Hua Hin Hot Topics - Expat Enquiries
There have been a lot of questions for the expats this week as people turn to the forum in search of answers to some often quite bizarre requests. Many are simply asking where to by certain items however those items occasionally raise a few eyebrows. Starting with the sensible stuff the list has recently included distilled water, maids, aerial photography, grass seed, bedding, wood carving and pest control. Moving on to the realms of the strange we get TDS (total dissolved solids) meters, pith helmets and boomerangs. The mind boggles … maybe Hua Hin’s expats are getting bored with beaches and golf!
Home insurance is becoming quite a commodity also as the number of break-ins around Hua Hin’s vast suburban hinterland continues to increase. The lucrative property market has all but died a death and the big business now seems to be securing those houses from the plague of petty thieves that are drawn to the easy opportunities in the sprawling farang housing developments around Hua Hin.
Many believe that the burglaries are being carried out by insiders, either building labourers on or near the development or friends of the local ‘security’ guards that are conveniently asleep for most of their shift. A large number of homes on developments that are majority farang populated have been burgled and, in typical fashion, the police rarely take an interest beyond filling in the mandatory paperwork.
There are a number of precautions that one can take; an alarm system may work but you’ve always got to worry about the people fitting it telling their mates how to bypass it. House contents insurance is an option but watch the small print, you’re often not covered if the house is unoccupied, and getting insurance companies to pay out is rarely easy. There is always the notion of moving to a Thai neighbourhood to make your home less of a target but then you’ll have to put up with packs of howling mutts, teenage scooter gangs, and all night karaoke bars!
The technical section is always quite popular for people to get a quick fix or recommendation for their computer. In recent weeks it has been filled with complaints about TT&T’s Maxnet and their shocking internet service. An ever increasing list of problems has arisen from Police warning messages blocking innocent websites (such as the BBC) to painfully slow web page loading for any site hosted outside of Thailand to their ever present email sending and filtering problems. AWOL ran a cover story on the poor state of internet connectivity in Hua Hin a few weeks ago and it looks like it has fallen on deaf ears as very little has changed!