joekicker

Yes. I know the answer. The answer is that the charge is whatever they want it to be at the time you bring it in. That IS the answer. If you are looking for a place where people line up politely and receive single, unique and official answers to questions, you're coming to the wrong place. Your experience trying to get that knowledgeable answer has been Just Another Day in Paradise. By the way, rather than duty, you might just be charged a convenience fee including handling, because there is no such thing as a bribe. And it is certainly possibly you could be charged absolutely nothing and just get a smile and a finger wave. You don't have to sell it and buy new, of course. But not doing that puts you in the category of "why is that guy bringing a USED TV set?" It's kind of like bringing a fat English girl to Pattaya, actually, except that the customs officers might feel more like taking apart your USED TV than in closely searching a slag. Passing through the "nothing to declare" line is possible but it's pretty hard to hide your TV as just another box of used underwear -- so weigh the possibility of being charged a little more "convenience fee" for TRYING to smuggle something in, also. That is the answer, with all the major possibilities. There isn't enough disk space for all the other ones, plus the combinations. I am not kidding.

It's definite that someone did it. This is a problem for newcomers to Thailand, understanding that everything is possible -- but that it may not happen. Get a non-immig visa before you come. Why wouldn't you?

You can try Thaifly.com, the big travel sites like Expedia (tedious trying to burrow down to the real prices instead of the ones for idiots on top) or the airlines themselves. In my experience, travel agents are still generally superior to online for round trips out of Thailand.

Near the bottom of Thai night life are the western-style bars that are common on Walking Street and other parts of Pattya, Soi Cowboy and the like. Above, but also below there are many other types of establishments, most of which are either not interested in your trade or only given to grudgingly accepting it. The club described above is (probably) a Thai businessman's type of establishment, although the description isn't clear -- it could be Japanese style or Chinese or.... In any case, girls in such places are generally NOT for a "bar fine" buyout. That doesn't mean they're not available, but it means the clubs are not openly meat markets. But think: If you go to a Pattaya disco, you don't walk up to the owner and give him 700 baht for a buyout, either. Bottom line: Before you venture into another type of night life, learn the rules.

I find this comment quite intriguing. I think people who think Pattaya isn't going to (continue to) move up-scale should note it. There will always be a market for the farm-fresh ones, but that doesn't mean Pattaya will always be that market.

One rule you can't break: You MUST arrive in Thailand on a non-immigrant visa for any further action to take place with the immigration department. Do as much as you can abroad, obviously -- but you MUST have a non-immigrant visa to get the Real Deal one-year stamp from the immigration department a few months after you arrive. It's probably much easier to get it in your country than fly out of Thailand to Singapore or somewhere to get one later on. Even if the embassy/consulate wonks are unhelpful, they pretty much have to give you the proper non-immigrant visa so long as you're politely forceful about it.

You have little walls? Just putting you on. That's a useful report. Thanks for taking the trouble.

Thank you sir. Seems pretty obvious that a good time was had by all. There are some very definite high-ranking candidates for the 4H Club in there, mmm-mmm! I think you repeated the first picture immediately below it???

Welcome Mr Sick. ben99 is spot on with that advice to join as a full member. There's a lot more inside, and the welcome is even warmer.

I agree with you sailfast, and really think Gmail is the best available right now. But there are other choices, and choices are important. Hotmail REALLY sucks a huge weinie.

Pattaya sure ain't Thailand, but it sure is an interesting spot inside Thailand. Welcome to Pattaya Pages, and hope you enjoy your trip.

These days if you want buffalo you generally have to pay more, or you have to go to deepest, darkest Nakhon Nowhere and make sure none of your teeth are loose. (Cow) beef is available and served everywhere. Actually, the buffalo is a dying breed in Thailand. It is likely to be made a protected species in a fairly short time, no xhit.

It is impossible for me to have Hotmail problems, but I got mail from two friends today who suffer through that horrible service, so it is at least available, if not working. Listen, really... unless you have some really spiffy custom Hotmail address, get a real email address at a decent place like Gmail, Yahoo, mail.com... there are a lot of good ones and only one xhitty one. Gmail lets you do anything to the mail including POP and forward. Yahoo now has unlimited space, really unlimited. And the thing is their servers work.

Heh. Probably got dirty rewinding the disks?

I don't know much about this except that all coffee in Thailand is in the far North and far South. There *is* a lot of it. Really? I thought they grew in the dark, damp, etc.

I thought you were using plug-and-pray, didn't realise you had a disk. I'd recommend updating the disk at the Canon website, though. Is it possible you're pulling too much power on your USB slots and the computer isn't always finding them? Anyhow, good that you got it working.

Eucalyptus got a bad rep for a while, with people stressing how it rapes the soil and so on. Some plantations survived, and it seems that the main storm is over. They are a very decent crop for a number of end-use purposes.

The first advice is to go to the Canon website and download the actual driver installer for that printer, i.e. go around Windows.

Agree. Always perfect connection. At the mo it's 5 baht a minute. That is REALLY cheap for occasional calls, and about as cheap as you can get from inside Thailand using regular phones. To beat the price, 1. use computer based service (Skype, Yahoo etc) or 2. call FROM the US on something like Thaitel.com, as cheap as 2 cents and good connections, or, 3. set up a virtual US number through your computer with Yahoo, or, 4. set yourself up with a real, physical US number using Vonage or similar.

A friend sent me a photo of Little Johnny by the way. He's a famous kid, but no one ever actually saw him until now. The theme of this picture was, "Make a funny face"! See if you can spot the terror of the classroom, Little Johnny. I knew you could!.

You should also have a Language toolbar. Right click on a blank part of the taskbar (along the bottom of your screen, probably) and click Toolbars. You should have a choice to tick (to show) the Language Bar. With this showing (it's very tiny) you can click back and forth between/among your installed languages with the mouse.

You know what, spoojebob? You made me realise how rare it is for people to come back in and give a simple "thanks" after a bunch of people do the very best they can to help an OP. So *I* appreciate *you* for that. Good on ya. I bet all the other posters on this thread are agreeing right now.

Never hurts to try but there really are only two chances of reviving a 16-month old card with "Orange" on it, slim and fat. They are already minor collectors' items and when you say "Orange" most people look at you funny.

You can't dial 800 from outside North America. To call an 800 number, you'll need to be on a North American circuit. You can do it on Skype or Yahoo for example. You'd better find the non-800 number the company uses.

1609 Sunday afternoon Darkside time, and the camera is ON