ThomasHOL

And that why i perfer to rent a car and drive myself. 

I dont think that it is so bad as many people say. Ok i dont travel during high season so it could be worse but compared to other countries they dont seem that inefficient. In January i was USA and i had 3 hours 20 minutes between flights it took almost 2 hours to clear immigration even the flight crew waited for a long time. There was a big diffrence between travelers it took me about 20 seconds (i been there before on the same ESTA) to get trough but others took 5 minutes. 
 

I had to laugh at that! Does this happen in any other country?

I guess that most European countries use local teachers to teach in foreign language. But most european countries actually have people that can speak the language they teach.

This logic is just wrong...

Thai's who teach English, want to speak Thai...when they do, the students do. So its not about what they he is saying. He is just ashamed to be with his Thai counter parts who would scold him for speaking English in the classroom...

the only reason Thai students don't like to speak English is because they are not exposed to using it, so they have no reason to speak it, even if forced to take English classes. its is no different than learning science... you have your book learning, then you have the labs which put it all into practice. they don't even do that. and the special English programs have field trips for these selected students... but do they go to places where English is spoken as it was meant for it to be?

The other thing is, Thai teachers have too much power, not even directors can force them to do as they are suppose to do... and until this power is reduced or removed to be a "teacher only", then the whole educational system sucks and eventually will blow up with high numbers in illiteracy.

I dont think that it is a bad thing to speak Thai in the English class as long as it is used to explain the language. I know that here in Denmark especially in the lower levels they use both Danish and English in the english education, the kids need to learn a basis og english before you can start speaking english all the time.

Personally i had a english, english teacher for 2 years at "high School" (it is called something else in Danish and cannot be compared 100%) but she also teached other subjects as she also spoke Danish and had not been employed because she was english.

I have a friend with dual Thai/US citizenship (27 years in US) he is employed as a NES but without the hazel of visa and WP.

Just a comment to all people who say that only NES can't teach English; why the hell did I who is Swedish end up translating English to English between a British and an American tourist!? If you boast that you are a NES then you should be able to understand English no mater if it's American, Australian, British or Singaporean English and not just your own dialect!

"....you should be able to understand English no mater matter if it's American, Australian, British or Singaporean English and not just your own dialect! "

Beg to differ here. There are longstanding jokes about the way spoken English is delivered by the English and natives of the old British colonies etc.

Some Americans from, say, the deep south are hard to understand in much the same way many NES have trouble understanding people with what some call regional dialects (regiolects). Social class also plays a part whether the Queen of England or a Cockney housewife. E.G. some Englishmen from County Durham would possibly need a translator like you if they landed in parts of rural Cornwall.

As an English born Canadian, I sometimes have trouble understanding a strong Australian, South African or Cornish accent. Indian people who speak English often have a particularly interesting style of speaking.

I agree with you there are many dialects in English and some og them can be hard to understand. I'm Danish and even in a very small country we have many dialects some of them i hardly understand, end they only live 3 hours drive from me. I have also noticed that when i hear immigrants on swedish or german it seems like they speak that language better than immigrants in Denmark speak Danish. But i have come to the conclusion that since my understanding of those languages is not as good as Danish i dont catch all the small imperfections that the native speaker catch naturally. Therefor it sounds more perfect than it is is.

This is the quote that got me;

“It is better to use a Thai teacher who has studied English directly than a European teacher who might carry the wrong accent,”

Well i do understand what they are saying because if you travel in Europe and speak to people in English you can easily hear that their accent is different. I can usually hear weather a person is German, French, Danish, Swedish or Norwegian as we all have a different way to speek english. Our accent is mostly a part of the language we speak every day.

I do however agree that a Thai speeking english with a danish accent will deliver a much more understandable result then them speeking with a thai accent. Due to my work i have have had regular contact with Taiwanese people for the past two decades and most people i speek with actually have a very good understanding of english. this is natural as almost everyone i meet have a university degree, but sometimes they can still be very hard to understand because their pronunciation is quite far from how native english or american people would pronounce it so it is hard for me to understand.

Simileair to that the former Secretary General of NATO Anders Fogh Rasmussen has a large english vocabulary but he sounds like someone who has just graduated from a Danish Primary school not someone who spend many years speeking english. But ok at least most European accents are quite easy to understand.

Ok i dont think that topless is apropriate anywhere else than the beach or the pool and the immediate area around those 2. Also i dont think a tanktop/wifebeater is propper attire anywhere but the 2 before mentioned places and the Gym. And that goes for anywhere in the world.

But i dont understand the need to make threads about it on a forum, just think to yourself those guys makes me look so much better in the local society. But from what i understand it was 16-17c at night and when you come from northern Europe that would just about constitute a tropical night (20c is the definition here in Denmark). So if you are a tourist it has not been freezing it has simply been a bit colder. Actually in december i saw a guy here in Denmark in shorts and T-shirt and it was not warmer than 5c. Also not everyone really care about alle the health warnings, i mean these days it seems like you will die if you are outside at noon without beeing totally coveres up and wearing factor 5000 sunblock yet sunbathing dont garantere skin cancer it just raises your chances to get it. Personally i do cover up but that mainly because otherwise i get red like a boiled lobster.

you have to look at it from an Asian perspective, bend with the wind, when the the wind ceases the grass rises again. No system lasts forever, especially not one that is repressive,they are the ones most short lived.

I disagree this junta is takling all the steps of sucessfull dictators. They are controlling people and the press and has hard punishments for those that go against them.

Does anyone still think that the junta is a temporary thing? They are really trying their best to stop all that oposes them.

Cooked, i have now read the entire thread and i have one thing i have to get out of my system first.

STOP DRIVING A CAR WHEN DRUNK!

Drunk drivers deserve a special place in hell (just an expression I don’t believe in a afterlife) You might think that your driving are not impaired but since you haven’t been sober for 30+ years how the hell would you know? What you confuse is that your system is so addicted that you think the normal state is the drunken state.

Ok I got that out of my system let’s get on with it. You are obvious here because you have realized that you might have a problem. But I don’t think that you are seeking help, I think you are seeking validation that your 7 beers (start at 11 and I calculated you go to bed at 21.30) a day scheme is the right thing to do. But as you write in your first post “starting at an eagerly awaited 11am” and “ I really do look at the time” those are clear signs that you are addicted. You might be able to cut down on the beers for a while but you are an alcoholic and I believe that you will be back up there again shortly.

You need to quit drinking all together and yes it will be hard you have been drinking for a lot of years so it is part of your daily routine. Actually I do think that some of the other guys have the right idea when they say go to the gym. It has nothing to do with the exercise it is about getting out of the routine where you drink. You have been very much against the posters that mention the Gym, but it could be anything away from your daily routine, you just have to choose what is good for you. I know that you are saying that building thing is you hobby, but since you had a job that supported your addiction you might think about quitting that while you recover.

But to be honest I don’t think you are really ready to quit, but if you can’t stop drinking then please stop driving.

Ok I must admit I really hate Tattoos and often place people in certain categories if they have them. I’m 40 years old and when I was younger tattoos was not as normal as they are today so I guess that has formed my vision of them as people on the edge of society. But I know that these days many young people get tattoos and that the tattoo is not necessarily a statement of people being criminals.

But my biggest hate is the latest fashion where women get sleeve tattoos or writing across their chest. I feel that it ruins the look of the girls and I would never date a woman with big visible tattoo. But to be honest I’m too old to data a girl in her early 20’ies anyway so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Another thing that I don’t really understand is people getting names of their children and birthdates tattooed to their body. Are they affright that the will forget the?

So all in all I guess that I’m just judgmental against people with tattoos even though I like to see myself as an open person and that bothers me a bit.

As opposed to many other posters here I don’t feel that Thai is bad to fly with. I have used them almost exclusively for my flights to Thailand for the last 14 years. I fly from Copenhagen to Bangkok and in the past they used the 747-400 on that route and it was great because of the 34” seat pitch but was lacking in the IFE department. A few years ago they switched to their new Boeing 777-300ER only 32” seat pitch and a footrest that is a bit in the way but with modern IFE and full flat seats in Business.

Actually the CPH-BKK route have for many years had the best Premium Economy in the world as PE is seated in the Business class seats. But today they are pricing the PE seats quite high on a trip I just searched they are 750$ more expensive in PE than Qatar in Business, also and their bonus program has been devalued so upgrading to PE no longer makes much sense.

But the thing that I find really stupid is the way they price their tickets. Right now I’m searching for tickets for my Mother-in-law In November. The tickets are priced around 1000$ and Emirates charge 630$ on the same days. But if things goes as they usually do I expect the price to fall to around 700$ here in august. This is the pricing structure I have seen for many years for my flights in May. High price if I book early and then a couple of months before my travel date the prices drop. I know this as I travel the same days every year (I visit a tradeshow) but most people would just see the extremely high price and then book emirates. This leads Thai to flying planes that are far from full and on my last trip the plane was not even 1/3 full which was good for me as I had all 3 seats and could lie down :-). The funny thing is that on the return trip 10 days later the plane was fully booked.

I cant really figure out if you are joking or if you are serious. First of all the and navigator software will lead you to the address that you chose even if you think that that one is wrong. When you google an address maps will show you the overall route and there you should be able to see the destination and driving time. When I google Shukmuwit soi 11 it gives me the downtown address. Also you cant really fault the navigation software that you don’t have enough data on the phone.

Personally I use google maps for navigation on almost all my car trips. Granted I don’t live in Thailand so you cant use my experience to judge coverage. But I have found the app extremely easy to use and most of the time if you search the address and town google will find it no problems. You can also search for business and navigate to it. I Have used google maps in several European countries both in cars and on foot.

The advantages of using google maps is that the trip duration is very accurate as it has updated traffic information. In the latest version of google maps you even get lane directions on large roads.

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.

She is in simple terms being dishonest. Nothing to do with whose money it is. Why the need to hide it!

Can't see how putting it in a wardrobe is sharing it!

Saving!! Please read the ops post.

First of all I thing you should try to read my post again. then you might realize that there the first part of my post is about the guys here firmly stating that it is their money, all of it. So when I say sharing it is towards all parts of the relationship and in my book the stay at home wife deserve a part of the pay as she handles all the things at home. If she didn't do that her husband might not be able to do his job as he would then have to get home and pick up the kids, do some shopping etc. So it is the woman that enables him to dedicate to the job and bring home the big money. So to me it is fair that she also get a part of the money not just the scraps.

Regarding the wardrobe if you have money laying around at home you would put them a safe place also.

A thread like this makes me so sad, not because of the OP’s problem but the majority of guys posting here. It seems to me that most guys here are not married or have a girlfriend, they have a live in housekeeper with benefits. When you are married it is a cooperation and both parties pitch in best they can. If you want a stay at home wife then it is your obligation to support her both now but also save up for your retirement. What most of you guys are saying is stop her access to YOUR money but it cant only be YOUR money when you want the stay at home wife you have to share it. I’m not saying that you should be a fool and give her all the money in your account. But you need to support her need also the needs that might not be food and a place to live.

Regarding the OP’s problem we have no idea of how long she has been saving, but if she done so the last 5 years she set aside 2150 baht / 67 USD a month and that is not exactly a huge amount.

Yes It seems the comments reinforce my view our marriage is doomed.

Pity really as I'm otherwise happy with my little family. I suppose given what I know now I'm probably living in a one-sided loveless marriage.

What a shame my wife does not see things from an us/together point of view instead of a how-much-I-get/got point of view.

I wonder if her thinking is so entrenched she will never allow herself to live in a normal relationship and is simply unable to accept a relationship based on mutual trust and understanding instead of viewing life as if disaster awaits around every corner and one-self is all that matters.

Come on give yourself a break, don’t let some random comments on a forum ruin your marriage. First of all we don’t know more than a fraction of the facts and secondly don’t trust strangers to decide over your life.

I agree that hidden savings are a breach of trust but you must find out if her explanation is legitimate or not before acting on it. Since you have not told us any details on you relationship I can only guess that you live in Australia or New Zealand based on your comment about the efpos card (that I presume are the EFTPOS system that those countries use). So I would assume that she has a job and brings real cash into the relationship, but not as much as you.

I would suspect that if she was really out to rip you off the money would have been transferred back to Thailand long time ago. So perhaps she is really saving money for things that might happen, but she is doing it the Thai way of hiding money at home. You must understand that many Thais don’t have the kind of relationship that we do with banks. If you grew up poor you never had a chance to borrow money and might not trust the banks all that much. So saving by stockpiling money would be the logical choice.

Here in Denmark I have often heard about Thai girls borrowing money from each other at extreme interest rates. Some of those are to deep in debt to get an official loan but others simply don’t realize that there are better and cheaper ways to borrow money.

So I would suggest that you perhaps take a step back and give it another try. May I suggest that you setup your bank accounts in a way that you don’t treat her as a child but still has some control. I would suggest a setup that we use in our marriage (not out of distrust).

Both of you should have a separate account that your monthly salary are deposited into. You then setup a account for all your common fixed and agree on how much you each contribute with. This works perfectly for us and allows us to do whatever we want with our “pocket money” without the other having to be involved. You could expand it by adding an account for daily purchases with a card attached to it. Then you can tell your wife that whatever money are in that account is hers and if she decides to have cash lying around it comes from her own part of the money.

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.