The Thailand expat forum for Travel, Lifestyle and Fun.

Mathos

Some nice complimentary writing there BB:-

Thanks very much.

I'll do my best to keep folk interested, that is the main issue of course.

Life, is a very strange journey.

__________________
All the women take their blouses off
And the men all dance on the polka dots
It's closing time !

Mathos

Another really busy Saturday from cleaning my car and Flobo's, doing quite a bit of work around the house and gardens, and then having some good company round last night.

Good discussion, you can't beat it really.

We had a fair mixture of ages in our little circle and basically discussion commenced with a remark or two on the "Disappearance of John Darwin" along with, the scam for the massive Insurance fiddles he and his wife pulled.

There was never a cat in hells chance of this little lot going undetected forever.

The Police were apparently re-opening investigations of some kind into the case following a tip off or outside concern that the drowning was never a fact, and John's wife was being a Winnie Liar.

John Stonehouse MP pulled the same stunt thirty odd years ago. People did it after 9/11, Karl Hackett did it after The Paddington train crash in the late 90's,
Graham Cardwell did it in the same period, there are numerous such cases.

They had a TV series on the scam many years back. The late Leonard Rossiter played Reginald Perrin in the very popular series 'The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin'

It was hilarious.

The Darwin's were sentenced to some Thirteen Years in nick (between them) for the scam.

That seemed harsh to me. There are people kicking old age pensioners up and down the streets and not getting that. People using knives on kids and not getting that either.

I could go on.

It annoys me.

Detective Inspector Andy Greenwood, obviously a pillar of society, in charge of the Darwin case spoke very sternly about it on TV after the sentencing.

He mounted his high horse for the TV camera's and gave one of those very stern looks, this being the crime of the century and all that for Christ's sake.

Mrs Darwin has been Despicable and Cunning she had lied through her teeth etc. etc.

What a load of bollocks.

Tory Leader David Cameron had his bike stolen while he was shopping in London, I should think that would have been a better case for DI Andy G to take charge of.

Anyhow, what we were talking about as these things leads to other discussions, note The Darwin's had two son's who knew nothing about all this.

Your dad's dead. we have all this insurance money and life will be much better for us all now.

Oh yeah..

Billy Liars

But it's funny.

Darwin's aunt remarked after they were sentenced;

"She was a practicing Catholic. She has not practiced very hard, has she?"

So then it leads to the relationship between parents and kids today in the occidental world.

It's a noted fact of life that the kids out in The Orient look after their parents much better.




They don't exactly have much though, in the broad terms of comparisons.




Do parents bond better with their children in the orient?



Is it that they have more time, more general concern for the children which leads to concern for parents as they reach the twilight years.

Mathos

When I look around and hear some of the stories with regards to older folk and their kids in the UK it is somewhat concerning.

You go through years of existence wanting what are basically the fundamentals of existence. Be it from a motorcycle, car, girl friend, wife, home, children, holidays etc. Then you reach a time in life when the only thing you really want is to stay here as long as you can.

Scientists are stating now that as they become more familiar with repairing molecular and cellular damage, it will be possible for people to live for a thousand years.

As it is, the occidental world is actually breeding less but living much longer.

The countries cannot afford a social welfare system for the elderly reaching into real old age. Retirement and pensions were purposely arranged at one time in the knowledge that most would be dead before they reached seventy.

Not being that far off sixty five years of age, two and a half years or so, and having paid a massive amount of tax in my working life. I, like all other pensioners will be further mugged from whatever savings and pension attributes or alternative forms of income I have planned for.



Is peace of mind in mountains like these the answer to retirement.

As things are, I keep myself active and very busy.

Most of the people I know in their late 60's are very bored. They feel like they are also write offs in the sense of modern society.

There is a system of relieving you of your savings, home and any assets you may have accrued in a lifetime of work if you become ill or need special care.
There are cases in the UK of couples who having been married for fifty or more years and needing special care are separated and packed away in different homes.

If you keep yourself at a decent level of fitness, there is not so much you cannot do at sixty or seventy years of age. Maybe longer.

I take an aspirin or two every day along with a statin tablet, so does Flobo. We can ride bicycles, motor bikes, drive, run, swim, and climb mountains to a reasonable level in Thailand.

If we live too long, they might want to plug us though.

I wonder what he is doing with that little load?

Mathos

A couple, maybe a family even can live in a place like this in Thailand and be very content with their little lot.

If, they are not familiar with alternatives of course.





The fact that houses and accommodation in general are improving to such levels in the country, and mainly due to Western influence is obviously going to create a desire for better living conditions.



There are many such improvements noticed within the remote mountain areas of the country.


There's plenty of building space available.




I noticed earlier this year, beautiful homes like these for sale in Chang Mai, there are numerous building sites and housing estates with work in progress throughout all areas of the country I visited.




Will the relationship between children and parents maintain it's level of decency?

Progress like this has strange if not very peculiar bearings on all stations of life.

sunsetter

ello mate, some good points made, i think if your happy with what you got then let it be, which seems to be the way of thinking in a lot of rural thailand

love those pics mathos, great thread

Mathos

Thanks sunsetter, of course having a content mind is the greatest blessing on earth.

I like to think, I look at many things in life with thoughts that don't always appear to be associated with the aspects of the drawing so to speak.

Life is a strange, but fantastic adventure don't you think?

mobs00

^ It sure is.

Mathos

I don't really know how or why we assess time. It's a pain in the arse at times.

I find there are insufficient hours in the day at the best of time and whilst I keep quite busy on a daily basis and in general feel that I do what I have to do. Certain things including the weather can cock days up in so many ways, it might be worth considering time to be a crime.

I hadn't been able to get out today, a couple of problems early on this morning delayed me for a few hours which meant a drive was out of the question as I had to be back home to keep an appointment at 3.30pm.

I'd intended going to the coast as well, checked this morning and the sea was creating havoc in places, high tide was due at around 9am or so and I was going to make an early start. Really looking forward to getting some photographs of the sea crashing over the sea wall at Blackpool and hitting up on the dunes around Lytham St Annes.

Then the phone went!

Never mind, life is life. It happens to all of us, some worse than others.

For whatever reason I ended up about an hour or so back looking at a couple of the other threads I had done as opposed to 'Beautiful Lancashire'

I could hardly believe it had been July when I was last on this one. Time. It's daft.

Anyhow, I had a look at a couple of photographs and thought I would put a couple on here. You never know, some folk might be interested.



Another of those Republic of China vehicles you find in Burma and Laos especially, there's allways an odd one or two in Thai border towns to compliment the Chinese I rather suspect.




Not that the presence or the condition regardless of the lack of road tax let alone an MOT and Insurance would be a silly suggestion.

What grabbed me was the use.

Most of us can turn a tap on and get water for drinking, washing, bathing, showering, toilet flushing, watering the garden plants or cleaning the car.




So I'm moaning about a bit of time and this chap must spend several hours every day getting the water he needs from the Mekong River down a rugged steep pathway and he appears to be quite happy doing it.



He could have carried a couple of dozen empty containers down there with the help of his kids for instance and they could be filling them up by the river.

He's toting them up hill and onto the vehicle though.

It's quite a stretch of water too that River.











Quite a few folk sang that old song too.






Don't we take a great deal for granted.

Mathos

Corrugated tin sheets appear to come in very handy out East especially.




We use them here as well, mainly for sheds, and odd garage or cheap build temporary construction.

Out in The Orient they build homes from them, fence off sections of land or river.


That critter resembles a cross between an albino Jack Russel and a Siamese Cat.


If you take a walk around Klong Toey in Bangkok, there are complete streets and buildings built from them.

It's a while since I was down in that part of town on a serious issue. It's an interesting place to put it mildly.



The dog on this one looks like it could be descended from a hog as well.

I wonder what the little girl will be doing in ten years time.

Thoughts like that cross my mind when I am in these isolated places especially.





Asbestos as well.






But it's not the cough,
That carries you off,
It's the coffin
They carry you off in.





The trials and tribulations of life regardless of origin all result in the same exit.




Lord, oh Lord
Won't you look at it rain.

sunsetter

ahhh hello, getting it rolling again huh?

Mathos

No disrespect what so ever to anybody who may be a Buddhist, but when I came across this guy, I thought I had located Bin Laden in hiding.





At times sifting through photographs you find some really interesting shots.

This one must be quite old.





Singha was probably 20 baht a small bottle in those days and 35 for a large one.



There are some basic homes in the mountains and malaria going on the rampage enforces the use of mosquito nets of late.

Some of these small huts have very little at all to vaunt with, but some have much more than others.




Amazing isn't it.




Where's the salt?

Mathos

Hi sunsetter,

I'd best get them all up to date. I've been getting carried away with the 'Beautiful Lancashire' thread most of the summer.

sunsetter

good on ya mate, nice to see you getting busy again