Joules

Of course only those who have developed a fairly deep understanding of the Thai culture know that the Thai Face and the Thai heart can easily be at polar opposites. Under that smiling and "friendly" face might be a big phuk you that the typical foreigner is unable to detect..

Look, let's be clear about one thing. There is a routine of arriving and being quarantined while waiting for a test result. Since tests were taken before flying, these tests are always or almost always negative. Anybody that knows anything knows about certain of these hotels that for a prepaid room and a "fee" will let you blow off quarantine and go into the city to have a good time. Of course, if somebody tested positive and was gone, the hotel folks are going to panic and say he fled. Nonsense. I am guessing this poor guy just went on about his vacation and was probably totally shocked when he was nabbed. Don't be too quick to judge. This is probably just another cock and bull Thai Story about another dirty farang that is single-handedly spreading the omicron variant throughout Thailand. I am laughing right now because somebody out there is saying, "Well they surely tried to call him! Didn't he pick up the call?" He probably did what I do. He got a call from a strange number, he picked up, the caller let loose with a string of Thai, which he could not understand, he asked for English, but they kept speaking Thai -- so he terminated the call and refused to pick up any more calls from strange numbers. But the efficient Thai police could easily follow him because he had "the app" on his phone. It was like birds following a trail of bread crumbs. Next thing the poor Israeli knew, he was in the hoosegow. Nice going Thailand, you really know how to open up for tourists!

Look, let's be clear about one thing. There is a routine of arriving and being quarantined while waiting for a test result. Since tests were taken before flying, these tests are always or almost always negative. Anybody that knows anything knows about certain of these hotels that for a prepaid room and a "fee" will let you blow off quarantine and go into the city to have a good time. Of course, if somebody tested positive and was gone, the hotel folks are going to panic and say he fled. Nonsense. I am guessing this poor guy just went on about his vacation and was probably totally shocked when he was nabbed. Don't be too quick to judge. This is probably just another cock and bull Thai Story about another dirty farang that is single-handedly spreading the omicron variant throughout Thailand. I am laughing right now because somebody out there is saying, "Well they surely tried to call him! Didn't he pick up the call?" He probably did what I do. He got a call from a strange number, he picked up, the caller let loose with a string of Thai, which he could not understand, he asked for English, but they kept speaking Thai -- so he terminated the call and refused to pick up any more calls from strange numbers. But the efficient Thai police could easily follow him because he had "the app" on his phone. It was like birds following a trail of bread crumbs. Next thing the poor Israeli knew, he was in the hoosegow. Nice going Thailand, you really know how to open up for tourists!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. So predictable! Ha, ha ha ha ha ha.

That is soooo gay. Disgusting.

Thais diagnosed but it had to be dirty filthy farangs that brought it!

Get a mask with a straw hole! They haven't banned straw holes yet! I kind of like that one with the zipper, too. You can just sneak it open when you glasses start to fog.

Ha, ha, ha. I have a lot of N-95 masks with exhalation valves I use in my woodshop. I purchased them pre-pandemic when they were cheap. If I truly want protection, those are my go to, as they are the only ones that will protect the wearer. The "surgical masks" everybody is wearing are a joke. So, if I want to fly and want protection, too, I'll just double mask. My N-95 with a valve and a cheap, loose-fitting surgical mask to hide it! Ha, ha, ha. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.

Posted 1 minute ago Hmmm, was not aware of this, am I excepted if I show my vaccine status? Upon mention of a national park ... nope, not until the double pricing is dropped for those of us on long stay visa extensions. The National Parks are not consistent. Some let a foreigner come in free if he has a cabin reservation. Others charge the 10x entrance fee, plus an additional fee for a car. Have to check each one first. But they are requiring a vaccine certificate AND will ram the swab down your nose before allowing you in. So, if that is not your cup of tea, stay home. I will not undergo ANY restrictions. Until ALL are lifted, I will stay home. I have plenty to do at home. I am sure as hell NOT getting a covid test.

Drop the damned restrictions. I was about to go off to a national park (to hike outside and stay in a remote cabin) -- until I discovered that that park employees were going to meet me at the gate to ram one of those covid swabs down my nose. Not in this lifetime. Good luck with your economic recovery, Thailand!

Folks are waiting for a decent vaccine. the smart ones that a left unvaccinated don't want ass zeneca or Chinese surprise. If the authorities want the country fully vaccinated the need to stop blocking the legitimate vaccines people want.

I have been using the online reporting -- when it happened to work. I have never gone into the office to report. before online I used the mail. I am just going back to snail mail. I have all the forms in my computer, address labels, the works. Easy, simple, has never failed me and has never changed.

Sites are NOT blocked. Since they CAN be blocked, but are not, it seems it is treated like prostitution -- also illegal, but never blocked. Frankly, it seems like a lot of moral lip service by government officials who won't stand in the way of all the money being generated.

The question is senseless and the concerns too little too late. Porn might be legal, but it is totally available all over the net free (somebody told me about this, I don't watch it) and without consequences. If masturbation was made illegal, how would it affect people doing? Or eating? Silly question. The question would only become somewhat worthy if porn wasn't freely available, but it is. It's kind of like burning rice and sugarcane fields being illegal. Should we make that legal? Why not? Everybody is doing it anyway. As for the children the concern is 100% valid, but every school kid in Thailand is already watching porn on the net. All of them. Ask any of them. Most of the folks on here will deny watching the stuff (I certainly don't!), but the kids are quite candid about it, as if the question was no different than asking them if they ate breakfast. And whomever thinks Buddhist morality is special is an idiot -- well, ignorant anyway. The Abrahamic religions have the same moral standards, stricter, if anything.

Well, there you go then. No tourists.

Tourist will never come here unless they scrap that ridiculous insurance. It has the same effect as a surcharge. It cost a friend of mine $1,200 Can. Who is going to pay that just to come here when there are so many other choices? Nobody.

I AM a Mensa genius. Wanting stay with my wife in the home I built in Thailand, I was smart enough NOT to leave the country during this mess -- all so predictable. Not sure what possessed these other folks. Oh yeah, not Mensa genius's.

Plenty of Thais have pre-paid plenty for the promised Moderna vaccine, and that is what they want. Where the ƒµ¢k is it?

I just had to book a room for a few days in BKK. I noticed that several properties had "Sheets and towels, extra charge" in the fine print. <deleted>?

Ignorance, such shameless ignorance. The New York Times is reporting that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was relying on a faulty study in declaring a 10 percent chance of the transmission of Covid-19 outdoors. After using the “miscalculation” to support outdoor mask mandates for over 300 million Americans, the CDC now says that it is more like one percent. It is astonishing that such a key and controversial component of our Covid policies was not just based on a miscalculation but never actively questioned or reexamined to discover the error. The Times’ Leonhardt noted “There is not a single documented Covid infection anywhere in the world from casual outdoor interactions, such as walking past someone on a street or eating at a nearby table.” The outdoor risk has been a major source of disagreement with many contesting mandatory mask rules for those walking or working or recreating outside. It turns out that, according to the Times, the 10% benchmark is based “partly on a misclassification” of virus transmission in Singapore at various construction sites. Those sites were incorrectly described as outdoor but now appear to have actually taken place in indoor settings. Singapore also classified settings that were a mix of indoors and outdoors as outdoors, including construction building sites. The real risk is one percent or less.

YOU need to educate yourself. In your ignorance, you are being unreasonable to a poor old woman to whom you should show some respect. She doesn't have covid.

Where's my barf bowl?

I just discovered that I can no longer even sign into my US PayPal account from Thailand! I KNOW my username and PW are correct. Hmmmm.

The problem with Thailand isn't paying the tax. The problem comes for a guy who is doing a little teaching online and has a retirement extension. Illegal, but innocuous. You cannot work at all with a retirement extension. So this guy, if he wants ot continue teaching online, has to change his visa to a B (or a marriage extension if he qualifies), then try to get a work permit as "self employed." If he gets all that (NOT EASY), and renews it all every year, he can pay the tax. The problem is, they make paying the tax into a goat rope. The government should create a streamlined process whereby a guy only making peanuts every year can continue to do so and pay tax on it with a retirement extension and no work permit. Maybe set the threshhold at 8,000 baht a month and only for online work.

Surely you jest. I know several big time criminals laundering the $10/hour they make teaching English online for Cambly. It's real.