mahjongguy

Yes, there has been a change in policy regarding the issuance of 60-day tourist visas. Thai embassies and consulates worldwide will be checking applications to see if you have been living here on back-to-back tourist visas. If so, then you: - may be given a visa but with a red stamp warning that you may not get one next time - may be interviewed to determine if perhaps you are illegally employed here - may be required to provide address and contact info so that you can be investigated - may be denied a visa. The intention is to put the squeeze on those living here and working without a permit or proper visa. If you can prove that you have tons of funds then it may not be a problem, although they may still insist that you return to you your home country and get the appropriate Non-Immigrant visa (O, O-A, B, ED, etc.). If this issue affects you then you'd best follow it on ThaiVisa.Com where you will get facts and the b/s is filtered out by excellent moderators like "lopburi3".

I've always thought that those monitor lizards roaming free in Lumpini Park are one of the coolest sights in Bangkok. Today's Thai lesson: the local word for a monitor lizard is "hia". This can be used as an insult, but you should be prepared to get your b*tt kicked,or worse. It's quite a bad thing to call someone. Hia are scary ugly, they stink, and they eat rotten flesh.

1050 house fee for 90 minutes at that kind of place is at the high end of the range but not unheard of. 1200 for the masseur is about right if you felt that he did things right. But why add a 200 baht tip to your tip?

Here's one for you: Waterpik. I couldn't bring my 110v model from the States so I had to go search. There was one guy who had a shop in the old Central World but he lost his lease when they began the big renovation. I tracked him down to a house in Din Daeng where he still sells an assortment of electrical and electronic goods. Last month the little coiled hose split. I called them, they said "send it up". So I mailed it to them, they fixed it in one day for 200 baht, including overnight EMS mail to me in Jomtien. Lovely. Cornice Electronics 022779997

I lived in BKK for 3 years and the only time I went to Bumrungrad was on an errand, a brief meeting with a hopital employee. I noted as I trudged in on the hot dusty driveway that there were no sidewalks. Hanging around the lobby for a few minutes, I just got a vibe about the place that was not appealing. Besides, I lived in Silom so it was natural for me to go to Bangkok Nursing Hospital instead. The doctors there took care of my occasional needs as well as my aging geezer stuff. Because I have abnormally bad teeth, I even had my dental work done there. This included a risky jaw surgery that went so well it got written up in an American surgical periodical. Living in Pattaya now, I have been going to Bangkok Pattaya Hospital. So far so good, but I am wary of them. If and when the time comes for something major again, I'll be off to Bangkok to the kind and reliable folks at BNH. I'm sorry about what happened to your b/f. I've seen the way that Thais sometimes treat those that they consider their inferiors, and it's not pretty. I hope that in such a situation I will focus on getting a good result and save my venting for later. It sounds like you were lucky not to have gotten tossed out on your ear.

I recommend that you verify with your insurance company that they will fully cover you for your extended stay. Many policies only provide urgent care if you are overseas for any period longer than a typical vacation (i.e. 30 days). I've lived here for 5 years and I get by just fine with my single U.S. provider, but that's because I use my Thai address. I am not travelling.

Snow Leopard (10.6) has some nice features but note that it will not run Photoshop CS3.

No offense, but it's what most would call "dumb luck". I'm guessing that you obtained an O-A visa from your home country. Happily, it was a multiple-entry version with a 1-year window for entries. Many embassies/consulates (e.g. those in the U.S.) only issue single-entry O-A visas, with a 90-day window for entry. So, you were allowed a second entry valid for a year's stay. It's no big deal except that you got 10 extra months (though you might have paid more up front). Here's the important part: your original visa has reached the end of its one-year Enter-By validity. You can stay until next June but you can no longer come and go on that visa. You must not depart Thailand again until you have gone back to Immigration and purchased a single or multiple Re-Entry Permit. Do it in advance of any travel because they do not sell them at the airport nor at border crossings. If you fail to get one, when you return to Thailand you will be admitted for 14 or 30 days only; your current one year permission to stay will have been voided. And don't forget to do your regular 90-day check-ins. It pays to understand the difference between a visa and Permission To Stay, and to keep up with the changes in the fine print. The best source for that is the ThaiVisa website.

Thank you for mentioning that. I just called and they said that they were slowly introducing the service in Pattaya and do not yet offer it in Jomtien. I'm fairly certain that the speed in Jomtien will still be limited to 2Mbps by the cable length of the TOT-provided phone line, but I wouldn't mind having access to True's superior overseas links.

The irony is that if I moved *further* away from Pattaya then I might be served by the Sattahip central office and then I could get the good stuff.

If http://speedtest.adslthailand.com/ consistently gives you a download reading greater than 2Mbps then it appears that you got upgraded to 3Mbps. One interesting fact about True is that several years ago they set up their own independent network of international links. During the transition it wasn't much fun but in the end their service was superior, and I assume their cost is less than through CAT. Unfortunately, True does not offer DSL in Pattaya.

I've just read up on that, as suggested. The 20:1 and 50:1 ratios seem to apply to the connection from the central office DSLAM (where it is still 1:1) to the ports on (or links to) a metro ATM network that gathers traffic from the exchanges and carries it to the main router location where the overseas links await. Unlike Bangkok, Pattaya has a single wire center, so we are all 1:1 until we get to the switch that loads us all onto whatever pipes our provider has that go up to The City. There may be contention going into that switch (or not) and there definitely is potential for contention on the links to Bangkok. My remarks were directed more to the local loop, where DSL is always 1:1. It is cable modems, where bandwidth is shared by neighbors, that suffers most notably from contention. Properly designed DSL systems should provide at least 50-60% of stated speed when fully contended. In my case, with my 2Mbps service from TOT, I nearly always get 80% to 90% speed to the test server in Bangkok. You get 4Mbps? I'm quite envious. Rather than a waste, I think I implied that the increase in throughput from the US might be a disappointment. I also said I wanted it anyway! Alas, I am doomed by the distance from here to downtown Pattaya. I have noticed that the internet cafe at the CAT office on South Pattaya road offers 10Mbps connections. It should be an interesting experiment to go there and run a few speedtests to Bangkok and to San Francisco.

I'm not disputing what you were told. I'm sure that's what they told you and the b/f and everyone who gripes about the speed. But it's not an answer that can be applied to ADSL service. Read up on it if you want, or don't. When we experience slow Internet connections it is the result of congestion on the international links. Whether your service is from TOT or TT&T, you will get the same slowdown. You can check this out by testing your speed to Bangkok: http://speedtest.adslthailand.com/ Then test your speed to San Francisco, one of the world's two main internet hubs: http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ Outages are a different matter. If outages are frequent and/or slow to be repaired then that is entirely the fault of your provider. It's very possible that MaxNet is superior in that regard. And, being a smaller company, it's likely that their customer service is better too.

"What other services?" The TOT agent that I spoke to was a little difficult to understand but the main idea was a package that included 8Mbps internet plus a certain amount of free Wi-Fi plus unlimited phone calls within Thailand during most hours. The price was over 2,000 baht. "I neither know nor understand the technicalities of it. I have been told the same thing that lvdkeyes was told, but I have no idea whether whoever it was who told me was qualified to know how it all works." The "40 customers" response is nonsense. It is very unlikely that one could call TOT and get a clear explanation in English on any topic involving network architecture. For a quick overview, just Google "cable modem vs ADSL". "What I do know is ever since I switched over to MaxNet I have had good speed, very few problems, and acceptable service." A friend who also lives in Jomtien had some problems with TOT about 18 months ago and switched to MaxNet. He is more satisfied with the service, but admits that we both seem to get about the same thoughput overall. After spending a year with TOT my only complaint is the brief "hiccups" that I feel occur too often. Actual outages have not been frequent and seldom last more than an hour. If only because I am a techie, I would switch to MaxNet if I could get faster service, but they use the same TOT phone line from my house all the way to the Pattaya central office, so alas the distance is likewise too great for anything faster than 2Mbps.

"What good is TOT when you share with up to 40 other people making your connection slower?" That statement puzzles me. It would make sense if we were discussing internet service provided via cable modem (i.e. if Sophon Cable offered such a service). In that architecture you share a single connection with neighboring customers and are affected by their usage. But TOT only offers ADSL service, and ADSL doesn't work that way. Your connection is private all the way to the phone company's central office. There it is tapped off to a device called a "DSLAM" where it joins every TOT internet customer in Pattaya and is piped up to Bangkok. The routers in Pattaya and the facility to BKK are of adequate size; during normal operations it matters very little how many users are online and active. The crunch occurs in Bangkok where all the customers in Thailand vie for access to the international links provided by CAT. These links are not adequate, and only during the lightest periods can you get throughput above 1MBps. Unless you spend your time connecting to websites in Thailand, having internet service greater than 2MBps isn't very useful. Secondly, the charges mentioned for 8MBps and 12MBps are misleading. The price is much higher unless you purchase a bundle of other services. Finally, service greater than 2MBps is only available up to a certain maximum cable distance from the central office. I live on Jomtien Beach road and an engineering check with TOT determined that the distance is too great.

The rain peaks in September. There may be 2 or 3 days where it rains all day. And plenty of days where it's cloudy all day with one or two periods of rain. But there are some very nice days mixed in. You'll do better if you go to the beach at noon rather than 3pm. If you are here for 5 days you may or may not be lucky. If you are here for two or three weeks then you'll be fine. Like with all things in Thailand, just go with the flow. Enjoy the sun and enjoy the rain.

Yup, this morning's clouds are disappointing, but I'm here to testify that we didn't miss much. Although a full eclipse feels like a life-changing event, a partial eclipse just isn't much of a thrill at all.

Here's the most important difference: If you send in your passport while you are in the States, you will be without a passport until it comes back. If you apply at the Embassy in Bangkok, you get to hold on to your old passport while you're waiting. I did that two years ago and it was great. They even noticed that my old passport had been expanded to 48 pages so the new one came already expanded.

The new Central Festival department store has a wide selection of duvet covers. At the moment most of them are on sale for 30% off. One brand even has selected items that are "buy 1, get 3". Most brands make a king size duvet cover and sell it as "King/Queen". If your brown blanket is really too small for the cover, then just take the cover to a sewing shop. There are so many of them in South Pattaya, especially behind the Tukcom IT center.

- If Laos and Cambodia were better places to live then we'd all be living there. By almost any measure, Thailand is better. - The 150 baht ATM was not set by the government but by an association of Thai banks. That sort of price-fixing would not be allowed in the U.S. but here it's a normal thing. In any case, it's capitalism and the the results will be judged by the marketplace. If the banks feel that overall they are making more money the fee will remain; if not, and all they end up with is bigger stacks of traveler's checks, then they will reduce the fee to a more justifiable 50 baht. "The ability to buy a place here is harder than anywhere I know." It's a big issue but hardly unique to Thailand. In what desirable Asian country can you purchase land? Be happy that you can buy a condo here. The main theme I hear is that the Thai government is slowly but surely putting the squeeze on all foreigners. I understand that it may seem that way to some but in the past 5 years I have only observed: - a crackdown on those who stayed here year after year by making border runs. This crackdown has been tweaked a bit and now only affects land crossings. The idea is to eliminate those who don't really have the desirable level of funds to be here, and to flush out those who have warrants out against them from their home countries. - some threatening words (though no action) against those who use proxy companies to purchase homes. The laws themselves have not changed in years.

Real construction? Not just the cement mixing for VT 7 ?

I'm really glad he enjoyed his whirlwind tour. I took my b/f to San Francisco for two weeks and he nearly starved to death. He just would not eat the food.

Yes, that guy is the one and only source of WaterPik in Thailand. He had a retail shop at the old Central World but had to give it up when they closed for remodeling. I bought one from him 2 years ago; had to go to his house, where he also sells audio gear. High prices but I had no other way of getting a 220v model, and I can't survive without my WaterPik!

The variables that go into a particular exchange rate are too many, too mysterious, to be easily understood. If it were simpler then it could be predicted and we'd make money on currency speculation. "Printing money" can certainly weaken a currency but the effect is long delayed. The single biggest factor with the quickest effect may be the balance of trade. I don't see anything that indicates a strong baht this week but in the two months since the USD/THB peaked at over 36, the US exports have fallen further than Thai exports have fallen, thus Thailand has a healthier balance of trade at the moment. Secondly, for the past year the USD has been strengthened by a flight to quality, a perception that the USD would hold up better than yen, Euro, pound sterling, etc. As some of the fear in this global economic crisis eases, the USD loses some of that magnetism. Interest rates matter, too, and Thailand is more likely than the US to continue lowering rates; if that happens then the USD will creep back a bit on the THB, but my guess (just a guess!) is that we'll be hovering around 35 for a good while. Today's K-bank telex rate is 35.07.

We are just beginning the "rainy season" but in fact it hasn't rained much yet in Pattaya. Get your weather report from http://www.tmd.go.th/en/province.php?id=61 For Bangkok weather, choose "Central Thailand" then 'Bangkok". Just keep in mind that a "chance of rain" means exactly that, a chance. If it ever rained for 60 days in a row we'd all float away.