Living In Thailand Blog
Wednesday 15th May 2013
If, as a tourist, you thought that Thailand was a perfect country, there are three guaranteed ways to change your view:
- Go to live in Thailand permanently
- Teach in Thailand
- Drive in Thailand
I started teaching in Thailand with ideological views and with a belief that I could make a difference. This soon got beaten out of me and then the job just became drudgery. Life has been a lot better since I stopped teaching.
Thai kids want a sanook (fun) and sabai (comfortable) experience in the classroom. As soon as something isn't deemed as being fun and/or you start to push them out of their comfort zone, it all goes very wrong.
I will never forget one girl standing up in class and telling me in front of all her classmates, "Entertain us." That is what they expected. Their lessons with the farang teacher were to give them a break from their other teachers and to be entertained.
The kids wanted an entertainer. The school bosses and parents wanted a teacher who could do what no other teacher had done before. The organisation I worked for expected me to keep everyone happy so that they continued to get a contract.
You end up in a situation where you are expected to please all the people all the time, but of course this is impossible.
Teaching also takes up a huge amount of time. None of my teaching jobs provided any kind of curriculum and none of the students had course books. How much easier that would have been. I had to decide what I was going to teach, write lesson plans, and get thousands of photocopies done so that the kids had material.
A friend of mine working at a univesrity in Bangkok has exactly the same problem. I was once interviewed by a university for a teaching job. They asked why I wanted to teach there and I replied that the students would be much better compared to high school. They laughed.
When I taught Bachelor's degree students later I found out why they laughed. A Bachelor's degree in Thailand is the absolute minimum qualification for any kind of employment. Students leave high school and go straight into university because they have to, not because they want to or need to. This is very different to when I left school in 1977.
Most Thai undergraduates have the same mentality and attitudes as high school kids. They spend four years at university because they need the piece of paper at the end, and they try to do as little as possible within this time.
My friend has just been through the examination and marking process, and now there is a further process. The results were too low, which would reflect badly on the students, teachers, and university, and we can't possibly have this in Thailand as it would constitute a major loss of face. The Thai solution is just to increase all the marks.
I experienced the same thing while I was teaching. I gave my folders with the students' marks to the organisation I worked for. I found out later that an assistant teacher who had never met any of the students was given the task of increasing all my scores before giving the marks to the school.
You think that by being totally honest and straight it will help students in the long run. If marks are low then academic efforts will improve and over time students will reach a level where they can pass exams. Not in Thailand.
Raising standards to meet the bar involves a lot of hard work and effort. In the land of image over substance where it is easier to take the path of least resistance, it is a lot easier just to lower the bar.
It's this kind of thing that really makes you despondent as a teacher. Thais introduce rules and regulations, but then people just circumvent the rules to make it look as if they are being followed.
Education establishments are now inspected, which is a good thing. However, I read a blog some years ago written by a girl teachingin Bangkok. She suddenly found that a lot of good teaching material had arrived at her school. She was excited about this, but then it all disappeared.
The reason it had arrived was because the school was about to be inspected. As soon as the inspection had been carried out and the school had passed, all the books were sent back. This is very Thai.
There are some very good, very bright, very clever students in Thailand. They aren't a problem and I actually feel quite sorry for them because the education system doesn't allow them to fulfil their potential.
The problem is that there are a lot of poor students and little is done to make them better. It's the same with driving in Thailand. There are lots of poor drivers and nothing is done to make them better.
The barber shop I use is very popular and sometimes I have to wait for a while to get my hair cut. They have just implemented a queueing system. As you arrive you take a token with a number and this ensures that people get served in the order they arrive. Some post offices and customer service centres in Thailand have a similar system.
This is fair, and Brits in particular have an innate sense of fairness and fair play. In England most people queue fairly and people will organise their own queueing system if one doesn't exist. In other countries it isn't always like this.
While queueing at supermarket or minimart checkouts in Thailand, it isn't uncommon for someone to try to jump the queue. I find it strange that when this happens, other Thais don't say anything. I can't stop myself from saying something. As a Brit, I get quite upset at this type of thing.
On foot, in face to face situations, it's not too bad in Thailand. A few people will try to sneak ahead, or tell their children to jump the queue on their behalf in the hope that other people won't say anything if it is a child doing the queue jumping.
On the roads it is a completely different story. This is one of the things that infuriates me about driving in Thailand. There are many others.
Most vehicles in Thailand have very dark tinted glass. You can't see the people inside and with no eye contact there is a sense of anonymity, which makes some people believe they can do what they want at the expense of all other people.
There also seems to be an attitude in Thailand that big vehicles have right of way over small vehicles and I am convinced this is why there are so many pickup trucks in Thailand. Most pickup trucks don't have anything in the back most of the time. It seems that a certain type of Thai male prefers driving a big pickup truck so that he can bully and intimidate other drivers.
I use the correct lanes while driving because this is the way I was taught and this is what I believe to be fair and correct. Many Thais don't. If I am waiting in the correct lane to go straight on, there are always drivers who fly past in one of the empty lanes to turn left or right and then they cut in to go straight ahead. Often, the culprits are drivers of large pickup trucks or minivans.
If waiting in the slip lane to do a U-turn there are always drivers who refuse to join the queue and fly up the outside before cutting into the queue. It infuriates me.
The traffic police aren't interested and other Thais don't react. Other drivers don't react possibly because of the 'mai bpen rai' (never mind) attitude that exists in Thailand, or possibly because Thais know that some drivers carry guns and aren't afraid to use them in roadrage altercations.
There is also a sense of pride and achievement with drivers who cheat in this way to get ahead of other people. When I first started this site, an Englishman living in Thailand sent me a document about Thai characteristics and behaviour. One of the points in the document was: "Conning and cheating are skills that are applauded not denigrated."
Many years later I was speaking to a Thai about this and he mentioned the term 'luk gai'. The word 'luk' means to steal and 'gai' means chickens. 'Stealing chickens' is a Thai idiom that means 'to steal in, sneak in, or slip in'. It's a sneaky method that can be employed to get ahead of other people; basically, to cheat.
When I watch motorcyclists and drivers who stop at traffic lights momentarily and then set off again while the lights are still red, which is very common in Thailand, they often have big, smug grins on their faces.
In their eyes, what they just did was really clever. Other people have to wait wait but they are so clever, so smart, and so accomplished at stealing chickens, that he never has to wait at traffic lights and he has othet techniques that allow him to get ahead of other drivers on the road.
If you plan on driving in Thailand and you are used to Western driving techniques, you need to adapt very quickly in Thailand. No matter what speed you are travelling at, there will always be a pickup truck, bus or minivan bearing down on you from behind.
In every situation there will be other drivers trying to get past and trying to get ahead of you, using all the sneaky techniques that Thais have developed.
The police never do anything and when some people see what goes on they decide that next time they will do the same thing instead of waiting in the correct lane or waiting for the lights to change. It is therefore a self-perpuating problem and it just gets worse all the time.
The driving in Thailand has already reached a stage where it is so bad that even if the police genuinely wanted to clamp down, they couldn't because the problem is now too big.
Thailand has the 6th highest road accident rate in the world and the road death rate is at least seven times worse than it is in the UK. When you drive in Thailand and see what goes on, these statistics are no surprise at all.
If you visit Thailand and are concerned about risks that may endanger your life, then being involved in a fatal road accident as a pedestrian, driver or passenger is the biggest danger there is in the country.
Tuesday 14th May 2013
One of the main reasons why I've had some free time recently is that my daughter now attends nursery. She doesn't attend at the weekend and therefore I don't get much free time on Saturdays or Sundays.
She has had a fever the last few days and spent last night in hospital. As a result, I had very little free time on Monday and Tuesday. All of a sudden I couldn't do anything for four days.
I wouldn't be without her now, but children certainly eat into your free time.
I just watched a video about the so-called Death Railway that runs from Thailand into Burma. I went there a few years ago and enjoyed Kanchanaburi very much.
In Thailand, the Death Railway's grim history lives on
The immaculately kept war graves are beautiful and very sad at the same time. Many of the soldiers who died were hardly out of their teens. In the museum there are accounts of what the POW's went through, with accompanying photos. It was horrendous.
Even with a mildly upset stomach, life can be difficult in this part of the world because of the intense heat. It is almost unimaginable how people with severe dysentery and other diseases were made to carry out hard labour in those conditions. Their bodies became emaciated and many died.
If you are travelling to Thailand and have time, Kanchanaburi province is worth a visit. If you do go, here are three quick tips:
- Don't say River Kwai because Kwai is like the word buffalo in Thai. River in Thai is 'mair naam' and the name of this river is 'kwair'. 'mair naam kwair' is a lot better.
- I will put money on the fact that any foreigner asked to pronounce 'Kanchanaburi', as it is commonly transliterated, will not pronounce it anywhere near correctly. Ask a Thai to give you the correct pronunciation and then use the same pronunciation as Thais.
- Kanchanaburi is quite a large province, and located near the Burmese border is a district called Sangkhlaburi. It was recommended to me by a Thai friend when I went to Kanchanaburi. It's beautiful and there are hardly any tourists. It's quite near 'Three Pagodas Pass' and the pass is also well worth a visit.
I was interviewed by Catherine Wentworth, who runs the Women Learning Thai website. Catherine has done a marvellous job in putting together an excellent resource for those people who are interested in the Thai language.
Her series of interviews about people who have got to grips with the Thai language (to very different levels, I should add) are fascinating and include some major farang celebrities in Thailand.
In addition to the important people and celebrities who are completely fluent in Thai there are also interviews by ordinary people, such as myself, who have learnt just enough to get by in normal everyday situations.
If you have an interest in Thailand, don't be afraid to tackle the language - both spoken and written. It makes a big difference if you live in or visit Thailand. It's tough at first, but with a little effort and perseverance it can be done.
If you're just starting out, you may wish to take a look through Catherine's site.
Sunday 12th May 2013
Stories of Thais ripping off foreigners in Thailand are legion, and these rip offs have been occurring ever since foreigners started to visit Thailand. It's one of the things that virgin tourists - and even some more experienced Thai visitors - need to look out for. Scamps should always be avoided.
But not all Thais act this way. In fact, it is only a tiny majority who engage in deceitful practices against foreigners. And not all foreigners in Thailand are very honest themselves. Foreign scammers and con-artists operate in Thailand and target both Thais and other foreigners as victims.
Actually, there are some decidedly dodgy farangs in Thailand and they need to be given a very wide berth. I recall reading a story about a farang in Phuket who offered to help other farangs with visas and employment. He was in no position to help other people and just cheated them out of money.
I've read stories about farangs in Pattaya who use the services of prostitutes and don't pay them, or who steal money and other things from the girls.
Thailand, unfortunately, because of its easy-going, laid-back mai bpen rai attitudes, warm weather, cheap cost of living, abundance of prostitutes, and weak law enforcement attracts a lot of bad foreigners.
The story of one of the biggest scams perpetrated against Thais by a foreigner was told to me by a Master's Degree student that I taught a few years ago. It involved fake detectors for explosives and other things, which were sold to the Thai military and security services.
These devices were claimed to be able to do wondrous things. Supposedly, they could detect many different things from 700m away on land, and they could also detect things 60m underground or 800m underwater. Supposedly.
What's more is that they didn't need batteries and could be powered using static electricity generated by the user. These marvellous devices weren't cheap, of course, and were sold at up to $55,000 each.
When someone actually took one apart to analyse it, they found that it contained no electronics and was no better than a divining rod. The special 'sensor card' was made from pieces of black and white paper that had been cut out with scissors and stuck together with UHU.
Thailand bought a lot of these GT200 detectors and they were used extensively. Of course, they were completely useless and thus put a lot of people's lives in danger.
The BBC launched an investigation, which resulted in a police investigation, which then led to criminal charges against the makers and an export ban on the devices.
During my break from doing this blog, I saw that the fraudster responsible is now spending some time behind bars. He had become a very rich man through this little enterprise. It's good to see some justice meted out, but I'm not sure whether the poor Thais who fell for this scam will receive any compensation or not.
Fake bomb detector seller James McCormick jailed
Fake bomb detectors 'destroyed lives'
Saturday 11th May 2013
There was a report on Thai TV news yesterday about dengue fever outbreaks in Nakhon Rachasima (Korat) and Chiang Mai. A few weeks ago, a large sign was put up in Hat Yai warning of the same thing. The sign is all in Thai.
Many foreigners in Thailand can't read Thai. Considering the number of foreigners there are in Thailand, I find it a little disappointing that the Thai authorities don't make important public health information available in English.
Another danger locally during the rainy season is flooding. The Thais operate a flag warning system to indicate the status of the current flood risk and appropriate action should be taken depending on the colour of the flag being flown.
Signs were put up describing what each colour flag meant and what action should be taken. Again, all this information was only in Thai. Here's an approximate translation of the dengue sign:
Beware of stripy mosquitoes!
(Which are the) Cause of dengue fever
Big epidemic in Hat Yai
Protect yourself and look out for mosquitoes nearby
Close water containers
Change water in containers every 7 days
Release fish to eat mosquito larvae
Improve things in your surroundings (mosquito screens, etc, and destroying places where mosquitoes can breed, I assume)
Do this until it becomes a habit
Act against and limit mosquito larvaeIf we don't kill mosquito babies (larvae)
Mosquitoes will kill our babies
The disease is carried by the Aedes genus of mosquito. These mosquitoes have stripes on their legs and bodies, which are quite noticeable. Unlike regular mosquitoes, they are active - and bite - during the daytime.
They are aggressive. Regular mosquitoes hide under desks and tables and sneakily bite my feet when I sit down to do some work or eat a meal. Stripy mosquitoes have flown after me aggressively to get a bite.
It is only female mosquitoes that bite. Their normal food source is nectar, but females need to eat blood to produce eggs. One bite is enough to transfer the dengue infection.
The symptoms are headache, fever, aches and pains, and a skin rash. These are uncomfortable, but not normally life threatening. However, if dengue hemorrhagic fever develops or if your blood pressure drops then the disease can be fatal.
There are four strains of dengue virus. Once you have been infected you have immunity to that particular strain, but you are still vulnerable to the other strains. The disease can be very dangerous for young children.
There is no vaccine. To prevent the disease, all you can do is try to avoid mosquito bites. This is something else that frustrates me with Thais.
Very few public places make any effort at all to keep mosquitoes out. I had insect screens installed in my house but Thais won't use them. Whenever workmen or my wife's relatives or friends come to the house they never close doors or screens.
There is a dengue outbreak in the area, the disease is dangerous to young children. and we have a young daughter. Despite this, most Thais won't make any effort to keep mosquitoes out.
Many Thai-owned houses don't have any insect screens and I have heard Thais say that they aren't necessary. It's a really strange attitude.
Dengue is endemic in Singapore, but the Singapore authorities adopt a much tougher stance. They fog every day and fine people for leaving open water containers where mosquitoes can breed.
After living in my house for six months the local authority came to fog last week for the first time, and it will probably be another six months before they come again.
Singapore is very clean. In Thailand there is rubbish discarded everywhere in the streets and after some rain this provides a perfect breeding environment for mosquitoes.
I always make sure that we have plenty of mosquito spray in the house. These mosquitoes are really quick and difficult to swat. They are a lot easier to eliminate with spray.
I bought some Tesco own-brand spray a few years ago but it was useless and it smelt bad. As a rule, I stick to the Baygon brand, which is very effective.
Despite all the precautions I take, we still get mosquitoes in the house every day. There are so many outside that it is impossible to keep them out when you open and close doors all day. This is just one of the downsides of living in Thailand.
Regular mosquitoes are highly annoying, and their bites irritating, but not dangerous. However, remain vigilant and don't be complacent if you notice stripy mosquitoes because these things can be nasty.
Friday 10th May 2013
Whenever I return to Thailand after being in a developed country, several things strike me about the country. Firstly, the pavements (sidewalks) are an impassable disaster zone and completely cluttered with stalls selling food and other things.
Interestingly, different Thai friends of mine have both travelled abroad recently. One went on a European cruise and one went to the States. They both came back raving about how neat and orderly the streets and pavements were. You get used to the mess in Thailand while living here and it isn't until you go abroad that you realise what a mess it is.
The other things I notice are shabby buildings that are desperately in need of a lick of paint and overhead cables everywhere. The wiring in Thailand is not only a terrible eyesore, but it is also dangerous. People get electrocuted every year and this fate has befallen a few farangs in Thailand. Be very careful of cables when it rains heavily in Thailand.
A few years ago our local municipality started a big project putting all the overhead cables underground. At the same time, they relaid the pavements and when it was finished it looked fantastic. I was full of praise for whoever had decided to do this.
Putting the existing cables underground was a massive job that required a huge amount of money and effort. It seemed obvious that the best thing to do from then on would be to bury all new cables and then there wouldn't be any need to bury them later.
However, that isn't how Thais see it. Now that all the downtown cables have been buried I still see lots of new overhead cables going up. What is the logic of taking them down in one area while putting them up in other areas? Thai logic - an oxymoron if ever there was one. Most disappointingly of all, there are overhead cables on the new housing development where we now live.
They've buried the cables in the Sois, including the cables that actually enter people's houses, but there are lots of overhead cables along the main road going from the front to the back of the development.
The houses are a very attractive design and the developer has done other things to make the development look attractive. They've actually done a pretty good job and made an effort to make this development better than others. So why did they not insist that all cables were put underground? It would have been easy when building a brand new development. I just don't know the answer.
My Thai neighbours have complained about it as well, but whether the cables will get buried in the future remains to be seen. Doing it now will be a headache and there is no financial incentive for the developer to do anything. Normally, things only get done in Thailand if there is a financial incentive.
Burying them in the first place would have been the best thing, but it was probably easier just to put them on poles. As a rule, Thais always choose the easiest option. A farang friend here says that Thais always choose the 'path of least resistance'. This is very true.
I'm really pleased with the house, but this is one thing that I'm not at all pleased about.
Thailand is also the land of image over substance. An effort is made to make things look satisfactory on the outside, especially if foreigners are around, but if you look beyond the veneer it is usually a different story.
If a Thai school is putting itself on show to the outside world the performance will most likely be quite impressive. However, if you work at a Thai school you will soon see what really goes on inside. What you see on the outside is never representative of the truth in Thailand.
Is it a coincidence that the area chosen to bury all the overhead cables is the central tourist district, an area which has the highest population of foreign tourists? Why bother in areas where tourists don't go. Or maybe I'm just being too cynical.
Thursday 9th May 2013
Thailand has a lot of snakes, as do other tropical countries. This is an unescapable fact. You don't see too many because they keep clear of humans, but wherever you are there will be snakes nearby.
In the big flood a few years ago the water flushed lots of snakes out of their holes. They could be seen swimming in the flood water and they got into lots of houses.
Squashed snakes can often be seen on Thai roads. My wife was driving recently and a snake suddenly wriggled across the road, which she subsequently squashed with one of her wheels.
At our new home I haven't seen any yet, but I did see a freshly shed snake skin near the rubbish bins. I think it was from a cobra. The neighbour just opposite reported that she had seen a snake in her garden. It was venomous, but not very big.
A friend of my wife's has lots of snakes around her house and we got into a conversation about snakes. She was bitten by a cobra and the story she told was quite amusing.
It was back in the days when she went to university. She was walking to where her motorbike was parked and disturbed a cobra. The snake bit her foot and started to slither off.
The university complex also has a hospital. Her next stop was the hospital and she knew that to administer the antivenin they would need to know what type of snake bit her. She was thinking very quickly.
She wasn't sure, so grabbed the snake by its tail and pulled it back; a course of action that generally isn't recommended. It turned around, bit her again on the hand, and then wrapped itself around her arm.
Using one hand she drove her motorbike to the emergency room, with an angry snake wrapped around the other arm. I'm not sure how the hospital reacted, but they must have been quite shocked.
Interestingly, she wasn't treated with antivenin. They put her on a saline IV drip and treated her using other methods. She was fine and there were no problems, apart from the scars which she still has today.
She told me that another snake bite victim had been given antivenin and had subsequently died. I don't know any of the details. Possibly the person had a severe allergic reaction to the antivenin.
From what I have read, it is important not to panic if you get bitten. However, I would find this very difficult if I or someone I knew was bitten.
There is a large, undeveloped area of trees and bushes next to our house which looks like a good habitat for snakes. I therefore remain vigilant and keep an eye out just in case.
Tuesday 7th May 2013
There have been times in my life when everything has gone out of control. I'm quite an organised person by nature and when this happens it causes big problems. The events that cause things to go out of control are normally not of my own making, and getting life straight again normally takes a lot of hard work and time.
My career in IT in the UK had been fine up until the early 90's. I enjoyed the work, was treated well by my company, and I had all the material trappings of success. It was around 1992 that everything changed.
The company hired a new CEO from outside the company, which was the first time this had ever happened. My job changed, basically because technology was making my old job redundant, and also the world had started to change.
All of a sudden, businesses were outsourcing IT skills from India and other places. It was a novelty at first, but after a while all this cheap competition from abroad had started to make a life in the IT world a lot more difficult.
I was fortunate enough to work in a small group that was isolated from most of these changes and avoided any real pain for a few more years. However, my specialist area then fell victim to technology and I was thrown into the general services pool. I hated it.
I started to become very unhappy at work, which also affected my personal life. Towards the end of the 90's there was enormous hype about the Year 2000. This was a milestone year for me because I turned 40. However, instead of celebrating the new Millennium with glasses of champagne I just felt miserable.
I was unhappy at work, unhappy at home, and having passed 40 it seemed that things could only go downhill.
I knew that I needed to make some enormous changes in my life to get it back on track and when voluntary severance packages were announced in 2002 I jumped at the chance. I took a long vacation and spent some time in Thailand in the winter of 2002/2003. I returned to the UK, prepared my house, sold my car, and tried to figure out what I was going to do.
I bought a ticket to Singapore and left the UK on 22nd September 2003. That was almost 10 years ago. I have never been back to the UK and I still have no desire to return.
It was an amazing experience. I had been dogged by unhappiness for a long time and in the months leading up to leaving England, I had also suffered from a lot of anxiety regarding what I was doing.
A taxi arrived to take me to the train station in the morning and I made my way to Heathrow. What was strange is that as soon as I closed my front door, all the unhappiness and anxiety disappeared.
The only possessions I had were those in my bag and I felt as if an enormous weight had been removed from my shoulders. I had no house, no job, no car, no dependents and I was completely free of any responsibilities. It felt wonderful.
I spent a while in Singapore staying with my brother, did trips to Bali and Australia, and then travelled by road through Malaysia - stopping at a few places on the way - before arriving in Thailand in November 2003. Thailand has been my home ever since.
So, what does all this historical stuff have to do with my blog stopping a year ago?
After several carefree years in Thailand, my life went out of control again. It started with marriage in 2010. I'm not blaming my wife personally, but you only truly know the meaning of 'culture gap' when you are married to someone from another culture.
It takes a lot of work to make a marriage work, and when there is a big culture gap it takes even more.
We married because she was pregnant and with a baby arriving we needed more space in which to live. She wanted a rented house and not an apartment. The only place we could find was a townhouse in a densely populated residential area.
The house was OK, but nothing had been done since it was built and it wasn't fit to live in (by my standards, not Thai standards). I spent a lot of time and money doing things that needed doing.
A couple of months later we were hit by an enormous flood. I had asked insurance companies about insurance but they wouldn't insure for flooding. A lot of stuff was ruined and I had to pay to replace it myself.
The area was highly vulnerable to flooding and once again this caused me a lot of anxiety. When the flood hit, we had no car and no baby. When the next rainy season arrived we had both, meaning that another flood would cause even bigger problems.
Our daughter arrived in March 2011 and, as any parent will know, the arrival of a child turns your life upside-down. In addition, she was born with a problem with her feet. At first, we had to take her to the hospital several times a week and in the first year of her life we spent an enormous amount of time at the hospital.
While this was going on, the house was making me very unhappy. The flood problems meant that the downstairs of the house was really unusable. One room upstairs was a general and storage room and our bedroom was where we did everything else.
It was where we slept, where we watched TV, where the baby played, and where I tried to work. The truth of the matter, though, is that I couldn't get anything done.
I have always suffered from claustrophobia to some extent and a typical mid-row Thai townhouse wasn't doing me any good. There were no windows at the side of the house, tiny windows at the back, shutters at the front downstairs, and just one decent size window in our bedroom.
The environment in which the house was located also caused me problems, in addition to the fact that it was in a flood zone. Many poor Thais lived there. Poverty is nothing to be ashamed of, and we had some very decent, kind neighbours.
However, the way that some poorer Thais behave is way beyond inconsiderate. The streets were race tracks for young males in cars, pickup trucks, and on motorbikes. There were also lots of street vendors and pedestrians.
On a few occasions, old people were knocked down by the street racing maniacs. The police weren't interested and were never seen, apart from when they attended after an accident.
I couldn't make out why the local residents never took any action against the obnoxious street racers and found out through talking to local people, and also talking to my wife, that Thais will never say anything because they fear reprisals.
It's crazy. You have to live in an environment of anarchy because no one will take any action against the bad people. I know that in the UK the police would quickly intervene, and if they didn't then the local residents would take action themselves. Not Thailand.
My parents visited when our daughter was born and at the end of their visit I took them to the airport. On the way back I saw a new housing development. I stopped for a look and really liked what I saw.
The next day I took my wife for a look. She also liked the house and so I put a deposit down on one. That was in March 2011. When I came to Thailand I had no intention of buying property, but with my daughter to think of now, the house will give her and my wife some financial security.
There were lots of delays with the house and progress was very slow. I pleaded with the owner to put some priority on our house (there are 70 in the development) and we finally moved into our new home in November 2012.
I love it. The house gives us a lot more space and I have my own office. The baby has her own room and there is also a guest room. The development itself is very quiet with no through traffic.
The neighbours are a completely different social class to where we lived before and we don't suffer any of the problems related to noise, street racing, and other obnoxious behaviour, such as dumping rubbish wherever it was convenient.
Moving house fixed a lot of my problems, however, I still wasn't getting much time to myself. This was fixed by our daughter attending a nursery from Monday to Friday and by buying my wife a car so that she is independent.
The house was new, but still needed a lot of work after we moved in. Most of that is out of the way now, the baby isn't around for several hours a day, and my wife can go where she wants.
For what seems like the first time in many years, but in reality only about three years, I now have some time to myself again.
It was never my intention to stop this blog but my personal situation got to a stage where I had very little time to write it, and when I did I couldn't concentrate and didn't feel at peace with the world.
The situation has now changed (until the next disaster, at least) and I have decided to carry on. For me personally, this blog has always provided me with an outlet to vent some of my frustrations about living in Thailand.
When living in Thailand, life is often frustrating but never boring. There is always something to write about. The problem is that nothing much changes in Thailand and when you write about the country you find yourself writing the same things repeatedly.
The crazy driving and ridiculous number of road deaths never stop. No matter how many Thais get killed every New Year and Songkran, exactly the same happens the following year. No matter how badly somewhere gets flooded, it will happen again the next time there is a lot of rain.
I will therefore try to think of some different topics instead of the same old chestnuts.
My wife took me to see a movie today. She paid for the tickets and everything. The Thai movie Pee Mak Phra Khanong has been breaking all kinds of Thai box office records and after its release in March it was almost impossible to get a ticket. Every performance at every cinema was completely sold out.
My wife was desperate to see it, but we had to wait for a while for the crowds to die down. We went today and the cinema was packed even on a Monday afternoon.
It is set during a period when Thailand was quite primitive. There were no vehicles apart from small boats, and people lived in wooden and thatched huts supported on stilts. Some characters, apparently, couldn't read.
My wife thought the setting was about 100 years ago, which sounds about right. All the modernisation we see today in Thailand is only quite recent. Despite the historic setting, there were references to Spiderman and other modern characters, which I couldn't quite work out.
It's actually quite a sad love story, but it is ruined by the juvenile antics that pass for humour in Thailand. The many scenes of four grown men screaming like little girls and trying to look frightened because they had seen a ghost were exactly the same as on Thai TV, and this is the reason why I don't watch Thai TV.
Mak and Nak are a young newly wed couple who are very much in love. Mak is a kind-hearted person, but unfortunately he isn't the sharpest knife in the box. He goes off to war, leaving his pregnant wife behind and meets four friends.
When he returns to his wife he finds that the villagers act very strangely towards him. The woman who owns the local liquor store gets drunk and tells him that his wife is a ghost. Mak's friends also suspect the same thing.
It transpires that Nak really is a ghost. She and her baby died in labour, but return as ghosts. Well, this is Thailand.
It seems that Mak is unaware of this and everyone wants him to know. However, later in the movie we find out that he does know. In quite a touching scene, he tells his ghost wife that he is terrified of ghosts, but living without her terrifies him even more. Being with her in ghost form is better than being without her.
In her ghostly form she serves him live worms and dried leaves for his meals. He loves her so much that he eats what she gives him and pretends to enjoy the food.
Letting her know that he knows also tells her that he accepts the situation and they continue living together as man and ghost in the village with her still frightening the villagers.
I've been living in Thailand for almost 10 years and with Thai TV and movies there is always a set formula. Ghosts are always needed, and to counter the ghosts there are Buddhist monks with sacred powers.
Ghosts take the place of Dracula, a Buddhist monk takes the place of Van Helsing, and sacred water and rice take the place of garlic and crucifixes.
It's impossible to have a Thai movie that doesn't include ghosts and the basic premise of the story is fine. However, all Thai ghost movies must also have a comic element, and what passes for comedy in Thailand reminds me of watching Crackerjack on British TV when I was a kid.
The difference is that Crackerjack was always intended for very young children. Thai 'comedy' is about the same level of humour but it is aimed at all age groups and not just pre-pubescent children.
This is another area where the culture gap between Thais and Westerners starts to get very wide. When I watch grown-up, and apparently educated, Thais killing themselves laughing at this stuff with tears rolling down their cheeks I normally stare in disbelief.
Naresuan Part 2 is still the best Thai movie I have ever seen. It includes all the good things about the Thai film industry without any of the 'comedy'. Thais can make excellent movies, but they make movies primarily for Thais and that means including the juvenile humour and toilet scenes.
Before today I hadn't been to the movies in Thailand for years. It's easier, cheaper and better to buy DVD and Blu-Ray discs to watch at home. I watched Django Unchained last week and my sense of humour is much more closely aligned to Quentin Tarantino's than it will ever be to a Thai scriptwriter's or director's.