Mousehound

Why is it 2 hours when it is 1 hour to Bangkok !

ATR-72 cruises at about 270 knots at a max altitude of 25,000.

Much slower than jet aircraft operated by most other carriers

If they equipment sub to a Caravan on the route it would take ages!

Still 500kph. Almost as fast as my last taxi in from Swampy! This looks a good deal to me. As long as the trip in from the Utapao airport to Pats is sorted.

Most flights are 990Bht

So don't go up the mountain. The lower reaches - where you turn off to the left and down by the river - cross over the bridge and the restaurants along the water are great. Fantastic butterflies as well. If they are into watching and taking pics of wildlife the area just before the toll booth is excellent for birds.

Indeed, we have six people comming over from Europe for a holiday and Inthanon is on our list of must sees, but not at THB 2,800 just for entry!

Well worth the 400Bht each. - about $8 US each I guess. Don't get much for that in Europe.

2500Bht seems pretty good price for a one off piece.

I always got my passport renewed online. Very fast service last time I did it - but that was a few years back. Is this not possible now?

Burgers can now only be obtained by prescription at hospitals.

Depends on your interests. I would list these then search TV to find others that share those interests.

Finding large cacti is a thorny problem! I am resorting to just growing them from small.

Hi ,does anybody know what I should be roughly paying for a brand new Honda cbr 250 non abs? If so any suggestions on best place to get one. Cheers Steve

Honda Thailand have a price list. CBR150R 100,000 Bht plus on road costs

And they always send me an email reminder when my 90 day or annual is due.

Doesn't everyone keep a calendar on their desk? I've had one on my desk for the last 40 years. Don't see how anyone could live without one.

Glad you are happy with your 40 year old calendar. You ask How do people live without it? They use the calendar in their mobile phone maybe. C'mon you gotta keep up, not stay with these 40 y o solutions.

But an email reminder of an upcoming Imm date is still useful to me, and others it seems

As I said each before, each to their own.

What the hell is a Mobile Phone?

More seriously the system is clearly pushing all expats into using a visa service as the service does all the checking and explaining to new retirees the system. Takes away a lot of the work from the department. Pretty smart from their point of view. But, as I understand it, at 14k Bht a year per retired couple not that cheap either.

Condo is no problem provided the majority of the block is owned by Thai people. You need to check that this is the situation. I have a friend who did just that. In his case he put a deposit down and had to arrange a bank account in Thailand for monies to be sent to that account. The monies have to be specifically notified by the purchaser's banks as being for the purchase of a property. This is important. He then returned on a 60 day visa (I don't know if that was essential or not - others here will know) to finalise the deal. Paper work was very simple as I understand it. Basically went to an office where the legal documents were processed on the spot. Very low government fees. All done very quickly and without fuss. He has now had the property for three or four years with no regrets. He went through a well known real estate agency, who did a good job - helped him set up an bank account and walked him through the whole process: but he did not feel the need for legal support - you may feel that it is worth talking to a legal firm in Thailand. I am more of a cautious type so would most likely seek legal advice locally, especially as it would be a major blow if things did go wrong.

That site says that the north received 24mm or 14% above average for the month of July.

I pick these up and if placed on your hand they are OK. I put them on my shoulder and they walk about a bit. No problem. Don't pick up snakes - you never know! I never pick up centipedes either.

Learn Thai together - great opportunity for you actually. learning to read Thai is a lot easier than writing and you should make serious headway with that over say an hour a day, for say six months. As Thai is pretty easy to read she will have the advantage of knowing what the word means once she can read. My problem is I can read Thai reasonably well but don't have the vocabulary and struggle with the tones. So the chances are that she will pick it up far quicker than you will. I got a heap of "Janet and John" type cartoon books aimed at primary school aged kids and they helped me quite a lot. Good luck!

Tuberculosis seems to be on the rise everywhere. Get the BCG - I had no problems at all with it as a kid and the whole school was done. I don't recall any problems with any of my friends. BCG is not recommended for adults however.

Can anyone ID this small hawk that i disturbed this morning. In flight looked like a Merlin. Sat in a tree about 200m away so the photo is heavily cropped.

Going by my Robson guide I am going to say female Merlin.

Your thoughts please.

I don't think this is a merlin. The long naked tarsi and short primaries look more like Besra. The three wide tail bars may be diagnostic as well.

Yes, certainly possible. Also possibly a juvenile Chinese Sparrow Hawk? BTW the reason I said Merlin was because of the way it flew(silloutte)

Here's another poor quality pic showing the chest markings a little more.

Many thanks for your help

The throat markings are faint so you may well be correct on Japanese Sparrow Hawk. The tail still looks a bit long and the tertial banding heavy but juvs are hard for me to really be sure of. I guess jiz and habitat may be the key.

Can anyone ID this small hawk that i disturbed this morning. In flight looked like a Merlin. Sat in a tree about 200m away so the photo is heavily cropped.

Going by my Robson guide I am going to say female Merlin.

Your thoughts please.

I don't think this is a merlin. The long naked tarsi and short primaries look more like Besra. The three wide tail bars may be diagnostic as well.

I like the Kindle also but I am trying the Kobo which, for me has some advantages. Very cheap and I prefer the font and leading and justification. I also like to have my books available on my phone. Whichever the whole eBooks thing seems a great use of technology. I do find with big technical books the ability to flick back and forth manually is still nicer. I am looking more and more at the Kindle fire as a tablet replacement but the phablets are making me indecisive. One interesting point is that having been a big reader for years I moved away from books but the eBook has revived my interest and I now am a regular visitor to Asia books and a couple of the excellent and well known used book places in CM.