joekicker

No and yes. The buses are horrible hell-trips, slow and it could easily take 24 hours. If she can bypass Bangkok and come through, say, Prachinburi that would be good. She probably knows what that means, tell her. Best would be if she flew to Bangkok, drive to Pattaya without going into Bangkok city. .

Surprisingly good advice really, given that it does come from a government. Best to head up North straightaway, where the weather is brilliant, and the ground is dry. Mind you, those southern beaches are pretty nice, too. .

Yeah, good piece in the Fishwrap this morning showing what I meant. You head south, then east to loop around to head back up North and Northeast. And this is what happens. Jeeze, there is really no way out except in a flying machine, looks like. My friend up in Isan is kvetching about dry weather and red ants! .

Same as bottled water. Really. The real advantage of bottled water is convenience, not purity. If you're buying regular Thai bottled water, you're buying pretty safe tap water. Also the ice in your bar drinks. .

Or North of course. It's GREAT in the North right now. .

Good pix. 7-11 put all their stuff way up above the floods out of harm's way, but the problem is they can't get TO the warehouses. This will probably be quite a short inconvenience, then, as floods in the warehouse areas are already starting to recede. Tesco apparently the same as 7-11 - not so much a shortage of goods in country, that they can't get trucks and people to where the goods are right now. .

That was a serious question. If you trust all of us more than your bank, why not give us your money, since we're more trustworthy? .

Yes it is. It's in the North where there is no rain and no flooding. Kind of curious why you sent along newspaper stories from September when we're now going into November. Wassup with that? This is today's summary. This is for the North. No floods. Cool. Great weather. Beautiful place to visit. Tell all your friends about it, the North of Thailand including Chiang Mai is magnificent weather right now. It's back. Hey, good one. I hadn't seen that one before. This one here is for the North. One tiny little rain cloud as I look right now. Dry, cool - excellent place to visit right now and for the next few months. .

Oh, how I wish that the biggest problem is a pending shortage of MSG. .

About 65 million people close to you can. Also Google. Here. Here. Here. Here. Even Wikipedia. Local coverage. But look. If you'd take the word of some barroom lawyer sitting in Bumphuock, Timbuktu, on a dedicated foreigners' Internet forum over the written, legal word of your bank -- why are giving your own money to that bank? .

This is the other error here. It's not doubtful, it's certain - because the shop owner doesn't care. He wants to know how much gold there is in that thing you're handing him. He doesn't care what it looks like, where it came from, how much work went into it, what some coin dealer will pay. He will give you what the GOLD is worth on the Thai market. Period. "Thai gold" meaning the colour and look and feel of it, is worth more here than, say "Hong Kong" or "US gold". That's another thing to consider. You'll get a bit less if it looks like "Chinese gold" - all bright and glittery - than the duller look the Thais favour, say. That Yurpeen or Perth bar would have to be "dirtied up" to get top baht - although it's only a matter of a few hundred, probably. .

And of course one of the really big problems is that you can't go "up" from Bangkok, while going to Pattaya is still very easy. I got an email a couple of days ago from a friend describing his 31 hour trip from Bangkok to Isan. Of course, you can loop down, around and back up through the park and all, but even then there's SOME water and hellacious traffic. Pattaya is the refuge of least resistance, even though 2/3rd of Bangkok would probably rather go north and northeast. I have not heard, but I imagine you can still go west, too - Kanchanaburi and Phetchaburi and Hua Hin are doable, I think. It's a five or six-day weekend for most coming up, and Pattaya will be close to unliveable, probably. Bummer all around. .

Who cares? There's no restriction that applies, so you can set any value you damn please. Thai officialdom doesn't care, not legally anyhow. They're more interested why you're carrying two laptops or three cartons of ciggies. Same as your stamp collection, your collection of pressed maple leaves, your matched set of 1927 flapper dresses.... I have no idea what ANY of them are worth, and really no interest. Me and the customs guy, both. .

Isn't it something? Here's a couple more, from last week. People tell me what a shitty job the government is doing, I show them the picture and say, "Okay, sport, what should we do?" .

Also, if your nose gets itchy. .

Yes, well, you say so, and I quibble. Here's my view: These people hear voices. If their religion somehow sanctions or is responsible for their actions, then Christianity is responsible for killing abortion doctors and Hinduism is behind massacres of thousands of Muslims. *I* think that is the wrong view. I also think, strongly, that the major religions, certainly including Islam, *are* responsible for terrible actions, but taking away women's drivers' licences isn't one. "Muslims" believe no such thing. If "Muslims" believed such a thing, you'd know the difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in Pattaya, Jakarta, Karachi and Tulsa, Oklahoma. But you don't generally know any such thing, because "Muslims" don't think as you claim they think, believe as you claim they believe. "They" simply don't. Some, of course, definitely do, just like -- and just as strongly as -- some Christians believe they are instructed not to eat crabs and some Buddhists believe they should not step on cockroaches. But claiming you know what "Muslims" believe about alleged, non-existent Koranic instructions about clothing is a little over the top. Any entranceway to any mosque in and around Pattaya would quickly disprove your statement. I'll accept your word on that. I have, quite a few. Your post, for example, opposes what YOU claim are the Koranic clothing instructions. It's a bit of a libel, really, since there are no such instructins - and yet you claim their are quite theological. Now, just how phuocking fortunate is this forum that you have come along at its time of need to INTERPRET the religion for the readers!? I do agree with this: You are definitely interpreting, because you simply can't produce the non-existent dress code in the Koran. You and the mean old men with the sticks, you KNOW what the Koran SHOULD say, even though it doesn't say it. Even consider that maybe, just maybe, those people down at the entrance of the main Pattaya mosque might be right about it? Like I wrote, you brought up the time line. When Christianity was 1,400 years old, it was one heck of a lot more barbaric than you and your BM friends in this forum believe Islam is today. And here you are quibbling again. I did not write that no one has theories about Sharia law (it would be pretty dumb to say such a thing). I said that Sharia law is not theory .

Perfect. Just remember, no whingeing allowed then, you've made your choice. .

Don't think so. They've closed flooded stores only, so far as I've seen - about 80 out of 800 according to the company. Sure. Hundreds of cases of bottled water wouldn't be a problem for the airplane. (Round number: One cubic metre of water is one tonne.) I think it bears repeating that if you cannot live without bottled water, do NOT come to Thailand now or before at least Christmas. Stay home, go somewhere else, but do NOT come to Thailand. You WILL die, horribly, of thirst. .

There shouldn't be a problem. The floods go (duh!) through the river basin - least resistance, flowing downhill, reach their own level, etc. It would have to be some massive flood surge that would affect Suvarnabhumi-Pattaya traffic. At this moment, no one is saying "never". But airport-to-Pattaya being open is as sure as it gets. .

From Wednesday's Fishwrap, on Don Mueang airport, with a passing comment on Suvarnabhumi: .

Yeah, Bangkok authorities - Froc and others - have actually issued "get out of town if you can" suggestions. They specifically said "if you have family up-country" but it wouldn't take much to get me to Pattaya for a week WITH family if I could. Wife and daughter supposed to fly in next week. It's a date-specific event, but I'm mulling it hard. Our house is in a dry section but it's getting like an island. Have you seen this nice GIS shot? Yesterday's photo, but you get the drift. .

Seems everyone who doesn't see things your ways does a lot of that. Or so you charge them. Saves addressing the points, eh? .

The salient points here tonight: Don Mueang HAS closed, just too much water closing in. And the government has declared a five-day holiday weekend, Thursday through Monday - although not (yet) the banks. Nothing else has changed, although at PattayaTalk I anticipate the hand-wringers and sensationalists to jump on Don Mueang closing. .

The av fuel at Suvarnabhumi comes via pipelines from several tank farms (not one), into tanks at the airport, from where it is pumped into the flying machines. There was something on this in the news when one of the airport tanks burned a year or two back. What I said up ^^^ there. If supply lines for diesel (or whatever) for the pumps are broken, hard to believe the avaiation fuel lines are all perfect. Yet planes are flying entirely normally. That's why I don't believe this rumour at all, and the more I read and see this morning the less I believe it, assuming you can believe something less than "not at all". When Suvarnabhumi was built, which wasn't long ago, it was built on a swamp where floods were expected annually. It would be quite surprising if the amount of flooding around the airport so far could interfere with supplies. Never say "never" of course, but this just doesn't ring true in any manner. .

Like you, I would not simply DO this and then try to cite the law to the authorities. But. But you can legally bring in as much gold as you like that is NOT ingots or bars. But. But if you tell Customs about it, it sure won't hurt. But your reasoning is off because you're still trying to use the VALUE of the gold against that currency limit. The various restrictions on currency import and export in Thailand - foreign currency and baht - refer literally to currency, bills and (if for some reason you have a lot of them) coins. You're not charged or toted up on the total VALUE of what you have, but they just lay the bills out on the counter and count. Nothing else counts on that (except travellers' cheques). Your credit cards don't count, or your bank books or your jewellery or .... Other things DO count on their own. You can't have too many cigarettes, no matter their value. You can't have too many new shirts, no matter their value. You can't have too many laptop computers. But none of these have anything to do with those currency limits - $20,000, 50,000 baht and others. And of course you can bring in ANY amount of currency so long as you declare it and agree to exchange it once in the country. And you can take OUT any amount of foreign currency if you properly declare it with a different form. But you can't legally bring in gold bars. .