martijn12345

Totally agree with Jackr. Those roads are awesome and part of the reason why I live chiangmai. If you don't like me, stick to the main roads.

How about checking a road map. A good one will tell you those roads are not very smooth.

As alfalfa said. Don't do it. It's a dying business model. Streaming movies with faster Internet are overrunning the country and that is not a wave that will slow down.

What's the market price for rubber? I am surprised they gave in. They have been warned by different credit rating agencies (I not trust them but their warning seems fair enough) that they risk losing 10 BLN USD as they keep stocking rice while market prices are dropping they stall export. But India and Vietnam have taken over Thailands position so they might lose it all. As if this ain't enough trouble in paradise, they now start the same idea with rubber, with which they also open the door to other soft commodities. Next week it's sugar cane or corn producers who demand subsidie.

Ahh well, maybe it's time for the bubble to burst.

Just cause democracy here works in a different way than it does for some of us at home... Doesn't make it 'not democracy'. If u come from a half decent European country and you look at the USA, u could easily ask yourself the same question.
I'm not saying everything goes great in Thailand, but it just always amazes me how quickly people judge, how nobody but a few understand that democracy needs time to grow, and that there are many different forms and it can work in many different ways... THAT IS DEMOCRACY.

Saying democracy in Thailand is not democratic, is like saying Catholicism is the only correct form of Christianity.

Always take any information about battery life from the producer with a pinch of salt. Any half decent tech-review website however will measure these things, and will tell you clearly in which setup they do this test. Normal test would be putting the screen on a fixed brightness and let it load webpages in a loop or watch a certain video till the battery dies. This kind of test should make results compareable.

If you use a laptop with the charges connected most of the time, it's better to take the battery out. Let it go down to about 50%, never leave it fully charged, never leave it completely empty. Put it somewhere dry and cool.

U can leave it in the laptop, but over the long run it will cause your capacity to deteriorate. Many laptops nowadays have a setting to not fully charge the battery, but charge it only to say 80%, this seems to at least decrease the problem but I have not really read into this.

What's all the fuzz and complains about? I've had reasonably good 3G with True for over a year, before switching over to true H well over a year ago which gave me great 3G connections wherever I went at very reasonable prices. These might have been not standard frequencies but who cares! Now thailand also has 3G on mainstream frequencies allowing more phones to be able to use it.

4G... <deleted> do u guys do with ur mobile internet that can't be done on 3G now, why that need for 4G?

I've been here for 4 years as well. Yes it's getting a bit busier on average. But it has always had it's busy periods (Songkran, Loi Kratong, X-Mas and New Year). Right now.... really not that busy.

Yes right now it is very hot, but it's only March - April - May that are unpleasent. The rest of the year it's pretty good.

The smog is really bad this year and yes I do seriously consider renting a room near the beach for 6 weeks or so, next year, to escape it.

With the flogs of people we have seen new restaurants, better coffee places and more things to do. So it really has postive sides as well.

I guess my bottom line is. For roughly 45 weeks a year, there is no place I'd rather be. I do note that I'm early 30'ies and a city person. I can imagine country side people looking for less crouded places but it's not like Chiang Mai didn't have traffic jams up till the last few years. It's been busy on certain times a year for decades.

Im in tourism business with Dutch ppl and I noticed it seems harder to get money with ING cards than with other bank cards. I even had an ING mid level manager checking into it back in Holland, but it led to nothing... When I read ur story, I am really wondering, who is there for who. They are supposed to give you service, you pay for that. If they can't do it. F them and chance banks. I personally never had a problem with ABN AMRO, but I hardly ever use it in Thailand.

As to how to get money, the two easiest ways for you would be. Open a Thai Bank account and transfer money to it. Since it's too obvious, maybe you dont want that for reasons.... Another easy way is deposit money into a VISA credit card, and then use that card at any ATM machine. (supposed to be much cheaper if you debit the card first)

Chiang Mai does not need a subway / skytrain cause it's not that widely spread out. Besides that, look at the old town walls and think about drilling a tunnel under there...Affraid everything would collapse. Traffic has increased rapidly the last years in Chiang Mai and I think the people will simply need time to adjust to this. I see more and more Thais using their horns when others double park to grab a bite at one of the foodstalls along the moat. I see more and more Thai people wearing helmets on daily basis. With some fences the police changed the traffic in front of Airport Plaza the last few weeks, it makes things a lot better. I hope in time they will forbit foodstalls to be put up on the sides of busy road during rush hour so that lane could be used for driving in stead of parking to buy food. So both some changes made by law enforcement and a simple change of thinking of the locals would help a lot, but it's a process that is happening already but takes time. Let's be honest, BKK drivers are quite a lot sharper ( and with a much shorter fuse ) than Chiang Mai drivers. But as the city's traffic becomes more busy this will change.

Besides that I do agree it;s about time somebody would make a stand against songtaew maffia and for example started to enforce the already excisting laws on polution. I think the songtaews are a good and effective way of transporting people in this city as it has many narrow roads. But the polution they produce is absolutely unncessairy in 2012. Chiang Mai already has enough smog/smoke from other sources.

I saw some construction going on there... was wondering as well what it was gonna be. I was actually hoping for another hi-so car wash, but I guess this is nice too.

If all of that fails. Have a look at Yok bakery supply store on the super highway. They have a pretty large selection of kitchen supply, and better stuff then all the standard stores imho.

I use True Cable as well. But I have the cheaper 10Mbit package... Did a speedtest to Miami as thats what you mentioned. Works perfectly fine for me.

http://www.speedtest.net/result/1729818763.png

Are you sure your setup at home, wifi and all, is in order. Strange that both ISPs give you such bad results.

I wanna thank everybody in this topic, sun is blistering hot here today, I wanted to spend some time in the aircon but had nothing to do. this made some fun reading. Some ppl really lose touch with reality in this country.

I am sorry, I'm not able to provide picture prove what I'm gonna share with you guys is true, but I trust you take my word on it.

Just for fun, fully knowing it's not at all worth my time typing it, but I had fun reading and would like to contribute on the same level as this whole topic

I do not have a car, I have never had one, I don't even have a license to drive one, never got one cause I've never ever, not even once, driven a car in my life! And I still have had tons of sex.... How did I do it?!?!?!

Have a good one ppl!

Thats precisely what I thought walking around there the first time. I was just simply too hungry to walk anywhere else, friends had already ordered something. So I decided to try some indonesian food... I've been going back to that shop any time I'm in BKK and have the time to go there. I've had plenty of indonesian food in Indonesia, Malaysia and back in Holland, this shop in MBK does not do 100% autentic food, but it's pretty dam_n tasty and in my opinion worth the money. I dont know the name of the dish, it's deep fried chicken in a red sauce, comes with indonesian sambal, spicy sauce. That one def. gets my vote! dam_n...now Im hungry and all the way up in Chiangrai

It's a bit of a hit and miss with the showers. I have the idea that they are generally hot when it's busy and stay cold when your the only one taking a shower...

The staff, well what can I say. They seem to be working on improving stuff, but in stead of making the showers always hot and the sauna and steamroom available during all hours they gave me a questionaire whether or not I would like to have more motorbike parking space available, and if so, I would be willing to pay 5 baht for that.

How about replacing the treadmills that are ALWAYS broken.

I like FT, but it's by no means the best gym in Chiang Mai.

Thanks for all the advise. Will check out both mentioned places. I don't do it for a visa so don't have to worry about that.

I'm a lazy student by nature. But I'm too competitive to be the fool of the class. I'm certain I will work more hard if there are other people. It's kind of hard to push myself to go and do this, I've been here for a few years and like so many, I kind of get by with my Thai. But it's a goal I've set for next year to finally get off my lazy ass and actually learn the language in a proper way... But in a way I lack motivation. So private lessons are not going to work as well, I fear.

I know there is a language section with good schools, but the topic is 23 km long. Also I am looking for something specific in Chiang Mai, so I hope somebody here can help me out.

Because of work I will be home, here in Chiang Mai roughly 2 weeks per month. But some months maybe not at all, some months the whole month. Hard to predict on four hand when I have to leave again. I know there are many schools that teach 2 times per week, or every day or every weekend. But all that wouldn't work for me.

I know it's possible to get a private teacher, but I would prefer studying in a small group.

I've once taken a 3 week language course in Barcelona, where you basically could join per week and extend per week. Some people would stay a week, other a month, others a half year. It was all possible. Is there any school with such a flexibility in Chiang Mai?

Any recommendations or advise?

Gonna be hard to find private room and shower facilities at those prices. But many of the upmarket hotels offer this, but you will be paying 400-600 baht for your massage. Can't have it all.

I re-entered the country on the 7th of last month, I originally had to report on the 9th of this month, totally forgot. But as I read this I should be fine and do not have to report again till 90 days after the 7th of September. Is that correct?

I do not have any stamp in my passport which date I should report again.

Depends if you are on an extension of stay based on employment or not.

I came here on a non-immigrant B. one with which I had to leave the country every 90 days. Just before that ran out I got my work permit and a 1 year visa for which I have to go to immigration every 90 days. The visa itself is valid until some time next year.

Your permission to stay will expire the day your employment ends, you can apply for a 7 day extension(1900 Baht) or leave the country and start the process over again if I undersand correctly.

That is very bad news for me. Glad I looked into this so I can prepare a solution before the shit hits the fan.

Thanks for the quick replies guys!

Depends if you are on an extension of stay based on employment or not.

I came here on a non-immigrant B. one with which I had to leave the country every 90 days. Just before that ran out I got my work permit and a 1 year visa for which I have to go to immigration every 90 days. The visa itself is valid until some time next year.