Kinnock

Thailand is for Thai people, and we will always be visitors. Have you ever arrived at the airport and been greeted by a non-Thai immigration officer? Compare that to The Islamic Republic of Heathrow.

That's not accurate is it? We could buy an Almera.

I think we all Adapt, Accept and Acclimatise to different extents. Rather than fully integrate, I believe we take some of the positives of Thai culture (not over thinking, acceptance of fate, sense of fun, outward polite behaviour) and add strengths from our own cultures (logic, commitment, sense of fair play). I also hope we resist some of the negative traits here (entitlement, unearned respect, spite).

So sorry to hear that. Must have been a very difficult time. It's currently distressing for my wife when her Mother only recognises her for a few seconds, then she seems to forget everyone again.

So please explain? Or is this just a defensive response due to buyers remorse?

Well they both have the same battery technology and an electric motor, plus similar charging cycles. The scooter is just smaller, and this may mean the ill effects appear sooner that with a car. Also has the scooter has a much shorter range from new, so the issue becomes critical sooner. I was considering a battery electric car before my experience with the scooter, but I'll now be sticking to an ICE for now, or perhaps changing to a plug in hybrid.

Yes .... in our case the older sisters seem to feel they're privileged because they were born earlier, so the younger sister with the 'rich' husband can do the real work, while they make Royal Visits. Once we know if she can go back home, I think paid help may be the solution ..... either to look after her Mothet .... or me 😄

Thank you for the great tips. My wife is determined to care for her at her Mother's home, which unfortunately for me, is 400km from where I live and work. I know I'm being selfish, but her Mother abandoned her daughter when she was 7 years old, so in my mind she's lucky to get such devotion from her youngest daughter. I'll visit when I can to support my wife, but due to my work that may be infrequent.

Good points, thank you. The only medication is Amiodarone for her heart .... no pain killers.

Thank you for the very helpful and wise advice. We've already arranged for the Mother's house to be improved (basically rebuilt) to make living on the ground floor possible, and if she's coming home we'll order a proper hospital bed etc .... but I think I"m just disappointed that my wife seems to have taken on the total responsibility when there's three older siblings doing nothing to help. I guess I was looking for a valid reason to not let my wife take on the tough challenge of being a carer. I think it may be Thai culture that the youngest daughter does all the work .... or maybe just the daughter with a foreign husband.

I don't have an electric car, but I do have experience of an electric scooter that has put me off an EV. While it's convenient, quiet and fun, it's range has reduced significantly over one year of ownership. It has a lithium battery and a smart charger, and at first an overnight charge would give me about 30km range (claimed range was 40km). After 12 months the range has dropped to about 15km. And the battery behaviour has also changed .... it shows full charge for about 14km, then suddenly drops into the red and stops. It may take longer for an electric car to have the same issue, but my experience with other battery devices such as phones and cameras makes me believe that current battery tech has longevity issues.

Anyone had experience of this, as it's well beyond my own knowledge and I'm unsure about what's practical? The Mother-in-law (73) had a stroke, and while she's gradually recovering use of arms and legs, she's still on a ventilator and cannot swallow, so feeding is via a tube. The hospital Doctor says she will recover slowly, and they will try to remove the ventilator when they think she's strong enough to breathe unassisted. But of even greater concern to me is that she looks (in my amateur view anyway) to have serious dementia. She does not recognise her relatives and is not communicating proactively 2 weeks after the stroke. The Doctor and nurses dismiss my concerns about dementia, but even though she can sit up and look at people, there looks (to me) to be no higher level understanding about what's going on around her, and no attempts at communication. After consulting Dr Google it sounds like vascular dementia to me. My wife has plans for moving her back to her Mother's house and caring for her there .... but is this practical? She's on a ventilator, fed through a tube, suffering from probable dementia and incontinent. Back in my home country that would mean professional care in a nursing home ..... my the Missus thinks she can care for her. Surely this will be a huge strain?

You were misinformed. Probably.

I have a 5 year Thai licence and got an IDP from the Land Transport Office (took about 20 minutes). When I hired a car the UK they only wanted to see the IDP.

Is it wrong that my first thoughts were that I want one of those? Alternative to the bike for 7-11 trips during the monsoon season.

Next we need to cancel the Citizenship of a few more people who are still in the UK.

If I'm paying cashless, and it's the scan a printed barcode (Grab, small restaurants) I add the tip to the amount. If it's the on-screen system with amount, as in bigger restaurants, I'll tip in cash. Locals seem to do the same. When I first arrived I used to tip more, as I was thinking in home currency, but now only 20 THB plus loose change. I try to avoid using taxis now, but for motorcycle taxis I tip, and everytime they try to give me the change and look confused, so I guess locals do not tip the 'Win'.

It's freely available on the streets where I live - sold from the back of cars at night. They all have bright flashing lights as advertising, so not hard for the police to spot if they believed it was threat to humanity. Anyone tried it?

The Kicks is all electric drive, which reduces any maintenance issue with the ICE drive system, such as the rubber belt CVT. The Kicks also has an ordinary car battery, so no expensive replacement needed in future. The latest Kicks has had an interior upgrade, so it looks more upmarket inside than the first version. Generally Nissan have a better ride than Toyota or Honda, and the Kicks is reasonably quiet at highway speeds. The one pedal system is great in heavy traffic. But a downside of Nissan is higher depreciation than Toyota, although it's new price is slightly lower cost than the Yaris Cross. I'm looking to replace an X-Trail, and as there's no new X-Trail in Thailand, I'm considering downsizing to a Kicks or a Yaris Cross. Also looking at CR-V, but it looks like a chest freezer, and the Subaru Forester, which is currently a great price.

I thought the Yaris Cross had a CVT gearbox in addition to the electric motor? It may rev less when accelerating, as the electric motor provides assistance, but I thought it still had CVT? If you want all electric drive plus an ICE for charging, the Nissan Kicks is an option.

I've found the Google Maps motorcycle setting to be very unreliable - often trying to take me on to the Expressways. Yes, there are some Expressway entrance roads that also lead to normal (non-toll) roads, but usually the non-toll road will also be shown on a green sign amongst all the blue signage. But it can be a lottery. There's also the blue sign entrances to the elevated Expressways with the huge 'No motorcycle' signs painted on the roadway, but some of them lead to a convenient U-turn, whereas others only go onto the Expressway. I try to remember which is which when driving the car, then avoid the wrong ones when on the bike.

There used to be a ThaiVisa bar just off lower Sukhumvit, and there were regular meet-ups. I went a couple of times, but without the common interest of say, a business meeting or a sports club or hobby gathering, the conversations are awkward. Just because you happen to be strangers in a strange land, doesn't mean you're friends.

Perhaps a translation error. Maybe the witness said they were Brigadoonians?

But marathons are a race 😀 There's been several big running events in Chonburi that specifically mentioned the top international runners taking part (won by a Kenyan I think). And this weekend in Bangsaen is an international Iron Man competition. So I guess it depends on the aims of the sponsor rather than any racism.

The discussion was about Asus rather than Acer. At work we have large numbers of auditors travelling with their laptops daily, and both Lenovo and Dell had a very poor reliability record, whereas in our experience Asus was the most reliable. We never tried the cheap Chinese OEM laptops mentooned in the OP as their spec would not meet the IT departments requirements.