KhaoYai

I don't want people to say anything - I'm simply pointing out that prices are crazy at the moment. I don't care about rebooking or cancellation as I won't be doing that - if the airline cancel or makwe changes, they have to foot the bill - rules for flights booken in either the EU or UK. I just wanted the cheapest price - with checked bags.

$500 - I hope you mean £'s? Find me a flight in September that has a reasonable total duration from Manchester for £500 and I'll take an extra holiday and book it.

Have to say that I flew through India once on one of those flights that Etihad combine with Jet Airways - I also said never again.

Look on the underside of the seat, it tells you quite clearly.

Guys, A lot of you are missing the point or maybe I haven't been clear? I'm fully aware that my (inflexible) dates and possibly booking so late are contributory factors but I've done this before and NEVER have I had to pay anything like £1677. Those of you quoting cheaper prices - try ACTUALLY booking them. I spent a day trying to find cheaper prices - there were none available unless I was prepared to live with total durations of up to 53 hours. I've had almost 21 years experience in finding cheap flights - the best I could obtain was the same flight for £1610 but the agents had very poor reviews on Trustpilot and were difficult to contact. Believe me, I know what I'm doing. My hope is that this situation is temporary and things will settle down next year - if not, Thailand can kiss goodbye to what's left of its tourism business. People may be prepared to pay crazy prices this year but not regularly.

Not on my dates - or from Manchester. With respect, I've been flying this route for nearly 21 years - I know how to find the best prices.

Qatar direct were over £1800

Not $......£ I also made it quite clear that I have to travel now.

Don't be so sure on that. I spent a day finding my flights and indeed, did find some cheaper ones. However, when I was transfered to the agent's site the price went up considerably. With one, not only did it go up on transfer, when I filled in my details and tried to pay, I got a message saying it was no longer available at the latest price but was available at an even higher price. My flights are also from Manchester - Heathrow is usually a little cheaper but rarely enough to tempt me to make that trek + pay for the additional travel and twice as much for parking.

I travel to Thailand regularly and can only do so because I seek out the best flight prices on my chosen carrier - Etihad. I can usually be flexible with my dates. I've just returned to the UK from Thailand this week and that flight cost me a little more than usual for the time of year but after several news reports I was expecting that. However, for reasons I won't go into, I have to return unexpectedly in just 3 weeks time and I can't believe the price I've just had to pay. OK so July/August are always the most expensive summer months to travel to Thailand from the UK and I usually try to avoid them but on the few occasions where I have travelled at that time, its usually cost me around £700. I use a flight comparison site and spent most of yesterday looking at hunderds of different options - I couldn't believe the prices I was getting. The flight I ended up with was available through various agents with prices from £1610 of to around £1700. I'd never heard of some of the agents so checked them out on Trustpilot to try and avoid nightmares - I also won't deal with agents that will not give out their phone numbers. I ended up paying £1677 (economy) using an agent I know for flight on Qatar (an airline I said I'd never use again but Etihad were £2300!!!). I just couldn't believe that price - even with it being in the UK school holidays and allowing for fuel price increases. £1677 - can you imagine paying that if you have a wife and three kids? There were flights available using multiple airlines for around £1200 but the total travel times were hideous (up to 53 hours). I also don't fancy flights using multiple airlines - too much to go wrong. What was also surprising was that flights were disappearing almost as fast as I could find them. I spoke to one agent who confirmed that they are exceptionally busy at the moment - it seems that people haven't travelled for a couple of years and are therefore prepared to pay these prices. The same agent told me that as well as the increased fuel costs, airlines are trying to recoup some of the money the lost when the pandemic brought most travel to a halt. I suppose that's understandable. I can only hope that once people have spent the money they've saved over the last couple of years and fuel prices hopefully drop, airlines will once again return to having to attract customers through competitive pricing. Next year maybe?

Agreed - its getting bloody ridiculous. We are supposed to accept the gender that a person indentifies as rather than what they actually are. Then there's the famous pop-singer Sam Smith who says he's non-binary and objects to being labelled as either male or female - saying he, sorry it, doesn't 'identify' as either. Even the LGBT+ Pride flag has now been updated to reflect yet another 'group' - 'intersex' people - that's a new one on me. World's gone mad but I'll eat my hat if the girl in the photos is anything other than female.

Can't agree. People act on the spur of the moment, they rarely think of the consequences when they commit crime. By way of an example, look at the US, I think I'm correct in saying that they have some of the toughest jail sentences in the West, if not the World yet their jails are full and crime rates are high. Thailand itself hands out lengthy jail sentences for drugs offences yet it has a significant drugs problem. Jail and national service may be two different things but I'd rather spend five years in the army than five years in jail. Neither seem to work as a deterrent though. Violent crime is often linked to alcohol - maybe that's what needs looking at? Away from the eyes of tourists, Thai society, that is supposed to be pacifist and non-confrontational, seems anything but. There are often reports of similar events in the Thai media. Then there is the hugely violent 'rivalry' between pupils at Technical Colleges in Bangkok.

I arrived at Suvarnabhumi a couple of weeks ago - my third trip since restrictions eased last November. On my first trip in December things were a little slow getting through the airport but the hotel (1 night no quarantine quarantine) taxi was there waiting and took me straight for my PCR test on the way to the hotel. Just 6 hours after that test I was sat in a bar on Sukhumvit. Second trip was a little faster through the airport but then a very long wait for the hotel taxi + the PCR result took 13 hours. This last trip was clearly going to be easier as quarantine had ended for fully vaccinated travellers but I was amazed at how quickly I got through immigration and collected my bags. I was in a taxi on my way home 35 minutes after landing - I can't ever remember it being so fast in almost 21 years. The airport really seems to be intent on making things slicker in the future - a lot of new immigration booths have been installed. Let's just hope they have the staff to man them when things get busy.

Maybe so but they don't have the monopoly yet - they will though.

I have no idea why - it could be because a lot of the stuff that's been on sale here for many years is pretty low grade. When you 'cream off' the extract, you're basically dealing with un-diluted THC which is probably around the same strength as normal western grown bud. When I harvested my bud (note the past tense), I'd have to scrape the resin off my scissors with a razor blade 3 to 4 times per plant as I was trimming the leaves off. I would roll that into little balls of pure resin and that stuff would 'knock the socks off' most regular smokers - just as skunk did when it was first introduced to the UK. After years of smoking hash etc. - skunk, as it was called then was in a different league - from a different planet. Now its the norm - I rarely see hash in the UK these days, everyone grinds bud. To be fair, I prefered the older stuff - I liked having a good night out. I didn't then and don't now - understand the attraction of not being able to remember if I had a good time or not. However, I don't tolerate THC well - it doesn't take a lot to get me comatose. I'm also alergic to any part of the plant touching my skin - growing the stuff was more than a little difficult ????.

Not only that - once the dust settles, and presuming it settles in the right direction, I suspect these new laws will change drastically.The 'big boys' will get involved, pressure the government into regulating supply and they will then control the situation. There's no way they're going to miss this opportunity. Its much the same as the laws around brewing beer in Thailand - a monopoly is guaranteed to just 2 main suppliers by law. I can't remember the amount but to be able to start brewing in Thailand you have to have facilities to be able to produce a crazy amount of beer - x millions of litres. Small start-ups don't stand a chance so control of brewing rests with just 2 companies. Amazing! A situation that would go against the laws of most civilised countries is guaranteed by law! Prayuth and his cronies don't run this country, they are allowed to run it by the elite - as long as they protect the elite's income. But then again, I would not be totally surprised to see a ban re-imposed before long.

Then you're lucky - I don't undertstand any of it. The only thing I do understand is that the proposal to 'legalise' cannabis has been brought about by a government that has no knowledge of the product at all. First its medicinal use only. Then the inuendo, if not the actual wording, was cleadly going towards 'recreational'. During both those phases Anutin sought to appease opponents and concerned members of the public by stating that the strength would be limited to 0.2% - no mention of that being applicable to certain parts of the plant or extracts. More recently it appears that recreational use is accepted but even more recently, whatever the actual law says appears to have been changed to only extracts being limited to 0.2%. People seem to be taking that as meaning the bud can be whatever strength you want as long as you don't extract any part of plant and understandably so. What the hell are they talking about? - apart from those who extract resin through various methods for real medicinal use, I know of very few people who do any 'extracting'. Why would they want to? The vast majority of cannabis use is via smoked, ground, bud. The last stuff I grew had a claimed THC content of between 27 and 30% THC - you don't need to extract anything from that - just one joint will put you on another planet. Does Anutin think weed is still the same as it was in his college days - Superskunk and K2 at around 15% THC.? Just about all of the popular Cali strains are capable of 30% THC if they're grown correctly. Now kids under 20 and pregnant women are banned from using cannabis and everyone is banned from smoking it in public. How long before Thailand's sizeable anti smoking lobby start chipping in and demanding smoking weed is banned completely? Remember the proposal a couple of years back to ban people from smoking cigarettes in their own homes? How long before its completely banned again? The man in charge seems to have very little actual knowledge of cannabis at all. Legalise it fully or ban it - this ever changing situation is just a joke. Its like announcing the removal of all speed limits from all roads and then slowly saying 'but only if you're driving this sort of car' and 'except for this road and that road' oh 'and only if you're over this age'.

Funnily enough, it was a Buriram Amphur manager that told me they hadn't entered all the data. I got married at one of the outlying Buriram Amphurs and could not obtain a copy of my certificate at the main city Amphur a few years later as the information was not on their system. The data may have been entered now but the way the Amphur manager put it to me was that they had no intention of doing so. Can't say I blame him either - can you imagine entering all the births, marriages, deaths etc. back to the year dot?

I don't doubt that but as I say, they haven't all entered the data.

Please see my reply above and.......... You will have each been given copies of your marraige certificate and the registration papers (Kor Ror 2) at the time of registration. If you haven't got them then you will have to visit Thailand to obtain them - I'm almost certain on that. Whilst there, providing your wife agrees to it, you could also get divorced - it only takes 30 minutes and costs nothing. If you choose that you will have to either obtain official copies of your marriage certificate and registration or obtain a police report stating that your copies have been lost or stolen. I appreciate that you might not have any idea where they are or even that you have lost them but you have to have a report - its a Thai thing. I got divorced at Bang Rak without certificates and had to walk across the road to the police station, told them I'd left the papers in the taxi on the way there (you must make the report in the area where you 'lost' them) and left with a police report. Armed with that report I obtained my divorce without my copies of the certificate and registration. I don't know if the Amphur will require a police report if you are not divorcing there but want copies to take back to the UK - I suspect they will. If you do go there get the copies and intend getting divorced in the UK - don't forget to obtain official translations - you'll need them in the UK. It may be possible to get an agent to obtain copies for you but that's going to get very complicated - involving both UK and Thai solicitors in obtaining a Power of Attorney. If I was you I'd get on a plane.

The Amphurs are all linked on their own intranet but that doesn't necessarily mean that data compiled before they went online has been placed on the system. My understanding is that it was supposed to be (going back X years) but I was told by one Amphur manager that they were only entering data for events that took place from the date they went live on the system. The OP must surely be able to remember the town/city he got married in - probably in his wife's home town? There can be several Amphurs in each town/city but its usual to use the one closest to home. I don't think he's going to get very far with any enquiries without a trip back to Thailand. He will then be able to go to - let's say Bang Rak Amphur in Bangkok and find out if his marriage is registered on the system.

So basically, if you use cannabis you don't know whether you're breaking the law or not? That's a bit too wooly for me - it leaves you wide open to the whims of a police force who's activities have at times been 'questionable'. People can take that risk if they so wish and will in all probability, be OK - I'll stick to Chang ????.

I'd like to see a translation of the original new regulations, not just this new 'clarification' - there's been nothing but confusing and contradictory reports from the start. For example, when de-regulation was first announced the entire proposals were based on medical use - now the word 'recreational' is being openly used. Then there's the confusion over the stated strength of 0.2% THC content. So what do the regulations, as published, actually say. In my book, by placing an age threshold on the drug and stating that it should not be used by pregnant women, Anutin is throwing the 0.2% in the bin. Such a low content wouldn't even be noticed by the user and would be of no harm whatsoever so there'd be no point in controlling anything. Has anyone seen a translation of the new laws - as published in the Royal Gazette?

Yes, we are on the same wavelength but its the people not the bikes. Without checking any statistics I think it would be a fair guess that there are more deaths in car accidents than there are in other countries.

Sorry but that's simply not true. I accept that you are more vulnerable on a bike should an accident happen but people with proper training and/or experience, know how to deal with that and ride accordingly. There are far more accidents on motorbikes than there are in Thailand but 99.999% of them involve Thai nationals and are on small bikes or scooters - have you seen the way they ride? I think it would be a fair guess that the vast mjority of them never have any training and probably wouldn't take it seriously if they did. So I think the statistics are highly skewed - in the vast majority of cases its stupidity that causes the accidents not simply motobikes. Look at the recent cases of serious accidents involving motorbikes hitting people on pedestrian crossings - are they caused by the bike or the stupidity of the rider? One of the things that never fails to amaze me in Thailand is bikes pulling out of side roads without even looking - its as if their head is attached to the handlebars with some form of bracket that keeps it looking straight forward. My basic survival instinct wouldn't let me pull out without looking - I just can't undertstand it but it happens thousands of times every day. There are people killed in cars and trucks in Thailand every day - they don't guarantee survival and as I say, the figures that seem illustrate that far more motorcyclists are killed are skewed by the stupidity of the riders. Yes, they happen but do they need to?