Sweet Swede

I been living here since 1995 and there is not many smokers left here(except for me). In my early days many people smoked but today there is not many.

Why bother to report. Nothing changes. In the North pollution is escalating now and will be very bad next month. We all know it.

I cannot judge and declare that this leak was totally unnecessary and more of a failure than an unpredictable incident. I worked offshore for 42 years, most of that time as Tool pusher/Rig Super intendant. I have a lot of experience with “hoses”, both high and low pressure ones. In the countries I worked in, this would be thoroughly investigated because correct maintenance, periodic renewal and visual inspection by ROVs should have prevented this from happening in the first place. Thailand is known for taking short cuts in the short run and I am confident that it will be the conclusion after an INDEPENDENT investigation. In my experience almost all “accidents” can be avoided if proper safety and maintenance precautions are in place. It will be interesting to read the conclusions after the investigation, because if it concludes that no fault was done, it would have a severe impact on the global offshore Drilling and Production industry. However I strongly doubt that this will be the case if the investigation team is truly non-partisan with no intent to cover up.

On Swedish passport they just cut corner just front cover and nothing else. On my last passport they made 3 small star shaped perforations through front cover and page 1. I have done a couple of entries since I moved here 26 years ago with passports issued in Sweden. They always stamped the due date from the old passport in Bangkok without questions.

Overall air quality in the northern, northeastern, eastern, and southern regions is considered very good with the accumulation of dust particles no higher than 47 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3). That is a lie and I can prove it. Its not March conditions but air quality in Chiang Rai province is POOR and not very good as they claim.

Why do they put up these targets that are so extremly delussional? These targets are lies if authorities do close to nothing to enforce preventive measures. The word has alredy spread globally, that Bangkok and every province obove that latitude have a serious air pollution problem during the tourist high season. It will have a great impact on tourism over time, as people who come here will tell how bad it is. It is often visually and looks like fog, but everyone with normal smellng senses will know it is air pollution. With lame ducks in charge nothing will improve. They now say air pollution will now get worse because of more traffic. That would maybe be the case in some western contries, but here the traffic is NOT the major problem. Where i live the PM 2.5 level has the last month normally been between 4 to 8 times above WHO guidelines and it has nothing to do with traffic, only burning.

The RTP really got their priorities right. Sex for sale everywhere without any consequenses, but watching it is a deadly sin.

It is not only Bangkok, but most of the country. When reporting the pollution it is usually only focused on the big cities, and mostly places related to tourism. The fact is that the country side is even more effected than the cities, but that is mostly ignored. In Chiang Rai province it is now really bad. But it has come to a point where only very unheathy and hazardeous is considered bad. I smell burning most of the day. Midday is normally best values but even then it is not GOOD.

In my opinion it is not worth it, I moved here 25 years ago and I hade severe problems with some boxes I sent that where stopped at immigration. This resulted in that I sold and gave away all the stuff I intended to send. They wanted 10 000 bath each to release the 3 boxes(10-15 kg each) I sent with no real valuables in them, so I just told them to return them, which they actually did, but it took 8 months before they were back. Several other people I know had similar experiences. You probably will be better of buying new stuff. But you can also be lucky. I know a few that were, but not many.

What about NON IMM O expats returning after visit to origin country? Do they need this 50k USD insurance? We are not tourists.

I lived here for 26 years. About 2 months ago I applied for Yellow book and Thai Id. Took almost one day, but I did not have to pay anything.