XINLOI

would be wiser to ask every foreigners coming to Thailand to have an insurance when they apply for Visa . Many countries ask this insurance if Thais want to travel abroad. Thailand should ask the same to those who apply for Visa in their embassies.

I agree... Part of the Visa application process should be proof of medical insurance. Visa exemption stamp on arrival should be granted with proof of return flight and proof of medical insurance. Entrance Via Land border could also require a proof of medical insurance.

Perhaps - Without Proof of Medical insurance a Health Service tax on arrival would be a good form to ensure treatment is covered for tourists.

The treatment for tourist used to be covered by the tax you paid when you left the airport. That last 500 BHT they garnered from you as you left Thailand. Last I heard it was included into the airfare prices but who knows where it actually went. 500 BHT x 75 million visitors is one hell of a lot of money. They want more????? lol

They used to come around every year with foggers and kill the mosquitoes but it stopped about four years ago. I suppose the local kamnan decided he had a better use for the funds. Interestingly enough he is a local farmer and he just finished building a 6 million baht house. I need to take up farming.

Actually the farmers don't want their fighting chickens killed by the foggers. Got one of those snake pits about 400 meters away from me and with all the village muckety mucks there every day. It already has been forgotten about.

Although I'm a farang I'm legally here, and the Immigration are already notified every 90 days, of my main home address. So they do already know where I, and hundreds of thousands of others like me, are. Should they ever need to locate me in an emergency.

But if I happen to pop up to Pai or Mae Salong, for a few nights away, the guesthouse is expected to report my presence again, and pay some extra taxes, even though I'm not an overseas-tourist at all ? Never happen ... they think too mut.

But anyway how many GHs & condos will, for an appropriate 'Chinese New Year cultural-gift', be informed that they don't need to report us, after all ? And isn't that perhaps the real reason for this crackdown ?

A thought. The Immigration officials know where the legal farangs are as well as the others. The problem is, is that Thailand does not grasp the concept of computers and what networks can do. They remind me of the VA in the US. The VA (veterans administration), is an organization with three distinct parts, that reside in the SAME building,using the same network and computers, yet do not communticate with each other.

This is why we have a constant paper trail here to do, for the most mundane things. If you have ever gotten a Thai drivers license or a yellow book, you will understand what I mean. No connection between Immigration and DMV but your paper chase is between those two offices. Networking the different bureaus together might stop much of this stupid chase, but then they would lose their tea money too....

Can you explain the russian visa thing? Do they have easier way to get visa and stay longtime?

Khman which is in Penang now for visa issues...

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but, I believe their holidays are subsidised in some way, so they arrive on a cheap package holiday, forget to fly back and start doing visa runs, 15 or 30 days while getting some kind of under the radar business going.

Just Sayin'

Yes they are subsidized a great deal. Using a Ru travel agency, you can book holidays at roughly 1/2 the going rate for two people. I used a company in Moscow to travel to the Maldives, got a complete Island to myself and my girl, for less that $2000 US for the both of us, for two weeks.

It's a problem for everyone, especially successful entrepreneurs, when the mafia arrives somewhere to redistribute means to accommodate the newcomers.

Just a thought. I think if one looked a little deeper, I think you would find that the Ru mafia has prettymuch taken over the industry in the Pattaya area, bars, prostitution, drugs. I think you will also find that the local police are very well paid to let them have it. Seen it in other places and countries, including Russia.

How about teaching Thais to drive properly before issuing a DL?

What license? 90% of them are not using one , nor do they carry insurance. The Gov't doesn't require them to have one and the bribes they pay to the police, go a long way to keep it from happening. They need to learn many other things before learning to drive properly!

Saw a bit story on the news tonight about 2 farangs that were run down by a truck while riding bicycles. No post on TV as yet, I was wondering who and where it happened??

Obama pushes gun control in personal speech in Chicago

By Amie Parnes

CHICAGO: -- President Obama on Friday underlined his call for Congress to allow a vote on gun control by traveling to Chicago, his hometown and the city with the second-highest murder rate in the country.

“Too many of our children are being taken away from us,” Obama said in an intensely personal speech delivered in his old neighborhood that focused on the concerns of the urban poor.

Obama discussed the hardships of being raised by a single mom and the importance of fatherhood, and his speech included nods to gun control and other proposals from his State of the Union address meant to help the poor move up to middle-class lives.

Full story: http://thehill.com/h...eech-in-chicago

-- THE HILL 2013-02-16

He's showing more understanding of the social issues connected with gun violence than many of the NRA hangers on, one of whom told Piers Morgan that the 2nd Amendment entitled her to own a tank.

Don't what's more anti social owning a tank or Piers Morgan. Obviously the will of the people is to own guns, then so bi it. Obama seems incapable of passing wind let alone bills

He is helping the poor by taking from the middle class and giving them what the middle class has worked for. Made it so all the illegals don't have to do anything except show up and get all the freebies. He has armed the drug cartels in mexico so they can import drugs to the US with impunity but he wants my weapon instead of letting me defend myself. Its not about the killing, its about fear of the politician and control of the people!

"...the number of rounds that can be held in a cartridge."

It's bad enough when clip is used interchangeably with magazine, but "number of rounds held in a cartridge" is just absurd and clearly shows a lack of though or research given to this article.

Also rather ironic is that Chicago already has firearms restrictions much tougher than any federal restrictions being pondered, yet the firearm homicide rate there is astronomical.

This is what happens when there is no Capital Punishment and the laws that are in place, are not enforced. Wash DC has very strict gunlaws (handgun) in place and has as more murders than most places

wait, where are they taking the stuff?

kidding!! I dont do stuff. Left all that nonsense back in college.

The Boys In Blue will be out in your neighborhood, selling the stash, out the back of their pick-ups......lol

I have a serious crash with TOT at least once a week, living outside Udon Thani, so IT was not news to me. About 8 hours without service

I, too are sickened by the treatment this dog has received. it is cruelty in it's worst form.

I do not really know how to inquire about my next problem. My wife and I live in a nice little area, only 8 newish houses. Only 5 regularly occupied, the rest are investor properties. We are troubled by barking dogs. one of the 8 houses opposite our's has 5 dogs. Every time a person or another dog passes their property ,which has a large gate ,the dogs rush to the gate and all bark simultaneously. They cause the other two dogs to join in. The last few nights there is a band of soi dogs, maybe six or eight come around just after we have gone to bed. I am not sure if one of the 5 dogs is on use but all the soi dogs go barking madly and the others join in and then a fight is started between the soi dogs. Meanwhile one of the 5 dogs gets exited and beats up one of the other five digs. To cap this one of the houses opposite us ,the Thai lady has got a new boyfriend and he has brought along his three fighting cocks who wake me up at or before dawn. He keeps them in three type of baskets which upside down which are situated between their wall and the road, 25 metres from our house. We have approached the lady who has the 5 dogs with no avail. How do we combat this situation without moving house. I am not a cruel person towards animals but my patience is wearing thin as it has been going on three years now.

All suggestions will be will be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

I wish you the best Sir, you are basically stuck with that situation. The dog problem is country wide and it was taken care of before until the animal rights people got involved in it. The issue with the chickens , you are just out of luck. The boyfriend loves those chickens more than his girlfriend and doesn't care one iota about the noise and filth they bring to the neighborhood.

Ironic that the Populist PM Yingluck rises health care prices when her election campaign was to help the poor.

Yep, we all know by now, that all politicians tell the truth....

Isn't the Central Bank rate 2.75% in Thailand? Well, plenty of scope to cut it. Imports versus exports is a delicate balance. Basically, all of Thailand's oil is imported, which is used for just about every industrial process one way or another. Plus, there is virtually no raw materials in the country, so everything that is manufactured here, relies on imported raw materials, so take with one and give with the other. Just consider for example, cars. Other than the rubber components, every raw material is imported. So commodities to make the steel, or copper components (electronics), plastics should get relatively cheaper.

I am trying to think of an export industry in Thailand that is completely domestic in origin, and the only one I can come up with is say agriculture or rubber(a form of agriculture). But then the raw materials for the fertiliser, for example are imported.

The only industry that is domestic in nature is the tourist industry and all the women that go with it. Everything else, I will agree is imported, quality not withstanding

Out in the provinces, the local authorities are the law. They do what they like. Maybe she did steal the camera, maybe she didn't. She should have been allowed to contact somebody to tell them where she was. But the law is what the local authorities say it is.

Out of all these post this one is the truest of them all. Sounds like an extortion plan to me though. Cops will be getting 130K for the return of the girl?! A local wouldn't have gotten them 10K

The year of Miracle Thailand.

Twice as many gun murders per year than the US and a population a quarter of the size.

is this true? i guess you're saying per head of population?just interested,have you got figures and source?

Look it up in Wikipedia. Thailand has a murder rate that is higher than the US per capita! But stats can say what they want you to believe. I'm a US expat and I do believe these stats. Almost 1 farang per day loses his/her life here each day. Wikipedia has every country in the world listed...

So much for this year's Zero Traffic Deaths campaign. What boggles my mind is: How there can be so many crashes caused by drunk drivers if they restricted the hours people can buy alcohol? .

Because no one follows the laws here and it can be bought anywhere. The only ones who might stop a person from buying are the large box stores.....lol

It's not a workforce issue, it's a productivity issue. My wife & I were eating in a burger place near Siam Center; I counted no less than 11 employees in the dining room & kitchen. We were the only customers! There were enough employees there to run 3 restaurants. If Thai workers would learn to be productive, the labor shortage would vanish.

Oh, and by the way... service was still horrible in the restaurant. o_O

Agreed. At my local DVD rental shop they have SEVEN employees working there. I mean, <deleted> do these people do all day?

Play grabass with each other, their cell phones, their tablets, avoid their customers, anything and everything but work.... Just like all the other businesses in Thailand.........

Will they issue each table a timer that goes off after 59 minutes?

You will most likely get a time posted on your receipt and after that time, they will probably charge you for taking their space. Several restaurants come to mind in Udon that have the same policy.

My wife had to fill in a form for immigration to say that she had an alien living in her house, apparently it is required by law, then this form you can use as proof of address.

Thanks did she get the form at immigration or the amphur?

For my proof, I needed to get my father in law and the village chief to go to the subdistric office and make a statement that I live in that house and that village. Then it is a two week wait. I am building a new house at this moment and will probably need to do it all over again at my new house. The province is a different one than I now reside in...I think what applies is the person you initially start with. Try to see the same one every time as the rules will invariably change from person to person. The same thing applies to when you get your Thai drivers license........Before I forget, everything has to be translated into Thai also....

I used this same crossing and mine was even easier. I only paid for the multiple re-entry permit and went around the Lao offices and came back. I will use this crossing until the laws change...

lomatopo

Just to put my search abilities to rest, I have looked in Big C, Tesco, Powerbuy, Tucom, and shopping centres. So, I don't know what you mean by "look in different and unusual places". Garden shops?

Rayong, Sri Racha, Chonburi, Chachoengsao, etc..

Or do you just want someone else to go look for you?

No, what I wanted was some helpful advice instead of smartarse comments. Someone who perhaps had bought a Nexus 7 locally, not in Chiang Mai or Udon.

Just a tip, You just might have to go look in another city to find what you are looking for. There is no sense of business here and they will not go out of their way to help you. I wanted a 100 gal pressure tank and had to drive 300 klicks to get one when I needed it. No local business would help, in a large city.....

What an amazing turn around, from slipping behind the likes of India etc they are now poised to be #1 again !!

Or is this just another government's "white lie" to keep the farming communities spirits up??

Not much truth in this article. The rice in my local area was a bust this year because the rains did not come. The ones that have enough money are planting different crops for next year because they expect a poor year again......

Are the animal rights bunch going to protest at the exporters houses?

Someone has already complained somewhere. The trucks have disappeared from my area that solved this problem but it has created another.These feral guys reproduction rate is quite high and the village is overloaded with feral dogs. I keep being the local dumping ground for unwanted pets too, both cats and dogs.....

"They also suggested education programmes and campaigns to instil a sense of responsibility and social conscience in Thai people."

Well they have their work cut out for them then.

In the mean time, what are they going to do about the amount of feral dogs running around loose? What are they going to do when they start attacking people and children. The village I live near is now full of feral dogs and the villagers keep telling themselves that the truck will pick them up! but at the same time are afraid to go out at night.... What about the rabies end of it? If you are bit will you get the shots or a placebo? Educating programs and campaigns??....These people have a lot of waking up to do...!