Aan een (PvdA) kennis in Nederland over Thailandse troebelen

Ach ja kerel,
bedankt voor het al bekende,
hebben hier een prima netwerk van contacten die onderling waarschuwen en info doorgeven!

Phuket is echter uitermate rustig om diverse redenen, ondanks dat er velen uit Isaan zijn die de Roden steunen (w..o. Kik, zijn familie en praktisch al mijn vrienden hier)
tevens sedert afgelopen middag/avond is er regelmatig grote problemen met mobiele telefoons..
sms is dan het enige wat werkt.... hetgeen de communicatie tussen de Rode demonstranten bemoeilijkt .. althans zo zeggen de Thai hier omdat iedereen ineens klaagt over de kwaliteit van het mobiele telefoonnetwerk, die normaal altijd goed is!

De Nederlandse ambassade heeft mij nog niet specefiek gewaarschuwed, en sta hier geregistreerd, zoals in jouw stukje gevraagd... maar sta dat al sedert vorig jaar zomer hoor.

Maak me op zich nergens druk over, want een ding is zeker, beide partijen zullen hun best doen buitenlanders tijdens deze 'strijd'/strijd te sparen!
Deze strijd tussen Rood en Geel zou je moeten aanspreken als PvdA manneke...
Het is in feite nl. een klassieke klassenstrijd, echter een tikkeltje serieuser nog dan degene waar jij en ik mee opgegroeid zijn, maar nietemin van het zelfde karakter!
De adel tegen het plebs,
de haves tegen de have nots
de landheren versus de slaven
en ga zo maar door... je kan het hier allemaal werl van toepassing verklaren omdat deze hier zojuist genoemde karakteriseringen o.a. helaas allemaal waar zijn.

Het is de Gelen van de huidige premier die het elke keer onnodig zo laten koken hier... en volgens ons buitenlanders is hier relatief makkelijk de lont uit te halen, maar ze vertikken dat uit pure machtspolitiek en prestige
enfin

Sedert de bezetting, door de Gelen trouwens, van de vliegvelden en een half jaar lang frustreren van het economische leven hier in Thailand toen de Roden de verkiezngen weer eens hadden gewonnen (!! jaja!!) en daardoor uiteindelijk de macht hebben kunnen grijpen omdat de rode regering lang niet zo ver ging als de gelen!!
En ook nu gaan de roden nog steeds niet zo ver als de gelen toen, alleen de gele machthebbers van nu gaan wel verder als de rode machthebbers toen en zodoende dreigt er inderdaad een verdere escalatie.....
Echter de gelen hebben ongelooflijk veel meer te verliezen dan de roden........... Het droeve is echter dat de gelen proberen vast te houden aan wat ze hadden. En in plaats als de gewone THai nu ook eens als bamboe mee te buigen, verkiezen ze nu star vast te houden aan wat ze kennen en hadden.
De geest is echter uit de fles, daar heeft die boef Thaksin en passant toch voor weten te zorgen. Een geest die er toch wel een keer was uit gekomen, zoals het overal elders op de wereld!

Als farang (=buitenlander hier) kan je hier alleen maar toekijken en je verbazen en speculeren over wat gaat komen. Er wat over zeggen, kunnen en mogen we niet, dat wordt niet bepaald gewaardeerd, door zowel de ene als de andere partij! Trouwens, dat vinden wij wat betreft onze eigen Nederlandse zaakjes ook!

Wel wil ik er nog even op wijzen dat de gelen, toen die in de 2e helft van 2008 hier zo tekeer gingen tegen de net benoemde (rooie) regering, omdat de roden wederom de verkieizngen ruim hadden gewonnen (!!), een uitermate ondemocratisch platform hadden en een buitenlander onvriendelijk platform ... wel of niet voor binnenlandse consumptie laat ik buiten beschouwing, de roden daarentegen hadden het nodige te verdedigen... En daar bedoel ik niet hun door een staatsgreep afgezette leider en premier mee!

Dat de roden nu redelijk hard de beuk er eindelijk in lijken te gooien, echter dat is altijd afwachten hier, is niet verwonderlijk!
Allerlei fasciliteiten uit het eind van de jaren 90 en begin van deze eeuw, worden nu teruggedraaid. Mensen van het platteland moeten ineens zachte studieleningen veel eerder terugbetalen dan was overeengekomen, de renten die betaald moet worden op door de overheid verstrekte zachte leninigen om de verbouw van producten op het platte land van Isaan te stimuleren, zijn ineens hard geworden en de rentes aanzienlijk verhoogd waardoor wederom allerlei relatief kleine landbezitters weer in de problemen komen en dreigen hun grond weer te verliezen ... drie maal raden aan wie dat dan verloren wordt?
Trouwens, de roden o.l.v. zoals hier wordt afgeschilderd, de graaier Thaksin, hadden wel voor de stimulering van het enorme platteland gezorgd, alsmede een sterk verbeterde en bereikbaardere medische zorg...

Als de (gele) overheid hier nu meteen had aangekondigt het geconfisceerde geld van Thaksin ten goede te laten komen aan het oplossen van de problemen van het platteland, resp. zo ongeveer heel Thailand m.u.v. Bangkok zelf en het zuiden, maar neen, dat geldt gaat naar hahahaha ja hoor, dat is inderdaad de verwachting hier.......

Thaksin komt namenlijk vanuit het zelfde milieu als de rest van de (gele) elite hier, alleen hij wist slimmer en beter te graaien, om het zo maar uit te drukken, veel beter dan de rest, EN hij deed waar de rest niet aan wilde, verbeteren van de omstandigheden van het platteland en daarmee bedoeld of onbedoeld, wel in een klap zichzelf een eigen machtsbasis mee bezorgend die de gelen nu proberen te slechten....
Heb altijd echter geleerd dat je met honing veel beter bijen vangt dan met azijn.....enne tot nu toe is er genoeg azijn van de gelen beschikbaar gekomen en verdomd weinig tot geen honing....!
Men is totaal gefixeerd op Thaksin, en de wraak der gelen op Thaksin, en men heeft totaal geen oog wat er feitelijk te winnen valt.... omdat men dat gewoon niet wil!!
Men wil goedkope arbeidskrachten houden, men wil een zo'n onmondige plattelandsbevolking hebben om te kunne sturen.... men wil gewoon niet de 21e eeuw toelaten op het eigen platteland!!

Ook klagen de gelen erover dat de roden alleen maar winnen omdat ze stemmen kopen van de kiezers. dat is zoiets als de pot verwijt de ketel dat die zwart ziet.
Kik's grootvader heeft als (rooie?) kandidaat in het hartland van de Isaan, zijn verkieizing verloren omdat ie prive niet genoeg geld op tafel kon leggen naar zijn kiezers toe. De gele (!!) kandidaat betaalde veel meer. Misschien heb ik daar nog wel een rol in gespeeld omdat ik weigerde geld op tafel te leggen om die stemmen te kopen.
Nou, na alles wat er nadien gebeurd is, ben ik zowaar geneigd van gedachten te veranderen.....en dat uit mijn mond, hoe is dat mogelijk, maar goed..... ook al is dat voor Kiks grootvader ruim te laat en de ellende die het voor zijn familie heeft veroorzaakt in de nalseep.

Het waarom van dat van gedachten veranderen als echte Nederlandse liberaal is pragmatisch ingegeven en een apart verhaal waar t.z.t jij of een ander maar weer eens naar moet vragen om daar een uitgebreider antwoord op te krijgen ;-)

Maar hoe een en ander zich hier gaat uitspelen is echt afwachten, want in Thailand blijkt de soep vaak aanzienlijk minder heet gegeten (en spectaculair uitziend) aaals die wordt opgedient ;-)

Verwacht zelf niet anders dan dat ik probleemloos heen en weer kan blijven gaan tussen mijn veilige thuis en dit ondanks alle troebelen hier, zo verdomd mooie land!!

Hoop dat je weer wat wijzer bent geworden, mijn visie/opvattingen hier zijn trouwens net zo 'gekleurd' als die van elk andere commentator... het zal pas heel veel later zijn als we een meer geobjectiveerd en beter beeld kunnen krijgen over wat er nu precies hier allemaal gaande is. Thailand en zijn bevolking kennen wat dat betreft over de afgelopen eeuwen een knap aardig eigen dynamiek. En zowel de gelen als de rooien zijn daar knap trots op, daarin zijn beide kampen gelijk!

Laat onverlet dat ook hier een soort Oranje revolutie nodig is ;-)

rjv
PS lees ook mijn eerdere bijdragen hierover die ik eerder op deze weblog geplaats heb, weliswaar in het engels, maar even zo goed ook best de moeite waard, zeker de verwijzing die er ook in plaatsvindt ;-)

Another first for me, uhum

In the previous entry I tried to place a link to an article in the Economist ( www.economist.com) about Thailands present predicaments, which was published in their printed issue of the 18th of march.

Maybe with some copypasting you might succeed with the following:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=15718981&source=hptextfeature

And if not then you have to go to the website of The Economist yourself and find and read it and it might help you to get a little bit more understanding of some of the trials and tribulations here in this otherwise more then beautifull country!

O< and it has been the last time since 1985 that I think I have been confronted with some kind of censurship filter in what one can and can not publish via the internet here. Its very rare, but it does happen, definitly with publications as I told you about before and tried to refer to.

MY appologies for any inconvenience caused to you as reader by this ;-)

State of emergency declared in Bangkok, what to think of it?

The Thai prime minister, himself gotten to power on a very big long lasting wave of demonstrations, disruptions, violance and a blockade of the international airports around Bangkok, announced today a state of emergency in and around Bangkok.
In itself not unexpected, but all who look at what is hapening now, should not forget what started this extreme way Thai seem to get into eachothers hair... and while doing so, causing havoc in all kinds of area's of society including the tourism industry.

Kik and I, and our weddingguests from overseas (The Netherlands and Australia), had to find out how disruptive these things can be, how difficult moving trough the country became because the airports were blocked/occupied by what we then caled The Yellow Shirts. Hence it is something you hardly forget, because it is linked to our Thai weddingday!

Sofar we have seen, what we now call The Red Shirts demonstrating, tastly pooring human blood on the streets, BUT at least their own, not their opponents!!!, And disrupting shopping in the luxuury quarters of Bangkok, where the rich, wealthy and influential Thai also live and shop... And ofocurse the demonstartions on the main roadways around Bangkok.
All in all quite a civil series of affairs sofar by the Red Shirts, definitly if one compares with what the Yellow Shirts did themselfs in the secondhalf of 2008, though now these Yellow supporters, including the Thai PM, shout the most terrible warnings and same time ofcourse stating that no vialoant actions will be taken.
The State of Emergency was declared after the Red Shirts for a short while stormed and occupied the parliament building. Something of which I thought : "Is that all?". Did the yellow shirts not for months occupy the offices of the then prime minister and other departments, blocking meetings of parliament, occupying airports and places of assembly, all in all disrupting life in the whole of Thailand and causing terrific economic havoc at a time that the whole world was not only watching what was happening in Bangkok (thats what an occupation of airports does these days) but was also wittnessing the greatest global financial crisis taking place and causing panick in the money area which is regarded as the worse since the Great Depression in the early 1930's!
I allways think that a non elected governement, a governement manipulated into power due to all the protest , non stop sabotage of essential en economic functioning of the state and directed against the majority rule, I think such a governement should be somewhat more modest in its attitude towards the group who represent, for all intent and purposes the majority of the last elections!

Well, ofcourse this is all talk from the side line... like with the upcomming World Championship Soccer in South Africa: we can all watch, get excited, etc. but we have no way of influencing what is happening on the field, in principal (yea, one has to be carefull haha) not even with all the money in the world.... Thank God and Bhudda that not everything can be bought, unlike, as it nowadays often seems, in Thailand.
Not withstanding all of this, it is and remains a wonderfull country, with marvelous people... and maybe that makes me so worried how things will go here, not only for Kik, his family, our frineds here and me.... but for the Thai people in general who so deserve decent, honest and trustworthy leadership, which, sadly, at the moment seems not avaiable here, it is devastating.

6th of May, 9th of June, General elections in the UK and The Netherlands... all the Brits and Dutch will go to the polls and cast their votes, quickly afterwards we know the results of these elections and the formation of a new governement can start. All parties will except the outcome and the fact that they have to live with it till the next general elections are being held.
This concept is still not accepted here in Thailand it sems, when we judge the behaviour of the yellow shirts.

very synical you sometimes hear here: O, when the present PM cals an election, the chances his yellow coalition losses is very to the red coalition is big, very big! But then the whole circus will start all over again, roughly as told above.

Its better to ride out a bad electionresult and fight new elections when you get the chance to, more chance on lasting results and much less economic damage. BUT who will try to explain this to the Thai??

One other, and complicating factor has to be mentioned. The country has a father to whom all parties rever, who for a long time seems to have kept all the excesses into limits, which now seem to have been left.
His role and futur is something which is a non issue by allmost all Thai.
It fits the general picture I have that the average Thai do not learn to plan, to organise, to prepare for events, financially or otherwise. BUT I can not believe that the old Thai elite, who sends their children abroad to get our western (!) education, not prepare for such important questions.
To help you maybe get some insight in this particular situation and all its complications it brings in Thai politics as well, I can refer you to an article in The Economist: (See below)

Hope my 'little' remarks made any sense to you. It was written durting an evening/night with lots of distractions... from simply having dinner, then shower, then supervising our Theater/Cabaret Cafe annec karaokebar (pffff haha) as far as its posisble here to do such a thing succesfully (again pffff haha), and meeting, talking to all kinds of people and then back home talking with Kik about a lot of different things from health issues to travelplans etc etc.... yes, then I hope this whole article stillmakes decent and good sense to you ;-)

The Economist's article is in principal only for non Thai people outsite Thailand. The issue in which this article was published has not been distributed here in Thailand and as such doesn't excist in this country. Just so you know ;-)

Trials, tribulations, distractions, sadness, excitement, joy, stressffull and relaxing times....2

Picture left: Never a dull moment backstage at Simon Cabaret in Patong Beach Phuket where one can enjoy the best lipsing (=playback) theatershow outsite Greater Bangkok....

Picture right: Gong, our housekeeper since february, checking on the waterstorage behind our house on 15 Soi Manessi.


Called this second entry of Siam-Dutch Adventures, simply same same as before but then part 2 ;-)

If you think, is that all he has been occupied with in the last 6 weeks of 2009 and the first month(s) of this year, hell no haha... wish, in a sense, that was true! So, next to all as told before, in those first weks back in Thailand, next to getting papers signed by Kik & legalised in Bangkok by the Dutch Embassy AND the search and organising of the urgently needed medical treatment of my liver, we also needed to move house around the 1st of december, we were receiving friends from Delft same time and we received my sister and brrother-in-law for a good two weeks after Chhristmas.
This last visit felt more like comming home then I ever expected.
When one stays far away from ones natural habitat, for such long periods as I have been doing, then being able to spend so much qualitytime with ones own family and speaking ones own language, feels sooooo great, its hardly to believe! Quite unexpected haha.
I can assure you, its not at all easy for myself, but also not for Kik, having to communicate allways in for both of us a strange language... because english, as good as I might actually be able to express myself in it, is still and remains a foreign language. For Kik its even harder, because he never really learned to speak english on a level we in europe have gotten used to, not to mention the dialect the Thai in general speak with.
This makes communication one of our mayor obstacles.
Every one of you who shares or has shared his life with some person not from your own country (or language), knows what I try to say here.
Also I made the beginning with the first lessons of Thai... which in itself went quite well, but because of cancellation policies if one wants to cancell a lesson, even well in time, caused by accident or illness, is such that I had to decide after a while to stop taking lessons for a while because simply I didn't know when I was going to feel well enough, strong enough to actually follow a lesson effectively.

Knowing, wittnessing that my energylevels were dropping in a scary rate, and knowing that Kik isn't cut out for keeping house on top of some other issues, made me look like crazy for a housekeeper.
And ofcourse I wanted a gay housekeeper. Ergo, it took a while before I found a guy, Gong, who was highly interested to fill that position under the conditions I was willing to offer.
Gong is no stranger to me and Kik and is the friend of another friend of ours, Lin, who performs in the cabaretshow at My Way here in Patong Beach. Till early last year Gong did same, but health problems forced him to stop. Knowing all about such problems I offered him the position and he gladly accepted and now stays in our house and takes care of us, but mainly me, haha. Also he now also helps me/us with preparing our new venture, a theatercafe annec karaoke bar The Backstage here in Patong which should open its doors one of these weeks.
One of the first things he had to take care of was making sure our watersurply would be well taken care off. Till then we had a relative smal watertank which proved not enough to service5-7 people on a daily basis. And with a small baby, Satang (means small money) I wanted to be sure water was not going to be a non stop problem and headache!
So we organised an extra watertank, twice the size of the old one, to be placed next to the old one, so in effect our water storrage capacity trippled. Well, at least we now have much less waterproblems as before and so makes us all relax a little bit better ;-)
Unbelievable that what we take for granted in the West, that you can just open your tap and water flows, and not only water but in Holland also drinkingwater. Here your watersupply is not automatic and guaranteed... or you must be able to have your own well drilled on your property....haha, in which case you only have to worry about electricity for the pump to pump up the water from the well.... and also the electricitysupply is not guaranteed here.

It is a revelation how relaxed the Thai react when either one breaks down .... and I truly wonder how they would react in Holland. Knowing how sometimes panick breaks out there when by accident the electricity drops out for even half an hour, let alone for many hours... companies get sued, local governements climbing up the walls, etc. Here everybody is relaxed, take out the candles, and try to make fun out of a lousy situation.... even when it takes half a day or longer... and may it be water or electricity! Though when the electricity goes, in general people also stop having water because most waterpumps here who take the water out of the municipality waterpipes to the houses, run on... electricity... the pressure on these waterpipes is not allways sufficient to get the water to your tap, ergo, we also at times need an extra pump if we want to be sure that when the water flows it also flows in our storagetanks.

Well, and so we have lots of things which we still take for granted in the 'West' but are much less taken for granted here. By the way a lesson worth learning ;-)

ALso we experienced the unexpected death of 3 (young) friends within 2 weeks, which made me wonder for a while, how Kik and his friends manage to deal with that. Got the impression that I was smore impressed by it all then they are..... it seems, at least thats the expression they give you, that its a normal thing for them that friends die so young, early ... though on the other hand you see that they are impressed by it, and are truly sad and grieving. But still, the realistic way they deal with it, the normal part of daily life they make it, is also healthy for us westerners to experience. The deal with it in a respectfull but same time ordinary way and , as far as I can see, are not hiding anything about it.
Like with most things in Thailand when more then one Thai meet, food gets prepared and served... the most wonderfull food... which one eats near the coffin in the Temple here and when one turns ones head one also has a view on the crematorium of the Temple... all so wonderfully realistic and simple in approach, and it feels very very natural.
And in case the crematorium is working, if the smoke blows down on the tables, they just pick everything up and move all outsite the reach of the smoke..... one time I experienced just that and not knowing if I would be ofensive if I would get up and move, I waited till the Thai took the initiative to move... they have a longer tolerance level, and allways first wait if it keeps on blowing your way before they actually come into action... so for a moment my drink and food smelled of a burned stuffy barbeque... very hard to describe the smell.

And now its enough. One tends to wander off on all kinds of paths here while telling experiences, haha, and enough is enough.. for now!
Hugs to you all!!

And so we keep having our trials, tribulations, distractions, sadness, excitement, joy, stressfull and relaxing times.......

Trials, tribulations, distractions, sadness, excitement, joy, stressffull and relaxing times....

Picture: Cuny, Simon and Rob in front of the entrance to the original house of a famous abbot of Wat Chalong, in Chalong on Phuket Thailand, january 2010 (Kik is behind the camera!!). Ofcourse you have to take my word for it. Come visit me on Phuket and I can show you same (and more!!) if you so desire ;-)

When someone asked me why I so much enjoyed politics I answered simply because I so enjoy having never a dull moment, allways something worthwhile is happening or to take care off and its never the same. And the satisfaction to be able to help other people in a constructive way with their lives ( which doesn't mean you allways do what they like, also the opposite!). Gettting the feeling you are actually needed, wanted, that you can make a difference which benefits the people involved, even if they do not realise it themselfs yet.
That 'someone' then said to me, again, why that hunger for it....but then giving his own answer: Don't I allready have all that in my daily live....yours doesn't sound one bit boring, contrary, sounds more like you never experience a dull moment.
My reply: Simple, if its for me it rarely gives me any satisfaction and too often I look at it as boring. Am pretty lousy taking care of myself, contrary to taking care of others. Bad? I do not know BUT at times it indeed feels that way.
One thing I discovered again though: am very bad at sharing with other people if things do not seem to go too well, with me or those close around me. And that is definitly not a good thing, because sharing also helps yourself seeing light in the tunnel, or looking in the mirror gives you a most usefull perspective and or insight.
Nope, not at all too clever to close down like an oyster and as such unwillingly also hurting those who wanted to be there for you, to help you.
Roughly thats how things have been these last 9 months, since roughly my last weblog-entries in "Thai-Dutch marriage" and "Rob's Adventures" .

Though things haven't really improved since then, more like temporary gotten worse, I decided that Easter 2010 is a good moment to try to bring around a change here.... Now we can only wait and see if this wished change is indeed going to happen!!

An extreme short summary of, lets say the last 6 months:

Trying to solve my urgent problems with my cashflow, because running two households on two different continents and a housemarket which crashed down around me us and as such makes it impossible sofar to access my savings. At last moment finally my bank was willing to help me out, though only for a relative short period... made it necesary though to jump asap on a plane back to Thailand because Kik needed to sign a letter of agreement with me doing this (haha, thats what happens when one gets married). Same day I had to decide to jump the next day on a plane (because paperwork needed to be signed for a certain date!) I was further put in a turmoil by getting a phonecall from my hospital that I needed to report asap (yes, again) for emergency treatment against a liverdisease.
You think you jump on a plane to solve, for the time being, a very urgent problem and you get news that makes your worries reappear in full force again. In the few hours between hearing this news and catching my flight I was blessed to be able to talk to my sister and brother-in-law (see pic).
They told me I should consult a docter/hospital on Phuket and see if they could give a satisfactory treatment and if that would be acceptable for my medical insurrance and my Dutch docter. I agreed that that would be the best way to go about it....and to have to leave Kik on his own for potentially as long a period as 6/9 months, was not very appealing to put it mildly! Also, they argued, that if I succeeded in getting the treatment in Thailand, at least I would be not alone but with my husband Kik.
Well, that night my sister and her husband stayed at my Delft home and my sister brought me to the airport the next morning. Ofcourse I discovered soon enough I forgot lots of things because that is what happens when one suddenly moves ones flight forward in such a speed!

Once on Phuket I had to talk Kik trough the whole procedure of signing that document, which had to be wittnessed by the Dutch Embassy, my notary instructed me. Kik had to get a couple of days free from work to be able to travell with me back to Bangkok to do the signing.... and what an ordeal that turned out to be... and how lucky I have been by having been able to jump on that plane asap from Holland to Thailand otherwise we most likely would not have made the signing in time!
The few days on Phuket we used to visit hospitals here on the iland and to see where one could receive the possible treatment needed with which my dutch docter could live as well as my medical insurrance. We found such in the Phuket International Hospital and Dr. Sumit. While on the hunt for that legalised signature in Bangkok, we were also negotiating with insurance company etc. to get permision to undergo treatment here for this acute liverdissease.
When I arrived back on Phuket two friends from Delft were staying at the house for a couple of days, with Kik. One of them, Bas, is a docter himself, and he has been of great help those first couple of days when I was getting way too stressed about everything.
THose friends were also of great help in getting the paperwork in time to our Delft sollicitors, otherwise an impossibility to accomplish thanks to all the sedbacks we encountered in that area!

In the end we succeeded in both areas and the document got signed and legalised, but in the end not by the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok, who refused (more about that another time) AND we received permission from my medical insurrance to start the treatment here in Thailand.... a big pffffffffff went up ...... but this all was just the beginning of another rough ride which, though in a different way, still lasts till today.... when I slowly start to prepare for the return back home to Delft, again alone, snif!

Since then I started that treatment which consist of a special injection every week for, I now know, 48 weeks. The side effects are no fun but acceptable. They make me tired and irritated, specialy the first 2/3 days after the injection. One can also loose his hair because of it (sofar very limited), loose weight (not happened yet), get easily irritated (happens in the first few days of the week) and am often but mainly first half of the week, very tired. 17 weeks have passed since the start, all goes well sofar in the treatment area -the insurrance area is very different though! And as such still 31 weeks to go, pffffff!!!!!!!!!!!!

Same period I kept on the look-out for a new location of continuing our bar/cafe.... when I finally found that location and we started to prepare for it, I was informed of insurrance problems surrounding my medical treatment here on Phuket. Never experienced that so a new first! But it helped me decide to fly home latest after Sonkran, the Thai New Year, to continue treatment back in Delft and see how to prepare for continuing the treatment in such a way that I can go back to Thailand as soon as possible after Jeroen en Bibi succesfully receive their son or daughter !!!!!!
Because now we finally managed to find and establish a business which has the potential to actually work and provide us with a baht-income, I can not yet afford to stay away that long from Patong....
and it would have been easy to stay here where it not for this medical insurrance problem which needs solving in an acceptable (financial) way.
Next to this I will use my time in Delft to see how I can stimulate the selling of my Delft home. Again the pressure of time is again placed upon us here....................
Also I hope to do some repairs to dissapointed friends who I stood up unwillingly when I left for Thailand that suddenly last november!

Never a dull moment, but Ooo, what could I long for a long relative dull period because sofar we haven't had any time to relax and really unwind............ somehing Kik and I both long for since we got married in October 2008, but due to all kinds of different circumstances we have been unable to sofar!

As my English schoolteachetr allways told me : "Never say die!" (= never give up) or as I like to say : "Keep smiling, a laugh a day makes your worries go away". Humor is powerfull, a true laugh, like an honest cry, works mirracles for once state of mind....and body!!

PS please ignore the typing mistakes, etc.... no energy in checking everything right now, just happy I managed to get this all down in here ;-) rjv!