trainman34014

OP better set up a sink and hand dryer in his garden so that his neighbors can follow proper hygiene.

.....and a small box or cup where they can make donations for the provided service.

2 Baht seems to be the going rate !

Remember you need a member card for Makro. How you get one I don't know as my wife gave me it.

If you don't get one just pretend you can't find yours and the person behind will let you use theirs.

You can get a temporary slip each time you go shopping. Just stop at the customer services desk when you go in and ask for one.

One way to get a permanent card is to get your wife/Thai relative to say you have a small shop and fill in the form - we got a card easily.

You don't need to pretend you have a business. Just give them your name and address and they will give you a permanent card, Farang or Thai. They want your business, period.

Console yourself with the fact that you helped this man as best you could in the circumstances. You did what the majority wouldn't in the same position and it is not necessary for you to do more. You can't help every poor person that you see in a country that is full of them.

He should piss in his own garden; it keeps strays away and stops Cats crapping there as well.

If this is true, then I am going to have to start peeing in my garden, because my dogs sure as hell don't keep the strays out at night. Do you know where you can buy tiger pee??

No idea where to buy Tiger pee but you can buy mine. On second thoughts I'd better not sell it as I have no work permit !

Laws being broken in Thailand. What's new? Just about every law in the country is broken on a daily basis, especially the important ones.

He should piss in his own garden; it keeps strays away and stops Cats crapping there as well.

I still haven't been to Makro! Am I missing out?!

Yup; best fruit and veg' selection of any of the Supermarkets and reasonable prices. Meat there takes a lot of beating too.

Hmmm...a Cable Car would be great in principle as long as it's built and constructed in situ by a well known Western purveyor of such technology. Could we trust our luck to a Thai built contraption put together to hang in the air for long periods, maintained and operated by people we already know care little for other peoples lives?

Methinks the road route may still be the safest ! Anyway; why are we even discussing it when we know it it will most probably never be built?

And the penalty is........as much as they can screw out of you !

I'm sure you are not talking about the place behind Big C since there is no temple there.

No; it's the one out in the sticks, it's actually in the locality of Doi Saket.

Following up on my original invite we went off with our pals on Thursday at 11am to find the place. We arrived at 12.30 after being lost twice and asking locals etc. They could do with a lot more signage around the lanes and I made that point but it seems they are so well patronised that they are not too bothered. We expected it to be fairly quiet on a Thursday lunchtime but there were a lot of people there, both Thai and Farang..always a good sign..

Well; I now know why they are well patronised as the food was fab'. Mushroom Soup for some and Goulash Soup for the others very well prepared followed by two plates of Pork on the bone nicely baked, Huge plate of mixed German Sausages, two plates of Garlic Bread followed by proper Ice Cream Sundae's all washed down with four bottles of Chang. Bargain at 1,100 Baht.

Plenty of parking but little in the shade. However; Temple next door has some shaded parking and a very nice place to visit and photograph too.

For those who say there is no sign outside, well, you must have been pretty drunk not to notice the large Pig with the restaurant's name on it right outside the front windows. The ambiance inside is no better or worse than a good many other establishments around this fair City and it is Air Conditioned.

All in all, a pleasant experience and we will go back again now we have consulted our maps and plotted a much quicker way to arrive there.

84 Villages at risk of flooding? Can't be true as the Government has promised there will be no more flooding, and we know they are clever people who never tell lies !

"Why not stay in a decent hotel instead of a shit pit?"

You can stay in a "luxury resort" and still get done in by the stupid! Like the 91 who died in the Royal Jomtien Resort fire in 1997.

It was discovered that hotel staff had locked emergency exits to prevent people from leaving without paying. They found bodies piled-up near the locked emergency doors.

See http://www.independe...rt-1250217.html

Interesting article; especially the Prime Minister of the time referring to Pattaya as 'Thailands greatest evil'. One is left to ponder what punishment was handed down to the Hotel owners....or should I say how much did they have to pay to be exonerated?

Thailand.....Hub of one step forward and nine steps back to where they've been.

I see no mention of Thailand's overpriced Rice and its failure to be compete with its neighbours who are now taking huge chunks of the market.

Looks like a Keelback to me. They like water so if you live near to a Klong, Pond, Lake or whatever, you are likely to get them in the garden. Not deadly to man but they do bite if bothered and it's not a nice bite !

I guess Montreal is behind other canadian cities(except vancouver which is suposed to be amazing to live in) and a few other cities because of who makes the list(snobs and fat bloggers who've never left their small town). But pretty much any canadian city will be cheaper than bangkok/pattaya/phuket and offer everything in better quality. Also you're never more than 35mins by car from an amazing scenery/trekking spot/top notch mountain anywhere in canada.

Everyone i see defending thailand in most threads are either germans or from the UK.. Aren't these the 2 western countries with the worst/least culture? I have never heard anyone wanting to visit those countries for more than a week each, after that they've seen everything and are quite bored with it.

Sure; that's why huge numbers of people from the North American Continent want to spend millions of dollars every year visiting the UK and Germany. They also stay a great deal longer than a week and most moan that they don't have enough time to see even a third of what they wanted to see, so they return year on year to see more. Seems you are living a very blinkered life and/or know absolutely nothing about Europe.

What ever you decide to do, take your time over it, and that includes getting involved with women, other than the ones you pay for instantly.

Sharp learning curves are the norm here and it will take you some time to get the hang of things. You are still very young so no need to make decisions that could cost you dearly.

I got one at Power Buy a few months back--works well and is fairly large (about the size of a large rice cooker). Slow cooks at high and low settings. Also does various kinds of rice. They seem to have them in stock regularly.

And where might Power Buy be?

Power Buy is the top floor of Robinson at Central Airport Plaza. It's got all the electronics and home/kitchen wares.

Thanks seesip; I'll be up there like a Rat up a drainpipe !

There sometimes seems to be resistance to the use of cards in this country. I've used cards in upper end eating holes and gone back a month later and given them the same card again only for it to be refused. When asked for an explanation all I get is 'don't want to accept foreign card today' or 'machine not working today'. We all know that taxes are avoided here by business and they obviously like to take as much cash as possible in small and medium size outlets. Never had a problem in Supermarkets and the like but have been asked for 3% on certain types of building materials. They want the extra for Steel, Cement, and so on but not for Paint,Tools or Door Locks etc.

I got one at Power Buy a few months back--works well and is fairly large (about the size of a large rice cooker). Slow cooks at high and low settings. Also does various kinds of rice. They seem to have them in stock regularly.

And where might Power Buy be?

A big crowd greeted Gaga in Thailand but the movie "The Lady" drew small audiences in Thailand. Image over Substance is quite common. Sadly substance is a scarce commodity.

With their video messages from Aung San Suu Kyi, Bishop Tutu, tributes to Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr. Barack Obama, Lech Walensa and The Pope, dont expect U2 to perform in Thailand anytime soon.

'The Lady' drew small audiences in Thailand because a great deal of Thai's don't even know who she is, much less care about what goes on outside of Thailand. I asked several Thai people about what they thought about recent happenings in Burma and they did not have even the slightest clue that anything had happened at all !

i love this quote:

The fake banknotes are smaller in size than the real one and when you pour water on the fake ones the color will fade.

Good god, if you are going to go to all the trouble of counterfeiting money, i would think the dimensions of the bill itself would be the one thing that is actually easy to get right.

If you make them just a little bit shorter, you can get six out of an A4 sheet.

The voice of experience then?

Just my view but life here is a whole lot cheaper than the UK. Every week I get emails from my Brother moaning about his cost of living and I have to put up with him showing me what his Electricity, Gas, Water and Council Tax bills are every time he gets one !

The only up side to this torrent of crap is that it makes me realise just how cheaply we actually live here compared to life in the old country. If you have a young family then your life will obviously be more expensive, but all the arguments about holes in pavements or Policeman's tea money etc are irrelevant in my view. I know where I would rather be.