Choscura

I have seen cold, and thailand does not have it. it doesn't even really get into the range of 'uncomfortably sub luke-warm'.

why hasn't this been done sooner? there should be a new law: if there is a disease which is resistant to available drugs, a disease which has no cure (such as aids, tuberculosis, etc) and somebody holds a patent on that drug, the patent is void where epidemics are concerned (such as the thousands mentioned in the article who have drug-resistant strains of AIDS). I'm not saying they should get NO money for it, I'm saying that their single right to production should be void and the process for making the drug must be made known to any country or people group that has desperate need to produce it.

apparantly, the ministry of health agrees with this

hey all, I'm in a tight spot and would like to get certified to teach english here in Chiang mai. I speak english natively and thai somewhat fluently, but I don't have a lot of money to lay down. any suggestions on where I should go to get this certification?

thanks,

-Choscura

no, I crack you down.

"and in other news, thailand has begun a crackdown on the officials who have failed to crack down in all the recent crack downs. there is no word yet what politcal group or committee will be in charge of this."

why the hel_l do they bother with this shit? just make one rule- "kiss our ass and give us money".

I still consider thailand severely lacking in skilled labor in many areas- buildings and electronics not the least of them- and suddenly outlawing the people who are able to do these things (or will usually do them without trying to mess around with you) is not very smart.

the best gapao and pric geng in thailand is off of sankhampaeng, right next to the seven eleven, just to the east of the super highway. in fact, I'm going to go there right now and get some!

cheerio!

game meat (generally wild pig) shows up in any of the open markets sporadically and is of generally high quality and generally higher price. vegetables are everywhere, as in every part of thailand. 'organic' seems somewhat redundant, based on the sporadic use of pesticides everywhere here, but if you look, you can probably find something that is certified organic at lotus or carrefour. beef is usually available from large stores, but also somewhat expensive. I haven't looked for goat, so i can't comment about this. eggs are available everywhere and are cheap, if you want to get 'non battery' eggs, just find somebody who has some chickens and arrange to buy some eggs form them every day or every other day. you can even probably convince them to deliver.

as for any other game, it depends on who you know. I've eaten a good deal of small game, but this is solely through my connections with the hill tribes. Lisu in particular seem to have a taste for squirrels, if it's in your palatte. also snake isn't uncommon, and a good deal of seafood and freshwater fish and crabs are available, all generally organic, very fresh, and very tasty.

you can get epoxy resin in small ammounts from any of the *many* stores that sell pipes/tubing and basic hardware supplies (like hacksaws, etc). when I saw it, it was 200 THB for 2 relatively large tubes (resin and hardener). maybe two or three times the size of a thing of JB weld.

'lo all, I've got an emachines laptop that is currently unworkable, thanks to a fall that knocked the screen hinge loose (not a big problem, the screen still works) and broke the internal link from the power cord to the laptop (aka, the place where the plug goes into the laptop). the laptop is currently 2 years old, is configured with windows, and has a good many files that I'd prefer to keep in addition to some very good hardware which in itself makes it worth repairing. so where can I go to get this fixed, preferably in chiang mai?

thanks in advance.

I love having burmese (national and tribal group) friends. I can go to burma from anywhere with nothing and reasonably expect to get by.

shouldn't the border be closed the other way....? Burma is in the longest running civil war in history, after all.

this is both amusing and disgusting. maybe than shwe is a nice guy. maybe he likes building model airplanes and taking long walks on the beaches. maybe he's great with kids. the problem is that for every nice 'maybe' theres a very bad 'definitely'. he's definitely a dinosaur in regards to human rights. he's definitely addicted to power to the point of being willing to kill anybody who would try to take it from him and give it to it's rightful owner.

he's also definitely at the top of very many hit lists with people I would not want angry at me- but also people who are held in check by governments and organizations who are profiting from him.

this is disappointing.

it's disappointing that the level of competence and forethought for staging a coup is this low

it's disappointing that the press is apparantly admitting to things that nobody is supposed to know yet (thaksin's alleged granddaughter)

it's disappointing that nobody seems to know or care who is in power.

<snip>

I'm also disappointed that the best kuay tiaw stand near my house now charges 25 baht a bowl, but I'm still willing to pay because it IS the best.

mediocrity is disappointing. something needs to be done, but everybody is so afraid of insulting somebody else that nobody wants to do anything. maybe that coup de etat was just intended as an insult, but with the competence displayed, I'm not sure who it should be insulted- the prime minister for being not good enough to not assassinate, or the plotters for not being able to assassinate him.

edit: speeling

/Mod Edit - comments about Thai royalty deleted - please see the forum rules.

I drink thai 'moonshine' about 90% of the time I drink anyway. let them try to ban hot plates, buckets and rubber tubing.

I find the thai fantasy of "they're stealing our work!" amusing. it's the same thing that's happening in america, except that when I was there, I was at the other end of it.

the simple fact is that as long as the foreigners are willing to accept lower wages for the same work or have more skills to offer for the same wages, the natives will be hard-pressed to compete, especially with the 'sabai sabai, try again next lifetime' attitude so many of the thais are plagued with.

it isn't as if foreigners here are holding the thais down, rifling their pockets until they find a job, and then making off with it.

I think I may as well tip a bit of the psychology in here. men care about how women look (as a general rule) much more than women care about how men look. neither want the other to look like trash, obviously, but men are much more likely to make a big deal about what a woman wears. women don't understand this because it isn't a big deal to them, but to us, it's the same as needing stability in a relationship. we NEED you to look good, not because we're shallow stupid brutes, but partly because we love the sense of accomplishment that comes from having met a beautiful woman and had a successful relationship with her and partly because we generally love you and don't like seeing you treat yourselves like you aren't special.

cheers.

the thing that you want to check first is the land-based phone lines, if there are any of these. check in all places: check the wall jacks (in the wall- physically unscrew it and inspect it, it should just have a few wires soldered together, if you see black plastic, be suspicious), and then check inside the phones themselves (specifically in the recievers where the wires fit into the phones). then do the same with internet connections. bugs of these types don't need batteries, they are essentially static long-term bugs- they draw power from the phone lines themselves and use that same power to transmit their information (generally not far, check out any local short-range radio equipment in surrounding buildings if possible).

also, a side note, just because it's not transmitted by your email doesn't mean it's not transmitted by somebody else's. it's not difficult to automatically cc yourself (in a spam account!) all email that is sent out from all computers in your place of work.

other than that, I don't think a hardcore bug sweep is necessary since it's so difficult to get a worthwhile bug into place (unless you've done something such as move into a competitors former place of work, in which case they could have left the bugs behind when they moved out, or at the very least where they have an advantage getting in because they're familiar with the layout, etc). it's far more likely that something along the lines of employees fraternizing with members of the other company has taken place- whether out of malice or ineptitude.

::singsong voice::

"mii nom mii khooy, bpen kutooy!"

Oh yes!

But as Deminster said, it's the random shotgun approach that the Pattaya cops tht infuriates. Now they'll do nothing for maybe 6-8 months... Unless they declare pattaya to be the "Ladyboy free hub of Asia" that is.

Thanks Choscura, I'll be giggling that for weeks!

no problem. glad to see at least one person got it. now try this one on for size:

farang: "khoon khuuy bpai doo... uuh... samoy mai khrap?"

khon thai: "samoy khrai?"

farang (duu putchananukhrom): "arai na?!"

creative solution: arm the tourists and tattoo targets on repeat offenders

::singsong voice::

"mii nom mii khooy, bpen kutooy!"

I'm looking for information on how to get certified to teach english in Chiang Mai. I don't currently hold a degree, but I have previous teaching experience (teaching english) and can speak and understand a fair bit of thai (not fluent, but I can get my point across most of the time).

what do I need to do, and what are the road blocks?

'lo all, since I'm slightly strapped for time, I'll keep this short.

I'm currently stranded in laos (where I came to get a student visa for thailand), because the thai embassy here wants an invitation inviting the school I'm attending in thailand to get a visa at that embassy, signed by the school (fax/photocopy is okay).

has anyone ever come up against anything like this before? it's the only piece of paper I'm missing, and everybody I describe this to is baffled by it. I have an invitation (to myself) from the school to study there and everything... what is this?

'lo everyone, I hope this is the right forum for this.

anyway, I'm in thailand on a tourist visa, and I just (this month) got my paperwork for a multiple-entry visa/student visa here in Chiang mai.

according to everything I hear, I need to leave the country (and go to a place such as singapore or pnom penh cambodia) to get the multiple entry visa before I come back here and get it converted into a student visa.

has anyone here done this? do you have any recommendations? what are the prices like for airfare, and how much does it cost to stay a day or two in either place (if those are the places I want to go, and if they aren't, where should I go, considering I have a very limited budget- about $250 USD if I want to stretch it)?

here's my questions:

what on earth is a 'non-immigrant' visa, how do I get one, and does a tourist visa fall under this category?

thank you.

this is interesting. it seems like the thais have opted for the 'permanent easy way' of getting that special someone (or at least a fancy wedding, a night of mediocre passion, and a pile of cash before legging it)- by asking farang to marry them or find them husbands.

ironically, given my involvement in the local christian community, this has happened to me as well (ever accidentally gotten engaged? I have): for example, one of the women (a fairly well off woman with 2 kids who's getting on in years) has asked me to find her a husband- thankfully her own age.

this is kind of a strange thing to be asked after a sermon about sexual purity, even if the sermon was in thai (which I don't fully understand).