Acharn

Some of the "reenactments" I've seen on TV news, the cops are pretty obviously coaching the defendant through the play. Not always. Anyway, it's one of the reasons for the Fifth Amendment to the American constitution, and why the judge is supposed to question the defendant pretty closely when he/she enters a guilty plea. Farangs mostly come from legal systems with similar safeguards against self-incrimination and don't understand the background of the Thai legal system.

Well, we have been told a firearm was found in the pond, and the Thai guy was found tied up and dead with cuts and bruises in the house. We only have the Swiss guy's and his wife's stories as to how that came about. You seem to believe their story. Do you have a reason for that?

I remember one year while I was stationed at the Pentagon, I took leave to come back and visit my wife, probably 1979 or 1980. My wife had sent her daughter to stay with some relatives or friends in Lop Buri and we went to pick her up to stay with us while I was here. Lop Buri was where Special Forces had their base during training Thai Army people, but they were pulled out in 1975, and most of the people there had never seen a farang. Even when the SF were there they rarely went off base because Thais in those days had no bars or pubs -- they did their drinking in restaurants without entertainment. Anyway, the kids had never seen skin as white as mine, and one, maybe six or seven years old, was brave enough to come up and rub my forearm to see if the white came off. Yeah, there was much more opportunity for your average Thai in those days because of the deforesting of the Northeast opening up so much land. It was like the Wild West in many ways. The atmosphere was buoyant.

Well, I was stationed at the Army port at Sattahip from 1971-3, married a bar girl, and spent nine years in The States and then Germany. Retired and came back permanently in 1982. I have to say I liked the '70s. It had a freewheeling feeling like the Wild West. You had "communist" insurrections going on in the Northeast and the South, the army was deforesting the Northeast as part of their campaign, generals and even colonels were getting rich from illegal logging and the cleared land was available to anybody willing to work hard enough to farm it. There were even ways to establish legal ownership of the land, but it was still a patron/client society, with power held by local "godfathers." Thailand had had military dictators at that point for 25 years. When I came back permanently in 1982, former Gen. Prem Tinsulanond had been appointed Prime Minister by the Revolutionary Council, the military junta that had been running things since the counter-revolution of 1976 and there was almost no open corruption. He forced elections and a blatantly corrupt former general became the "civilian" Prime Minister. His cabinet was so visibly corrupt the people welcomed the coup in 1989 but protested so strongly when Gen. Suchinda tried to establish a dictatorship that the junta appointed a businessman, Anand Panyarachun, Prime Minister. Like Prem, he was completely honest and competent, and the country prospered. After him were a series of tolerably corrupt governments, until Thaksin Shinawatra was elected. Most upper and middle class Thais will violently disagree with me, but he was the best Prime Minister of the whole period. I admit he was blatantly corrupt, but he offended the elite because he shifted the graft to a different set of families than had been in control for so long. He enacted populist reforms that led to an explosion of prosperity in the countryside that has led to Thailand now being a poor first world country. His reforms were so popular that the dictatorships that have followed have not dared to do away with them, so that now any Thai city is only distinguishable from an American town by the temples. I think the '70s and '80s were more fun, but now we have a lot more creature comforts and conveniences. We're in kind of an awkward transition now. PM Prayut was not a particularly bad dictator, and has not been a particularly bad "civilian" Prime Minister, but he lacks charisma and is boring. I look forward to whatever comes next.

Since that's 5/8 of the required deposit, I would presume you need 3/8 of the monthly requirement, or ฿24,375.

I've seen banana chips for sale at one shop on the way to Bangkok from Nakhon Sawan that sells a big variety of Chinese confections and Japanese daifuku. I didn't like them, but I love the fried bananas from street vendors. They sometimes sell fried cassava, as well, and I wish my niece would not buy those to make up the weight when they don't have enough bananas left.

Oh, that's very helpful. Thank you.

Yes, I checked my spam folder. Nothing. Do you know if [email protected] will reach them? Neither of the emails I got to register gave a contact address and both said not to reply to them. ETA: Two posts up from this one is a clear explanation, with a call center number, but from his description it doesn't look like it's very helpful.

We didn't get any rain, yet, today. Maybe tonight. September and October always get lots of rain. My memory is that the highest tide of the year always produces floods in Bangkok in October. Usually floods in most provinces. Our "front yard," mostly bare dirt, is pretty much a swamp, but the neighborhood is not flooded.

Interesting. I live about ten kilometers outside town of Nakhon Sawan and I haven't heard anything since I got the reply back from expatvac that I had successfully registered. I'm also registered at Sri Sawan hospital, supposedly to get the Moderna vaccine next month (maybe). I wonder why expatvac hasn't given me an appointment yet. I'm over 80.

When my first wife died there was a two tier process in effect for retirement. This was back in 1995, and if you were 55 you could get a retirement visa if you had an income of ฿50,000 a month; if you were 60 or older you could get it for $25,000. I was only 59 and had more than 25K a month but less than 50K. The Police Captain who had been handling my case for five or six years advised me to do visa runs for a year. I've always found the Immigration Police to be helpful, even friendly. I know some people have constant tsuris with them, but I don't know why that is.

In the frame on Nawarat Bridge, the caption says พ.ศ. 2010, but in the sound track she says 2510, which makes more sense. พ.ศ. 2010 would be 1467 AD. พ.ศ. 2510 would be 1967 AD. I'm surprised they were still using so many pedicabs. I first came to Bangkok in 1972, and they had been outlawed there by then. I didn't bother looking through the rest of the video to see if any other dates were given.

Scouse123. I wasn't really thinking you were alcohol dependent or alcoholic when I suggested AA. The Third Tradition is that the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking. I just found that most of the people I met there are the same kind of people I hung out with in the bars, and fun to be with. Most are really not poster children for mental health, but most are a lot of fun. Unfortunately some are religious fanatics, but they tend to stick with each other since most of us identify as recovering Christians. I consider myself an agnostic, too, in the sense that I believe whether there is or is not a creator god cannot be decided by reason. It's a axiom, like the parallel postulate in plane geometry. Either you believe it or you use one of the alternate postulates (there are infinite parallel lines or there are no parallel lines). Generally, I think the Eightfold Path is a good way to try to live and doesn't require that you believe anything. I'm quite sure I am an alcoholic, but I haven't had to take a drink of alcohol for 45 years, so I don't have a drinking problem any more but I still have a living problem.

Back about 40 years ago I read a humor book by a Thai bureaucrat, one of a series with "Smile" in the titles, describing his experiences as he rose through the ranks. It was hilarious. The one I was reading was the point where he got promoted to Nai Amphoe. He had to go through a training school that lasted six weeks or so. Very military oriented, and included parachute training. They qualified with a tower jump. The chief is a policeman, though, so his training may have included one or more airplane jumps, but probably 20 or more years ago. I remember there was a coup where Police General Phao Sarasin tried to oust Field Marshal Phibunsongkhran. The police in those days had frigates, armed aircraft, and tanks. After he won the Field Marshal made sure they didn't. At the graduation party from the Nai Amphoe school, one of his friends described how much he was looking forward to getting home and boinking his wife. "I've slept with a Kharachagan's wife, and I've slept with a Balad's wife, but I've never slept with a Nai Amphoe's wife."

I'm amazed you've lasted 10 months. As you say, you need to find some activity to fill the time you used to pend drinking. I gather you're still in Isaan, so Alcoholics Anonymous isn't really an option. Because it's based on American midwestern middle class protestant Christianity (most people who stick with it seem to ignore the God thing) it's never gained widespread acceptance in Thailand although one farang did succeed in establishing a group in Chayaphum. He had to learn Thai very well to do it, though, and I think all meetings are now online because of Covid-19. Lots of English-speaking farang members in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Wish I could think of some alternative to suggest. If you have decent internet you might start hunting for resources. Some of my old AA friends "meet" virtually once a week on Zoom and if you start searching "aa meetings online" you can probably find some that will accept newcomers. At least it would give you some English speaking contacts. There's some religious group that's been advertising here at AN or TV, or whatever this place is called now. Had a slogan like "we're here for you." I don't see one of their ads today, and don't remember their name, but I'm sure they'll pop up again. They probably have resources to suggest. If you know about archive.org, they have a project for volunteer proof readers. That could take up a little time if you enjoy reading (I do). Good luck.

That's called khao lam (or lum, as in lumber). They make it with the white sticky rice, too, but I haven't seen any for years. Never thought about adding raisins. I should try that, ask my niece to keep an eye out at the market. I stopped using cream, only use whipping cream now. Pricey, but delicious.

It was always false. SARS-Cov-2 is a fast-mutating virus like influenza. The vaccines were always designed to reduce the severity of the symptoms. They do not prevent infection,or confer immunity, so they will never produce herd immunity. It's like the common cold -- you can catch it again after you've had it once. Get vaccinated anyway, the fact that the symptoms are less severe is a big deal. You're almost certain not to die. It's just too bad all the public health authorities decided to lie about the vaccines, it's destroyed people's faith in them.

Pfui. I hate these hypotheticals. "Could," "might," "There's a risk of." No information to help assess the actual risk. It's all just meant to arouse fear or hope. Heck, the baht might suddenly jump up to 31, too. I'd love to see it drop to 35 and stay there for three years, and it might do that. Who knows?

Disappointed it's the Pfizer vaccine. Lot of anecdotes from the states they have lots of reactions, especially to the second dose. I'm registered for the Moderna at my hospital, but they won't confirm until they have the vaccine in hand, probably about the end of September of October. I'm in no hurry, I'm in a situation where I have almost no exposure and I've figured for 65 years I might drop dead or get hit by a bus this afternoon anyway. If you're scared of dying you probably haven't enjoyed life that much.