Mr Meeseeks

A BJ and beer was 1,000thb last time I was in Star of Light, but I have heard it closed recently. Another iconic bar gone.

Patpong 2 was still one of the haunts of the locally based expat, myself included, throughout the 90's until Cowboy started taking over in the early 00's. Nana Plaza has always been more geared towards the tourist. Unfortunately they have ruined Cowboy with the neon gogos, very few cool bars left now. Most of the decent expat bars in Patpong 2 have closed down now too, Cosmos only recently. The main Patpong drag was always a tourist trap. I liked Patpong although it always had an edge over Nana and Cowboy. By edge I mean more raw and dangerous with the amounts of ladyboys, scammers, touts and clip joints upstairs. If one was known or seasoned it was easy to navigate, but it got a bad reputation among visitors and expats in the late 90's so Cowboy became the expat ogling street of choice.

No money in it for them, will be difficult to get them involved unless they are pressured.

Where did you get that photo of my in-laws?

They have no option, if they do not help the debtors there will be an almost total collapse of the economy worse than witnessed in 97/98. Every Thai I know is in debt. Real estate market is flat and overpriced. Chinese tourists aren't coming back anytime soon. A quarter of GDP has been wiped out in the last two years. It's not just household debt either, corporations are in serious trouble and are owed trillions. They continue to prop up failed state enterprises such as Thai Airways to the tune of billions every year. Sooner or later, those chickens will come home to roost.

A lot of foreign ne'er-do-wells in Thailand, their numbers have increased significantly in the last 10 years in particular, from what I have noticed.

Speed cameras are largely ignored here, as are the resultant fines when drivers are caught by them.

I think that may be illegal mate.

Sorry, but that's just apologist nonsense for lack of driver education and skill, immaturity behind the wheel, excessive speed, driving while under the influence, total lack of law enforcement and all the real contributing factors to Thailand's obscene road death toll.

No, no it's not.

I see crashed pickups in these drainage ditches fairly regularly on my way to and from work in Laem Chabang.

It certainly lets me know the level of professionalism of the company or entity performing this work.

The military have run Thailand for their own benefit since the 1930's. It could be argued they are experts at running Thailand given their experience.

Easily rectified by exerting some influence or paying some money to get 'proof' of a clean record.

People are in a fragile mental state after the COVID nonsense and we're just getting started. It was entirely predictable but the government don't seem to have done anything to mitigate or deal with the situation. Strange that this government isn't being held to account for their actions or lack thereof. I guess when the media is too scared or under your control, that isn't a problem, unlike with properly elected administrations when being undermined by fraudsters and gangsters.

Triple O's was the name and they were the best burgers available in Bangkok for a short while, it was located next to the gourmet food market in Central World.

I get my fix of Popeyes when I fly down to Malaysia for business. Haven't tried those others though.

Some of the Thais I know have 60/80 split tints 60 on the front windscreen and 80 on the other windows including the rear. Far too dark for safe night driving as you can barely see anything even with headlights on full beam. Seems you riled some of the usual suspects with your comment, but it is a fair and valid question given the proliferation of these types of tints on Thai vehicles and the almost complete absence of any checking by the authorities.

There is more to infrastructure than just public transportation networks. You seem to be contradicting yourself, is Bangkok seeking modern infrastructure or does it already have it? For me, it is still very much a developing city with poor infrastructure, despite the malls, BTS and MRT. Note the electric, fiber optic and cable wires all above ground, weekly construction accidents involving fatalities, garbage lining the streets (check out the rats at night, you can see thousands of them just by having a walk around), lack of proper draining and sewerage systems (including lack of water treatment facilities) which is evidenced by regular flooding, lack of proper recycling facilities, lack of proper landfills and cracked and broken pavements, empty buildings due to the 1997 financial crisis, no professional ambulance or emergency response services, poor quality state hospitals, often dangerous air-quality, filthy klongs and their diesel boats etc. I lived in Bangkok for 25 years, and I still have a house there, I absolutely love the place, warts and all, but let's not kid ourselves on its something it is not. If you think otherwise, perhaps a day away from your ivory tower in Sukhumvit to some more local areas might be an eye opener.

We can be thankful that at least this time it was a drugged up nutter acting alone and not a blockade / shutdown for weeks by paid political protestors.

We're in Thailand, and this is a Thai expat forum. Feel free to block an ambulance in your country and test that theory though. ????

Taken from another article summarising the Japanese PM's visit to the region: Japan condemned Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine and joined a slew of Western nations in imposing sanctions on Moscow. Thailand, meanwhile, abstained from a United Nations resolution vote to suspend Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council for alleged human rights abuses in the war in Ukraine. and He (Prayuth) said he had a similar approach “to resolve the situation in Myanmar and attached importance to humanitarian assistance for the people of Myanmar.” He did not give details about the so-called approach. Thailand shares a 2,400-kilometer (1,500-mile) long border with Myanmar. It has not outright condemned the coup in Myanmar or the actions of its security forces, which toppled the elected National League for Democracy (NLD) government on Feb. 1, 2021. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/japan-ukraine-05022022183801.html

The problem is that Western tourists, including this Australian man, think that the Thai police are the same as the Police in their own countries and here to 'serve and protect' when the real motive is to self-enrich and protect local gangsters. This is a direct result of the Police historically being a gang of thugs to protect rich Chinese merchants rather than evolving from a perspective of law enforcement as was the case in Britain for example. They are slowly evolving now but with the entrenched problems the RTP have it is going to be a very long haul getting them to change their traditional mindset and activities.

A failed and flawed cultural system of deferment to those who do not deserve the deference. This is from the very top down.

I remember this tragic incident, I was in Bangkok at the time fortunately. What I remember about it most was a dozen or so responders died on the way to the fire, as a result of a road accident.