catweazle

Koh Tao - Hub of Death...

I'm lost for words

RIP to the victim, strength to Palle and son, swift and maximum punishment to the culprits!

Will never be found!

To me there is only two feasible scenarios - the plane was shot down by accident or with intend during the military excercises in that area back then.

Diego Garcia, etc. are much too complex and risky scenarios with for too many chances for inviting unwanted eye witnesses...

Youi can't argue, letting alone hoping for sympathy from fundamentalist terrorists and separatists. All they understand is violence! But thanks for trying, kids!

Ooops, private investigator, perhaps?

I think the impact of that virus is child's play in comparison to the impact it has on a human brain when watching Thai soaps day in/day out...

The usual nonsense post by the Thai haters, high season is underway in Chiang Mai the little cafe I go to was packed yesterday by two different tour groups coming thru Chiang Mai, usually just locals and a few individual tourist. The walking traffic of tourist has also increased and the long stay hotel I stay at is full. It is filled by the folks who have been coming for years and who stay up to 3 months for the winter season and the short term stayers of a few weeks or days.

My obsevations are not scientific but based on my own experience from living in this neighborhood for 5 years, the shop owners are all happy with the uptick in visitors and business. Sorry to disappoint the haters but it does appear Thailand is doing ok or at least our neigborhood is.

So you are prejudice against the people who tell about the bad things they see or experiences they had and call them all Thai haters? You are the hater here.

I live and love Thailand and my Thai wife and her Thai family and my half Thai kids. But i agree with almost everyone who posted in here except you.

I am sitting here at khaosan and for high season it is about half then what i have seen in other high seasons.

I also have seen the same on sukkhumvit and silom.

So i would think either your groups are chinese or you had a good day only. Reply when you can compare your opinions with your profit margin to last year you foreigner hater.

Ran out of likes for the day, but needed to LIKE this one too!

I'm parking in your garage, thesetat... To me, with a Thai wife and 2 Thai/foreign kids it comes across quite disturbing to be called a Thai hater... We simply are not blind and def enough to not see, hear, and feel the increasing anti-foreign sentiment amongst common Thai people and officials alike as well as considering all the CONs Thailand has piled up over the past years in opposition to the many PROs living in Thailand had to offer many years ago... This is called being alertness and receptiveness, but has nothing to do with Thai bashing or hate...

Very superficial post, moe666 - try another number, the number of the beast always leaves a sour aftertaste!

Thailand will not recover unless each and every Thai person here understands that it is not about politics, Russians, Chinese, whatever, but honesty (honest smiles, honest business, honest business approach, etc.), fair treatment of foreigners who want to live and/or invest here (visa and immigration regulations for that NOT remind of Nazi Germany, allowing private retirees to have their own, tiny one Rai and house in THEIR name, business investors truly owning their business, etc.), safety and a corruption-free police force that truly does their job (unlike on Koh Tao), education (i.e. teach Thais that it is bad to throw the 7Eleven garbage out of their car window, ditch old motor oil, paint, thinner, other toxic substances into the gutter, creating global awareness, stopping this crap about Thailand being so great and never having been colonized or occupied, etc... stopping this nationalism anti-foreigner brain wash, etc.), enforce national park protection against poachers and the fishing industry, and all the other flaws in the Thai system that could fill books...

In short, a well educated, honest and pro-foreign nation would automatically establish a functioning and trustworthy government, resulting in a happy and functioning nation that tourists would happily visit to spend their money here.

As of today, Thailand is losing its luster by the hour. The times are over where millions flock in and throw their money onto the streets just because there is easy sex just around the corner or because the life here is more relaxed and more desirable than living elsewhere. By now both - the common Thai, as well as the Thai loving foreigner - are angry, disappointed and disillusioned to the point where the question comes up, "What the F**** am I doing here in this country and why did I come here in the first place?"

"Unfortunately EnTangLed" could be the title of this story...

Think both of them should do life in a cell with a thick glass screen divider so he can see all his life for what stupid cow he wasted his life, and she has to look at the same stupid idiot for the rest of her life, even after she got bored of him as well. Sounds like fair punishment, no? Oh yes - and hard labour they should do each day of course without pay.

Looks like they stepped over the line...

you see it's not just the Burmese that are used as scapegoats. She was probably set up to deflect attention from the real shipment.

Sad but most likely correct!

No sympathy from my side - drugs suck! Hopefully they'll get the whole gang involved in this as well.

First street dogs, now wild pigs... what will be next? Crocodiles???

Ignoring the fact that the pig story will most likely end the relationship between that particular 7Eleven store and their muslim customers, I believe that 7Eleven urgently need to get their act together.

A few points:

1) In the beginning, many years, perhaps decades ago, 7Eleven had a protective rule making sure that no other 7Eleven would open in a vicinity of (I believe it was) 5km. Now there are 7Eleven stacked so close to each other that you could even spit from one door to the next.

2) Cleanliness does not seem of importance anymore. I have visited countless 7Elevens in Thailand that were so dirty and unorganized (with the worst I ever saw being the one in Thai Muang, close to the resort area of Khao Lak). The stench, when you come inside kicks you in the face... A mixture of sour butter, cheap eau de cologne and old mens' underwear... The fridges dirty, rusty and some not working, the shelves disgustingly dirty, the collection of offered goods perhaps only half of what a standard 7Eleven would have... And this was not the only one! The wordst, yes, but there are many others almost as bad all over the country.

3) The friendliness of the good old days is fading by the day. Grumpy and mostly downright ugly, obese, even disfigured employees can't be bothered to tell you how much the total is, some of them quietly point at the monitor and are looking at you like an alien if you ask them "How much is it?" or "Tow Rye?". I miss the old days where cute girlies that to 70% even looked attractive, giggled and in a friendly and not offensive way at least tried to tell you that they can't speak english and who were cheering if you told 'em "Phood Thai Die!"... Today, walking to a 7Eleven cash counter is like a blind date with members of a Circus troupe or even worse - a horror show.

4) As far as I can see, the healthy bit of all 7Elevens is gone: The salad! Simply too much work? Too much hassle? Something healthy getting into the way of making more profit?

5) There are rumours saying that the 7Eleven franchise themselves place competition 7Elevens that are newer, bigger and better right next to the franchise holders (their own customers) who make good profits, while most of the franchise holders struggle to make a living given the tight rules and tiny profit margins.

6) Some 7Elevens are so freezing cold that I feel sorry for the employees and wonder how it comes that they not all die of pneumonia...

7) The headline of this post.

There would be much more to say, but I leave it as this in hope that some members of the board of directors of 7Eleven in Thailand will read this and act accordingly...

With an appearnace, attitude and name like that, a person is walking on very thin ice when claiming to be a good guy. People like that Thailand don't need - send him home!

Whatever happened, I am sure it's a case of what goes around, comes around. No sympathy for Sparkie from my side!

Irrelevancy has hit a new low...

Why do people even bother commenting on a topic you couldn't care for? Just troll elsewhere, would you, I hear the fishing forum is a barrel of laughs.

Thanks Dave!!!!! Spot on!!!!

Pink Floyd is and always will be my absolute favourite band. The fact that they are wrapping it up now is a grim reminder to the fact that we all are getting old. I still have fond memories of the good old days. I had the "walking hammer" logo painted on my wall in the party cellar and not a day would pass by without hearing a Pink Floyd song. Watched the movie The Wall as a young teenager and the last live concert I saw of them was the "Momentary Lapse of Reason" tour, getting goose bumps when Scott Page pumped out the solo to "Dogs of War" what actually inspired me to learn how to play the sax myself. Whenever I do a gig, "The Wall" is be part of the final set and I'd sing it myself, dreaming of the good old days back then, when not only love, honor, friendship and honesty truly meant something, but also music was coming straight from the heart and had a meaning; very different from today's superficial industrialised music scene. I gonna miss them a lot and thank the lord on my knees for the good timing, being a late baby boomer, spending the best time of my life when Pink Floyd was at their very top. Gonna need some "Emotional Rescue" right now, since my eyes start to water up, sorry...

The RTP should read this here http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/forensics-assessing-the-scene-of-the-crime.html after that they could do a list of points they either missed or <deleted!> up completely. That list will be endless...

If you don't scare people away in the first place, there will be no need to "push" for them to come back.

Western tourists staying away from Thaiand is the payback for the many clusterf#(Ks Thailand's officials created in the past year or so (with Koh Tao, Visa regulations, etc. just to name a few) along with the ever increasing anti-foreign (or shall I say downright racist) Thai sentiment in daily life and especially in regards to immigration and investment rules.

Good to see that people show they've had enough by not returning!

Perhaps Thailand is waking up now to the fact that there are several other and perhaps better tourism, retirement and investment destinations out there, but I won't be holding my breath.

Power to the people - give it to them, folks!

I'm surprised that not more incidents like this or worse happen daily since all truck drivers in LOS seem to ride the tyres until they explode and then change 'em. Every 2nd or so truck I see has a few tyres showing the mesh with no profile left at all...

Yet, checking road tax stickers and collecting tea money are more important to the police than actually checking vehicles for road worthiness.

Reading this, I'm Thunderstruck !!!

Didn't know that Indonesianess existed - sounds exactly like the dodgy plans to "lure" tourists that Thailand's tourism experts came up with a few months ago... great!

That means there will be no shortage of speed and crack then, aye?

What will be the penalty if they won't listen? Death by strangulation with a bare wire used for buildig floating lanterns?

Advise to Thai officials, specialists, experts and news agencies alike: If you want to be taken seriously, please refrain from using the world "hub" when advertising any projects, plans, etc. that concern Thailand.

It's pathetic!