WinnieTheKhwai

It took me months to figure out what that bottle of red grenadine/syrup in the fridge was for, and who was drinking that stuff.

Not a chance I'd be visiting on those prices!!

Where is this track located and when do they typically have races? I see some horse activity on the way to Mae Rim, but don't know exactly where to look or where to go..

Yeah.

Coming out of Makro, turn left until the traffic lights for the Ratchapruek Road, where you turn right towards the Night Safari. At the Night Safari Roundabout turn left and follow the road, until the next turn-off to the left. That's a road without a lot of traffic and you can keep following it, ending up in the sois around Wat Nong Khwai. What you do there is up to you, either go back, or keep going through the sois & villages on either side of the Canal Road.

An alternative from the Night Safari Roundabout is to go the other way towards that temple on the mountain and the CMU agro area, from where you can keep going through small sois pretty much all the way to Soi Wat Umong and hit town that way.

What visa do you plan to stay on?

Non-Immigrant B-UM, I thought that'd be obvious.

(in either the US or UK meaning of the word. )

Isn't a lot of the slowness caused by waiting for other trains to pass, due to a lot of the rail network being single-track? Making everything double would already gain a lot of speed.

But basically I think rail travel in Thailand is dead; all the investment has already been in the road network, meaning that buses will always be faster for the foreseeable future.

Possibly they could keep some rail lines for higher-end boutique tourism purposes, like the Eastern & Oriental 5 star line.

Pot, kettle, tyke.

I'm sorry if you don't like the answers here. Feel free to eat elsewhere.

You actually WANT a Thaivisa member living nearby ?!?

Screwdrivers are cheap, it aint worth it!!

See: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=8264

They allege that child porn is being sold there. Could that be true, or are they making it up?

Minor point, but objectively there are NOT too many babies.

In fact Thailand's birth rate is lower than that of the USA.

In fact Thailand's birth rate is lower than the level needed to sustain the current population.

In fact if you go out and look around in the villages you will even see empty local schools, closed due to lack of children.

Given that Thailand is NOT a first world country that can rely on a smaller but highly skilled workforce, and a very safe environment, this is a VERY worrying trend.

Go out and make babies! Thailand NEEDS babies desperately.

Surely there must be construction techniques that can help deal with situations with this problem.

"Use piles when trying to build on what's essentially swamp land" ?

What/where is Sripat? Is it another big hospital? Where is it located and how would locals call it?

Guess what, it's not a first world country with separate lanes and high tech open-graded asphalt that's low-noise and so high drain that water NEVER remains on it.

News at 11.

52.8 km to the turn-off up the mountain.

Then another 7 km to the park gate.

Then another 37 km to the summit.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&hl=en&...203003&z=10

Google is your friend.

I think PAD are SEVERELY misguided... What a bunch of clowns! It's actually very worrying that so many people take them serious, Farangs included.

Indeed it does say a lot about Farangs in Thailand (or on this forum)

Keep guessing/assuming guys.

Sadly it seems the OP was dealing with pedantic hospital registrars or amphur office staff.

That, or, it's actually the OP himself who wanted his name IN ENGLISH on the thing..

I can contradict you; I'm not married and my last name appears as the last name of the kid on the birth certificate, house registration, passport, etc.

It really isn't an issue; if you are the father then the kid can get your name. Loads of Thai aren't legally married; often just the village wedding (common law, etc.). It's no different there.

OMG.. Where to start.

I cannot recall if they were VIP or first class buses, but they stopped in major cities like Lamphun, Lampang, etc. Sometimes at the roadside, sometimes in the city.

"VIP", "Super VIP", "First Class Aircon", "Second Class Aircon" and "Ordinary" refer to the TYPE of bus (number of seats), not the number of stops. It is true that VIP and Super VIP buses are less likley to have lots of stops, but it completely depends on the route. For example, the Chiang Mai to Rayong bus is a VIP bus, but has many stops. On the Chiang Mai - Bangkok route, most VIP and Super VIP buses will have 1 stop somewhere in between Kamphaeng Phet and Nakhon Sawan, and may also stop VERY BRIEFLY stop at the Nakhon Sawan bus station.

But I doubt you need VIP, anyway.

On any trip longer than an hour or so, EVERYONE would be a lot more comfortable on a VIP or Super VIP bus. So take it when it's available unless you're seriously strapped for cash..

Lots of the VIP runs are overnight in the dark.

Lots of buses in other classes do too. Again, it refers to the type of the vehicle, not the number of stops or when it runs!

I don't want to take the direct route and spend 10 hours on a bus. I would like to break the journey up with 2 or 3 overnight stops and see a bit more of thailand. If I took the VIP or 1st class bus from Bkk to Chiang Mai does it stop in towns on the way to pick up and drop off or would I be able to catch different buses on the route.

No. You can't on the same ticket get off a bus and then continue. You CAN of course get a ticket from Bangkok to point A, then from A to B, and then from B to Chiang Mai. Indeed that's a good way to travel. Indeed you should also consider the train, which has more scenic views especially the last 30% or so of the trip.

Assuming you like places where there's something of interest but aren't hyper touristy, I would suggest the following:

By Train:

You could stop in Ayudthaya though it's super close to Bangkok and can be touristy during the day.. Definitely stop in Lopburi. If you want another stop then you could choose Phitsanulok to connect to Sukhothai (touristy, but for good reason as it's impressive), or stop at Den Chai and visit Phrae which is nearby. (Nice town, no tourists to speak of).

By Bus:

Bus is faster so perhaps one stop would do the trick.. I suggest Sukhothai in this case, which is very convenient to get there from Bangkok and also convenient to get to Chiang Mai from there. Other candidates include Kamphaeng Phet which has some historical sights and is a quiet non-touristed town, or Phrae.

I once read a report that the vast majority of successful OTOP companies were well-established SMEs that simply added a new OTOP label to them.

Assuming that's true (there's no source that I could verify), why would that be bad? SME's ALSO were a spear-point of the TRT economic package, and for very good reasons. SME's benefited hugely, as did just about everyone else with the grand exception of, shall we say, 'old money' ?

I'm hugely looking forward to it; I actually love that atmosphere of sneaking around.

Thanks!

You drink liquor by the bucket? Don't tell your wife about that either.

I'm a buffalo, remember? But anyway, youknow, 'bucket'? liquor, red bull, coke, straws? It's a traveller thing.

and the other thing. u want me to lie to my wife and kids?

Not at all, I'm sorry if that part was distracting from the overall post; I am suggesting however to do it by yourself, and choose the most convenient method of your choosing to notify anyone else who may need to be notified.

Tell you what. I'm probably like many people here. I live in a moo ban somewhere 3-10K out of town in a nice house that's excellent value for money, shop at whatever supermarket is closest by on my particular road out of town (Big C in my case), I sometimes go into town for some restaurants or bars and am generally happy with life.

Some of the most interesting topics on this forum I thought were about the (tourist) attractions of Chiang Mai, and there not really being any that are there massively in front of you in the way that the Gyza pyramid or the Colosseum is right there in front of you, the Great Barrier Reef is right there below you or the Sixteenth Chapel paintings are right there above you.

But then recently I had to go to Bangkok for a 2 hour meeting. Usually I would stay in Bangkok one night and do what people seem to do best in Bangkok: burn through wads of cash. This time though I wanted everything different; so fly to Bangkok and back the same day, stay in Chiang Mai the night before and do it budget traveller style; find a cheapo guesthouse and spend the evening & night in town.

It really blew me away.

I don't think any of what I experienced would transfer well to a written forum post, the short version is that I stumbled upon a wooden guesthouse somewhere in the old town that cost 200 baht a night which I negotiated down to 150, went for a drink nearby where I normally don't really hang out. Unlike my actual travelling days I now was able to leverage some of the wisdom gained over the years, specifically to take it easy on the liquor after the first bucket when having to get up early the next morning.. Woke up early (EARLY!) and for the first time in many years experienced 'down town old city' early am.. It's amazing. The weather was cool, the birds chirping, walking through all the little quiet lanes (Chiang Mai must have the most peaceful old center of any town anywhere), the monks & people around the temples, sitting down at some cart selling those fried donut thingies, soy milk and coffee, chatted with the people there and it all was all simply stunning. ... ...

Like I said I can't transfer this into a forum post and won't answer any question on what the attraction is to Chiang Mai.. But I would recommend anyone like me to do the same thing sometime; take a day off, tell the wife & kids you need to go on a business trip or visa run but instead just grab a room somewhere in the old town and take it all in.

I love this city.

If anything this topic is sure making me feel good. I always considered myself to be near the lower end of the scale as far as FLITs go, but as it transpires I may be a little above average.. (And well above average if I count my wife's salary.)

Of course as more money comes in each month, also more ways to spend it come up.. If I lived in Bangkok and had 300K+ coming in each month then I'm in no doubt whatsoever that 'ways to spend it all' would materialize in right there in front of me, and I probably wouldn't consciously consider myself a big spender.

There's just a pretty big gap between working expats (for foreign companies) mostly in Bangkok and people taking it easy in up-country destinations. Between those, they honestly and sincerely can't comprehend how the other manages to spend 300K and 30K respectively and still think they're living a regular decent life.