Shaunduhpostman

A better man would ask, "why aren't people saving," and proceed from there.  So many people borrow and that is what is pushed. Occasionally I catch wind of what people pay to borrow in Thailand and it seems ruinous. I believe it was last year, the  the Farmer's collective or somebody or other purporting to support the farmers had set up shop in teh village and were loaning the farmers money at 25% per year. You'd think theyy were giving money away, everyone was in the line for hours. ONe guy I talked to really didn;t seem to realize that by the time he paid his loan back he'd have paid 3 times what he'd pay if he paid outright. People receive no training or examples from anywhere as to how to plan, prevent etc. So it is not very helpful to be told you ought to save money. I'm sure that thought has crossed most people's minds but there is too much social pressure to spend to have a fancy car, a this a that, plus people are stymied by a culture that punishes those who try to get ahead or excell, that protects the rich and their monopolies. For example if I wanted to brew beer, the law says I must start an enormous factory, otherwise its illegal. I'm sure its no different with many enterprises, if you are not already a big fish no can do. So, essentially he is saying, the only thing you are allowed to do other borrow money is to save it, not make it.

Call Big Joke? Obviously they aren't serious. 

"I'd like to report a taxi driver! He wouldn't turn on his meter!"

"What did he look like?"

"Well, he was about 50 years old, short hair... wearing a blue t-shirt. I think he had a big gold wedding ring on his ring finger..."

"Ok, sir we'll notify our department at next month's meeting. We'll ask the officers to look for a taxi driver with a blue t-shirt and a gold ring while on duty. And when we catch him will slap him with a big 10,000 baht fine! How's all that sound!"

"Thank you! Thank you, so much! Now I can sleep at night knowing my case will eventually be settled!"

Really tho, is it so hard to just hail another taxi if the one just waved down doesn't want to go where you want to go, or doesn't want to use the meter? 

This is just needless harassment and intimidation of the drivers. 

I like star gazing when the weather permits, which admittedly is almost never up here in Isaan, there's a kind of haze that seems to set in most nights and then they've put up a lot of street lighting which also wipes out the really cool clouds of stars that you can see leaving just the brightest.

Anyway before they put in the street lights, it was not uncommon to see lights that were clearly not planes in the night sky. I often wondered if they weren't ufos or something, but I've seen peoples youtube vids of what are drones, so seems to me that's what we were seeing. There's some unusual aircraft to be seen in the skies in Thailand for sure. Just last week the wife and I noticed a very fast plane of some sort travelling across the night sky. It was going 3-4 times faster than the usual commercial planes we see flying over here. I'm curious who was flying the plane, I don't imagine the Thai miltary has anything that cutting edge, perhaps Chinese or Russian.

Putting people under more surveillance as the solution, eh?  I was wondering where all of this sudden interest in high level of road deaths was going. I suppose there is a Thai or Chinese dash camera manufacturer that has been behind all of the excitement about something that has been well known for years.

KInda disappointing that they don't seem to get it at all.  I'd bet 90% of the people seeing their blog in which they  moon Wat Arun, had no idea such a an amazing structure even existed let alone any of the meanings behind its symbolism. Their ass cheeks flash gesture seems to suggest: I respond to the skill, hard labor and artistry of the architects and builders of Wat Arun with ass and do so without even an iota of appreciation, I fart at wisdom and compassion, Buddah mind as represented by any stupa, without even a remote bit of curiosity about what any of that might mean. Brilliant. What a statement. Yeah!  Freedom of expression and speech!  Yeah man, knock yourselves out Butt-tour doods! You're  free to show the world you'd just as soon ignorantly flush their cultures, histories and achievements down your ass toilets without even having the slightest curiosity or one iota of knowledge about them in exchange for what...mobile device transfixed, transhumanist global mind control consumerist zombie-ism, and yeah man, like cheap thrills, fun world tours, and blogging and Instagram! That's where its at! We're so much better than you Thailand!

Do Thai people get a fair shake? Something gives me the sneaking suspicion... that... perhaps...they...uh...

Just because you personally haven't seen something or some phenomena doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You could just as easily smugly sit there and say the world is flat, looks flat to me, so must be flat, common sense, mate! haha!

On the other hand while people make an easy target out of people who believe in things that aren't there or things that exist on a more subtle level than blaring on a screen in your face saying do it or else, you'll find that  nearly universally they all spend most of their entire lives attending to and precoccupied with a being that also can't be proven to exist: themselves.

Sounds to me like you must be pretty healthy. If you feel good I would keep up that routine and adjust as needed.

If metamucil is what I think it is, psyllium husk flavored with artificial orange stuff in a small envelope that you mix with a drink or yogurt, I wouldn't take it because they put aspartame, an artificial sweetener, in it and aspartame has been linked to many many health issues according to some studies. Instead I use just plain psyllium husk for constipation, which is difficult but not impossible to track down in Thailand. Sunshine Supermarket on Sukhumvit Soi 22 has 100 gram bags of it for 150 baht or so, its supposedly organic and without any unhealthy additives that I can tell. You use it in the same way as Metmucil, just put a teaspoon of it in with your food or drink. Sunshine Supermarket also take orders online and ship anywhere in Thailand, tho I haven't ordered from them so I don't know how well they handle all that, but they seem on the ball, nice well run shop that I drop into and buy my aryuvedic health supplements from whenever I am in Bangkok, bulk turmeric and psyllium.

To answer the question, how do you maintain a healthy life, I figure that as with most things the key is just paying attention on a consistent basis, be willing to face whatever is going on and deal with it  as it arises and do your best to be reasonable. Do what you can do and feel comfortable with regarding your health and if you feel pretty good and have no major issues, then that's most of it.

My aim is always to try and stay well clear of doctors if at all possible, I don't think it is paranoid to say that few if any have any interest in your health and in many cases are just angling for ways to  take your health away so that they get your business. Again maybe I am paranoid but I get the sneaking suspicion that most of the doctors I have been to see in Thailand are holding out on me, that they simply keep to themselves whatever they find with me and could help me prevent certain minor issues I have from developing but they would rather wait and hope I get worse in hopes that they can harvest a whole array of acute issues down the road. The doctors of course are not all bad, but there are some certifiable sociopaths at some of major hospitals here, so for me that is key and a real problem and issue I have living here. When I went to a certain large and well known international standard hospital in Bangkok for a bothersome issue with my foot , the doctor tried to tell me that all the bones in my foot were broken into tiny pieces and that I probably needed to have my foot amputated all the while giggling and going through this clearly contrived mock surprise and shock routine. My wife went into a semi-supressed rage, tugging on my sleeve insistently and whispering into my ear, "This guy isn't a doctor! Lets get out of here! He's crazy!" You really have to be on your toes if you are going to see a doctor here. 

Personally I don't take well to others' advice, never seems to work for me. For example, another Thai doctor told me I was obese and scolded me for eating McDonalds and pizza all the time, which I don't, and  I clearly am not obese either, just somewhat over weight 6 foot 2 and 93 kilos and he said to me it was imperative  that I needed to stop eating large meals and  change to an eating style where I eat little snacks throughout the day to feed myself. I went to him regarding a foot issue, he and 5 other doctors I have seen in Thailand don't seem to know what the problem is. That said his advice, reducing pressure on my foot by reducing my weight has helped and two other westerners independent of one another who have the same problem that I do with their feet have said it sounds like  I just have a case of whats called Plantars fascia which is sharp pain in the bottom of your foot or an uncomfortable feeling that there is a stone in your shoe and results from standing around on your feet a lot or from too much pressure on your feet due to weight or other issues.  I did reduce my weight, and that has helped relieve the symptoms to  a tolerable level, but I prefer to eat regular meals, not become a snacker as seemingly advised by the doctor which to me sounds like a recipe for becoming seriously unhealthy.

Of course, you have to get checked for things you can't check yourself. As much as I don't trust doctors, in theory it is not impossible that they can benefit you and so you have to do your level best to weed out the legions of bad apples out there and go to the best you can track down for checkups etc. I think in Thailand not only is a second opinion from a second doctor a must but a 3rd, 4th and even 5th opinion, especially if you are getting contradictory stories as to your condition or see signs that you are talking to a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about, or cannot communicate, or who even is plotting your road to ruin the minute you start your consultation.

Human lives only matter at the holidays apparently and strangely only at the holidays that are not particularly important in Thailand. Gotta keep up that image!

Yet, I don't think they'd appreciate it that much if you did your Christmas machete shopping before you went in to see the immigration officers and strutted up to the counter with your new holiday gifts in hand.

" Sorry, na. Only I just go to chopping before I see you, OK? I not kill you if you not renew my visa! Don't seriot, OK?"

I'm not an expert on child development, but age 3 or 4 seems a bit too early to try and get kids to sit still and start getting with the marching and regimentation program. I remember my own day care center back in the day and we never did much else than play and sing songs, kindergarten not much different. I remember by kindergarten they started getting us to sit at a table, but for not much more than art projects or more songs. Seems like a large part of the problem is that the school is trying to force 3-4 year olds to be 6 year olds. And then I imagine they take another short cut on hiring people who aren't up to managing the futility of that. "Hurry hurry! Can you start work tomorrow! OMG! We need someone now! The school year starts tomorrow! Sorry we cannot pay more than 300 baht a day!"

Pilgrim's kitchen has a whacky open mike night on Wednesday I think. Or they did about 9 months ago. Best place to stay as well, good clean rooms in a newly renovated old French colonial house, nice food and coffee in the cafe downstairs, nice people running the place and staff have a good attitude. Sort of a backpacker vibe, so if you have that kind of allergy that causes you to go apopleptic at the sight of hippies  then maybe something else is your speed, but not too many options in Savannakhet, so either that or maybe some dusty semi-dirty place at non-bargain prices.

I don't think buying vegetables at a supermarket would be any different than a local market. There's a very bad taste to most Chinese and Thai vegetables that makes you wonder about what kind of soil they are being grown in, I would guess a quite polluted stew from many years of dumping pesticides.

If you must buy vegetables and fruit as opposed growing your own, soak them for at lest an hour, don't just wash them. Then give them a good rinsing before you cook them. The alternative, not eating vegetables is not healthy either.

Meat is worse because the animals eat the chemically bombarded plants, grain etc and the chemicals are stored in the the fatty tissue. You probably get years of stored chemicals with every serving of meat.

Expelling poisons from the body should become a basic part of people's daily self care. Regular exercise, plenty of water, taking herbs and eating foods that assist pulling toxins out, keeping your colon unclogged and moving stuff out and doing fasts not to mention developing better awareness of causes and conditions in your body that need attending to can all go a long way towards maintaining health. You just try and do your best and hopefully you don't end up in a doctor's office as an experimental subject for someone who paid someone to sit their medical school exams, do their thesis research project for them and who now must use you for their on the job remedial training.

True Kalasin runs a lot of games and are just straight up dishonest. We couldn't even get them them to shut off the service after getting fed up with constant problems and hassles to do with billing and them also needing to constantly change our hook up box and dish antenna, their non-transparency regarding billing, etc. They would not take away the old equipment either and we had to store their old stuff for them.

They'd lie and say they'd have someone out to disconnect everything and then there would be a no show and then they would explain why another month or 3 or 6 needed to be tacked on before we could halt services. Went on and on for nearly a year. We finally had to get lawyer friend of the family to give them a call and straighten them out, otherwise we would still be being held captive.

During the 2 years we paid for cable TV we would get our service cut 4-5 times a year despite having paid all bills on time. They would say we hadn't paid a bill which they were having problems sending out and that sorry we'd have to wait to get our bill so that we could pay it and get service restored.

 The there-is no-technical-problems-on-our-end-you-have-to-upgrade-your-service-buy-new-equipment-again-from-us number has been run on us by 3BB and TOT employees regarding intenet. You just insist they solve their technical problems and report them to their management and no need to pay companies who can't reset your internet connection and get it to work again. Seems to be a trick that employees use to get a sale. Getting a bit old by this time.

In general, most Thais seem to feel that being safety conscious or even slightly this side away from reckless is way too uptight and really a very negative, complaining, bad luck inviting, boring stance to life. It is not only car accidents that are permanently destroying people's health, maiming and killing them, any outsider can after a week of experience here come up with a laundry list of areas where people in this country breezily go about endangering themselves and others.

If they wanted to change, which they don't, It would take generations to undo the cultural programming, and early adopters of a common sense approach to life would have to sacrifice their lives and be ostracized from society. Its not gonna happen.

When Thailand goes nuclear power that will probably be the end of them as a people for the most part. The culture and the people cannot and will not do what it takes to  properly handle that level of responsibility. Cars and mobile devices are one level of technology but the nuclear technologies ask something they are not up to, we'll just see the plants mismanaged and within years melting down, waste dumped wherever after management pockets the money earmarked for proper disposal.

There's a website dedicated to funny English at engrish dot com . You can send in your photos and/or browse their categories, tons of really funny stuff. 

Sadly probably the most mind blowingly screwed up English in Thailand used to be that found in Thai produced English text books about 10-15 years ago. With some of them it was clear the authors were going out of their way to give wrong information, there may even have been some malicious intent to propagate wrong English or just take people's money and essentially humiliate them for just wanting to improve or learn English. 

As I recall, I have seen textbooks where  oojah is given as the word for elephant, baby clock for alarm clock, oof for money,  whid for lie, humpy for fog. I'm serious, that stuff was really out there in text books.

Casual perusal of textbooks recently, those I have seen are only riddled with spelling mistakes and other minor errors. Seems people get their English from internet where it is common to "loose" the football match or say "We didn't know 'were' we 'where' going. Still an improvement, thank gog for internet, tho I suppose any day now they'll be taking that away so we'll be back to loosing our oojahs in the humpy on our next elephant trek in Chiang Mai.

While there were a few days of the site being non-functional for me about 6-8 weeks ago, I haven't had any major problems since , but the minor hiccups have been numerous. 

There were very few problems with this site for years before the Nation took over. That said 'm not the least bit surprised as their poor attention to basic proofreading the daily paper would seem to indicate a general lack of concern with detail which I imagine would carry over to their handling of more difficult tasks such as running a website.

The apparent censoring of people's avatars, I notice my own and many others have disappeared, would also warrant some sort of notification as to why, but it's their website so who am I to complain. 

Plastic bags are big money. Thailand must be a great market for the producers because people will only very slowly wake up to the reality if ever. 

In Khatmandu, seems the Nepalese government has banned plastics. Stores will issue bags but they are quite thick and durable cheap nylon based cloth bags with wide shoulder straps. I did not have a chance to visit other areas of the country so I don't know how widespread the plastic bag ban is, but it seemed to be in force everywhere in Katmandhu. But with their solution very quickly everyone has quite a lot of handbags for carrying purchases. There seems to be very good public awareness that plastic waste is a national problem that needs to combatted. Especially good since Nepal has yet to become a consumerist nation which Thailand has. Nepal has acted before the problem really exploded. Nepal has other problems regarding pollution but it seems they have made a good start  in getting a grip on the plastic bag problem.

Here, I can't see it happening in terms of govt taking successful action. Plastic producers will probably nip any ban plans in the bud with their own schemes. 

At the end of the day, plastic bag waste proliferation is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of Thailand's pollution woes. Off the top of my head the list of serious problems would include the mass dumping of increasingly powerful agri-chemicals on the rice paddies, Thailand's open door to international mining and other manufacturers to set up and pollute at will, Thailand's complete indifference to chemicals long since banned throughout the rest of the world for use in food and drugs. High air pollution levels in rural areas where no garbage collection services are available and where mass burnings for agriculture put tens of thousands in the hospital every year with respiratory ailments.

The future threatens Thailand with each and every new twist and development in technologies. China's nuclear power industry has held meetings with Thai officials and there are talks underway to get Thailand nuclear power. I think you can guarentee the public's health will be put at further risk with substandard  plants constructed, their construction quality severely compromised by shortcuts and quality downgrades at every step, poorly run by personel with little training poor wages and with nuclear wastes being dumped in areas where people either don't know any better or have no power to stop them. The alternative is nearly as bad with heavy pollution coal powered power plants needed for increasing levels of electricity consumption fueled mostly by industry, not consumer use as we are usually brainwashed into believing. 

The Obama Foundation, eh? The next Clinton Foundation? Kids, don't feed the hypocrites, they may look cute and lovable but...

Was driving by the Chi on Thursday and saw that it had already happened. Easily 4 times its normal width.

In what way are Tibetans free? Last I checked they can't own land, aren't allowed to speak their language, cannot practice Buddhism if they so choose, cannot vote, have no freedom of speech, face crackdowns and mass arrests, are kidnapped and medically experimented upon, face a systematic program to end their existence period. LIncoln was an 19th century politician in the United States, what does that situation have to do with China and Tibet in the 21st century?

If Herr Chairman vould like to makes ziss kind of komparison between Amerikkka and China, may I suggest a more apt comparison between President Andrew Jackson who freed the Cherokee and the Seminole peoples from their burdensome lives as hunters and farmers in the southeast states and gifted them with reservations in Oklahoma rich in oil reserves, the red tape and hassles from which they would later be freed from by enterprising, altruistic, bright eyed and bushy tailed go gettem American entreprenuers just like the Chinese, only looking to help the whole world by making available to all and sundry the oil resources on reservation lands.

I just recently started flying when possible. My ticket from Roi Et to Bangkok on Air Asia was only 1,200 when I bought it a few weeks ago. To me its well worth the extra 600 baht. The return bus trip, Bangkok to Roi Et, for some reason is often so much worse, many times you'll get a driver who seems to meander all over Isaan making a 8 hour trip 11-12 hours. Never had an issue going from Roi Et, but for only 600 baht you cut a 8-9 hour trip down to 2-3 hours total, door to door.

9 hours ago, webfact said:

The digital world is also expanding via the so-called Internet of Things. The number of devices connected up to the IoT will skyrocket to 25 billion by 2020, according to most estimates. IoT-enabled devices numbered about 9.5 billion in 2015 – overtaking the human population of 7.5 billion.

 

The IoT will encompass household devices such as coffee machines, refrigerators and ovens, along with medical devices like imaging machines, factory equipment and industrial machines. He potential for cyber-disruption is obvious.

 

I'm pretty sure this involves and assumes Thailand will invest or someone will invest in 5G infrastructure which, from what I understand, sounds quite intensive and sounds as though it would need much maintenance, monitoring etc. As I understand it 5g will involve installing boxes on every street lamp blasting 5g signals into every house and building to read and send data, commands etc. I really wonder if Thailand is really up to this. I honestly hope not, there are some seriously disturbing aspects to 5g and it is being railroaded through everywhere you look before anyone seems to know what it is. The whole tone of this article is just another case in point, all of this is being presented as though it is all a done deal as tho it's horrible because Thailand hasn't gotten up to speed on security, but nothing we can do: Thailand 4.0 already, the cashless 5g society! This article is the first time I've ever heard anything about any of this coming here. And of course the red herring is "security" not the inherent alarming nature of what is being proposed is the focus of the article. If they were actually concerned about people and their security there would not be a rush on to get 5g and a cashless society, there would be discussions about the implications of what is being proposed with a cashless society run on 5g.

^^ Was going to post exactly the same comment.