impulse

Given that 70% of tourists were coming from China pre-Covid, is it fair to blame Thai policies when China, Aus, NZ and other countries are locked down? Even if Thailand eliminated the hurdles, opened the bars and offered free soapies on arrival, the vast majority of tourists can't leave their own countries. And some that can have to quarantine when they get back home.

Word to the wise... Don't eat raw broccoli the day before. I spent hours in the bathroom, and still had a big stalk on the video. That was at Samitivej. Why 2 options? Because people have different preferences and eating habits. Choose the option that fits your preferences.

In 7 years living in Thailand, none of the people I know were killed in scooter accidents. None. In the past 3 years living in Texas, 4 of my friends have died on their scooters. And "friends with scooters" is a tiny subset of the people I know. Many riders feel safe on their scooters because of their superior riding skills. Until they find out that it's just a numbers game... Scooters are 20-40x as dangerous per mile driven as a 4 wheeler. Texas or Thailand. Doesn't matter.

The high death toll is mainly due to the preponderance of scooters in Thailand. Studies in the USA and Aus show the death rate per km is 20-40x as high on a scooter as in a 4 wheeler. The difference being that a tiny portion of km are driven by scooter in the USA and Aus, while 80% of Thai passenger km are done on 2 wheels. The vast majority of riders in the USA, Aus, UK, etc. are hobbyists, pulling their scooters out of the garage for weekends, and only in good weather... If they relied on them for every day transport, their fatality rates would be horrendous, too. But that w

It takes me two hours to drive from BKK to Jomtien. Thank goodness they let other people on the roads at the same time, or the place couldn't survive with 12 cars arriving per day...

He was allegedly driving...

The future of Thai tourism hangs on their handling of this issue as much as any other. If they're going to be arresting guests in open venues, doing stuff in the wide open that looks perfectly legal to a noob that just fell off the turnip truck, they can open the borders all they want. Social media will kill 'em. I have no opinion on whether they arrest the owners and close the venues down, and moderate sympathy for the employees who serve the drinks because that's how they keep their jobs. But arresting the guests is just wrong.

Not possible. Anything can be fixed in Thailand for the right money, and with the right agent. Just ask K Boss. Whether he can find that agent, or afford that money is the question.

You've provided a link to a 2001 patent. Meaning it was a novel idea in 2001. You have not provided a link showing that any auto company has adopted that patent. Every car and truck I've ever owned has a diaphragm in the cap of the master cylinder/ reservoir that allows for expansion and contraction of the brake fluid, while keeping the fluid completely isolated from the atmosphere. If you've been spending money to change yours out every 2-3 years, we call that hook, line and sinker.

Advice like that in the manual is a gift from the car makers to their dealers, prompting customers to spend money on services they don't need. Brake hydraulics are a closed system. No place for water to get in, unless it's damaged. Most people can drive their cars for 20 years between brake fluid changes. In fact, I'd bet that 90% of cars retire to the boneyard with the original brake fluid. Unless, of course, they bring their car to the dealership for their 10,000km services at 30,000 baht a pop... Yeah, that's an exaggeration. But not by much.

Some of the most successful cafes, restaurants and coffee shops I've visited in Thailand were in the middle of the boondocks, or miles from anywhere on a lonely highway. But they got good buzz on the interweb, so people traveled for miles to go there. We'd be driving down some lonely road, and my friends would fire up their smartphones and insist we stop in 3.5 miles... And the places were packed. That's the nature of social media.

They do now.

For years before 2014, the Thai government agreed with them... Back then, it was quite possible to clear a 5 year overstay for 20K baht, bounce the border, and be back in Thailand the next day. For a lot of the guys in Thailand, the vast majority of their stay was under those conditions, and the crackdowns are the anomaly. Frankly, I don't understand the "hang 'em high" brigade, who haven't been harmed one iota by this guy. Over the years, I've seen a lot of them change their tune when their particular loophole slammed shut and they found themselves on the outs. Crying in thei

It absolves them of liability IF they have acted in good faith and they haven't fibbed during the approval process. It's not an absolute shield like the EUA. Watch some of the covert videos of Pfizer scientists and exec... Good faith apparently isn't in their vocabulary. Edit: But that's neither here, nor there. The statement I was responding to is "It's odd that J&J hasn't pushed for full approval". That costs money, and (given the lack of long term testing) exposes the company to liability. For the gub'ment to mandate the vaccines, they only needed one of th