What am I looking forward to when I return to England....

Well I have been doing a little study of how England has changed since I left and I believe that upon my return I should:
- Dispense with the current sun tan and opt for a fake tan, which will make me an more acceptable Orange!

- Go to the hairdressers and get a decent hair cut (here they all want to chop it off) and hair extensions!
- Immediately invest in a Vajazzle for the Va jay jay! not sure why but this seems popular!
- Buy an i-phone and a i-pad, so I can be available on Facebook at all times,
- Buy some ridiculous high heels which will cause me to break my leg (no worries there is free health care!),

- Become depressed about the economy, moan that there are no jobs and live off the dole for the rest of my life,
- Dream about returning to Thailand, where I have so gotten used to the craziness.

Or maybe, just maybe I should stop watching TOWIE!!!

Sale on X-rays in Trang

Only in Thailand can you find that, at your local hospital, for a limited period only, there are discounted X-rays. It is such great value, think I might have to headbutt another truck!

What Nick would miss....

 I love the way school kids have the same haircuts - the boys - very short all over with a Tin Tin tuft and the girls have a classic bob!! gotta love the country!!

What Sarah is going to miss!

What i miss about Thailand would be a long LONG list.. but one of the main things... BUM GUNS! oh how i miss them :) that, and ALL the food (except deep fried crickets) Son Kran and the fact that anything is possible and can get fixed :) oh and riding without a helmet.. well in fact riding without a license!... you see, the list goes on....

I am a bit confused about monks!

For me I find it lovely to see monks walking at early hours of the morning giving blessings to local people.

They appear very generous and warm people to everyone, no matter what religion you are, however I have had some strange encounters:

No texting seen at this particular wedding!

1. We once decided to give a lift to 3 monks who we found on the road to Krabi. They happily took cigarettes from my friend and then demanded a hefty donation (per monk!) before we dropped them off at the airport. We later found them buying a rice cooker in Tescos! We suspect they were fake monks (yes that is common in Thailand!)
2. At my friend's beautiful wedding, one of the senior monks on the stage, during the ceremony got out his mobile phone and started texting!
3. I was assured by my Thai friend that despite her husband going into the monastery for a couple of months, their sex life would not suffer??????

Visas!!!! now I know this one is popular

Visas are crazy in Thailand, even if you have a work permit for a year, you also need a visa but you have to leave the country every 3 months. You don't have to be gone long, you just have to reach the border and then come back. It is the biggest waste of time for all of us living here and in the past the Thai's had some great ways of getting round this rule.At least you get to go to KFC!!

Crazy Visa Rules:
- The rules at one Thai Embassy are not necessarily the same as another Thai Embassy (even if they are in the same country). These rules can change at anytime, without any notice and there are no ways round the new rule you didn't know existed but has just wasted 3 days and probably over 6000 baht.
- Every piece of paperwork must be stamped (with the company stamp) and signed, failure to do this, wastes everything (I took to carrying my stamp with me whenever I left the island!).
- You have to supply them with about 50 pieces of paper, all of which you also required for the Work Permit, TAT license, Boat License etc Forgot one piece of paper? Forget it, unless of course you bought the stamp and someone can fax it to you!

Opening a bank account

Opening a bank account is not always easy, some banks will let you do it in 5 minutes, others need you to provide all sorts of documentations you don't have in order to be able to put your money with them.

However when you get past this there are some great things about banking in Thailand:

- You get an ATM card straight away, they even let you choose the number whilst you are opening the account
- To move money to another country is crazy difficult (they will say 'cannot' at least 3 times, but when they decide to do it, it is very cheap and far quicker that a European Bank
- You can transfer money to another account using an ATM, it is quick and easy and the money arrives immediately.

There are also some crazy rules:
- You can only take 20,000 baht out in a transaction, but you can do as many transactions at the same time as you like!
- Your signature must be simple and easy to copy, otherwise they will make you do it again and again (even showing you on the screen the version they would like you to do) or make you fill out a form (which you sign with the signature they wont accept) to change the signature to a simple one, so you can get your money out (you still following this?)