simon43

On 5/6/2024 at 2:20 PM, Martin71 said:

Tibetan Screaming Toad.. 100%

I don't agree 🙂. Surely he would have woken up when the toad started its blood-curdling screams?

No, it must have been a silent predator or parasite.....

My bet is on an oversexed Mute Swan.

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The chances of the vaccine causing severe injury, health issues or even death is highly unlikely but still possible.

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... which is exactly the same situation for any vaccine, such as Polio, Measles etc etc, and exactly the same for most medications, even common ones such as Aspirin.  The unfortunate fact is that some people have adverse reactions to some medicines, sometimes very serious negative reactions that can cause death - it's a fact of life and not unique to the AZ Covid vaccine.

The air in Ao Nang is very humid (the clouds coming in from the sea can't get over the mountain behind Krabi Town, so drop their rain!).  Hot and humid and salty air is good for my health.

Anyway, it's something for me to consider before the next burning season.

2 minutes ago, marin said:

Ao Nang did not impress me at all. Just a Thai beach town full of travellers and cheap restaurants that are basically all alike. Hard to find a simple Thai restaurant.  If it was Krabi town a solid yes, but Ao nang is run down and simply dirty.

I would not move to Ao Nang for the tourist sights, with the exception of the beach and sea (I recall vicious dogs on the beach when I lived there before, but there are ways to calm these dogs). This would be my quiet retirement location.  I have to be realistic about my life expectancy with this annoying lung condition (I have had bronchitus etc for the past 2 months here in Laos because of the burning season). I enjoy my ham radio hobby (which I can do from Ao Nang because I hold a Thai ham licence for 22 years).  I enjoy walking for exercise, I enjoy nature and simple things 🙂

2 minutes ago, BritManToo said:

Your past posts lead me to believe you won't be happy wherever you are.

I'm very happy where I am right now 🙂. But I have to be realistic and consider the "what ifs" as I get older. You live with your family.  I live alone.  I'm happy living alone.  If I move to Ao Nang, then I will continue to live alone - my ex doesn't like living in Ao Nang because the air is too humid for her delicate skin. But she still considers me to be her husband and refers to me as that when talking with others.  If my health went south, she would be there in an instant to look after me.

@KhunLA - there are high tourist numbers here in Luang Prabang.  Her house is near the primary school, some 2km back from the town.  It's definitely not a tourist location.  I typically walk 5km every day (to keep my lungs clear), so no issues about being away from the tourist centre.

@Celsius, if I have a cancer scare then I will call upon my private medical insurance again.  I have reinsured with a new company since my cancer scare last year.  That new insurer specifically stated that prostate cancer (or any cancer) is covered in my policy because my UK trip and tests revealed no sign of any prostate cancer.

So this is my situation:

I have been living in Thailand, Myanmar and Laos (my current home) for about 22 years.  Next June I will start to receive my UK state pension of about $1,000 (equivalent), and although I am still teaching science online (getting about $1,500-$2,000) income each month, I want to consider if I can have a modest and healthy life living in Thailand using only my state pension.

This is because who knows what might happen health-wise etc which might mean that I can no longer teach online... I need to think long-term.... Would young kids really want to learn from an 80-year old teacher?

Now why am I thinking of Ao Nang?  Surely I can live more cheaply in north Laos?  Well, yes and no. Although I currently rent a lovely old house on the outskirts of Luang Nang, the rent is $400/month, the air pollution is not good in the burning season (I have a long-term chronic lung 'condition'), and I have no relatives here to call upon in times of dire need.  I could rent a house for perhaps $300, but the savings are not huge.

My Thai ex #3 owns a modern, 2 bedroom house about 2km back from the Ao Nang beachfront. I persuaded her to buy this newly-built house (on a mortgage) many years ago as an investment, or in case her small hotel business in Phuket fails.  Well, what with Covid and the general economic situation in Phuket, he hotel just ticks over and she is often unable to rent her house in Ao Nang, even for the monthly rent of 5,000 baht. She has had many problems paying the low monthly mortgage fee, but the house is not under any sort of repossession order (yet).

(I'm thinking aloud here!).  I can rent her house for 5,000/month, (because she wants someone to live in the house to look after it, and to keep the bank happy with regular mortgage payments - she's not looking to make any profit).  The burning season doesn't affect Krabi as bad as North Laos (We used to run a guesthouse together in Ao Nang about 16 years ago). The sea-air will be good for my lungs.  Medical amenities are nearby (I don't need any regular medical facilities, but who knows as a get older).

For my retirement visa, I would need to use.. er .. available means! But I've done that before a few years ago and never had any problems.

So what would be the disadvantage of living in Ao Nang in my ex #3's house?  I should emphasize that I've known this ex for more than 20 years, and although we were not suitable in a marriage (she doesn't do sex!!), we get on very well as very good friends. She is intelligent and honest, with zero interest in any kind of relationship, with either a Thai or foreigner.

Comments appreciated!

1 hour ago, Mike Lister said:

You will need consider the type of pump you will need, based on the depth of the well. A standard centrifugal pump has a maximum lift of 10 meters and nothing you do can change that, despite what the sales guys tell you, it's down to physics at that pint. 

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Pint or point? 🙂  As Mike says, a standard centrifugal pump can only 'suck' up to a maximum of 10.34 meters depth, regardless of how powerful the pump is. (Actually it has nothing to do with sucking, more to do with atmospheric pressure..)

Workman dug a well at one of my little hotels on Phuket Island about 12 years ago, lined with concrete rings.  The overall depth of the well was 12 metres and the building supervisor couldn't understand why the brand new well pump could not 'suck' up the water from the bottom of the well.

Solution?  Tie a strong rope around the well pump and suspend it a few metres down the well! Looked messy but it worked.....

I signed up with Now Health International a few years ago, but terminated my policy 1 year later because I was not satisified with their customer service.  My emails to their offices went unanswered or were replied to with erronous information.  

^^ The answers to your questions are easily found on the internet and support my position that the AZ vaccine (and others) substantially reduced the death rate from Covid. People can and did question the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, and the published data indicates that very few (statistically) had serious vaccine side-effects or death.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with asking questions - that's one way how published data is peer-reviewed.  But when presented with independent and peer-reviewed statistical data that demonstrates the good safety record of the vaccine, only the most stubborn or most stupid would continue to ask the same questions again and again.

Social media is full of conspiracy theories about vaccine safety, men never landed on the moon, mobile phone masts are dangerous, trump is not mentally deranged etc etc.  These pages often have large numbers of followers (= $$$ for the originator of the theory).  Many of these followers either accept the conspiracy theory at face value, or do not have the mental intellect to consider the scientific facts to support/dismiss the claim, or they exaggerate the statistical data far in excess of what the scientific data states.

Yes, some few people (statistically) have side-effects from vaccinations, and even fewer people die from the side-effects.  That is a fact of life.  But statistically, the numbers are so minute, and the proven benefit of these vaccinations so great, that it makes no sense (to me) for someone to actively refuse such a vaccination.

Now if you believe that the pushing of Covid vax is some kind of Big Pharma, Bill Gates, Illuminati etc plan, then of course you are free to believe that 🙂

3 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

You seem to have missed the bit, the very important bit, that being vaccinated doesn't stop transmission. Not for these vaccines that is. 

I am fully aware that vaccination doesn't stop virus transmission.  But I am aware that those who have been vaccinated against Covid and who become infected with the virus are much more likely to have only mild symptoms, compared to the unvaccinated.  

As to your other post, no vaccine is 100% safe, and often the lower risk path has to be followed, compared to the higher risk path.  Personally, I am very happy (as an older person with a chronic lung illness) that I had an AZ vaccination and booster, and then Moderna and Pfizer boosters in the following years.  I recognise the importance of ALL vaccinations as a means of reducing infection/morbidity etc, and I accept the very small risk that goes with having ANY vaccination.

13 minutes ago, dinsdale said:

I guess you could also look at very healthy people who have died or been injured by the jab and getting the jab wasn't their choice.

How many people have died or been inured as a direct result of the vaccination? If someone is vaccinated and then dies (either from Covid or from some other cause), did they die as a direct result of receiving that vaccination?  I asked my friend Dr Google about this data for the UK, but it was difficult to find any 'hard facts'.  All I found was a medical report that stated that 334 people had made claims for death of a relative as a direct result of receiving a Covid vaccination.

That report also states:

According to data from the Office for National Statistics, 52 people in England and Wales have died from the Covid-19 vaccine, whereas around 160,000 have died from Covid-19 between March 2020 and December 2022.

So my maths says that 52 out of 160,000 = 0.0325%,  A very small %, but obviously bad news if you are one of the very few affected by this vaccination.

Report: https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-politics-2023-3-uk-has-received-334-damage-claims-for-covid-jab-deaths/

4 hours ago, HK MacPhooey said:

I tell all my friends visiting Thailand to ensure they have no cannabis on them when leaving the country, especially if travelling on to Malaysia or Singapore where the sniffer dogs at customs will sniff out even a few grains on clothing or or in a bag.

I got pulled up at Istanbul Airport a few years ago when my laptop and back-pack sent the cocaine detector off the scale!  When I told the customs officer that I lived in Burma, he laughed and said 'Ah, everything from Burma is covered in cocaine, clothes, money, everything....", and he let me into the country with no further investigation 🙂

2 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Video says ladyboy ....... so at least one Thai.

Not necessarily..... 🙂

1 hour ago, Enzian said:

I got my PhD from Berkeley but most of my close professors had come from Harvard, so I say I got a Harvard education in northern California.

Chula is interesting because I'm planning to switch to their hospital after some unhappiness with Bumrungrad.

I'm fairly sure that the academic lecturers at Chula do not 'moonlight' at Chula Hospital 🙂

5 minutes ago, Gottfrid said:

KTH Royal Institute of Technology. Bachelor in Information and Communication Technology and a Master in Technology based Entrepreneurship

How about you? It´s sharing time 😉 

UCL - Master's in Microwaves & Modern Optics (space science)

Chula - Studied for an MA in Thai Studies, but I will be honest and say that I only studied 'for fun' and I was not awarded the actual certificate at the end because it carried a $2,000 fee for that bit of paper!! (You farang - you pay more!!)