ThomasHOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_reserves

Well if its only about the quantity of foreign currency reserves that enables BOT to sustain a too high baht ( buying baht )

then unfortunately it looks like they can continue doing so for a long time.

If there are other economic factors that can prevent BOT from sustaining high baht then what are they ? Of course given that the almost 157 billion is correct.

Unfortunately I think you got it a bit backwards when it comes to accumulation of foreign currency. Generally a strong currency tends to accumulate foreign currency. This is because investors want to buy baht and to buy them they pay with foreign currency and therefore the reserve rises. Right now Thailand’s reserves are rising so they are not buying Baht.

This in itself is a sign of a economy that is stronger than many others so any thought of devaluating the currency will require very tough measures. They would have to cut the interest rate quite hard and that would give people incentive to loan more and that would in term increase the inflation. Generally you don’t want to stimulate the economy to much in a time economic growth. The Policy Interest Rate is already 1,75% and was reduced in March from 2%

But if a country really want to devalue their currency they could cut the interest rate to 0 or even negative. Here in Denmark the interest rate from the central bank is -0,75% and this Is needed in order to keep the fixed exchange rate to the Euro.

"Great news. Eventually the Thais will invent communicative language teaching and critical thinking."

That is like when a woman tells you that your are handsome for your age and weight.

Talk about a back handed comment.

What do you actually know about education or Thai education specifically? (DELETED)

Student centered learning is nothing new but it is very hard to correctly adapt to the classroom and curriculum. Communicative approach to language teaching is so last year. Get with it. Those that are proponents of Communicative approach are those without degrees in education or ability to do anything but speak in the target language. There are so many other skills in language development than just communicating. If all you are doing is relying on that, then you must realize that the students need other teachers helping them with the other language skills.

This article is about a lot more than that. This touches on the role of the teacher, the role of the student. Realizing that collectively your students know more than you do. It is very difficult to show the same results that a standardized test can, so administration tends to think of it is not as essential. This method of education is also very time consuming. Lecturing is the most efficient way to get information out, it also can be the least effective. Balancing your teaching style to combine, task based learning with lecture and rote memorization is probably the most effective.

I don’t know if you are just bad at communicating your opinions or if you actually thinks that the old lectures actually works. I agree that it will work for some people but you need the student to have a fundamental education that will let him/her form their own opinion on the subject.

We have funded my wife’s niece education and she is just about at bachelor level. English has been teached to her for several years and yet I have still to convince her to speak English to me. So one year I asked if I could see her English books and to my surprise the level of the text was actually pretty advanced. But the main difference I think is that In Denmark, where I’m from, the main goal of the early education is to get the kids comfortable with the subject. Get them to speak English by discussing the text in the class therefore building confidence and ability to speak the language. When handing in assignments I could see that my wifes nice should answer multiple question papers where we in Denmark has to write a text in English on whatever subject it is.

Now I’m not saying that we are perfect because we are not and PISA studies show that. But I think it is easier to correct a school system where students get the knowledge and the ability to process it as opposed to just trying to cram information into the kids heads and hope that they learn something.

only one thing comes into my mind when i read things like this

"first world problem"

If sunbeds on a beach is your only problem your life are really sweet.

Average food, less enthusiastic staff than in the past, old airplanes, antiquated in flight entertainment systems (if at all) and uncompetitive fares ... hmmmmm ... why would anyone want to fly on this airline when they have better choices?

That would depend on where you fly from. From Copenhagen we have the all new 777-300ER with private IFE and powerplugs in the seats.

I live in Denmark and when i go to Thailand i always fly Thai. I know that it is not the cheapest airline but is not the most expensive either. For example I will be going to Thailand around June 1 and thai is charging around 565 Euro for the flight. I can find a cheaper ticket with Qatar at around 420 Euro (the cheapest I have ever seen a ticket on a non lowcost carrier). But there are 2 things that count in favor of choosing Thai. The biggest for me is the direct flight I don’t have to spend 3 -4 hours in a airport changing flights. Also when I calculate the true cost of the trip I have to include what I would spend during the stopovers and that could easily amount to 30-40 Euro each way. The second is actually the baggage allowance, attaining silver status requires only one return flight (10.000 miles) and then you get 10 kg extra luggage and in my experience that are very liberal with overweight . I had often had 10-15 kg overweight with no problem.

But on the downside are the recent changes to their bonus program. I have upgrated my ticket to Premium Economy several times (and on CPH-BKK, PE is in business class seats) for only 25000 miles. So 2 trips to Bangkok and a little local star aliance buisness trips would give me 1 upgrade that is a quite good deal. But with the recent changes to the bonus program that is no longer an option.

So in general I’m quite satisfied with thai but one thing that would change my mind was if I could fly with the A380 but then I have to wait at Doha airport for 8 hours and that is just to long.

I often wonder what makes men throw all their caution away when they marry thai women. If we are 60 and meet a 30 year old woman back home and we have a quite substantial fortune we would insist on a prenuptial. But when we go to Thailand and often find a girl from the “entertainment industry” we don’t do the same.

Likewise in business if we provide 100% of the funds why do we accept giving the other part 51% of the ownership. I know that it is the law that 51% must be owned by a Thai but there is no rule that it has to be the same Thai. It must be possible to find someone to part own the company outside of the family, ex your lawyer.

I just say "I can look alone...I not baby", they usually get the hint.

I once received an explanation for it though. One lady told me her boss (Chinese)gave her strict instructions to pressure every customer that came into the shop to buy something, the boss was more interested in getting her money's worth out of her employees than losing customers. Calmed me down a bit when I heard this, even felt sorry for the worker. Something along the same lines might apply in the bigger stores...be seen to be working.

It reminded me of my days in the army...while we were waiting for room inspection the older soldiers used to tell us younger ones to always have a piece of rag at the ready....so when an officer came into the room we could immediately start busying ourselves rubbing some well worn item like we were constantly on the go. I guess we have all tried to look more busy that we actually were at some point in our lives.

I agree that this is the thai way of doing thing. Labour in Thailand is so insanely cheap that hiring 10 people has almost no effect on profitability of a shop. So Thais have gotten used to people paying attention to them and I think that if someone ran a supermarket the was discount stores are run in my home country (only the bare minimum op people needed to run the shop are there) the Thais would not like it even if the products are a bit cheaper.

Personally I’m only a tourist in Thailand and have visited for almost 14 years. So I don’t really get to the point where things like this bother me. However trying to go out for a beer in a Tourist area without being presented with the possibilities to buy something extra is annoying. However I think there are similarities with your shop keeper example. Me and my brother just wanted to go out for a few beers, found a small bar that did not look like a go go bar. After some time the bar owner told 2 of the staff to go over to us and keep us company even if we didn’t want it.

As far as the "buddy system" goes...

It's called a "bar fine".

Ha ha good one but i dont think my wife would be too happy about that :-)

Wow the ignorance and Thai bashing of some people on this board is incredible. If the taxi rates was adjusted in 2007 then I fully understand the need for them to not use the meter or refusing trips with much traffic.

I just looked up the numbers and the average inflation in Thailand is around 3% (a lot higher in 2008 and lower now) If you paid 100 Baht for something I 2007 then after inflation you must now in 2014 pay 122,99 Baht. So to be honest even with a 11% raise in fare prices are still way to cheap. I can almost get to the airport from Sukhumvit for the same price as I pay in starter fee here in Denmark. In fact taking a taxi the 3 km I have from the city center to my house cost me the equivalent of 650 baht the last time I been out drinking a bit.

So the Thai taxi drivers are in fact getting poorer and poorer and they are forced to deny customers to feed their family. So you cannot expect that they stop that practice before they are actually paid a wage they can live off. Therefore the prices should be increased by at least 25% and be adjusted at least every other year.

Regarding Thailand becoming to expensive for the “average” Farrang tourist is just bullshit. Yes prices have risen but when I came to Thailand for the first time in 2002 it was insanely cheap and it is still very cheap compared to western countries.

spidermike007, on 03 Jul 2014 - 11:38, said:

Let us hope this has to do with the Generals uncovering improper contracts, funding, etc. We all know how the contract process works here. They seem to be tired of the corruption, and business as usual. Maybe they see this as a way of avoiding the bloated contracts that are part of the cockroaches getting tens or hundreds of millions of baht in payoffs. Lets hope.

or they want to make sure that they get their cut of the tea Money.

JesseFrank, on 27 May 2014 - 16:33, said:

They can't move them during the day ?

They heard that it is "shady business" moving arms

so Thailand is back to square one Again!

They will never have a functioning democracy as long as they keep acting like this. Belive it or not I actually feel that the red vs orange is necessary for Thailand to move forward. Yes there are unrests now but as long as the top 1% of a country decides everything nothing good will happen.

First of all i’m not from the UK so i don’t know how things work in the UK. But are you sure that he even had a solicitor? I’m 40 and I only needed one 1 time in my life and that was when I bought my house and he was only involved in the sales documents.

But I’m sure that the UK are not too different from Denmark and you must have a court that handles these kinds of things. Get the death certificate translated and verified and take it to the court, then they would properly appoint a solicitor to handle the proceedings.

Also check if UK law has a clause about partners that live together without being married. I would expect that you could find rulings to verify this. If there are then gather all the documentation that he been living with his partner for many years and get them translated to English.

Then hand over the information you have regarding the banks etc to the solicitor.

PaullyW, on 23 Apr 2014 - 00:44, said:

Great planes? Was that a joke?

1970s style overhead TV sets showing 80s movies, no inseat entertainment on long haul flights, being let off of a 14-hour flight onto a scortching hot tarmac to be bussed to the gate, i could go on and on and on.

It's a terrible airline and deserves this status. It wasn't always terrible but it surely is now

Come on their planes are not that bad. I agree that they are behind on IFE but on the other hand they have pretty good legroom in economy class. Also they have begun upgrading the 747's they begun in business and I believe several of them has also been upgraded in Economy. Besides this they have revived several new Boeing 777-300ER that has both full flat seats in business class and IFE on all seats.

and regarding being left of to be bussed in to the terminal that has absolutely nothing to do with the airline. That was properly due to the airport not having any available gates. I have experienced this a few times with other airlines even on flights that usually arrive at a gate.

Besides this I will fly from Copenhagen to Bangkok and onwards to Taipei with Thai Air. The price is about the same on Thai than any other airline I could find. The positive thing is that I had enough miles to upgrade to Premium Economy on my flight to Bangkok and from Copenhagen PE is in the back business class cabin on the 777.

larsjohnsson, on 24 Mar 2014 - 12:05, said:

impulse, on 24 Mar 2014 - 11:50, said:

From New York

If I have a choice between a 100% chance of paying this, or paying BKK prices and taking a small chance of running into a bad apple, well....

If you belive that is expensive? Then never take a taxi in Sweden

Totally agree with you on that. I'm Danish and a few years back i had to take a taxi to the airport as i was on my way to Bangkok. The distance was 20 km and there were no traffic and it cost me about 70 USD the distance would have cost about 30 USD with the above rates. I do travel some to Sweden and Norway on Work and they are equally expensive.

I have Personally have big problems with taxies, I have been overcharged on a few occasions but even when overcharged the taxi fee is cheap. In my home city I live about 3 km from the railway station and sometimes I take a cab home if I have been out drinking with some colleagues. It easily cost me 20 USD for the 5 minutes ride home. I believe that is more than I ever paid for any taxi in Thailand.

But I do agree that it can be hard to get a cab in Bangkok. I have observes 3 occations where the taxies are hard to get.

1. Traveling to areas with heavy traffic, forexample Siam Paragon area.

2. Traveling at the driver changing time, cant remember the excat same time but I guess 4-5 pm.

3. late at night traveling to or from nightlife areas.

I agree with you guys that these scams do put Thailand in a bad light. In 3 weeks I will be going to Phuket and to be honest I would love to take a jet ski out. It will surely be a lot of fun but I simply cannot risk it. This I believe is true for many other people and therefore the legitimate operators go out of business as they don’t get enough business.

This is also the reason that I only rent cars from big international car hire Companies.

Not really luxury at 1k baht???

I agree, I know that there are many hotels in Bangkok for under 1000 baht and you might also find some that looks ok but you have to compromise on either location or quality. We usually stay arround Pratunam and 1000 baht a day buy you really crappy hotels in that area. Poster wanted a hotel in a central location with a big room, you can get lucky and find a hotel with a good rate sometimes but usually quality would cost you from 1500-2000 and up and even at that price i doubt it would meet the requirements.

Hi

I’m looking for a Bangkok apartment for a short time rent next summer. I will be in Bangkok for about 4 weeks with my family and we are 4 persons so a 2 br apartment is required. I have been looking at many different sites and found many many apartments in Bangkok however most of them are located in Shukumwit or Sathorn area. We (mostly the wife) prefer to stay around petchburi road between soi 1 and 30 and in this area it is very hard to find any suitable apartments so I hope that you can help.

Requirements

Area Petchburi road soi 1-30 (or surrounding areas)

2. Br. apartment and a living room that can have some guests.

there must be a pool on the property an preferably one that are good for kids.

Price range up to 50-60.000 baht for the period

Cleaning must be included.

close to BTS is not a must, but would be nice.

We expect to arrive on June 18 and leave around July 12 but the tickets has not been bought yet so the dates are not 100% fixed yet

I'm sure that there are only one way of solving this current crisis. they have to make a compromise on many levels.

The military will have to dismiss the leaders of the coup (with lucrative dismissal pay)

Thaksin must confess to some corruption charges and then be pardoned (And turning away from politics and perhaps paying a few billion baht to the "victims" as charity in return for getting his money back)

The king must support a new government consisting of red and yellows that will rule the country for a couple of years going back to democracy.

Sorry about that. A little over a year ago, we used a 2-bedroom property from "The Ascott Group" that was right near Central World. It seems they don't have that property any longer.

I ran across this place in one of my searches, but it is not someplace that I used. http://www.sabaai.com/apartments_descripti...mp;sleep_child=

Thanks for the link there was some things on the website that loks promising. Thanks for the help

But i could still use more input as i am far from booking yet.

Thomas

Try searching on 'serviced apartment bangkok'. I think you may have to pay more for a 2 bedroom. Here are urls to 3 places that we've used in the past.

http://www.the-ascott.com/en/propertylisting.html

http://www.presidentpark.com/z984/plans/accommodations.html

http://www.centrepoint.com/

Thanks for the help i have looked at several sites that do longtime lease and found many fine apartments from 50k and up. However those sites dont do 1 month leases. The sites you link to are all located in the wrong part of town. My Wife has family not to far from the Zoo and last time we stayed near Sathorn we some days spend 1 hour traveling to them.

So we would like to stay at arround Petchaburi road (and yes i know that Centrepoint have a property there but they done have anything larger than the studio room)

Thomas, not trying to be picky, but what is your budget? That way it will be a lot easier for us posters to give you some advice.

Yes sorry i forgot that part. We was planing on spending arround 60.000 bath but have a budget to go a bit higher if needed.

Hi

I’m looking for a place to stay in Bangkok during my vacation this summer. We have been talking about renting an apartment for 1 month but I have not really been able to find anyone that will rent apartments for 1 month. So I was hoping that any of you would be able to recommend someone that do these short time renting.

We was planning on staying near Central World, preferably on Petchaburi road but anywhere near that would also be fine. We need a 2 bedroom place and also facilities like swimming pool. Hope that you can help me finding something like that

Don't make an reservation by internet, far too expensive, better you book a room on arrival. Hotels in Thailand are never 100% occupied. Use the net to get information about price and facilities, that's all. There is always a possibility to bargain even in 4 star hotels. Should visit Sawadee.com/hotel because most of the times they publish the cheapest rates.

One last advise, when you pay by credit card ALWAYS INSIST, to make the payement in Thai Baht, if neccesary even let them make a new bill, because the currency rates of hotels are much more higher than the credit card currency rates.

I learn this by experience.

good luck and have a nice holliday.

In my experience it is more expensive to not book than to do it by internet. When i been to the hotels in person they always quoted higher prices than i could find online. But perhaps smaller hotels are more open to discounts.

They won't be needing any new planes after US NSTB rescinds ANY Thailand based ailine from landing in the US , Keep the old 747 just repair the sparking fuel tanks, please.

And why should the NTSB do that? besides that the 747's are not a subistitute of a short haul airplane lige A320 it uses way to much fuel to takeoff and landings.