Stocky

"muscle and bone aches"

Sounds far more like Chikungya or Dengue. My most vivid recollection of Typhoid was not knowing which end to point at the loo first, I didn't have any muscle or bone aches, I just felt terribly, terribly ill.

I caught Typhoid while working in Malaysia twenty years ago, my vaccination had lapsed by a couple of months. I think I caught it eating in the local wet market. Fortunately once I saw the right doctor, first one failed to diagnose it, the antibiotics got to work quickly enough. The second doctor I saw recognised the symptoms straight away as I was the third case of Typhoid she'd seen that month. Once the symptoms have gone you still need to get your blood checked several times to see that you're not still carrying the bacteria. The good news is you have life time immunity, no need to bother anymore with vaccination.

If you've managed to avoid Typhoid it is one of those jabs you need to keep up, once every five years, it's a particularly unpleasant disease to catch.

Noted that Tops Market in Central Festival Hat Yai is stocking Sharwood's curry sauces, they had only the Balti and Madras sauces, sadly Sharwood's don't do pastes.

I put 500km between us and the in-laws, still not far enough.

any particular reason?

Father liked to beat his wife and kids when drunk. The sad old bastard is on his own now; his son married and moved to Phuket, we moved to Hat Yai and with the children safely married his wife divorced him and moved to Kanchanaburi.

I put 500km between us and the in-laws, still not far enough.

Just received the wife's passport back and she's been given her visa.

We did book an appointment which was Monday last week, arrived at 2pm for the 2:30-3:00pm slot. We'd completed the online form and printed it out and had the application form, appointment email, 2x passport photos,Thai marriage certificate with photocopy (no translation), copies of my passport and the wife's, health insurance plus photocopy, and a letter from me requesting they grant my wife a visa so she could accompany me on a trip to visit my sister in Germany.

We had some issues. When completing the online form there's an option Yes or No to the following statement:

"In exercising their right to freedom of movement, family members of citizens of the EU, EEA or Switzerland (spouse, child or dependent direct relative in the ascending line) are not obliged to provide information concerning their employment, reference or the financing of their stay. If you belong to this category and you do not wish to provide any information, please select “Yes”. You must submit documentary evidence of your family relationship."

Selecting 'yes' skips a large part of the application form which when you print out is left blank. For some reason the clerk said we'd not completed the application form in full, she also wanted the letter of invitation, she seemingly failed to understand the opt out. I explained that it was I visiting my sister and requesting a visa for my wife to accompany me, and as a EU citizen my spouse should be granted a visa. She was clearly unhappy and asked my wife questions as to how often she'd met my sister, did they write or talk. Anyway, finger prints were taken and the application was accepted but it seemed unclear as to whether we'd get a visa. We left the embassy at about 3:15. We travelled up and down from Hat Yai the same day.

My wife had been granted a Schengen visa from the German Embassy on two prior occasions but I was still somewhat concerned what I'd find when we opened the envelope today.

Bht14.63 per m3 for tap water and Bht20 for a 20 litre container of drinking water in Hat Yai.

Phuket - Hat Yai? Is that the Bangkok Air flight or are you saying Thai Smile is intending flying the route too?

There are regular flights from Bangkok Don Mueang (DMK) with Air Asia, Nok Air and Thai Lion. I doubt anyone's going to connect NST to BKK (Survanabhumi).

My wife and I will be in the UK May/June and want to visit my sister in Germany. It will be cheapest to travel to Bangkok to get the visa rather than from London whilst in the UK. There seem to be a few changes since my wife last got a Schengen visa. Application is now through the website rather than a downloaded form, and you need an appointment? Though I note in the replies above that as the wife of an EU citizen she could go direct to the embassy without an appointment. There is an English translation of our marriage certificate, will this suffice?

Obviously a trip up from Hat Yai isn't an afternoon jaunt so best to dot the i's and cross the t's first.

Trump baited this. Wake up before it's too late.

Donald's Storm Trumpers and an all American Kristallnacht coming real soon.

You've already identified the only real method of finding somewhere. There's plenty of new housing going up in Hat Yai but the requirement for a garden limits your choices significantly. You should consider expanding your PSU search area through to the Bangkok Hospital and the sois off Thanon Sam Sip Met heading south to Thumnoonvithi, as well as the area to the back of Big C Extra (old Carrefour).

Good luck!

Does a Schengen Visa application need to be made from your home country? Wife and I will be in the UK in May, she already has a 5 year UK visa, we want to go across to Europe but will probably organise things late, could she apply for a Schengen Visa from the UK?

Make sure you have the old passport handy on the way out too, they've often asked to see my old passport and visa on departure. Also make sure they stamp the current passport - coming into Hat Yai one time a rather ancient immigration officer put the stamp in my old passport. After pointing out the error, and him consulting with another officer, the mistake was rectified.

Pssst...not an outbtreak..but a chronic issue... a daily way of life..

The headline and slug line correctly say escalation and it is indeed chronic.

Jihadist violence by muslim extremists is likely to take hold next is in the north/northeast where Thai votes have been taken away repeatedly by Bangkok elites and their little coup general.

Oppression of human and civil rights creates fertile ground for powerless citizens to embrace such things as communism and radical Islam.

Not wishing to argue with you but how do you relate "Jihadist violence by muslim extremists" with the North East?

Perhaps he thinks Thaksin's spent so long in Dubai he'll convert to Islam and his loyal Red Shirts will follow!

Ha ha, that was a good laugh. 90 taxies for the hole province. There are no problems with taxies, because there nearly aren't any. The problem in Songkhla province is the transportation mafia, should be the issue adressed by the police and politics, not the taxies.

Indeed, the meter taxis can't operate freely because of the tuk-tuk owners. For example they're not allowed to work Hat Yai city centre, if you see one in the street you can't flag it down. So because they can't operate freely they don't make enough money using the meter, so it's fixed fares. There are only 90 meter taxis precisely because they're not really profitable unless they can compete freely.

I've had similar problems, I could readily buy them from any of the Tops markets in Hat Yai but they stopped stocking Pataks midway through last year. I've looked in Bangkok but couldn't find in Villa Market or any branch of Tops I visited, the only exception was Tops at Central World which had Patak's Mango Chutney and a few jars of the Korma and Biryanhi paste. I've been bringing my supplies in on trips to Cold Storage in Malaysia or Singapore.

They increased the cost of electricity by 13% mid November last year but magically this price just doesn't seem to factor at all.

- It's all total fiction.

I see the BBC is reporting that the Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has overturned the decision, visas will now be granted.

I've upgraded both desktops from 17.2 to 17.3 - no problems. Both are MATE desktops and they're fine.

I have a safe deposit box with Krungsri Bank Phloen Chit Branch cost is Bht856 per year. I too tried Kasikorn but they needed me to take out a life insurance policy, Krungsri are happy with me just having savings and deposit accounts.

I'm guessing the ‘Overflowing Hearts and Happiness for the New Year’ won't extend to alcohol.

Don't ban Trump from the United Kingdom ~ 12,623 signatures

Block Donald J Trump from UK entry ~ 421,051 signatures

Ghastly little man, I've added my signature to keeping the oik out.

I'm planning to get a new multi-O in January from Penang, I've checked and beyond New Year's day there are neither Thai nor Malaysian public holidays in January.

No worries, I take everything you say as per your moniker .