cooked

I didn't pay for the certificate in Buriram. You need this paper because of the 11 digit ID number on it to fill out in the Mor prom app. The app showed all three jabs the next day, works well. I can also use it to get an international international vaccine certificate.

I'm a healthy 73 year old, I too took Sinovac - Astra, and 30 minutes ago I took Pfizer. I too had problems with Astra, although I was in better form than family members that got it and are 30 years younger. I slept all dat the next day. Anyway, Pfizer up to now: no pain in my arm at all, feeling fine, I'll let you know.

Yes it's all the fault of the villagers and me personally, of course. I have, as I mentioned, done wonders with the soil I was lumbered with, but the fact is that a soil that is more suited for brick making than plants. Water table just under the surfach tree months a year.People were growing chili etc years ago but this has now become impossible. I imported some soil, filled a concrete ring, and got some chili growing but after 6 months the dreaded verticillium moved up through the soil. Solarisation helps to some degree.

Yeah it seems to be bad drainage, even though I have improved the soil a lot, also something like verticillium wilt, which prevents anyone in the village from growing solanaceae and a few other plants.

I had a few lovely fig trees, quite heavy bearing. From one year to the next they decided to die,I could just pull them out of the ground. I don't think that any fertiliser would have helped much, my garden doesn't like quite a few species of plants.

Kids soak up language like a sponge. Back home we initially spoke English until my Swiss German came up to a useful level. No problems that we could see. When we moved to the French part of Switzerland, we carried on as usual, sent the kids off to school without wasting a minute's time speaking French. Within a month or two, both were speaking and understanding French. Don't take away a kid's mother tongue! Neighbours tried to do that and both kids can hardly express themselves in any language. Just do (or don't do) whatever you decide to do too late.

I got my two injections, plus a scruffy piece of paper stating the fact. I took this back to the hospital a week later and got a vaccination certificate which has a thirteen digit number on it. That's the one you use for 'Thai ID'. Works for me anyway.

What changed in my rural upcountry home in 10 years: the last of the traditional houses disappeared. The roads generally have become drivable. Rice farmers are gradually selling off their land. I can't think of anything else really. It does look like all of us eventually will have to have health insurance, I wouldn't have come to Thailand if I had had to budget for that but I was (and would be) doing OK back home, at least financially. My wife would be like a fish out of water if we moved back, and granddaughter + great grandson would be devastated. I remember an ancient great aunt telling me how things were much better 90 years ago (this was ca. 1980), of course they were, she was 90 years younger, beautiful and an opera singer.

After quite a long wait, I just now received a mail: TVP International Queries <[email protected]> 19:31 (3 minutes ago) Reply to me Dear Mr Plonker Thank you for your email. We have suspended the issuing of Life Certificates due to the ongoing global pandemic. This will not affect your UK State Pension. Kind regards Jonathan Smith Pension Officer +44 191 2187777 The Pension Service 11 Mail Handling Site A Wolverhampton WV98 1LW United Kingdom So the question is, how will we know when they start requiring life certificates again?

Even the Immigration authorities refer to "Retirement Visas".

I'm a bit more cautious, planning to return next summer, at which time I'll book a single flight only, too many variables involved and am prepared to just look into returning when I get there.

Why's that? Lockdowns and closures don't work, nor do vaccines prevent the spread of Covid, why not just live with it. We will always have Covid, in a few years we will be asking ourselves what all the fuss was about.

Disregarding advice to repeat dose after three months, I gave two doses of Endex about 10 days apart, following 'local customs' (old lady next door). This was 6 months ago, and from literally taking 40 - 100 ticks a day off one dog, I can honestly say that I haven't found any for months now. Liver problems? That's two doses that they haven't received. We have SEVEN dogs, so any single infection of just one of the dogs would have been transmitted quickly enough to the others, but not a sausage.

Gatotade has a sugarless electrolyte drink, seen on Lazada. I don't bother about a little sugar, carbs when I go running, most of it will be gone by the time I get back home.

Himalayan salt is a scam, it contains so little of other nutrients that it hardly makes a difference.Overnight? For goodness sake, why?

Speaking as a runner, 73 years old, I never suffered heat stroke until I started running in Thailand. Solution: hydration, certainly, but electrolytes are the key. You lose a lot of salt while sweating, and if you drink water, you will sweat even more. Nothing wrong with the old salt tablets that used to be available on building sites before it was decided that salt, and not sugar, was responsible for high blood pressure.

As a naive engineering student on a huge building site in the UK (Scammonden dam) I was sent (once) to do a slump test. I sent the load back and so was never allowed to do another slump test. I later learned that you can cheat even a slump test with a driver and a whole work crew watching.

What a nice, insightful post, I'm sure you feel all the better for writing that. "Then we have another group of oldies that comes to live here for the sex and booze. After that they complain that they can´t pay for an insurance. Really? If that ain´t reckless and stupid? What is?" Sure that would be stupid, but seeing that a life saving medical treatment can quickly go into the millions and I doubt that many of us could ever spend a fraction of that on sex and booze, I fail to see your point. You spend a lot of time justifying your self (I still haven't got over your "I can sit on the floor to eat" along with using your rare visits to in-laws as proof that you are adapted to Thai life style). Maybe you aren't a sneerer after all, just a guy thatwent into culture shock and never came out of it. Don't bother responding to me directly as I am putting you on my "extremely self important, negative character" list.

BRILLIANT. What an insight. A large part of what insurance is about is the ASSURANCE that it gives you, something less to worry about when you have an accident, watch your house burn down, get ill. So you get the beginnings of a potentially fatal illness which can easily be cured but you can't pay for treatment. How fatalistic are you going to be then, no matter how old you are?

Maybe your usage of the word 'babble' put me on to your case, that and the sneering at people that find themselves in unexpected situations, not necessarily because they are stupid or reckless.

Oh so you can eat sitting on the floor, wow. I started doing that as soon as I could sit up. Sorry to be rude and to babble, but your whole post seems to have the single aim of putting someone down. Many of us have problems with health insurance, I mentioned above that I had to stop when my premiums unexpectedly increased by 50%. I have options however, that many don't (embassy would repatriate me for hospital treatment, possibly pay my bill if that looked like coming cheaper). You forgot to use the phrase "cheap Charlie" by the way, try to do better next time.

One solution: do you trust your wife? I watched a friend without insurance in ICU for days, dying as it turned out. It took a lot of effort to take him out of ICU. This cost a lot of money, and it was obvious that he wasn't going to survive. Now his girlfriend has huge bills being presented to her by the hospital, which, as they aren't married, apparently she doesn't have to pay. BUT the hospital won't issue a death certificate, which I find very strange indeed. This means that the will he made can't be acted on.... There is something called a 'living will' which goes into unnecessary life support and so on. I'm going to get one I think.

Or get repatriation insurance if your country offers free treatment. Difficult (impossible?) after age 70.

Happened to me. I was misinformed (take the money and run) and shortly before my 70th birthday I was informed that yearly premiums were going up 50%. So I spent the money I'd saved on something else. I am now approaching 75, meaning another increase would be on the horizon, which I could not possibly pay for.

Or get repatriation insurance if your country offers free treatment. Difficult (impossible?) after age 70.