khunjeff

I'm also with AFSPA, and the cover email for the letter they sent to me ended with this: "Note: This letter is a standard letter used by our AFSPA members for overseas travel and Covid coverage and cannot be customized."

There's never been any question that the money is owed, but BTS will never collect until/unless BMA decides that it's willing to honor its obligations. The court can order whatever it wants, but it has little ability to enforce the judgment.

So a public official was arrested by publicly-funded police for stealing public funds, but the public is not permitted to know her identity or position. Got it.

Why on earth would the passenger consider it reasonable to pay more based on engine size?

1) Those gates were installed months ago (though still unused), but only at the domestic departure area. Putting them at the entrance to international departure security would involve a major construction project, if it were possible at all. 2) The article refers repeatedly to "counters" in various check-in zones. The selling of fast track access was so corrupt that Big Joke did away with the coupon system entirely when he was in charge of immigration. To use those lanes now, you have to show a premium class boarding pass, evidence that you're over 70, a diplomatic passport, or whatever - there are no more vouchers. Someone may have figured out a way to sell access nonetheless, but it's not as straightforward as it used to be.

“You can only take them if they have been prescribed to you by a doctor,” Paisarn said. “So, if you don’t have a prescription, pharmacies will not sell antiviral medicines to you.” Ok, serious question. In over 30 years of going to many different doctors and hospitals in Thailand, I've never seen a prescription - not even once. Do they really exist? My personal experience has always been that the doctor either dispenses medicine himself (directly at a small clinic, or through the in-house pharmacy at a hospital), or just tells you verbally what you need so you can buy it at an outside pharmacy.

This isn't talking about self check-in kiosks - it's about scanning your BP after you've already checked in. The story is so poorly reported that it's difficult to tell just what the purpose of this system is, but it sounds like it will somehow replace the current regimen of some teenage contractor comparing the information on your BP to that on your passport, and then pretending to match your face to your passport photo.

There's only one terminal at Suvarnabhumi, so I don't know where they think "Terminal 4" is. I've also never heard of this type of system being at the check-in area, and having separate local and foreign zones - in most airports, everyone's boarding pass, regardless of nationality, is simply scanned as you enter security.

The story about the would-be Sofitel being condemned for being unstable was widely reported at the time, so that's not a barstool myth. I don't know what they eventually did to render the building habitable.

I realize you're being facetious, but the headline is obviously very misleading. This incident is completely about Thais being cheated by a Thai tour company, with no accusation of any overcharging by Koreans.

The only useful thing the guards typically do is escorting blind passengers. Other than that, they just strut around self-importantly and blow whistles loudly whenever someone's foot approaches the yellow line, even at stations with platform screen doors. In this case, it's pretty obvious from the video what happened: the escalator was operating normally, but there was such a crush of people at the top (whether due to the inadequate number of turnstiles or people stopping to buy tickets, I don't know) that eventually the crowd moving inexorably upward ran into a wall of people and fell backwards. What we don't know is whether the only emergency stop button was on the escalator itself, or if there's a remote shutoff switch somewhere else. In either case, it's pretty clear that the station employees were not adequately monitoring the situation.

On my two recent regional trips, the airlines asked to see it at check-in both times, and it was only requested on arrival once. A result on a phone screen was fine for all of those.

Apparently her commander didn't notice that she never showed up at her military post, or notice that she was scarred and injured on the occasions that she did appear?

The warning states, “The owner or driver of a motor vehicle who lets anyone without a proper driving license to drive a vehicle will be fined not exceeding 2,000 baht.” “The driver (Renter) without a valid driver’s license shall be imprisoned not exceeding 1 month.” So the [Thai] owner who knowingly rents the vehicle to an unlicensed driver pays a small fine and continues to run his business, while the [foreign] rider goes to jail. Makes sense.

“There is a massage shop chain which has been invested in by foreigners but operated by Thais. They have many shops in Phuket, all essentially a copy of each other." I believe that is basically the definition of a " chain"... "Normally, the price for a massage in Phuket as agreed upon by local massage associations is about 300 baht but this shops massage fee is only 150 baht....[]This chain does not participate in local associations and has refused to listen to us." We want to fix prices via our cartel, and they won't go along with us! Boo-hoo ????

I've seen advertising signs for them in front of various weed shops near Asoke, as well as on Facebook. There are also weed bakeries selling cookies and brownies.

Yes, thank you. But I'm referring to the situation at present, in the absence of a cannabis law, not to what the situation may be in the future, when they finally get around to passing the law.

"its recreational use in Thailand is still illegal under public health regulations and secondary laws" They keep saying this, but never explain what these " secondary laws" are, or what exactly they forbid. The general view of the authorities seems to be, "well, we didn't intend for recreational use to be legalized, so therefore it's illegal" - even if there isn't actually any law against it. The fact that the Department of Witchcraft and Jungle Sorcery restricts the sale of cannabis to children and pregnant women, and that public nuisance laws forbid annoying people around you with your skunky weed cloud, is not at all the same as saying that recreational use of the substance in private is unlawful.

They did indeed say that. This is yet another case of Herman's Hermits Syndrome ("second verse, same as the first"), and will probably see the same level of enforcement (i.e., none).

The length of stay you are given will always be determined by the regulations in effect on the day you arrive.

Will they deny entry to people who look like they want to indulge in recreational weed? No. So this is just more empty yapping. The level of idiocy is simply breathtaking.

It only worked, sort of, a little bit, at the height of the pandemic, and that was ONLY because most people were staying at home. While the concept of social distancing is sound in theory, in practice it's pretty much impossible to implement as long as normal numbers of people are moving around - the available space for people to stand doesn't suddenly triple or quadruple just because that would make things safer.

Yeah, I think most people would think of it as noodles with some thin curry, not as a soup.

Today: "Cables on some roads in Bangkok, covering a distance of 7.2km, have so far been put underground by the BMA" In February: "In 2022, urgent work will begin on moving 456 kilometres of communication power lines underground, while the remaining 936 kilometres will be completed within three years" https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/in-focus/40012330 So, it only took six months to abandon the project, because the telecom companies don't feel like paying to clean up their own mess. What a triumph of governance ????

I've flown back to Thailand twice in the past month: from Vietnam to Don Muang, and from Malaysia to Suvarnabhumi. On both occasions, airline check-in staff asked passengers to present their vaccination certificates (either in paper or on the phone). It was just a glance, not an in-depth examination. On arrival at Don Muang, the corridor from the gate area heading to immigration was blocked by Ministry of Public Health personnel who checked everyone's vax proof as they passed (again, just a quick glance). At Suvarnabhumi, on the other hand, there was no check of health information at all on arrival. The government had said they would only be doing random spot checks, and that was indeed my experience. I have no idea how either check-in staff or arrival staff handled unvaccinated pax, because everyone I saw (only a small percentage, of course) had a vaccine certificate.