
Aussiepeter
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Posts posted by Aussiepeter
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Hey Britmantoo, we left six years ago. I always used a married Non-O and just stamped out every 3 months, for 20 years, so I do not know what a PM 30 is. We owned the house I built in Saraphi - we sold it a million under what the lady of the house wanted, but we got out. It turned out I had throat cancer from the <deleted> called "fresh air" in CM, after breathing it for twenty years or so - (I don't smoke). Radiation therapy for months in Oz saved me. I got an email today from a friend who lives in Sansai, who when I asked about the air quality said "oh its pretty good out here in Sansai - we are away from the worst of it" ! You have just confirmed to me that he is living in denial, just like so many others. My Thai missus has permanent residency now in Oz and says "she is NEVER going back". She told our 9 y.o. daughter today, when we were at the beach, that "daddy saved your life getting us out of CM" and, she means it. I actually really pity those who either live in denial or, have no other options left because of family commitments or finances. After 23 years plus I will always remember my happy life in LOS but Thailand is, sadly now in my opinion, ruined. As someone posted today - "they don't want us expats in LOS any more". I just feel so much pity for all the poor Thai friends (and the odd farang that I liked too) that I left behind in CM, who will never, ever, escape the poisonous air. At least, the Thais don't have to jump through ever changing rules in order to stay !
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One trip only on one of these licenced coffins-on-wheels in 1996, CM to Fang, was enough - as Sticky Wicket says, to convince me "NEVER AGAIN" ! Never got there - he stopped at Mae Malai market for fuel and I and a Thai girl I was chatting with in cum-muang (northern Thai) jumped out. She yelled "pa-sart" - meaning nuts or crazy, to the driver.
(At least four near-misses in the last twenty kms.) Like S. Wicket (?), I used to jump out of perfectly sound aircraft whilst in the army and I consider that with all my training, it was far far safer than ever getting in a Thai-driven minivan. Ticket to a near-death-experience is more like it. At the time there was a bonus though - the young lady ended up staying with me for months !
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Whatever you do, don't breath in ANY of the dust when cutting/grinding these manufactured granite bench tops - it causes terminal lung disease and or cancer. There are now dozens of young home builders/renovators in Oz who have been diagnosed with this type of lung disease, as once this dust gets inside your lungs, it can't get out. Even a sniff of it is really bad. Been in the papers in Oz a lot lately. Wear an N95 mask and you should be OK. If only 1mm, really coarse wet and dry sandpaper, say 40 or 60 grade and keep it wet, might do the job, but expect a sore arm ! Cheers !
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ChipButty is correct - there is a huge army camp at Lop Buri, which is home to much of their army special forces battalion. I spent time there whilst on an exchange posting to Thailand for several years in the early nineties. It includes free-fall parachute and commando units. That weapon looks like a suppressed nine mm and yes, the Thais do have them at special forces level. To randomly shoot innocents though makes it almost sure ya-ba or similar was a factor. For those wondering about the injured foreigner - I was in Thailand in 1992 when the RTP opened fire with M16's on students protesting in BKK, killing dozens of people. One young Swede, a medical student, took two in the back as he was running away from the noise - an innocent victim, shot whilst going to an ATM. He just was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was hospitalised for six weeks and was discharged in a wheel chair, partially paralysed. The hospital waved his bill. You guessed it - when his father got him to DM airport, he was FINED for a months' overstay ! He showed me his back scars several years later - the bullets had hit about a cm each side of his spine. Very lucky to survive that. Amazing Thailand - it's my bet he won't forget LOS, ever.
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Oh - and for those who want to know about his health. If he ever needed to see a Doctor, old David went to Mae Taeng hospital and the lovely old lady there, who knew his wife and also his financial situation, would see him but put it on his Thai wife's medical record. Which is why in future years when someone looks at those records, they will see that in 2003 MRS Gaewboonrung Smith had a small cyst removed, from her left testicle. Not all Thais in government jobs are insincere - many are very caring folk. (David assumed anyone reading the records would perhaps think he had married a ladyboy) !
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I guess this chap successfully beats my late best-friend and well known (in C Mai anyway) author 'Mae-Taeng David', who successfully lived in LOS for 24 years, including his last 8 years and nine months on overstay. He only chose that option after the Taksin govt decided to change the rules to "kick out those they considered riff-raff" i.e. poorer farang, including people like him who had ALWAYS complied with the law and ALWAYS had a lawful Non-O (married visa).
He survived on a small pension from the UK (ex Royal Marines) plus his lawful Thai wife worked every day, peeling garlic for 80-120 baht or, in any other menial job. He did a quarterly visa-run to Penang, or Burma or Laos until one day, a rude female IO in Vientiane informed him that "this will be your LAST visa, as we are getting rid of all the people like you out of our country". Always polite, speaking Thai with a cockney accent, he asked in Thai "what about my wife" ? Lady just snubbed him. He returned home to Mae Taeng, very bitter. The irony is the Border Patrol regularly called upon him to teach English for 200 baht an hour - and, they did so right up until he had a stroke and died, at the age of 66 in 2008 ! JAG - he too used to laugh at all the medal ribbons the locals wore - one day we saw a postmaster with SAS para wings ! God Bless You David. I bet he is looking down right now and laughing at all the who-ha over the 83 y.o. overstayer. But his record is now gone and so is he. One of nature's real English gentlemen.
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Well done bluemoonpattaya ! As I wrote on another post yesterday about this horrible event, I am a retired UXO technician and explosives Officer with 30+ years in the army working with stuff that went bang. I have looked at this video several times, trying to get an idea of what went wrong, apart from him leaning over it. Then you hit on it - It is probably upside down ! The device he set off is known as a Chinese mortar, or star-shell. Ex infantry will know all about them. It has TWO explosive devices inside - the first is a smaller propellant charge, which when lit then sets off a primary explosion that launches the main explosive, about 250g of compressed gunpowder in a lacquered cardboard ball (about cricket ball size) hundreds of feet into the air, where it then bursts in the second explosion. Iron filings etc make it pretty. It is commercial grade. If set off upside down, the entire thing becomes a huge bomb, as the projectile (and its' energy) can't be released so it all goes off at once. The only good thing to come from this terrible incident is that no innocent bystanders were injured. Rest in peace young man - (it would have been swift.)
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In NSW Oz where the family and I now reside, the first offence for Low-Range DUI since May 2019 is automatic suspension of licence for three months plus $591 AUD fine, on the spot. A mid-range costs you $2K+ and high range $3k+. Second offence at mid or high range is a hefty fine PLUS nine months in prison or one year in prison respectively. Pubs are now a no-go thing in the bush if driving - I see the police RBT in the same spot every other day, as we live on top of a hill overlooking the highway. Drivers approaching can't see them though, until the last second. They still catch those idiots who won't change, also for drug-driving, as ganja use is rife in this area. Thai missus loves watching it - she reckons it is better than watching television. She says she feels safe here, trusts the police and will never leave - she is right. Driving is generally a pleasure. The pure clean air is a bonus.
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Got one done in C Mai in March - 30K baht, but that included filling another tooth, plus a clean. Happy with the result. Wife and I been seeing the same lady dentist for years. Place called "Smile2You" - bit out of the way, but oddly enough almost across the road from the CM foreign cemetery.
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You have my sympathy for your loss NanLaew and I sympathise too with Cornish Carlos, as my Thai missus is totally deaf in one ear and has 30% loss in the other after some dumb 'Somchai' let off a cherry-bomb next to her in CM when she was 17. Burst both her eardrums. I was an explosives safety officer and UXO technician in the army for nearly 30 years. There are many safety rules with gunpowder-based explosives, including light it at arms length, but the main one that another poster hit on is simple - if you have lit or tried to lite it once, there is a 2 hour wait (in the bunker) before one silly sod (the safety Officer, i.e. me) goes down to take a closer look. I would then destroy it - not try to relight it.
I enjoyed playing with fireworks in C Mai for many years, but always in a vacant cleared paddock, with both adults and kids kept at least 100m away to watch. They have been banned in Oz since about 1970, with good cause. The Chinese stuff they sell downstairs in Kad Luang (Worowat Market) often has over 200+ grams of compressed gunpowder and often with old dodgy fuzes. Gunpowder breaks down with time, so the burning time of a fuze can suffer delay if old.
Sad way to go for a chap who from all reports was a very nice bloke.
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It is nine months since I was in LOS and that is obviously too long, as the first thing I did when I saw this story was to blow up the page to view the "female" foreign shoplifter - has anyone else done this ? She looks like an 18 gallon beer keg sitting on two tree stumps ! Thank goodness for Thai ladies, including the missus who at 48 is still a thousand times more attractive than this petty thief. Even with alcohol being included, I doubt her chances of scoring a date in LOS any time soon. Reminds me of the time a girl in a pub in London, when I rejected her advances said "you are drunk" - to which I replied, "yes and you are ugly, but tomorrow I'll be sober." Happy New Year all on TV.
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Only one airline has come within an inch of ending my life and, on TWO separate occasions. No prizes for guessing which airline. If I wrote on here what the "pilot" did the first time, none of you would ever believe it ! But I will, anyway.
So, say, if I borrowed your car to drive 700 klms across the Sahara, but I never checked the fuel tank had any gas before starting off, - that would be pretty dumb, huh ? The only announcement, just after takeoff, was "returning to BKK, emergency landing". Then a right turn and skimming over rice paddies. Never again.
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An old friend of mine, now deceased (AKA 'Skipper') overheard me talking about this subject many years ago in Cosy Corner, then a popular C Mai outdoor bar. He said "hey Peter, so you are same as me, bi-sexual" (pause) "every time you want sex, you have to buy it" ! RIP Skipper.
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About eight years ago when we still lived in Saraphi, (C Mai) our dogs started barking whilst looking up at something - the missus and I raced out on the verandah in time to see a hot-air balloon just miss our roof and then crash in a lumyai orchard, about 100m away. It just missed landing on a Police Box on the road from Hang Dong to Saraphi. Four very shaken Thai blokes yelled out "khor-tod krup, gat mot" (excuse me, we ran out of gas). Still have the photos. Only time I ever saw a manned balloon in 25 years in LOS. You will never get me up in one of those things !
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This is an everyday occurrence in Thailand. My wife's uncle bought a brand new Toyota pickup at the C Mai motor show, then couldn't even make the first payment ! He is a tradesman with a good cashflow, but lives way beyond his means. I needed a vehicle so I paid out the loan and put it in my name. Two weeks later we go to his shop and there is a brand new Mitsubishi 4WD in front. Same deal - he couldn't even make the first payment - they never learn. It was repossessed six weeks later, when I refused to help out. He still talks to me/us just fine. Since we left LOS in 2013, he has somehow managed to buy three more new vehicles - all since repossessed. The used car yards in C Mai are chock full of such vehicles, many with only a few thou kms on the clock. Don't get involved, he will be just fine, but will have to pay the difference owing after it is sold. Doubt he will learn anything though.
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I lived in Thailand for over 25 years. The last poster hit the nail on the head. There is now nowhere in LOS now that has clean air and C Mai, where we last lived, is by far the worst. No longer just for a few months, but every damn day. Which is precisely why I relocated my Thai family to Oz six years ago - it had nothing to do with money or Visa woes, as I am financially good. We had a baby daughter and I wanted her to have a life. Upon arrival in Oz, I was diagnosed with a T1 cancer in my larynx, caused from breathing the toxic filth called "air" in LOS (I am a non-smoker). Months of radiation treatment saved me. The wife says she isn't going back, EVER ! Says she has got used to clean air and, so have I. Sad, really.
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This happened about 300m from my Thai missus' family locksmith shop, (where I first met her 20 years ago). I've lost count of the number of Thai blokes and/or motorcycles that I have seen end up in the drink on this road, especially just after turning left from Wualai Road (Saturday walking street). Alcohol is usually a factor, but where this chap went in is directly in front of the CM mental hospital. Inmates/patients regularly flee the place. Last I heard, the hospital had a capacity of 300 beds and had 600 (or more) inpatients, many of them ya-ba addicts sleeping two to a bed, sardine style, head to toe. Never a dull moment in Changlor Road !
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My Thai wife is a locksmith. Some years back a young Thai cop came to her shop in C Mai with one arm handcuffed to his' girlfriend's ankle ! He said they had been 'playing a game' and it was only then that he remembered that he had lost the key. My wife made a new key by hand, from a blank (shop has zillions of 'em) - it took less than twenty minutes and she charged him 100 baht. So, they can be removed easily enough, but my guess is this guy won't get the opportunity.
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When I asked my GP about safety before my first trip to LOS in 1987, he told me to avoid monkeys and monkey/photo touts. He had just finished three weeks of treatment for a young lass from Oz who paid $5 to a tout for a monkey to sit on her shoulder, only to have it bite a large chunk out of her ear. Her ear got badly infected - apparently monkeys are a major carrier of the rabies virus. Rabies is rife in Thailand, so I got the message. He never warned me about BG's tho !
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Here in NSW (Oz) the fine for parking in a disability spot without displaying the right sticker is $519 or about 10,500 baht plus demerit points on your licence. Those who choose to go to court rather than pay up, usually get short shift from the Judge - fines of up to $2000 are the norm, especially in WA. Trouble is, I see too many obese slobs who have convinced their doctor to approve a disability sticker for them, when the doctor should have recommended exercise !
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Old Hippie beat me to it - I discovered the "Cortez" song about six months ago and play it, along with other Neil Young stuff, mostly Vietnam War era, most evenings when cooking my dinner. NCC - the car you had in 1971 was sold in Oz as the Chrysler Charger RT - cheap, very fast, but had bad handling. Collector car now though, worth mega bucks, if you can even find one for sale. An old gf and I went to the same NY concert in Sydney in 1986 two days in a row and during a break, he pointed to us and said, "these same two people were here last night, seated in the exact same two sxxt seats, so I must be doing something right". The seats were at the side of the stage - no-one wanted them. What a performer. His band that night were called "the International Harvesters". Amazing showman live.
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What utter garbage ! Has the UNHCR forgotten the mass graves of trafficked Rohingya refugees found in the south of Thailand a couple of years ago, or the fact that the ringleaders convicted included a Thai Army General and senior police and government officials ? Did any of these criminals ever serve any real time ? The UNHCR itself has been widely reported as saying that 'like several other countries' governments, the junta led by General Prayut does not permit the UNHCR to properly investigate the treatment of Rohingya refugees in Thailand'. I live in an area of Oz known for its' quality "alternative tobacco". I do not partake (suds does it for me) but when I read this report, my first thought was 'this new UNHCR must have been to the local festival, which is called "Mardi-Grass" and inhaled once too much' !
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Liked your post Fore Man - we got right out of LOS, but the missus' best friend comes from Nan and so my wife visited there many times. Good luck for the future - I doubt we will ever return permanently to LOS though - but if and when I might just check the place out. I don't play golf much, but it would have to be better than Green Valley (CM) !
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I can advise all firsthand that the numbers of 'available' or 'on call' troops in Thailand is nothing like the numbers crunched by the good general. More like the dodgy numbers put out by TAT. In 1999/2000 I lived for a year in a small village just north of Chiang Dao - about 100klm north of CM. The nearby army camp was huge, but I never saw more than thirty or forty troops and the guard house was nothing more than a lean-to open on two sides, with a couple of M60 machine guns on its' counter. Never more than two on duty, sometimes none to be seen at all ! Each evening I'd share a sherbet or two with my neighbour, a Thai guy who told me he had a timber business. One day, he appeared in uniform as a corporal. When I asked him what he was doing he told me he was actually a corporal in the army, but simply paid his boss (I'm guessing a Sgt?) 2 thousand baht a month "to not be there" ! He said " lots of us soldiers do it - we all pay the boss but we have to turn up sometimes, like today, because there is a big parade for some general who is coming from Bangkok to inspect the troops". I bet the said general would have got a huge shock, had he come unannounced a week early. I watched the parade from the highway - over six hundred men. TIT
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British expat arrested for selling counterfeit watches in Pattaya
in Pattaya News
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On the way back from Gulf War No 1 we had a stopover in Bahrain ? and some of my platoon decided to buy watches.
A couple of us bought 'Breitling' dress watches - really flash with a gold trim and band. $1300 USD each from memory. My mate did not get one and has hassled me ever since about it. Fast forward ten years, married to a Thai lady and doing a visa run to Burma. Missus sees the same (but obviously fake) watch and after haggling she bought two of them for 600 baht. The local selling them told her he buys them "by the kilo" ! Gave one to my mate and he bought me a case of my favourite ale. He still has his and it still works. The other one conked out just after we got back to C Mai.