patongphil

30 Baht for a 3 hour queue and a panadol!!!

Thai older Thai man that I know used the 30 baht for an operation for stomach cancer (removed large part of intestine) but had to use his own money for the chemo therapy after the operation for a year.

Go to any smaller town in Isaan and you see line and lines of people outside the many clinics and virtually no-one at the flash hospitals.

I wonder why??

Is there any way to step up the voltage to my house? We are a fair way from the mains lines and with the length of the supply wires I believe we have very low voltage power in the house. All appliances run hot, especially chargers for laptops etc.

30 Baht for a 3 hour queue and a panadol!!!

Never in 12 odd years

My daughter is called Jennifer Ice.

Jennifer shortens to Jennie and is easily pronounced in both English and Thai.

The Ice part comes from the wife who decided that because both her and I are born on Tuesdays, and the daughter was supposed to be born on a Tuesday, too many "hot" people required a cold name. Daughter actually decided to come out on a friday but we kept the name anyway.

Where the Hell is that Shop, I,m Thinking of a Ute Run and perchance I could fill up with Rice, as my Local Shop sells it for considerably more. More like Tesco,s prices. At that price I guess the little Stones in the Rice are allowed for in the Weight, or else its a Diddle.

Me too. Come on where is this place you can buy rice for 7 baht per kilo. forget the Ute I could buy a big truck with a few days proceeds from this.

Also the beef - local prices here are between 200 and 220 baht per kilo. Guess I may need 2 trucks!!!

Really hope we get a bit more rain. Doubt very much whether we will get a rice crop at all this season. Am busy getting my bore pump installed in an attempt to save my fish as will be pretty tight if we get little rain before the next"monsoon" season.

Went to Cheap Charlies once - was served a half frozen and really ordinary pie, never been back. As for beds/rooms etc have no idea but if their accom. standard is reflected in their food then would not be for me!!!

Anybody into fishing around the Maha Sarakham area?

I will be back there for a few months in the New Year, close to Borabue.

Only been after snakehead and jungle perch so far but am keen on all types of fishing.

^{You do not neccesarily have to get the special numbers. There used to be a shop on Sai Nam Yen road in Patong that would paint your existing plates - moved in the last few months to who knows where. Pity as I was just about to get mine done. Not sure of the legalities but many get them done this way.}

I don't know what all the fuss is about - I too live in Patong!!!

All my assetts in Thailand go to my wife and all assets in Australia to my daughter - easy.

_{I have had dealings with Toyota in both Phuket and Maha Sarakham and have nothing but praise for them. Indeed after I had a confrontation with a cow up in Maha Sarakham they spent about 2 hours patching my front end up so I could make the return trip to Phuket - at no cost and right there and then.}

We had something similar to Halloween in the local villages 2 weeks ago. All the kids take small bags of Sticky Rice around the houses in the villages where they swap them for treats and/or small amounts of money. Went on for 3 days in all the villages in the local area.

There is one in Patong opposite the temple - got my ex wife and present wife through their tests.

Thanks for the links gents. Good reading. I'm not alone.

At the moment my wife is wise to the family's tricks. It's easier for her to see it since we are in the UK. Once we are in LOS she gets immersed, swallowed up, and cannot see the leaching, she just feels continually obligated to "help".

So how does the following sound

Baby & I form a company. Baby is 51% shareholder.

I am baby's guardian and make decisions on her behalf and in her best interest.

Company grants me a usufruct or lease.

Hopefully this would prevent FIL trying to borrow against the chanotes (he's tried already with my wife's house - but failed - she caught him in time).

The family would continue to farm rice on the lower part of the land in return for caring for the rubber on the upper part.

My wife continues to "help" her dad from her UK wages.

Whether wife & I go to live in Isaan would not matter. Baby would inherit my shares in the company on my demise. I thinkhaving a company's name on the chanote would make things so complicated for FIL that he would give up and leach off somebody else.

I stress that this is an early draft of a plan. I would be grateful for any input and criticism that readers have.

We all face the same problem at some time or other. Good wives with parasitic families that can, if not managed well, screw everything up for everybody.

Tx

Spotty

I really do feel sorry for you. My wife's family are salt of the earth and I could not ask for more honest people.

I bought my Kindle on-line direct from Amazon.

Delivered by international courier to my door in Patong in less than a week. Followed it's journey on-line and knew within about an hour when it would arrive.

Completely safe and hassel free.

Same same for me.

Must admit though that now I have an Ipad I rarely take the kindle out.

I put in 500$ in his budget calculator and it put 900 baht for laundry, this guy must have lost his mind.. I don't spend more than 100 baht on laundry in a month

that's why nobody uses the elevator with you

30 baht for a do it yourself laundry machine, 3 times a month is enough to keep clean and tidy clothes

three times a month is indeed ok if your laundry bag consists each time of 11 shirts, 11 underpants and 11 pairs of socks.

You wear socks!!!!

I too am in the same boat as Woody. My daughter is 18 months old and I am looking around for pre school for around mid next year. Also live in Patong where there are no acceptable schools to my knowledge. I have a friend who runs Buds nursery school in Chalong and have visited there many times. They do provide pick up and drop off around the island. Without having been to any of the others I cannot comment on standards but have been pretty impressed by what I see at Buds.

I suppose it is what you are after. I always fish for wild fish in the reservoirs and klongs around Isaan and just about invariably catch a fish or 2. I only fish for Snakehead and Jungle Perch, and usually with frogs on the surface and have had many a great day stalking these predators - sometimes in small klongs only a meter or so wide.

A normal trip would be 10 mins or so on the bike, about an hour fishing until I have a snakehead for the missus and then back home for a beer.

Food for the Soul!!!!!

I have access to plenty of small tilapia in my main fish pond so food supply would not be an issue in keeping them fed.

May just give it a go and see what happens but I really dont want to see them die off due to something I have overlooked re temperature, water ph etc etc

Pizzeria Hut 1 in Soi Sansabai at the Bangla end.

Personally, my favourite pizza in Phuket. Great crispy crust with loads of topping.

+1

+2

I catch quite a few of these on my excursions around the area we live. Missus and family love to eat them but sometimes they dont feel like eating them for whatever reason. We then normally leave them in a plastic bowl with a few inches of water where they live/ survive for a few days until the hunger returns.

I was wondering if I could build some form of larger tank out of cement in which I could keep the fish and then just scoop them out as and when required. Would obviously have to feed them too , maybe get bigger too as wild fish tend to be pretty small on average.

Anyone done this sort of thing before - or seen it done? Any advice appreciated or I may just have to start restricting my fishing.

Well we have eventually got some rain here. The last 2 days have delivered some 3 to 4 inches and things are looking up a bit. still need quite a bit more but at least a lot of the rice has been saved for now. As for dams, rivers and ponds all still pretty miserable - should be full at this time of year.

The one on Nanai Soi 8 in Patong left my new white car a pale wishy washy yellow colour. I think they used the rag for the tyre black to dry off the car or something like that. Needless to say was greeted by the usual giggles and nosepicking when I tried to complain. Cost me 3,500 baht at Rhino 2000 to get it back to white again.