JimsKnight

That's right.

When people harp on about foreign companies having 'ownership' its a very loose term indeed.

The companies OPERATE under the watchful eye of the PTB. Believe me it doesn't take much for the government to step in and basically nationalise an industry, foreign 'owned' or not.

Right now it doesn't need to with energy, but if it did (if TSHTF for example) it would.

I'm hoping the Maijo, when he started this thread, aimed it as a pisstake, otherwise he could well be considered the leader of the temperence movement on ThaiVisa!

A fair post spidey.

The coal in the ground is good coal, and many Brits in the coal areas know this.

In the NE England area a lot of it isn't easily accessible now. All the water needs pumping out (not a serious challenge)

The key is, and this is just my theory, that the PTB want to use up other peoples resources more than our own, so when the sht really hits the fan, we can fend for ourselves a bit better.

and the £ hopefully going up with it as well

I hope someone comes up with as answer quickly, otherwise I wont be able to sleep toinight.

Absolutely I'm almost shaking at the keyboard at such drama and high-tension shaking TV to the core!

erm, this is very likely Maijo's retaliation thread by all accounts against the one about thais with babys and kids on the back of motorbikes, don't let it wind you up too much folks.

For me these times are not a celebration, more of a realised observation.

Things area cheaper in some ways, but the lack of work also hits too so its a different era we're entering now somewhat.

Sometimes bad dudes just show up man out of the blue sometimes. This can happen anywhere.

I was in some completely off-the-track-bar down on the canal road south Chiang Mai one dark night.

I was really cool and low-key open-air bar, in the middle of nowhere, countryside, just chillin' and chatting with this one thai guy who worked as a taxi-driver.

He was alright but warned me that the area was dangerous for bikers on their own.

I pressed him for more on this and all he'd stress was the bike theft and robbery were common after dark outside the city by criminals on bikes.

I lot of me thought he was just acting out of over-caution.

He leaves and about 5 minutes later up shows some of the low-life rotten thai people I'd ever seen in a long time. Not tramps or beggars, but drink-fuelled morons. Not only that but I don't think they liked white people being at 'their' bar i guess. Maybe it's what he was warning me about?

Anyway I'm sitting there and you could just feel the atmosphere become pretty evil. Long stares and mutterings between each other, punctuated with farang all that sht.

But not friendly or 'join us at the table'. It was more a latent 'us against him' tone.

I didn't look bad at them, I smiled as they got off their bikes in friendship, no good just evil stares back.

Their mindset (I reckon looking back) was 'Farang coming to our bar?' ' He must pay!'

That's right their 'leader' kept talking in northern dialect but puncutating it with 'Money, money, you give us money for whiskey!'

This was no joke about though, the once chatty and friendly older lady had gone deathly quiet and looking the other way.

They kept at their table thankfully and I ignored them for about a minute, smiles still did no good, but, realising that there would be no end to the verbal 'abuse' I just paid for my drink and left without further incident.

This was about a year ago and it opened my eyes a bit.

The above story may seem a little crazy but that's how things happen in real life, truth really is stranger than fiction, especially in Thailand

Sometimes you can be at the wrong place, it happens unfortunately.

I think I was lucky that these bozo's where not quite drink fuelled and ready for a fight.

So the OP has, unfortunately been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Think of it as a spear, a bunch of discs with holes cut in them rotating around and around and every so often a set holes will meet.

If all the discs holes meet and the spear is thrust then something gets through thats when the bad sht happens.

I think you, OP, had a night-time meeting with the discs and spear, unfortunately.

Hope you recover fully mate.

Thats last post is ridiculous. American baby boomers were ALREADY on average way behind on saving for retirement and remember most have NO pensions. This makes things very grim for older people. Looking at today's gas price break is so incredibly short sighted its hardly worth replying to, sorry.

Then Americas Baby Boomers are gonna have to start putting the Boom back into baby and get working again!

Tough words but its what will likely have to happen.

Already in the UK there is talk of the retirement age being cranked up to 70 years old...

Bold words indeed Mr Chiang!

But I think you might be right...

Just a little stroll I took through Chinatowns food market.

It was pretty shoulder to shoulder in places but ok nonetheless

http://www.livevideo.com/video/OnTheRoadTh...atown-walk.aspx

Bold words indeed from you Mr Arthur, however I can answer them as I expected such a question.

Yes I could of been incredibly boring and hired a pick-up with crew to drive all the way south from Chiang Mai spending xxxx baht on digs, food and rest in each city with the wind in my hair, humming a tune.

This did not happen though I prefer to travel under my own destiny thanky

Without being too blunt, there was a massive sht storm between two rival forums a while back and my websites became entangled into it (a long story).

It got to the point where personal addresses, major slanderment (on both sides) erupted using personal web images of fathers with sons and other things were being published and used as blackmail.

It nearly escalated to violence and hired thugs being brought in before one side backed down.

It's all calm now.

However I'm not a fool and like to play things fairly anonymously facewise as I've seen what can happen when images put on-line fall into waiting hands.

You'll see the bike, in action, once I get my helmet cam set up in about a weeks time

I can't wait

If you REALLY want to see my bike beforehand just go to the videos section and its on the LiveVideo main page for OnTheRoadThailand.

That should be interesting, It's a shame I'll be down south when that kicks off.

Hopefully someone will be some footage and pics though

I agree, 6 months in just Bangkok will get very tiresome for most, he needs to rove and travel about. The border areas are always interesting I find for newbies and grizzled farang alike.

There is an almost 'child-like' way / appeal to these clips which may garner interest as well.

Farang,

First the bad,

The clips look ragged, you need to sort that out.

You seem to give out the impression that you're just a tourist getting taken from place to place with a guide in tow so really this isn't going to appeal to TV posters.

This isn't a bad thing though, it just means you're only going to hit the surface level more than people who've been around a bit.

But your hearts in the right place and you're quite funny in a quirky kind of way

I hate to use Youtube as the encoding gives a middle of the road clip a poorer quality.

LiveVideo and possibly Google Video is a better choice.

I use LiveVideo, they usually allow low and high quality viewing modes.

A one-man-band type operation has a degree of appeal so this makes it more 'take note and watch' than the 'pro' stuff.

However the website url is pretty decent and the layout is fresh so he can improve on what he's done so far.

My first video attempts were (and still are a bit) amateur so keep rolling and getting footage, try and aim for the rawness but tidy things up a bit.

I always like to carry around a recording device in Thailand, you never know when something is gonna happen right in front of you and <WHAM> you need to rip out your camera and start getting shots and video rolling

I highly reccommend Sony Vegas for video editing.

You can really make sloppy footage into a half-decent clip at best to impress most people if you learn it right.

Think of using still camera images / graphics too and sprinkling them in (use a video editor for this) for good transitions and introductions.

You don't have to use your own voice, in fact, I never do as I can usually use text and other mediums to tell the story

Good luck and hope to see the next sections soon

5/10

With housing prices coming down and prices on stocks coming down and prices for oil coming down why is everyone so worried? Do you really like paying more for everything? There was a time when people saved their money and enjoyed low prices when they spent it!

Sounds like you are talking about a deflation scenario, which is about as bad an economic symptom as you can imagine. Sure if you are one of the lucky ones with cash to spend, lower prices are good for you. But not good for the bigger picture. Consider people's retirement accounts which may have lost half their value, etc. etc.

Nobody's retirement account lost half its value. That's what people need to realize. They've entirely lost the concept of "value". The inflated numbers associated with real estate and stocks had little to do with their "value". They mistook the concept of value with a pyramid scheme. It's time to get back to basics and low prices are a wonderful place to start.

Siams hitting the sweet spot here, only too many of the sheep bought into the bricks and mortar ivory-tower complex.

For us that have actually fixed the roof while the sun is shining certainly don't loose sleep over the lack of credit or crappy stockmarket outlook

Just watch the house come crashing down and look on as they (try) to get it going again.

It's all a big cycle and that's what people didn't understand when it all started last year.

thais do not feed their kids a healthy diet.. they feed them a TERRIBLE diet.. a diet TERRIBLE for brain development.. much worse than the american working class diet.

Rice does nothing good for your body, its just a filler. it should be a side dish, not the main dish with some half or a gram of chicken.

Uncooked stuff from farm markets.. chicken always red, meet always comes from TERRIBLE places on animal's body.. eating hearts and shit.. eyeballs. nothing good there.. no good lean proteins.

overeating of seafood, most coming from contaminated water.

Tons of junkfood.. KFC especialy.

Most of the chicken they eat is usualy fried and 90% of it is BONES..

Chiken feet.. dear god.

The noodles soups.. well they're not that bad but its far from a very nutritious meal.

Eggs from market and 7/11.. very unfresh

foodstand on side of street all filled with ants and sometimes rat poo/cockroaches.

they eat insects.. the dirty ones too... it's fine to eat here and there for fun but dear god man. eating fking cockroaches? what the hel_l..

list could go on for 10pages.. thai kdis are fed total crap in most cases.. Rice is an abobination in poor countries, they all think it's good for them because they feel full.. but it just kills their body slowly and makes them dumber because they dont know they have to mix it ALOT of meal/pastas/protein vegetables.

The Troll (a daft one at that) cometh.

Rice has been keeping civilisations going in the East for much longer than the west, I rest my case

It often seems that the Thais don't give a dam_n for their children. Of course this must be untrue, but it does seem that way judging from the scenes on the streets and roads.

Just last night I can very close to ending the life of a Thai child.

I was returning home after visiting a friend. It was around 6:30pm and dark and I was about 2km outside town. As I turned a sweeping corner filter lane of a highway I was forced to move into the hard shoulder for a second. There was dim lighting on the road so I managed to spot a school boy walking in the center of this lane. Obviously I managed to avoid hitting him. I could so easily have killed him. The obvious question is why was he walking 2km outside town on a very dark road towards the traffic. Not only this, but he wasn't even looking at the traffic. Instead he was engrossed in something in a bag he was carrying. He wasn't a 'down and out' as he was dressed smartly in his school uniform with a satchel on his back. He wasn't even walking close to the verge which would be the sensible thing to do, he was right out in the middle of the lane. Knowing that this lane is used for vehicles going in both directions and some times without lights it makes my head spin that children don't know any better here in Thailand.

I know this isn't so unusual in Thailand, but the fact that I almost hit the kid got me thinking about the way Thais bring up their kids. If my parents had found me walking a highway in the dark they would have gone crazy, but here its just normal.

On my estate children play at dusk on the same road that cars speed down. I brought it up at a recent community meeting but no one seems to bothered.

I guess the alternative theory is that I didn't hit the kid and there fore his perception of danger was right and all his calculations were proved correct.

A little similar to the fact that I see a dozen very near miss accidents every time I go out but I never see any actual accidents. Maybe it's all worked out to fine margins and I just don't understand them.

Yet another thread with westerners trying to (forlornly) understand the Asian mindset and ways.

Look pal if you can't 'tune in' and go with the way of how people in this country then don't let it bother you and just get on with your life

East is east, west is west.

You know the rest

Well I am mightily pssed off as well.

Last week it was flying, now its ground to a halt!

Youtube is nearly impossible to even access!

I can bear slow connections but these websites nowadays don't run properly if your connection is slow like here in Thailand.

The screens just freeze and you're left wondering if the Internet is going to even start moving again !

I'm with True and they are pure gomp right now!

PAD to mobilise 100,000 protesters from the South

The local chapters of the People's Alliance for Democrat set the target to mobilise 100,000 protesters from 14 southern provinces to rally in Bangkok on Sunday, PAD organiser Saroj Rakchan said on Friday.

The PAD has set up a rally site in front of Hat Yai railway station to rouse the crowds beginning today, Saroj said. Buses are ready for the 24-hour, non-stop departures to transport the protesters from today to Sunday.

The PAD has declared a showdown to bring about the collapse of the government and the House.

Source: The Nation - 21 November 2008

Well things are about to get pretty hot hot hot if they pull this one off!

The Bangkok Post does it for me.

It seems fairly even-handed and middle of the road

Hi All,

I have noticed that on many of the threads that a number Ex Pats defend Thailand as if it's their own country. Whatever the case may be, murder, drug use, buying property or the drop in tourism. Its never the fault of the thais or Thailand. There are many faults in this country as indeed there are in most countries of the world, but at some point someone must accept some of the responsibility. Reading the daily news and watching the national TV news stations it's very apparent that Thailand is politically unstable even to the point of calling a state of emergency in the past months. It's also very apparent that crime is rising in the country, maybe because of the political instability. This will affect tourism in the short and long term because people don't want to holiday in countries that have these problems.

The news is being aired all over the world so people are aware of the problems and i think that this reflects on peoples decisions to travel here. I have had calls from my friends and family In The UK asking if i was OK because of the situations are being shown on the news. The problems that i have mentioned are real, they exist, so why do a number of Ex Pats believe that they do not.

The usual answers are: 'You do not speak the language so you don't understand the culture'. 'You don't live in Thailand so what do you know'.

I think that the first lines of the national anthem pretty much sum up the thoughts of the majority of the Thais and certainly the ones that have been tied up in the farang rich areas of Phuket and Pattaya.

Thailand embraces in its bosom all people of Thai blood.

Every inch of Thailand belongs to the Thais.

It has long maintained its sovereignty,

Because the Thais have always been united.

The Thai people are peace-loving,

But they are no cowards at war.

They shall allow no one to rob them of their independence,

Nor shall they suffer tyranny.

All Thais are ready to give up every drop of blood

For the nation's safety, freedom and progress.

Farangs will never be accepted by the Thais as a Thai no matter how long they live or have lived here.

This is not a troll or a flame but i would be interested to know your thoughts on this.

Cheers, Rick

A a fair few tend to be emeshed into a farm on a village or house in Isaan and are pretty much stuck in the 'golden cage' with a thai family holding the key.

It really is a case of 'can't beat em? Join em'

And so they speak up for the Thais.

This is not always a bad thing though.

As a city-kind of guy more than the country I only defend Thailand on the grounds of its less bs here than back home and you there is more freedom here than in N/W Europe.

With all my backpack and case shouldered the weight was about 12 kilos. This is ok, but any more and you will start to fatigue quickly.

Long distance rides with 12 kilos on your back doesn't sound like much fun. Any reason you couldn't bungy your stuff to the bike? The CBR 150 has plenty of space for a tank bag, tail bag and panniers.

This is a loaded up Ninja 250, but you get the idea-

Great report Jim- when will you head back north? Hopefully you'll choose a more interesting biker-friendly route!

Happy Trails

Cheers Bikeman.

Yeah the trouble with that gear is getting hold of it, as good biker gear out in LOS is hard to source.

Did you get your panniers and tank bag locally?

Also, to all those that are interested, I've posted a 'video-style' clip of the entire trip online here:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Bangkok-Bust...40#entry2340640

I've had some wierd and negative feedback by a poster who considers it 'a day-trip' but I'll let you folks be the judge

Reminds me of a varient I got from Phuket many moons ago. It was called Lion balm and was less powerful, but still potent.

It's grim brothers it really is to know that's the only thing to bail you out.

I've got some gold and a visa card, but ideally that shouldn't be called upon.

As long as you keep covering your hand at EVERY ATM machine there is zippo chance of having a cloner rip off your card