kudroz

I often drive from Chiang Mai to Bangkok and I am not "surprised" by this news. The bus drivers are careless and impatient on the road. They will overpass anytime it pleases them not caring for opposing traffic. They drive way too fast going down hill when there is a curve waiting for them at the end; it often results in the bus having half their wheels in the opposing lane.

I love driving and I drove all over Thailand. I've done long trips e.g. from Chiang Mai to Phuket or Chiang Mai to Vientiane, etc. The behavior of bus drivers I depict is the same all over Thailand. I would not recommend using them for travel.

I have the MacBook Air 11" and absolutely love it. I had a 15" MacBook Pro before that. The 11" really makes a huge difference on portability, not so much for the 13" imho. You can use iBank on Mac and import your Microsoft Money files if I'm not mistaken. http://www.iggsoftware.com/ibank/

In my experience CAT telecom has always given me the best latency. But what affects more your latency is the modulation of your modem. At 12Mbps with True you are on ADSL2 which has a terrible latency compared to G.DMT.

I doubt you need 12Mbps to play most games. Depending on your router, it may be possible to force your modulation to G.DMT which will give you a max speed of 8Mbps but will certainly shave 20-30ms.

gotlost, on 2010-09-07 15:22:31, said:

I did this back two years ago and it took me about 11 hours. Left early in the morning and got there around 6PM. Slept a night at the Nong Khai Grand Hotel for around 1,200 THB. They drove me to the border the next morning and allowed me to leave my car parked there for the time I stayed in Vientiane for free. It was fun and painless

If you do not apply for an extension of stay and overstay your current permission of stay, you will face a fine of 500 Baht a day up to a maximum of 20,000 Baht once you exit Thailand or if/when you are discovered - whichever comes first.

Here is what I would do:

1) Go to the nearest police station to make a report of what the director told you. You will have to be thorough with the full name of the person, the approximate time at which it happened, etc.

2) Ask a respected member of the community (or hire a respected attorney if you don't know anyone who can help) to act as your proxy to the administration of the faculty. Explain that the information that was given to you could have cost you a lot of money had you not double checked. Insist on them figuring out a way to provide the documents you need to apply for the extension of stay.

3) If it doesn't work out, well... fly outside the country to get another Non-Imm visa. Investigate with an attorney if there isn't a way to negotiate with the school to get some of the money spent on your trip reimbursed or applied as a credit for next-year's tuition, etc.