nausea

Take away the (journalist inspired?) hyperbole and it sounds much like an updated "pass the hat around" thing primarily focussed on family, friends, colleagues, and I can't see any harm in that, c.f. the strong tradition in Thailand of giving envelopes of money to help with funeral expenses. If complete strangers do give, it's a bonus I suppose, though I don't understand why anyone would do so, but it's on them.

Some are calling Omicron a live vaccine, because of its apparent mild effects. That would be bad news for pharma and control freaks. It's all anecdotal so far though. Time will tell, I suppose.

Hubba, hubba, doo.

Apparently, the scam involved a maverick employee offering "special" deals at 3.5% interest a month - that's forty-two percent annual interest. Bit of a red flag there, methinks. Incidentally, the name of the bank is readily available on a google search.

From the original article: “You have to have good friends in the police to stay open,” said the manager of a downtown pop-up bar which has operated in near open view throughout the latest lockdown, despite a booze ban. “When we have to close there is another bar upstairs to go to. We know how to work carefully.” No surprises there. As for the raids, it's nice to know the potential cost just in case one's tempted: "There are regular local media reports of raids on illegal bars across Bangkok crammed with both Thais and foreigners who are tested for Covid-19 – at their own cost – and fined around US$120 on the spot." C..4000bt + covid test it seems, hardly bank breaking stuff for your average expat.

It's really about smuggling cheap labour, that they might be Muslims is incidental. This trade clearly goes on. Whether the Phuket governor is involved I haven't a clue. Arguments that the governor is Buddhist (so obviously wouldn't be involved), or that there is no smuggling of Islamic people "in the hope of proliferating, and devouring the Thais" (main article) is neither here nor there.

Interesting how things change. At one time it was 20k on departure and a sob story about falling in love with a Thai girl, and all was forgiven. Now it's a hanging offence.

I don't think this is about her being transgender as such. It's more about her going on religious pilgrimage to Mecca posing as a woman, then posting photos on social media celebrating the event. Talk about a red rag to a bull. No doubt there is heavy discriminatiom in Malaysia against transgenders (encouraged by both Christian and Moslem leaders, I understand), but Nur Sajat, as a wealthy celebrity, was mostly insulated from all that, until she decided to push the envelope that is.

No doubt. But you said digital nomads in Thailand. What's teaching English got to do with the price of tea in China?

Switched to roll-ups for the interim, a little talent I developed in my youth. If I stick with them I'm gonna save a fortune. As an aside, it's interesting that non/ex-smokers read this article and feel obliged to comment; if I didn't smoke it would have zero interest for me.

Not really. The price hike and the shortage coinciding made the reason pretty obvious to most. Some may have been surprised by the blatancy of it, I suppose, not me though, TIT.

Brett Dev on YouTube paints rather a different picture of the "average" Thai based digital nomad. He's a freelance web developer, living in Chiang Mai, whose channel specifically targets digital nomad wannabes.

Interesting interpretation, always good to hear a contrarian view.

Good question - whilst fifty percent false positives are bad enough, cos. of of wasted time, effort, and expense, false negatives would be a greater concern from a virus containment perspective.

Five hundred thou. over a year hardly seems worth the hassle and the risk; legitimate ways to make that much, even English teaching; guess the real figure is a lot higher.

Also, a full face photo (i.e. unmasked) is available on the banned one; seems very attached to his shades for some reason.

Had to laugh at one of the comments on the source article: Singapore has a saying "Don't Thai to me.."

That tired and overused word "hub" should be banned from the lexicon of all Thais, unless it refers to the centre of an actual physical wheel.

Too late, methinks, most of the khlongs were paved over long ago.

No surprise here, we all know Sinopharm alleviates the effects but does little to prevent transmission.

Respect for the dead and all that, but how apropos can you get.

Ms. Sajat must be rather naive if, as a person whose true gender status has been a subject of debate for years, she thought she could make a religious pilgrimage to Mecca, and post about it on social media of all things, without any consequences.

Selective policing it seems, going by the comments on the source article. Why some bars should be hit and others not I'll leave to your imagination, just luck of the draw, eh! Anyway, some sort of token action was inevitable after Mr. Weerawit's rather ingenuous comments.

Hobson's choice.