huck

Once upon a time not so long ago the world was free. You arrived somewhere filled in papers and the next day you got your recidency papers and a few years down the road you were offered a passport to

the new country you had arrived at. Then the authorities were told by lawyers it was too simple. The lawyers wanted to make money from immigration proceedures. The authorities got some kick backs too

and the criminal gangs in people transportation were the happiest of all because they really cashed in. The truth of the matter is its one big racket to extort money from the person who wants to live somewhere

else in the world then his country of birth.

Your Majesty. I would like to wish you a very happy birthday and many mony long and happy years ahead for you in good health.

Thank for for your kindness in letting me stay in Thailand on a retirement visa. I am very happy to be in this beautiful country with

very loving people.

Thank you Your Majesty and I wish you a very happy day today on your birthday. Huck

Why don t they make the law that gives amnesty and simply say in the law that Thanksin will never be included in it. Not this year nor future years.

Isn t Thailand considered a very corrupt country?

The government is here only for 2 reasons.

1. To line their own pockets

2. Bring back Thaksin and get him installed as Prime Minister again.

That means the door is open to an other coup and who knows maybe revolution.

THere have been RATS in Bangkok for ever. Every time I walk through Bangkok I see RATS eating trash. So thats notjhing new.

Thaksin is quiet because when he was MP he didn t follow the plan set out to deal with flood waters entering Bangkok from the north.

The plan proposed was to build a huge lake near Ayuthaya to capture the flood waters coming from the north and then a canal from

Ayuthaya to the sea. If Thaksin had implamented this plan Bangkok would be flood free today.

Bring in Dutch experts on building dikes and water mannagement. Government will have to spend a lot of money.

It might be not be popular but taxes must increased at least 500 per cent on beer and tobacco.

And maybe even a Farang tax of at least 80,000 baht a year. The ones with Hi So wives should at 200,000

We Farangs are living here we should our fair share.

Unt

If they gave qualified expatriates 5-year renewable residency permits maybe...but until something like that comes around I say no way.

I believe Thailand honors international agreements regarding double taxation.

If you pay tax in your home country then you are already helping with climate change taxation.

To add a value added tax is not feasable.

What they could do is let foreigners own property and then start taxing property at proper rates.

The majority of the people don t want the sluse Gates opened more and want to keep the inner city free from flooding.

Because a few people want this is not the way to go. Democracy rules.

The Immigration offices in Thailand can go any way.

It realy depends on the officer you finally get to speak with..

They are unpredictable. They could even put you

in prison and deport you for this. Money usually helps.

Paying them off.

This is a great idea. The government should do it without delay. These roads need to be dug up anyway to put in huge piping for furure flood waters.

With glabal warming it will become a yearly accurance that Thailand floods and Bangkok stands in the way of the flood waters draining to the sea.

Unless ofcourse the Thai government wants to relocate the capital, and this might not be a bad idea either. In both senario s the Thai government

is going to have to spend massive amounts of money. We are speaking about dycks being build around the city. I am affraid all the promises of

computor tablets for children and 300 Baht wage increases are going to have to be put on hold.

I agree. Putting this guy in prison costs the country money and he will infect more women when he gets out. He needs to have in small letters tatooed on his forehead. HIV- Positive

This is the only sensible way to go for this type of person.

This turd needs 'HIV Carrier' tattooed on his bloody forehead...

Seems to me that the Red Shirts were defeated by there own party only several monthes after wining the elections.

whybother and hkt83100 : many thanks for this precision!

Everyone knows that Farang buy land and house in the name of their wives. There are many Thai women that chace farang to get this. Then they divorce and get the property

and the farang loose everything. Isn t the Thai justice system being very unfair here and

actually propmoting ciminality. It also defeats the whole idea of farangs owning property

The reason this Thai law exists is to keep prices from rising because farang are buying properties in Thailand and make it unaffordable for Thais. So why does the Thai justice

system wish to promote criminality and wouldn t it be better to make certain area s of

Thailand availble for owner ship of farang. Then Thailand could control farang more easily because they would all live in these area's and it would take this ciminal aspect out of

Thai society and its laws

A couple of days ago I read that Thailand was trying to change it's image from being known as the sex captial of the world by eliminating prostitution. It seems to me that their priorities are backwards. Land Fraud, police fraud, attorney fraud. Behind the fluff of a modern infrastructue, sky trains, subways, big malls, etc. It is still a 3rd world country. Corruption here will never go away.

ps

even the new woman priminster is facing charges from the security exchange commision here...ain't that a laugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ad infinetum. They can't change and thats the bottom line. There is no ifs ands or buts about it. You have to remember always you are a Foreigner with absolutely no rights.

At least in the western world there is the rule of law. it may not be perfect, but its a dam sight better than what you get here.

I comnpletely agree and Thailand wanted to put forward its own candidate fro IMF position. So they really don t know who they are, or even how far off the mark they are. Thats what makes this country a problem. Because they are living in dream land and think the whole world is like this. But its basically Africa here. Luck we white folks don t get eaten for breakfast.

If you dig into the history of this you'll likely see that it's pure speculation as to what happened to him, whether his drink was spiked or not seems to be a mystery - it all just seems to be yet another of those unexplained holiday trips that ended in disaster and without a solid explanation as to why. As for the article, it seems to be yet another case of sensational reporting on a quiet news day.

Thailand has too many storry of tourists being effected by the louzy system here. Sure you can get robbed in Amsterdam too.

But then there are tourists dieing in hotel tourists dieing from poisoned food. tourists getting killed etc... There are just too

many storry of misfortune for tourists and the Thai government wants to make Thailand family friendly rather than a sex destination. So they will need to get justice here quickly. Only with a serious justice system will things change. That mean

routing out corruption and its not going to happen under this government. Basically Thailand is third world country that is

not any longer third world economically but hasn t made the transition yet in the field of justice and society. Yet it has many

ambitions it wished to appoint their own candidate to the IMF. I guess the Thais are not really aware of who they really are

and where their society really stands in the world and how things should change to make it better. I think fighting corruption

would be a good place to start, but they aren t there yet.

Not in our lifetimes.

Try to stop sex tourism! Give me a break. Men from all over the world come her for Thai girls and some for boys, and many for golf. Take the girls out of the equation and what will be the result?

For a family beach holiday there are many places to go.

Sex is in your face everywhere in Thailand. Go to Chiang Mai its right at Tapa Gate. Go to Bangkok its right there at Nana . Pattaya has 80.000 whores. Puket has protitutes all over the place.

If you want Thailands image as a sex tourist destination to change ,your going to have to , at minimum, move the prostitution places to the outskirts of town. As for Pattaya. You can only clamp down

on the whole scene there like they did with the Golden Tiangle. But I don t think Thailand has the balls to go that far. It would course a rebellion. I m sure a lot of Thais have a lot of investments tied

up in protitution places in Thailand. Its a real source of income and Thais love money we all know that.

When I read the headline it brought a smile to my face,wundering where they they were hiding them,may be it was my (dirty)mind.

I know its all very funny.

But its a huge tragedy to have so many wildlife killed.

Its a sad thing what humans will do for a buck.

If I had a choice of being a loser back home or being a loser in Thailand, I guess I'd choose Thailand.

This is for the Thai Government and for the Thai Immigration service.

You are not going to get decent Farang (Foreigners) living in Thailand

if the laws do not change for foreigners to own land and to have 100% of a bussiness.

So don t critize the foreigners that are here, because thats the type of foreigners you will get

with these type of discriminating and laws that encourage ciminality.

I wonder why? Although it used to be that if you married a Brazillian lady and had a child you could not be extradited but if they caught you before the lady gave birth you could. Lovely beaches and that Carnival thing. If i were a criminal that's where i'd go.

This is for the Thai Government and the Thai Immigration service.

If Thailand wants more decent people to live here it will have to

change its laws and make it possible for foreigners to own land

and do bussiness in a fee way. This is the miminum requirement

no foreigner that is serious and decent will live in a country that

doesnt offer this.

I passed the accident when they were salvaging the bodies. Although the truck was on the wrong side of the road, I was under the impression that two of its tires were blown out and it might have become uncontrollable. The truck was in pretty good shape though. The yellow passenger pick up was new too. It came off the road and landed 5 meters or so below near a water stream. It was completely flattened. only the motor was still visible. The people must have been trapped like sardines in a can. The roof had completely collapsed. Fact is that the authorities do not give a dam_n thing. Converted Pick-up trucks are simply not suitable for transporting 15-20 people at a time. The transport Mafia will always oppose decent buses. But micro buses are the way to go.

Getting a driving listence in Thailand is a joke. The writen exam is so simple and the driving exam is almost non existent.

So Thailand is prone to raod accidents. People simply don t know how to drive. Very danergous country to be on the raod in

even in a bicycle.

She has promised rice farmers a minimum price of 15,000 Baht per tonne, much higher than the current market price of less than 10,000 Baht.

AFP appear to have missed Ms Yingluck's off-the-cuff promise to raise the price to 20,000 Baht per tonne, which will be even-more damaging, to the country's finances & rice-exports.

The farmers might get 1/2 of the 15k

and the other 5 if it happens goes right to the millers and transporters on the top.

Eventually the farmers will catch on again and the truck loads of rice dumped in front of ministries will start up again.

But by then the economy will be in the hopper.

Giving workers a 50% raize from 200 to 300 Baht a day will mean inflation will be 50%. In the end no one wins. There is only one problem

Thailand will have less exports. That means less money coming into the country. That means unemployment will increase.

Manarak, it seems that you and I have very different definitions of democracy.

One of the keystones of a democracy is that everyone is the same in the eyes of the law.

I acknowledge that some people find it easier to satisfy the visa requirements, particularly the financial ones, than others, but, at least for the UK, those requirements are the same for everyone, and should remain so. Anything less is most certainly not democratic.

To get Married in Thailand I had to get proof that I was singel from the Dutch embacy. No such paper was ever given to me when I divorced a few years ago. The Dutch embacy told me I needed a 1. birth certificate. 2. Officially stamped and certified divorce paper 3. Paper saying I no longer lived in Holland 4. Paper from all the foreign embacies of Holland in the foreign countries where I lived. 5. Proof of income 6> Proof that tax had been paid on the income. 7. All papers had to be less than 6 monthes 8. All papers had to be in English and in Dutch 9. With certified stamps of the translations. 10. All papers coming from Dutch embacies had to be applied for at the embacy of the country in person. 11. All papers at the Dutch embacies had to be accopanied with proof of legal recidencies in of those countries and had to be lagalized again. 12. If I had lived in foreign countries a long time ago then all new papers from those countries were have to applied for.

Well I got all of the papers and then I went to the Dutch embacy in Bangkok to get my paper saying I was singel and then they said I was still missing a paper saying that I did not owe the Dutch tax man any money. One of the papers was going to expire within days of the 6 monthes dead line. The embacy didn t except that it would take me at least an other few weeks to get this paper. I hade spent over 5000 Euro's getting these papers. And I gave up and told them that they are basically terrorists. Yes Governements are basically terrorist organizations is my conclussion.

I thought the people have chosen already ? In all "Democracy" voice of people is usually legitimate . I understand they might be disappointed but I don think it will help to reunited Thais.

Competely correct. If the people have chosen then the Democracts have to bow their heads to this desision.

I am not a great Thaksin fan. It was the Pheu Thai's election policy to bring Thaksin back to Thailand without jail

and the people have chosen Pheu Thai even with this program. I believe that they have a green light to bring him back

and he will have to be pardoned by the right authorities, because its the will of the people. This is unfortunate, but nothing

can be done to stop this from happening short of a coup.

Let me see, 745 km in 3.5 hours = 213 kph. I don't think I want to travel at 213 kph on a 1 m wide railroad no matter what kind of train they have. The mode of travel would most likely be changed from train to air at the first corner.

"State Enterprise Policy and Planning Bureau 1 chief Poomsak Aranyakasemsuk said the 745km route would have 13 stations in 11 provinces."

3.5 hours = 210 minutes so for 13 stops they will have all of 16 minutes to go from a dead stop at one station, travel an average of 57 km to the next stop, stop the train, let passengers off, let passengers on, and start up again.

Yup, that sounds about right. Amazing Thailand!

Don t know who you are but there are lots of high speed trains all over Europe that travel at 350 km per hour so faster than you calculations of 213 kph. If a German company gets involved no problem. If the price is 1200 Baht it is compeditive to air travel which is 1500 Baht.

This is what Thailand needs. Lets start soon. It sounds great. No more lousy buses and bus crashes because of over tired drivers.