Valentine

Went to Adam Kebab the other night. Tasty & cheap. if you are looking for ambience go elsewhere or just order takeaway. I do enjoy the roast at Happy Days when I go but sometimes not easy to get yorkshire pudding which is not burnt & much prefer the pumpkin soup over the tomato plus the price includes a coffee.

Actually VictorOne was correct. Most if not all ES services in Thailand are volunteers, also a huge number of tourist police and just as many in regular police.

Not to mention 6000 baht salary per month is hardly worth risking your life for.

Volunteer surf lifeguards in New Zealand & Australia generally have paying jobs away from the beach. They volunteer as members of a surf life saving club & like most clubs it offers the camaraderie of being a member plus they have individual & team sport events against other clubs. There is a Phuket Surf Lifesaving Association here that occasionally stages carnivals but I have often wondered if they have thought about providing volunteer lifeguard services as there must be many expats here who are willing & able to do so. Perhaps "vested interests" may not allow but it would be wonderful to have especially getting youngsters involved who have nothing else to do in their spare time considering there are no organized clubs providing good sporting outlets. There are volunteer tourist police, why not volunteer surf lifeguards?

BTW those discussing the term farang should move to another thread as it does not have any relevance to this topic.

Right i've hit 20 posts, sign me up!!!!!, strange i don't feel any different, i imagined it to feel quite liberating, i'm still a sad, lonely, flee bitten shell of my former self, please, please no pitty, even the dogs just shat in my shoes!!!!, taxi!!

I think you have to be a member for 3 months as well.

I would definitely recommend you have your own vehicle as public transport does give fairly good coverage it is slow, restricted & does not run at night.

True 3G only covers a narrow strip along the west coast of the island although they have promised to extend it.

You should be able to find an internet provider which will give you the speeds you require. 3BB seems to be the better choice at present but the situation changes. I use TOT & have no problems with their service plus you can get fibre optic with them.

Traffic is very busy during peak hours so living near your place of work would be best. I personally find Chalong to be quite fine as shopping, eating out, & bars are all in abundance. Bars are not a deal breaker for me as I very rarely go to them these days but it is relatively simple to get from Chalong to elsewhere on the island.

The team of lawyers acting on behalf of the girl's family released a statement to the Thai media today (25/02/11) regarding the crash. The statement began by expressing sadness for those who lost loved ones. The main points were that the girl's car didn't hit the passenger van at all. The absence of paint marks on the car or van proves this. Rather, the girl's car, the Honda Civic, lost control and crashed into the barrier while taking evasive action to avoid the passenger van which had suddenly came into her lane.

They also asked for the public and the media to carefully consider the facts before rushing to judgement and hoped for the girl to be given fair treatment, saying she had been pronounced guilty in the media and internet despite the court not yet having passed judgement.

Rumours that the girl had gone abroad were untrue; she was still in Thailand practising the dharma and making merit for those who had died in the crash.

More here:

http://www.thairath.co.th/content/region/151642

If this pans out to be true then it is symptomatic of the emotion generated by the media frenzy over this tragic event which has heaped guilt on a teenage girl who's only offence could be that she was driving without a Thai licence. BTW the media & the public rushed to judgement immediately after the accident.

Could there be some similarities with the deaths on Phi Phi which were never adequately explained. There were all sorts of theories about food poisoning, toxic gas etc.

You have to draw the line somewhere otherwise Rick may just as well hang out a bunch of balloons & call it a birthday party. At IBAP if you are a member the entry fee is only half the price as non members pay. At GOMS everyone pays the same price but you have to qualify for voting rights.

Hi - you indicate

IBAP - all members are accepted

GOMS - all members are accepted - - what is GOMS please

TV - NOT all members are accepted

I personally am not bothered about going, but it's the double standards that are being applied that hack me off.

I am just pointing out that all groups have different criteria. You don't become a member of IBAP by registering for free on a website, you have to pay an annual membership fee.

GOMS is the Grumpy Old Men's Society & is an informal gathering where we have a lot of fun & raise money for charitable purposes which are proposed & voted upon by "qualified" members. You don't necessarily have to be old but you do need to be a man & be grumpy on occasion. The only women allowed at the meetings are the serving wenches.

I can't imagine that men and men / men and women / women and men / animals and men / women and animals, etc. have not been the norm for billions of years.

"There's nothing new under the Sun"

And suddenly in 1984 we get HIV/AIDS?

After a gazillion years?

It all seems a bit odd to me that awareness and existence of these viral strains are in direct proportion to the increase in bio-hazardous testing by our illustrious governments.

You don't think that they might be tempted to release a little bit here and there to conduct a little testing? NaaaaaH! No way! The Chinese testing on people? The Germans testing on people? The Israelis testing on people? The Japanese testing on people? The British testing on people? The Iraqis testing on people? The USa testing on people? This just isn't possible. Nature and evolution are lying!!! People don't unleash laboratory viruses on other people. Nature has hidden HIV/AIDS for a gazillion years and she has suddenly decided to unleash her fury in 1984. No way it's a synthetic, laboratory contrived experiment in the name of eugenics. I would have to put on my tinfoil hat if I were to believe that man is a god and nature is lying.

Today's trump card is HIV / AIDS.

No one knows they have it. They have to take the word of a specialist who looks into a microscope and this honest, bribe-proof person will decide your fate.

No one knows they have it because the symptoms are a collection of every other virus or bacterial infection. Now isn't that just dam_n convenient?

The immune system fails.

The majority of people in the world with HIV/AIDS eat with the same hand they wipe their ass with, and drink from the same water source that they excrete in. Go figure!

There are less exceptions than anything to support the veracity of the HIV/AIDS claim

Now they had to come up with HIV - and HIV + because people got too alarmed!

Yup! Ya gotta have crowd control! These sheep will believe anything. Neverttheless, they do need to be culled, and it will be blamed on a vengeful Mother Gaia, or Mother Nature. Nyuk Nyuk.

Don't keep your head where the sun does not shine for too long. If you pull it out & look with unblinkered eyes you might actually learn something. Ebola was unknown until recently & there may be many other deadly diseases lurking just waiting for the right conditions in which to flourish. Also keep having unprotected sex with all & sundry, you might just end up being a mass murderer before you succumb.

You have to draw the line somewhere otherwise Rick may just as well hang out a bunch of balloons & call it a birthday party. At IBAP if you are a member the entry fee is only half the price as non members pay. At GOMS everyone pays the same price but you have to qualify for voting rights.

I could do it but too far away as we mainly operate in the south of the island & is simply not cost effective unless we had a bunch of pools to do. Try the Pool Doctor on the road from 2 heroines monument to Cherng Talay, on the section where the road widens out. It will be worth your while to at least get a couple of quotes.

quote; "Having a field trip or educational tour at the year end may help solve the problem somewhat."

Excuse me!?!?!? A field trip to where and to do what?

Yes, it does sound a bit funny! I suppose she simply talks about education, something which is well known to have some effect.

Probably talking about a junket disguised as a field trip i.e. lets take all the committee & their families on a wonderful free vacation.

The GOMS..Treasure Hunt Rally..March 6,start Chalong Beer Garden..All info..phuketcoms.org klick on events

All info on the website should read http://phuketgoms.org

I was in the cable TV office a couple of weeks ago & they showed me their new "box" (Baht 1,700) which supposedly will enable 150 digital channels. Coming soon.

Just like the "exemplary" investigation into the suspicious deaths on Phi Phi. Never hear about those anymore. Given enough time everything can be swept under the carpet.

Where can one get decent fish n chips with proper battered fish as I do not like the crumbed variety? Hard to find since the tragic demise of the couple from the shop on the road from circle to pier.

It would be interesting to know how this tragic story panned out. It does however highlight the failure of the media in following up on any news like this. Murder & mayhem get front page coverage when it happens but we hardly ever get to know what happened to the perps or if the victim's family were fairly compensated.

Thailand is a big country and a high percentage of the land in the South is given over to palm oil production. So why has Thailand run out of palm oil? Well alot of it goes into bio diesel, but we assume the government promoting this took into account it would not affect food supplies?

We live in a nation of people who tend to look inwards rather than outwards & live for the day without much thought for tomorrow. Bio diesel was flavour of the month back then & now it seems unstoppable. BTW there are many other sources for bio diesel other than palm oil so to use it as an excuse for the shortage is simply not valid http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/analysispaper/biodiesel/

Seems to me Jatuporn is breaching his bail conditions by speaking at a public rally & talking about fighting. What are the police waiting for?

I tend to agree with Xen. The noisy sound trucks along with the incessant blaring, who can make the loudest noise, in markets & shopping centres totally puts me off doing any shopping at such places. It is a totally unimaginative way to promote any products or services. However I suppose it is ingrained into the way of life here as every school day starts with the students lined up for the national anthem & some broadcast through loudspeakers. The national anthem & respect for the king is just fine but the other dictatorial stuff which follows to ingrain total obedience in the student populace?? It is all part of the top down central rule in this nation & the sound trucks take advantage of the Thais being particularly attuned to believe what they hear through these sources.

I Found this tread about the same subject

It says some have done it 60 days before it expire.

Anyway, I come to think about something which maybe will make me have to start on scratch again! I got new passport a couple of months ago so the passport number on my current driving license is not valid. Anyone who knows what the procedure is when wants to renew a driving license and the passport number differ from the one on the soon to be expired license!

There are too many variables for anyone to answer accurately & besides what was good before may not be good now. I feel it would be much simpler for you to go the centre & ask. That way you can be assured you will only need to go one more time. Make sure you ask what time you have to be there in order to complete all the formalities as will most likely have to sit through the video presentation along with various tests.

I'd be curious to know what you believe the topic to be, kata, judging by some of the posts you left behind.

He certainly knows it is not about self gratification. BTW you surely must have enough info by now.

I thought the new rules were so you now could renew your driving license up to 3 months before it expires.

I leave for Europe 10 days from now and wanted to renew my driving license before I leave because return is end of May and my driving license expires mid May.

I`m sure I have seen something about this, maybe it was in the motor forum!

I have renewed later than one month after expiry but that was then & this is now & as you may well be aware all government agencies change the way they do things at any time.

There are two threads running on this topic, perhaps they should be merged.

I could not understand when right off the bat he got a good reply from someone offering to do it for a reasonable price & after that went completely off tangent. You can see why the offer has now been withdrawn.

I've got a one year licence coming up for renewal. I'm aware of what paperwork I need, but, I am unsure of when to go to the Land Transport Office to renew.

A check of previous threads show some posters saying you have to renew before the expiry date and some posters saying you have to wait for the licence to expire and then you can renew, which doesn't make sense, but, TIT.

If anyone has renewed their licence lately, can you tell me when you renewed, in relation to the expiry date?

I waited until the day after my licence expired. You will be issued a 5 year licence, linked to your birthday, ie expires on your next birthday + 5 years later.

Exactly what I did last time so get nearly 6 years.