jellykookabanj

Cheers George

will see you there with my missus,

David

everyone that is involved in the construction from the top down should be held responsible for this joke..called an airport.

The truly indecent haste which Taxsin demanded the new airport opened was a contributary factor in this fiasco.

Yes, many people have pocketed vast amounts of money for the poor quality of materials used and the bad structural work that took place, but you can be sure that nobody will be blamed for this or lose any of the illegally earned money.

Just one time I wish that the guilty parties were named and shamed. Maybe it will deter reoccurances on other projects ( i wish).

We will try to encourage the "submarines" to begin posting! I might have an idea how to do this.

I have been tempted to reply on many occassions but haven't bothered. I don't understand why the e-mail I receive from Thai Visa can be over 5 hours old and have many pages of replies even before I receive the information that is on discussion.

What I am saying is that to write a comment when so few people are looking st the site is a waste of time.

Do you have any idea why it can take so long before the e-mail arrives in my inbox.

Many regards from Surin

I love Thailand's trains, especially the overnight sleepers. Freshly laundered cotton sheet, clean pillow and still-warm snuggly cotton blanket wrapped in plastic from the laundry. OK, the toilets are bad but at least there are toilets. Relax, eat yum food from station stalls and party with new friends. Smoke between cars. Had a few delays in my time, but always take the nighter and never more than a couple hours late, which is still early morning.

Buses are horror shows in themselves, never mind the blaring music/tv. Toilet stops at driver's discretion. Chaotic driving. Mind you, the price is way cheap.

I too have travelled by train many times from old BKK airport to Surin and return. Whichever class I have travelled has been reasonable, although broken seats are prevelant in 2nd/3rd class. The sleeper has always been comfortable although as the beds are across the carriage then you do get thrown about occassionaly when starting and stopping.

On the few bus journies I have made, I have been terrified for most of each journey as the drivers' continue to use the bus as a formula one vehicle.....they overtake at will, often forcing oncoming cars almost off the road in their attempt to be as quick as Michael Schumaker. They talk to co-driver constantly and when I say talk, they look at each other for long periods when talking and the bus is swerving all over the place. The drivers have no respect for other road users and often gesticulate at people that they have almost hit. I decided that if I cannot travel by train, I would drive but that has increased my risk of being hit by a bus considerably.

I have always found train workers to be pleasant and helpfull.

The few Western genuine tourists that I have met (i.e. Westerners actually touring round Thailand) do find it amazing that they can so easily get to see how the local people live and work and have their being.

So many countries shunt all overseas visitors onto a so-called 'tourist trail', which means that tourists don't get insight into the true life of the country, and it is very hard to break free from it.

Actually the vast majority of holiday visitors get tourist visas but don't do any touring. They just stay in one resort town.

But the really amazing thing is that Thailand has (as yet) let Westerners who are poor by western standards come and stay as de-facto residents on a series of back-to-back tourist visas.

I don't know if there are other countries that do that, but certainly the other three that I know well (UK, Nepal, and Singapore) don't.

You are kidding....Go to UK as visitor...overstay and then claim sanctuary on political grounds.....live in FREE accomodation and claim numerous cash handouts to eat and live. UK is actually the FREE capital of the world now.

Better late than not at all.

Maybe airport security could be turned over to British Airways and British Airports.

CNN just discovered that two weeks after the luggage belt break-down & weather related slow-down debacles when 8000 and 10,000 pieces of luggage went missing at Heathrow, there were still "only 4,500" (quoting British Airways) pieces not yet reunited with their owners.

British Airways declined to comment on the situation other than to say they were working 24 hours a day to correct the problem and to ask, umm, could CNN tell them exactly where all the luggage might be located.

CNN showed the pile-up of lost luggage with one lone baggage handler sitting nearby staring off into space.

Can't you just imagine how Heathrow would go about tightening airport security.

Congratulations for jumping to conclusions due to an obvious lack of knowledge about airports and the security surrounding them.

Due to the discovery last year , by the UK government authorities, of a suspected plot to bomb some "American" aeroplanes on routes from Heathrow to USA the Govt decided to upgrade the level of alert for all flights from Heathrow.

The airport is run and managed by BAA ( British Airport Authorities) and all the equipment used for moving and x-raying of checked baggage has been running for many years, quite successfully.

The new requirement was for checked baggage to be x-rayed 4 times (not once as has always been the case) and the baggage has to moved to give 4 different perpectives for the x-ray to be more efficient,

The systems were designed many years ago as a one-way process where the bags go through an x-ray machine and then on to the correct point for loading. Now the new method means that ALL bags must be re-routed 3 extra times to get the required x-ray perspective as required by the authorities.

This caused massive problems to the airport management team (BAA) and the knock-on effect to British Airways, was and still is, massive. They have tried to minimise the problems but if bags do not reach the loading point in time, how can they be held responsible, Do they inconvenience everyone by delaying departures of aircraft or do they fly without some bags which is obviously a massive inconvenience to those people who have not had their bags fly with them.

British Airways cannot comment about legislation causing problems as that would play into the hands of people like Virgin to further criticise them. They try to manage the problem as best they can, but once a bag has missed a flight then it has to be flown as un-accompanied which is governed by further rules and legislation.

About time you thought before jumping in feet first.

Cheers George.

Merry Xmas and Happy and Prosperous New Year to All

Have been a lurker here for many years and feel compelled to throw in my 2 cents on this subject. This upcoming ban on alcohol advertising was brought about by the Ministry of Heath's desire to reduce the number of alcohol related road fatalities. Particularly those people driving motorbikes. Maybe I'm thinking too logically, but wouldn't enforcing a nationwide helmet law that already exists instantly reduce the number of motorbike deaths? On the rare occasions when I'm in BKK, I do notice more bikers wearing helmets, but here in Chiang Mai I would conservatively guess that less than 40% of people on motorbikes are wearing helmets, and I include policemen as well. When we make our annual trek to Roi Et, that number drops to 15 - 20%.

I think banning alcohol sales at gas stations, especially those on highways, is a good idea. Yet it seems that nothing is being done to restrict the number of roadside stands that sell lao khao ...... day or night. I can't buy a bottle of wine or a case of warm beer at Lotus between 3 and 5 PM, but I can drive around the corner on my motorbike (with no helmet) and drink rice whiskey 'til I'm blind.

I do expect to see a price war on beer once the ban takes effect. If anything will encourage more alcohol consumption it's cheaper alcohol. Why not allow the companies to advertise ..... responsibly (ie: no happy social drinking, or showing only helmet wearing motorcyclists), and at the same time force them to match their ad money - baht for baht - and set up a special fund to help out the education system in Thailand? Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming. Oh well, just a thought.

Nice point. The Motorcycle Helmet Laws are absurd anyway. The rider(driver) of the bike "must" wear a helmet, but the passengers (up to 7 others) don't have to. The absurdly easy way that licenses are issued by authorities (if the rider has bothered) and the very large numbers of children riding motorcycles cause many problems too.

It is extremely amusing to watch the police directing traffic at schools at the end of the day when swarms of "KIDS" ride out of school (without looking first), maybe with 1% of them wearing helmets. They ride erratically and also downright dangerously and the police just give there usual very pleasant smile.

30 minutes later, the police hit squads are setting up a road block to check for traffic offenses but totally ignore the many motorcycles that just turn around and ride the wrong way back down the road to avoid the checkpoint.

SORRY if it appears that I have strayed from the topic, but I fervently believe that the ban on advertising is a very strange way to combat road deaths. Little or no driver/rider instruction is given and underage driving/riding is prevelant. The government needs to attack the root cause of bad driving to start with and then maybe concentrate later on advertising.

It has always been socially acceptable to look the other way when when wrongdoings are taking place.

Finally, does advertising include umbrellas, drip mats, waitress uniforms, and many other things that carry brand logos.

Many Thai women in the Northeast who have married foreigners are now keener on eating pizzas and hamburgers than somtam

> Most can't afford it unless a farang is paying

and prefer celebrating Western holidays like Christmas and Valentine's Day to traditional Thai holidays

> farang holidays are about being given gifts instead of paying penance to make merit

The head of the study, Asst Prof Supawatanakorn Wongtha-nawasu

> Now there's a real immigrant Chinese-Thai name if ever i saw one (more than 13 characters in the spelling means Chinese immigrant a reliable source once told me) .... leads to the validity of their entitlement to discuss westerners changing the cultural traditions in Thailand - Chinese have done their fair share of that too ..... think noodles - first made in China and brought here by the Chinese. Ditto for fireworks at Loy Kratong time - adopted from the Chinese New Year practise.

found that foreign son-in-laws had caused the community-oriented Northeasterners to become the more individualistic and give less attention to social interaction.

> More accurate would be that the spouses chose to more closely associate with their husband and the spouses believed their husband did not want to join in with community events due to language issues and feeling awkward when they didn't know what to do at events.

Cross-cultural couples had less interaction with neighbours because foreign husbands faced language and cultural obstacles, while the wives tried to adjust by becoming "farang" rather than helping their husbands to be more 'Thai', Supawatanakorn said.

> More accurate than the preceding statement?

Thai culture in these families was thus overshadowed by Western culture, with the families' own consent, due to the pride of having foreign sons-in-law, she said.

The researchers also found most wives interviewed were either not interested or less enthusiastic about traditional Thai holidays - such as Buddhist Lent and Makha Bucha Day - compared with Western holidays like Christmas Day or Valentine's Day.

"In some Khon Kaen villages, with dozens of women marrying farangs, Christmas Day is no different from the movies with real traditional Christmas celebrations, while many Northeastern festivals were forgotten," the academic said.

> It's the gifts I tell you !!!

On the other hand, many foreign husbands enjoyed celebrating the Songkran festival but did not understand the tradition and meaning behind it, she said.

> Might be true in Issaan, but not in Chiangmai - many farangs living here despise Songkran and even leave the country for a holiday to escape it ..... 10-12 days of it is way too long.

The wives still ate somtam, which they grew up eating, but also ate pizza, hamburgers or fried chicken as a symbol of their adjustment to Western culture.

> No, not as a symbol of adjustment, but to show off the status of being able to afford it, in the same way that low paid government servants put themselves in debt for life to own a Mercedes. Same paradigm, different price tag.

Many ended up eating both local and Western dishes, while their husbands found it harder to adjust to local food and stuck more to Western food.

> Yup - the longer you're here, the more you want an increase in western food in your diet - even if it's what you'd class as junk food back home.

Supawatanakorn said that since the wives found it more convenient to cook once for all family members including their husbands, Northeastern food - especially somtam with fermented fish - had gradually disappeared from their meals, she said.

> Not in my household - the wife BUYS her Somtam 4-5 times a week. She ONLY cooks Thai food and all western food is bought in rather than made.

The study found that most Northeastern Thai women married to foreigners were over 30, with an average age of 35, and had education below secondary level. More than 70 per cent had previously wed and divorced Thai husbands and most had one child from the first marriage.

> Can't help feeling the survey sample was biased in order to reinforce social stereotyping here - education below secondary level ..... meaning they never finished High School? Exactly whose fault was that? And why were the parents not punished for permitting the truancy? I've always found a very high percentage who marry farang have not only finishjed high school, but have also finished college or university, and many of the college students have also returned as adults and done vocational courses as well. Regardless of the qualifications, Thais married to westerners quickly acquire a much wider knowledge of global history, geography, and current affairs than their peers, and they get their eyes opened wide about the same topics related to Thailand itself. They quickly become "Pee" even to their own elders simply because of the wealth of knowledge transferred from being married to someone with a different perspective.

Supawatanakorn said most wives saw their cross-cultural marriage as turning over a new leaf.

> See my comments immediately above ..... trying to be positive here - I'll ignore the stereotyping about money digging.

The average age of farang husbands was 50, and most came from Germany, Britain and Scandinavia. A fourth of those over 60 had brought their retirement funds to settle down with Thai wives who took care of them, Supawatanakorn said.

> Again - very different results in Chiangmai where the average must be nearer to 38-40 for the husbands.

The foreign husbands had an average income of Bt60,000 a month, but most of their wives didn't know their husband's work or educational background. The wives were mainly interested in whether their husbands had enough money to support the family, she said.

> I'm trying to stay off the gold-digger cliches, but it's getting difficult.

The study also found that Isaan families whose members had married foreigners had changed their views on choosing spouses. From the traditional practice of parents choosing spouses for their children, the decision is now made by the individual and is based mainly on economic security. Some women agreed to marry foreigners they had never met before the wedding day as they felt that if the man had money, the villagers would eventually accept and respect them.

> Or, to put it another way - if the man had no money, the villagers would never ...... ?

With the obvious increase in wealth of wives married to farang, due to their husbands' financial support, some 90 per cent of residents surveyed said they wanted their daughters to marry foreigners, Supawatanakorn said.

> More fool the husbands for letting the wives be obvious about the wealth - fastest way I know to empty a wallet is to give the wive carte blanche on buying - in ANY country.

Some girls told the researchers they were prepared to fly overseas to marry a foreigner when they grew up.

> But some of them never do grow up, even after having kids and a string of different husbands.

Cross-cultural marriages were also supported by the older generation as these couples took care of their own children instead of placing the burden on the grandparents, or could afford nannies.

> I'm also trying to stay away from stereotyping about laziness. However, this is maybe the only genuine positive thing said about farangs as spouses for Thais in the whole articvle. Why should retired grandparents get lumbered with their grandkids day-in-day-out ? But then, that's farang thinking for you.

However, the cross-cultural marriage weakened the children's language skills as parents spoke to them in a mix of Thai and English, which confused the kids and made them less fluent in the Thai language, she said.

> Not accepting that. It's up to the parents as to which language they want to be dominant in a mixed race household. Besides, the academic's statement is absolving the educators from ensuring the children reach the minimum standard requiored by academic testing. She's blaming the mixed marriages for the failures of her colleagues in the classroom.

The children's English skills were limited to basic daily communication due to the parents' limited educational background or a less stimulating social environment.

> Absolute twaddle and blame shifting from the teachers in the classroom - my parents didn't teach me my language - my teachers in school did that, and my own intelligence and aptitude then allowed me to expand on that teaching and refine my skills for speaking, listening, reading and writing, building my vocabulary based on those skills, not on what my parents said to me.

In areas with many farang residents there was the phenomenon of shops putting up signs for their goods in Thai and English and of English being spoken between vendors and husbands, Supawatanakorn said.

> And so they should if they want non-mixed race kids to learn enough English to allow Thailand to compete in the global marketplace - everywhere in Thailand should be doing it, just as they do in Malaysia, Singapore and China.

Ever seen an interesting TAT promotional banner, but the whole thing is in Thai? Really makes you feel wanted, doesn't it?

Is it just me, or does the write up of this study not sound just a tad more xenophobic and condemning of foreigners than similar ones over recent years?

Gaz

Extremely well balanced explantion. Absolutely spot on with all you have said. My wife's family have exepted me and she has not altered her lifestyle very much. She much prefers Thai food and readily cooks for herself and family as well as preparing European style food too. And the lack of romanized signs and posters does make me feel slightly unwanted.

How is it getting harder to transfer the money?

We as US citizens have to have US Bank accounts and a US address for our pension

or social security to be automatic deposit in our accounts. We then withdraw the money

with our ATM cards. Some US banks have stopped ATM withdrawals in most countries included Thailand. I have 3 US Bank accounts and I can shift money from one to the other, but I can not

transfer them into my Thai bank accounts. There is no agreement between Thailand and the US.

Also because of Bushes Homeland Security Act everyone is a terrorist suspect so one bank has cut my daily withdrawal limit just 6 month ago from $1000 a day to $200.

IF SOMEONE KNOW A BETTER WAY TO TRANSFER MONEY PLEASE LET ME KNOW

As a British citizen, settling in Thailand, I also have to declare a UK home address for my pension to be paid into a UK bank. Once or twice a year I travel to the UK to visit family and friends and at the same time I withdraw those funds and bring the cash back to Thailand, ensuring I don't break the limit allowed to leave the UK or enter Thailand. This cash is then converted in my local Thai bank at a far superior rate than the exchange agencies will give you for funds electronically transferred.

The only crazy thing is that if I declared to the GB government that I am permanently settled, then I would never receive any pension increases as UK has no agreements with Thai authorities like they do within the EEC, so I have to stay in UK a short while plus I have to pay UK taxes on the pension. (The loss of annual pension increase would very soon be greater than the tax I pay)

Basically all I am saying is that the clearing houses for fund transfers rob everybody blind as you will see if you pop into your local bank and see the rates they are offering for cash/travllers cheques and electronic transfers. I think you will be surprised.

Good Idea. This visa though is obviously for people who travel here on business, as proof of the company you work for and proof of business partners you visit in Thailand are needed. This includeds all necessary company docs etc from England ( or where ever) and Thailand.

The thing I find funny is the visas will cost about 10,000 baht and is down to the discretion of the officer dealing with it. ( best bit though is the visas is non refundable )

Probably in rociprication for UK charging non-refundale fees when applying for visas to enter UK. Plus they made it even harder by stopping the English Husband of a Thai applicant from even entering the embassy from August 2005 to help with the application. Then to compound it you now have to use VFS visa agency in Bangkok to apply for a visa having to pay a fee to them and the process now cannot be completed in less than 3 days. So much for UK embassy boasting that they have introduced new measures to speed up application process.

So not only Thai authorities majuing it hard for visa applicants eh

Can I ask a question? What happens if the leech is not extracted from the said anus? I mean whats the consequence if it is not removed?

Annus Horribilis

Absolutely the best answer I have seen for many years. Thanks for a great laugh.

Had it been opened in November, many of the problems would have been avoided. But who cares? Surely not the optimists.

The actual opening date of any new airport is irrelevant. Teething problems can only happen after the ###### place has opened. To say that they wouldn't have occured if the opening had been delayed till November is fantasy. Problems will always occur after the event and can never be eliminated by delaying the opening.

Airports around the world suffer problems all the time, but when fallback procedures are written up ( following the occurence of problems ) and the staff get used to reverting to fallback procedures, then failures are minimised and often don't even become apparent to the travelling public.

This airport is a big change for all the staff involved and it will take time to settle down and get used to "new" facilities and procedures.

This is just absurd. So many airports now offer free Wi-Fi zones.

what did you expect? BKK is the only airport i know which charges a departure fee.

Do you sleep when you travel.......Most airports charge a departure tax.....Just that BKK requires you to pay it directly in currency. Most other airport charges are included in the air ticket you purchase so you may be lulled into thinking there is no charge.

Also with regard to internet charges in LHR, well. before I retired i was earning approx 100 GBP per day......so 1GBP for 12 mins is relatuvely small amount in proportion, but as avarage wage here is approx 200-250 baht per day, then 500 baht is exessive for internet use. Still, I believe that market forces will definitely bring the price down rapidly when the provider realises that NIL return on investment is a poor way of doing business.