Dogmatix

I am not a vaper and think it's a stupid and disgusting habit. However, given the amount of vaping you see in Thailand and the open availability of the equipment, I can sympathise with tourists who either didn't realise it was illegal or assumed the law wasn't taken seriously or not enforced at all. What Thailand has achieved with this is selective enforcement and an king size opportunity to extort foreign tourists with a difficult to enforce law that is out of line with most countries in the world. Given this situation I think it would be better to scrap it or make it just for "medicinal" use like dope 555.

Tourists need to have some understanding of the situation police are in. They used to be able make good incomes selling ganja to tourists and then busting them. But as one door closes, another one opens. Some years back the government came up with a brilliant plan to make vaping illegal but no one paid attention to such a stupid idea and you can see Thais vaping everywhere, while vaping materials are on sale in all tourist areas, as well as on Thai e-commerce websites. Now the police have realised that this criminalisation by stealth of a product that is legal nearly everywhere else, including China, can be turned into huge money spinner with the return of tourists who have no way of knowing that vaping is illegal, as that is kept a dark secret until the surprise nocturnal shake down in pijin English by the BiB. Who can blame them?

If over 100g at 450 per gram, the bars are over 45k baht each. A lot of inventory to show.

Looks interesting. BTW how many grams in those hash blocks?

It has been obvious from the beginning that Charlene was telling the truth and the BiB, including the commissioner, were lying. Why would she want to make up such a story anyway? She has enough popularity and publicity for herself already. Another suspicious part of the BiB story is that they had communication problems with the group of apprehended tourists which apparently included a Singaporean, Mr Sky, who apparently paid the 27k bribe on behalf of the group. They claimed to have problems because they could speak English but the tourists could only speak Chinese. Obviously Mr Sky, a Singaporean, can speak much better English than most Thai police. If he is a Chinese Singaporean, which seems most likely, he can also speak at least passable Mandarin and may have been talking to the Taiwanese in the group in Mandarin and could have interpreted for them. In addition I find it very unlikely that sophisticated young Taiwanese tourists cannot speak English at least as well or, more likely better than Bangkok's finest. Apparently Charlene referred to Thailand's "ba5tard police" in English which implies a passable knowledge of English. So if the cops had communication difficulties, it was because their own poor English but they clearly got their point over to fluent English speaker Mr Sky as he was able to comply with their demand to hand over all their cash to the cops. The days of social media are clearly making life more difficult for Bangkok's finest extortion racket.

Personally I can't stand vaping but I see hi-so Thai guys doing it all the time at sporting events I go to. It seems like a sort of status thing for them to be seen vaping in public. There are dangers associated with vaping but there are also benefits by allowing smokers to at least transition away from tobacco. It seems pointless to ban it on that basis. As far as tourists are concerned it looks even more ridiculous than Singapore's stupid ban on chewing gum, particularly as there is no publicity put out by TAT warning tourists of severe penalities for vaping and possessing the equipment. Vapers should be clearly warned and given the opportunity not to come to Thailand at all, if they don't want to cease vaping temporarily. The TAT could launch a campaign based on "Smoke Dope, Don't Vape" or something similar.

I would think that companies are right to be cautious regarding the PE issue since the LTR visas are new and no cases have been tested. The BOI is doing a good job of promoting the LTR visas but is not in a position to speak for the Revenue Department which is a venal and corrupt organisation that loves the chance to shake down foreign companies for cash - ask Philip Morris how good their tax advice from internationally renowned tax advisors turned out to be when the RD went after them. It may all turn out well but no one can guarantee that at this stage. My own personal choice for someone planning to stay long term would be to get the UK employer to do a deal with a Thai subsidiary to act as the employer. Get a normal non-B visa and work permit which will be a breeze with a substantial Thai employer. After 3 full calendar years apply for permanent residence. 5 years after getting PR apply for citizenship (with a Thai wife you can skip PR). I can see the instant gratification attraction of the LTR visas but after 10 years you got nothing and have to renew. In that time you could be a PR and on the way to becoming a citizen. Perhaps you can still apply for PR and/or citizenship on an LTR visa but without a Thai employer I suspect this would be difficult or impossible.

Is that so? I would have thought the opposite. If you are working abroad for a UK company, you are no longer covered by UK employment law and would have no protection under Thai law either, as you would be a free lancer, as as far as they are concerned. But if you work for a Thai subsidiary or affiliate, you are at least covered by Thai employment law which has provisions against unfair dismissal and for redundancy payments.

Because she is not in Thailand and, is standing her ground and can't be intimidated, this may end up in childish threats of criminal defamation charges which would be meaningless, since she claims she never wants to set foot in the Kingdom again. That's how it went with Hannah Witheridge's sister when she had to temerity to criticise Thai police for framing the 2B for the murder of her sister and David Miller. Also for their disgusting behaviour, luring the Witheridge family to police national HQ with the pretense that they had new information to share but actually merely to make money by selling access to the grieving family without their knowledge to reporters and photographers who were allowed to photograph them huddled together and stick microphones in their faces to ask them how they felt about the brutal murder of their family member and the corrupt police investigation into it. The police have shown themselves able and willing to fabricate and destroy evidence in far more serious cases then the Taiwanese actress, so why would they hesitate to the same in this case.

Yes and how about police body cameras too?

That could be a winner. No need to go South America or Afica to experience the thrilling risk of being waylaid by highway robbers. It's available in Amazing Thailand right here in SE Asia provided by Bangkok's finest.

Initial police response was to pretend they didn’t have a roadblock in that area at that time.

The motto of this story is that Chinese, Taiwanese and others should pay for the police escort and protection in advance and they won't be harassed. Thailand needs to make up for all the lost tourism income.

Yes, very boring non-post.

Looks like a link to your own FB page. Tegridy Thai looks like a small coffee shop in HH. It has FB page with a lot of unrelated content. No more detail.

The UK discrimination is quite pernicious because all decent unis there are state controlled and therefore apply the dual pricing. The US does it but I think residents' prices only apply to state residents in state colleges, which seems more acceptable. No benefits in this for getting Thai citizenship but no discrimination either.

This type of escort service had been available for a long time. I remember being given a quote that was something like 10k a day for a police car and 5k for a motorbike plus tips to escort VIP visitors around Bangkok. We used the service for a visiting director from our parent company. They did a great job in traffic turning on sirens to get cars out of the way - well worth it. The director believed it was because the cops considered him genuinely important.

Very funny. The van was from my mother-in-law’s village. These were real people with husbands, wives, children, mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters.

Back in the 70s the Edinburgh drug squad was known to charge people arrested for possession of cannabis and other drugs with a fraction of what they were actually caught with and sell the surplus back into the market. None of the people busted ever complained about this. Often it meant the difference between a prison sentence and a fine and probabation. So why would they?

I thought they had promised China they wouldn't be disclosing the nationality of Chinese criminals in future.

I think you've probably nailed it.

A love tap maybe but then what was she doing with cane.? I bet a few love taps with that cane across her naked buttocks from a gym instructer in front of the class would soon change her mind about corporal punishment.

I went to schools ruled by disgusting sadists who caned boys on naked buttocks till they were a bloody mess purely for their own sexual pleasure. We were also subjected to painful ear twisting and other tortures by teachers including having heavy wooden board dusters hurled at our heads in class. This made boys fear those teachers but definitely didn't make us respect them. We despised them utterly, realising that they were not fit to be teachers or have anything to do with children. As a result of these experiences I cannot condone any teacher hitting a child and, if one dared to hit my son, I would seek him and her out and pay the cops and anyone else whatever it took to destroy their career.

I have an ID card with prefix 8. I got the number when I got PR and kept the same number when I upgraded to citizenship which was convenient as there was no need to change my driving licence or tax ID. I believe pink IDs can be issued with the 0 prefix and tax IDs and possibly yellow tabian baans and pink IDs can be issued with the prefix 6 but will be changed to a new number with the prefix 8, if the foreigner gets PR or citizenship. Messing around with fake IDs may be the way to go for many foreigners from neighbouring countries and Chinese who can pass as Thai at a casual glance. But they need to accept that being caught with a fake ID can land them in the slammer and get them permanently blacklisted from Thailand (under their own name that is). If the only way they can earn a decent living and send money back to families is to live with that Sword of Damocles hanging over them that may descend at any moment, then I can understand that may be the way to go for many.

Some years ago I went to Phyathai and they were totally obnoxious and insulting and asked for documents that were clearly not necessary. I was a permanent resident and the head of registrations said my alien book was fake because, in his ignorant opinion, they were only issued to Chinese not farangs. Having wasted out time with that brain dead idiot we bid adieu made a dash for the Sathorn office before closing time and they were all smiles and couldn't have been more helpful. They made a big effort to get it all done for us before closing time, including providing the two witnesses for us for a couple of hundred baht extra. If nothing has changed, I would recommend Sathorn over Bang Rak as the latter must get swamped with marriage registrations because of its name.