robsamui

Any ministerial or government proposals regarding education is earmarked as a joke before it's even off the ground. The government has no intention of educating their people - the last thing they want is a restless generation of informed and world-aware workers causing internal strife The top few percent of the populace - the HiSo and/or wealthy Thais - already educate their children privately and always abroad . . . certainly when it comes to higher education and university. Their own workforce they regard as factory fodder, deliberately 'educated' to have no insight, creativity or initiative. It'll be many generations before Thailand realises that it's not an island, and that it can't survive without being a useful and cooperative member of the big wide world outside.

Undoubtedly s'o.

Simon - see personal message.

If the reporters were Thai, then they wouldn't have a clue about the ins-and-outs of what's needed for long-stay foreigners. (None of the very many Thais I've talked to over the years have been able to believe the visa tangles and costs and think I'm making it up - they just assume that farangs simply 'stay' here!)

Phones. That's the problem. The python is immediately and clearly visible on a PC with a 27-inch monitor.

Rugged rock - rabid ranting 20,000 volt horizontal Russian . . .

Ah - that explains things - Mr Tolstov wrote "War and Peace". This was evidently not a 'Peace' day.

A few years back I was pulled over on my bike - and refused to pay the spot fine. After a minute or two grumpy threats the officer said 'follow me' and sped off leaving me sitting there. So I waited . . . and waited . . . and then carried on home.

Does a home stereo need to be covered in flashing disco lights? Little kids love this kinda stuff, and that includes dressing up.

All they're taught about 'history' in school is ancient Thai history - they're not taught anything about the world outside, including WWII, nor about the whole morning that it took for the Thais to surrender to the Japanese. (And that was only because, as soon as the Japanese aircraft attacked, the Thai PM at the time disappeared and couldn't be found for three hours . . . )

It all seems to be an ongoing hook to hang the poor and (deliberately) under-educated peasants on. Thailand is the only country I've heard about where banks will lend you the money to buy a house as long as you first lodge the equivalent amount of money with them. Then they will use it to buy the house, charge you interest on the loan, and then allow you to pay in monthly instalments. And before I get hammered - I know that's simplified and not (quite) accurate - but, in essence, it's what it amounts to . . . unless you can find a farang to act as guarantor . . . but, fortunately, I've never had much luck with that.

Can the arguments go to private mail please? I'm getting a headache tring to sift through the squabbles and see stuff about cheap weed . . . .

This is not Cherry White. Cherry White is a sativa with a potential of 22% - 26% THC. This is more likely Cherry Wine a CBD strain with 14% CBD and 4% - 7% THC. If your looking to get *******, this isn't going to do it. Thanks for straightening this out - my order of cherry wossit came yesterday and I've been sucking at it until my eyes are bulging and nothing much is happening (apart frm the eye thing). A couple of people here have waxed poetic about how good it is, so there was me thinking that my stone buds must be jaded, faded and degraded. Iffin I plug the chamber of my vaper full full full and tamp it down with a tampy-thing then I eventually get a pleasantly-functional silly smile going, after my second refill. (It's also as dry as a bone and isn't cured properly, smelling unpleasantly of cut grass.) But it was the astonishing price of 450 baht for 20g (plus 5g free) - 18 baht a gramme. (It's actually even cheaper to buy 10g with 5 free!). You just gotta climb into two-or-three chambers (or spliffs) to get your head re-adjusted, that's all.

What is C.O.A? Sounds like a Murican thing. How is it different to Cash on Delivery - COD? (Which I use all the time).

Ahem! One other condition: "High earners must have proof of personal income of at least USD 80,000 annually at the time of application."

Phil - that's a really good deal. Who is this guy?(If you can't post it here then drop me a mssg!)Does he have more stuff?? Speak English?

Phil - that's a really good deal. Who is this guy? (If you can't post it here then drop me a mssg!) Does he have more stuff?? Speak English?

555 - message me!

Coconut coir??

I came to Thailand to live and work in 1997 - and the very first headline I read was a public outcry against the corruption at the airport and the docks. It seemed that the public were taking a stand against the indemic corruption. But then, reading further, this was not the case at all. The outcry was about the amount of the bribes - it was far more expensive to pay-off the officials at the airport than it was at the docks, and the Thai public were furious about this - they demanded that the bribes ought to be the same in both places. This is Thailand. Nothing much chages.

Hmm - if you want to spend up to 1,000 baht a gram it seems an excellent search site. A quick scan through shows nothing much listed under 600B/gm - more expensive than Europe. "We also have witnessed a lot of the new farms struggling to produce quality product across the board resulting in markups of their top grade flower in order to recoup the losses on the rest of their harvest." . . . in other words, many new growers have really messed up their grows and are putting prices up to try and get some $$ back. So much for " . . . prices will soon come down when all those hundreds of farms put their stuff on the market." TIT. I can't afford to support these people - my pension's too small.

Enormous slap-my-ass and ROTF chuckle . . . there's a woman sitting outside a 7-11 here with a huge welcoming grin. She's got a little portable stand on which (amongst other overpriced stuff) she's selling pre-rolled cones for 500 baht a time. When I saw the prices I really did just burst out laughing. Her smile turned into a killer glare immediately. (But if she only catches one Chinese or Korean tourist per day, she's making 1,000% more than selling snacks around the streets - good luck to her!)

This is very much a Thai thing. Along the highways you will often come across 12 or 15 roadside stalls grouped together, all selling oranges. Just oranges - nothing else. Near where I live, an enterprising Thai opened a small mini-mart on a busy crossroads; within 6 months two more had opened, making three identical shops, all right next to each other, on an island that's got a 7-11 every 500 metres. Ten years back, I had to go every 90 days to do border runs. Returning from one of thses trips, on the main road north just outside Had Yai, I noticed a nice-looking small garden centre, right on the fringe of the road. One the next run there were five or six of them, all nerxt to each other. Over the following few years these kept increasing . . . and the last time I was there - I kid you not - I managed to tally over 70 of them from the bus window (and then lost count), all seemingly identical and all right next to each other, over several kilometres of road. If you ever manage to find a nice deserted strip of beach somewhere and then, later, a Thai family turns up, they'll sit as close to you as possibe, even though there's a kilometre of space . . . . . . so it's hardly surprising that there are suddenly 200 ganja shops in a comparatively small area in Pattaya. It's embedded in the Thai genes.

I am fairly certain that - I read somewhere recently . . . don't ask me where - that there's a clear distinction between e-cigarettes which contain liquid (of vatious types) and medicinal vaporisers for dry herb. I'm not being dogmatic or banging a drum here - but the two types of devces are quite different in nature, so it seems logical to distinuish between two different things used for different reasons and in different ways. But, being in Thailand, a vape is a vape is a vape is a vape . . . so I wouldn't want to argue the point with anyone wearing a skin-tight brown catsuit.

No - unless you are a Thai national, Paypal is now dead in Thailand. One of the main requirements that the Thai govt insisted upon when Paypal was negotiating for access was that they (the Govt) must be able to register and tax business receiving income via Paypal. Of course it was not spelled-out in such clear-cut terms - publicly citing their concerns about preventing potential money laundering. Thailand has for decades had an insurmountable problem with extracting tax from its citizens - there simply is not the infrastructure in place to be able to regulate this. Consequently anyone can open a shop or small manufacturing concern or service and simply not let officials know about it - using family and friends to staff and manage it. This was so rampant during the reign of the last government that Prime Minister Taksin actually made 'patriot' appeals on two occasions (that I recall) on country-wide TV and the media for proud Thai citizens to help support the running of their nation by registering their business in order to "strengthen the nation" - with zero success. Thus the Thai Gov. thinking went along these lines . . . 1. Paypal would be granted access but only if it agreed to accept only those citizens who had registed their Thai ID with the newly-established National Digital Identity platform (NDID). 2. Only business accounts would be allowed, not personal ones. What nobody seemed to publicise was that Thailand has never heard of 'Paypal' - even most of the Thai banks now only know the name because of the government's deal with Paypal - and Paypal has never been available for Thai shopping or online purchases from Thai merchants; indeed, Thailand has its own familiar and established equivalents already in place. The result is therefore that Paypal is now dead in Thailand. No Thai Banks will accept linking to Paypal unless you are a Thai citizen and also have registered with the NDID program - using a passport as a form of ID is not permitted, only a Thai personal ID card. Sending personal money to an individual in Thailand, therefore, has ceased to be possible, after 15th December 2022 - and the Thai government will collect tax at 7% on all Paypal transactions thereafter . . . being that the only accounts allowed are business ones. What Paypal transactions?? More info here . . . https://coconuts.co/bangkok/news/paypal-thailand-to-cut-off-most-users-all-foreigners-next-month/