snake24

Thai Smile, the budget airline of TG will be taking all TG flights. TG has suspended flights to Chiang Rai.

It's only available next year. That's the info i got from wiki.

What's the fascination with drug lords?

Golden triangle and not to mention it's near the drug routes.

Thanks guys i found that information from wikipedia.

I checked on domestic flights thai and they mention air asia, thai airways, nok and orient thai so are there other airlines that fly there?

Seriously what sort of prices are those it's around 2.1k USD per night. That's like what maybe around 50-60k thai per night. This has to be a big mistake.

I assure you it is not a mistake. Pa Sak Tong is another place which has high season rates of 46,000 baht. I suppose it keeps the riffraff out.

yes that definitely only ensures the creme de la creme of society would stay there or some rather stupid ppl but then again i hear that drug lords are also filthy rich. They would be swimming in cash probably could easily afford a month's stay there.

Seriously what sort of prices are those it's around 2.1k USD per night. That's like what maybe around 50-60k thai per night. This has to be a big mistake.

the OP sounds like its touting a commercial venue.

You're wrong. Honestly i just searched and it's rated number 1 on TA in chiang saen possibly all of chiang rai.

I also saw the prices and it's like what freaking 2000 and upwards a night this place doesn't need promotion if they charge that high they probably have tons of guests staying there and and i doubt i would stay there.

Seriously how is the golden triangle like nowadays?

Seriously, you are more apt to get run over by a bus full of Chinese tourists than to bump into a drug lord. You seem to be thinking 35 − 40 years ago. These are modern times, seriously.

Hardly, but you always bring us a colorful and different perspective on life. I am not sure if the OP portraying himself as totally clueless is a great promotional tool. alt=thumbsup.gif width=25 height=19>

Oh comeon give me a break. We all have not seen every corner of the world. How would i know seriously? I didn't know the golden triangle didn't have the drugs and stuff anymore.

This thing just pisses me off a bit. In my home country there are these independent churches that have been gaining a ton of new followers and alot of clout in terms of money and visibility and their pastors have become some type of stars. They got their followers from traditional churches and followers of other religions and currently one church is undergoing investigation and a court case for fraud, misuse of funds etc. Go google it it's city harvest church.

Anyway if you know most traditional churches it's just a believer and his family and maybe a friend or 2 attends this church mostly near where he lives. He goes in there attends mass for 1 hour and then leaves and comes back the next week. He might choose to volunteer as a choir singer or maybe an usher etc. This is also the case for other traditional religions. Well these new independent churches which follow the charismatic movement from the US managed to build up new followers so that they were stealing members from other faiths, churches. My country might be small but apparently it has so many churches and these independent churches have followers as numerous as 10-30k each and christianity isn't even the religion with the most number of followers. These independent churches organize their members into the following ways. Zones as in a region of singapore so we have 4 zones and then each zone is headed by some top guy and it's split into smaller groups call cell or care groups and this is how they retain their worshippers and get new followers as you know traditional churches don't do this so they lose ppl.

So my family who are staunch catholics well i think their catholic church started a charismatic movement. I suppose they saw how successful these independents were decided to follow them. OMG and the wanted to recruit me. They didn't even pitch anything to me. Basically it was you join our church ok. When i was a member of those independents the members were really nice they would invite me out to dinner and for socializing and that was why they were so successful. Everything done to perfection. The music was top notch for example the members were truly welcoming they might be pretending but they were welcoming which is something you hardly see in singapore. You don't just simply say hi to a stranger over here. To cut it short i didn't join their catholic church with it's dumb new charismatic movement and my uncle is kind of cold towards me now. Yeah all because i have my own opinion of things and the fact i know i am being used.

Then i had another aunt try to pitch her sales talk to me about joining. She knew i had some interest in finance and trading and told me you know you could join one of our members who might be a trader just like you. She didn't even know but was somehow certain the church had a member who did that. I wanted to tell her why would i join a church if i needed a partner to trade with that's the stupidest thing in the world to do but thought better of saying it out loud so as not to hurt her feelings.

It just goes to show that a religion really needs worshippers period. They can follow the islam route and just kill anyone that doesn't want to believe or wants to convert or you know the charismatic route. In a way well i kind of respect my thai friends that are pretty religious. They grew up with the religion and it was taught to them just like how catholicism was taught to me but i never really believed in it. I couldn't care about it yet these thais are just so religious. They actually kneel in front of a statue and pray to it hoping for luck, wealth, good times etc. I am sure some of you guys that probably don't believe in a religion at all start to want to become religious and follow their religion. It's the same with farang converting to islam after seeing how religious the muslims are while their own communities don't care for church anymore.

I agree with the OP western religions have to provide something extra to hold the congregation together, i.e Schools for the Children,extracuricular events/activities , councelling services,etc their power base has been eroding for decades,who would now believe in Heaven and Hell ? only poor countries,and the uneducated,and believers in ridiculous doctrines.

So you feel that the more educated and the richer a country becomes the less religious it becomes? Let's ignore countries that just had waelth shoved unto them like the oil rich middle eastern countries but let's talk about another technocially advanced and rich country maybe japan and they are well pretty religious in their shinto beliefs.

The main thing that Buddhism has going for it: is that it is more effective as a way of life,instead of a Religion. which it was never designed to be a religeon.

Recent happenings,that show up the corruption and greed,from those that would have us believe,in austerity,a simple life,and,poverty,is hard to believe,considering a relatively poor country has enough wealth to produce more than 15,000 Temples! which then gather in enough finances to continue to produce even more Temples. Compared with new Farang,Churches,Chapels, which are struggling to survive,how does it really compare?

Edit Apologies for under estimate of Temples in Thailand.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Buddhist_temples_in_Thailand

You are correct but thai buddhism well isn't "pure" buddhism in the sense that they believe that the buddha is a supernatural being.

The minute you see "supernatural" well those farangs with their more advanced science think it's BS or at least a portion but growing portion of them think so.

Yet at the end of the day there are more ppl that believe in a religion than those that don't believe in one.

Don't you feel it's well fascinating that we have a nation of ppl that believe in a religion that isn't abramhamic in nature.

Other than being able to spout a whole bunch of mythological claptrap that got attached to Buddhism. Most Thais couldn't speak for 5 minutes on what the Buddha taught.

OK but then again it isn't even about being intellectual about it. The fact of the matter is they are still very religious about it.

I am just wondering how does it affect society as a whole. Now buddism might be a big joke to you but what about islam?

I doubt a terrorist knows much about islam as much as any ordinary westerner knows about christainity but the fact of the matter is he's willing to die for it.

Is religion even important in today's world?

Here's the sickening double standards that i bet some western ppl have. Islamic religious ppl will kill for their religion. Respect islam.

Other religions won't kill you for disrespecting their religion, disrespect all of them.

Firstly this affected me when i observed how religious my thai friends were. They would make going to temples and praying to buddha as important.

More information about me: I was born catholic that is i was born in a catholic family so yes i suppose my family is pretty religious. My siblings stopped being catholic years ago and followed a non traditional denominational christian church and if you are catholic you would know joining a different denomination might as well be the same as becoming a satanic worshipper.

I know how ppl in the west look at religion. They think it's hogwash. That is why church attendance in western nations is falling. Now many non western ppl still think that christianity has a strong hold on the western world in today's world but that isn't the case in reality. It certainly isn't like middle eastern countries where islam reigns supreme for example.

In short the hold christainity has on western aka farang countries isn't that big anymore.

Anyway seeing how religious my thai friends were actually made me curious about my own family religion. You see to me yes i was born in a catholic family and attended cathecism or school for young catholic children before they attended confirmation at 16 where they would be confirmed catholics in the church but it just turned me off. Anyway after observing my thai friends being so religious i decided to attend church again. I attended all sorts of churches from catholic ones to non traditional ones and these were the churches that were growing in power in my home country of singapore.

The point of this thread is don't you think how thai ppl being religious has sort of awakened your curiousity about religion? Don't you yourself as a farang that thinks your christian religion as plain 100% BS somehow find it odd that your thai partner is like the opposite of you?

Sure she/he probably isn't a christian so does not believe in some figure on a cross but she/he believes in some supernatural personanality , buddha or otherwise and doesn't that awaken your own curiousity on your own religion which would i suppose be christinaity.

True middle class in the UK would be considered almost aristocracy in Thailand.

Our upper working class is probably Thailand's middle class.

Thailand's class system is a lot more distorted than most of the west.

For example, in the UK the class divide is getting smaller, and more people are becoming millionaires. There are currently around 700,000 millionaires in the UK despite the latest recession this number had risen by a staggering 17% between 2008 and 2010.

In Thailand, the class divide is widening.

Thaksin alone probably has more money than the poorest 10 million Thais combined.

In the UK, around 10% of the population holds about 90% of the wealth, in the USA 3% hold about 97% of the country's wealth, but in Thailand, 99.9% is probably held by 0.001% of the population.

Interesting now the most important thing is how to join that elite group.

Actually the way you put things like this it's like implying that the minority 10, 3 or 0.001% stole the wealth of the others. Now it might be different in each country but it's not always the case BUT in general we could say 3rd world or rather developing countries have more instances of stealing the wealth of the rest of the country while for other cases they built their wealth through their shrewedness.

Sounds a bit racist to me.

There is absolutely no reason and no proof that Asian in general and Thais in particular are less intelligent than mixed-race children.

What might be true is that in many cases mixed-race children in Thailand get a better education than their Thai friends, simply because many mixed couples have the financial means to send their children to better schools. To conclude from this that these children are more intelligent is in my view wrong.

If you ask an US American, he would probably say that Asian descendents are more intelligent that US Americans, as can be seen by the number of High-School, College and University graduates compared to their quota in population, but again, it probably originates in a different emphasis on the importance of education form their Asian parents.

I think you are wrong.

My 19 yo son kept running away from school and effectively had around 2 years of formal education in a lousy Thai school and would not go near a school after age 10 (Not all farangs have the big bucks to send them to good schools)

He will listen to a foreign word ONCE and just simply remember it, he has self taught himself Japanese apart from speaking perfect English and Thai. he knows pretty much everything about computers (PC) people come to him to fix things all the time. He can remember all the words in a song after listening ONCE in Japanese Thai & English. He just recently opened his own coffee shop and taught himself all the barista stuff in one day and refused to go to the free lessons given by Bon-Cafe when you buy a coffee machine. The first time he tried riding a motor cycle (A Honda phantom Gears and clutch) he mastered it within 5 mins !! and he was 14 at the time !!!

I could go on but I think you can see he is not your normal Thai, that bit of farang/Thai mix must have done something up in his noodle funny thing is his Thai mum nor myself are over average IQ. He definitely thinks differently to most people his is not a savant or dyslexic etc.

The funny thing is his thai mum nor myself are over average IQ.

Sorry couldn't highlight that bit of your post cos it's against TV rule so you are saying both y6ou and your wife are what average IQ or below average?

Seriously how is the golden triangle like nowadays?

Not sure what you are asking. It is a well known high end resort and they are located in Chiang Rai, near the Golden Triangle area. Are you doubting their existence? I am sure a quick Google will give you more information. Try this link.

well i haven't been to the north of thailand so that's why i am asking and when i heard golden triangle i tot drug lords with guns is the golden triangle still full of those types?

i found this on TA site

http://www.tripadvisor.com.sg/Hotel_Review-g317131-d325842-Reviews-Anantara_Golden_Triangle_Elephant_Camp_Resort-Chiang_Saen_Chiang_Rai_Province.html

is it really near the golden triangle? Is it an elephant camp and resort?

Not only Eurasians, actually all luk-khrungs are in fact intelligent and smart and highly educated, we will surly see them filling top most jobs in Thailand in few years.

I wonder how would the euros feel about that seeing that their numbers are dropping off drastically.

You know how much they despise those that aren't pure farang.

Kind of sad huh that a luk krung can only be produced from east west union.

English tends to combine two words in a vocab sense in the same way but they are written as separate words.

Table lamp

Lamp post

Light bulb

But then we also combine two words into one.

Taillight

Doormat

Buttonhole

Grasshopper

Some associations are obvious, some are less obvious as in Butterfly. Personally I think the associations are not dissimilar to Thai. Some make sense, some are logical, some are illogical - in both languages.

The best example of Thai-ness weirdness and charm; "rot fai faa tai din" = "electric car in the sky - under ground (MRT in Bangkok)"

Priceless!

English would never have combined so many words in such a manner. Then again MRT is an abbreveation of several words.

When new words are created or borrowed english borrows the words from another language rather than combine 2 english words together to form the new word.

Am I correct to suspect there's a comma missing in here somewhere?

However, I have a feeling I know what you mean. Tell me one other language with a richness that allows someone to describe simple forward bipedal locomotion using any of the following words: walk, run, stroll, strut, step, hop, skip, jump, leap, slink, saunter, stagger, swagger, waddle, hobble, sneak, stomp, sprint, race, trudge, traipse, sashay, lumber, limp, lope, jog, trot, tread, trip, march, weave, meander, wander, hike, stride, bounce, bound, pounce, prance, shuffle, galumph, zigzag, scamper, stumble, amble, and of course, promenade.

Goose-step and tiptoe would contradict your observation.

Would german have the same equivalent?

I've stayed at nearly every hotel in Pattaya and Hua Hin. Ask me of you want to know

hmmm odd claims he did and now says he doesn't

Oh yeah he's going to say NEARLY doesn't mean all. OK.

Well, I would think that using things like "butter" as a basis for comparison wouldn't be good, since it isn't something that has deep roots here. That is going to have a lot less history than other things. Go to other words that have needed expression for hundreds of years and you will find more depth in terms of Sanskrit, Pali, Tai and even Chinese influence.

English does have a massive vocabulary compared to many languages due to historical reasons and you have Greek, Latin, Scandinavian and French influences, not to mention the original stew of languages which created the term "Anglo-Saxon." To top it off, English colonies ended up providing words of their own to English, so we use a lot of Indian words and words that were borrowed from native cultures or developed in colonies. So, in the vocabulary sense, English is complex. However, you can find a lot of the same intricacies in Thai and other languages if you look at things that they needed to describe since they have been here.

That's right i mean why doesn't english take 2 words literally and combine them together just like what other languages do. I suppose i need an example. Ok let's say telephone. I didn't google the word "telephone" at all but i would fanthom that the word tele is derived from i think a greek word to travel i think. I don't know. Then "phone" is probably from some other language. What i mean is why did they take the word "tele" which is derived from greek. http://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/tele- and in greek it means far instead of using an english word instead?

You see what i mean? So why not farphone? This is how other languages like chinese do. In chinese telephone literally means electric word. The word consists of 2 other chinese words electricity+word = telephone in chinese. Yet they take a greek word and combine it with something else to form an english word.

I need to research a bit and find out newer inventions from the late 20th century and you'll see that ppl almost never take an english word and combine it with another one to form a new thing.

I realized a word that sounds kind of silly to describe an insect in english.

Butterfly. It's butter + fly i really wonder who thought of calling that insect that name,

This is one instance where a Spoonerism was called for.

A Flutterby would actually make more sense!

Ah i see a spoonerism.

And i thought op was beloved by everyone and what's more ppl were sympathetic to him cos of his weight gain and health issues and all the jazz but it turns out all of this has come to naught with his type of postings. Taking the piss out of everyone.

No point in such a battle, OP. It will just turn into a perpetual argument over what is the appropriate amount one should spend on accommodation. At least a quarter of the replies will be from guys who sleep in their car, ask a tuk tuk driver for room and board or sleep in an unadvertised flop house and can't understand why all the clueless farang would waste money on a hotel room.

Oh lord. What's even worse is that they probably come from richer countries i believe the majority of ppl in this forum would mostly be farang from richer countries and be able to afford decent accomodations and food in thailand. Doesn't make sense to even buy an air ticket and fly all the way down there and live like a beggar.