The Coder

Is it possible to get a normal METER TAXI from this new fantastic airport to Silom Rd.?

Yes. Read this thread and you will know all the ins and outs.

That thing is huge, what are the compelling features?

This camera was sold in Thailand so I would have thought service would have been an option. I have always liked the T7 due to its thinness. I am disappointed all the newer models from Sony are a lot fatter and they pulled this one from the shelf. There's no way I would want to switch to any of the newer ones even for free as they are just too thick. If you are in warranty and they refuse to fix it then perhaps you need to escalate the issue. I totally sympathize with your wish to keep that model.

So this is saying that they've clamped down hard on the 30 day stamps but are relaxing a bit on real tourist visas?

It makes sense. Some have speculated the rules for 30 day runners are not to get rid of riff raff or anti-foreigner, but rather a process that ensures background checks can be done on these people occasionally at a consulate.

UBC is so frustrating when it comes to sports coverage!!! They didn't cover the winter olympics. They didn't cover the world cup 2006. Now they covered some minor bowl games, but not the BCS title game. Why are the subscription prices so high if they refuse to cover the big events?

Another difference I gather between the two technologies is the durability of the print. Laser is very rugged. Inkjet is subject to fade over time and can blur over time due to moisture. Though I have heard of more heavy duty durable inks being possible. Wow, 8-10 baht a page sounds outrageous. That's more than the cost of professionally printing photos.

It would be silly to ask your ISP for a discount ... all they have to provide is a connection package. They are not responsible for the

international bandwidth.

In my opinion, the ISP is absolutely responsible! You don't pay an ISP to provide a "piece" of internet access. You also indirectly pay them for their choice of upstream providers; a cost they pass on to you. Today surely extra bandwidth from an array of points on the globe could be purchased by ISP's to make this problem better instead of thumbing their noses to the problem. But since customers like you think you should absorb 100% of the costs and headaches that's exactly what they give you.

Imagine a hypothetical ISP contracts a company to launch a satellite and they have no backup, this is 100% of their upstream provider. 10 days after the satellite deorbits and the contractor goes out of business and so there is effectively no internet access from the ISP. But this being Thailand, the ISP continues billing customers every month and even signs up new customers because "it's not our fault. we paid them already and our part works". Duh!

This is the same thing and it is absolute nonsense. They sign up unreliable upstream providers (not like it's the first outage you know), not enough bandwidth to handle existing customers on a good day, no backup plan, and don't do anything when there are problems. They don't care about making it work and their "piece" is often the most poorly run part of it. It's easy to se why technology simply doesn't work in Thailand; they are completely lost and don't even understand there's anything going wrong.

Can someone ask them why the speed is getting worse and worse every day? Today it is not uncommon to wait 20 minutes waiting for a web page to load. Based on the trend in the past several days, tomorrow the may internet grind to a halt and th

Seems predictable enough. People who thought Chang was good 10 years ago will say it is spoiled today. 10 years from now people who say Chang is good today will say it is spoiled. You could probably apply this anywhere along the seaside. If development bothers you, the seaside anywhere in Thailand is probably just setting yourself up for "development" disappointment. It's a dream I gave up about 10 years ago. Everywher I looked I saw high prices, high pollution, too many people, too much noise, too much development, and each of these things only gets worse.

oh wow, i'm sorry The Coder...you were right...i accidentally looked at the visa sticker and thought my 60 days started from the day the sticker was stamped...but then i saw a stamp on the next page saying that my visa was up a couple days earlier than i thought...so the office of immigration didn't make a mistake..the mistake was mine =/

thanks for the heads up guys!

and sorry for the mistake!

Whew, thanks for the update! If you ever need to squeak a little more time out, you can get a 2nd extension (14 days) and even a 3rd (7 days) each for 1900. These ones actually do start from the day you show up unlike the 1st one. Some have said they aren't given out as easily but my experience is they offer them out to you without hesitation and their full recommendation. Plan B would be to hop on a 2000 baht visa run bus where they take you to a border and back within a day and you get another 30 days.

Anyway, glad it worked out.

Things are getting worse over the past couple days. It is the slowest I have ever observed in Thailand on any kind of connection including dialup. POP3 mail is a trickle. Click a web page and the screen stays blank for 10-20 seconds before anything happens. On the bright side it makes me reminisce the days of 1200 baud modems.

Seems like they are asking the wrong person then. This web hosting plan is expensive, the limits are low, and it's just a small fish which introduces some risks. A company that uses profanity in its home page and a questionable domain name is on my avoid list. I see nothing but negatives.

I think it looks pretty good until you get to that round part at the top that looks out of place. Slapping a big advertisement on the landmark of the bangkok skyline is tacky. Before JW it was DTAC. What's next, a big nokia ad smack in front of the Grand Palace? Oh wait...

shark fin soup is in my books just next to turtle soup, rhino horns and tiger penises.

Well said. Also reminds me many a bear in the wild has been killed for the medicinal properties thought to be in the gall bladder and the rest discarded. The real cruelty in sharks is how they are harvested using "finning": slicing off the fins with a razor and throwing the bleeding creature back into the water. Sharks fin soup is a bowl of cruelty. I don't want to so much as step into a restaurant that has this on their menu. It's not like you are missing anything; sharks fin is nearly colorless and tasteless; those are qualities added by the chef from other ingredients.

30 day tourist visa extensions give you 30 days *past* the 60. You don't have to wait until the last day to max it out. You can go two weeks early and it will be just as good. Yes, I am positive having done it a zillion times.

I am all for research and development into smarter ways of doing things and fascinated by alternative energy. The problem is there is a big gap between claims and the reality of such technology in thailand. For instance, they announced they were making solar homes. The details turned out to be they generated only enough power to run a single light bulb and a 14" TV for a small number of hours. I am not sure how that would raise the quality of life for households that does not have power or be acceptable for households that do. There was another example that thailand had developed a more efficient solar cell in the lab compared to the efficiency of what was on the market. Only problem is, it was not manufacturable so they manufacture technology that lags behind the market all the while boasting they have better technology. This bus is just another example. If you could glue a few solar cells on top of a bus and have a solar powered bus everyone would be doing it. The press releases are flowery and what people want to hear, but it just doesn't work.

What I understand about solar electricity is when you look at it objectively, it doesn't save money and it isn't enivornmentally friendly. Panels and batteries are bad for the environment, expensive to make, and need thrown away and replaced periodically. The only real advantage is it can be used to generate off grid power. The reason to buy solar today is that hopefully the money will be used to research it more so that the technology can improve. It's been theat way for as long as I can remember and I don't know that a crossing point will be in our lifetime.

Based on my observation, what farangs say on the internet doesn't matter as it can easily be predicted to be a lot of hot air and conspiracy theories no matter what. Of more interest to me is the several Thai people I have spoken with have said and I thought I would share it. They believe the former PM did a better job with the southern problem than a military style government can do and this is sort of a manifestation of that. This is kind of on top of people not real happy popular programs Thaksin introduced are being eliminated (30 baht medical program has been mentioned). The bombings have created a delicate situation at this time and I wish the junta the best. I am sure they will do everything they can to protect the people and find a peaceful end.

I am puzzled the bombings are not making international headlines, but rather buried behind numerous other mundane stories. A strange world, the mideast seems to be the top story every single hour of every day but when the same thing happens in thailand no one seems to notice. If a bunch of bombs going off on new years in bangkok isn't a top story, then what is? Could be a blessing for tourism though.

(sorry peaceblondie, saw your post after i submitted this, hope it is ok)

Too bad most people outside Thailand don't get exposed to some of my favs:

cow mun gai - when prepared well, not at Carrefour, same for the rest

cow soy - favorite noodle dish ever, from anywhere

nam prik ong w/ sticky rice

generally I like norhtern food the most, maybe cause I'm from there and it's not readily available in the US

And this isn't even mentioning desert!! yummy yummy

Agree!!! You've got some real good ones in there. There's nothing wrong with tom yum and pad thai which thai food is known for by westerners, but there are so many signature dishes that will knock the socks off people who try them. I would add to your list:

yam pla duk foo (fluffly catfish & mango sauce)

pla gow sahm rote (3 flavor grouper--sweet, sour, spicy)

tote man goong (shrimp cakes)

sticky rice & mango dessert!

Just wondered those of you who live in LOS, what percentage of your food is thai and what is western?

Trying to outline some costs of living in thailand and just assumed eating thai food out was the cheapest option but am i wrong?

Didnt spend too long checking out food prices in Tesco etc but a meal for 55baht I thought probably couldnt be beaten?

If you eat thai food, it will be incredibly cheap--20 baht or so for a meal is extremely common. If you opt for farang food, it will be be expensive, perhaps even higher than your own country costing around 10x more than thai food at both foreign restaurants and ingredients at the store.

I have lived in Thailand for years and usually eat farang food that I prepare, but I also absolutely love Thai food and the value for money makes it even more enjoyable to partake. It's possible that under different circumstances I could switch to a completely (or nearly so) thai diet but in Bangkok it's just a modern place with lots of familiar western temptations and I am not real cost sensitive when it comes to food.

Not to say this type of thing never happens, but I am skeptical in this case. I have never seen Thai's become aggressive to play pool or wager 1000 baht out of the blue; those places just don't work that way. The way those places are setup is 30 baht a game against the girls there and they don't bring up bets. Where is the police report? Oh, you didn't make one? Patpong on the contrary has a good safety feature because unlike random people on the street they all have their id's on file so they are in a situation they can't make a clean getaway.

If this is more than a windup and you open yourself to the possibility he was not drugged at all the story could be very different than it appears. My 1000 baht is on a drunk, belligerent guy looking for trouble not paying up for bets lost. The result would be the same anywhere in the world.

Whassat then? you mean taht there isn't a giant fish>?

I am afraid that is a photo from California. You will see a thumbnail on this page with that famous photo and the real story about it: http://www.thailandroad.com/trevor/naga.html

Didn't see much on formaldehyde, but did come up with this: http://www.travelforum.org/thailand/archive0611/74377.html

I won't drink the non imports due to massive formaldehyde put in beers here.

If a list of top 10 myths in Thailand were made, surely this would be on it. But I thought this one was dispelled as false a few decades ago.? I had actually at one time seen a fairly long story on this on how the myth began and perpetuated. This ranks up there with the photo of the 20 servicemen holding up the giant "mekong" fish.

Well aware P=IE. Perhaps you need to have a closer look at your starter motor argument. A typical 8 cyl diesel needs around 12,000 watts (1000CCA x 12v) just to turn over the engine. That's exactly 10x the PEAK power of this bus and we're not even talking about the big things like propelling the bus or powering the AC & accessories! 1200W is nothing, not enough to pull a little clothes washer. It is only enough to power about 4 Pentium CPU's, and that's low voltage DC.

A 1200 watt bus simply is not in the neighborhood of credibility and casts doubt on the aptitude of the people who claim it is a "solar" powered bus.

An AC that draws 6000 watt , a solar panel system that delivers 1200 watt.

What leads me to beleive it was designed by a Thai ?

Exactly. This is a battery powered bus with some incapable solar panels slapped on. While I think they are guilty of truth in advertising here, still this perhaps a very small step in the right direction. I just hope no one is patting themselves on the back as a job well done yet.

I see net censorship as modern day book burning. I detest someone of power having the liberty to enforce upon every type of person including intellectuals "you will never look at that again because your opinion does not matter, only mine does". So book burning goes non stop, every copy of each book disliked by a person of power burnt to ashes. History is being repeated, the only difference is the books of today are web sites.