MissChris

Probably the reason why you don't have cockroaches is that the frogs are eating them. Those brown torpedoes you see around are recycled insects of all sorts. We feel privileged to have 3 frogs at present in our home in Oz. One (the smallest) loves to sound like a mini machine gun while we are showering. I love them! They annoy the cat though, by bathing in her water bowl.

Leave them, or, if you need to move them, do it gently. Their skin is fragile.

Remember, Princess Diana used to tell her boys that she found a frog in the garden. LOL

Lee Child might interest you. Thrillers featuring Jack Reacher, past Vietnam vet Military Policeman travelling light through the US.

(I get almost all my books on my iPhone these days.)

Jean Aeul's latest from the original 'Clan of the Cave Bear' called 'The Land of Painted Caves' I had been waiting for for years and devoured.

Knock yourself out on Colleen McCullough's Rome series or anything of hers. She's even written a thriller about a serial killer called 'On Off'.

For fantasy freaks (probably more girly stuff) Anne Bishop is addictive. I have reread several times...

Reading 'Toys' by James Patterson at present. Science fiction. Subject has been a bit done to death in past decades, but he's a great writer.

John Dunning...quirky...he's a book collector in real life...

Great idea! I'm going to recommend it to some friends who are travelling to Phuket later.

Does that include old bats as well? Not too worried: expat son has a very comfortable home. However, if we come to blows, it sounds like a great escape!

Don't know where you saw Cirque du Soleil, but it's more than 1600 baht when seen in Oz. Next show in July, Saltimbanco: best seats 4800 baht, worst 2200 baht.

How come I never have such excitement when I go to the mall?

We had Sonkran celebrations at the Buddhist monastery near Lismore NSW Australia!

Lots of people in traditional Thai dress, four monks, lots of food, great excitement. The organisers couldn't believe how many people turned up. Must have been the bright poster on the main road to a very popular monthly market...

Having heard tall tales from number one son about the 'Water Festival' to come, I decided to nick off quietly beforehand. Such a party pooper...

I went in 08. It was amazing! Go for a unique experience.

Yes, they took our cameras and mobile phones from us, but the collection and return were very quick and efficient. That was about the 6th time my son had been and he reckoned that was his last. He still enjoyed it, I might add. We ate before we went. I detest queueing and get acutely unbearable

Don't know how the Thais train their chickens. Would love a tutorial...

If my memory serves me well, at one stage there were 16 elephants on stage.

I wasn't too impressed at the tourists paying to bottle feed tiger cubs. However, we can't impose Western values on animal management on the Thais. I remember as a child riding on the elephants at Taronga Zoo in Sydney in Oz. Until recent years, there were some very primitive enclosures with limited enrichment at this world class zoo. It's a matter of education and understanding. We were pretty much the same until recent decades. It's also a cultural difference that may never be resolved.

The Thais sure have a special relationship with their elephants.

"Miss Chris says we should make a point by leaving. Why would I leave when I don't even use the bloody things?"

grumpyoldman

I did not say that! I said that my son won't let me use them when I'm in Phuket...

Now I know why my son won't let me use tuk tuks when I'm in Phuket...to the point where he is occasionally able to cope with me riding a motorbike. (I've had a motorbike licence since 1969)

One of my favourite quotes of his: 'Get your inheritance early - put Mum on a motorbike'

It's dreadful how the tuk tuk system has evolved. As well, there are so many able bodied Thai men just sitting around most of the day doing nothing, or maybe getting skilled at playing cards or mahjongg or whatever. What a waste!

I don't think it's the shop.

You'll find it happens in all countries that sell this particular company's products. At the company's insistence.

They also tell the telcos in Oz what they can offer as plans too...

Logician

I'm horrified by all of those photos.

The reason why the nanny countries put in soft fall is because of the accidents that were happening that were avoidable by simple means. Paediatricians were sick of fixing kids with smashed bodies from playground equipment.

Sure, when I was a kid in the 50's (gasp) we were unsupervised, but we tended to play in groups. We got grazed knees and the occasional broken bone. My own older kids used to toddle off to the park from a very young age - it was 2 doors away and there were always heaps of kids there, parents around (including me much of the time) and houses and flats overlooking it.

But kids these days seem to do the most astonishingly dangerous things. Look at the first photo. It looks cute. However, there are heaps of kids who would climb on the outside of those slides...

We want all kids to be the best they can. So why not put some soft fall on the concrete? And make sure we do the maintenance asap. Set a standard. Thai people with disabilities live a pretty dreadful life, imho.

From memory, Lonely used to pong

Her driving will be even more breathtaking when she hangs the 45 koalas from the rear view mirror.

lmao rof

for goodness sake, don't anyone suggest it...

Simon

It's not just the safety of the equipment, it's also the 'soft fall' that's used. In Oz it used to be a certain depth of shredded rubber. Something like 8cm. Or special matting. Sand is like falling on rock and I don't think mulch is good - dunno why.

I'm sure you can google standards for kids' play equipment. You might be able to get some simple stuff made, too.

A few months ago I asked on this forum about a seemingly lost parcel. Koalas for my son's gorgeous Thai girlfriend. It had been posted early December 2010. It was suggested that I wait a while. I checked with the online shop (the Australian Koala Foundation) that the shipment had gone. They offered to send a repeat order, free. They had never sent a parcel to Thailand before. I said 'no - we'll wait a bit' since this was the advice I had from forum members.

I also sent my son on a hunt of all the post offices in the area. He's in Chalong and was grumbling about having to go to Phuket Town and god only knows where else. It was going to be a mission.

So last Monday, I sent off a parcel with DHL - emergency stuff for son needing to get to Phuket urgently. On the way I dropped into the koala shop in Brisbane and bought more koalas (another 15 - most are very little) and they went in the parcel too.

Got a lovely email from son's gf, saying she was going to put them in her car.

Yesterday the Australian Koala Foundation shop emailed me to find out if the parcel had arrived. Again they offered to resend my order. Again I declined.

Two hours later, text from son: 'We found the other package in Rawai. Koala mayhem'

I'm so glad I refused the offer to resend the order. I reckon my son is going to have enough trouble fitting into a car with 30 koalas...(and apparently her driving is 'breathtaking' in any case)...45 just might end up a bit ugly...

Bright blessings to the Rawai post office. It's lovely to think they would still be patiently looking after a parcel for four months. I do get saddened when I read things on the forums bagging out Thais.

Sounds like your Thai staff are serial hoarders or collectors. Kleptomaniacs steal stuff and take it away for themselves...not put stuff back.

Good luck finding a skip. I reckon it won't take long for your Thai staff to learn what you are up to and keep returning your chuck-outs. LOL

You'll get lot much worse, believe me. The stuff works by making you seriously, miserably, acutely ill if you drink even a small amount. Even the trace amounts of alcohol contained in cough syrups and the like can do it.

If taken by someone who is already drunk, or if someone who has taken it manages to drink more than a small amount (usually doesn't happen as the reaction sets in pretty fast), it can even be fatal.

If considering to take this for the first time, be sure to read up thoroughly on this first.

This is a really seriously dangerous drug. It was designed and used originally over 40 years ago based on the theory that if you make people sick when they drink alcohol, they will stop. It doesn't work! Some psychiatrists made lots of money admitting people to hospital and putting them on a regime for weeks at a time and also creating great profits for the private hospital.

These days, there are lots of treatments for people who have a problem with alcohol. My favourite is AA. It's free. It's everywhere. It works. And recent evidence from the human genome project indicates that there are two separate 'alcoholic' genes. One which has an immediate effect when the person first starts drinking; the second creates slower, more insidious damage. AA still makes sense to people who have either of these genes.

And if you're thinking of putting it in someone else's drink, please don't! You could kill them.

Nice little bit of karma going on there too...

We sometimes need to keep things in perspective.

Yes, sounds like the situation in Oz. Vast majority of snake bites are not envenomated, just a 'bugger off' sort of response.

Don't know about cobra antivenene, but it's probably horrendously expensive. I remember a TV programme by Steve Irwin about the large numbers of cobra bites (and deaths) in the tea plantations in Sri Lanka. Mainly because of how the bushes are trimmed so you can't see what's on the ground and the workers are barefooted...

I seriously doubt that cobras are going to attack your kids. More likely to head in the opposite direction. First aid for all snake bites is to wrap the limb from toes or fingers upwards with an elastic bandage. Keep the patient still and quiet. Don't wash the wound or cut it or any of the old fashioned stuff.

Do we all have elastic bandages in our first aid kit?

I'm only feeling smug because I bought a couple the other day...

Stop grumbling!

You should see what my teenagers did to my dear little red Yaris. Just waiting to lose the other 2 hubcaps ($A147e@) get the front and the roof dinged, then it'll be even all over...

Then they turn the aircon to defrost & I think I've got a terminal attack of the vapours.

AND they lose my favourite radio station and take my favourite CDs like Gurrumul and insert unintelligible crap into it. I have to do a full security inspection before I get into the bloody thing.

Still trying to find the iPhone recharge cord...

I've been trained as a (non-venomous at this stage) snake handler in Oz. That said, cobras are probably like our snakes and, not having much brain, tend to have their own very limited home range. They know where the food is, where the water is and, most of the time, where those dratted humans are hanging out. They occasionally make mistakes and we cross paths. That's when they ring me on the wildlife Hotline. Usually a Sunday morning, when they are home from work and the snake doesn't have a calendar. My first response, on finding out it's a fairly large snake, it to remind the caller that it has lived in that area for YEARS and successfully evaded being spotted.

Then I tell the caller, by then totally bored rigid, the story of my idiot neighbour who killed 23 brown snakes one summer. [For the uninitiated, these are extremely venemous snakes, but almost exclusively bite men with hoes in their hands who are attempting to kill them] The first one he killed was his worst mistake. The rest would have been young newcomers trying out a new vacant territory and highly anxious about it all. They didn't know his habits, so didn't get out of the way before he saw them.

Moving snakes out of their territory is a death sentence. A cobra's territory? Wouldn't have the faintest idea. However, here in Oz we are only allowed to relocate them within 100m. This is based on research into thieir habits. Yes, there are PhD students who LOVE snakes. We used to relocate them further away, but found to our dismay that we were condemning these amazing animals to a slow death.

Thank you to all those who contributed to this thread with a positive attitude. Yes, they are scary, but we DO live in their territory. Same goes for those HUGE spiders people here get so frantic about.

What a great bunch of young guys coming so quickly. In Oz, professional snake catchers tend to charge about $200...

That would assume that no one on TV has neither a legal background nor work with contracts, of course.

Could also be that Contract Law and the Law of Torts (which doesn't appear appropriate here) are different in Thailand. That's why you need to talk to someone who is educated in Thai law. Who knows, some of it may have been incorporated holus bolus from English law. That'd make it easier. I'd love to study Thai law. Anyone got any ideas where?

lma rof

you guys are sooooo naughty

Phuket is lovely & safe and you can walk around any time without being harassed apart from those pests selling soup, suits & something else I can't remember...

stephenl

The word you're looking for is 'empowered' or even 'authorised' will do

ooops that should spell stevenl

In the uk the system is the same. The company can renew, or the broker can renew if he has been powered by the insurer to do so, sorry, don't know the name for that in english.

stephenl

The word you're looking for is 'empowered' or even 'authorised' will do