richard10365

Jayenram.....what about the idea I asked you about?

If you walk across the pedestrian overpass and go across the freeway you can catch a taxi there without the surcharge. Thai people do it all the time.

Wow.... TVs, cars, and refrigerators.   You guys fishing for those 6th place participation ribbons they used to hand out to the 'special kids' back in grade school on sports day?

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I wonder what would happen to Thailand if all of a sudden farang money was gone?

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I think Heng was referring to the fact that a few thousand farangs buying some cars & Tvs don't make much impact. You seem to thingk the country would collapse if the resident farangs left.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle, although I personally think Heng has a point.

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It might not collapse but I do believe it would have a crisis. Look at the impact the tsunami had on tourism in Phuket. If all the farang money was gone in all of Thialand I do believe it would have a great impact.

And refering to what I said earlier, 326,196,000 baht a year just from US military retiries is a lot of money. 326,196,000 baht/year is the minimum US military retiries are bringing in. That estimate was based on the paygrade of E7. I am sure there are other US military retiries with higher paygrades than E7 with more years retired here. US military retiries get cost of living increases every year so their pay does goes up.

What ray23 was talking about is in adition to 326,196,000 baht/year there is at least that many retiries who are not retired from the US military. In fact, if you add up all the retiries money in Thailand it might be over one billion baht/year.

Now add 1 billion baht a year to everyone with a work permit and see what it adds up to. Thats still probably a very conservative estimate.

Now take all that money out of Thailand and what happens?

Wow.... TVs, cars, and refrigerators.  You guys fishing for those 6th place participation ribbons they used to hand out to the 'special kids' back in grade school on sports day?

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I wonder what would happen to Thailand if all of a sudden farang money was gone?

Don't forget to include everyone retired in your numbers. Over 500 retired military. If all retired at the paygrade E7 their pay would equal to 326,196,000 baht a year just from US military retiries.

I am sure there are other retiries in Thailand who did not retire from the military.

To all the supporters of giving the 3 provinces back to the muslims

Islams quest for world domination might have worked 100 years ago. Thats when France, England, and the USA was too busy to notice. They were out sticking their flag in the ground in other countries claiming them for god and country.

Todays world will not stand for it. Things are different. Humans have evolved socially to a point where they don't tolerate it anymore. Look how much critisism the USA got when they invaded Vietnam, Laos, and Iraq.

Now, borders of countries of the world are pretty much set and are not going to change without a major war.

The land belonged to the South 100 years ago. Thats the past. Now it belongs to Thailand.

Get over it. You were not there. There is probably no one who was there when the land was not part of Thailand. Your not missing anything.

What would you do if the land was given back? How would you take care of the people there? I have not seen one solution where someone spelled out how they would take care of the millions of people there if they made the 3 provinces a little country.

Could they do it better than Thailand? If so, how?

Agree with you Rich but as has been said before there is more to this than meets the eye and until ALL the facts from both sides are clear and visible I don't think anyone can offer anything that either parties would be willing to consider.

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I know the party on the Thai side. Who are we dealing with on the Muslim side? What are they requesting? Do they have the support of the people they claim to represent? Have they voted on the issue?

I think Thai immagration wants to see the Cambodian exit stamp before they let you back in.

All good discussions have 2 sides. This one is no different. There does appear to be only 4 people in this discussion in support of the muslims. Everyone else is ready to start the bombing of the southern villages with something other than paper birds.

If the one sidedness of this forum is any indication of the feelings of most people in Thialand, then Tai bak is likely to look like a kindergarten playground compared to what steps Thailand might do in the future. I think Thailand is running out of patience.

For the sake of the innocent, and I believe there are many, how do we solve this problem?

Those defending the muslims in this forum, zaz, seonai, sriacha john, White Shiva need to offer something a little more constructive than quoting what they think are the crimes of the Thai government.

Those wanting to go south shooting need to do the same.

How can we blame Thailand for failing to solve this problem when we can't agree among ourselves?

I really think if you give the disputed land to the muslims in the south of Thailand then all the peace loving muslims will move away from there.

If there are Muslims who are not part of the problem, they will probably move out of any new kingdom created by the militants.

Why would any Muslims want to live in a land created by murder. If they are as peace loving as they say they will reject this.

The only ones who would live there are drug dealers, murders, human trafficers, and thugs. It will be a paradise for the criminaly insane. Lecter Hanabil will call it home. And all the people who feel Thaskins governement is to blame,.....feel free to join them. I'm sure Thailand will not miss you.

I love living in Thailand. If I could join the Thai military to fight for this country I would. I think its worth fighting for.

Having more than one wife is common in Thailand for Thai men. Maybe it has something to do with buddhism and being good in your last life.

It is possible his Thai GF would understand but I think his farang wife is going to explode.

I think its a normal feeling to see something and want it. I see many bueatiful women I think I would like to be close to. But I love my wife and don't want to hurt her. So I don't get too close to these women.

Is his love for his Thai girlfriend worth the cost of totally destroying his farang wife should she find out?

If the answer is yes....then he probably dosent really love his farang wife.

If the answer is no then he should probably walk away from his Thai girlfriend and stop stringing her along.

Hire all the English speaking Bar girls. Most of them can speak better English than the Thai English teachers currently teaching English.

I heard something about not having the transportation infastructure set up to handle that many people. 38 to 45 million people and not enough taxi's busses, or tuk tuks to get them where they need to go in Bangkok or the proper sized roads to carry the traffic.

Has anyone one else heard that?

If your visa gets cancelled I think you can go to Laos or someplace like that and get a tourist visa.

I think the amount of English speaking Thai's is a direct reflection of their standards for advancement. There is room for improvement. I hope for the sake of the children in Thailand they recognize their short comings and take steps for improvement.

You can do it easily with a tourist visa, passport and address in Thailand.

There are some banks that ask for a work permit but by and large its not worried about .

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I got one with a tourist visa once. The only thing is, they would only let me open a savings account. They said to get a checking account I needed a Non-immagrit visa.

I live in a small village close to the Cambodian border. I was watching my wife help tutor one of our neighbors with her English homework. She was helping with a project that involved writing an article in Thai and then translating it into English.

The girl was in Matayom 2 in a school that is considered expensive for our area (3200 baht/term)

The girl had no problem writing the Thai article. She was even able to go to the dictionary and translate the Thai words into English. Thats as far as she got.

Seeing my wifes frustration, I decided to ask the girl some simple English questions to see what she knows. She could not even conjugate the verb "to be".

I asked her (with my wifes help) where she studied English. I was thinking it was some kind of up country bad teacher problem.

She said she just transfered from a public school in Pattaya.

That got me wondering how a student advances to the next grade in Thailand. Are all their classes like this? Do they just have to show up to class to get a passing grade?

Can her Matayom 2 teacher (who is Thai) tell her English is only a little better than Prathom 1 or 2? Yet he still gives her this monster project to do. It is probably comparable to giving a basic math student, a calculus test.

Do Thai kids have to pass English to advance to the next grade? If they fail English, do they retake the year they fail or advanced to the next year?

I get the impression the critiera for passing English is to be able to say, "My name is___!".

Bottled water is so cheap (2.5 baht/liter), its crazy not to buy it. I shower and brush my teeth with the tap water. Sometimes I will even cook with it it I am boiling at high temps. I never intentionally drink it. I have drank the rain water over at a few of my Thai friends house. I never had a problem.

what about us travelling to the south.

do any of you believe it is not a good thing to travel to that part.

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Probably about as safe as traveling to Iraq. Probably better to buy some life insurance before you go.

This talk of 'terrorists' I believe is overblown. .

Seonai

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I don't think its over blown. They need to decide what side of the fence they want to be on. They are either for the terrorist or the Thai government.

When the marines died, they chose to be terrorist.

Now they have to accept the consequences of their actions.

I think the mothers should get arrested for blocking the police. They need to stand in front of a judge and tell him why they think their actions had nothing to do with the death of the two marines.

Maybe there are people who have been silent for their whole life. They have had opinions but not spoken about them to anyone. Then something happend and they felt so strongly about it that they had to tell someone.

A public forum such as TV is an easy way for someone to post their opinions. They have time to think about what they want to say. (for some this dosent help). They type some....delete some....and then select add reply.

Finally, they have opened up to the world and discovered they do have an opinion. It might not be a very popular opinion but they have shared with the world their thoughts. And for once,.....they are relieved.

It feels so good the first time they feel they have to do it again and again.

Before they know it,.....they have thousands of post and either very little friends (from making people angry) or are very popular (from pointing people in the ight direction).

Either way, as long as they stick to forum guidelines, they should be allowed to say what they want.

It's not the people who speak their opinion who worry me, its the people who try to stop others from voiceing their opinion that worry me.

Here is some info on business in Thailand.

http://www.boi.go.th/english/how/legal_iss...n_investors.asp

How much do you want to spend on the hotel?

There is a good restaurant by the fountian. During the week they have a lunch buffet. On the other side of the fountian is a french and an italian restaurant.

Vientiane usually closes down at 11pm but there are a few all night places through out the city.

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$25 $30 US. I just need a nice comfortable central clean place to stay really.

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There is a really big hotel next to the museum. It's the one with all the flags in front of it. It's not far from the fountian. That might be in that price range.

$30 is more than I usually like to spend. But it looks very nice.

Maybe when she got here she realized that most Thai girls are just as pretty as she is and she couldnt handle that.