khunjeff

Why couldn't they use his face and fingerprints to identify him through immigration's much-vaunted biometric system?

Whenever there's a news story about foreigners behaving badly, we immediately hear that authorities are "enhancing" or "intensifying" immigration inspections, and then we go through the airport and see that absolutely nothing has changed. There is no "pre-entry screening" - the TDAC is not an ETA. As soon as you hit "submit", you instantly get a QR code. No one is reviewing the information - all it does is record your responses and send a confirmation. And no, foreign embassies are not giving Thai immigration access to databases regarding their citizens - this is the same absurd claim they made when they introduced APIS (Advance Passenger Information System) a number of years ago.

Oh, so then everything is fine, nothing to see here 😅

More accurately, that decision was made by RFK Jr. "“This decision bypasses a long-established, evidence-based process used to ensure vaccine safety and ignores the expertise of independent medical experts, including members of the CDC committees who are examining the evidence regarding the vaccine to make recommendations for the fall,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases"

Wow. Where to begin? This is so patently absurd that, as Trink used to say, "any comment would be superfluous"...! A long-standing bilateral agreement allows Vietnamese to enter Thailand without a visa for 30 days. There have been no changes to this policy in recent memory. Sounds an awful lot like someone who doesn't like the competition 🤔 Ah, yes, the famous 3-5 month "standard tourist visas" - perhaps people shouldn't comment on matters about which they clearly know nothing! And by the way, stop by the Thai consulate in Saigon and see how many Vietnamese are applying for tourist visas. Hint: there aren't any, because they all enter visa-free. Clearly he doesn't read ASEAN Now. From March 15: "Thai police launched a nighttime operation in Soi Nana, part of Bangkok's bustling Sukhumvit area, leading to the arrest of 13 foreign women suspected of engaging in sex work. "Among the detainees were women from Tanzania, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam." https://aseannow.com/topic/1354668-police-raid-soi-nana-arrest-foreign-women-for-suspected-prostitution/

Normally it's an outpatient procedure.

Thailand's wine industry is a virtual nonentity - it's difficult to find Thai wines to purchase at retail stores, even if one wanted to buy them. (I do, however, enjoy visiting Thai vineyards, which usually have nice restaurants.) Taxes on wine here are essentially a luxury tax, not a protectionist measure. https://silklegal.com/wine-tax-in-thailand-a-protectionist-barrier/

For wines selling at US$100+, which are consumed by less than 1% of the Thai population, and rarely in large volumes at one sitting? That seems completely unbelievable.

It's a lot more complicated than that, which makes the pricing structure very complicated to figure out - there are import duties, VAT, and two different types of excise tax, one based on value and the other on alcohol content. https://www.meiningers-international.com/wine/news/thailand-slashes-taxes-wine

That's for Cambodia, not Vietnam.

So why was he using the fake passport? Obviously it would have been detected on arrival in Israel, so the scam wouldn't have gotten very far 🤔

What connection does this have with the mission of the Tourist Police?

This "recent" decision happened over a year ago 🙄

I went to his old restaurant and his new place a few times. The food and drinks are always great, and Harlan is fun to talk to.

In craft beer, which is time consuming and expensive to produce, and for which consumers are willing to pay a high price? Never.

They already introduced a ten year visa for retirees in 2022 - the Long Term Resident Wealthy Pensioner visa (LTR-P). There's no reason to think they would come out with another variation on that anytime soon.

Despite what all the breathless clickbait from travel blogs would have you think, Vietnam hasn't "introduced" anything - there has simply been a proposal from an advisory board, with only the vaguest of details. The long term visas have not been approved, and you can't apply for them. https://news.tuoitre.vn/vietnams-tourism-body-proposes-10-year-golden-visa-to-attract-global-talent-investors-103250516193404789.htm

No, this case underscores the depravity of the country's wealthy in exploiting poor domestic employees in furtherance of riches, and the complicity of authorities in punishing the ones who were used rather than the ones who actually undertook the fraud.

They compiled a pretty accurate list of prosperous, well-run cities, but then made the mistake of declaring that those cities are therefore "happy". Seoul comes in at number 6, and anyone who's ever lived there could have told them that folks there are anything but happy...

Trang doesn't have any international flights, so I'm not sure how that's going to work. Also, the new terminal is on the opposite side of the airport from the current one, and is accessed by different roads, so I don't think it's realistic to operate both at once.

This all sounds nice in theory, but the key will be how (or if) it's actually implemented in practice.

So they haven't even completed the plan yet, but it will be operational within six years. Uh huh 🧐

That isn't what the term "zero dollar" refers to - there are even zero dollar tours for Chinese people within China. Authorities in China and Hong Kong have been fighting these operations for years because they exploit and threaten tour participants - only in Thailand is the focus on loss of revenue to local businesses rather than on the safety of the tourists themselves. "As its name suggests, zero-dollar tourism refers to packaged tours which are much less expensive than independent travel with one catch: tourists are taken on many shopping trips and are often required to buy overpriced products. Tour guides and drivers get a kickback from these shopping excursions, offsetting the loss on the tour’s initial cost." https://theaseanpost.com/article/made-china-zero-dollar-tourists

I use the MRT all the time, and no smell of any kind "smacks you in the face" at any station. The system is clean and well ventilated.

I'm not following this - was it a lobster company, or an air conditioning company? Or both? And in what sense is this "zero dollar" (a term used for cheap group tours)?