Gecko123

"Taken to the police station for questioning" is a mischaracterization. They were asked to come to the police station to make a police report. Way too many details and people involved to complete a report in the field. Standard procedure to go to police station to make a police report, even for minor incidents.

What? Insurance fraud hasn't been suggested yet? What's wrong with you guys? That's usually the first think that comes up anytime an Indian tourist gets his gold chain snatched down in Pattaya? There isn't a double standard going on here, is there? Everybody knows that wouldn't be right, right? ???? [radio transmission noise] This 'woke' moment has been brought to you courtesy of Gecko123. Normal programing will now resume. [radio transmission noise]

Someone came on a thread asking the same question maybe 5-6 months ago and said he had had a fondu dinner with him, suggesting the Swiss guy was never charged, but there's a chance this was a troll post or the poster was joking. Never heard anything further in the news.

U-tube search for "ปล้นบ้าน" or "home robbery" did turn up a couple of similar "home invasion" type robberies over the last several years where: (1) the victims were at home at time of robbery and 4-5 man team used guns or knives to coerce victims. Third video only involved one robber, and not clear if victim was at home at time of robbery. Last video relates to OP story. Thai family robbed at knife point in home by team of robbers: Chinese tourist robbed at home at gunpoint by 5 man team: Capture of solo burglar who burglarized 69 year old female millionaire's home (not sure if she was home at the time): News clip on current story about French guy home invasion:

In the West people have a 'mi casa es su casa' mentality where everyone is welcome in your home, but in rural Thailand almost nobody actually goes inside anybody else's home unless they are immediate family or life long friends/neighbors. Everyone has a sitting area outside their house where people who visit sit, talk, drink or eat. The house is kind of treated like an inner sanctum. In a spirit of generosity you can indiscriminately open your house to anyone in the village, but you don't know what's going through their mind. What a foreigner can think of as 'meh, nice interior, but nothing to write home about...", to someone living in a tin roof hut, your house might be like walking into Rockefeller's Park Avenue mansion. Their eyes are popping out of their skulls, they become overwhelmed with envy, and cannot control the urge to take what they want. Or they go and gossip about what's inside your house, and someone else starts getting big ideas. I think that's just the reality of village life.

I agree. And to organize and motivate a relatively large number of fellow robbers (4) who were all armed suggests that they were had extremely reliable info about how much loot was in the house.

All four armed? That surprised me. Then I remembered the case where that Swiss guy managed to overpower a night time intruder and the intruder ended up dead. Sounds like these guys weren't taking any chances. Be careful who you let in your house Be careful about making people jealous/envious Edit: That's not being negative or paranoid, it's being aware of the realities of village life, and understanding human nature.

You're talking about first grade kids most of whom probably haven't learned to read yet and may have trouble understanding, remembering and communicating instructions. No one mentions the trouble the teacher took to write out the message. If the kid showed up the next day in his regular uniform instead of the traditional outfit everyone else was wearing, the father would probably be whining about the psychological damage done to the kid and why the teacher didn't just pin a note to his uniform. And you wonder why nobody wants to be a teacher. Jeez.

https://www.nationthailand.com/in-focus/40017839

People are just waiting for the law to be clarified. I think people who are arguing "the cat's out of the bag" and that the open sale and usage of cannabis for recreational purposes is here to stay are kidding themselves. A major walk back is in the works. I think cannabis tourism is an absolute abomination. Anyone promoting this idea has put financial gain and self-interest ahead of the interests of Thai society as a whole. I know these are unpopular opinions on this forum, but I'm entitled to voice them. And furthermore, I think these views are in line with a sizeable majority of the Thai people.

If the "everything bubble" bursts, it's not losing our shirts we should fear, it's the political and social turmoil that will inevitably follow which should terrify us.

It's motivated by identity politics and a sense of entitlement. It's most certainly not motivated by a love of democracy, or truth, or a desire to make the playing field fair for everyone. In fact, just the opposite.

Doctor bashing. Not a good look, people. The Faculty of Medicine Ramathibodi Hospital, Mahidol University has long been regarded as Thailand's most prestigious medical school.

The doctors are making the perfectly valid point that just because the government has come out and claimed that cannabis use is for "medicinal purposes only," without any actual policies in place to control access to marijuana, use is going to be widespread and unrestricted, and they are calling for a rollback of the decriminalization until such policies are in place. Google translation of a quote from the doctor's statement: "...there is no policy to control the use of cannabis comprehensively and safely. Therefore, the liberal use of recreational marijuana is widespread. This leads to access to cannabis use by children and young people, which is wrong with the liberal cannabis policy that the government and its stakeholders have claimed to want more people to have access to medical cannabis. In addition, the liberal use of marijuana without medical indications has a strong scientific evidence that affect the body and brain growth in children and very young. The current situation is therefore considered a short-term threat to the public health system and public health"

@ThailandRyan That knightstemplar quote you posted above is garbage propaganda and misinformation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke

The use of the word 'woke' as an adjective is Orwellian. It's a linguistic corruption which encourages mental laziness, and discourages thought processes. It's a shorthand label to discount and cut off consideration of ideas deemed to be subversive or unwelcome. The way this word is used is almost non-verbal, more of an expletive, like an inarticulate grunt or a harumph. Using "woke" as an adjective is a modern day example of how language can be intentionally corrupted in order to control people's ability to think and articulate thoughts. It is the very same process Orwell describes in his novel '1984.' In the novel, the fictitious language NEWSPEAK is used to reduce everything to simple thoughts in order to control the ability to think and articulate thoughts. Furthermore, I'm convinced this corruption of language, through the introduction of words like "woke" and "cancel culture" is being done intentionally for the very purposes described above, i.e., in an attempt to lay the ground work for totalitarianism.

The main reason I would never dream of prosecuting a village granny for pilfering stuff out of my garden is out of fear my house pets might be poisoned.

I couldn't easily find an internet reference to back this up but I was once told that if you are missing a tooth the underlying bone structure of the opposing tooth tends to weaken and can cause the opposing tooth to become loose. https://www.smileeasy.com/blog/what-happens-if-you-dont-replace-missing-teeth/ Edit: But to answer your question, tooth extraction, because of its low cost, is probably one of the most common dental procedures in Thailand, especially in rural areas, and I am pretty sure you could find a dentist in most government hospitals to do the extractions.

Indians aren't the only ones who like "marine activities", now are they?

Thank you for acknowledging that everyone has an equal right to visit the Kingdom. Just to poke a few holes in your "it's all just good, clean, harmless fun" counter-argument: The race bashing on this forum is being done behind people's backs, so it can scarcely be characterized as a mutual 'give-and-take' process. Because of this hostile environment, it discourages other racial minorities from joining this forum and even discourages people from speaking out against this abuse out of fear of being ostracized or bullied. So it's a very cowardly one-sided echo chamber environment, not the 'good clean fun' you try to portray it as. It perpetuates extremely negative and - more often than not - highly false and unfair stereotypes which prejudice people's opinions about other racial groups. For example, comments about Indians sharing a single can of coke or Chinese tourists defecating in public or spitting on restaurant floors are repeated endlessly while ignoring that many tourists coming from these countries are far wealthier than many Westerners. What gets repeated on-line, ends up being repeated in real life, and eventually infects the thinking of Thais as well. So please stop saying this activity is harmless. You asked rhetorically whether people were in need of history/geography lessons from me. Do you not find it ironic that many people on this forum constantly bash both Indian and Chinese tourists when SE Asia - where forum members have been fortunate enough to be allowed to live - is essentially a melting pot of these two civilizations? If history and geography lessons aren't needed, you name the lesson topic, because awareness of this fact seems to definitely be lacking.

It's funny you mention Pattaya which is the epicenter of Indian bashing on this forum. It clearly has something to do with a sense of territoriality vis-a-vis the sex trade. I'll leave it at that.

You do realize that woke is the past tense of the verb to wake, not an adjective. Not trying to play schoolmarm here, just wouldn't want anyone thinking you were poorly educated.

The mentality on this forum that Indian and Chinese tourists are an unwelcome presence in Thailand is beyond me. All I see in the accompanying article are well dressed and well groomed tourists who are doubtlessly helping the tourist economy recover. They have every bit as much right to visit here as anyone from the West. Same goes for non-white tourists from anywhere else. Got it? Stop acting like you're in a gatekeeper role, in a position to decide who is welcome here. Excuse me, it's not your <deleted>' country. Do you really need to be reminded that Thailand is part of Indochina, and that cultural ties in this region between India and China go back centuries and centuries?

Makro really doesn't use reduced price bar codes, but what you say is really true about Lotus's and Big C. If you're buying stuff on sale, you really need to double check that the yellow sale bar code code matches the item you're after. Sometimes they'll have a yellow on sale bar code under an item you want and if you're not careful you only find out the sale price doesn't apply to your item. Also, a lot of those on sale prices at Big C and Lotus's have fine print expiration dates, and sometimes they're slow to take down the yellow sale tags down even though the expiration date has passed.

Those receipt checkers at the exits are the one thing I dislike the most about Makro. I was surprised to read your story about them actually finding an error as I have never experienced or observed them catching any errors with me or any other shoppers. I've long been convinced that it's a charade done largely to deter shoplifting, and I resent being forced to stand in place while they paw over my purchases.