NxaiPan

I guess if you took away 6% of Thai GDP, then there would be some repercussions, but you'd expect the baht would then drop, making other export industries more competitive, so that would make up some of the GDP forgone from tourism.

But you'd have to be pretty unimaginative to think for a moment that would happen. Economies are dynamic.

As others have implied, opening up of Burma is likely to be complimentary for the Thai economy if anything.

For tourism, Thailand will act as a hub, collecting monies from those passing through on their way there - and back.

No doubt Thai business operators of all stripes will be there in the first wave likely repatriating those profits back to Thailand. Getting rid of sanctions will allow further oil and gas exploration. Thai companies such as PTT will likely be one of the main beneficiaries of this, and the export of cheap natural gas is likely to further increase, fuelling further expansion in Thailand.

Next comes the fascinating part for Myanmar.

If these reforms continue and sanctions are lifted, the starting flag will come down on Myanmar's reintegration into the world economy.

The big difference is that China has happily filled the vacuum for the past couple of decades (similar to China's role in Sudan, Zimbabwe etc venturing where western "angels" fear to tread), and if you go to places like Mandalay the Chinese impact/dominance is very apparent. While the Thais have been busy cutting deals and looting the country under the radar, China has made a big commitment which has been welcomed and resented in almost equal measures by the Burmese population and military rulers.

This contradiction was highlighted by the recent suspension of the Myitsone Dam being built in Myanmar on the headwaters of the Irrawaddy by Chinese finance and Chinese companies.

Cynically the authorities might try and play a middle path between western interests and China, playing one off against another in their own interest. As every other Asian example has highlighted the development of Myanmar will result in a mix of inequality, injustice and ethnic preference together with more positive deveopments, but the bottom line is that almost any move is positive for a nation that has existed in brutal limbo for most of its post-1945 existence.

Quite right, and it is just one more example of the short sightedness of US foreign policy after the war. The US was too busy forcing the UK to disband the Empire prematurely, and didnt give many countries enough time to move into sustainable democracies.

post 1945 the UK was neither financially or by inclination able to hold the Empire together. The country was economically and mentally exhausted and any cost benefit analysis highlighted the futility of preserving what had always been an economic venture first and foremost.

As we have seen repeatedly, attempts to create sustainable democracies falter in the face of particular national characteristics and conditions. Myanmar will be no different. Name me a single sustainable democracy in Asia today. India probably comes closest but remains riven by religious, caste and ethnic divides, corruption is endemic and 30% of members of Parliament face criminal charges (most of which will probably never be heard in court).

It's quite likely that Myanmar will be an untidy collection of rent-seeking politicians, over-powerful soldiers, corruption at many levels, ethnic and religious discrimination, and heart-breaking over-development at the expense of Myanmar's natural and human heritage. Through all this reintegration with the global economy will help create a growing middle-class no different from any other SE Asian nation, and benefits will gradually trickle down to the majority peasant farmers. The latter will particularly benefit if Myanmar resumes its historic role as a major rice exporting nation.

How many times have you gone to a restaurant like McDonalds or Food court in paragon (for example), and seen someone place a bag on a table to reserve it and walk away, what would happen if that bag contained a bomb.

People need to be educated about terrorism, maybe things like this will help educate them, but I very much doubt it.

Unlike Americans and Brits Thai's aren't brick scared of empty bags in public places probably because they don't have enemies.

But seems Terrorism has now been imported into to Thailand so I would really advice avoiding places like McDonalds or where US citizens hang out.

Thailand does not need to import terrorism, it's alive and kicking in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani, Songkhla & Narathiwat. Approximately 6000 dead so far (including 2 tourists in 2006), Hat Yai airport bombed in 2005, and reports of JI (Indonesian Muslim fundamentalists, affiliated with al Qaida, and responsible for the Bali bombings in 2002 & 2005 amongst other attacks) support to the insurgents.

Counter-insurgency operation to date has been spectacularly unsuccessful and largely counterproductive (see Krue Se mosque and Tak Bai incidents in 2004). Media limits coverage, classic example was the cordinated bomb attacks during the 60th anniversary celebrations in 2006 which were only reported fully once the international networks had run the story in great detail.

While it's obviously hard to work out the real facts in this case, one thing does stand out. The Thais arrest someone connected to a possible bomb attack in Bangkok aimed at a soft target (no lack of those for a motivated fundamentalist), and he is deported, while his accomplice "escapes". It's as if he played music in a bar without a work permit or overstayed his tourist visa.

Smells like the Thai authorities were sweeping this under the carpet; " can't upset the tourist high season or draw attention to our lax security and plethora of targets". The US embassy warning could then have been either an expression of US frustration at Thai handling of the incident, or a misunderstanding of how the Thais were handling the situation (ie if the Thais appeared not to be responding to the threat identified by Israel somebody had to do something).

All idle speculation about a highly complex and sensitive issue, but sadly one that cannot be ignored by the authorities or residents. The involvement of Hizbollah suggests an Israeli/Jewish target may have been the objective, but we now live in an untidy nexus of militant fundamentalists with cross-pollination between different groups rather like the anti-capitalist, anti-US/Israel terror groups of the 1970's (Baader-Meinhoff/Red Army Faction, Japanese Red Army, PFLP/PLO etc). The classic example of this was the Lod Airport Massacre in 1972, outsourced by the Palestinians to the Japanese Red Army, as they were less recognizable as a threat in an Israeli context.

Terrorist have always had a love for airline related targets due to their media impact, and that coupled with possible tie ups with the insurgents down south, does make one think.

LIST,

If my friends were to come along to the open day on Wednesday I assume their is no pressure to have clear plans to join the school? Presumably they could just come and have a look around and a chat? Is booking needed?

Sorry for so many questions but my friends are a bit nervous about coming believe it or not.

I guess schools make people nervous; I never liked them much either.

Open days at Lanna International are very relaxed, just like the school. No need to book, just turn up, check it out, chat to the teachers and the students to get a good picture of the place and to see if it will work for you and yours.

Ryannair boss O'leary said years ago that he would never get involved in long haul flights due to the expense of flying into hub and even secondary airports plus aviation fuel etc.It now appears even flying into Stansted is unprofitable. The big carriers continue with long haul flights only because theyre subsidised by the home taxpayer. How much longer before BA,KLM-AF ,SAS, Swiss,Alitalia and Olympic go bust again. Most of these airlines went out of business years ago but came back to life with taxpayer bailouts. BA is nothing more than the resurrected corpse of BOAC.

The airline industry is the worst business in the world to get involved in along with cars.

Everyone wants to fly in state of the art airplanes but for the lowest possible price and free fares with FF Program. Unreal.

I was very surprised to hear on Channel News Asia earlier this week that every single airline in India

is very deep in debt and struggling to survive? and that was meant to be the most promising market

Sadly not a surprise. India is one of the world's largest airline markets but it suffers from a heavily subsidized and thus customers at any price Air India; too many low cost operators, some like Kingfisher as vanity toys for their owners and an excuse to interview shapely FAs; a weak rupee with oil priced in US$; state governments using airlines as a source of revenue; and stitching all these together the shambolic state of India's political and legal infrastructure.

In a nutshell in China you get financially shafted by the greedy politically-connected; in India you get shafted by the chaos and shambles of government.

anyone have timings for the airshow?

most of the morning at least, maybe all day, not sure how long it lasts. We're planning on going early , to avoid the congestion. By early I mean around 8.00 am.

Last year took my children after lunch. Parked car at the airport and walked in. Seemed to avoid all the parking hassle, but still got to see all the fun & games and a wonderful disregard for all basic safety constraints, soldiers handing over weapons willy nilly and F16s starting up barely 20m away from the audience.

Almost as good as a day spent on the high ground overlooking Fairford during the airshow.

You can fly in with Air Bagan on Thursdays and Sundays. Visa for Myanmar is available on arrivial and costs USD30 (28 days) plus two passport sized photos.

Not much point for a one day visa run, but for a few days holiday might be worth it. 7000Baht upwards for the flight (return)

Visa on arrival? Are you sure? If correct this reverses what happened just before the election last year when they stopped VOA as they wanted to more closely control who was entering the country in the run up to the "vote".

I hope you are correct.

Ryannair boss O'leary said years ago that he would never get involved in long haul flights due to the expense of flying into hub and even secondary airports plus aviation fuel etc.It now appears even flying into Stansted is unprofitable. The big carriers continue with long haul flights only because theyre subsidised by the home taxpayer. How much longer before BA,KLM-AF ,SAS, Swiss,Alitalia and Olympic go bust again. Most of these airlines went out of business years ago but came back to life with taxpayer bailouts. BA is nothing more than the resurrected corpse of BOAC.

The airline industry is the worst business in the world to get involved in along with cars.

Everyone wants to fly in state of the art airplanes but for the lowest possible price and free fares with FF Program. Unreal.

Warren Buffett said that airlines were a great leap for mankind but a disaster for investors (and he should know having done very poorly with a stake in UsAir and lost a bundle on NetJets in the late 1990's, an investment he put down to "temporary insanity").

There cannot be many industries that have never made a cumulative net profit since inception but which remain in business 109 years later.

Probably fits in with Tony Fernandes' plans for Malaysian Airways where since his arrival they too have been rationalizing flights to Europe and the Gulf and Firefly has been largely canned.

Watch this space for the next thrilling instalment of MAS/AA, an unfolding saga to be continued.

Vision Center in Rajvitthi Rd

I went here with my prescription from RAM and he dismissed it saying he would give me a free test as he didn't trust their results. After his comprehensive and highly technical procedures he gave me the resulting lenses for my approval and they were fine. He then gave me another pair of lenses to try and I said "no thanks, the first pair was much better". He then told me the second pair was the RAM prescription.

Brilliant piece of marketing!

This guy has now ascended to legend status. This is Thailand at its best.

But look where the growth of sales of R-R is coming from. Recession in Asia? Minor setback and a huge opportunity for the wise and well-connected.

Saw a fair view R-R in both Hanoi and especially HCM recently. Conspicuous consumption is a powerful force.

I expect to see a few in the PTP carpark any day now.

I wonder how their aircraft engine division is going. The claim by Qantas alone would make your eyes water.

Different companies. They split in the early 1970's.

Rolls-Royce motors is owned by BMW, who bought them after a tussle with VW, who ended up with Bentley as part of the deal.

Rolls Royce plc manufactures aero engines, plus a marine propulsion and energy division.

Just to add to their plaudits, Vision Center is probably the most professional and honest organization I have yet dealt with in Thailand.

Got some new glasses from 10 days ago, done in the day and they apologised (!) that I would have to wait until 5pm to pick them up (it was 11.30am when I was told this). I asked about contact lenses and Mr Vision Center came out and said that with my astigmatism I would be better off getting them in the UK/USA/Australia. Anyone who turns down business for all the right reasons is a person I do business with in the future and recommend to all my friends.

On a minor note they even have their own covered parking behind, accessed down the right hand side of the shop (as can be seen in dave 2's photo above).

All in all the perfect antidote for anyone feeling jaundiced about LOS.

How anyone can compare a well-developed, pleasant, cosmopolitan and even sophisticated city like Bangkok to a sprawling trainwreck of a city like Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) is beyond me... Ho Chi Minh is a cheap place to go to get a Thai visa, but after 1 or 2 nights in that city I'm desperate to get back to Bangkok! Vietnamese cities are filthy, chaotic, overcrowded and riddled with scammers, counterfeiters and rip-off merchants. You cannot even believe whether the so-called brand-name stores selling expensive imported goods are genuine or not... As for the Philippines, if you want to see what the REAL Third World looks like, it's basically no different to dozens of African countries. Thailand is looking decidedly civilized and sophisticated and, dare I say, affluent, next to neighbours like Vietnam and the Philippines!

You are confusing places to live and places to holiday.

Bangkok is probably a better place to live than HCM as it has moved on in terms of modernity but sadly at the expense of much of its Asian heritage and quaintness (horrible concept), 2 aspects that appeal to many non-sex tourists.

Thailand is a great place to be based but for a more "authentic" Asian stereotype vacation, there are now better options throughout the ASEAN region in almost every aspect of tourism (dining, beaches, wildlife, antiquities, trekking, shopping etc)

Check out the Lonely Planet website and you can either pay to download the whole guide book or just the chapters you need.

Very useful if travelling to more than 1 country.

Check the lonely Planet website as you can buy their books either complete as downloads or by the chapter. Pretty handy especially when travelling to more than 1 country.

Just flown MLE-CMB with Sri Lankan. While this was only a 75 minute flight both planes were on international routings. Coming back was on a 330 which had flown in from the Gulf and was old and knackered. The first leg was on a 340 heading to LHR after MLE. Pretty new plane and very comfortable.

Overall service not bad, food edible and entertainment system more than adequate.

CMB is a long haul out of town, don't even think about heading downtown (traffic etc means a 1-2 hour transfer minimum) until they finish the extension of the expressway (supposedly mid to late 2012 but don't hold your breath). Negombo is nearest town on grubby beach with so-so hotels. Airport Gateway Hotel is tired but with a modernised restaurant and good food, and only 10-15 mins from CMB.

If you want a fancier option and even better food try the Wallawwa (20 minutes from CMB) for a colonial style boutique hotel.

If flying business see if you can wangle a stopover at MLE for some serious beach time before the atolls vanish beneath the rising waves!

Intrigued to see a Royal Air Maroc (RAM) B737-800 pulled up to one of the jetbridges at CNX this afternoon.

Bumped into the crew picking up their bags and asked the Captain where he had come in from. I asked if Rabat-CNX was to be a new route for RAM. He laughed and said it was a "special flight" delivering the King of Morocco for a vacation.

Wonderfully indiscreet and he didn't seem to be joking, and he added that Thailand was a popular destination for his King.

So it looks like CM has not lost all of its tourist mojo quite yet.

Sadly little chance of getting a direct flight to Morocco.

Normally if a helicopter goes a bit over the border it is not shot down. There is a protest note at best.

If a Cambodian logger strays over the border they are burnt alive, shot or just disappeared.

Did they find the six missing loggers last week or did they turn up dead along with the four others who were shot by the Thais?

Further to your post there is an interesting piece in today's Economist talking about the role of the Cambodian military and illegal logging along the Thai border. See below:

http://www.economist.com/node/21541871

Forget "truly asia", this is just truly pathetic.

Exploiting transexuals for cheap headlines to exploit sad sexpats to pay premium prices for crap flights, boy sounds like Hooters Air, another memorable commercial disaster.

Let's hope it's another short-lived tacky gimmick masquerading as an airline.

oh, here we go.. exploitation.. who is exploiting who exactly ?

totster

Try reading the post.

I've read the post and can't see any hint of exploitation. Where exactly is it?

Gender, sexual preferences, race, religion, preferred football team or hair colour are IMHO utterly irrelevant as long as the person in question is capable of doing the job required of them.

Where's the exploitation?

Highlighting the fact that this new airline has hired a few transsexuals is crass exploitation of these employees as the new company sets out to differentiate its product. It is a very Thai take on Hooters Air which used the Hooter image to try and get away with premium prices charged to gullible types who thought Hooters air would provide more than a crappy seat too Myrtle Beach and its golf courses owned by the same company.

Interestingly enough Hooters Air failed once an economic downturn persuaded people to think with their wallet rather than their d**k.

The transsexual gets a job but is used as bait to lure in customers. The passengers get overcharged for an apparently differentiated product enjoying free publicity in forums such as this.

All financial transactions require some form of exploitation to make them profitable but this is an example of crass exploitation. While you can argue that both parties sign up for this exploitation, it is still exploitation, see below

Definition of exploitation for those interested:

ex·ploi·ta·tion

1. use or utilization, especially for profit: the exploitation of newly discovered oil fields. 2. selfish utilization: He got ahead through the exploitation of his friends. 3. the combined, often varied, use of public-relations and advertising techniques to promote a person, movie, product, etc.

Forget "truly asia", this is just truly pathetic.

Exploiting transexuals for cheap headlines to exploit sad sexpats to pay premium prices for crap flights, boy sounds like Hooters Air, another memorable commercial disaster.

Let's hope it's another short-lived tacky gimmick masquerading as an airline.

oh, here we go.. exploitation.. who is exploiting who exactly ?

totster

Try reading the post.

Forget "truly asia", this is just truly pathetic.

Exploiting transexuals for cheap headlines to exploit sad sexpats to pay premium prices for crap flights, boy sounds like Hooters Air, another memorable commercial disaster.

Let's hope it's another short-lived tacky gimmick masquerading as an airline.

they will when they widen it a bit and put in a few locks

But getting it up the fish ladders around the 11 dams to be built on the mainstream of the Mekong might present a few challenges!

There is still nothing wrong with the Thai's self esteem

Hub of Misplaced Self-Esteem?

Hub of Hubris.

(noun - excessive pride or self-confidence; arrogance)

Spot on. With a touch of willful ignorance thrown in for good measure.

It's like the UK declaring itself a Hub of Great Dentistry, or Germany as a Hub of Humour, etc etc

Source of this quote, Chadatip Chutrakul, managing director of Siam Piwa. Wonder where his missus goes for some real shopping. Singapore, London, Paris, Milan, New York?