owenjones

Soi Chayapong (?) opposite Crazy Dave's. This is off Soi Buakhow near Soi Diana.

The bread is excellent and he delivers.

Otherwise, ask in the 'Pig And Whistle', Soi 7, he used to make his own but I don't know about reselling it.

Owen.

Hi vagabond48,

You have free wireless in Chiang Mai, which I would love to see near here, but it hasn't caught on yet.

Of course, that's not much use without a laptop.

I use both; the laptop when travelling and the desktop at home, linked by 'Briefcase'.

Do you use satellite or landline?

Owen

Hi,

I have been stopped twice in Pattaya and one time led to being asked to accompany the officer to the station.

I was asked for ID both times. When I couldn't produce it, they just ignored the ID question and solved the problem at hand and I was free to go.

I have now lived in the north - Uttaradit Province - for 3 years.

My wife (with me as posilion) has been stopped umpteen times outside the village on the way to the market for the usual checks: helmet, insurance, licence etc and has paid dozens of 100 B fines, but no-one ever went for the biggie and asked for my ID.

I don't know whether this is luck or attitude.

Regards,

Owen.

BTW: she has been completely legal for the last year or so.

I don't know about that ....

20 years ago in the UK, I had a 2k modem and you had to pay for BT Gold email access. Just about the only thing I could do online was order from Kaye's catalogue.

Now I live in Uttaradit and have IPstar at 1,500B a month. It is the most expensive and the slowest Internet connection I have had since I went Broadband in the UK about seven years ago, but I have learned to live with 256/128 Kbit. However, I was paying 2,000B until three months ago, so progress is being made.

I often have to reset the 'box' (whatever it's called: 'converter' or something like that).

The service has not changed over the last week or two.A few good things I will say for IPstar:

1] if I complain about really bad connectivity, they will rebate me the day with no argument

2] when I have needed an engineer to call, he has

3] I often get more than I pay for - sometimes a heady 500-600 Kb!

The bottom line is: it is expensive and relatively slow, but it is fairly reliable with good support AND we don't have landlines available in our village.

Do British use "cubic litre"? I think with litre, we don't need cubic. Am I right?

I think you are correct. Perhaps they meant to use cubic metre as that is what large liqid measurements can be done in. e.g. 1 cubic metre = 1000 litres. I am unaware of the term cubic litre.

'Litre' is already a description of volume and represents a nominal contained amount of 10x10x10 cm, which is 1,000 cc's (cubic centimetres), which is the same as 1,000 millilitres.

The term 'cubic litre' doesn't exist - a litre is already a cubic measurement.

Well done, ThaiVisa!

As usual, many missed the point.

Of course you can get this stuff in the more popular cities - especially Bangkok.

That's where TV's partner is too (roughly)!

However, for all us out in the sticks, it could be very useful.

Some products are a bit suspect:

1] fruit cordial made from fresh fruit in a land over-flowing with REAL fresh fruit?

2] gravy granules; what's wrong with flour and meat juices?

The spelling and grammar could be improved a lot too. ('Off coarse' for 'of course' and 'Grain Fed Beefburgers' doesn't sound right ).

Good luck, I know it's early days.

Regards,

Owen

As for the wife, I did pay for a (5 million Baht) 7 town house complex to be built, and of course it is all hers. (Thai law) Now we are considering a 7 million baht home... again all hers.

Not Thai law - you may own the house, but may not own the land, unless you employ legal chicanery.

I got married on 31st March in Uttaradit.

My 10/10 wedding cost me:

1] 10 x 15.2g gold = 150,000B.

2] 100,000B gift to Mum, which was returned in full.

3] 70,000B party for 120 people with all day music and dancing girls at night.

All-in-all, call it 250,000B

She paid for the clothes she wore from her own money and she paid for many little things that made all the difference.

Guests donated 18,000B, of which 10,000B was given to me to offset costs and I insisted that she keep the other 8,000B, rather than split it 50/50 as she suggested.

Her family has never asked me for anything in the four years I've known them.