Living In Thailand Blog
Thursday 9th June 2011
Today was wun wai kru (respect your teachers' day). I've been present at three or four so I knew what to expect. However, this year, in addition to the public ceremony, two of my classes performed a private ceremony in the classroom just to pay their respect to me. They hadn't done this before and I'm not ashamed to say that it brought a tear to my eye.
The public ceremony in the morning is very formal and - being Thailand - very hierarchical. The top teachers sit at the front of the stage with the lower teachers behind. The students sit way below on the floor and the best students from each class are selected to present tokens of appreciation to the teachers. They do this walking on their knees.
The tokens of appreciation take the form of floral garlands, carved vegetables and other pieces of handiwork all made by the students. They are beautiful. There was a water melon carved to look like a flower and it was a work of art.
Beauty and presentation are vitally important in Thailand and this type of thing takes precedence over everything else. Quite a few of my students were missing yesterday because they were preparing these items. It was far more important to them than studying. Fruit and vegetable carving is part of the curriculum and it isn't unusual to walk past a class of students with knives and carrots.
I never feel all that comfortable about students walking up to me on their knees with their heads bowed but I get the impression that most Thai teachers quite like it. Then again, the society I come from has a much flatter hierarchy. Thailand is very different.
In previous years nothing has happened after the big ceremony but I was taken by surprise when two of my classes decided to perform a special ceremony just for me.
One class sat on the floor while the others remained in their seats. There is a song well-known to Thai students that they sing to show respect to their teachers and one girl sang solo (presumably the student with the best voice). The others joined in at the appropriate times.
They all had their hands in the wai-ing position and their heads bowed. A few were looking up at me to gauge my reaction.
I was kind of shellshocked and although I don't really like the strictly enforced hierarchy of Thai society, my usual cynicism deserted me for a couple of minutes. The song they sang sounded almost like a Buddhist chant and when you have thirty young Thai girls in a room singing to you to show their respect it can get a little emotional.
They're not always the most determined of students, and I have some big reservations about the teaching methods used in Thailand, but what you can't deny is that they are lovely kids. I always find it very sad each year when I have to say goodbye to my M6 students, knowing that I won't see them again.
As a teacher you grow close to the students and the longer you are at any one place, the better you get to know them. I'm teaching M6 students now that I've been teaching since they were in M3 and I have a very good relationship with many of them.
Talking of hierarchy in Thai society, I was doing some material this week and we got into the area of formal and informal speech. As an example, I told the students you can say this to your friends, but don't say it when you speak to your Thai teachers.
One student asked whether it would be OK to speak informally to me. After all, I'm a teacher. My response was yes, of course.
The large company I used to work for had a written 'Single Status' policy. There was also a first name policy. Everyone was addressed by their first name and the CEO used the same facilities as the lowliest employee. Everyone did different jobs - and some got bigger salaries - but no one was considered to be better than anyone else.
That's how I feel about my students. I am older, I have more experience of life, and I speak better English. However, I don't regard myself as better than them.
When I look at how Thais relate to each other it sometimes gives me a bit of a problem but normally I am excluded. When it can be a problem is when Thais include you in the hierarchy and a Thai who believes he is a bigger person than you starts treating you as an inferior.
Normally, farangs occupy a space outside the Thai hierarchy but this can happen.
Wednesday 8th June 2011
I bought some Phad Thai today (see below). One portion cost Bt35, not Bt30. The vendor has a daughter living in England and he told me that the same dish bought from a Thai restaurant in the UK is Bt450. This didn't surprise me.
I administer a web site in the UK and one of the past sponsors for the site was a local Thai restaurant. I was sent their menu to put online. I sometimes use it when teaching Thai students.
The Thai dishes are written in English, of course, and first the students have to try to find dishes they recognise. The prices are in pounds and I give them an approximate exchange rate so they can work out the prices in Baht.
They are shocked when they find out that the same dishes they buy for a few Baht in Thailand are so expensive in England.
Thais are very aware of the high salaries abroad and that is why most Thais think all foreigners are rich. Quite a few express a desire to work abroad so that they can make their fortunes. However, what they don't seem to be aware of is the high cost of living that goes along with the high salaries.
My income now is a lot less than it used to be but I'm better off (compared to living in England) because many things are a lot cheaper. Not everything in Thailand is cheaper - some things are a lot more expensive - but the basics of life are cheap, provided you eat local food and buy local products.
Petrol, as I've mentioned before, is cheaper and renting somewhere to live is really cheap. The house I rent here is larger than the house I let out in the UK but the rent I pay is about one-eighth of the rent I receive.
The general rule of thumb is that local food, products and services are cheap, whereas anything from abroad is more expensive than in the country of origin.
I'm really pleased that our local branches of TOPS have recently reopened after last November's flood because TOPS has the best selection of food. They stock some food from Waitrose in the UK. Waitrose sells quality products and prices tend to be a bit higher in the UK.
However, once Waitrose food reaches Thailand the price gets really high. Quite often I see something that looks appealing but as soon as I see the price tag it goes back on the shelf.
I'm always interested to see where visitors to this site come from. The stuff I've written about Hat Yai attracts mainly visitors from Malaysia and Singapore, which is quite understandable.
The visitors to this blog come mainly from the States, the UK, Thailand and Australia ... followed by Malaysia and Singapore.
The stuff about Thai girls has attracted visitors from all over the globe. Thai girls have a truly international appeal and men come searching for them from the remotest and most far flung places you can imagine.
This blog today attracted someone searching for a 'Thailand hospitals blog'. He (presumably it was a male) came from a place in Pakistan called Abbottabad. A few months ago I wouldn't have had a clue about this place but now it sounds strangely familiar.
Tuesday 7th June 2011
I wrote yesterday about how lots of truths in Thailand are concealed. There is a big gap between the initial impression visitors have of the country and reality. For some, when all the truths are finally discovered it can be quite unsettling.
This doesn't necessarily make Thailand a bad place; just a different place compared to how it is perceived initially.
An old story from the BBC news site has suddenly popped up in the current 'Most Popular' list. It is about Japanese visitors to Paris who visit the French capital with extremely high expectations and then discover that the reality of Paris is very different.
For some, this is so traumatic that they need medical attention.
It's not quite the same thing but it is similar. I don't think that the French attempt to hide any truths but the high expectations that visitors arrive with is probably symptomatic of the travel industry which makes places out to be far better than they actually are. After all, the travel industry is just another business and the marketing tactics it employs are very clever.
'Paris Syndrome' strikes Japanese
The leisure travel industry is vast these days and it is quite interesting. The entire industry is based on dreams and people's need to escape the tedium and boredom of their everyday lives. According to the industry, no matter how tedious and boring our lives may be, everything can be fixed by getting some time off work and travelling to somewhere else.
The irony is that as we travel from A to B looking for something that doesn't exist, we pass people travelling from B to A looking for other things that don't exist.
Everyone involved in the industry works hard to reinforce our dreams, from the airlines who sell you flights to the publishers of glossy travel books.
Very specific imagery and vocabulary is used with all the advertising. In Thailand the sea is always a beautiful turquoise colour, the sand is white, palm trees overhang the empty beaches, and the friendly natives are always smiling.
Regarding vocabulary, here is a challenge for you. Try to find any piece of sales literature related to a beach hotel in Thailand that doesn't include the word 'paradise'.
The travel industry talks about travel these days as if it was like travelling in a bygone age. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to travel as Ernest Hemingway or Somerset Maugham once did. If our objective is to try to reproduce a travel experience that we read about in an old book, in most cases we will be disappointed.
We may have something in our imagination, but the reality is that all we will see when we get there are other people just like us and evidence of the pervasiveness of American culture, such as McDonalds and KFCs everywhere.
When I was planning my first trip to Singapore in 1990 I had visions of it representing the best of colonial Britain intermingled with authentic traces of Chinese culture.
It had always been my (naive) wish to sit in Raffles drinking a Singapore gin sling that had just been made by a barman straight from a Humphrey Bogart movie.
The reality is that Singapore is no different to any modern Western city and most of the Chinese you will meet as a tourist are salesman who wish to sell you something.
Raffles is a huge tourist trap full of loud tourists. The gin slings are made in bulk, poured pre-mixed from a large container, and sold for an exorbitant price.
If you are an independent backpacking type you may have read The Beach and dreamed of visiting a secret beach paradise in Thailand. Well, if you visit Phi Phi island, where the movie was made, you are in for rather a shock. You will find the entire beach crawling with European and American backpackers.
These are the reasons why I avoid tourist areas and try to avoid foreigners in general. It is NOT because I think all foreigners are bad because I don't. It's just that I still have a few dreams of my own and these are shattered as soon as the first tourist or expat comes into view, or within earshot.
Despite everything I've said, don't be disheartened if you feel the same way. There are still lots of places in the world that are relatively unspoilt and even in places like Thailand where many places are completely overdeveloped there are still places that are the same as they were 50 years ago.
If you want to find empty beaches in Thailand, just skirt across from the Andaman coast to the Gulf coast. The sea and the beaches aren't as pretty but you can walk for miles without seeing another person.
If you want to experience a genuine colonial hotel, visit the Eastern & Oriental hotel in Georgetown, Penang. When I did, eventually, I found it to be what I had wanted Raffles to be many years ago.
The good places are still there but you just need to find them ... and remember that secrets don't stay secret for very long. Throw away your Lonely Planets because if you don't you will just end up joining the herd going from one stale old place to another.
Stay in tune with your adventurous side and remember that the travel industry is a business. The primary reason it exists is to make money and not to give people the adventures and travel experiences they seek.
Sometimes I feel quite optimistic that Thailand can change for the better, but at other times it seems that change is simply impossible.
No matter how many road deaths there are over the Songkran period in any year, the result is always the same the following year.
No matter how much rhetoric we hear about clean politics, whenever an election is called the same old stories always surface:
Police to probe Bt10 billion vote-buying fear: Suthep
Monday 6th June 2011
The famous Thai dish commonly transliterated as Phad Thai is one of my favourites.
Wherever you live in Thailand, there will be a street vendor nearby who can rustle up a fresh portion in minutes using fresh ingredients. Prices may vary slightly but our local vendors charge Bt30.
With different Thai dishes you are given different accompaniments. Normally this is cucumber, and Phad Thai is no exception. You get some cucumber, a part of the flower from a banana tree, and beansprouts.
I've never been keen on the banana tree flower thing but I always mix in all of the beansprouts.
The hygiene conditions of Thai street stalls never looks too clever but in all the time I've been eating Thai street food I've never had a problem.
I've just seen that beansprouts are being implicated as the source of the E. coli problem in Europe. The report says, "The way they are farmed and how they are prepared in the kitchen both contain potential risks."
I've not heard of any similar problems in Thailand but, all the same, it's a little worrying. It's one thing eating something that can upset your tummy for 24 hours, but another eating something that could possibly kill you.
The search terms that people use to find this site give me a good idea what foreigners want to know about Thailand.
The pages I wrote about Thai girls get the most visitors and the top search terms people use are: girls, thailand, thai, girl, sex, beautiful, bar, young, naked.
Does that start to create an image in your mind of what the majority of Internet surfers are interested in?
I don't make a point of using those keywords so you'll have to ask Google why they end up at my site.
I came in for a bit of criticism recently for making comments about avoiding foreigners in Thailand but as a result of owning this site, along with lots of personal observations, my experience is that Thailand attracts a lot of foreigners who I would rather not have anything to do with.
The country attracts some great foreigners too - I have foreign friends here - but I don't go out of my way to meet or mix with foreigners. I find that I meet good people in a natural way without making any effort.
It's the same with the people who write to me through this site. The people who tend to get in touch are the ones who share similar views and interests; and not the ones whose only concern is which Pattaya Go-Go bars have the best looking prostitutes and cheapest beer.
Recently someone entered the search argument, "Why do so many people visit and live in Thailand?" I thought it was a good question.
I could be cynical and say that most of the people who visit are single males and that there are hundreds of thousands of prostitutes in the country. Me, cynical?
But there's more to it than that. A lot more.
During my working years in the UK I used to travel quite a lot and visited a fair number of countries around the globe. I liked some, whereas I didn't particularly like others. However, Thailand was always a very special country.
Whenever I arrived in Thailand I felt at ease straight away and it felt like home. During the time that I was going through a very unhappy phase in the UK it actually felt a lot more like home than my real home. When the time came to quit my job, quit the UK, and move on, I didn't even need to think where I was going next.
Nowhere is perfect but Thailand seemed about as perfect as you could get. I never saw anything that I regarded as being particularly bad, and never heard anything bad. Some of the locals I met were obviously poor but they never said anything negative about anything and seemed happy.
In a world obsessed with money and materialism it seemed that poor Thais were focused on the right things in life and had the right attitude. I, on the other hand, was immensely rich in comparison with them but wasn't happy. When I was going through the stage where I needed to change my life completely, the things I needed were in Thailand.
I duly arrived to live and initially it was just like any previous vacation to Thailand except that I didn't have to go home. However, after about six months I started seeing some quite ugly aspects of the country that I'd never seen as a tourist.
At one stage it got so bad that I even considered leaving. I didn't regret leaving the UK but I thought that I might have misjudged Thailand. I started to do lots of research to find an alternative location.
I didn't leave. All that had happened was that I had entered a different stage of being in Thailand. I had left the 'rose-tinted spectacles, wide-eyed tourist' stage and was entering the 'seeing' stage where I started to actually see the country for what it was.
This was quite uncomfortable because it shattered a lot of dreams and illusions but it is unavoidable if you live in Thailand. If you don't want to see Thailand's bad side, don't come here to live. Just have your three week vacation each year and then go home.
I had visited Thailand quite a few times previously so why hadn't I seen or heard anything bad before?
Most people have probably heard of the notion of 'losing face' and it is very big in Thailand. Anything bad is considered a loss of face so bad news is swept under the carpet. Also, Thailand is a country where image is always more important than substance so lots of attention is always given to presenting something in a favourable way rather than fixing the actual problem.
Something else that also puzzled me in my early days was why so many Thais lived abroad and why so many wanted to live abroad. I had come to Thailand because it seemed almost perfect so why were the natives so keen to get out?
Obviously, what is hidden to a naive foreigner isn't hidden to Thais. Just as we all know our own countries better than anyone else, so that applies to Thais too.
I've been making some more progress with Mulder's 'Thai Images' and after the 'Social Studies' syllabus analysis he goes on to look at how Thais portray their image to the outside world.
No attempt is made to hide things from Thais because they know anyway. However, it is a different story with foreigners. This may also be for economic reasons because bad publicity can scare tourists away and that isn't good for the economy.
Here are a few passages from the book:
"Nobody really seems to worry about the way modern Thai society is portrayed to the Thai public. The ugly side of life seems to be accepted, people know about it, and probably think that it does not concern them.
Anxiety about the own image occurs when taboos are breached, when the own beautiful institutions are questioned, or when certain Thai customs are exposed to the foreign gaze.
Prostitution, or sexism, or the exploitation of women, and the like, do not matter, but the reputation of the country as a bachelors' and child molesters' paradise does.
It is not the systematic human rights abuses perpetrated against villagers, refugees, and 'illegal' labour that are important, but Amnesty International's reporting about May 1992, the treatment of Burmese students, or the cosy relations with the Khmer Rouge.
And sometimes image anxiety is merely motivated by the most practical of considerations: dirty beaches, or the occasional murder of a foreign national, keep the tourists away which is bad for the balance of payments."
I have said it many times before and I will say it again.
Thailand is not a bad country, by any means.
However, the reality of Thailand is nothing like the way the country is presented to tourists. Everything bad is hidden to foreigners to prevent loss of face, and at one time in the past telling a foreigner something negative was even considered a betrayal to the nation - Thai cultural mandates (see Mandate 2.2).
Some things are literally hidden from view. There was a big conference that took place in Bangkok a few years ago with lots of foreign delegates. I seem to remember that some nearby slums were hidden from view using huge sheets and that all the local stray dogs were taken off the streets for the duration of the conference.
I'm sure the covering up of everything negative has something to do with the relatively high suicide rate among the expat community in Thailand. Unknowing foreigners arrive in 'paradise' after a few vacations but after a while the country starts to look very different.
My advice to anyone considering living in Thailand is to always take things very slowly and not to burn too many bridges.
I received a harrowing e-mail last week from a lady whose son had been badly scammed by a Thai girl. The text is here: Thai girls - your best dream or your worst nightmare?
Quite a few foreign men have written to me over the years who have got involved with Thai girls but who don't live in Thailand. They believe that after a couple of visits to Patong they know enough about Thailand and the Thais to avoid problems. They normally end up coming unstuck.
It's a very difficult country to work out at first and the only way is to spend a lot of time living in Thailand, to be very observant, and to learn as much from other people.
Be careful who you take advice from. Another recent e-mail correspondent was trying to find out about Thai girls and the advice he was given from foreign men living in such places as Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok was to, "Use the girls for a while and then move on." Very useful.
Fortunately, there are foreigners in Thailand who can give more constructive advice and there are lots of excellent books. I referenced some below a few days ago and there are more here: Bibliography
Thailand is a great country. Enjoy it but be aware of the potential problems and be careful.
Sunday 5th June 2011
From The Nation:
I mentioned a story last month about a Thai plan to recruit foreign English teachers and pay them a salary of Bt83,000 a month, which is a huge amount in Thailand. (I still haven't found out where to apply but if anyone from the Office of the Basic Education Commission reads this, please reply to the e-mail address above.)
S Tsow's response to the story echoes my own sentiments:
Talking of jokes, the good people at The Nation haven't quite got to grips with foreign humour and have published a couple of joke letters, apparently believing that the author was being serious. Constance and Horace Beasley must be having quite a good laugh about this:
Teenage promiscuity is shameful
But is Yingluck as 'steamy' as Sarah?
Along with the culture gap in Thailand, there is a huge humour gap as well. Most of what passes for humour on Thai TV reminds me of kids' shows I used to watch in England when I was seven.
Thais just wouldn't understand British humour and something like The Office would leave them completely baffled. However, one man dressed as a woman and another dressed in rubber boots and diving goggles would have them holding their sides in fits of laughter.
Saturday 4th June 2011
With every cloud comes a silver lining and being forced to rest due to sickness has at least allowed me to make some progress with one of the books I bought in Bangkok recently.
I can't remember the name of the bookshop but it was close to the famous Oriental hotel and although it wasn't the biggest bookshop in the world it had a very good selection of books related to Thailand.
Having lots of good bookshops with lots of interesting titles written in English is one of the great things about Bangkok that I miss sorely in the provinces.
Interview with Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit
Pasuk Phongpaichit is a formidable lady. Highly educated and informed, she writes in an engaging style full of fascinating facts and she doesn't leave much out. I like her clear writing style and the way she sets out information; posing questions and explaining at the beginning of each chapter what she is about to discuss.
I have the biography of Thaksin (another fascinating book) that she co-authored with Chris Baker (her husband) and the book I am reading at the moment was one she co-authored with Sungsidh Piriyarangsan. It is titled 'Corruption & Democracy in Thailand' - ISBN 978-974-7100-31-0.
I could quote some passages but if you are interested in how Thailand operates at all levels I would suggest just buying the book. It is widely available in Thailand and should be easy enough to get abroad.
Everything in life is based on historical precedent and to understand how Thailand works now it is necessary to understand how the country used to work.
Thailand has been Westernised on the surface but many things are still done in the traditional manner. Old ideas and concepts still persist very much.
Not so long ago there wasn't much in the country outside of Bangkok. All the wealth and bureaucracy was centralised in Bangkok. When the provinces started to get wealthy and small towns suddenly saw massive development it opened up opportunities for people to get rich where there wasn't an already established elite - but this didn't always happen in a completely legitimate way.
Going back further, it is also necessary to understand the system of tax farming and the Thai concept of gin muang that used to exist. It is for these reasons that what may be considered by foreigners as being corrupt may not be considered by Thais as being corrupt.
Language tells us a lot about culture because where a concept doesn't exist a word doesn't exist. Thais use the English word 'corruption' because, apparently, the concept of corruption didn't use to exist (the situation is changing now). However, there are several Thai terms for the act of money being passed from one hand to another when it isn't strictly necessary. These terms are explained in the book.
In Thailand, Thai thinking must be applied to Thai situations and not Western thinking. By introducing a Western system of 'democracy' whereby politicians are elected through the ballot box, it doesn't necessarily mean that the political system will change. It just means that power is sought through a different route.
The power structure in Thailand (a country which has a highly structured social hierarchy) is what determines everything. The book talks about the role of kamnan (local headmen), phuyaiban (village headmen), nak leng (tough guys), phu mi itthiphon (men with influence), hua kanaen (vote banks), and a significant amount of space is given over to jao pho (Chinese godfather figures).
(NB. I've used the book's system of transliteration even though I disagree with the phonetic accuracy.)
One comment made by a Thai interviewee says that Thais aren't as individualistic as Westerners (very true in most cases) and that they need to help each other. When help is given it is often rewarded with a gift of money. Is this corruption or is it just perfectly normal? Thais from different backgrounds have different views and it also depends on each individual situation.
An English friend of mine who has been living in Thailand for a long time maintains that all countries are corrupt but in Western countries corruption is only open to big business and rich and powerful individuals. In Thailand it is open to everyone and thus Thailand is fairer.
It is one of those books that makes you ask yourself questions. If I have a great experience at a restaurant and give a big tip the waitress may look after me well next time, but at the expense of other customers that didn't give her a tip. I am therefore exploiting other people but am I being corrupt?
If I were to do the same thing with a government official as I did with the waitress, would it be the same or would it be corruption?
If I get stopped by a low-paid traffic cop for a minor offence and he does everything by the book he has to do paperwork and then I have to make a trip to the police station where I pay a fine. It's a headache for both of us. If I give him some money to forget about the ticket I don't have the inconvenience of going to the police station, the money I pay is less than my fine, he gets some 'tea money' to supplement his meagre salary, and he doesn't need to do paperwork.
Two people have just helped each other and they are both better off. Is this corruption? I offered the money and he didn't ask for it, therefore many Thais would not consider this as being corrupt even though the money was accepted and the law was circumvented.
This is all hypothetical, by the way! I am playing devil's advocate here and not offering my own views but in many cases it is easy to understand why certain things can be viewed as corrupt by some people but not others.
On the subject of salaries, even these days I read comments that paying certain people low salaries justifies some forms of corruption because otherwise they wouldn't have enough to live on. It's an interesting theory but I would suggest that raising their salaries would be a better way to resolve the problem.
The book was published a while ago and I haven't yet come across the term 'conflict of interest'. However, some situations the authors describe fit that category very well.
The scale of some of the corruption is huge. When Prime Minister Sarit Thanarat died in 1963 it was discovered he had diverted 2,784 million Baht of public money into his private funds. When the book was published this amount was equivalent to 80 billion Baht, and today it would be even more.
There are chapters about the Thai police (why the force was set up originally, what it was set up to do, and how it operates internally) and Thai views of corruption based on survey questions.
The book was published in 1994 so some things may no longer be relevant. The crime statistics were quite interesting with Chonburi being the most crime-ridden province in Thailand, followed by Petchburi and Nakorn Sri Thammarat. I had no idea that Petchburi was so notorious.
The book was published in Thai as well and I believe it caused quite a stir at the time. I wish I had read it earlier but even several years after publication it has still been a very interesting read.
For some more recent Thai views regarding corruption, see:
Culture of bribery pulls the country down: FTI
The other book I am attempting to read is Niels Mulder's 'Thai Images' - ISBN 974-7100-44-4. The writing style is very different. Whereas the other book tries to be impartial, Mulder's cynicism comes through in almost every page.
Thai students spend a lot of time studying a subject which they translate to 'Social'. Social is just an adjective and what they really mean is 'Social Studies'. Even though I teach students who study this subject I was never sure what was being taught.
What Mulder has done is to get a copy of the syllabus and to translate it into English along with his (very cynical) observations. Mulder's 'Inside Thai Society' is probably the definitive analysis of Thai society and so I respect his opinions.
Again, having a better understanding about what is taught to Thai students throughout their primary and secondary education helps to understand some of the thinking and behaviour in Thailand. The subject isn't really about teaching students subject matter, but more along the lines of explaining what is expected of them as Thai citizens and how they are expected to behave.
This approach follows ideas from Confucianism. Instead of having a strict rule of law where effort is put into catching and penalising offenders, Thailand tries to educate its young people in an effort to avoid problems later.
I think this approach is highly commendable but in any society there will always be criminal types and no amount of education will stop them from pursuing criminal activities. That's why other countries enforce a strict rule of law and some go to extremes, for example, Singapore.
There are different ways to learn about Thailand and everyone's favourite these days - the Internet - is not always the best. An exception is Wikipedia which has some great stuff on Thailand if you delve deep enough.
I believe that reading books written by respected Thai and foreign authors is the best way to go.
Wednesday 1st June 2011
I'm sick at the moment. A couple of months ago I developed a nasty chest infection along with a bad throat, a painful productive cough, and breathing difficulties.
The doctor diagnosed it as acute bronchitis. I had never suffered from this before and thought it was only something that smokers got. I have never smoked.
On Monday evening my throat started to get painful again. Monday night was bad and I felt awful on Tuesday morning. I went back to the hospital and was diagnosed with the same thing. I very rarely take time off work for sickness but I am resting today and I feel a lot better.
I'm not sure what the cause is. Since the baby arrived in March we haven't had a single day just to rest and relax and it could be that my immune system isn't in great shape.
The weather has been horribly hot and humid recently and all the time I alternate from intense heat outside to air-conditioning inside. We've also been spending lots of time at the hospital and hospitals are normally full of sick people.
The doctor confirmed that it was a bacterial infection but I can't remember eating any killer cucumbers.
As I've mentioned several times before, I think the healthcare system in Thailand is fantastic. The Prince of Songkla hospital (Mor Or) never ceases to amaze me. If you want to see Thailand at its best I would suggest spending some time at a large public hospital. Seriously.
There is a maternity unit and a morgue. In addition, they deal with everything else that could possibly happen to any of us between birth and death.
The hospital deals with a huge number of patients from all over southern Thailand. It's not just the direct healthcare that impresses me but all the infrastructure that is in place to keep such an operation running smoothly.
There are so many contrasts here and it is easy to criticise certain aspects of Thailand but the healthcare system is a credit to the country.
I have health insurance so I went to a local private hospital. The baby is being treated at Mor Or (the public hospital) because that's where the specialist doctor she needs to see operates her clinic.
The public hospital is always crowded and quite frenetic. Sometimes we have to wait quite a long time to see the doctor.
The private hospital is like a five star hotel and the service is a lot quicker but it's more expensive. It's well equipped but most of the specialist doctors are based at the public hospital and only work there part-time. It looks a lot more impressive but the public hospital is where the real skills and resources are.
Both the public and private hospitals have their place and I use both in different situations.
The doctor I saw at the private hospital spoke good English and gave a good diagnosis. He's around 60 and I much prefer to see doctors who have several years experience under their belt. I'm sure the young doctors study hard but it never fills me with confidence when I see a doctor who is half my age.
On the TV programme I mentioned recently (Blood, Sweat and Takeaways) one of the young foreigners picked up an infection while working in a rice paddy. He was treated at Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok (which treats a lot of foreigners) and I was impressed with what I saw. It looked like a great facility and he was up and running in no time.
The dentistry in Thailand is equally as impressive. The dental faculty at Mor Or was set up over 40 years ago to train local people so that they could then treat local people. Before then, apparently, dental health in the provinces was quite bad.
There is a big 'Pledge of Honour' in the faculty that describes how dentists are there to serve the community and are not there for pecuniary advantage. What a fantastic mission statement when so many large corporations these days have such crass mission statements.
They operate a mobile unit that goes right out into the Thai countryside to treat poor people who might have difficulties getting to the hospital.
The service I've received there over the years has been first class; I've never had to wait long for treatment; and compared to the UK (and especially the US) it is extremely cheap. My teeth have never been in better shape.
If you need a sufficient amount of dental treatment doing (for example, titanium implants), or need to have some kind of planned surgery, why not have it done in Thailand and the money you save will pay for a free holiday in the Land of Smiles.
On a final note, we have just had our tom cat 'fixed' as he had started to show an unhealthy interest in his little sister. Even the animal hospital here was spotlessly clean and highly efficient.
With many things in Thailand there is - how should I say - some room for improvement, but the entire healthcare system is there already. Well done Thailand.