thaiophilus

As I know too well. Stones may take a while to grow, without any symptoms until they start to move, so it can be difficult to identify the cause. Regardless, it's definitely wise to avoid dehydration at all times. Also rhubarb For emergency self-medication for the pain you can take the maximum dose of both paracetamol/acetaminophen and ibuprofen simultaneously (so long as you are OK with either of these on its own, of course.) If compounds with added codeine (e.g. co-codamol) are legal where you are, that helps too, but I wouldn't risk carrying anything containing codeine when travelling. A doctor may have more potent options available. I wouldn't be without it when travelling, just in case. But be careful what you drink while taking cipro... unlike some antibiotics, alcohol is no problem, but milky drinks stop it working and it potentiates caffeine to the point where you can feel quite ill after a single cup of tea.

I spoke to one of the masseurs (Gan) today - the previous owner has sold the business to open a beer bar in Jomtien but Narcissus continues under new management (as of 3 days ago) with the same staff and location. The only obvious difference is that massage plus minnimum tip (for 1 hour, 500+1000B) are now payable up front to the manager.

and the "high - mid - low" are mouth positions, not Thai consonant classes which are a separate lesson ;-)

Sorry, ignore the above. Mistyping on a tiny phone keypad and the Thai has come out wrong. It should look like this: Front Centre Back อี อื อู High เอ เอิ โอ Mid แอ อา ออ Low

It helps to know that Thai has 9 vowel sounds (so it's easy: English has between 14 and 21 depending on where you are from!) Think of them on a 3x3 grid according to how high the jaw is and how far back in the mouth the tongue goes: Front Centre Back อี อื อู High เอ เอ้ โอ Mid แอ อา ออ Low or (British) English equivalents (don't pronounce the Rs) something like: ee eu oo eh er oh air ah or The 'eu' sound isn't found in English, it's a bit like the German ü-umlaut or the French u in 'tu' Then each vowel can be short or long, there are diphthongs and a couple of triphthongs, and each syllable can have one of 5 tones: level, low, falling, high or rising. Apart from that it's straightforward ;-)

Hi all, long-term lurker and amateur linguist here but I feel I know some of you already ;-) Currently watching the world pass by at what I still think of as Cocobanana... Regarding tuu yen, just a guess on my part: many so-called "self-cleaning" refrigerators have a drain hole at the back which sometimes needs, ahem, special attention.