witold

I just wanted to post back again after looking at the links and various recipes and instructions....

A lot of the dishes don't look difficult. They look pretty simple, actually, and don't require as many random ingredients as I thought they might.

I'm a big fan of H-Mart which is a Korean supermarket but they don't have any Thai things there as far as I could tell. I will look what sort of Thai shops are in my area. Looks like I just need some standard stringent and that curry paste to start.

It would be awesome if I could make sum tum that tastes good. One of my favorite Thai dishes.

Also, does anyone know what the street vendors baste the chicken livers in?

I tried several Trader Joe's frozen Thai food kits and bottled Thai sauces, and they are horrible. Some are outright inedible, IMO. Not even close to Thai food flavors.

I would like to make some Thai dishes at home and would like to get some advice. I know there are a million recipes out there, but I need some dishes that are very easy to make for a non-cook.

Only Thai dish I'm not interested in making is Pad Thai...

Any advice on where to start that would give me encouraging results to pursue it further?

Just rent a pickup and driver. That shouldn't be hard to find.

But you are making this 2 hour ride into a complicated endeavor for no reason. Just suck it up and ride it.

No problem at all. Took the same 70-200 and several other lenses and FF bodies earlier this year. A 70-200 on a D7000 should be great for candid shots of the locals. You will probably want to go wide at times so take the 35/1.8. In fact, take something even wider if you can because the 35 on a crop body is not wide at all. I found the 14-24/D700 setup to be just right for indoors and 70-200/D700 for outdoors in Bagan. Bagan was awfully dusty so I would imagine off-the-beaten path locations to be equally dusty, so keep lens changes to a minimum. Enjoy.

Yup, I just came from India and everything you said reflects my experience 100%.

35 is often not wide enough. When it works, it really delivers so I like it. But I'm thinking of picking up 24-70/2.8 as my main lens. Price at Pantip is surprisingly very fair compared to US prices.

Eh...

The good deals are found with discounters and small random airlines. Not on the ITA data feed.

Currently, google search is nothing different from what you see on Expedia/etc. If they include Air Asia, Piac (Pakistan airline), IndiGo, Spicejet, and all the other small airlines that don't make it to the central system - THEN I would be impressed.

Where do I get tickets for the sept24 event?

My setup is D7000 and my old D80.

35/1.8 and 70-200 vr2.

I have the 18-200 and the quality is just not there compared to my current setup. This lens ends up sitting on the shelf back in the US and I will sell it. when I get back

Good to know this stuff is no problem in Burma. I will either cross from Mae Sai or fly to Mandalay and see where I can go from there.

One thing I don't like about Thailand is that things that used to be authentic here, basically turned into tourist trap attractions as millions of tourists visit the country. Are any of these elephant sanctuaries authentic? Tiger temple? Etc.

If Idon't have a moto or leathers, is my only option to pay for the very expensive TDs that provide that for $500-$1000?

I have gloves, boots, back protector, helmet, but only textile suit... Would like to do a TD in Thailand, but at that sort of price Bira is not worth it to me.

I am thinking of visiting Myanmar. I would like to go to the more off the beaten path areas, not just Rangoon Mandalay.

My hobby is photography and I have some intimidating looking photo gear. Will my 3lb 70-200 Nikon lens be a problem? I don't want to leave a $2,500 lens behind in some random storage place in BKK.

Are things like dSLRs and bi lenses OK or will they cause me problems?

It's not the cost, it's the pain the a$$ factor.

Especially now that some embassies are going with 3rd party service for visa processing. I just did my Thai visa in Delhi and I had to go to a 3rd party company to do it. According to their own records, they held my application for 3 days at their office, then send it to the embassy and embassy turned it around in 1 day. Horrible? No. But no expedited service is available and they don't seem to do anything. My visa for India was done the same way with 3rd party processor in NYC and it took them forever to process for unknown reasons. (about 8 business days.)

Sure, if this is your yearly holiday and you are visiting only one country, you can work these things out. But for more frequent travelers it's a pain. At the very least, it's an unnecessary cause for delays.

Are there any places that do paramotor training that are not in Pattaya?

I would love to do my training in Phuket. I see there is a decent amount of ultralights and paragliders.

But I don't see any paramotors. Are they out there?

Speak up if you do or tried paramotor!

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but there are no yearly property taxes in Thailand. And condo maintenance fees are very low. So carrying costs are very, very low in Thailand. If you don't completely overpay, it's not a bad place to park some money.

2.5M seems very low. The only places at this price range seem tiny. Like, 40 sqm. Don't think of "1 bedroom/2 bedroom". Real estate is purchased based on square meters you get. (You can divide you that area into 1/2 dozen shoe box 'bedrooms' - that is a meaningless term.)

Is this only a pass-through for reexport to the world?

You do realize that China makes all sorts of electronics and computers - vast majority of which is hugely overpriced in Thailand. This is one of Thailand's huge drawbacks for a lot of people - if they want some stuff, they are paying a lot more than in the USA. That is why Thais fly to Hong Kong and Singapore to their shopping.

Is it true that the tigers that are presented to tourists to play with are sedated using drugs so that they appear calm and friendly? If so, maybe this guy went to the restricted area where the tigers had not been sedated and were therefore not suitable for tourists to play with.

Tiger Temple is a pretty shady enterprise. They've been collecting VERY HIGH admission fees for years - supposedly to build a nicer and bigger sanctuary for the tigers - but nothing is every making any progress. I would not trust TT with anything.

I have visited Tiger Kingdom outside Chiang Mai, and they are definitely legit. Tigers are definitely not sedated. Keep in mind that tigers don't do anything in the wild. They just lay down all day to conserve energy in the heat. If you want to see active tigers, go to TK right before sunset, when they naturally become more active. When I was there, they were jumping all around and running everywhere. No way were they sedated.

Also, on a side note, I did visit Cobra Village a bit North of Udon Thani, and the cobra they have to take pictures with IS definitely sedated. When they put it around my neck, it felt like a jello sponge that could barely keep its eyes open.

I agree with you that many of the people that have overstayed for long periods of time do it willfully! This is very wrong. It is however a Thai cultural thing and it is only in the past couple of years that Thais and Thai immigration have seen it as a social ill.

Thai government decides what is a crime and how serious the crime and how it should be punished.

In the past, it is quite clear that overstays were not seen as a big deal and they were therefore not penalized harshly.

Considering that there is no way to legally stay in Thailand without 1) marrying a Thai, 2) 'studying', or 3) being old and qualifying for retirement visa, it is not surprising that people are exercising the overstay loophole to stay in Thailand and do it for considerably lower cost than paying all the money for visa runs. Considering the penalties, shortcomings, and the benefits, this was a very good option. No surprise that many people took this option.

Now, as Thailand enters the developed world, rules are slowly changing on everything and people will need to reconsider. Still, I doubt that any enforcement changes will be so immediate and swift that people will not have at least a week to buy a plane ticket to fly out and fly back in to resolve the issue under the current enforcement rules and penalties..

For flying internationally out of the USA, buying in advance is the best. "last minute discounts" are a MYTH. That is simply not how US airlines operate. That said, as the flight departure date gets closer, they may release more seats at a given rate, but that is a very risky proposition. Chances are that you will not catch those seats and will have to buy more expensive seats.

Trust me on this, I do enough last minute travel and I have yet to get any unusually good pricing. It just doesn't happen.

Also, 1100 vs 1050 is a pretty crappy example. I would not call 4% substantial savings - that is a pretty lousy reward for the amount of risk you take. You are much more likely to be forced to buy a 1350 ticket (23% over). And the availability and dates are usually very limited for the discount tickets for last minute in my experience.

***

Your best strategy is to simply familiarize yourself with the options available to you and then monitor how the pricing fluctuates. For Thailand and LA, I think Thai Airways is to watch out for, and there may be other similar situations. Don't just rely on the kayak.com and similar price engines - they all draw form the same datafeed - and this datafeed is very limited and doesn't show some discount tickets.

After you do your research and know the general price, you will know how cheap your ticket can get. When you see it being sold at that price, just buy it. That is as good as it's going to get. I would also research some credit card companies cash back offers. I have seen some cards that give 5% on "Travel". If that includes plane tickets, that would be substantial savings.

Most people who think they can get last minute deals simply haven't done enough research to see that the 'special' price they got was available 2 months ago as well and they should consider themselves lucky it showed up again and they didn't get hit with last minute premium.

Hi random, I have agreed with what your saying up until my last trip back in to Swampy, I fly in and out every few months. But they seem to have cottoned on to the fact some people are going to arrivals to get there cab. Up until my last trip in I was doing as you described successfully for near 18 months. Then the gits got me! I got into a cab, I know exactly where I'm going, once we left the airport, Off we go, in the wrong direction, long story short, half an hour later I end up at some backwater Mafia taxi rank, moved into some old dodgy motor, and then on our way. I was frigging angry !!!! More at myself for getting took than anything else. Near an extra hour on my 2 hour trip. Then the wanke_r of a driver, who would not stop trying to be my friend asked for a tip!! "Sure mate" I said, "don't eat yellow snow" Yer.....I thought, work that one out, you <deleted>!

I must say, that is a lot better scam to swallow than the Logos guy story above. How much did you end up paying?

There are some places in Latin and Central America where rouge cabs kidnap you for ransom. When I was in Bogota recently, about 60% of the cabs tried to substantially screw me over (take the wrong way, overcharge, not give me change, etc.) In fact, taking cabs off the street like I did is not recommended. You're supposed to call the taxi company, and they would give you a PIN number that the driver of the car givers you when they pick you up or it's part of their license plate...

A lot of books are put together very quickly. Quality is secondary to just publishing and selling.

The Thai/English subject is only interesting because in the rest of the World, everybody wants to learn English and they often do an excellent job. I've met many students from Eastern Europe that speak English VERY well. Some of them spoke nearly flawlessly even though they have never been outside of their native country.

In contrast, most Thais have more pressing things to think about than learning English. I think in a lot of the other countries people are eager to get out of their country and become rich in USA/UK/Western Europe so they put more effort into learning English. Whereas in Thailand, Thais don't seem to have the sort of immigration bug? They probably just see English as a step to getting a job in the Tourism industry and many Thais want nothing to do with the Tourist industry.

Posting such crapptastic piece of Spam on TV News should be grounds for a temp ban.

hehehe...

A while back, I heard that Kawi is planning to bring Versys and their 599cc sportbike to LOS. They brought Versys, what about the sportbike? Any progress on that front?

If you are dumb enough to leave your passport with a motorbike rental shop you deserve to be stopped.

If there is a place that rents 'big bikes' and _doesn't_ require you to leave your passport, I would like to hear about it.

As far as I can tell, EVERY place that rents legitimately registered and insured big bikes _requires_ that you leave your passport at their place.

It appears that you think bars are in the business of providing free space and ice so you can bring your own alcohol to drink there?

If they don't offer something at the bar, they are usually more than happy to hit up 7/11 themselves so they can resell it to you.

I guess you really do not go to bars often - or have much common sense to figure this out.

I don't know about Pattaya, but 2005 was the peak of the RE bubble in the US. Very few things are selling at 2005 prices.

I think a lot of people list their place for sale and just sit on it. It's hard to say how serious they are about selling. If they are not reevaluating their price and strategy every month, they couldn't possibly be that serious about selling their place I would think...

Is there a way to check prior sales histories of similar properties? In the US, all these transactions are recorded so you know exactly how much every other place in the neighborhood sold for. Appraisers use these records to come up with appraisals. Is there anything similar in Thailand?

It doesn't matter how much they paid for their place. It only matters how much similar places are selling for right now.

Lastly, Pattaya is a tourist town. If tourists are coming and spending, houses will sell again and prices skyrocket. If tourists are cutting back, things will linger on the market until tourists come back and start spending again... Such places tend to be very seasonal.

You can already rent one from Mr Mechanic in Chiang Mai.

1,500 baht a day.

I knew it wouldn't take long.  Excellent.