Saturday 4th February 2012

And yet again:

Van plunges into ditch killing 4, injuring 14

I avoid these things like the plague, both as a passenger and as a road user.

Minivans, or more specifically minivan drivers, in Thailand are bad news. The driver always has an excuse - in this case, he claims a tyre burst - but they overload the vans, they have no concern for road laws or other drivers, they drive too fast, too aggressively, and often they drive when they are too tired.

They are bad news.

In Phuket a few days ago, four Swedish tourists were killed when a maniac Thai driver crossed the central reservation in a large truck and crashed into their car. The tourists killed were just kids, barely in their 20's. As usual, the Thai driver 'fled the scene'.

The photo of the wrecked Toyota in which the tourists were travelling is frightening, but this kind of thing is only too common in Thailand. The driving standards in Thailand are appalling. Phuket is particularly bad, but the rest of the country isn't much better.

4 Swedes, 1 Thai dead in horror smash near Phuket

Phuket update: Swede horror smash driver surrenders

The wife made chicken fried rice last night and just as it was ready to be served she decided that the chicken smelt funny. I couldn't take the chance of repeating last Tuesday's episode so it was all thrown away.

The primary suspect for my stomach problems last week was the chicken. There was nothing else in the gaprao gai that was likely to be contaminated with bacteria, and my wife has made me this dish many times without any problems.

Chicken is always susceptible to bacteria contamination. It was bought from our local branch of Tesco Lotus Express and was packaged in exactly the same way as you'd find chicken in a Western supermarket.

With contaminated food, you can never tell. You can buy the cleanest looking food from the cleanest looking place and have problems. Conversely, you can eat food prepared by a street vendor at the most disgusting looking food stall and not have a problem.

I've never been back to the UK since I left on Monday 22nd September 2003.

Ironically, after being desperate to leave for so many years, my final day in the UK was actually a very enjoyable one. The doubts, anxieties, fears, worries and concerns that had almost prevented me from leaving the country all disappeared the minute I closed my front door for the last time.

I took the train into Liverpool Street and then boarded the tube to get over to Paddington. The London commuters looked as miserable as ever. The fact I was leaving all this to start a new life was one of the things that helped to elevate my mood.

I had a fairly large, heavy bag and it was a struggle boarding the underground train. I probably looked like a tourist and one particularly miserable guy made a point of shoulder-charging me as I tried to get on the train. On another day I might have reacted, but nothing could upset me that day.

I bought a ticket for the Heathrow Express and managed to check my baggage so that I wouldn't have to worry about it again until I arrived at Changi. It was probably the first time in my life since being a very young child that I had absolutely no responsibilities and nothing to worry about. It felt very good.

I had plenty of time so exited Paddington station to get a proper English breakfast. One of the great pleasures in London is eating a greasy breakfast at one of thousands of small cafes in the city.

After arriving in Singapore I stayed with my brother for a couple of weeks and then we both left for Perth. We were both single at the time. Australia were playing Zimbabwe and we had a day's cricket at the WACA.

After returning to Singapore I took a bus to Melaka in Malaysia. From there I went to KL, Penang and Langkawi before boarding the ferry to Satun in Thailand.

My original plan was just to tour around Southeast Asia for a while and eventually to find somewhere in Thailand where I wanted to live. I already knew the places where I didn't want to live.

That didn't happen. I ended up staying in Hat Yai where I met friends and found work. I had a series of relationships (some longer than others), met the girl who is now my wife, got married, and then became a father.

My time of having no responsibilities and nothing to worry about was quite short-lived!

A couple of years ago I started to think about what I would do when I stopped working. My money situation was good for a single man and (once again) I thought I would embark on a series of journeys around this part of the world.

However, when I went off travelling alone I found that something had changed. Instead of the intense excitement and sense of freedom I used to feel while travelling alone, I just felt lonely. Age, I guess.

Marriage, and especially parenthood, completely changes everything. I do very little for myself these days, and spend very little on myself. At the same time, I have never spent as much money in my life.

It's a very different kind of life but I am never lonely. We all change during the course of our lives and what is right for us at 20 or 30 may not be right for us at 50. This is one of the problems with making long-term plans. You might plan something for many years but when the time comes to put the plan into action, you may not want it anymore.

If something feels right at the time, do it, and don't worry too much about the future.

Do I miss the UK? Not really. Sometimes I am reminded of things I used to enjoy but nothing is important enough for me to go back for. Besides, my limited income these days doesn't stretch to UK prices. London is a great place for the super rich but life can be tough if you only have modest means.

The Olympics this year is quite significant to me because I was born in Stratford, East London where the games are being held. It was always the poor part of London and the regeneration as a result of the games should be good for the area.

It would be good to attend a few events, or even just to savour the atmosphere, but it's not the most important thing in my life at the moment.

I miss UK weather in the Spring and Autumn but definitely not in the winter. The weather in Thailand is either too hot or too wet. I've always found it easier dealing with very hot weather than very cold weather.

Another cold night for UK as temperatures plunge

When I was going through the process of changing my life I read lots, talked to a lot of people, and attended one very interesting course while I was still working - paid for by the company.

It was a course the like of which I'd never done before. It was all about making personal decisions to get out of life what you wanted from life.

One of the most useful pieces of advice was that you can have anything, but you can't have everything. This is completely true.

However you choose to live life, you can't have everything. You can have the sunshine and beaches of Thailand in the depths of the UK winter, but then you can't go to watch West Ham every week (if you're stupid enough to want to watch West Ham every week as I did once upon a time).

I can't have the warmth of a young family around me and still be able to go off wherever I want, whenever I want. Many things in life simply aren't compatible. You have to decide which are the important things for you and accept that other things will no longer be possible.

The other thing, of course, (made very clear in Buddhism) is that nothing is permanent. None of us will live forever and nothing is permanent about our existence - our health, our wealth, or anything else. Keeping this in mind helps to make decisions in life.

Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address is essential viewing to anyone who has ever considered making major changes to their lives.

Steve Jobs, who was a well-known follower of Buddhism, is without a doubt one of the most remarkable human beings ever to have lived. He could have achieved anything in his life, with the notable exception of being offered a Bt30,000 a month English teaching job in Thailand because he didn't didn't have a Bachelor's degree.

In his speech, Jobs explains why he dropped out of college. I had my own very good reasons in the 1970's to study for an HNC for four years instead of going to university to do a degree. It was the right decision at the time.

In Thailand, there is no room for rational thought, logic, or common sense. Thai thinking on this matter is binary. The Thai view is that if you have a degree - no matter how useless it is, or how useless you are - you are a wonderful person. If you don't have a degree, you are on about the same level as a minivan driver.

This is a subject I will be returning to later, not that the Thais will ever change the way they think. Thais always know best, don't they?

Friday 3rd February 2012

Ex-PM Abhisit is voicing his concerns about flooding issues in the south. His concerns aren't quite the same as mine, but it shows that Thailand is still very much a divided country.

I am more concerned about what will be done to prevent further flooding in the south in future, rather than compensation and soft loans for victims of floods in the past.

South left out of emergency flood loans, Abhisit charges

Thursday 2nd February 2012

As a result of this site, a number of people have written over the years. Some of the correspondence has been a little strange, I've been insulted a few times, and a few correspondents have had a slightly different view of Thailand compared to my own.

I try to reply to all of the people who write but I'm afraid I didn't respond to the guy who wanted advice about opening a bar in Pattaya.

As is the case in real life, like is attracted to like in the online world as well and most of my correspondents have had similar views of Thailand. The vast majority of people who have got in touch have been very fine people indeed.

A young Englishman started writing to me last year. He came across as very polite, very decent, and generally as one of life's good people.

He had visited Thailand and the way he described his thoughts reminded me of how I felt about Thailand when I visited as a tourist. I was completely captivated as a tourist and knew that at some stage of my life I would have to live in Thailand otherwise my life wouldn't be complete.

I didn't know when or for how long I would live in Thailand and I didn't imagine it would end up being permanent with a wife and daughter, but in life you never know what the future holds.

He was young but had a good head on his shoulders and asked the right questions. I enjoyed our correspondence and tried to help him as best I could without being too cynical. The cynicism comes with living in Thailand over an extended period.

When I was going through the process of changing my life completely, one thing I learnt is that you must have clear goals. If you don't know in which direction you want to go, how can you get there? Set your goals first and make sure that everything you do advances you a step closer to your target.

He was clear about where he wanted to go and what needed doing. He went quiet for a while but just sent me another e-mail explaining why. He has been busy doing TEFL courses so that he can find work in Thailand and his flight is later this month.

I feel really pleased for him. A quote that always sticks in my mind is Thoreau's 'The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'

I believe that many people lead lives that don't give them any great satisfaction, but it is an easier option not to make any changes than to really seek the life you want, which is difficult. Changing my life was not in the slightest bit easy but I'm glad I did. The thought of being back in the UK now just depresses me. I think I would die from boredom and cold weather.

I wish him all the best and every success for his new life in Thailand.

In my latest e-mail I tried to give him a few final pieces of advice (based on my time here) and also a warning not to be cynical. I wish I wasn't so cynical but when you experience life in Thailand over several years there are certain things that make you very cynical.

In this respect, it is no different to working for a large corporation where you will often find cynical attitudes among the longer serving employees. It's not because they are necessarily any more cynical than newer employees, but they have seen and experienced more things during their time with the company to be cynical about.

One of the bonuses about having a web site is that you get to see the searches people perform to find your site. Many foreign men have notorious difficulties with Thai girls but when you understand where they look for Thai girls, what kind of Thai girls they find, and their attitudes toward Thai girls it isn't really surprising that they run into problems.

Primarily as a source of entertainment for myself, I started compiling some of the questions a while ago, adding some (often tongue-in-cheek) answers to the questions.

Thailand - Girls FAQ

I hope that no one is offended.

As I said above, people are attracted to people similar to themselves. Birds of a feather flock together. My young friend from the UK will meet good people in Thailand because he is a good person himself.

Conversely, someone who asks the question, "Where do I meet a tart in Bangkok?" will probably only end up feeling bitter and disenchanted with Thailand, and in addition his bank account will probably take a hit as well.

I have heard some foreign men say that all Thai girls are bad. If you only meet Thai girls who are prostituting themselves in beer bars in the tourist resorts that is probably true.

All the married farangs I know here are good people and they have strong marriages with good Thai girls. There will always be the exceptions but generally you only get out of life what you put in.

The ruling against Trip Advisor by the UK's Advertising Standards Authority is interesting, not least because I invite readers to post their restaurant and hotel reviews on my regional guide. This reminds me that I need to add a disclaimer wherever there are reader reviews.

It seems that Trip Advisor's biggest mistake was to claim that their reviews could be trusted.

TripAdvisor rebuked over 'trust' claims on review site

If someone posts a stinking review about a hotel, how do you know if it was a genuinely aggrieved guest or simply a mean-spirited competitor?

The Internet now is so big and so diverse that I often question the use of reading reviews. I can guarantee that regardless of what is being reviewed, if you search long enough you will find completely contradictory opinions. Which ones do you believe and which ones do you ignore?

This applies to any piece of electronic equipment, hotels, and everything else.

I replaced the tyres on my car last year. At first I wasn't sure which tyres to buy. When I actually started looking for tyres I found that many places didn't have anything suitable in the right size.

I ended up buying Michelin Latitude HP Tour. This model was suitable for my car and huge companies such as Michelin don't make a habit of producing bad products. If certain Michelin tyres can get an 'N' rating from Porsche, they can't be all that bad.

After buying the tyres (not before), I carried out some Internet searches for them. There was no shortage of reviews and, as usual, they all contradicted one another.

One guy wrote that he'd almost had a terrible accident in his BMW X5 because of these tyres and he could never recommend them. Some people wrote that they were great tyres, but wore out quickly. Other people said that they lasted for ages.

You start reading reviews because you are genuinely interested in other people's experiences and you want to buy the best. After a while, you read so many conflicting and contradictory accounts that you don't know what to believe and you just end up getting confused.

The Internet is an incredible thing and it has changed the way we all live, but it is such an unregulated free-for-all that you never know what you can believe.

By the way, the tyres have performed flawlessly and I have complete confidence in them. While living in southern Thailand I am unable to assess their performance in ice and snow, but there have been absolutely no problems in very hot or very wet conditions. I have driven in searing heat and torrential tropical rainfall without the slightest loss of traction.

The wear isn't excessive either. The place where I bought the tyres perform a free service to rotate the wheels after every 10,000 km. I expect to have this done several times before the tyres will need replacing.

After my personal experience it really makes me wonder about some of the reviews I read. Had I read them before I bought the tyres, I may have decided to buy another brand. I'm glad I didn't read the reviews and that I bought the Michelins.

Some more information about flood prevention measures currently being taken in Thailand to fix the huge flooding problems the country has:

BMA to implement flood prevention plans

This all sounds good, apart from the fact I've still not read anything related to the southern region. I saw a report about a provincial governor requesting money in order to dredge the canals here but that was all.

One of my little brothers is 50 today. Some things in life really make you feel old. I knew I was getting old when first policemen and then presidents of the United States started to look young.

Happy birthday bro'.

Wednesday 1st February 2012

Food poisoning and severe stomach upsets will affect you eventually if living in Thailand. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Food hygiene isn't always as good as it could be. Some places are obviously filthy with flies crawling all over the food and rats in evidence. Other places look OK, but many small restaurants buy their food from the local fresh markets and Thai fresh markets can be a real eye-opener if you have never visited one.

I'm sure that because of the obsession with money, Thais will never throw food away even after it has gone bad.

Some Thais have no education regarding food hygiene and do not know about keeping cooked meat away from uncooked meat or washing hands after using the toilet, etc.

My wife was unaware that once frozen food had been defrosted it isn't safe to refreeze it. It wasn't her fault but simply a lack of education.

This doesn't apply everywhere and some places are very clean. In addition, the microbes and organisms that exist in food in Thailand are different to elsewhere and so it isn't unusual after arriving in Thailand to get an upset tummy. The 'good' bacteria in our stomachs is a normal part of the digestive system.

This is quite harmless and it also works the other way. After getting used to Thai food, I find that I might get a stomach upset in Singapore. This kind of thing is nothing to worry about.

It's good to stay close to a toilet and if you need to travel you can block your system up using Imodium.

On the other hand, severe infections from 'bad' bacteria can be very dangerous. Bangkok Barry wrote previously saying how he had come within days of dying due to a severe case of food poisoning. What didn't help was that his symptoms were misdiagnosed.

A friend of a friend died after contracting food poisoning in Thailand. He attempted to get back to the States but didn't make it.

About 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning I felt an urgent need to use the toilet. This continued to happen every 20 minutes or so. As day broke, I cancelled my plans for the morning, took an Imodium tablet, and hoped to feel better in the afternoon. I didn't feel better, so had to cancel my afternoon plans as well.

As the day went on, I actually felt worse. I took another Imodium tablet but - just like the first one - it had no effect. After about 20 visits to the toilet my stomach was completely empty, my body was dehydrated, and I had as much strength in my body as a rag doll.

I didn't have the strength to stand or even to sit up. All I could do was lie on the bed and go to the bathroom when necessary.

At around 5pm my wife said I should see a doctor. I knew that I needed to but I didn't know how I would get there. Thailand has clinics and hospitals everywhere but it seems that doctors don't visit you at home.

I couldn't drive and to attempt to do so would have been dangerous. I ended up going on the back of the wife's motorbike to a clinic nearby.

There are lots of clinics here. Most of them open in the evenings and at weekends and are run by doctors who have full-time jobs in large hospitals. You get the same treatment but it is often more convenient and cheaper.

The doctor quickly diagnosed infected diarrhoea. She prescribed antibiotics for the infection and various other medicine for pain and intestinal gas.

She told me that the Imodium I had self-prescribed could actually be quite dangerous. Diarrhoea is the body's way of removing the infection and taking medicine to block up your system can make things worse rather than better.

Under certain circumstances Imodium can be really useful but in some situations it is not good.

You can buy antibiotics and other medicine over the counter in Thailand that in other countries you would need a prescription for. The temptation is there sometimes just to buy what you think you need and circumvent seeing a doctor but it isn't always a good idea.

I once got a severe telling off in the UK for seeing a doctor when she thought it was unnecessary. In Thailand I have never met a doctor with this attitude and if you're not sure just go to see one.

The cost for my consultation and medicine was a paltry Bt160. An old friend who used to live in Thailand but moved back to the UK wrote recently and mentioned free medicine in the UK. It may be free but the NHS prescription charge still made my visit to the Thai doctor cheaper.

I started to take the medicine last night and have continued today. The fact I now have the strength to sit and write this indicates I am feeling a lot better. I have started to get food inside my stomach and to rehydrate my body.

I am hoping to feel well enough by tomorrow morning to start to be productive again.

I had a bout of food poisoning on my very first trip to Thailand in 1987. I met a couple of Thai girls in Pattaya (as you do) who invited me to lunch (as they do) because they knew I'd be picking up the bill (as they do).

We ate seafood and the next day I felt like death. One of them took me to a doctor and it was my first experience of seeing a Thai doctor. He diagnosed the problem immediately and gave me three different kinds of medicine. My recovery was almost immediate.

Thai doctors understand the type of problems people get in Thailand very well and are good at treating them.

I've discussed this subject before and I'm aware that not all people have such positive experiences but I have had few problems.

To summarise, if you visit Thailand and have tummy problems it could be perfectly normal. Just wait for a while and take Imodium if you really need to travel. However, if the problems persist and it obviously isn't normal see a doctor.

There is no GP system in Thailand as there is in England. You can go to a hospital (private or public) where a doctor will see you.

Alternatively, there are many clinics. There aren't many generalist clinics (I know of one in Hat Yai). Most clinics specialise in a particular branch of medicine, but the doctors at these places will treat most things or send you to another doctor.

Information about the clinics is written outside in Thai but every doctor I have ever met in Thailand has a good grasp of English.

If you can't speak Thai, they will speak English. If you can speak Thai they may speak in English or Thai or a mixture of both.

The doctor yesterday could speak English but asked me everything in Thai. I suspect her English was better than my Thai. If she said something I couldn't understand, I said, "Mai khao jai," and she told me in English.

On the occasions that I've not done so well with Thai doctors, a doctor in Chumpon once told me I had a perforated eardrum when the only problem I had was a build up of earwax. I was travelling at the time and upon receiving this news cancelled my trip and returned home. My local doctor fixed the problem in minutes.

I contracted a serious fungal infection in my eye several years ago through a soft contact lens. The doctors here struggled at first to treat the infection because they didn't do any tests to see what kind of infection it was.

They treated the infection eventually but the infection left a nasty scar on my cornea and I have suffered from irregular astigmatism in one eye ever since. For some reason the local doctors didn't seem to know what to do about the astigmatism and reduction is visual acuity.

To get that problem fixed I had to visit Thailand top eye hospital - Rutnin hospital in Bangkok.

As is always the case in Thailand regarding anything, the best is normally only found in Bangkok. Our daughter has had a problem since birth and although the doctors here have done quite well up to now we seem to have got to a point where there is no further improvement.

I have just got in contact with the top doctor in Thailand in this particular field, but seeing him will mean yet another trip to Bangkok. We will probably go next month.

I really couldn't imagine living in Bangkok but living in the capital certainly has lots of advantages if you need to make frequent trips to your Embassy, visit specialist doctors, etc.

Oh, I almost forgot. You may be wondering what was the cause of my upset stomach. On Monday evening I asked my wife to make me chicken with holy basil leaves. She has made this several times before and because she makes it in the house I know it will be clean. I didn't want to buy it from a shop because of the hygiene issue.

She told me everything was clean and fresh. The problem with the microbes and organisms that attack our bodies is that they are invisible.

It could be that she's trying to poison me, but if that's the case there wouldn't be much point bumping me off until after I've paid for the new house. If this blog goes quiet later this year you will know that she's been more successful. Perhaps this was just a practice run?

My earliest memory in life is the assassination of JFK as shown on an old valve-driven black and white TV set. TV antennas were kept in the house in those days and it was always one person's job to hold it in position to get the best picture. The constant vertical and horizontal rolling of the picture could be cured by giving the set a good whack on the side. Kids don't know they're born these days with their High-Definition, flat-screen, 3D, all-singing, all dancing, high tech TVs.

Kennedy's assassination occurred just a few days after my third birthday and this fits in with the theory of people not being able to remember anything before the age of three.

Even after all these years, pieces of previously unreleased evidence are still coming to light, with the remainder to come in 2017.

New Air Force One tapes give insight on Kennedy death

According to Wikipedia, 98% of the Warren Commission records have already been released. Somehow, I think that even after everything is released we won't know much more about what happened on that day than we do now.

The only thing certain is that the conspiracy theories will never stop.

One of the free Kindle books I downloaded recently was 'John F. Kennedy, A Life' published by New Word City. It was a short, but interesting book.

At the height of the Cold War, not many people could have been more difficult to deal with than Khrushchev. The Bay of Pigs Invasion and Cuban Missile Crisis were enormous challenges for a president to deal with.

In the book, Kennedy comes across as a pragmatic person with a very sharp mind who knew when to take advice from his advisors and when to ignore them.

He wasn't a perfect human being, as we all know. The book is heavily biased in Kennedy's favour but that is the case with any piece of writing. Considering that it was free, it wasn't a bad read at all.

Regarding what happened on that day, I haven't a clue. The theories sound highly plausible, while the official account seems to be full of holes. I was travelling in the States one time and had a choice of stopovers. I chose Dallas and spent a few nights there purely because I wanted to visit the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

Of course, I knew no more after my visit to the museum but it was interesting to visit a place for the first time that already looked so familiar from TV and cinema.

As the years pass and more people from that era die, it will become more and more difficult to find out what really happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

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