zolo

As I know this forum is likely checked / followed by Thai authorities also. Wouldn't be good idea to mention the new rule plan and ask people if they can see point which would need to be modify before it will be official? Nobody pride would be hurt, and they could find out defects (and probably get some constructive idea).

Particularly good idea for someone going alone on the beach mainly for swimming

 I put my telephone under my motorbike saddle then the key of the motorbike into a little pocket of my swimsuit, on the beach no values at all, an empty bag my towel and of course my clothing. I'd like to ask this Pol.Col an advice

The idea is good, however.. does your swimsuit pocket is big and waterproof enough to hold your passport with you when you are in water?

I'm always trying to follow the given rules, but I really don't like the mindlessly strict rules much.

What would be the problem with a clearly readable photocopy of the ID?

In most cases the rule could be clearly follow, but in case you would go to the beach (or some place where you don't feel your ID/passport safe), surely you wouldn't like to give chance for got your passport has been stolen. Or at least they could make a rule regarding if you don't have your ID/Passport with you that time, you have 1-2 business days to show your passport to the nearest police station or pay the fine. (The nearest station could be any police station inside the country as you could get caught before the weekend but for example by Monday you are already in another city or about to fly back to your country.  

The police could take your details even without passport, and if the police IT is good enough then they could prevent you to cross the border or run away from showing your ID or paying the fine. (Surely with some luck you could be safe until you run into another police check, or until you've trying to cross the border, but if that happens and in police/immigration system you have the mark regarding you didn't show your ID nor you payed the fine, then you could get some serious penalty - unless you have some police/immigration related proof why you couldn't do that yet.)

/* OFF, but related:

Once I've started to make an invitation procedure in my country for my (thai) girlfriend (to live in our house for a month), there I found the same "mindless" rule. At the end of the procedure (after filling out forms, take fresh official documents, paying at least two kind of fees, the whole procedure would take 1 months at least) I could get a paper with a stamp, and that paper (copy of that paper is not enough!) I have to send to Thailand to my girlfriend to start the visa request using that paper also. If anything happens with that paper during posting (or before/after), then I have to start the whole procedure again. They can't even re-print for me and give an another stamp with the same uniq ID.

If that paper with the stamp has a uniq ID, how on earth they couldn't check the validity of that document even by the number only? Even the number would get unreadable but you could tell the exact uniq number they should able to check it's validity.

OFF */

I wouldn't say it is something people can see only in Thailand. Everywhere you can find not well thought rules which they force to follow no matter what. Just wanted to point out I don't want to blame Thailand or Thai people. However I guess once they declared the rules, they won't modify it, even if they will read/see that it has it's own defects. Human pride is mostly more important than accepting the rule had to be modify.  Which again a human related thing, and it's not in Thailand only.

Maybe I'm a bit late with this answer, but may help for others.

I have tried thaipod101 for free and for payed member also.

- In the beginning I had some problem with them (don't remember already what was it) and had to wait few days for the answer, but finally they helpt me, gave me some extra also and after I get usually fast response from them when I was needed.

- The 2000 english/thai words with audio they have on their page is useful (however the 2000 word audio which could buy is terrible, I could'nt really see how could that use. )

- lessons are really interesting, words even told in slow way, but as beginner I can't really feel them so much useful. 1 topic is about 1 lesson, in one lesson they randomly pick 1-2 sentence and they teach 5 words. This is really nice for learning phrases, but not really for build up a word based knowledge. The examples are useless as for beginner you really don't know which english word which thai word in the sentence, and words mostly not covered in previous lessons also. And in examples all words in sentence written together as thai usually do, but this way as a beginner, you won't able to figure out the words much.
They have started video lessons about thai alphabet (can access video freely, maybe some problem with 6th lesson only, but with some logic you could access that also, or as paying member - you should able to access that also) which seems really great.

- As topics almost randomly picked, using 5 words to teach, I don't really feel I'm moving from A to B.

I would like to highly recommend learn-thai-podcast.com. They have really fantastic lessons with covering 4000 words, covering grammar rules, they teaching thai as ppl speaking it really, covering dialects also (only few lessons for each dialect, but still really great idea). Only negative thing I could bring up is the beginner modules seems a bit dry as you can't see for a while how your learnt words (10 words / lesson) could use in sentences. But after few lessons this will change. However they created a new, pre-beginner part where you could learn the first 300 words. (have some more module also). There I could see clearly the words I learnt in vocabulary lesson how I can use them in sentences, teaching the simple grammar rules also for deeper understanding and able to create your sentences easier.

The site teaches throught real life conversations, news reports. Has separate video lessons for reading and writing thai.

You could check the top300 words lessons here for free: http://learn-thai-podcast.com/300words/category/all-top-300-thai-words-lessons/

If you like it and planning to learn thai language, I highly recommend them.

“If the mother is Thai, then the child will be a Thai national, regardless of whether the husband or the father of the child is a Malaysian.”

According to the Bangkok Post, some children of such unions have not been allowed to register in Malaysian schools, owing to their contested nationality.

Would be better to see the whole statment. Can't clearly understand which way the Malaysian government accept wife and children, because the first sentence seems strict - if the mother is Thai, no matter what - while the second one just talking about "some".

EDIT:

Deputy Home Minister Lee Chee Leong said that one common problem is that under Malaysian law, children of an unregistered marriage must take the nationality of the mother.

My bad. Seems it just need to be registered according to Malaysian law. That doesn't seem to be unfair.

One of you mentioned the food as possibility. One another possibility can be Legionnaires' disease ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionellosis ). In case of shared air condition system, some part of the line may be infected.