richard_smith237

The links you provide call it the ‘Turkey Earthquake’.... (in their URL)... Calling it the Turkey Earthquake does not imply it only occurred in Turkey...... for some reason you are being deliberately slow to catch on to that point. Every headline, even it if calls it the ’Turkey Earthquake’ or ‘Earthquake in Turkey’ still mentions that the earthquake impacted Syria....

Calling the earthquake the ‘Turkish earthquake’ or ‘Earthquake in Turkey’ does not imply the earthquake didn’t exist else where at all.... But it does follow a more accurate nomenclature to describe the specific event which is an earthquake with an epicentre in Turkey. The Chicxulub meteorite was given its modern name after the crater found buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico - this lead to a global extinction event.... It wasn’t called the ‘world meteorite’.... Reporters would not have stated ‘meteorite strikes the world’ killing billions and causing mass extinction.... they’d have wrote meteorite strikes Chicxulub etc.. perhaps you are not a scientist and can’t really understand that and prefer the laymans wording applied by some journalists. The earthquake.... it was in Turkey - that is where the epicentre is. In the Seismological community an earthquake is named after its epicentre..... You may not ‘care’ how the earthquake is named, but those stating the earthquake struck South East Turkey are accurate.... The earthquake struck South East Turkey (or more accurately Turkiye) with wide ranging catastrophic cross border consequences. IF the epicentre was in Syria, it would be accurate for articles to state... "Huge earthquake in North West Syria Turkey kills more than 1000 people in Syria and Turkey”.... You have taken a layman’s outlook thats all, as have many journalists - thats not inaccurate, but neither is stating the earthquake occurred in Turkey (with wide ranging impact in nearby countries).

So why are rooms and meals so cheap? The average Bangkok taxi fare is also very cheap. Would you not agree its a rip off if I get the same room, meal or taxi for much cheaper than you ??? Or, would not not agree that its a rip-off if instead of following the legal government rate a taxi driver instead charges you an inflated rate ? Perhaps because you pay £20 for a 5-10 minute journey in London you think its perfectly acceptable to pay 500 baht for a 5-10 minute journey in Thailand, its still cheaper than London, right ?

Motorcyclists also have something commonly called a ‘Life saver’... which is the physical check over your shoulder to check the blind spot rather than relying solely on mirrors.... ... I do wonder if those without mirrors bother with such shoulder checks anyway !!!.... In busy traffic, I nearly got caught out - approaching a car in my lane, I shoulder checked and was about to change lanes, a car was approaching at speed in the next lane. I turned turned back, the car in front had stopped for no apparent reason..... a frightening moment.

So you didn’t mean to tell the Op death is imminent and he should get his affairs in order ? ???? ... back-pedal much ?

Yep... all valid points. Coming on here does highlight the Op as being somewhat neurotic and a bit too fragile which I suspect is what has triggered a load of the responses against him. The lady clearly ripped him off.... his own fault for handing over any money at all, he then paints a very childish picture of himself claiming some sort of ‘moral victory’.... But, the issue raised by the Op does open the dialogue to discussing an issue all of us at times have experienced and many of us felt insulted or just momentarily irritated by.

She's only making 43,212 baht per Rai ???...... Terrible business...

If she were providing quality banana’s clearly the monkeys would have still been hanging around and the Op would have been happy to pay 10x the going rate to feed the pesky primates... ... Even the monkeys know this woman was ripping everyone off and nicked off to better pastures !

Only thing you have said today that I agree with. Then you disagree that the Op was charged an inflated rate because he is a foreigner ??...

I never lived in a tourist area... but I have visited briefly... is this something new? You’ve never visited a tourist area where they automatically want to charge you an inflated dual rate and out of a sense of entitlement expect you to be perfectly happy to pay the inflated rate.... ???

You under-egged it...... pay the 20 and and tip the remaining 180 Baht !!!...

To be frank, you never really got started..... given the state of the arguments you presented, a Doctor of any type you most certainly are not !!!

You are confused - the ‘Christening' of an earthquake and ‘where it happened’ are one in the same... But... it happened, as in, it was felt in a lot of countries, you want all of those countries to be named in the headline of ‘where it happened’ .... it was also felt in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon... where do you draw the line ??? What do you want the headline to be ??? The epicentre was in Turkey, hence the headline earthquake in Turkey... and it was was also felt in other countries, the most significant of which was obviously Syria. Technically, as the epicentre was so close to the Syrian border it could also be called the Turkish-Syrian Earthquake... So, if you want to ‘split hairs’ you could call it that.... But from a scientific point of view an earthquake is named after the location of its epicentre - its just that simple an thats what the media would usually use when referring to an earthquake, its what the media did use in this case.

No... Earthquakes are always named after the town, province, or country, near or within which it originates, and by its date.... - This earthquake is / will be known as the Turkish Quake 2023. It was felt in Syriah, Greece, Northern Iraq, Lebanon... and other places... It can’t be named after all of them, its named after the place closest to its epicentre - Seems you are the only one struggling with that concept... ... perhaps you should change your handle to ‘lotsofplacesholder’ !!! ????

It's a perfectly valid statement, ( and choice) that's why it gets repeated so many times to whining post subjects like this one. This subject is one that any amount of angst and pointless debate will not change. No.. its not really a valid statement at all, its an unintelligent flippant remark used as a wise-crack to point score and is repeated by people who lack the intelligence to formulate a valid argument because there are no valid or intelligent arguments... IF this debate is so pointless, why have you joined it ?.... the starting point for any improvement is discussion... in this case when people recognise and object to double charging the message may get through... People complained about TM28, others such as you and I have benefited from that. People have publicised the negativity of dual pricing, some businesses no longer employ such tactics as they no recognise it to be a distasteful practice..... When there is dialogue, there is learning and improvement.... ... you may not recognise such, but people have already put in the ground work for how easy things are for you here today. You seem to present this argument from a perspective that if someone doesn’t like an aspect of Thailand they will not like any aspect of Thailand. In this case dual pricing is one of the negatives being discussed, there are also many many positives of Thailand... You seem to think people who recognise things which are not right are masochists or perennial moaners at all things Thai, in doing so you make a ridiculous generalisation and wholly unintelligent argument that fails on a basic level and is utterly absent of understanding that people can both like and dislike different aspects, experiences and facets of a place and its ok to discuss all of them.

Your analogy is flawed - I don’t go into a convenience store (i.e. a 7-11) that charges me 5x or 10x the price it charges Thai’s for the same item... IF it did, I’d walk away, also you mentioned the Op also had that option. Depending on where a person lives they will be exposed to varying degrees and frequency of attempted rip-offs.... I can imagine for some it just becomes an utter nuisance to witness such behaviour frequently. Its one of the reasons I don’t want to live in a Tourist area... because nearly every local seems to believe it their right to dual charge foreigners and that there is almost a sense of entitlement to fleece. IF someone feels they are getting ripped off all the time, they probably are - I can understand them getting fed up with such treatment.

Indeed… I can see how such issues are considered ridiculous by those who are so familiar with beating treated as a second class citizen they accept this behavior as the norm.

Agreed…. The Thai lady showed the foreign father contempt rather than humanity & compassion…. He responded in kind. Poor form by both parties. The Op should have just walked away at the first indication of disrespectful treatment.

Indeed…. I also wonder what viable alternatives there are if laws were strictly enforced….…. i.e would there be better alternatives because there becomes a demand for them (more baht busses / tuk tuks etc).

And you are happy to pay 10x the going rate for all of that without any complaint.... right ????

Erm.... So your message to the Op its ok to pay 10x the going rate because he wasn’t on the NYC Subway ???? The lady still tried to rip him off.... he should have just walked away. Of course, not a major issue... but I can understand that for some this constant ‘day to day’ attempt to rip you off becomes a little exhausting.... on another thread someone mentioned ‘death by a 1000 cuts’.... and for some people its kind of like that... at every corner there is someone else charging that little bit extra etc.... each individual event is insignificant, but for some its understandable that it can simply wear thin. Its one of the reasons I prefer Bangkok... its just easier to be ’normal normal’ when there is no consistent and persistent dual charging, attempts to rip us off or expectation that we should pay more than our Thai peers and neighbours etc....

Yup... as expected all the posts calling out the Op for being petty etc... The reality is the ‘poor banana seller’ was trying to rip-off the Op.... Whether someone feels sympathetic to her plight, working hard in the hot sun etc etc... is kind of beside the point somewhat... ... She saw a foreigner and tried to rip him off - her behaviour was wrong. The Op was of course petty for demanding a refund instead of just walking away in the first place, and then posting a story about such an insignificant issue on this forum and expecting anything other than distain from people who are attracted to posits such as this to for a chance to blame the Op. IF the Op charged a Thai 10x for some Bananas the same posters would be blaming him for ripping off a Thai.... In short, those same characters blaming the Op have somehow ‘gone native’ and accept unequal treatment as normal.... it shouldn’t be tolerated, but neither is it really a major point of contention worthy of an online complaint.... My point here is more against those who think there is nothing wrong with this lady attempting to rip off the Op just because he’s a foreigner.

Tragic... I hope that poor child does not grow up blaming themselves for their fathers demise. It was his responsibility and his alone to ensure he didn’t ‘fall off’ a moving motorcycle.

Exactly that.... In a nation where numbers are posted almost exclusively in Western Arabic numerals except for when they are trying to hide dual pricing it becomes obvious that the establishment itself is deliberately participating in discriminatory act of deception. Again to re-iterate for those who do no understand.... This is not a show stopper, it doesn’t destroy our day as some people want to believe, we are balanced enough to accept it and move on. But that doesn’t mean we have to participate in the brainwashing that any of this is ok, acceptable or ignore the fact that this practice is discriminatory.

The ‘if you don’t like it go home’ statement is a last ditch effort because you have no other intelligent argument to justify dual pricing practices....