Lourens

Well, I guess you have to be here to understand the situation. I'm not complaining about my own position here but am merely trying to help those that do have problems. How about an 80 year old grandma having to cart around her heavy luggage, being put in a room on the 5th floor. We are not paying guests at this hotel with the priveliges that entails. Or the Bangladeshi contract worker who had to be back in Australia yesterday and now lost his job and probably the only means of support for his family. There are many other examples. We are not all British or Americans. There are others who are less fortunate.

I was hoping for some positive feedback and support but that was too much to expect from a bunch of wanke_rs who have nothing better to do than mock the unfortunate.

This is why I hate Thaivisa so much. Nothing but negativity from the posters. Thanks for the one or two who did sympathise.

This is a serious situation!

We are being held hostage in Thailand.

There are thousands of people placed in hotels in and around Bangkok who are not able to leave and go back to their home countries. Many of these people are in dire straits as it was the end of their holidays and they are now out of money. They can not afford to stay in Thailand any longer. Eventhough Thai Airways are taking care of food and accomodation, stranded passengers still need to contact work, home and relatives but this has to be on own expense. Many have to go back to work.

We were told this morning that it will take at least ten days before people will be able to go home. We can not wait that long. This situation is destroying lives.

This is an urgent call for the press to get involved so that International help can be called upon. If you have contact with the press, please get in touch. We are stranded at the Ambasador City Hotel in Pattaya. Around 10 different nationalities are involved. Please help us get home.

Is Your Wife The Most Important Thing In Your World?

YES!! (With her permission)

Remember that PB Air and Thai Airways code-share on this flight. It is therefore possible to book a flight BKK - BFV through any travel agent that deals with Thai Air. I booked a flight and bought a ticket from a travel agent in Saudi for this flight and paid the PB Air advertised price. It might be worth investigating wherever you are.

I had one accident in a parking lot in Buriram and as luck would have it, it involved another farang. His mistake, we exchanged a couple of baht for the damage and had a nice chat. The Thai rubber-neckers thought it was all very funny. I am very thankfull for my Thai drivers licence and a very good insurance.

I send dollars to Thailand every month via electronic transfer. The process is quick and will usually not take longer than a day. However, the last time I sent money, it took five days for the money to arrive in my Thai bank accoount.

The exchange rate five days ago was 33.52 and fell to 33.4. Not a very big difference I know but when you talk big figures, it will make a big difference.

Where was it? Who had it? What happened to it?

You might be surprised. now, I don't know if it is a good thing or a bad thing, but there seem to be more and more in Buriram everytime I look. I also moved into a village just outside of town in 1999. It was difficult to get something as simple as a cup of coffee in town in those days. Today, just eight or nine years later, the place is practically cosmopolitan. Have a look HERE and you will see what I mean.

249 Baht? It's still a bargain.

It's open!!!

Report and pictures HERE.

Hmmm.. Filters in Surin, anybody know where I can get some?

This is what I do having a lot of time on my hands: Take a ball of cotton wool. Make it in smaller balls of cotton wool (~0.5cm diameter). Put this small ball on the one side when you're rolling. Fold the paper inwards on the completed rolly to avoid the cotton wool sticking to your lips and voila! One filtertipped ciggy.

It's amazing what you will get up to when you have the time. (Intellegent people are never bored, my mom used to say.)

I smoke TraMeow "Green" and find it superior to Drum. In fact, I prefer it to well known brands of factory cigarettes. I add a filter when I roll my own. The other brands of raw tobacco are a bit rough for me and I leave that to my cattle farmer brother in law.

I updated my blog earlier today without any problems. Thanks George - it looks good.

Any news on the Blog Front?

I just returned from a trip home and found out all about the reasons for his behaviour. It turns out he didn't want to go to school anymore because he was forced to pay protection money to some older boys. My wife found this out after she went to the school to see if she could find out what was happening. According to the teachers, they knew about this going on but could never prove it as no one wanted to come forward to name the bad boys. Their names are still not known and for all we know, it is still an ongoing thing. I never thought that this kind of gangsterism is going on in Thai schools and if it is happening in a school in Buriram, it must be happening in other schools as well. This is a very worrying development and a situation that should be addressed in the strongest terms.

Our boy will not go back to that school. We found an alternative where he will repeat the last year. He seems very happy about the prospect of going to school again and for that we are very thankful.

Thanks also for all your comments and suggestions. It is much appreciated and good to know that someone cares.

Wasn't aware that there was another pool in Buriram. Can you provide info please. Thanks maybe can use that if we have another abortive visit to the "Beach".

It's the municipal pool right in town. One block down from the fire station towards city hall. Does this make sence?

Check the map.

Thanks prakhonchai nick. I'll be home next week and will check it out. There's enough kids around our village to fill a place like that. I had a small plastic pool that I got from V-Mart a while back and it was filled with kids every day until I had to empty the green water to refill it. Then it fell apart. We really need a nice place for swimming. The pool in town is not bad though but all a bit too formal. (How casual do you want to be?? I hear you ask).

What's the date today? Isn't it a bit early for that kind of thing?

Where is this place anyway? Or did I fall for the obvious?

We have one on our front door. Just how long is it supposed to be left hanging there? What freaks me out is that I see some of these effigies hanging by the neck, sort of like a noose.

Thank you all for the comments and advice. Some of it makes a lot of sense and is definitely worth considering.

As it happens, I was just attending an Ophthalmology symposium and one of the topics discussed there was on Dyslexia. The numbers quoted of people who suffer from this condition was staggering. Up to 44% of whole populations suffer from dyslexia in some form or other. But here is the interesting bit:

"Dyslexia is the term used when people have difficulty learning to read, even though they are smart enough and are motivated to learn. It is also the inability of the brain’s verbal language or auditory processing centers to accurately decode print or phonetically make the connection between the written symbols for words and their appropriate sounds. This can lead to frustrations for the child and ultimately just giving up trying to learn anything.

Chromogen lenses are the best treatment for dyslexia, since they help with the rearrangement of the brain’s ability to grasp the information when reading therefore they can help with the reading and spelling.

Dyslexia has nothing to do with refractive errors or other eye problems; it is a learning disability. It is neither an illness, or genetic flaw nor malformation of the brain. Diagnosis of dyslexia involves reviewing the child’s processing of information from seeing, hearing and participating in activities.

Dyslexia can be treated but not cured."

Now for the next question: Is there any place in Thailnd where I can take my child to have him tested for dyslexia? And how can we apply this knowledge to broaden the understanding of dyslexia among people with children with learning difficulties?

We have a boy, 13 years old, who do not want to go to school. We take him to school every day but we had a call from his teacher saying that he just wanders around outside and never goes to class. (This says a lot about the school system doesn’t it?) When we confronted him with this, he replied that he does not want to go to school anymore. Taking him to another school won’t solve the problem and I even thought we might enrol him in a private school. But nothing prevents him from simply leaving and not going to classes.

What can we do? I know of no school hostels where we can put him and he is still too young for the military. It was suggested that he should become a novice monk so that the temple can look after him. All this makes me feel terrible because it looks like we can not take care of him anymore. We tried explaining to him that an education is very important but his response is simply that he doesn’t like school. How do we motivate him? Do I pay him to go to school and do well to learn? He gets all the material things he needs (not wants). He also gets a lot of attention and affection from us and both his mother and I are deeply concerned about his well being. He is a clever boy if he puts his mind to it but I get the feeling that he thinks he is dumb. I tried teaching him English on more than one occasion but he just don’t want to learn.

Any ideas of what we can do to help this kid to get the education he deserves will be greatly appreciated.

. . . . was wearing only a pair of some kind of blue shorts obviously without underwear.

Did you know that it's against the law to leave the house without underwear in Thailand? Look it up - it's true.

If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

Any idea when this place might open?

It is a free True Type Font and available for download from HERE.

I bought a 44 gallon drum at one of the many recycle places around Buriram for 50 Baht and had my friendly neighborhood mechanic build me a BBQ. He only wanted me to invite him for the first BBQ.

Also, I built my own smoker. All the details HERE.