Adumbration

Very wise words.

What...the security guard nightshifts not providing you with enough enlightenment? Fly to Lombok. Climb Gunung Rinjani Baru. Becareful as you go over the top edge of the caldera and then descend on the volcanic scree down to the window lake. Sleep on the ground next the the hotsprings to keep warm. Next day trek around the window lake to the south eastern edge. Trek up the inside of the caldera about 300 meters. You will find a very small crevice there you can barely squeeze through. Once you pass through you will see that it opens out into a larger cave. Walk to the back of the cave and you will see a large pedastool of stone like an altar from a b grade jungle movie. You can lie on that stone and breath in the sulfur and absorb the volcanic warmth that surrounds you in all directions. Stay there as long as you need to. Before you leave. Just check on the base of the stone altar, on the left side when you are looking from behind back out of the cave. I scratched my initials there (A.T.) nearly four decades ago. It would be comforting to know they are still there.

You are barking up the wrong tree. It is not lack of morality or observation....it is just bone laziness.

Weather is not becoming more extreme. Stupidity is.

Wow. Lightning fast reporting. I started a thread on this with photos 2 days ago.

I have done the crossing at Sugnai Golok dozens of times. Malaysian immigration are delightful. Friendly helpful and welcoming. The Thai side is corrupt and abhorent. They use to have a tiny room there off to the side with a single table and chair in it and one person sitting. Everybody had to go in there to "buy" their arrival card before you joined the IO queue.

Yes that is the stark reality on the ground. Not some fairy tail make believe nonsense posted by @KhunLA and other numpties that have never lived on Phuket.

Yes. You have brought up a very excellent point that I overlooked. No Thais live in Patong because they know it is an overpriced tourist trap with <deleted>ty restaurants and overpriced groceries. There are are tiny amount of old guard locals in that village with houses but most have been bought out or displaced with development. Perhaps 95 percent of the Thai staff who work in Patong would live in Kathu and Phuket town in cheaper 2500 baht per month rooms and having to go to work via kamala or karon would be a huge burden in both time and costs for them.

So you think the RBA is going to keep publicly announcing they need to reign in inflation and then start printing more AUD....hilarious. But they could do that....everyone in any position of authority right now has absolutely no idea whatsoever and is just making up decisions as they go. No better recent example of that than what has just happened in the UK. RBA is not only bankrupt they are actually in the red. They have ceased paying any dividends to the Government and have to rely on printing money to prevent their collapse. They are currently 45 billion dollars in the hole and if they were a private entity would be wound up by receivers: https://www.centralbanking.com/central-banks/monetary-policy/unconventional-monetary-policy/7953188/rba-reports-huge-losses-from-bond-purchase-programme https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62976794

They will request funding from Bangkok to fix it properly and then the project will proceed with inferior design and substandard (or missing entirely) materials. TIT. Much of the road to Karon is built on mountside dirt same as this road that has collapse. The drainage trenches they have dug (between mountain and road) have washed out under the road with the dirt flowing into the sea. I will try to get some photos...but I do not live in Phuket myself....But used to for a decade or more.

AUD failed to hold 24 baht heading south again. Because risk back on with US markets. Rating mean nothing. RBA is bankrupt, literally, and this is not a tin foil hat banter it is a reported fact.

I read a number of comments in the Phuket media about this slide. Posters who live in Patong commented that the road from Patong to Karon is also on the brink of collapse because apparently the authories commenced road works alongside this road to dig drainage canals. But they commenced work during the rainy season and now the excavations have all washed out the dirt under the road in several places. Many people agreed that it the Karon road may well collapse as well.

Some more photos here showing extent of damage:

Oh the original blue prints and pick list of materials required will be drafted properly prior to submitting to Bangkok for funding. Once the billions have been granted the repair will commence using sand, low grade cement, and burmese laborers so that billions of baht can be skimmed off the project. Goverment officials in Phuket would not view this as a disaster. For them it is a significant windfall.

This is interesting news...any links????

A number of the fishermen I know in my village here wait each year for the krill (Thais call it Koy) run. Krill are a small shrimp (that whales eat) and around mid october each year they leave deep water and make their way to the shallow waters just off the beaches along the west coast to spawn. The fishermen put two 8-10 meter golden bamboo poles in a v shape on the front of their boats, and between the v string a massive fine hole net. They drive back and forth in the shallow water just out from the beach and collect metric tonnes of krill. Thais dry it to put in som tam (you might have seen the little orange dried shrimp at the markets already) but the bulk of it is made into gapee. That stinky fish smelling reddish brown paste you see them adding to most dishes. Fresh Koy is also sometimes made into "pancakes" with tempura batter and then fried (very tasty). They litterally fill their boats until they are nearly sinking with just an inch or so of freeboard remaining. Then they beach and put the krill into 50kg bags. Last year the market price was 50 baht a kilo so a single bag is worth 2k5 baht. A friend of mine last year collected 4 metric tonnes of krill last year in three days....200K THB. For about 70 percent of the fishermen in my village here that is the ONLY work they do all year. Just net krill for a week or so...and then have enough money to live for the rest of the year. They then swing in hammocks for the other 50 weeks of the year. It is an environmental disaster. Krill is the absolute cornerstone of the ocean food chain. But of course there is zero government intervention or regulation. Last year during the run I was down on the beach near my house and I counted 63 boats netting a school of krill near the beach. This year there will be more, because the market price will be higher than last year and more and more Thais are moving back into fishing because the gravy train of driving taxis in Phuket was derailed by covid.

I know a guy with a similiar story. He was a friend I met at language school and he then ended up being my neighbor. French. Deployed new servers for Philip Morris. 15 or so years ago he was paid in Swiss francs but at the time I calculated the equivalent of 250K USD. He worked a regular 9 to 5 hours and was constantly on his phone and computer (both of which were supplied by PM). He dressed like a tramp also, definitely even worse than me if that is possible, worked on a 500 baht rubber tree wood table and sat on a 150 baht plastic chair. He was not yet 50 so could not get Non O and was on ED visas. He left for Sinnookville when the Junta here started the crackdown on ED visas and required record of actual class attendance.

A little. But I could still see her with the light off.

You did not read my op carefully....I wrote "repair it properly"....

Australian market will crash when the US markets tank. It has always been that way. GDP is irrelevant. Flight of capital will then be into the US dollar. AUD will be toast because the RBA is bankrupt and cannot step in and buy to support our dollar. Australian government and the RBA have painted themselves into a no win corner. Raise interest rates and worlds biggest residential property bubble will collapse. Don't raise interest rates and the AUD will collapse. Lowe took his foot off the interest rate peddle this month so it is clear that they have made their choice. The AUD will be sacrificed to try and save the Residential property market.

Education has little value in Thailand because of corruption and the patronage system. An ex girlfriend of mine studied law at Chula on a full scholarship. She was from a dirt poor village down south but she had a wonderful teacher at her school that helped her get the scholarship. She graduated with top marks but struggled to get a decent job because she had no money to buy a position and no connections. When I met her she was selling bedding on commission in Central Mall.

Have a look at the travel times on google maps. Compare kathu to patong (destroyed route) with Phuket town to patong via kamala or Phuket town to patong via Karon

Yes billions of baht to repair is correctly.

You need to ensure you have alternative banking options back in your home country. If you read my post history you will see that during covid lockdowns about this time last year I was quite literally on the brink of a nervous breakdown because I need to transfer funds from my bank accounts but I suddenly stopped receiving SMS messages. My sim card providers denied the problem was caused by them and the banks said it was the phone company. One of the most stressful periods in my entire life.

Before this latest round of rain started the fishing season here in my west coast village had just started. The guy who moors his boat next to one of mine went out for a couple of hours one morning to set his nets (special three layered design for cuttlefish). They are left in the sea over night and then he heads out the next morning to collect (also a couple of hours). He returned with 36kg of cuttlefish on his first trip and the fish market bought it off him for 180 per kilo. So for approximately 4 hours work and a little gasoline for his long tailed boat he made 6480 baht. He had a similiar sized catch the next day and then the storms and rain set in and have not let up since.