JensenZ

They were lucky not so sustain injuries. Grabbing the skate board and marching him out of there would not be considered violence. I was not suggesting they beat him up.

You go first. We need to know what your wife said. Why did she marry you?

I lost respect for the 3 cops. It was pathetic display of incompetence. They allowed him to keep swinging his scateboard at them when it would have been a piece of cake to take it off him, put him in an armlock and march him out of there. Those cops need to go back to training.

The majority of the Thai public will buy it. They are not trying to convince tourists and weed smoking expats on AN that cannabis has this effect on people. There's some sort of policital campaign by the media and some politicians to blame everying on cannibis to have it banned. Once it is banned, they can go back to blaming everything on the true culprit - yabba.

That's nonsense. They would have done what any sensible police would have done - taken the skateboard off him (which would have been easy) and handcuffed him, afterwhich they could have had their "conversation" in a private room.

You really have a point with tourists, depending where they come from. Most countries drive on the right, and one of the big problems when converting to the left is looking the wrong way when crossing traffic and intersections. It takes a long time to adapt completely to the other side to the point of it becoming instinctual. You often see tourists sauntering across a road while looking the wrong way. Of course the Scottish guy who was killed doesn't have this excuse, but it is a problem for many tourists.

The reason you gave up riding motorcycles is the reason most people use them - the convenience of getting through traffic quickly rather than spending hours in an airconditioned car on roads that resemble parking lots... and burning up fuel that costs the equivalent of milk. My last 3 liters cost 150 baht, more than I pay for milk.

The danger statistics for Thailand's roads is completely distorted. It does not factor in the percentage of motorcycle usage on its roads. Thailand has the highest motorcycle usage in the world, with 87% of its population using motorcycles. It's followed by a few other SEA countries, with Vietnam at 86%, Indonesia at 85% and Malaysia 83%. All other countries, and especially Western nations are WAY behind. Top 7 countries with highest motorbike usage

The OP should definitely look in the mirror and ask the questions: "would anyone find me attractive?" and "if there was no money transaction, who would want to **** me?" I do look in the mirror and see an aging 64-year-old that wouldnt have a lot of options if I was broke... and I'm in good shape for my age, but it's not enough to get any sexy young things excited. Maybe the OP's wife is expecting a divorce at some point, so she puts out so he can't use that as grounds for divorce. She most definitly has grounds for divorce and would be in the driver's seat in any judicial divorce proceedings.

Losing purchasing power due to exchange rate fluctuations is part of the cost of living abroad. There's no point waiting around for an exchange rate to improve as that might never happen, and in many cases never does. In the 17 years I've lived in thailand, the exchange rate has fluctuated between 39 and 29 baht for the USD.

I agree! Not being able to compete is too ****** bad. In my case, I had the accident at age 23 when I was trying to compete in Olympic Lifting. Plans change - it's life. In my friend's case which I detailed earlier in this thread, the surgeon actually admitted to a mistake, and his 2nd operation was free. To the surgeon's defence, they are human and make mistakes, or perhaps, not succeed to the level they expected. In the OP's case, it's quite possible they did the best they could do and he wasn't happy with the outcome. After serious smashes one can't expect to be like brand new again.

It's just over an inch (2.54 cm), so not really a big deal. I'm probably that much shorter on one side and a lot of people are lopsided. It's not so easy to measure due to hip misalignment.

I'm of similar mind, after reading this story. I had a serious motorcycle smash 40 years ago. I broke the femur into 3 pieces, my tibia (same leg) and my left ulna and radius. Anyway, all my life I've had to live with a small percentage of disability (limited rotation in the arm, a bit of a limp in the leg) and they make it impossible to compete in sports, but overall I get around OK and never felt sorry for myself. I still hit the weights pretty hard and do plenty of cardio. Looking at the bright side, maybe they did this guy a favour - taking him out of a very dangerous sport.

You've missed the point here. He had surgery, just wasn't happy with the result. Same with my friend, who had plenty of insurance, but they still f**** up his leg. Obviously the insurance company won't pay for further surgery, which is basically elective surgery.

I'm sure my friend would have gone back to the UK had he known the best surgeons in Thailand were going to mess up his leg. By the time he had it checked out in the UK, it was beyond repair, and that was an assessment by UK surgeons.

As in the case i just mentioned above this post, unbotching is not always possible. They did try to unbotch it (twice), but the damage was too severe from the first botching. First of all there was the accident damage, then more damage created from the first botch, and then again after the 2nd and 3rd botchings. You can't keep attaching and reattaching steel screws, pins and plates to bones. There's a limit. Eventually the leg can't be fixed and will need to be removed.

He should thanks his lucky stars he can still walk. An expat friend had a motorcycle accident in 2011 - it damaged his knee which required surgery. The best surgeon (and most expensive) in Thailand messed up the surgery and he had to go under the knife again - and again. Cost well in excess of a million baht - end result: His bones are ruined from all the surgery and can no longer regenerate. They are so damaged he can't even get an artificial knee as the damanged bones would not support it. The only option would be to amupute the leg above the knee and use a prosthetic leg. I would not recommend he get surgery again in Thailand, if that was his plan.

Ok, that's what you mean. I've lived through the 2006 and 2014 coups without any disruption to my life in Thailand. I think we'll be ok no matter what happens. Sometimes "all of the above" becomes a beneifit as it boosts the exchange rate.

Could you explain what ending us expats can expect either way?

You're misinformed. If a diet did rely on rice, even at much higher prices, most people would save money. A kg of dry rice makes 2kg of food, about 3650 calories. I'm not suggesting you eat rice alone, but more rice in your diet will save you money. Other than pure lard, rice is the cheapest food per calorie.

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I don't buy coffees or beers in Soi Buakhao, but everywhere I shop and restaurants I frequent inflation has been evident for the whole time I've lived here, which is now 17 years. The Buakhao businesses you frequent have merely eaten the inflation to offer the same prices - they took a pay cut to be more competitive. They prefer to have some business than go out of business.

(it would really help to make your post readable if you used paragraphs and seperated ideas). Depression is only one cause. Perhaps spending some time on a forum of people who discuss suicide might help to clue you in. In fact, people like you who think they can all be cured, or even want a cure annoy the people who are contemplating suicide. You've got blinders on. We're all going to die. There's no cure for that, but you can decide when and where.

No, it's the purhasing power of the money that counts. It's a simple calculation.

It's not true at all that "People who contemplate suicide aren't thinking rationally anyway". Many people study it and learn the best methods. There are quite a few "how to do it" websites available - times have changed. I'm not depressed at all, and clear headedly study the subject, as the knowledge I gain will someday come in handy. Slowly fading away, or taking matters into your own hands when the time is right? Which is better? Suggesing suicide is a mental issue that can be treated shows total lack of understanding on the subject. The German man in this report could be suffering incurable health issues with only a limited time to live. He could be living with chronic pain. He could be broke and have no family support. Try curing that. People can often have real problems that cannot be solved (or cured as you suggested). There is a big problem with botched suicide attempts, and the problem is worth considering for anyone who has had the idea of taking their own life. There are many good reasons to CTB ("catch the bus" - a colloquial term used on forums). There are forums where people openly discuss it and the reasons for wanting to ctb are many and varied. SUICIDE AND ATTEMPTED SUICIDE METHODS AND CONSEQUENCES by Geo Stone (circa 1999) "Every eighteen minutes someone in the United States kills himself. A few are younger than ten years old; others are over ninety. Between 7.5 and 16 percent takes more than a day to die. An estimated 300,000 to 600,000 survive suicide attempts, but suffer varying degrees of injury; 19,000 are permanently disabled each year. Only about one in ten or twenty suicide attempts is fatal" (this was published over 20 years ago) So much for the prevailing theory that Pattaya has a problem with excessive suicides. The only difference is that the local media publicize every single event in Pattaya, giving the impression the problem is worse than anywhere else in the world.