against foreign ownership of land. This results in the foreign ownership of the company being limited at 39%, but with the recommended changes to the company structure, the foreigner can be the sole director of the company, and the only officer of the company who can commit or bind the company in any contractual affairs - effectively giving the minority shareholder control over the company.

Err. . . so why was the company set up then if it wasn't to circumvent the prohibition against foreign ownership?

Suggestion for the next topic from Benchmark: Guaranteed rental returns. Are they for real or just a way to inflate the price of a house and give the buyer some of their own money back?

For example 8% pa for 3 years on a 15 million baht house near Lake Maprachan. More details

Or possibly: Construction. How deep can you dig a hole for yourself before it becomes difficult to climb out of

There is no man made forest on Koh Chang. The National Park is jungle - I'm looking at it right now as I type this. Outside the NP there are trees which people can cut down if they are on their land. Simple. Maybe an alien concept to some though.

So if you encroach onto the national park and then claim it's your land, you can cut down trees - right?

Of course you can't and I didn't imply that you could. Obviously not named 'Sherlocke' after the great detective. So, I will try to simplify things and write short sentences.

Land owners are allowed to cut down trees on their land. i.e. Land they own. Land they have a title deed for. Land not in the National Park. (Yes some species are protected, but most aren't and so can be cleared for building.)

You'll have to contact one of the forum sponsors as they are broker promoting the illegal sale of copyright material

hi guys, great thread. I was really wanting to go to ko chang for a vaction with snorkeling on corals, but i dont know now. What do you guys think? Are there better places on the east coast? where? if you were to go snorkeling on ko chang, on a resort that is environmentally responsible, where would you go?

You wont fing great snorkelling off the beaches on Koh Chang - as they are sandy with no coral. But you will if you take a snorkelling trip to the islands to the south. Some very good snorkelling there. You'll see loads of fish guaranteed.

+++

I live on the west coast and have 500 metres of undeveloped beach at the back of my house - 2 minutes walk through the mangroves and coconut field. And at the front, a river estuary, where people canoe and the couple of restaurants and one resort on the river paddle their guests down the river by old style wooden gondola.

Some places on the island are pretty crap - White Sand Beach for example, and there is a lot of construction of ugly shop units - the latest being a row of 40+ small units near Klong Prao Resort. But I guess the people who say Koh Chang is too developed and built up didnt explore even the west coast that much, let alone the east coast.

BTW - you are allowed to cut down trees here if they are on your land, so seeing a truck load of tree trunks - whilst not a common site, isnt indication of encroachment. More likely, and less sensationally for TV readers, it probably means someone has cut down the trees on their land, not NP land, which you are allowed to do, same as anywhere else in Thailand.

This ad made me smile. 1) for the cheek of it and 2) for the company who has this 'business' selling pirated MP3s advertised for sale on their site

A brand new Website that delivers an mp3 music and video song collection on hard drive to any destination in the world has become available for acquisition. The website is hosted in Thailand and can be operated from anywhere within the country, or from any country the owner wishes. More than 21,000 mp3's featuring 2,000 different artists, and over 1,400 individual music videos have been compiled after years of hard work. Music from the 1960's up to the present day is featured, covering all musical styles, and the package contains a 320 gigabyte hard drive that easily plugs into the USB drive of all computers, and all the software that is needed to play the files, standardise songs, download videos and convert to DVD's. The owner feels that this is the greatest music collection ever found on a single hard drive. Payments are accepted online through a well recognised worldwide payment portal. Asking price: 390,000 baht.

In other words . . . You too could own our very own pirate music website hosted here in Thailand for only 390,000 baht

Koh Kruut - I guess is Koh Kood. From there take the speedboat to the mainland, take a pick up truck taxi to Trat Bus Station, then take the shared minibus to the border about 80 minutes drive.

Cross the border and then haggle a price for a taxi to Phnom Penh, maybe around US$70-80. You'll be there by the evening.

Or if you want to use public transport, you will probably have to stay the night in Koh Kong and next morning take a bus to Phnom Penh about 5 hours drive away. There is a good road all the way. Can do it in under 30 hours without any hassles.

Could even take a boat from Koh Kood to Koh Chang then have a night on Koh Chang and the next morning take the shared minibus to Phnom Penh, would be in PP by late evening. Buy tickets for minibus from any tour agent

White Sand Beach is pretty busy with foreign visitors at the moment , it wouldn't be on my list of places to stay to avoid fellow farangs at any time of the year.

Last weekend the island was packed with Thai visitors - there was a 2km tailback of traffic from the ferry pier yesterday as everyone left to go back to Bangkok. And for foreigners this November looks like being far busier than last.

Try the more Thai style resorts - Magic or Chok Dee in Klong Prao for example - ro somewhere like Suan Sam Chan that is on the east coast, can get a nice AC bungalow there and guaranteed no farangs around. But I doubt you will find anything good on the beach in November for under 1000 baht/night if you want AC. If you want to be on White Sand Beach maybe try Island lodge, they have good value rooms away from the beach

Seen a couple of expat types touring around on nice bikes recently, one guy on a red plate black ER6N and someone with a bike just like the one in MarcoH's avatar - Did you stay at Tiger Huts earlier this week?

Somewhere like Chai Chet Resort or Coconut Beach Resort, both at the northern end of Klong Prao beach would tick all the boxes. Nothing flash but more may well still have rooms available. But many resorts are already full for Xmas. Or have a look at the bungalow resorts on Kai Bae beach - KB Resort, Kai Bae Beach Resort, KB Huts etc. Nice spot, easy to get to the 7-eleven etc

If you want somewhere more 'Thai' Chock Dee or Magic Resort, both at the far southern end of Klong Prao beach cater more to Thai families than farang tourists. These are the type of place you can get your portable karaoke machine out and start making somtam on the balcony as soon as you arrive.