rickudon

One more problem - the 'limited' menu. Today spotted a small shop that had a sign 'Steak and Pizza'. Wife thought maybe buy a couple of steak meals to take away. Asked for 2 steaks, answer, "Not have, all steak gone". The pizzas were small and twice the price of the roadside stall outside the 7-11 across the road....... we didn't eat there! it was 5 p.m. ....... should have just been getting busy.

Try local Pharmacies, some may stock it and sell at less than 'online' prices. Prices vary a lot from one to another.

Up until April this year, no-one in my Thai extended family had Covid. Since then, 6 family members in one house have had it in 2 waves, and 3 didn't. in another house on our farm one member had it (caught from a neighbour). Also 3 neighbours in 2 separate houses have had it. Just waiting for the inevitable...... Our daughters class from school have weekly testing, and most weeks one turns up positive. Pandemic over? Ha Ha! Just lucky the fatality rate is now very low. Not so lucky for the 6-10 million who have already died with it globally.

Someone asked about UK/EU cards, and i think no bank refunds the Thai ATM fee. Their are some cards which are fee free (for charges applied by the issuing bank) for certain card types, including ATM withdrawals (i use UK Halifax Clarity credit card). I never use ATMs in Thailand, if possible, due to the Thai fee. I do a counter withdrawal with my credit card once a month, get a great rate on the card (usually better than Wise), just have to pay off quickly to avoid interest on the card. You may have to search around for a bank branch that will do free Counter withdrawals, in my experience branches in Malls often do not.

Strangely enough, i saw this thread and went down to the farm later and saw one! First i have seen for certain.

There is a busy U-turn i frequently need to take, and at least 75% of the time there will be motorbikes or 3 wheelers going the wrong way on the road i turn into - it is a very slow U-turn i have to make!

Lived - UK, 22 years (London, Kent, Surrey, Birmingham, Hereford) Libya 1 year (oil industry and dodging bullets) UK 3 years (Birmingham) Australia 1.5 years (Northern Territory, dodging crocodiles) UK 30 years (Birmingham, mainly Hampshire) Udon Thani , Thailand, 12 years. Visited, for shorter periods, some holidays, not counted one day only Scotland Wales Malta Denmark Sweden France Belgium Germany Switzerland Spain Czech republic Slovakia Netherlands Florida, USA Ghana (ex-wife's home) Singapore Hong Kong Laos

An 80 year old friend was recently knocked down by a Grab rider while crossing a road. The driver did stop, but his insurance would only pay maximum 30,000 baht. His first day hospital bill was 32,000 baht. Lucky that he still has some baht in the bank. Grab should be responsible for insuring their drivers for an adequate amount - 30,000 baht just doesn't do that.

A couple of points. 1. Fixed pensions. Not that common these days (except UK state pension if you live in Thailand), well you have to plan ahead and expect inflation. Just because inflation was only 2% the year you retire doesn't mean it will stay that low. You can easily live 20 years after retirement and in that time everything could easily double in price due to inflation (and, maybe, much more). Anyone who retires to another country with only a fixed income needs either a lot or an exit plan (low balcony?). 2. why so many brits? Pensions for many Brits are pretty <deleted> (I know!). For those of us who have no partner, retirement in the UK is just a slow death for most - the pension means survival, but all holidays, sports and other leisure activity are expensive. Thailand offers more opportunity to enjoy your sunset years. For me the idea of living in a bedsit with just a tv and a computer for entertainment, and miserable weather, for half the year, was not an appealing prospect. I chose the Thai option. 3. Why complain? See 2. Low pension, high cost of living means many of us had to budget, have ALWAYS had to budget. Existence was always a bit McCawber like. So 10 baht here, 10 baht there and a bit of shrinkflation means choosing what to go without. Thailand has it's attractions, but why anyone who was rich would choose to retire here is beyond me. If when i retired i had a million pounds i doubt i would live in Thailand - holiday maybe, but live no. I had a nice property in France, and another in Florida on my retirement options, but redundancy and divorce sunk those. Ok moan finished!

Sparktrader probably has problems reading any statistics . Even the NOAA data he originally referred to shows clear warming - and as many factors affect annual global temperature, one cool or hot year doesn't make a trend. Some simple facts from the NOAA data: Average Global temperatures have increased by 1.1-1.3 Centigrade in the last 100 years (depends exactly what years you pick). The global temperature record was broken by a large margin (about 0.3 centigrade in 1998. That was a wakeup call. That lasted until 2010, when it was broken again. It was broken again in 2014, every year since then has been warmer than 2010. The record was broken again in 2015 and 2016, the record was equalled in 2020 (not even an El Nino year, when temperatures are on average higher). The average temperature increase for the last 5 years against last century was 0.86 Centigrade, for the previous 5 years it was 0.81 Centigrade - Sparktrader thinks that is a cooling trend!