Lee4Life

I was thinking more along the lines of a multi-story building or bridge. You are correct for being concerned they may make it out into the marketplace, the portion of the article dealing with the substandard electronics is proof of that. We have a couple of black burn marks on some of our electrical outlets from plugging in phone chargers that we just removed from their wrappings. They came along with rechargeable radio/mp3 players.

Driving against traffic has been responsible for so many traffic deaths over the years here. The typical answer when you ask a local why it is so common is "Thai people like it easy". I have even seen eighteen-wheelers driving against traffic to get to a u-turn opening and cross over. I will never forget driving past a u-turn on a four lane highway and seeing two Thai ladies lying on the roadway because they approached the u-turn from the wrong direction on their motorbike and were hit by a vehicle using the u-turn from the correct direction.

We just finished putting our power cable underground, our cables were overhead but the power poles were not behaving themselves, the PEA installed them for us, and we put concrete footings around the bases, but our ground becomes so fluid during the rainy season that they began leaning more and more and the cables drooping more and more. We contacted the PEA about having them unhook the current cables and hook up the new cables once we were done, and their initial reaction was to question us as to who the electrician was we had doing the job, When our Thai niece told them it was a licensed electrical contractor from America, the fellow she was talking to said "American standards may not be the same as Thai standards". So our niece asked hi to send us the Thai standards, to which he replied, "we don't have any specific written standards for that". He said they would have to come and inspect our work before committing to changing the cable over. We used HDPE and 25 guage NYY cable, as we were unable to source the size of poly we wanted (1-1/4") we used 2 each 1" polys and just ran one cable in each pipe. We dug ditch to 50cm and installed 4 inch metal electrical runner up the side of the house. When our niece sent pictures of our work to the PEA fellow and said we were ready for the cables to be changed at the meter, his reply was, "go ahead and do it yourself, I can see that you guys did a lot of work". Swapping the cables out at the meter and service in the house went quickly. Our contractor friend from back home said the use of the NYY cables was overkill, as the 'W" in THW stands for "wet", and that's what code calls for in the rainy Pacific North West where we live, according to him NYY is rated for direct burial. Our cable had been up for the 18 years we have been here, so I don't mind that we bought new cable. The old 25 gauge THW is really stiff and we weren't sure the insulation coating wasn't compromised by the weather here. It was a lot of work, the ground was rock hard, and finding the correct materials was a pain, but I would do it over again if needed, peace of mind is priceless.

Let's see... the fellow is a Canadian, driving a pickup, and somehow you manage to bring America and SUV's and guns into the mix?

Enduro Bikes are considered dirt bikes here, but I understand the haha....how many of the vehicles really should be on the roads here?

A small minority in this case was six individuals running around with a huge knife. You don't think that if the same thing happened to an elderly Thai man it would hit the press? It's good to know about these things so others can be cautious and keep an eye open.

Just a heads up, we crossed from NongKhai last week and after getting our 40$ visa on arrival we were exiting the border and the officer who inspects the paperwork upon exiting asked where our receipt for the "Tax for Entering the Country" was (Pah-Si Kao Muang Kao Patit). When I said that we didn't have to pay an entry fee because we paid 40$ for our visa on arrival, he said, "not any more, there's a new tax for entering the country" and directed us to go to a machine nearby where we had to pay 40 baht each and then show the final officer the receipt.

Doesn't "youth" include minors? Doesn't sound legal.

Sorry...but your imagination is overly active. I have lived here eighteen years and eat only local foods, but have to fend off the soi dogs regularly on my walks. I see the locals that ride bicycles have sticks mounted to their bikes because of the dogs, on my walks I can tell there are mean dogs in the houses ahead of me when I see sticks laying along side of the street that the locals use when they walk by the houses the mean dogs are at. Are you going to tell me that the local farmers and villagers in the rural community I live in are being attacked by dogs because they don't eat Thai food?

Thanks to everyone for all of the helpful replies. The wife and I crossed the bridge at NongKhai for a day in Laos on the last day our O/A visa was valid, when we came back in we presented proof of insurance for one more year, and were stamped in for an additional year. We then purchased re-entry permits for the next year also. So we are good to go for another year. We ran into a couple of issues that were sorted out, the first was that the health insurance for our original O/A retirement visas was still valid for one more day and then we also had a new policy that began the next day and extended for one year. When I presented the I/O the two health insurance certificates she said there may be a problem because there were two certificates, but thankfully she called her supervisor and they gave it the go ahead. Then the officer at the re-entry permit counter at the bridge said they could not issue us re-entry permits for one year, only for one day if we were exiting the country. This in spite of the fact that we had purchased one year multiple entry permits there twice before. So we went to the local immigration office and bought the multiple re-entry permits there. So all worked out well in the end.

Nice article to read when I've just eaten a bunch of them, never seen them up here in NongKhai before, and here they were at the super popular Sunday night market, cheap and tasty, no wonder.

I perform a lot of physical labor around our place, and am often repairing equipment or vehicles. I always make sure I am presentable when I go on errands to buy parts or supplies. Back home nobody cares all that much, people just think to themselves, "looks like he's been working on something", but people here take care in their appearance. One day I ran to buy fuel without cleaning up and changing clothes, and three Thai school girls were just parking their motorbike at the pumps. When the driver saw me she wrinkled her nose and said in Thai, "he's so dirty!" As far as smelling like something goes, I have never heard of the locals saying foreigners smell like wet dogs, I have heard it said that they smell like butter...and that certainly wasn't meant as a compliment. In their own language and customs calling someone a dog, or dog face is extremely offensive.

All of that money won't stay in Thailand, unless they are able to manufacture all of the parts needed to assemble trains, such as axles, brakes, engines, and so forth. But I get your point, You seem to be straying from the point of the article as far as your comment about women goes, the reason for train transportation is to get from point A to point B. You take "admiring the scenery" along the way a bit far.

I have had a yellow book here in NongKhai for around twelve years, we had to use a Thai speaker to obtain it and it cost about 7,000 baht as CFCol stated. I will say that it is currently less helpful than I thought it would be. I used it previously to do our TM30's at immigration, now they refuse to accept it, they said the reporting has to be done by a Thai property owner with a blue book. Maybe others can point out where the yellow book has been useful? Is it more useful in areas foreigners are more common?

All points well taken, you guys are great! we have just renewed our insurance and have certificates that show coverage beginning as soon as our current insurance ends, And we will be sure to buy re-entry permits for a full year before we even leave the border, lest we forget.