CHAIYES

have you notice Thai TV still shows regular schedule shows and little news?

Last night while the city was in battle i flipped through the tv channels over the airwaves and not one had any coverage. Not one. I was amazed. They were showing soaps and talent shows (with an incredible lack of talent I might add).

Main ingredients to a democracy include participation and awareness.

I would think in any country the TV would have extensive coverage 24 hours a day if their capital suffered a civil conflict to this degree.

Its like when I ride my motorcycle and a bus runs through a red light almost killing everyone, and after it passes, all the drivers just go on their way like nothing happened.

Sometimes people here just seem so indifferent.

[/quo

Obviously new arrival in the LOS..

If you have a valid work permit (plus visa, salary slip, etc), talk to you local bank (Bangkok Bank works for me) to set up internet banking account with International Transfer facility. You are allowed 20,000USD per transfer plus there is also yearly limit.

Transfer fee is 300baht.

Hi everyone,

I am flying into Singapore airport on Jetstar and then out again on Air asia to Phuket about 5 hours later. Am I considered "in transit" for this or do I have to leave the airport?

cheers

Low cost Airlines are "point to point carriers" so you will need to collect your baggages & re-check in. If you self check in online, be sure to print out your boarding pass and take with you as you will obviously need to show it going through immigration & at the boarding gate.

Would appreciate any financial wizards here who can shine some light on why the the Aussie Dollar took a nose dive against the USD in August 2008. It dropped from 95cents to the USD down to an all time low below 65 cents in one month.!

It is now 7 months and shows no sign of recovery.

Many thanks.

Here's an old thread on the subject which may be helpful:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/Thoughts-pre...Ex-t198942.html

Ok thanks chaps.

Unfortunately the AUD/THB exchange rate has a direct corelation to the AUD/USD exchange rate, so remitting funds from AUD to THB incurs noticeable exchange rate loses.

Would appreciate any financial wizards here who can shine some light on why the the Aussie Dollar took a nose dive against the USD in August 2008. It dropped from 95cents to the USD down to an all time low below 65 cents in one month.!

It is now 7 months and shows no sign of recovery.

Many thanks.

I'm surprised that they claim a 4.5 billion loss because of the weakening Baht. Yes, Baht has weakened against US$ , but the Baht has strengthened dramatically against so many other currencies in 2008.

In 2008 fuel prices skyrocketed and fuel is USD based. Hence, this part of their loss. By no means do I think this is a well run airline, just that their claim of the exchange loss is valid.

Fuel price was high for the months June through to October peaking at USD147, then dropped sharply. Major airlines usually hedge their fuel so the cost of fuel over a relatively short period of time would be insignificant IMO.

TG operations has always been very inefficient dispite their low overhead costs compared to similar size airlines.

Govt should bail them out then direct TG to lower the airfares to/from Thailand as part of the tourism promotion gig....

Avoid the hassles on the ground floor.

Go up to the departures (4th fl) and walk out to where the taxis are dropping off on the far lane.

Tell the driver to use the meter before you get into the taxi.

95% of them will agree otherwise they will have to do the loop and wait in the que on the ground floor plus the 50Bht charge which they offload to the customers.

Between midnight and 6am take Param 9 to anywhere in the city...

Sound great...

Pls add Me + i guest

From the rough translation that was posted it appears that the 90 days in 6 months has been taken out.

If it is still there it would be take 6 entries to reach the max.

Extraordinarily stupid move! This will only hurt tourism and the economy more. Thailand's reputation as a tourist/expat friendly country is going down the drain. Hope that is civil enough for Thaivisa.

And, for the record, I do not have a visa problem, so this does not impact me personally.

Crack down on perpetual tourists..... name one country that will tolerate misfits that abuse immigration procedures.. Who needs them anyway.

Although i'm no fan of Mr. Samak I'm amazed that he is brought down bye this cook show

while a more serious charge of graft on firetrucks, languashes in the court for 10 years

Yes, Thais will always naturally find an "easy way out to save faces" and this is just one example.

The judicial system is after all administered by well to do Thais who do not want Thailand's politics to disintergrate into sometihing "unmanageable".

Just keeping the status quo.

I found this from Asia Times, one of Manager Groups Websites.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/ID27Ae01.html

And if anyone can prove it is a spoof, I please ask the mods to remove it.

Recollections, revelations of a protest leader

By Shawn W Crispin

An interview given by Sondhi.

I don't want to copy it all because there are many references to a very respected man.

Enlightning Thai At Heart - Thanks.

GG VTBSSKTX

301110 VTBDYNYX

(C4916/08 NOTAMR C4913/08

Q) VTBB/QMRLC/IV/NBO/A/000/999/0807N09819E005

A) VTSP 0808301110 C) 0808311100

E) RWY09/27 CLSD)

The above has just been issued by the Civil Aviation Department of Thailand to all aviation industries worldwide.

In simply english, Phuket airport is officially closed to all operations until 1800 local Thailand time on the 31st Aug 08.

Photos of aircraft seem to suggest low speed impact and that would mean that the aircraft was below stall speed therefore would be unable to climb.

It has been suggested that the response time was too slow - how would you speed it up? Have the crews in their fire suits for a whole shift, sitting in the vehicle at the closet access point? How long do you think it would take a fire crew to get from their crew room, into the appliance and drive about 2 kms?

The fire exercise - how many of us have taken part in fire drills - school, workplace, cruise ship, etc? They normally work well but would the same thing happen in an emergency?

How long do you think it takes to plan a major airport incident exercise?

I can't talk about emergency response crews at airports, but in the military (a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away) we always had one combat crew "at the ready" on a 60 second deployment, that is 60 seconds to get their vehicle across the start line. That meant when your crew was the assigned as the quick response crew you got to sleep with your boots on. And yes, those quick response crews got drilled on a regular basis. So I would imagine that an airport fire station has at least one crew at the ready at all times able to get out the door in 60 seconds by which time ground control would have cleared the runways or have stopped all traffic. That would allow two minutes for that crew to get about 2km to an incident within a total of 3 minutes.

But again, I am only speculating as I was not in any unit related to fire fighting or airport activities.

Ok, basically all airports around the world are required by ICAO to have a certain category of fire fighting equipment & personel on STANDBY for the duration of the airport's operating hours. ( category depends on the biggest airplane the airport is certified for)

In their RFF operations standby room, they are required to continually monitor the pilot/controller radio communications.

Also, there is a crash alarm installed should there be a need for the control tower to advise them of a n iminent crash.

Hope this clears a few things

Will be there plus one. Many thanks

So far No Bombs, No protests, no shootings. Thats good enough for Thailand; farangs included.

Lets hope the next few days are calm.

The rest is all SAME SAME, Thailand stye of politics.! Learn to live with it.

Oh boy this thread has got everyone's attention alright... its almost midday and still showing well over 570 using reading it..!

Happy songkran.... splash plenty of water to cool the steam....

Correct form for your GFs visa is VAF1 (non settlement) which can be found on the BA website. Compile the documentation as required on the form, but as other posters have pointed out, you will require lots more proof that she can be supported while in the UK, and more importantly she has reason (incentive) to return to Thailand.

Good luck

A little off track here but for the benefit of TV members who are "newbies" to LOS, this topic, Bulmercke's post # ,& others; Alcohol and face saving among thai men is outright dangerous.

I was in a very similar situation (soi food stall girls refusing to participate in the sing along with the drunken rowdy mob, but chose to hang around our table), ten(10) months ago at a small side soi outdoor karaoke bar.

I dont want to think of the end result if it wasnt for my quick & level headed thinking thai male friend.

He declined a challenge for a fist fight. I am a little over 5' 8", but he is taller and wider than me.! He could have taken out the all three of them but chose not to. Instead we flagged down a cab and did a loop around the neighborhood..

Anyway pity on the girl and her family. Sometimes thais do solve things the thai way..!

OK hold up posters.

You have to be mindful when lodging complaints to the Immigrations about this Low Life.

I hope forum member are well aware of how Immigration officials can possible can change visa rules for the WRONG reasons overnight.

The appropriate venue to address your complaints is the Dutch ambassy. Write directly to the ambassador to get his citizen off the streets of Bangkok.

Lets hope alarm bells have not been set off at Thai Immigration.

hey

i have a question

Can i drink in public with new law ?

Yes Sir, you sure can drink in front of a temple and not get arrested - if you are over 20yrs..!

Yes the office at the Novtel hotel (Suvarnabhumi airport) is a legal "One Stop Shop" that does everything that the ofice at Rachada does.

Very efficient and friendly... I think it took an hour, no more.

May change in time..!

Place where there is bound to be hundreds of people packed into a relatively small space, there must be enough clearly marked fire exits.. More people die in a stampede following panic.. It can get very confusing in an airport where 90% of people present at any one time are new to the place.

Sorry if I am repeating posts here (did not bother to read all the b*******T!) but .... hey look all you farangs; THIS IS EXACTLY WHY THEY DONT WANT US HERE.... quality tourists or nor not!

QUOTE(Phil Conners @ 2007-02-17 16:15:07) And btw, Axel, Spore is still only an hour and a half away, even if they are in a different timezone

Thanks Phil, I am regularly on either CX or TG. 2 hrs 20 min. Who is faster?

CX712 SIN 13:50 BKK 15:10 02:20 hrs

Thai Airways Intl (TG 404)

dep: 12:25 - Singapore (SIN) terminal 1

arr: 13:45 - Bangkok (BKK) terminal

BKK-SIN flight time is definetly 2hrs 20mins..!(takeoff to landing by stopwatch)

Because of the one(1) hour time difference between singapore & thailand, you "lose" an hour travelling eastbound, and "gain" an hour travelling west, (in respective local times).

Today's technology allows airports to be constructed literally anwhere..

Japan's Kansai airport (yes the whole airport was constructed over the ocean floor!).

Apart from corruption scandals; questions with Suvarnabhumi are;

1. Is the foundation design structure good enough.

2. Quality of materials used in laying the foundation

3. Sufficient Water drainage (15% of airport lighting already dont work- cables are burried

underground & water causes short circuits..!).

Thai engineers refusing to allow external engineering experts to make an independant assesment speaks volumes.!