darksidedog

Thailand has a way of pulling numbers from anywhere and lobbing them out to prove their "specialness." For the Thais who depend on tourism for their income, I am happy to see an upswing, though I have serious doubts that all of those arrivals were actually tourists. It is improving. You can only hope the early arrivals don't get fleeced rotten, as was common behaviour before, so the trend can continue in a positive manner.

At no point is the river there more than 1km across, so I suspect much of it will be covering a lot of that distance traveling downstream with the current, which he simply has to swim across. Fair play to him though, because while he has proved already to be a competent swimmer, that will be fast flowing water.

I really do weep for this country, and have done on so many occasions before, and no doubt will do again, though this hits especially hard. School shootings in the US have become so common, you almost expect them, but this is rare in Thailand and staggering that it involved kids not even old enough to understand what would have been going on. I am stunned that someone could stoop this low. A coward killing babies and his own family. I am glad he is dead either way, though a torment far worse than his chosen escape route would have been preferable. Reintroducing flaying alive would seem about appropriate here.

All of the above need to understand the concept of Pandoras box. It's open now, always was partially it could be argued, but either way you are not going to be able to close it again easily. Add to that weed legal and yaba or ice still seeing you go to prison could keep many people from going down bad paths.

Few truckloads of bags of sand before the flooding would have helped a lot more I suspect.

Come on, this is Thailand. We should be grateful it was built at all, rather than the money just vanishing, and that it hasn't already collapsed, due to the same poor engineering that has resulted in the leaking roof, not yet having manifested itself in the rest of the overpriced and shoddily built structure. One can but hope, given the nature of the creatures that will do business inside, that those weaknesses will one day manifest themselves, leading to a tragic loss of however many scoundrels make up the parliament, when it comes crashing down on their heads. That would be justice, a thing rarely witnessed in the Land of Smiles. Cutting corners, turning blind eyes, taking "commissions" which lead to not enough money for the right materials and engineering for the project has bitten more than a few in the proverbial backside after all.

A provocative post and a reply have been removed.

It is normal for such places to be closed for very obvious reasons, but this is Thailand, so a few backhanders and vague promises will see them remain open for sure. It is advisable whenever you enter a premises you are unfamiliar with to check where the exits are in case you need to leave in a rush and to just leave straight away if you don't see a second or emergency exit.

Prawit is renowned for his ability to keep an exceptionally good watch!

I would like to tender my input on the evaluated areas, but consider the words, inept, non-existent and laughable to be more appropriate across the board, than the spurious but resounding vote of confidence being shown, because we all know its not true. There have been many improvements in the cops over the last two decades, but they are still way too closely connected financially to most of the illicit goings on that they should be stopping. The fire at the nightclub/restaurant proves how backhanders keep bad stuff going, and it's rampant even now across the board. I don't think cops anywhere in the world get it 90% right, and I simultaneously don't think Thailand is going to be close to the top ten, let alone leading the way.

All rented no doubt, so the fella who rented to this crowd will have his work cut out getting his bikes back, with the renters losing their deposits, plus some most likely. Stupid people to argue with medical assistance and all lose their wheels for being uncooperative. Early hours, probably all inebriated. No sympathy here. Trash tourists are returning while the expected high rollers aren't yet getting the same headline levels. TAT will update us soon though on this discrepancy, so don't worry.

4 million by August would be pathetic by normal standards, pre pandemic being 3 million plus a month, but you have to remember that an arrival is counted as one every time, even if that person has been in and out four times this year, so its probably way lower in numbers of actual new people. Even that setting the records straight, does show a glimpse of sunlight on the horizon, given it was zero for a very long time. For Thai people who have lost so much these past years, I genuinely hope numbers and dollars to come back to them, and that they remember who did what for them in their hour of need while their government did little.

Interesting that we are still in a state of emergency over Covid, which has prevented many a political protest from taking place, yet now, in the name of money, the doctors warnings will be ignored to get that cash rolling in. Be tough to see how they can allow and encourage teeming night life without declaring an end to the state of emergency though, and I suspect when they do, we will see millions of Thais protesting on the streets, and I am not sure how good that will be for tourism.