Robroy

I get vitamins sent to Bangkok via the post from the US, but have to keep them to packages of under $50 to avoid customs duties. Never had a problem with <$50 packages (I use a barang name), tho it is hassly.

The best alternative I've found is to get a big shipment sent to Australia DHL during my annual visit, & bring them back to LOS in my luggage. Much cheaper shipping, plus no Australian customs duties if under $1000 in value.

There are quite a few dodgy orphanages in SE Asia. Nearly every orphanage in Cambodia is fake, for example. I have also heard stories of fake or exploitative orphanages in Thailand (from a friend who recently tried to volunteer at one).

The manager's reaction to your request would set my alarm bells ringing.

If on the other hand you can get a first-hand recommendation from a poster like the below, & it checks out, this might be the better way to go.

CMX1980,

I am a volunteer here in Chiang Mai and have been here for nearly 2.5 years. My plans is to volunteer in CM for much longer.

I have a lot of connections in and around CM and I would say most are doing a fantastic job and would relish receiving any such donation, cash or goods.

But I also have connections in Mae Sot at an orphanage/school. And can I tell you if you could help them out it would be extremely beneficial. I won't say too much here but if you send me a personal message I will give you all the details you want.

I have visited this orphanage with many of my friends and the man running it has given EVERYTHING to make it happen. Even his own salary goes back into keeping the place going. I can't say how much I admire this man for what he has done, with basically nothing.

Thanks!

Pharmacie de la Gare might be more expensive, as someone claimed above (I haven't shopped round), however it is airconditioned, & it does have a large range - especially of medicines barangs use. That puts it ahead of most pharmacies in PP. It also has a real, actual pharmacist. Today's Cambodian medical & pharmaceutical degrees are worthless, but the old guy running PDLG has a pre-Pol Pot degree.

However in his & any other case, don't deal with the counter staff where you need to rely on their knowledge. Most will sell you anything, & don't know the difference between an antibiotic and an antiseptic.

There's a thread on the local Cambodian forums on EMS - Expat Advisory I think. My only knowledge is that ordinary parcels to the PO can be 'lost' in the works there for 6 months or more.

Finally, I don't like PP much (crime, noise, dirt, traffic) & now live in Battambang in the north: much more quiet & ordered, though not the world's most exciting city for nightlife.

The train BKK-Aranyprathet is pleasant enough & takes 6 hours. Cost is $1.60 (sic.).

Then you go through border hell over to Poipet, Cambodia - but if you just say no to every scam you are offered...

...it can work okay.

Then 6-hour taxi to PP - you find a taxi at the market in Poipet. $30-40.

Trains & even taxis are safer than buses, which are lethal in both countries. For example on the Poipet-PP road (Hwy 5) in Cambodia I recently saw 4 major bus smashes in a month - including a bus going 8m over a bridge, a head-on with a cement truck, a bus crush a minivan and its occupants (body parts all over the road) and a bus-on-bus smash. Drivers are often drunk, according to roadside petrol vendors I've spoken to.

There isn't much to do in Vientiane - it's pretty, quiet and a good place to chill out.

Have to agree that CM is way ahead of Phuket, given what one reads about the latter lately.

Its only drawback for me (the reason I left) was two months of smoke from rice-burning every year or 2. It really is horrendous, & puts hundreds of thousands of people across northern Thailand into doctors' office, hospitals and (a few dozen) morgues.

If you can handle that, or plan around it - a long annual holiday perhaps - CM doesn't have much wrong with it.

Best-regarded pharmacy by barangs is the Pharmacie de la Gare near the PP railway station.

You can get a PO box no problem. Parcels from overseas sometimes don't appear for 6 months, and occasionally not at all - but most do.

Crime is more of an issue in PP than in Thailand. Bag-snatchings from foreign females are common.

Other than that, standards are lower than Thailand - as you've seen with the flat. The thing I have most trouble with is getting a repairman to 1. Show up; 2. Fix my toliet/lightswitch/window competently. Invariably repeat visits are needed, even for something simple. (One guy showed up but forgot to bring his tools - stuff you wouldn't credit elsewhere.)

But Cambodia is cheaper & friendlier, for sure. Cambodians are more curious about foreigners than are Thais.

A big difference is the emphasis on virginity-till-marriage for women - a bit of a deal-breaker for many Western men.

Aranyaprathet is the scene of some of the world’s great border scams - a major local industry. The Thai police are paid off to turn a blind eye, so will be of no help. Those heading into Cambodia may be subject to any of these:

* At the train or bus station you will be told you need to board a ‘government bus’ to take you to ‘the right place’ for your Cambodian visa.

* A man will approach you at the reception desk of your hotel, saying he works for ‘Thai Immigration’ - and can expedite your exit from Thailand and/or visa into Cambodia.

* A tuk tuk driver will want to take you to a special ‘visa office’, to get a faster/easier/cheaper visa.

* There are even offices set up to sell you Cambodian ‘visas’ right next to the border.

* If you need a passort photo (as you usually do for Cambodia) a tout at the border will take you to a ‘scanning shop’ that will sell you a photo + fake visa, requiring a payment of $35.

There are many more variations, both in town and at the border itself. Most of Aramyaprathet's hotels and tuk tuk drivers are in on these scams.

The result? Lots of time and money lost. For example, instead of a 15-minute journey to the border, you will find yourself driven in circles - sometimes for as long as seven hours - visiting offices, shops and restaurants owned by relatives of the scam operators: and paying at each for spurious paperwork, fake visa stamps, food and drink. (To ensure the latter, your driver will simply disappear for an hour.)

All this can be easily avoided. Once you arrive in Aramyaprathet, getting into Cambodia is simple:

1. Find a tuk tuk to take you to the border. This should cost 80 baht, and will take 15 minutes maximum.

2. Exit Thailand through Thai Immigration and (after producing passport, photo and $20-30 fee) enter Cambodia through Cambodian Immigration.

That’s it.

In town, negotiate your tuk tuk fare in advance, and insist the driver take you to the border (everyone knows that word). Refuse to get out at unplanned stops. Keep saying ‘Border!’ A fallback is to say ‘Mee visa lao!’ (I already have a visa) or 'Ba!' (Go!). This should ensure they drop scamming attempts. Hundreds of fresh victims arrive every day, and it doesn’t pay to waste time on the non-credulous.

Bottom lines:

1. No Customs or Immigration formalities take place anywhere but the border itself, and then only after you have entered Thai Immigration.

2. Crossing from Thailand to Cambodia does not require intermediaries of any kind.

Something with an alarm that goes off numerous times a day & is simple to use would be good.

Thanks in advance.

Fatigue is a symptom of many, many illnesses & even habits - for example:

drinking a lot

smoking (anoxia)

drugs

medium-high levels of processed carbohydrates

viral illness or post-viral syndrome

heavy metal toxicity (e.g. mercury from amalgam fillings deposits in the brain)

not exercising

cancer

HIV

depression

iron deficiency anemia

B12 anemia

deficiency of a specific mineral or vitamin

low lithium levels

and many more.

Perhaps pick the most likely candidates & start checking them out - either via withdrawal of those things (e.g. reduce carbs, get amalgam fillings removed) or medical tests.

Usually fatigue is a precursor to worse developments, so you might take this as a handy warning.

Come to Phnom Penh for a week - you will be cured.

its the one major problem i have with thailand, their disregard for care when driving will force me to leave.

The large variety of responses here suggests that there are many possible causes, & you need to get working on discovering what yours is.

A couple more options to try:

* If you eat at a particular restaurant every day (or from one food source), stop doing so for a few days to see if that's the cause.

* I find betaine hydrocholoride (stomach acid) and good bacteria (e.g. lactobacillus) very useful, & always stock up on them when I go back to the West,

* Dairy is the world's equal no. 1 allergen. Its co-equal is gluten grains. Homo sapiens did not evolve to eat either, and some Homo sapiens react badly when they do.

>>>Government well prepared for earthquakes, urges public not to panic

Panic.

Hilarious.

Yeah, Songkran has become a piss-up and a melee. In my experience, most Thais over 30 don't like it either.

Cambodia, where water celebrations have been banned, is IMO a nicer place to be living, come New Year.

You can email AQIS from their website & give an exact list of what you want to bring, & you will generally get a quick reply.

Burning is the only cause, and banning burning is the only solution.

In Cambodia, where I now live, rice is generally not burned off, so there is no haze problem whatever.

I left Chiang Mai five years ago because of this problem. I wonder how many others have done likewise.

Looking for tropical fruit and forest tree seeds (or seedlings possibly).

I'm in Cambodia, so anywhere in Thailand would be fine.

(No guesses please.)

There are no terrorists in Thailand and everything is completely under control.

This endless visa bureaucracy is one reason I have abandoned Thailand for Cambodia, which welcomes foreigners.

The smoke is caused by a "cold air mass" and "uncontrolled burning across the border".

You attack it by spraying water from fire trucks.

Really?

Until the practice of burning off rice crops is replaced by returning the stubble to the soil, the north will have a smoke haze problem most years, with all the illness & death, & tourist losses, it brings.

Cambodian rice farmers mostly don't burn - they turn the soil over & return the stubble to it to decay.

Thus there is no smoke haze problem in rural Cambodia, nor has there ever been one.

For all its wonderful strengths, there is a denial of reality in Thailand that's stronger than most places.

E.g. Chalerm's recent PR disaster over there being 'no terrorists in Thailand' and 'everything is completely under control' - shortly before the bombs went off. Or the Chiang Mai authorities in 2007 blaming the smoke haze on Korean barbeque restaurants, and closing them all down.

With 1 in 60 Thais infected, that would surely mean a much higher proportion among sex workers.

One in 7?

One in 5?

(Here in Cambodia it's one in 8.)

I agree with Piiguy that chelating with amalgams in place can be quiet dangerous.

Even if you didn't believe all the evidence was in on this subject, getting them out is surely wise on the precautionary principle.

I have tried chelating on irregular/sporadic doses & spun myself out pretty badly.

I also think the constant dose is the way to go. Have been doing that for 7 months, & no side-effects.

Ok I have just spent the afternoon reading about it. Yes there is conflicting info. the one argument though was that the mercury travels freely into the brain anyway whether you are using chelators or not. I am going to give it a rest for a while anyway and do more research.