ukrules

it looks total staged.....In France, where in Europe no one likes the US soldiers, 3 US soldiers on holidays stop the bad guy.

Not a retired french policemen, not a former Russian soldier, not a German wrestler.....just 3 US soldiers are on the right time at the right place.

Could be possible but looks too perfect for marketing.....

It wasn't just 3 US soldiers, there were other foreigners who helped subdue and then beat the guy unconscious. Of course these aren't going to go to The Whitehouse as they aren't Americans and live elsewhere in the world.

I was out shopping today and popped into a random branch of a well known international pharmacy chain from the UK, I asked for some 'Bayer Aspirin' and was promptly told by the pharmacist that I need a prescription from a Doctor for this.

After the initial shock wore off I enquired 'what the hell is she talking about ?' and she told me that it's a new rule which was introduced at some point in the last few months

I wonder : Is this a new level of crazy even for Thailand or does this particular pharmacist need to take more or maybe less of her own meds ?

It's been a while since i 'went' 'huh' but I do use 'meh' on an occasional basis.

FedEx letter.

I think there's no doubt that these three guys and the other two who aren't mentioned in this report prevented a massacre on that train.

The kind of massacre I'm thinking of would be something along the lines of the Tunisian beach massacre which happened earlier this year with one crucial difference, within the confined space of the train there's nowhere for the now disarmed populace to run while being chased by a maniac wielding an assault rifle.

This sounds like a deliberate move which will prevent a lot of tourists from leaving Thailand on a short visit to Cambodia.

Politics at play.

At B1900 the 30d extension option is comparable to the border run in terms of price; and at least WRT Chaeng Wattana in Bangkok, consumes less time (if you go at the recommended times). It won't help you if you're a repeater since you can only do it once though. Speaking for myself, I would no longer use border runs even for activating 2nd or 3rd entries on a multi-entry tourist visa. It just sounds like something that's almost equally subject to IO "discretion", "policy" (or whatever you want to call it), not to mention blanket prohibition on a moment's notice. It's now become a game for the risk-takers and those with, for whatever reason, no practical choice.

It'll be interesting to see if this latest is just the typical Thai knee-jerk after the Bangkok bomb. But since the initial border-run "crackdown" back in May 2014, there does seem to have been a sustained, if badly coordinated, campaign against long-stayers. That together with the "Chinese shift" doesn't really sound promising for the Thai tourist industry, esp. that segment that has been catering through the years to farangs. Some short-sighted and smug expats, particularly the better off, will see this as a good thing ... until dwindling farang-derived revenues finally leave them in the crosshairs for exploitation and blame for the country's accumulating ills. You already hear more & more of them starting to talk about moving to Cambodia or Vietnam or wherever; some have already left. Not surprising.

I believe you're correct in what you say here, I've noticed a distinct pattern of changes since about two months before the coup last year.

The head of immigration for the whole country has been changed several times during this period of time.

Certain embassies in Europe and other places appear to be refusing to issue visas to people who have been to Thailand on a visa 'recently', one that immediately springs to mind is the Paris embassy which from what I've read has been particularly nasty to repeat visitors.

Since I first read about these kind of reports last year there appears to have been something of a slowly accumulating escalation in this type of thing.

Phnom Penh is only about a 1 hour flight with a small visa on arrival fee, why bother going any further than you have to ?

I had a feeling something like this was on the way.

It's come to my attention that there are a few places to watch ALL of the matches if you get there early enough.

"There is no crackdown"

The UK uses retina biometrics.

Believe it or not but just from those little passport photos you send, they have the technology to scan your retina from those tiny photos and it's encrypted on your passport.

LOL, this is wrong.

Why are you putting up with this ? Tell them to go away or arrest you.

There are plenty of bars that show sport but they should and probably will ALL be closed by 2am or risk a 10,000 Baht fine, forced closure due to license revocation and / or arrest by the police.

Do you think they will risk this for the few punters who will stay up until 4am in the initial rounds ?

I'd forget about watching the first round (especially England games) in a bar around these parts, in the knockout stages pretty much all the games are on during normal opening hours.

Many of my friend from the UK come for 6 weeks, like I used to do years ago.. so a trip to the border is a must...

So know they have to fly somewhere ? or get a TR Visa before coming.? Thailand is not as cheap as it used to be, this will now add even more cost to their 6 weeks holiday.

You can and should just get a single entry tourist visa and you're good to stay for 60 days, that's 8 and a half weeks without doing anything from arrival to departure.

This can then be extended for a further 30 days by visiting immigration if you really want the hassle.

This is the second most serious crime you can do in Thailand.

Forget the bombing and the bombers, they're way down the list of priorities.

Land borders appear to be causing problems so just book a flight out of and then returning to the country.

There was a post about someone refused entrance at the airport but I guess we will see how this pans out in the coming weeks and months.

He is not referring to tourists. He is referring to the loads of people abusing the system and working illegally in Thailand or trying to live here for extended periods without valid long stay visas (i.e. retirement visas, marriage visas, work permits).

1. i'm in my 40s so no retirement visa available

2. i don't need to work. i'm self-sufficient and if i ever were to work again it would be in the west (ie. western salary) and not thailand.

3. i'm not interested to engage with/marry a thai woman

so according to you people like me have no right to stay longterm in this country? i speak the language better than most clowns who married here or "work" here, i have genuine friends here (and not a bunch of parasites eating my cash). i've never been illegal in the country, i do things by the book (although i have been offered all kinds of solutions by the always friendly $mm$gration p€ople), but i deliberately am a longterm tourist which seems to annoy a certain type of people on TVF. is it jealousy? or plain bitterness... please enlight me. cheers.

Just do what I did, buy the 5 year visa. It's plain sailing all the way once you get that.

Of course you need to put your money where your mouth is with this option...

There's a guy in a similar situation who was refused entry at Bangkok airport and sent back to Europe, I have my suspicions that this is when this apparent 'crackdown' started - at the beginning of September.

The thread is here : http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/852826-refused-entry-at-bangkok-immigration/

If the borders are closed as reported then I guess this will affect the Cambodians.

How many people used to travel by bus / coach to Siem Reap every day ?

How long before Cambodia start making noises about this ?

From what I've heard it's a relatively common thing to get the bus down to Cambodia to see the sights for a few days during a holiday and then return to Thailand.

I wonder what's happening to people who went for a few days Tuesday- Thursday last week before this started ? Are they now stranded in Cambodia or is the border open for entries from the Cambodian side ?

Has anyone else noticed that the crane in question was a mobile crane, not one secured in place? To use one like that in a country where such winds are not remarkable, and in an area where people are gathered within the range of the boom was just stupid.

Ironic though, that the company involved was the Bin Ladens.

There is a measure of irony here. I also note that one of the family jets crashed recently as well and from what I heard there were some family members on board.

I doubt you will find the late games anywhere, if you do it won't be openly advertised and will be a closed shutters 'lock in' kind of thing.

Interesting, especially when you consider it involves the Kanchanaburi border crossing as well.

It looks like this is a decision which has been made by the Thai's.

It's kind of hard to understand why this many people are in the vicinity of heavy building machinery during high winds or a storm.

This would appear to have been completely preventable

If the water does ever run dry we can just desalinate the sea water. Think of the kind of systems they have available on oceangoing boats.