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RichardL
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Posts posted by RichardL
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37 minutes ago, arick said:I was struggling to get the one out of the pool yesterday. He was in his phone none stop. A face like a pug and a wife like a diamond..
It never ceased to amaze me, the amount of Russian couples where the girl looks like a model (and spends all of her time posing like one) and the guy looks like a murderer.
That said, the few Russians I've sat down and chatted to (more in Nha Trang than in Thailand - and in Russia) have been decent people. I didn't get the impression that many of them were running the country though, or rich, for that matter. As one guy said to me "In Siberia, we have snow, cold, and bears, so I come to Vietnam"-
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11 hours ago, PeeJayEm said:
Agree in principle - but even in UK which is probably one of the furthest into the process you describe, it is going to be a long time before Corona can be tested most like any other virus. Hospitalisation and death rates here are still one order of magnitude higher than flu.
It's been reported that they are on par with a "bad flu" season now, which is still bad, but we never took these measure during bad flu seasons before.
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1 hour ago, Danderman123 said:Unless some new variant emerges.
Meanwhile, in many other countries, the infections have peaked, but remain at a very high level, and daily death counts are rising.
Omicron seems to spread very rapidly, but spreads more rapidly in major cities, so what appears to be happening is cities are peaking and falling, but the spread to other areas is slower.
There's also been a higher incidence of people in hospital 'with' covid, rather than because of it, and the same would be true of deaths.
As the virus weakens, as these things tend to do, there has to come a point where Thailand, and the world in general, realises it needs to treat it in the way it does with other viruses with similar mortality rates. Once a handful of major countries take that step, the rest will follow.
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5 hours ago, BritManToo said:
It won't matter because COVID will never subside.
No hordes will be coming for the next 3-5 years.
Mass International tourism is gone, maybe forever.
COVID will never go away, but the risk from covid is already subsiding. The mortality rate has dropped from about 12 in 1000 to about 2.
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1 hour ago, Geoffggi said:
A little unfair to record this as a death from Omicron, it was probably a contributing factor but the lady was not actually in peak physical condition from the description given.
If it's a contributing factor it will normally be recorded on the death certificate, whatever the illness. It doesn't mean she died specifically OF Omicron, of course, but it would also be unfair to say it wasn't an Omicron death, just because she had other illnesses.
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2 hours ago, ozimoron said:
Tell me how white people suffer disadvantage from racism. I'm not interested in hurt feelings from name calling, I'm interested in real consequences at a systemic level.
White schoolkids (especially male) are now the least likely (per capita) demographic to go to university in the UK. They tick no diversity boxes, so don't get any special help. They also have the lowest social mobility.
Only 1 in 3 go on to university, compared to nearly half for black students.
Actual direct discrimination can happen. A friend of mine's husband is Indian (as is she) and an IT manager. He will only hire Indian workers, partly because as an Indian, he feels it's his duty to help other Indians, and partly because he doesn't think non-Indians would fit in the the culture of an Indian team. That's completely illegal here, but his company (quite a large one) will never complain.
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7 hours ago, ozimoron said:
The first time I went to the Philippines was in 1994. It was not long after the American military had abandoned the Clark AFB in 1991. I had an Australian friend who was friends with Denis Rodman's father and who had a bar in an area called Lakandula. This was across a park adjacent the main bar area alongside which the main entrance to the base ran. In this area was a number of black owned bars congregated and the area in general was home to many black ex servicemen. There had been many more. I got the impression there had been a distinctly segregated community where back personnel had lived and congregated away from the white community. I know this proves nothing but it's at least equivalent to your weak anecdotal evidence that segregation was rejected.
Weak evidence? This is common knowledge. It's just that people in the USA like to assume attitudes in their country are universal. There was no racial segregation in society. There were no 'back of the bus' laws, no 'whites only' signs, no segregated sports leagues, non-whites weren't barred from going through the front door of buildings etc etc. Now, part of this may well have been due to the very low numbers of black people in the UK, but it's still true that the UK didn't have racial segregation like the USA did.
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5 hours ago, toofarnorth said:How things have changed. Remember ' Love thy neighbour ' was it the '70s ? He talked about the Nig Nog next door.
I tried a couple of weeks ago to watch an episode , Too embarrasing. Didn't last more than 5 mins. OFF !
The strange thing is that the whole point of the show was that is was highlighting the stupidity of racism, with the bigotted neighbour always shown up as ridiculous. The show just used terms that were commonly used back then, when they were seen as impolite rather than hateful.
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1 hour ago, Johnny Mac said:Answer me this, how come the UK has approx 70000 covid cases a day still, this country now has approx 7000 a day and the UK is pretty much back to normal and we are still in this rut all muzzled up?? Both countries have similar populations.
The UK has much higher vaccination rates, and also a higher tolerance to death numbers. Thailand gets 50 deaths a day, and the nation panics. The UK gets 200 a day, and nobody bats an eyelid.
As for masks, I hate wearing them, and I know that the masks most people wear aren't very effective at all in preventing you from picking up the virus. They are more effective (albeit far from perfect) at stopping you spread the virus if you have it.There does seem very little point making people wear them outdoors though.
I don't think I'd want to take a holiday anywhere where I have to wear a mask most of the time though. I find it too uncomfortable. It feels 'mildly suffocating', like the annoyance of having a blocked nose. I also don't really like having things on my face/head. I hate wearing hats, even when it's really cold, for example. I have to wear glasses to drive, and it's always a relief to take them off. I can fully understand why nations bring in such restrictions. I'm just against the logic of where they are applied.
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37 minutes ago, smutcakes said:As others have alluded to, most of the gamblers will be Thai...Most foreigners can gamble legally in their own home country, so not sure why they would come to Thailand specifically to gamble.
Casinos aren't legal in China, which is undoubtedly where the push for this has come from. This will be casinos built by Chinese, run by Chinese, and frequented almost exclusively by Chinese, with the profits going back to China. There will be a boom for local construction workers, and jobs for locals working in them, but the thousands of Chinese tourists will do nothing for the rest of the town's economy. Anyone who has ever been to Macao, which is China's main casino area (local laws apply), will know how utterly dead the place is, despite the 3 million tourists who go there each year.
Pattaya (where this will no doubt end up) will have a seafront of hotels/casinos, and Walking Street will become a street of shops and restaurants.-
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"The TAT anticipates that tourism businesses will need to change their business models to better focus on ... diversifying their target audiences to include both long-distance markets such as European countries and the Americas, as well as short-distance markets such as Asian and ASEAN countries so that they do not have to rely solely on a single market."
When did Thailand rely on a single market before?
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6 hours ago, RichardColeman said:
and the highest rate of testing per person in the developed world too - over 6 per person - truly amazing we are the highest infections when we test the most. Daft as saying there's more potatoes in my 10kg bag than your 1Kg bag of spuds !
Also England, unlike most countries in the world, has been fully opened up for nearly four months now. Infections have risen, but serious infections are still at manageable levels.
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The kind of tourists who stay for 2-3 months are backpackers, who don't typically have the cash to pay luxury hotel prices for two weeks at the start of a trip.
In a covid-free world, I'd have almost certainly been in Thailand right now. As it is, I'm hoping next year will be OK.-
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Either the writer of this article has completely misunderstood the speech, or the government's plans truly are mental.
You do not cure an over-reliance on one sector of the economy by suppressing that sector. You do it by encouraging growth in other areas. Unless it's specifically been stated they are planning to prevent tourism reaching previous numbers, it would seem they are going down the alternative investment route, not stifling tourism.
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3 minutes ago, 473geo said:
As an example UK is running an agricultural trade deficit of around 10% why would they want to pay a 'membership fee', which is the real issue you appear to ignore, when UK can raise tarrifs against EU imported goods in a non free trade environment, thus encouraging UK purchase of UK produce.
If as many of you predict the a slump in the GBP occurs then a reciprocal tarrif from the EU would carry little effect on the pricing of UK goods in Europe.
I believe it's not so simple, as under WTO terms you have to apply tariffs equally. Reciprocal tariffs would also be harmful to a country that imports so much. It's not just a case of "buying British" instead, as manufacturing often relies on imported raw materials that can't be sourced here.
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12 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:
Did you read the last reference report, that was done on SARS so I doubt your expertise on this, sorry.
SARS is a corona and they have studied it and other corona for over a decade. Yes this one is different one, but many similarities to guide them
What's more, SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found on "a variety of surfaces" in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic people who were infected with COVID-19 on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, up to 17 days after the passengers disembarked, according to a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this was before disinfection procedures took place and "data cannot be used to determine whether transmission occurred from contaminated surfaces," according to the analysis. In other words, it's not clear if the viral particles on these surfaces could have infected people.
https://www.livescience.com/how-long-coronavirus-last-surfaces.html
Jury still out, but I would prefer personally eer on the side of caution
In the countries where there are still few enough cases for them to be documented, it does seem that virtually everybody who gets it is a known contact of a previously infected person, and has spent time with them. Hardly anybody doesn't seem to know how or where they got it, which makes transmission from surfaces seem less likely. That's not to say it doesn't happen, and people are right to be cautious, but it might mean we ought to be stressing social distancing far more than face masks and cleaning.
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8 minutes ago, fforest1 said:
Unfortunately many/most conspiracies end up being truth.....
Really? I'm struggling to think of any.
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It could well be that Thailand's stats are not accurate, but what we can see around the world (especially Europe) is that Thailand doesn't seem to be any sort of factor in the spread of the disease worldwide. If it truly is in the hundreds/thousands, as many claim, that wouldn't be the case. Look at how many in europe could be traced to people who'd been to Italy, for example.
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5 hours ago, CNXexpat said:
Right. They know perhaps a little bit about the WW2, but only the Asian part. But ask students in Europe, USA, Australia, etc. what they know about Pol Pot. I guess the answer is 99%: "who?"
That surprised me at work, where I work with with people in their 20s. None of them had heard of Pol Pot or the Khmer Rouge when I mentioned it once. OK, it's not something that would be taught in schools in the UK in general, but you'd you'd think it would be something that would filter into people's general knowledge.
Generally though, people typically think their country's history is far more well-known worldwide than it actually is. Every country in the world will focus on their own country and events that had a direct impact on their country.
People aslo forget things move on. You get Americans and other westerners thinking they'd face hostility in Vietnam for example, despite the war ending nearly 45 years ago. It'd be like a German or Japanese tourist thinking they'd face hostility in the USA in 1990.
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I've been to Da Nang three times, but mainly used it as a base for going to other places, such as Hoi An, Hue, and Lang Co - if anyone saw the Top Gear Vietnam special, Lang Co was the hillside view that took their breath away.
Da Nang certainly doesn't have nightlife anything like Thailand. There are many bars down by the riverside, but they are more regular bars rather than beer bars. You do get a few local women in them, especially the great little Bamboo Bar 2, who do appear to be in there in a "self-employed professional capacity" though.
As most tourists stay in Hoi An, the place does still feel more "authentic" in that you don't see McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Starbucks everywhere. In fact you don't see them anywhere in the city. Starbucks in particular would be a hard sell there, as Vietnamese coffee is fantastic, and cheap, and there are coffee shops everywhere.
I've never had any problems with taxis, but I always stick to Vinasun and Mai Linh taxis, which have a good reputation. They are very cheap and plentiful too.
You don't have to go far to go to areas where tourists are a novelty. You don't have to go far south of the Dragon Bridge to have people (ordinary people, not ones try to sell something) saying hello to you as you walk past, or across the street. Every little kid will say hello, and wave, which is quite charming. Go a few miles off the tourist path, such as Lang Co beach, and locals will be coming up to you and taking selfies.
I've also been to Nha Trang. It is full of Russians and doesn't have much of a bar scene (or if it does, I didn't find it). And when I say "full of Russians" I don't mean "quite a lot of Russians" like Pattaya, I mean by far the biggest overseas contingent there come from Russia. They are very cheap flights from Russia, apparently.
Saigon is a big bustling city with the worst traffic I've seen by far, for whom traffic lights appear to just be a suggestion. I would never drive there, unless I was in a truck. Priority seems to be based on the size of your vehicle, and if a vehicle is flashing its lights, it means "get out of the way. I'm not stopping", even if they are on your side of the road. That's not so prevalent in Saigon to be fair.
The big bar area is Bui Vien, but I found that at night, it's nightmarishly crowded and noisy. I much preferred the bars down Pasteur Street, a 10-15 minute walk away.
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1 hour ago, cardinalblue said:
Who cares if you are called a few names? If the caller wasn’t rich, it would end there.....
If the caller wasn't rich, it wouldn't have been splashed around the world's media for all to see.
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1 hour ago, terryofcrete said:
Much more to it than that... I haven't drank in 20 years but I love watching sport in a bar ... including the sport of mongering ... all I saw last Saturday night were dark empty streets.. Soi's without any life going on and people who sell food on the Soi making no income .. girls without customers, and Farang with money and no where to spend it .. I missed seeing the 6 nations rugby matches and the premiership games ... nothing to do with alcohol for me but a major let down on a Saturday night in Pattaya ...
Yeah. I was there last week and going without beer wasn't really the problem. The bigger issue was that nearly every bar was shut, so finding somewhere to go was a problem. I don't want to spend the evening in my hotel watching a rolling news channel, as it's the only one in English.
In Bangkok, some places that served food stayed open, but they were either rammed with people watching sport, or very subdued.
I really can't see why foreigners couldn't be allowed to have beer. It's not like a buddha day, where it would be disrespectful.
I also noticed all the bars in Nana Plaza were shut. That seemed strange, as it's not as if anyone goes there for the beer.
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It means per year as it appears on a calendar, as said, as opposed to being allowed two crossings in a 12 month period. i.e. it mean you can only come in twice in 2018, but coming in in June and November 2018, and also February 2019 and April 2019 would also be fine, despite that being four times in a 12 month period.
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Good investment or bad, what you certainly don't want is any broker selling you any kind of investment "package" for crypto. The market just isn't a good for for that kind of investment, where you put money in for five years etc, on the expectation of getting a certain percentage back.
Anyone wishing to dabble should have a look at a trading site such as eToro, which only deals with the more established coins (+usual shares).
Thailand sees rise in severe COVID-19 cases after easing of restrictions
in Thailand News
Posted
It was always going to though. That's kind of how these things work. Weaker (in terms of impact) viruses spread more easily.
Unfortunately many still panic about case numbers, even the the fatality rate has diminished massively. Covid's fatality rate is no longer at a level that warrants emergency measures.