JimsKnight

Do you mind lady-guests coming in?

Or is that a problem?

In what way is this "utter crap"?

In this way:

In Singapore the loot is processed (sometimes sent to HongKong/China)

Singapore has no natural resources, but it is a land of skilled traders. What are they trading...... stolen booty.

I'm no big fan of Sing but every time I've sailed through there I've been impressed by the honesty of the officials, not to mention how busy the shipping is in the area. They have more than enough legitimate trade than to be involved in piracy. The intel used by pirates comes from corporate espionage and not from any government sources. As you and I both agree Indonesia is a very different story.

100% agree.

In all aspects.

The vast majority of Piracy, or covardly armed robbery as I rather want to call it, in Malacca strait is done by contracts.

Along the Somalia coast they operate as the opportunities appear.

The robberies in the Malacca Strait have normally local authorities behind it. Especially Harbour authorities and "super cargo" Officers in the various ports.

The robbers normally know what container they want (and are looking for). Sometimes they even have the serial number and location of the container. It might be 5000 new Nokia phones inside. Easy to offload and sell.

They sometimes know when the ship has received cash via the ship's agent, which also involves the harbour authorities in that particular port.

Normally, in the Malacca Strait, the robbers set sail (speed) towards the Indonesia side of the strait, and then disapears between the islands.

Extremely few (if any) ships sail around with armed guards. the reason is because the ships these days are sailing with a so called absolute minimum safety manning, in order to save money for the Companies.

Hired guards will always create a problem as they will need to have a visa for all the countries the ship will visit.

They need to be on the Crew manifest, which is sent to the various agents in the future ports (and countries).

Having weapons onboard is another hazzle. The weapons must be cleared through customs, harbour authorities, etc, in each and every port the ship calls. Even if the ship calls many ports in the same country. same long procedure each time.

The ships normally sail with all deck lights on, with loaded (pressurized) fire hoses stretched on various locations, and with some of the crew members as guards on the decks.

All ships receive constantly updates from the various Centres that handle the security in the particluar area.

In this region that is in KL, Malaysia.

When transiting between Africa and the Arabian penisula, all ships can cooperate and get in touch with a particular ship that is assigned to handle the security communicatons in that region.

This is done by sending regular e-mails with the ship's position to this contact.

There is always one "Duty officer" on call. He normally sits in a center in Dubai.

Finally, about Singapore.

I have called Singapore 100s of times in my career.

Without a doubt the most professional country, pilots, agents, authorities, etc in the entire region.

This stuff I know.

Disagree, with a seamans book visa entanglements are miniscule.

A lot of ships carry firearms, some even have sonic devices that blow eardrums.

But, like you say the companies are souless corporations often and won't spend the cash

The firehose method is pathetic and more needs to be done.

Self-reliance is key.

This threads getting pretty raunchy!

Much better than the usual TV standard

Ta, you are fast becoming the resident nanny of TV

Why not wrap all of us up in cotton wool and tuck us into bed while your at it.

Jeez, the alarmists are out in force tonight!!

Bombs, guns and bullets, thats the nature of the business with the PAD it seems.

I might take a look in the morning...

I've got some great little videos I want to share out but the forum doesn't have a LiveVideo Tag (unlike YouTube and Google) for direct streaming of video.

Can the support gurus come up them please?

LiveVideo is a great server and a lot better (IMO).

With Youtube being very haphazard to upload and use it would be a real boon if livestreaming was done for LiveVideo as well.

Thanks

Jim

Caught this little gem whilst on the move down Silom.

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He gets pretty good toward the middle and end

For some reason I'm struggling to edit videos on Youtube and in general its causing problems. I'm using Firefox (Explorer is just not even working with youtube for some reason.)

It's not the slowness thats bothing me, but the fact it just hangs and freezes.

Deleting the cookie eliminates the problem but then you have to sign in again. And then the same problem repeats itself!

Anyone had similar faults and probs with this??

I'll re-ask that question - Can Thai Visa directly stream LiveVideo videos??? (www.livevideo.com)

Yes, the EU is the biggest wastage for sure, started by the continentals, FOR the continentals!

RAZ, yes I was slightly hasty in my words. Subsitute 'Commie Dreamland' on my last post for 'Socialistic'

I believe in a "meritocracy".

"Those of great worth shall get great reward"

(paraphrasing the words of Oswald Mosley)

Are you going to call me fascist now?

RAZZ

hehehe. You can be whatever you want to be Mr Razzle, this is the internet and TV and we can be anything and say anything within reason.

Meritocracy, not my bag really. Good in theory, worked back in the days of sending a gunboat out and having a mighty empire.

But in these days of the UN controlling everything not a great one.

With the EU holding us back we're a bit stuck. Unless you count reward as being forced to rely on Brussells all the time.

Those of great worth chucking tons of cash into Brussells and getting fck all back apart from 'You do this, obey our daft rules all the time'

Socialism is the cornerstone of it, control over sovereign nations.

One reason why the Swiss and a fair few of the Nordic countries keep out of it.

The £ will rise again though, it's just a question of when.

Intriguing stuff Jay Jay!

Nope, nothing stolen while renting, thank God!

<touches wood>

They probably took the stuff from luggage compartment rather than from "carry on", people would have no idea what was going on.

Agreed, one of the reasons I prefer to bike all over Thailand, it might be a bit slower on long distance, but you are master of your own destiny.

Nevertheless the story is a shocker.

Stories like this confirm that Thais are getting desperate.

I'd be interested to know exactly how much compensation was given, as usually only cash is covered and the items may need to be claimed back via travel insurance.

Just been to Red Baron Bangok today and they say the price of the Ninja has jumped up to 150,000 baht!

Maybe just being hasty in his wordage

Hi

We are leaving heathrow on Saturday 6th as we are emigrating to Vietnam,however,our flight from Belfast gets in on Friday evening and we dont leave until 10.30 Saturday morning.Now,we wont obviously be able to check in until Saturday and thus i was wondering if we can sleep anywhere in the airport,ie on a seat!!Its just i dont want to stay in a hoel and get taxis blah blah unless i have too.Any advise as always greatly appreciated

Do it, the homeless pretty much use the airports as free digs when they are near airports and need a kip anyway

Don' think it has really - Thailand has always been a bit of budget destination for most visitors hasn't it?

The votes say differently. For expats it isn't a destination, it is where we live. It really depends on your personal money situation and perhaps the situation of your home country if you are still tied to it economically, of course. I do think that Thailand so far has not been hit YET as badly as the countries where the meltdown started. The banks haven't failed here, there is no rash of foreclosures, though the stock market is down, there have been job losses and I think the writing is on the wall for softer spending from tourists (even the Russians are hurting now). The biggest problem here still seems to be political instability.

Good poll Jingles,

For me Its a strange luxury, I have lots more cash than before, but the £ is piss poor, interest rates are down and I no longer come to LOS as a tourist anymore.

So its like, yes I can spend spend but then I'd be running the engine and draining the tank too quick with few reservoirs around to replenish the funds as easy.

I've noticed that on the night 'scene' there are far less singletons and many more couples. They spend a lot less and usually leave after one drink and go home.

So there is difference on that one.

Hotels have fewer people in them too.

Things are bit more expensive (but not by much) so thats another crank on the rack.

Lower interest rates mean nest eggs aren't laying golden eggs and crucially for the contruction industry (which a lot of my buddies are into) there are no guarentees and work is drying up.

So I'd say that unless they are lucky enough to be in solid work out in Thailand then times are a lot tougher.

Pattaya & the Islands are the few places where you get semi-Mr Bigs and the farang who likes to think they are Mr Big.

Places that are fairly small and concentrated enough for them to thrive off other farangs like parasites and hand out the goodies is key with the whole scene.

Everywhere else in Thailand tends to the boozy bullshitters and plastic gangsters who have a bob or two and try re-inventing themselves.

I've only known one 'player' and that was a crazy, but strangely likeable Norwegian chap who was part of biker gang back in Norway.

Yes the young impressionable lads and lasses are prime targets for these folks. According to his confident (who I worked and learned of this from) there were some who he'd set up as decoy mules and were doing time in the Hilton as a result of this. So it does go on.

According to the Norwegian fella he actually did stress that the Russians in Pattaya were the nastiest ones to be wary of. He in fact claimed to of fled from them in Pattaya because they tried squeezing him for serious money.

It's not a world you want to get mixed up in nor is it worth getting mixed up in. The glamour is like a thin layer of ice above freezing waters.

The people who wind up in the brown stuff tend to of done a deal with the devil so to speak and the 'small print' gets them in the end more often than not.

Indeed the Mr Bigs tend to be end up there too, one way or another anyway so let go of the hatchet man. Thailand is a lot more fun not worrying about them.

Question.

Is the modern Japanese Superbike suitable for Thailand's roads?

Answer: Thai roads are not suitable for a Japanese superbike.

A disgrace for the most part.

They are if you live in a town or village with decent roads

It would be nice if they let sportsbikes go on the toll roads too

Yes, the EU is the biggest wastage for sure, started by the continentals, FOR the continentals!

RAZ, yes I was slightly hasty in my words. Subsitute 'Commie Dreamland' on my last post for 'Socialistic'

Yeah, but Africa is Africa and Asia is Asia.

Different races have different styles.

All out warfare between PAD and the PPP parties, for example is very unlikely as it's not 'thai' way to do this

Grim, but that's the border refugee life for you.

Ive got to disagree that the British are too work shy to do such sh7tty work, ive lived in mining village as a boy and have family members not work since theyve closed the pits and never will again.

There are plenty of working class British people that do sh7tty dirty jobs on building sites, oil rigs in hospitals, etc, etc...........

The thing is they are not going to do it for 7 pound an hour, when they can stack shelves in Tesco for that much.

Pay people a good living wage ie 15gbp an hour + , so they can afford a family, simple house and a new car every few years and theyll do anything.

Bring in millions of East Europeans to work for the 7 GBP an hour then they wont, i know i wouldnt work for 7gbp an hour doing this kind of manual work or on a uilding site, id stay on the sick as anyone with a little sense would. You think any roughnecks would work for miimum wage?

As for using the coal, they convert it to gas when it is still underground, dont know too much about it but its all to do with not having government approval to do it, also a few coal mines were reopening recently due to the high cost of coal.

I wonder what the UK will do when it cant import cheap foreign labour any longer.

With all due respect the attitude that people are "owed" a living is what got the UK into the mess it's in.

If £7 an hour is good enough for a Pole, Estonian, Russian etc Why can't a Brit work for the same amount? I'll tell you why...As a nation we've become bone idle and rely on the welfare state too much..

Where in the careers book did it list "full-time Mum" as a career choice?

RAZZ

Well having lived in Thailand long enough to see the Thais get plenty of work and have protected status for jobs I think its high time other countries followed suit.

RAZZZ, you must live in some commie dreamland to believe people in a capitalist society will try and live a life on such meagre coin.

The Poles and suchlike SEND the money they make home, and go home to reap the benefits of living in a CHEAPER country.

Some people really are thick and need to think more on this.

The cost of living in the UK is a high as Norway.

Actually trying to fend for yourself away from a family unit is becoming impossible on such pittance wages.

Unlike them, people who are born and bred in the UK don't have Eastern Europe to scurry away to for spending their hard-earned.

Yes some come to LOS but not every family can do that, certainly not when raising a family etc.

My wife is from Nakhon Sawan, met her 34 years ago in Belgium. Was planning to move to Nakhon Sawan because its a very nice town, and I always feel very much at home there. More a Chinese than Thai town. But we have to change our plan because its impossible to find an western style appartment, because we don't like a house,thats why move to BKK (Pakred)in a few months after I'm retired.

Henry, you're not looking hard enough cause there are ''western'' style apartments there.

When I first arrived in LOS many many moons ago I got talking to this chatty security guy at the Lucky Mansion down in Phuket.

It turns out that he was a former 'beach boy' doing the parachuting gliding/speedboat thing in Pattaya when he was younger.

He was telling me all about his one time where he deflowered / (date raped??!) a hi-so girl after drugging her first (ya ba i think).

He then was lucky not to be killed when her father (wondering where she was all night) interrogated his daughter and hunted this guy down with 2 of his henchmen and the said beach-boy saw them coming and fled to on a waterski out to sea until the coast was clear!! He was insistant that he was going to be killed and dumped in the middle of nowhere!

I kind of agreed with the fathers position on that one.

But he seemed to certainly consider it a badge of honour in 'getting' a hi-so girl into the sack. I tried to extract the exact nature of why he'd drugged her for an answer but he wouldn't give a straight answer. I think he truly believes its OK to drug girls to get them into bed. A complete lack of empathy is what I sensed from him.

He ended up returning to Pattaya beach later and fleeing to Phuket on the bus with nothing except 1500 baht in his pocket and the clothes he stood up in.

getting thrown in jail.

The scary thing is he still admitted to sleeping with Thai women at the massage brothel despite having a wife and two kids in Phuket!!

He then had the nerve to ask if I'd pay for him to come drinking and whoring there!!

Parasitic doesn't even come close, he got told to take a hike!

He looked in bad shape and circumstances, I think he deserved it.

I find in life Fate has a certain way of swinging around like a wrecking ball and knocking such characters into the middle of next century

One piece of advice - Rent rent rent

Well buddhism is a philosophy first and a religion second (if at all) so celebrate away