simon43

I agree! When you are self-employed or where you enjoy your employee job, there is little reason to retire 🙂

I thought that I had this sorted. Move to the Philippines so that I get my UK state index-linked pension (due to start payments in 6 weeks from now). But the lack of annual increases won't be a financial problem for me just now, and I've never been to the PI anyway... I was teaching in Mandalay. I came back to Thailand for a couple of weeks to sort out a 'base' condo at Jomtien Beach. 7,000 baht a month for a modern studio condo that's 300 metres from the beach 🙂 During my absence, Mother Nature decided to 'throw' an earthquake in Mandalay! Thousands are dead, many buildings destroyed. So I flew up to Luang Prabang in north Laos, the UNESCO city where I have lived off and on for many years between my teaching contracts in Burma. A beautiful place (NOT NOW!). Big shock on this visit! Gone was the sleepy Lao town by the Mekong river. Now, as a result of the new train from China, the town is bursting with Chinese tourists AND Chinese businesses. The central peninsula area is jammed with white tourist vans. The outskirt hills of the town are being scraped away and huge Chinese hotels being built. The Mekong river will become a non-flowing lake when the next Chinese dam just north of the town is in operation, (The Xayaburi dam south of the town already stops natural river flow). I'm so disappointed with Luang Prabang now.... 'paradise' destroyed by the 'locusts'. What to do? The local international school in Luang Prabang asked me to teach at the school. Then I got an email from Mandalay begging me to return to teach again. What I don't want to do in my retirement is simply do nothing, get fat, drink beer and catch STDs from 'professional' woman. What would you do?

OP, I had various vaccinations as a young child. Now I worry that I will die in this century......

Disgusting behaviour?? - She never complained - She never got glued to her mobile phone - She never asked for $$ for her family/sick buffalo etc - She was quite good at anal or oral - She never had bad times of the month - She never aged Seems pretty good to me!!! (I took her on Lao Airlines domestic flight once and no problems....)

My last partner was an expensive sex doll from China. Does that count? (Unfortunately we are no longer together. I decapitated her some years ago during Covid and disposed of her head in a trash can in Turkey...)

All students learn central Thai at primary school. This was a policy introduced yonks ago to unite the Thai people with one common language. Have you ever wondered why schools in Isaan do not teach Isaan? (of course, it is only a spoken language, no Isaan script as such). I'm not sure if schools in the far south teach Yawri - I think the central government might have allowed that to appease the Muslim majority, but I'm not sure...

When I teach online using Zoom, I can click a button at the start of the lesson to create an AI summary of what I teach. The Zoom AI 'bot' then interprets my spoken words (and that of my student), to create a summary at the end of the lesson of the topic that I taught. It's amazing to see how accurate it is.....

I get a good feeling when local people express surprise that I can speak (passable) Lao and Burmese. They are happy that I've made an effort to learn some of their language. and I'm happy that I can converse with them 🙂

A little story from today, (not about Thai language but about Lao language, but the principle is the same - knowing a language can be useful!). I flew from Bangkok to Luang Prabang today. I spoke Thai with the staff at Don Muang and all was good. When I got to Luang Prabang airport, the male immigration officer was as miserable as ****, speaking curtly to every person who presented their passport. It got to my turn and I handed over my passport. He thumbed through it and then noticed many different Lao annual business visas over the past 15 years. "Do you speak Lao?" he asked me in Lao. "Yes" I replied in Lao, "but I have to practice every day!" His demeanour completely changed. He smiled and asked me if I had a Lao wife (and so on and so on), then asked me about my previous jobs as a teacher in Laos. All was great, his Lao immigration colleagues joked with me in Lao about getting a Lao wife, and I sailed though immigration in seconds 🙂 There is never a problem that you know too many languages.....

You should not need to get under the car to change a wheel! When I've changed wheels in Thailand (in the middle of nowhere with no solid block etc to support the car), I place the spare wheel right next to the failed wheel/tyre, jack it up just enough to remove/replace the wheel, and then pull off the old wheel and push on the new in just a few seconds, in case the jack fails. I'm not under the car, so no risk there, but it would be a big headache to have the jack fail when there's no wheel on the axle to support the car...

Today eggs.... next time ping-pong ball bombs....

Maybe. I used to teach spoken and written Thai to several of my online students in Germany and France. I also taught written Thai as a volunteer teacher at the Burmese school on Koh Phangan a couple of years ago. I will carry the guilt of these criminal offences for the rest of my life 🙂

I had a good time growing up in Leicester in the 60's and 70's. The city was multicultural, in that there were hard-working Hindus and Sikhs with their sari and jewelry shops. Not so many West Indians, but certainly they were there and never any problems. Then came the Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh (when it became independent from West Pakistan).... Everything changed. No-go Muslim areas in the city were the norm. My parents took me out of the government school because teachers were teaching us Urdu! The local council was very good about paying college fees. As long as you successfully passed the course that you were studying, they would pay the tuition fees and living allowance for the next, higher course. I studied 3 years for an HNC, 1 year for an HND, 2 years for a BSc and 1 year for an MSc. All fees fully paid, plus rent allowance and money for food/beer 🙂 Today Leicester is a cesspit. I know, because I've visited my old home town. It's like entering Islamabad.....

[quote] And this this kind of parking is unheard in US because it blocks the "sidewalk" even if partially. [/quote] If you are referring to that red car on the pavement (sorry 'sidewalk'), then it too would be committing an offence in the UK by obstructing the pavement. If you want to park all over the pavement without any comeback, come and live in Thailand!

Nope, not if you state that you have returned to live permanently in the UK. (Whether you lie when making that statement is up to you...)

[quote] Even your reply here suggests a fair amount of unhappiness. [/quote] I have to agree with you. The manner of his replies suggest an angry, impatient and stressed man. Having lots of money won't stop you dying young of a heart attack due to work stress and lack of 'inner peace'.

Coincidentally, there is an interesting article about Autism on the BBC website: Here is the link (if it's allowed): https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250415-the-genetic-mystery-of-why-some-people-develop-autism

[quote] ... This follows increasing pressure after a March 28 earthquake struck Bangkok, ... [/quote] I wasn't aware that an earthquake struck Bangkok. Earth tremors from the earthquake that struck just west of Mandalay (Burma) were felt in Bangkok and other regions in south-east Asia. Bangkok is not on a tectonic plate fault line, and nor is it a 'hotspot' (thin tectonic plate region). Kudos for testing the mobile alert system, but better to use it for tsunami alerts (usually have some time before any large wave hits the coast). Gives the folks in Chiang Mai time to run up the nearest mountain....

I see that one section that you must complete is the date and flight number of your next departure after you have entered Thailand. This has a red asterix >> you MUST complete this information or you can't submit your completed application. So I have a 'retirement' visa and do not need to exit Thailand. I must put a flight number for my next departure from Thailand...... Ho hum, what to enter?

Well, there certainly is 'low-grade DNA' (although that's not a medical term of course). Just look at the result of inbreeding within the Royal families of Europe over the past few hundred years. Intellectually-inadequate (slow-brained). As for the huge levels of inbreeding within Pakistani communities, don't get me started on that one. Thousands of years before doctors even knew about DNA, they knew that it was not a good idea to marry your cousin and have offspring etc. They also knew that the same principle could be applied to other animal and plant species. (This is why Nature created some flowers only to have male or only female parts, so that pollinators were forced to pollinate with pollen from other plants, and not flowers on the same plant). As humans, it seems that we are fine to 'cull' the weak plants and crops, striving through genetic modification to produce healthy and strong crops with 'good DNA', but we don't apply that to the human species. Of course, this is the principle of Eugenics, and discussion of it is tainted by its links to the Nazis. Darwin postulated about the Survival of the Fittest, which is Nature's way of ensuring strong and healthy species. But apparently it doesn't apply for humans because we actively go against that idea. Surely (IMHO) the end-game is decimation of our species. Humans also encourage 'bad DNA' by breeding pets, such as pug dogs, boxer dogs and the like which accentuate bad DNA, with such animals plagued by medical problems solely caused by our desire to breed IN bad DNA, not breed it OUT. I'm looking at all this from a purely scientific viewpoint - there are of course ethical considerations. But none of the above addresses the OP topic - what causes autism? The idea that vaccinations cause autism has been proven (see other posts) to be total <deleted>. Of course, there are some who have adverse (and sometimes very severe) reactions to vaccinations, but the % is miniscule. Whereas the OP rightly points out the growing % of those with autism. I have an open mind about the causes of autism, and it's good to continue this thread discussion Update: Just to put the 'vaccination causes autism' claim to bed, peer-reviewed stats indicate that autism is generally a genetic condition (so 'bad DNA'). The autismspeaks website states: Research tells us that autism tends to run in families, and a meta-analysis of 7 twin studies claim that 60 to 90% of the risk of autism comes from your genome. If you have a child with autism, you are more likely to have another autistic child. Your other family members are also more likely to have a child with ASD. Changes in certain genes or your genome increase the risk that a child will develop autism. If a parent carries one or more of these gene changes, they may get passed to a child (even if the parent does not have autism). For some people, a high risk for ASD can be associated with a genetic disorder, such as Rett syndrome or fragile X syndrome. For the majority of autism, multiple changes in other regions of your DNA increase the risk of autism spectrum disorder. The majority of these DNA changes do not cause autism by themselves but work in conjunction with many other genes and environmental factors to cause autism.

No it couldn't! Most people don't abandon suitcases at airports and most people would have cooperated with the security authorities...

Yep, I go along with this - healthy and strong DNA. Too many people with low-grade DNA are breeding, and so the cycle goes on and on. Just look at our low-intellect royal family in the UK as an example of what happens when those with 'unhealthy' DNA are allowed to breed. I've written this in a non-scientific manner, but I teach genetics at college level, so can 'spice it up' for those not on the spectrum 🙂

I've seen female police officers in Laos do this to stop teens riding away at traffic stops...

As I mentioned in my previous posts, why bother with all the issues (qualifications, commuting, work permit etc) of teaching in a Thai school. Teach online! The need for a work permit is rather a grey area, but I've never heard of any problems concerning this from online teachers in Thailand. I have taught 'online' for the past 7 years and this income is more than adequate for me, and the flexibility of teaching online means that I can (and do) travel up and down the country and south-east Asia at will, teaching from hotel rooms and even my parked car.

Maybe I'm missing the point, but doesn't your Thai bank ATM card have a Visa symbol on it, and can be used with ATMs abroad, in-shop overseas purchases and online? Certainly my Bangkok Bank card works fine in those scenarios.