crazygreg44

Why exactly do they need a 6 Million baht computer system to do this?

Zip ties do cost a LOT in Thailand. As well as cost over runs like import taxes on the PC.

they catch a virus every week, because the staff will download stupid virus affected games,so the 6 Million Baht will last for two, three years, paying for all the backups

maybe the question of the poll was actualy not asking about the top destination of the world, but rather asking for the top tourist destination in Asia . I can otherwise not understand the outcome of the poll. Bangkok ranking top with Chiang Mai on the second the best destinations in Asia, would make absolutely sense. At nightfall, after the day heat, the city becomes a burlesque place, strewn with excellent food stalls, low traffic, quiet parks, top restaurants , night clubs , bars and a huge amount of top discos. If you are a shopping freak, there is no better place in Asia. Maybe this is what you have in mind as a tourist , being single and better not dragging your wife behind. Families with kids, beware. You are invited to do a 2-3 day roundabout, but you d better hurry to get out of here.

The pollution, the bad sidewalks, the sparsely strewn green areas,all the dirt and the energy waste by airconditioning and a unecessary number of taxis driving around with no passengers, is a BIG minus , so I really wonder how the poll went for Bangkok. If you move away from the tourist areas, you will find Bangkok is a shithole which does not deserve any ranking among the top ten of the world. Fact, it absolutely depends on where the viewer roams in Bangkok, to be able to give a holler and thumbs up or being pissed off and determinately thumbs down.

Don't drink the rain water. Every hear of acid rain? Well, Bangkok (or Thailand) ain't the Swiss Alps.

In Bangkok or Chiang Mai, I would not drink the rainwater. Elsewhere in Thailand , I would drink it. The Thai collect the rainwater in large drums either made of concrete or even plastic containers, and then onward divert them into clay pots. The clay pots purify the water even more. They only drink from the water that has been in the clay pots for quite some time. The only negative aspect of it is, that it doesn t contain any minerals. But so does the bottled water and also most of all those bottled expensive water products ! Regardless which water you prefer to drink, you should obtain a mineral supplement in the pharmacy like calcium and magnesium, about other supplements don t worry as they are contained in your daily diet. Look up the amount of Magnesium and Calcium in one pill and determine if half of each or even a third per day would be enough.

I personally don t like the 15 liter containers. Remember, it is made of plastic, and once opened bacteria growth starts. If you drink from it over a period longer than 4- 5 days, stay away from it. Plastic is prone to excessive bacteria growth and I would not drink from it unless it has been treated with antibacterial coal pills. Also I am not sure if these containers undergo thorough and intense cleaning plus desinfection prior to refilling. The reverse osmosis as mentioned before in another post onyl refers to the treatment of the water, not of the container.

If you live in a rural area, I would suggest to collect and drink rainwater. If you live in a big city and the air is somewhat polluted, do not collect rainwater for drinking purposes, but instead rely on the 1.5 liter bottles. They are a bit more costly but you can be sure the containers haven t been infested.

Inequality? No way.

The rich and poor in Thailand both have equal rights. Both have only 1 vote.

Absolutely ! and two legs !

... agreed. But they don t get equal opportunity for the same level of education . .

I agree with most posters. Clothing is no problem, the are a big-size shirts and trousers shops on the 6 th floor of the MBK Center in Bangkok. And in places where farangs are frequenting , you can always find something youre size on the night markets or in the shops.

For shoes it is absolutely useless to start a search if your needs are above size 11 !!! Bring them in from abroad. Myself I packed two pairs of TEVA's, one with closed toe, one an open sandal. Both offer heavy trekking quality which you will never find with a Thai made sandal, and the closed toe one is sociably acceptable even on a banquett diner in a 5 star environment ! Fly in with a good pair of closed leather shoes, which are required for doing business in Bangkok and beyond.

Don t get tempted wearing socks to sandals, as this is flat out laughable, even if someone told you that Robin Hood wore them in a movie !

What goes for flip-flops, they are a bit more easy to find, even in size 12. They are a cool footwear around the home and for a short trip to seven-eleven. For longer trips, the casual Short Bermuda pants and sandals are option one for achieving a nice, casual look and don t stand out of the masses. In the city it should be long trousers plus leather shoes or closed toes trekking sandals.

You will soon find out that leather shoes are not a good idea in tropic conditions. Also, a leather sandal breaks down and wears a lot faster in here conditions , leather gets beaky and hard if not constantly oiled and cleaned.

Teva's are durable, easy to clean, they dry within 10 minutes in the sun !

It's true ! I have lost several USB sticks, one of them a Voyager flash USB 32 GB, worth 200 US Dollars, because I handed it over to a printshop in order to print some documents. After returning home, my KASPERSKY flashed a BIG RED warning, and from then on my USB Stick was useless. My computer, luckily, got saved by Kaspersky.

It happened two more times in two different stores, So I will never again walk into a Thai print shop again without being willing to loose my USB stick to a virus caught on any of their computers, the same goes for any Thailand based internet cafe. I now am EXPECTING to loose the stick, so no worries, I always make data backups or buy a cheap stick, which I am willing to loose, or as the author mentioned, a non- rewritable CD.

It is amazing how many Thai computers are virus-infected ! My Thai Wife's nephew used the laptop I bought for her, only on 3 occasions, he downloaded some chat programs and some stuff the Thai like to play with ( yes they OH like it soo much !! ) in order to chit chat with his gay friends. When I started her laptop again, I knew instantly something was wrong. After three weeks of use the laptop crashed.

The viruses are all over the Thai social network. I want to issue a big warning here, anyone attempting to use Thai social networks should know the risk. Don t expect nothing !! Use a super-good antivirus software or be willing to loose your computer !

A position to make the watershed the base of conjuring the borderline, in my opinion is the best way to resolver the dispute. The cliff - based site sheds its water downward to Thailand, the adjacent area sheds it to Cambodia. In my opinion, since you don t steal water from your neighbour, a new mapping of the watershed could resolve the dispute for once and ever.

The 1908 maps were drawn by the french and are an insult to the people. Same thing happened in Iraq/ Lebanon/Syria/Jordan etc border markations by the french. We all know that many of nowadays minority and border conflicts have their origin in those colonial-era drawn up maps.

I sincerely hope there will be a solution. I live 15 km from the site and would welcome it. I am short of being retired and I would love to meditate on the cliffs in the mornings, without being hassled neither by Thai troops nor Cambodian. I wish the UNO representatives have dug into the subject, get relevant information and understand both sides. If the border dispute fails , I would suggest a "heritage" site managemant plan, leaving border dispute aside and open the sanctuary for the public again. If you want UNO management, I will be your man, I am applying for the job as the caretaker of the heritage. I am 53 and I love living there. I hope somebody involved in the UNO reads this.

1 Kilo Towel at a time ? What is compact and big ?? A normal washing machine does handle 5 - 7 kilos per time. Do you want a tabletop model for the living room cupboard or a 10 - kilo capable machine ? Is 1 kilo mispelled and you wanted to type 10 kilo ?

your question means you are not trying to launder money. you are a citizen in good standing, and you are obliged to carry a certain amount of money on you when you EXIT Canada ! Ask Canadian customs on the rules !

The Thai don t mind how much you bring into the country . The more, the better for them !

Nobody in a Thai bank will ever ask you where the money is from. Money laundering is not an offense in Thailand, it seems !

just don t bring 1 million into the bank in one time, Allow yourself to pay into your Thai account time by time. KYAC !

If you need advice for money launadering This Thai Visa Forum is not a good place to ak for.

You can buy gold in Canada for xxx Million Canadian Dollars, and carry it in your handcarry, nobody will bother you.

You can sell the gold in the Bangkok Mint any time you like to see cash flowing.

you have to act fast, because Big Brother is going to abandon money bills in favour of credit cards . Once there is no more CASH bills

in people's hands, it is 1984 for sure !!

I ask you to boycott cards. . the longer you do, the longer cash paper bills will be accepted currency ! JU

Why carry that kind of cash anyway?

As Jingthing suggested, open a bank account here - very easy to do on just about any kind of visa - and have someone SWIFT the money to it for you.

Carry only the amount of cash you'll need for maybe a week.

Safest, and most efficient.

there s a limit to SWIFt transfers ! Most countries ask for a money expediture declaration if you SWIFT more than 5000 US Dollars !

Well, the message is missing of substance !

first off, WI-Fi is just the making of a signal delivered to fixed location port. The port always is supplied by DSL, ADSL, or whatever speed you choose to opt for, to be delivered to your port. The WI-Fi Speed is irrelevant, it is only as fast as the port speed.

The message says the Wi-Fi speed they want to increase. Why didn t they just say INTERNET SPEED IN THAILAND WILL INCREASE FROM 1 Mbit TO 2 Mbit IN THE NEXT TWO YEARS . .because that simply is what they are trying to tell you.

If you pay for a 3 MBps speed internet, it s up to you. You may have noticed, that in most places, the speed is somewhat like 160 KBps , regardless of what you pay. Upstream.

The message says they will give it to you within the next two years. Hey, wait ! I thought they already give it to me ??!! I pay 500 Baht per month for a promised 3 MBps internet speed at my house

in Cha Am.

What i am trying to tell you this is just a message of some bloke from TAT, who graduated from university, and is trying to give you insight information, but got the components of his

"message" completely wrong !!! Confusing WI-Fi with what ????

If you don t believe in shit, try the THAI VISA Forum Internet Speed test from your location to see if you get what you pay for !!!!!

I am sorry but i must say you pay too mut!! We live in the Sisaket province, just bought satellite internet at 1 MBps for 1100 Baht per month flat. Of course a monsoon shower can disrupt services, as it will do all over Thailand , even in Bangkok, Internet still goes down with the rain in some areas ! On a sunday i chat with HER - from Germany - via MSN messenger with active webcam at astoundings speed !

<br>stunning news as the world goes to 20mb by then ok not wireless but <br>

I would be very happy when a 2 Mbps wireless Internet connection will be available at a moderate price in my area (small village in Northeastern Thailand). At the moment, I can only access the worldwide web at a "decent" speed (1 Mbps at its best) via an expensive (almost 2800 baht per month) and not always reliable during the rainy season TOT iPSTAR Satellite broadband connection and no, alas, CAT CDMA-EVDO Rev. A is not available where I live (I'm located too far from their nearest access point).

I can remember driving into Bangkok all the way coming from Ratchaburi . When the outskirts of Bangkok are reached, there are hundreds of gardening shops lining the roadside, their premises filled with tress ready to take, all sizes, all growth stages. All along the main road for many , many kilometers . . .

There is a flower market in Bunglumpoo , as well as there is one in the Chattuchak Weekend market. But these are offering smaller tress. Worth a check, tough.

TVF has a new topic to talk bad about Thai people.

Blame the Farang. Where plastic bags and soft drinks came from? Not so long time ago there where no plastic bags and no polystyreen food-containers. Food was packed in banana leaves.

There is a lot of recycling going on for all kinds of material. And believe it or not many plastic products in Thailand are made of biodegradable plastic.

Biodegradable plastic in use in Thailand ?? Please show me some !!! I would really like some proof !!!! I hope you know what you write !!! Do you know

what "biodegradable" means ? Can t see any of this anywhere near here !

9 million people use 600,000 plastic bags per day? Is that not one bag per person every 15 days? A likely story.

Is that right that they weigh 1,800 tonnes every day, 600,000 plastic bags weigh 1,800 tonnes? They must be thicker and heavier than the bags we get here in Chiang Mai. Correct me if I am wrong as maths was never my strong point.

Hehe, a few people have tried, but it really is a simple calculation.

1,800 tons = 1,800,000 kgs. Divide that by 600,000 and you get 3 kg per bag! Hahaha.

The Hong Kong article says they used 4 per person per day, which sounds more realistic, so maybe there were a few 0's missing off the end of the 600,000:blink:

We have stopped giving out plastic bags in South Australia.

Plus South Australia recycles 70% of what can be recycles from out total rubbish.

Not bad for a small population of 1.2 million.

If that could be done world wide the landfill areas would take longer to fill and less pollution.

We use our cloth bags to do our weekly shopping.

I think Thailand recycles 100% of what can be recycled judging by the enthusiasm of the bin men in sifting through my rubbish every 3-4 days!

60 MILLION plastic bags per day sounds more like a fact than 600,000 for Bangkok alone, where an estimated 10 million people live, running into 7/11 5 times a day leaving the figure at 5-6 bags per day per capita. 600,000 - another proof of applied "thai" statistic maths !!!!

Plastic bags In New Zealand last about 1- 2 months in the ground. We went through this no bags and 'save the planet

bags'. Eventually the speed of getting people through the checkouts won I guess.

There is an Australian company which has a plant, in Melbourne I think, that makes diesel fuel from plastic bags. 1 kilo of bags 1 kilo of fuel.

There was research done at Chulalongkorn University some years ago on the problem of getting plastic bags to degrade

Not sure of the outcome

I give you a lifetime supply of Beer if you can proof to me that there is a method to make 1 kg Diesel from 1 kg plastic bags !!! :lol:LMAO !!!!!!

....CHEAP CHARLY !!! you must have been anoying somebody by avoiding to spend "too moot" . . . .

Well, it might be off topic, but I want to post this in search for eventual help by the readers.

My Thai girlfriend and me are looking for a computer or talking dictionary based Thai-English-Thai dictionary, that is supporting a Thai native speaker in learning english. What is essential for my girlfriend, is, that she is able to read the pronounciation of the english word IN THAI phonetics ! There is a book on the market which we have and get along pretty well , as it gives her the Thai word in Thai, then the english word in roman letters, and then - AND THIS IS IMPORTANT ! - the phonetics of the english word in thai letters !!!

I have crammed about the internet for days, if not weeks, in order to find something alike made for the computer. however, cannot find anything. All the Thai-English dictionaries to be found are constructed for the use by English native speakers . . . .

I would be happy for any hint that leads me to a dictionary made purposedly for HER !

Just wonder - why people do not use online booking available now from almost any airline (or, if too lazy to check all the options/can't find cheap tickets themselves, online travel agencies or ticket search engines) and resort to "offline" travel agencies, especially in Pattaya.

As they book tickets FROM Thailand, guess they live here for a while, and, as such, should be aware that travel agencies in Thailand are rip offs more often than no (or occasionally worse, as in this case).

Even in this day and age, a lot of people haven't got or have been declined Credit Cards. That's one possibility

Pls read my post #37 first.

I live in Thailand year round.

I did not used a CC because I was scammed in BKK with my card before. I stayed at a BKK hotel and paid with my CC. 3 months later I went to Europe and checked my mail. My CC was used in Londen and Tokyo while I was in Thailand and even crossed the border with Laos that very same day. Went to the police, my bank and the CC company immediately. My bank told me I was too late, as one has 1 month only to complain. Registered letters to the bank and CC company, and many calls did not help. I could clearly prove my CC was not stolen nor lost (I still had my original card) and I stayed in Thailand all time and crossed the border with Laos (with my pasport). I lost 4.000 euro (+/- 200.000 Baht) and not be refunded. My bank takes the money from my account immediately. The police told me the scammers just made a completely new card with my name and number on it and signed the back by themselves.

2 unpleasent and expensive things, amounting to about 320.000 Baht I lost.

To all those clever people who give strong words/advice and who think the victems are stupid and have no knowledge: be careful, it might happen to you.

Agreed! Absolutely a helpful warning ! I travel and live in Thailand for 16 years, and I have never used my credit card for paying in a shop,hotel or fueling station ! I only use it on ATM's for withdrawing cash. Despite a lot of friends call me a paranoid, why should i decline my habit, it has probably kept me from my card being hacked and me ripped off . . .

Unbeliebl:

The Meteorological Department assured that a quake, if occurring in the Andaman Sea, would have little impacts on Thailand. A tsunami, if occurring in the Pacific, can only be caused by the movement of the underwater fault line lying west of the Philippines.

They forgotten allready Tsunami 2005 what took a reason in the Andaman sea ?

And they are waiting for the 2nd part of the falt breaking ...

But imagine about a Tsunami going into Bangkok Bay ...

Habe a nice Day - but until now really only birds and elefants can feel a few minutes ago - and we lost the sense to hear to them !

German Greetings

A Tsunami rolling into the Bangkok Bay won t ever happen !

Reason is, the Bay of Bangkok is much too shallow over a long distance to allow a wave to build up. Tsunamis need deep sea for a start and then a sudden, steep rise in seafloor, in order to build and grow. This cannot happen effectively in shallow waters. Remember, the Bangkok bay is a mere 20 - 25 meters in depth in most parts.

What can happen and has happened in the past, is a major Tsunami hitting Koh Chang and the Trat coast , triggered from a volcano blast in the Indonesian archipelagos. It happened in the 19 th century when

the Krakatao blast occured.

Robblok got that right . . there are taxi touts and there are honest guys. And i admit, adversely to my comment in the first post, some actually don t know their city well, and get lost or drive you around helplessly but would never admit . . . . while I have come to some that got me to my minibus IN TIME when I was late by many minutes . . by sneaking me through some back alleys in the correct direction and made me catch the bus . . against heavy traffic jams in the main roads . .

however I would never be rude to them if refused a ride . . . it's THEIR job & city , they are free entrepreneurs, and nobody gives a f..k how taxi regulations are handled in the U.K. . . not same same in the Big Mango . .

Anyways guys & ladiss . . this topic is about THE MOST BAFFLING Experience you have had with Thais !!! I expect this to be one hel_l uva Post . . . could really grow to be a large collection of real encounters of our long-in-the-country- living expats vs Thais . . . if they'd just stop getting wound up in comments on if it's rough or not leaving taxi doors open to honest faced taxi turds

lets get back to that said topic . .hel_l, I was and am stil trying to dig up a few memories when . . . got lost in a maelstrom . . . ah, can ya shut that rear taxi door pleeze??

all good stuff, anyone care to make a list of what thais find irritating ( quirky by thai standards) about "guests " in thailand?

Leaving taxi doors open I guess

......

whenever I get passed or even pushed out of the way by someone, when I am waiting in a queue at 7/11 , I smile to myself and think " they must really hate me!" . . however, it is just their respectlessness, not hate ! You will not encounter open hatred, as this will be loss of face for a Thai. But if you ask for trouble, it will be at your feet in no time ! There are nationalists and such , like in every other country , that think their nation or their race is superior. I just avoid such people, and love and show that I like nice and friendly folk. You get back hatred when you give people a reason !

I don't catch Tuk Tuk's anymore as some want to take you to a shop first.

Off course they say you don't have to buy anything just walk in the shop and walk out.

"Then they will give me gas money" he says.

I said "Mai OW"! just take me to BTS station like I said!

Get a Taxi it's got Air Con.

And as for the taxi's that refuse to go where you want. I always open the rear door of the car first then ask. If they say "mai..mai pai" , i just leave the rear door wide open and walk off....(against the flow of traffic mind you)

that s very impolite of you , leaving the door open ! Mind you, in big cities the taxi driver might have a purely economic reason for refusing to take you to XXX , mainly because it might be rush hour or heavy traffic on the said route. They know their city really well ! And the taxi does not make him any profit because the meters don t reel when the car is stuck in traffic. It just does not pay off for him to take you there. For example, if I am at Pantip Plaza at 4 pm, three out of four drivers won't take me to the Khaosan Road ! I do not intend to be a nuisance for a honest working guy , that's why I will shut the door even if I am refused the ride.