Mansell

Stupid man committing a crime, gets a stupid end result. A man tried to break into a school in Santa Monica at night and was walking across the roof and stepped onto a skylight painted black. He fell through and became paralyzed from the fall. He sued the city because of the skylight and got a huge amount of money. Part of this upside down world we live in. If your in the process of committing a crime and get shot, beaten, or paralyzed, it is your problem and not the person you are traumatizing. Why do so many people seem to care more about the criminal than the victim?

And they are quite expensive…..I use OFX and they charge me five dollars each time and takes the money directly from my bank account in the USA.

They recently announced in Pattaya you just have to carry a photo of your passport and visa in your phone. Otherwise if they stop you you will be arrested and have to wait in a cell until somebody brings your passport to the police.

Our boys go to a private school.The youngest 12 came home one day and was talking about Pablo Escobar the Colombian drug lord. I asked him how he got that name, turned out his teacher was telling all the kids what a good person he is, or was. I explained to him the reality and suggested he tell his teacher she was wrong. I have heard other nonsense stuff from his teachers. They definitely don’t appear to have much of an education, or enquiring minds. I would definitely complain about the flat earth nonsense to the head teacher. Ridiculous.

Very good write up of your observations of the place. The Souk sounds interesting, but your comment on all the big buildings making the place soulless is perfect. Much how I feel about New York City……not a pleasant place. At least London has some soul.

I was in Chiang Mai a month ago, and before that 10 years ago. It is quite a pleasant place these days, and considered moving there for about a minute until I remembered the smoke issues. BKK would be like living in LA, a nightmare for traffic and not the best looking women, LA that is. I’m usually on the Sky Train, and people like in most big cities are not friendly because there’s millions of them, and have that sense of being protective about themselves….understandably. A bit like a day in London, kinda happy to leave and get home. The farang who live in BKK probably are loners, unless they work there. I cannot imagine having a meaningful social life in a metropolis with a different language thrown in to the mix.

In another 15 months I will be 80. I’m physically fit, tennis twice a week, bicycling once or twice a week, walking 6 kilos once a week, swimming for 45 minutes twice a week. No coffee or tea, no red meat or pig, salads with around 20 different things in it, alcohol occasionally, wife 32 years younger, two sons. Really enjoy life and always have done. Sex with a little assistance from the pharmacy. Just had the best sex in my life with a potential number 2 wife….two crazy hours with a 49 year old. Figure I’ll live to 90, maybe longer if the number 2 happens. Life is fun and a bit crazy.

The Thai system of driving here is very simple. “Their rule is it’s your job to avoid me.” I figured that the first time I rode my Kawasaki here. I now drive a car on the outskirts of Pattaya, and many times a day Thais on motorbikes will drive across in front of me expecting me to avoid them, which of course I do by braking. Very stupid way to ride a motorbike. Sometimes I wish I had a Humvee with a heavy steel bumper…….and I wouldn’t slow down for these idiots, especially the ones in cars who are nearly as bad. When I was in Mongolia the same kind of driving. I had a meeting with the Minister of Transportation, or some such, and he explained to me until recently most of the drivers rode a horse, and then they went anywhere they wanted too. Thais don’t have the same excuse.

Why not make a copy and send to the Philippines Social Security office at the US Embassy. They are usually pretty good with communications.

Last time I flew BKK to LA on JAL business with loads of luggage, and there were no extra charges. Check them out. There business is same as first class, as they don’t have first class.

When I got probably a variant what the hospital gave me didn’t help at all. I went to a pharmacy and told the lady to give me the strongest antibiotic you have. It was to be taken over three days, and by the second day I started feeling fine, and by the third day it was gone.

It looks like he has a lazy eye….so if you see a guy winking at you, call the cops. Sometimes known as The Lazy Eye Rapist…..should do well in prison here winking at everybody……555

If you have the bucks to own a Mercedes’ 20,000 baht is chicken feed…..just pay it. My wife’s insurance on her Suzuki yesterday was 23,000 baht. in the States anything on a regular car that costs a hundred bucks will be on a Mercedes’ a thousand dollars most of the time. Pay and look happy.

Not much of a wine drinker, but while visiting Chiang Rai bought a delicious bottle of Black Sticky Rice Wine. Took it in a backpack on the plane forgetting the rules, and watched it being poured down the drain….bummer! It was only 180 baht if you have friends up in that area.

So they came and were only here five minutes. Same guys as last year as one asked about our cats, so he had a good memory. I asked if they now came every year, and they responded, Yes. we had a Thai friend there as a witness, and they took her name and address, then took some pics of her, my wife, and me. Thanked us and gone. Painless.

Big Joke is in the process of having his men infiltrate most of the larger police forces. They then report to him, and in turn he is prosecuting any of the cops who are on the take etc. Supposedly he is being quite successful in this endeavor. So he’s not such a Big Joke after all. Most of you on here want the corruption to be handled and changed…..now it’s being done.

Quick question Joe. I did marriage extension a year ago and immigration officers came to my house later. No problem. I did another one this month, and immigration are coming tomorrow. I thought they only came the first year?

Yeah right. When Michael Caine got rich from acting he said, “Money makes you unhappy, is put around by the rich people to keep you down.”

Death penalty isn’t much of a punishment in a country that believes in reincarnation. Why not give him hard labor working and generating money in prison which is paid to the young woman’s family and two children. This would go until the day he died every day reminding him of the poor woman he tortured. So he would slowly be ground down even as an old man working hard seven days a week. And the family could send him pictures of all the things they spent the money on, basically jamming it down his throat day after day after day. Now that is a punishment.

Back in 1969 I was surfing in Morocco and living on the beach’s. My mother sent my tax return to a Maroc bank. I would visit it weekly, and each time they said there wasn’t any money…..of course they were keeping it to get more interest…..imagine a few thousand accounts like this and the interest would rack up. Eventually I just gave up, and after a few months the money was returned to England. Of course my mother had no idea what was going on and contacted the local newspaper. They wrote an article with the headline, “Local tripper lost in Morocco.” (My American friends thought tripper meant taking LSD.) The article inside explained about the money/bank etc, and said I was in Morocco to improve my surfing style. (My surfing friends laughed at that, and said, “That didn’t work out to well with all your wipeouts.” Of course I didn’t find all this out until three months later.

Haven’t seen any video, but how did they get hit by the right front of the suv? At some point he must have seen them coming before he hit them. If you are doing a U turn it’s usually done at pretty slow speed. Also that road doesn’t look very wide so a U turn in one go would be wishful thinking. Hopefully he has good insurance million baht plus.

Many people would stand up and take responsibility for their actions. But that isn’t the mindset in third world countries……those people are more likely to try to run away and avoid the consequences, as we have seen here. Ultimately we are all held responsible for our actions, it is called karma. You can duck and dodge all you want, but eventually there is a balance for everybody.

Used to drink Black and Tan late fifties. Russian stout with Guinness. Great drink. Now it’s the occasional Tiger…..got into that habit in the Andrew in Singapore 1963. Used to enjoy Watney’s Brown Ale back then in England. Back in England in the early nineties and asked for one of those, and the young guy behind the bar just looked blank. Older bartender told me, long gone mate. I guess they were bought out.

1980 in America a woman’s daughter was killed by a drunk driver. She started MADD Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. It brought publicity to a big problem back then that was treated pretty lightly. This woman changed everything. It is now a very serious offense with prison time etc. The poor man’s wife killed right in front of him…..what a horrible experience. Maybe deal with the drunk driver like they do with thieves in Saudi Arabia…..cut off one of his hands…..wouldn’t hurt 555.

Five years ago in a town north of BK my lady friend and I took a ride into the local town with her friend driving her new car. Within a few minutes I knew this person didn’t know how to drive. I asked my friend how did she get a license? She said she was a teacher and somebody in the local government gave her a license. She drove 50 klicks each day to the school. I wanted to drive back but they wouldn’t let me. A few weeks later my friend sent me a picture of the teachers car buried into the front room of her house. I responded, “ She confused the brake and the accelerator, right?” She said Yes. It was just luck she didn’t kill anybody, including herself. There seems to be a disconnect in Thai brains when it comes to driving cars and motorbikes. They just don’t appear to think….at all. Until the government acts like they did in Vietnam, nothing will change….and it will get progressively worse with more and more road users every year. The absolutely lousy incompetent drivers/riders here is the one thing that might drive me from this country. Every day I have to avoid the moronic people on the road……a man pulls out of a side road without slowing down with a child in front of him, no helmets. If I hadn’t hit the brakes they would have been badly hurt. No recognition on his face of his stupidity. Bring all the police from California, and they’ll sort them out pretty damn quickly with some good fines and confiscating their vehicles.