wrecker

In addition on the absolute insane comments in the Bangkokpost about the red short protestors who would damage the trourism of industry, the family members of Suthep who all seem to live around Phuket should point out to the same Tourism hot shots that from now on extortionist who raise prises in shops and taxis will be fine a staggering 200,000 baht and imprisoned for a year. THAT would set an example to the people who have so little decency by raising the prices.

Not something to be proud of. In many countries it is against the law to lure people with low prices without telling them about all kind of surcharges. If I have dinner in a hotel I already find it tres bizarre to see that the bill is excluding service charge and I always ask them why there is no surcharge for the airconditioning the floor sweeper and the dishwasher.

It took less than 4 hours to notice that our hotel roms at the Siam Beverly Hotel at Ratchada were ransacked. When I came back to the hotel everything had been taken with a false key and not only from me but from half a tour group staying at the same floor and who had also just arrived. I do not have to reiterate that the hotel staff was involved. It was a funny sight to see the police opening the ceiling as if the people would have disappeared there or the entire floor would have stored their belongings.

Doncha just love 'studies'?!

Where have they been for the past 12/18 months?!

Now HSBC throws it lot in with the latest & greatest.

Little wonder the banks & accountants caused the big wipeout.

They aint that kleber - how did they say they were gonna fix it - did I miss that part?!

BR>Jack

Hmm you must be a expat under 100k otherwise you would have realized that HSBC is one of those banks hardly affected.

I would not shed one tear about these honorary consulates, they are a blast from the past. Times have changed. In my opinion Thailand should abandon visas totally except for certain countries. A Stay up to three months without hassle will make a difference. The gentleman in this interview who is claiming that the number of applicants will increase dramatically because people get something for free, has lost the plot. People still have to bring their passport, collect it etc. A few bucks does not do the trick. Thailand could set up an electronic visa system if they still insist on using visas. People can do it themselves or the travel agency can do it. You print your own visa, after having applied for it online. No need for any honorary consul. We do not want to levy a tax on blue ray players either to support the cassete tape industry.

A meaningless operation. Tourists are not determined from going somewhere for a fistful of dollars. Tourists do not like the hassle. They should do like many other Asean countries do, NO visas at all. Three month stay permitted. But than again, Thailand's elite is only on the surface interested in the economy. The rich are too rich anyhow and their motto is: Spend a lot, but do not stay too long.

As long as the courts are speaking wrong instead or right and are used as a political tool instead of a tool to bring justice to the people, nothing will change and foreigners will in a matter of fact not really welcome.

Opportunism is king in Thailand. I start to wonder if the immigration department cannot impose the same fines on the Thai military. They are not that good in reporting Rohinyas either as it seems. Lots have disappeared and I suppose their passports were not stamped properly.

Well who cares? The state is sponsoring the interest bills of the hotel owners already and soon they are eligible for more state support.

The solution obviously does not lay in a "no call" center but in privacy laws. If draconian fines would be imposed on the owners of the businesses selling telephone numbers without written en explicit permission from its owner the problem would quickly disappear. The banks could be easily identified who are behind this scam, they are the banks who are asking you if you like to notify the receiver of an amount that you sent to an ATM or ADM by sms, and those who gove the free service of notifying you every time when you have used your atm card about your balance.

By the way, I am using two mobile phone service providers AIS and Dtac. The first one does not give a rat's ass about the number of sms that you receive the latter is very helpful in cutting access to your number on request.

If this is not a clear case of set up or extortion, then i do not know what is.

How the "F" would police know what 4 people are doing in their hotel room??????????????????????

"They were charged with having narcotics in possession for abusing." ABUSING WHAT??? Drugs? Thai woman? their own body?

People do not realize that half the Thai population is informing on the other half. Even schoolchildren as young as 7 or 8 are enlisted to inform on their family and this is proudly shown on TV. The DDR did the same but maintained less freedoms for their citizens.

I might be the only one, but I am far more interested in the reasons why someone does something like this than the punishment. Punishments are just a vindication of a society that has no answer to the problem of drugs use anyhow. outrageous punishments never stopped ten more smugglers from trying because they might have made the reward higher.

Just because mr Tosaporn is making the reasons up the Thai government should do what any government should do, nothing. The N1H1 influenza virus is NOT the reason, not even one of the reasons and not even a remote possibility. There are just two reasons:

1. The politica upheaval and foremost the blockade of the airports in December, that prevented people from going home. As the yellow shirts were supported by the rich and the powerful and the poor do not tend to have hotels, golfcourses but only provide labor that is paid for in terms that is almost an insult to the people working, the government should inform the elite that it already did too much by paying their intrest bills over the last few months. Restructuring is necessary, overcapacity should be flushed out of the market by bankruptcies.

The 2nd reasons is the credit and trade crisis, people abroad are losing their jobs and feel uncertain which always leads to fewer passengers and fewer arrivals. The government is not responsible for an international crisis.

if people should be helped it are the underpaid staff that is always so kind and hardworking, they deserve a better safety net. I feel no sympathy whatsoever for the big operators, it is all part of the risk that entrepreneurs need to take in order to be successful.

The influenza virus mentioned by Tosaporn shows that this gentleman should be first in line to lose his job, for the simple reason that he is not doing his job and is making up stories. Executives that come up with faulty answers must be replaced first.

Stealing information through the E-banking system??? Siphoning of money by using stolen passwords? A very vague story. Someone lost money POSSIBLY to the two men? I do not really get it. The story is weird and lacks any information that would give a clue about what really happened. But if they did something that was not too good, they probably needed Thai partners and everyone should realize that half this country informs on the other one.

Lots of Schweine gebraten in Pattaya.

Thai airways is just another example of a badly led company. I assume that is what you get when military are involved in the day to day operations of companies. Incapable people are leading public companies, stockholders have no say as the government appoint their henchmen in toppositions. PTT, Thai, MCOT just give it a name.

If a 380 is too expensive and not viable why was it purchased under the military led junta? What will the fine be? Well never mind, Thai airways will simply double the costs for its domestic flights, after all they are up to three times expensive on certain routes as Air Asia. They imposed surcharges for higher oil when the oil price dropped to near all time lows half a year ago they removed the surcharge and made the price of the ticket simply higher so we are all paying the same or even more.

I avoid going with Thai. A company with a airforce hi raki as president cannot guarantee my safety, airplanes from the airforce are falling out of the sky like ripe coconuts, year after year after year.

Though very sad, I wonder how many drivers there were employed per bus. I suppose just one. This means gross negligence from the side of the bus company. unfortunately it is not even an exception but it is almost just another statistic. Life is cheap in most Asian countries.

Agreed, but I would bet if someone started waving Bt 100 million is some Thai officials face, they would be getting visa privilages pretty quickly...

Hmm I do not get this comment. 1 million baht bought you privileges. The problem were never visa privileges. It meant at the best that you could use a separate immigration counter and would be waved through in minutes. It is funny that they complain that most members live in Thailand. What is the complaint this time? Foreigners are too rich? Do they spend too much.

Next time they should print on one of those nice guards: Spend a lot of money, but do not stay too long...

It is funny that this government does not get it. Maybe Silpa Archa should ask his brother to return all those stolen billions of baht he put in Banharnburi... and his own construction company.

Again incompetence is the name of the game.

The Thai economy can easily afford to turn down visitors. I assume the hotel owners love the current arrangement in which their interest is paid from the government coffers.

It shows again that this government is incompetent, or let me rephrase the Thai elite is incompetent. Good luck with all the people that get stuck in noman's land in Burma.

What ever happened with the free visa plan? Anyway with an foreign minister who considered the airport occupation fun I assume this is simply just another step towards an even bigger party.

The local "johnny English" is showing up every year in many rural communities, however I do not believe for one moment that taking your fingerprints is part of the exercise. Registering is one thing, but I would not easily leave my fingerprints behind, I probably would make a phone call to the embassy first. In most cases only the referenece to a phone call will make them change their mind.

If a person is legally married in a general way, this is a bullocks statement from this person. Money made by one partner is shared, unless this gentleman has a bad marriage and i too busy with his mia nois.

It is however a very good idea to confiscate retroactively property held by rich Thais in the West. It would make them undertsnad a bit better how real life works.

So now the interesting question...WHY were they searching the house of an owner to an international school?

One never knows in Thailand. Courts often leave stamped and signed warrants with the police without even knowing for what purpose the warrants will be used. I suppose that if they haven't found anything they would have made up or found another reason. The system is far more dangerous than the owner.

I don't quite understand why opinions are deleted on stories like this.

The Phuket Gazette story clearly states the guy had been out drinking and no helmet was found near the accident scene.

Are we to simply ignore these facts and stick to the RIP, too young, too bad comments?

It is sad that this guy died, but I can't help but think, based on the information given, there were some very bad decisions involved.

Yes that is the going procedure here. Nothing but good about the dead. But it is really often a case of som nam naa. Even well liked people drink too much, do not wear motor helmets and drive too fast. It is no exception, the number of motorcyclists killed in LOS is huge. And most of them have themselves to blame.

That is what will happen when you have never driven a Bike and than rent one when you are on holiday.

Hi

I went to visit someone in Patthanakan Soi 65 yesterday and when it started pissing, within 5 minutes (no joke!!) every single road in the area was about 10-15cm's deep flooded. He explained to me it's every time like that as soon as it rains, the water comes up from the drains instead of going down into them. There you REALLY need a boat.

Regards.....

Thanh

PS i still remember going home one evening last year, through Sukhumvit... where the water reached the cylinder head of my motorbike and when it finally stalled with the carb full of water it was well over knee deep. Never seen it worse than that day. But the road was so free! Only the right-most lane was packed with stalled cars....... and a few were scattered around, having floated off when it got too deep. I made it home after draining the carb twice, with the gear box full of water.

This is a misunderstanding. People do not seem to now Bangkok at all. All those roads are build over klongs. So when it is raining the Klong water rises and comes out, it has nothing to do with drains. Till thirty years ago Bangkok was made up of waterways not clogged roads.

after police put woman in jail for 4 days with 5 years of sentence possible for stealing a bar mat or towel

NOBODY should come to Thailand anymore if you are sane in the brain...

sadly, off course the adventurers looking for cheap sex and easy women will never be scared away enough !

Talking about sanity? This is an utmost dumb remark. Stigmatizing millions of decent and kind women and men, because you have not done your home work and obviously visited the wrong places. it is like telling the world that all of The US is an insane place because Vegas is the US, All of germany is the reeper bahn, all of the Netherlands is Amsterdam red like district, and all Aussies are thieves because someone played false.

Maybe it is time to grow up and have a look. You kind not find kinder people than in Thailand, you cannot get better food and you cannot have more fun. Stay out of the red light districts if you do not have a brain that can separate truth from fiction.

The problem is that all those tourists immediately notify the embassy and make a big deal out of it. So the story appears in the press and than the fear of losing face grips the authorities. As soon as your name shows up in the newspapers you are screwed.

Everybody understands this superior, however nobody understands why undercover police was present and worse why an bar owner presses charges. Something fishy is obviously going on in that bar.