jacko45k

Never mind... they did pretty well in the Olympics!

Probably the usual minibus pick up from your hotel and overland to the Ferry Terminal in Trat. The ones where you pay 100b for the Ferry ticket that actually costs 30 baht. (Two decades plus and I am still sore about it!😄)

Yes, it is, although I would not have said 'English' breakfast, more Buffet breakfast. There was another well known for it's (cheap) buffet breakfast nearby, just across 2nd rd. too. I used the Lek place a lot in my early Pattaya days, 80s onwards. Cheap and cheerful, a bit basic, but a good location and a stagger from my drinking hole back then, The Wonderful Bar.

Safer than the darts being aimed at balloons I dare say.

Oh I don't know about that....the police vans were not called Paddy Wagons for nothing!

You should have seen it after the last fireworks competition.

I think you are being short sighted and have some dislike for policing figures more generally. One volunteer I knew of Indian origin was very helpful as he spoke, English, Thai and Hindi and maybe another one. He could very readily help some Indians who may have got into some situation with the locals and their behaviour, due to alcohol, was taking things in a bad direction. Not all of the volunteers are bullies strutting about like peacocks......in fact they do try to weed out the bad types. They have never needed to help me, but nor have I seen them create any issues..... although an issue I did hear of was when they tried to arrest a Thai ladyboy thief and he didn't like it too much.

Well it says https not supported for me which rather dates their efforts.

Yeah, mine are on the other side of a wall and the pipe goes through a little hole. My neighbours had a mechanical timing device on it so it would shut itself off after a preset.

Pity most are made in China.

Were they schoolkids though or older family types?

Oh yes, it certainly appeals to those who like to dress up. I believe they pay for their own uniforms and one can see personal embellishments. They must be disappointed they cannot wear a gun.

I expect Klang Branch closed until Tuesday, only Mall branches will be open over the long weekend. Soi Buakhao can likely do it, I moved an account once at a sub branch without issue, it was in the same area so made little difference. I believe the main branch is on 2nd Rd, at the top of soi 6.

The picture makes it look that way. But we seem to get left to right inversion in many a picture.

What is plastic smelting.....? Always thought it was to do with getting metals out of ore.

Looks like a big Bingo meeting.... on the red, one and 2 !

I doubt my sanity of living here sometimes, often when I drive out of my home into the littered streets nearby, that have dozens of scabby, sad looking stray dogs about. The joy of trying to hose away the big pile one had left at my gate still in my mind.

This saga sounds like the 'being pxssed around from pillar to post' one gets a lot in Thailand. I was sent back and forth between soi 5 Jomtien and the revenue dept in Banglamung City area (quite a distance) when trying to get a Tax number once. A pink card looked like a good idea about then.

Took a drive out into the cassava fields nearby (to release a snake I was relocating), must have passed 3 or 4 dumping piles of garbage in the fields by the dirt road. Thais have no respect for their own country......

Hmm. Perhaps I now have less of a dispute with the gas bottle refilling station, who rejected my old cylinder, refusing to refill it, and made me pay for a new one. (Or what happened to my old one?)

No I have never taken to adding salt to fruits..... I was horrified during my very early trips in Thailand to come across salt in the OJ!

They simply do not like the competition, after all, they were doing exactly the same thing.

But are usually rather sour..... I used to have the Mrs make Passion fruit juice for me for daily, breakfast, absolutely delicious, but it required substantial sugar or artificial sweeteners to make it palatable, such that I changed to tangerine juice.

No not at all. Firstly it takes all types to want to do this type of voluntary work.... I can't explain that but ex police and military take to it. Then there are likely benefits to doing it, making other problems (perhaps say with immigration) go away. I hear they have their uses, usually getting round the language and culture barriers. Simply explaining to some drunken oaf, to pay his bar-tab, the alternative being to get locked up in a cell with 29 other drunks over the weekend, or to give the girl 200 baht and she will forget the affront of you goosing her. I had a pal did volunteering.. yes he was a pretentious prxck, but it kept him from doing other silly things.

It is the school break and the local Kuwait weather is hot and oppressive.