ben2talk

No way! I never heard of 'novelty stamps'. Now I know, I want to get some - too many empty pages left in mine.

If you can't find novelty stamps, can you get your kids to put some nice crayon pictures in there?

11 hours ago, xtof2 said:

Smart guy : trying it first !

 

From what I've seen, hardly anyone is using it anyway. How many people is that tiny bottle going to serve?

Wouldn't it work better to have a line of temporary sinks with soap and running water?

6 hours ago, DrJack54 said:

If I was to be quarantined in Thai hospital for 2 weeks and survived it would be short lived.

Once the hospital bill would be handed to me. R.I.P

ROFL yes, the choices for affordable healthcare here are limited. I managed to get through the red tape at Ramathibodi to get stents put in for 147k (private cost 320k) but if Covid takes off, there won't be any treatment available for sure - my wife had to take a day off work and spend a full day going there just to sign to book a private room, and even that wasn't available when I got there 4 days later.

From what news I see in the UK, they aren't taking it remotely seriously anyway - not even 'reactive' let alone 'proactive' measures. 

Yup, useless masks just for show.

Why can't they make N95 masks? too technical?

The last set we bought were returned - made in thailand, cloth with valves - but two layers of cloth covering the valves to hold the filters so they just wouldn't work anyway.

If China can't make our masks, we're screwed.

DIY ftw.

Just a couple of hundred baht gets you a litre of isopropyl alchohol - just mix in a bit of aloe gel and you're good to go.

The biggest issue is that the good masks are almost all made in China and they just aren't shipping. The stupid masks they're giving away/wearing here aren't good for toffee... 

Let's hope China recovers and gets some orders out before we get hit too hard. Meanwhile I'm staying home quite a bit more...

3 hours ago, mlmcleod said:

I suspect that a temperature will require a roadside test for Covid-19 for a cash fee!

Lolz - but it's a scary prospect. A huge problem in the US, with their insurance issues, if you visit the hospital for a test, you pay a heck of a lot because they have to do many other tests to eliminate flu etc before they even do a Covid test. In the US, a quick visit to the ER starts at about $700 per head.

13 hours ago, cmsally said:

So what do they do if you have above average temperature - fine you 1000 Bt ? (Sorry couldn't resist that one !)

ROFL - Did the police wear red noses and use cute doggy temperature sensors? I'm sure nobody will argue that it's mostly token behaviour at best, for us more of the clowning around we're used to...

Remember the one where they stopped a bus and checked the exhaust cloud?

I'd definitely like to see temperature checks at all major public areas - shopping centres, Makro etc, not so much for people isolated in their vehicles. It's just taking the <deleted> really - waste of resources.

Some better education would work better.

It's BETTER to wash hands with soap and water - if you're out shopping etc. 

If you handle a door, or escalator rail, then it's okay to walk to a toilet and wash your hands... only occasionally do you actually NEED the sanitizer... but Thai's just hoard the stuff and assume it works better than washing.

Actually washing hands is better, because it doesn't simply kill the virus on your dirty hands - it just washes them clean. I picked up a litre of isopropyl alchohol - 175 baht - no need for expensive gels, just add your own aloe/perfume and put some in a small bottle for your pocket.

3 hours ago, AussieBob18 said:

Rental car insurance in Thailand is not like US or anywhere else in 1st world. There are lots of gotchas and conditions in the fine print - and there is not any real consistency between companies - even the big named ones - they are Thai owned franchises and operate under Thai laws and consumer protections (what little they are). Basically, you should expect that you will have to give up all or some of your 10,000 baht deposit if you have an accident/damage.

 

You must have an IDP and valid licence. You must use a credit card for the deposit - they will not accept cash/debit etc. But here is where it can become very serious - and it has for some people in the past - seach TV and the web. If the accident/theft is not covered by their own insurance (for whatever Thai reason), they will hit your credit card with the costs. Some have been known to hit the credit card and then refund some/all of the charge months later when/if there insurance company pays up. There is no hard and fast rules/laws - this is Thailand - maybe OK, maybe not.

 

The best advice I got when I found out all about this years ago, and what I do every time I rent a car in Thailand, is that I have credit card that has a few thousand$ limit - from a bank that I have no other accounts with. Nothing has gone wrong for me, but the 'safety' of having a limit on the credit card I use, and the bank has no other accounts it can access, means I should be a lot safer - and I mean 'should'. And no not drink - at all - any alcohol in your blood after a serious accident and you are toast. And dont over-speed - same reasons.

 

 

This is excellent advice.

We learned this when our car was damaged by a third party - his insurance agreed to cover our costs... however, even this doesn't mean 'all of the costs' and we ended up with 17,000 excess rental over a month of rental (apparently it doesn't cover Sundays, or Wednesday mornings... but you don't return the car for those days because you don't have a spare car to get home...).

Rental cars are subject to localised maintenance (i.e. there's no proper M.o.T framework in Thailand - no real incentive for testers to fail any vehicle that can be driven and every incentive to overlook 'minor' issues like spongy brakes).

Other lessons to appreciate here: Honda (Thailand) is not Honda, just as Apple stores aren't Apple stores... McDonalds isn't McDonalds... it's not always bad, but don't be fooled.

47 minutes ago, Thian said:

So how come the malls don't go bankrupt if nobody's buying??

Just for one of those little glass phone stalls you pay about 60,000 per month in rent - in advance. Remember these Malls are run by the richest people in Thailand, half of the stuff they sell are made locally by their own factories at ridiculously cheap labour costs - so they don't really need to sell much at all - when I visited the new section they added to Fashion Island, premium eateries - and it's like a ghost town with an occasional visitor for a meal - yet they remain open.

I'd seriously stop trying to makes sense of this country if I were you.

6 hours ago, Tops said:

I was @ Ramathibodi Hospital 3 weeks ago as immigration wanted a health certificate that I didn't have Corona. I only could do it in some hospitals. Ramathibodi was one of them. The price you see here is only for the blood test. They also make a X-ray of your chest / lungs. Price for that is 9,000 THB. All together I spend almost 20,000 THB overthere. Many hidden costs !!!

Sure, if you're not registering as a Thai National (or married) then it's not cheaper than a premium private hospital. For a lot of stuff it'd work out cheaper to fly to India or Malaysia...

2 hours ago, PatOngo said:

Greed knows no boundaries in Buddhist Thailand! Buddha would be disgusted!

Yes, entering Ramithibodi I was fully aware that being married to a Thai national means I didn't need to pay for the Premium service (I need PCI - heart surgery, and it'll cost 150,000 at Thai prices, but for foreigners the official price would be over 300k).

Every single desk I visited, and every doctor I saw repeatedly warned me I'd need to be paying double and should be up on the third floor for VIP customers.

It took 9 hours the first day to get through red tape and come out with a purple card, yet STILL they keep defaulting (when we got home the paperwork had errors that needed fixing). They're not actually being greedy - they just don't understand why a foreigner would want to pay less and go through the 'normal' hospital system (even though it's the SAME proceedure by the same doctors).

The other benefit - my medication bill went down from 7000 for a month's medication at retail prices (not through a private hospital - that'd come to about 9000) to 7200 for 3 months supply.

8 hours ago, PatOngo said:

Define normal!

There are normal people here, but they're not easy to meet I guess. I don't meet farang around here - and have no desire to seek them out. I meet a few going for casting jobs, but I'm generally busy and happy enough with my own family life.

2 hours ago, Lacessit said:

No-one here is normal. It is not normal to abandon one's country of birth to live in Thailand. There are various reasons for the abandonment - financial, better sex, warm climate etc.

If I want to think positively about being in Thailand, it's that I have more gumption than the retirees in my home country who have condemned themselves to a gray existence waiting to die.

I was getting that feeling as I progressed through my 30's and escaped in 2001 - that description of a 'grey existence' fits it exactly, and however much this country p*55es me off sometimes, it's never grey.

I make a point of trying not to understand irritating people myself, and would assume that many Thai's are simply doing the same thing with you.

22 minutes ago, bluesofa said:

I take it those 'handed' out by the Health Minister were the insanitary type, seeing as they had been handled by him according to the photos, giving the chance of potential contamination.

Surely this also only covers the relatively useless 'surgical' style masks, and not the slightly more useful N95 masks.

2 hours ago, Rookiescot said:

They do not confuse everyone.

They confuse most people. The actual labels for the cables should be 1. Line 2. Return and 3. Earth.

Line and Return are both potentially live cables connected to the power supply - (depending on the quality of the 'return' path to the power station). Even the term 'return' could be confusing, as the power is alternating, surely both cables are for two way power transfer...

Certainly I'd say it's very bad for any bike to cut out after going over a 'very small ridge' at 55kph - so to say it's 'no worse than any bikes do' is strange. I can't say that NO bike ever did that to me after 30 years riding and millions of kilometers... but when it did the answer was very obvious - with an older GSX-R750, poor battery connection after a repair at a dodgy bike shop - visiting a local shop near where I worked, they actually wedged the cable into the battery (where it should be bolted on) so that it cut out as soon as I went over a bump.

The next thing to be aware of is the massive change in prices for just about anything when you cross the 150cc barrier... for anything from oil change, filters, whatever - small bikes are stupid cheap and anything over that gets pretty stupid expensive. 4000 for a battery is ridiculous - they must have seen you coming.

Remember that 'Honda Thailand' is nothing like 'Honda' in any other country in the world - there's a huge difference with Cars and Bikes here - where even official dealerships for bikes are very poor shadow of the company. It's all for show.

Sadly I'm sure a Forza would be a real pain to work on, but I'd be tracing the loom and looking for possible areas where the cable can make contact with the frame and ground the system (became an issue with my first GSX-R when it was 10 years old) and any other possibly dirty/dodgy connections.

18 hours ago, Orton Rd said:

Prevent the virus spreading with fines and jail terms, are they totally insane?

They'll need to close down a few top hospitals for a start - visiting Ramithibodi yesterday with the massive crowding caused by time wasting queueing (just one quick blood test and visit the doctor to review and prescribe another 3 months meds... took from 9am until 6pm).

2 hours ago, brewsterbudgen said:

Who are "they"?

It's hard to blame the Thai people, they aren't allowed much input in the running of their county. Police don't do much - even the most noticeably antisocial issues of ancient busses, patched up with filler and surrounded by a huge clouds of smoke are allowed. There aren't any police doing anything in any soi where I live...

We can blame the police, not taking action when there illegal activities, but maybe we should ask why - most are aware that the 'police' in Thailand are not really police at all in any Western sense of the word. But mostly we must blame the Junta - they seized power and show no more than amateur skills at maintaining the country, but great skill in removing any political opposition. 

'They' mostly applies to the Thai anti-democracy elite, and royalists, maintaining authority and denying this country the rule of law. It would also apply to the police, who are simply puppets of the military.

Asking this question 'Who are 'they'' doesn't say much for your understanding of Thai politics.

22 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

If trying to flee a check-point these guys are obviously up to no good, drunk etc, down the line they could injure or kill and innocent pedestrian.

Not true. I always refuse to stop - but I'm never up to no good. This applies to both car and bike... Most times they're stopping people it's just opportunistic money collecting...

They'll try to stop you if a bus parks on the left and you ride past it (not in the gutter - grab him!!!) or if you're turning right on a 5 lane highway (not riding in the gutter - shouldn't be in the right hand lane), or even if you'r on the right coming up to a U-turn on Sukumvit on the way to renew your tax.

It's actually extremely rare that crazy drunk bikers injure pedestrians, mostly bikes are the victims - and helmets wouldn't help them anyway (mostly they drive like buffalo and have no clue because there's no proper training or policing).

21 hours ago, richard_smith237 said:

Long enough to know this is one of the most ridiculous excuses I’ve read.

Okay, but the fact is there's no proper enforcement by Thai police and it's pretty normal, certainly for local bikes, not to wear helmets - similarly the rules about bikes having to keep left (unless they're slower than acceptable to be in traffic) are not true - the police just go out to collect money.

Ten years ago I stopped responding when they call me over, just ride through and try to avoid being grabbed off my bike - most of the time the police are just trying to grab money. Another example in the car, doing a U-turn on a double lane U-turn six years ago, the policeman stopped me and said I'm not allowed to use the outside lane and must pay.

That is why people view police in this country with contempt and refuse to stop - because they know once they've gone past there will be no further action.

Other countries are not a reasonable comparison - they don't let people in cars do what the f*@ck they like and focus only on stopping bikes to grab cash.

If the starting price was 750,000 I'd be mildly interested...