bruceybonus

Nice work, but he this is only one out of hundreds. It doesn't take a sophisticated sting like this to find them. Just patrol Nana properly and you can round up dozens every night.

Obviously a few palms are being greased liberally on a daily basis!

Thais haven't really embraced the shaved head look. Loads still have the "Hamlet" sweepover

The only John I know in Chaam who drives a Merc is a nefarious character always bragging about how he rips people off in Bangkok (boiler rooms)

Remember when Tripadvisor shut down the KT page after the recent murders? Someone is definitely getting bought off.

Tripadvisor reviews are not verified and anyone can write anything about anywhere, good, bad or indifferent...

sorry you are wrong

there are moderators on tripadvisor the same as this thai visa site

so you cannot write freely whatever you want

Yes, it probably has certain words that trigger a moderation. Profanities etc.

People sit here and bash the Thais for their inability to manage their finances when in reality the vast majority of people in most if not all countries are in the very same predicament as here in Thailand.

Yeh but Western countries have much higher salaries. Not many people on 300 quid per month would be able to afford an iphone & car

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I suppose the next stage would be to stop a shop or restaurant displaying the drinks in a glass fronted fridge.

The same as they do with cigarettes, where they are hidden in shuttered display cabinets.

I know Thais are weak but this is ridiculous.

Farangs are selective with what they drink. Unlike Thais they will not drink any crap that gets them drunk quickly and cheaply. Most have good taste ( with drinks anyway ) and like their own particular brands.

Thais call every spirit Whisky, They have no concept of the difference between Whisky / Rum / Brandy / Gin / Vodka / etc

Their height of sophistication is a bottle of Spy they call wine. So a choice is not important to them.

Perhaps they will adopt the American idea where all bottles of alcohol appear to be sold and kept in plain brown paper bags

I once shared some vintage 125 year single malt scotch with some very good and close Thai friends.

To my astonishment and dismay..and then not really surprised at tall...they mix soda water and Ice cubes...

I suggested that they try sipping it straight as then they could appreciate what they had in front of them...

Oh well.....

I don't think so!!

He's not even coy about his wealth, with luxury cars/bikes on show & recent purchase of masses of shares!! Why are these public figures not asked to reveal the sources of their wealth??

Surely an audit trail would not be difficult, as I believe the difference between his salary and his assets is biblical.

How about unusually wealthy?

Until more people go to jail and have all assets frozen then nothing will change. The recent corruption busts were nothing more than redistribution of power

Considering the stae of the economy can Thailand really afford these long holidays ???

I often have this discussion with my old man. Nobody seems to care & some years, due to political problems, they extend it by a few days.

Back in the Uk, I remember when it was the Queen's jubilee in 2012, & just one extra day holiday cost the country a fortune. Business owners were chuntering at the loss of revenue

Considering the stae of the economy can Thailand really afford these long holidays ???

I often have this discussion with my old man. Nobody seems to care & some years, due to political problems, they extend it by a few days. I remember when it was the Queen's jubilee in 2012, & just one extra day holiday cost the UK a fortune.

Looks like Songkran is one of the safest times of the year to be on the road. A mere 251 dead in five days? The average of up to 26,000 deaths a year, according to a recent report in the Nation newspaper, is twice that number per week;

Most of the victims of road deaths and accidents are motorcyclists, of whom just seven per cent have the sense to wear crash helmets. And alcohol is a main ingredient of the carnage. Few Thai drivers ever have driving lessons from a professional instructor before taking the joke of a test.

This largely avoidable carnage must be one of the worst self-inflicted wounds in Thailand's blood-soaked history.

As usual, I'm sure somebody is massaging the figures

Where is Jungle Jim, blaming the 'farangs' (his word not mine) for indoctrinating the thai women

After all the hardship posts Mr. Davies has held, maybe he is just being rewarded with a non-hardship Ambassador posting.

To enlighten you and one or two others, Mr Davies though the State Department's point man for North Korea was not posted there.He was based in Washington.Prior to that his last overseas post was in London where he was Deputy Chief of Mission.

I never suggested that he lived in North Korea. Dealing with them would have been hard enough. He lived in both Zaire/Congo and London both of which might be considered hardship posts.

BTW as far as enlightening me, don't bother . Others have tried. I am unenlightenable.

yeh London must be a terrible place for a diplomat to live

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We've all seen it a million times. Changing lanes, turning and merging without looking.

True...so very true.

After 25 years of observing how the Thais drive I have learned that the majority of them drive based on making moves that they are certain all the other drivers around them will observe and then give way accordingly and accommodate their movements.

Unfortunately all too often their sudden movements are noticed but there is no room for the other driver(s) to maneuver or stop in time.

Of course a scenario such as that can and does happen in every country....but I would surmise more so here in Thailand than most other countries....( Vietnam is worse for that kind of driving mentality )

Sudden turns to the left or right and more commonly pulling out into on coming traffic based on having the "room" to do so while they believe everyone else has to and or will accommodate their sudden movements as they make their move regardless of how close the other vehicles are to them.

As if they are fearless and do not think it will hurt them when the car body metal starts to fold in around them or when their body or head slams into the ground when they fly off their motorcycles.

Passing other vehicles, regardless of on coming traffic, is solely based on believing all the other drivers coming at them, in the opposite direction and in the opposite lane, will observe what they are dangerously doing and accommodate their dangerous movements and give way to their movements.

Meantime there very well could be another driver pulling off the same dangerous passing movement, coming in the opposite direction....or right behind them there is another driver pulling the same stunt and following their lead and near bumper to bumper behind while believing everyone around them will also see what they are doing and give way and also accommodate their dangerous movements.

You can see ahead, all the other cars coming at you in the opposite direction are drifting over to the edge of the road and giving way....as they do not have much choice as they are more or less forced to give way while some of the opposite direction cars are flying past with say 1 meter between the 2 cars......and then........ there is a motorcycle pulling off the same stunt coming in either direction trying to squeeze in-between before the 2 cars meet and pass one another.

It is an everyday occurrence and probably happens several thousand times a day throughout the country.

Defensive driving is NOT part of the Thai style driving culture

Cheers

Yes the U turn's lanes at minimum on all main roads should be removed.I have worked in Taiwan, China and Malaysia. China has a very strange right of way law , basically right of way belongs to the vehicle that is "There" first., Also any accident is blamed on the "Larger" vehicle , If a lorry hits a car its the Lorries fault if a car hits a Pedestrian its the Cars fault ect , ect, Their roads are spectacularly dangerous its like living in a "People do the stupidest things" DVD. Malaysia and Taiwan pretty bad too , Taiwan lots of spoiled little rich kids , Malaysia 70 year old kampong Malays on Freeway motorbikes an families jammed into tiny Protons. But by far the most dangerous roads are the Thai Roads due to the U Turn lanes and make me cringe when I pass it and by far the most dangerous and unnecessary part of the Thai/Asian road network

The U turns are super dangerous here. Having to slow down in the 'fast lane' for a u turn is not much fun! Then pulling across all 3 lanes to access the road from a standing start is beyond crazy

My daughter ,4 years at Uni,can speak,read and write Thai,English and Mandarin,

graduated with 1st degree honours,offered jobs in the Hotel industry of 9K THB p.m

6 days per week,1 weeks paid holiday after 1 year,finding a job is easy,but working

for those wages!,you could make more working in 7-11,without a Uni education

relax Countryman.

I thought self employed/employed tour guides did pretty well. Has that job opp been saturated now?

Jeez the Thai guy could do with some new clothes!

the Bangkok paper had a photo of the truck. not much left except the frame and the motor. Not surprising these days as the truck bodies are often aluminum

looks to me like it was a pickup, none are made from aluminum in Thailand.

The locals buses look like they are made out of bacofoil!

Not surprisingly the TV teapublicans all poo poo climate change. 97% of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and man made, but if all you ever watch is Fox News...you know the truth.

"Most people don't want the truth. They just want the constant reassurance that what they believe is the truth."

Thus Fox News 24/7.

Denying climate change at this point is just pathetic.

97 % agree. Was that a poll done by the junta?

keep your head in the sand. Anyone that does not believe global warming is real is just too lazy or too ignorant to see the facts. I was at Lake Louise last year, the glacier there has receded back to a level never seen before.

In the middle of the province or British Columbia where forestry is the main industry, the forest have been wiped out by the pine and spruce beetles. They have been able to destroy the forests because the winters do not get cold enough anymore to kill them off so they have in turn killed all the trees. This is not a cycle this is something that has never happened before.

When I lived there 25 years ago the winters were cold and we would get 10 feet of snow or more per year. They rarely get more than a few feet now and the temp are much warmer.

All the people denying global warming can spout off all they want for now but it won't be much longer before there is no doubt in anyone's mind that it is real!!

Problem is by then it will be too late. It may already be.

Probably the same lot that think the world is 6000 years old and man walked with dinosaurs, pathetic and dangerously scary for people to be that stupid.

Where is the data to back up this scam?? The earth is pretty old, yet we only have a few hundred years of reliable data! You are talking about things 25 years ago. Do you realise how insignificant your 25 years of experiences are in the grand scale. And please, don't start talking about computer projections etc, they can be adjusted to create whatever the person who is paying the scientist to show.

This is all about money/greed/taxation, nothing more, nothing less

And if found positive,what a 500b fine and on your way!

A bloke I know got done for drink driving. They tried to shake him down for 15k, his wife turned up and go it down to 10k. They took the money off him & then gave him his keys back to drive home (still brahms and liszt)!!