BuriramRes

At immigration I usually show my Thai drivers licence as proof of where I live. This has always been fine.

How does one get a yellow book?

I have been waiting 8 years up here near Mae Wong for a phone line.

However in December 2011 TOT put in a wireless link and my mate next door went on line.

I followed in January 2012 and it is OK for more than 90% of the time but is still interuppted by power outs and it went down for 5 days in May as a lightning strike took out the receiver head around 6 pm on a Friday night and nobody looked at it over the weekend, only 5 users and 3 of them are farang.

Make sure you keep the receipt of your connection. The wifi connector only has a 1 year warranty. After that it will cost you 4,000baht for a replacement.

You can rubbish the NHS as much as you like until you need it. I wonder how you will cope if you need some serious medical attention in Burriram?

In the UK you are carefully removed from a crashed car by a team of experts and transported by ambulance or helicopter in minutes. In Thailand a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs pull you from the wreck and throw you in the back of an old pick-up.

A friends Thai wife (long term resident and UK citizen) suffered bacterial meningitis a couple of years ago. She spent two weeks in intensive care and several weeks in hospital. Excellent treatment, some of it in a private room, and all free. She reckons she would have died in Thailand.

How do you put a price on that?

I was living for a couple of years in Rye, on the south coast. I went along to the local clinic and because I lived at a house with an odd number in my particular road, I was assigned to this one particular doctor.

I do not go to a doctor very often in AUS but when I do I usually have a list of things to ask the doctor about. I made an appointment & went along to my "assigned" doctor, asked him about the first item on my list & got the wrong answer. I then asked him about the second item & was informed that I had to make a second appointment to ask the second question. I insisted, but it was just like he closed an invisible screen between us.

Two days later I received a letter from the clinic informing me that I had been reassigned to another doctor. That worked out well because the second doctor and I got on really well.

The item that I asked the first so-called doctor was about a small sun cancer that I had on my ankle. He insisted that it was some kind of mold & gave me medicine which was not appropriate. When I returned to AUS I went to a local doctor there, who recognised the spot as a skin cancer & cut the offending tissue out there & then. The oncology report came back confirming the diagnosis. I asked for a copy of the report & wrote to this English doctor with a copy of the said report (but of course I did not get a reply).

I guess the whole thing is, in AUS if you do not like a doctor you simply vote with your feet and go to another one whereas in the UK when you are assigned to a turkey of a doctor you are stuck with that doctor. In the UK the clinics have quotas for the amount they can spend for X-rays and other similar proceedures, so if your clinic is running tight on a particular budget, it does not matter if you need it, you simply do not get it.

The good things about the AUS systems are:

(a) You can choose your own doctors (so the really bad ones simply go out of business)

( You are charged $10 per visit (which stops people going to the doctor simply to be weighed or for a social visit (which used to happen)

© An individual doctor can treat you for free if he judges that you do not have much money (called bulk billing) which means he forgoes the standard fee & simply accepts the standard government fee for that proceedure)

Yes, I am not comparing the great NHS with the Thai system, but simply with the AUS system which is far, far superior.

I did have quite a serious accident here in Satuek - cut my ankle to the bone with a power tool. At the time my wife was away having a massage & we had a young lady (18) looking after the baby we had in the house. I called her and when she saw my foot bleeding all over the place she went yelling to the neighbours. In a matter of minutes we had about 12 people there to help including a guy across the street with his rusty old Utility. They bundled me into that & drove me to the local hospital. I actually had a cracked ankle bone & a flesh wound about 4 inches long. They stitched me up, did a half plaster caste & bandaged me up. It took about 3 weeks to heal over which time I had my bandages replaced each day at the hospital and had the stitches removed eventually. Also had two xrays performed. All in all it cost me about 300B.

Better than going to an NHS hospital and coming out with a disease that you didn't have when you went in. A brother of a friend of mine went into the NHS hospital in Hastings to have a colostomy changed, caught a viral infection there and NEVER came out alive. (How do YOU put a price on that?). The reason that this poor gentleman was so sick is that when he was younger (20) he had bacterial meningitus which was not diagnosed by the NHS and lived many years as an invalid because of that.

One of the local hardware stores in Satuek has an array of coloured toilets. There in a shed out the back - old stock that nobody wanted to buy.

So if you really want one, find a small out of the way hardware store and look through their unsalable items, you will probably find one there.

Have to agree with the OP,it's one of the most depressing forums I've ever seen in my life!

If you believe that, then why do you read it? I liken it to alcohol addiction. If it affects you too much & you have the fortitude to give up, then switch it off for a while. If you cannot do that then you are addicted and need help.

Sometimes I like it (but just skim the comments) some times I get mad at myself for wasting time & switch off.

Before you turn on the pump for the first time, prime the pump. There should be a plug on the top of your pump for this purpose.

Could you explain a little more on what I need to do here. For example, do I losen the plug until water appears then close it ?

Thanks.

Yes, that should do it. If not, screw the plug completely off and fill the pump with water using a jug or something similar, then rescrew the plug securely to form an airtight connection.

When you turn the pump on, just listen to it. You will easily tell if it is sucking air. If so, turn the pump off again & make sure you do not have an air pocket in your input line. A minute or two sucking air fill not ruin your pump but it is not advisable to leave it too long.

If you are using a tank you will find that the pump will prime itself when you loosen the plug & you will have water running out of the plug hole. When this happens, the pump is primed.

Also, if you find the pump is cycling when nobody is using the water it will mean that you have pressure loss in your outward feed (ie probably a water leak or a leaking tap).

I have two pumps, one for town water & the other for rain water which I collect from my roof. (I drink the rain water, my wife still prefers to buy the water that the local monastry sells - god knows where that comes from - probably the local water supply)

Bugger, I am just too old to apply!!!

For town water which has enough pressure to feed to a tank, install a 2,000 ltr tank at ground level with a normal toilet cystern cut off valve to stop the taank overfilling. Connect the pump to the tank as a low-pressure connection. If you have a two-storey house, connect a non-return valve in the outward feed to stop backflow to your pump.

Before you turn on the pump for the first time, prime the pump. There should be a plug on the top of your pump for this purpose.

Also be sure to connect an earth wire from your pump to a spike in the ground.

Anything else is common sense.

The small water tank prevents your pump from pumping dry if your town water is not working. Normally a 2,000 ltr tank will give you a 2-3 day buffer against town water stoppage.

Plenty of eucaliptus poles in Issan!

About time too and 1000 GBP is nowhere near enough.

I think that 1,000 pounds is a real rip-off since it is such a crap service. Also remember that if the person is working then they will have the same charges deducted from their wages. When I was working in the UK (1996-2000) I was being ripped off at the rate of 800 pounds per month for their no choice so called excellent health care.

Traversing other countries (such as Singapore) may also be an issue which should be researched.

OK if you book your cases straight through.

I thought they had enough weopons in South Africa.

You can put it in your Checked luggage but I do not know if the South African customs will allow it. Australia will not.

Partly right, partly wrong... Australia allows a lot of swords AND knives...double sided weapons are definitely a no no, and so are some single edged knives, e.g. trench knives. I have taken a number of Japanese swords back, with NO problem, here's a hint, declare them, even though they are legal, the reason being, you are taken out of the normal immigration line, to your very own personal one, you actually get out quicker.

My normal trick with the AUS customs is, if you have something which is questionable mark the card as something to declare then when you get to customs inspection they will ask you what it is you have to declare. Perhaps declare that you have 2 ltrs of alcohol (which is legal but needs to be declared) then they will OK you & send you on your way without a baggage search. Just take the attitude that "when ignorance is bliss, tis folly to be wise"!! It has always worked for me.

The headline says 2M per day and the sub head says 20M. Nice editing.

Remember it also said 10 bank accounts. Do your arithmatic!

My step-daughter, training to be a teacher, reckons I am eligible for free Health Care IF I legally adopt her. Can this be true? If so I might re-coup the years of College fees so far laid out.

Yes, the spouse, children and parents of a civil servant are covered under the health care scheme for civil servants.

But she has to become a civil servant first.

And be hired by a government school as a civil servant (as opposed to contract hire, or working at a private school).

But wouldn't he have to legally adopt her while she's still a minor? I don't think you can adopt an adult?

Yes, you can adopt as an adult. My step-daughter wanted to use my sirname (because she was pissed off with members of the family).

To do so, I had to give my consent, which I did. It was only a couple of years later that my wife told me that the paper I had signed was for adoption!!!

I forgot to add that she was 28 y/o at the time.

My step-daughter, training to be a teacher, reckons I am eligible for free Health Care IF I legally adopt her. Can this be true? If so I might re-coup the years of College fees so far laid out.

Yes, the spouse, children and parents of a civil servant are covered under the health care scheme for civil servants.

But she has to become a civil servant first.

And be hired by a government school as a civil servant (as opposed to contract hire, or working at a private school).

But wouldn't he have to legally adopt her while she's still a minor? I don't think you can adopt an adult?

Yes, you can adopt as an adult. My step-daughter wanted to use my sirname (because she was pissed off with members of the family).

To do so, I had to give my consent, which I did. It was only a couple of years later that my wife told me that the paper I had signed was for adoption!!!

I used these guys to check my house before i signed contract: http://www.checkcon.com/

The OP mentions "build permits" what, in Thailand. I had an extension built on to my big house, only really a room for myself with my computer etc cost 55000 Baht but no "build permits"

That's right. nly large firms like BigC supermarkets need building permits! That is good some times and bad in others. We have had a large electrical workshop constructed next to us. Just the luck of the draw.

Yeah sounds like a classic case of being connecte dto the internet, and this can cost 1 baht a minute.

As suggested disable, data connection.

or better still, flush the bloody thing down the toilet & buy a phone which is only a phone (as they should be)!!!

any bets on how long it wlll take for a parked bus to mysteriously catch fire overnight

That's why they are on rental!

344% of 1000Bt is not much!!

Somehow, I don't think Big C, Tesco, Tops or any other reputable supermarket would risk trying to sell anything but high quality product. Maybe this rotten rice will show up in bulk sacks at smaller markets and stores.

Then again T.I.T.

I've given up buying ice cream from BigC in Buriram after buying two packs of pre-melted then frozen product recently.

I see they are still selling it.

I think most depresion is caused by worry. Years ago I read a book titled "How to stop worrying & start living" by Dale Carnegie?

In there it said the following:

(1) 95% of the things you worry about never ever happen

(2) if you are worried about some thing, ask yourself "if this comes about, can I live with it?"

(3) if the answer is "Yes" then forget about it.

My philosophy about depression is to train yourself to be strong enough to ignore it. If you go to a phychiatrist they will pump you full of drugs and if one does not work, then they withdraw you from it & try another one.

I had a partner 15 years ago who was a manic depressent. We lived on an island off the coast of Brisbane, QLD and she was under the treatment of a phychiatrist who would not allow me to be part of the team. One Saturday morning she rang up this phycho, they talked for about an hour, then she told me that phycho wanted to talk to me. I talked to him for about 10 mins, then he asked to talk to my partner again.

I told him that she had gone down to the beach (we had a beachfront property) to which he said "it's more important you be with her than talk to me".

I went down to the beach (Morton Bay, still water) but couldn't see her. A neighbour told me she had swum out to some boat moorings 50 mtrs out. The area is subject to severe tidal rips but I swam out (not being a good swimmer) calling out to her.

She finally called back to me, she was holding on to one of these moorings & I grabbed her & pulled her back to the beach.

She told me later that she was going to commit suicide but when I swam out she did not want me to die by drowning also, so she answered my call.

The island ambulance was called & she was taken to the local hospital before being transferred to the mainland by helicopter ambulance.

It's only part of the storey but I am sure that if that phycho had have worked with me, instead of isolating me, she could have been cured.

She never recovered from her depression. The last time I saw her she lived the life of a hermit!! Very sad!!

I have never been that overweight, but when I was in my 50's I went on a modified "Atkins" diet. It was hard to get onto but after about 2 weeks it was no trouble. Could eat as much as youliked, as long as it was the right sort of wood.

Once you get onto it, the weight drops off.

There is a lot of hysterics going on here. Just get back to reality.

Whether your GF is straight or not is something you have to sort out.

We bought a spec built house fully expecting there would be problems in it (which there were), but hey, compared to the prices charged in the so called farang countries, what you get here is a bargain!

If I was you I would take a drive around your neighbourhood & see what is being built. If you see something that looks like it's the thing you want, you and your GF should have a talk with the builder and see if you can make a deal.

None of the windows in our house are particularly square but yes, silicone is a great product to fill any leaks.

About a year ago I got security bars fitted to most of my house. Two guys came out and carefully measured each window. They went away and made the security bars. Another team came to fit them but the second team fitted all the ones that they could fit into the windows, then modified the rest to fit the smaller windows. OK, none of them are a perfect fit but they do the job. If you want a palace, pay the price.

In my opinion you do your best but don't get overly stressed if your Thai builder isn't quite as exact as your builder back home.

Just remember, your builder at home charges a hell of a lot more than here, and he doesn't always live up to expectations either!!

Horses for courses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!