DumFarang

It is an undeniable fact that Suvarnabhumi is an awful airport, given that it is one of the world's newest. The worst things for me are 1) the extremely long queues at immigration when you both enter and exit the country and the long time it takes to process each passenger, not to mention the rude and surly immigration officers when you exit, giving you the impression that they are telling you under their breaths to sod off; ii) the ridiculous price of food meaning that even Burger King costs you an arm and a leg; iii) the absence of free wifi; and iv) the need at security to take off your belt, watch etc.

It shouldn´t be forgotten that many people using Subarnabhumi treat Thailand as a transit land to go to neighbouring countries. This year, there seemed to be a tourist crisis everywhere in Thailand (good news as it was for me, since I could stay in my preferred guesthouse), but I was, therefore, very surprised to discover that Burma was having a busier year than usual and that business was also very good in Malaysia.

Australians, New Zealanders, Britons and French can now take a direct Air Asia flight to Kuala Lumpur and transfer to another Asian destination. KL immigration is quick and polite and security people are very courteous and not such fusspots as in Suvarnabhumi. When I left Burma on the free shuttle bus from Motherland Inn to Yangon International Airport which serves both the flights to Bangkok and KL since they leave within an hour of each other, nearly everyone was heading for KL. Need we say more? Goodbye Suvarnabhumi!!! Your monopoly is over!!!

Oh, here we go again. It's the inevitable, "then you'll be sorry when all your tourists are gone" post. Yes that's right, Thailand is single handedly chasing off every tourist, and they'll never come back. All the surrounding countries will have millions of tourists, and they'll be laughing all the way to the bank; while Thailand's tourism will drop to zero. It will happen, watch you'll see. Just look for it to be obvious by the time our sun explodes and our moon catches on fire.

Can we get a definition on what panicking to panic is like? Is it like panicking before you panic out of fear that you might panic?

Most of the gripes are here are minuscule in comparison to other International Airports around the world; the walk is certainly a lot less than Dubai (not to mention the 40 minute bus ride) and you can get a meal in BIA for the price of a packet of chewing gum at London Heathrow. The only gripe i would have is the attitude of certain members of the security check staff after exiting through immigration; but i guess that's the same everywhere. Taxi's i cant comment on as I have a driver, as for Immigration queues; has everyone forgotten what Don Mueng was like??? It may also be worth noting that if you have an Immigrant B or O Visa and speak basic Thai; you can use the Thai National immigration points which are always empty

Good tip, thanks! I always have a non-O, but I never realized I could get into the Thai line. Seriously, I can do that? Pretty cool if it's true.

How can you say there is a 500% markup? If you go to a dirty street stall in Bkk you can still eat for 50 B. and maybe a nice bacterial infection, but I wouldn't compare the airport to the dirty street stalls. Just making a very basic comparison like say KFC where the sets are in the 100 B. range, then you're looking at approx. 300% markup. I think this is more in the neighborhood of standard airport markups. It's really not strange or out of whack, at least not this specific issue.

I don't believe that is in the range of standard markups. The KFC/McDonalds etc are a pretty good yardstick. The meals are consistent across the country and rest of world.

I know in Australia the markup is actually very low or non-existent. We pay about $7-8 and at the airport the price is in the same range. If they followed Thailand's pricing system we'd be paying $20 for a Big Mac meal deal which would be outrageous. Actually I believe the Suvarnabhumi airport price for the same meals are more than in Australian airports, and yet the same meals outside of the airport are roughly half what they cost in Australia.

Big Mac Index

http://www.oanda.com...y/big-mac-index

http://en.wikipedia....i/Big_Mac_Index

Out of 44 nations Thailand is the 6th cheapest place to buy a Big Mac. And yet go to the airport and you find the price more than the Australian price and Australia is the 8th dearest place out of those 44!

The Big Mac Index is a pretty handle tool for some things.

I must say though, that I wish I could figure out a way to make Sydney the hub for my next trans-Atlantic flight b/c I've never been to a single airport anywhere that didn't mark up the price of food and drink outlandishly. This is not the standard, so it seems like a poor example to use. Interesting tidbit of knowledge though. I've never been to Oz before, nice to know that the airport is affordable.

I think the airport is the shame of Thailand. They had an opportunity to build whatever was conceivable; remember that most intetrnational airports are on their original site, added to, rebuilt, extended over decades etc. Few developers get a clean slate to work with. They could have built the showpiece of Asia, the pride of a nation, they could have made it better than Singapore. But they reverted to type, predictably, and built it Thai style, where the customer/passenger is the last person considered. So predictable!! Absolutely in line with the rest of the nation.

But I must admit I live here because of the chaos (I love it). So I ought not complain, I just see a wasted opportunity. I know Singaporeans are proud of their airport, Thais could have been too ...

Maybe you just don't get it. Even if they had built the dream airport you describe it wouldn't serve Thai pride in any meaningful way. I'm sure you know that they're a lot more concerned with benefiting (making money) from it somehow.

Yes, it could be more beautiful, and there are designs that could work better perhaps. Although I find that it's somewhat similar to Incheon which so many people have quickly vaulted as the far superior airport. The entrance with all the alphabetized checkin alleys for kiosks is practically a copy of Incheon's. It just seems to me like a lot of people love to bash the country, but prefer to stay in it anyway. It reminds of PADI divers which make up the majority of all divers, and a favorite pastime is bashing PADI but not getting certified by another organization, no never that.

Suvarnabhablabla is a pretty good airport that does its job: you get in and you get out in a relatively timely fashion. If you have complaints about it perhaps you haven't traveled much and, therefore, haven't been in an outdated really bad one, which the former Don Muang was along with hosts of others around the world.

I'm going to stand by my food whinge. I caught my international flight after travelling direct from Pattaya. For such a long trip and with non-refundable tickets it's important to get their early, so I've departed the hotel at 8am for a 1pm flight (the Bells bus departs every 2 hours, you take the one which suits). So you get to the airport early hungry and have a few hours to kill.

Other travellers have long stopovers, 4-6 hours not uncommon.

People need to eat.

In a country where meals can be bought for 50 baht we shouldn't have to pay 300 baht for the same thing inside an aiport. When we talk about high food prices at other airports I think you'll find in many cases the markup isn't in the order of 500 %, that's fiscal rape.

That said other people have mentioned a cheap food court though if that sits out of the check-in area then it's still not good enough. And it doesn't seem much effort is made to advertise its location.

But in no way would I say Suvarnabhumi is racked with problems. Had no problems taking a sh*t there and aren't the least interested in duty free anyway. You don't go to Thailand to shop at the airport. Waiting times no problem.

At Melbourne was given a baggage carousel run-around and my lift paid 1200 baht just to park the car. Had to line up at customs to get my two sea shells checked, they were fine.

How can you say there is a 500% markup? If you go to a dirty street stall in Bkk you can still eat for 50 B. and maybe a nice bacterial infection, but I wouldn't compare the airport to the dirty street stalls. Just making a very basic comparison like say KFC where the sets are in the 100 B. range, then you're looking at approx. 300% markup. I think this is more in the neighborhood of standard airport markups. It's really not strange or out of whack, at least not this specific issue.

Sorry, I don't get it.

I've never had a long wait at the airport clearing immigration and customs in Suvaranabhumi. Rather the contrary - it's about the fastest I've ever cleared. Try the lines in New York. And in China they met us with drug-sniffing dogs.

And I've never had a hard time getting a metered taxi there, once you know where they are - and they've always been in the same place every time I've gone through the airport for the last three years.

As for the food, I've never seen an airport where food wasn't grossly overpriced compared to the local economy. A cup of coffee at the airport in Miami is $5.00.

If you think the touts are bad here, you should try the airport in Delhi or Mumbai. You haven't experienced what a real tout is like until you've been to India.

-Your comment about the taxi always being in the same place is simply A FALSE STATEMENT. I have witnessed myself the change of location at least 4 times, and I have not been travelling every single months for the past 3 years so I would have to assume that they might have been moved even more than 4 times AND THERE WERE NO SIGNAGE for the (ha ha temporary) change of location.

-Your comment about immigration time is also border line ridiculous, sure, it does not always take an hour but for you to say that they are "the fastest I've ever cleared" : either you have been through there once and you got lucky OR you are sharing FALSE information once again

-Your comments about the food & the touts are plain silly - Bangkok is not Miami, the price comparison is not even appropriate...Sure there are more touts in India, and so? that makes the crowd of touts at the Bangkok airport a good thing? You can always find worse somewhere else. Obviously there is something "you don't get", and that's the concept of feedback.

OVERALL you sound like some defensive airport representative. Unfortunately you are making FALSE comments in the process and that is just unacceptable!

I've been through the airport several times since they constructed it, and I've never seen the official metered taxi line move. We're not talking about rocket science here. You see a line of taxis and in front of the place where people get in them you see a desk where they sort out your destination to make sure the driver understands. And, then you walk past a lot bs taxi drivers who try to keep you away from the real line, repeating "no" or "mai bai" at least a dozen times. I've always found it to be relatively painless. It's going back to the airport from place X in Bkk that always gets on my nerves, but even that's not so bad when I turn down every driver who won't agree to turn on the meter before I've entered the taxi.

It's not like this is isolated either. I think just about every time I've gone to Seoul (a place that doesn't have Thailand's scamming reputation despite having plenty of scam artists) I've turned down a scamming taxi guy who gives me some ridiculous price to my destination in the city. It's always the same routine pretty much. They're trying to scam you, so they're not going to direct you to the real taxi/bus area. In fact you can be guaranteed that they'll try to convince you it doesn't exist.

As a traveler not getting scammed is part of YOUR responsibility. Any other attitude is simply traveler's folly.

Another bad thing is King power dutyfree.

I travled out of Suvarnabhumi airport in june 2010, and i was going to buy prince cigarette (smoked by scandinavians), but there was no prince avalible. So i sent a eamil to customer support and asked. They told me that they had to renew their license to sale Prince, and that it would be back in sale a few weeks later.

Next time i leave Thialand was january 2011 and still not Prince at King power. The answer from customer support this time was that Prince had production problems and could not deliver.

My God! Are you okay after suffering all this trauma? There must be support groups out there for Prince smokers who went through similar catastrophes, maybe you can join one and get the emotional recovery you need after such an injustice was laid on you.

Sorry, I don't get it.

I've never had a long wait at the airport clearing immigration and customs in Suvaranabhumi. Rather the contrary - it's about the fastest I've ever cleared. Try the lines in New York. And in China they met us with drug-sniffing dogs.

And I've never had a hard time getting a metered taxi there, once you know where they are - and they've always been in the same place every time I've gone through the airport for the last three years.

As for the food, I've never seen an airport where food wasn't grossly overpriced compared to the local economy. A cup of coffee at the airport in Miami is $5.00.

If you think the touts are bad here, you should try the airport in Delhi or Mumbai. You haven't experienced what a real tout is like until you've been to India.

Agreed.

I've had way bigger airport headaches than Suvarnabhumi has ever laid on me. It's certainly better than Don Meung was. Have people who went through it forgotten the eternal tube walk if you needed to go catch a domestic flight after an international arrival? God, it was awful. The new airport isn't perfect, but it's a big improvement over that. Large airports are always headaches to a certain degree. I can't stand Atlanta in the states, but honestly it's not so bad. We just get annoyed having to wait in lines and get processed like cattle, fair enough.

I think many of those passengers just watched that demonstration very closely for the first time in their lives, and I would've too.

I am sure very few if any where actually listening to the message or looking at how to use the safety devices ... kind of the same attention/respect they will give to these dancers in the event of an emergency.

Debbie Downer

I think many of those passengers just watched that demonstration very closely for the first time in their lives, and I would've too.

4) A young, tight, well formed fanny that pushes up against your arm when she leans over to the next aisle, as opposed to an overweight, old, sloppy one

5) A bustline in the top 5% in cup size should also be mandatory then!

Yes, and for men, cocks in the biggest 5% should be mandatory too! I want to see a nice bulge in the pants. Nothing like having a slightly stiff package rubbing up against your arm when he leans over you. Oh, and the guys should have flat abs (no beer bellies....that's why we left the guys in the west!), broad shoulders, and bulging muscles....better to throw me down with.

There you go! Now you're speakin' the language. Well done.

This is purely a fuel saving green initiative that should be applauded

Yes, oil prices are rising with the middle east in turmoil. I applaud Thai airways too for controlling what they can thinking green!

They don't need a work permit to 'scam'. Scamming is not a legitimate form of 'work'. Otherwise they would have got caught since work permit application...

Not so sure about that one. Yes, a work permit is not required to scam, but I don't think "scam artist" appears on the business application. If they paid the money, the lawyer would smile and give a work permit for any excuse I imagine. As long as they don't state, "we're thieves," I think they would have few problems.

I think the debate about Thaksin is rather ridiculous in the context of foreign scams. Thaksin, as an ex-cop himself, cultivated the police as an important power base. He empowered the police and encouraged them to be even more above the law than they were before by pushing them to perform extra-judicial killings galore. I am not sure how letting the police, who openly profit from foreign scams, do whatever they feel like could be construed as clamping down on foreign scams. During his watch the foreign boiler rooms in Bangkok got out of control but the Thaksin government consistently rejected demands from the Australian and New Zealand governments to arrest suspects they had evidence on for securities frauds. In the end they fined and deported a trivial number of the small fry for WP offences but let the controllers continue in business under new company names. One boiler room operator was murdered after he had taken most of the scamster staff away from his partner and started a new boiler room. There was a strong enough murder case against the partner, a US citizen, to have him extradited from the US to face a death penalty charge in Thailand, something the US courts don't do lightly. However, back in Thailand the case melted away and he was mysteriously acquitted. All that under Thaksin's watch. The bottom line is that under Thaksin foreign scams were very well known about by the authorities and were considered an innocent past time that Thai policemen could be allowed to profit from because they don't inconvenience any Thais. This is no different from the attitude under Abhisit, Somchai, Samak, Sarayud, Chuan, Chavalit, Banharn, Chatichai etc, etc.

Good points all.

The overall problem is an indifference towards the basic ethics of right and wrong, isn't it?

Maybe such ethics are a luxury wealthy nations get to spray on like cheap perfume, and in the real world getting ahead is neither top, middle, nor bottom line; but simply the only line. I often times wonder if I just can't put myself in their mindset that has been forged from birth.

People in Bangalore or Angeles City speaking with phony accents and giving you inaccurate information on behalf of a bank or airline are one thing but these people were stealing money from their marks pretending to be an employment agency or provide some telemarketing product. If Thailand allows these crimes to take place from its territory because it can't or won't control its corrupt police, then the Thai government is complicit in the theft.

you hit the nail on the head. as long as some bib have open pockets for some teamoney out of these kind of businesses who is to blame? Thailand becomes more and more Land of Scammers with knowledge of the Authorities......never happend when Thaksin is still here (:

Yes it did happen when Taksin was here!

Some things did happend when Taksim was Primeminister but many things changed, specially in this direction of foreign scams or DRUGS btw. There was a Taksin policy, No DRUGS in Phuket after 6 month. I know that some ppl here running around because it was difficult to buy even Ganja at this times. Thesedays there are Bars where they sell Cocain and whatever directly. The thing with the cokeheads is they all talk. Funny thing is the police is obviously aware of the places and hanging around there sometimes too......thats what I heard, no proof at all

When Thaipolice finally becomes a bit more clever and make their money on the streets checking driving licences, vehicles without brakes or lights or speeding bikes, drunk drivers etc etc, then, maybe then things will change and police corruption becomes a bit lower in Thailand.

Another thing is this Thailanguage shool or Thaiboxingshool Scam to get a one year Visa. Do you think something like this would possible with Thaksin? Who are the people making money out of that?

It's so funny. Overall corruption was down under Thaksin, yet he pulled the big one that puts the rest to shame. I'm sure there are those that say parties interested in bringing him down fabricated his alleged tax evasion, etc. etc. Now he's a citizen of where, Montenegro? What a mess.

Looks a solid case to me. An internet cafe with 18 computers and one printer. Farangs using skype or other Ip telephony programs that must be a smoking gun, but than again, why arresting everybody in the internet cafe and charging them with working without a work permit? If they had any proof they would have laid embezzlement charges. I put my cards on a disgruntled police general who did not got its pay off.

I am not 100% sure here, but it is my understanding that it is NOT against the law in Thailand if you scam people in another country! That is why there are so many Boiler Rooms!

I think that the embezzlement charge only works here if it happens here. These guys are embezzling on the internet from another country. A technicality I know but...........

Sooooo...what are the police charging them with if it's not illegal to scam from one country to another?

I know it's work permits at the moment, but, come on, they don't bust a place wide open on suspicion of work permit infractions. It can only be one, or both, of two things: the authorities are cracking down on the illegality of the operation, and/or they're dropping the hammer over tea money not getting paid (or something money related along said lines).

I reckon it's both. It is illegal, but it was ignored as long as somebody got their money. Maybe more people put their hands out, maybe the one person/s got greedy and simply asked for more. Who knows? Maybe these guys even tried to do it without paying tea money and got caught. Ouch, that would suck.

I don't get it. How do these scams still work?

A) If you are offered a job you don't pay to work. Work pays you plus expenses (if any). Questions?

Are there still people left in the world who don't hang up on telemarketers? My step-dad is now old, I mean oooooold, and he sits there and plays with them for a while like they might have a customer, and then hangs up on them making sure they hear him laugh before the call ends. Is he just a super experienced elderly person or what?

Well of course these a-holes deserve whatever the worst is the judge can give them, but, it's true, they don't look worried. Have to wonder if they'll just pay whatever is asked, relocate, rename, and get back to business as usual.

These "Callcenters" work like normal callcenters in Europe. Its just a little bit cheaper to have them here in Thailand. As far as I know people start working 2 o clock noon, and finish 10 in the evening, saturday and sunday AND public hollidays off. They get around 40K Baht a month, so easy work and easy money. Some of them have work permits, some of them dont. The Callcenter saves a lot of money for a shop the same size in Germany or somewhere esle in Europe and for the staff as well.

Do u really belive when you call a service center for a bank or whatever in England, somewhere in England they will answer the call? Its India where the call centers are located. Welcome to the 21st (:

Are they not telemarketing/scamming? Last I checked they always call people not the other way around, hence the lists of telephone numbers found at the site.

Like I said, I'm always amazed to find out there are still people in the world who don't just hang up on these guys.

I don't get it. How do these scams still work?

A) If you are offered a job you don't pay to work. Work pays you plus expenses (if any). Questions?

Are there still people left in the world who don't hang up on telemarketers? My step-dad is now old, I mean oooooold, and he sits there and plays with them for a while like they might have a customer, and then hangs up on them making sure they hear him laugh before the call ends. Is he just a super experienced elderly person or what?

Well of course these a-holes deserve whatever the worst is the judge can give them, but, it's true, they don't look worried. Have to wonder if they'll just pay whatever is asked, relocate, rename, and get back to business as usual.

Actually, it does make a difference. Look no further than the country we're talking about that all this originated with. People come here and they think mai pen rai, mai pen rai, sabai sabai etc. The point is, we're not always on our best behavior in a host country, actually often times we're not. If you need another example look at the history of military occupations for a reference on things we get away with outside of home, maybe start with Japan's occupation of S. Korea and China, not to mention loads of examples in Europe as well and elsewhere for things we wouldn't likely do at home.

If these guy's could only live back home in "place-x," they'd likely be better behaved. Instead they're transients, Arabic names, French passports. This is the new multi-culture at its finest. And, hey, I'll be the first to admit. Living here in this wonderful host country, I haven't always been the model human being either. These guys are well past that. I feel sorry for them, but punishment is in order.

Can I just be a pedantic git for a moment and point out Japan occupied Korea.There was no"South"Korea until 1946,I believe.Liked your post,though!

Good point, I believe you're right. Thanks. I like the history to be right too.

french they must from one of the north african parts of the old colonial then , both look distinctly arabian to me not european???????

You've never been to France before. All French towns cities have sizeable communities of french nationals of arab extraction, just as in the UK there are sizable communities of UK citizens of Indian or Pakistani extraction.

Zinedine Zidane played for France and was born/bred in marseille.

You seem to be spinning a negative inference that their arab extraction in some ways mitigates against any possibility that a 'normal' white caucasian french person would be a crim.

Ugly truth: racial profiling works and nobody likes it except the one's whose jobs would be a whole lot easier.

french they must from one of the north african parts of the old colonial then , both look distinctly arabian to me not european???????

And your definition of a Frenchman would be ... ? Blond haired/blue eyed/brunette/brown eyed/ginger?

The stupidity of some on this forum never ceases to amaze me!

There are many interracial characteristics from all parts of EUROPE. And the French have a preponderance of those from the latin/abrabic races, given their history/proximity.

AND in any case, what the hell does being of any other race than 'european' have to do with it? I don't remember ONE boiler room guy being anything other than caucasian. (Perhaps some of you might need to look that word up ...)

Actually, it does make a difference. Look no further than the country we're talking about that all this originated with. People come here and they think mai pen rai, mai pen rai, sabai sabai etc. The point is, we're not always on our best behavior in a host country, actually often times we're not. If you need another example look at the history of military occupations for a reference on things we get away with outside of home, maybe start with Japan's occupation of S. Korea and China, not to mention loads of examples in Europe as well and elsewhere for things we wouldn't likely do at home.

If these guy's could only live back home in "place-x," they'd likely be better behaved. Instead they're transients, Arabic names, French passports. This is the new multi-culture at its finest. And, hey, I'll be the first to admit. Living here in this wonderful host country, I haven't always been the model human being either. These guys are well past that. I feel sorry for them, but punishment is in order.

lock em up and throw away the key... also, the banks must return all funds to people caught in the middle... time for finger prints to be used as part of an atm pin ? i'm all for it....

not sure about the fingerprints part; a few years ago the Koreans were experimenting with fingerprint doorlocks for high end cars; all went well until thieves went after a top of the line Mercedes, and took the owner's finger off to gain access! needless to say, that particular security mechanism went out of favour pretty promptly...

you guys should stop believing what you see in movies... a finger print scanner will not only check the image of your finger pattern but also measure capacitance produced by a live finger... so a plastic copy or a dead finger would not work

oz

And hopefully the thief has this obscure knowledge too, and doesn't bother with the removed finger.

Don't mean to scare anyone, but you ought to know that another way to get card information is through scanning for RFID chips. You can be within ten feet of someone and read their card information, unless it is stored in a magnetized card holder. This of course does not give you the PIN number. More then likely, a fake atm slot device was used.

Scary.

I hope whatever punishment they get doesn't involve deporting them. They'll pay much more dearly being stuck here doing time in a Thai prison. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, not anywhere in SE Asia for that matter.