sfbandung

A group of us went through in April. Missus and her family are from Ban Dung (60 kms from Nong Khai) and speak Laos.

They all have passports, and they got stamps and no fee at all. I got the full page visa and I think it was about 1,200bt. I got the reminder on the way back in though that my visa (Thai) was only valid for 14 days as it was a land crossing.

An insensitive post (& a response) removed. Let's have some compassion for this family.

Hear, hear.

The debate about their ethnicity and language baffles me. They're kids for God's sake, their language and nationality is completely irrelevant.

If my 10 year old daughter is missing for an hour I panic. 8 months!

I just hope they're ok now and someone gives them the care they deserve.

It's still relatively early days for 4G. I know Australia is relatively backward, but they won't see 4G handsets available until next year.

I wish they'd concentrate on nation-wide 3G first.

Britain hasn't even got around to auctioning the licenses. I'm seriously considering moving to Sweden just for the broadband.

Wow. Just for the broadband? What a seriously focussed existence you must have.

He has stated many times that he is no fan of the LM law and is open to criticism.

Forget LM. Every time he speaks he speaks sense. In many ways the country would be better off under absolute rule by decree. He is truly benevolent and a wise man. Certainly far wiser and benevolent than most of the elected representatives. IMHO.

Long may he live. Happy Birthday HM The King, may you have many more.

I have always wondered why everyone thinks Thailand is so corrupt.

Now I now why. I work in Papua New Guinea who ranked 154, with Zimbabwe, and Laos. Thais are a law abiding lot by comparison.

Let me give few examples;

1. The police is always there to extort money fromthe drivers but never there to enforce traffic laws

2. Officials always lie to make the point and alwaystell the story in a very positive ways.

3. All projects are substandard and only disinters likeflood make it obvious, and even then no one is responsible for the failures

4. You can pay money so the law enforcement peopleto look away and not enforce the low

5. Politicians have the inside for projects andthey always use the information for close friends and family to get rich

Etc. etc.

I'm not sure how much experience you've had with "developing" or "third world" countries. Apparently Thailand is now technically described as "newly industrialised".

Comparisons are odious as they say. What I'm saying is that versus its contemporaries Thailand isn't doing too badly.

I've always been a "glass half full" kind of guy though.

I know it isn't all that fashionable here on TV, but I like Thailand.

I have always wondered why everyone thinks Thailand is so corrupt.

Now I now why. I work in Papua New Guinea who ranked 154, with Zimbabwe, and Laos. Thais are a law abiding lot by comparison.

Australia was never part of the UK. Ruled, controlled, governed, initiated, colonised, used, discovered, mapped, and just about everything else by Britain, but never absorbed by it.

Historically the system of Law in Australia is dependent for its legal validity on a series of British Statutes including the COMMONWEALTH of Australia Constitutional Act 1900.The authority of the U.K. Parliament to enact those statutes depended on the acquisition of the Australian Continent as a territorial possesion of the British Crown.

Perhaps the Thai Judges were right in this case.Australia is still a part of the British Commonwealth and now being run by a Welsh woman.

Australia is still tecnically tied to mother England. The Governor General is the Queens official representative.

A Governor-General appointed by the Queen shall be Her Majesty’s representative in the Commonwealth, and shall have and may exercise in the Commonwealth during the Queen’s pleasure, but subject to this Constitution, such powers and functions of the Queen as Her Majesty may be pleased to assign to him/her.

The executive power of the Commonwealth is vested in the Queen and is exercisable by the Governor-General as the Queen’s representative, and extends to the execution and maintenance of this Constitution, and of the laws of the Commonwealth.

In 1975, the then Governor General of Australia, Sir John Kerr, as the Queen's representative, dismissed the democratically elected Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and appointed the Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Fraser as caretaker Prime Minister.

So in theory, this kind of thing could happen again and it shows the influence the UK still has.

http://en.wikipedia....tlam_Government

Edit: Cross-posted with Jobo.

"and it shows the infuence the UK still has."

No it doesn't. Without going into the details of the dismissal of the Whitlam government, the UK had absolutely nothing to do with it. They didn't order it, they weren't consulted. The GG is "technically" the queen's representative under Australia's present form of government, but he (she, at the present time) is appointed by the Australian parliament. It was in no way an indication of UK influence in Australian politics.

The self harm thing is true. The girls are very prone to it, and not just "bar girls". But they rarely suicide. They'll cut themselves or take too many pills and then tell someone that they've taken them. Classic attention seeking stuff.

Reading the article though, there seem to be witnesses who saw her jump. Can you imagine the screaming and yelling going on if he threw her? Plenty of people would have seen or heard it. You would also think she'd resist it fairly fiercely and he'd have some marks.

The only thing we know for sure is that we don't know for sure.

If it's true that she jumped then I feel sorry for them both. He looks pretty shaken up, and her, well ... let's hope she comes through it ok.

Well he could have been minding it for someone!

For me I hope.

They say the total haul from the house could be 200 million. A reasonably wealthy guy. And he only reported 5 million cash missing. I mean I probably couldn't tell you exactly how much money is in my house right now, but I sure as hell wouldn't be 13 million short.

Uplifting stuff.

Poor little kid.

It's obvious she wouldn't have told the 26yr lover about her singaporan cash cow. The guy should have wasted her and and sent the other guy on his way.

You can't say it's the lovers fault for what happened. Hope he has a good lawyer to get him off. Then go after her.

Some people just don't realise how good they have it until it's to late. !!

IMO.

The full article says the SIN guy employed him as a chauffer. He knew what he was doing, perhaps he paid too high a price, but he took a risk.

She's the one with blood on her hands now.He should have killed her instead.

I'm surprised this hasn't happened earlier.

There's talk of compensation for the poor buggers who've been under water for months now. Perhaps I'm mooting the impossible but I think compensation should be paid on a "per day flooded" basis funded in part by levies on the residents of the areas that are being specifically protected. People can't work and their day to day life is miserable. My sister in law has been flooded for weeks, she can't work and the people around her are surviving on a subsistence basis sharing food and money coming from relatives (like me).

I'm all for protecting whatever parts of Bangkok they can. But when it is clearly at the expense of others what do you expect them to do?

"Phuket Tourist Police Volunteers were informed at 12:20pm that the body of the 63-year-old Swede had been found by staff of a diving company."

What about the "fishing company" he was fishing with? How do they know he was fishing anyway? Was he found with his rod? Or maybe he was wearing a gimbal?

A little (lot) more info would be handy.

The English is not up to what one would expect from a journalist working for an English language rag. But then I suppose I should imagine myself attempting to translate it into written Thai.

Keep it up Achara.

You gotta hand it to the guy. He's bloody slick. I don't know if he wrote that letter himself, but it's clever on lots of levels.

I'm with Mick. They gave it a run, realised it wasn't going to fly and figured they could make a positive spin on it.

I work and live in Port Moresby (in Papua New Guinea) and trust me these people are far worse drivers than anything I've encountered in Thailand. The death rate of 14 per 100,000 sounds lower than Thailand's almost 20, except that vehicle ownership rates are much lower and there are virtually no motorbikes.

At the risk of stating the obvious the best way to make yourself safer is slown down. And don't get aggro, just accept that they are atrocious drivers and focus on keeping yourself safe.

Only a heartless bastard would not feel sorry for the guy. But...

Never abide thieves. We all face hardship at times. If we all turned to crime to resolve it we'd wind up with an even bigger mess.

6 pages of comments about a non-English speaker mispronouncing an English word.

More flagrantly biased non-news from The Nation.

I'm no Yingluck fan but this is ridiculous. I saw her interviewed on Channel News Asia earlier in the week and she handled herself quite well. Sometimes it pays to remember what incredibly disparate languages Thai and English are.

It would appear, for better or worse, that the majority of people support him. I personally don't abide thieves, I never have.

What is perhaps a greater concern though is the mooted overthrow (again!) of a democratically elected government should they pave the way for his return. The only price the governemnt should pay for this act is to lose the next election. Otherwise there'll be blood on the streets again.

So, the "majority of the people support him", but the party that campaigned to bring him back could only get 48% of the vote, and even some of those didn't actually want him back.

I don't think you understand what "majority" means.

Respectfully. Read my other post. "Majority" is a variable term in a democracy. 48% voting for them does not indicate 52% were against them either. In terms of electoral victories it was unprecedented.

I'm no Thaksin fan, but I'm not seeing enough support for democracy here. Thaksin coming back is poor, and wrong. Another coup as a result of it is far, far worse. I hope cooler heads prevail.

Unbelievable ... this could mark the start of a very dark era for Thailand

The start of this new dark era for Thailand started already, when the majority of people voted Pheua Thai party to form the government. Unfortunately democracy always has a bad side.

The only way to save Thailand is to fight corruption with all means. The politicians, government officials and police are all corrupt and greedy, so a special corruption force would have to be formed. But as all politicians (maybe except one) are corrupt, it is hard to see, how Thailand will ever get a government, who are willing to fight corruption. Abhisit claimed to be willing to fight corruption, but could not do it alone. The poor people, the voters for the Pheua Thai party, do not understand, that when they don´t mind politicians being corrupt, they will never get at better life. Fighting corruption is the only way to get a better life for these people, as corruption basicly is rich people stealing loads of money, that could have been used for benefit of the poor people.

Actually the majority of the people did not vote for the PT

The PT would do well to remember that. They only got 48% of the vote.

If there was to be a election now it would be far less and they might find themselves on the out side looking in.

I always love these furphies. In any multi-party democracy the ruling party rarely actually gets more than 50% of the primary vote. That is the nature of the system, and it's good. It is fair to say they had an overwhelming victory and underlying this is huge support for Thaksin.

I don't like it either, but there it is.

It would appear, for better or worse, that the majority of people support him. I personally don't abide thieves, I never have.

What is perhaps a greater concern though is the mooted overthrow (again!) of a democratically elected government should they pave the way for his return. The only price the governemnt should pay for this act is to lose the next election. Otherwise there'll be blood on the streets again.

20 foam boxes and you get 1 Leo.That's all what farangs understand.

Eggs and rice. Pa! Leo? I'm out there!

I could be wrong on this, but I read somewhere that even the current Foreign Minister cannot speak English!

I'm afraid you are wrong on this, though the rest of your post was very interesting.

Dr Surapong has a masters and a doctorate from the United States and has taught at university level in the US. (Doesn't mean he's the right man for the job, of course.)

I think the previous Democrat Education Minister and the Deputy Minister of Education did not speak English. I heard both of them make a terrible mess of speeches written for them in English at a World Teachers' Day forum before an international gathering. On another occasion, at an English-medium (World Bank) seminar I attended the minister gave the introductory speech entirely in Thai. This is the same minister who said English could not be an official language for teaching purposes here because other countries would think Thailand had been colonized!

Thanks for the correction. As I said, I wasn't sure, as the article was some months back, so memory may have failed me a bit.

(Doesn't mean he's the right man for the job, of course.) Now, Thailand actually does have "the right man for the job" in many cases. Unfortunately, the "right man" is usually ignored and the position given to someone from the family, or a political crony, who knows nothing about the job.

I remember the comment the Minister made about how English could not be an official language as other countries would think Thailand had been colonized. That one had me laughing for a very long time. Made me wonder if anyone had ever pointed out to him that both Hong King and Singapore were once colonies, but look at how far ahead of Thailand they are in just about every area?

Your comparisons are based on pointless assumptions. Let's try listing the countries that had been or have been colonised and you soon discover how detrimental it has been to them. Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, all of Africa, Central and South America but to name a few. Did the people of HK have any rights? No! Do they now? Very few! Did Singapore? No! Does Singapore now, it's improving, but you still wouldn't want to live there.

The importance of English is declining as world language. It used to be French until they became overly self-indulgent, English is not far behind. If a country wants to be at the fore front of a modern advancing world,they would be better advised to instruct Chinese or Indian. These so called advanced western industrialised countries are swiftly becoming nobodies as they spend the next few centuries paying off debt due to greed and the costs of sustaining imperialism.

It's a myth that Thailand has not been colonised, they tend to overlook the Burmese, Chinese who own and run the country, Japanese and now the Americans. It helps if you understand a little more than 60 years of Thai history. There is another 7 centuries before the devastating effect of allowing the USA to colonise Thailand during the Vietnam massacre and US advancement of imperialism into South East Asia.

To this day American's are amazed that the Japanese attacked. Brainless fools. Might have something to do with the invasion of Japan by the USA in the 19th century solely for the purpose of gaining access to goods that they had squandered, whale oil for their industrialized growth.They had already killed off their own supplies. Ring any bells? Texas dry, let's meddle in the Middle East then. Prior to the US invasion, Japan was a peaceful insular country. Before the American invasion of Thailand, Pattaya was not the world's largest brothel. Am convinced syphilis has made Americans brain dead.

What the Thais learnt from these imperialist was that they were and still are an easy touch. Thailand made billions and continues to do so, yet the imperialists still believe they are a superior civilisation. The communists control their people for the greater good of all, while the Americans control their citizens for the greater good of a few. Walk outside of the tourist spots of the USA and you soon realise what a disgraceful state that country actually is in and has been for decades. All in the name of GOD.

What a complete and utter load of drivel.

From syphilis making Americans brain dead, to communists controlling their people for the greater good.

Marxism is dead. Not before it cost tens of millions of lives, but dead it is.