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Dear Hillary,
I drive a ten year old car and, especially driving it on Pattaya’s streets, it needs to be repaired from time to time. I recently had to install new shocks. I picked up my car on a sunny, hot day, and everything seemed to be all right with it. Then yesterday, when I had to drive through heavy rain, I turned on the windshield wipers, but nothing happened. I stopped my car to take a careful look, even though the rain was pouring down, and found out that my wipers were squeezed in the hood. Result: the wipers were broken. I went back to the garage, but all they did was tell me to go to an electric shop to have it fixed. My complaints that the wipers were broken in this garage turned out to be fruitless. This is the second time this has happened to me, besides other incidents after picking up my car from any garage.
Now my question: Why are obviously unqualified people allowed to “fix” a car in a well known garage with a good reputation. I have heard many similar stories like this already and once somebody told me that garages in Thailand are known to repair cars so well that one needs to have them fixed afterwards a several times.
I know that in Europe, a mechanic has to study at least three years and has to take a test in front of government people before he is allowed to fix the car of a customer. Here in Thailand, in all fields, after 3 months of work they call themselves mechanics, tailors, bakers, cooks, a.s.o.
Hillary, I do not expect any answer to this letter, but maybe some of your readers had better experiences and could tell me about it.
Garage-allergic.
Dear allergic,
Thank you for not requesting an answer, for I truly would not know what advice I could give you. In some cases we are all very helpless because we do have to depend on other people. I would like to ask my readers if they have any ideas or know of any reputable addresses to pass on. Please write to me. I, and many readers, will definitely be very happy to hear from you.
Dear Hillary,
My little daughter has very beautiful, light blond hair. She doesn’t go to school yet and therefore, whenever she can, she will go to the pool at our hotel and will play around. I’ve realised that after swimming in the pool, her hair gets a greenish shadow which is very hard to wash out. Since neither my daughter nor I intend to turn her into a mermaid (some of them are supposed to have green hair), I would like to know what I can do to prevent such a drastic change of colour?
Not colour blind.
Dear not,
The change of colour of your daughters hair is due to some kind of acids people will put into swimming pools to prevent the water from turning green. This acids do have the effect of changing a hair colour. Since your daughter is light blond, she will be effected more easily than people with dark hair. Dark hair will only look dull, but doesn’t change colour.
Try to teach your daughter that every time she stops swimming, she has to rinse her hair thoroughly. Maybe you could give her a very mild shampoo to wash the acid off at the same time.