Tropicalevo

One of the reports did state that this was the first recorded earthquake in the Gulf since records have been kept. All others had been on the mainland. Not sure how accurate that statement is. Certainly I have never 'felt the earth move' in the 24 years that I have lived here Checked my CCTV cameras at the reported quake times and no visible vibration there. Much ado etc etc

Great idea. Hopefully, we can then bin the proposal for a cruise terminal on Koh Samui.

Before 2012, all taxes went to the governor to distribute around the whole province. Koh Samui received very little benefit from the budget but there were some very nice roads around the governor's place. Since Samui was given municipality status in 2012, the mayor of Samui decides where the budget goes.

We did check in a lot more groups from India in the first four months of the year, but none since the visa change. It's low season here. The only issue with most of them is that they are spaced out and belligerent after smoking too much weed. Some even become aggressive.

That would be a major step forward. It could give the workers some protection as well as social security for health.

And that sums it up. The flower sellers have been a pain since I first came to Thailand back in the early 90's

"there are three kinds of falsehoods, lies, damned lies and statistics"

Threatened a few times in the UK. Once by someone with a knife. (I just walked away). Wife was mugged twice in the UK. Here in Thailand - nothing. Wife felt more safe in both Bangkok and Samui.

Welcome to Thailand. Just remember that only bad news sells. 100s of thousands (millions) of Brits live and visit here and nothing happens. Even when we do good things. That does not appear in the blogs or papers. There are racists everywhere, of all colours. To quote Brian - 'Always look on the bright side of life'.

Correct. As she was named in the contract. She will not be able to pass it on. Only those that were named on the contact.

A 30 year lease is legal. A second 30 years as an option is also legal (or it was back in 2001). This gives 60 years. Some developers have been known to offer 90 year leases. Not legal. 60 was the maximum. The thing to remember with a lease that it is ONLY for the people included in the contact. The lease dies when they do.

One would hope so. The newspaper in question was supposedly the top newspaper in the UK. The bottom line with a direct debit is that the payer cannot cancel it. Only the payee can.

I think that most direct debits are difficult to cancel if the payee does not want to stop them. I am very wary of paying by this method after a newspaper that I subscribed to this way refused to cancel the transaction. After 15 months of arguing with the newspaper, I had to resort to tell the bank that my debit card had been stolen.

Just to say that I am sorry to hear about your daughter's problems. You seem to be level headed and in control. Good luck to you and especially good luck to your daughter.

We look after a number of villas where the developers pay one PEA bill for the development and then charge the individual owners separately. Individual costs range from 7 baht to 10 baht per unit depending on the developer. About 15 years ago, a new development near me was charging 25 baht per unit, but that did lead to a gunfight and the developer ended up in gaol.