richard_smith237

I think these are excellent for a good nights sleep... but I don't think they are something I would want to be taking habitually... I may have it wrong, but if taking regularly we may need a greater 'dose' to have the same affect... That said, I think if someone is open minded its a good option to have has a backup. Why ?... I think a lot of sleep problems may come from sleep problems ?... make sense ?... no, not yet, I'll explain. When someone has a sleep problem, that comes to the forefront of their mind when going to sleep, and this itself exacerbates the sleep problem, which may initially be mild, but is worsened with worry. I have this issue when I know I have to wake up earlier than usual, or need a solid nights sleep for something serious in the morning... almost as if my mind is getting stressed about the fact that the sleep I need is important, which adds a layer of 'sleep stress' thus preventing me from easily reaching slumber. Thus: IF someone has a 'Cannabis gummy' then there is less element of sleep stress... cos they know, if they don't get a good night sleep tonight, then tomorrow they can drop the gummy and have a good nights sleep - thus sleep becomes something not to be paranoid about and that in itself, may assist with sleep in the first place... i.e. the placebo effect of having something in the back-pocket to assure sleep.... (it just an idea, but this seems to work for me). BUT... what really works... plenty of exercise and not drinking - I find that when not drinking, after 3-4 days I start having a much better nights sleep and can drift off a lot more easily..... That said, I like Whisky... so that buggers that idea up !!!

This is tragic though because it means rules and safety are secondary. Worse yet it enables the underclass to behave poorly as they may get compensated. Once again they get what they deserve. There was an article in the Bangkok Post a number of years back that highlighted that this attitude actually led to more accidents and cost the insurance industry more, because people are driving and riding around carelessly because the attitude "you can't take what I don't have" is prevalent - there are no financial consequences... .... That said - I've been driving here for a couple of decades and can't believe I haven't yet hit a motorcycle, yet daily they cut me up with seems like CM's... also very regularly, almost daily it seems that there is a motorcyclist who should be thanking me for hitting the breaks as they cut me up or drive straight towards me... ... Its like a game of chicken... on a narrow soi, motorcyclists ride directly towards me, passing the long line of traffic on their side of the road, forcing me to stop.... we're then at an impasse until they 'wiggle and manouvre' their bike out the way.... It sometimes makes driving 2mins down the soi to the end take 10mins as these bikes create obstacle after obstacle and seem not to care that they get in the way....

Totally agree.... systems can be made far more efficient. I believe that process is underway with e-gates... that both Thai's and foreigners can use upon departure. The TM6 was also abolished... So... steps in the correct direction are being taken. With regards to specifically dealing with foreigners in Thailand, I for one would like to see some sort of Residence ID Card issue to those on long term Visas... Whereby its no longer required to carry a passport as ID and where we can 90 day report online (already) and apply for extensions of stay digitally without having to attend Immigration, where e-gates can be used for entry and exit etc. As you mentioned 4MyEgo - there is a lot of scope for improvement.

Some of the insults on here are excellent and well thought up... Others are just pathetic childish digs to point score in juvenile last word battle and nothing else. Just as evaluating someones education, presence of mind and quality as a person is easy when utilising socio-phonetics, its also easy enough to evaluate the quality of another mind with the quality of insult levied... I've read some crackers on here... and I do chuckle when someone tries so hard to throw an insult but it is instead the pathetic warbling of a castrated intellect.... as per the saying, 'being stupid is like being dead... ' There is also another facet to this 'insulting people'... Whats valid in one thread is not valid in another, yet people carry grudges across threads which is only natural, but it seems to prevent some from seeing the value in another's post just because they dislike them or their comments.... There are posters I often disagree with and get into debate with, those who's comments I'd more commonly find disagreeable, but that doesn't stop me giving them a +1 and agreeing with them on the rare occasions they do get it right !!!

Nope... But as a 'wannabe immigration officer' I'm sure you could investigate !!!!

A lot of muslims I know are remarkably moderate and just like many 'Christians' I know, they are 'un-practicing ' and don't hit the mosque 5x a day.... In fact a lot of Muslim's I know are just decent people, like anyone else... they're in happy Marriages etc... but these are in area's which may be considered more Moderate (Malaysia and area's of Indonesia)... But, I've also worked with guys who show an underlying level of tolerance that makes me believe I'd be beheaded if I were to end up in their village in the Swat Valley... I feel sorry for anyone in this environment, its just one of fear. So... I suspect, IF a female is in the type of environment you are brining into question with your above comment, then I suspect they may not be a 'self respecting woman' as that aspect of self respect has been extracted from them and replaced with what would appear to be fear.....

I just worked alongside an Indian fellow who had a PhD, we're the same age, I think I was getting very slightly more than he was (5%). I enjoyed working with him, he tool a lot of guidance.... but heck, it was a lot of guidance... It actually took him two months to realise the company had set up his e-mail account incorrectly and he couldn't actually send e-mails. I'd call him incompetent, and he was - but has somehow got away with it through being a nice guy. I'd work with him again where I can guide him... ... but I wouldn't have him working for me, because he lacks critical skills for the job. BUT... his C.V. says PhD (from a Uni in India), and thats what gets him in the door because those hiring don't know anyway.

When I read headlines like this I want to throttle anyone in a position of decision making power who has the hubris to make such an announcement, as if the mere announcement alone is sufficient... It isn't !!!!... In its most simplistic terms there are three areas of safety where Thai Authorities / Thai Government is letting its citizens down. - Water Safety - Electrical Safety - Road Safety In all of these aspects, far more could be done and inroads could be made into educating the public using very simple measures. It would be extremely easy to for 'public awareness' videos to be made and broadcasted throughout the day, particularly at key periods when the family (most people anyway) are watching TV. Additionally - Add 'Safety' to the education curriculum... (in the US they have Drivers Ed)... Most people will never use Trigonometry or need to know how to draw etc... BUT, nearly everyone will drive a vehicle, they will be exposed to open water, and will be exposed to electrical safety risks..... Put Safety in Schools and on TV.... take active steps to educate society and help them help themselves... Enough bleeting on with useless announcements - no one pays attention other than those of us on these fora recognising the hypocrisy.

I'd rephrase that last sentence... to "We accepted the Blame"..... because in this situation you could have refused to accept blame and allow the decision to be taken up a level.... but its sometimes easier and quicker to just accept the blame than deal with the hassle of a contest. This happened to me when I had an accident over 20 years ago (pre-dashcams) The other vehicle (an uninsured Mini-van) overtook me at a junction (him going straight on while I was turning right).. I was in the right most lane, he over taking heading towards oncomming traffic (busses), he hit my drivers side door as I was making the turn. As the van had no insurance and before I could speak the Police initially said the accident was my fault, but I was polite and very firm, I refused to accept blame, I pointed out that I'm more than happy to push this up as high as it needs to go, but I'm not accepting fault. The other driver was also faking an injury (which I suspect was leading to him to enter the 'compensation' negotiation at some point). I'd taken loads of photos of the accident scene and each time the van-driver made up some BS excuse about how the accident happened, one of the photos' showed him to be lying. It came to a head when the other driver said I didn't indicate to turn right.... I asked the Policeman if he is familiar with driving standards in the UK and does he think the standards are better there, or in Thailand ?.... he agreed, standards are higher in the UK... I asked him if he believed that I used the indicator or not, he said, with the higher standards in the UK he believed that I indicated !!!! (being a foreigner worked in my favour !!)... Then someone else came in and money changed hands (or rather brown envelopes were handed over).... It turned out the mini-van was an unlicensed bus operating on a public route and paying the local BiB to use that route. The Policeman, sympathetically highlighted that he was unable to make a 'decision' that placed the other guy at fault (because they were paying off a more senior officer at the station).... No problem, I still wouldn't accept fault.... We were both sent to a larger police station and I dealt with someone more senior... The senior officer said that if I insisted on going to court, that would be ok, I'd probably win, but it would take time. I pointed out that I didn't want to be held accountable for any part in the other parties injuries or damages. The officer asked if I was happy with a 50:50 decision, my insurance only covers my costs and there is no scope for a compensation claim. This was fair IMO... Obviously not up to international standards, but we are not in the UK... I felt I was treated very politely and respectfully and ultimately, I believe I was treated fairly given the complexities of corruption muddying the waters a little.

That is a long told untruth, in the same way as the other one that says the bigger vehicle has to pay in an accident (something my Thai lawyer described as rubbish). If you get blamed for a road accident and/or the police say you have to pay up when you know it wasn't your fault. See a decent lawyer. Plenty of foreigners win in court cases when they have the motivation to fight - the courts are pretty fair actually but you have to be prepared to go to court. Plenty of Thai's also back down when they realise you are serious about court. 100% agree with you Middle Aged Grouch.... Having been involved in a couple of accidents here, what I have witnessed has nothing to do with 'the foreigner always being at fault'... the way these incidents are resolved is simply by taking the 'path of least resistance'.... whatever that is. Usually, the 'wealthier party' is considered to be least impacted in an incident so costs may get nudged on to them, the wealthier party is usually the car driver in a motorcycle-car incident, so to the 'social norm' is for the car driver to be held 'unofficially accountable' and to cover some of the costs for the motorcyclist. This is when a foreigner may cry "foreigner always at fault" because he doesn't understand what has become a cultural norm. So.. what happens in road accidents the Police will usually end up simply choosing whoever appears to be wealthier to cover the costs of the accident... this doesn't sit well with many. Some accept the decision and then walk away crying unfair treatment. Others reject this which is when 'more official decisions are made'.... If you have 1st Class insurance, there is little to be concerned with, but I still wouldn't accept any fault or sign anything because there is a risk of compensation claims if you do so. Ultimately - I've been in incidents where I was treated very fairly... one of them I'd argue I was treated more favourably because I am a foreigner. Experience obviously varies on all of this... .... But the 'foreigner automatically being at fault' is not something I have ever experienced here, although I believe others have, though they may have interpreted their situation differently through this sense of paranoia.

I had to chuckle at myself when the first time I attempted to do this I got caught for it by a Policeman and told to go back !!!... There is an underpass near me that I use to get to HomePro (about 10 mins away), to avoid the long way round, which incidentally takes me through an area of greater congestion also frequented by heavy trucks, or I have to complete two further U-Turns (which IMO are just dangerous)... So, after taking the underpass I pulled over to the side of the road, traffic non-existent and ride 50m in the wrong direction and turn into the 'rear entrance' of HomePro.... Yep, copper saw me doing this and just pointed at me to go back.... I felt silly !!!... and yes, I'm a hypocrite... But, I'd still do the same in that exact same situation as I actually consider it the safer option. BUT - to ride like the lad in the Video.... thats not simply riding the wrong way, which is very common, but also commonly done with caution... this examples (in the video) is riding with complete disregard for any safety whatsoever and caution thrown completely to the wind.... ... Riding like that, this lad was always going to kill himself soon.

Lol, how hard can it be to stamp a passport, that's basically what they do all day, apart from shuffle paper IMO. Jack is correct - each province is assigned personnel and I believe the Airports themselves to operate autonomously from the 'district' they are within. Additionally - how hard is it to sign stamp a passport ??... the over simplified dumbed down nature of that comment suggests a lack of understanding.. - Firstly we have to know which passports can enter Visa Exempt, or need a Visa on Entry, or need a full on Visa before travel etc... - Then we have to look through the Passport to check if there are any existing Visa's, with re-entry permissions. - Then we have to adjust the dates so that the 'permission of stay' is correct for the nationality and entry type. - Then there is the profiling and looking for those who may seek to abuse the system etc - Then there is doing all of the above, repetitively, without falling asleep and screwing it up. Thus: there is more to it than flicking open a page and just stamping a book which is implied by your attempted bash.

Agreed... things tend to increase in 5 baht increments... So if something hasn't increased for 10 years... a 5 baht nudge isn't much and is still often less in real terms when comparing price to 10 years ago. For the sake of discussion and nothing else... Would you consider 'sky rocketed' or 'doubled' a more extreme term ? i.e. as in... the price of expressway fee's doubled.... vs the price of expressway fee's skyrocketed.... This is why I suggest the article itself uses ridiculous exaggeration to attract attention.

what you really mean is i'm all right Jack..sod everyone else No... what he means is that the increase is 5 baht... Hardly sky-rocketing. But do add a point... most Lazada etc is delivered on Motorcycles, then there is no increased delivery costs, but the 'depot to depot' deliveries 'may' face a 5 baht charge for the lorry of 1000's of items... So... your... "I'm alright Jack, Sod everyone else" virtue signal is as hyperbolically exaggerated as the main opening article itself.

Sky rocketing.... erm... Exaggerate Much ???? The fee's are going up by 5 baht to 45 baht (for 4 wheeled vehicles)... an increase of just over 10% is hardly skyrocketing, expecially when there has been no price increase for well over a decade. You think a 5 baht bump is going to be the make or break for small and medium businesses trying to make a living ??? Your exaggeration may be worse greater than the story itself !!!

Is that not more to do with the pre-valance of social media than anything else ???? No we have apps such as TikTok which hit the masses within seconds... thus any news is spread very quickly and negative news spreads very quickly. The same number of 'wrong uns' are travelling and getting up to silly stuff - we just read more about it now. I recall doing silly stuff, I'm glad social media wasn't around then - We used to pay TukTuk Drivers so we could drive their TukTuks around the back-streets... But you are not on FrenchVisa.com website of Schegnennow.com etc.... i.e. you are not on forum which specifically deals with tourists. If you didn't read these fora and relied solely on the mainstream media, there would hardly be any news of Tourist's causing problems. Given the apathy of the policing here, it certainly does seem that Thailand is a place where criminals can escape their convictions in their homelands and hide in plain sight in Thailand, but that would be true of any developing nation with a lazy police force. There are area's of Thailand which seem to be a magnet for the 'worst of the human race' but then I'm sure the same can be said of some area's of London, some area's of Spain, Some area's of Mexico or Indonesia etc...

Fair enough if when referring to 'they' you are referring specifically to a minority of Immigration officers who may fester resentment... I'd agree that there are some Immigration officers who's attitudes towards Foreigners are tarnished, either through underlying prejudice or one which has developed through continued exposure to foreigners from an elevated position. We can see it with Market Traders in places like Patong etc... There is a lot of negative attitudes quite likely the consequences of generalised feelings of contempt when dealing with a lot of foreigners and then tarring all with the same negative brush - certainly such negative sentiment towards foreginers is far less common away from areas of 'crowded' tourist footfall. No one is born with an attitude... I can understand how such an opinion described above can develop.

About 5 or 6 years ago there was also an DLT App on which you could report Taxi's who failed to use their meter etc... But, you had to upload a Photo of the Taxi which meant we had to have our phone on camera read whenever asking a taxi... this would... a) Force drivers to drive on by and ignore you (if they saw your phone on) - they were the dodgy guys anyway. b) It would antagonise drivers and escalate a situation. Additionally, the App wouldn't accept the photo upload, as such a complaint could never be submitted without a photo of the taxi license place or (interior licence plate)... i wonder if this flaw was deliberately programmed... of course later announcement's were 'no complaints' Thailand Taxi's are all operating with great customer service !!!

Why would you think he made up such a story ??? People getting 'roofied' in Thailand is a story as old as tourism. I know of people this has happened two, one of them a couple of decades ago, he disappeared for a couple of days and his local account ATM had be drained - he doesn't remember anything of the weekend at all and hospital later confirmed some 'nasty stuff' in his system (this was about 20 years ago though). About 5 years ago I was drinking with a close friend... at bar closure time we stopped off on one of those street bars along a Sukhumvit side soi.... We were chatting away and I had my beer on the 'bar type thingy' beside me... my attention was drawn to my friend for a short while, before I reached around and took my drink, when taking a sip I tasted this acrid artificial flavour in the beer and my immediate reaction was to spit the beer out on the floor.... I immediately suspected something untoward... I told me friend not to drink any more, we paid the bill and left.... I have no proof, but I suspect something was placed in my drink but it didn't have enough time to settle and mix in etc...

Post a real video (not AI Generated), of you in your car doing the same.... then I (we) may buy into this idea...

I wouldn't worry too much, given the numbers of British in Thailand and the attention Brit's get in the English Language media is only a matter of time before a Brit gets into a fight with a TukTuk driver, taxi driver or LadyBoy on beach road and that hits the c-grade headlines much to the pleasure of the Brit-bashers on the forum....

Thats an extremely 'wide metric'... because what exactly is 'misbehaving' ??..... not wearing a helmet on a motorcycle ? driving or riding while drunk ???? fighting etc ? Kicking people sat in the steps to your beach house ? If foreigners are 'misbehaving' depending on what they have done, its easy for Immigration just to 'get rid of them' (i.e. deport them) if criminal charges are filed. Conversely, its more difficult to deal with Thai's who have committed similar crimes as they cannot simply be deported, they have to go through the legal system which takes time, effort and money.

Au contraire - its with the acceptance that my comments are in fact based on prejudice and a degree of racism that the accusations and name slinging are avoided...

You are correct - its still quite wrong to have a negative opinion of a whole nation based on Prejudice - unfortunately the prejudice is based on a foundation of experience I find rarely to be contradicted. Nevertheless, I endeavour to treat everyone equally and fairly and try to avoid the confirmation bias - its just that I'm not surprised when my prejudice is confirmed, conversely I am pleasantly surprised when in such circumstances my prejudice is contradicted with a positive experience. In the case of this story, this is just some complete nasty aysewhole... who took to revenge... such actions are are not the sole behavior of Pakistani's... and there are those in many / every nationality are guilty of such offensive revenge porn... ... What I can say, is that at least this wasn't an acid attack instead - but there goes my prejudice / racism.

This one is a difficult one.... because generalisations and stereotypes exist for a reason.... Whenever an explanation needs to be presented at the start of a sentence its usually because something is wrong. In this case I'll have to present the statement that 'I am not a racist' (which implies a racist comment is forthcoming - and that is true). Having worked closely with nationalities from all over the world there are a couple of Nationalities I have found to have few redeeming features. I have found most Pakistani's I have worked with to have unlikable few redeeming characteristics, conversely, I have found that most from the neighbouring country; India, to have likeable and redeeming characteristics. I don't think I am racist, I am just observant of patterns and have established this unfavourable opinion of Pakistanis, I also have the same general opinion of Kuwaits, Qatari's and Egyptians.... Conversely I have very favourable opinions of other nationalities from similar regions having been exposed to their characteristics and general ethics such that generalisations can be made (i.e. Oman's are excellent). I have also pushed numerous 'high quality' Pakistani's forward for promotion, and those hard working individuals deserve their move for the hard work, so I don't judge differently, but I am also conscious that those Pakistani's 'nudged up the chains' for promotion end up bringing in their 'brothers' many of whom are often not of the same standard and this is at the cost of other nationalities - they don't honour the same meritocracy which rewarded them - without oversight I've seen companies (particularly) in the Middle East with 'very one sided' departments operating with clear inexperience and incompetence because of nationalistic nepotism (i.e. Pakistanis only bringing in other Pakistani's) - they then become defensive and nasty to protect their 'network'.... In short, as much as I try not to be, I see very few redeeming features of Pakistanis's and find many negative comments of them to be true with such frequency I have to levy the accusation at myself that I too am quite likely racists against Pakistanis for the above mentioned reasons - its not an opinion I'm proud of, yet the opinion exists no matter how often I 'check' myself.