Packing

[stogie bear]

Take a sweater for the BTS and Foodland supermarket, otherwise if you are living in Bangkok don't bother.

Your laptop will work fine here... BUT It will run hot unless you have airconditioning on in your room. (I have a large fan aimed just at my laptop and external hard drives...)

If you are a reader then bring stuff. Written materials are difficult to come by and expensive to buy. Bring books and magazines.

[jadeite]

Laptop will work fine and coming from the US should save money, but consider this:

1. What is the international warranty? For instance, Acer tends to give you 3 years if you purchase in Thailand and need service there. But just 1 year if you purchase in the US and need service in Thailand.

2.  You won't have Thai keys on the keyboard, may or may not be an issue.  You can do stickers in a pinch, but they peel and wear annoyingly quickly in my experience.

[stogie bear]

Acers sold in Thailand come with both English and Thai on the keyboard. (The also come with legit Windows, too!) I agree - I've seen those stickers and they're horrible...

[Guest]

Well, I disagree with almost everything.

Living here 4 years now, I have never found anything I wanted that I couldn't find at a competitive price.

The only thing is large sizes for clothing (large=farang), and even that, you can find things, just takes more looking. Take a 1 day trip to Singapore and stock up on clothing for a year, like I did last week.

For PCs, and I have 4, and 5 printers, and a major photo studio now, I built my own PC from Puntip, and my studio buying locally. My PC cost me $2K USD. I configured the same PC on Dell and HP web-sites, and it would have cost $8K USD to order it from them. So I don't know what this bogus stuff is about PC costs. I researched studio equipment world-wide, and in all cases, it was just as good buying it here as going to the UK or the US.

I don't see huge differences, EXCEPT in the price of wine, where Thailand has a 300-400% markup.

My advice. Don't bring a think except personal keepsakes you cannot buy anywhere, underwear & socks yes (like duh, you wouldn't bring those without asking in a forum?), and ... WINE ...! You'll have fun searching for places to shop.

[moe666]

Even if you have clothes custom made the price isn't that bad and you arn't commando yet.

[Guest]

Also, if you join the Chamber of Commerce of your country, and most certainly for the US, you can buy American food at their storie.

[katoeylover]

(ziggystardust @ May 30 2007,17:34) I don't see huge differences, EXCEPT in the price of wine, where Thailand has a 300-400% markup.

Not mark-up, import duties and sales taxes are to blame for the high prices of wine.

[stogie bear]

I got some good stuff off the internet about this (as I have just bought a bottle of red wine!)

Next to India, Thailand has the second highest excise tax on wine in Asia. On any list of the world€™s most expensive cities, Tokyo always ranks near the top, yet wine costs more in Bangkok than in Tokyo. Thailand€™s Siam Winery sells its Monsoon Valley wines in Paris at a price lower than what is asked for in Bangkok!

In the consumption of beer and wine categories, Thailand doesn't make a scratch; it is not among the top 20 consuming countries for those drinks. However, when it comes to spirits Thailand ranks sixth in the world, with a consumption rate of 7.13 litres of alcohol per person.

The drinking profile of more advanced countries shows that citizens consume beverages of lower alcohol content, such as beer and wine and not hard liquor. That is why Thailand's consumption profile is unique and tragic.

If this figure surprises you, it should not, as it is a mirror-image of the excise tax structure on alcoholic beverages in Thailand. When the Excise Department adjusted excise taxes on alcoholic beverages in October 2004, the tax on whiskey went up slightly, but taxes on beer and wine could not be raised as those taxes were at the highest possible level under the department's current tax structure. Thus, it is not surprising that Thais drink high-proof whiskey in large quantities, it's what they can afford.

The result is Thailand's tax on table wine is the second highest in the world, for example, and it is the world's seventh largest Scotch whiskey market, Scotch industry executives say.

Thus, the current excise tax structure encourages the consumption of beverages containing high amounts of alcohol and discourages the consumption of beverages with lower alcohol content.

This taxation system is a sure recipe for the alcoholism problem Thailand currently faces. It is actually a government-sponsored problem that goes back many years when the Thai government had a monopoly on the production of alcohol.

As the Excise Department has failed to adopt a more socially-conscious excise tax structure, it has fallen on the shoulders of the Public Health Ministry to tackle the problem. This accounts for some of the bizarre and seemingly outlandish policies coming out of the ministry recently.

For most of last year continuing into this, the ministry has forbidden the sale of alcohol in stores or departments in stores that sell alcohol before 11am and between the hours of 2pm and 5pm. It is doubtful that this move has reduced alcoholism. The ministry has not offered any statistics that it has. But it has caused inconvenience to shoppers and added stress to the clerks at the counter. It is totally absurd and also turns off tourists.

Australian and Chilien are quite popular here because of good prices, compared to French and Californian products. Cause of the weather that is hot and humid wines are difficult to store in Thailand. So white wine from Australia and fruitty wine from Chili are most popular. However I would recommend you to do some research with Wine Connection. A good wine distributor in Thailand. www.wineconnection.co.th

Price for medium wine: around 18USD The expensive ones can go from 50 - 175 USD. However these prices are high because of import tax 120-300%.

[moe666]

I believe those times came from England, My first trip to England the pub opened at 1100 closed around 1300 reopened at 1700 and closed at 2300.

[jadeite]

(ziggystardust @ May 31 2007,01:34) My PC cost me $2K USD. I configured the same PC on Dell and HP web-sites, and it would have cost $8K USD to order it from them.

Saying you found an $8K class PC for $2K in Thailand, that kind of ruins the credibility. I mean what is an $8000 PC anyway? Next you'll be telling us how you saved a fortune on a projector. Sorry, without any more specifics, this sounds like sour grapes.

[Guest]

Oh, I think I'm pretty damn credible in technical stuff, if u knew my job.

If you'd like to try, here is a new $2.5K PC I'm near buying. Try and config it on Dell and HP (I haven't, I know the answer is ridiculous). Here is the quote I got, which includes assembling it, putting any s/w you want on it, and lifetime service support, free. This is the guy I've used for 3 other PCs, so I know his support. Try and get that from Dell in the US.


Dear K. ----,

Motherboard:
Intel D975XBX2KR Extreme edition @ 8,700-

CPU:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700 2.66Ghz @ 13,300-

Memory:
DDR2 Ultra Plus 2Gb (4 x1Gb) @ 28,800

Hard Disk:
SATA Seagate 750Gb (4x) @ 46,000-


Regards,
THAKSIN


You can buy many items cheaper here if you look, including projectors. The reason is, of course, they bring them in illegally, often by bringing in piece-parts separately, so it looks 'used', and thus no import duties. Also, service here is extremely cheap. I got my projector, 100" screen at world market price. Free was installation, with all wiring, cable-trays for the wiring, calibrated, re-calibrated yearly. The installation alone was about 2 full days work for 2 guys. Calibration is a few hours work (free) by a very competent guy. Try getting that in a western country for free.

[rxpharm]

The key is looking around. There is a shop in Pantip Plaza I have been going to since 1996. He started off with desktop computers and always gave prices that were lower when compared with Canada/USA. I asked him how he could do this and he had suppliers from outside Thailand who were doing what Ziggy suggested. He changed to laptops about 5 years ago and is again offering some competitive prices. The kicker to all this though is he can actually repair laptops. My ex-gf spilled soup on her laptop - fried the MB. I thought it was hopeless as this would rate buying a new laptop back in Canada. He said, sure he could fix it! 8000 Baht and 4 days later it was running again good as new! At the time it beat spending another 40,000 Baht for a new laptop. Since then a couple of other friends had laptop problems that I have sorted out by taking them to Bkk when I was on holidays and having this shop repair them.

[Road Runner]

Hello Rxpharm,

What's the name of the shop in Panthip and which floor is it on?

RR.

[rxpharm]

RR, the name of the shop is WinSystems, 604/3 4th floor Pantip Plaza. Phone number is 022556708. The manager's name is Khun Kampee.

Highly recommended!

[TTChang]

(stogie bear @ May 31 2007,04:04) The result is Thailand's tax on table wine is the second highest in the world................

Australian and Chilien are quite popular here because of good prices, compared to French and Californian products. Cause of the weather that is hot and humid wines are difficult to store in Thailand. So white wine from Australia and fruitty wine from Chili are most popular. However I would recommend you to do some research with Wine Connection. A good wine distributor in Thailand.

Very good advice for those like me who love their wine!

If you go to Foodland or Villa Supermarket or Tops, you may well end up with a 3 year old Chilean white wine which looks & tastes like .... well, lets just say ....dark yellow!  Wine Collection (Nana Square Mall) have reasonable prices - and most importantly - recent stock.

I know KL will throw a wobbly, but in   = If in doubt go for Jacobs Creek!!   Or maybe stick to the John Smiths..... stogie?  

I always pack a bottle or two of my NZ favourite when I'm coming to LOS