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GeorgeCross
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5 minutes ago, baboon said:Newcastle, England.
geordie?
ah, there you go then.. he couldn't understand you ????
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On 7/13/2019 at 3:09 PM, xylophone said:
Consequences is not in the Thai vocabulary, it's all for the now with no thought for the next day/year/after and the result of an action. Evident in everyday life here.........
as my wife says "Thai people never look back.. never look forward either"
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1 hour ago, orchidfan said:Two comments;
Immigration. ..all trips back to Australia with my Thai wife over the past 2 decades we have been greeted by cheery, smiling IOs with a little banter of welcome to (or back to) Australia ...how was your flight, have a nice stay etc.
NEVER here in the LOS.
Secondly
Tourists : I recall the days in Phuket, Samui etc with thousands of European tourists ..young and old sunning themselves on the beaches soaking up the warm tropical weather AND getting the mandatory sun tan.
Can't see the Chinese mainlanders replicating or enjoying that
haha it seems like the first one has been going on forever.. i remember doing a visa run about 10 years ago on a xmas eve of all days at sadao border. grumpy ass thai IO signed me out without even looking up from my passport and saying nothing. i walked over to the malay border where a young female IO in niqab said "going back to thailand?" as she stamped me in, "yes" i said, to which she replied with a smile "Have a Happy Christmas!" - i left absolutely beaming, what a nice thing to say from a young muslim girl ????
5 minutes later another grumpy IO grilled me at the border then let me back in begrudgingly.. after i paid my 20 baht "late fee" of course
welcome to thailand.
some things never change.
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6 minutes ago, NE1 said:
As stated. Your first night in Pattaya / Phuket / BKK . You have read about all the luverly ladies who work in the bars. You and your mates are all revved up for a great night out . You are sat in your condo/hotel talking about who is going to do what.
You walk out onto the main strip .
Not one bar open , no music . No pretty ladies. No pretty lights .
For 48 hours . What a bummer.
Oh well , it will give them plenty to talk about on Facebook / Twitter etc. ( I take it you are allowed to use social media )
you are but negative comments make get you locked up or deported ????
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14 minutes ago, Creasy said:No one wants to pay 1st world prices for a 3rd world product and service.
nail.hammer.hit.
plenty ARE happy to pay 3rd world prices for 3rd world service though
just ask their neighbours!
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33 minutes ago, Dexlowe said:"... pimped to the max ..." -- This is the most apt description of what has happened to Thailand that I have ever heard.
But I do wonder about the business community. Where are they? Sure we get comments about the sad state of affairs in Thailand from assorted business groups from time to time, but that is about it. For people who have invested so much money in this country, why aren't they flexing their collective muscle? You would expect them to be hammering on doors, protesting furiously, being much more political. Instead we get the military and assorted mafia scum running things pretty much everywhere, pimping the ride and sucking the lifeblood out of the country. It's time the business community stood up and be counted.
because if they did it would involve a degree of introspection and that is a big no no here.
can't have anyone losing face can they.
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31 minutes ago, moonseeker said:There are so much better alternatives for vacations in friendly, clean and safe places. TH won't go down, but the demographics of tourism will change. For the first time this low season not one of my European friends is coming. They all are going to other destinations. MS>
this is what they are not getting. westerners haven't stopped traveling, our dollars, euros and pounds are still worth a lot even with the recent weakness and by and large we are still 'rich' compared to the developing world.
we have just stopped coming to Thailand and i don't hear any thais asking why this is.
they are just blaming everyone else, including us LOL!
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on a side note i lived on samui for 8 years but left 6 years ago. last year we went back and vowed never again. saw pretty much the same as the OP, even had one thai (burmese maybe) dude follow me along the road while i was riding a bike screaming "smoke, smoke" at me.. i had to tell him to eff off before he got the message, truly desperate looking place now (cheong mon btw for the wise-asses)
my sister in law is currently there bedding in some new tenants to her villa. she has been reporting that things do not look good there. one of the big hotels on chaweng beach just laid off 50% of its staff for low season as very few bookings, they have never done this before. also she said same story everywhere (she is well connected) down a lot this year.
its a shame because i absolutely loved that place but it just turned into a rat run with every road concrete either side unless i went up into the hills. also the crime and mafia was a massive problem, insane traffic (locals) plus the school fees were astronomical.
i hope it gets back on track but not holding out much hope
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6 hours ago, JamJar said:
Odd that he didn't state exactly where on Samui these occurrences are supposed to have taken place.
One could visit Patong and then say the same thing about Phuket. but stay away from the most touristy parts of holiday destinations and you can have a completely different experience.
isn't that the whole point of going to a tourist place as a TOURIST? to see the touristy bits? if they wanted to trek through the jungle to some god foresaken arse-end of the island why bother going at all?
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9 hours ago, nong38 said:
What a load of old tosh ! All the Indians have been in England for the Cricket World Cup.
they've gone home already
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4 minutes ago, Skallywag said:
Euphoria and excitement is everywhere in Thailand, why would you need to inhale gas? 55
a decade ago maybe, now, not so much
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nah, i don't believe they care about people's safety. if they did they would ban alcohol and cigarettes too, surely?
must be some other reason..
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7 hours ago, how241 said:
I was in Tesco, near Jomtien, last night and it was full of Indian looking people. When I was leaving I saw the group leader walking them back to the 5 large tour buses that were waiting for them. What was surprising was that maybe 1 out of 10 even had a bag in their hand. A few were holding water bottles or drinks. Most had nothing.
been on quite a few tours during my life including, ironically, to india
i can categorically say that tesco was never on the stop list!!
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hmmm so 45K per tourist now is it? but indians magically spend 50K??
odd because only a month ago TAT figures in an article posted here, once broken down by one of our smarter members showed an amazing anomaly..
the average tourist spends.. wait for it.. exactly 50K
same agency, same tourists, different numbers.
i'm gonna call BS on all of it.
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32 minutes ago, Cambodger said:
i went down to Khosarn rd the other day with the Mrs. Haven't been for 3 years (we're just about young enough to still get away with it) but was curious to see what it was like now.
It's changed a lot. I know it's rainy season but it's usually when all the Western students get there 'discover myself time' but it was much quieter than i can ever remember it over the last 15 years. There was a few fishermans pants wearing types about and some of the bars were full, but it was different.
Went up to that Roof top bar (can't remember the name) but was met by an angry looking bouncer who told my girlfriend she couldn't come in with an half eaten snack, she had and to put it in the bin. I said lets go somewhere else...
We ended up in the one with a stepped terrace, that plays loud hip hop (can't remember the name either) they let her in with said snack.
The crowd was a mix but I'd say the majority were Asian who don't really drink much. The western kids were sipping bottles unusually slowly too, if at all... I saw people come in sit down look at the drinks menu prices and walk out and a few shocked faces when the check bin arrived, followed by mumbling and fumbling to split the bill and leaving looking unhappy and i presume a feeling that they've wasted a large chunk of their budget.
I think i was the biggest spender in there and I'm a fairly moderate drinker and my Gf never has more than 2 bottle or she can't walk.
Just to put this into perspective I was drinking bottles of Tiger and they were 180 bht that's £4.80 each. I had a few pints of Guinness at Heathrow airport on the way out which are priced at a crazy £5.50 each, seems like good value in contrast. I was actually converting US $ to spend but even then its $6 for a small bottle of cheap lager.
Closing the smoking rooms at the airport has p'ed me of too, i don't expect much sympathy from others but it's just something else. I know you still can't smoke at most of the airport terminals in the UK too but at least there you know immigration/ security isn't going to take more than 15 minutes so you can leave it until the final hour before going through.
We tend to holiday outside of Thailand now, have done for the last 2 years and have no intention of changing, we've had some wonderful holidays.
It's not just about the exchange rate, like others have said Thailand just isn't really fun or friendly anymore, even for blinkered first timers.
180 baht for a beer on khao san road. nuts. thong lor ok in an upper end bar but khao san. jeez.
we are going to vietnam for holiday this year as well, might as well get some good news from the high baht, it'll be cheaper abroad.
swerving local holidays here now as its just getting so grim to travel and they have killed the fun.
sad times indeed and i don't see it getting better all the charm is going and the locals are grumpy and i don't blame them.
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from a marketing perspective in order to make great sales you need a:
great product at great prices
so everyone, please fill in the blanks:
Thailand offers a _______ product at ________ prices.
fill in this simple formula Thailand and you can welcome all the quality, responsible tourists your little heart desires ????
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20 minutes ago, Joe Mcseismic said:
Not really, he was just one of the many people, banks, hedge funds and institutions that could see the obvious and made a lot of money.
If a country can't influence it's exchange rate, then it's also beyond the scope of any individual.
any country with its OWN currency can easily influence its own exchange rate by either increasing supply of the money directly (printing/easing), devaluing, increasing bank loan allowances or increasing their government bond supply.
indirectly they can also lower interest base rates or spend down their foreign exchange reserves
countries with shared currencies cannot which is why southern eurozone countries are in such a mess
the fact they do not here, is through choice not because they can not
currency manipulation is easy.. but frowned upon internationally
look up zimbabwe and weimer hyperinflations to see how easy it is to add some extra zeros to a currency!
the bigger more relevent question is if they can why do they not?
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1 hour ago, moe666 said:You may want to blame your own government for a little thing called Brixet, I do not think the Thais had anything to do with that screw up. Go Boris
and who should the europeans blame? and the australians? and the russians? and now the americans? and of course don't forget the chinese!
should they all blame brexit as well??
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lets be honest anyone with half a brain and 2 eyes can have seen this trend developing for a couple of years its just been covered up by all the TAT figures comparing 1 week "tour"ists to month+ long european visitors.
now the asian gravy chain of chinese is slowing down the tide is receding and those naked are being revealed.
no doubt another visa fee waiver will fix everything!
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suddenly it all makes sense
more than 15 days and you must be working illegally!
meanwhile in other news.. phuket and pattaya tourism down 30%..
they must have been planning to work from their hotel rooms ????♂️
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56 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:
He said parliament had not been suspended since King Charles I did so during the English Civil War. Charles was eventually executed
don't go giving remainers ideas!
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1 hour ago, YetAnother said:
quite prescient, his points are well thought-out, these are the people we need in decison-making government positions
yes agree though i think he could have gone a stage further and 'jawboned' multiple interest rate cuts until the situation improved (FED style). that would send the hot money running and the baht down more effectively without getting thailand on trump's radar
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6 minutes ago, offset said:
Maybe the account is not good for what the Immigration want, if you can get a FD where you have the interest added to then you should be able to make a small withdraw from the interest and then update the book which is what I do
If you cannot withdraw you money on that account you might find out that the Immigration might not accept it next year because that say the money must be available
yeah agree maybe switch to bangkok bank if you can. interest updates on the bank book and also you can ask the bank to update without a deposit (though you can add more if you wish) and an extra line just gets printed to the book.
one problem i can see is that if they are adamant deposit needs to be kept on the same account all year, with bangkok bank, you cannot roll the deposit to the latest 12 month rate as that requires a new account and book, on the same account it will roll at 1%.
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3 minutes ago, Yinn said:
European bring the sex worker to the hotel. Make other guest uncomfortable Angry drunk and complain. But spend a lot in bar.
hahaha so true. bitter pill to swallow, me being european!
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"They must have gone to the temples instead!" - Pattaya as dead as a dodo in the holidays
in Pattaya News
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do you have any other stories apart from that one time with the bottle of wine?
cos i think i've read it half a dozen times in the past week