Thaimo

If you drive in Thailand, once you have one you'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

I don't notice any particular improvement. As a matter of fact, that bandwidth pic you posted just now took 7 seconds to load and it's 302k. I'm still on ASDL. A friend converted to broadband earlier this week and he is delighted with it. He had the same service I use. His broadband costs about half the price and he says he is getting significantly faster speed. I am soon going to switch over to it and give it a try.

I'm sure you are right, but many Thai cities offer the same. Even from Pattaya, just minutes south of the city, between Pattaya and Sattahip, there are several beaches that rival the beauty of Phuket. Based on your user name I think you are a probably fan and staunch supporter of Phuket and I am not trying to put down Phuket itself. It's the rip-offs and shabby treatment of tourists that I'm putting down and Phuket needs to get its act together about it. If I was a traveler on holiday in Phuket and was subjected to these kinds of rip-offs and attitudes, that would be the last time I would ever be in Phuket.

Obtaining a tourist visa to go to the USA is virtually impossible for a Thai citizen unless he/she can prove, to the satisfaction of the USA Embassy, a "compelling reason" to return to Thailand. In most cases that means financial reasons, reasons about which evidence can be provided such as a good, lucrative job that has been held for a substantial period of time, a bank account that shows good amounts of money and a good regular income (don't try stuffing her bank account. They'll see right through it), higher education, ownership of property, etc. In may ways, the fact of your marriage actually can reduce her chances of obtaining the visa. The embassy's position is that it may be a marriage of convenience. Too many incidents have taken place in which a married couple goes to the USA, ostensibly for a holiday, and then the Thai spouse takes off, never to be heard from again or a separation or divorce quickly occurs. Also, you cannot personally have anything to do with her attempt to obtain the visa. Letters of guarantee from you, surety bonds, immigration attorneys, or anything similar carry no weight in the decision. Also, you did not mention your wife's age. Please don't be insulted by this, but if the embassy so much as suspects that she has been involved in prostitution, they will not grant a visa. It's difficult, but people do succeed. The best I can advise is to put together as much documentary evidence as you can come up with of that "compelling reason" for her to return to Thailand and hope for the best. Please let us know how it turns out.

I drive a car in Thailand. I love my GPS. I wouldn't want to be without it. It is easy to drive from city to city, but once you reach the destination city it can be very difficult to find where you are trying to go without a GPS. The software includes listings of most hotels, restaurants, filling stations, bank and ATM locations, shopping centers, convenience stores, and much more. Only last month I used my GPS to get me to a hotel in Udon Thani. Not only did the GPS take me right to the hotel, but it accurately predicted how long the trip would take, to the minute, even from hundreds of km away. Same results for recent trips to Khorat, a boondocks location in the Chaiyaphum province, and a boondocks location in the Khon Kaen province. Also, I would hate to try to drive to a destination with which I am not familiar in Bangkok without my GPS. Sometimes the GPS can get you close to where you want to go, but doesn't have the precise location among its listings, such as someone's home or various locales where you might want to return some time. Once you get where you're trying to go you only have to touch a button to add in that location. I also like the fact that if you miss a turn or decide not to go down some obscure road the GPS tells you to use, it quickly and automatically recalculates another routing to your destination. Also, since one of the first things you do with a new GPS is to store your home location, at the touch of a button the GPS will lead you home from wherever you are. On my GPS the added locations, and I have loads of them now, are stored on an SD card. I can easily insert the SD card into my computer and save all the locations to Google Earth. For me, the GPS is one of the best investments I've ever made in Thailand. If you drive in Thailand, I highly recommend buying one.

And tourists are accepting and putting up with this? I cannot speak for others, but I usually make it a point not to travel to a place where I know I will be ripped off. I was never a great fan of Phuket, but after reading about these rip-offs Phuket will have to do without my presence. I will not go there again until I start seeing news and posts that the city is cleaning up this outrageous treatment of tourists. Even then, I don't know what Phuket has to offer that you can't find in other Thai cities. Actually 100 baht for an 8km ride on a motorbike taxi does seem reasonable to me. That is on par with prices in other large Thai cities, but I would not ride in a Tuk-Tuk in Phuket under any circumstances. The tuk-tuks are charging per-person prices? I've never heard of anything like that in Thailand. The fare is supposed to be for the ride no matter how many persons are occupying the tuk-tuk. As I said, I won't got to Phuket again in the foreseeable future. I don't really like it there to start with. They'll have to find someone else to rip off.

What about motorbike taxis? Does Phuket have them? Do they charge reasonable prices?

I've tried most of them. I've loved every one of them! I hope you keep posting more. You are not posting in vain, I assure you.

I have learned to simply find somewhere else to park if someone is making an issue of it, even if they are rude and aggressive. That is one kind of battle that I think is not worth fighting. Even if I ignore someone going ballistic over the spot where I wanted to park, I would be concerned that I would come back later only to find the paint keyed, the tires slashed, or worse. I always carry a mobile phone that has a camera function. I would try to get a photo of the person if I could or a photo of his license plate. I also keep the police telephone number ready on speed dial.

After reading the article, neither do I. I've never heard of him. I've also never heard of any of the scams he talks about except for the jet ski scam. That scam does happen on occasion. But the others he listed, I have no idea where that's coming from or what information he is privy to that no one else seems to have ever heard of.

If it is already daylight when I wake up, then I woke up late.

To tell the truth, I think pulling teeth, compared to this Congress, would be infinitely simpler.

Perhaps I am overly cynical, but I do see one similarity. I don't believe a thing any of them tell us, or what anyone else speaking for the government tells us. I trust Obama's integrity far more than I trust Bush's or Palin's. As a matter of fact I don't believe Bush or Palin even possess any integrity. But I still don't believe what they tell us and I still don't believe what Obama tells us. In Obama's case, I don't think he is deliberately lying. In his case I think the rest of the government is stonewalling him and that's why I don't believe him. It's not that he won't deliver on his promises. It's that he can't. They won't let him. I voted for Obama because I wanted to give his ideas a chance. I didn't vote for him and his policies so that I could sit back and watch other politicians telling us all about why they won't let him carry out those policies. I have a piece of news for every politician in either party who is standing in Obama's way: Next election you're not getting my vote. I'd be much happier giving Obama his chance, even if he fails, than voting for politicians who keep coming up with the same old garbage about why we can't do it his way. When you're voted out and people who will give Obama his chance are voted in, then we'll see. I think people who say they are disappointed in Obama and his first year in office are disappointed in the wrong person. I think their disappointment should be directed toward the people stonewalling him. For me, I say to the politicians either get behind Obama and give him the chance to do what we voted for him to do or get out of politics and stay out.

I suppose it did not occur to the police to stop those taxis from entering the airport grounds in the first place, instead of making themselves really popular by not only stranding innocent passengers who have nothing to do with the dispute, but causing them to lose their prepaid fares along with it. They could also have stopped taxis entering the airport with departing passengers and make it clear to the drivers that after a specified hour they would not be allowed to bring passengers to the airport and if they violate that, then they would not be allowed to collect the fares. Sometimes Thai logic, or lack of same, totally eludes me. Any idiot ought to have realized that a great many incoming passengers would have no way to get from the airport to their destinations. And once they could find a way to get where they're going, now they have to spend their holiday worrying about possible problems returning to the airport. What do the police say to the stranded passengers, sorry? No alternate means of transportation was provided for them? Wonderful idea; let people spend big bucks to come to Thailand, especially for a major holiday season such a Christmas and New Year's, and then make sure they get caught in the middle of this dispute and strand them at the airport. For those people, it might as well be another airport siege. Thailand has been suffering through a major tourism crisis, and yet everything I have been reading lately tells me that even under the best of circumstances in Phuket, you're going to pay much higher prices for transportation than anywhere else in Thailand. Add to this the possibility of ending up standing in the middle of the road somewhere, with all my luggage, and having no idea how to get where I'm going or what to do. Ok, powers-that-be in Phuket, scratch off another farang from your visitor's list. I certainly will not go to your fair city knowing I stand a good chance of having to deal with these problems once I get there. I suppose you also think tourists who get caught up in this nonsense are going to return home and tell other potential tourists all about the wonderful time they had in Phuket and how highly they recommend a holiday there.

To the best of my knowledge, if you already have the B visa and it has not expired, then if you are leaving one job in favor of another it is not necessary to obtain a new B visa, but it is definitely necessary to turn in your old work permit and replace it with a new one for your new job. However, I would urge you to visit Immigration and make sure.

My apologies to Catholics and I hope I am not offending anyone, but I can't resist repeating an old joke: When it first came out that a large number of priests were molesting the altar boys, the Pope called a conclave of Cardinals to try to deal with the problem. But he couldn't get them to come until he promised the entertainment would be the Vienna Boys Choir.

It probably won't be much different once they are returned to Sweden. If their government has to finance their trip, I would think they will be held liable and will have to reimburse the cost.

I have seen similar responses to my cooking.

That island has only recently become a tourist attraction. The monkey population was relatively unknown until news reports started coming in that the monkeys were starving to death and dying of thirst. No one seems to know how the monkeys got out there, to an offshore island, but now they are there and tourism has become their salvation. I have not been to that island, but there are many indigenous monkey populations in Thailand. One of the most famous is the "Monkey Temple" in Lop Buri, near Bangkok. People come to these populations every day and enjoy feeding the monkeys. Most of those monkey colonies, being indigenous, can fend for themselves, but the colony on that island is completely dependent on tourism. One tip: Take bottled water with you. Whenever I go to one of the monkey colonies I always take at least one six-pack of bottled water. The monkeys are always hungry, but they love the water too. When feeding them, it is best to stick to fruits, vegetables, and water. They'll eat just about anything and I have seen people giving them candy, soft drinks, and other items that are probably the worst things they could possibly give them.

Sometimes there is no alternative. If there was one, that would be my first stop. Regarding my own woes, for the life of me I can't think of any the government has ever solved. I can think of plenty they've created, but none they've solved.

If I am in need of smaller bills, a trick that I use is to withdraw 900 baht at a time from an ATM or 400 baht at a time if I don't want 500 baht bills. But you have to have a Thai bank account for this to be a viable alternative. If you are using a foreign ATM card, the ATMs all charge a 150 baht fee for each withdrawal. Speaking of small change and 7-Eleven, if you keep one-baht coins and satang coins in a piggy bank, when you have enough of them don't try to exchange them at a bank. A bank won't take them. However, stores such as 7-Eleven and Family Mart do want them and they are happy to count it all out and exchange it for you. It is best to go during hours when the store won't be crowded.

I have a very simple rule of thumb, which is almost always accurate: Believe nothing the government tells you. Nothing. And that applies to every government on the planet.

That story seems to give a whole new definition to 'Swedish Meatballs.'

At my age I would probably be better off celebrating with a glass of Di-Gel on the rocks and seeing if I can find re-runs of Guy Lombardo New Year's Eve specials.

For me, only if I had reason to believe I would be caught if I didn't tell them. If I thought I could actually get away with it I think I would be inclined to spend first and feel guilty later. However, that's a moral dilemma I don't anticipate ever having to face.