Living In Thailand Blog
Saturday 9th December 2017
In the run up to Christmas, fake goods with a street value of £1.5 million have just been seized in the UK. The goods seized are the kind of things that I see everywhere in Thailand.
Fake underwear warning as Border Force seizes £1.5m of counterfeit Calvin Klein pants
My wife bought me some fake 'designer' underwear a few years ago, which I wore for a while but every item quickly fell apart after a few rounds in the washing machine.
On my first trip to Thailand in 1987 I was a typical gormless tourist and bought the usual junk that tourists buy, including a fake Rolex watch. The watch must have been allergic to cold weather because it stopped working shortly after I returned to the UK.
I make trips to Bangkok fairly regularly for my daughter's hospital visits. Last year I bought a fake Apple charging cable for my wife's phone. It was cheap, but it didn't work, so that was Bt50 down the drain.
On one of my visits to Bangkok this year I visited Pantip Plaza and bought her a charger, another cable, and a power bank - all cheap knockoffs from China. Most fake goods sold in Thailand seem to be manufactured in China. The woman in the shop swore that they were good quality items and when I got home they actually worked ... for a while ... but they stopped working after three or four months. More wasted money.
In torrential rain a few weeks ago, my wife's friend was the victim of a hit-and-run accident. A car collided with her car and the driver shot off as fast as he could. This is quite common in Thailand. Without anyone to claim insurance against, she will have to pay for the repair herself - about Bt10,000. It wouldn't be a lot of money for many Westerners, but it's about two-thirds of her monthly salary.
My car has been hit a few times by young kids on motorbikes racing through the traffic and their first reaction is to escape as fast as possible. In reports of fatal accidents in Thailand, the phrase 'The driver fled the scene' appears all the time. Thais won't stick around if they think they are going to get into trouble. Another problem is that after accidents they lie through their teeth about what actually happened.
For these reasons, dashcams became very popular in Thailand a few years ago. They can help to identify people who flee the scene and they can provide evidence of what actually happened in an accident.
My wife's friend had a dashcam in her car, but when she checked the footage she found that it wasn't working. The local markets here are full of cheap dashcams from China and although the demonstration units always work in the shop I suspected that reliability might be an issue.
I'm not sure if people selling fake goods in the UK try to pass them off as genuine, but that doesn't tend to happen in Thailand. There are so many fake goods in Thailand that Thais have become very good at being able to tell the difference between genuine and fake, and they will know if a vendor is lying.
Vendors selling fakes in Thailand are normally quite open that the goods are fake, but if you buy them you know that the quality will be poor and that the goods won't last for long. It's therefore up to you whether you buy fake items or spend some more money to buy genuine goods. My wife and many other Thais usually avoid fakes because they know it is a false economy.
If you buy fake goods in Thailand and take them back to your own country there is also a risk that you will be prosecuted for doing so. Customs officials probably won't be bothered about a fake watch or handbag, but if you have a lot of fake goods which they think you will sell it could be a big problem.
Be careful if you decide to take fake goods back to your own country
I was also interested to see that Lego has won a copyright case against a company in China that manufactures fake Lego bricks. I wrote about this in my blog previously. Not only do the Chinese companies copy the Lego bricks exactly, but they even copy the packaging design. It is a blatant rip off. Some companies even choose a four-letter brand name that ends in 'go', such as Cogo.
Lego wins first copyright case against China copies
We went toy shopping yesterday and Central department store sells some of the Chinese bricks alongside genuine Lego. It's very similar, apart from the price. You can understand people buying Chinese copies because they want to save money, but I can also understand why the Lego company gets so upset.
Genuine Lego
Chinese copy - not much difference, is there?
The bottom line is that fakes are best avoided. You may think you are getting something for a bargain price, but the item will be poor quality and in the worst case scenario you could actually find yourself on the wrong side of the law.
Friday 8th December 2017
My kids, 6 and 3, seem to have been corrupted by Western commercialism. I had to sit them down this evening and show them their birth certificates, which state very clearly that they are Buddhist.
I've therefore had to make it very clear that in this household there will be no Christmas tree, no Santa Claus, and no presents. There were tears, but I've told them they can go to the temple instead to make merit.
Only joking. You didn't think I was that bad, did you?
Since moving to Thailand I've actually started to enjoy Christmas again, especially since the kids arrived. As a small child, naturally, I enjoyed Christmas. At some stage during my teen years it became an orgy of alcohol and remained that way for several years.
I then became extremely cynical and absolutely hated Christmas. My life in the UK never quite worked out how I wanted it to work out and Christmas only made me feel worse. I hated all the crass commercialism and tacky paraphernalia, I hated the fact that Christmas started in August, I started to hate all the drunkenness, and it became a time of year that I dreaded.
We went to Central Festival Hat Yai (the biggest shopping mall in southern Thailand) today to buy some presents for the children. I would imagine that shopping in Western countries at the moment is a zoo, but not in Thailand. Central Festival is a zoo at weekends, but from Monday to Friday (even during December) it isn't too crowded.
I have to compliment them on their Christmas decorations, which were very tastefully done, and by the look of it, very expensive. They've done a nice job. There is a pleasant Christmas feel, but it isn't completely over the top and it's so relaxing to be able to shop in a big department store during December without the huge crowds of Christmas shoppers.
Most shops in Thailand offer a free gift-wrapping service, which we took advantage of. The wrapping staff do a good job and it saves us time and money.
When we got home I retrieved the Christmas tree from storage and this evening the kids helped decorate it. As a parent with young children it's difficult to be cynical about Christmas because their reaction reminds me of how I felt about Christmas when I was their age. I remember it as being a completely magical time of the year.
The only problem is that my three year-old, upon seeing the Christmas tree, thinks that Santa is coming tonight. He might be disappointed tomorrow with the lack of presents.
As a parent you kind of go through your childhood again. Some aspects aren't good. I was never that happy at school, but now I have to go to school every day again and I get involved with homework. On the other hand, some aspects are fun.
It's been quite a year for me, as followers of this blog will know already. Our old washing machine decided to give up the ghost last week, and it has been like that all year - problems and things going wrong repeatedly. A lot has gone wrong, but at the same time I have done a lot to prevent future problems.
After four challenging years, I'm really hoping that 2018 will be a good year. BTW, my definition of a 'good' year is not one in which good things will happen, but one in which there will be no disasters. That's all I hope for these days.
I heard from the garage today that my car is now fixed and that the repair bill won't be astronomical. That is more good news. They've had the car since the beginning of October and at one stage I feared a huge bill if they had to strip the engine down.
This will be the first Christmas without my Mum and that will be quite tough because Christmas was always a special time for her and she liked nothing more than to be with her family at Christmas. It's also going to be difficult for my Dad being on his own. He is always welcome here to spend time with his grandchildren, but he has decided that he is too old for any more trips to Thailand and won't be coming again.
Despite all that has happened this year, I'm actually feeling quite upbeat at the moment. It's probably to do with the old saying that goes something along the lines of, "If it doesn't kill you, it will make you stronger."
I feel that life has thrown quite a lot at me this year, but at the end of the year I have not only survived, I feel like I am in quite good shape to face whatever comes next.
I hope that my regular readers feel equally as positive as we head into the festive season!
Tuesday 5th December 2017
There has been a massive amount of rain recently, but there was no severe flooding in Hat Yai. The only flooding I saw was on a few minor roads located near water and in some fairly rural areas.
I've mentioned how there has been a lot of work done to the local flood defence systems. Large concrete pipes have been (and are still being) laid underground to remove rain water more efficiently, and improvements have been made to the canal network.
Improving Hat Yai's flood defences
Rain water is removed from Hat Yai and via a network of progressively larger canals it gets dumped into Songkhla Lake.
The problem now, it seems, is that with all this extra efficiency in getting water out to the lake, Songkhla Lake has now reached its capacity. According to reports, flooding around Songkhla Lake has been the worst since 2005.
Songkhla closes 62 schools amid floods
Floods force school closures in 11 provinces
Phattalung province, one of my favourite provinces, has been very badly affected by the recent torrential rain - as it always is when there is heavy rain. In addition to heavy rainfall, the province also gets a lot of run-off from mountain ranges.
Thale Noi, Phattalung province
The reason I like Phattalung is that it is very natural and very undeveloped. It's quite rare to see farangs in Phattalung and visiting the province is like visiting Thailand 30 years ago. Many other parts of Thailand have been completely Westernised, there is mass tourism, and you can almost forget you are actually in Thailand.
Phatthalung reels under floods
Unfortunately, the general lack of development in Phattalung also means that there has been little development with the flood defences. In addition, the lack of tourists means that there are limited funds for development.
After writing about how a scammer targeted my father last week, it was really encouraging to see that the Thai police are catching some of the people who cause so much misery to others. Many foreign criminals running phone scams set up shop in Thailand.
Indonesian, two Thais accused of running phone scams
Three nabbed over call centre racket
The scammers this time were all Asian. I was talking to my wife about ny father's experience and she told me it is also a big problem for Thais.
Monday 4th December 2017
I think that the weather has finally broken. The rain has stopped, the sky is light, and there is actually a little sunshine. The current temperature is a very comfortable 27°C with humidity at 92%.
The flooded roads in rural areas that I showed photos of last week are still flooded, but Hat Yai town is fine. Other locations aren't as fortunate. Watching Thai TV news this morning, flooding in some parts of Trang is severe. Some single storey houses in Trang province are submerged with only their roofs visible.
The rainy season hasn't ended yet and I still expect some more rain, but not the kind of rain as we have had in the last couple of weeks.
The rain normally lasts until the end of this month (and sometimes into early January), but by mid January - and for several months thereafter - it will be very hot and dry.
It's not a great climate in southern Thailand, all the time being either too hot or too wet. Days like today when it is neither hot nor wet are perfect, but there aren't many of them. Still, anything is preferable to suffering another winter in the UK.
There are lots of mosquitoes in Thailand and one unfortunately side-effect of wet weather is that it boosts the mosquito population. Malaria isn't a problem where I live, but dengue fever is a big problem and potentially it can be fatal.
Young children and old people are at the highest risk from dengue. Quite a lot of the mosquitoes around my home are the stripy Aedes mosquitoes that can carry dengue.
The house has mosquito screens, but there are always mosquitoes indoors. They seem to wait outside until a door opens and then fly inside. Just this morning I killed two mosquitoes that had got inside the house and were trying to use me as a source of nourishment - not stripy ones.
A year or two ago I saw advertisements at one of our local hospitals for a dengue vaccine. Unfortunately, an age range applied and the only person it was suitable for was my wife. The age range is 9-45, which makes me too old and my kids too young.
Now, I have just seen that there is a problem with this vaccine. If a person hasn't previously been infected with dengue, the vaccine can actually worsen the disease if they are bitten by an infected mosquito.
Philippines launches probe into dengue vaccine scare
I feel relieved that my kids were too young and that we didn't get them vaccinated against dengue. Had they been old enough I would probably have chosen to get them vaccinated to protect them.
Over the years I have read so much conflicting information about vaccines. Some diseases have actually been eliminated through vaccination programmes and other diseases are now so rare because of vaccination that they are rarely a problem.
Conversely, some people swear that vaccinations cause damage to the body which outweighs the potential benefits.
I don't have the medical knowledge to decide myself and in situations where people on both sides can give very convincing arguments for and against it doesn't make the decision making process any easier.
With my children we have just followed the standard vaccination recommendations for Thailand. Regarding certain subjects there is absolutely no use me having a discussion with my wife and if I were to suggest that vaccinating our kids wasn't a good thing I would have a big problem on my hands. She would accuse me of being crazy and not having any responsibility for our children's health.
If I didn't allow the kids to be vaccinated and later they contracted a disease that vaccination would have prevented, I would then have an even bigger problem with my wife.
Being a parent is never easy and it can be tough making decisions for children. Obviously, we all want the best for our kids, but we aren't always sure what to do.
There are people who say that vaccination programmes are a government conspiracy. It's a view that I neither subscribe to nor dismiss out of hand, but I just don't know. As I said above, I just follow the standard recommendations set out by the government and its medical advisers and hope I am doing the right thing.
My father was the target of a scammer last week. He's not stupid, but he's now in his early 80's and he keeps saying that his brain doesn't function how it used to. When I was back in the UK in July helping him to sort out the bureaucracy following my mother's death, I saw that he starts to get very stressed when under pressure. It's understandable.
He received a phone call from someone telling him that his assistance was required in investigating a scam. He hung up, which was the right thing to do. However, the scammer called back and told him that if he didn't cooperate he would lose his Internet connection.
In this situation I would have told the person to, "**** off," and then hung up again, but because of my father's age and current mental state he cooperated. The scammer then had him on the phone for 90 minutes and had him doing all sorts of things on his computer that he had never done before.
The scumbag scammer got access to my father's bank account and transferred a large sum of money from my father's savings to checking account. He then told my Dad that the money transferred had come from his own account - a blatant lie. He went on to say that now the investigation is complete my Dad has to go to his bank and return the money by electronic transfer.
He went to the bank, but fortunately he suspected that something wasn't right and told the bank. The bank got their fraud department involved and also the local police force, who now have special departments dealing with on-line fraud.
My brother, who is quite computer literate, has taken his computer to remove all the viruses and malware. No damage seems to have been done, but it has shaken him up a bit.
The scammer was Indian and although we will never know where he was speaking from, he could be a neighbour of mine. The recent immigration crackdown in Thailand has been targeting foreign criminals in Thailand running call centre and boiler room scams.
Criminals running these scams like Thailand because they can live in Thailand very easily with little hassle from immigration (although this is changing), and lead a very good life from the proceeds of their crimes. They are also shielded from the law.
Thai law states that the victim of a crime has to be able to identity the person who committed the crime. Criminals running scams from Thailand contact their victims by phone and e-mail so, of course, they can't be identified.
An Englishman was gunned down in Pattaya early this year while climbing into his Porsche Cayenne - just one of many expensive, luxury cars he had owned in Thailand. According to his Thai wife he ran a a website design company, but so do many Thais and they can't afford to drive Porsches. He was actually involved in an illegal boiler room scam.
Earlier this year or last year I watched a YouTube video about another scam and the victim actually traced the scammer to Thailand. However, the Thai police wouldn't do anything because of the identification problem and it is virtually impossible for police in other countries to take action against criminals in Thailand. It's actually a very well produced video and well worth watching.
The Internet is a wonderful thing, but it also causes lots of problems. Even now, we have a problem with our six year-old starting to get addicted to on-line games and I see so many Thais (both adults and children) completely wasting their lives playing on-line all the time.
It has also given criminals more opportunities than there have ever been in history to scam people because they can now reach more people directly than they have ever been able to reach. It's a big problem.
I am simply super cynical about everything on-line. Unless I am 100% sure about anything, I just delete e-mails and never, ever open strange file attachments. It's probably a good job that I'm not a judge passing sentence on the people who perpetrate these crimes because my black cap would be getting a lot of use. I feel very strongly about people who make a living - and sometimes a very good living - out of cheating other people.
This little episode made me livid. I never discriminate against people on the basis of race, colour, or religion but basically divide all people into good and bad. The actions of good people don't harm other people, but bad people routinely do things that have a negative impact on others. Some of the kindest people I have met have been dark-skinned Thai Muslims, and some of the worst white-skinned British so-called 'Christians'.
The scammers who do this for a living are some of the worst kinds of human being. Had my father lost the sum of money involved it wouldn't have been a disaster, but it would have been for other elderly, vulnerable people being robbed of their life savings. The scammers just don't care.
I can think of many adjectives to describe Thais, but one of their more positive character traits is that they tend to be quite pragmatic people.
I remember a story about tourists arriving in Thailand and being given a booklet warning them about the appalling driving standards in Thailand. I'm not sure if this actually happened or whether it was just an idea.
You might think to yourself, instead of doing this wouldn't it just be a better idea to improve driving standards? That way, less people would be killed on Thai roads and by not having to warn tourists you could save printing costs. Win-win. The problem, I think, is that Thais, being pragmatic, know that this will never happen.
When my wife took driving lessons I knew that she would not be taught how to drive. Thai driving lessons take place in car parks and other pieces of land where there are no other cars. The learner has to drive around without hitting cones and a huge amount of emphasis is placed on making sure that the wheels of the car are parallel to the kerb when parking. Important stuff, eh?
Thais receive their driving licences without ever having driven on an actual road and they have absolutely no idea what to do when they encounter things such as roundabouts. Last week my wife stopped on a roundabout and I had to tell her to keep going because she had right of way. Thais don't have a clue.
I was aware of all this, so I took my wife out when she was learning to drive and played the same role instructing her as my UK driving instructor had done with me 40 years ago. I tried to teach her how to drive defensively and to anticipate things that other drivers might do - a very important skill when driving in Thailand. At the time it seemed to work, but at some stage she just reverted to driving like a Thai. Perhaps it's a genetic thing?
Recently, I've been accompanying her on the school run and it's quite a terrifying experience. The speed at which she drives is akin to being in an ambulance attending a critical medical situation. And that's every vehicle on the road, not just her.
Most Thais drive way too fast for the road and weather conditions and they drive far, far too close together with no regard for keeping a safe braking distance between vehicles.
When I had to get my driving licence renewed last year there were about 80 Thais at the department of transport and part of the process is to watch a safety video. I watched it, but I was the only one. In the video there was a big section about keeping a safe braking distance.
However, when I looked around the room not a single person was watching. They were chatting or sleeping, and most were playing with their mobile phones.
Thais have an attitude that they know how to do certain things and don't need to be taught - driving is a classic example. Whenever I tell my wife to slow down or to give herself some more braking distance she gets really annoyed with me. Stupid farang. What do I know?
When Thais come to an intersection no one gives way. Every morning when my wife leaves the house she goes flying out of our Soi on the wrong side of the road without looking for other cars. A few weeks ago she came face-to-face with another car entering the Soi. Thais never give way on roundabouts (apart from my wife who gives way when she shouldn't give way) and when I'm driving on a main road I know that vehicles will come flying out of side roads without stopping.
At Tesco Lotus a few days ago I saw the same thing in the large car park there. A guy driving a Honda Civic should have given way, but didn't stop or look for other vehicles. As a result he knocked a poor woman off her motorbike who was out buying a few groceries. Road accidents in Thailand cause a lot of death and misery, yet so many could be easily avoided with just a little common sense.
Woman motorcyclist mown down in Tesco Lotus carpark
I try to understand why Thais behave the way they do, but I can't understand certain things. If two vehicles going in two different directions meet at an intersection, wouldn't it be a good idea for at least one of them to stop? Apparently, Thais don't think so.
If several cars are travelling along a road at speeds in excess of 100km/h wouldn't it be a good idea to have sufficient space in between each vehicle so that they can brake safely in the event of a problem? Apparently, Thais don't think so.
Thailand regularly shows up in surveys as having some of the most dangerous roads in the worlds, but nothing ever changes. Thais themselves don't see a need to change the way they drive and although the government tries to improve things with safety campaigns, any advice simply gets ignored.
I'm not sure what you can do. Perhaps there is nothing that can be done, or perhaps it needs another approach?
Some years ago, Australia took a psychological approach and created a safety campaign associating reckless driving with men who have small penises. The message was that men who drive recklessly trying to prove their manhoods do so because of a lack of assets in the trouser department.
I'm not sure how successful this campaign was, but perhaps Thailand should try a similar psychological approach? Here's one idea. Thais are terrified of ghosts. If there was a campaign in which the ghosts of road accident victims were shown to haunt the drivers who had killed them it might reduce road deaths.
You need to get inside the heads of Thais and target beliefs that resonate with them. The government could do worse than assign this little task to psychology students in some of Thailand's higher education establishments.
Whenever I try to analyse certain aspects of Thai behaviour at a deeper level (which isn't a good thing to do) I invariably end up concluding that it is related to the colonial era and the fact that Thailand was never colonised.
I've been reading quite a lot about Vietnam recently and Ho Chi Minh comes across as a pretty good guy. The villains were the Chinese, French, Japanese and Americans who all had their eyes on the raw materials in Vietnam. The period of European colonisation was a shameful era, robbing less developed countries of their natural resources, forcing upon them unfair trade deals, and treating local people like slaves.
China started to colonise Vietnam in the pre-Christian era. Large scale European colonisation of the New World started with Portuguese discoverers in the 15th century and didn't really finish until WW2, when the British Empire fell and many countries regained their independence. Even after WW2, France wanted its colony in Indochina returned and yet another war was fought.
With the French in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and the British in Malaya and Burma, allowing Thailand to remain independent meant that the old enemies of England and France had colonies whose borders didn't touch, apart from where a small part of northern Laos joins Burma.
This buffer state was very useful and Thailand didn't get off the hook completely because the country had to cede a lot of land to Britain and France. Thailand could have been colonised, but it wasn't and this a great source of pride to Thais.
The problem though is that it seems to have resulted in a certain amount of arrogance. Thais have always been independent, have always done things their own way, and they hate being told what to do. Using driving as an example, they drive how they want and they simply won't be told how to drive.
Now, for my theory to fall apart immediately you could ask me why the driving standards are so appalling in Vietnam, a country that has been colonised.
I don't know because I have never lived in Vietnam and thus I have never had any insights as to how Vietnamese behave and think. There could be completely different reasons. As a tourist visiting Hoi An for a few days, I was never going to get those insights.
Another question to pose. Tiny countries with equally tiny populations, such as Scotland and Finland, have produced a long list of world class drivers in all forms of motorsport at the highest levels. Asia is the largest continent on the planet with the largest population, but produces very few world class drivers. Why?
Please, no accusations of racism or anything stupid like that. After living in Asia for several years after living in Europe it has become only too clear that people from different parts of the world are very different. I'm just highlighting some of the ways in which people from different countries think and behave differently.
It's a good thing. When I was back in the UK earlier this year it was so boring because people were so predictable and living elsewhere makes life interesting again. I'm not criticising, but because I have an inquiring mind I like to know why things are the way they are.
Saturday 2nd December 2017
On Thursday morning I woke up with a severe headache and aches all over my body. I couldn't do anything all day. I went to bed that evening under two duvets feeling so cold that I was shivering. Shortly afterwards, I started to sweat profusely.
There was a slight improvement yesterday, but I still couldn't do much. I feel better today. I think it's all weather related.
Throughout the week my three year-old has been coughing all night due to the wet weather and has been keeping me up. Sleep deprivation has been one problem and I also think my body has been affected by the wet weather.
This very wet weather is dominating events in southern Thailand at the moment. Since I got here in 2003 this is only the second time I can remember it raining like this. The first time was in October 2010 just before the huge flood.
It rained heavily again overnight and the current flag status is yellow. The road that closed earlier in the week and reopened is closed again. My wife did the school run on Thursday as I wasn't feeling well and other roads had been closed due to flooding. The rush hour traffic jams have been similar to those in Bangkok.
We do laundry at least once every two days and now we have a serious backlog because it takes so long to get clothes dry at the moment. It is pointless trying to dry laundry outside, so I have turned half of the lounge into a drying room. That's where the drying rack is now located with fans helping to dry the clothes.
Our air-conditioning units have a dry mode, which just dehumidifies without cooling. The ambient humidity is in the high 90's percent and drying clothes indoors will only increase the humidity. This feature is very useful.
Other neighbours have reported leaking roofs. Since we moved to this house I think that every house in the development has had a leaky roof problem at least once. We had a problem shortly after we moved in that was fixed by the developer.
There was another one last year, which I had to get fixed myself. The bill was Bt17,000, but my insurance paid Bt10,000. And now we have another problem. This doesn't say a lot for house building standards in Thailand.
It seems that the developer will only fix problems in the first year. If a roof problem only becomes apparent with very heavy rain, but there is a light rainy season the first year in your house it won't show up.
When it does eventually show up the one year warranty period has expired and you have to pay for repairs yourself, even though the cause was poor quality construction. This simply isn't right, but that's how it is in Thailand.
The UK has a much better system. There is an independent body called the National House Building Council (NHBC). Most lenders will only give loans for new houses if the builder complies with NHBC standards, therefore, if developers want to sell homes it is in their interest to be a member of the NHBC.
Builders must comply with NHBC standards, which means that things get done correctly during the construction process, and effectively buyers of new houses in the UK get a 10 year guarantee. There should be something similar in Thailand, but there isn't. There should be a lot of things in Thailand, but there aren't.
There have been occasions when I have received good after-sales service in Thailand, but generally once someone has your money they aren't interested in helping if it means them having to spend their own money.
When we were talking to the sales people before we signed the contract they were prepared to do anything to get my signature. "You want us to alter the trajectory of the sun to keep the temperature down? Yes, we can do that. Just sign here."
However, everything changed once the money had been transferred for the house. Any requests for assistance in the first year were reluctantly accepted and workers turning up at the house to deal with problems just applied quick, sticking plaster fixes. After the first year they weren't interested at all.
After another difficult year I suspected that there might be a few more problems lurking before this year is out.
My car started making a strange noise at the end of September and I took it in to the service centre on 2nd October. They still have it two months later. The Ford service centre only maintains Ford cars and there aren't that many Ford models in Thailand.
The mechanics are good and they have lots of experience with Ford cars, but they tell me they have never encountered this problem before. They have already replaced several parts, but they still haven't located the source of the noise. However, they have now isolated it to the engine whereas before they weren't sure if it was the engine, the gearbox, or something in-between.
I went in last week along with my wife's brother, who owns a car repair shop. One option, they told me, was to start stripping down the engine to find the problem, but warned that the bill could reach Bt100,000. The entire car isn't worth much more than that.
The second option was for my wife's brother to locate a used engine, but I didn't like this idea. Thais will spend lots of money buying fancy wheels and tyres for their cars, and adding stupid spoilers and fake exhaust pipes, but they won't spend money on basic essential maintenance.
Also, many Thais fit LPG fuel systems. Running on LPG provides less lubrication to the engine components and results in higher running temperatures and more wear. I've never liked the idea of LPG conversions. If a used engine can be found there is a high risk that it will have problems.
Anyway, some potentially good news yesterday. The service centre called to say that their expert from Bangkok had flown down to take a look and had diagnosed a Bt2,000 seal that needs replacing.
Thais have their own vocabulary for car parts and although I know what some things are, I'm not sure what seal this is. They have ordered the part and will fit it next week. My fingers are crossed.
None of the problems I have had this year have been cheap. I've spent more money this year than I have ever spent in Thailand and have needed my family to help me out financially. Just when I thought I was starting to get my finances under control again the last thing I needed was a big car repair bill.
One final thought, just to put things into perspective. I mentioned to my wife that this had been another difficult year. She asked why it had been difficult because at every meal time we have food on the table. She told me that people with genuinely difficult lives are those who don't have food when they are hungry.
Just recently she has been sorting out clothes that our kids have outgrown to give to people with kids here who do struggle to put food on the table.
I was in my wife's car as a passenger yesterday and we passed a motorbike as we were driving along in torrential rain. A woman, who I guess was the mother, was driving the bike. On the back was a boy of about nine carrying a baby only a few months old. There was no protection from the elements and I hate to think what would happen if the bike was in an accident.
All week it has been raining intensely, but wherever we have had to go we have been inside a vehicle - either my wife's car or the pickup truck that I currently have on loan. However, despite the foul weather I have still seen a lot of motorbikes on the road. People need to get to places and if they can't afford a car or truck, their motorbikes are the only option, regardless of how foul the weather might be.
I'm not finding life in Thailand particularly easy at the moment, but many Thais have it a lot, lot worse. This is something we should never forget.