Runamile

Many thanks, Harry. Not the easiet thing in the world; and heaven knows why I never found it. Nonetheless, very useful.

I've had that pretty nurse experience in Paolo! First farang body she'd seen. Got a bit much when she shouted to her friends from all over to come see that our body hair goes down our backs! Never mind, when they went, it was time to wash the front. Big discovery. If you pour loads of talc, then pat that hairy chest, you create clouds. If you do it again, you get bigger clouds ............................ You get the picture. One messed up room. One nurse collapsed in fits of giggles!

Anyway, that's not why I write. Just to say that I went into Bangkok Christian Hospital a couple of weeks ago; and got absolutely brilliant, immediate (and cheap) service in their ENT Department. One to add to the list. To be honest, I'd scheduled to go to Bumungrad, but found myself down in Silom, with time on my hands, a couple of days earlier: "What the hell, let's give it a try". Pleased I did!

Thanks, Harry. So it looks like single types of item per pack eg only books. I never knew about charging all on basis highest item.

Have you come upon a detailed listing of the tariffs? I've scooted around the Thai Government sites; and can't seem to find one.

Don't worry, guys, I'd only think of posting and uninsured surface at that; and, yep, it's old and battered stuff I'd send. In fact, it's nearly all books, papers and clothes. I'm not a sartorially elegant person! I've discovered that books, in fact, are, anyway, free of duty. Sadly, as best as I understand, there's duty on clothing ... but that clothing?

Anything electronic is going to have to go back to UK with me, then back out to Asia as airline baggage. Pain, but I don't see the alternative.

Good news - looks like I've sorted getting a Thai mail address, company being willing to deal remote, but with scans of my passport, etc flying around, which is fair enough.

Totally agree with iamariva1957.

For OTHERS who might want to self-medicate for a mild diarrohea issue when travelling, might be worth remembering chemical name for Imodium is loperamide. A lot of the world hasn't heard of Imodium. Equally, a lot of the world - eg UK - has, but it's one hell of a lot cheaper to avoid the Imodium brand name, buying generic loperamide for a fraction of the price.

After a point you've got no choice but to go to hospital, as you will need drip-fed solution to rehydrate/feed. Don't leave it long. Similar stuff happened to me (contaminated ice). I dehydrated so much they couldn't get the drip feed to stay in - veins had collapsed. If I'd been Catholic, it would have been last rights. As it was, some ancient nurse appeared from somewhere tutted about the incompetent young nurses, not to mention the doctors who wouldn't intervene, saying it was nurses work. She was out to make a point; and, somehow - about 2 days after my admission - managed to get the drip to stay in. Don't, don't let your veins collapse. Death awaits.

Don't laugh - only time I've ever had trouble in Bangkok was from a young Danish guy. Don't know whether you can generalise much from one situation, but it left me wondering how good they are with alcohol.

Anyway, a lot about the story smells, though not, necessarily, orientation by landmark. Nonetheless, I'm forced to ask, day, after day, what on earth has happened to Thailand? It's come to something when Cambodian people, often, seem way, way more polite and backstreet Phnom Penh safer than Sukhumvit.

Thanks, Wym . I'm getting a general message there .... face to face, face to face, face to face. The very message I was already getting. It's Asia! I guess a bit more annoying is face to face, in London, I can get enhanced luggage allowance of 60Kg. You can solve things awfully quickly at that rate ....... but the UK Chinese e-mail response is worse than Thai e-mail responses. Everything is face to face! Quick question, though - do you know of mailbox providers, other than MBE?

Rumpole, I, too, was rather of the impression that gays are thriving in Indonesia. Don't ask me where, but at least Bali, with its general permissiveness, would appear a very likely candidate. No problems with pork there, either.

I leave China for UK end June/early July. I want my goods to leave China about the same time, but bound for Bangkok. I will come to Bangkok late November. Only then will I have a Bangkok address.

I can't store goods in China (no such facilities outside Shanghai). I can't store goods in Thailand. One Bangkok storage company refuses to deal with me at a distance, as I might be a criminal. The other answered my initial inquiry, but the e-mails soon dried up. MBE are failing to reply my mails about mailboxes and cabinets (the crux of the issue with the first storage company appeared to be lack of a Thai address).

Two obvious issues are that I don't speak, even less write, Thai, but that, generally, whatever the language, Thais tend not to reply e-mails.

We then get to how to get my goods into Thailand. My view, from past experience, is to avoid tangling with shipping at all costs. Generally, I simply post parcels country to country (I'm not trying to get much into Thailand), but I'm told that Thailand is still in that horrible past where packages are delved into by customs and random charges made, irrespective of the goods being obviously old books, clothes, etc or with the endorsement "unsolicited gift".

Any bright ideas, anyone, about any part of this unhole mess?!

Bit contrary to the run of this thread, but I have to say that I've stayed in Muslim parts of Indonesia, particularly Java, and loved that I could have wonderful, open friendship relationships with women, without - for obvious reasons - any concern that they were eyeing me as a marital prospect. Sorry that doesn't help with the visas, but Indonesia is a good place to meet agenda-free people. And if it's only about friendship, you don't have to worry about returning to Bangkok sometime to have your chest grafted onto you d**k!

Yeh, do we get our foreskin/fanbelt back after the 25 year stretch?

Thinks we've worked a new, maybe definitive, way of working out the cost of living in different countries. Body parts. So far Indonesia is way out there. It only wants a foreskin - and is welcome to use it as a fan belt, though I'm unsure my dimensions are appropriate. The UK, on the other hand, wants an arm and a leg.

At my age, circumcision is out of the question!

Hell , Wonder6281. You put in a disclaimer! I was going to seek compensation from you if I got hurt in one of these men on men situations. Hell, I'm not quite sure "men on men situations" is quite true to my intended meaning!!

@Blackmirage2013 1. I thought Thais weren't focused on riches in this life, but building karma for the next! 2. Of course, if you're going to follow through on the Thai women ads, you're going to need to follow through on the insurance ads too! I've seen visas and divorces, too. Excellent, fully-packaged service. Only thing missing seems to be that you can't do instalment pre-pay, like funeral plans.

@ Wonder6281 My God. I've got so much cultural learning to do. But I've got it -man on man, intervene. Man on woman, don't intervene. OK, so far, so good, but, in Thailand, I've one rather obvious problem - all those katoeys. What do I do about them? Do I have to ask for physical evidence of the extent of their conversion? If so, what level of surgical intervention do I take as proof of what?

Hell, this would be getting difficult, if I weren't joking. Worthy of thought, though, is how interventionist we'd be if it were a katoey being knocked around. Bit like when someone asked earlier for us to imagine the girl were a farang.

@ cheeryble. count me out on that one! Thailand is a Kleptocracy, with no party or group worthy of support, if you regard putting the country first, as against narrow sectional interest, as the cornerstone of democracy. If, of course, you are likely to gain from their thievery, you may well support them, meaning whichever group or party is the best thief for you and yours. Of course, the point about Thailand is that my mentioning "sectional interest" was being overly polite, overly Western. We are often, perhaps mainly, talking something way, way beyond the Western "pork barrel", in fact, out and out corruption, theft, often for clear and immediate personal financial gain.

If I were Thai, I'd probably do the cowardly thing, that doesn't do much to help the future of democracy, called abstaining, not using my vote. It's, though, also happening widely in the West, where, in many countries, people don't feel that there's a political party that they can, in conscience, vote for. Grim.

@BWPattaya: Frankly, that's quite a regular response - but at least you can feel you did the right thing. That said, even that can be argued against. You might have brought them back together - until the next time! Hugely, difficult - and split-second decisions. We can only do our best from the information available, and given it's out particular brain interpreting it. Perhaps the biggest point is to never, subsequently, beat yourself up!

Suthep's mission will only have been a total success when he and his trouser heaps of Wonga. Again.

Noi657 Hehehe. Love it! Cats and pigeons. Maybe you should make the question two part, though:

1. Where she is just a farang woman.

2. Where she is the Thai guy's girlfriend.

That said, I think we both know the answer in both cases!

LomSak. It's not a question of discounting the possibility, or even probability. It's a question of intervening anyway.

Why is there such a strong taint to this thread that if you don't understand the possible consequences you're an idiot, when, in fact, possible consequences can be fully understood, it's just that the response to that can be very different for different people. We order information differently. Put even more simply, different people are er, umm, different!

One poster mentioned he'd only intervene around his wife and daughter. He may even have very strong feelings for his own self-protection for their benefit. Not great if the family, for instance, had no breadwinner. Equally, I've heard a few interviews in UK with people who intervened, saying "I thought it could be my wife or daughter". Opposite responses from the same information, that they're married, with a daughter.

Different people. No more, no less.

Of course the girlfriend might have been right to warn, but there are a couple of questions:

1. Could she understand that there might be a different way to order information from her own way of doing so?

2. Why might there be any assumption that the poster might have been unaware of the risks? He might, for instance, have been in the country many, many years, be fully aware that Thais are often armed, fully aware of Thai notions of retributive personal justice, and fully aware that Thais hunt in packs. If he's a newbie, strength to the girlfriend. Otherwise, why treat him as a child? As I was followed around yesterday, before the weekend, being watched for turning computers off, throwing mains switches, turning off lights, locking doors, I felt obliged to say "I am a foreigner, not stupid". Sometimes people forget that, particularly in the over-protective relationship and family environment of Thailand.

Again, so true, jero. In fact, I really would expect that to be a Thai reaction. Another poster here explains how Thais went in after him - but I think the whole point was that it was a farang that had been "downed".

What I still just don't see is why people are assuming that you put personal safety as the primary concern in the situations that have been discussed. Clearly, many people don't put personal safety first, or even, necessarily, high in their considerations. And that assumes they've considered at all - adrenaline does strange stuff to the thought processes!

_{Belg and others, you are so, so right about dangers, extreme dangers in some cases, but where people choose to intervene they are either:}

_{1. Not thinking at all, but immediately responding to the situation of another human being or}

_{2. Are thinking perfectly, but elevating other issues higher than their personal safety.}

_{Another personal anecdote, but shows you how reflexive all this stuff is. I saw a little toddler fall in the water. I started running and was ready to dive in. Finally, his drunken father noticed. He hit the water seconds before me. Just as well, really .... I can't swim! Safe on shore, I was able to take the child from father. All worked out fine. Well, I say that but I was reluctant to leave the kid with the father .... but that's another story. Certainly, it was way, way more fine than if drunken father had drowned trying to save child and me, who, also, both drowned! But you respond. Actually, in truth, I'd begun to think just a little bit. Conclusion, it's what I had to do.}