Albacore

So, to follow up, I departed Don Muang yesterday, went to the Re-Entry office, and at first they said that re-entry stamps could not be transferred at that office. Then the officer noticed that the stamp was issued at Don Muang before, apologized, and said that stamps issued at Bangkok immigration couldn't be transferred, but they could indeed move one that was previously issued at Don Muang. I held my old passport open for her while she stamped the new one and got her colleague to sign off on it, only took about 5 minutes and all the staff were quite friendly.

In addition, I flew Nok international for the first time, which also was quite a decent service, unlike some of the times I'd flown them on domestic routes over the last five years. However, our flight was delayed by a mob of angry Chinese, who decided to block the passengers on my flight from boarding in reaction to their flight being delayed. The men were screaming, whistling, clapping in the faces of, and making obscene gestures to the poor ground staff who showed up to handle boarding for my flight, while the women screamed and mocked them from behind. Finally a group of security officers came, the men instantly hid or backed down, and they created order for us to get on our flight.

I was transferring an extension of a Non-Imm B visa. I'm flying out of Don Muang in a couple weeks, and will speak with the Re-Entry Permit Officers there before I leave and will report back.

Thanks for your input. I've just booked an international flight from Don Muang, so I will take both passports and see what my options are.

Hello everyone, I went to Bangkok immigration yesterday to transfer stamps to my new passport. I have a multiple re-entry stamp in my old passport which I received at Don Muang in October of Nocember. The immigration officer told me that in order to transfer my multiple re-entry stamp, I have to go to the re-entry stamp station at Don Muang, the explanation being that the stamp says Don Muang. She said that this will cost nothing. Has anyone had any experience doing this? I was planning on my next flight being out of Suvarnabhumi, so I'd appreciate any feedback or guidance regarding this situation in order to help avoid any unpleasant surprises.

"Not all Asean countries are in the Southeast Asian region, so the history of Asean and Southeast Asea should be separated, an academic said at a recent discussion."

What is this "academic" on about? The members are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam, and Thailand. All members are clearly in Southeast Asia. Perhaps he mixed up is words a bit, and meant to say that not all countries in the Southeast Asia region, East Timor for example, are Asean countries?

Definitely one case where it's good that they didn't ask him to re enact his crime

Agreed. Remember the last time they did that?

Ugh, how can anyone forget seeing this?

I think I paid 500 baht to get my license back from the police department after I refused to pay the police a bribe at a tollway entrance for something I didn't even do.

"Defenders of the practice says it creates school spirit and respect for upperclassmen, as well as creating stronger bonds between the beleaguered freshmen."

Thai hazing goes well beyond "singing songs" or "performing calisthenics." "Upper classmen" who force freshmen to engage in a variety of distasteful, even harmful, activities - to generally submit in all ways to bullying, may gain submission. They do not gain respect. Nor does the university, and so nor does "school spirit" benefit in any meaningful way. A significant number of students, possibly more than half, quit in their first or second term (observed when my eldest daughter attended university here). Far from creating "stronger bonds between the beleaguered freshmen" (WHY are they beleaguered, again?), it appears to alienate said students more often than not.

If one wants their dog to love them, be loyal, etc., the way to achieve such is plain: give the dog love and respect. Treat it badly, and it will hate you.

The same is true of university students. If the Thai university system wants freshmen to "pay respect to the senior students and teachers, and also to love the university and their major of studying," so as to "cause harmony between groups of students," the way to do so is plain: treat your freshmen with respect, and they will respect you. Treat your freshmen without respect, and well... Karma can be a b*tch sometimes, as they say.

Well this just led me to a conversation I had never had. I just asked my wife what happened to her as a Freshman! Oh yes, there was singing and having to make funny faces, all in front of the staff, and then there was the other side. The 'secret room', and when every week for 3 months the seniors got a bus to come outside the university and they all had to go to an undisclosed location. SImulated sex, stripping, eating shit, eating parts of poisonous insects, lining up 20 people and one senior spits a greeny into the mouth of a freshman and then they had to swill it round, add their own spit and spit it all in to the mouth of the next (all supposed to be 'fun' for the seniors', not a thought for hepatitis or any other orally transmitted disease), at points along the line certain students would have to swallow! The stories of what happened were so rife my wife spoke with her parents and her Father point blank refused her to participate. The overall results, 15 girls and 5 boys left within 2 months , my wife stuck it out. Her punishment for not participating was that she was banned from participating in any Uni event (which meant she would not receive vital 'participation' points for Graduation, she was called into the 'secret room' every day for a year and threatened and on many occasions, slapped, she was at the end of her tether and almost left, but for a teacher realising her predicament and helping out. In short her years at uni were an utter nightmare. All of those that took part in the 'hazing', loathed the University and those that made them do it.

If that is fostering school unity and spirit, then those on here that endorse 'hazing' should take a serious look at yourselves. My wife went to a good Uni, one of her friends went to a lower Uni and had a very tough time, one boy in her year being paralyzed and hospitalized for years.

I feel quite angry just now!

Thank you for passing on your wife's account, detailing the pathetic and unfortunate circumstances she was exposed to. Would you please provide the name of the university that she attended? I think the hazing traditions must vary greatly between universities and departments. My girlfriend recently graduated from King Mongkut's University of Technology, Thonburi, with an engineering master's degree. I read this account to her and asked her about the "hazing" rituals she went through as a freshman. She told me that freshman spend hours learning chants, songs, dances, calisthenics, and hand cheerleading. She said that she participated for a brief while in these events, but thought they were childish and refused to participate further after only a few days. Nobody ever degraded or ridiculed her for her choice, and her friends who decided not to do it never had any issues either. She said that people who participated and passed these hazings were eventually awarded with a department necklace in the shape of a gear, and those who have them treasure them and wear them with great pride. She didn't get one and didn't care, and never had any other issues with her peers, older students, or anyone else.

Seems the 2nd amendment is more important than school children...

Seems that the true misunderstanding each and every less than knowledgeable anti-gun spouting advocate is people kill people - if a person misspells a word is the fault of the pen or the writer? - if a car crashes and a person is killed is it the cars fault or the driver? - ban all pens and we will definitely make sure no-one misspells a single word again – ban all cars and we have eliminated all these nasty car crashes and needless loss of life - problems solved - yeah lets go home and feel all fuzzy about the dramatic change we have implemented that did not do anything to change the true root cause of the problem.

That’s what is wrong with the current world today - not realistic - people kill people - simple - if not a gun a knife a club a bat or any instrument - it’s all the same

That’s what is currently wrong with people dealing with something they are not capable of understanding – a sympathetic & pathetic way of dealing with all torts and laws - taking guns away from people only leaves innocent people defenseless against the real criminals that still have the illegal guns and the criminals now have the warm and fuzzy feeling there is less chance the victim has a gun bcoz they have been taken away - Duhh!!

America was founded on the thought that a man required a gun to defend himself and his family against the unknown and real threats outside his door - that same mentality still holds true to this day - if not it is needed even more today than yesterday.

This truly sad crime could have been easily prevented without burdening the entire populous with gun controls and taking away 2^nd amendment rights. It’s all quite simple but again – there are those that must complicate the world with their over engineered thinking. Simply put the school should have had security - that’s the key weak link in this tragedy - if this 20 yr old boy was twisted off at his parents and went for revenge - he should have been stopped at the doors and not allowed in without authorization

you might want to check the stats on gun related deaths in other countries pardner, USA tops the list by a lightyear buzz ...just sayin

then again, there may be something in the water supply

Comparing the rate of gun crime between countries and their corresponding laws never works, due to a number of historical and cultural differences. The actual firearms homicide rate in America has been hovering around 3 per 100,000 of the population, and has been decreasing in recent years. Thailand's rate is about 33 per 100,000; more than 10 times higher, although I believe there are few cities of Bangkok's size that are safer from violent crime. There are deeper issues within the society, history, and economic status of each country that will directly influence the number of massacres that take place.

I have just also remembered that whilst doing my apprenticeship in the RAF, I built a fourteen foot GP14 sailing dinghy which I named 'Perdido', as a tribute to the quartet - it was one of their famous pieces. I believe 'perdido', in Spanish, means 'lost' - an appropriate name for my first boat.

Perdido was actually composed by Juan Tizol, a valve trombonist in Ellington's band for many years.

Very sad news. I've tried to catch the remaining jazz legends in concert, but never had a chance to see Dave Brubeck. He'll continue to live on with his numerous recordings and jazz standards that are being interpreted by jazz musicians all over the world.

That's what happens when people are expected to weld without eye protection and otherwise permanently damage their bodies for incredibly low wages.

If you are happy catching nothing then fishing wild waters is the way to go, the majority of wild waters are netted, fishing parks are great, cheap fishing and you can catch monsters, nothing wrong in having parks that provide fish to catch.

I've never had any trouble catching fish in Thailand's wild waters.

What a rust bucket, luckily its burnt because it looks past its use by date'

The fact that a fire raged for three hours on a ship this size, starting in the room containing the radar systems, and only caused about $13,000 in damage should tell you something.

Has it started to rain hard in BKK? I'm in CM so I was wondering how bad is it.

So far no sign of any tropical storm or depression. Around 9:30 we had about 20 minutes of light rain, and since then it's been clear and calm.

I particularly liked the bit about them copying all the ancient monuments to replace the originals when they are damaged. No hint of protecting the originals. There must be someone at the World Heritage commission spilling his coffee this morning.

How shameful. I'd rather see the original damaged rubble than newly replaced parts of old temples and other buildings. I found it considerably annoying to see all the tacky looking replacements at Angkor Wat. They just don't mesh well at all, and I'd rather look at a photograph of what it was than a hokey reproduction attached to an original.

The USA most certainly doesn't need Thailand in order to conduct surveillance operations on China, Iran, or anyone else. I was just reading about tropical storm Gaemi, and it appears to me that the most reliable satellite images and data are coming from none other than NASA (TRMM and Aqua satellites) and the US Navy! Perhaps if NASA was able to build the desired weather station in Thailand we'd finally get some halfway accurate weather predictions for the area and would have more to consider than just the dribble that falls from Plodprasop's mouth every hour.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/view.php?id=79350&src=nhrss

http://www.sciencecodex.com/nasa_sees_very_strong_wind_shear_battering_tropical_storm_gaemi-99690

There's one less active user right here. Not voluntarily, I'm sorry to say, but because I've been getting the "Facebook is down for required maintenance right now, but you should be able to get back on within a few minutes." for four or five days now. This is the longest it's ever gone down for me, which is considerably annoying because I use it to stay in tough with most of my family and friends while I'm living in Thailand.

"Critics objected to the abrupt ending of the debate, saying lingering doubts persisted, particularly the suspicion that the US might have exploited the climate research for a spy mission."

At first I thought that this must be some conspiracy theory about America launching a spy mission on China (which had no issue with it) from Thailand, however further reading made it pretty clear that some of the Thai ministers were worried that the US may consider Thailand worth spying on. This same issue came up last year, when certain ministers (not the military) were worried that the flood relief offered by the American carrier group would compromise Thailand's security by allowing the USA to "spy" on the Thai military. I'm confident that if America actually wanted to spy on Thailand they could do so at any moment and a bunch of dopey Thai ministers would never even know about it. After all, anyone wanting a closer look at the might of the Thai military need only stop in Chonburi and pay a small fee to board the mighty Chakri Naruebet.

"On her recent visit to the US, the prime minister had been told it was easier for Nasa to plan a mission to the moon than come to Thailand, he said."

The lack of reading, or books for that matter, was something I instantly noticed when I first came to Thailand. Early upon my arrival I also inquired about Thai literature and Thai novelists...only blank looks all around. As far as I can tell, the art of literature never really developed in Thailand.

This country desperately needs bass teachers!