OldAsiaHand

I think Greyhound has a thing about mustard. I ask for 'mustard' and I just get blank looks. I ask for 'moose-tard' (with a hard accent on the last syllable) and it's 'no problem.' This has been the case for the nearly ten years I've been going there, but it took me a while to crack the code. I guess I'm a slow learner.

By the way, I have to dissent from the general opinion here about Woodstock burgers. Bland and forgettable, in my view. When I tried them, even the manager came over and admitted they weren't much. he said they were still trying to get them right.

Go to The Big Mango Bar in Nana Plaza. Much more pleasant place than you might imagine and, for my money, absolutely the best burger I have ever eaten outside the USofA. A couple of nights ago, I'd even have to say their effort produced one of the best burgers I have ever had anywhere.

Generally speaking, documents originating outside the country need to be notarized by a vice-consul at one of the consulates, either your own consulate or the consulate of the country in which the documents originated or perhaps the one in which you wish to use them. A verification of foreign documents by a Thai lawyer would be useless for most purposes outside the country (and for many purposes inside the country), although you didn't say exactly what your purpose is here so I suppose I can't say for sure.

The Ivory Tower' or the 'Mass Debaters' forum could also work...

Not it wouldn't, unless we get a dozen posters discussing debating skills.

The truth is that if you got something serious and important to say, you'll find the audience. There are no flaming problems or one-liners in Thai Language or Computers forums - "idiots" don't even go there.

At the moment it appears that people are asking for forum where they can demand respect they don't deserve otherwise.

Plus, you are (yet again) dead right, in my view, a breath a fresh air in a badly polluted room.

Can i say something about the Sra Kaew Oil Rigger who started this thread? He pissed me off with his assumption on onother thread that 'Thai degrees aren't worth the paper they're written on'.

Pretty accurate statement I'd say. But it's only my opinion

Make that two opinions.

I'm not even sure how you can intelligently argue with the guy's premise. Surely you've met some Thai university graduates, other than the ones in black skirts and white blouses, of course.

Uh...okay, maybe you haven't.

My understanding has always been that all bookings have to be through 'official' agents in Bhutan, so any local agent who says they run such tours would just be booking through an agent in Bhutan anyway and adding a surcharge to your bill.

It's easy enough to do everything yourself. Take a look at http://www.yudruk.com/info.html. There is a very nice summary of travel information concerning Bhutan on their site. I got pretty far down the road to going last year, but had to pull out at the last moment and never made it.

Thank you, Plus.

A draft of fresh air in a dank room. Most welcome.

[Q: How many Thais does it take to change a light blub?

A: None. No light blubs are ever burned out.]

Neilson Hays is really the only game in town as far as general interest English-language libraries go. The two main problems with it are it's location (difficult to reach through heavy traffic for Sukumvit area expats) and it's collection (small and dominated by musty, out-of-date, and utterly useless space fillers to keep the shelves from looking empty). Yes, there are some contemporary books there that you might actually enjoy checking out and reading, but not many. Don't get your hopes up.

Yes, Thailand has the available hot chicks, without them this place is toast, I mean toast

I pity you for not fully realising what Thailand has to offer...

totster

No, he does realize exactly what Thailand has to offer, even if its not a particularly original observation to say it.

This guy merely repeats what uncounted other people say all the time and he's instantly denounced here as a social mitfit. Good Lord. The board is at least being consistent in its blind, unstinting boosterism about Thailand, isn't it?

The sealed paperwork is entirely normal (get mentally prepared for a long wait on arrival in the US for it to be processed, probably hours); but the no interview thing is very strange. I knew someone married to a close friend of the American ambassador and even she had to turn up for an interview. There wasn't anything to it, of course, but she still had to go through the motions.

Michael,

Consider these responses to you posting as a lesson. Now, at least, you have a much better understanding of the muturity of the sort of people who generally end up here. Want to reconsider your choice of residence?

Don't worry about it. There's no way to plan around the weather. Just practice suitably zen acceptance.

From June through November, it's likely to rain like hel_l from time to time almost anywhere, but it's very rare for it to rain for a long period of time without pause. In the Bangkok area, we frequently get heavy rains in the late afternoon or early evening, as well as the occasional major thumberstorm. The odds always are, however, that no single storm will last more than an hour, and generally far less than that, and that you won't get more than one storm a day.

Its really not that special.. this time of the year the special sales are on at Singapore.

I'm sure that's where the Thai powers-that-be copied the idea from but unfortunately, they didn't bother to copy the actual sale itself.

I second that. The Amazing Thailand Sale is all big talk with absolutely no substance. In other words, it's pretty much like everything else in Thailand.

We've used the one in Thonglor several times and recommend it highly. It's on the west side of the street, in a small strip of shops just before you get to J-Avenue, although I can't remember the address or even the soi number. As I recall, it's called TheSuitcase Doctor or Mr. Suitcase or something cutesy like that. Just drive slowly down Thonglor and start watching on the left after you pass Starbucks. You'll see it.

Difficult to say. A lot of stuff that is expensive in the west is cheap in thailand (rent, entertainment, restaurants, food), other things are more expensive in Thailand (cars, imported goods).

On balance I find our cost of living is about 30-40% below cost of living in a European Capital (not London) but YMMW depending on your lifestyle.

While I agree with the premise, we find -- as a personal matter -- that our overall cost of living in Thailand is more or less the same as it is in the States.

Still, you're quite right. It depends entirely one's lifestyle. If you take advantage of what's cheap here rather than living about the same way you would in the west, you could probably lower your cost of living by the 30-40% you are talking about.

My wife is rather embarassed every time she is in the States, orders a drink, and is told she must show identification to prove that she is old enough to drink. She was even asked for ID once when buying wine in a supermarket.

She is forty years old.

Why in God's name do people persist in attacking posters as frauds rather than comment on what they said? I don't care if the OP was a 14 year old girl. If his observation was worth a response, make one. Otherwise, shut the heck up.

Now, my response....

The OP's experience is one that a great many of us can relate to in one way or another. I stopped telling people in the States where I lived a decade ago because mentioning Thailand in any context always seem to put me under a cloud of suspicion.

Ever read any of Jake Needham's books set in Thailand? THE BIG MANGO, LAUNDRY MAN, KILLING PLATO.....all these novels have expat protagonists who notice how differently they are treated by people they know in the US after they come to Thailand. Sometimes I think that we're all assumed to be guilty of something by most everyone out there in the First World, merely because we are here instead of there.

The Bangkok Post is reporting online that the police censorship committee has agreed to cut the last ten minutes of 'The DaVinci Code' when it is shown in Thailand.

You've got to hand it to these clowns. Just when you thought that Thailand couldn't be a bigger international laughing stock that it already is, they come up with something really exciting.

Good Lord. What a bunch of morons.

Maybe the real lesson is not to ask a monk questions about women......

My own experience, which covers a couple of decades, is that Thai banks generaly offer tourists some of the tightest FX spreads I have ever seen anywhere in the world and have the additional advantage of never charging fees.

Anyone complaining about the rates here ought to try changing money in Australia or the US. Then you'll find rates that really ARE rip-offs and fees imposed on top of those horrible rates.

...I would venture to suggest that there are precious few farangs who are here because they have no choice.....I would further suggest that of those who are sent here by their employers, a vast majority are only too happy to be enjoying life here on their expatriate salaries, and living off the fat of the land.

I suppose the go-back-where-you-came-from crowd needs to insist that most every foreigner in Thailand is here voluntarily and because we chose to be here, otherwise they'd have to stop with their standard prattle and say something that actually made sense. Still, tossing off a comment like this is so breathtakingly narrow-minded that really does make you shake your head, doesn't it? Why do some people have such a hard time grasping that almost eveyone else is not necessarily, alas, just like them?

And for the 'living off the fat of the land line'....well, now we're getting down to it. Not only are we all here voluntarily, those very few of us who aren't, are overpaid, upperclass twits who are taking advantage of the poor working classes by being here at all. Both, we assume, the hard-working, always smiling Thais, and the low-life, semi-retired sex tourist foreigners who couldn't get jobs at home. Good Lord.

Hey mate,

You know what's the worst situaton. No other banks will loan me money to buy a property in Thailand.

I checked with all the big international banks............No chance!!

Hence, as a foreigner the only way is Bangkok Bank............a big monopoly for the Thai Government.

They are the ONLY 1 who will do so but all the paperwork plus administration costs and don't forget the high interest repayment means that you're the loser!!!

Buy thai properties, & get financed by thai banks. So both ways they benefit init. As funds will flow into their country only through their banking system.

I've decided to go halfs with a mate and we'll just pay cash and then enjoy the rental yield of 7-9%. That's better than having money in the bank which pays no more than 4% here in the UK (that's if you're lucky!)

Cheers!!!

This has got to be a wind up. Nobody is this dumb.

Yep, same same.

And we notice a similar phenomenon with answering machines on land lines. Any time we have a hang-up, there will be a long series of them one after another, sometimes including very funny Thai-language background discussions of how to make our machine stop answering so that the caller will be connected to the person they really want to talk to.

Even the dimmest idea that they might themselves have done something wrong, such as calling the wrong number, just never seems to enter into the calculation at all. The cultural parallels are too apparent to comment.....

As a rule, retailers NEVER put merchandise on sale in Thailand, at least not in any sense that is at all significant.

If you thinking of something like the major sales traditionally held during certain seasons in London or New York, you can forget it. On the whole, retailers approach consumers here with the attitude that you are privileged to buy from them in the first place and that their relative status is far superior to yours so why would they do anything at all to induce you to buy?

I've give you one illustration of a retailers attitude here that is, in my expereience, absolutely typical. There is a very prominent bakery here that sells mostly to foreigners and labels its day-old stuff with a huge sign saying, "Day Old - Big Sale - 5% off!" That will pretty much give you the idea.

Villa is generally the best source locally for foreign food items. I have seen the mix at Villa soi 33 and, I think, at Villa Thonglor. The problem is that almost nothing is in stock all the time and almost everything is in stock some of the time. You have to be lucky enough to catch it when they happen to have it.

Hey, I was just answering the guy's question since no one else really did. I didn't say I actually eat the things.