furyrider

I know that all land crossings are 15 days not 5

Ok now I am worried

I have been following all the head lines and news on the flooding and am plaining to head to Bangkok as early as the 2nd and connect with a flight on to Udon. Now that they are saying that it should be safe with there efficient flood prevention system I am worried that I won't make it home at least through Bangkok. Does anyone know how it is to fly into Laos for an American ???

I am still waiting for one of them to announce that Thailand will be the next " FLOOD HUB "

Try looking under Battery tender. I don't have the manufactures name at the moment but I have been looking at them. They are a trickle charge unit that comes with quick disconnect fittings that you install on the bike.

They monitor the battery charge and when at full charge they shut off.

How ever I am not sure some of that would be useful but you being on the 4th floor. But you can use it in your room and not have to worry about overcharge to the battery.

All this and the Government will not declare a state of Emergency. Quite strange really.

What wpuld the state of emergency do aside from suspend civil liberties? The government has all of the power it needs to mount a flood response. Aside from satisfying the desire of some to have martial law, please explain the advantages that such a declaration brings.

From what I understand the state of emergency allows for them to access funds that is not normally available. Martial law is important when you have to force people from there homes when they don't want to leave and to deal with looters. I am not sure how Thai law is but I do believe it allows them to access the military. Also emanate domain can be done with out court rulings I am sure the list does go on.

could be the genes daddy gave me? but in my defence i thought it was worth a shot. cheers!

Maybe try getting a dress from your mom. They may not bother you at all then.

Buddy

I am not sure if you need to go that route and spend that much. They have testing kits that I used in the states for testing acids in HVAC oils.

Now I am not sure were to find them in Thailand. I would look for any of the bigger HVAC parts supply houses. They should have them.

It is usually a two part kit. You have one tub that comes empty. You fill to a line with oil and add the contents from the other tub to it and shack. There is a color strip that comes with it and you compare the color on the strip to the oil mixture. If it turns to purple you have acid. Thats when the work begins and your wallet opens if it is a big system you are trying to save.

If you want you can PM me if you have any questions. I have been in the HVAC field 30 years.

I was just wondering how the 1000 boats did today? I haven't heard anymore news about it since it made the head lines the other day.

The US Embassy only stated:

"We advise you to monitor local media, confirm travel arrangements, and defer travel to or through flood impacted areas."

Bangkok is not flooded, so I can travel.....

it's not flooded.....yet.

Nor will it. Today is the 11th and they have a 1000 boats out to push the water away.

'It is really hard to tell because it's difficult to predict the volume of water,' she told reporters.

I would have thought it would be relatively easy to predict the volume of water, given that it has been flowing down from the north for the last month.

Well go on then, tell us, if it's that easy? Add in a couple of variables about not knowing how much additional rainfall there may be, and how much the tide will rise on the 17/18th, the fact that all the flood water does not conveniently flow into the Chao Praya and stay there (it has a tendency to break out every now and then and flood other areas) I don't think it would be that easy, but what do I know, I'm not an expert, neither I suspect, are you.

I said relatively easy. They know how high the water has been getting at numerous locations up river. I'm sure that the government have plenty of experts available to do a few calculations.

Tides have been predicted for centuries. I've got a tide book available if they need it.

It won't give them exact volumes, but they should be able to get a reasonable idea of the expected water levels.

I think it would be much easer to predict if the water would stay still for a moment.

Flooding has been on the cards for quite some time but it only had just got the attention of the government. Shame on the administration.

Try to be a bit fairer.

They hyave only been in power a couple of months.

But one of their campaign promises was to end all flooding and droughts. Someone posted a picture of the campaign poster in another thread but I can't seem to find it. Yet another promise Phua Thai obviously can't deliver on...

Yes I remember that but I looked and it's not there now (http://www.thaivisa....prime-minister/ post #2). Maybe a copyright issue which is why I'm not inserting the picture here.

If you Google pheu thai goodbye flooding under images you should find it.

Of course I don't think they said when they would do this and it would be unrealistic to expect this to happen immediately. But then I think it's an unrealistic promise anyway. I suppose it's more snappy than "We'll try to improve our flood management"

Well it was a campaign promise. But the project would take years and billions to complete. But as normal most of you figure they could have done over the weekend.

Yes, you can get a single entry O visa at the Thai embassy in Vientiane, Laos. Assuming you are at least 50, that is. I will leave it to someone else to supply the technical details of the application. You can be open and tell them you plan to apply for a retirement extension as your reason for the visa.

I assume you will be entering Thailand on a 30 day stamp, not a 60 day tourist visa even though you mentioned tourist visa.

That all said, I do suggest that before you bother with the trip to Laos as you will be in Udon first anyway, that you quickly visit the Udon office and ask them if they will convert your 30 day stamp to an O visa as part of two step process, with the second being your extension. I say quickly because there may be a rush to do that conversion when entering on a 30 day stamp.

Also, how do you plan to financially qualify exactly? If by bank, you need a bank letter VERY close in date to the application for extension and like I said before often you need to go to your opening home bank branch to get that. If income letter, you need to visit the USA embassy in Bangkok or the consulate in Chiang Mai.

I was going to qualify with the bank deposit I have. The home branch is in Kumapawapi close to our house. I have one account that has had over 800,000 for more than 2 years now. We have been on good terms for years and they have always been helpful to both me and my wife.

And yes I am over 50 but just don't like to admit it.

Thanks Jingthing and Lopburi3

See I was under the impression that I couldn't get an O visa in Laos only a 15 day tourist visa. So if I have this right I can come into Bangkok and get my tourist visa then head home to Udon. Later go to laos and pick up my O visa and then file for the extension.

Now when I go to Laos to get O visa what do I need other than baht and Copies of Passport and Photos?

Does anyone know if the Udon office offers change of status from 30 day stamp or tourist visa to O (not O-A of course) for purposes of doing the retirement extension as the second step? Not all offices do that.

OP, you should state how you plan to qualify for better advice -- bank account method, embassy letter income method, or combo method.

You also have the option of starting with an O-A from your home country. In that case, if using the bank account method, the banked money does not need to be in Thailand to get your initial visa.

At the moment I have 2 mil bt in the bank of bangkok. I can also qualify with a letter of income from the embassy.

I am in Iraq at the moment. I was hoping to head to Thailand when I finnish work here. Not looking forward to a trip to the states and back again. I had talked to Sunbelt about 3 years ago and they told me there was a way to change the tourist visa to a O or A . But then they are Lawyers so can you trust them? So what you are saying I have to head to the states to get one and then to Thailand?

This time when I get to Thailand I was going to apply for a retirement visa. Is there an immigration office in the Udon Thani area or should I get it in Bangkok? If there is one in Udon are they harder to deal with then Bangkok or Pattaya?

I like Agoda myself. We're talking personal cc info here... probably not a good idea to use the more obscure or 'up and coming' sites. And yeah, they don't charge you until you show up with the card you booked with at the hotel.

I like Agoda too but they always debit my card account when I book. On the one occaision I had to cancel they did credit my card account the next day, though with a 1-night penalty payment, but that's in their T&C's.

I have been using Agoda for 4 years and they have always charged me at the time of booking. They last time I used them me and my wife had nothing but trouble with the hotel so we checked out. Minutes before checking out I made another booking at another hotel and checked out of the first one and by the time we made it to the second hotel our reservation had not come in yet. I checked us on in and figured that I would settle everything at check out. Well I thought wrong. Because we checked in with out the agoda reservation they made me pay for that room plus Agoda had charged me to so I was double billed for my stay there. However Agoda did refund the money from the first hotel.

It appears every year, Bangkok get an inch of water that wets their feet and immediately, they start their usual whining.

Meanwhile, the rice baskets and the farmers further North have to suffer 2 metres of water to keep the "chosen few" dry!

I like the quote from De Niro in Taxi Driver - "Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk."

Open the floodgates, all of them!

Your statement is utter nonsense. Considering that Bangkok stands for more than 2/3 of the GDP in Thailand people in charge won't take a chance that the capitol comes to a standstill. The impact would be a nationwide one as it would be a fiscal/productivity disaster that would not only harm farmers but all other folk all over Thailand who need goods and supplies from the city to keep their own businesses up and running or people who depend on payments from the government. Apart from that it is virtually impossible to provide emergency services (food, water) for 15 million when streets are flooded one and a half ft. and more up. Think about it, this is not about elite. It's about the fact that 15 Mio people in one city with much more infrastructure are more important to the whole country than a wooden shack next to a rice paddy. That is dramatic and maybe unfair towards countryfolk but so is life.

You miss the point - IT HAPPENS YEAR AFTER YEAR AFTER YEAR - They do nothing about it! They do nothing at all to protect the city, all they ever do is talk talk talk, and then let the rest of Thailand floods again.

Why don't they get off their <deleted> and put some real preventative measures in place?

It is OK saying that 15 million live in the city, with all its infrastructure and commercial benefits, why don't they solve the problem LONG TERM!

They do absolutely nothing other than a pile of bloody sandbags.

If it generates 2/3rds of the GDP - try spending a bit of it on stopping it flooding in a way that makes sense - <snip!>

No I think you are wrong

You see they have figured out that they can use a 1000 boats on the river to speed up the flow of the river and empty the flood waters faster. So they will soon learn in a few months that they can turn those 1000 boats around and bring the water back in. So no more cloud seeding for rain this year.

I don't think there would be a good way to do it. At least and have it look good.

I think if I were you, I would get a small scooter for my day to day runs of 800 meters "or walk " Unless you can run your 1100 for a 10km trip each day to charge the battery.

My wife has the same trouble with my 1300. When I leave for months to work she starts it for me every week but after 6 or 7 starts the battery goes dead because she doesn't ride it and sitting idle does not charge the battery much.

I have thought of getting a battery tender for when I am away. You could look into that and plug it in when you get home.

Question 1: at what level of water does the bike stop functioning?

When water inters the air intake. Also if it gets to the electrical and kills the spark. Both will make the bike stop functioning.

Question 2: if the level of question 1 is reached and the bike drowns, are there serious consequences for the bike?

It depends on how much water gets in. Worst case would be to pull the head to dry the cylinder The electrical would just need to be dried good.

Changing oil , The engine and transmission has breathers that can allow a little water in particularly if they are hot when interring the water and the oils and cases cool down in the water. And of course the chain

Hate to change the subject from American bashing but I wonder if the proposed dam_n will have negative consequences to the food supply of downstream nations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong, The Mekong River Commission, a panel of the region's nations, has accused China of blatantly disregarding the nations downstream in its plans to dam the river in an effort to stop the dams, but to no avail. Cambodia is by far the most exposed, depending on a fine balance of water flow, fearing scenarios of mass famine and devastating floods, the likes of which destroyed the Angkor kingdom 700 years ago.

When China builds all the damns and Vietnam and Cambodia go into starvation mode who you all going to ask to get China to stop? Australia.

Yea right Australia help. At that time they will be to busy bashing the United States for not stepping in to stop the dam project when they had the chance.

Before I had ABS I always thought it was a wast of money. Now that I have ABS I think it is well worth it. But I still ride my bike like it did not have them. Some people think if you have ABS you are going to forget how to stop a bike with out ABS. I think thats nonsense.

I can remember when they first started coming out on automobiles no body wanted it but know days you will hard pressed to find one with out. ABS has saved my bacon ones as I was going around a sharp bend and it had just started to rain. Half way around the bend I find a car passing in my lane and no room for me. I made it barely but if I had not had ABS I think I would have locked the wheels and dumped the bike. Its up to you but my money says ABS.

I'd rather fly naked then go in these cancer machines. It's been statistically proven these machines kill more people from cancer then they do save people from terrorists and that's not even mentioning people that have gone through these things with box cutters, etc without problems.

Cancer machines, waste of money, waste of electricity and wastes people's time. DO NOT WANT!

As A technician working on Scanners and Backscatter vans for the military I would love to see the studies and facts you are basing your statistics on. Can you supply some links or tell me where I can get a hold of this information

Sure. It's that way. ----------->

I could have sworn there was a left turn some where

How daft. Surely they need to reduce the price of E10, B5 and especially E20 to encourage greener motoring and the use of home grown bio fuel. They have reduced the price of all the wrong products. I can't imagine anyone would buy gasohol E10 now as it's the same price as petrol but contains less energy.

Its nothing but madness to use farmland to produce fuel instead of food. The effect of this madness is raised food prices. Besides E20 and so on is also less efficient, and bad for your engine, so you are back to scratch one.

Watch out for a programme on Discovery "When the food runs out". They said that the world is one failed harvest away from global starvation. One reason is growing bio-diesel.

Thanks, I will.

Ok Now how do we blame this on America To make cheerypie happy.