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The Thai Way


Mekong
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For a while a dead mate and I had set up some "Thai girls guide to get money from farangs" guide

Was hysterically good fun back in 2001, girls taking the tips thinking some Thai girl had written them. Obviously I hadn't, but he was fluent from some diplomatic training and had a girlfriend on on the joke.

Maybe it wasn't a joke, I suspect the girls who took the booklet thought it was all real. The advise was very good

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I don't see any "Thai way" when it comes to the professionals. I might see an Asian way who always ask for something the westerners may say is irrelevant or fixed, move on.  Asians are after the  details, down to the binary guts of some failure, even down to hardware failure analysis in scientific Lab.

Thais are much milder than Japanese, Korean or even India,  happy to see some logical high level explanation.

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  • 1 year later...

Yesterday evening the wife was reading news online and said to me “Problem in Indonesia, fire in mountain” 

She had forgot the English word Volcano, damn I didn’t  even know the Thai word for Volcano. 
At the time I hadn’t read or heard the news, but as soon as she said “Mountain Fire ”, I knew exactly what she meant, “Oh! you mean a Volcano”

It’s weird how, over the years, the brain tunes in, and what, to some may sound abstract or cryptic, to me makes perfect sense. Like, what else could “Mountain Fire” mean logically.

For the record, I have since learned the Thai for Volcano is “Phukhow Fai (ภูเขาไฟ)which literally translated means “Mountain Fire” so she was giving a literal translation, you learn something everyday.

She did not say whether the Mountain Fire Erupted or “Opened” 

 

 

 

 

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  • 11 months later...

Ever since I was knee high to a grasshopper we always referred to “Tomato Sauce”  (Brits rarely used the word “Ketchup”) as Red Sauce, as opposed to HP Sauce as “Brown Sauce”, we were simple folks, whenever someone was making the Bacon Butties the call would be “Brown or Red” and not HP or Tomato

Today I asked the wife for “Red Sauce” and she had a meltdown on me, FFS,

Wife “ What is Red Sauce”.

Me Tomato Sauce

W: If you mean tomato sauce why not say tomato

M: Because Brown Sauce is also made from tomato also has molasses

W: (After Reading Label) So this is still Brown Sauce

M: Which you know because it is.Brown, if I ask for Tomato Sauce you have to read the label to be sure you are giving me what I asked for

W: No I don’t, I can see

M: See What?

W: (Thinking) That it is not Brown

 M: You mean Red?

W: Fuck Off, get your own god dammed condiments next time

I love winding her up haha

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  • 2 years later...

 

I post this here in the hope that Thai and Lao culture is similar enough, that the following is recognised and will draw some comment or advice.

Buy land Laos, circa 2011. Coss pay.

Build small house approx 12K USD - wife n family pay.

Good.

Big house built but not finished - maybe 90%, wife n family pay.

Big marriage, subsequent adventure to middle earth, unfortunate health inspired delays for a decade.

House about 98% done finicky fussing around the edges to be complete.

Coss returns from middle earth to enjoy and participate in large house blessing monkery, but wait, Coss - cannot sleep here until Monks have their way with house.

Have to sleep in Diplomat’s McMansion nearby. OK Sabai sabai.

10 days to go.

But I tricked them, I snuck in and used the W.C.   Without telling them. So monks have no way of conveying this to the ether, and theretofore Coss has avoided bad luck.

Wot’yer think?

 Y

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Good day Cav!  Long time :)

Lao care, well they do their best, but anyone who can afford it immediately crosses the friendship bridge to Thailand and Udon Thani - mainly. Though there are Thai and Other, private hospitals in Vientiane (small I would imagine), that can be accessed with money or insurance

In terms of cost in Lao hospitals, the care is free to citizens, I don’t think non-citizens will get served unless they are at death’s door, or can pay, perhaps as a precursor to a fast car ride to Udon Thani. Medicines cost at the local pharmacy.

Most Expats have BUPA or similar insurance, allowing for flights to Bangkok. No idea on cost of this.

My situation is: last decade, stroke/cancer/brain surgery and recuperations, meant that I was/am tied to the NZ system which is good and free to citizens.

I’m back in Laos without insurance, in a gap of my ongoing treatments (Keytruda - wonderful stuff).

A friend who died here not so long ago and I decided (when it looked like I was here permanently) that if we were to suffer the “really gonna die”, problems in Laos, that we were old enough and ugly enough to go quietly.

For both of us, the flying around SEA whilst in death throes, sounded like a poor outcome. And for him, he went quietly at his place on the banks of the Mekong with his family in attendance.

You may remember Dumsoda, his Cancer meant a lot of back and forth to Bangkok from Nong Khai, I don’t know the funding of this.

So probably not much help on your original question, but some clarity from my view.

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 Oh and Farang food is all over the place here, also Japanese Korean, Russian…

I think there’s a Krispy Kreme also.

KFC, not Kentucky fried chicken, but Khouviang fried chicken on Khouviang road, delicious!

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