Middle Aged Grouch

So now the Thailand taxi mafia are starting to attack foreigners and tourists. Thailand is no more a safe place for westerners it seems ?

First the taxing of foreign pensions etc...now the over high THB. For those who can, no point in grumbling. Relocate to other Asian countries or even India who are far more welcoming to foreigners and tax free and far less visa hassles or xenophobia towards westerners.

As a foreigner, you will generally always be ripped off and charged more in all restaurants in Thailand. No matter if you are accompanied or not with a Thai lady or boy.

Not surprising, The gang in charge of the EU in Bruxelles is plainly destroying Europe, with it's identity and culture. Even the moderate voters who never would have dreamed to vote for pro nazi or other far right parties are voting as they are the only ones who are prepared to take appropriate steps to Stop all the migrants comming in. Migrants who very often are involved in heinous crimes or rapes. The sad part is that it is due to a handful of such scum that the entire communities are flagged and given a bad reputation. But the main anger all over Europe is now against America and their sanctions against Russia that are fueling inflation, increasing prices and putting Europe (and the world) in a continuous economic crisis. The only that benefit are those getting the ca$h in Ukraine and those selling the US built weapons all over the place. Let's hope Trump will put and end to the circus, once elected at office ?

We all would agree, quite a few heinous crimes do plainly deserve the gallows, no arguing about that. But it's always the same dilema. How to be 1000% sure of the guilt of the sentenced ? Quite a few inmates in the death row were declared innocent after 20 or 30 years in the US jail death row and not knowing when their day would come. The tech progress in DNA sequencing and Crime Scene analysis has avoided quite a few lethal errors from the law. Quite amazing to hear the americains give out lessons of humanity, law and justice to the world, when they have enough to settle in within the US Criminal Justice system. An exemple would be in the statutory laws of different states that allow police to use lethal means ( shoot at sight), plainly when the officer "feels" threatened. No need for the notion of proportionality like many other civilised nations require before use of lethal force. In other words, you pull out your ID a bit to fast from the glove box, the US police officer only needs to "feel" threatened and by law can shoot. In other nations, lethal response from Police needs the suspect to carry either a firearm or a weapon and engages in life threathing acts., for the police to be able to shoot at sight.

When I am dressed like a tourist (t shirts-shorts), I have the security fellows who try to discreetly stalk me at some malls in Bangkok like Central. The girlies hardly look up or plainly change lanes on seeing me approach in my Sports bar attire🤣 But..but when I am dressed like a hi-so Thai (linen pants, well cut linen shirt), quite often I get more female looks and it's the gold diggers who start to hoover around with the usual little smiles and grins. Of course, I politely smile back and then just ignore them as I do not want to end up like so many other falangs totally sucked out of their ca$h and what ever else that's there to cum !

In such a case, no place for lessons of humanity or morals. The dog is obviously a threat and human lives come first. It needs to be put down, no matter how sad that is obviously.

Golden rule n° 1 is does it offer COD. If no COD forget it.

Hyundai is good but the aircon seems to be weak in all the models and never feels as strong as in a Kia. It's rather surprising as both the brands are built on the same production lines but just relating my personnal experience.

These motorised suitcases are very popular with the Chinese and Koreans.

Booze is a absolute source of fat after 55 years. Same for food that ends up in a greasy belly. Just look at most of the elderly foreigners and how overweight they are. Drink a few glasses of wine only once or twice a month. Stop all the daily beers, soft drinks, ice creams etc.. Avoid the Sunday Roasts, fries and meat. Meat is same, only once or twice a month. Ban fast food and anything that is packed like instant noodles etc. Restaurant eating is ok provided you avoid daily consumption of meat, fries. In fact stay away from western food. Do regular exercise. Even a brisk 30min walk will do the trick. We all want to feel and look good but it has a price with age...

Scum is scum. Be it Brits, Americans, East Europeans, Chinese, Aussies, Germans, NZ, Africans, ..... The usual drunks of course will rush for a quick indian on line bashing but scum remains scum no matter from which country they are from. And there is far to much of the scum from all over the world that ends up in Thailand unfortunately.

Drugs are creating havoc all over Thailand and generating a social disaster. But with all the money involved at the top most levels of power, with all those, local or foreign practically saying drugs are harmless...small chance for the plague to stop for the moment.

Even the paid fasttrack scheme is not as good as before at Suvarnbhum Bangkok airport. Before they would greet you right at the gate at the exit of the walk through tunnel out of the plane, and then accompany you to the closest fast track counter and then meet you after the immigration passage. Now one needs to walk a bit, find another specific gate and meet and greet the staff who will show you a empty hall with a immigration counter. Last time the chap just showed the counter and vanished. Never saw him after crossing immigration. And the immigration chap was in a bad mood as i maybe disturbed his nap and was trying his best to ask all sorts of rubbish like show cash ? show bording pass ?...anything to make a fuss but at the end as I kept showin all his absurd requests with my stupid smile and cooperating, he let me pass. And when I exited this specific gate, the other people in the plane going through the normal immigration channel had already passed and were waiting at the luggage belt. Not worth to use the paid fast track service at all at Bangkok. Thailand cannot become a world class with such 3rd world ways of managing the airport.

BBK did the same thing to me, blocked my account with no warning as their system showed that my passport had expired. No warning on this and when I went back to Thailand for the winter break I had bought cash and was about to deposit but thank god I asked before if all was ok and only then they told me that the a/c was blocked. Of course at the Bangkok Branch near Nana., they would not make things simple and unblock with the new copy of my new passport, as the account was opened in another city. Needless to say I kept my cash, and closed the account and went to another bank.