thaigold

iPad 3 for 4G? Thailand doesn't even have a workable 3G system in place. Additionally, why waste money on an iPad 3 when Apple has a newer iPad-X in final development at this very moment?

Los Angeles, with a population equal to Bangkok has at least four regional and one international airport operating in the greater LA area, and this doesn't include the international airport at Palm Springs. It is the height of folly to believe one airport can service Thailand - especially if it wants to continue its position as the major aviation hub for South East Asia.

How does one lose a passport? It's about the same as losing your underwear while shopping at Siam Paragon.

My wife says, "You Americans think you know it all."

I told her, in no uncertain terms, :"We Americans build our office buildings so high, that airplanes fly into them."

So there...

Will you be the sole owner? Are you the beneficiary of a completion bond on this yet to be completed unit? Is it fee simple or a long term lease? Is there a funded and viable home owner's association - and possibly most importantly, what are the CC&R's (covenants, conditions and restrictions)? Also, is your visa "bullet proof?

The rule: Never do overseas, what you might not do in your home country. Good luck.

Yeah...what about all the millions of Russians? They seem to have put this into the past. Maybe a certain other fringe group should get over it too, and bury.it.

Additionally, if you are picked up in a bar sweep with an expired visa, you stand a very good chance of spending a night in the immigration lockup. Not fun.

Why not just follow the rules? This 90-day report is a no-brainer. You can even mail the report in with a self-addressed-stamped-envelope (10 baht stamp). Easy.

Maybe the Ambassador should issue a travel warning on New York City or Washington DC which together bring a 1000 murders a year to the game. Or how about 50,000 yearly US gun fatalities? In fact, where would you rather be at midnight - DC or Bangkok? The Ambassador knows full well.

Ease up folks. LA and New York have several murders every day.

Point of interest:

The U.S. can't keep drugs, guns, and knives out of their own prisons. Control the internet - impossible.

Good work by the police. I almost got ripped off by an Eastern Euro scam about three years ago. Took a bit, but I got my funds returned by E bay.

A friend of mine was going through the internet blues, as it is quite common here in the Kingdom. In my innocence, I recommended a certain ISP to him. He bought their aircard and installed it on his machine. Guess what? It wouldn't work. So, in firm and sure knowledge that Thais are much smarter than we silly dumb Farangs, I advised him to visit their shop in Siam Paragon. They fiddled around with his computer (all with big smiles) and in butchered Thenglish, mumbled out an explanation. The result, still no internet connection.

So my friend, in his discontent, asked me (the dumb assed Farang) to look at the set-up. After a moment I located the problem in the settings dialogue - and voila, internet - full-tilt-boogie. I still understand that my mind and education make me inferior to the average Thai - guess it was just my lucky day.

I love True. I always get 450kB/s to 495kB/s on my 3G. Superb.

Ghost in the machine ... 1993 movie

Welcome news - if a long time in coming.

While 20 branches is clearly not enough for a retail banking model, it will be fine for corporate banking, trade finance and (possibly) wealth management. perhaps the ATMs will persuade the Thai banks to roll back their rapacous fee structure for the use of foreign cards in local ATMs.

150 baht is not excessive. The Thai bank charges 150 baht for the convenience. My Hawaii bank whacks me $5.00 plus an international transfer fee.

I wonder if any airline with such an idea would survive outside of Thailand.

That's one reason I live in the Kingdom. It's not saturated with those hideous western guilt religions.

So it means that 5 years from now we may see 4G in Bangkok???

2020 at the earliest.

This is a quite laughable opinion piece. Let's start with the claim in the first "shock and awe" that "no country in the world would allow its second airport to be inundated like this." As if losing a major airport to shutdown might be a major security breach. The author makes this claim, despite the fact that Suvarnibhumi airport was kidnapped by a political group known as PAD and shutdown with a "sit in/camp in" from September 26 , 2008 to December 5, 2008, plus a disputed number of days to do a security check, check out equipment and cleanup. The government and the military just standing by watching. It is totally bewildering how a The Nation opinion piece could slip by the editors with this frivolous and preposterous claim.

Since The Nation doesn't publish bios of its opinion writers, one can only wonder about this one. The writer goes on to list several additional "shock and awes", a characterization that he or she probably lifted and plagiarized from the USA's use of that expression in the opening salvos of bombing Iraq during Bush II. The expression shock and awe is typically used in a military context to reflect utter military rapid dominance. For example, something like the 2 AM 2006 military coup, which abrogated the existing Thai constitution, and filled the streets with tanks, might be "stretched" into referring to it as "shock and awe", if the author was looking around for some Thai illustration. It is unfathomable that this The Nation opinion piece would refer to any, let alone all, of these ten incidents of shock and awe as such. Again, on the basis of this type of preposterous writing and utilization of expressions without understanding their meaning is bottom feeding journalism at its worst.

Shame on The Nation's editors, if this is true.

Mind you, still better than being in a lot of places and we are ALL grateful for our situation. Only 3 weeks with flooding, quite good by comparison!

Ya got that right. After Katrina, New Orleans is still not been made whole.

Is this your first retirement visa? If so, some other OZ friends of mine hit the same wall. You might consider putting the 800,000 baht in a Thai bank (it must be seasoned for a few months) or see a local attorney. Good luck, and don't forget the stringent retirement laws in New Zealand. The bar is very high.

The rule of thumb is, if you are not sure of the water quality, here is my tried and proven test.

Drink a liter before beddy-bye. If you have the scoots in the morning, the water had feces in it.

If your tummy is OK, the water was OK.

Easy...any other questions, ask Dr. Giggles...'cause he loves ya.

Yes, BKK folks can still mail their 90 day reports to Chaeng Wattana... And as stated, they advise to mail 7 days before, but I think that's based on sending via regular mail and giving time to arrive.

What really matters is that your envelope gets there BEFORE your due date. So if you send EMS or similar, it arrives within a couple days.... There is no after the due date grace period for mailed in 90 day reports.

Be sure to get and keep a receipt of mailing as proof that you sent it in and on what date.

You can notify at Suan Plu here is Thai Immigration notice:

Due to flooding situation, Immigration Divition 3 including Ayuthaya, Patumthani and Nonthaburi provinces, now temporarily serve at Immigration Bureau in Soi Suanplu, Building 1, effecttive from 1 November 2011.

Sorry this year they have been sending notes clipped to the receipt stating that you must send 10 days before (and keep the EMS receipt) I tried 7 days as stated on Thai Immigration web site, and they went ballistic!

This is notification as shown on their website:

Copy of all passport pages (up to the latest arrival stamp in the Kingdom or latest visa stamp)

Copy of arrival/departure card TM.6 (front and back) click to view Example TM.6 card

Previous notifications of staying over 90 days (if any) click to view Example document

Completely filled in and signed notification form TM.47 click to view Example document

Envelope with 5 Baht stamp affixed and return address of foreigner for the officer in charge to send back the lower part of form TM. 47 after having received the notification. This part must be kept for reference and for future notifications of staying over 90 days.

The above mentioned documents must be sent by registered mail and the receipt of the registration kept by the foreigner.

Send the mail before the renewal date 7 days to

90 DAYS REGISTRATION,

IMMIGRATION DIVISION 1

120 MOO 3, CHAENGWATTANA ROAD,SOI 7,

LAKSI, BANGKOK. 10210

The stamp is 10 baht.

Rats have rights too!

The National Institutes of Health have announced that they will no longer be using rats for medical experimentation. In their place, they will use attorneys. They have given three reasons for this decision:

1. There are now more attorneys than there are rats.

2. The medical researchers don't become as emotionally attached to the attorneys as they did to the rats.

3. No matter how hard you try, there are some things that even rats won't do.

The experts led by the Swiss ambassador? What makes her the expert? Last time I checked Switzerland is mostly comprised of mountains, and flooding is hardly an issue there.

I'm getting so bloody tired of all these so called experts "knowing" for sure what is going to happen. So far, they've all been wrong. Why has no one bothered to program a proper simulation tool? I'm pretty sure most technical universities would have a few students who can make something like that. We know the elevation of the terrain from satellite measurements, I'm sure the same can be used to properly calculate the amount of water, we know where the barriers are located, etc. Put all the variables in a computer, and run a few scenarios. That way we know what all these predictions are based on. Right now, the Swiss ambassador's guess is as good as mine...

Will Rogers once said,"An expert is someone from fifty miles away with a briefcase", or to that affect.