Shrek

Her Diary VS His Diary

HER DIARY

Sunday night - I thought he was acting weird. We had made plans to meet at a bar to have a drink. I was shopping with my friends all day long, so I thought he was upset at the fact that I was a bit late, but he made no comment.

Conversation wasn't flowing so I suggested that we go somewhere quiet so we could talk, he agreed but he kept quiet and absent.

I asked him what was wrong - he said, "Nothing."

I asked him if it was my fault that he was upset. He said it had nothing to do with me and not to worry.

On the way home I told him that I loved him, he simply smiled and kept driving.

I can't explain his behavior; I don't know why he didn't say, "I love you, too."

When we got home I felt as if I had lost him, as if he wanted nothing to do with me anymore.

He just sat there and watched TV; he seemed distant and absent.

Finally I decided to go to bed. About 10 minutes later he came to bed and to my surprise he responded to my caress and we made love, but I still felt that he was distracted and his thoughts were somewhere else.

I decided that I could not take it anymore, so I decided to confront him with the situation but he had fallen asleep.

I started crying and cried until I too fell asleep.

I don't know what to do. I'm almost sure that his thoughts are with someone else.

My life is a disaster.

HIS DIARY

Today Chelsea lost, but at least I got a shag.

I didnt know for certain there was no limit either by the banks or thai regulations but of course i suspected

old lady is in milton keynes we are in yorkshire sister still in isan

maybe old lady has enough on her plate just being in milton keynes ?

to be honest i have kept out of this one all along....keep telling sister sorry not my problem nothing i can do (which is true) I half know what would happen if i showed any interest...wife bless her "my sister is very poor if lady not pay back now maybe we lend her money for food until old lady pay" and off we go !!!

The buffalo died ?

Heck !!! thats spooky !! How did you know about the sick buffalo. I bet you know about the broken motorcycle, poorly sister, struggling crops, foreclosing bank, and the prime piece of building land that is for sale JUST TO ME at a knock-down price of only ten times what any thai bloke would pay for it.

You must be psychic

Uncanny how all the bad luck in Thailand hits my family !

Will be back in October courtesy of two free tickets and two discounted tickets from those nice people at Etihad.

I didnt know for certain there was no limit either by the banks or thai regulations but of course i suspected

old lady is in milton keynes we are in yorkshire sister still in isan

maybe old lady has enough on her plate just being in milton keynes ?

to be honest i have kept out of this one all along....keep telling sister sorry not my problem nothing i can do (which is true) I half know what would happen if i showed any interest...wife bless her "my sister is very poor if lady not pay back now maybe we lend her money for food until old lady pay" and off we go !!!

An elderly thai woman owes my wife's sister several thousand pounds.

Old lady is in england sister in thailand.

Old lady recently became a widow and whilst she admits she has plenty of money to repay the debt she is claiming she cant send it all to LOS. Claims some sort of restriction.

Certainly her views on the world are heavily influenced by the OP's views

YOU MUST BE JOKING !!!

Honestly you could not be more wrong there as I suspect all farang who are married to Isan women will testify to

I cant teach her anything about philosophy nor would I want to

Its me that learns something every day from her

You are right though...the title was careless...I should have entitled it "An insight into an uneducated Sakhon Nakhon girls mind who was in the rice fields at 12 years old but still understands more than me".........................I just didnt know I'd get dragged into political correctness.

Now then.....let me explain her version of the offside rule........maybe another day !!

Certainly her views on the world are heavily influenced by the OP's views

To Steve margarino, can't be bothered to spell it right,

I guess your not Angkrit,

This is light hearted humour that shrek posted,

I had a good laugh, cos I see the funny side, lighten up.

100 % bang on

thanks

may follow with Chairman Kungs views on communism, yorkshire pudding, germans, americans, people from bangkok, people from phuket, farang who bad-mouth bar girls, mushy peas, girls from Korat who come over all Hi-So now they have a semi in Huddersfield, and so on.

Some touchy beggars on here aren't there

This was a light hearted account of wifes simplistic view of wrold politics !

Buy a stress toy please

I'm not interested in the rights and wrongs of fighting the taliban

Nor am I interested in the north-south divide in thailand

I just think my wife is disturbingly funny

My Isan wife and I have been together three years now in England.

This is a conversation we had last night which made me realise how little we westerners really understand.

Love her to bits. 'K' is Kung my wife. 'G' is Graham...me.

Tabloid tv doesnt do much for me, in fact very little on tv holds my attention for very long. Last night Kung and I were flicking thru the channels and I selected Ross kemp in Afghanistan.

I explained the program to Kung and how the previous week had been dramatic as it had shown them trying to save the life of a young soldier who had been shot just seconds before. Sadly he died.

I'll try and capture her thoughts on the program....well on the Iraq/Afghanistan/England/USA issue in general. Great insight into how the Thai/Buddhist mind works in such a different way to ours. Have tried to recapture her pigeon English as its relevant.

K "Why they go there"

G "Who's that Kung"

K "You army"

G "Mainly cos we're so scared of falling out with America"

K "Oh.....Stupid"

G "Why is it stupid Kung"

K "They fight cos you're there. Always same...Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq. They do same with Thai people. Always want fight. Best thing just go away"

G "But they will all kill each other then"

Kung pauses...

K "Good. No more fighting. Jus one big fight then finish. All dead."

(Kung thinks for a minute) (Eyes are all wide and alive now and the fingers wagging in a 'you westerners dont understand jacksh1t sort of way')

K "Not fight very long. They fight cos you are interest. After bit they look round and say to each other "Hey, farang not interest any more, maybe fed up stop fight now" ".

G "Maybe"

K "No maybe. They like bad child....when you interested them they are bad....when you leave alone they shut up"

G "You understand everything Kung"

K "Farang know everything understand nothing. These bad people leave alone. Never kill all of them they hide down hole."

K "Elizabeth let them come here. Give house. Give car. Give money. They kill your children on TV. Good old Elizabeth. Its easy to understand. Why Farang so stupid." (claps ironically).

K "Put Simon Cowell on please"

I've always found Etihad to be very good. There's certainly worse out there.

Too right.

In flight I had few if any complaints.

The essence of this is that if you miss a connection in AD you are stuffed.

DONT expect to be taken care of, kept informed, put in a hotel, or even spoken to in a polite fashion.

There is a GULF (no pun intended) between their in flight service and their back up.

If all's going swimmingly you are ok. If anything goes wrong take a deep breath.

So it wasnt a Horrendous FLIGHT with etihad, it was the delay at Abd, why dont you make yourself more clear, help others understand your posts?

To me the flight comprises all points of contact with Etihad staff, and contact in BKK, AD and London was at best non-existent at worst downright deceiptful.

I have always gone along with the fact that delays will happen...its how how you handle the customers who are put out, and in this case Etihad were simply disgraceful.

OP "The flight out of BKK was 3 hours late so everyone missed their connection in Abu Dhabi....so check in took me 4 hours and I was 7th in the queue. This was followed by a 8 hour wait in the lounge at AD (were promised a hotel in AD bu BKK staff but when we got to AD they refused one).

We eventually got rerouted to Heathrow and then to Manchester 13 hours late.

Etihad staff were non existent at each airport on the way. Their paperwork was not done so staff at the next airport knew nothing of the problem, causing more delays.

Baggage was lost for 24 hours and then cases damaged.

Bottom line is you can get to AD but you cant get any further...there were only 6 departures scheduled all night, 3 of them cancelled, and none were to western europe.

I have to say also that I find the upper class / businessman person type in UAE the most arrogant and ignorant in the world. 2 years ago they asked my thai wife to leave a restaurant at AD airport as she was female and this time they excelled, from insisting on smoking cigars the size of cucumbers whilst my kids were eating breakfast to ignoring all queues and walking straight to the front. Annoyingly the airport staff and etihad staff just let them.

Do youselves a favour go from either london, franfurt, amsterdam etc to bangkok where regardless of flight delays you can easilly get home; and where the locals at least have a granule of liking and respect for non-arabic visitors."

See....not a mention of inflight problems.

The post was explicit....if you had bothered to read it.

Blood and Sand

Got home last night to a letter from "James Hogan, Chief Executive Officer"; mailed from Abu Dhabi.

" The matter is being investigated by this office on behalf of His Highness Dr Sheik doodah thingy"

Looks like I've kicked someones chair leg.

Update: Poor Etihad flight....what compensation to expect ???

Ok first dunno how the topic link thingy above works so fingers crossed.

I posted in late November about a "horrendous journey" back from BKK to Manchester, and subsequently about Etihads initial poor (non-?) reaction to the complaint, ("Poor flight...how much compensation") and then their offer of two 'free' adult tickets, but only as far as Abu Dhabi, which was useless to me .

Well thought I had best do the gentlemanly thing, having slated Etihad. After about ten exchanges to their customer relations team in AD, including copying many to the Dr Sheik whatever (dont suppose for a minute any copies got within 50 miles of him)....they made a new offer this morning of two free tickets return to BKK !!!

Complete shock...their service had been SO poor yet outside of the EEC airlines seem totally unaccountable.

So, credit where its due Etihad, well done for making an attempt to do the right thing.

Is this faith in human nature restored or the value of not giving up if you know you are in the right ?

This is a classic TiT (This is Thailand) - they do not have one avail in our BKK office - i will get it sent up tomorrow from Singapore as they have gone home now and the others are at the bird flu conference here in BKK

Thanks

I have sent a message with my email address

My wife and two small children are from rural North East Isan and have been in England with me 3 years now.

The children are aged 8 and 6.

I recently needed to update their medical records at the doctors, and had to admit to not knowing what vaccinations they had had whilst in Thailand.

I have discussed this with my wife, and, whilst she says they have never missed any jabs, she hasnt a clue what they have had. The languauge barrier on things like disease names does not help neither !

I have looked on the World Health Organisatiion website and they seem to say that their statistics (for 1995) showed that 98% of Thai babies aged one or younger had the following jabs: -

• Measles
  
• Diptheria, Tetanus and Pertussis (DTP3)
  
• Hepatitis B
  

Does this sound like a safe assumption for two 'normal' kids from this rural area ?

Cheers.

Sorry, I'm crap at providing links (somebody wake up Vinny), but on the Border & Immigration Agency Home page there is a link to an announcement on 14th Jan of a 10-point plan for border control, and one of the points is:-

"within 330 days to begin issuing compulsory ID cards for those foreign nationals who want to stay;"

The operative word must be "begin". Looks very much like a long-term project to me.

The labour chappy I heard said it was a definite.....the liberals are fighting it as they say it is a 'test' for IDs for everyone

How the hel_l will they police it they havent a clue who's here...I have heard of 2 or 3 just locally who have no visa.

Is a liberal just a tory that hasnt been mugged yet ?

GG bars in most cities.

Successful? if you ask the Thais , they'll probably say yes, and then you know the correct answer is no

hi bergen, you are mind telling me and the others, where are the GoGo-Bars in Surin, Sisaket, Ubon Buriram, Roi- Et and, and and

A list of a-go-go bars in Isaan struck me as an interesting piece of exotica (though perhaps not erotica!). You’ll know what I mean if you have visited one. I'm no expert but know of the following:

Ubon – PP bar. Just off Chayongkul Road Rating: Perhaps the best of a poor bunch but watch for over-charging.

Udon – Wolverine, Soi Aduladej. Rating: Dire – how long can it survive?

Surin – Hard Rock Café, Soi Kola – rating okay but pay by the hour for conversation

Khon Kaen - Nate Night A-Go-Go, Nate Nate Plaza – believed closed; last visited years ago when dire.

Buriram – None

Roi Et: None

Sisaket: None

Can anybody add to the list?

The water has been muddied a little by the appearance of coyote dancers in few bars, such as the ill-fated Scorpion bar in Udon. However, these are not really the same genre.

The Thai a-go-go ‘model’ is different than the Western one. There are usually just a small number of girls dancing at any one time, often just one. If you want to observe this kind of set up without traveling to Isaan visit the strip of bars on Intramura near Saphan Kwai in Bangkok.

MJ Majestic hotel in, of all places, Sakhon Nakhon, has opened quite a decent go-go bar called RAB.

Can hardly call that a farang bar as there are scarcely any farang in town, not that you wont be the centre of attention for 2 or 3 bikini-clad stunners when you sit down !

I hear that all foreign nationals in ERngland will be required to carry ID cards by the end of 2008

is this just for new entrants or are they going to try and backdate it to include ALL FN ?

Mrs is here on her ILR visa.

Is Bungy jump safe here? Where can I can go ?

Down.

Then up.

Has its ups and downs.

Never ever understood WHY people bunjee ?

Just dont get it.

Hi Shrek,

What nobody here pays attention to, is the fact that you had 4 separate flights i.e. Manchester/AUH, AUH/BKK, BKK/AUH and AUH/Manchester (see flight numbers)

According European regulations you are entitled to compensation on the Manchester/AUH/Manchester legs ONLY.

Please read my former topic of passenger's rights here : http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/lofiversion/...hp/t142001.html

Hope to have helped.

cheers

onzestan

Thanks all who have tried to help.

Interesting last point. We were 5 or 6 hours late leaving BKK but caught up loads and only missed the AD to MAN flight by 15 mins. Problem is there are so few flights out of AD in the night...next to MAN was 24 hrs with no hotel so they put us on AD to heathrow 9 hours later, which got us into london at 4pm friday....pandemonium. they had told us we were booked on a BA flight from london to MAN 2 hrs later but after arriving at london the etihad staff just disappeared we had to take care of ourselves. About 2 hours later, after the BA flight had gone the paperwork from etihad suddenly turned up and we were put on BA flights spread over about 3 or 4 hours, as all the BA flights were booked solid. eventually arrived MAN 13 hours late and no baggage.

I think the sensible route is after 2 months of zilch Etihad are at least talking...reasoned negotiation seems the best option, I have written back and said that 2 tickets to AD are of no use to me, and I would only use them to get to BKK. I would have to pay tax and surcharge from man to ad for 2 adults, 2 kids tickets man to AD, 2 adults and 2 kids tickets AD to BKK total cost £2610....I can buy 2 adults plus 2 kids MAN to BKK with SAS for £2500. (all august hence all pricey) so its more expensive to use their 'free' tickets !

I have asked for 2 adults plus 2 kids free all the way to BKK. Nothing to lose as I wont use the free tickets anyhow, unless I can sell on ebay.

Affected about 30-odd people dunno if the rest have complained. Only we had kids so we were most upset.

One guy in BKK was going to heathrow and despite the delay could make his connection in AD yet when he checked in they put him on a later flight out of AD meaning 9 hour delay in AD and told him his booked seat on the AD to HTR leg had been given to someone else in front of him in the check in queue ! How crap is that ? I assume thats BKK check in staff I dont think they work for etihad. Have to say that everything in AD airport was terrible but BKK was not much better...nothing like leaving it to 10 young thai girls to organise the escape plan out of a crisis and 300 angry customers eh ?

Sorry to reply to myself just thought...we were ONLY about 1-2 hours late when we landed at AD. The bulk of the delay came waiting in AD and HTRW does that affect the legal position ? Eventually 13 hours late at MAN.

Hi Shrek,

What nobody here pays attention to, is the fact that you had 4 separate flights i.e. Manchester/AUH, AUH/BKK, BKK/AUH and AUH/Manchester (see flight numbers)

According European regulations you are entitled to compensation on the Manchester/AUH/Manchester legs ONLY.

Please read my former topic of passenger's rights here : http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/lofiversion/...hp/t142001.html

Hope to have helped.

cheers

onzestan

Thanks all who have tried to help.

Interesting last point. We were 5 or 6 hours late leaving BKK but caught up loads and only missed the AD to MAN flight by 15 mins. Problem is there are so few flights out of AD in the night...next to MAN was 24 hrs with no hotel so they put us on AD to heathrow 9 hours later, which got us into london at 4pm friday....pandemonium. they had told us we were booked on a BA flight from london to MAN 2 hrs later but after arriving at london the etihad staff just disappeared we had to take care of ourselves. About 2 hours later, after the BA flight had gone the paperwork from etihad suddenly turned up and we were put on BA flights spread over about 3 or 4 hours, as all the BA flights were booked solid. eventually arrived MAN 13 hours late and no baggage.

I think the sensible route is after 2 months of zilch Etihad are at least talking...reasoned negotiation seems the best option, I have written back and said that 2 tickets to AD are of no use to me, and I would only use them to get to BKK. I would have to pay tax and surcharge from man to ad for 2 adults, 2 kids tickets man to AD, 2 adults and 2 kids tickets AD to BKK total cost £2610....I can buy 2 adults plus 2 kids MAN to BKK with SAS for £2500. (all august hence all pricey) so its more expensive to use their 'free' tickets !

I have asked for 2 adults plus 2 kids free all the way to BKK. Nothing to lose as I wont use the free tickets anyhow, unless I can sell on ebay.

Affected about 30-odd people dunno if the rest have complained. Only we had kids so we were most upset.

One guy in BKK was going to heathrow and despite the delay could make his connection in AD yet when he checked in they put him on a later flight out of AD meaning 9 hour delay in AD and told him his booked seat on the AD to HTR leg had been given to someone else in front of him in the check in queue ! How crap is that ? I assume thats BKK check in staff I dont think they work for etihad. Have to say that everything in AD airport was terrible but BKK was not much better...nothing like leaving it to 10 young thai girls to organise the escape plan out of a crisis and 300 angry customers eh ?

Accept the tickets, best you can prob do at any rate.

But the tickets have no value. They are only UK to Dubai not Bangkok and not 4 tickets as per the disrupted schedule, only 2. I mean, he'd have to buy 2 tickets from UK to Bangkok plus 2 more tickets from Dubai to Bangkok. After he does that, his cost will likely be the same as buying 4 tickets from the UK to Bangkok. Thus no value.

I agree that perhaps only 1% to 5% of us can actually get a better deal but just because the other 95% are inept and will back down at he first clash with authority does not mean that the OP has to. As the offer is worthless, or nearly so, it is nothing to lose if rejected in the hope of a better result further down the line.

How many would advise accepting if they offered a bag of smarties instead ? Or a teddy bear ? Or a travel guide book ? because you think it is all that can be achieved. They screwed up big style and thus they should compensate adequately.

You are quite correct. As surprised as I was with the apology and offer my wife and I need two weeks in Abu Dhabi like I need another hole in my bottom. And what do I do with the 2 small kids while wifey and I go swanning round the many tourist attractions to be found there. I would only use the ''free' tickets (I have to pay surcharges and tax) as part of a trip to BKK.

I have checked on Etihads site and they are quoting £280 each (£1392 for 2 adults and 2 kids) return from AD to bangkok so there is a saving but not a lot....I checked for August 2008. So I would have to buy 4 tickets AD to BKK cost £1392 plus 2 kids tickets MAN to AD cost £800 total £2200. If I buy 4 tickets MAN to BKK with, say, swissair cosy is approx £2600 so saving is approx £400 BUT I have to endure AD again !

On reflection I dontthink it is a great offer...not much value to me, and no cost to Etihad...they will just use it to fill two seats that would have been busy anyhow.

Have you tried the Air Transport Users Council?

http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=306

I used them when I was supposed to be flying back from Cyprus August 2006 when Heathrow shut down because of the liquids problem - BA said nothing to do with them but no other flight for 9 days and no accommodation - so had to fly Cyprus air buisness class to get back

Eventually the threat of ATUC/Small claims court + most importantly letter to Chief Exec we got most of the extra money back

yes thanks have written to them awaiting a response

Ummm how unusual from an airline to do this. I would accept the tickets and thank them. Most airlines wouldn't do this you know.

Agreed, accept the tickets

From this site http://www.airsafe.com/complain/bumping.htm

Delays and Cancellations for European Union Related Flights

Unlike the U.S., the European Union (EU) does provide for compensation for flight delays and cancellations. In most, but not all, cases involving a delay or cancellation of a flight, a passenger is entitled to compensation under European Parliament Regulation (EC) 261/2004 for delayed and cancelled flights. There are three levels of compensation:

• in the event of long delays (two hours or more, depending on the distance of the flight), passengers must in every case be offered free meals and refreshments plus two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
  
• if the time of departure is deferred until the next day, passengers must also be offered hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the place of accommodation;
  
• when the delay is five hours or longer, passengers may opt for reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket together with, when relevant, a return flight to the first point of departure.
  

This regulation applies to all airline flights departing from an EU airport or to any airline licensed in the EU if that flight is departing from an airport outside the EU to a destination at an airport in an EU member state.

Ooh err is the penultimate paragraph legally binding...could i really claim a full refund plus 4 return tickets to bangkok ??? or have i misunderstood it ???

They have actually offered two (not 4) return flights but only as far as abu dhabi which is about as much use as the proverbial chocolate ashtray...hmmm...2 week holiday in abu dhabi...nice.

I posted here back in November about our flight (me, wife and 2 small kids) back from bangkok to manchester thru abu dhai with Etihad.

In a nutshell flight out of BKK delayed so missed connection in AD...hours sat around in BKK...no help no info...promised hotel in AD....no help in AD no hotel 9 more hours on floor in AD...ended up in london then manchester 13 hours late....terrible service airport and etihad staff non-existent throughout...baggage lost for 48 hours...the complaint is pages long.

Well I have been mailing etihad and getting nowhere until this morning when I get a lengthy response they have obviously investigated the matter and offered a couple of free flights.

Question is what would I expect to get if I refuse and press for financial compensation ?

Anyone know approximately ?