LawrenceChee

I was looking at all the various hotel options and the insanity of the pricing ...many in the forum already know I am not a Cheap Charlie and will fork out money for a good quality meal

This year it seems I went for a simpler option hoping silently Chiangmai will revert itself back to its old days but alas progress is here and the malls are here to stay ...I am bemused at how fast things have changed over the last 2 years

Ate at good old Mr Chan & Pauline for Christmas...great company , good pizzas , pork and a spaghetti rounded up the night.

Merry Christmas everyone !

I enjoyed my stay very much indeed breakfast a miss but the rest of the hotel and location great

Voting for David

You will pay when Jingthing ascends his throne. He is ahead of everyone right now - including 5 votes ahead of NancyL, 10 votes ahead of Costas and leaving everyone else in his wake.

Thank god I have my 1.3 billion brethren CCP

wonder what the mods would think if I send out an SOS to just the Guangzhou province and ask for help that's 15 million votes for David

Merry Christmas everyone woohoooo

Voting for David

Toilets are fine in first class ...modern sit down ones.

Depending on which part of Thailand you go ...some are still in the school of thought the squats are better although understandably it may be a challenge for some to squat

I guess somewhere among the folks at the platform there we may have seen each other ....

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"...... 30 minutes for the 120 kilometer-ride at over 300 kilometers/hour......"

Do the Math

Actually takes 29 minutes and the fastest I've experienced on that route is 315 Km/Hr. They post the train's current speed for all to see on display LED's in the train. They don't wing it up to full speed until they're out of town.

Nothing wrong with the math.

How long did you hit 315 for 15 minutes ? Average speed is about 250

So in terms of delivering what they promised , China can actually offer Thailand a glimpse of the future.

I was just on the train from Bangkok to ayuttaya and while 25 baht and 3 hours sounds fun sometimes ...for a tourist on a day trip , it will make a massive difference for the folks coming in the city for work if they can get here in 20-30 mins instead

Those in the hotel trade know that Indian weddings are big business and in this case I don't think the general has lost it and this is actually much needed as there are some 5* hotels that are not doing very well

When we talk about Indian chartered weddings we are clearly not talking about the middle class families who would enjoy a celebration at home

If you are look at the top 5% of the society best bringing their weddings to Thailand is a massive economic spinner and much needed for the funding of their rice / other failed projects

A 5* resort in Hua Hin staff who recently hosted a 6day 5 night wedding ...if you see the bills for the banquets and the hotel rooms ( yes all sold to the family and their friends ) and all the VIP chartered Lexus cars and Mercedes vans from the airport and the massages all booked for the guests and the music equipment for the event maybe you get a better understanding of the $$$ and the jobs it brought the locals for the month.

Nice year end bonus for them

"...... 30 minutes for the 120 kilometer-ride at over 300 kilometers/hour......"

Do the Math

DepartsArrivesDuration2nd Class Seat Fares(CNY Yuan)1st Class Seat Fares(CNY Yuan)Business Class or Special Class Seat Fares(CNY Yuan)D2001Beijing West7:10amTaiyuan10:31am3 h 21m152217-G601Beijing West7:35amTaiyuan10:20am2 h 45m194285605G91Beijing West8:30amTaiyuan11:00am2 h 30m194285364G603Beijing West9:15amTaiyuan12:08pm2 h 53m194285605G605Beijing West10:15amTaiyuan1:07pm2 h 52m194285605G607Beijing West11:32amTaiyuan2:17pm2 h 45m194285605D2003Beijing West1:19pmTaiyuan4:46pm3 h 27m152217-G609Beijing West3:08pmTaiyuan6:03pm2 h 55m194285364D2005Beijing West3:29pmTaiyuan6:43pm3 h 14m152217-G611Beijing West5:00pmTaiyuan7:54pm2 h 54m194285605G613Beijing West5:56pmTaiyuan8:43pm2 h 47m194285605G615Beijing West8:21pmTaiyuan11:13pm2 h 52m194285605

Google is always there for you.

Try Baidu instead ...because the train he took was from Beijing to Tianjin and not Taiyuan.

Beijing , Shanghai , Chongqing , Tianjin and Guangzhou are the 5 mega metropolitan areas of China.

And yes I take that train journey regularly and is 30 mins and the photo is a regular first class cabin although I didn't get those cups but the hostess walking through the carriage is pretty and matches the Nok Air girls and yes they speak English and there is an English ticket counter with modern terminals and waiting areas

I agree with the points above

China comes into any country to buy up resources they need for their country's growth and it's fair trade . A price is decided and a sale is made

It's up to every country doing business deals with the Chinese to set up the right bodies / tax collections to ensure the money brought in benefits its citizens in forms of any projects you want that is best for your country

Clearly that is the country's job and not China's ....hating China is almost funny ...are we saying now a communist government is doing better job than a democratic one ?

I was having lunch at a cafe in Chiangmai and it's a deserted area only locals know

Guess who I met ?

2 Chinese PRC mothers with their 2 daughters ...I started talking to them and they were here in July last year and made 3 trips and decided this was a stress free place to have their children study and enrolled them this term in Chiangmai

So in a span of their trips , they bought a condo in Serene Lake which is a very nice development and enrolled their kids into an international school - America Pacific International

Their kids are 5 & 4 years old and having spent almost 4 months in school , they have mastered and speak good american accented English and passable Thai to communicate with the waitress to order food for their mums and of course they speak their own mother tongue Mandarin

This is the generation that will be benefiting from the trade deals and making the future business deals in ASEAN ...

Is Thailand trying the dangerous game of playing potential investors off against each other to get the best deals ?

China has its foot in the door and may have something to say about it.

Dead right........China won't allow this to happen.........!!

Just face saving PR ........

We've seen how China's involvement with several African counties started with loans, aid and so on then developed into control.

Thailand needs to be very careful about allowing this sort of backdoor takeover but somehow I think the lure of ' easy ' money will be too much plus other little ' incentives ' that will likely be on offer.

I don't think you are right on this one, and have it exactly backwards. A survey of 80 African countries showed they would rather do business with China than the West because the Chinese do NOT interfere with a partner country's political infrastructure. It's a documentary called "Empire: the New Scramble for Africa". If you know of any countries that China has propped up as plainly as the US backed the Shah of Iran and the Egyptian Coup, please let me know. I would welcome the new information.

PS: I noted no discussion of the actual trains being purchased from the Chinese. I would guess they want Chinese tracks guiding someone else's wheels.

i'm going by a couple of documentaries I saw on television and it was the ordinary people who were complaining not government officials.

i remember scenes and interviews in a poultry market where ordinary traders had been priced out of the market, literally, due to the Chinese having opened a factory and were selling at a cost the traders couldn't compete with. Opposition to the building of the factory had been ignored by local officials and you can guess what the traders were saying about why that was.

Only one example t agree.

I am eager to understand how a few poultry farmers protesting could have a key in this ?

Every realistic person understand every project ever proposed by a government will see some form of protest and this happens in every continent and country

If we take those words of a few people and say people are unhappy let's stop the infrastructure development ....you will also see the other 100 protesting who lost their chance of a job or better trade

When Walmart opened and have their crazy prices ...do you think the local deli was happy ?

It takes quite a few visits to try to offload the 14 million tons of rice that is of poor quality

Even prisoners and political outcasts in camps deserve to eat good rice once in a while

Some campaigns going up in China on travel and cultural tips

Maybe we will have less map reading motorcycles stopping in the middle of the road ...well maybe

Look at what China is doing with all their new money, and thousands of new millionaires:

They're building giant concrete cities which people can't afford, and/or don't want to live in. They're buying endangered animals and their body parts, mostly for men who have flaccidity problems. Their preference for boy babies has skewed the ratio of males to females. Even if a Chinese man is lucky enough to have a chance at marrying a young woman, it's expensive. One natural resource which Thailand has an abundance of: bevies of beautiful young women. Message to Thai girls: forget about learning English in school - learn Mandarin and/or Cantonese, and hold out for a high price when Chinese men come knocking on your door.

Well girls up north may be a different proposition ...they are fair skinned like the girls in Hanoi

China is making huge capital investments all around the world, for investing in the future of their country.

In African states for instance, they are investing in Mining, Oil , Etc, Thailand must ask the question " what do they really want of our Country as we dont have the Minerals Etc they want."

The thing that Thailand has is Agriculture, and in future years all the masses of Chinese will need food, and the Chinese Agri sector will never keep up with demand, so why not get more production of food from a close neighbouring country to secure the food source.

Whether that food source will remain in the hands of Thailand, and the Thai Government in years to come, - who knows ?

They have almost everything which was the reason the Japanese wanted it for WWII and also after war efforts

Just too bad Japan like everyone else was flirting and not serious and like a butterfly was everywhere and eventually it amounted to not much although from an automobile end they have a mkt that would remain unchallenged for decades in Thailand

The Chinese have an eye for this region and like a long term husband wants solid deals & peaceful relationships and have brought in the "sin sot" in highway and railway construction at a scale never done before

I can imagine trainloads of chinese tourists doing an ASEAN loop on trains ...boarding thru kunming and heading straight down to angkor wat and to Laos for a Vien Viang River cruise and then streaming to Chiangmai for shopping and eating before heading home

Whatever happended to free competition to obtain the best price... I would like to see the bribe budget on this one

Interesting these are developing countries in the Mekong

You are suggesting that we should have a worldwide bid and then say if Brazil won the bid ...they should be shipping these parts or send their engineers here to help Laos and Myanmar etc build it within budget and send in some soft loans as well ?

Queer proposition...but then again the west always have some funny ideas on fairness and think it triumphs over practicality at all times

These nations need the railway up fast after the 2015 ASEAN integration ...what's the timeline for the railway ...preferably completed in 2015

Irregardless of the source of the funding ...there is no disagreement this is a much needed infrastructure

Too bad ...the ABD were too slow and tied with too many conditions for anything concrete to be built

I don't usually quote Wikipedia, but here is a whopper of a related comment that is directly on-topic: "On 23 July 2011, two high-speed trains travelling on the Yongtaiwen railway line collided on a viaduct in the suburbs of Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, China. The two trains derailed each other, and four cars fell off the viaduct. 40 people were killed, at least 192 were injured, 12 of which were severe injuries. Officials responded to the accident by hastily concluding rescue operations and ordering the burial of the derailed cars. These actions elicited strong criticism from Chinese media and online communities. In response, the government issued directives to restrict media coverage, which was met with limited compliance, even on state-owned networks."

It has happen in China and not taking anything away ...millions travel on the rail daily and there is no accidents mate

Every accident is an opportunity to do better ...

I would be more afraid if there is a railway management out there that promises 0 accidents

Premier Li didn't promise that ...a high quality product is still depending on many factors for a consistent performance

America and the European Union. Why can't THEY turn up in Thailand, and hand out gifts, and get a bit of the action ??

Amtrak and the European rail had opportunities in the 80s & 90s to consolidate their position in ASEAN but helping countries with infrastructure has not really been the style.

I guess some may look at it in hindsight but it is probably too late

The Mekong region will an important region and for those planning ahead

You can make a real impact in a meaningful way.

Start learning Mandarin that will help you collaborate the Chinese into meaningful projects in the region and helping your community

I have always learnt instead of hating something you may not understand fully , integrate and learn from the best

It has been my guiding business principle and my personal opinion of Nanking does not stop me from interacting with real Japanese and learn the best of the JIT systems , marketing from Americans , Scandinavian methods of environmental protection and prison management ....the list goes on and on

For now the Mekong options is limited with other countries and China with such a real land based relationship instead of just a far fetching political objective has the opportunity to make things real

The amount of infrastructure projects that can benefit real communities is real and Chinese has the scale to do it and also help them engage their neighbors here

It's a big world out there and lots to learn ...I'm excited about what's coming next in the 15 years

America and the European Union. Why can't THEY turn up in Thailand, and hand out gifts, and get a bit of the action ??

Please do so with sincerity as I know there are also lots doing good work in their small ways ...it should be encouraged

This is Asia and if you have a good heart karma will exist

The Chinese have developed a system of finance to "buy" smaller, weakly administered countries using the western concept of aid.....but their aid goes a lot further than just support.....

The infrastructure projects will be managed and largely manned up with Chinese labour and machinery.......

More cheap consumer goods will probably be dumped here....adding to the already flooded "junk" market.........

Money talks......are unfortunately, Thais are blinded by it.....as we can now see!

When the Japanese came in here bearing gifts of infrastructure years before the Chinese and now have their equipment and Yamaha , Honda , Toyotas , Isuzus and everything else used now by the Thais ...I am assuming that was also vote buying ?

It's trade diplomacy ...a welcome change as these Asians nations actual doing something here ...

not just trying to colonize them

China will support the rail project in all aspects technically and financially, he said, adding: "you have my word. Chinese rail is high quality, high standard, high technology and high speed".

Good for Thailand:

high-quality-check

high-standard-check

high-technology-uhm

high-speed-oh, $hit

I assume you have tried the hexia line available readily now in China before you made this comment ?

Millions being moved daily ...

I have lived in and about different areas and my fav is still Hang Dong

My recent moves and living spaces have all been in that area and the proximity to the airport is a great blessing for those that travel a lot and you never that far from the Sunday Mkt / old city of you need to meet a friend there

Off that you are a short highway ride to all the amenities and supermarkets and different wet markets around

Mae Hia is my fav talat and with the development around the market including a small Rimping and small shops there it's a great spin to get in things

I like the fact there is a good line up of restaurants all the way to Mai Hie Mkt

The chicken rice stall next to windmill restaurant is great , you can head to the new Good View Village and chill out and one of the best Chinese / Thai style seafood restaurant is also next to the windmill restaurant

Along that is a great and busy breakfast place with very very good moo and pla jok and there is a steady stream of people there every morning for that and the steamed buns

Love this area and will be my perm location

I used to enjoy heading out to Dhara Dhevi or Chedi for cakes and tea ...during the hot season , sitting out on a Saturday or Sunday is horrid when the aircon section of the pastry shop at Dhara Dhevi is full

I recently discovered they have opened a branch in Maya Mall at Level 1

It's located in a quiet corner at Level 1 and have a great range and unlike the original store at Dhara Dhevi Hotel , this is not overrun and twice I have been there in the last month and both times the place has been lightly filled and have some of the nice cakes and selections of tea/ coffee

They offer free refills on the tea and with the slow crowd is an excellent place for a read with comfy sofas

A nice place indeed

China believes in 1-1 talks with the countries involved and Philippines going to court egged on by the USA is reminisce of the recent student protests in HK where the glare and glamor of the western media have made them abandon useful Asian problem solving discussions.

Eventually countries like Philippines would know that western allies may talk but in times of real support ...the Chinese has a saying <<<< Chinese Language removed >>>>.....which is translated as "relatives by blood afar is not better than a caring neighbor next door"

The chinese will have something in exchange for the islands eventually and eventually the Asian pragmatic mindset will also close in and trade and concessions will be made just like ancient times

UN is a lame duck and a tool used when convenient and while not everyone would agree in this forum , I believe everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were all started in the UN under the guise of false information and millions in the region have now suffered the decisions made by some foolish voting egged on by a forceful USA that was acting out of self interest

Probably the same reasons why USA and Australia still refuse to sign the Kyoto climate agreement ...because they are among the worst polluters.

China has the right to pursue solutions they believe is better in the long term and in their interests and if they are wrong, history will judge them as such