CanterbrigianBangkoker

Very predictable, but totally laughable. It's very easy for this mug in a labcoat to tell the country to postpone opening up, when he is still receiving a salary and his business doesn't rely on tourism.

I suppose at this point though, as others have pointed out, with the ridiculously strict measures in place, that the foreigners who could travel here would opt out in favour of somewhere less petrified of tourists.

16 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

For 2022, the TAT expects 20 million foreign arrivals to spend 1.3 trillion baht, Siripakorn said.

Yo, Siripakorn, can you hook me up with a bit of whatever it is you're smoking please, mate?

Cheers.

20 hours ago, Gulfsailor said:

By the end of June most people on Samui will have been vaccinated, so the local businesses will benefit from these tourists, not just a few large hotels. 

Yeah, we'll see about that, I think that is a verrrry optimistic outlook tbh.

27 minutes ago, tomyami said:

 

Here in ireland now have 40k a day queuing 4 vacs

hosp ICU and admissions, deaths and effected cases starting to see record lows no lying stats.

result a rolling opening later in the summer normality unless a new strain then we are all...

Your 'normality' ins't coming back bud, nothing approaching it will for more than a short spell, I fear. Sorry to burst your bubble.

Just now, Surelynot said:

Thanks to vaccines, 4.5 billion virus cases were averted and 10.3 million lives saved worldwide – including 2.7 billion and 6.2 million, respectively, in Asia alone. In the United States, about 200 million cases were averted and 450,000 lives saved.

 

 

DOH!

Covid vaccines have saved billions of lives? What you smoking there chief?

3 hours ago, RotBenz8888 said:

Does anybody believe in their vaccine? 

Does anyone in their right mind believe in any of them!?

5 hours ago, RandolphGB said:

They’ll take the jab made by whichever vaccine company pays the government ministers and officials the most under the table to get the contract. Let nobody kid themselves, there is big money to made first and people’s health, wellbeing and the economy will be considered second. 

Certainly. As is ALWAYS the case with big pharma and government the world over.

20 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Yong said he was puzzled at how community transmission had occurred given Thailand's strict border controls, quarantine and testing protocols

Comedy gold Yong, comedy gold... ????

Nearly every claim in this article is absurd beyond belief.

Who comes up with this sh*te? Beggars belief. ????

3 minutes ago, TheFreqFlyer said:

I should mention even if a vaccine never eventuates (and many scientists and experts don't believe it will) all these other draconian measures are scary and disturbing enough. 

It's a brave new world,  or at least it better be. Huxley and Orwell being proven right more and more often.  Scary and sad in equal measure. Time to buy some land in deepest darkest Kanchanaburi and start prepping , methinks.

12 minutes ago, micmichd said:

Yes, and the average age of a European was 35 years before vaccines were invented. Guess not many old Farangs would be in Thailand now if things hadn't changed. I wouldn't. 

Please don't confuse Covid bloody 19 with Smallpox or Polio. When the survival rate is c.99% globally, these diseases or the necessity to vaccinate against them are nowhere near comparable. ???? Edward Jenner would agree.  

44 minutes ago, Trujillo said:

"Definitely would be better for Thailand for give extensions 1900thb every month for people who are still here and cannot go back, ..."

 

Why? And what do you mean by "cannot go back"? There are already provisions for those who are medically incapable of leaving by the 26th. Anyone who is physically able to leave should leave; if not, then they are gaming the system, clearly. 

 

The government has already bent the visa rules a number of times to (over)accommodate the foreign tourist. Remember, the average time for a "real" tourist to stay in country is about nine days. If you are an actual tourist, don't you have your life to get back to in your own country? And shouldn't a country go back to normal visa limits at some point? 

 

 If I were a tourist and was still here after...what? Four months or more of extra time on my 30 day/two week/week visa, I'd be feeling that I got a real windfall and at some time (this Saturday) it's time to get on with it. 

I don't understand all the kicking and screaming. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. 

Although I agree that they have been unusually lenient and that many of the so-called tourists stranded here after months may be less marooned holidaymakers and more self-exiled then stranded, does this really matter? I'd say you have it backwards. The Thais are looking a billion baht gift horse in the mouth and throwing it away. Yes the usual visa rules and regs will have to reapply at some point soon enough, but the world is still in relative turmoil (whether it's self imposed or not is another question) and the country has already and for some time now relaxed its rules in these areas while introducing new ones and tightening others, so following the 'letter of the law' is irrelevant to a large extent at the moment. If you're a business owner that has lost some majorly important clients, are now struggling to pay your rent and feed your family and have no easy way out on the horizon, you wouldn't turn down a few lodgers to help tide you over now would you???

12 hours ago, Neeranam said:

Rather sad to blame the Thai government for your lack of planning.

????

Rather presumptuous to assume I am or that I have any issue re: the upcoming end of the amnesty. I am fine to remain in Thailand for the foreseeable future, thanks very much. Even if I was having to leave, would that invalidate ANYTHING I have said above? No, no it wouldn't.

11 hours ago, micmichd said:

You forgot one thing : Thailand has no domestic CoviD-19 cases A BECAUSE they banned foreigners from CoviD-19 countries or forced them in quarantine.

And it's now up to Western countries to handle the pandemic and get vaccinated according to WHO standards. 

This is besides the point I am making totally - read my comment more closely. Those who have been here since April on the amnesty are in the exact same boat as anyone else who has also not left the country. Also, I would ask - how EXACTLY do you or anyone else know how many cases of Covid Thailand has had? Are you taking a corrupt, unelected bunch of venal, self serving toads and their lackeys at their word? Or have you been visiting every hospital and household across the kingdom issuing covid 19 tests for the 70m people around the country? I know the Thai authorities sure haven't. I wouldn't believe a word of it. No one has any idea how many people may or may not have Covid in Thailand, and never have. If those who they were planning to kick out had left the country and re-entered etc. then your comment may have some bearing on my former one, but evicting thousands of people who pose no more risk in this regard than any Thai citizen, seems nuts to me, especially when the country is so desperate for tourist income right now.

12 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

It would, appear that way to the uninitiated but the Thais know exactly what they are doing.

 

The economic crisis will be more than mitigated by the face the regime will gain from defeating the COVID-19 virus and getting rid of all the foreigners hanging on is just an added bonus. 

Hahaha! Is this really a serious comment!? 

I have lived here for many years so I am not what you might call 'uninitiated' in the ways of Thai culture/thinking etc.

I would say that the 'mitigation' that any face saving the current regime might garner ( it is already massively unpopular with more and more Thais - as we are seeing from the hundreds of thousands gathering in BKK) will be found wanting when compared to their failing economy in the coming months. It is after all, one that is so heavily reliant on both foreign tourism and foreign investment. Although it would definitely seem there is a lower instance of COVID here, and this probably is the case, the fact that it presents as mild symptoms for the vast majority of people - symptoms which can and are often confused with other corononaviruses like Flu and Rhinovirus - coupled with the fact that the Thai government have done very little testing means that we have NO REAL IDEA of the levels of Covid in Thailand. What we do know is that there are a myriad of businesses going under, millions now out of work, many thousands now destitute and potentially many hundreds of thousands more soon to follow. The knock on effect has yet to be felt. I know which I would choose between a high covid infection rate and massive swathes of crucial industries decimated and an economy very negatively impacted for years to come. The fact that they need the extra money as badly as they obviously do, YET are still willing to evict thousands of folks that would put 100s of millions or more back into their economy is perhaps a comment on how they feel about westerners remaining here, I'll agree with you on that much. How myopic can they be? Very, as we have seen time and again.

The simple, sad fact is that many people just don't care. They drive however they want to and they know they can get away with it. Furthermore, a large number lack the mental capability to grasp the rules of the road or how to properly drive a vehicle. When you put untrained, ignorant people on the back of motorbikes or behind the wheels of cars, what you have is a recipe for disaster, and we see it time and again, probably well over 62 times a day, in fact - nationwide.

Without a) clearly defined rules of the road or any respect for them shown by those using the road, b) proper training from a young age to ensure driving proficiency and c) a proper police force who will enforce aforementioned rules, Thailand hasn't a snowball's chance in hell in reducing the dire numbers of road traffic accidents / fatalities. Since I've lived here the yearly death toll has never dropped, in some years it has actually increased.

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Thaivisa suggests they might look at the strength of the restraining walls.

I suggest they might 'scrutinise the cognitive ability' of the people operating these vehicles. 2 tons of ambulatory metal in the wrong hands is a lethal weapon.

6 minutes ago, metisdead said:

 

As The Phuket News wrote the article, here are their contact details so that you can ask them if they have native English speakers on their staff:  

 

https://www.thephuketnews.com/contact-us.php#FiKAHz0C0iYB7dbj.97

Ah, I see I am criticising the wrong publication. Sincrere apologies. Thanks for the contact info though. ???? 

3 hours ago, ratcatcher said:

and if they do, are you going to parse sentence?

He who'd pun would pick a pocket. ????

On 2/24/2019 at 11:24 AM, spidermike007 said:

Crazy story. Why do so many here, take offense at a situation like this? You asked to get out of the taxi, and he wants to confront you. What is that all about? Why such low self esteem? Why can't so many of these guys just deal with it? A friend of mine was driving in the early morning the other day, and he gently passed a pickup truck, who was driving very slowly. Then the guy speeded up, and started tailgating him, within a foot of his car. This went on for miles. The guy pulled up along side him, and started yelling at him. He finally stopped at a taxi stand, explained that he had a crazy killer following him, and the taxi guys talked him down.

 

What was that all about? How does someone allow themselves to get so offended, at being passed on a road, when they are going very slow? How is that considered an offensive act? What kind of man does it take to engage in such aggression over nothing, but an incredibly minor perceived slight? Why don't these guys have any self esteem? Why such a lack of consciousness and respect? Fortunately, it is a small percentage that behave like this. But why? 

It's puzzling, at first, but when you understand the culture and its flaws and consider the way some of these *ahem* 'men' are raised, then I would say it becomes clearer and easier to comprehend. 

Too many Thai males are not raised by their parents, but instead by an extended familial unit, or more distant family members, very often it's the grandparents, either through inability or unwillingness of the parents to do the job properly (for a multitude of reasons) or because they are absent, often due to them working in another area of the country where more profitable employment can be obtained. There's nothing inherently 'wrong' with this situation, plenty raised in such circumstances will turn out normal and decent, but that is usually predicated on a strong and functional family unit. However, there are definitely many (males particularly) who don't receive proper discipline and are as a result sorely lacking in respect for others and/or able to differentiate between what is socially acceptable behaviour and what isn't. Being reared (often) by aging and obviously less energetic, or engaged family members as well as the tendency for dysfunctionality in such situations has to be responsible for a lot of the bad character traits we're discussing here, IMHO.

The lack of a male disciplinarian in the form of a father-figure is sorely missing from many of these young men's lives, this is something that can lead to a whole host of societal issues - as we have witnessed in the West with the state-sponsored breakdown of marriage and the two parent family. It is often exacerbated in Thailand by the mollycoddling of boys by an abundance of female family members and a lack of male family members, the inclination by many (something I have witnessed) is to give boys more leeway and if they act up, no to discipline them sufficiently - possibly a cultural phenomena more uniquely Asian - at least in modern times. As these boys get older and become more physically imposing and thus even less easy to control, the situation simply becomes worse and the poor behaviour more entrenched. This lack of respect stemming from an absence of discipline and perhaps too much attention/pampering as children leads to grown men with the most fragile of egos and a superiority complex - an awful combination. They aren't used to being told 'no' or not getting their own way. Combine that with an all too prevalent, xenophobic and nationalistic streak and of course the famous inability to take criticism or lose face (practically a Thai cottage industry) and the results are predictably woeful, especially with incidents involving foreigners. I will say now that I've never had a big problem with Thai taxi drivers, I'm a resonably young and athletic man and can speak Thai pretty well - I always try to be affable, but I am also firm if I feel that I am being taken for a ride. Probably largely due to these aforementioned factors, I have been lucky not to experience too many issues in the 10 years I've been here.

I have many friends and acquaintances (especially those who don't speak Thai) who have not been so lucky.