outsider

13 minutes ago, alex8912 said:

Your Thai friends have trouble with taxis at the airport? Maybe they are bar girls speaking Isarn or Lao. What a joke!  

Actually, I doubt taxi drivers will have any real problems with Isaan, or even Laos. Quite a few of them come from Isaan themselves.

Anyway, I agree with your earlier comment about not having problems with taxis in Suvarnabhumi and BKK, in general. I don't think I enjoy a 100-percent record like you do (I'm assuming you do) when it comes to taxis in BKK, but I have enjoyed largely trouble-free taxi-ing for, say 90 percent of the time. Ten percent of the time it's the iditos who refuse to go where I want to go, or ask for THB 200 for a five-kilometre ride. It's just time of the day or where you are, I guess. Having experienced taxis in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, I'd have to say BKK is a 'taxi-paradise' compared with KUL, despite the 10-percent misgivings. It really is much, much worse in KUL. But that's another story.

As for Grab/Uber, well they do have their use. Like you, I go in and out of Thailand monthly and on two ocassions the past few months, I got myself a  Uber ride, simply because I can't be arsed to stand in the taxi queue that snaked its way back into the terminal! On other occasions, I happen to be at areas that are not served by taxis and calling for a Grab/Uber ride is much more convenient than walking to the main road to get a taxi. Especially on occasions when the weather doesn't agree with you.

Fight against garbage starts at individual level - PERIOD. Doesn't matter if it's in the ocean or on land.

Hard to police. Uber/Grab drivers picking up passengers will look like any locals picking up friends at the airport. When my ride arrives, I always try to greet the driver as if he/she was my friend - that'll make it easier for the driver. The phone stuck on the screen with a map application open? Many drivers do that, what with the advent of mobile broadband connectivity and free map applications like Google. Unless one peers into the vehicle and actually see the Uber/Grab application active, but how many officers would they need if they were to peer into every single vehicle arriving at the departure and arrival areas? AOT's 'code of security' claim is in my opinion bullshit - solve the problems with rouge taxi drivers first. Especially those SUV/MPV taxis that don't use the meter.

A very interesting thought came up while reading this article. If one was looking for a convenience store and comes upon a Family Mart and 7-11 side-by-side, equal in size and all, which one would one be more inclined to go into? Personally, I will be leaning towards the 7-11, although I can't explain why. Is it the store layout - perhaps I am more used to the layout logic of a 7-11 store, something like that? I shall be asking my friends and colleagues and see what's what.

On 2/25/2017 at 1:40 PM, Thaiwrath said:

No more Candy Crush Saga...................................................Game over.

Or Pokemon Go, for that matter.

Maybe it's perfectly safe to stash wads of cash in a checked baggage in Japan. If that's true, then someone should have told him not to do that - not just in Thailand, but in this part of the world, in general.

5 hours ago, bkkgriz said:

Same could be said for BMW drivers as well.

I thought these 'BMW drivers' moved on to Audis already, and that leaves BMWs to be cool cars once again?

32 minutes ago, free123 said:

i never went to pattaya...but an old expat fellow country man and an expert in this matter told me he was around first time in the 1970 tes...at that time the us army developed pattaya as a recreation resort for the vietnam soldiers ... so ladys come in from all around the country to make money...and since that time the sex business continioud ...once the soldiers was gone the tourists came ...he said on the size of a soccer field an estimate of 15000 prostitutes are working in small street bars out in the open....easy to pick a woman any time of the day...he spend years  there and a small fortune .. i personally am not into hookers but many are ....so whats the fuzz about it ??????? i think everything else that what is there now startet out with the sex industrie and centers around it...its the magnet that brought foreign wealth into thailand...the isaan developed because of the money from foreign man...there is a university study about it and it all comes back to the hookers in pattaya like it or not....

If I may slightly digress, I have been to Pattaya a few times, mostly under the invitation of a friend who's a local there. I've been taken to some really nice eateries, beaches and tucked-away resorts, frequented mainly by locals. I have been to the 'main' part of Pattaya - I assume that's the main road along the beach and the walking street at the end of it - once, and I have to say, it's not really my thing. Didn't have any bad experiences, for the record, and I won't judge anyone who likes that place. To each his/her own, I guess. Anyway, back to the topic - my point, and opinion is, the authorities should be more proactive and strategic in handling this issue, rather than having their panties in knots over what is essentially pure drivel by a trash-press. I mean, let's face it, there are many 'sex capitals' around the world, and while Pattaya may be one of them, I doubt it is the number one in the world (At this junctue, I have to qualify that statement as purely anecdotal and not based on any hard facts - an opinion, if you must. This is to avoid being descended upon by trigger-happy cyber/keyboard warriors who can't read beyond the first few words or can't be arsed to understand anything in a post)..

Anyway, the authorities could consider keeping the boys' town where it is, but regulate it properly (I know enforcement is a very weak link here, but let's try) and at the same time, position and promote Pattaya in a different way - I don't know what, I don't go often enough to comment, but I am sure there are nice things to do and places to eat, visit and stay in Pattaya without being anywhere near even the shadow of the 'sex capital'. I think the authorities are looking for a quick fix, but they should realise that even if they close every single go-go bar in the city - for good, I might add - the image will not go away overnight. Just like proper advertising and communications, it takes time to position and build and sell an image. Instead of trying to rush for an overnight change, a more strategic and organised approach will be more beneficial in the mid to longer term.

On 2/25/2017 at 2:00 PM, pegman said:

50cm, is that possible? Should it not read 50ml?

Depth is usually measured in centimetre or metre, or inch or feet. Milimetre (ml) is used to measure volume, and I think it's quite impossible to measure flood by volume and even if that is possible, I doubt people can relate to that as easily as they can to cm/m/in/ft.

22 minutes ago, Cirencester said:

Those days are over and limited. Police are NO longer in control. What is about some of you who cannot grasp that simple fact. There are no elections on any horizon. This is a miltary state for years to come. Accept it rather than burying your heads

So be it. Brown clown, military, whatever. I was merely opining. That means giving an opinion. Doesn't mean I 'miss the good old times', nowhere in my comments did I wish for those days to come back. Honestly, and for your info, I don't care if they do go back to 'business as usual', or if Pattaya becomes the holiest city in the world. Go preach elsewhere, would you?

Thai boys can't solve any problems without a gun or worse, shooting someone? Pathetic.

So Thai people are not allowed to help tourists. In short, Thais cannot be courteous without a permit? If that's the case, then I have lots of reports to make, because the girls in my office are always recommending me to go this cafe and that restaurant, and sometimes we even go in a small group so they can show me some new places. And the places we go to are most local, so no English menu etc. They have to go through the menu, sometimes item by item, with me. Gosh, I've been working with a bunch of 'illegal workers', it seems. Shame on me.

Not difficult to get a temp permit especially for a special event like a 'Thai food' event. The event will be immensely more successful if the vendors are actual Thais, and not hired immigrants.

Business as usual after the 'international' attention is gone. What are the brown clowns going to survive on without the tea money from the bar owners and such? They can't, and are completely incapable of, doing any real work to earn anything. Give it a few more weeks, me thinks.

13 hours ago, petedk said:

Why doesn't he open a Twitter account?

 

It works for Trump.

I seriously don't think he knows how to use Twitter. Or knows what it is. Probably haven't even heard of it.

Arai? Tuh-wit-tuh ker arai ah...???

A mate, but he doesn't know his last name... and why didn't the brown clowns breathalyse the git on the spot? He was asking for it anyway.

Pitch this story to The Mirror, and then watch the stupid idiots scramble over each other to clean up the crap.

Wait for the 'wai' and the temple-monk routine. Then all is forgiven.

Snide remarks aside, I'm wondering about the lane the girl was in - was that a bicycle/motorcycle lane? If not, then she shouldn't have been riding 'inside' traffic, for fear of what actually happened. I don't ride, but I hang around bikers enough to know that one of the defensive riding techniques call for bikers to take up as much space on the road as a car, and that means riding in the middle of the lane, or three-quarter of the lane. This is to avoid drivers squeezing pass bikers, which they would normally do if the riders rode too close to the inside and the drivers think there is enough space to squeeze past. Taking up the road like a car will force drivers to overtake the bikes as the would overtake a car and give it a wide berth. And if it comes to a squeeze, at least the biker has room to maneuvre on his/her left.

Back to this video - even if she had right of way i.e. she was in a gazetted bicycle/motorcycle lane, she should still have slowed down a little in anticipation of gits like Sakchai, in that kind of situation. Then again, it's easy for us armchair judges to say, huh? Honestly glad she survived the accident.

And these idiots are getting more 'advanced' weapons soon. Crickey...

They shouldn't have stopped him and should have left him to go back and carried out what he claimed he wanted to do. Well, the rest could've followed and helped send him on his merry way, if he's found to have 'second thoughts'.

For some inexplicable reasons, and despite so many international attention on so many matters by the world's media, Thailand only reacts to the piece-of-rag Mirror. Still, all is not lost. Let's look at the positive side. We should start selling/pitching stories to the Mirror with headlines like "Thailand - Road Accident Capital of the World", "Thailand - Tourist Scam Capital of the World", "Thailand - The Most Corrupt Police Force in the World etc. etc. etc. Sit back, and enjoy how the clowns stumble over one another trying to 'clean up'. Who knows, it may actually work and this unlikely scenario may actually be the key to rid Thailand of the corrupt brown clowns, make the roads safer and practice equality amongst tourists.

10 hours ago, stevenl said:

Why always the insults when somebody does not agree with an opinion?

Ain't it? Many forumners here have a level of intelligence that only allows them to throw insults and make derogatory remarks when they don't agree with opinions of fellow members. They haven't reached the level where they can engage in a diplomatic and matured discussion. Most of these hide behind the annonymity of their screen names, masking their meekness and weakness and try to act like they are 10x bigger than they actually are.

Back to the discussion - you're right, I don't think NK is a danger to the US. Not directly. But NK still needs to be watched because, like it or not, SheungWan does have a point - it's not what NK can do to the US directly, it's what it does that may affect the US in some way.

On 2/22/2017 at 0:51 PM, darksidedog said:

" There were also concerns from the Tourism and Sports Ministry that the scheme could severely damage the tourism industry. "

 

Common sense finally prevailing. It was a pointless exercise anyway. Any person intending to do something dodgy would simply get a Thai to buy a SIM for them, so easily circumvented.

Very little gain for much expense and inconvenience.

I was a little surprised such a dumb idea got off the ground in the first place.

But this is how it works here. Dumb and very stupid ideas get off the ground daily, and with such frequency that soon, they need to draft an arrival and departure schedule for these dumb and stupid ideas!

People who run Thailand are on a roll, showing off their stupidity every single day. This is yet another 'oh, no, we Thai people no do like this' bullshit.

Every beginning of the month, a 'vendor' takes up one of my office's conference room, puts on the table the latest Hollywood movies and series and for the next hour or so, the whole office's employees will flock to that room picking up the latest titles. If you gave a list to the vendor, he will even try to get you some classic titles! There are no tourists in my office. Similarly, another vendor on the sidewalk in front of my office building gets his business mainly from Thai office workers in the vicinity.

Additionally, do the idiotic authorities know how many of the city's girls are wearing fake Gucci brooches and earrings and lugging around fake Gucci and LV bags, in their quest to look oh-so-hiso?

But no, it's the fault of tourists.

4 hours ago, seancbk said:

Jesus people get over yourselves.

These are just photos, with a theme, for the couple to have some fun pictures to look back on.

They look like a nice couple, middle class, professionals who have a sense of humour.

 

 

Much better than the usual (and in my own opinion boring) tuxedo/white-gown with Eiffel Tower in a fake, studio backdrop, for example.

The picture below is my own, please feel free to share it far and wide. Red circles show different prices - the one on the left is 'Personal Fee' also known as Thai or local price. The one of the right is 'Foreigner Fee'. As you can see, the difference is 1,000 percent. Not 100, but ONE THOUSAND percent.

Keep this up, Thailand. Soon, your tourism industry will look like a dried prune, all shrivelled and not even a shadow of its former self, all because of your short-sighted greed. As Jonmarleesco posted above, ignore the power of social media at your own peril.