JatujakShopper

Here's a picture of the house that my wife built for us. She hired a contractor and told him and his 3 buddies exactly how to build it. We've done some of the work on it ourselves too. It's been a fun project. We have one more room to add on and the garden between that new room and the carport, then we're finished. We talked about building a new and bigger home, but neither one of us want to leave this one.

That's gorgeous! I am now faced with this myself and think... I want to hire you two!

Thailand the hub of transparency.

This means it's time for a crackdown on transparency!

Another casualty of this country's disregard for safety and disrespect for human life. Say what you like that's what I see daily.

Thai people love children. As long as you keep them away from the insane traffic they are safer here than in Australia.

Don't believe scare stories.

DO believe scare stories about the danger of electrocution, gaping holes in the street and deadly street traffic. Kids plummeted through faulty hotel balcony railings and were sucked underwater at a waterpark, to their deaths here in 2009- be vigilant! There is little regard for safety here and the danger is real.

As an Electrician, it does amaze me why Thai buildings (including ones farang have built for them)

are always missing the Earth, as well as being wired up completely wrong.

The very sad thing is, that there are laws that the Thai's are meant to abide by and sign a certificate saying the electrical installation is safe. Obviously no one checks or actually cares.

I would also say, I was checking out the wiring in the new Shell Petrol Station in Phuket, and being Shell, i would have thought their would be standards... Alas I was wrong. Very poorly wired with 3 phase 25mm cables coming in, earthed by a 4mm cable... = death when a problem occurs. But at least there was an Earth.... did it work... dunno... maybe it just looked good.

TB

So many stories like this, so sad, so needless.

It is some solace to hear an electrician confirming what I have always thought, that most wiring in Thailand is shoddy and dangerous. I came to that conclusion after having a hot wire that someone had left sticking out of the house's central power box(!) knock me off a ladder when I was painting the kitchen- I had a lovely high speed taxi ride to Bumrungrad I was in pain and real shook up but no serious damage- I got away lucky. Come to find out nothing in the house was grounded which was why I would consistently get small shocks from the DVD player or even the PC. All in all a dangerous and disgraceful state of affairs. Wake up Thailand! Stop the excuses and fix it!

there seems to be little knowledge about what "zebra crossings" are for there is a crossing near the market near us but people will not use it as it is about 20 metres further away from the market and I have yet to see any drivers slow down or stop to allow anybody to cross the road at a zebra crossing. There are crossings at my son's school but there still has to be a policeman to guide the children acroos the road.

My sincere condolences to the family.

This kind of wreckless driving behavior is execrable and the norm in LoS. It's well past time for the authorities to act but it will never happen. The zebra stripes are obviously meaningless, shame on Thai drivers! SHAME!!!

I simply love watching people cut off their nose to spite their face. The greedier and more unreasonable these drivers and their ilk become the more people complain about it, word DOES get around and pretty soon they have driven off their potential customers and have no one left to rip-off!- back to coconut farming! Darwin wins again!

I've been to Phuket three times in my life, two too many and it won't happen again. Ye shall reap as ye sow.

Just remind me again what is actually achieved by restricting alcohol sales in the afternoon?

Oh easy, they do that just to piss me off. Cheers!

What I have never been able to understand is how the friendly, cordial Thai person who is so helpful and pleasant when met on foot turns into a selfish, inconsiderate and dangerous menace behind the wheel. It perplexes me! Just try crossing a road at a crosswalk- the oncoming drivers will actually SPEED UP to avoid having to lose 5 seconds of their time to let another human being cross the road! It is exceptionally rare that a Thai driver will ever give a pedestrian a break OR a brake!

One morning walking across an empty petrol station parking lot a driver of a sedan still managed to clip me hard with their side mirror! I thought they did it on purpose and when I chased them down they swore they hadn't seen me- I'm 6 feet tall 240 lbs, how could they miss me? If they hadn't been a totally normal looking middle aged couple there would have been a brawl, but they were so obviously clueless and frightened of me that I had to walk away- in that case they were just completely negligent. In other cases, drivers here simply don't care if they hit you or not, you, the pedestrian, are intruding on THEIR road.

Seriously, Thailand has got to apply some driver training, common sense and basic good manners to their drivers. People ARE getting hurt and killed! How wonderful it would be to see the police passing out fines to drivers who refuse to obey Thai Law (yes, pedestrians do have right of way, it's just completely ignored) by not stopping (or even slowing down a bit) for people crossing the road, especially at crosswalks, which are meaningless stripes on the pavement to drivers. Sadly, I doubt I will ever see that day, shame, shame, shame.

Really, it's inexcusable.

You know, that sounds pretty good... I even like kimchee.

<snip>

If you are financially well and don't mind 4 regular seasons, come to Korea where grown-ups are not yet treated like infants by their government, where beer is 60 Baht/half liter and the bars close for 60 minutes each day (not all at the same hour though).

Well, these gift baskets are stupid too, but the bottle of booze has always been the highlight and not subject to an expiry date.

Safety in Bangkok is up to you, be vigilant and put extra locks on your doors. The one time I really needed the police they could barely be made to take action, it would have meant paperwork and time away from hassling cyclists for bribes, so whatever they come up with is laughable. Bangkok is, compared to most big cities, still amazingly safe, but I wouldn't give the police any credit for it.

The reality is those high speeds quoted are ONLY for websites IN Thailand! When calling ToT to tell them my service is down again they always ask 'What about websites in Thailand' so I always ask them 'Why would I care about those?'. So much for being an internet hub.

My internet was down all yesterday evening, so I'm even more cranky than usual.

ToT in Bangkok near Jatujak was down most of last evening. Apparently I wasn't the only one affected as their operators were all busy. I'm sure their technicians were "working to improve the service" just like they always are. I always ask when are the improvements going to happen and get the telephone equivalent of a blank stare. It would be funny if I weren't paying for high speed but for Thai websites only, what a joke.

Hahaha!

I am not sure 'Tacky' is an improvement over 'Toxin'.

Thanks for this daymaker, I needed a laugh, now I need to try to make it to the store before 2PM and the alcohol sales stop- that happened on Takki's (snicker) watch, any way we can get that reversed now that he has achieved complete humiliation?

---snipped-----

Can we criticize the Thais for falling in the same pitfalls as we have in the much "wiser" and developed USA?

Please, cut the Thais some slack!

Pisico

Edited to a more positive message: Thais are lovely people, trust them in all things!

Last year i financed putting rice on 30 rai including my father in laws paddies. It cost med 70 000 bath and i said thousand times to them that they should not put sticky rice because of the price when selling. Did they care? No. Half of the paddies was sticky rice and they did not tell meg before we went to sell the shit. 5 bath pr kilo. I lost money and they did not get any profit from the work. I'm fed up with them.

I try to find new ways so we can make som money on our 70 rai. Ask questions but nobody knows ore they say that things are not possible. I ask them if they ever tried?

So i have to find out everything myself + i get some help from this forum but every time i try something i looks like they sabotasje me.

I told them long time ago that they not get any money for free from me. If they like to work with us, we use our land and i pay the excpences, but they dont bother.

Tough break, sorry to hear of your troubles. Stop the flow of money to these idiots. Put up a tall fence and lock the gate to keep the in-laws out.

There IS no spoon!

Finally, some GOOD NEWS! Make mine a Beer Laos, thanks, currently only available in some bars (not that I mind bars, but would like to see it in Carrefour)!

Of the current local product I find Leo and Archa drinkable, as opposed to their respective companies' flagship brands Singha and Chang which are both supremely awful. Variety is the spice of life!

PS- Bring back Mittweida!!!!!

It's hard to believe that this kind of blatant crime can continue unpunished in a civilized country....

I've owned an Imac and had several Windows os PC's over the years and to be honest I'm tired of them both. It's Linux Mint for me and I am not looking back. Bill and Steve- Buh-bye!

Reminds me of the famed Thewphaingarm School Nazi parade, another great moment in Thai insensitivity to other cultures. LOL

Hate to ask, but are there now no hold outs left? Do all Thai ATMs now charge the farang fee? Thanks to anyone who can tell me if there are any 150B charge free ATM machines left.

Sigh. I used to love it here.

PS I'll try Aeon and report back.

The Phra Nang Peninsula, Ryleh Beach in Krabi. Twenty years ago it was paradise on Earth, cheap bungalows, good food, topless Swedish girls sunbathing, all the beer and smoke a body could want, friendly Thai people making good money- total freedom to relax and enjoy everything.

Go there now- it's a concentration camp. I'd rather spend a week in a Carrefour parking lot. They have destroyed it utterly, 15 years later I wept as my wife led me back to the boats to Ao Nang.

People of Koh Phangan (and other places like it in Thailand), say good-bye to all those patchouli scented, grass puffin' hippie kids and their all their sweet money! Your loving government (which cares deeply about you!) has run them off at long last! Say hello to Chuck E Cheeze and skinflint parents on a tight budget with their over-heated whiny brats!

People of Sihanoukville (and places like it in Cambodia), rejoice and welcome the somewhat unwashed but generous with a tip youth that have been banished from the realm of your pretentious neighbors, rejoice because even if these wandering happy folk wear funny clothes (or not enough of them) and love to puff funny herbs while they dance around on the beach, they all have big fat credit cards, hemp bags full of cash and they are coming your way! PARTY!!! It is your big day so start building bigger bars!

Seriously, Thailand is Nerdsville any more, I'd rather spend an afternoon at the Christian Science Reading Room. Way to go, you sure showed them! Thailand very badly wants to become a place that sucks to hang out in if you are under 70 and have even half a sense of adventure.

Unbelievable. In the land of sheep the wolves shall rule.