Changian

Just noticed the first issue of Pattaya One 'newspaper' is online now, via the Pattaya One site.  

A whopping 16 whole pages of ads for go-go bars and columns - a couple of them pretty amusing  - plus a real news story about a Thai woman who won a cup for grown green bowls and the 'Exclusive' about overstayers being banged up in jail. And, that's about it.  

How many Pattaya expats will be rushing to pay their 15 Baht for a copy?

I used to use regular Diesel most of the time in my 2007 Triton 2.5L 4WD but a few months ago switched to B5 as it's a bit cheaper and the performance seems the same.

A couple of weeks ago a Thai guy I know who fixes cars for a hobby said you shouldnt use B5 in pickups as it damages the engine. I laughed it off as I hadn't seen anything to the contrary and later did a  quick Google and couldn't see anything that seemed to point to  a problem.  

Today my engine warning light came on, for the first time ever, done about 70,000km.  I went to the local garage as it was on the way home.  Mechanic said shouldn't use B5 as it damages the engine. He changed the filter as it was full of gunk and that appeared to fix it.  No warning light for the next few km, but then it came on again. Engine feels fine on the flat, no strange noises or vibration at all, but did seem a bit more sluggish than usual going up a steep hill

( I saw another thread here where someone mentions B5 actually cleans the engine so a build up of gunk in the filters after the engine has run on regular diesel for a long time isnt unexpected.  But is B5 bad or is this just a temporary problem that will be solved once all the crap if out of the engine? )

Will take the car to a Mitsu service centre in a couple of days to get it checked properly but in the meantime I just wondered if anyone else had heard the 'B5 is evil' stories or if there was any truth in them.

I am in the good position of being given a Jeep.  I can choose from two.  One needs some mechanical work doing on the original engine but has a Green Book.  The other is a bit newer and runs fine.  But doesn't come with any paperwork and isn't registered, as far as I can ascertain.

I prefer the older one, from early 1970s, but to fix it will cost, I'm told, about 10-30K.   With the newer one, late 70s,  it runs fine but it'll need to be registered, would be done in a Thai name to keep things simple.  

Any ideas how much this would cost and how much paperwork is involved?

Quite a good summary of the situation on Koh Chang in this articlefrom the English language newspaper who's name cant be mentioned on Thaivisa.

The first paragraph kind of encapsulates the problems here:

'Frequent visitors to Koh Chang like to joke about a beach road that is permanently flooded. The absurdity of the problem is that the muddy pool of water is caused by a bitter row between two local administrative officials, one of whom blocked the drainage channel in front of the office of his adversary.'

The Chaweng-ification of White Sand Beach is well underway.

So how come all your Samui folks are whinging about how quiet it is down there?  

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That's 40 747's per day landing throughout the year.  No wonder resorts have 100% occupancy year round.  

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