josephbloggs

11 hours ago, Lakegeneve said:

According to an article in the Post today, the Deputy Transport minister has reaffirmed that there will be no new ARL train order until the Eastern HSR line plans are finalised which will not be until at least mid 2018. So don't expect any decision on new rolling stock until the end of the year......sigh...

 

The ARL will start operating from 5.30am from Feb. when a new timetable is introduced.

Yeah saw that, very disappointing and short sighted.  Starting at 5.30am may help the overcrowding at 6am but how is it going to have any effect on the overcrowding at 8am or 9am (when you can't get on trains) or the same problem in the afternoon/evening?  

 

And does anyone know what is wrong with the track at Hua Mark?  The trains coming in to Hua Mark now have to slow to almost a complete stop to take the split in the track, especially going towards the airport.  It is so slow the approach to the station takes a good couple of minutes and once the split is completed (just before the station) the train then has to accelerate to reach the platform.  It is noticably worse and much slower now than it has ever been, so I assume there is some issue with the track / points.

On 04/01/2018 at 1:11 AM, TunnelRat69 said:

Pho 24 Resturant in the Emporium  -  Good Vietnamese food - forget Viet Cuisine on 7th fl MBK, not even a good facimile of Vietnamese food.  Ate there for the first time today, I don't recommend it.  The cook doesn't even speak Vietnamese  (haha)

A Pho 24 in Emporium?  Is it related to the Pho 24s in Vietnam?  If so that would be worth a try.

 

Agree with the rest of the comments that there is no good Pho in Bangkok otherwise.   Was quite interested when I saw a Pho place called PhotyNine open in Ekamai......but it was rubbish.

On 19/12/2017 at 5:15 PM, Thaidream said:

The Phaya Thai station on the BTS does not have escalators on either side of the station up to the track and even Pom Prong is missing escalators on one side. Most stations have an escalator from the street to the first platform but not all have escalators up to the train track.

The reason for this is simply because the operator refuses to spend any money on improvements because they know customers must have the transportation  and they don't care about customers.

 

That is utter rubbish.  Phaya Thai and Phrom Phong both have escalators on either side going up to the platform, as do all of the other stations.

Came in from Singapore yesterday at 2.30pm and it was the busiest I have seen it for a long time.  The queue went all the way through the snakey thing, but it only took 15 minutes as most of the desks were manned.

 

However a couple of girls in front of me took a picture and an immigration guy who was hanging around watching the queue came over and made them delete it.  He then wandered along the queue telling people not to take photos.

 

I grew up with the British films, but the Aussies probably do it best:

 

 

Brilliant, the normal TVers come out saying Thais love macabre stuff - look at them taking pictures (this isn't real), no-one will pay attention to this, it won't do any good etc etc.  The usual miserable tripe.

 

Personally I feel this is a well made and powerful video and well done.  It is a start.  People need to be educated.  In 1979 33% of road fatalities in the UK were due to drink driving.  It has taken nearly 30 years of constant reinforcement and ever more graphic safety videos to get the figure to where it is today - but still people drink and drive.  Thailand can't do this overnight and it will likely take 20-30 years but someone has made a start so let's applaud it.

 

Leave the cynicism out of this thread as it is a positive effort.

 

 

14 hours ago, samsensam said:

 

when i was a child there was a show called 'why dont you just switch off your television set and go out and do something less boring instead?'

 

replace 'television set' with 'smart phone'

 

i have never owned a smart phone and no one has yet  been able to show me i've missed out on anything; i have a bog standard nokia, tablet and pc at home. but most of all i have a life.

And yet here you are posting on Thaivisa....

On 15/08/2017 at 9:57 AM, josephbloggs said:

I currently use AIS (have been with them for over 10 years) and I travel a lot for work so am spending a lot of money buying data packages per country for each trip.  I am looking instead to have a monthly plan that includes unlimited data roaming wherever I am.  I have called AIS and they offer the following that works across 159 countries;

 

1,990 baht per month: 450 MB   

3,990 baht per month: 950 MB

4,990 baht per month: 1.2 GB

 

If I don't travel one month and don't use data abroad then they will waive the fee that month.

 

Ideally I would like an unlimited data package though.  Does anybody know if True or DTAC offer this and what the costs are?  I am not in Thailand at the moment so can't call them or visit a shop and don't see that information on their sites.  I have emailed but am not hopeful of a response.  Any first hand information greatly appreciated.

 

 

Just thought I should update this.  I ended up sticking with AIS and now pay 3,990 baht per month for 950MB of data roaming.  They were really helpful and calculated my historical average of data usage overseas and deemed that package to be sufficient, which so far it has been.  They have an app that keeps track of your overseas data usage and you can see exactly how much you've got left.

 

Not the cheapest, but very convenient.

4 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Great story, thanks for that.

It genuinely makes me want to have children - just so one day I might have grandchildren and I'll be able to regale them with this story.

Awful.  If only it was a microbus though everything would have been fine.

10 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

Never been to Philippines but knew many Filipinas. My suggestion would be get a Filipina wife and live in Thailand.

 Filipina women win hands down in all ways. They are way more and better domestic,s. They take more pride in taking care of the home and family.They respect what you give them and  take care of what you give them. A perfect example of taking care of you give them is I gave a Filipina a pair of running shoes. 2 years later they still looked like new she cleaned after each time she wore them. I gave a pair to my Thai wife 2 months later they were wrecked.She never untied the laces and broke the back of the shoes. They were never cleaned and looked like rubbish.. Philippines country is a shithoole but the women are the best.

  Marry Filipina live Thailand.

  

 

Wow, just listen to yourself.

I came in from Shanghai Friday evening and walked straight up to an immigration desk with no queue at all.  Luggage through fairly quickly and off we go.

 

The week before I came in from Singapore and only had two people in front of me at immigration.  

 

I travel through the airport a lot and the long queue is the exception rather than the rule - it's usually pretty good.  Leaving BKK tends to be slower, but even then it moves quickly enough.

21 hours ago, millwall_fan said:

A few years ago there was a scam involving arresting anyone who picked up a bottle of Scotch and then stepped over an imaginary line on the basis that they were shoplifting. The bottom line is - don't buy anything at Suvarnabhumi as the chance of encountering problems is significant - wines and spirits at Swampy are grossly overpriced anyway. 

 

Like the Chinese tourist, mentioned above I'd probably try to neck as much as I could and then spit into the bottle.   That might be a safer way of getting even with corrupt officials than trying to take photos of bent coppers. Never a good idea in a tetchy third world dictatorship. 

Ah this old chestnut surfaces again!  As thedemon also said, no-one has ever been arrested for picking something up from a shelf and moving around the shop.  People did, and do, get arrested for shoplifting.  

2 hours ago, OMGImInPattaya said:

Thanks for reminding me to update my op. Yes, as per the official Star Alliance lounge access rules, I had no problem using the SilverKris lounge at Bangkok International Airport. All I had was a TG Business Class ticket from Bangkok to Manila return and no premier mileage status with any *A carrier.

 

However, I was not very impressed with the lounge. It's somewhat small and dark and has no exterior windows. The food offerings were meh and there are no showers and the loo was rather small. I much prefer the EVA lounge and the Royal Silk D Concourse lounge. It was also quite a hike from the Thai premium check-in counters to the SK lounge...and then again to my departure gate in C Terminal.

 

In future, I will just use the *A carrier lounge that is closest to my departure gate, and if it's in D Terminal then the Thai lounge there.

Thanks for the update and what a shame about the disappointment!

On 9/29/2017 at 5:02 PM, OMGImInPattaya said:

Will do...I was just checking if anyone might know definitely one way or the other.

 

I saw on Thai's website that other *A Biz flyers are allowed into Thai's Royal Silk lounge and *Gs can use the Royal Orchid lounge.

 

I will find out next week.

 

So, what was the answer?

5 minutes ago, sandyf said:

They get used on the City Line. I have been on one, about a year ago, and they are a lot more comfortable. The seating does not allow the same number of standing passengers so maybe only used in quiet times.

 

Not any more.  They converted the interiors to be the same as the City Line trains a while ago.

Says it all that the SRT are incapable of putting seating in the two airport express carriages Pathetic shambles

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

 

They are a pathetic shambles, no doubt about that! But as Lakegeneve says this is approved to happen. I am guessing the issue is the amount of time the trains (s) would need to be out of service to carry out that conversion. It is so horrendously overcrowded almost permanently these days that I don't think they can afford to lose any capacity at all - even if it is to increase capacity. Of course they should never have let things get in to this position in the first place.

 

Even at 9.45am this morning - hardly typical peak time - they were not letting people up on to the platform and it took four trains before I could get on. Just awful.

 

& after the Chinese accident, what did they do?
Buried what was left, AQAP -


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, it was dealt with in a typically Communist government way and that was wrong. But my post was about the generally very impressive safety record of their railways and not the response to their single fatal accident.

I

Shinkansen has been running for over 50 years because the Japenese built it properly. 

 

These threads always attract the "Chinese railways are poorly built", "there'll be disasters "blah blah blah type posts. Consider that China has over 20,000 kms of high speed rail. Japan has about 2,700kms. So more than ten times the size. China has around 70% of all the high speed rail traffic in the world.

 

Do they fall off the track all the time? Have any of you ever ridden on one? I remember one fatal accident after one got struck by lightning, stalled, then another smashed into the back of it. It was a bad one with 40 dead but anything crashing at that speed is not going to be good. How many others have there been? They must happen all the time judging by comments here. But there have been none in the six years since that one.

 

So that's one fatal accident over the huge account of traffic they have. Germany has had many more incidents and many more fatalities over the same period of time with a network a fraction of the size.

 

Spain has a worse record too.

 

These posts are lazy and somewhat condescending / borderline racist as the fact is their safety record is better than most. And better than many European countries who clearly have superior engineering and superior safety standards.

 

I would say it's a good service but very badly managed.  The crowding at rush hours is really horrendous these days.  I get on at Hua Mak but if I'm going at peak times I'll often get a train to the airport first and turn around and come back.  You just can't get on otherwise.

On 29/08/2017 at 8:15 AM, Thechook said:

There is no way you would get me into the sea in Thailand no matter if Thailand awards itself a 5 star rating.   5 star sewage pond doesn't do it for me.

 

Do you want to be a bit more dramatic or over the top perhaps?  Jeez.

 

They have classified 13 beaches to have a 5 star ranking out of how many in the country?  Hundreds?  Thousands?  That would seem to be a quite realistic and high standard to judge them by.  Thailand did not "award itself a 5 star rating".  Get a grip.

 

 

On 27/08/2017 at 5:33 PM, calexapic said:

Wow so many pilots and aeronautical engineers on here. 

 

Insignificant warning lights and only creases to the cowling. 

 

I know nothing about the workings of aircraft so very happy to let experts decide to abort flights for the sake of safety. 

 

Yep, as well as the pilots and aeronautical engineers we're also lucky to have all the foreign safety experts here.  The aircraft was grounded because "Perth takes safety very seriously", "The DCA would be breathing down their necks, no way would they let that plane fly etc", both posts implying the Thai crew would naturally take off with a damaged cowling, only the heroic safety-conscious farang came to the rescue.

 

Hey guys, if an airbridge hit and damaged a plane in Bangkok the Thai Civil Aviation Authority (CAAT) rules would have grounded it for inspection / repairs too!  As far as I know these kind of procedures are pretty universal. Amazing, huh?  But of course if it had happened in Bangkok you all could have had a laugh at the incompetent Thai airbridge operators.  

And this article just popped up on the BBC homepage abouut long queues at LHR:

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41051140

I flew in from Singapore yesterday.  From exiting the plane to exiting the airport (I had check-in baggage) was 17 minutes.  And absolute breeze.

If this was a negative post the Thai bashers would have been all over it.  But 24 hours after posting a positive experience there are no replies.  It says a lot.

 

I travel a lot for work.  I have had many great experiences at the airport - been through just as quickly, I've even had smiling, helpful, and jovial immigration officers.  I have also had some long queues, surly immigration officers, and slow baggage retrieval.  But more often than not it's not a bad experience to pass through the airport either way.  

 

Guess what?  It's an airport - it has good days and bad days just like Heathrow or any other airport.  I think most of the bashers just read the reports of unusual and awful queues and don't actually travel that much.  But credit where it is due.