gunzel3808

I think that a suggestion earlier to put some sort of fence/screen or similar across each end of Soi 6 is the best idea.

Then no 'casual' wondering down the soi will occur.

You enter the soi knowing exactly what you will see & no families and children will ever see what goes on in this soi.

Therefore nobody will be offended & the denziens of the area can get on with their business without prying eyes.

I keep it simple in Thailand - never hire anything of a Thai male. Thai women are fine I hire plenty of them & 95% of the time all my dealings are perfectly OK.

But I have learnt more from observation rather than actual dealings, to steer clear of the male of the species in Thailand. They are far worse when they get a bit of grog into them of course & when there are a few of them together, but I never get myself in that situation, ever. I avoid travelling by taxis as much as possible preferring to use rail transport around Bangkok, using a taxi to Pattaya on return only and the last time I had a female driver & she was fantastic - polite, on time, a safe driver, no tip or extra money requested, though because of her service, I gave her a decent tip.

I totally agree zaZa9. I would have thought we have moved on somewhat since the days of Bazza Mackenzie and all that crap which was funny in a schoolboy way.

When I hear people yelling that boring old refrain 'Aussie , aussie . . ' etc it just turns me off very quickly.

And as for the Olympics. It is just about ratings for TV empires particularly the US ones, who pay so much (too much) money for the rights thereof then they have to get the money back somehow.

End it all.

And my wife wonders why when a trip up country to the home village in Udon Thani is planned I insist in travelling by either overnight sleeper train or flying. I won't go any other way, even in our car.

Amongst the many biggest problems are, other drivers, the general condition of the roads & the total 'tools' using the roads. Enough reasons to find an alternative form of transport.

But really, I try & avoid going up there now anyhow. What is the point - every member of the family has their hand out for gifts as soon as you appear in the village. Sponges, all of them! Go & work in Banggers yo lazy so & so's!

'A former police colonel' - yes, I believe that Takhsin would have preferred no skytrains/metros were ever built and the use of cars & by extension roads, be the primary form of public transport in the country for ever more.

Result total gridlock, but he wouldn't care as he would be flying overhead in his private helicopter or plane.

Good riddance to that shyster and spiv.

Without decent public transport, like metros and skytrains, Bangkok would be a total nightmare by now to get around. Everybody would be riding MC taxis with all the resulting death & injuries.

The problem starts at their departure airport in Oz where they 'pre-load' with grog at the bars in the terminal.

Then on the flight they get stuck into all the free grog they can get.

I gather they all have been banned already.

Good riddance. I say this as an Aussie who hates this sort of crap.

To make any money in the beer trade you have to sell vast quantities. So selling draught beer in kegs will help rather than slabs of two dozen at a time or six packs, which is slow and tedious.

Good luck to the promoters. They will need it in this market.

I also note the comment in the original article about the increasing national debt. That is certainly true from what I have observed and it seems to be related to the introduction of easy credit derived from the introduction of credit cards with poor checking of applicants ability to repay these cards. The result now in upcountry areas is people selling assets like land, to repay their cc debts. This means there is an opportunity for those with cash to buy up cheap land as is the case with my wife and some family members living OS who are buying up farming land in their home village back in Udon Thani.

i AM GETTING SIDETRACKED, SORRY!

Yes well, it is out in public, but meanwhile, just a short distance away in a bar off a side street half a dozen males are having their 'member' serviced by local lasses.

And they are Thai's in this case and no outrage about that!

I have been visiting Pattaya once a year for from a few days to two or three weeks & never once have I gone down to the beach to lie about or swim. Why would I, as I come from Australia which has some of the best beaches in the world? Ours range from very busy to very quiet beaches with some spectacular scenery. But aside from a few beaches near the big cities they all have clean sands and water with no pollution or raw sewerage as is the case with most beaches in Thailand such as Pattaya.

I come to Thailand essentially for one reason - cheap & available women. That is it, I have said it. Without that factor I would not visit the country as there are far better places. If the new Thai Tourism Minister thinks she is going to 'clean-up' the country by getting rid of the sex industry, well fine I will go elsewhere in the world.

Cambodia & the P.I.'s spring to mind followed by the Dominican Republic, Brazil and other places over there.

Another lovely country to visit that has lovely beaches & friendly people though no commercial sex industry (unless your a boy-lover) is Sri Lanka. Fantastic place and the Real Land of Smiles as far as I am concerned.

I couldn't give a shit for the beach umbrellas, surf skis and all the other crap on Pattaya's beaches as I never go there ever & never will.

If I swim it is only in a hotel pool with my belle de jour!

Oh dear - 'beautiful culture', sure there is some, but also plenty of animal cruelty, lack of respect for women generally by the male of the species in Thailand, overcharging of foreign tourists, poor service in restaurants and other places of entertainment, etc.

Seriously, get rid of cock fighting, elephants rides, using animals for personal/private gain, like the slow loris petting, dog meat supply industry (though this is an illegal trade mainly centered on supplying across the border trade in Vietnam), underage girls in the local Thai male only brothels, etc, etc.

Do something real about the various hire businesses at Pattaya and Phuket currently run by local mafia's that give the country such a bad name with all the extortion & rip-offs in association with their local police 'protection'.

Really, all foreign tourists should be supplied with a lists of things 'Not to do in Thailand' - but many are just oblivious to what can and does happen, being very naive as to the dangers. I would never hire a surf ski in a pink fit in this country. Heaps of crap anyhow.

I live in Sydney with three Thai's - my wife, one of her nieces who is 30 and her 37 year old husband. He has bashed her twice already in their 18 months living here and I have told him if he does it again he will be referred to the police. We haven't done so now due to the dire situation if he is sent home early as they will have to sell the vehicle they are paying off over four years & the same goes for the land recently purchased. The long term future of the marriage is not looking good as she is now on the hunt for a local Aussie partner.

Another option is, we kick him out and tell him if he runs to immigration to put her in - we will show the photos of the injuries she has sustained to the police & he will be charged. Thai males are such 'dick-heads' to quote the vernacular!

Chinese railway locomotive and rolling stock manufacturers are generally OK and have been doing it a long time, however, they have a couple of problem areas - namely welding & use of asbestos.

They will often do the bare number of welds, though this is often the fault of particular workers with poor supervision so they get away with it and the Chinese love to use asbestos and see nothing wrong with it & can't understand why it is not acceptable in today's railway engineering or anywhere in any manufactured products.

So beware.

Yes, as someone has pointed out, the maintenance is carried out under Siemen's contract by local Thai's, which is where some problems can arise. Generally Thai rail workers do a good job but sometimes . . . . ! No involvement by the Chinese so far except for the supply of some extra carriages a few years ago.

But the real problem I see with the MRT & BTS is the very lax security.

Due to the volume of passengers, the lack of security personnel & the pressure to facilitate the flow thereof, they never properly search passengers baggage. However if they were allowed to do their job properly there would be 'hue & cry' as delays would be inevitable. So there has to be a balance, but one day terrorist groups will take advantage of it & strike. Both systems are wide open to attack & I will include the airport line in this as well. The SRT is a lost cause as regards security & I won't even go there, though personally I use local trains a lot, but more from a personal interest point of view as it is no quick form of travel in anyone's terms.

It is sad to say as all three Standard Gauge (as distinct from the metre gauge SRT) systems are vital to the economy & movement of people in Bangkok. Without them, travelling around this city would be a nightmare. It is still bad, but oh dear, it could be a lot worse.

Level crossing or grade crossing accidents are almost entirely caused by motorists either not looking or being aware of trains operating on rail lines. I suggest the driver & his two passengers were just oblivious to what was going on, probably talking, joking, etc, & next minute they were flying thru the air pushed by the train. It is also amazing the number of accidents like this where cars are driven into the side of trains. Truly incredible. No fault of the train driver at all.