nisakiman

Best taxi service in Bangkok is 'All Thai Taxi', owned by Nakhonchai Air. They use all Toyota Prius (they have a fleet of 500 cars), which have huge boots (trunks) with no gas bottle. The drivers are paid a salary, so no incentive to cheat. All very high-tech, all very efficient. They all have sat-nav. The drivers are all very professional. Meter fare is standard, but if you book a taxi for a certain time and place, there's a 100 Baht surcharge. You can download an app for them.

We've used them a few times, and they've been ace every time.

One has to wonder what his motivation was. A fetish for watching men piss?  Did he have a testing kit? Was he hoping to catch someone with it and demand a 'fine'? Or was he simply bonkers? Very strange.

1 hour ago, grollies said:

You think you've got problems, just seen little wagtail-type birds bathing in my pool. Gotta up the Chlorine.

Here in Greece the swallows skim over the surface of swimming pools when they want a drink. You see them doing it all the time. The chlorine doesn't seem to bother them at all.

5 hours ago, Prbkk said:

And you would have to reckon that anyone ordering an oyster omelette roadside would have some kind of death wish.

I thought it was mussels they used. At least, all the places I've eaten it they used mussels.

There was a guy who would set up in the evenings just near Saphan Kwai BTS who sold mussel omelets. They were fantastic. He always had a queue of people waiting. I never got ill from eating them. Sadly he's been turfed out now as part of the ongoing 'clean up', so we are deprived of one more cheap culinary delight.

I wonder what all the office workers who don't have kitchens (which is the norm in most rented rooms) will do for food when the military have finished their pogrom on street vendors. There are going to be a lot of pissed off people in Bangkok.

"Birds fowling pool area"

Was that intentional?

5 hours ago, Thechook said:

Sounds like the military want to take the country back to pre 1930

I think that's exactly what they want to do. No more Johnny-come-lately billionaires upsetting the applecart with their populist policies.

The natural order of things must be restored.

Peasants are supposed to toil in the fields, not have political opinions. Political opinions are the preserve of the elite urbanites; only they have the intelligence to know what's best for the people. So let's all forget about this silly 'democracy' stuff, and get back to the way things should be, with a proper, established and permanent hierarchy in place.

Reading a lot of the comments on this thread, one would be forgiven for thinking that many of the posters went directly from infancy to old age, and skipped the stage of being a kid and young adult. Obviously rebelliousness, risk-taking, competition and raw fun was never a part of their lives. Just dull conformity.

Use blow-out strips? String wire across the road? You might as well suggest equipping the police with Uzis and mowing the bikers down as they pass. The effect would be much the same.

And as for crushing their bikes, well....talk about the 'hang-'em-high' brigade.

Ok, what they did was stupid and dangerous. So fine them a sum that will hurt, and address the problem. The kids have invested everything in a nice bike, because they like fast bikes, and when you're young, and you have a fast bike, you want to go ...fast. Nothing strange about that. The public road is emphatically not the place to race, so let them have track days at local racetracks. Low entry fees, mandatory leathers and helmets, and let them go for it. They can then test their mettle to their hearts' content without being a danger to other road users. And probably learn a hell of a lot about controlling a motorbike, thus making them safer riders.

They're young, for crying out loud. They want to push the envelope. They want to feel the adrenaline pumping. It's normal. Or at least, it was when I was young.

12 minutes ago, lovelomsak said:

When I first came to Thailand there were few tourists but there were many street vendors.. That told me the vendors were there for the Thai,s. It was not a case of tourists are coming lets sell on the street. Street vendors are part and parcel of BKK. 

  I used to live near Soi Ari skytrain stop. I was appreciative of a vendor who sold noodles at night> when I would come home after 11 pm the noodle vendor would be there. Many nights before I went home I would stop for noodles or a fruit drink just so  the vendor knew I was heading home and was aware what I was doing.With out him I would have got off the train and walked home without any others on the street in the area.

I too lived near Ari about ten years ago, and used the street vendors all the time. When we were in Bangkok recently, we hit one of our favourite restaurants just up the road from Ari BTS, the Chinese seafood restaurant Lhao Lhao. We always sit at one of the outside tables because 1) I don't much like air conditioning, and 2) I like to have a cigarette after my meal without having to go and stand outside like some miscreant. We turned up at about 8.30 only to find that there were no outside tables. When we asked why, they told us it was because they were now not allowed to put tables on the pavement anymore. We were advised to return at about 9.30, when, it would seem, they could get away with it. Anybody who knows this place will know that the outside tables there don't interfere at all with pedestrian flow (which is minimal at that time anyway), as there is still a wide area to walk. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And what then, when they have turned Bangkok into one big air conditioned shopping mall, with nowhere for the low-paid denizens of Bangkok to pick up cheap food? Because most apartments / rooms in Bangkok don't even have kitchens - it's considered unnecessary because there are always cheap street vendors nearby. Is Bangkok to be for HiSo only? And who will service those HioSo in their glass towers, if the workers can no longer afford to live there?

This is an ill-informed, ill-thought out plan put into motion by grey, unimaginative people who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, and have no thought for the realities of the situation.

Bangkok is not Singapore, and never will be, however much they might wish it so.

Taken into military custody when he arrived to file a complaint.

Police say they won't take action.

I think that pretty much explains what happened to the plaque if anyone had any doubts before.

Is there an Amazon site for Thailand? If not, you may have to get them from UK, although not sure what postage would be. Amazon UK have a huge selection - I was looking just the other day.

On 13/04/2017 at 5:13 PM, Katia said:

^ Actually, that's how some native speakers of English write, too!

 

(I had a coworker who would drive me nuts with her random quotation marks and capitalization.  She probably would have written, Please do "not" "sit" on the Railing.)

That's just following in the great British tradition of the 'Greengrocer's Apostrophe'.

Banana's, cabbage's, sprout's and apple's are to be seen on greengrocer's hoardings and chalkboards up and down the country. It adds to the charm of the High Street! :)

On 12/04/2017 at 4:05 AM, overherebc said:

I think that doesn't happen anymore at least on departure side. On arrival my wife always asks and 99 times out of a hundred they say OK.

I went through the departures Thai immigration line with my wife a couple of weeks ago with no problem. Ironically the lines for foreigners were short, too, so it wouldn't actually have taken me very much longer to go through them. When we arrived in mid February, though, the foreigner immigration lines were horrendous, all the way down the ramp and into the concourse. Again, I went through the Thai gate with my wife, which took about ten minutes tops.

Departures seems to chop and change. A couple of years ago when I went to the Thai side with my wife, I was sent to the foreigner queue, which was huge. In fact, I barely made my flight (security had been painfully slow that time, too), and it was only by skipping the queue, apologising profusely and asking people if I could go to the front as my flight left in twenty minutes that I made it. And of course the gate was bloody miles away, so we had to run all the way. Fortunately one of the Qatar ground staff was waiting / looking for us about half way there, and radioed through to say we were on our way, otherwise we might have found our luggage on the tarmac and the door closed!

But arrivals, we always use the Thai side with no problems. I'm not sure why departures is different. It seems to be on the whim of the guy(s) on duty.

I used to love the steam trains. When I was a boy, eight or nine, I had quite a long journey to school - a mile walk to the train station, half an hour train journey, then two buses to within a quarter mile of my school. (Can you imagine any child of eight doing that journey on his own these days? Every day?) The train was the bit I enjoyed most. A great metallic monster huffing and puffing into the station, hissing and belching steam and smoke! And the wheels struggling to gain purchase on the rails as power was applied. Wonderful! And on the journey, I'd stick my head out of the window and imbibe the smell of the coal burning, and get smuts in my eyes from the belching behemoth that was pulling us. Nostalgia writ large!

Diesel locomotives and electric trains just don't cut it.

The golden age of steam!

Ha! Showing my age here! :)

Why does it have to be either / or? It's not beyond the wit of man to modernise the rolling stock and the infrastructure while still keeping the history.

Personally, I love the Thai train system as it is, old stock, long delays and all. And many of the stations are wonderful examples of Thai architecture. They have so much character. Even the small ones that seem to be in the middle of nowhere with just a small building and a dirt platform. It would be cultural vandalism to get rid of them.

5 hours ago, starky said:

When English is not your first language...  It seems you are set up for life for being ridiculed by people for whom English is their first language and yet probably couldn't read one word of Thai. Bloody natives can't transliterate correctly that should be good for a laugh eh wot!  cue chance for a Thai bash and opportunity to post photos (yet again) of menus, signs and shops with spelling mistakes or poor translation ho ho ho how hilarious.. Not.

Oh, I don't know about that. Seeing humour in a mistaken translation doesn't mean that you are denigrating the translator. I may smile at some of the things I see, but it never occurs to me to think that the person who has done the translation is stupid. I'm acutely aware of how easy it is to make mistakes when you are speaking or writing in a language that isn't your mother tongue. I think that most of us who have a second language make mistakes all the time. And if people laugh at those mistakes, it's rarely in a malicious way. Thai isn't my second language - I speak only a smattering, but I do get a lot of laughs when I try. It doesn't bother me one iota.

Of course, there's always Google Translate....

18 minutes ago, peter48 said:

One impact is the fall in Sterling which means both Ex-Pats and British tourists will have less to spend over time. Indeed it could affect tourists who will search out  cheaper destinations like Greece. Pensioners will get less value too. Possibly up market tourist spots will be less affected as they attract the better off such as the Xmas Phuket , Kho Sumi Londoners etc., 

 

The UK leaving a neighbouring 'tariff free ' wealthy bloc of 500 million consumers is madness. It's currency will  continue its decline as years of unfolding 44 years of EU integration and prosperous trade is negotiated. Nearly half of all UK business is done with Europe. The impacts on low income groups the very people who voted Brexit  in the English and Welsh regions will be worst. As a top a top FT. Writer said Brexit is a tradegy 

"Nomura believes the pound is up to 25pc undervalued against the dollar, adjusted for price differences and buying power.

16 hours ago, payttayasquirt said:

 

Nonsense. Tourists do not come to bangkok to slurp chicken soup on a tiny plastic stool!

I'm ecstatic I can walk the sois around my condo on lower Sukhumvit without being forced on the main Rd!

Bye bye foot path thieves, Woo-hoo

 

I think you'd be surprised how many tourists do come to Bangkok to sample the street food.

Still, heaven forbid that someone trying to scrape a living should inconvenience you, the big farang, in any way. Gosh, forced to walk round the street sellers! How awful! It must be so stressful for you! Yes, much better to destroy someone's livelihood than to have to deviate from your preferred path in any way. After all, your life is so much more important than theirs, eh?

Really, what you should be doing is either accepting that you have moved to a vibrant Asian city, where street sellers are part of the culture and colour of the city, or move back to Blandsville where you came from so you won't be inconvenienced by people doing what they've always done; that is, providing a vital and reasonably priced service to the local population who don't have the luxury of being able to afford the Hi-So eateries you are able to frequent.

2 hours ago, gdgbb said:

Only in certain areas.

Well they don't seem to be confining themselves to banning street vendors just from the upmarket areas. Saphan Kwai has been 'Singaporised' too, with many of the street vendors told to p*ss off and big signs put up saying "Thank you for not making a living on this street" or something.

How hypocritical can Prayut get, basking in the plaudits for Bangkok's street food while simultaneously doing all he can to eradicate it, and those who produce it? By the time he's finished, Bangkok will just be one endless shopping mall with no colour, no soul and nothing to recommend it. People will stay away in droves because there will be no reason to visit, apart from the odd temple. And he'll probably encase those in glass and charge farang rates to look at them. It will be Milton Keynes on steroids.

Another one of those fools who, in the immortal words of Oscar Wilde, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. A military moron devoid of imagination.

3 hours ago, Michael Hare said:

Good news indeed that the water system is now working and I hope your systems are also back to normal. 

 

To keep the water filter system going in good order, it pays to regularly back wash and rinse the filter. You saw with your own eyes what the colour of the city council water is like without going through a filter. 

Indeed, the filter is essential. We're back to Greece at the end of the month, and because the in-laws are getting on, and Pa's memory is on the way out, we've arranged for the guy who fixed everything to come round every month (when they're on their own, they don't really use a lot of water) to backwash and rinse the filter. He'll do that for 100 Baht, which I think is worth it. Plus if there are any other minor issues that develop, he'll be on hand to deal with them.

My personal plumbing issues seem to have resolved themselves also, thanks. Plain boiled rice and Coca-Cola diet for two days did the trick!

A short postscript to the saga of the water tank.

I was unfortunately unwell, our having just returned from Lao where I'd obviously eaten something which disagreed with me, so wasn't party to all that transpired, but unbeknown to me, Ma had spoken to a neighbour who had in turn sent a guy to fix the problem. (Ha ha).

I was distinctly unimpressed when he turned up, his entire toolkit comprising of a pipe wrench and a broken hacksaw blade, but I was feeling too ill to argue, and left them to it and went to lie down and nurse my rebellious stomach (a situation not helped by there being no water apart from a large bucket Pa had thoughtfully placed in our bathroom). Anyway, by mid afternoon (the guy didn't turn up until nearly twelve), my wife came up and told me the guy had finished and was gone, but that he'd cut the filter out of the system! What the ****!

I went down, and sure enough, the filter had obviously introduced too many complications for his tiny mind, so he'd just cut the pipes and re-routed them. But he obviously hadn't had the correct solvent glue for the plastic pipes, so five minutes after the pump had fired up, all the connections he'd made came apart. I rooted around in Pa's 'useless bits and pieces' box, and found a few worm clips which I put round the burst joints as a temporary measure so we could at least shower in chocolate brown water.

As it happens, Ma had also called the town water supply people, and the following morning (after we'd called the guy you recommended, Michael) a guy arrived with a proper tool kit, assessed the situation in what to me seemed a professional way, and gave us a reasonable price to do the job. So we called your guy back and told him not to worry, and let this new guy get on with it.

Thankfully, he was as good as he seemed to be. Got on with the job with no fuss, re-connected the filter and cleaned it out, replaced a couple of old leaking valves and joints, put in mostly new pipework and was done in a couple of hours. 500 Baht plus 300 for parts he had to buy (which he gave us the receipt for).

So finally, it was job done and done well. But as for the first retard......

Anyway, thanks for your help, guys.

Cheers Michael. I've taken the float valve off, and still only get a dribble of water coming out. I'd assumed it was a softener, but now you mention it, yes, it probably is a filter. Which presumably means that it should be between the meter and the tank. That was what was confusing me. I'll ask Pa when he last cleaned it, but he unfortunately has the beginnings of Alzheimer's, and can't reliably remember these things. How do you go about cleaning the filter? There's a silver knob on top with three positions, one of which is marked 'backwash', and the pipes leading in and out of the filter have on / off valves, as does the by-pass pipe joining them. There is also a tap on the top of the filter unit just under the silver knob.

Ah, ubonrthai has come up with a number. Thanks for that. I'll try the cleaning of the filter first and see what happens. Failing that, I'll give Chang a whirl!

Thanks for the help, it's much appreciated.

Does anyone have any recent experience of a good, reliable plumber in Ubon? My in-laws who live in central Ubon have a problem with the holding tank (1000L) not filling very fast, if at all. I've had a look at the system, which includes one of those water softener (I assume) thingys, and although I have a fairly logical mind, I'm damned if I can make head nor tail of how the system is supposed to work. In fact, it defies all logic. I think it needs starting from scratch and all new pipework around the tank, pump and softener. Hence the need for a decent plumber. As soon as possible, too, because with me and the wife staying here, we are suffering 'empty-tank' syndrome! :)

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help with a phone number. Cheers.

5 hours ago, webfact said:

But if the delay was over three hours passengers would be entitled to a hot meal as well as a drink.

That will be a great consolation to those travellers who have a connection in the ME of less than three hours.

My transit time in Doha when I return to Europe at the end of the month is two hours. And as far as I know, Qatar only operate a couple of flights a day to Athens. Just checked - make that three a day. If I were to miss my connection, I would have an eight hour wait for the next flight.

Still, I'd get a free hot meal and a drink, which would make everything ok!

Except for the fact that by the time I arrived in Athens on the later flight and cleared customs and immigration, the last train to my final destination would probably have left, which would mean I'd have to book a hotel in Athens (not cheap, particularly when you include meals etc) and stay there overnight.

But I'd have got a free hot meal and a drink!

I'm a Brit and I've lived in Greece for the past 15 years, the last ten with my Thai wife.

We always fly with Qatar who have daily  ( I think ) flights from Athens to Doha, and usually very short connection times to BKK. We're here at the moment, and our stopover was one hour on the way here, and will be two hours on the way back.

The first time my wife came to Greece was before we were married, and I was at the time in Greece. She got a month visa with no problems. She had to get a letter from her employer saying that she had a job to go back to  (she's an accountant) and show a certain amount of money in the bank, can't remember how much.

The next time we were both in Bangkok, and I went with her to the Greek consulate. We had had a Thai marriage ceremony, but were not officially married, as the intention was to do that in Greece. I think I must have raised some eyebrows in the consulate, as I was obviously an Englishman but speaking Greek asking for a visa for my Thai girlfriend. A guy came out of an office and came across to see what was going on. I spoke to him a bit through the security screen, and he invited us through the security door and into his office for coffee while I explained what I wanted to do. Turns out that he was the consul, and he gave my wife a three month visa. Nice guy!

But what I was trying to say before I got sidetracked is that I think the Greek consulate is probably easier than many of the other EU legations for visas. At least, that was my experience.