modafinil

...Nai Yang are basically in the middle of nowhere

For the middle of nowhere, NaiYang seems to offer quite a lot

Beautiful beach, many beach bars, cafes, thai restaurants, Subway, pizza restaurants, pharmacies, ATMs, minimarts, car-rent, international/domestic airport, Tesco Lotus, Karaokee, kite-surfing, horse-riding, souvenir shops, Thai massage, naughty massage, cheap hotels, 5-star hotels etc etc

Simon

OK, perhaps Nai Yang doesn't deserve to be included with Mai Khao. Apart from the beaches - Nai Yang and Mai Khao both have incredible beaches

Well, if this holiday is largely for the benefit of your Thai wife, then your best bet is to ask her where she wants to go

If she is like most Thai women I know, she will insist on going to her home province to see the family.

If you want to be nearer to Phuket airport then Mai Khao or Bang Tao would be good

Mai Khao doesn't even have a 7/11, let alone bars and restaurants (apart from the hotels)!

Bang Tao is nice, though.

They are all quite close - about 30 to 45 minutes away from the airport. I wouldn't recommend any resorts very close to the airport - places like Mai Khao and Nai Yang are basically in the middle of nowhere.

The resorts on the West coast of the island are what many people regard as the "beautiful" part of Phuket. Even if you don't care about the beaches, it's nice to be surrounded by scenic mountains and jungle.

I quite like Karon/Kata (they are next to each other), although I don't live there myself - your girlfriend may enjoy trips to Wat Chalong and Big Buddha if she is a Buddhist, there is a good variety of restaurants and bars there. Patong, Phuket Town, and Promthep Cape are all quite close too.

_{The quiet areas (Kamala, BangTao, Surin) are just that....quiet. Not much to do but sit on the beach, bar hop, eat, or take advantage of the hotel services, and those services (massage, salon, beauty junk) could take you out of budget. The Central area might be a thought. Close to shopping, bird, botanic garden, and all the other stuff LIK mentioned.}

The Central Festival area (big crossroads at the Western edge of Phuket Town) might be OK if you have transport - I can't imagine going on holiday there if I was traveling everywhere by foot. Big shopping center, big main roads, loads of traffic.

At least you wouldn't be paying extra for a beach

I foresee, in Thailand, the collapse of the banks, civil war and the division of the country into 2 or 3 separate nation states.

In the extreme, ethnic cleansing and a situation similar to Cambodia under Pol Pot.

Not sure if any of the current favorites will be playing Pol Pot, but at least two would like a go.

I'm trying to balance enough to live on, in the time remaining, without risking too much when we need to run.

Hoping I'm wrong and you're right.

This is amazing, FiftyTwo! Do you have what is known as "the gift"?

As soon as I saw your post, a strange pulse of energy shot through my body - when I saw your username, I was astonished!

• In the rosary of the seven pains of the Virgin Mary, the prayer of the Ave Maria is told 52 times.

• The ancient Mexicans divided the time in periods of 52 years, waiting the end of the world to the term of each of they. It is the number of the Aztec century, 13 x 4, called the small cycle. We find it in the ligature of the years for the duration of the suns, in particular the first and the fourth sun, which have a duration of 676 years, are considered as being the most perfect since they contain only the two numbers 13 and 52 whose product gives 676.

• One of the Mexican games, named the patolli, kind of game of Goose, has a diagram which is a cross divided into 52 boxes, figuring the number of years of the divinatory cycle and solar.

• The 52 treaties of Nag Hammadi (texts or sacred writings) discovered on 1945 in the village of the High Egypt, hidden in a cave dug in the mountain of the "Djebel el Tarif". The place is called Nag Hammadi.

I know - incredible, isn't it?

Patong has the most facilities for foreigners (nightlife, restaurants, shopping), but some people find it "seedy" and "over-the-top".

At the opposite end, you can find places in Phuket where you are guaranteed it will be quiet - pretty much nothing in the way of shops, restaurants and night-life other than what the hotels offer (Mai Khao).

Then you have resorts that aren't very busy or very quiet - Kamala, Surin, Karon or Kata are some examples.

If you are planning on hiring a car/motorbike, you can visit other places for a day, increasing your options.

Nothing new here.....This was expected and everyone knows this was the plan...The UDD knew this and have talked about it at some length.....Mostly blaming the PTP for sitting idly by, when everyone knew this was the plan of the opposition and their so-called Independent Agencies....The RS's have discussed at length about why the PTP fails to act pro-actively when they have the chance and the electoral mandate......To sit and wait like sacrficial lambs in the face of coup-intentions beyond the street stuff....It was generally known that the coup-mongers on the street had in effect "shot their wad" some time ago, that military intervention was unlikely, leaving initiatives of this nature to the Elitist user-friendly courts.....It was apparent that coup-intentions would ultimately be achieved via the courts...It is more palatable internationally, as they consider this politicized judiciary normal.....To characterize them as normative only plays with the Elitist unelectables, and doesn't for one minute fool the electoral majority as to motives and originators.

Wow, you only joined on 10th of January 2014, and look at how many posts you have already! A quick search reveals that every single one of your contributions have been on political threads only.

Your verbose, meandering mode of speech is amusing - but then, English isn't your first language, is it?

'Anti-graft agency resolves to charge caretaker PM for neglect of duty in rice pledging scheme case, summons her to hear charges on Feb 27 /MCOT'

hey, is it a corruption charge, or is just 'neglect of duty' ? well, not so familiar with these Thai legal expression . . .

It's neither.

real media who are not supporting and angling for a coup are stating the following.

"She is not charged, the phrase means she is being informed of allegations being made against her"

So, no charges and nothing imminent judicial coup wise.

Pity all you clever people who support suthep have no thai friends and don't know anything about the confilct other than Bluesky and Nation propaganda.

How are you such an expert on Thai politics, bkkdave?

According to your profile, you only joined thaivisa.com 3 days ago.

All of your posts so far have been on political threads. Somebody should have a look at your IP address and see how many different Thaivisa members are posting from the same house ....

If you are genuinely a 3 day old member, then I don't think any of us need to take your lectures about "not having Thai friends" seriously. Have you just arrived on holiday?

things

You can't really have a run on a government-owned bank. Since the GSB are operated by the Ministry of Finance, they have all kinds of ways to keep the bank going indefinitely.

Depositors withdrawing 20 Billion today is a powerful political statement, though. I don't think any other banks will make the same mistake.

And yes, if the big withdrawals continue tomorrow the GSB might be forced to take out some liquidity loans of their own from the other big banks.

Please answer this one simple question.

How much money in Thai banks is the real folding stuff, not just numbers on paper?

Sorry, two questions.

Who will suffer the most when that runs out, the people with empty pockets, or the people with numbers on paper?

The amount of folding cash in circulation is peanuts in most countries. $1.2 Trillion is the total paper USD out there worldwide, which you can compare for example to the US national debt of $17 Trillion.

Assuming that total cash is about 10% of GDP, the whole of Thailand probably has around ($366B/10*30) - something in the region of 1.3 Trillion Baht in cash money.

Thank you for confirming that the "guarantee" idea is impossible for the UK.

Are there any Western countries where the idea of a "guarantee" would apply? Her knowledge of moving to work in another country is probably limited to what she has heard when chatting to her Thai friends.

So it would be helpful if I could say something like "Yes, Sweden, Australia and Denmark all accept guarantees - that is why your Thai friends were able to find work, but the UK doesn't". I would like to be able to give her some informed advice.

I have a Thai friend who wants to move to London to work, doing Thai massage. She wants to work at a shop owned by her Thai friend.

She has told me that she would like a "guarantee" so that she can do this.

My question - what does she want? And is it even possible for me to give such a guarantee, assuming that I wanted to?

AirAsia is one of the few airlines that tell you about the extra taxes and charges (airport tax, fuel tax etc) before you book your ticket. As well as being upfront, they have loads of flights and they are really cheap.

I suppose one of the reasons that they are so cheap is that many of their passengers, accidentally or otherwise, pay for some of their extra services. I'm not complaining.

The link in the first post doesn't mention any package that provides 1000 Mbps.

The fastest package that 3BB are actually offering is 100 Mbps, for 24,900 Baht a month (or 48,300 for businesses).

What it DOES say is the following:

3BB has provided the latest technology; broadband internet over fiber optic network FTTx (Fiber to the Home) with maximum speed 1000 Mbps.

Or in other words, the fiber technology is capable of providing speeds of up to 1000Mbps. They aren't actually offering

a package at that speed, merely pointing out that having fiber installed may one day allow you to have internet access at those speeds.

Yes, it is misleading, maybe deliberately so. But since it is impossible to order an actual package claiming 1000Mbps, it shouldn't really

cause any problems.

The "special offer" for 1200 Baht/month offers a mere 30Mbps download and 3Mbps upload.

Just some followup info for anybody who has Googled this thread, I briefly got stuck at how to pay my monthly internet fee.

I put the 3G SIM card into my phone and dialled *102*9# which told me my number.

I then added 700 baht to that number at the 7/11 using their online phone credit terminal at the checkout, the cashier wouldn't/couldn't do 700 so I got her to do 300 twice and then 100.

I went home and dialled *104*23*9#, put the SIM card back into my 3G USB card, and my DTAC Happy internet connection started working again as normal.

I've had absolutely no problems with this service at all, for the price it's better than what is available in the UK/USA. Of course a landline connection is better, but not suitable for my particular situation.

The 399(428 inc tax) baht package is limited to a fair use speed of 64Kbps, a sluggish 8K a second which isn't much better than dialup. The 650/(696 inc tax) baht package gives you six times the speed at 384Kbps, which at 48K a second is good enough for streaming the low-quality youtube vids and web browsing.

We bought a 7.2 DTAC aircard in the end that came with a month's free credit.

The free month finishes today. Does anyone know the simplest way to top up the SIM card?

Since nobody is reporting this, It seems to be nonsense, I should have known. Mods are welcome to delete this thread.

Sorry if anyone was in any way alarmed.

My Thai gf just got a call from her cousin saying that they had 7 explosions in Phuket Town, no other info.

It sounds very unlikely, but if anyone knows anything about this please post.

I'm not trying to worry people, and I would encourage mods to delete this post if it turns out to be nonsense as I suspect it is.

Thank you for the excellent and informative answers - I appreciate it.

I will add a little anecdotal evidence of my own regarding traffic stops. I have been stopped twice in the last 6 months on my bike (6 months ago and today), and on both occasions my EU driving license was rejected because it did not have the motorcycle endorsement. The first time I had plenty of cash with me and just paid the requested 500 Baht fine on the spot (with receipt etc).

I should point out that both these occasions were in Phuket, where the police are probably more tourist-savvy than in most of Thailand. I had been stopped perhaps 8 times before then - on each occasion, the EU driving license was seen as OK by the cops, and I was waved on with no fine.

So it appears that many/most of the police in Phuket now know the difference between a standard driving licence, and one that is endorsed with a motorcycle license. Previously this was not the case. Your experiences may vary. Both roadblocks were in different parts of the island, and had several police pulling every motorbike (but no cars) over.

I got stopped at a police checkpoint today in Phuket, I handed over my licence and the policeman told me that it was a driving license, and that I had to pay a fine. Guilty as charged, no arguments from me.

I told the policeman I didn't have any money with me, he told me to go to the local police station later and pay the fine and I can get my license back. At least that's what I think he said, something may have been lost in translation.

Now I'm not disputing that what I was doing was wrong (riding about on a motorbike when I only have an EU driving license). Anybody who wishes to make witty "serves you right, som nam naa"-type comments is welcome to do so. If it gives you any pleasure to deliver a stern lecture on the wrongs of lawbreaking, please break out a sermon for me, it will be tremendously entertaining for everybody reading I'm sure.

I have one question only. If I never bother going to the police station to pay my 500 baht fine, what is the likely outcome?

Wild speculation welcome, informed knowledge would be better still. Thanks!

According to the "latest reports of getting a visa in the region", nobody has actually tried getting a visa in Phnom Penh since early 2012.

Since we have no news for a year, how do we know that a single-entry tourist visa is unlikely to be approved in PP? Since I'm in Phnom Penh right now it would be rather silly of me not to at least attempt to get a tourist visa here.

Well, I'll post a trip report anyway, I could use the karma.

Unlikely to be approved? That's bad news. A single entry would be fine, would using an agent increase my chances of getting one of these?

How can I get in touch with a visa agent in Phnom Penh? If anyone knows please let me know - a PM would be great.

Thanks!

(edit: my timescale is pretty flexible, I don't mind waiting a week or so if I need to)

I'm in Phnom Penh now, but planning on heading back to Thailand in a week.

Can I apply for a double tourist in PP and have a good chance of getting one? Or is only a single possible?

I have a new passport so it doesn't have any previous tourist visas.