mstevens

Symbicort can be used as a relief inhaler - as I have for close to 20 years - and it should be noted that Ventolin is also prescribed to ease breathing difficulties due to COPD.

Have you tried using one of the old-style Ventolin inhalers? Much cheaper than Symbicort. This said, for what it's worth, I found Ventolin could sometimes dry out my throat whereas Symbicort doesn't. But Ventolin inhalers are so cheap it's worth giving one a go. Note: I use these inhalers for asthma and not COPD.

Is there any evidence that the three guys are actually British? There seems to a notion that if there is a fight in soi 6, it's always Brits. As far as I can tell, these three guys have not been identified, hence how can people be so sure about their supposed nationality?

I wonder if they are trying to entice digital nomads to the country and get them in to the Thai tax system?

Elsewhere, it is being reported that the guy who took a kicking to the head has died.

If the poor guy really has died, this story is going to be reported all around the world. Another black eye for Thailand, and Pattaya especially.

I wouldn't get hung up on a woman who wants a man with money. It's perfectly normal for a woman to want a guy who can provide a decent life for her. And further to that, many of us are proud to be able to take care of our wife and give her a great life. If you truly love her, wouldn't you want your lives to the best they can be?

Your question is simple but the answer is complex. What exactly are you looking for? Many foreigners "dating" in Thailand are simply looking for a smorgasbord of bed partners. Others are looking for a life partner. Some are looking for a lady much younger, others are looking for someone of similar age. If I was going to give advice about dating in Thailand, and I am assuming you're looking for a long-term relationship possibly leading to marriage, then I'd say to choose someone with a similar education to yourself. Try and find a lady who is not too much younger although this all depends on your age. If you're 60 and she's 40, fine. If you're 40 and she's 20, forget it. Put your best foot forward. Get a decent haircut, wear some nice clothes, be unfailingly polite, treat her well, go slow and if you've been a bar hound in the past, give that lifestyle up. Be decent to her and a good lady will be very decent in return. It helps if you have money. You needn't be rich but in Thailand the man is expected to be able to take care of a lady. Plenty of ladies these days pay their way, but you should not expect that. You should expect that she will look after you in other "non-monetary" ways. Don't hunt online. There are some gems out there but there are lots of vultures too. Introductions through colleagues, friends, acquaintances etc are a better way to go. If you want some more fine-tuned thoughts, maybe provide a little background on yourself such as age, job etc. These things do make a difference. An engineer earning 150K USD per annum will be a lot more attractive to ladies than an English teaching sweating it out for 35,000 baht per month. That's a few ideas to start with.

Used to love it there in the late '90s and early '00s. Myself and a friend lived walking distance away and our weekend ritual was a walk to Panthip Plaza where we'd end up buying various bits and bytes.

Watched episode one of Rebus last night and thought it was GREAT!

They have been talking about this for at least 3 decades. If I recall reports from the '90s correctly, Bangkok was supposed to be well under water by now. Maybe they really do need to do something but it does rather seem to be like a number of things they love to talk about every few years and then nothing ever happens. As dramatic as the idea of Bangkok going under water may seem, when you've read articles like this so many times over the years you eventually become desensitised to it.

That's true, but it can be very helpful in situations like this.

It's a fair point you make. But let's not forget that over time memories of events so long ago are forgotten, documents are lost, all of which would make it very hard for someone to defend charges brought against them. Let's take a totally imaginary situation. The police knock on your door and say you're being arrested and will be charged with statutory rape of a 17-year-old who you met in a bar in 2005 and went on to have sexual relations with. You're going to be wheeled in to court and have to defend yourself in a situation with a person making very serious accusations against you that you simply don't recall. Charge someone in that situation shortly after the event and odds are they'd remember it. Charge them many years later and they might have zero recall and therefore almost zero ability to defend themselves, especially if they had been a voracious bar hound.

Happened to me twice. Both times went along to hospital and the doc cleaned the wax out and all was well again.

It's a concern that an ambulance turned up. That usually costs a good few thousand baht at least....and I expect the OP would be in the gun for that.

Actually, this is not right at all, or only half right. In the case of a Thai (or anyone else) being deported from New Zealand, yes, the NZ government pays. But for foreigners being deported from Thailand, that person must pay for the flights themselves. There have been many cases of foreigners sent to the Immigration Detention Centre who have had to somehow raise money for their air ticket out of Thailand. They are reliant on family or friends. In some cases, they cannot raise the funds are stuck in the system for a long time.

Most New Zealanders aged 40 or 45 up will be totally fine with being termed a "Kiwi". It's really only the new generation, particularly the wokesters who don't like it as they see it as being an old term from the colonial times.....

This guy is going to be in for a shock when he gets back to New Zealand. The cost of living here has sky-rocketed over the past 5 years, and that was off a fairly high base. Sadly, New Zealand has a bad combination of a high coast of living and comparatively low salaries (about 25% lower than Australia, for example). He will be able to get some government assistance but it probably won't be enough to lead anything more than the most basic existence. Even getting a place of his own might be difficult and he could end up in a boarding house, and those places are, to be frank, a nightmare.

When you say rip-off prices, can you expand on that? Do you know how hard it is to import these products in to Thailand and the laundry list of permits and licences / permits / rigmarole you need to go through to sell these products legally? I won't list them all but first, you need a company set up. Then you need premises to store whatever it is you're selling. This costs a lot of money to set up as there are all sorts of rules you must comply with. The Thai FDA premises approval costs 25,000+ baht and there is an inspection team who comes out, checks out the premises and carries out an on-site interview. Next, you need licences to be a supplement / food products supplier. Then you need to submit every single different product you import for FDA approval. Each approval costs money. There are options to get products tested locally or get documentation from government approved testing abroad. It's actually much more complicated than this and this is an ultra-simple explanation. And then you have to pay VAT of 7%, tax on your profits and, of course, commission to Lazada or Shoppee which is not insubstantial. Note that any seller who fails to do get FDA approval for a product they are selling is asking for big trouble. All it takes is for someone to make a complaint about them (this happens ALL THE TIME). On the seller forums, many vendors come straight out and say, "I just reported this vendor and that vendor to the FDA as they are selling the same product as me but they are importing it illegally and don't have FDA approval". Anyone reported can expect a court appearance and a criminal conviction. Or they can try and pay their way out of it which is usually in the vicinity of 100K baht to settle plus the forfeiture of all of their stock. Why do I know all of this? My wife owns a business selling similar products (not Melatonin) so I see this from the other side. If you think supplements in Thailand are a rip-off, blame the government regulations which are very time-consuming and expensive to comply with. There is no way a seller in Thailand can sell a product for the same price as iHerb unless they are importing and selling massive quantities or they are failing to comply with the all the regulations.

I think Thai banks are basically safe. Not as safe as a bank would be in Australia, but pretty close. My worry would be if anyone you know in Thailand was aware you had that amount in the bank. That's a huge amount of money. Some unscrupulous folks could devise a plan to part that money from you. Very unlikely, of course, but not beyond the realms of possibility. I know this is not what you asked about but for me personally, if I had anywhere near that amount of money in my Thailand bank account I would not let anyone know about it.

Phuket. Again. It seems like whenever it's farangs in trouble, it's Phuket.

Charged with causing noise pollution in Thailand? What a hoot!

Just watched this video and save for a few profanities, he is simply making many of the same complaints you read everyday on this forum. He even says he loves in living in Thailand....it's simply the frustrations of it all coming out. It's a bit silly to post to YouTube with your face there for the world to see, but if you just take the issue of what he is saying, it really is no worse than all the stuff many of us have complained about many times!

I thought it was interesting to hear his take on what happened. In summary, someone went through his videos, took out all the negative comments, perhaps took some of it out of context, re-edited them all in to a new video with these excerpts and then sent it to the Thai media! Sounds like someone doesn't like him. That's not a nice thing to happen and potentially makes him look a whole lot worse. I think most of us would be mortified if someone went back through all of our posts, pulled out all the negative stuff, compiled them, identified us and then sent them all to mainstream media!

So what is his YouTube channel so we can check it out and see what he has been saying and make up our own minds about it?