Grandpollo

I will be doing a TR and will add this info. Here's one way I distinguished the two (of a few services similarly available) - they take VISA and MC with Verified By ViSA and the MC equivalent, and don't depend on PayPal which is just a way of saying - the bank won't give us a credit card account - bad signal. And in a frequent flyer forum I frequent the one I chose is mentioned with good experience and the 400 baht difference is not worth saving. What will grind my bunions is if Cathay gives me the same thing in Business Class in both directions, but since I have never been to this airport a guide will be a nice thing to use anyway. I use a similar service in Managua airport on departure as they not only have a separate entrance and security (which is VERY lax) they check you in , check your bags, run you thorough passport control, give you drinks and a sandwich in a private lounge and allow the people that brought you to come to the lounge and wait with you. Arrival same same only I rarely use it as I arrive when there might be 2 people in immigration and 10 guys waiting for the rest. If you have a lot of luggage they handle customs and immigration too, sometimes useful to not have to pay a tip to not have your bags x-rayed on arrival.

Enough wi-fi spots to probably work OK 3G or not. And if you are not going to depend on 3G then you save money, too. Wi-fi only model. If you want newspapers then an iPad or computer and the Pressreader application is a great deal. I pay US$30 a month and have access to 1,700 papers - not these naff summaries of papers but a copy of the whole paper just like you would buy with adds and classifieds. I was paying $63 a month for two local papers here. I now can read all local papers (worth $120 a month) plus just about any in the world. Bangkok Post and Pattaya People Weekly are available so are most US and UK papers, the Star, the Sport (boobies mainly).

Smallpox vaccinations ended 25 years ago. How old are these girls? They would have to be at least 27 or 28. The Norplant contraceptive seems more likely though they typically used the forearm, but the shoulder would have worked.

Use Firefox 3.6X and no problems. I use three macs and an iPad and use Safari on none of them if I can avoid it.

If a real person named Bob or Dave Logan wants to join he's truly fucked.

I just think it is all made up for attention.

The OP was 8 1/4 years ago so let's hope he sorted it out by now.

They are the lowball THB1200 service, right? I am using this one: http://www.fasttrack.in.th/ based on recommendations on a frequent flyer site, though it is THB1600. I am also arriving in business class on Cathay so I suspect they may provide the fast track card anyway but for $50 it is not a world ending cost. And being met by a factotum for the first time cannot hurt.

There is something fittingly ironic about posting about being ripped off for pirated software. Vs. the legal price of the software how much did you "lose" on the transaction? I bet things in Bangkok that are sold in Pattaya that are more expensive in Bangkok, like bar girls for an example.

I think what they had there as the photo was kind of small was IRR 770,000 (I guessed from the photo 680,000 so pretty close) which at 10,000 to 1 is US$77 so THB2,400 or so quite a far cry from an amount 330 times that. I wonder if one can even change Iranian Rials in Thailand. I doubt it. I have some Zimbabwe banknotes of 100, 50, 20 and 10 Trillion (100,000,000,000,000) maybe I can bring one, get robbed and get the front page. In January 2009 there were 300 trillion to a US$1 so the largest bill was worth 33 cents.

OK each of the blue Iranian banknotes are 10,000 rial (IRR) worth THB28 each. Not THB28,000 each. 28. You need more than 10,000 IRR for a US dollar. The purple headed ones with green stripes are 50,000 rial so those are THB140 Looking at the photo there are 8 blues and 12 purples so the total "haul" was THB 1,904 nearly 65 bucks. A far cry from having THB770,000 which would require: Iranian Blues 27,500 of these, a mere 275 bundles of 100 or a stack that was 11 feet tall. Iranian Purples only 5,500 of these.

If Singapore and Air Asia have an Interline Agreement they will move bags and handle reservations on each other without necessarily codesharing. Many airlines have interline agreements for this sort of thing. You show them your reservation HKG BKK and they check the bags through. They may issue a boarding pass though the transfer desks at HKG will of course do that. From LAX there are non stops on Thai so the fare or service would have to be terrible to justify flying with a connection anywhere vs. nonstop.

Live bacteria yogurt (or pills) will help keep intestinal flora intact, most often a problem from taking antibiotics and killing off beneficial bacteria that aid in digestion, and so it cannot hurt and it probably pretty good for you. I travel with Acidopholus tablets, same idea. Bacteria of one kind however does not kill other bacteria, or make you immune to pathogens so don't expect to prevent salmonella or E.Coli infection from tainted food with yogurt. If you get ill with a pathogenic bacteria you will need either a lot of time and fluids and electrolytes are more wisely an antibiotic such as ciprofloxacin for E.Coli or Salmonella. It is a pretty good idea to travel with 5 days / 10 X 500 mg tablets (2 a day) from your GP. See a doctor for the trots for more than 24-26 hours.

It is 100mbps but s stands for several months.

Over 10% fee for a bank deposit and 30% for a SIM card refill seems dear. Does a Moneygram or wire transfer of $1000 cost $100?

According to Stickman they (the Pattaya department of face saving transportation planning) changed the price to not MORE than THB10 for anyone, thus justifiying falangs paying THB10, then the drivers merely discount THB5 of that to Thais. http://www.stickmanbangkok.com/reader/reader427.html Here are some tips for dealing with Pattaya's Songthaews (Baht Busses): 1) A few years ago, red and white stickers were placed in the back of all the baht busses by the Department of Land Transport informing Farang passengers (in English) that the fare for a trip along the regular route was 5 Baht per person and that this fare was ENFORCED BY LAW. It didn't take long for all the greedy baht bus drivers to scratch out, cover up, or otherwise deface these stickers to make the price illegible. 2) More recently, the Dept. of Land Transport has placed new stickers in the vehicles stating that the price shall NOT EXCEED 10 Baht per person. In other words, 10 Baht is the MAXIMUM you should ever be charged for travelling along the regular route. So, under what circumstances should you pay less than the maximum? The stickers do not say. These stickers are beginning to be defaced too, by the way. 3) Try and watch to see how much Thais pay. Good luck. The driver will notice you standing behind the Thai(s) and will quickly close his upturned palm to conceal the coins from view. I have been told by several Thai friends that the standard price Thais pay is 5 Baht. Sometimes, they say they will pay 10 Baht if it's very late at night or they travel a long distance, but generally, the price they pay is 5 Baht. 4) Unless you need to go to a specific destination not on the regular route (more about this later), there is no need to talk to the driver. In fact, you definitely should NOT talk to the driver, as this will result in him trying to negotiate a higher fare. Just flag down any MOVING taxi by waving your hand palm-DOWNWARDS (palm-upwards is rude in Asia) and climb in the back when he stops. 5) As soon as you are seated, locate the buzzer nearest you. Then, locate the next-nearest buzzer to you. Oftentimes a buzzer will be broken and you will want to ring another buzzer QUICKLY before you have travelled far beyond your destination. 6) If you anticipate any trouble from the driver, then have him drop you off slightly past your destination so that you walk BACKWARDS after dropping the fare into his hand. He will have considerable difficulty backing up in the heavy traffic. When might you anticipate trouble from the driver? When he feels you have not paid enough, generally. I used to insist on paying the Thai fare (5 Baht), but after being screamed at a few times, and once even having the driver grab my wrist tightly as I reached through the window to pay, then step on the accelerator with my arm still stuck in the crack of the partly-rolled down window (luckily his grip was not strong enough to actually drag me alongside the moving vehicle, but it hurt like hell as my forearm was leveraged against the window opening for an instant. I was left with a nice bruise.), I finally gave up and now pay 10 Baht. If I have a Thai girl with me, I pay 15 Baht (10 for me, 5 for her) and have never experienced trouble with this. If you are really concerned and have a Thai girlfriend with you, give HER the money and let her pay the driver. One time a friend of mine was drunk and forgot to pay. The driver parked the vehicle in the middle of the street (blocking traffic), jumped out and ran towards him brandishing his fists. Luckily my friend immediately realized what was going on, quickly dug the fare out of his pocket, paid and apologized. These guys are serious about getting paid (and I don't blame them, although I don't like the dual-pricing bullshit). 7) It's best not to get into a songthaew that is parked if you can help it. There are almost always plenty of songthaews driving along for you to flag down instead. The ones that are parked in strategic locations, e.g. outside shopping malls, big hotels and on street corners with the drivers yelling to you, "TAXI! TAXI!," will ask you where you are going and will charge you an inflated price. No matter how hard you bargain, you will always end up paying more than the 5 or 10 Baht it should cost. They also might try to persuade you to go someplace else where they'll get a commission (like a massage parlour, for example). The songthaews that are queued at say, the corner of 2nd Road and North Road, don't do this, but they will wait until the songthaew is full before taking off. Meanwhile, you will notice several other songthaews go whizzing past with a few smiling passengers seated inside while you wait and sweat wondering why you didn't flag a moving vehicle down instead. 8) If you want to go to a destination slightly off the regular route, you can usually do this without talking to the driver, by switching songthaews at a major intersection (if you insist on being driven down a small soi, you will probably have to speak to the driver.) For example: If you are at Soi 8 and 2nd Rd. and want to go to the A/C bus station out on North Rd. you can ask a driver to take you there and he will probably quote you a price of about 60 Baht (I'm not making this up. That's what I've been charged.) Then you'll say "40" and he'll say "50" and you'll agree. Technically, you have now chartered the songthaew and he should take you directly there without stopping to pick up more passengers. But, he WILL stop to pick up more passengers. You have paid the premium price and you are getting shit service. Surprised? Here's what you can do instead: You flag down any northbound songthaew on 2nd Rd. and (this is important) motion to the driver that you want to go straight. This is because some songthaews will turn left or right at Central Rd. and you want to continue straight all the way past Big C to the roundabout at the intersection of North Rd. If he nods affirmatively (that he's going straight), climb in. At the roundabout, ring the buzzer, get out and give the driver 10 (or 5 Baht, if you're brave). Cross the corner to the restaurant, then cross again to North Rd. and flag down any songthaew going north. This intersection is confusing, so if you are unsure, just ask anyone by pointing and saying, "bus station?" Now you are heading for the bus station where you will get out and again pay, maximum, 10 Baht. Total cost: 20 Baht max. (Not 50 or 60). If you think this is a tiny difference to be concerned about, you are missing the point. It's not about the money, it's about the principle. Songthaew drivers routinely over-charge Farangs. How does that make you feel?

IIRC Queen Victoria offers this as an option. Also anyone can use Wi-Fi with a simple device called a travel router (D-Link makes mine). In bridge mode it works like Wi-Fi in reverse. The little antenna part receives Wi-Fi and there is an ethernet cable that then delivers the signal over standard CAT5 cable to the computer. The computer doesn't know it started as Wi-Fi, so this allows your friend to use Wi-Fi anywhere for about $40. NB for CC (..Charlies) it is a good device as it acts as a router and shares one signal among multiple PC's if only one person is paying for the internet. Here is a link: http://www.amazon.com/D-Link-DWL-G730AP-Ai...s/dp/B0002Z45DQ Note with little know-how you can use any router in bridge mode.

Are you kidding with this question? We don't need a visa for most countries, and those we do it is a formality or a way for them to earn money, example India, Brasil, China, Russia. We allow USA, EU (except Czech Rep), Commonwealth and that is about it with no visa. We just started requiring Mexico to obtain visas. Example last recent figures Canada had about 1 million tourists TO the Dominican Republic and we allowed 254 FROM there to visit Canada and most of those were likely rich or business people. A ratio of 1 to 4000 "them" to "us". Here's the bottom line besides being a terrible idea after 5 days knowing someone you will not get a visa for her period. And Canada does not allow a program of sponsors, guarantors, etc., and she won't even get asked to come for an interview after you pay the $140 fee and wait 6 months to find that out.

I think Canada Immigration will settle this for you as they are about as likely to grant a tourist visa as they are to give a passport to a Sasquatch.

I have used Skype from the shittiest internet locations in the world and voice without video is satisfactory. Get a number and have someone call the phone with Skype or a LD reseller. From here it is cheaper to call Thaliand than my daughter in Vancouver 2 cents vs. 2.9 cents.

Anyone or Mr. T if he's reading this, know how much for something local? If I wanted to go to Ban Chang and there wasn't a BC bar crawl planned what it would cost to go for two or three hours, maybe come back with a LT.

I know the BB route from there is pretty straightforward onto 2nd street and then get off at a Soi and walk to the beach road but from say FLB how DO you get back to RG?

Having spent years in Central America with two GF's over 7 years while having ( at least) two girls on the side I know these places well - they are called autohotels since you drive in front of the door and they shut a curtain behind the car. I used them because my hotel there frowned upon a flock of side poontang and you never knew who would blab to my girlfriend (think maids). Autohotels were around $20 US for three hours. And overnight after 12 midnight other than weekends. I am not opposed to the idea but twice in a day I could have a room for 24 hours. And no worry about valuables since I won't have any. But my budget may = dive, I see the point. Maybe start with ST rooms and then I will see. Is check in at a ST hotel anonymous or do they want ID etc., as well?

This will be read the way that you don't want it to read by many. Unless you mean to say it is at best tolerable and often, not so good.

I found a few others, more than I thought there would be. Short time rooms or love hotels would likely cost as much or more depending on the number of times used. I shall research more. Stefan Guest House or Ice Inn or New Star. I know some might be pretty utilitarian but location might be worth it. I don't have to worry about security since there won't be anything to steal, maybe soap if they include it.