Toknarok

Just count down from five. 5-4-3-2-1. Drop the 2-1 you are left with 543. Try it a couple of times and it will be like riding a bicycle. Remember Buddha was born 543 years before Christ.

Bear in mind that many Thais are terrified of owls, especially if one should land on their roof after dark, they believe they are a harbinger of death. You may well find that your Thai friends and neighbours may be reluctant to visit you if you have an owl flying about. Obviously your wife isn't worried but I doubt my missus would want to pay you a visit.

Come to Thailand when you're crippled? You've got to be joking. As a wheelchair bound person the last place I would choose would be Thailand. No disabled services whatsoever. How would you like to live in a town with plenty of ATM's none of which you can access, likewise shops, banks, pubs, etc. you name it - we can't use it. Cripples don't come to Thailand, when you're incapacitated here you're stuck here,. Think about it.

Isn't it great to be able to get about. The bloke who invented the mobility scooter should get a medal. I too run around on one and it has made a great deal of difference to my life, independent and not having to rely on someone pushing you in the bloody wheelchair.

More Thais, through forced labour, died on the Burma railway than all the Western POWs put together. The same applied to the ones who were forced to construct roads, such as from Mae Teng to Pai etc.

Very simple - prove it. There's no evidence whatsoever anywhere that any Thais were employed either willingly or as forced labour on the Death Railway. None were forced to construct roads anywhere in the country.

Quote from Wiki...In the initial stages of the construction of the railway, Burmese and Thai were employed in their respective countries, but Thai workers, in particular, were likely to abscond from the project and the number of Burmese workers recruited was insufficient.

I realise that a piece from Wiki isn't 'evidence' per se, but I wonder why they would state it as fact.

I'll bet if you asked the average Thai what the vast "Victory' Monument in Bangkok was all about they wouldn't be able to tell you, or they would say it was to celebrate a huge victory, victory over who they probably couldn't say either.

If you should state that it was a series of minor skirmishes in which a grand total of 59 Thais died fighting a colonial force whose mother Country had been overrun and it resulted in the regaining a of a couple of Cambodian provinces ceded to the French some 40 years before they probably wouldn't believe you. Then if you stated that after WWII those same Provinces had to be given back to Cambodia because Thailand lost, they probably would be incredulous.

Victors write the history books and the losers try to hide their shame. It's happening today, I doubt you find a text book with the name Shinawatra in it in a Thai school today.

Pure insanity.

Stop the hysteria.

In 20 years I have never seen or experienced a single soul test positive for marijuana in the kingdom and there should have been plenty.

I include myself. I was tested 3 times under purachai's night life clampdown, and most certainly would have shown positive had the test been intended to detect canibinoids.

It is my belief that even opiods are left out of the quickie test's range of detection, instead it focuses on amphetamine and it's derivative for that simple reason that it is most likely to be present in trace amounts a number of other drugs like cocaine or even locally available ecstasy in which it is used to cheaply bolster the effect of an inferior product.

From a logical standpoint it doesn't make much sense either. Why wouldn't the police use this remarkable loophole to clean the streets of persons of interest who have committed any number of other crimes if a simple test were enough to convict -- just like the US used RICO to get at drug dealers through their money when they could not catch them red handed with drugs?

To each their own, but I wouldn't alter my plans, nor suggest anyone else do so on the basis of the miniscule possibility you may need to pee in a cup. There are far better odds that something else will go wrong, just read the pattaya and phuket papers, where you will notice that there are no stories about people being charged for the results of a blood test.

You are far more likely to have drugs planted on you (and even that is a reach) and no amount of clean living will help you in that instance.

I too have never been urine tested in Thailand for drugs. What type of test the RTP use when urine testing I have no idea, but when I was tested in Aust. they used tests cards similar to these which DO test for cannabis...

http://www.drugtestsuccess.com/drug-tests/5-panel-drug-test-doa-254

Whilst I agree with you that the chances of him being tested are small, the person concerned has indicated he wishes to attend 'full moon' parties. We all know these events attract the attention of the drug police, so it would be very unwise to be tested and have drugs in your system.

irrespective of anything else, the chances of him being tested are so minimal the are practically nil.

secondly, the tests administered are not for cannabis. so he would be unlikely to test positive.

to be so alarmist to say that he should make alternate holiday plans is laughable and not at all rooted in reality.

Are you sure that the tests are not for cannabis? I seem to recall a poster on here testing positive for cannabis after a urine test. When I worked on the mines in W. Aust. we were regularly drug tested (urine sample) and I can assure you that these tests DID show up cannabis users. They came in form of a card that was dropped into the urine sample, tested for opiates, amphetamines and cannabiloids. Cards changed colour if positive.

If you test positive in Thailand no matter where you have consumed the drug you are deemed to be 'in possession' of that drug. If your friend abstains from smoking cannabis for a couple of weeks before he comes to Thailand he should be OK, if he can't I strongly advise him not to come here.

They are worth a bit of money had a friend that sold one for 80,000 baht and the bigger they are higher the price naturally sad thing is they will be killed for some parts of it's body.

Glad to see from this thread that the tokay gecko appears to be thriving in Thailand. Conservationists are worried that the enormous trade in tokays to China (especially from Indonesia) was threatening them. This has been discussed before on TVisa as well as the big amounts of money said to be paid for extra large specimens. http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/633067-asian-gecko-threatened-by-medicine-trade/page-2

Whenever I read an abusive post I wonder whether the poster has had a bit to drink and wouldn't post such a thing was he completely sober. To get so idea I a look at the time of posting, if it's after 8pm then the chances are to poster has had a jar or two.

More info about chiggers here...http://www.wildlifethailand.com/forums/1-general-info-discussion/215-ticks-chiggers-and-mites-walking-season

Yahoo News stated that those killed were Malaysian tourists.

A few years back I was planning a trip to India. I had heard about the enormous begging problem there (it is) so I went to my local supermarket and bought a kilo of wrapped boiled sweets. I would give these to kids in lieu of money. One day I was in a train in rural India when it stopped at a station. A couple got on accompanied by a child about 4 years old. This kid was blind. The parents (?) remained at the carriage end and voice guided him in my direction.

When he stopped in front of me I gave him a sweet. This puzzled him as I don't suppose he had felt anything like it before. I helped him unwrap the sweet and popped it into his mouth. You should have seen the look of delight on his face. I gave him a handfull of sweets and he returned to his parents. They got off the train as it was about to pull out.

The last I saw of them was the 'parents' beating the crap out of the child and the handfull of sweets lay scattered all over the station platform.

I vowed never to give anything to a beggar again.

Fortunately up here in Isaan you don't see many beggars, at least not where I live.

In my local town there are at least six ATM machines. I am wheelchair bound and only one of these machines is accessible to me. Why they have to put these machines at the top of stairs is beyond me.

Where I live (S. Buriram) the local tessaban health department have it. They usually give a batch to the pouyaiban who doles it out to individual households. Ask you headman. Strangely the last lot we got was manufactured in Germany.

Most damage to road surfaces is due to overweight vehicles. If the Traffic Police were to be more diligent in checking vehicle weights and removing overweight vehicles from the road even the poorly constructed Thai roads would last a lot longer.

We are just coming into the sugar cane harvesting season. You can almost see those grossly overweight cane lorries breaking up the tarmac.

There is a temple in Ban Kruat that takes in multi millions of baht every year. About 15 years ago there was a fire in one of the monks rooms. Inside the room were 4 of those medium sizes water urns (ung) three of which were stuffed full of paper money, the remaining one was full of coins. Only the coins survived. No one knows how much the total loss was, but since then monies collected are regularly banked.

This same temple is at present building a mausoleum to house the remains of a well known monk who recently died. This is an elaborate building that must be at least 100 foot high, it towers over anything else in the town. Only Buddha knows how much it is costing. There always seems to be some sort of building or improvement going on at this place.

The only thing that I know of that this temple has done for the good of the ordinary people is that about 5 years ago they paid for an extra ward to be built onto the local hospital which is used to treat local children that need to be hospitalised.

Remember, although almost all Mom 'n Pop shops do it, selling of single cigarettes and shots of lao khao is illegal.

Thais love those 'icy' drinks. Buy yourself a decent blender which can crush ice cubes and you then top up with different flavoured syrups. Not really the right time of year at present as it's going to get cooler, but come Feb. they'll sell like hot cakes.

Does anyone know whether a farang can be the executor of a Thai persons will?

Do you know the visa status of the <deleted> owing the money? The reason I ask is that a farang in my area pulled off a scam owing about the same amount of money. The person scammed got to know that the scammer was on overstay, threatened to dob him in to Immigration - the money was returned within 24 hours.

About 15 years ago there was a very heavy rainstorm which caused a lot of local flooding. About 3 kms from my village was a pig farm that also had 8 crocodiles in a pond.The pond overflowed and the crocodiles all escaped and made it to a river that flows past my village.

The crocs were never caught, and as they live to a ripe old age I expect they're still around. As the river flows into it I wouldn't be surprised if they ended up in the large lake just South of Buriram City.

I have been using them regularly for some time. They certainly repel mosquitoes but I think I shall refrain from using them from now on as one coil can emit as much smoke as 5o cigarettes...http://www.worldofchemicals.com/28/chemistry-articles/an-unhealthy-sleep-how-safe-are-mosqui

The other day as I was loading one prior to lighting it I noticed that the coil had a very fine (probably nylon) line running through it, this is probably to ensure even combustion. Burning plastic even in small amounts cannot be good for you. I have no idea whether all makes of coils have this plastic line but this one ( Baygon ) certainly did.

I agree with the poster that stated you shouldn't feed wild birds, but what can I do about the flocks of mynahs that eat about 25% of the food that I put out for my turkeys and chickens?