dageshi

Did this a couple of weeks ago in PP. Got to be honest, prices are more than being quoted here I don't know if we went to a different range than the ones being described here or they just jacked the prices. Anyway the range we went too was a bit further down the road from the airport on the way out of PP, it seemed like it was military, guy in uniform at the bit of string on the front entrance...

Anyway, it was $40 for a 30 round clip on the ak47, I think it was $50 for the m16, same number of rounds. The Ak47 was strapped down to a table in it's own firing range, couldn't hold it inassisted, we did ask. Only gun we could free fire was an mp5 which was using .22.

They did have a substantial range of guns and also some big ass tripod mounted (because they are so god damned big) looking machine guns. Anyway I don't know if there is another range or we just didn't know the right people to get the right prices and equipment. I also strongly suspect our TUkTUk got a big kickback for taking us there since every driver in PP wants to take you to the shooting range.

Anyway hope that helps, I believe they also have a range at siem reap? Maybe prices are more reasonable there.

thank you lopburi3 that answers all my questions. much appreciated.

Hello hope you can help and this is the right section. I'm in cambodia at the moment, got four blank pages left in my passport, going to get a two month tourist visa for thailand and then apply for a new passport at the british embassy in bangkok. I'm wondering what happens to the visa in my old passport? According to the British Embassy site I need to get it transferred to the new passport by the thai aurhorities. Does anyone know in practice whether this is necessary and if so how easy?

Thanks

Gents mark to market is not the problem, the problem is that the glass-stegal law was repealed, that was something that was introduced after the depression which seperated depositor banks (which we deal with) from investment banks which do the speculating and financial engineering, while that law was in effect we did not have a situation like we're in now, when clinton repealed it back in 97 ten years later look at the mess we're in. If mark to market was not in place we'd still be in this situation you can't get past the fundamental truth that the banks made a huge incorrect bet on the housing market and now they're paying the price, the reason that they bet so huge in the wrong direction is the lack of Glass Stegal to stop them working in their areas of expertise.

As for short selling, it doesn't make a difference to how far things fall it only prevents the market from rebounding, remember every short seller *must* buy their stock back that means every short equals a buyer in the future, when the market turns the short seller has to buy back which causes breaks in a decline. When you don't have short sellers then you just get a strong consistant decline with no breaks. Also remember that the phycology of bull and bear markets are different, bull markets are driven by confidence and greed, so they are generally slow inching up a couple of percent a week, bear markets are driven by fear and panic and that's why they're so scary.

Finally the chinese market doesn't allow short selling and it still declined some 80 odd percent last year, in other words it doesn't make a damned bit of difference.

going to see if I can get the MSI Wind U100 at pantip. my current laptop is rapidly deteriorating (the screen goes haywire after a certain amount of time on) so unfortunately gonna need a replacement in the next week.

that's the impression I'd been getting. bugger. looks like I'm going to have to settle for a different model.

Anyone know if this is feasible? I want the Samsung NC10 but can't get it here in Thailand, thought I might get it delivered to my parents house in the UK and get them to send it out. I am not a Thailand resident tho, just passing through, so would probably get it sent to a friend in bangkok and pick it up there. Anyone have any ideas on any pitfalls here? I presume I'll need to pay 7% tax?

Thanks

Hi Gents, I'm in Cambodia at the mo, just found out my hp laptop is committing slow and painful suicide in the form of a dying motherboard, been looking around for a replacement and since I'm tired of paying for full blown laptops that keep dying a few months out of their warrenty I'm looking at a netbook ala the Samsung NC10. Does anyone know one way or the other if it's available at Pantip, it seems the NC10 is the dogs rollocks at the moment so I'd like to know if it's available or maybe I should take a trip to hk.

Thanks.

If you can, always get a full colour copy of the passport page, the visa your in on, and the entry stamps, stick a copy in your wallet and another on the net somewhere, worst comes to the worst you should have all the info you need on those three pages.

Here down in Sihanoukville, I was chatting with a local bar owner, Belgian fellow, he'd been out the night before to a bar downtown, left at 2 in the morning, on his bike, as he left the place, 4 khmer guys kicked his bike down one of them had a meat cleaver, luckily he had a german mate with him rammed half of them with his bike while he got up and made a run for it.

So I think it's pretty simple gents, I travel around asia quite a bit, and basically speaking if you don't go looking for trouble then it probably won't come looking for you. There is a small percentage of random violence everywhere, but as long as your not coming out of some dodgy club at 4 in the morning pissed out of your skull your probably not going to get in trouble.

Things to bear in mind about gold. Gold is a hedge against the destruction of fiat currency, inflation is the symptom of a dying currency as is deflation because fiat currencies cannot survive deflation, politicians *always* devalue them in an attempt to escape deflation, precisely as is happening now with half the worlds currencies and what will likely happen with the USD *because it's the easiest way out*.

For that matter there are two potential scenario's for deflation.

1) the US dollar rises as does US treasuries, everything else including gold falls.

2) the US dollar rises as does US treasuries, gold sells off initially and then gold begins to appreciate.

To my mind we are following scenario 2, because enough people worldwide fear that all fiat currencies will be seriously debased, I believe this too.

Finally bear in mind that gold has risen every year for 9 straight years, every year a different reason was given for why gold was rising, first it was the declining dollar, then it was the commodities boom, now it is the likely destruction of fiat currency. The reason for the appreciation doesn't matter the fact that is has appreciated consistently should tell you it's own story. Now there will reach a point as there did with oil when it will appreciate no longer, but for that point to be reached people must be convinced that a stable financial system has re-emerged and that money will not be devalued. If anyone on this board thinks that's likely to happen this year then by all means go ahead and sell, personally I do not and know that had I kept my savings in sterling as opposed to gold I'd be a third poorer now than I actually am.

One last thing to note, last week gold did something it hasn't done in a very long time, it rallied at the same time as the US dollar. That was in spite of the ECB selling a boat load of gold. I expect we will retest $1000 in the next few months and I'm sure it will be breached.

I'm trying very hard not to turn into a Thailand basher here but the constant changes of visa rules are becoming a bit of a joke. I agree 100% with Thailands right to change the rules but I just wish they'd stop doing it every bloody month. Example, got a friend who just came to Cambodia, wanted a tourist visa for Thailand since the 15 day rule is enforced now, applied through a travel agent in Sihanoukville, the max he could get was 30 days, so my friend now has had to pay a travel agent to get something which previously he could have got for free with an entry stamp. Way to go thailand. I think the Thai government would prefer it if we just mailed our wallets to Thailand and didn't actually come.

I am ashamed to say that coming from the UK at the age of 27 I'd never seen the milky way until 6 months ago. Light pollution being what it is in the UK I just had no idea, guess I knew technically it was up there.

Anyway 6 odd months ago, sitting on the beach in Sihanoukville drinking beer and looking out to sea watching for the occasional lightning flash the power went off as it is wont to do Snooky, I looked up and there it was. Just spent 5 minutes sipping beer and watching the milky way. And then the bloody power came back on.

Anyways I've been wondering where the best place in the world might be to see it, or maybe the best place in asia. Mongolia, the gobi in China?

My personal opinion is that 2009 is similar to 2008, preservation of money not investment returns, I would split my cash equally between usd, euro and I'd throw some gold in there. For those who are interested in gold may I suggest bullion vault .com they have vaults in switzerland, uk and the us, buy and store where you please and if you have sufficient gold stored in one place you may reserve a bar in your own name which will be segregated, cheapest way of owning gold conveniently that I know of.

Gents, been in Chiang Mai for a while now, my guesthouse has been full everyday since the start of november, they probably have at a guess 30 odd rooms of various types, I'm paying 300baht with wifi and no aircon. Like I say the vacancies sign goes up in the morning and it's full by evening, every day bar the odd exception.

From this I draw the conclusion that good businesses that offer value for money will continue to do well, but there are an AWFUL lot of "me too" businesses related to tourism which have to go and will go in the next year or two.

You don't need twenty different coffee shops in the same street, the 400 odd guesthouses knocking about in Chiang Mai which offer precisely the same services are going to get whittled down.

In my opinion Thailand would do best on targetting value for money, be damned sure malaysia is going to benefit from the airasia £150 one way from london flight, that is what Thailand should be aiming for now.

Gents, consider this real carefully.

The stock market is probably not going to be the place to be for the next 5 years at least, why? Because we've gone from an environment of massive amounts of credit available to very little, companies need working capital they can get it two ways, issue more stock which dilutes existing share holders or they can issue bonds in order to raise capital.

Previously capital was available so freely that yields on corporate bonds were very low, now because no one is lending the yields on bonds are much much higher, your talking 8+% on alot of very decent companies. So you have a choice, do you A) lend money to companies, get paid 8% yield and be guaranteed to get your principal back. In the event of a bankruptsy your higher up the pecking order in terms of getting your money back, certainly higher than stock holders. buy their stocks, watch while the dividend is lowered because they are busy paying 8% to the bond holders in order to operate and possibly get diluted when they issue new stock.

Equity like returns for bonds, no brainer!

So before stocks can start a new bull market the cash will go to bonds in order to shore up the companies need for capital.

Untill you see that happening you should be nowhere near stocks, they will fall further because money will withdraw from the stock market in order to take advantage of the yields on bonds which are inherently safer.

Bond holders get paid before stock holders, simple as that.

Backwardation differs from commodity to commodity, the last time it happened in oil was right before the giant blowoff runup to $140, backwardation in that circumstance was the market saying "I want oil and I want it now!", with gold it only happened for a relatively short time so let's not get too hyped up about it.

Now onto the subject of golds long term prospects, Mish Shedlock the arch type uber deflationist who both called the current mess and also predicted that it would be the dollar and US treasuries that benefitted is bullish gold because "gold is money", money does well in deflation, it's the only thing that does well in deflation. This is why small coins and bars are going for a premium, you can hold em in your hand, they look like money, they feel like money, you can walk into a shop and assuming the shop keeper is of a similar mind swap your gold coin for goods. You can't really or easily do that with a share in gld.

When markets rally on bad news it's usually a sign of a turning point, it doesn't say on what timescale that turning point will be, could be a weeks rally could be more, but markets rallying on bad news and the nfp was bloody toxic is an interesting signpost. As for the dollar, not checked the charts this week but presuming it declined the same time as the stock market rose it would imply the inverse corrolation between the dollar and us stocks are very much still in place, has been for about 6+ years now not sure why it would end anytime soon.

Dollar was overbought, it's been bubbling around for a while now that might be a process of relieving the overbought compression or it could be rolling over.

Even more than that and here's an interesting if radical thought, we have declined some 45% in US stocks and most world stock markets in a relatively very short time, I think we're about bad news saturated at the moment, everything is coming in worse than expectations because everybody felt that things were going to get manifestly worse a few months ago and here we are at the moment we're just confirming in data what we already felt this recession is going to be a doozy.

jaideguy physical gold in coin or bar format always has some kind of premium over the spot price, it can vary from 5% to much higher depending on the type of coin and how in demand it's in. It's been reported in numerous places around the internets that it's been difficult to get ahold of "money" like gold aka coins or small gold bars for the last 4-5 months and when it is available there are substantial spreads over spot, spot which is usualy set daily by the london gold fix. So do not be surprised if you do find small bars that they carry significant premium over spot. However best way is to find at least 2 or 3 places go around and see if you can get prices on similar products, if you do, I'd be interested to know what they're asking for. On a side note, if you are going to buy and you have the option it's best to go for internationally recognised 1oz coins, krugerrands, american eagles, whatever they are easiest to come to resell because they are well known and therefore easily accepted, but that being said your not likely to have problems with small bars either but if they come from a major refiner like Johnson Mathey or Pamp Swiss, Credit Suisse, this would be better.

Thailand does have some reasonable infrastructure compared to it's neighbouring countries (malaysia excepted) you don't get power brownouts here, the roads are good, rail system runs to pretty strategically important places. If for the love of god the Thai's could sort out their political system they'd be well on the way to being an exceptionally successful country, that seems to be the major thing holding them back now.

Hi looking for some decent walking/hiking shoes that I can expect to last for year or so and not disintegrate. Saw some North Face branded ones in Airport Plaza. I'm UK size 11 so those that stock large sizes are the major issue I guess.

Any recommendations both on decent brands and where to get em in Chiang mai?

Thanks

Personal favourite from spicy was watching a ladyboy and bar girl having a kind of hissy fit at each other which involved the pair of them grabbing each other, their respective friends grabbing hold of the opposite side and then bouncing around the dancefloor like a human wrecking ball. Great entertainment and the bouncers agreed they watched for two minutes before they broke it up.

Never got chance to go to heart of darkness, heard from a rich khmer guy that if you wanted to remain in once piece you paid off one of the "cigarette attendants" who were all packing and were basically your body guard for the night. But I didn't go so can't confirm.

Gentlemen I'm going to choose my words carefully here.

Practically every other country in this region has fallen apart with revolutions, communism, civil war and god knows what else over the past 50 odd years, Thailand has managed to survive with a few cuts and bruises during the same time. I am genuinely worried that what Thailand desperately needs now is a stable politicial base which can be turned too should it be required in the next 5-10 years. Ask yourselves why the military has chosen not to intervene at this point, I would strongly suggest that the Thai political classes are being humiliated into getting their act together by making them the laughing stock of the world and this time the easy way out a coup which everyone is demanding is not going to be delivered, if it was going to happen it would have happened by now. What we have is something far more dangerous but potentially better off for Thailand in the long run.

Those heading to this part of the world will go to vietnam, the backpackers and sex tourists are starting to head to cambodia I guess, Sinville has a few ex pattaya bar owners setting up shop they are all awaiting the opening of the airport with baited breath.

In many ways I think Thailand has been riding the crest of a tourism wave for many years, the financial crisis has hit just at the point where too many loans had been taken out to develop projects or rather that's a symtom of the crisis. That would have caused a slowdown but the recent stupidity at the airport more or less means that the people Thailand has been developing it's hotels and resorts for are just not going to come. As I said I think Vietnam especially will benefit from Thailands misfortune.

Pretty much depends on what you want to pay, there seem to be places from 300 baht upwards. Noticed the Montri spent most of the last few months under construction on the ground floor, new restaurant with live music (not loud and not late) most evenings. I'd agree the Montri is probably the best hotel in the best location.