Thai-Spy

People come people go.

Can anyone tell me where I can reliable statistics on expat population and tourism?

For tourism statistics, look here:

http://www2.tat.or.th/stat/web/static_index.php

Unfortunately, data is only available through mid-2006 which predates the visa "crisis" and the regime change.

The Even Chen Synagogue near Saphan Taksin is quiet even during holy days.

Handful of expats and visitors, mostly gem traders.

This takes the notion of "carrying a torch" to ridiculous extremes...

After his divorce, M. Alexandre's world had fallen to pieces. His business had lost large amounts of money and he had subsequently lost his wife. The police asked him to dress in more suitable attire and contacted the French Embassy on his behalf, but no further information about the outcome is available.

Surely a coincidence.

From the thread:

Bangkok Post Publish Names Of 18 Wanted Foreign Men

The 18 fugitives from the BP article.

The following fugitives are Americans wanted on charges involving the sexual abuse of children:

David John Sprong

Jon Savarino Schillaci

Edward Claire Reisch

Wayne Arthur Silsbee

Richard Steve Goldberg

Elby Jessie Hars

Edward Eugene Harper

Gary Lee St. John

The following fugitives are Americans wanted on charges NOT involving the sexual abuse of children:

Victor Manuel Gerena

John W. Parsons

James J. Bulger

Glen Stewart Godwin

Donald Eugene Webb

Robert William Fisher

The other four fugitives are Brian Michael Jones from Canada, Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez of Colombia, Jorge Alberto Lopez-Orozco from Mexico. All of them are wanted by the FBI in the USA.

The remaining fugitive, Tokushige Manasanari from Japan, is the unknown. No additional information anywhere was found regarding his charges or what law enforcement agency wanted him.

They've got one of them now.... any others out there teaching?

Perhaps, but you can be pretty sure James J. "Whitey" Bulger is not one of them.

"At the first glance, the number of 35 may look high. But if you consider that up to 120,000 Danes have been in Thailand during 2006, the figure of 35 fatalities and the course of death actually just follows the standard distribution of a larger Danish city within a year," the Danish ambassador added.

- Business Day

=============================

It'd be quite informative if all the other Embassies released such statistics.

The estimated 2005 death rate for Danes was 10.43 per 1000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_death_rate

According to TOT statistics http://www2.tat.or.th/stat/web/static_index.php) in 2005 there were 103,787 Danish arrivals to Thailand staying an average of 14.46 days. This is the same in a sufficiently large and random population as saying 1.5 million person-days, or 4110 person years.

Working out the math: (4110/1000) *10.43 gives an expected number of deaths of 42.87.

Conclusion: The Ambassador is presenting facts not spin, and Thailand is just as safe (or dangerous) as Denmark once you factor out some things including infant mortality and the fact the poor travel less and die younger.

Of course the sample of tourists is not random (they are a self-selecting cohort) nor is it completely representative of the demographics of Danish society. But for a quick thumbnail of the situation it is close enough.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a subway sandwich from Tipp Plaza....

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. We are a proud majority shareholder of six other Subway locations, but do not own the franchise at Tipp Plaza in Pattaya. I do know the two Franchise owners of this location and am forwarding this thread to them and the Development Director for Thailand.

On behalf, of all Subways Worldwide we sincerely apologize for this incident.

www.sunbeltasiagroup.com

Sunbelt, aren't you the Subway master franchisee for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam as well?

The food at the Nana Hotel Coffee Shop isn't that bad; good value for the price.

The proximity to a lot of our work sites makes it regular stop.

This turns increasingly orwellian here.

Welcome to Airstrip Neung.

Aside from financial institutions, there are other sources that put a significant amount of high-denomination banknotes into consumers' hands: pawn shops and gold shops, just to name two.

If That Ain't Country - David Allan Coe

Despite a few generalizations in thaiprivateeye's post with which we would not concur, there's a large measure of wisdom there. Read it twice, read it thrice, and make sure it sinks in. The central message is that in any conflict between the mother's wishes for the child and the OP's wishes for the child, if that conflict takes place in Thailand, there's a probability above 95% that the OP is, to put it plainly, screwed.

The OP's goal, if you don't mind, should be to assure that the child has a stable and loving home, a good upbringing, and a chance for a healthy and successful life. All other factors such as location and personnel are secondary considerations.

Thai Health deputy manager Dr Krissada Ruangareerat revealed the "worrying rate" of 15 to 18-year-old girls who had unwanted pregnancies in Thailand, which has increased from 70/1,000 teenagers in 2004 to 90/1,000 last year.

Dr Krissada was deeply concerned because the rate is 20 times more than in Japan where only four in 1,000 girls had an unwanted pregnancy a year.

The rate in the USA had dropped from 120/1,000 to only 49/1,000 in some states thanks to the policy of providing space for healthy activities to teenagers as well as their better knowledge of birth control and the laws on abortion.

"If the problem isn't solved, we predict the number in Thailand will increase to 120/1,000 in the next two years."

Source: The Nation - 8 February 2007

This article doesn't say what percentage of those pregnancies result in a live birth, but if it is 2 out 3, that means 60/1000 per year. Which in turn means 240/1000 girls (or women, if you prefer) -- 24% -- will become mothers before their 19th birthday. At 120/1000 and 2/3, it rises to 32%.

So it seems early childbirth rates in Thailand are trending back towards pre-industrial levels. Actually teen pregnancy rates are probably still much lower than a century ago, but birthrates are going to be similar because of advances in health care and nutrition. And in this new context they are not underpinned by marriage as often as they formerly were.

One of the historical keys to social development has always been delay of first childbirth by women. If this trend is not checked there are going to be very profound consequences for the Thai economy and society in general.

My Thai wife has stolen/hidden my marriage certificate. Why would she do that? and how is it going to affect me in the future?

We have one kid, and live in Hong Kong. I have not let my kid go back to Thailand for 6 months now, for fear that she will not return. I have a pretty bad relationship with my wife, who is depressive - but wont seek medical help, though I have tried. Divorce is mentioned very regularly, but I'm not gonna let my kid go.

Cheers for any advice.

Was your marriage in Thailand or elsewhere? And does your child already have a passport, and if so what nationality?

Call it what it is: the Suvarnabhoondoggle

Has anyone the precise TOT definition of a "tourist arrival"? Is it one person getting one entry stamp one time for purposes of tourism?

The lowered projection must in some way reflect (if not built into prior projections) the impact of the new regulations which are strangling the traditional 30-day visa run. Those visa runners are no longer accounting for 13 entries per year, and if the new regs are strictly enforced, they will account for only 2 if getting formal tourist visas. Not to mention those that will henceforth count for 1 or 0, whether from converting to another class of visa, abandoning Thailand all together, or entering just once per year.

Looking at the reduction of 20 million to 16 million, this is a change of 4 million. Taking as an assumption 11 fewer entries by visa runners, to make up the entire reduction would necessitate something on the order of 360,000 visa runners. Surely this is a far too high, perhaps by a full order of magnitude. Or is it?

360,000 visa runners averages to something under 1000 per day. That's easily accommodated by 20 buses seating 30 passengers and 50 vans with 7 passengers. Admittedly not everyone on a visa run is using (some might say abusing) the 30-day Visa Exemption; there are always a good percentage who are doing a run to satisfy the 90-day stamp-out/stamp-in requirement of a formal visa. On the other hand the math doesn't include those with DIY solutions of whom there are a good number.

Since the expected net revenue from tourism is expected to climb, the anticipated increase has to be even greater among what could be called "true tourists" to reflect the losses from 30-day visa runners who are being shaken out of the economic system. Frankly it's hard to see where the increase will come from, at least on that scale, unless the baht weakens significantly this year against most currencies in TOT's target markets.

Embassy

The opening hours for visa applications are advertised as 09.30 to 11.30. We arrived at 09.30 and there was already a long queue outside so my advice would be to get there early, perhaps 09.00. Also, there is no shelter while you are queuing so an umbrella would be good protection from rain or sunshine. Once you reach the entrance a guard will give you an application form & then you enter a small compound. I filled in the form before proceeding into the main office where another guard gave me a numbered ticket (number 45). I later saw that people who had been behind me outside had tickets with lower numbers than mine, so I guess the trick is to get your ticket before filling in the form. My number finally came up about 11.30 and the staff went through my paperwork. I had forgotten to include a copy of my passport but was able to get a copy made at a hotel opposite the embassy and hand it in without having to queue up again. The visa cost MR500 (about B5,000).

Passports can be collected the next day between 11.30 and 12.30 – once again there was a long queue but inside the compound this time with more shade.

This corresponds very closely to the recent experience of one of our associates. From his notes:

Suggested arrival time for application is 08.30 as this will put you in the first dozen or so applicants even on the busiest of mornings. These early birds tend to be very respectful of arrival order so you'll have a place in the queue to log in at the guardhouse even if you don't actually have a number yet. There's a 7-11 a bit farther up Jalan Ampang (i.e. farther from the Ampang Park LRT station) about 5 minutes walk from the Embassy if you need a drink, but there's no hot coffee there.

Crossing Jalan Ampang at street level if you need copies is very dangerous due to traffic flow during rush hour. There's a pedestrian overpass available, again in the direction of 7-11. If you don't have the required photos, you can get them done in the small shopping plaza near the Ampang Park station. However these shops don't open until 09.00 as a rule.

By being in the first group into the compound at 09.00 and the consular services section proper at 09.30 you should be done with the application process by 10.15 or 10.30 at the worst. Business visa applications typically take no more than 5 minutes for people who have their paperwork in order.

Overall however the rate of service seems to have slowed down though not through any fault of the RTE-KL staff. Because of the changes in regulations for tourists, there are now more people applying for tourist visas. As many of them are new to the process and have incomplete paperwork, they slow things up at the service counters.

Collection of the passport and visa is done at the guardhouse. If you arrive at ~12.15 there are no crowds. Just show your cash receipt with the application day's queue number attached and the guards will give you back your passport.

Wipe. Spray. Wipe.

Interesting thread, I had no idea "neutral" on an auto doesn't _really_ mean neutral... I mean, does the auto tranny in N not disengage completely or what?

.............................................................

Yes I realize neutral doesn't realy mean neutral but I too have never understood why ? what's the score on that one ?

Even with the gear selector in neutral, most of the transmission is still connected to the rest of the drivetrain, i.e. the driveshaft and rear wheels.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/automatic-transmission.htm

Our research has shown it was Taco Time http://www.tacotime.com/

They had a great location on Sukhumvit Soi 11 around 10 years, but by all reports, something was missing.

The General Manager of Rembrandt Hotel which has the Senor Pico restaurant stated yesterday, 40% of the customers at Senor Pico now are Thai.

Charley Brown's Mexican Restaurant at Soi 11 Sukhumvit Rd does a very good business as does Bourbon Street on Tuesday nights. The other player is Coyote on Convent.

No one seems to do Mexican QSR in Bangkok.

There are many more places doing all/many/at least a few credible Mexican dishes (at QSR price points or not).

I will go a bit against the popular view here...

I dont think it is right for people to say outright that he dumps her...in the end it is upto him...

These girls can be under enormous pressure from family to earn money for the family....a working girl can make a lot of money and sends money home...then she settles for just one guy and the money decreases because usually the guy cant send money to compare with what the girl was earning before. So then the family puts the pressure on even more. The family thinks that she has met a rich farang and expects the money to keep flowing. The girl by now is desperate...she has to satisfy the family demands, after all we all know that the family comes first, so she starts by doing the odd one or two and hopes she doesnt get caught out. Before long she finds that she has to do more because again Mama is putting pressure on.

In this case the girl got caught...not nice for the OP or for her...he said she has gone back to the village now so she seems to be genuinely contrite.

The decision he has to make is what to do...can he put this behind them and continue on or does he cut his losses and run...That is his choice to make.

And by the way...this sort of action is not the domain of only bargirls....a lot of up country girls who work in the tourist areas in decent jobs will go with men in order to make extra money. They are under the same pressure as the BG's in a lot of cases. Lets face it...Just because a girl works in a decent job doesnt mean that she wont sleep with men for extra money...

So to the OP....if you feel that this girls actions has destroyed your trust in her and you cant forgive and forget, then yes go ahead and dump her....but you could find that the nice waitress in the restaurant will do exactly the same thing.

If you can put it behind you and are prepared to let bygones be bygones then do what you think is best. If nothing else you have learnt from this and whether you stay with her or dump her,

excellent view on this, all too easy to jump on the band wagon with the "oh not another poor sucker being ripped off by a BG" line but there could be a lot more to it. Lots of office girls, shop workers etc would also entertain the possibility of a 5k bump up (or less).

Its gonna come down to trust and if you feel there is a future worth fighting for, only you can make that decision...

When you stop to consider that 5k ST/10k LT would represent 2 weeks to 2 months salary for the classes of Thai women most foreigners are likely to meet, it brings things into perspective. To dispel any myth of Western moral superiority, if you laid the exact same proposition in dollar or Euro terms before a Western woman with a similar education or employment, the acceptance rate would be similar.

The sin of cheating in Thailand doesn't reside in the fact of the physical act. It resides in getting caught, or more to the point the loss of face for the cheater and the one who is cheated on. Millions of Thai woman know (not "think", not "suspect", but "know") that their husbands are cheating, and the number of men in the same situation is only slightly lower. It's accepted because very few are damaged in a way they consider to be important.

The statement that "you can take the bar out of the girl, but you can't take the girl out of the bar" is largely erroneous. It's more accurate to say that you can't take the Thai culture out of the girl. Thais simply don't frame the issue of infidelity -- either mentally or emotionally -- in the same way as Westerners do.

Still, money does play an important factor, and indeed the pressures from family can be enormous. Bad debts, crop failures, familial financial irresponsibility, laziness, rural alcoholism, a parental sense of entitlement to support, early marriages and childbirth, the drive for status through ostentatious display of material wealth... It's a long list of things that can drive a girl to (and back to) the bars.

But still many more farang and ex-bar girl relationships do work out than that fail, far more than most people would assume. The main reason people assume the failure rate is high is simply that the farang male doesn't show up and boast about it, but they're all to willing to moan publicly about the relationship that failed (and usually without taking their own measure of blame). And also in those that succeed the male is willing to let the girl's past quietly disappear.

From what we've seen, at least half and possible two-thirds of the relationships do stand up for many years, and when they fail it's more usually because of intercultural stresses than the Thai woman wanting to go back to the bar.

So, to the OP, we might suggest that it's worth at least one more chance with your girl. But it is essential to get her into a different environment where temptation will not so often be placed in her path. Good luck.

The lack of will power Thais posses never fails to stagger me. There was a respectable lady on my floor who would just drop her waste outside of her door (and im not talking about a low rent flop house) and would walk past the bin to get to the lift. So I used to hang it on her door handle.

As time passed, a good length of time before she 'got it', she was able to drop it next to the bin or on the bin but seemed stumped at the whole IN THE BIN idea.

I saw her do it one day and called after her and with a huge smile and the kind of action one would entertain a child with, I showed her the entire lid lifting process. She seemed very insulted that a nasty horrible farang had a problem with litter dumped in his, her, everybody's corridor.

It's just lazyness. Pure and simple.

It's not simply laziness. It's that Thais have a substantially different perception of their rights in and duties to what we conceive of as public space, which involves, in part, what what one should do in public (or permit oneself to be seen doing in public).

But to extend your example, here's another direct observation: Two trash bins in the elevator lobby of one floor of an apartment building. One bin with its lid open, which gradually fills with trash, then has a mountain of trash rising from it and eventually bags of trash piled next to it. The lid of the second bin remains closed and the bin goes unused until a farang opens it.

The question of "why" is not so easy to answer. It may be in part because of the view that the spill-over of trash isn't viewed as being all that important. Or it may be seen as someone else's problem; a view that exists in all cultures to one degree or another with regard to certain things. The lid of the second can may not be opened because one doesn't want to be seen as the type of person who touches garbage cans, or that the Thai system of rote learning just doesn't lead people to seek the seemingly obvious alternate solution that's right in front of them.

What does seem pretty clear is that most Thais don't yet have much willingness to act in such a way as to protect their environment beyond the interior of their own home. But before we condemn too harshly, let's keep in mind that for Westerners the current standards of public sanitation are still relatively recent innovations. The urban streets and rural lanes of the West used to be fair game as trash dumps only a few decades ago and open sewers and uncontrolled waste discharge aren't that far in our own countries' pasts.

There needs to be a comprehensive educational program, one that illustrates both why sanitation is good for society as well as the individual and his or her family. But it must be rooted in existing Thai cultural values to have any hope of success. Whatever form it ultimately takes, we sincerely hope it is successful.

Earlier in this thread there was a citation from the article in the Financial Times which certainly pulls no punches. The entire article:

A military coup and a submerging market

For the third time in a month, Thailand has been exposed as the high-risk emerging market that has always lurked under the country’s veneer of relaxed, foreigner-friendly capitalism.

First, the government installed by the army after a coup d’état imposed capital controls to try to hold down the surging local currency, and then hurriedly withdrew most of the controls when the stock market predictably plunged. Next, a mysterious series of bombs exploded in Bangkok on New Year’s eve, killing three people.

The government on Tuesday added to the confusion by announcing new limits on foreign ownership of Thai companies, ignoring the pleas of foreign chambers of commerce in Bangkok and prompting yet another decline in Thai equities to their lowest level for more than two years.

It can be argued that the previous arrangements were opaque and unsatisfactory: for decades, Thailand had allowed foreigners to breach the spirit of the law by using Thai nominees, permitting an investor who was technically a minority shareholder to have de facto control of a company.

For many existing investors, furthermore, the direct impact of the latest proposals will not be significant. Hoteliers and law firms, for example, will be permitted to retain majority foreign control, although they will have to report their shareholdings to the state.

But the Thai government has introduced these changes to the Foreign Business Act in the wrong way and for the wrong motives. As with its earlier blunders, it has acted without transparency or sufficient consultation. It has not even moved with the firmness and determination expected of a military-installed regime, leaving domestic and foreign investors full of doubt about the possibility of yet more changes to investment legislation in the future.

On the face of it, Tuesday’s announcement might look like a nationalist attempt to protect Thai companies from foreign competition, but the real reason is doubtless to punish Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted by the coup. He was overthrown after the controversial, tax-free sale of his family’s telecoms empire to Temasek, the Singapore state holding company, for $1.9bn. It is no surprise that telecoms is not one of the sectors exempted from the new requirement that foreigners reduce their voting rights to below 50 per cent of a Thai company within two years.

The result is that the changes to the law will be bad for the business climate in Thailand, and not only because some investors will be pushed into a forced sale of their assets. Perversely, both Thai and existing foreign investors in most service industries will profit from discrimination against new entrants, to the detriment of competition. Above all, business will be more reluctant than ever to invest in a country where the authorities do not seem to know what they are doing.

--FT 2007-01-10

Is today's date 4/1 or 1/4?

The reflexive Muslim-bashing in this thread is truly distasteful.

The identities of the perpetrators of these acts and their motives have not yet been established.