Valentine

I see potential burglars quite often during the day riding around housing estates looking intently at all the homes. We have a medium size dog which helps & every Thai who has come to the house on offical business will not go in the gate until the dog has been secured. There have been many burglaries in the estate & so far, touch wood, we have been spared. A few years ago when I was out of town the neighbours (who were away on holiday) house was in the process of being burgled when a group of Thai guys at a party next door jumped the wall & beat the crap out of him before calling the police. It turns out the burglar had a gun so it could have been quite nasty especially as my wife & kids, amongst others, were watching the fiasco over the wall.

Do I qualify for this? I should be ready for you to come measure up in a couple of days.

Thanks everyone...watching a bit quietly lately...had a very interesting call from Thailand this eve!

I hope it was good news or potentially good news.

I have found these to be good value & comfortable from the first time you put them on. I have purchased several pairs online & the boots arrive within days. http://www.steelblue.com.au/

I made a rare foray into Patong last Saturday night as GF had some country cousins visiting. Bangla looked reasonably full with mainly couples walking about but looking deeper into the bars they were not doing much business. Went to Taipan to check out the live music which was pretty good & stayed on afterwards when the DJ came on. At around 2am the place was almost full.

Living in Chalong I am happy about the increasing variety of restaurants, bars & shopping venues in the southern area although bars do not generally interest me as much as they did many moons ago.

It is possible no one in politics in this country is above board but at present it is about the lesser of two evils & the Democrats, certainly Abhisit, fall into the lesser category plus they may provide the best chance to set up a system of cleaner politics in future. Double standards & policy corruption were totally outrageous during the administration of Mr T.

Whatever the motive for the Chalong killings they do highlight the rising crime rate in Phuket & it does not matter what statistics are quoted from elsewhere they are not relevant to this island upon which we choose to live unless one is making a decision to live here based on the crime rate compared to elsewhere. Although the official population figure for Phuket is around 350,000 the number must surely be around one million. I seem to recall recently some published figures of 700,000 vehicles registered in Phuket plus there are quite a number of vehicles from out of town which would indicate a much larger population.

Number of murders per head of population could be quite high in Phuket if using the official number but changes considerably when the real number is taken into account.

Da Zio Vanni

In on the main way from Kata to chalong, before the circle on the Right side.

Fantastic italian food & Pizza a very reasonable price.

Since I know this place I start to save about 3-4000 thb/month

anyone know this place i can't find it

It must be the Italian restaurant just by the entrance to Patak Villa, in the 2nd row of shophouses.

It looks like an MLM scheme & nearly everything I can find about the actual unit which treats the water shows agrees with the OP. There is a company in Phuket selling it & you can actually just buy the MRET water without having to buy the machine. I was given a 5 litre bottle to try & did feel good during the time I was drinking it which was everyday until finished. The feelgood may have come from the placebo effect. The cost of the machines is prohibtively high so 200,000 for 5 units is about right although I query the need to buy 5 & I personally would never buy one. If anyone is determined to try it just buy some of the water first & see if it helps.

Many websites say the water must be refrigerated for it to retain it's treated qualities but upon pointing this out to the people selling the product they claimed I was wrong.

To me it seems the Chalong killings were because of an argument resulting in loss of face, easy accessibility to a gun, the bottling up of emotions (if you look hard enough you can see it brewing behind the smile) which can seemingly explode at the slightest provocation. Thais rank fairly low in average IQ & I imagine if there was test of EQ (emotional quotient) they would rank pretty low in that as well.

The education system greatly contributes to the low IQ average & the lack of will to change it is quite obvious given, that if people become more intelligent combined with rational thinking, then the politicians & elites will not be able to pull the wool over their eyes so easily, thus the groups which swap power over the years could lose their grip. The emotional quotient will never change as long the role models both in real life & on TV continue to behave as they do. The religious leadership does not provide any decent guidance despite the fact they truly could given the will to do so.

For many years I used to run the tap water through a two stage wall filter unit & then ozonate the water using a small ozone machine which produced consistent good quality drinking water. The ozone machine was also handy for cleansing fruit & vegetables of any pesticide residue but the machine is now broken & so buy 12 Baht bottles although we buy from the same guy as his water quality so far is consistently good. I remember years ago when using different vendors there could be quite a difference in water quality.

Lately I have considered using SPA but I really would like to go back to making my own drinking water & there is a wide variety of units on sale at Central, Homeworks, Home Pro.

This months IBAP meeting will be held this Friday 14th Aug, 6.30pm at Phuket Brewery. Representatives from Kasikorn & Siam Commercial Bank will be on hand to discuss the possibilities of foreigners obtaining business & home loans. For further information check the website http://ibap-phuket.org

Last time I was in Phuket was about 3 years ago and at that time there was a really

nice crepe place in Phuket Town run by a pleasant hippyish looking guy from Britanny.

Is it still there?

Not sure but there is a pretty good one in Nai Harn just pas Da Vinci's.

It is funny one of the posters mentioned Fortuner drivers as here in Phuket I find then to be some of the rudest & aggressive as it seems like the are having a competition with the mini bus drivers.

One night in Phuket, roads were still very busy, I was behind a black sedan that attempted to run down a motorbike, twice. Having failed, the motorbike tried to pass him to get away from this dangerous situation but as he did so a couple of shots were fired at him. The motorbike eventually got past & made a left turn at the next intersection but the sedan also turned left in the hope of catching him.

Although I have no idea what precipitated the above situation my point is this, there are a lot of handguns in this country & I am sure many are carried around in cars & the mindset, which is prone to snap on occasion, can lead to disasterous results especially if a loaded weapon is at hand.

YES, IT HAPPENS INDEED ON PHUKET IN AN EXPENSIVE SCHOOL

I shall not resort to primitive means like beating someone up. Although I must quell the urge so much that it hurts. The aim is to have a good and stressless education for the child. I understand by now that making losing the Thai party its face will be counterproductive and the price may be paid by the child. And its not the teacher that loses its face, it is the whole school tolerating or perhaps even encouraging such so-called disciplinary methods.

From you responses I gather that none of you personally has a child exposed to a hitting teacher, are there?

Your question shows you have not read all the posts. Check out my one, 3rd from the top.

if a teacher hit my kid I would walk in and hit him in the same way as he hit my boy. so if he hit him on the ar-e with a cane I would do the same to him in front of his class and then probably find a new school.

i would not be impressed if my boy came home and told me something like that.

I suggest you try another method of resolving any situation like that otherwise you might end up in a new home plus the other students could get the wrong message that it is OK to resort to violence.

I have not heard anything about a final decision on TV bbq at the Sportsmans club as the initial enthusiasm seems to have wavered. There are plenty of bbqs at bars around the island where one can strike up friendships. More formal gatherings can be had at Rotary meetings, every Tuesday in Patong, once a month at the IBAP (International Business Association of Phuket), Phuket International Women's Club, Farang Ladies Club, etc.

It can surely not be too hard to meet & make some like minded friends & organise private parties.

Go to the government offices opposite the end of the tennis court & down the far end is the Child Adoption office. The process will take about two years but when finalised make sure you get a certificate of compliance under The Hague Convention which should make it relatively easy to obtain an Australian or New Zealand passport.

Tom was a self confessed alcoholic which could account for his depression & sometimes was a pain in the backside when sitting down to eat. Not rude but his chatter could become annoying & detract from the pleasure of eating. Porn would often scold him & send him scurrying back to his TV & gin. I was there one time last year & he was looking pretty stressed out. He related a tale of woe as some up country family were visiting so he hid his bottle of gin. The problem was he was drunk when he hid it & now could not remember where it was so he set off across the road to buy a couple of cheap beers to get back in the frame of mind whereby he could find his gin.

Occasionally there was a niece around which LIK may have confused for the wife. Porn was always asking after my GF as we used to sit down & eat in the early days (GF was fond of the fish burger) & the couple were known to be helpful to others given their meagre resources. Even my kids remember them from long ago & were shocked to hear the news.

For my taste they had the best fush n chips in town, great fish with excellent batter & proper chips unlike the skinny little ones that many people try to pass off for chips these days. Some restaurants now consider crumbed stick like fish pieces as battered fish but it aint so. The only one I know that has decent battered fish now is Sizzlers although I hope there are others.

My Gf said she saw on Thai news about someone being stabbed to death on Bangla. If this is in addition to the apparent shooting incident then it is truly becoming a lawless area although it is possible the two incidents are the same but a case of differing versions of events.

As far as I am aware there is a law banning corporal pumishment from schools except where there is agreement between the teacher & parents. Many years ago when my twin daughters were in Bor 3 class their lady teacher (1st year at the school) was merciliously punishing the students for the slightest discretion & not uncommon to line up the whole class on occasion to mete out strokes on the hands with her canes. On one occasion a boy was struck 27 times. I always remember the image of the teacher's desk with a little box of canes sticking up ominously & the teacher looking completely stressed. The whole class was living in fear & one day when my kids came out the classroom crying after the whole class had again received a beating I snapped & marched this teacher to the headmaster's office where some strong words were uttered.

There was a promise that no more beatings would occur & the teacher would use detention as a deterrent. From that day on the class atmosphere completely changed with the kids becoming more responsive, teacher was much more relaxed, & at the end of the school year the students had become genuinely fond of their teacher with many bringing gifts for her.

I went through school when corporal punishment was allowed, leather straps to the hand in primary school to storkes of the cane on the backside at high school, & don't feel any harm from it but the above case with my kids is an aberration & the scamming thing, if true, should be bought to the notice of the authorities.

The Thai lady owner of the fish n chip shop on the road to Chalong pier passed away recently & now Tom her American husband has taken his own life. A tragic story of a couple who seemed to struggle with their business over the years but managed to keep it going & always produced the same good quality fush n chips. At this stage I have no news on where Tom is to be cremated.

RIP.

Hi Ping.

Discussions resurrected.......LOL.......will neva stay buried for long.

Question, there are times when TV appears to go down.

I have tried it in Firefox, yukkk......, and in Google's , Chrome, same, so I am unable to blame, IE,

Have you encountered this?

Has anyone else had this peoblem?

Only happens with TV.

I use TOT here in Chalong & have never seen TV go down. Up until a month ago I used IE7 & now on IE8.

It is interesting to note the response to this short article about Thaksin's return. The endless stream of Thaksin haters shows the dominant make-up of this board. Makes one realize that the three years of the orchestrated Thaksin demonization campaign and media indoctrination is very difficult to counter.

Trying to counter it is like p...... into the wind, like trying to push a string, like nailing jello to a tree, etc, etc. At least what you will read from Ferwert postings is an alternative perspective to this board dominance. There is nothing hidden about my agenda. You all know that I am pro-Thaksin and pro....pro-democracy Red Shirts. I also believe that due to my circumstances, I have more insight into that world than most. Obviously there will be some debate, but my primary focus will be to inform. Like the #$%^&*() Fox News says, "we inform, you decide.

With respect to the Petition, the foolish Government campaign against it is taking on a dubious life of its own. That reactionary notion of people signing to recant their petition signatures is a case in point. Apparently large number of PAD/New-old paternalistic politics types are signing to recant petition signatures they never even made in the first place. A very silly exercise. I am hearing of other Governor coercive activities, which serve to alienate many.

Allright, you Thaksin haters, commence your stream of vitriol.

Put aside for a moment anything to do with opponents of your red shirt friends & think about the so called democratic ideals the red shirts preach. If they are so hel_l bent on improving democracy how come they vigorously oppose any movements of government politicians on their home turf? Are they afraid these politicians could become more popular? They certainly do not want to allow any views other than their own. Why don't the reds admit to past mistakes & make genuine offers of reconciliation. There are many things they can do to show they are genuine in their desire for more democratic ideals.

Is Mr T's rampant corruption to be condoned because he did some so called good things for all of the people. He stated once that constituencies which did not support him would not receive extra funding. The 1 million Baht per village was a great scheme to allow people to accumulate more debt in order to buy phones, motorbikes etc from companies associated with him & his cronies.

When Mr T first came to power I thought he would be good for Thailand but I was soon disillsuioned after the whitewashing of his assets concealment case & right now he is pushing this country on the road to civil war just to perpetuate his own power.

I long for the day when someone will put on a shirt that says "I will not rest until I stamp out corruption, destroy crony politics & ensure equal justice for all". All past & prsent governments have not been perfect but there is no reason why they cannot aspire to be.