Happy in Thailand (Well almost) Part 10

Downsides

Language. Although her English is quite good it's hard work to have an in depth conversation and if someone speaks in Thai she totally ignores anything I say and this is infuriating.

When she is holding a conversation in Thai she can talk for a 1/2 hour without telling me what is going on. I stand there like a spare prick at a wedding. Sometimes I just walk off and leave her.

When we go out to buy something she will talk and negotiate and not tell me what is going on. Now I HAVE walked away and left her in this situation because I'm not paying money blindly.

Service

Everything you buy, everything you have done, is flawed. Don't buy anything made in Thailand if you want it to last. If you have problems the shop owners will just shrug their shoulders.

We had a phone line put in and the engineer wanted 50 baht for the box you plug into. We wouldn't pay it so it took 3 weeks to connect the line at the exchange. TIT.

We buy the prepay cards for the internet 30+15 because we were told TOT is internal Thai only. It worked every time up to the end of the 30 days and then went off and it usually took a couple of days and several phone calls to get it back. Do they credit you with the lost days? Don't be silly. After a while we couldn't connect so I got E to ring the ISP. She gives me the phone and says talk to them they speak English. Rubbish! They speak Thai English, not English English and I don't have the patience to repeat things 10 times. I'm sure they employ idiots on these call lines intentionally. Anyway they say it's not their problem. It's TOT so we ring TOT and they check and say it's not there problem – it's the ISP! This goes on for so long and they decide it's my computer and there is a problem with my modem. No I say, there's nothing wrong with my computer. The modem dials out, issues the password and your computer won't accept it. I went out and bought a desktop as we needed one for her daughter anyway, rigged it all up and tried the internet. Same problem, rang the ISP, it's your modem. Look, I have a brand new computer so how can it the modem be faulty on 2 computers. We set up TOT internet and lo and behold? Same problem. It took about 3 weeks to get a technician from TOT with his own laptop and a couple of visits and god knows how long to fix a fault in the exchange!

Services are crap, there is a total lack of care. We had satellite fitted and they ran the cable above the ceiling. They left black hand prints on the ceiling and down the wall.

Same satellite, we thought we had ordered gold but when we couldn't get BBC World we went back to the shop and they said we had only asked for silver! Now we know what we asked for and it was their mistake but of course they would never admit that. How difficult is it to upgrade? Well in Thailand it's nigh on impossible and it took 3 months and I was patient for a month but after that I went in every week and complained to get them do something. Of course this is not done in Thailand but until they learn, the service is always going to be the same.

To be continued.