Hornell

It is more expensive to buy an air ticket from Bkk to Wherever - one way or return - than it is to buy the same ticket from Wherever to Bkk! This topic has been aired on TV many times and a satisfactory reason for this anomaly has never been forthcoming. When I arrived here 20 years ago the reverse was true. What has changed? I dunno. It may well be high season, but all year round you are going to pay more for your air ticket if you buy it here in LoS.

Very little rain just north of Korat, in fact the driest it has been for years. The typhoon referred to missed Thailand by miles although the edge of it might just have touched the Mekong. I find a fir cone more reliable than the Thai weather forecasts

Go for a retirement visa! I switched back to one after hassle and grief with a marriage one. The retirement one is so much easier - and I agree with some of the posters, no need to take the wife and often better if you don't!

If you can find a fir-cone you will get better weather predictions from that! I have found the BBC weather forecast to be the most reliable

What a lot of griping comments from probably the same people who complain regularly when cars are illegally parked on arterial Bkk roads or the pavements are blocked by - whatever! Grow up and accept that someone at long last is trying to do something about these problems because he has the power to do so. Granted it may be short-lived - but again, it may not be!

Emphuket, what you have to realise is that there are expats who live for these forums, post at every given opportunity whether they know anything about the subject or not and have little to say that is constructive. Ignore them!

I was in a similar situation a few years ago (I also bank with Krungsri) and it became such a nightmare with lost payments, surcharges and just sheer incompetence that I gave up, opened an account with an international bank (in this case Standard Chartered), transferred the cash from Krungsri into SC and let them do it. It worked like clockwork.

Look what happened to her brother when he left the country..............! On second thoughts, Yingluck, yes GO!

42C on my (covered) balcony at 3 pm today, about 50 km north of Korat.

Good post from useronthenet; says it all, but who is going to take any notice of it? Sadly no-one that matters.

What goes around comes around. About a dozen years ago there was a zealous government minister, whose name rhymed with widget, who decided to become the Thai Mary Whitehouse and be known as Mr Clean. He instigated a draconian set of crackdown measures on Bangkok's nightlife, which lasted for all of a year, until one suspects that the BIB were so brassed off about the lack of income that they simply ignored him. This being Thailand, I suspect the same thing will happen again. Someone reckoned there might be a Ministry of Crackdowns - actually it is pretty close to The Ministry of Cunning Plans (otherwise known as TAT).

My wife does it when it is inconvenient for me to go and do it. never had a problem yet.

Is Baldrick the Chairman of TAT? They seem to come up with a new 'cunning plan' almost every month or two, all of which are about as well conceived and 'brilliant' as Baldrick's!

I live 50 km north of Korat; last three bills were 3.74 Baht + 0.58 Ft = 4.33 Baht a month; same as I was paying in the Prachuap Region.

It is 6 days too early!

Same as Mario - I had a pile of books in with other personal belongings and they were just listed as used books and were never queried. One word of advice - don't ask for trouble by detailing more than you are asked for: "cutlery" = any, whether it is silver or not; "books" = we have just mentioned; kitchenware = stuff for the kitchen whether it is new or not; "clothes" = just that - don't start listing 20 silk shirts, 4 pairs Poulson & Skone shoes etc. And one last thing - don't over insure your used and well worn household items when sending them here.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm I was in the Army for 36 years and my experience of grenades was that when you pulled the pin out and threw it, it exploded after x seconds. If it didn't, it was faulty.

What a lot of hot air and irrelevant woffle! If Company A is trying to sell you something at a higher price than Company B, C, D or X, then you only have yourself to blame if you accept the deal. Yes, Agoda is a bit sneaky in that they don't reveal the final price to be paid until you are on the final run in - but you can still cancel before you accept it. Equally, their 'lowest price' gurantee is probably valid - until you add on the 10% and 7%. The anwer is simple; if you don't like them, go elsewhere.

Agree with Worgeordie and others....... it's not worth mucking about and trying to fight City Hall on this one. I was interested when I went for my last visa renewal a week ago that the immigration official told me I had the wrong 90 day form in my passport - it was the usual bottom part of the form which they always sign, tear off and staple in the passport. The point was that the official who did my 90 days hadn't entered it into the computer so it showed that I hadn't reported. Fortunately I still had the signed part of the form and all was cleared up without a problem. Point: Immigration is more into the IT world than some of us think.

One rather hopes that TAT has someone in PR who scans the press etc to report on what is being said about tourism here. If so this forum cannot have escaped his/her notice; if not then it is high time TAT took off the blinkers and started doing so. Every time TAT comes up with a new scam/scheme or cunning plan the comments in the media (mainly from farang) are the same; forget the cunning plans clean up your act and the tourists will continue to come. What does cleaning up the act mean? Various measures have already been referred to: taxi/limo scams at the airport, jet ski scams, filthy parks littered with rubbish and with few basic amenities, double pricing, trains that....... - words fail me here, buses and minivans that recklessly break almost every known safe driving code.... the list goes on and on and on........

So TAT, if someone on your staff is reading this, precis the forum and send it to the boss - oh I'm sorry, you can't do that becaause he's senior to you. Hmmmm, so I suppose it's just more of the same then. TIT.