THAILIBAN

I am reminded of a a quote from Mark Twain: 'There are lies, there are dam_n lies and then there are statistics!". However, I think that there is little for either the Government or the Reds to cheer about in this election. Despite all of the hype and arguments about this election, less than 1/2 of the registered voters bothered to vote! Possibly the most significant result is that over 1/2 the voters said "I don't care who runs the country" or "I don't like any of the politicians".

As for the Democrats, yes, they won, but only by 8% of the the voters or 4% of the registered voters. After the Red shenanigans of last May, they probably expected a better showing from Bangkok voters. After all, this is a big part of their core constituency.

The PT doesn't have much to be cheerful about either. If these results are anything to go by, they will probably lose some seats in the next election. They are just barely the biggest party & can't afford to lose any more influence than they already have.

More than anything else, the results show that Thailand is still divided and reconciliation is still a long way off.

I agree with your statements.

though, I am sure, if the election would have been held at a regular weekend and not an extended one, the Democrat win would have been clearer. Many BKK residents are out of town at this moment...... and I am quite sure that many of those "better-off" - citizens would have been voting for the DEM candidate.

Also a round of TPL matches on this Wednesday 28th

Navy Rayong v Muang Thong Utd

TOT Cat v Sisaket

Bangkok Glass v Samut Songkrahm

Chonburi v Pattaya Utd

BEC Tero v Buriram PEA

Bangkok United v Osotspa Saraburi

Insee Police United v Thai Port

anybody going to see one of these weekday-games in BKK ?

I am really tempted to watch a game, but except for some lowest-league Farang- amateur games (where I was involved as a REF sometimes) I never did.

would need someone to introduce me and "show me around" a little...... I would pay the first 2 beers, BTW

Could someone advise what a typical basic car insurance here in Phuket includes? What are the other important add-on supplementary insurance to reduce one's liability to a minimum or zero such that the insurance is comprehensive or complete? What are the typical cost of a basic car insurance and add-on supplementary insurance for a rental car? Thanks much.

usually those cars at reputable companies come with a full insurance, but 5000-8000 THB deductible in case of a damage/accident. you can exclude that if u pay an extra fee of about 160-250 baht per day (which is money well spent if you are a newbie to Thailands roads and even if u r an experienced driver here).

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I am not necessarily looking for a cheap or budget hotel. Something nice, easy to get around from and ideally within easy reach of the Embassy.

a ) what is your budget (in Baht or RM)

b ) how long you want to stay in Kl

c ) what r u after while staying in KL ?

in general, KL caters to every budget's needs.

it is a good idea to stay somewhere with access to a Monorail (not skytrain) station, or an LRT-station, so u can avoid to deal with the taxi-scum in KL (you will LOVE Bangkok's Taxi-drivers after ur stay at KL)

if u want specific advice, better PM me as I may not be able to follow all those topics permanently. I have been to KL 5 times in 2010 already

AVIS usually has very competitive "Prepaid-rates" too. last time I had rented a car through them (in June) it was around 800 Baht a day. Call their head office in Bangkok to find out about those prepaid-conditions. you will have to book and pay several days in advance. google for AVISTHAILAND. I have rent cars with virtually all players in the Thai market, and found them to be the best. well-organized, cars in good condition (BUDGET disappointed me deeply in UBON !) and in general easy to deal with. as for a good and trustful Company in Phuket, google for PURE RENT CAR. maybe they can match those prices if you ask friendly ^^

I flew airasia CNX-HKT too just last month - I think I paid approx 1500THB including extra baggage which I thought was superb considering thai air are charging 5000THB+ on that route (it was actually closer to 7000THB when I booked).

flight was on time and cut out a whole lot of crap involved with going to HKT via BKK.

re hotel - you'll need to provide more info:

budget?

area? (patong, kata, karon etc?)

interests? (nightlife or relaxation?)

Off course they can be cheap. Last time I flew with Thai Air Asia I observe that the safety briefing was very poor and short. In addition I observed that they did not have any safety card/ brochure in the seat pockets.

This tells me that the low fares is possible at the sacrifice of safety concerns. Afterwords I did a check of the registration numbers on the plane, and found the plane was an 25 year old museum piece 737-300 which they operate 8 off.

Six off them had their first flights in 1984/ 85 and the two newest had their first flight in 1986. Old scrap I think if you ask me.

NO MORE THAI AIR ASIA FOR ME!!!

another whiner bashing AirAsia........ just for your information, AirAsia's fleet is younger than the fleet of THAI AIRWAYS INTERNATIONAL. yes they still do have some of B-737-300 but that's nothing to worry about. do you know how many hundreds of them still fly in the US, for example ? and they regularly get brandnew A-320 every other month or so, phasing out the old B-737.

I have more than 100 flights on the three different existing AirAsia-subsidiaries, and never ever found a safety card missing (why u did not ask the crew then ? it's your own fault ! another passenger of an earlier

flight may have taken it with him) Oh and their safety instruction and the cabin crew's general safety attitude is MUCH better than that of THAI AIRWAYS (the THAI AIR cabincrew couldn't care less in many cases).

having said this, by far the best option, the youngest fleet, and the best performance will probably be Bangkok Air forever, But unfortunately do not fly to many destinations

when I went to Sabah first more than 10 years ago, I had the usual European-style paranoia regarding Malaria and swallowed a lot of medicine (that probably did more harm than it helped). since then, I have been to Sabah more than 20 times, and except for some mosqitoes repellent (sometimes at least, when I plan to stay in remote areas) I don't do anything and never had any problems with mossies, let alone Malaria. DENGUE is much more a problem (and THIS is a severe problem indeed, for Malaysia as well as Thailand, Indonesia, the Phils a.s.o.), but nothing much u can do against it except making the mossies NOT bite u.....

But otherwise don''t worry, Sabah (as well as SWK) is much better developed than, let's say, the Isaan.

and it's a lovely place too.....

this is actually an old hat, it has been announced virtually everywhere and started almost 3 months ago already.....

to be fair, AirASia had announced that system upgrade on their website long in advance, and even given advice what to do to NOT be left stranded.

during the system-upgrade they as well met all their targets they had promised when to be back online.

in the past, I have made changes to my flight-dates online on both AirAsia as well as Tiger, and did not experience any problems at all.

Much more easy than doing such a thing with a legacy carrier, where cheapo-fares usually can not be changed under any circumstance (THAI, MAS, Lufthansa, Singapore-Airlines etc.)

Though I agree with Phuketrichard that AIRASIA are VERY expensive these days as long as u do not book at least 1 month in advance.

for example, HKT-BKK booked 1 or 2 weeks in advance, BANGKOK AIR will almost always have some cheaper options on offer than AirAsia (considering the myriad of fees and charges that add-up to their actual fare).

NOK is quite good as well at the moment, just booked a 789 Baht - fare to HKT for early August, booked exactly just 2 weeks before my flying date. and includes all Taxes and the luggage...

on the other hand, where else as with AirAsia could I have had a return-ticket from KUL to SriLanka (which is a long 3,5 hrs-flight one-way) for as low as 800 Baht (including Taxes ! just the luggage I had to add a few days before my actual flight, no problem doing so on their website).

I think there are actually quite some good medical centers in Jakarta (did u ever try that small international clinic next to Mega Kuningan ? Facing the Marriott where the bomb went off in July 2009) where you could get those things done.....

and did you ever try KL or Singapore ? I am sure that even Singapore isn't more expensive than Bumrungrad, which admittedly is indeed expensive (though in my case, they probably saved my life back in 2006, so I have no reason to complain)

See new operator for Buriram in addition to Nok Air.

http://www.happyair.co.th/

TBWG

Rather ironic.....as 'Happy Air" folded up their tents before they even began operating one day! Sorry to hear....but, on the other hand - one should be instinctively suspicious regarding this type of fly-by-night airline. I'll stick with Nok Air anyway.

sorry but what are you talking about ?

they just opened new routes Phuket - NST and Phuket - Hat Yai.........

BTW,

there are flights to and from Isaan from Udon, Khonkaen, Nakhon Phanom, Sakon Nakhon, Buriram and Ubon these days....

Plus Solar Aviation as a new player in the market expected to start flying into LOEI again as well.......

well, "re-timed" was probably a DELAY, not a change of the schedule.

other airlines use that term too to make "DELAYS" look better (AirAsia for example).

the same thing with Tiger happened to me SIN - HKT in May...... flight "re-timed" 2 hrs later. which basically was a delay, not a change of the schedule.

Kudos to Airasia (in that case at least), they always send u email and sms when there is a change in schedule (reads: not a delay).

Have been flying TIGER around 10 times all around Asia, and while I not really LOVE them (I particularly hate those Bus-stop-like boarding gates at the Budget-terminal in SIN), they are not worse or better than their competitors. Always be prepared for something unexpected.....

but in general, my experiences with Low-Cost-Carriers are good and they with no doubt have dramatically enriched my travel-life....

the OP's report is really somehow polemical......

always wonder how people do expect to get any useful advice when they do not give the smallest hint about their budget.....

I can recommend or judge more than 100 hotels in KL, but you should at least let us know how much u want to spend / which "deluxe" level u require.

I know places from 50 RM up to 900 RM......

been there more than 50 times and 3 times during the past 2 months.....

I think it's a pretty clear case of 'police entrapment'.

To me, it seems wrong for individuals to pay officials so that the individuals can break the law...and then the law arrests individuals.

Clearly, this contradiction brings the law into disrepute & therefore cannot be trusted by the public to act honourably.

In other words, with all the 'pay offs' that happen (publicly) in Thailand, how can anyone trust law enforcement officials to do a proper job?

why is it entrapment? if they were not offering underage boys for sex there could be no attempt at entrapment, the fact is they had underage boys there to fulfil the needs of some pervert, the same goes for bars that offer under age girls for some pervert. The place deserves to be shut down.

I assume that in your native country (as in almost all Western countries) the age of consent is 16 or even 14 (yeah I know, not for prostitution).

but this basically means your country supports or accepts perverts or what ?

as nobody actually replied to the OP's question, here: DTAC charges 5 Baht for international SMS, as does TRUE (at least if you buy their prepaid "international" SIM-card, which is not so international as u may think as there is no roaming available.... pathetic). i am not sure about prepaid DTAC these days, as I changed to a postpaid plan 2 years ago, but I guess it's the same. TRUE is ok if u do not need roaming, but their support suxx.

the DTAC-Hotline on the other hand is pleasant to deal with and they usually have good English-speakers, clearly my favorite network nowadays, recommended.

Never forget one thing: AIS = THAKSIN = THAIRAKTHAIonly = LET'S RIP OFF FOREIGNERS

Okay, the headlines say it all actually. Have been away from BKK frequently in recent months and maybe missed the news.....

Just wondered what happened to that Club that sometimes had quite some nice Indie- / Alternative-Gigs on offer..... bad business ?

yeah he WANTS that..... but does he actually think such thing would help him now ?

I think yesterday his last chance of ever setting feet in this country again were fading away....

He doesn't care. If he goes down then the whole ship must go down with him. He is a delusional psychopath. If going to trial he should actually have a good defense that he is insane.

I agree..... but that doesn't mean anything good for this country, at least as long as he still has enough money to feed the RED MOB.....

yeah he WANTS that..... but does he actually think such thing would help him now ?

I think yesterday his last chance of ever setting feet in this country again were fading away....

try to make an aregment with some friend or neighbour to give you a lift - in this situation I wouldn't rely on booking taxi

my neighbours (all Thais in a non-Farang area) are all sleeping now and certainly won't be approachable before 6 a.m.

besides, certainly nobody would want to send me to the airport with a private car in these times.....

anyway, will just try to call the RADIO TAXI hotline.

In this situation, in spite of the cost, I would call the nearest luxury hotel and ask if you can use their service.

that's a good idea, thanks.

In case I really have problems to get a cab now, I will try to call or even walk to the nearby Alexander Hotel here. not a luxury Hotel really, but has hundreds of rooms and should have their own van for transport.....

I'm not sure why this topic has been moved as it is travel related but please can anyone help? Has anyone flown AirAsia before and had a similar problem, what did you do?

now you know the reason why your flight was cancelled:

ALL AirAsia flights departing BKK before 9.00 a.m. are cancelled ! Check-in counters open at 7.00 a.m.

which makes sense somehow as ground staff and crew have no chance to get to the airport early enough during the curfew.

same thing might happen again tomorrow.....

all AIR ASIA flights departing BKK before 9.00 a.m. cancelled.

check-in-counters will open at 7.00 a.m.

just got news: BIG C Ratjadamri on fire. Fire can not be controlled. source: nation website's twitter

all AirAsia flights before 9 a.m. cancelled. check in counters open at 7.00 a.m. ( makes sense, ground staff and crew can not get to the airport)

thailiban, because you are flying today, send fvw53 a private message to get a faster response

yaaa.... it was more a joke..... I see he is from Nonthaburi and won't pass my area most probably..... apart from that, he was listed as OFFLINE already when I posted my reply..... but thanks for the hint....

I will call 1681 first, and if they don't have a car, will walk to the main road 800 meters and see if a cab comes along..... still plenty of time..... didn't sleep this night anyway..... I am emotionally too agitated.... I wonder how many others feel the same....

1681 only has a recorded message on offer at this moment..... which I do not understand with my mediocre Thai :-(

in 1 hour the curfew will be lifted. I just wonder if some people are up at this moment (and can not sleep because emotionally too agitated) and have a look from their balcony, particularly in the lower Sukhumvit area, but as well Lat Phrao or On Nut, where there has been turmoil last eveing.....

everything is quiet ? army patrolling the streets? dubious individuals around ? fires ? lootings during nighttime ?

The red are scattered everywhere and start burning building off the ground. Who knows if they try to burn every building in Bangkok. Red are animals, have no human conscious. Thailand has become the dangerous country. I begin not feeling safe in this country. Afraid that these idiots will randomly attack pedestrian like in the south. Once the curfew is lift, my next destination would be Kuala Lumpur.

and mine is Singapore, at least if I can make it to the airport safely..... just wait for the end of the curfew too....