isaanistical

I flat-out do not believe the OP. The website of this "travel blog" of which I had never heard has a similar "top 10"of countries visited and Thailand doesn't make the list with the UAE listed at no 10 on 11.5m visitors. So twice as many people visit Bangkok as visit Thailand? Pull this one...........

Dulwich College may be unfamiliar to some of you but it educated (among many others) Raymond Chandler, PG Wodehouse, BBC's Jonathan Head, Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music), Ernest Shackleton (Antarctic), former Thai PM Anand, Lord Shawcross (Nuremberg trials). Incidentally,it was founded by Shakespeare's personal impresario Edward Alleyn. Oh, and Bob Monkhouse and Nigel Farage were also allowed in………………….

well my background also says you traditionally don't give any authority your real address, but that didn't used to be about f**gg*ts following one!

yds, always. It's the precise opposite of most places I have been, where chatting to an IO gets you in jail. That's why it took me so long to cotton on. They are conversing and they expect some reply, not just 'yes' or 'no'. Same goes for NZ, by the way, in my experience.

and yet, and yet....... Years ago when I started going to Oz, I used to have endless trouble at Immigration; hassles, searches etc. Turned out that by being stuffed-shirt English reserved and no chat, I made them suspicious. I relaxed. When the IO says "g'day, how are you", I now start a conversation that always ends with me saying "cheers, mate". Name me anywhere, ANYWHERE else in the world where you say to an IO: "cheers, mate."

None of which helps the OP get his wife there. How about getting others (maybe in the company? Or friends) who live there fulltime to act as sponsor/guarantors? Certainly the first time I applied in TH for a visitor visa for my lot, it seemed to smooth the process considerably to have someone in Sydney promising to look after us!

at Lacessit: Clearly Oz is far from perfect. It's expensive, for one thing (especially Sydney), and 'elf 'n' safety has gone mad (I will NOT wear a hat to ride a bike!). But what always amazes me is that despite all the wokes and loonies, everyone you actually meet/interact with is really NORMAL (as a compliment) I just don't know or care where the nutters hang out! My local there is working class, with tradies, workers at the fish market, a sprinkling of Abbos, etc as regulars. Good as gold and the craic is great. I take posh, cool clients there for a good lunch; never any problem.

"who you calling a pig?"

not to hijack the thread, but travel, plus the internet, have opened a lot of eyes in TH, hence the current snafu. My wife's first trip outside Thailand was to NZ back when she didn't need a visa (soon after, visas became necessary because too many Thais were taking the proverbial...) and to say her eyes were opened is a major understatement. My comment about Vietnamese or Indian was meant regarding Immigration officials during my never-ending battle (I was in Sydney for five years) to get family members with me. As a genuinely multicultural place, sure there are lots whose first language is not English, but the politeness and friendliness of people in general has always bowled me over. I love Oz.

In my experience in AU, they all seemed to be Vietnamese or Indian (origin, though of course now AU citizens) and maybe making it as difficult as possible per their own experience. Used to be the same when UK still had an embassy in BKK - staffed by Indians who would be obstructive for the sake of it (revenge for the Raj?).

Attendance at a China zoo has boomed since rumours started that the animals in its bears enclosure were actually humans in disguise. Tottenham are expected to copy this in the new season.

not off a stack made at 10am and maybe still around at 3pm on a slow day. You tried to avoid the soggy egg-and-mayo. All placed in a brown paper bag for eating in a nearby park if it wasn't snowing.

Thannks from here too. Wonderful stuff, some of it evocative of the superb Heath Robinson, but some is muchmore "feasible". Related: on the same website I saw this. What a memory-jerker this is: "Sandwiches. London 1972"

Exactly. OP headline is completely wrong. WHO numbers - 2016 is their most recent easily accessible year - showed 22,491 deaths, or average 61.6/day. Around 80 percent motorcycles.

Lent on Wednesday for sure, but is Asanha Bucha "dry"?

duh or no duh. It's a passport renewal application, not a PHD exam. What's so XXXX complicated that you need an agent to make sure you don't eff it up? The argument against having to go to BKK or CM I recognise, but not the need for someone to ensure you haven't spelt your name wrong.

haven't seen this on here for at least a week..............

unless, like many people here, you travel a lot. Moving round this part of the world eats up passport pages; I've done them in 2-3 years (before the covid Panic, that is). Have renewed in Singapore and Aus on occasion, just to avoid the chaos here. Thanks, ambassador.........

whatever its purpose, they can't flog it off this time to help pay the rent back home........... who wants an office in a US insurance company block?

Ah, the good old days – takes me back. I remember once taking the pink slip for collecting the new one and shouting to the girl behind the grille (whom I happened to know a little) “I demand you give me a passport”. Should have seen the looks on the faces of all the asylum seekers in the room! Of course, that was when UK had an embassy here……..

Fog lifting, but Green, Pink and Yellow are operated by BTSC (as BTS, NBM and EBM) - Rabbit so how come the Yellow jobbie is clearly signed all over it "MRT"? Or in this case were you solely talking about the ticketing? [Blackadder: "I have always been content to wear cotton, without bothering to know how it works"............]

Enlighten us? (I have only been here 28 years). If youre right and my wife is wrong (which has never happened before), how come Rabbit works on Yellow, which is an MRT line not a BTS one? Even the lack of logic is wrong!

Not calling you a liar, but my wife told me today she uses the same Rabbit card on Blue MRT and BTS. Certainly it works on the useless Yellow Line, and I have never heard of a Red one.

It's a nuisance if you're just an occasional user of one or the other. Can take ages at, say, Asoke or Silom to get a single ticket. However, I understand a Rabbit card will work on both MRT and BTS, so for those of us who live here, surely that IS a single system?

Agreed. In fact having been out of UK for so long, I am denied a vote there should I ever wish to, which is ironic. My wife, who is Thai, used to be totally apathetic about what happens here - fatalistic, more like, same as many millions of her compatriots. This time she has become really angry about the way they are being s()at on, not least because she is better informed - largely through foreign media that are not always accurate, partly because they usually omit the real source of the whole problem, which of course none of us here dare mention. It was the disclosure some years ago about the truth of that problem that started getting my wife (and her peers) angry, and that will never be healed until there is action. BUT: it is clear that serious protest action would be bloody and costly in terms of lives, and it is not difficult to see why so few Thais are prepared to go to those lengths. I for one don't wish to see my wife killed by Men in Black.............