khunjeff

Is this the same AOT that opened Suvarnabhumi with a system that would have required arriving passengers to take a bus to a remote transportation center in order to get a taxi, because they wanted to try to force people to use AOT's own "limousine" service? And that then had to hurriedly backtrack after the public outcry and set up taxi dispatchers at card tables on the pavement outside of the arrivals area? And the same AOT that installed giant rotating turnstiles at the departures level to prevent people from walking out to get into incoming taxis? Yeah, I thought so.

Here's what's advertised by the airport operator itself:

Thai Elite maybe No, there are other cart services that are not connected with Thai Privilege, and they are advertised all over with packages that include Fast Track immigration. Even AOT itself sells this kind of service through its "Sawasdee Pass" scheme. LTR, SMART Visa, Thai Elite, and a few others are specifically authorized to use Fast Track. The article isn't saying that Fast Track doesn't exist, just making the ludicrous claim that the privilege isn't being openly sold to pax who don't qualify to use it.

Those numbers seem way, way too low. That would mean fewer than two scam calls per phone number per year, and pretty much everyone I know or have read about receives far more than that number per week.

Kasikorn can produce a one year statement while you wait for the same 100 baht price as a shorter one, so you might as well get the longer version just to be on the safe side. And in my experience, it shouldn't matter whether you update the bank book before or after the letter is issued (since you're actually allowed to get the letter up to seven days before the appointment).

Entering the country as a tourist at the airport - which is what is under discussion here - does not involve any forms or signatures.

Other than the nonstop giant billboards everywhere showing the names and logos of the biggest beer companies - but oh, sorry, those are actually advertising "club soda" and "mineral water"...

Really? I last rode the ARL less than two months ago, and the empty, unusable baggage car was still on the train that I was on - and I've never seen an ex-Express train without it. (All the former Express passenger cars were converted to the City-style beech seating years ago.)

This was because your plane (EK 385) was continuing on to Dubai, and they wanted to be sure that no one was getting off at the wrong destination. It isn't a new requirement - they've done this for years for flights where BKK is only an intermediate stop and continuing passengers are required to remain on board. As others have noted, this is the standard procedure that the machine runs automatically. The officer can stop it after the first hand is scanned - if she sees that you already have prints on record, and the first hand matches those - but that doesn't always happen.

Big Joke and Torsak are both full (four-star) Police Generals, not (three-star) Lieutenant Generals! Even if someone didn't know this, they could see it clearly from BJ's shoulder board in the photo.

"But she and her four colleagues, who are all members of the [Lawyers'] council, have agreed that they cast the province in a negative light and that the message in the advertisement is degrading to women, as it likens them to food, which constitutes a libel" The billboards may be clever or stupid depending on your point of view, but how they could constitute "libel" is utterly beyond me.

Its "reach" is exactly the same now as it was in 2018 - there have been no extensions to the system since it opened. The ARL has had insufficient rolling stock since the day it opened, which is why the frequencies are so poor. Neither the SRT nor CP have shown any interest in spending money to buy more trains. Meanwhile, the stations are still gloomy and stifling, the guards still blow their whistles in passengers' ears, the seats are still narrow and uncomfortable, and the exteriors of the trains show no signs of ever having been washed. Very unlikely anytime in the foreseeable future. The express trains never made economic sense, and would still run mostly empty if they were brought back. That being the case, CP should finally convert the unused baggage cars on the former express trains to accommodate passengers - it's ridiculous that those trains run with one empty car, even years after the express service was discontinued.

So, downsizing by 700 personnel, or about 1/4 of 1% of total strength, and "saving" 34M baht, or about 1/6 of 1% of the budget - and this will take years to implement. Are we supposed to be impressed?

Is this really true? Despite a lot of bloviation by authorities, I don't think I've heard of any instance of a foreigner being prosecuted for an illegal nominee relationship.

So once again the smugglers have escaped and the trafficking victims have been arrested, in contravention of international standards. Be prepared to go back on the Trafficking in Persons watchlist.

Almost every Thai parking facility explicitly allows double parking, but with the requirement that the car be in neutral so that it can be pushed out of the way if necessary.

My recollection is that it went far beyond skimming - they were stealing something like half the tolls for many months. The government brought in soldiers to man the toll booths for a while, and then the story just disappeared.

There are hundreds of different designs out there, but yes, virtually all of them include elephants in both directions (as in the photo) to make the sewing easier - the design is the same regardless of how you orient the fabric.

About time - those pickers were regularly exploited by brokers, and many of them actually lost money after paying exorbitant fees and expenses out of their own pockets.

Beer, whether local or imported, is not part of any of these tax reduction schemes.

"See, this is why we need to buy a new frigate from China."

The renovated canal area looks nice, but I've never seen more than about one block of the walkway in active use - the rest is always deserted. Part of the problem is that it's impossible to move from one section to the next without going up some stairs and running across a busy road, with no light or crosswalk at the natural crossing point.

So they don't intend to actually enforce any of this, other than by maybe sending a ticket through the mail at some future date. And how exactly will that move traffic along today? Also, I don't know anyone who would characterize license plate readers, CCTV cameras, and 3-minute timers as an "AI system". Yes, the problem isn't too many vehicles on the roads, it's tourists using the wrong vehicles. Uh huh. And signs have proven to be so effective...

Is the "ombudsman" looking after the interests of the police, or the public? Reasonable people can disagree about what the cutoff in the number of pills should be, but Vichai's argument seems to be "drugs are bad, therefore we should keep exactly the same enforcement regime that we've always had" (and which has done such a great job in reducing crime and abuse 🙄 ). And his "fear[] that corrupt police may exploit the regulation, accepting bribes to ignore the quantity of drugs in possession" kind of ignores the fact that if you assume police will accept bribes, then no enforcement mechanism will work...

I'm not sure why this wasn't already prohibited, but the bigger question is whether there will actually be any enforcement. (And given that the indented area in the photo has no sign saying "no parking" or "official vehicles only", it's not surprising that people were "misusing" it.)