Prbkk

99% of people enjoy Thai food because what they get is full of sugar, posing as healthy. Thai food can be great but only when the natural flavours are allowed to shine rather than being masked by sugar or msg or both.

4 hours ago, tryasimight said:

I've tried to buy booze at duty free but when they see my Oz passport and ask where I am going they refuse to sell it to me. They know the rules. It's never got to the stage of being confiscated.

Only after many, many complaints ,some of them official, and thousands of bottles confiscated over a number of years. 

It's so funny how the junta-apologists on this forum get a fresh wind when anything to do with PTP comes up. Many of those posters were proclaiming the current govt to be the "best ever" just days after the coup , presumably on the basis of cleaning up some beach-chair scams and promises to end corruption. While they don't go on with that line so much these days , (embarrassed into silence?),a few still leap back onto the perch to parrot the old furphies about PTP in stories like this.

1 hour ago, ratcatcher said:

"Rumors abound that there is a racket at airports to sell confiscated items."

 

And it would seem, by all accounts, that these rumors are well justified. 

Yes, given that they mysteriously appeared on eBay about 2 years ago. 

Hope the journo and his colleagues redouble their efforts to investigate and are not intimidated into inaction. These old guard hisos are utterly clueless when it comes to the new reality of social media. 20 years ago the implied threat would have worked but today it just gets them in a deeper hole.

2 hours ago, bheard said:

 

There's a lot of rubbish here about fighting fair or not etc. Thai culture is not the same as farang culture. You want to live here then accept that "fair" in farang is not "fair" in Thai. It's different!
And talking of "fair". What will those people talking "fair" be saying the about the US (pop 325m) in relation to a fight with N.Korea (pop 24m)? (Not that I support that idiot, he should be exterminated).

 

In that case, in the extremely unfortunate event that you get stomped while unconscious on the ground, unable to muster any defence, you will come back here to tell us : "it's ok, just a cultural difference, I'll be out of hospital in 3 months". Very forgiving of you.

4 minutes ago, Happy enough said:

no culture difference. the youth respect the elderly here too and bashing the elderly or anyone for that matter is seen as a horrible crime depending on what they did to deserve it

To be sure, it's only a tiny, tiny minority that engages in this behaviour ( similarly an infinitesimally small number of farang would seek to take them on in such a foolhardy manner).

That said , these thugs need to be dealt with; one day they WILL kill someone.

1 hour ago, hobz said:

Yeah, it's very troubling if it was targeted to the head ,,, looks more like chest to me ... anyway,,, stomping someones head when they are unconscious i would argue is attempted murder. .. but it's easy to plead ignorance "usually people dont die from kicks to the head.. if i wanted to kill him i would choke him out and hold the choke for 5 minutes ... " 

Maybe I'm just 'old school' ...don't like violence but if it has to happen at least let there be some elements of Marquis of Queensberry. This stomping business is unbelievable: a genuine and utterly repulsive savagery about it, overlaid with the absolute cowardice of doing it to someone who is incapacitated. We saw it with the British oldies in Hua Hin, let's hope these thugs get a similar sentence. I'd give them 5 years for GBH or reckless, wanton endangerment. Despicable scum.

I wonder if the hypertension is the same if the marijuana is vaped ( an extraction in liquid form) or if this  relates only to the smoked product?

13 hours ago, Dipterocarp said:

 

The parallels are very obvious. 

Soi 11 is already very "Indian". They are pretty good tourists and don't cause much trouble. Thailand could do a lot worse. Yes, they cheat at cricket but otherwise harmless.

3 minutes ago, Baerboxer said:

 

I asked my missus the same. She said we farang worry too much about the the future - which might never happen!

 

Apparently they learn in Buddhist teachings to think about now, the present. Not dwell in the past, which you can't change, nor anticipate the future which might to different to how you imagine.

 

That's fine, but learning from the past, or considering the future and preparing for eventualities - nah, too much like hard work. And she has a Master's in Education!

Yes but they managed to plan the automated gates for Thai citizens; also manage to get the staffing levels right on the manned Thai citizens outbound booths ( meaning a Thai never waits more than 2 minutes in or out). Perhaps the cultural reluctance to plan only pertains to those areas affecting non-Thais?

5 hours ago, midasthailand said:

I worked at the previous embassy on South Sathorn Road which was a lovely building that seemed to fit into the environment very well. This new monstrosity looks more like Stalag 13 than an Embassy! 

 

BTW when I worked there it was Australia's 4th largest Embassy world wide, mainly due to the AUSAID, DEETYA and AFP pesrsonnel.

That is a great building and worked well as an embassy until it became surrounded and overlooked by many high-rise office towers and condos. The new one looks like a fortress but I guess that's what embassies have to be these days.

3 hours ago, Artisi said:

What, copy farang system, farang doesn't understand  anything - it not work - Thailand different.

Yes and more significantly , an automated system doesn't involve thousands of acolytes and toadies all at the beck and call of the bigwigs. 

11 minutes ago, Thian said:

Why do the Thai passport checkmachines need an assistant anyway?

 

The automatic ones in Europe don't have any assistant, they work slow though.

The last time I went through near those Thai auto gates, THREE attendants were there to assist THAI passengers ( 1 asleep, 1 working her mobile furiously..looked like candy crush, the third staring vacantly), no-one needed help. Some kind of job creation scheme was my first thought.

While the BKK experience is less than stellar, I'm not sentimental over DMK...recalling the extraordinary jams to/from, really from late seventies right through to the time BKK opened. Two hours from DMK to town was pretty average, could be three on a bad day/peak. Outbound was a nightmare at anytime after 6.30am. Add to that the slow immigration and it was usually a frustrating experience. 

At least now the traffic flow has improved.

Fuss about nothing. Germans would be better off to focus on real threats, eg, the lunatics attacking people on trains, in stations,in shops, at concerts, inmarkets, on sidewalks...rather than some ill-informed , ignorant tourists. 

Germany managed to miss the real threats from Nazi-revivalists, like the gang inMunich murdering people for TEN YEARS before the police got lucky and wished-up.

15 minutes ago, Bluespunk said:

Better still fly business class and avoid flights that land at DM. . 

BKK is also very slow and poorly managed, in and out. Nothing like 4 hours though.

Highest fees and taxes on tickets in the region. Where does the money go? Clearly not an adequate staffing. Scandalous and an international embarrassment for Thailand and for Madame Tourism in particular.

At 1.00am and a drunk is waving a pistol? Was he being served alcohol? Don't alcohol venues have to close by then? How did he get in with a gun? Does the establishment have a "responsible serving " of alcohol policy? Or is the the same as most venues, ie, we will serve you as long as you can pay, until you are unconscious? These incidents will continue to be ' grist for the mill' for the wowsers/zealots who would love to close them all down.

11 minutes ago, Peterw42 said:

The departure cards used to ask if leaving temporary or permanent, not sure why anyone would have answered permanently as that would have flagged you (as a non resident) to the tax office for sure.

Indeed. It's pretty obvious from when there is a disaster in some part of the world and the government is able to say virtually instantly how many Australians are currently in that country.

And someone suggested that "they" ( ATO/Pension Office) will only know you are outside Australia " if you tell them". No, " they" know exactly where you are, and how long you are out of the country. Sure, they scrapped the immigration forms but the system still monitors your every movement, courtesy of the API system ( with which all airlines abide).

3 hours ago, Peterw42 said:

Yes thats right about the house, it used to be one of the questions the ATO calculator asked. 

 

 

The reality is that if one owns a house/condo in Thailand as well as one in Australia, then the pension is virtually impossible. 

I'm a self-funded retiree ( refugee?) and get a fat Zero from Canberra. That's ok, I still dabble in a bit of work. I wouldn't care much ( and don't care a lot) were it not for the low-life, scum-bag, rotten to the core politicians whose snouts to the trough approach to their own benefits is both bipartisan and universally acknowledged. Vile rotters one and all.

It would be a pity if innocents get caught up in this contemplated change: it is intended to curb Chinese investment in real estate, specifically Sydney and Melbourne. Investors have been buying , leaving the properties vacant and then selling a year or two later for a 20% gain.( not small change on properties worth 1-2 million or more, although stamp duty is 70,000 or more on the purchase price and agent's  commission at least 30,000 on the sale).

I've long believed that one of the true measures of a man is how he treats the 'little people' , the cleaners, security guards, shop assistants, transport staff, etc. One would have to say...through observation and stories such as this...that Thai hiso come up way short. Karma is on the way though.