Lannig

Although "before year 20013" really should have matched every mail and not return a blank

depends on what you was doing I guess but if it was flipping Roti's on a mobile cart I reckon I could find a local that does better.

Not my point, I meant: if you can find a better salary when hired by a Thai company, as opposed to being sent here by some multinational company.

Won't elaborate on my job here, it's off-topic and I've mentioned it elsewhere in the forum. I'm no marketing guru or investment/stock exchange wizard as these people usually can grab the higher salaries. I'm just a guy who makes things work in my domain.

Well, if you can find better on a local hire, nice to you

Someone will have to explain the significance of having to provide a photograph with a white background (provide new business to the local phot shop?)

Not sure, I'd guess something about better chances to avoid any form of color correction distorting the real color of your face, your hair etc.

What I know is that they have the same exact requirements for ID cards and passports here in France.

100K++ bahts per month, over 10 years ago. That was a comfortable salary then. Not sure about now.

Well, minimal health insurance. Not something you want to rely on when the Big Bad Illness strikes (and I know what I'm talking about).

Doesn't pay for your lost job either.

You really get to see the good aspects of a "nanny state" in such a situation.

Indeed.

I've managed to stay away from any place selling western food for about a year when I settled in Thailand. And I really felt like I would never have too.

After this, my genome and eating habits from early childhood kicked in. This has nothing to do with liking Thai food or not. I love it.

I perfectly know what the risks are.

That was not my point, and I have no intention to engage into activism as I have put myself in the category of cowards as you might have noticed.

My point is that we need people like this, be them Thais or Brits or whatever. It's not relevant to me. I admire them.

You're misled about anti-apartheid activists in SA. There were quite a few foreigners too.

And I'm Lannig by the way. Without a "n" before the final "g".

I thought that styrofoam food containers had been banned?

At least where I buy some street food, it's now handed in paper bags instead of the usual foam boxes.

To all people being offended to see a 15yo drive a motorbike let me ask you: where are you living?

Every morning the large Mathayom School on the other side of the road has tens if not over a hundred of 15 yo (or so) riding a bike to school.

I guess that many, many people need enlightenment then.

As for "his" motorbike... as I see it the family's bike, more likely. Which tends to become "his" bike when Mom and Dad aren't using it and on weekends like in many Thai families with a teenage boy.

Funny story, at least part of it is probably true. He didn't try to invent a stray dog crossing the street or some car cutting him off.

I wonder how the OP would cope with a spill on that scooter, or bitten by the wrong mosquito and lands in hospital. Yes you can live very cheaply here, but some unforseen things ? Like illness and accident can be very costly.

Exactly.

That's precisely one of the main reasons why I left Thailand. I had a good job (100K++) and I really felt much richer than I feel today back in Europe. But then I realised that I was getting older and that if I were to get sick or have an accident I could end up on the streets within months. No safety net at all. Well, unless you are wise enough to save most of what you earn. I'm not.

I am always reminded by my (Thai) wife to " not get involved, not our problem" - this is a GOOD RULE to follow in Thailand.

Western's tend to attract trouble in Thailand by "getting involved" in things that are not our problems.....

Yes, the immense majority of us cowards have this kind of reasoning. I am part of this majority too, so I don't get involved but I'm not proud of it so I would keep this kind of statement for myself.

Fortunately, for the sake of human rights, there are people who do not reason this way and don't mind "attracting trouble" to themselves to stand for these rights.

Such people existed in South Africa during the apartheid too...

You have my respect, Andy.

What a never-ending farce. For a country of people so eager to not losing face, this certainly looks like massive face-wasting to me.

The mobile phone waterproof pouches that are sold everywhere during Song Karn come handy for my passport too.

Security screening is pretty tight at CDG these days indeed. I've experienced it lately.

But this does not eliminate any possibility.

If it turns out that an explosive device was brought on board at CDG, that would come as yet another big shock in France. And a major concern for frequent travellers as I.

But I'm speculating here...

Oh my... some TV posters reaching a new low today I'd say. Thought it'd calm down after the good posts from Somtamnication and KhunBENQ but it doesn't. Really, guys, show some decency.

RIP to the poor fellow and my sympathy to his family and friends.

This could go on indefinitely, really. Yawn.

Not a single plot showing a descent from their cruise level at 37,000 ft on Flightradar24, it must have been a very catastrophic failure which of course brings suspicions of a bomb.

Only farangs (and bar girls?) seem to use this expression. Never heard it in over 25 years although it keeps popping up here.

Inspiration to all who want an education....good

For him, hope he is a good student too.

That would be something carrying high educative value for sure.

As for him, M1 at 14, a bit behind I'd say but that says nothing about his real abilities.

What's the status of these body snatchers anyway?

Does anyone know exactly?

Thai people always tell me that they're kind of charities financed by wealthy Chinese families. However many things tend to demonstrate that they operate based on a logic of money gains made when collecting corpses (not sure that even applies to people still alive too... so their interest might not even be to bring you to an hospital alive!)

If the ping times go up sharply at the first hop after the router and if you see packet loss if you ping that node, then I'd suspect that there's something wrong with your ADSL line. Better have it checked IMHO.

I'm actually surprised such a thing hasn't happened in Thailand yet. Or have I missed something?

Indeed, that's refreshing news (refreshing must be something badly needed these days)

Riding a pony bareback in the trot like the picture suggests isn't a piece of cake, so he must be an experienced rider.

Agreed it is free but none of these give you really good protection. For anti-Virus you can not equal let alone better the major players such as Symantec, Bit Defender, Kaspersky to mention a few.

Working in a large institution where Symantec has been made mandatory by the powers-that-be I can't help laughing when reading this. it's a major pain in the ass, a bloated, buggy piece of crap that causes countless software installs or upgrades to fail due to false positives.

On the other hand, I have nothing to say against BitDefender or Kaspersky although I would trust the latter much more.

Anyway, back to the topic: disabling or uninstalling the anti-virus over an upgrade is good practice. Upgrading an o/s means thousands and thousands of executable files written and each one of these will be scanned, which can mean and endless process as observed. As for Avira, well, it used to be an excellent product, much less bloated than Avast or AVG, but as of lately it has caught up or even passed them in terms of resource consumption.

it's only my two satangs but these days AVG seems to me the more painless among the available FREE a/v's.

Well, until they started having this daily advertisement popup for the full version a few days ago at least...