jtiger

I was helping Jack investigate this problem and this is what we saw. He's in Pattaya and I'm near San Francisco. We we talking to eachother on Skype (we even tried sending video) and it worked with no problems. Thus the internet connectivity and performance was adequate. However if he tried to access a web site it would just take forever if it worked at all. We noticed that the web site receiving his web request was being told that this request was being sent on his behalf by a proxy program at a certain IP address. We did a traceroute and found the proxy machine to be 4 or 5 hops away and on a machine run by TOT. My theory is that the proxy program is there to intercept requests for "bad" web sites (as defined by the government) so that a "you can't view this site" page can be sent back. I believe that this proxy program is just overloaded. What's curious though is that some TOT users (Jack mentioned skytop) don't have their web requests sent through this proxy. Is that possible? Are there different levels of service (monitored and non monitored)? I'll be in Pattaya in a few weeks and I was going to try to arrange a meeting with everyone involved in this (including someone from TOT who really understand networking) and try to solve this problem. Is it crazy to think that we could find someone from TOT with the knowledge and desire to fix an issue like this?

I have and I don't consider it immoral or unethical to use an open wireless link for low traffic things. In most places people pay a fixed rate for a certain connnection speed. What I pay at home entities me to download 1,528,823,808,000 bytes a month but I don't get anywhere close to that. Most of the time the internet connection is idle. If some else uses to to read their mail or this bbs it won't affect me. In fact I likely won't even be able to detect it. That being said I don't have my wireless access point open and unsecured for two reasons: one is that it's inside my firewall. Secondly because if a spammer decided to use my internet connect to send out a bunch of spam it could result in my IP address being added to a blacklist which then limit the usefulness of my connection.

thanks bob2005. That's a cost I can live with.

How much power does one of those Thai A/C units in the ceiling draw? I imagine that if (when!) i move to Pattaya that would be big expense for me.

Thanks for all the great advice. My goal is over the next two years to reduce my worldly possessions down to two suitcases of clothes and documents and a laptop computer. When I come to Thailand I'll pretty much start from scratch.

I'm thinking of making the Nevada move myself before retiring to Thailand but I didn't think it would take 18 months to establish residency. Do you know for a fact that it will take this long or are you just thinking of the whole moving out process as taking 18 months?

Sammy, I can assure that you are wrong. I wasn't there for this incident but I did some to town shortly afterwards and I witnessed Jack trying to communicate with this lady (and I tried myself). You get used to the fact that you can communicate in English and "phrasebook thai" with the people of Thailand.. but it turns out not with this girl. Her English was so limited that there was almost zero communication going on. This coupled with the fact that she was supposed to be doing her job and not talking with customers made it hard to even get a chance to talk to her. Jack did try repeatedly to create a situation where they could talk outside of work using dictionaries but I don't think he ever found her after she was let go at her job. He's gone way out of his way in the past when it comes to making things right. We once went to a gogo with a couple of girls we barfined (these girls had never been to the nearby gogo and we were not looking for any company at the hotel since we already had plans for that time, so we told the girls that we'd barfine them and take them to the gogo to continue drinking but that was it and they were fine with that). At the gogo we're drinking and a dancer comes over and starts messing around with Jack and he with her. She's one of his favorites in Pattaya. This upset Jack's barfine and she left (unfortunately taking my date with her). Jack felt bad about this and got her a gift and for the next three days he carried this gift with him hoping to run into her as we prowled all over Pattaya doing our usual thing. Every place we stopped the girls would take the gift out of the bag and ask if it was for them but Jack would have to tell them no. After 3 days we did find his date that previous evening at her bar and the gift was delivered and she was more than forgiving. All this was done for a girl he had only known for a hour and he had only barfined to give a chance to see the inside of a nearby gogo. Is this the kind of person who gives falangs a bad name Sammy? Tell us all some of the things you've done to give Falangs a good name. If theres' any lesson for you Sammy it's to realize that if you don't know all the facts then it's best to not jump to conclusions. If details are missing then fill them in with good things and not bad things.

I've got to say Sammy that comparing Jack to people like Jim Bakker is hilarious. It shows how little you know about him and how willing you are to go off on him despite that ignorance. Many years ago Jack rented a nuns outfit, put a stripper in it had her sit on the toilet holding a bottle of booze. He photographed this scene, not for the church monthly, but to put on a T-shirt (which I still have) celebrating a get together a group of us had one summer in his area. Just think of the most reverent person you know and Jack is equally irrevererant.

Thanks for the tip. They don't see to have in room high speed internet. Is there any hotel in that area that has in room DSL?

The Residence Garden (see the banner ad at the top of the page) offers wireless internet access (for an extra fee) throughout the hotel. There are multiple access points to give good coverage throughout the hotel.

Your machine isn't directly connected to the ISP's server machine. Instead your machine is connected to a segment of network on which other customers are also connected as well as the ISP's machine. Thus you will also see traffic that was broadcast to all machines connected to this segment of network. In particular you're probably seeing lots of ARP packets. ARP stands for Address Resolution Protocol. Your machine has a unique 48 bit address called a MAC address as well as a 32 bit IP address assigned by your ISP. Packets sent over the network wire are addressed using the MAC address however packets arriving from over the internet are addressed using the IP address. The ISP's server machine, having received a packet addressed to an IP address has to figure out what the MAC address is of the machine at that IP address on the network segment. It does this by broadcasting the question to all machines on the network segment: "Whoever is assigned IP address A.B.C.D please le me know, signed the server machine". This packet is seen by every machine and causes the little lights to blink on all the modems. One machine responds "I'm at IP address A.B.C.D and my MAC address is G.J.K.L.M.N.O". Then the server machine can send the packet. The server does save the IP to MAC knowledge for a while.. but not too long.. However, some of the packets are from bad guys trying to break into and take over your computer. You need a firewall these days if your computer is connected to the internet.

Jet lag does seem extra pronounced when flying eastward which explains why the British don't feel much jet lag going home. When I fly from California to Thailand I don't get jet lag at all. I adjust right away. Coming home it can take up to two weeks to recover. Last trip I caught the flu on the plane back so I was battling both the flu and jet lag and I thought I was done for. I think that I'll use the advice I've read here for my next trip. I'm going to spend lots of time outside in the sun when i return (as opposed to my usual darkend room in front of a computer screen). Maybe that will fix the problem. Wheels up in 16 days.

I guess that is an issue... last time I was there I found that most people rent or buy vcd's which aren't region encoded..... but that would be an issue for DVD's you're correct... bummer

does anyone know if the Residence Garden tv's have a video input where I could plug in my DVD player.... if so I'm bringing it along with me on my next trip.

This web page tells you why it'll be hard for many TGs to visit the US as a tourist US Tourist Visa The hardest part is this They have to prove they will leave before they are allowed to visit. How can they prove that? Here's how: So they pretty much have to own property of some sort or be responsible for caring for a relative. The typical young BG doesn't have much of anything in the way of assets. And the final nail in the coffin is that the US govt doesn't trust its citizens to ensure that the visitor doesn't overstay her visa:

One think I'm curious about is how much money do the people who've retired here have socked away to support their retirement. I suspect this is too personal a question to ask most folks. I've read here that if you can live on 4% of your savings then you can afford to retire as you can earn that much investing the money and you can live off the interest and not touch the nest egg. That's theortical.. but I'm interested in the practical. Do people cut it that close in practice? My situation is complicated by having to wait 12 years before I can tap into a big chunk of my assests without penalty.

While this topic does come up on a regular basis I learn something each time from the replies I read (except those replies that only note that this question has been posted before since I already know this). It's true that there is a wealth of knowledge on this subject but it seems that we have at least one board member a month taking the plunge and retiring to Pattaya and I like it that this recurring topic gives them a chance to talk about what they've learned from their experience.

I'd suggest going to the Trip Reports section and reading Bazzap's trip reports. He always reports his daily spending. This is not to say that you have to do as much as he does and thus spend as much as he does, but it gives you an idea of what things cost.

It depends what kind of passport you have but I'm guessing that you're from a country for which a Visa is not required to be a tourist in Thailand for two weeks.

I was also aprehensive about the heat and humidity. Yes it's hot and yes it's humid but there are also plenty of ways to beat the heat: lots of places with A/C, and those without AC have fans. There are plenty of cool towels to wipe you face and plenty of girls to do the wiping. Also taking lots of showers is normal. After the sun goes down it feels a lot cooler, even comfortable. You'll be doing most of your exploring at night so this is perfect. November is less humid than June however I'd definitely go in June if you've got the chance. You'll likely want to return in November.

I think that it's more than tracking down who exploded a bomb using a cell phone. What they (the US certainly and likely other countries as well) are doing is monitoring cell phone conversations on an ongoing basis and if they pick up any 'interesting' conversations they would like to be able to identify the parties.

It seems to take a week to get letter from Thailand to California.

When I think about the beer bars I patronize I can't think of anything unique about their physical structure. What brings me to actually sit down at a bar is spotting a cute or spunky BG who works there that I can chat with while I'm drinking. So for people like me the secret to a successful bar is this: hire the best girls and train them to draw in the customers (which doesn't mean dragging them in but in more subtle ways).

I rather like Skytop. The owner's great, the staff is great, the location's excellent and the place is very clean. I'll be back for my fourth stay in a just a bit over two weeks. I'm counting the minutes 'till I depart.. (and of course it's 60 baht an hour not minute but by the time people read this sentence you're likely to have edited your post to fix your typo so they won't know what I'm referring to).

From my experience most internet shops in Pattaya (and Bangkok) will allow you to unplug the network cable from one of their desktop machines and plug it into your laptop. (Ask first of course and if they say no then just find another place). By default Windows is setup to automatically discover the correct internet parameters when you plug the network cable into your laptop. Most internet shops will support that discovery protocol (called DHCP). I did find one place (in Bangkok) that didn't but the fellow working there showed me the settting I needed to use (however it's a pain to enter the IP address, netmask, gateway and dns values). Before you plug in be sure to enable the Windows Firewall on the connection just to give you a bit of security.