NoshowJones

]I believe there is something in a lot of what you say, but I could not walk around the centre of Glasgow or any shopping areas after dark and sometimes during the day without being approached by menacing people, I can walk about Bangkok anytime without fears for my safety, though that is not to say nothing will happen, anything can happen, but I do feel safer here if you take away places like Phuket which I have never been.

Its true that if you walk with cameras and nice bags, maybe dressed more expensively than the locals, it will attract criminals like sharks to blood. That is true allover the world if you go to the bad neighbourhoods. You are so right about Glasgow, and there are poor neighbourhoods all over England too where you would just never go walking through those neighbourhoods wearing a nice camera and a cheerful smile, or you would never do that a second time anyway. Theres serious predators allover urban UK who wouldn't give you a second chance at all. I've been burgled and mugged so many times around city Leeds, but I've never been burgled or mugged in city Bangkok in the same timespan. But most likely in Europe the cops will arrest the guilty people, or at least try to. The difference and problem in Thailand is the lack of legal accountability, due to the police-corruption and ineptitude which is as common here as the sun rising in the morning.

]I believe there is something in a lot of what you say, but I could not walk around the centre of Glasgow or any shopping areas after dark and sometimes during the day without being approached by menacing people, I can walk about Bangkok anytime without fears for my safety, though that is not to say nothing will happen, anything can happen, but I do feel safer here if you take away places like Phuket which I have never been.

Its true that if you walk with cameras and nice bags, maybe dressed more expensively than the locals, it will attract criminals like sharks to blood. That is true allover the world if you go to the bad neighbourhoods. You are so right about Glasgow, and there are poor neighbourhoods all over England too where you would just never go walking through those neighbourhoods wearing a nice camera and a cheerful smile, or you would never do that a second time anyway. Theres serious predators allover urban UK who wouldn't give you a second chance at all. I've been burgled and mugged so many times around city Leeds, but I've never been burgled or mugged in city Bangkok in the same timespan. But most likely in Europe the cops will arrest the guilty people, or at least try to. The difference and problem in Thailand is the lack of legal accountability, due to the police-corruption and ineptitude which is as common here as the sun rising in the morning.

You're right in what you say Yunla.

Terrible tragedy indeed ... nobody should die in that way ..if the police were less busy trying to get money from corruption they would perhaps be more visible to those criminals, I never seen any police patrol in those very touristic areas.. I might be wrong of course .Well Thailand is not safe anymore that for sure.

I still think Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world, every country has bad bastards like the two involved in this tragedy, but I feel much safer in Bangkok or even Pattaya than I do in Glasgow, or would feel in any city in the UK.

You may well FEEL safer but there are no grounds to assert that Thailand IS safer. Even with the Thai's manipulation of the stats, Glasgow & Scotland are much safer places than Bangkok & Thailand. For Thais Thailand has always been a dangerous place but they never used to harm the goose that lays the golden egg to such an extent.

I don't agree with you Jimmu, Bangkok is much safer per head of population that Glasgow is.

Terrible tragedy indeed ... nobody should die in that way ..if the police were less busy trying to get money from corruption they would perhaps be more visible to those criminals, I never seen any police patrol in those very touristic areas.. I might be wrong of course .Well Thailand is not safe anymore that for sure.

I still think Thailand is one of the safest countries in the world, every country has bad bastards like the two involved in this tragedy, but I feel much safer in Bangkok or even Pattaya than I do in Glasgow, or would feel in any city in the UK.

Have you been reading the Thai news over the past few months? There were always isolated incidents but violent crime against tourists, particularly in Phuket, is definitely getting worse.

I'm form South London and I don't always feel safe on the streets there. Like you, I used to feel safer in Thailand, initially Bangkok and latterly Phuket, but it is no longer the case. Many incidents are not reported, others are but don't make the press.

This is a particularly disturbing incident and my sympathy goes out to the friends and family of the deceased.

I do take your point Madmitch, I have two mates from the London area and they say it is quite safe.

Terrible tragedy indeed ... nobody should die in that way ..if the police were less busy trying to get money from corruption they would perhaps be more visible to those criminals, I never seen any police patrol in those very touristic areas.. I might be wrong of course .Well Thailand is not safe anymore that for sure.

It's never been safe. This type of murder has been occurring in Phuket and other tourist areas for decades, in fact ever since tourists started coming. When there were only backpacker bungalows on the beaches of Phuket, backpackers were regularly attacked and shot dead or knifed, even in broad daylight, sometimes in their hotel rooms. The police made a bit more effort in those days and also had the "communist" bandits to deal with in Phuket and the South as well as the Muslim insurgents. Now, as you say, they are only interested in corruption. They have to pay handsomely for transfers and promotions to these lucrative tourist areas and then have to pay a fixed monthly rental payment to stay in the job. Obviously they are there to rake in as much as they can.

I believe there is something in a lot of what you say, but I could not walk around the centre of Glasgow or any shopping areas after dark and sometimes during the day without being approached by menacing people, I can walk about Bangkok anytime without fears for my safety, though that is not to say nothing will happen, anything can happen, but I do feel safer here if you take away places like Phuket which I have never been.

its time to stop the corny remarks about the police force .... its no longer a joke .....i cannot understand why a country such as australia does not slap a travel ban on this place immediately ...the phuket police are nothing but tea money collectors , they see tourists purely as a source of income .... until corruption is dealt with we will live in a lawless society ... so time to bail , tell your friends , colleagues , business associates stay away ....go to Myanamar ....

If I am reading your post correctly ... you want the Australian Government to 'slap a ban' of Phuket or on Thailand?

Phuket maybe be difficult to do because it's not a Nation.

The whole of Thailand is not Phuket.

You make a good point David48.

Why have they put an extra carriage on the Silom line which only has eight stations? Would it not be better to put extra carriages on the Sukhumvit line which has twenty one stations? I suppose that's Thai mentality again.

Ah that's cool, it sounds OK then. I'd be a little nervous at first with the parents and everything, I'm used to meeting parents now but I still feel uncomfortable as I know how fickle things can be here. I'm 29, I'm presentable, I'm polite, but it still makes me uncomfortable to be stared at and scrutinised. Assembly sounds fun, though. Not sure I'd be uncomfortable in front of 500 kindergarten kids at all, but having all the teachers standing there would put me off, not to mention parents hanging around making sure I was making their school fees worth it!

I have never been asked to do gate duty at any of my schools, I have even offered to do it, but was told "no thanks the Thai teachers do it".

Strange question - OF COURSE I have asked her about her past relationships etc. I'm not going to say anything about it here.

What happened in any of your wife or girlfriends past relationships is none of your business, there is nothing wrong with asking her what she did in her past ie what she worked at, or what education she has had, as long as you don't hold it against her if she is not as well educated as you, ie if she finished her education after grade 6. If she wants to talk about her past to you, then that's fine, but it's up to her, as it's up you what you want to tell her about your past. If she wants to tell you that she got rid of her husband/boyfriend because he "boxed her", it's just her telling you that you better not do it.

I voted no. Integration means to me a desire to become Thai and to hold Thai citizenship and I have no aspirations in these 2 matters.

That does not mean I am averse to learning Thai and to try to understand local customs/culture partly as a mark of respect to my "host" and partly to make life easier for myself whilst I am here.

I guess if I am a guest here and feel like one (which is not a bad thing) then I suppose I am not in an "integration" frame of mind.

Doggie888888, we are not guests in this country, if I treated a guest in my house the way Thailand treats me, that person would not be a guest for long, with all it's faults though, Thailand is still a far better country to live in than the very highly taxed and crime ridden UK.

A yes/no answer is impossible, for me at least.

When I first moved here then yes, I looked forward to integrating.

Now, a few years later, I accept that this will not happen and am no longer interested in integrating - I just do my best to ensure that I am not disliked!

FIfanatic, your posts sums it all up for me, I do not wish to follow Thai driving mentality, I do not wish to ride my motor cycle down the sidewalks or through the markets, or on the wrong side of the road, or down one way streets. I wish to wait my turn in queues, I do not wish to put peoples life at risk by throwing water at passing motorbikes during Songcran etc etc etc. So a yes/no answer is also impossible for me too.

Remind me never to poke fun at any technical colleges whilst I am over here in the "Land of Smiles"!

LOS is not Land of Smiles Baloo22, it is Land of Stupidity.

You mean cheating isn't normal and acceptable social behavior in LOS? A recent "attitudes towards corruption" survey indicates otherwise. So why are they ashamed? Perhaps they are just lying low so they can try the same scam again.

Do the police actually sit an entrance exam in the LOS (Land of Stupidity)?

The topic is TRUE Visions screwing the public. Not what they are showing or not.

Yea I hear ya. I'm so through with cable anyway. Its all a ripoff. I just download everything.

Thomasbird67. Do I take it you are a Celtic supporter from Scotland or Ireland? I am a Scot, and a Celtic supporter. Can you tell me how to download Celtic and English Premiership games on the internet? I don't mind paying a subscription.

What has Dublin got to do with this joke? Is the poster trying to make out that the Irish are thick? The Irish are certainly not thick, look at the Scots, they cannot put a cross on a voting paper for there independence from the UK, yet the Irish fought and died for their independence even if it took them about 800 years. Scotland had a huge wealth of North sea oil and couldn't use it to their advantage. The Irish would have fought to keep their oil, and with the fighting spirit they have, they would have won, as they did during the war of independence. So just cut out those stupid Irish jokes about them being thick, that's the last thing they are.

So you are bitter at the thought of Irish being deemed as thick, yet you have no qualms about lambasting the Scots??? It's a joke in the jokes forum - get a sense of humour or don't read it!!

I am Scots and ashamed of it, the Irish fought and died for their independence, and as I said, we can't even put a cross down for ours, now look at the state we are in today. Thank god I got out of it.

When I came to live in Thailand seven years ago, I bought all the fishing gear, then when I went out to watch people fishing at a huge lake recommended to me, I saw one man with about eight rods moving from one to the other all the time and could only catch a few small fish about 3 inches long, that put me off, now my fishing gear has been lying in the house and never used.

What I cannot understand even to this day, there are beautiful rivers all around where I live, and I never see anyone fishing in them, just why is that? I am not stupid enough to just go and start fishing by myself when I know there must be a reason why these beautiful rivers are never fished. If I saw other people fishing them I would have joined them years ago.

The majority of those waters have been fished. With nets and electricity and... In fact, if the technology existed to remove every single fish at a profit, every fish would be removed.

Those fish that remain are the ones that can't be exploited at a profit. Either too small, or too widespread to make them worth exploiting commercially. Hardly a recipe for a successful wild sport fishing venue.

I can't say I blame most folks for wanting to make a living and/or feed their family. I'd love to be all righteous and pissed off but it's only natural in an environment where wages can be so low.

So I fish the artificial ponds.

Thanks impulse, you've been very helpful.

Sausage King. Do you deliver in Thailand? Where are you based? I'm sure a lot of posters in this forum would be interested.

Why yes! I'm sure you'll find no problem attracting old neverbeens just itching to grab their moth eaten Les Paul copies and get some chum able to hit a stretched cowhide with a stick or two, together with someone playing along with themselves, alone, on an all singing all dancing 'keyboard', whose collection in music stopped around 1980 and deems everything else 'rubbish'.

Good luck with that .

No worries, just trying. If it doesn't work out it's alright too. What kind of music do you like?

I was a professional bass player in a country band in Scotland before I moved to Thailand, but I don't live in Phuket, I live in Phichit province, and I would be interested in joining a band, I have noticed a good few Thai musicians, but the male singers, OH NO, I've heard a better noise flushing the toilet.

What has Dublin got to do with this joke? Is the poster trying to make out that the Irish are thick? The Irish are certainly not thick, look at the Scots, they cannot put a cross on a voting paper for there independence from the UK, yet the Irish fought and died for their independence even if it took them about 800 years. Scotland had a huge wealth of North sea oil and couldn't use it to their advantage. The Irish would have fought to keep their oil, and with the fighting spirit they have, they would have won, as they did during the war of independence. So just cut out those stupid Irish jokes about them being thick, that's the last thing they are.

When I came to live in Thailand seven years ago, I bought all the fishing gear, then when I went out to watch people fishing at a huge lake recommended to me, I saw one man with about eight rods moving from one to the other all the time and could only catch a few small fish about 3 inches long, that put me off, now my fishing gear has been lying in the house and never used.

What I cannot understand even to this day, there are beautiful rivers all around where I live, and I never see anyone fishing in them, just why is that? I am not stupid enough to just go and start fishing by myself when I know there must be a reason why these beautiful rivers are never fished. If I saw other people fishing them I would have joined them years ago.

Not desiring to take the bus is not being snobby. But after having done several taxi rides from the airport to Pattaya at day and night with drivers named "Satan" that seem determined to test their theories of what happens in the afterlife, I prefer the bus. It really is safer. And, the view out the window is a bit better than in a taxi.

Yes well aware of these taxis's, I made the mistake a few years ago of using the cheapest taxi I could find to Pattaya. I nearly died four times.

At one time we were overtaking a ancent bus which was in the fast lane and doing 70mph (god knows how) we were on some kind of outside lane hard shoulder while overtaking and suddenly the shoulder ran out with a concrete wall ahead, the driver slammed on the brakes and somehow got use behind the bus.

For a while after that I used a minibus even when travelling alone.

Travelling to Pattaya now I never go cheap.

Always beware of using mini buses going anywhere. They run on LPG and do not have big tanks. They have to stop and refill, and there are normally big queues of LPG vehicles also waiting, after waiting more than an hour going from Bangkok to Nakhon Sawan I never used them again.

This is the first time I've heard any Thai official emphasize the responsibility of the general public to improve its own lot in the context of education. Normally, The Nation broadcasts just the one-note theme of blame the government, the wealthy and foreign teachers for the condition of Thailand's education. The contrast between the general public attitudes towards education in Thailand and other East Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore couldn't be more pronounced. The grassroots culture in the Kingdom has to change. It can't come from the top or the middle. Thai people, as consumers of product intangibles such as education, need to learn to expect more from themselves. "The teacher can only open the door; the student must walk through". I believe the ridiculous amount of respect Thais show (Thai) teachers in part convinces them of the culpability of the teacher only when the students don't perform.

I am an experienced qualified English teacher, I was interviewed, had my qualifications and references checked, was asked to report at 9am the following day to sign my contract. When I arrived at the school, I was then asked if I completed my high School education in the UK when I was a boy, I said yes, I was then asked for certificates for my high school education. My high school was demolished years ago. This was for a job in the Phichit province paying 15000 Baht per month. When you have people of that mentality in charge of schools, What chance do the children have?

Good chances, but only if they make it to a director of a school.....

Good answer Sirchai

This is the first time I've heard any Thai official emphasize the responsibility of the general public to improve its own lot in the context of education. Normally, The Nation broadcasts just the one-note theme of blame the government, the wealthy and foreign teachers for the condition of Thailand's education. The contrast between the general public attitudes towards education in Thailand and other East Asian countries such as China, South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore couldn't be more pronounced. The grassroots culture in the Kingdom has to change. It can't come from the top or the middle. Thai people, as consumers of product intangibles such as education, need to learn to expect more from themselves. "The teacher can only open the door; the student must walk through". I believe the ridiculous amount of respect Thais show (Thai) teachers in part convinces them of the culpability of the teacher only when the students don't perform.

I am an experienced qualified English teacher, I was interviewed, had my qualifications and references checked, was asked to report at 9am the following day to sign my contract. When I arrived at the school, I was then asked if I completed my high School education in the UK when I was a boy, I said yes, I was then asked for certificates for my high school education. My high school was demolished years ago. This was for a job in the Phichit province paying 15000 Baht per month. When you have people of that mentality in charge of schools, What chance do the children have?

A low voltage electric fence around the car should fix him.Only kidding.

What would really fix him is a sex change, then he wouldn't lift his leg to pee. Is this not the right country for sex changes?

We are well aware our team is crap and the SPL is in disarray.

You lot however have imho the best league in the world yet will struggle to make it out of your group.

Have fun!

Well said Smokie.