simon43

That phone has no internet capability 🙂

^^^ Thanks, but I'm very unlikely to find an iPhone for 1,000 baht! Myanmar mobile networks are identical to Thailand - I've used several of my phones in Myanmar a few weeks ago - I just need to buy a couple of extra phones at a cheap price. My local pawn shop had phones but the owners hadn't yet defaulted on their pawnshop payments, so they were not available for sale yet 🙂

I'm returning to Myanmar next week. In order to obtain reliable internet connection over there, I use 4 mobile phones, each with a data SIM from Ooredoo, ATOM, MPT and Myantel mobile networks, (because the military often switch off mobile networks). I use Speedify software to bind all 4 internet connections together. 1 mobile phone is configured as a wi-fi hotspot, and I tether the other 3 phones using USB cables. I'm 2 phones short! (One broke and t'other is not available). So I need to buy 2 more mobile phones that support USB tethering (most do). The cheapest phones at Tukcom are about 2,800 baht, which I don't consider to be cheap! I don't have time to buy online... (delivery time will be after I've flown to Yangon). Is there a mobile phone shop in Pattaya that sells cheap, used phones? All the shops that I've visited either only sell new phones or sell used iphones at inflated prices 🙂 I'm looking to pay around 1,000 baht per phone, looks not important, so long as it can operate as an internet connection via USB tether. Thanks!

T3a, but the Thai doctor wasn't sure if the lumps that the MRI found were absolutely likely to be cancerous and therefore advised a biopsy. My UK doctor who performed the biopsy said - on first looking at the MRI scans provided by Bumrungrad, that he thought that they were not cancerous, and he was correct.

On behalf of the Peru chapter of the Andes Llama Cooperative, (which includes the pan-American chapter of LGBQABC2+2=5 llamas), I would like to register our total rejection of these claims by some mentally-ill humans that they are llamas. This is nothing less than cultural appropriation... and we demand reparations for the hurty words from these humans that have caused us extreme mental stress.

I had the biopsy because the MRI that was performed at Bumrungrad showed 2 'lumps' still contained within my prostate. The doctor suspected that these were cancerous growths and a biopsy was advised. However, the biopsy found no cancer cells but 2 benign calcium stones, (which are not cancerous, but still do affect my PSA values, BPH, UTIs etc)

I'm in Thailand right now, but going back to Myanmar in a week or so. Therefore, I decided to have a PSA and urine culture test. I post these results to demonstrate that a high PSA number doesn't always mean that you have prostate cancer, although any increasing value or value above the norm needs to be investigated. Here are my PSA numbers tested in the same lab since 2022. October 2022 = 11.234 H ng/mL September 2023 = 11.313 June 2024 = 8.927 February 2025 = 10.702 The October 2022 number prompted me to have a prostate MRI and then a 24-sample biopsy, to identify the cause of this high value. 2 benign prostate stones and a lot of ESBL (resistant to antibiotics) E.Coli bacteria were found, but no cancer cells. Since 2022, the E.Coli UTI has been present throughout, and this, plus my mild BPH, plus the calcium stones, all result in what could be an alarmingly high PSA number. However, you can see that the PSA number does not have an increasing trend, but fluctuates around a value of 11. The UTI doesn't cause me too much discomfort. I have previously discussed on this forum about getting the UTI treated with suitable (expensive) drugs, but unless there is a serious medical reason to do this, I guess I'll 'hang fire' on that 🙂

Thanks Sheryl. My contacts in Burma tell me that oxygen concentrators would be extremely welcome in the small, rural hospitals, but obviously they also need a reliable electricity supply. However, the latter can be provided through a combination of solar panels>solar controller>car/truck battery>12/220v inverter, with a car battery charger also being used to recharge the battery when there is mains electricity. I'm onto this with a design of a cheap and mobile power unit. I'll post in the Myanmar forum if I pursue this idea 🙂

Thank-you for your compassion....

I'm asking this question because I'm a scientist, (and therefore have some understanding of the subject). But I'm not a doctor or medical expert, so I don't have enough knowledge to know the answer. I read that an elderly Burmese woman died on the Thai-Burmese border because the refugee hospital where she was a patient had no more oxygen for her serious lung illness, and this was due to USAid cuts, (that last point is debatable...) I know that oxygen for hospitals is typically supplied in tanks from oxygen factories. I want to understand if Oxygen Concentrators, - the type that can be bought on Lazada for 4,000 baht, would be of any help for hospital patients with lung conditions which require additional oxygen. Can anyone comment from a medical viewpoint? Sheryl? My contacts in Burma tell me that the government hospitals usually are extremely short of equipment anyway, as one can expect from the very difficult situation in the country. But now the oxygen factories can no longer deliver oxygen tanks to these hospitals, and that because of the lack of electricity, they can't even make the oxygen at their factories. So it's a very bad situation. I suspect that an O.C. would not be able to replace oxygen tanks, but I'd like a medical opinion, because it would be easy for me to bring O.Cs into the country during my regular trips there (I can always claim at customs that the unit is for my personal use - I have a lung condition!). Thanks for any information about this.

Absolutely top bloke!!...... er maybe 🙂

Whatever is posted online, stays online! 🙂

^^^ Yes indeed! Right now there is fighting also south-west of Mandalay, as well as west, north and east. So the city is slowly being surrounded.. Because of this, I won't be returning to Mandalay for the moment. I will teaching KG and primary Homeroom at an international school in central Yangon, (the school is newly-opened as a branch of a very-respected school in Bangkok). So I'm just gathering up a few things to take back with me 🙂

I misunderstood the headline. I thought the woman was trying to defecate WHILE the man was trying to rape her, not that she was simply hiding in the bathroom. Some men would pay for such an event (I'm not one of them...)

Relating this story to Thailand, I watched an Al Jazeera report yesterday on YT from the refugee camps around Mae Sot. It seems that USAid was the majority donor to these camps, and now that the aid has been cut, the camps (which house thousands of refugees from Myanmar), only have rice for a few weeks. So things don't sound good for these refugees....

I'm relieved that this moron did not kill or anyone else through his stupid actions. So sorry for the loss of the trees.....

Bob's story is maybe just that - a fictional story. But a similar true event happened to me some years ago, (but the ending of my true story is different). I was living in Phuket, building small hotels (10 rooms) very close to the airport. These businesses did reasonably well, although the going-ons of my wife or ex-wife could make a dent in the smooth flow of the business, if you know what I mean. I had built 3 such small businesses over the years, and for my 4th little hotel I decided not to involve my Thai ex's, but to rent the land long-term (as a foreigner is allowed to do), and then build a small hotel/lodgings on the land. With the help of my Thai families I did just that, and Phuket Airport B & B was opened. It was usually fully booked every night, and I was relatively happy, albeit tired, because between looking after the business I had my volunteer work to do, acting as a Thai translator and volunteer Tourist police officer at the nearby airport. So I decided to employ a Thai manager to look after the hotel. I already had a Thai guy driving the hotel car and doing handyman work, so I promoted him to hotel manager. All went well at first, but then this guy got into drugs, boiling up kratom in the hotel kitchen. Don't tell me that kratom is harmless! This guy would chase hotel customers through the nearby rubber trees with a loaded gun! You can read the TripAdvisor reviews at the time 🙂 One day, after coming back from Macro, I got to my little hotel and found the entrance locked. I shouted out for the Thai manager and he came to the door, his gun stuck into his belt. He curtly explained that the hotel business was now his... Unable to persuade this guy to allow me to enter my own business, I called the local police. I won't name the region, but suffice to say, about 4 police officers from the local area quickly attended. After listening to my complaint and briefly speaking with the druggie, the police told me to vacate the business, because it was now owned by the druggie. Yes, you read that correctly! It turned out that the local police were the best customers of this kratom seller. In desperation, I called upon my senior Thai colleagues in the tourist police to assist. You know, when they needed my help to deal with previous difficult situations, such as mentally-ill tourists, I was always ready to help. But asking them to help me fell on deaf ears. So I went back to the house that I rented just down the road from my hotel and thought out my next move. My thinking was interrupted by panicked phone calls from both of my Thai ex-wives. Now these 2 women hated each other, and for them to both call me about the same matter meant that it was important! You remember that I worked for the tourist police? My work only involved foreign tourists, but having lived for years in north Phuket, I knew who were good Thais and who were bad. But the bad Thai guys were nothing to do with my police work of course. However, apparently the druggie manager at my hotel had contacted these bad Thai guys and told them that I had shopped everything that I knew about them to the main police in Phuket Town. One of my ex's had just been visited by 4 Thai men, all carrying guns and looking for me. My ex denied knowing where I was and so the 4 guys moved onto the next ex wife, who also denied knowing where I was (my druggie hotel manager didn't know the address of my rented house). So now there were 4 armed men looking for me, under the mistaken belief that I had shopped them to the police.... It was clear that my life (or at least kneecaps) were in danger. I arranged to meet one of my ex's who smuggled me into the Phuket Airport car park in the seat well of her car. I was able to catch a flight very rapidly to Bangkok and then onto Cambodia. Over the next few days, the men returned several times to ask my ex's where I was. As to my little hotel, since it was on rented land, and since it clearly was not safe for me to return, I simply stopped paying the land rent. The land rental contract expired and the kratom druggie was kicked off the land by the Thai owner. The hotel never reopened and is now a sorry, abandoned and dilapidated eyesore. I lost about $50,000 in that project, and it convinced me not to do any more business in Thailand. I returned (mostly) to live/teach in Laos and Myanmar. I do return to Thailand from time to time, but never to Phuket. As for the druggie manager, he is currently languishing in a Thai jail on drugs charges 🙂 Oh, no chance of me becoming a broken alcoholic, as Bob wrote in his story. Every 'bad' event in my life makes me mentally stronger. Anyway, alcohol makes me fat!! As for Cambodia, I found it an interesting and friendly place. I used to visit Phnom Penh quite a few times between teaching jobs. People were friendly, the kind of food that I eat (fresh food, salads, fruit etc) was cheap. Accommodation was cheap and clean. What's not to like? Consider this: If you think a place to be the end of the road and scraping the barrel, then that's because YOU are at the end of YOUR road and scraping YOUR barrel 🙂

We all have different experiences. Sheryl knows my history: Mild BPH with elevated but steady PSA (6) for many years. PSA then rose to 14 and an MRI at Bumrungrad indicated 2 'lumps' that the doctor considered highly likely to be PC. I returned to the UK for a biopsy and the skilled prostate doctor looked at the MRI scans from Bunrungrad and said that he wasn't so sure that it was PC. Had a 24-needle biopsy under local anaesthetic, including targeted at the lumps and no PC found - they were benign calcium stones, and my high PSA was exacerbated by UTI/prostatitis etc. The doctor did tell me that most of the prostate biopsies that he performs find no cancer, which is good news for those worried by an elevated PSA. I'm not a doctor (well, I do practice surgery on my sex doll..), but an elevated but steady PSA could be caused by UTIs, calcium stones in your prostate etc, whereas a slowly rising PSA that keeps going up is worthy of urgent investigation. Whatever, but with a raised PSA, I certainly can't see any reason for not having a biopsy (after MRI investigation), UTI checks etc, unless you are at an advanced age where the chances of PC killing you is less than you dying of old age... than

IMHO, Trump is doing a great job at sorting out some of the USA's and the world's problems. He is getting things done because he doesn't give a rat's arse about upsetting others. Good for him! As for his Gaza proposals, it's either a great idea or he is mad. If the latter, then I hope it scares the relevant countries and governments to actually do something to solve the region's problems, rather than just shooting each other.... Hopefully, Trump will soon turn his attention to the UK and threaten to annex the Chagos Islands and to make the UK into a new US state, because God knows that we need help from someone to remove the lying buffoon (that could mean Starmer or King Charles or both - you decide...)

Absolutely top bloke!!

I predict an exponential rise in the illegal use of Starlink internet ...

Their country, they make the rules and they break the rules. As a foreigner, don't break the law - don't have a problem...

The best decision that I ever made was to stop all relationships (girlfriend, marriage) after my third divorce. Although my 1st amicable divorce (UK wife) was due to differences of opinion etc, my divorces from my 2 Thai wives were instigated by me after it became clear that they were simply a drain on my relatively small income, ie - I gave, they took and I got nothing in return! Since my last divorce some 10 years ago, my life in south-east Asia has been much happier and more financially stable. I realised that being a tight-fisted, selfish bastard was just great!! I decide what I want to do in my life and where to to etc, without having the need to consider a partner's wishes. I spend a lot of time (and money) on helping young students in Myanmar, because IMHO - they appreciate my efforts and help far more than any wife ever did, and my financial investment in school books etc etc will result in a far better return than what I ever got from my greedy wives lol!

Clearly he has no hap.... It can't be good if you have no hap. How he came to lose or mislay his hap is not told in this news story. I understand that he was also legless, although harmless and now --- penniless 🙂

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