way2muchcoffee

Wow what a bunch of wanke_rs we have unearthed in this thread.

My parents smoke. I don't smoke. I don't care if the guy beside me smokes. My clothes will smell of all kinds of pollution (including my own sweat) so a bit of a smokey smell mixed in doesn't worry me. I can also walk past people in the street LEGALLY smoking without a fear that a couple of breaths of their smoke is going to give me cancer. I'm probably more likely to get cancer from all the preservatives in the food and the pollution from all sorts of things these days than inhaling a little bit of smoke.

A friend was having a smoke out on the footpath a few weeks ago. A woman wasn't watching where she was going and bumped his smoke and slightly burnt her arm. The woman went off on a rant and my friend just stood there and took it. In the end I just told her that we were standing there talking, if she can't watch what where she is walking then it's her fault, suck it up and <deleted> off.

If a person is smoking in a place that isn't banned that's fine, nothing to do with anyone else because it is LEGAL, if you don't like it then tough.

As for the poster saying the bars in Australia didn't have a problem being smoke free. I suggest you crawl out from under your rock. The smoking ban is the biggest reason many bar owners have gone bust. When it was first being determined most bar owners wanted the choice whether to place a smoking ban or not. Surely if it would be such a money spinner to be smoke free then all bars would have jumped at the chance, but that wasn't the case. All bars were made to be smoke free.

How about they be given a choice, if a bar has smokers, then non smokers have an option not to go there. If a bar doesn't allow smoking then smokers have the option of not going there.

I hate it when the do gooders impose their own will on what people should and shouldn't do. Harden up and move on to something important in your life than worrying about what others are doing to theirs.

Very good post. Sums up my own opinion on the matter quite nicely.

by and large I agree with your posts, but saying they tried to burn the capital down is just STUPID. It's past exaggeration. Vehicles, sure, tires, yeah, Central World and a few other spots, maybe. But the whole "capital" ??

please, that just sounds as bad as the guys you post in reply to.

To say they tried to burn the capitol down is certainly exaggeration, however to say that it was just a few buildings is also not really correct. Here is a short and incomplete list I compiled from news reports while the events were taking place.

I would call this 'quite a few' or 'many' buildings burned. Some of these buildings sustained only minor damage while others were gutted.

Siam Theater

Municipal Electricity Khlong Toei

Centara Hotel

Grand Diamond Hotel

SET

SEER Rangsit

7-11 Din Daeng

Central Chid Lom

Central World and Zen

Paragon

BTS Chid Lom

MRT Khlong Toei

MRT Queen Sirikit

Center One Department Store

MK Restaurant Siam

Ministry of Narcotics

Channel 3 Thailand

Din Daeng Flats

TESCO Rama IV

Mahachon Building

Big C Rajdamri

Approximately 15 Bank Branches in BKK

Burned Government Buildings

City Hall Ubon Ratchathani

City Hall Udon Thani

City Hall Mukdahan

City Hall Khon Kaen

Old chap, you are getting close. Sure it can look like a bar chart or a pie chart. If you make it in Excel or a program like that, pie charts and bar charts are one use of a chart of accounts.

If you Google, “Chart of accounts” in quotation marks you get you get about 414,000 results (0.11 seconds) all referring to a “Chart of Accounts.” Hardly a little used expression world wide.

While it may be a common expression world wide, when you look at google images for 'chart of accounts' in the first 50 images there you will see that the only commonality amongst them is the name of the companies. The rest of the information widely varies. This suggests that there is no real universal definition or interpretation of the term 'chart of accounts'.

Thanks !

Chulalongkorn and Siriraj both are government hospitals,but do they have good English speaking doctors ,nurses and other staff.We cannot speak Thai .

It's a little bit hit and miss at Chula and Siriraj. Some doctors speak excellent English, others don't. And of course there is everything in between. If my wife was pregnant I'd probably check Chula first and try to find an OB/Gyn who speaks decent English. If I couldn't find one there then I'd probably go to St. Louis.

Savings accounts for this period were earning about 0.75 percent. 7.5% seems extremely high.

The very idea of chop offs touches a deep psychological stress nerve in most men, and like I said, humor is used to diffuse that. I truly feel we are hard wired to feel that way.

I tend to agree here. It is just so damned disturbing that only a nervous chuckle or a joke (admittedly in poor taste) can help to diffuse the sheer horror of it.

Of course they have the obligation. They set the bomb off themselves. This is what Political Prisoner Thailand publishes on their (blocked) website:

Comments from Political Prisoners #Thailand on the bomb blasts:

First, it is interesting that the Abhisit Vejjajiva government begins uncovering plots and assassination teams at this time, linking them to red shirts, and having talkative captives at this time. Is there any relationship with the recent upsurge in red shirt mobilization.

Second, and not necessarily unrelated, Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon’s blaming red shirts for the deadly blast in Nonthaburi without an investigation being complete is also interesting (see “Government officially blames…” above). Reports in the Bangkok Post and The Nation immediately blamed red shirts, even before the investigation began. The information provided in the reports are both contradictory and remarkably detailed. For example, while the scene was one of remarkable devastation from a very powerful explosion, there seems to be plenty of complete evidence found. Few questions are raised and there is no skepticism regarding the government’s claims.

Third, it is worth recalling that if this is a case of a bomber being blown up accidentally, it is not the first. Recall that the People’s Alliance for Democracy car bomber back in October 2008 was blown up. He became a yellow shirt hero and the media repeatedly reports him as a casualty of the government crackdown on 7 October 2008. Many dignitaries, including Anand Panyarachun and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva attended his funeral. There seems to have been no investigation of that event and there were few headlines in the mainstream media.

It seems a careful and complete investigation is too much to hope for in the current case. Political lines are drawn.

Don't forget to wear your tin hat tonight. Wouldn't want the alien abductors to take you away for some deep anal probing.

1)Hel_lfire tours is a solid operation run by a westerner. It is a decent way to go.

2) Bus from southern bus terminal is quite inexpensive.

3) The train goes there, but I read in the paper recently that flooding has led to a temporary closure of the line

4) You can get a van from Victory monument for a decent price.

5) Many Bangkok taxi drivers will take you. Rates are posted in the car, or ask for a card.

St. Louis is a decent hospital. Not too many bells and whistles, but decent enough. Most of the doctors speak English well enough. Prices are reasonable. I find the hospital to be a good balance between cost, amenities, and quality of care.

You could also try Chulalongkorn or Siriraj hospitals. They are government hospitals, and are somewhat lacking in terms of amenities, but they have some of the best physicians in Thailand.

"It's clear that the bombers are Red Shirt people," Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon told AFP.

And how on earth does he come to that conclusion? very irresponsible statement, when its far to early to to know exactly what happened, it could of easily been a gas explosion but until an investigation is conducted he really should be proffessional in his position and refrain from making inaccurate statements until the proper information is made available to him.

DK

How do you know that proper information hasn't been made available to him?

Remember back when all this was going on reading a thread on here that gave a report from one of the reds who was wounded, no I wont look for the link.

He said they, the ordinary reds, were told to stand in front of the leaders.

He said he was in the third row from the front facing the army and got shot in the back.

Commented at the time that the army must have been using Ausi boomarang bullets.

They sure brought it on themselves.

Wonder who the reporter is planning on asking compo from?

Should be the reds and their paymaster, but I doubt it.

Nothing coming from that direction, not for the ordinary people.

But I tell a lie, I read Jataporn said they were setting up a fund of 1.5 mill Baht to compensate all those killed and injured.

Divided by how many?

Should get a few baht each once the leaders have extracted their share and administration is paid for.

I honestly don't remember this account. Do you have a source?

Short of putting hundreds of thousands of soldiers everywhere in Bangkok there really isn't much authorities can do to stop urban guerrilla bombers. Isolated bombings would be difficult to stop even with a massive military presence. This is especially true for launched grenades and bombs set in trash bins. There is virtually no way to stop this kind of activity.

In close proximity to a police facility in close proximity to government house? A bomb in a bin in a residential area is a different matter.

A bombing like this should not be possible, even less so when one considers that the SOE is in force.

Respectfully, I disagree. It only takes one second to drop a bomb in a bin. Even if 50 soldiers are stationed within 50 meters of the bin it wouldn't be too difficult. Eyes cannot be on every single location at every instant. That is the terrible thing about terrorism. It is so easy to accomplish.

Getting away is only slightly more challenging. This is especially true in countries lacking the money, equipment, and expertise to do proper forensics.

Short of putting hundreds of thousands of soldiers everywhere in Bangkok there really isn't much authorities can do to stop urban guerrilla bombers. Isolated bombings would be difficult to stop even with a massive military presence. This is especially true for launched grenades and bombs set in trash bins. There is virtually no way to stop this kind of activity.

Has any Thai got a real wage rise in the last decade ,besides the parasites, the ones I know haven't , stuck at 10thousand Bht pmc , end of story.

Then perhaps they need to find employment with a company that has annual wage increases. Nearly every Thai I know has seen several real wage increases in the last decade. This is especially true for those who were deserving and stayed with one employer for an extended period of several years.

Wow ok.. seriously? I mean.. seriously? This IS Thailand right? The entire country is ridden with corruption and thievery from the top down. I thought everyone knew this... really? Wow.

So if it is common knowledge you will be able to name at least one and more likely dozens of individuals, and the specific cases just off the top of your head. I am not saying there is no corruption. I am simply pointing out that you are making statements based on hearsay and without facts. Your main argument begins with 'Everyone knows....' Sorry, but that just doesn't cut it.

Do you know what percentage of the health and education budgets disappear through graft? I don't. But then again I don't make wild assertions without any evidence either (unless I am drinking of course).

My main objection is your sentence right here:

This all boils down to the usual problem, some rich politician is pocketing the majority of the money supposed to go into health care and education.

You state that the majority of the education and health care budgets are going into a rich politician's pocket through corruption. The word majority means over half. I think that is a ridiculous comment and I simply do not buy it. If I were to hazard a guess I'd say that perhaps a few percent is siphoned off collectively by hundreds of corrupt officials. Of course that is merely a guess. It could be more. It could be less.

Arent you forgetting that there are not enough doctors? Looks like they are working at 25% strength and expected to not make mistakes? This is the governments fault, as usual. They need to take education and health care seriously instead of underpaying and over working what they've got. This all boils down to the usual problem, some rich politician is pocketing the majority of the money supposed to go into health care and education.

Precisely which rich politician is pocketing the money? How much has he pocketed? What mechanism was used to embezzle the funds? Do you know? Hot air and baseless accusations?

I don't know if it's exactly the same thing - the "30 Baht card" - but my wife, as a Government school teacher, is covered by a medical scheme under which she sees doctors at a specific hospital for regular check-ups and follow-up treatment; eyes, "women's problems", general medical problems etc. She pays only for any medication prescribed.

That's strange. As *ANY* legally employed person (including foreigners) in Thailand, she would be covered by social health insurance, meaning nothing would be due for either treatment or medications.

Typically you pick a hospital as your main place, then no money is due. If you get treatment elsewhere you'd need to pay first, keep the bills and then file them.

To answer the OP: The fee for the 30 baht card treatment is... (wait for it)... 30 baht. Though the care provided doesn't seem to be of the same standard as social insurance for employees. (with some exceptions I guess)

That's not true winnie. Legislation a couple of years ago allows private companies and schools to opt out of the social insurance scheme if they provide a basic medical plan through a private provider.

I've lived and worked in Thailand for nearly a decade. My wife is from Isaan. I know very well how much it costs to survive. My wife and are I are also raising a child. I know the costs involved there as well. Personally I think it would be impossible to do so properly for 15,000 bt/month.

If what you say is true about Issan wife and child then and your time spent here, then I feel you have either been sheltered from reality by associates or you just fail to see things as they are. If you know the costs then you should know 15000 baht is a very good income in Isaan. I should also mention the friend I mentioned in my last post doesnot live in Isaan and can do it easily on 15000 a month, so Isaan being Isaan it should be even easier. . Rural Thailand is so inexpensive.

I realize that 15,000/month as a large amount for Isaan. That isn't the argument I am making. I would want my child to be raised with more amenities, educational materials, internet with computer, clothes, etc that the typical Isaan family simply cannot afford. The children in Isaan must do without many of the things that I would want for my child in order to maximize his/her opportunities in life. That is the point I am making, even if I'm making that point poorly.

I've lived and worked in Thailand for nearly a decade. My wife is from Isaan. I know very well how much it costs to survive. My wife and are I are also raising a child. I know the costs involved there as well. Personally I think it would be impossible to do so properly for 15,000 bt/month.

I think it is clear from the posters that KNOW, $15,000 baht a month is more than enough.

And yet not one of these people posting lives on this amount. And they certainly wouldn't do it while caring for their child. Very interesting.

..... and one of the most endearing things about the Isaan Thais (particularly older generations) is that they do not complain about their.

They have bugger all, expect bugger all, get bugger all and get on with their lives. I know several young families raising their children on less than 12,000 Baht p.m.

Only the Falangs seem to complicate it.

Isn't that the problem? The younger generation just doesn't accept these squalid living conditions. So their anger and frustration gets harnessed by organizations like the UDD and DAAD. Life is harsh. If you think it is so great then I challenge you to live on 3,000 bt/month in an Isaan village. I doubt you would make it through even one month.

The question of this thread isn't what is survivable. The question is what is the appropriate amount to send for an ex-wife and child. If you want your child to live in squalor that is on you. Personally I won't have it.

It appears to me after reading most of the posts that most of you guys have no real idea what it costs for a thai to live in Issan. I had an Issan gf during one visit there I was talking to a male relative of hers who works in Bangkok . He has 3 daughters growing up in the village he sends money too. He stated to me he was going to retire there soon on 15000 baht a month in the house he owned and raise his family he said he could live rather good with his wife and 3 daughters on 15000 baht a month. All his rice is free they grow it there. Most of the vegetables are gathered from the area they are free.I think it is 3 or 5 television channels are free. They raise their own chickens . They get fish from the river. It costs an Issan familt virtually nothing a month to live.

My gfs sister who lives next door lives on less then 85,000 baht a year. Her husband and her go to Chiang Rai once a year for a couple of months and work picking fruit or chilis or something and make 70,000 to 85,000 and come home and live on it. Last year they tore down their old house and am buliding a new house. They build the house them selves with help from the family because no one has a job lots of free time. Now every year for next 2 or three years they will take money from the yearly budget to buy building materials.

A woman with 15000 baht amonth in Issan would be the envy of most of the village.

1) If they don't have a rice farm they must buy their rice.

2) Large portions of Isaan are bone dry with no vegies available to pick for free for most of the year.

3) Chickens? Maybe one a week for my wife's household in the village. And it is an emaciated little bugger. And this is supposed to feed 5 people?

4) Free fish are available during the rainy season, but what about the rest of the year?

I think you are romanticizing the stark life that most people in Isaan actually live in. They have a leaking roof over their heads. Perhaps extreme flooding in the rainy season. A broken down motorcycle. 3 year old clothes. They do have ample leisure time though.

Some enterprising individuals do very well at 20,000-30,000 bt/month. Can you survive on less? Of course. But can you buy educational toys, new clothes, books, afford an internet connection, a new phone when the old one breaks, decent transportation, air condition in the summer? A new motorcycle that they can actually make the payments on? A decent bed, sofa, bedding, chairs, table? No way. Harsh choices must be made.

I thought conventional wisdom was to buy the girl a house, and maybe a car as well. Little eurasianthai had better start saving his allowance and working those extra jobs....

A lot of westerners here use the word 'face' to describe these sorts of actions by Thais but I don't think it's the appropriate word. In Japan the concept of 'face' is used to promote harmony, make everyone feel good about themselves and prevent anyone feeling any embarrassment. What we commonly see from Thais I would call selfishness and an obsession with their own status.

To use the example given by the OP, a Japanese waitress would be quick to apologise for their bad use of English in using the word 'tomato'. To show good manners and prevent her loss of face it would be good to compliment her on her good English and maybe say something about your bad Japanese skills. That would never work in Thailand. The Thai concept of 'face' is completely the opposite. They seem to love seeing other people lose face, laughing at any small mistake anyone else makes but will go to ridiculous lengths to avoid their own loss of face.

Hmmm. 'Lose face' is the correct word. That is how it is said in Thai. The Thai interpretation is what is meant when used here. The Japanese interpretation is proper for Japan. Nobody is right or wrong here.

I challenge any poster here to live forever with one child (making work nearly impossible) on 15,000 bt/month anywhere. Never a top up, never an incidental, only the 15,000. Possible? Of course. Comfortable? Somewhat. Certainly more comfortable than the lives of many/most people living in rural areas. But I would definitely not call it extravagant. It is not much above subsistence living. Quality of life standards I would demand for my own child require more than this.

Would you raise your own child and live on that only? I seriously doubt it. I don't like the term double standards much, but it is screaming out at me reading some of the posts on this thread.

15,000 is more than enough for the basics, but life isn't about the basics only when a child is in the picture. Other posters have suggested paying tuition for school directly and doing clothes shopping and the like on visits to Thailand. These are good ideas. But if this does not happen, and these additional monies are not provided in one way or other, then I don't believe 15,000 is really enough.