keestha

On another note, tourists fall ill often enough after eating seafood. The fish, prawns or whatever lays on display outside on ice, and if unsold might go back into the fridge to be put on display outside again the next day. When tourists ask me where to go for seafood, I always tell them to go to the fullest restaurant

Drink bottled water or anything else bottled , no ICE as it is often made with just tap water

Beg to differ. Thai people never drink tap water, and I don't think they often produce ice using tap water. There is one popular travel guide which warns about ice cubes, I don't think this is correct.

Two northern Thai women and a child also travel to the island. Escaping poverty is their goal. Fate brings these wounded souls to a magical, thatched roof beachside bar in Phuket.

The movie ends when the army move in and demolish their illegal beach bar and the site gets taken over by jet-ski operators.

I thought the movie might end with a western farang buying the Northern Thai woman a house, farm, shop, car, motorbike and gold, and then she leaves him and returns to Northern Thailand a rich woman, retiring early, having "escaped poverty."

The final scene of the movie is the western farang jumping to his death from a balcony.

No, the last 10 minutes is about the Thai woman losing everything to a Thai boyfriend who is younger than she is.

Well, that would mean the final scene shows her returning back to the bar, to "escape poverty" - again.

To make it palatable for Thai viewers, the ghost of the farang balcony jumper should come back to haunt her.

Two northern Thai women and a child also travel to the island. Escaping poverty is their goal. Fate brings these wounded souls to a magical, thatched roof beachside bar in Phuket.

The movie ends when the army move in and demolish their illegal beach bar and the site gets taken over by jet-ski operators.

I thought the movie might end with a western farang buying the Northern Thai woman a house, farm, shop, car, motorbike and gold, and then she leaves him and returns to Northern Thailand a rich woman, retiring early, having "escaped poverty."

The final scene of the movie is the western farang jumping to his death from a balcony.

No, the last 10 minutes is about the Thai woman losing everything to a Thai boyfriend who is younger than she is.

Sure, it must be cheaper to have a camera equipped drone follow your wife around than hiring a private detective.

You might be able to get a good deal arranging it online from your own country. Many German speakers use billiger-mietwagen.de. There must be similar English language sites, which act as a middleman between the customer and the local rental firms, and quote surprisingly low rates.

The weather at the Andaman coast in July/August is potluck. The most usual pattern is sunny mornings and overcast afternoons, some rain later in the day. But there are also dry spells that can last days or even weeks. At the other hand, you might get days when it starts raining over and over again the whole day.

July/August there are many tourists in Khao Lak who booked incredibly cheap package deals, who are staying in one of the upmarket hotels. During rainy days, I see them walking down the street when it has stopped raining for a bit, they are carrying umbrellas that belong to the hotel, looking at the color of the umbrella I know in which hotel they are staying. Driving by, I sometimes have to repress the urge to roll down the car window, and shout at them: "And, are you enjoying your cheap package deal?".

Sometimes it can happen you just don't get a certain permit without paying.

Can keep talking about principles till you die if that's what makes you happy.

But if you are living here as a retiree or working as an employee you are fortunately not likely to run into this type of situation.

There is or used to be a business in Bangkok doing what the poster above describes. Their ads ran like "prestigious business address.....telephone answered with your company name..secretary service....conference rooms." In other words, I am running my business sitting in a dingy back room using a cheap mobile phone sitting behind a worn out laptop, but this way customers think I am sitting in an office at Silom road surrounded by posh secretaries.

Three times the same photo, or are we supposed to try and spot the differences?

HAPPY sim cards (DTAC) work quite well, also in foreign phones, put in the card, they send you a number of SMS'es (text messages) which you can ignore, and in a few minutes you can use the phone.

A friend of mine (occasionally he also posts here) once suggested tipping the postman to ensure he comes more frequently. Never tried it out though.

Go to India, then you'll learn what getting unwanted attention is.

The worst that happened to me was Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, standing still inevitably caused a crowd of curious onlookers gathering around me.

Tourists getting the runs, maybe a stomach ache, is usually caused by a multitude of factors:

- different food than they're used to

-the hot climate

- not drinking enough fluids

- tourists being too active, when it is 35 centigrade in your home town you are not going to walk around the whole day.

- maybe getting in the holiday mood and drinking beer every day

Mostly food in Thailand, also at street stalls, is freshly prepared and clean.

Not the first time there is discussion about limiting the number of visitors to the marine national park. First see, then believe.

I've never been there but planning to spend some time non khao lak next time I come in high season. How many nights do you all think is sufficient? I was thinking 4. Spend one day at similans, 1 at tachai and 1 spare for anything else. Too short or is that about right?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

You cannot stay overnight at Koh Ta Chai, but you can at the Surin Islands which you don't mention. To all those destinations you can also take day trips from Khao Lak or Phuket.

When shrimp farm waste water ends up in the sea, it still contains leftover shrimp food, which attracts jellyfish, it's also excellent food for them.

Focus on low quality tourists? What?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yeah, finally they've seen the light. The bulk of income comes from low quality tourists, though I would suggest giving this category of tourists a somewhat less derogatory name, like for instance independently travelling tourists.

On second reading though, do they maybe mean low quality tourists should be kept out?

Especially if you have a business, inevitable to "tip" sometimes. No reason to complain, being a citizen of a squeaky clean country who settled here voluntarily being fully aware of this.

thats not really true

90% or more people understand how agoda, priceline, asia travel work

and at least 50% or more go to the hotel site to check the price

as u cant offer it cheaper direct ,they often go back an book thru the booking ( agoda, hotels.com) site

One more incentive for customers to book through Agoda and the likes, is that they get a confirmed booking instantly, instead of having to wait for the hotel to reply. Reason my hotel website promises in elephant sized letters that e-mails will be replied within 1 day.

When you have a hotel, one more disadvantage of being on sites like Agoda, is that when potential customers are looking for your place specifically, of course Agoda, Booking.com and so on come out on top of your own website in Google, so that people end up booking through them, and you lose the commission.

If you book into a cheap place, I still think it is always better to contact the hotel directly, most likely you'll be dealing with the owner, who just wants cash to come in. He'll be happy to take your booking for which he doesn't have to pay an Agoda or whatever commission.

For upmarket places this doesn't always apply, maybe staff at the counter or answering e-mails just get a headache when dealing with an individual customer who tries to get a good price.

Food for thought: When I still was using one of these booking engines (Hostelworld) for my hotel, I didn't put the cheapest type of room into their system, being afraid of negative reviews on their site, because these rooms are under the restaurant and can therefore be a tad noisy.

Too bad that many people when looking for a specific hotel, first go to Agoda and the likes, before maybe considering to do a direct internet search.